Five figurines had been spread across the table’s surface. They were formed of different materials – wood, glass, stone – but they each were shaped into a person. He went through them, one after the other, lifting them up and examining them carefully. One of them was oddly familiar, though he could not think why: a plump woman, wearing a Watcher’s mask that had been formed into the face of a cat. Another figurine meant nothing to him: a young girl, slight, but displaying a kind of defiant bravery. The girl held a parchment, on which tiny letters had been written. Brandione held it to his eye and read the meaningless words: House of Thonn.
‘I saw that girl, long ago,’ the Dust Queen whispered. ‘She is not a citizen of your Overland. She has never set foot on your Plateau. But she will help to reshape your world. She will fall, and she will rise again. The Fallen Girl.’
Brandione studied the figurine for a moment longer, then placed her back on the table, near the plump woman. He knew the other figurines only too well. He lifted one of them, formed of painted glass: a youngish man with narrow features, his hair painted a garish yellow. His hands were steepled, the tips of his fingers resting at the base of his chin. He wore an aquamarine cloak.
Brandione glanced at the Queen, whose eyes sparkled at him.
‘This is Aranfal,’ he said. ‘A Watcher of the Overland.’ He sighed. ‘A torturer, like all the rest of them. But he was the worst.’ He raised the figurine to his eye. ‘In the … olden times, he took me on a journey to a museum in the Far Below. Him and Squatstout.’ The thought of the little man sent a shudder through him.
The Queen laughed. ‘Squatstout!’
Brandione looked up at her. ‘Yes. He’s an assistant to the Watchers. Do you know him?’
The Dust Queen shook her three heads. ‘He is not an assistant to the Watchers. He is a thing of the oldest ages. He is a creature of the shadows, though he longs for the light. He is a glory of the world.’
‘He is like you?’
The Queen favoured him with three faint smiles.
Brandione placed Aranfal back on the table, and lifted another figurine. The marble was formed into the shape of a fat man, clad in a shawl. He was bald, and even in this form, a heavy sadness clouded his eyes.
‘Canning,’ Brandione said, placing the last Expansion Tactician back into his place upon the swirling board. ‘He was always a good man, though he was weak.’
‘A strange man,’ the Queen said. ‘He is complex, though he sees no good in himself. He has been suppressed by others, through his life; the higher he climbed, the worse it all became.’
‘He was not a bad person,’ Brandione said, ‘but he was not a good Tactician.’
Three sets of shoulders shrugged. ‘He was Selected by the Machinery. You all followed it blindly, yet you loathed one of its choices.’
Brandione nodded. ‘Perhaps. But it’s too late now. We will never know what he could have achieved.’
The Queen laughed. ‘Never know? The game has not even begun, Brandione.’ She pointed one of her fingers at the last figurine. ‘Pick that one up.’
Brandione lifted the final piece, and held it before him.
‘I know this man better than all the others,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps I only thought I did.’
The figure of Brandione was carved of wood. It showed the one-time General as he once had been, clad in his leather armour, upright and proud. He thought of himself now, still wearing the rags of a prisoner. Am I still a General, with my army of dust? No. The old Brandione was dead; he had died with the Overland. They all had. He began to long for this person, and for all the things he had worn, all the things he had been, when he was Charls Brandione, leader of the Overland’s armies, at the right hand of the Strategist …
The Dust Queen coughed. The rags disappeared, and his armour returned. A handcannon hung from his left side, and a sword from the other. He nodded at her, but his mind was elsewhere.
‘Question,’ she said.
His mind swirled with possibilities. He could ask her about this game, perhaps. He could ask her what his role was to be in the future. But strangely, these did not seem to matter.
He turned back to the board. ‘What are you?’
He wondered if the question was too specific. But then the Dust Queen smiled.
Chapter Two
‘Canning.’
The last Tactician in the Overland sat on a wooden stool, wearing only a ragged smock. He was thin, these days. He lifted his head and glanced at Aranfal, before turning once more to the dirt.
‘Tactician Canning,’ the Watcher said. He wasn’t supposed to use that title. Not any more. But he couldn’t help himself.
Free Canning, if you can. That’s what Jandell had said. The one we called the Operator, before we knew there was more than one.
The prisoner forced his head up and looked at Aranfal again, his eyes dull in the candlelight. He was attempting to control himself. The greatness of the spirit. How many times had Aranfal seen that, here, in the Bowels of the See House?
But never like this. Canning is braver than he looks.
‘Water. Please.’
Aranfal walked out into the corridor, scanning it quickly. Operator Shirkra would not like it if she knew he was helping Canning. She wouldn’t like it at all.
He crouched down, and pulled a stone up from the floor. Inside the hole was a wooden cup of water, hidden on another visit. The liquid looked rancid, but Canning wouldn’t mind. It might keep him alive. And he still wants to live, though only the Machinery knows why.
The Watcher returned to the cell, and lifted the cup to Canning’s lips. The former Tactician drank greedily, dirty water slopping across his cheeks. He gave Aranfal a hopeful look when he had finished. The Watcher had seen that look many times, too, down here. For a moment, memories crowded his vision: the broken rubble of his past.
‘There is no more,’ Aranfal said. ‘It wouldn’t do you any good, anyway. You shouldn’t have too much, in your state.’
Canning nodded. His head fell forward, and it seemed for a moment that he might have fallen asleep. Before long, however, he hacked out a cough, and looked up again at the Watcher.
‘You’re helping me. Why?’
Because Jandell asked me to, in the ruins of the Circus. But it wasn’t Aranfal who bowed to the Operator, back then. Aranfal would have nodded, before running as far as he could. No: Aranfal was fading away, and Aran Fal was returning. That was the boy who went to the See House all those years ago: the boy whose names were forced together by Brightling herself. Not perfect, not by a long shot. But a man who helps another man in the Bowels of the See House.
He studied Canning again. There was something different about the former Tactician, something that had changed fundamentally. The Watcher struggled for the word. Toughness, perhaps? Was he changing, too? Did the end of the Machinery do something to them all – free them to become themselves?
‘Because you’re not allowed to die,’ he said.
‘Ah.’ Canning nodded. ‘Shirkra. She likes having me here. She likes to hurt me.’
Aranfal shrugged. ‘That’s part of it, I suppose. But nothing happens without the Strategist’s say so. Not any more. That’s why you’re alive.’
Canning snorted. ‘Why would she want to keep me alive?’
Why indeed?
‘I cannot begin to fathom …’ He thought, for a moment, of the new power in the Overland. He had not seen her since the Selection; no one had. Still, her presence was everywhere, a purple smoke that clogged the lungs and stung the eyes. ‘Perhaps she thinks you will help her.’
‘How could I help her?’
Aranfal squinted at Canning. They had had this conversation many times, here in the darkness of the Bowels, but Canning never seemed to remember. What has happened to him? Has Shirkra rummaged about in his mind a little too much? Aranfal had seen what the female Operator could do. She played with a person’s memories, and she twisted them until they bled. But no. More than that
. She took power from them. It reminded him of a story he had read, long ago, as a child in the North: a story about ancient magic, of gods that toyed with men and women, stole from them and abused them, but who always were defeated, in the end, tricked by the same ploys they used against their victims. Were those just stories, or were they history? He smiled at his own hopefulness: Aranfal laughing at Aran Fal.
‘The Strategist only cares about one thing,’ Aranfal said. He looked into the corners, as if she might be hiding there, the thing that had once been Katrina Paprissi. She would not like me talking about her. Or perhaps she would. How would I know? He sighed. What did it matter, anyway? He never knew how things worked in this new world.
‘The Strategist only cares about the Machinery. That’s all. She’s not been here; she’s been searching for it. Perhaps she thinks you can help her find it.’
Canning coughed a laugh. ‘Me? I thought she was the One, whatever that means? She thinks I could help her? Not even Brightling knew where the Machinery was. No one knows, apart from the Operator, and sometimes not even him, if the stories are to be believed. Doesn’t she think I would have said something by now, to get myself away from her … her …’
‘Shirkra,’ Aranfal said, glancing again at the shadows of the cell.
‘Yes. Her Shirkra.’ Canning trembled, and his head lolled forward again. He lifted it with great effort, making a grunting noise.
‘I don’t know what the Strategist thinks,’ Aranfal said with a shrug. ‘I’m just guessing. Maybe she likes the way you smell. How would I know? We never see her.’
Canning’s face broke into a dark smile. ‘Then who rules the Overland? Shirkra?’
Aranfal shrugged again. He was being too free with his words. What does it matter? Shirkra will kill him soon anyway. Whether the Strategist wills it or not, Shirkra will kill this man …
‘No one rules the Overland. The Watchers do what Shirkra wants, but I’m not sure you could call it ruling. I don’t know what the people are doing. I don’t know how they run their lives.’ By running away, if they have any sense.
‘They look after themselves now,’ Canning said. ‘As it should be. We would have been better off all along, without these gods and their machines.’
For a moment, the Watcher was surprised. Is that how we all think of them now? As gods? But his attention was soon diverted by a noise in the corridor outside: a gate being opened, far away.
‘She’s coming again.’ There was a tremor in Canning’s voice. ‘The woman in the white mask.’
Footsteps came to them, delicate feet padding across cold stone.
‘Have you seen what she does to me, Aranfal? Have you been here, when she … I can’t remember. I can’t remember seeing you here.’
The Watcher did not respond. It was too late, now. Shirkra was among them.
She was the same as always, a thin woman in a green dress, curls of red hair flowing behind her mask, that weird thing that approximated her own face and seemed to shift between expressions. It was strange; the Watcher had seen her many times since the events of the Circus, but he could never quite hold a steady image of her in his mind’s eye. To leave her side was to wake from a nightmare; there was always a sense of something vast, terrible, and untouchable, fading into nothingness.
In Mother’s absence, she had emerged as the dominant force in the See House, and in the Centre at large. Her reign was strange and volatile: she would lock herself away for days, and then appear, ordering the Watchers to burn every second house on an unfortunate street, or poison the wells of an almshouse, or swap the stones in a cemetery. It was chaos. But then, so was she.
Still, it was clear she worked within certain boundaries that Mother had laid down. This was agony for her; she took out her anger on Canning, and the other unfortunates she held in the Bowels.
Aranfal, though, had become something of a favourite of the woman in the white mask. It was not a comfortable place to be; sometimes he would have traded places with Canning.
‘Watcher Aranfal!’ she cried, clapping her hands. ‘What a delight! You have been avoiding me, hmm? You have. I know you have.’
She went to him and reached out a hand, brushing a tendril of blond hair from his cheek.
‘Why don’t you love me, Aranfal? I love you.’
‘Thank you, my lady.’
‘Am I wrong, my Aranfal? Do you love me? Tell me. Please. Tell me if you love me, or if you don’t. I can withstand the blow, Aranfal! I am so old, you must realise. I have seen so many come and go, and very few of them loved me, no, very few indeed.’ She sighed. ‘Tell me. Do you love me, or not?’
The Watcher stretched out a smile. ‘I love you, of course, Operator. I love you more than the stars.’
‘More than the stars!’ Shirkra clapped her hands together and spun on her heel, her green dress billowing through the cell. ‘That is good, that is good!’ She halted, and the eyes behind the mask suddenly narrowed. ‘You will not look at another, will you, Aranfal? I should take your eyes, perhaps, and hide them in my little cupboard, and then you will never look at anyone else, for it will be beyond you, hmm?’
Aranfal bowed. ‘As you wish, madam.’
The Operator’s shriek of laughter echoed off the stone walls. ‘As I wish, indeed! Someone who cares for my wishes, hmm? Mother won’t let me do anything, you know. All she worries about is the Machinery! “No fun until we find its remains! Work before play!” Who would have thought that victory would be so boring?’
The Operator walked towards the one-time Tactician, who moaned as she approached. His eyes flickered, and he looked once more to the floor.
She raised a finger, and began to play with a memory.
They were in some kind of a harbour. Before them was a wall, and below that the grey sea. The cobblestones reeked of fish, rotting before them, dead eyes staring up into nothing. Canning was there, a more youthful version, with a woman at his side. She was younger than him, much younger, barely older than eighteen. The girl reached out to Canning and struck him, before climbing the wall, and falling, down to the sea below.
They were back in the cell. There was a dull glow of reddish light, fading into nothing.
The former Tactician wheezed, and blood fell from his lips. How does she make them bleed? ‘It did not happen like that … I know it did not … you have twisted it.’
Shirkra laughed. ‘No one is ever right about memories, not even the people who own them. What does it matter, anyway? They are so much more than … mere records.’
She leaned forward, and kissed Canning on the forehead. He flinched, but was too weak to move away.
Shirkra laughed. ‘Memories are strange things, you know. They are not just images in the mind.’ She reached out and touched a black wall. ‘This See House of yours – there are memories in the stones.’
‘When will you kill him?’
Canning caught Aranfal’s gaze for the briefest of moments, and the Watcher saw a spark there: the light of life. But it quickly expired, and the former Tactician’s head slumped forward once more.
Shirkra hesitated. ‘Kill him?’ The shadows in the cell grew longer. ‘That would be a kindness. I am not cruel, you know. I like my games, but I am not cruel. Still – I cannot kill him – no, I cannot.’
‘Why not?’ Aranfal stepped towards her. ‘You are the Mother of Chaos. Who can stop you from doing anything?’
Shirkra snatched her mask from her face. She giggled like a young girl, her hand held before her little mouth. ‘You seek to trick me into bringing his death, Aranfal! You think it would be a kindness, hmm? I see through your tricks. If I kill him, you know, I will be in such trouble, because Mother loves him, hmm? She thinks she sees something in this creature, though what it is, I cannot tell.’
She turned upon Canning.
‘But then again – trouble. Hmm. What would happen if I got in trouble? Real trouble? Would it not be a bit … fun to get in trouble with Mother? I haven’t been in trouble wit
h Mother for ages, you know. I’ve been so good all this time. It’s nice when you get in trouble with Mother. It shows she cares, ha ha ha ha ha!’
Aranfal laughed, though he did not know why. The longer you serve her, the more you become her. Everything is a cloud of nothing, and only laughter breaks it.
‘We should do it together, Aranfal!’ Shirkra was beside him, wearing her mask once again.
Chaos is making a plan, making it forever, abiding by it, building the rules, and then twisting in a new direction, a different way, hmm, without knowing where it will take—
She held his hand in hers. ‘Imagine, both of us getting into trouble with Mother! And Jandell would be so angry, too, wherever he may be – you told him you would look after Canning, hmm? I don’t need any powers to know that, ha ha. I know what he’s like. “Oh, promise me, Aranfal, promise me, hmm, won’t you look after my little child, who withers in the den of the vipers, hmm?”’
Aranfal looked to Canning. It’s true, it’s true, she knows you so well.
Children.
Another voice, from nowhere and everywhere.
The Strategist.
Come to me.
**
Aranfal was in the Underhall.
This was the largest room in the See House, as far as anyone knew, a vast cavern of damp stone, broken portraits, and rotten wooden furniture. It was said to be the dining hall of ancient Tacticians, before they grew tired of feasting in the Bowels. But no one came here, now.
Shirkra was at the back of the hall, her ear pressed against a wooden door that festered with mould. She was no longer wearing her mask. She called Aranfal to her, and beckoned him to do the same.
A thin, reedy sound came from beyond.
‘Music,’ he said. He looked at Shirkra, who nodded once, and giggled.
The Strategist Page 2
