Free Echo City by Tim Lebbon Page A

scope.”
    She stared hard at Penler, but he was not fooling with her. “A scope like …?”
    Penler picked up the tube and handed it to her.
    Peer had first seen one of the Scopes when she was four. Her mother had been a tax collector, and she’d taken her on a journey into Marcellan Canton to consult with government officials over some proposed changes to the way tithes were gathered. The Scope had been sitting on the wall surrounding Hanharan Heights, casting its alien gaze down toward Mino Mont. She had stood amazed. Its naked, almost human body had gleamed darkly like the shell of a beetle, its deformed head elongated into a thick tube that ended with the curve of its massive eye. An intricate system of supports had propped the Scope’s head, shifting with it, turning on well-greased gears and cogs. Long hair was tied back from its head in tight metal bands. Its genitals hung like shriveled dried fruits, and its arms had withered to nothing. It was not the first chopped Peer had ever seen—there were many deformed in Mino Mont—but it was the first of the Baker’s originals, and the most amazing.
    Peer took the tube now and held it at arm’s length. “Rufus,” she said, “what’s this?”
    “Long glass,” he said. He came around the table and took the instrument from her, pulling at one end until it was twice its original length. He pointed at a small lever that had sprung from the tube. “Gear, for unblurring.”
    Peer took it back, held the narrow end to her left eye, and looked across the room at a map.
    “No,” Rufus said, laughing softly. “For outside. It brings things—
miles
away—near.”
    “Not something we’d have much need of,” she said softly, placing it on the table. “And this?”
    Rufus picked up the small knife she had touched. He turned it and showed them the flint hidden in the handle, then he prized out a curved blade concealed in its back. “For …” He frowned, staring at the blade. “For …”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Peer said, touching the back of his hand.
    “Whatever you’ve forgotten will return,” Penler said. “The heat of the desert, the sun, must have …” He shrugged, because in truth none of them knew what the desert could make of a living person, other than a dead one.
    “We should go soon,” Peer said.
    “But this place,” Rufus said, pointing around Penler’s room with wide, excited eyes.
    “Skulk is not safe,” she said, thinking of the murdered woman. “Anything could happen here. Any foolish, pointless death, and you … you’re precious.”
    “I am?”
    “Of course.”
    “Why?”
    Why?
she thought.
So much like a child, and yet he’s not unlearned. Maybe he
has
forgotten much, or maybe the language is a barrier
.
    Or perhaps he’s holding back
.
    “Because …” And Peer realized that, through all this, she had not yet told him what he meant to them. His amazement at this place had blinded him to the astonishment she and Penler showed in return. And the only way to proceed was with trust.
    “Because no one can cross the Markoshi Desert,” Penler said, “and anyone who tries will die.”
    “Where do you
come
from?” Peer asked. “Where is your home?”
    “I can’t remember,” Rufus said. “Only … bones.” He stared between them and along the hallway.
    He has so much to remember
, Peer thought.
We have to give him the chance
. She turned to Penler and he nodded.
    “I need to prepare,” he said.
    Rufus sat on the table and stared at a map on the wall, but he seemed to see much farther.
       After the heavy rains of the previous day, the blazing sunshine cast a rainbow over Echo City. They left Penler’s home in mid-afternoon, walking slowly north in a meandering, hesitant fashion that they hoped would attract no attention. Rufus was wide-eyed at everything he saw, and his childlike awe encouraged Peer to view things in a different light. The street vendors were familiar, but she looked again at all their