The Strategist

by Gerrard Cowan

  Three streaks of light burst forth from the Old Place, great blasts of shifting colours, tearing into the Absence like cannon fire. Brandione gazed at the light, and for a moment, a thousand faces appeared in the blaze. There was no question in his mind: this was the Dust Queen.

  The Great Absence began to recede, and colour filled the space it left behind. The void became a fury of memory, a tempest of the past. Even when he closed his eyes, Brandione could not avoid it: a stream of images, of cherished thoughts and fearful recollections. He felt the power of memory, and he bowed his head before it.

  ‘Memory is its own thing,’ the Queen said. ‘No one knows what a memory will do: no one knows what a memory can conjure. Memories can trick; memories can deceive; memories can overwhelm us. The Old Place is unknowable.’

  The blackness was now gone, and the stench of death had vanished. All the strands of light – Old Place and Dust Queen – joined together once more, and began to shrink. Soon, the sky became the true night once again: stars pricked the darkness, and the world appeared before them, thrumming with life. The Old Place disappeared from view, but it was still there. Brandione could feel it: the home of memory.

  ‘What happened to the Absence?’

  **

  But now he was somewhere else.

  Wayward was lying on Brandione’s bed in the magnificent tent the Queen had given him. The courtier wore a nightgown of the brightest gold, with ribbons of the same colour running through his hair. His eyes were closed, but Brandione knew he was awake.

  ‘That is enough talk of the Absence,’ Wayward said in a quiet voice. ‘It hurts her to speak of it. You must have seen that.’

  Brandione reached out to his desk, and rested a hand against it, his head bowed. He was unsteady: on his feet, and within himself. An old anger rose within: the rage of the powerless.

  Wayward sat up on the bed.

  ‘I see that you are angry, Last Doubter.’

  Brandione breathed deeply. ‘My old Provost at the College said I was always angry, and that my whole life was an attempt to smother it. But I couldn’t stop it, he said, so it propelled me forward.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Wayward nodded, and seemed lost in contemplation.

  ‘Were you there, in that place, Wayward? How can you be my guide, when I couldn’t see you there?’

  Wayward stood from the bed. ‘She lets me look through her eyes. It’s good for you to have a guide, is it not? Through all this?’ He waved a hand at their surroundings.

  Brandione nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose.’ The anger was subsiding. He heard a noise from outside the tent: a steady drumming on the sand. He looked at the doorway, and saw line after line of the sand soldiers, marching past, massed ranks of grey infantry in yellow cloaks.

  ‘Your army,’ Wayward said. ‘Once, it was her army. Now it is yours. The army of the Last Doubter.’

  Brandione turned back, to see that the courtier had taken a place next to a painting which stood on a plinth in the centre of the room. Brandione had not seen it before. Had he simply never noticed it? Or had Wayward conjured it from thin air?

  The subject of the painting was instantly familiar to Brandione, as it would have been to any citizen of the Overland. It was the Operator, standing alone against a night sky, his arms spread wide. He was a youth, here, a young man with long black hair. He wore a red cloak: no sign of his strange garment of a thousand entrapped faces.

  ‘Do you know him?’ Wayward asked.

  Brandione nodded. ‘Of course. It is the Operator.’

  Wayward smiled. ‘Indeed. He is the answer to your question – what happened to the Absence? I will answer it, if I may.’ He bowed. ‘After the Queen defeated the Absence, it returned, many times. How could it be killed? It was the stuff of the universe, hmm? And so they fought and fought and fought. Over the ages, the Old Place created new weapons: creatures of memory, like the Queen. Jandell was one of them.’

  ‘Jandell?’

  Wayward laughed. ‘That is his name, Last Doubter, or the one we have called him for long ages. They say that Jandell was taken from a pit of sadness, a place of despair, grim memories with a dark power. Oh, he was quite a weapon. And there were others, too.’

  He pointed again at the painting. When Brandione looked now he saw a woman with red hair, wearing a white mask and a green dress.

  ‘I know her,’ he whispered.

  ‘Shirkra,’ Wayward said. ‘A strange creature, born from strange things. She calls herself the Mother of Chaos, though she is no mother. It’s just a childish title she gives herself. Indeed, I believe she is a child, in many ways.’

  Brandione nodded. ‘All of them are memories.’

  ‘Yes, yes, all of them are creatures of memory – perhaps not one memory, but many.’ He cocked his head to the side. ‘None of them – not Jandell, not Mother, not Shirkra – none of them are as powerful as the Queen. She is a thing of so many parts.’ He nodded, and for a moment his eyes clouded up, and he was far away. ‘Eventually, the Absence could resist these weapons no longer. That conflicted being – caught between its desire to return to emptiness, and the truth of its godliness – was broken and destroyed, its being shattered. They say Jandell kept one of the shards.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Are you one too?’

  Wayward laughed. ‘Oh, I am very young indeed, and never knew the Absence: I was born just ten millennia ago, after the Machinery was made. The Queen was lonely, you see, as she went to live in the Prison.’ He snapped his fingers together. ‘She wanted a companion. The older creatures, like her, can form beings of their own, as the Old Place formed them. I cannot tell what kind of memories made me – weak ones, I imagine.’ He gave a modest little chuckle. ‘There are many more like me. Pale imitations of the great ones.’ He shrugged. ‘Still, can’t complain.’

  He rushed forward to Brandione.

  ‘Have I pleased you?’ he asked. ‘Have I answered your question?’ He gazed into Brandione’s eyes.

  The Last Doubter nodded. ‘Yes, yes …’ He patted Wayward on the shoulder. His anger had dissipated. Was he being manipulated? He did not believe so. There was something eager about Wayward: a desire to please others. That’s why he made a good companion for her, perhaps.

  ‘What’s next?’ Brandione asked.

  Wayward smiled. ‘What do you think, Last Doubter? You must go back to her. You are learning so much. All of it will be so useful to you in the game. Oh yes, you …’

  But his words faded into nothing, as the tent melted away.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Ask me a question, Aranfal. Ask me a lovely question.’

  They were in Aranfal’s apartments. Shirkra was standing at the Watcher’s collection, a trove of ancient artefacts he had taken over the years from Doubters’ dens. She was examining a bronze statue, turning it over in her hands. It showed a little girl and boy, hand in hand: twins, to look at them. Aranfal had never liked those children, yet he could not bring himself to throw them away. He could never throw anything away.

  ‘I have many questions, my lady.’

  He was sitting in a leather chair beside his fireplace. It was late at night, and the room glowed with candlelight. Shirkra had been here when he arrived, an hour before, from the See House library. He went there often, these days, searching for answers to strange questions. But the answers never came.

  She turned and smiled at him from beneath her mask. She was a strange thing, beautiful, but hard to look upon. She reminded him of a firestorm he had once seen in the West, a terrible conflagration that devoured a forest and two villages before they could stop it. He had watched it from a hillside, repelled and attracted at once. Perhaps Aranfal was attracted, and Aran Fal was repelled.

  He was beginning to wonder if both those two men could live within him, together, for much longer.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

  Shirkra shrugged. ‘Where are any of us going?’

  ‘I didn’t mean it in a philosophical sense.
Mother said you should take me … wherever you are going.’

  She giggled. ‘You are so serious, Aranfal, so serious! We are going to see the Gamesman, of course. Where else would we go when a game is being prepared? He should already be hard at work, getting everything ready for us. Oh, but he is a tricky thing, the Gamesman. It’s just his nature. We must make sure he is not being slothful, or trying to deceive us.’

  She crossed the room, and took a chair by Aranfal’s side.

  ‘Ask me something else, my Aranfal.’ She rolled the syllables of his name in her mouth like she could taste every corner of them. ‘Ask me another question. I know you have many questions, hmm, I can feel them within your beautiful head.’

  She reached out and tapped his forehead. The Watcher coughed.

  ‘What is the game?’

  Shirkra waved a hand impatiently. ‘A thing of old. I don’t know why the Queen wants to play it again, but I don’t trust her, oh no, not at all.’ She grinned. ‘But you will find out all about the game, in time. Ask me something else.’

  Aranfal thought for a moment. He was learning that the only way to get answers from Shirkra was to approach her from strange angles, and never from the front.

  ‘Ruin will come with the One,’ he said.

  Shirkra cocked her head to the side and gave the Watcher a curious look. ‘Ah. That is not a question, my love. I spent many long years hidden away from civilisation, oh yes, but even I can tell that this is not a question, oh no.’

  Aranfal nodded. ‘Is Mother the One?’

  Shirkra laughed. ‘Of course! Of course! You know all this already, my Aranfal, or at least you should know it by now! Yes, she has many names: the One, Mother, and others besides. Jandell thought he had killed her, long ago, and so he did not believe the Promise. Hmm? How could Ruin come with the One, when there is no One, hmm? That is what he thought. Oh, the arrogant fool!’

  ‘But what is Ruin, my lady? The One has come. The Machinery has Selected her. But the world is carrying on as normal. The worst thing she has done is … well, nothing at all. She hasn’t done anything. She doesn’t attempt to run the country. She doesn’t try to ruin the country. People don’t know what she wants, so they just go about their business. That’s not really Ruin, in my book.’

  Aranfal was reminded of all the days and nights he had spent in the Bowels of the See House, coaxing information from Doubters in whatever way he could. Sometimes violence was unnecessary. He would have laughed, if he could. The very idea that I’m using my tricks on a creature like Shirkra.

  ‘But it’s not done yet, Aranfal, it’s not done yet! Haven’t you paid attention, my love? Mother must find the Machinery first, hmm? It is broken, but still Ruin hasn’t come – so it must be trapped inside. That’s why she wants to please the Queen.’ Shirkra turned her head an inch, and spat upon the floor.

  Almost there.

  ‘So Ruin is not among us?’

  ‘Oh no, oh no! Of course not, no! Ruin will surely come, but it has not come yet. It remains in bonds.’ She grinned at him. ‘Of course, Ruin may have changed over the millennia. It might not be the same thing that we are all expecting. So I can’t tell you exactly what it is, if that’s what you’re getting at, oh no, my dear Aranfal.’

  Damn.

  Shirkra smiled, and held him with her gaze. Aranfal saw his own past, marching before him in an endless stream: cold days on northern coasts; a journey to a black tower, where he became Aranfal; and so many tormented souls, languishing under his grip. All of that felt distant, now: the work of another man.

  ‘Let me ask you a question, my Aranfal.’ Her voice came from afar, like a whisper from another room. ‘What are you, now that the Machinery has abandoned you? What are any of you, hmm? Nothing but bags of flesh: the makers of lovely memories.’

  There was a knock on the door outside, and the spell was broken.

  ‘I’ll get it!’ Shirkra cried. She leapt to her feet and vanished from the room.

  Aranfal placed his head in his hands. She was right, of course. What were they, without the Machinery? Aranfal or Aran Fal? Do others feel a change, too? Back to some … past …

  He felt himself drifting, but Shirkra’s reappearance snapped him back to reality. Another Watcher was there, a chubby woman, her unkempt hair spilling out from behind a cat mask. She thrummed with some inner rhythm, tapping her feet on the floor.

  ‘Good evening, Aleah,’ Aranfal said. There was a tremor in his voice.

  Aleah nodded to him.

  She does not bow to me, once the second of all the Watchers. Her ambition is clear. The institution needed people like her. In fact, it actively encouraged their development: competition kept the senior Watchers on their toes, and nurtured the growth of the newest crop. Still, there was something about Aleah that made Aranfal uneasy. She had adapted too smoothly to the new world, the world of Mother and Shirkra, a world without the Machinery, without leaders, without Brightling. She relishes the changes. She sees opportunity in upheaval.

  ‘Come, Aranfal,’ Shirkra said, throwing him his aquamarine cloak. ‘We must go.’ She turned to Aleah, and caught her in a sudden embrace. ‘You will look after the tower until we return, my darling, oh yes. You will care for Mother. Hmm?’

  ‘Yes, Madam Shirkra.’ This time, she bowed.

  As Aranfal left the room with Shirkra, Aleah smirked at him. But he did not care. Take my position. Take whatever you want. None of it matters any more.

  Chapter Eight

  As time wore on, Canning felt himself change.

  He could never recall, in later days, exactly when it happened. Perhaps that was only natural, when the days and nights were an endless cycle, watching Annya as she leapt and wallowing in so many other memories.

  How best to describe the change that came over the one-time Tactician of Expansion? Perhaps it could be said that he developed a certain … capability. He began to see his prison in a new light. When he was at that hated dock, he was trapped in a memory: his own memory, taken from him and twisted into something terrible. But over time, he became aware of the outline, the shape of the nightmare. He could see the edge of the memory. He could feel something there, an old, burning energy: the flickering light he had seen in Shirkra.

  Over a long time – hours, days, months, who could tell – he felt himself develop a kind of separation from the nightmare. He could even tear himself away from it for periods of time, and return to his cell. He could feel the realness of the walls, before the memory overwhelmed him again.

  He did not know how this had happened, but of one thing he was sure: Shirkra did not know about it. Once, she came to him, and watched as the memory unfolded. She had thought him weak and humiliated. But she was wrong. He had been in the memory, but this time he had felt like an observer, rather than a victim. And she did not realise.

  He thought she would work it out soon. But until she did, he held a kind of minor power over her. It was the first time he had really held a power over anyone, in truth, which was saying something for a former Tactician of the Overland.

  And that was how he escaped.

  **

  Shirkra came one night while he slept on the cold ground, placing a hand on his shoulder and turning him over.

  ‘Come,’ she said. The door of the cell was open.

  The former Tactician dreaded what this could mean, but he followed her nonetheless, staring at the train of the green dress as it was dragged across the stone and the dirt. It felt like they were descending deeper into the Bowels of the See House, though that seemed scarcely possible. How deep can one building be?

  But on they went. After some time, the lines and form of the building gave way to damp rocks and pools of stagnant water, the trappings of a subterranean cave. The fineries of civilisation – if the See House had any – were now far behind.

  ‘Where are we?’ he asked into the gloom. He did not expect a response, and none came.

  Will you ever leave this place? Perhaps not. Where wo
uld you go, anyway? There is no stall, any more, no Annya and no market. There is nothing for you, anywhere, nothing but the white mask and the memories and the cold stones.

  **

  The surroundings changed again. The cave became a corridor, wide and grand, illuminated by torches that sent out a flickering purple glow. It seemed to be a kind of museum, with shelves all around, groaning under the weight of strange objects. There was a spiked ball on a chain, rusted and broken. There were statuettes of creatures Canning had never seen before: spotted animals with long necks, and grey titans with short horns. He lifted a heavy object, like a handcannon, but smooth, black, and small. Its lines were too clean, its edges too perfect. Where did it come from?

  Paintings hung on the walls. There was the old Operator, unmistakable; Shirkra, unmasked, a thing of unsurpassed beauty; and others he did not recognise.

  ‘This is not the See House,’ he said.

  Shirkra stopped and turned her gaze upon him, the eyes no longer green, but burning red in the mask. ‘No, it is not. This is the Old Place. But what is the See House, if not a spark of the Old Place?’

  She pointed to the end of the corridor, where a purple light glowed. Canning did not know what it was, or where it could have come from. But when he looked at it, he felt the past whispering to him.

  Shirkra removed her mask, and turned the full glare of her beauty upon him.

  ‘Beyond sits the future of the world, as Selected by your Machinery. We will visit her now. I advise you to show respect of the most abject kind.’

  Canning nodded. Abject respect was not difficult for him.

  Shirkra went first. Canning turned back and stole a last glance at the corridor; some unseen force was extinguishing the torches.

  **

  He was on a beach. The sand was black, as was the sky, and a red sun burned down on them. The sea roiled in anger, its water an iron grey. In the distance was a woman. She was far away, but he could still make out the shape of her body, the pale skin, the black hair, the purple rags.