The Memory

by Gerrard Cowan

  You hurt us, Canning. They spoke as one, and their voice was everywhere, echoing within his skull. You hurt us so badly.

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ he whispered. ‘Let me go. I will do what you want. We can do so many things together.’

  Together! Not any more. You took our love, and you threw it away.

  He fell to his knees. He could feel them picking at him. He was decomposing, under their glare: rotting from the inside out.

  We loved you. We wanted you to be our pawn, in the final game. Perhaps we would even have won. You did not want to help us, Canning, and now it is all over. You hurt us. You have wrecked it, Canning.

  ‘No … I would have helped you …’

  The voice of the Duet spoke again, and this time it rang with the petulance of youth.

  You were meant to help us long ago! It would have been such fun: a little game before the coming of Ruin. But instead, you made us your prisoners! You tricked us!

  As Canning stared at the dirt, weighed down by the Duet and their fury, the memory of that moment came to him. He saw himself in that tree, tearing the surroundings apart with his mind, draining them of their power, and wrapping it around the Duet. He was a power, then, was he not?

  ‘I was,’ he hissed at the ground. ‘I was better than you. I’ll beat you again, one day.’

  That day will never come.

  He swore he would not fall easily. But it was no good. The pain became his world. Pain is life, now. Pain is life. When he was a boy he had worked in the kitchen of an inn, gutting fish. He got under everyone’s feet, of course, as he always would, forever and ever and ever. One day he walked past the chef, and he dropped his little fish knife, and it stuck in the man’s foot. There was such a roar, such a terrible scream, though it wasn’t pain, it was anger. It was a release, almost of pleasure as much as pain: the pleasure of having a reason, any reason, to lash out at fucking Canning.

  The man did something, then, to Canning’s arms. The former Tactician would always remember how it felt, but he never knew what the bastard had done. He seemed to somehow grab them, and he twisted them, he contorted them, and it did something to that little boy that he still felt today. He could not remember screaming. He couldn’t remember anything; he passed out, they said. But before he did, the screams filled the inn and bounced out onto the street; they turned the ale bad and scared the cats.

  ‘Watch where you’re going next time,’ said the chef.

  The Duet had grabbed his essence and twisted it, and they threw the King of the Remnants into the burning-white heat of pain, an agony that tore through his mind. But it was different. The Duet would not let go, and Canning did not pass out.

  ‘Come with us,’ said Boy. Through his twisted, hazy vision, he saw that they had resumed their old forms. ‘Come and be our pet.’

  Boy raised a hand and joined it with Girl’s. Canning felt the pain ease. The world came into greater clarity once more, the sights of this giant, twisted version of the Circus. They were now some distance from the table, much closer to the spectators in their endless rows, an amorphous mass that flickered and burned with the power of memory. The crowd laughed at him.

  The Duet had released him, but he still felt them within him. He was their prisoner now, for as long as they wished. He would be their prisoner beyond death; his memories would live forever, and they belonged to the Duet. There was no tricking them any more. They were a part of him. He would never surprise them again.

  ‘Watch your thoughts, traitor,’ said Girl. Her blue eyes flashed as she looked at him, and Canning saw for the first time that while she and her brother were two halves of the same whole, they were also different. There was a sense of anger in her, slow to burn but hard to extinguish, and he had ignited it when he defeated them. Boy was more the cruel schemer, the kind of child who lays traps for animals before plucking off their limbs. Girl was the fury of juvenile rage. The memory of a little girl breaking a doll’s head. The memory of a child stabbing her father in the leg.

  Girl snapped her hand into the air, and Canning was entangled in chains, metal loops that coiled around him tightly. These chains were formed of some dark place, some dread time from long ago. It was a time in his own life, but it had been taken apart and stitched together again, cut through with images and sensations from other existences. He looked at it and saw Annya. Half-mad Annya, on the wall.

  These chains would hold him forever. He searched within, probing that strange land in his mind where his power lay, where he felt the connection with all memories and they revealed their powers to him. But the chains always held him back; the chains would always hold him back.

  ‘We will pluck your memories from you, Canning.’ Girl was at his ear, whispering in that fierce little voice of hers. ‘We will hurt you for what you did to us. You will see things that never have been; things designed for you.’

  ‘Ruin has made them, Canning,’ said Boy. His voice was somehow sad. ‘We will soon fall into him. All of us … all the world … immersed in his pain. All the memories you hide away, will be used to drown you.’

  A thousand images flashed before him, glimpses of nightmares. Half-mad Annya. Alone. Failing. Flailing. Dying, always dying, death without end …

  Boy was grinning at him. He looked so cruel.

  ‘Ruin is coming,’ he said.

  CHAPTER 20

  ‘You are the Old Place.’

  The creature turned its head towards Drayn, as if it could actually see her. Perhaps it can. Why should eyes matter in this place?

  ‘We are many,’ the creature said. It pointed to itself. ‘We are the Eyeless One.’

  They were in a vast hall, its edges fading into nothing. A hundred thousand pillars curled upwards from the stone floor, reaching out to a ceiling that was nothing but mist, grey clouds tinged with gold.

  ‘Are you like Jandell?’

  ‘He is one of our children. Jandell, Shirkra, Dust Queen.’ It sighed. ‘Our beautiful children. We made them to save us, because we could not save ourselves.’

  ‘You are more powerful than them. I can feel it.’

  The creature shrugged. ‘Power does not matter without direction. We cannot think like them. Sometimes, we can concentrate, if we need to. But then it fades away, and we forget what we were doing, and we fall into memories, into a million memories.’ The Eyeless One stopped, as if grasping for the right words. ‘Our mind is … clouded. We may have a thought, but it takes us so long to understand. And so we made our children, to protect us. They are memory, as well. But they are memory as a weapon. They have been sharpened, and honed, and given focus.’ It reached out a long finger and tapped Drayn on the nose. ‘We modelled them after you: after our parents.’

  Drayn nodded. ‘I understand.’

  There came a great rumble, from somewhere in the hall, and the ground beneath them trembled. The Eyeless One placed its hands upon its head.

  ‘We saw great things for you,’ it whispered. ‘But it is too late. The game is over.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Drayn turned, to see Jandell at her side. Relief coursed through her. Every time she lost him, he found her in the end.

  There came another rumble, closer this time. The ground shook with a greater intensity.

  ‘The First Memory was our last hope, Jandell,’ said the Eyeless One. ‘Now it is gone forever: the memory and the hope. We do not feel it anywhere … the First Memory is gone.’

  Jandell’s eyes widened. ‘I did not know … There must still …’

  ‘It is too late, Jandell!’ The Eyeless One sparked with fury, and for a moment it did have eyes, searing black things that smouldered in its strange skull. ‘It is always too late with you. Ruin is coming.’ A shadow grew in the hall, polluting every corner. ‘You allowed him to gain such power, Jandell. You placed him in our heart. Now he is stronger than any of you. He is stronger even than us. Soon he will take us over, and you, the Queen, Shirkra, all of you. Ruin will be the God of Memory, Jandell, t
hanks to you and your mistakes. It will be a God of Pain; a God of the memories we want to hide.’

  Jandell fell to his knees. ‘Forgive me,’ he said.

  ‘Such arrogance,’ the Eyeless One said, spreading its arms before Jandell. ‘Only now, when your delusions have turned to ash before your eyes, do you see the truth.’ The Eyeless One shook its head. ‘There is nothing more to be done.’

  Drayn watched the shadow. It was moving, crawling across the stone towards her. She looked at Jandell and the Eyeless One; they had not noticed. She could no longer hear them speak.

  The shadow gathered into a pool before her and formed into the shape of a man. The man reached out a dark finger and touched her on the forehead. The room disappeared. She was standing on a dark beach, the sand as black as the shadow, the sun above her a burning red. The shadow was not visible, but he was everywhere.

  I know you.

  A patch of the sand began to move. It gathered into the figure of a person, and a single word echoed through her mind. Ruin. Ruin. Ruin.

  The sand creature approached her.

  Your family are mine.

  She was plunged into a memory: her mother, in the dining room, picking at a fish, the shadow gathering behind her.

  Your friends are mine.

  Cranwyl – Cranwyl – on a path, somewhere on the island. The shadow danced around him.

  You are mine. Your memories are mine. You hid this one away from me, in the Choosing. What talent! But you cannot hide now.

  The worst memory. Her father, on the ground, a bloodied wreck. She, standing over him, looking at the knife.

  A new place. A dark room.

  I will explore your memories forever. I will show you new memories. Memories that are not of the past; memories that have not occurred.

  A candle bloomed to life. Cranwyl was here, tied to a chair, naked. Another Drayn was standing before him. She held the candle in her hand; she moved it to his chest, and back again, over and over, while Cranwyl screamed. She was smiling.

  ‘No,’ said the real Drayn. She turned away from the scene. But it was no good; everywhere she turned, it was there.

  I was born in the memories you hide away. Think of what I will create when I am the Old Place.

  ‘No.’

  Soon, Drayn Thonn …

  Drayn turned her mind to Jandell. I want to leave this place.

  And she did.

  She was back in the pillared room. Jandell was before her, with the Eyeless One.

  ‘The shadow,’ said the girl. A sudden coldness came upon her, and she began to tremble.

  Jandell nodded. ‘Ruin is cruel, because he was made that way.’ He glanced at the Eyeless One; there was contempt, there, in his eyes. ‘The Old Place made him that way.’

  The Eyeless One shrugged. ‘He was such a thing to see. Only he could destroy the Absence. Only he could fight for memory, against the great destroyer.’

  ‘But what memories does he love?’ Jandell asked. ‘The dark things that people keep locked away in their minds, the ones that shame them or terrify them. Ruin is made of them.’

  ‘He wants to take you over,’ said Drayn, nodding at the Eyeless One. ‘He has so much power. If he does, he’ll …’ She thought back to the false memory. ‘He has to die.’

  The great rumble came again.

  ‘I’ll find this First Memory,’ Drayn whispered. She saw a weapon in her mind, a thing without form or substance, and felt a new sense of certainty. ‘I’ll destroy Ruin.’

  ‘Then we will go,’ Jandell said. ‘We will go to the table.’

  The Eyeless One shook its head, but Jandell and Drayn were already gone.

  They had come to a strange place, like a giant version of Squatstout’s Courtyard, the part of the Habitation where the people gathered for the Choosing. This was a walled structure, though the walls were difficult to make out: they stretched far away from them, vanishing into shadows. Four great statues hung overhead, each depicting the same woman, displaying different expressions. At the sides were thousands of seats, thronged with shadowy groups of spectators. It was daytime, but the sky above rolled with grey cloud.

  None of these things, however, were important. All that mattered was the table, an endless outcrop of dark stone, the board of some game she did not know. Shapes and figures moved across it in a kaleidoscopic dance. A sense of pain rose within her, and she longed to be back in the Habitation, seated at her mother’s side, preparing for whatever the future held for her and the House of Thonn. As she watched this board twist and contort in all its strangeness, she saw only pain, unyielding and eternal. Why didn’t I stay on the island? Why did I get on Jandell’s ship? Her mother’s image grew in her mind, assessing her with harsh, uncaring eyes, warning her of her impetuousness, and where it would lead her. She was right.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, away from the terrible board, and her eyes met Jandell’s.

  ‘You are a warrior,’ Jandell said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  Drayn nodded, though she was not sure.

  ‘We need warriors now.’

  His eyes moved away from her, to the side of the board. A great pit had been carved into the ground: a vast, black hole.

  ‘That’s the way in for players like you,’ Jandell said. ‘You’ll have to leave, now. But I’ll be watching you.’ He nodded at the board, with its swirling, crazed surface.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘Help me.’

  She knew what his response would be, even before he shook his head and gave her a sad smile. But she had a strange faith in this creature. There was something in him that gave her hope. He came from darkness, she knew: a bleak pool of memory. But he wanted to change. He wanted to help humanity, not crush it. He had hurt many as he struggled to make the world a better place. But she had tasted the nightmare of Ruin, and she would always prefer the destructive dreams of Jandell the Bleak.

  ‘I can’t help you, down there,’ Jandell said. ‘The game is not for Operators. It is for mortals like you – and you will win. You will find the First Memory.’

  Drayn smiled. ‘And you will watch me.’

  Jandell nodded. ‘I will watch you, Drayn, until the end.’

  The girl nodded. She turned to the pit, and her hands curled into fists, the fingernails biting into her palms. She walked to the edge and gazed into the depths. There were faces there, in the dark: fleeting glimpses of creatures from the past.

  A great cheer erupted, somewhere to her side. She looked towards the stands, that amorphous grey mass. She turned back to the pit, steadied herself, and jumped.

  But Drayn did not fall. No: she was frozen in the air.

  A woman stood at the side of the pit: the woman from the statues. She was grotesque, her limbs stretched out of all proportion, her skin so pale as to be translucent, her eyes as purple as the rags she wore. She held her right hand up, and in the other grasped a mask, an ugly, pale thing, carved into the shape of a rat.

  Strategist. The word filled Drayn’s mind, crawling through her. Strategist. Strategist. Strategist. She thought of a little girl she had seen in a memory, dressed in rags.

  ‘No game for you,’ the woman said. ‘The game is over.’

  The Strategist snatched her hand in the air, and Drayn was raised upwards, far above the great pit. That same great rumble came again, the sound Drayn had heard in the pillared room. Now, however, it came from the table. It was growing, expanding outwards until it covered the hole entirely. The Strategist nodded, and Drayn fell onto the rock. The surface no longer swirled with colour. It was nothing more than stone.

  ‘What have you done?’ Jandell was standing on the table, at the side of the Strategist.

  The woman turned to him, and her smile was a terrible thing. ‘Jandell! What a way to greet me. What have I done, indeed.’ She laughed, before reaching out a hand and tickling her son under his chin. ‘Such a rude thing to ask Mother.’

  ‘This is a trick,’ Jandell said, gl
ancing at Drayn. ‘The game is not over. Drayn needs to play.’

  Mother shook her head. ‘It is over, Jandell. Can’t you feel it? Look at the board. It is dead.’

  Jandell stared at the stone, and his eyes were filled with sorrow. In that moment he was truly a child, a boy who had tried to trick his mother, only to find that all his plans, all his little schemes, meant nothing to her.

  ‘There is nothing you can do, now, Jandell. Ruin is coming.’

  ‘He is still trapped,’ Jandell said, backing away from the Strategist. He smiled, though there was no hope in his eyes.

  The woman cocked her head to the side. ‘Everything has happened as the Dust Queen foresaw.’ There was a hint of genuine sympathy in her words, pity for her wayward son. ‘This will be the same. She will take me to the Machinery, now that the game is at an end. I will open it, and Ruin will come.’

  Ruin. Drayn still sensed the shadow man, crawling through her memories. The world that was to come stretched before her: endless journeys through the worst of all memories, to feed the desires of a god.

  ‘The Old Place will be one of us, my son. It will live to aid us!’ She gestured at Drayn. ‘Not these bags of flesh and bone.’

  Jandell raised a hand. ‘I will stop you, Mother.’

  The woman laughed.

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  The sky above fell dark, and great torches sparked to life far away, along the walls of this monstrous structure. Drayn became aware of movement all around, a great, shadowy shuffle. She turned to see the stands were emptying, and thousands of people had gathered at the table. Not people. These were things of memory, creatures like the Strategist and Jandell and Ruin. They piled up together, line after line, men and women and children, and other things besides, shadows of nightmares and flickering colours. All of them danced with memories; she saw the past in them, moments from long ago, and all the power of the Old Place. But these things were not the same as the others she had encountered. They were weaker by far: the eternal servants of their older brethren.