"Caught what?"
She stared over Nophel's shoulder and into the distance, and for an instant she seemed to fade from his view.
"Alexia!" He reached out to grab her, his hand slipping from her arm. Then she grew more visible again, smiling uncertainly.
"Yes?" she said.
"You were going to show me." He felt a cold chill at what he had seen, what she had become. Are there deeper levels? he thought. Do they fade, and fade again, until they're little more than memories wandering these streets?
"Yes," she said, nodding slowly. "Oh, yes." She turned and entered the dark doorway, and immediately Nophel saw her dropping out of sight.
The steps were steep and slick, turning tightly around their central column, treads worn by use. He counted twenty before the first sounds reached him-the clank of metal, and the sniffle of something sobbing.
"It's awake," Alexia said.
The descent ended, the stairway opening into a small low-ceilinged room. One wall was lined with empty wine racks, the wood rotten and slumped toward the ground. In a corner lay a pile of roughly folded canvas that could have hidden anything. In the center of the room, a creature was fixed to the floor with a series of heavy chains.
It growled at their approach. It looked almost human.
It sees us, Nophel thought, but the idea did not surprise him. What did surprise him was what he saw on the creature's back.
"It has wings," he said.
"We tied them folded shut."
"But… it's a Dragarian. With wings."
"Surprised me too," Alexia said softly.
Nophel had heard so much about the Dragarians, but he had never thought he'd see one. They were apart from the world, the six giant domes enclosing their canton simply part of the landscape now for most Echoians. When they'd withdrawn five hundred years before, they were human. Now…
The thing before him was humanoid, though it was thinner than most people, and its piercing indigo eyes were disconcerting. Its broader facial features, body shape, all but the wings marked it out as a human being. Nophel thought it wore leather clothing before realizing the wings folded around its torso gave that impression.
"How did you catch it?" Nophel asked.
"It didn't see us," she said. "Now it does. It learned of us when we brought it down, and the Blue Water has a different effect on its mind. It doesn't forget."
"Brought it down?"
Alexia pointed, and then Nophel saw the dark slick beneath the Dragarian's chest.
"Crossbow?" he asked. She nodded.
The thing stared at Nophel, its eyes blazing in the weak oil lamplight as if focused upon him.
"It's concentrating," Alexia said. "Bringing you into being."
I need to talk with this, he thought. I need to find out why it came out, where it was going, and what it was looking for. He looked at the Unseen, in her faded and stained Scarlet Blade uniform, and wondered at her allegiances. She'd faded into invisibility, and some of those she waited with seemed to have gone further. He had heard many stories about the phantoms inhabiting the Echoes and how they could not be relied on to know anything but the exposure of moments from the past. Could he really trust such a thing?
"Why did you catch it?" he asked.
"Sport," the Dragarian said. Its voice was a growl, like flesh across grit. It ended with a grunt of pain, and for the first time Nophel considered it as a living thing.
"You didn't tell me it speaks Echoian," Nophel muttered.
Alexia chuckled darkly. "Sometimes we can't get it to stop."
"They shot me down for sport," the Dragarian said. "And because it's in the nature of humanity to destroy what it does not know."
"And what do you know?" Nophel asked.
The Dragarian averted its eyes, wincing slightly as it shifted position. Chains clanked, its wings flexed against their bonds. "More than you, ghost."
Dane charged me with bringing this thing back to him, Nophel thought. But it had teeth, and its fingers and toes ended in claws, and even its wingtips were bony and sharp, glittering with moistness that could have been poison. He looked to Alexia, considering asking her for help. But her eyes had taken that faraway look again, and she seemed even less substantial than before.
The Dragarian looked at him and grinned, exposing too many teeth for a human.
"What are you?" Nophel asked. The Dragarian did not respond, but Nophel already knew. He was one of their soldiers. The Marcellans had their Scarlet Blades and the specially trained units within their ranks used to infiltrate, kidnap, or murder. The Dragarians had this. Before they had built their domes and retreated, they vowed that the prophesied return of the murdered boy they had proclaimed their god would bring war. It seemed that under cover of their domes, they had been preparing.
"You've come to spy," Nophel said.
"No," the Dragarian replied.
"Then why?"
"Seeing the sights." The thing sniggered, shifting position again to move weight from its punctured chest.
"What has it told you?" Nophel asked Alexia, but she frowned, appearing not to have heard or understood the question. She looked at Nophel as if she had never seen him before, and when he stepped forward and reached for her, she shrank away, fading as she moved. "Alexia!"
The flying thing laughed some more. Nophel glanced at it, anger seething, and when he looked back, Alexia was climbing the stairs. He grabbed for her leg but missed. As he ascended, she faded from view completely, and he knew then that she was climbing these stairs somewhere else, seeing a different view, and perhaps he was nothing in her memory at all.
He paused on that tightly curving staircase, leaning on a step and catching his breath, trying to work out what to do. Dane would expect him to return with something-and Nophel could not help feeling that there was more to the Blue Water than Dane had told him. It had been easy drinking it down, but perhaps the antidote would be more difficult to procure.
Mother, he thought, have you doomed me again? The old anger bit in-rage at what she had done to him-as well as a desperate fear that he had willingly invited another Baker-inspired tragedy into his life. He slowed his breathing and calmed his mind, knowing that panic could never help. She was dead. Anything that happened now was up to him.
The thing in the basement had called him ghost. He had to show it that ghosts could bite.
Nophel moved quickly. As he stepped down into the basement room again, the Dragarian turned its attention upon him, confirming that he could still be seen.
"Has your friend left-" it began, but Nophel gave it no chance to continue. He stepped on one stretched chain, forcing the creature low to the ground and crushing its injured chest against the stone. As it screamed in surprised agony, he straddled it, pulled his knife, and sat heavily on its back. He felt the wings against his thighs, warm thin things with blood pumping visibly through thick veins.
He grabbed the Dragarian's hair-it was greasy and slick, and he had to twist it around his hand to maintain a grip-and pulled its head back. He nestled the knife against its exposed throat. Its cries and struggles ceased. The basement became very quiet but for the rhythm of blood pounding through Nophel's ears.
"You will find," he said, "that this ghost is not as ineffectual as you might believe."
"You're just like them," the thing said. "You'll fade to nothing soon enough."
"They might fade, but they still shot you down."
"Unfair advantage."
It speaks as though it knows of the Blue Water, he thought. Perhaps it was bluffing, hinting at knowledge it could not own. He would have to be cautious if he was to expose the information he sought.
"It's been a long time since you opened your doors to the rest of Echo City," Nophel said.
"You'd be surprised." It spoke carefully, cautious not to increase the pressure of the blade against its throat. Nophel pulled a little harder, feeling the warm drip of blood on his fisted hand. The Dragarian caught its breath.