The Strategist

by Gerrard Cowan

  And so she walked beside the Protector, thinking, thinking, thinking, and willing something to happen that would save her from whatever this Choosing had in store for her.

  ‘Wait!’

  Squatstout. He was far below, calling up at them with panic in his voice.

  The Protector turned and looked down upon his master.

  ‘Her mask!’ Squatstout panted. ‘I can’t let her go down there with that mask! Who knows what will happen to it? I must have it!’

  Brightling froze. She could have faced anything he threw at her, apart from this. He cannot have my mask.

  The Protector turned his golden face to Brightling, and put out his hand. She looked down the stairs. Squatstout was climbing the stone corkscrew as quickly as his little legs would allow, his eyes focused on her all the while.

  Brightling felt the mask. It sent a thrill through her, as always. I have no choice. She removed it, just as Squatstout reached them.

  The Protector leaned forward to gain a better view of it, his beak almost touching the mask itself. Squatstout arrived in a fluster, eyes wide, tongue lolling at the side of his mouth.

  ‘Let me see it, Brightling, let me see it!’

  He reached out and snatched the mask from her. They had stopped by one of the windows. Cold daylight shone through on the dark material. It had assumed one of its most common forms: the face of a man, his features flat and hard. The eyeholes were narrowed in anger; there was a mouth, this time, and it had formed itself into an ‘O’ shape, as if roaring some soundless threat.

  She loved this thing, but it frightened her. She wondered if Squatstout and the Protector saw it, too. How could a mask change? Perhaps it did not; perhaps the viewer changed when they looked upon it.

  ‘It is … my goodness, Brightling.’ Squatstout held the mask up to the window. ‘Aranfal told me about this thing, but I could scarcely believe his words. Do you know what it is?’

  ‘The Operator made it.’

  ‘Yes, Jandell made this himself. Only he could craft such a thing.’ Squatstout’s grin widened. ‘He does love his masks, you know. He has always been a craftsman, of many different things, but masks are his favourites. He thinks a mask has two aspects: a side that conceals, and a side that reveals. This thing, though … it is different. It is not of the Old Place.’ He winced. ‘It is weak, now. But I can still feel its power. It hates me! It despises memory, and all the creatures of memory! Oh, it would kill me, if it could! Tell me, when you wear it, what do you feel?’

  ‘I feel that I am utterly empty,’ Brightling said without thinking. ‘But it is … a strange emptiness. It is an emptiness that seeks to devour. It wants to make everything empty, but it will never be satisfied. When I have used it on Doubters …’

  Squatstout brought the mask close to his eye. ‘You have almost destroyed them, I am sure. You have felt close to scraping out their minds.’

  Brightling nodded.

  Squatstout turned the mask over in his pudgy little hands. ‘Long ago, we had an enemy, a creature older than any of us, and so very different. This mask is formed of a part of that enemy.’ A puzzled look crossed the little man’s face. ‘The Absence, we called it. It is dead, now. And yet, still I feel it hurting me. Don’t you feel it, Protector? Don’t you feel it tugging at you? It is weak … but it still has a power.’

  Brightling turned to the window. She noticed, then, that the Protector’s hand was on her arm, holding her in a tight grip. How long had it been there? She felt something rise within her. Take your fucking hand off me.

  And the mask was on her face.

  Squatstout’s mouth hung open as he looked at her; he held his empty hands in the air. Brightling felt the mask crawl over her skin, sensed it changing, though she did not know what form it took.

  ‘No!’ Squatstout called, cringing away from it. ‘How can …’

  Brightling spun, and knocked the Protector aside. She kicked out, and sent Squatstout down the staircase.

  She found herself on the balcony. She found herself on the edge.

  She found herself falling, down to the water.

  Chapter Ten

  It was a typical morning on the Habitation: wet, cold, and stinking of fish. But it was far from a normal day.

  Drayn woke at the usual time. She breakfasted with Mother and talked of trivialities, as if two Choosings within days of one another was something that happened all the time. Mother passed the seagull and buttered the bread; she put too much salt on her plate, and chided Drayn, as ever, for the girl’s late-night adventures with Cranwyl. There was no talk of what might happen that day. No mention of the cliff’s edge.

  But at the end of the meal, as Drayn stood to leave, Mother took her by the hand, and looked at her. She reached out, brushed the hair from her daughter’s eye, seemed momentarily puzzled, and turned back to her kippers.

  **

  Cranwyl and Drayn were standing at the main gate of the house. The Thonns lived on the Higher Third, almost at the peak of the Habitation, and from here one could stare out across much of the island below. The Endless Ocean stretched on forever, grey and vast and, until recently, empty.

  ‘We can’t stand here much longer, Drayn. They’ll see we’re not there.’

  ‘We still have a few minutes.’

  Cranwyl smiled and put a hand on her shoulder, as if he were some wise old man.

  ‘Look, we might not even get sent to the Courtyard this time.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Come on. There’s no getting away from it. We’ll have to go eventually, and it may as well be now.’

  He took her by the arm, but she pulled away.

  ‘Listen, Cranwyl, I’ll go when I bloody want. You go ahead if you like. We’re in the Higher Third, by the Autocrat’s nose; we’re two seconds away.’

  Cranwyl sighed. Drayn folded her arms and looked out to the water for moment longer. It actually was getting quite late.

  ‘Right, let’s go.’

  **

  The first stage of the Choosing took place just below the Lord Squatstout’s Keep. The people walked before the Guards, trudging along for hour after hour, herded together like animals. The Guards assessed them through their masks, and picked those who would have to take their chances in the Courtyard. No one knew how they reached their decisions, except the Guards themselves. Those who got a nod had to go in.

  A Guard nodded at Cranwyl and Drayn as they walked by.

  ‘I thought we might get away with it this time,’ Cranwyl whispered.

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Drayn.

  They walked through the gate. The Courtyard was a strange name for this place, but it was what Squatstout called it, and that was enough for them. It was a sand-covered pit, surrounded by high stone walls, with a stage at the front where the Guards strutted, staring out from behind their horrible masks. She studied them carefully. Something is missing. The Protector. Where is the Protector?

  Above the stage there hung the great bell, a thing of iron, unscarred over the millennia. It rang out at its loudest, now, shaking the ground with its terrible toll. Some of the lucky ones – the ones who got a head shake, not a nod – had taken positions on the walls above, staring down at the spectacle. Mother was among them, impassive and restrained.

  ‘No sign yet of the Autocrat,’ said Cranwyl.

  Drayn nodded. She noticed her foot was tapping on the ground. A sign of nerves. That’s what Dad called it. She planted it hard on the ground. There’s no point in being afraid. You fall, or you don’t. Then you get Chosen, or you don’t. What happens, happens. She believed all this; she believed it in her head, at least.

  At the back of the stage, a wooden door groaned open, and the crowd fell into total silence. There was a delay of a minute or so before he emerged: Lord Squatstout, their Autocrat. He smiled at his people with his usual radiance, but there was something amiss. Drayn could always tell when something was wrong; everyone could tell when something was wrong with the Autocrat. He s
eemed worried; even his clothes were unkempt. What has happened to him? It must be these newcomers. He’s been thrown off balance by them, and the second Choosing, like everyone else.

  ‘Inhabitants,’ the lord said, ‘this is our second Choosing in – what is it? Two days? Three days?’ There was a catch in his voice: a nervous little tickle.

  No one in the Courtyard answered. They knew better than to respond. The Guards watched them carefully, gripping their pikes.

  ‘The Choosing is the heart of our world. Through it, we seek to satisfy the mighty Voice, which has spoken to me for millennia,’ the Autocrat said. ‘But more than this – the Voice keeps us safe. It plucks out the weeds in our midst, the stinking little grubs unworthy of its beneficence. Yet the recent Choosing was incomplete. We did not know that new people would come to our Habitation. We have recently welcomed my brother, the Lord Jandell, and his mortal companion. My brother is staying with me, now, in my Keep. His friend has agreed to take part in our Choosing; I have already sent her down below.’

  That is not the truth. Drayn knew it, in the depth of her heart.

  The crowd cheered, but the noise was quickly drowned out by a rumbling sound from below the Courtyard. Drayn took Cranwyl by the hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You didn’t fall the last time. There’s no reason you would this time, either. Your mother’s always said the Autocrat would keep you safe.’

  The girl knew this was nonsense, no matter who said it. But it didn’t seem to matter, now. ‘What about you, Cranwyl? What would I do if you fell?’

  Cranwyl smiled, and patted her hand.

  Squatstout clapped, and the earth opened up.

  The hands had come.

  They were everywhere, tearing and pulling: pale, thin things that scrabbled and clutched at their legs. Drayn had seen them so many times, but still she feared them. Anyone who didn’t was a liar.

  She watched as a young boy was torn from his mother’s side, the woman screaming at the ground. An old couple to Drayn’s right were swept into the darkness, hand in hand. At the front, a bald man tried to fight them off, but everyone knew that was a joke. He went the same way as the rest of them: down into the swirling ground.

  It was all over in moments, though it felt far longer. As the lucky ones dusted themselves off, Drayn realised how tightly she had been holding Cranwyl. She dropped her grip, but he did not seem to notice. Instead, he was looking at the ground.

  Drayn took a deep breath and followed his gaze until she saw it: a single hand, just by his ankle, twisting in the dirt.

  ‘Cranwyl!’

  The earth opened again, and Cranwyl fell into the darkness. Drayn looked upwards in desperation, to Mother. She mouthed a word at the head of the House of Thonn: Help. Mother shrugged; there was nothing she could do. And she wouldn’t help anyway.

  Drayn turned back to the dirt, to find that the hands had vanished. An unfamiliar feeling stirred in her stomach. She thought of Cranwyl, and the times they had spent together. She thought of all the things he had done for her; the way he had helped her when … Don’t think of it. Fearful scenes crowded her mind, images of Cranwyl, alone in the dark, scrabbling for help, looking for her. She was the heir to the House of Thonn; she should feel no affection for anyone, least of all this servant.

  But she did.

  ‘Take me, too!’

  There was a stirring in the crowd. She thought she heard a laugh. But she didn’t care.

  She stamped the ground.

  ‘Take me!’

  ‘The hands take the people they want,’ said a Guard, walking towards her. ‘Don’t fucking tell the hands what to do.’

  Drayn stamped the ground again. ‘Take me!’

  She did not know what she was doing. She threw herself on the sandy dirt, pounding it with her fists. She wept into the ground, and barely heard the sounds of the Courtyard: the relief of those who had not been thrown into the Choosing, and the laughter of those who had seen her. If I could go, I’d find him. I know I would. I’d find him, and I’d—

  She felt a tap on her leg. She turned around.

  There was one hand remaining in the Courtyard.

  It took hold of her, and she was gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Centre was empty.

  This was not strictly true. Aranfal was there, and Shirkra, making their way on horseback to the Machinery knew where. But they had not seen a soul since they left the See House. The doors of houses hung open. Carts had been discarded on the sides of the roads, their rotting contents scattered across the cobbles.

  The people have gone into the West, or the North, or the Wite itself, perhaps. Anywhere to escape the See House.

  Strange, but he had not noticed this on his previous trips outside the See House since Mother’s Selection. Had the people fled all at once? Had they gone in dribs and drabs, and he was only noticing now? Perhaps I did notice. Perhaps I have forgotten. Perhaps she took my memories from me. Oh, if only that were true. I have so many more to give her.

  ‘I’m not sure which feels safer,’ Shirkra said. ‘Travelling through a throng, or along empty streets.’

  Aranfal glanced at his companion. She had concealed her identity as best she could, swathed in a hooded black cloak, her red hair tucked inside. She was not wearing her mask, so only her green eyes could give her away. But even these were different, somehow; they lacked their usual intensity. If anyone looked at her, they would think she was a normal woman. Aranfal found this rather unsettling.

  ‘A crowd is safer by far,’ he said. ‘One can hide within a crowd.’

  ‘An assassin can hide in a crowd as well.’

  ‘Why would a creature like you fear an assassin?’

  She grinned. ‘Who said I was worried for myself?’

  She shook her head, and turned her attention to the road.

  They had come to Seller’s Square. This was the last place Aranfal had spoken to Katrina – the old Katrina. He looked up to the rooftops where they had stood, and wondered if he could have done anything to stop her. No: it would have been impossible. Mother was always going to come, no matter what anyone did.

  ‘Where are we going, Shirkra?’

  ‘To find the Gamesman, of course. How could we have a game without the Gamesman?’

  He sighed. Every answer only spawned more questions. He thought of his days with Squatstout, in the old world, before everything changed. Is it my doom to wander with these monsters through the highways and byways of the Overland? Once, he was a man to be feared. Now, he was nothing but a man: perhaps a fearful man, at that.

  An inn came into view on the side of the road, its doors open.

  ‘You will need food,’ Shirkra said. ‘You must be hungry.’

  He said nothing, but the Operator was not wrong.

  **

  The last customers had left in a hurry.

  Stools had been knocked over, lying on their sides on the dirty floor, beside the filthy tables. A candle on the side of the bar had burned down into a waxy pulp. All around were half-full glasses, the liquid congealed with sticky film and green mould.

  ‘Why did they leave so quickly, I wonder?’ Aranfal asked.

  ‘The Gamesman,’ Shirkra said. ‘He always does this.’

  Aranfal nodded, though he did not understand.

  In the corner sat a portrait of the Operator, standing upright and regal, his cloak bunched in his right fist. The painting was torn, like it had been thrown down from the wall.

  ‘Drink?’

  Shirkra was already behind the bar, uncorking a green bottle of the Machinery knew what.

  ‘Why not?’ Aranfal had never been much of a drinker, and neither had Aran Fal. But he did not know who he was, now. Perhaps he was neither of those men: not the bright-eyed wanderer, and not the torturer. Nothing but …

  He shook himself. Introspection. A new curse. The Machinery went away, and made me into this.

  The Operator produced two grimy glasses, rubbing them semi-cle
an on her cloak before sloshing the liquid inside. It was a violent type of drink, by the looks of it, bright and aggressive.

  Shirkra knocked back a glass, and grimaced.

  ‘I didn’t know you drank,’ Aranfal said.

  ‘I haven’t for a while,’ Shirkra replied. ‘Perhaps a thousand years. Or was it yesterday?’ She licked her teeth. ‘I do not like this one. I don’t know if it’s gone bad, or if it’s supposed to be this way. Perhaps I will drink the oceans of the world, one day.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound healthy.’

  Aranfal drained his own glass. ‘Delicious,’ he lied, grinning at Shirkra with green lips.

  ‘There’s a kitchen back here,’ the Operator said, turning in to a door behind the bar. Aranfal lost sight of her. After much rummaging, she returned with a handful of dusty crackers and a wheel of blue cheese.

  ‘Is it supposed to be blue?’ Aranfal asked.

  ‘I think it’s supposed to be blue, if that drink is supposed to be green. We will eat it. It will give me something to do, and it will keep you alive.’

  ‘Good enough.’

  They ate in silence for a long while, lighting candles as the world grew dark around them. Aranfal removed his raven mask from his cloak, and placed it at his side. It comforted him, somehow, to know that it was there.

  Shirkra reached out and stroked the side of the mask. She took her own mask in her hand, and placed it beside the raven. It stared upwards, this strange likeness of her. The candlelight flickered across its surface, and for a moment it seemed to change into a different person: a man with narrow features, a man called Aranfal and Aran Fal, a torturer and a child.

  The moment passed in a heartbeat.

  ‘This is the mother,’ Shirkra whispered, placing her left hand on her own mask. ‘And this is the child.’ She placed her right hand on the raven. ‘Do you understand? Hmm?’

  ‘No.’

  Shirkra tutted. ‘Your mask is nothing, compared to mine. And my mask is nothing, compared to the endless power of the Old Place.’