Something was running toward them. Their torches did not penetrate the darkness very far at all, but in the distance he could hear the steady thump thump of feet striking the soft ground, and he imagined lazy clouds of dust thrown up. As the thing ran, it continued to scream.
"Nadielle?"
"I don't know. Be ready."
"Where's Neph?" he asked, but the Baker did not have time to respond.
The shape that emerged from the darkness into shadows, then from shadows into light, was twisted and mutated, a bastardization of anything human, and the noise issuing from it was shattering. It slowed as it neared them and heaved itself up, growing even taller before it reared over Nadielle and Caytlin, twice their height and bristling with spiked weapons.
Nadielle lowered her knife and stood up, and then Gorham realized the truth.
Neph dropped the screaming man at Nadielle's feet. Dust coughed up around him, and shreds of ancient dried plants that had not seen sunlight for millennia drifted in lazy arcs. The impact drove the scream from him in a loud humph! and the sudden silence was shocking. He gasped in air. His face went from pale to white, and he writhed slightly as he tried to start his breathing again.
"Sprote Felder!" Nadielle gasped, and the man screamed again.
Gorham had to go close to the Baker to speak above the screams. "That's Sprote Felder?"
"Yes!" she shouted back. "I've met him a couple of times before, but… he's changed."
The man looked barely human. His clothes hung on a bony frame, his exposed arms so thin that Gorham could have encircled them with his thumb and index finger. His face was skeletal, eyes dim and sunken, and he was missing one shoe. There were remnants of finery about his clothes, but it seemed that he'd been soiling himself for some time. The stench was horrific.
He also had a broken leg. Gorham had missed it before, but now he saw the blood-soaked rip in his trousers and the glint of pale-white bone protruding.
Neph took several steps back, then turned to face the darkness.
Nadielle knelt beside the screaming man, and it took a while for Gorham to hear the soothing words. He could not make out what they meant, but the tone was obvious, and it became audible only when the explorer's screaming started to lessen. How can a man scream so much and for so long? Gorham thought, but then he saw the way that Sprote's head kept twisting to look at Neph. Each glance would ignite the screams again, and it took Nadielle some time to calm him into silence. She stroked his face and held his hand, and at her single sharp command, Neph disappeared once again into the darkness.
Sprote Felder twisted to look at Gorham, then pushed backward with his feet so that he was curled into Nadielle's grasp.
"Should I go as well?" Gorham asked, but Nadielle shook her head.
"You're going the wrong way," Sprote Felder said, and his voice was surprisingly calm. He was still shaking and grinding his teeth together, but Nadielle's hand on his face and arm across his chest seemed to have soothed him a little.
"Which way should we be going?" Gorham asked.
"Up!"
"We're going down to the Falls," he said. "There's something… I've been hearing something." Nadielle looked up at him at this, and she seemed pleased that he was hearing it as well.
"It'll be the end of everything," Felder said, his eyes growing wider in his ravaged face. They looked nowhere in particular but saw something terrible.
"You've been there?" Nadielle asked.
"Not that deep. But deep enough."
"We found a Garthan trap but no Garthans."
"Some are still here," he said, "but most have fled. Out toward the city limits."
"Aboveground?" Gorham asked.
"Not yet."
"You say some are still here?" Nadielle asked.
"The old ones. The sick."
"Did they do this to you?" Nadielle asked gently.
Sprote shook his head, reaching around with his hand and touching her arm. The more contact he felt, the more he seemed comforted. "I fell," he said. "I was fleeing and I fell."
"Fleeing what?" Gorham asked.
"The Falls. What is rising." He shivered again, closing his eyes and trying to stop his teeth from chattering together. "You know," he said quietly, words meant for Nadielle. His hair seemed to stand on end and Nadielle held him tight, rocking him slightly while she looked at Gorham. He could not read her eyes. They seemed empty, as if she were waiting for him to say something to fill them.
"What?" he asked. But Nadielle shook her head.
"Every Echo is singing with its voice," Sprote said quietly. "You only need to know how to listen. Hear… can you hear? Low, like heavy footsteps over gravel. Can you hear?"
"I hear it," Gorham said, and Sprote fixed him with his gaze.
"That's the end coming for all of us, boy."
Gorham turned away and looked at Neph, a shadow standing against the darkness.
"Go on with him," Nadielle said. "Take Caytlin."
Gorham turned around, confused. Go on with Sprote? But then he saw that Nadielle was looking at Neph, and the wounded man in her arms looked smaller and weaker than ever. She'd put her knife back into her belt but had not fastened the clasp.
"How will you catch us?"
"I'll know where you are."
"How?"
"Really, Gorham, now is not the time."
Sprote Felder was looking at him. There was madness in those eyes but also a heavy knowledge that seemed to give the surrounding darkness weight. We should listen to what he says, Gorham thought, but then Nadielle frowned at him, nodded toward Neph, and Caytlin stood and came to Gorham's side. Her eyes were big and wide and empty. He'd rather stare into Sprote's madness.
"I won't be long," Nadielle said, her voice softening.
Gorham took one last look at the famed Echoes explorer, his broken leg, his drained face and mournful eyes, and then he turned away. They left one torch with Nadielle and took the other two themselves, but Gorham did not look back. Neph led the way-the chopped seemed to know where they were going, and he did not once hesitate-and Caytlin followed, never seeming to move quickly but always there behind him.
Without Nadielle, Gorham was colder and more afraid than ever. She'd called him her sun, and now he wondered what she was to him. He was unsettled that she was not walking beside him. He was nervous that he could not see her, acknowledge her control over what they were doing down here. But Nadielle was an absence, whereas Peer was still a warm, heavy influence inside. Time was running out for him to gain her forgiveness.
Later, when Nadielle caught up with them, she did not catch Gorham's eye.
"Did he say anything else?" he asked.
"No."
"Did you kill him?"
"No!" she said, aghast, but still she would not look at him. "No. I took him somewhere safe and told him we'd get him on the way back."
"He said you knew what was coming. You."
"He's mad, Gorham. And you're the Watcher. Don't you know?" She looked at him then, and the hard, derisory Baker had returned.
Gorham could only follow her. He stared at her back as they walked-the way her hips moved, the long, clipped hair hanging between her shoulder blades. He definitely preferred her in need of comfort.
The noises continued and grew. Faraway sounds, echoing through the Echoes, heavy and hard, and they carried about them a shattering sense of distance. The darkness became more oppressive than ever, now that it was no longer filled with nothing. Sometimes, the air itself seemed to shake in fear.
Gorham was fascinated with every breath he took. There were no living plants down here to make clean air, and yet it smelled and tasted as good as any he'd breathed up in the city. There were hints of age to it and sometimes a grittiness caused by their kicking up dust. But it seemed like good air, and it gave him strength. He wondered where it came from. It was something else that he would ask Nadielle, given time.
The huge park ended eventually, and they entered a built-up area. By his estimate they must be very close to the heart of this Marcellan Canton Echo, and yet the buildings were humble and small, not the gaudy sky-scratching spires and towers he was used to seeing. Nadielle pointed out several structures that bore signs of recent use, and in one place they found dozens of skins spread and pinned on timber frames to dry.