This is delicious. Ruin will love this. This is what he lives for. This is where he was born.
She was burning. You cannot have it. She moved forward and reached out her hand, as if the memory was something she could grasp. She stretched out her fingers to touch it, as thoughts gathered in her mind. This belongs to me! You cannot have it! She felt a kind of strength …
And they were back on the battlefield. Squatstout staggered backwards, his eyes wide.
‘What have you done?’
Drayn looked down at her hand. There was an animal there, a snake, knotted around her arm. No. It is not an animal. It was a thing of pulsating power, a black rope that had tied itself to her. She thought she could see faces in the substance, people from the past: Dad, and Mother, and herself. This is the memory, but it is changed. It is … it is magic.
She looked up at Squatstout. His mouth hung open, and his eyes were creased with fury.
‘Give it to me!’ he spat.
He raised a hand; there was a spark there, a little flame, and Drayn thought she saw some unfamiliar moment, a dark scene, dancing at the tips of Squatstout’s fingers. She felt herself being dragged forward, towards him, along with her memory.
‘No,’ she said.
She raised her memory into the air. She felt it form into something else: a spear, a dark weapon, a blade formed from the past, alive with power.
Squatstout’s palms were spread open before her.
‘No!’ he cried. ‘Come and join me … I can show you things that Jandell never would. I can give you a castle, made of memory. A city … a world …’
Drayn lifted the spear and threw it at the Autocrat. He screamed, and the world filled with grey smoke.
She turned, and saw another being, far away, as if in another memory. It was a strange thing, a beast with long limbs, a bald head, and no eyes. It shook its head at her, willing her to turn away, to go to another place.
She did not listen.
CHAPTER 17
Every child in the Overland knew the Portal to the Machinery.
Brandione could not recall when he had first heard the name. Perhaps as a boy at his mother’s knee. That’s the heart of the world, my child. That’s where the fire comes from, the fire that brings us the names of our leaders. That’s where we throw our Strategists when they die.
The Portal to the Machinery. But that title could not be correct. Brandione had never laid eyes upon the Machinery, yet he knew it was not in this place. It was only bodies, here, lined up neatly in rows, eyes closed, hands folded on chests. Not just any bodies, but historical artefacts: the corpses of the greatest men and women in history, still wearing their purple robes. All of them were squashed together in a vast space, a hall without walls or a ceiling, a floating floor of white stone surrounded by flickering darkness. The stars in this nowhere land were not stars at all, but full-moon crowns like the Strategists once wore, gleaming down at him.
‘Does the Old Place line the bodies up itself?’ he whispered. ‘Or is there an undertaker of the Underland?’
‘Why not both?’
A familiar figure appeared at his side. He had seen this woman in the Museum of Older Times, when he went on that strange journey with Aranfal and Squatstout so long ago, before everything fell apart. She wore the same dark veil, and her pale little hands still peeked out from her sleeves. The veil shifted as she spoke, so that her face and hooked nose were occasionally visible. He remembered that neck of hers, with its terrible web of scars.
The veiled woman pointed to the bodies on the floor. ‘I place them where they belong. But I am a thing of memory, and a creature of the Old Place.’
Brandione nodded at the corpses. ‘Do they rot?’
The woman shrugged. ‘These are memories of the dead, of men and women and boys and girls that once were. A mixture of memories; the memories they brought to the world themselves, and the memories others had of them. Such famous men and women … such wonderful memories. I try to keep them as they once were. I always thought someone might come to see them one day.’
‘Has anyone come before me?’
She shook her veiled head. ‘No.’ She gestured at a nearby corpse. ‘This is where the most recent arrivals are placed. Don’t you know this one?’
Brandione studied the man at his feet. He was younger than the one-time General, with greying brown hair and a peppering of stubble. It took Brandione some time to recognise him as Strategist Kane, the man he had once served. The man they thought I killed, all that time ago.
‘He’s younger than I remember,’ Brandione said.
The veiled woman nodded.
Brandione lowered himself onto his haunches and examined the face of his old master. He was not a good man, but he was Selected, and he ruled for more than half a century. He oversaw Expansion to the ends of the continent. But I would never have put you in your role. The Machinery was wise, and now it is gone, and the world is falling apart.
Brandione glanced up at the veiled woman. ‘I need something,’ he said. ‘We all need it. The First Memory of the Old Place.’
The veiled woman shook her head. ‘I do not know where it is,’ she whispered. ‘You can ask the dead, if you wish.’ She swept a hand across the corpses.
‘Ask the dead?’ Brandione glanced around. ‘How?’
‘Touch them.’
Brandione reached out to Kane’s face. He felt a vague sense of danger; he turned his head sharply, half-expecting the woman to be moving towards him with some ill intent. But she was in the same position as before.
‘Touch him,’ she hissed. She twisted her head, and the veil fell away from her neck. Her skin was ruined: red and raw. ‘Do it. It will help you.’
Brandione reached out to the old man’s face once more, before deciding that he could not hear that voice again.
‘All the Strategists are here?’
The veiled woman nodded.
A thought crystallised. Arandel was in a game, once. He fought the Operators. He learned how to beat them.
‘Kane is the most recent Strategist to die,’ Brandione said. He pointed up the path. ‘The first is down there, then?’
The woman nodded.
Brandione gazed at the hundreds of bodies that lined the sides, a highway of the glorious dead. He began to walk, half-expecting the veiled woman to stop him. After a while he turned back, but she was not there. She had gone back to wherever she had come from: the Museum of Older Times, perhaps.
And so on he went, past the corpses of the Strategists: people of all descriptions, closed books that he could open whenever he wanted, with just a touch of his hand. But he did not want to hear what they had to say. He only cared about one: a Strategist who had done it all before. The first Strategist.
He began to run, and the past seemed to run alongside him, to run behind him, propelling him forward. His past. A young man appeared at his side, driven by ambition, fighting against his own fears, falling into madness. For a moment he felt that she was there, watching him, urging him forward: a woman of three bodies, a woman of one mind, older than anything that lived.
His limbs grew weary, his body sore. He felt that he was running against some force. Perhaps it was only himself.
The pathway came to an end, at last, and Brandione turned his head, to gaze upon history itself.
Arandel was the most famous man in the history of the world. Children knew his name before they could walk. He was the greatest figure in the Book of the Machinery: the first person the Operator told of the glory of the Machinery, and the first to be Selected as Strategist, back when the city was not much more than the Circus, Memory Hall, and the See House. And here he was, lying on the ground before Brandione. The one-time General had expected something different. It was not that the face was unfamiliar, or that the works of art had been wrong. On the contrary, this was exactly the face that stared down from the apartments of the Strategist and the walls of the People’s Level. Perhaps this wasn’t the way the man look
ed in life; perhaps the Underland had altered his appearance to match Brandione’s expectations. It did not matter. I am here, and so is he.
Arandel was young, no older than his early thirties. His corpse, like that of Kane, must have shown him from another point in life, long before his death. He had light-brown skin and delicate features: a sharp little nose, thin lips, long eyelashes. His hair was a tight mass of thick curls, and the number 1 had been written over and over upon his purple gown, interlocking in a graceful, looping style.
Brandione crouched down and touched the First Strategist on the forehead. After a while, the smooth little hands began to twitch, and the eyes clicked open.
Arandel pushed himself up into a sitting position and stared glassily ahead.
‘Hello,’ Brandione said.
Arandel did not respond. Brandione raised a hand and waved it in front of the First Strategist’s eyes. There was no sign that the man had noticed Brandione’s presence.
‘Strategist,’ Brandione said. ‘Arandel. Prophet of the Machinery.’
Arandel remained silent.
‘I need your help, my lord. I have been sent to this place … I have been sent to play a game.’ He thought he could hear the old Brandione, commander of the armies of the Overland, laughing somewhere far away.
Brandione moved closer to Arandel. One can speak to the dead, but no one can make the dead reply. ‘My lord, help me. Please. Tell me where to find it … I need the First Memory. It is the only way to stop Ruin.’
That did it: the word Ruin. Arandel grinned at Brandione, and there was a fire in his eyes.
‘What do you know of Ruin?’ The light voice was strangely familiar, as if it belonged to a man of today’s Overland.
‘Ruin is coming,’ Brandione said.
Arandel snatched out a hand and grasped Brandione’s wrist. He was surprisingly strong, and had a savage glint in his eye.
‘Ruin?’ he spat, before laughing. ‘Ruin!’
‘Is the First Memory here? The Old Place has lost it …’
‘Why do you want that?’
‘To fight Ruin.’
Arandel laughed; he pointed at his face. ‘I tricked Ruin, long ago. I surprised them all. But there is no tricking any of them now. It is all at an end, and the First Memory will not avail you.’
He lay back down in his position and fell silent once more.
As Brandione stared at the corpse, he felt that old swell of anger. He is right. There was no point in any of this. The game is a joke.
An iron certainty took hold of him. He would leave this place. All he wanted was to stand at the side of the Dust Queen and face whatever was coming. He would go to her. If the First Memory was real – and he had his doubts – then one of the others could find it. It was beyond him.
He wondered if she would be disappointed in him. He hoped not. But regardless, he was leaving. There would be no more games for him.
He looked out into the darkness, to all the full-moon crowns.
‘Take me to the Queen!’ he shouted. ‘Take me to the board!’
There was a whisper in the dark.
Brandione leapt upwards and pushed himself into the night sky, up among the crowns. He knew where he wanted to go. He knew the Underland would take him there, though he did not know why.
CHAPTER 18
‘This is a bad place, Aranfal.’
The Watcher nodded. ‘You didn’t have to come with me.’
Alexander barked a laugh. ‘No. But I couldn’t let you go here alone.’ The boy was trembling. ‘Not to this place.’
The Shadowthings were directly in front of Aranfal and Alexander, moving slowly forward. He could hear Aleah’s screams, somewhere up ahead, but he could not see past the creatures. They’re nothing but darkness. Oil on water. Smoke from the fire.
‘Where are we?’ he asked Alexander. ‘What is she doing here?’
The creature directly ahead of the Watcher stopped walking. It turned around, and it gazed down at him. There were no features in the depths of that black hood, but for two blotches of orange light.
The creature seemed to shake its head. It turned again and began to walk.
‘I hate this place,’ Alexander said, following the creature. ‘I hate Chaos. But it’s so hard to avoid, sometimes.’ He tapped his head. ‘Even within ourselves. You know?’
Aranfal nodded.
‘Come on,’ said Alexander. He grasped Aranfal by the wrist. ‘Follow me.’
The boy led the Watcher up to the line of dark figures and squeezed himself between two of them. ‘They won’t hurt you,’ he said. ‘They don’t care about you.’
They forced their way through.
Aranfal had seen many parts of the Underland by now, and had often wondered how he would describe his experiences to someone in the real world. But what he saw here, in this place, was something else entirely. This was something he could not explain to himself, and he was looking at it.
Chaos. Images paraded before his eyes, floating in the air around him, on and on into an endless space. A book danced past his head, followed by a row of coins. Far away, three men sat huddled over a dead horse, its stomach sliced open. A parade of dogs marched on a hill, and a man and woman fought for a golden spoon. A line of soldiers stood perfectly still, as black birds pecked at their eyes. A boy played a drum, while another cut his hair. On and on they went, a million scenes, glowing with an inner light, bursts of red and purple, on and on forever …
‘Memories are a great flow, Aranfal,’ Alexander whispered. ‘But there is so much to them, things that no one understands. There are memories that are not true. There are memories of other memories, and memories of imaginings. There are the memories of the mad. All of them are here, in Chaos. They say this is the largest part of the Underland.’ He glanced at Aranfal. ‘We must be careful, or we’ll be lost. Lost like Aleah.’
Aranfal frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
But Alexander ignored him. ‘Can you feel her here, Aranfal? Can you feel Shirkra?’
‘I can feel her,’ he whispered.
‘They call her the Mother of Chaos,’ Alexander said. ‘But even her name is the wrong way round. How can she be the mother, when this place has been here forever – as long as the First Memory itself?’
‘She was born of this madness.’ Aranfal gestured at the great expanse.
‘Yes.’
Somewhere in the maelstrom, Aleah screamed.
‘She is lost now,’ Alexander said. ‘This happens to many who come here.’
The Watcher looked out at the world around him. He listened to the howls and shrieks, and felt them tearing at him.
‘This is a nightmare,’ he said. Something flashed before him: a parade of tortured souls, driven mad at his hand. You are Chaos, too, Aranfal and Aran Fal. ‘This is the true face of this god,’ he whispered. ‘Madness and cruelty. Shirkra is the face of the god.’
Alexander hummed. ‘Ah! There she is.’
Aleah was sitting on the edge of a stone, floating in the air, her eyes locked open. Aranfal knew terror when he saw it: true terror, the type that no one understood until they felt it, the type that grabbed hold of you and couldn’t be pushed away, not even by the so-called brave.
‘She has been cast into the Chaos of her own mind,’ Alexander said. ‘All the little nightmares she dreamed up as a child, all the idle thoughts of terrible deaths – all of them are memories, and all of them are tormenting her.’
‘Why? How has she become so lost?’
Alexander shrugged. ‘She came to search inside Chaos. Perhaps Chaos didn’t like it. Perhaps Chaos is searching inside her.’
Aranfal felt a weight at his back, and a Shadowthing pushed past him. It began to float upwards through Chaos, its hands woven across its chest.
‘The Shadowthing is going to get her,’ said the boy. ‘She’ll be taken from Chaos to … somewhere else.’
Aranfal turned away from the nightmare. ‘We need to go.’ He felt a tremor
in his voice. ‘I’m afraid, Alexander.’ The words felt pathetic, coming from the tongue of a grown man: a Watcher of the Overland, no less. But Aranfal knew better: all the Watchers did. Theirs was an order built on fear. They knew all its peaks and valleys, and none more than him. In an order of torturers, only he had been the torturer. He knew how to use fear as a weapon, because like all creatures, he was himself afraid. And this madness was too much for him, this Chaos and these Shadowthings. There was no reasoning with it; there was no escape. Not even the Strategist could help him here, amid this Chaos.
He cast a glance backwards, as the creature closed in on Aleah.
‘She’s brought this on herself. We need to go.’
When Alexander spoke, it was not in his own voice.
‘Is there no loyalty, now, among the Watchers of the Overland?’
This was not Alexander. This was Aranfal’s mistress. This was Brightling.
‘There are two worlds,’ said Alexander, or Brightling, or whoever was speaking to him. ‘There is the See House, and there is the outside. We who dwell on the inside …’
The words kept coming, but Aranfal could not hear them. ‘Is that you, Alexander? Are you doing this?’
But the boy merely looked confused.
Aranfal was in the See House. No: he was on the See House. It was night, and a rain was whipping in from the Peripheral Sea, washing over the Apprentices who sat shivering on the stone roof of that narrow tower.
In many of the memories that appeared to him in the Old Place, Aranfal had been a spectator, staring down at a younger version of himself. Not here. In this memory, he was inside the body of this earlier man: Aranfal within Aran Fal.
There was a group of them, up here, maybe fifteen strong, all of them folded up against the night, wrapped in their cloaks, their maskless faces open and fearful.
Brightling stood before them, and she was enraged. It was rare to see her angry. Her reaction to most events was cool, poised, even in the most extreme of situations. Not now. Now she trembled with emotion.
She paced before them, a knife in her hand.
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