The place where she'd first seen Rufus was a mile to the east. She looked along the wall in that direction, and the mass of humanity stunned her. The wall was packed with people, and below them in the streets and roads that led along the wall's base were many more.
"So many," Penler said. "This used to be a nice quiet place."
"They're lost," Gorham said. "They're looking for someone to tell them what to do."
"Aren't we all?" Penler asked.
"No," Gorham said. "Not everyone needs that."
Peer raised her hands and smiled at both men. "Now's not the time for a religious debate."
"If not now, when?" Penler asked.
From the north came continuing sounds of destruction. A column of smoke and dust rose high above the city, thick and textured at its base, spreading and dispersing higher up where the desert breezes grabbed hold. It was rooted on the southwestern slopes of Marcellan Canton, but fires were apparent at many other sites across the city, from eastern Mino Mont to western Course. At the base of the cloud of dust and smoke-even from this distance-they could see movement.
"Later," Peer said again. "There'll be plenty of time later."
"It's good to hear your confidence."
"Penler, there's somewhere beyond the Bonelands," she said. "He didn't tell me much. He wouldn't. But it's there." She frowned, looking over Penler's shoulder.
"And?" he asked.
"And he said something there sees us, and he hopes it will welcome us."
Penler was silent for a few beats, glancing back and forth between Peer and Gorham. At last he said, "And you're the ones who cannot entertain gods," and then Penler turned to the crowds.
He stood with the grace of someone half his age. Peer knew that he commanded respect in Skulk, but she was also aware that most of those around them now had come down from the city. Their clothing gave them away, as did their smooth skins and the fact that they carried belongings with them. People in Skulk owned little.
This was the moment when they all had to cast differences aside and listen.
"Echo City is doomed!" Penler shouted.
"No shit!" a voice said from the street below. A man was crying, children were laughing and playing, and a hundred voices mumbled unheard replies to Penler's pronouncement.
"Look behind you and see what ignorance and blind faith will bring," he roared. "Fear and death with no hope for something more! What are the Marcellans doing to counter whatever this sudden threat might be?"
"I saw Blades raping a woman in the street!" a man yelled, and voices surged again, expressing disgust or offering other stories.
"That's because they're afraid. Fear breeds desperation, and from desperation comes such violence. They're afraid because the Marcellans offer them nothing else. They'll follow Hanharan because they're told to, not because they choose to listen to him in their hearts."
Peer shifted uncomfortably, but she knew what Penler was doing and respected the roots of his own beliefs. There was no way he could get the crowd on his side by expressing non-belief, and even if that could help, she knew he never would. He was an honest man who would not deny his own philosophies. And that bullish honesty was why they would follow him.
"And what are you listening to, old man?" someone called.
"I'm listening to someone I call my friend," he said. He pressed both hands to his chest and looked out over the crowd.
"Who the fuck are you, anyway?"
"That's Penler. You can trust him."
"I don't trust criminals!"
A roar rose, the crowd surged, fists flailed. Penler glanced down at Peer and she nodded at him, giving him whatever encouragement and support he needed. Someone I call my friend, he'd said, and she smiled at his shrewdness. He could never lie-one of his weaknesses, but also his greatest strength-but he could let the listeners interpret what he said in their own ways.
He held up his hands and the crowd calmed. He had them, she realized. They were willing to watch and listen while the city fell behind them, because this was the first time someone had really spoken to them. They'd all woken with whispers in their ears, but now they could see and hear the person offering them advice.
"I'm told there's hope," Penler said. "I'm told you came here at the behest of your own inner voices. And look around-I see no Marcellan costumes here, no Hanharan priest's robes. That means we're all special. That means we've all been given a way to escape. To escape that." He pointed over their heads, over the top of Skulk's tallest buildings at the monstrous column of smoke. As if at a signal from him, another tremor shook the ground, and moments later the sound rumbled in, shedding tiles from rooftops and knocking people to the ground.
"And we have to escape!" Penler cried. "There's a way to defeat your fear. You have to trust in yourselves and trust in me."
"But how do you know?" a woman shouted.
"I've always known," he said. Then he stepped down from the parapet, crossed the wide head of the wall, and stood overlooking the desert with his back to the city.
Peer shivered. A chill went through her. The desert burned, dead and barren, and the thought of going out there terrified her. Gorham held her hand and pulled her forward. They shouldered past people until they were standing close behind Penler. And then Peer gasped as her friend started to descend a crumbling staircase leading down the wall's outer face.
She panicked. Is this enough? Did he say enough? Will they think him mad? Will they turn their backs, on him as he's turned his own on Echo City? She looked around the crowd and paused, seeing a face she recognized. It was a woman who'd picked stoneshrooms from the same rubble fields as Peer. The woman caught Peer's eye… and smiled.
She believes, Peer thought.
"Come on," she said, pulling Gorham after her. They stood on the wall and looked down at the desert below.
Penler was already halfway down. The treads cantilevered from the wall, rough and never used, and he was pressed back against the stonework to avoid their crumbling edges. But still he descended with confidence, never once pausing, never once looking back.
Hundreds of people leaned over the wall to witness his descent, and hundreds more stood farther back, waiting to see what would come of this.
Peer looked at the sands that had played no part in the city's life other than to offer it a place of death. Gorham clasped her hand and kissed her softly on the cheek.
Peer went first.
He had found a form of forgiveness and a diluting of his guilt in the woman he had betrayed, and he would not betray her again. Though every scrap of flesh and blood and bone told him to turn back, he did not hesitate for a moment. Peer was already on the baked sand and walking out after Penler, and Gorham followed, feeling the change in texture beneath his shoes and biting down a sudden urge to vomit.
She did not look back at him, and there was intense trust in that. Likewise, Gorham did not look back at the city wall, and he trusted that the people would follow. It'll take only a few, he thought, and then a few more. And then we'll be committed to discovering whether those fly bites were worth the prick of pain they gave us all.
The sand was hot and hard, shifting slightly beneath him as he walked. Gorham looked at the bite marks across his hands and arms, but they were not changing. The sun felt hotter out here. It was late afternoon now, and soon dusk would be falling, and they would be out in the desert without anywhere to sleep, little to drink, and the city behind them would call and There was a noise behind him, the likes of which he had never heard before. It started low and far away, like a dog howling in the night, but it rose and grew louder-a howl that turned into a scream-and louder, and every hair on his arms and neck stood up, his balls tingled, and his legs grew weak. He paused but still did not look back, because he had denied himself the city forever.