Echo City Read Online Free PDF

pressure of her stare and turned so that she could see his face, hidden within his coat’s widehood. She was concerned for him, because his voice had sounded … different.
    “Why tell me?” she asked.
    “Because you’re a Watcher.”
    “And what does that make you?”
    Penler smiled then, but once again it did not touch his eyes. Raindrops struck his face again as he tilted his head back to laugh, but his effort to lighten the heavy mood felt strangely false.
    “I think that sometimes people need to build falsehoods for their own ends.”
    Peer bristled. For such an intelligent man, Penler often displayed an ignorance that she found shocking. She’d tried to see through it many times, but his opinion was a solid front, and whatever lay behind wallowed in shadows that perhaps even he could not breach. Once, perhaps … years ago. But now he was growing old. Maybe the fire had gone from him.
    “That’s what the Marcellans call any beliefs they don’t agree with,” she said coldly. “Falsehoods. They told me to deny my own false beliefs as they slid the air shards into my arm.” She held her right biceps with her left hand, squeezing to feel a rush of warm pain. It always fueled her anger.
    “Peer,” Penler said, and his voice carried such wisdom and age. “I know very well what they did to you. And you know me better than that.”
    Do I?
she thought. It had been only three years, though in truth it felt like more. In all that time, Penler had yet to betray his true beliefs, even to her. Sometimes she thought he was a secularist, sitting apart and observing while his friends expended time and effort on their own diverse philosophies. And other times, like now, she suspected that he might be a devout believer in something he craved to disbelieve. There were contradictions in Penler that scared her and an intelligence that she sometimes suspected would be the death of him. Even while he told her to be calm and accepting, he fought.
    “So the Garthans are afraid,” she said, “and the rain still falls where no one can walk.” She stared out across the desert from atop the city wall. A hundred years ago this would have been aplace for market stalls and street entertainers, but now the wall’s wide top was simply another place to sit and wonder.
    “I have to go,” Penler said. “Will you eat with me this evening?”
    “Are you cooking?” Peer asked.
    “Of course.”
    “Hmm.” She did not turn, even when she sensed him standing beside her. And she could not contain her smile. “Last time, you cooked that pie and I had the shits for a week.”
    “Bad pigeon,” Penler said. He was already walking away. “I’ll see you before dusk. You can stay, if you like.”
    “I will,” Peer said. It was not wise to walk Skulk’s streets after dark. She watched Penler leave, and as he reached the head of the stone staircase, he waved. She waved back. Through the heavy rain, she could not see his expression.
    Chilled, she stood and walked to the parapet, chewing on the last of the stoneshroom as she went. She liked looking over the edge and down at the desert. Where she stood was civilization, order, comparative safety, and the whole world and history of Echo City. Down there, where the desert began, was the symbolic boundary of their world. People often walked the sands close to the city wall, of course. In places the wall had degraded and crumbled, and it was easy enough to work your way down to the desert, because where the wall was solid there were no doors or gates. There was no need. But those brave explorers never remained there for long; soon they were scampering back up the stone pile again, waving away the respectful cheers of their peers or the admiring glances of those they had set out to impress. The city drew them back.
    The desert was death, and those who had ventured far out and returned had all died horribly. Some had time to reveal what they had seen—the Bonelands, the dead, those who had