The Memory

by Gerrard Cowan

  In the cage, Ruin had raised two long, dark arms, great wings of shadow.

  Ten millennia were all it took to prove that idea a lie. Just ten millennia of burning in the flames, until I controlled the fire.

  The wheel began to turn, as if of its own accord. Flames emerged from the pipe: a purple fire, almost dragged from the depths by this shadow, who spun and moulded and twirled it before him like it was nothing more than string. He made a snapping gesture with his arm, and the flame flew from the cage, vanishing into the sky.

  I could do so much. I sent powers to the One. She took over your girl – your Katrina – and became the Strategist. All of you failed to protect that mortal.

  Brightling burned at Ruin’s words, but only because they were true.

  The scene changed again, and they returned to the cage in its hall of darkness.

  And now you come to hurt me – with this thing.

  The mask reappeared, still in the shape of Brightling’s face. Ruin held it in his right hand, and toyed with a flame of memory in his left. He brought them close together, and Brightling’s mask seemed to silently scream.

  The Watcher took a step towards the cage. ‘You told Jandell your voice could travel beyond the cage, as if you’d grown more powerful. But you have always spoken beyond its walls. You have spoken to Squatstout from the beginning.’

  Yes.

  A cold fear crept across Brightling. She had a growing feeling that she had been fooled. Not just her: all of them. All of the world, human and Operator alike, were somehow the subjects of a trick.

  She walked forward and touched the bars. They felt like cold metal: nothing more.

  ‘You said the Machinery was built on two mistakes,’ she whispered. ‘What was the second?’

  And then he was there, so close to her, a shadow by her side. In the next moment, he was back in his cage.

  Jandell thought the cage was perfect. It would always hold me in place, even if I mastered the flames.

  Ruin laughed.

  “Ruin will come with the One.” That’s what you all feared, for so long. Well, I will take the hand of the One, at the end. But I do not need her to escape this prison.

  Brightling felt him, then, within her mind, pawing at her memories, pulling them apart and smashing them together, forcing her to see things she had tried to forget.

  I have never been trapped, Brightling.

  Suddenly he was by her side; in the next moment, he was back in the cage.

  I allowed them to put me here.

  I wanted to burn.

  His words faded away for a moment, as he scrabbled through her mind.

  Ten millennia. Ten millennia, to grow more powerful than a god. Soon I will drink the god. The Old Place will fall to Ruin. And oh, what memories we will wallow in!

  He laughed. Ruin will come with the One! Ten thousand years of nonsense!

  The world under Ruin opened itself before her, a world in which he ruled their minds. She saw memories from other lives, merged with her own: hard memories, the ones that people hide away. She saw things from her past, moments she had forgotten, moments she had wanted to forget. This would be the future; these memories were the heart of Ruin.

  Ruin extinguished his flame, and raised the mask into the air.

  I destroyed the Absence, Brightling. I am its Ruin. Why, then, would I fear its corpse, when I am stronger than I ever have been before?

  He squeezed his fist together, and the mask shattered. Brightling thought she heard a scream.

  I only need one thing. One thing that I have searched for, oh, for ten millennia. I never knew how to find it! But I see what I achieved, without even knowing it. I sent the One to you, so that you could mould her host.

  Brightling felt icy fingers clawing at her soul.

  And all the while, she was working on my behalf, forming you into the perfect host for me.

  A sense of cold power came over Brightling, as Ruin took her over.

  CHAPTER 16

  Everything froze in the memory.

  Drayn still stood at the side of the dock, with Amyllia and the little girl in the purple rags and the mask of a white rat. But there was no movement anywhere, now.

  No movement, apart from the Protector in his wide-brimmed hat and golden mask, shuffling in her direction, slamming his stick into the ground. She had last seen him on the Habitation, just after Squatstout’s death. He had leapt into the Endless Ocean and floated away, above the waters.

  He is one of them, and he will avenge his master.

  ‘You are a Thonn,’ he said, as he thudded towards her. She had only occasionally heard the Protector speak, but she knew there was something wrong. This was not his voice.

  Drayn nodded. ‘Drayn,’ she said. ‘Though I’m not sure the name matters any more.’

  The Protector held up a finger. ‘The Thonns were the greatest House on the island.’

  ‘Were? They still are. Or has someone taken their place?’

  The Protector came to a halt before her. ‘They’ve gone, haven’t they? You are the heiress, fled from her shores.’ He chuckled. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’ll all be at an end, soon: Habitation, Overland, all of it. Ruin is coming.’

  Drayn’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You have such wonderful memories,’ he whispered. ‘I would love to play with them, you know. To see their contours and their colours … but I will not.’ The golden beak nodded. ‘I have a great deal to do.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Drayn asked again.

  ‘I am old, so old … I was there from the beginning, almost.’

  ‘The beginning of the island, when Squatstout first came.’

  ‘No! The beginning of it all!’

  He reached up and snapped open the helmet, throwing it to the side. He was a middle-aged man, rough and unremarkable. He had thinning black hair and thick stubble, and his eyes were wide and watchful. His red mouth sat sneering beneath a sharp little nose. She did not recognise this man by his appearance, but there was an aspect to him that was instantly familiar, the stench of something ancient and rotten.

  This was not a man at all.

  ‘Squatstout,’ she whispered.

  There was movement to the side. Drayn turned, and felt a rush of relief as she saw Jandell, striding towards them with Jaco at his side.

  ‘Ah!’ cried the new Squatstout. ‘Jandell and the childless father!’ He bowed to Jaco. ‘What a man you must be, to have brought the One into the Overland, to nurture her, and then place her in that dark tower, where she became the perfect host! And you had another child, too … a boy …’ Squatstout tapped his head mockingly. ‘Let me see … let me see … what was his name …?’

  ‘Squatstout,’ said Jandell. ‘Don’t do—’

  ‘By the Great Absence, brother – shut up!’ Squatstout swiped a hand in the air, and a fountain of water rose up from the dockside, smashing into Jandell and knocking him to his feet.

  ‘Alexander!’ shouted Squatstout, turning his attention once more to Jaco. ‘That was his name, wasn’t it? You haven’t seen him in such a long time, have you, Jaco? Not since my kind-hearted brother stole him away from you!’ Squatstout laughed. He clapped his hands and a young boy appeared at his side, a child with pale skin and black curly hair.

  Jaco staggered towards the boy.

  ‘It is not real,’ said Jandell, rising to his feet. ‘It is a memory …’

  ‘But memories are real, Jandell!’ cried Squatstout. ‘Soon the world will be nothing but memory – real and imagined! All the little loves of Ruin, all the memories mortals squirrel away, too frightened or ashamed to face them!’ He laughed, and tapped Jaco on the shoulder, before pointing at Alexander. ‘This is your son, and it is a memory.’

  But Jaco was no longer listening. He was crouching down, his hands on his son’s shoulders. His words came in a soft, pleading trickle.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have listened. I should have—’

  Squatsto
ut laughed. ‘Should have, should have, should have! The great curse of humanity!’

  He tossed his stick into the water, raised his arms in the air, and brought them down with a sharp motion. That was all it took. There was no cry, no blood. Jaco was dead on the dockside, and his son was fading away.

  Jandell stood very still for a moment, before raising a hand to his mouth. He seemed suddenly shrunken, far older than before. A light within was flickering.

  ‘I know what you are thinking, brother,’ said Squatstout, nodding. ‘You think I am so cruel, you think I am so wicked. But what did you do to stop me, hmm? What have you ever done? I will not stand here and listen to you accuse me of all the things you allowed to happen, and the things you have done yourself!’

  Jandell began to tremble. ‘I have tried to change,’ he whispered. ‘I have always tried to change. Not just for myself, but for you as well, and Shirkra, and the Duet. Even our parents. But I have always failed.’

  ‘You are fighting your nature, Jandell. Though perhaps not. You were born from misery. Perhaps you are doing just what you were always supposed to. You make yourself miserable, because it is your destiny. But Ruin is coming, Jandell. Ruin has always been coming.’

  The new Squatstout put an arm around Drayn, and they were gone.

  ‘Do you know where I was born, Drayn?’

  The girl could see nothing.

  ‘Squalor,’ she said. ‘I sense it in you.’

  A dull light grew around them. Stones. Steps. An alleyway. It’s night. It’s raining. The new Squatstout grinned at her, just visible in a pool of orange light that glowed from a lantern on the wall. He snorted the air. ‘This is the kind of place you’d find a thing like me,’ he said. ‘A bit bad, but a coward too.’

  Drayn heard a sound and turned to look the other way up the alley. She hadn’t noticed the boy, at first, but there he was, sitting alone, his head in his hands. He was a thin child, all rags and bones; the mop of black hair on his head looked to weigh more than he did.

  ‘Don’t worry, boy. You’ll get used to it.’

  A door had opened behind the boy, and a man was standing there. Drayn knew this man very well, but at the same time, had no idea who he was. He was short, his bald head covered in a few strands of chestnut hair. He wore a hareskin shawl. But this was not Squatstout: this was only a man. She could feel his mortality; it hung over his every movement.

  He took a seat by the boy’s side, and touched the child’s leg. ‘Don’t worry at all, not at all. There’s all sorts of love in the world. You just need to get used to my love, that’s all.’

  The new Squatstout was at her side. ‘I won’t tell you how long ago this is,’ he whispered. ‘You wouldn’t believe me.’ He chuckled, then gestured at the man. ‘Look at him!’ he whispered. ‘Such a horror he was. I can’t remember when I found him – maybe a year after this. He’d spent all his life rummaging around in the dirt and the slime, the dirt and slime he made himself.’ He grinned, and tapped his chest. ‘That’s me, Drayn, you see. I’m the king of dirt. I’m the lord of shuffles in the night.’

  He giggled. ‘I won’t even tell you what this new host has in him.’ He pointed to his head. ‘I found him on the island, when I first came, and I just knew he’d be perfect for me, one day. But I didn’t want to give up on my lovely old host, the one I’d had for such a long, long time. No, I couldn’t do that, Drayn. So I held onto the other one as a spare. He’d die, though, like all mortals, if he didn’t have one of us in him. So I made up a little thing of memory, and called it the Protector, and put him in this body, until I might need it for myself. When the time came, I just threw that Autocrat out. Ha! Oh, I would have died without it, Drayn. I couldn’t even have got by as a spirit in the air. I would’ve—’

  ‘Get me out of here,’ Drayn said.

  They were in another memory. Drayn and Squatstout stood on a hill, staring down at a battlefield. There were no victors, here: just bodies and broken, blasted machines, strange things formed of metal that she did not recognise. It was early morning; the sun glared down upon them.

  ‘You never had battles in the island, thanks to me,’ Squatstout said, tapping his chest. ‘I told you about them, didn’t I?’

  Drayn nodded. ‘I’m glad I never saw one.’

  Squatstout grunted. ‘There he is,’ he said.

  Drayn followed his finger, until she saw a living figure, standing amid all that death.

  ‘Come,’ said Squatstout, ‘let’s go look.’

  In a heartbeat they were down there. The young man was utterly alone; there was something strangely proud about him. This was Jandell. However, like the Squatstout she saw in the alley, it was not the Jandell she knew.

  ‘Jandell has had this host for such a long time,’ Squatstout whispered. ‘His host was once such a wonderful man, you know, so regal and terrifying and angry, like my brother himself. Look around – do you know what you see?’

  Drayn stared out at the carnage. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The losing side of a battle.’

  ‘Yes. But more than that – the end of an entire people. They picked the wrong enemy, long before this day, and were put to the sword. All of them, all ages, no respect for who they were, oh no.’ He giggled. ‘That man was the only survivor.’ He nodded at Jandell, or the man who was to become Jandell. ‘Do you know what he did, after this? He killed his own heart. He became pitiless. Somehow he raised an army of his own, and he went after those who destroyed his people, and he did the same to them. He fought with such fury. But it gave him no joy. It corrupted him, in the end. That is Jandell, you see: a man of terrible crimes, but no humour in them. Bleak.’ Squatstout spat on the ground.

  ‘He is a greater man than you.’

  Squatstout threw his hands in the air. ‘Did I ever claim otherwise? I know what I am. You never find my hosts out fighting battles, oh no.’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Home? The island?’

  ‘No. To Jandell.’

  ‘You think of Jandell as home? Hmm.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘I’ve seen people like you before. You just know your way around the Old Place. Amazing.’ He leaned towards her. ‘But you’re not just a weaver of our magic, are you, Drayn? You’re a mortal. And I can sense such lovely memories within your mind. They set Jandell free – what strength there is in them! I would like to play with them, before we all fall into Ruin. I’d like to finger them. I’d like to hide you away somewhere, far from Jandell, and prise your memories apart, to see what I can find.’

  He moved towards her, smiling. His smile seemed to grow as she looked at it, expanding beyond his face, beyond his head, until the battlefield was gone, and all that was left was Drayn and Squatstout’s smile.

  ‘It is funny, Drayn,’ said the great mouth. The voice was unmistakeably Squatstout’s, but something about it had changed: there was a new weariness to it. ‘We live for memories: we worship the past, the endless past. Is this a good way to live?’

  The mouth receded, and Squatstout stood before her once more, on the battlefield again. An unfamiliar sense of melancholy had fallen upon him. He nodded to the bodies all around.

  ‘All these people died this day, all of them but Jandell’s host. They died, and yet they did not die: even now their memories live on in the Old Place. I can go to them, if I like: I can revel in their little stories. I can taste the power of them.’ He sighed. ‘But it is so much better to find a living mortal, truly alive, and walk through their memories hand in hand. Especially one like you.’ He nodded at Drayn. ‘We can do that, you and I. It would give me such pleasure.’

  Once, when she was a younger girl, Drayn had seen a crow on a branch outside her bedroom window. She had gently opened the window, placed a stone in her slingshot, pulled it back, and killed the bird. She remembered standing in her room for a while and staring out at the empty branch, dumbly surprised at what she had done. Then she had gone downstairs, out to the tree, and found the bird. She took a little knife, and she beg
an to cut it open …

  She felt like that bird now.

  The battlefield fell away and a burning power spun around her, growing and contracting, flashing between a thousand shades. When she focused on any point of the maelstrom, she could see strange little images, fleeting glimpses of moments of her past. All of them, though, were polluted; all of them were degraded; all of them stank of Squatstout. She could see him there, his face, his grubby presence.

  Such power is here, in these memories.

  The voice was Squatstout’s, though it spoke within her.

  I see, now, how you saved Jandell. Even touching these memories is enough to give one a kind of jolt! But I will drink them … I will drink all of them, before Ruin comes.

  She saw a cloud of grey smoke, floating through the storm of memory. It was him. He was within her: he had made himself a part of her essence.

  You should not think of your memories as individual chambers, Drayn Thonn. They are all a part of the Old Place. All of them can be brought together, things from the ancient past and things from yesterday …

  For a moment the storm vanished, and they were at the Choosing. Drayn was standing very still, with one of the hands grasping her ankle. But this was all wrong. This was not the island. She was on top of a hill, and all around her were children, dressed in black, on their knees, weeping. The image vanished in a moment, and she was back in the storm.

  I can feel such strength in your memories, Drayn. How did they become so powerful? She heard him laugh. We never know … if we knew, we could do so much more …

  There was a brief silence, and even the memory storm stopped turning.

  What’s this …? What memory is this …?

  The storm began to dissipate. An image emerged from far away, growing larger as it came. A young girl, standing over a man, a knife in her hand …

  You have kept this one hidden. Come, we will go there together.

  Drayn heard a scream, and realised with a curious, numb sensation that it was coming from her own lips. You cannot have this memory. She focused on it, willing it to disappear. But it was useless. She could see Squatstout surrounding it with his strange smoke, tasting it …