– something opening up. True fear hit her for the first time then, and she screamed for her mother-an unintelligible sound that was the first and last noise she ever made. But until the last, she remembered her reason for being, her duty to her mother, and although it was still a long way to fall, because the thing was so huge, she held both torches before her so that they could illuminate the (Teeth.)
Nadielle was screaming, Neph hauled her back into the tunnel, and Gorham tried to grab her kicking feet to help carry her, but she was screaming, screaming, her expression made more grotesque because the sound was completely lost to the Falls. Her arms were bleeding again. And in her eyes, a black terror that even Gorham's torch could never hope to touch.
What if it doesn't work? What if I'm like this forever, and the White Water is no cure at all? Nophel had been waiting for someone to see him and draw back, startled at his sudden appearance or fearful of his countenance. He could look down and see himself, but he was used to that now, his mind accustomed to his invisibility. Walking unseen, he so wanted to be a part of the world again. If it meant fear or disgust when people saw his blood-red eye and diseased face, so be it. He'd lived like that forever, and it was proof of his history.
He found the only address on Dane's coded map-an upper-class whorehouse close to the Marcellan Canton's walls. It displayed the scarlet wound sign on its name board, indicating that it served the Scarlet Blades, which Nophel knew meant that few others would use the place. He stood outside for a while, checking the map again to make sure he'd read it correctly. Invisible, he still felt a flush of embarrassment as he crossed the road and approached the front entrance.
"You're no Blade," the woman at the door said.
"What?"
She came closer, down the stone steps to his level, and even then she was a hand taller. "You. You're no Blade. Unless they kicked you out because of that." She pointed at his face, and Nophel felt the familiar, liberating flush of anger at what he was.
"You can see me," he said, smiling.
"My girls will suck a chickpig through a straw," the woman said, without an ounce of sexuality in her voice.
"But you can see me!"
"You'd have to pay extra if you want me to watch. For you, a lot extra."
It had been a long time since he'd been out into the city like this. If he ever had cause to leave Hanharan Heights, he usually wore a heavy robe with a wide, deep hood, and people seemed to understand that a person so clothed desired to remain hidden away. Perhaps some attributed the style to one of the lesser, more obscure cults, but that did not concern Nophel. Hiding away fueled his anger, which in turn held shame at bay. Just show yourself, he'd once thought, but he was unable to do so.
"I need to see Fat Andrea," Nophel said.
The woman-he thought perhaps she had been a Scarlet Blade once, and wondered what had happened to her-stepped aside, waved him in, and chuckled to herself as she closed the door behind him.
The corridor was poorly lit and strung with decorative flags from several chords of the Blade army. It opened into a large room where several women lounged, drinking wine and smoking slash from a communal pipe on the central table. They perked up a little at his arrival, posing and preening in their minimal clothes even though their faces remained impassive. Then they really saw him, and some winced.
"Fat Andrea?" he asked. A lithe, strong-looking woman stood and approached. She wore layers of fine material wound tight across her curves, and her red hair shone in the weak lamplight.
"What's your pleasure?"
"You're Fat Andrea?"
"What's in a name?" She shrugged, and she was avoiding his face-looking over his shoulder, at his throat, blinking slowly and alluringly so that she did not have to see his deformities.
"Where can we go?" Nophel asked. The woman turned and beckoned him after her, and already he perceived a relaxation in her pose. Perhaps she already knows why I'm here, he thought. Am I really that obvious? She led him through a warming steam curtain and into another corridor, this one curved and confusing. At its end she opened a door and welcomed him inside, standing back so that he could pass. Still she averted her eyes. The room was small-bed, chair, a bath in the corner, shelves adorned with all manner of oils and soaps. It stank of old sex.
"Dane Marcellan sent-" he began, but Fat Andrea cut him off.
"I was hoping. So?"
"Six wisps play their mepple strokes." He remembered it from the map, and speaking it aloud made it sound no less foolish.
The woman relaxed, sighed, and sat down on the bed. She held her head in her hands for a beat, then rubbed her face and looked up at him again. She had changed. She looked older, more weathered, and he knew he was seeing Fat Andrea for the first time.
"What does the fat old bastard want?" she asked.
"He said you could lead me on toward the Baker."
The woman smiled. "I can send you on your way, but I can't lead you. I'm too busy here. I need the money for…" She laid a hand on her stomach and looked away, but not before Nophel saw her skin fade to a painful gray. She looked sicker than sick.
"I have money," Nophel said.
"Good. Then pay me for your hour and I'll tell you the way to Ferner's Temple."
Nophel went to object-Dane had said these people would lead him, not send him-but the woman's pain was almost a heat in the room, the atmosphere redolent of wretchedness.
"I'll pay you for two hours," he said. Fat Andrea did not protest, and a few beats later he went back out through the gloomy corridors, past the ex-Blade, who sent him on his way with a few mocking remarks. At the end, Andrea had looked at him with those hooded, enticing eyes again, and perhaps she'd seen past his deformed face to the man inside. Or maybe his generosity had made that possible. But he'd felt no pangs of desire, and he had no wish to take anything from Andrea other than a way through the streets.
He followed that way, and by the time the street cafes were filling for lunch, he found himself at Ferner's Temple. He'd not expected to find a real temple. But the last thing he'd anticipated was a tavern.
Through the early part of that afternoon, Nophel was passed along a route of contacts and places that, if what Dane said was right, would lead eventually to his sister, the new Baker. Dane's message tube sat heavy in his pocket, and though he still felt moments of temptation, Nophel did not open it. There was a sense of loyalty to Dane and also the continuing belief-more proven with every contact he made and yet more confused as well-that Dane was more allied with the Watchers than with the Hanharan religion that had controlled the city for so long.
But there was also the alleged sister whom Nophel had never known about. He had spent a lot of time studying the Baker's long ancestry over the years, and everything he read made him more satisfied that his treachery had been a good thing. Always feared, rarely feted, the Bakers were an oddity in Echo City's history that had persisted despite the many factors standing against them: lack of fealty to any government, practitioners of arcane arts, blasphemers, loners, and wielders of powers that would intimidate the powerful. As with any family, their history was checkered, with criminals, philanthropists, and monsters all holding the name of Baker for a time. Across the space of twelve thousand years over which he had managed to trace their ancestry-and though there were large periods in that extensive span when their line had become untraceable-they went from publicly visible to rumored as dead. People loved some and hated others but were always fascinated.
And there was always someone calling for their eradication.
The more he researched, the more amazed he became that no one had killed off the Bakers' line long ago. Perhaps they're too hard to kill, he thought. I believed it had happened in my lifetime, but now…