The Strategist

by Gerrard Cowan

  Something caught her attention, through the grime of the inn’s windows.

  ‘Did you see that? There was a light across the way.’

  Aranfal looked where she was pointing. ‘I don’t see anything.’

  Shirkra stood, putting on her mask. ‘It looked like someone was carrying a lamp. Hmm. The Gamesman must have missed them.’

  Aranfal sighed. He became the raven, and they left the inn together.

  **

  They entered the building quietly, and found themselves in a cold hallway, from which led a corridor. The marble floors were littered with weaponry of a surprisingly old-fashioned variety: no handcannon here, but rusted swords and blunt axes.

  ‘This house has fallen on hard times, I fear,’ Shirkra whispered. She grasped Aranfal by the arm. ‘Over there. Did you see that?’

  At the end of the corridor was a flickering light.

  They moved forward wordlessly, pressed against the wall. The light had vanished.

  ‘Where is it?’ asked Aranfal.

  ‘There.’ She pointed down another corridor that broke off to their left, at the end of which was a dull glow, no longer flickering but still and steady. The Watcher and the Operator headed for it with silent steps before coming to an open doorway. Shirkra held Aranfal’s hand tightly. She was enjoying herself; he could tell.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Aranfal said.

  **

  ‘You are Watchers.’

  The old man sat alone at a table, before a dinner of buttered potatoes and glazed ham. He was a distinguished kind of fellow, the type who only associated with certain people from certain families. People like the Paprissis, before that family fell apart.

  But this was no Paprissi. His skin was a copper hue, and his eyes were a startling green, sparkling in the light of the candles he had arranged along the table and the walls. A lamp burned before him; this was the source of the light. He must have been walking around his house with it, the fool.

  The old man did not seem in the least surprised to see them. He pointed to his meal. ‘Would you like some?’

  Aranfal shook his head, but Shirkra snatched up a chunk of meat and tore it apart with her front teeth. To his credit, the man did not flinch.

  ‘This has got to be the infamous Aranfal, second only to Brightling, or second to none, now, I suppose. Is that right? The raven mask rather gives the game away.’

  The Watcher was well used to his notoriety.

  ‘I’m not sure if I’m second to none, or the first among equals, or the bottom of the shit heap, these days, sir, pardon my language.’

  ‘Hmm.’ The old man stood. ‘I am—’

  ‘Irandus Illarus,’ said Aranfal.

  The man grinned. ‘Indeed! So my reputation precedes me, too, I see.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Aranfal replied. ‘But I also know you own the land around here, so it was something of an educated guess.’

  Irandus laughed, but without warmth. ‘Indeed. I own the land. Or perhaps I owned the land.’ He gave a mock frown. ‘I’m not sure the new Strategist has much respect for title deeds.’

  ‘I very much doubt it,’ Shirkra shrugged. ‘No respect at all!’

  The old man sighed, and sat back in his chair. ‘Still, can’t complain. I have a roof over my head. The Machinery only knows what happened to the rest of them. I thought the Watchers took them at first, you know.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Aranfal was tiring of questions and mysteries and memories. ‘Who took whom?’

  ‘Everyone, dear boy! Didn’t you see? They’ve all gone. Marched off into the night, never to be seen again. Strange business. I was hiding, I’m afraid to say. I think a few others managed to hide, too, though I’ve not seen anyone else around. I’d be surprised if they hadn’t. Seems the obvious move.’

  ‘Did you see anything?’ Shirkra asked. ‘What did the people look like, the ones who took everyone away?’

  The man cringed. ‘I did steal a glance or two, and … hmm. How to say this? I didn’t see people – I saw only one person. The same person, but many versions of him … a young man, very handsome. Called himself the Gamesman.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go, hmm?’ asked Shirkra. ‘Oh, you should have gone too.’ She glanced at the corners. ‘Oh yes.’

  Irandus stood and walked to a side panel, from which he removed a bottle of red Watchfold and three glasses. He filled them all, and handed one each to Aranfal and Shirkra, retaining the third. Shirkra threw her drink down her throat.

  ‘It is excellent,’ she whispered. ‘Excellent!’

  ‘It is, it is,’ Irandus nodded, sitting down. ‘You know, until very recently, I never would have been so uncivilised to actually drink this stuff.’

  ‘Perish the thought,’ Aranfal said.

  ‘Indeed! In the old times, I would have kept this in my cellar until the end of my days, paying it little visits, stroking the dust from its exquisite little body. Now I have it with ham and potatoes.’ He grimaced. ‘I mean to say, ham and potatoes!’

  He drank greedily, and smacked his lips.

  ‘Irandus.’ Aranfal allowed a sharp edge to enter his voice. He removed his mask, and gave the man a cold look. ‘Tell us what happened. Tell us about this … handsome Gamesman.’

  Irandus clicked his tongue in his mouth. ‘It’s like I told you already, my boy. I didn’t get a good look at him, but that’s what’s in my memory: people marching down the street, followed by this man.’

  ‘How come you missed out, then?’ asked Aranfal.

  ‘Because I hid, as I told you.’ There was a tone of patrician impatience in his voice. ‘I’m really very good at hiding. The Gamesman could never have found me.’

  ‘Handsome, you say?’ Shirkra asked.

  ‘Oh yes! Most exquisitely so!’

  Shirkra snatched up Irandus’s dinner knife.

  ‘Handsome! Ha!’

  ‘Now, wait a second,’ said Irandus, staring at the knife. ‘What are you doing?’

  Shirkra giggled, and slammed the knife into the man’s throat. She laughed as she did it, a shrieking cackle that echoed through the kitchen. But the strangest thing of all, stranger than all the many things Aranfal had witnessed in recent times, was the reaction of Irandus himself.

  He was laughing, too.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Cranwyl?’

  Drayn was lying on her back, in blackness.

  ‘Cranwyl?’

  No reply came. No voice in the dark.

  What happened? The hands. The hands took her to the Choosing. She had asked for it. She had wanted to follow Cranwyl. She had often wondered what happened when the hands took you. Well, now I’m going to find out. I’m part of the Choosing. A sudden jolt of panic. I’m going to die.

  There was nothing that could be done for her. She was dead already.

  Why did I do it? She remembered a surge of emotion. A surge of love. Love for Cranwyl. Mother wouldn’t have let it happen. No. She would have kept her emotion in check. Drayn imagined how Mother must have felt, seeing her girl dragged under the dirt, if she could feel anything. She would have felt annoyed, that’s all. Annoyed that the heir was gone.

  And for what? What had she accomplished, forcing her way down here? At best, I’ll die with Cranwyl at my side. That’s all.

  Unless you are Chosen.

  She nibbled at her bottom lip, wondering at the thought. The Voice must have a body of its own. They all knew it. Perhaps it could be her. Perhaps a part of her would live on, even when the Voice took her over. It was a chance, at least, in this mess she had made for herself.

  ‘Are you there, Voice?’ she called into the dark. ‘I could definitely be your body, you know. You should see the things I can do. I bet no one like me has been here in ten thousand years.’

  There was no response.

  ‘Fancy picking me?’

  That also failed. No matter. Better off without it. I wouldn’t be myself, if it chose me, no matter what I say to convince myself
. I’ll find another way out – with Cranwyl. Wherever he is, by the Autocrat’s fist.

  She sighed, and hopped onto her feet.

  I can’t see a bloody thing. But that did not deter her. Not Drayn, who had crawled through the darkest woods since she was barely a child born. Not Drayn, who had hidden from Cranwyl in every crevice of her house. This was no concern.

  Though it is very dark indeed.

  Using all her best skills, Drayn walked slowly forward, arms extended, until her hands brushed against rock. She kept one hand on this wall and continued moving, alert for any signs of danger. She heard no sound.

  Eventually she found a hole in the rock. It was narrow, though she had been through worse, and it seemed her best way out. Screwing up her courage, she squeezed inside. The walls closed in around her, but she gave that no mind, shimmying her way through the narrow space until she emerged at the end, into yet another cave.

  There was a light here: a dull glow from a row of red torches. The space before her was vast and empty: as large as the entire Habitation, she would wager. Rocks reached up from the floor and down from the ceiling, nasty, jagged things that looked fit to impale anyone stupid enough to come near them. Pools of water glowed in the red light, and creatures moved within them, rippling through the stagnant liquid. A white-eyed lizard appeared at her side, sitting on a rock right by her head. It licked its lips, and was gone.

  She looked to the back of the hall. I am seeing things.

  It was a gigantic curtain, falling from the roof to the floor: a ragged thing, with hints of purple, fluttering gently in the heavy air. But that was not the strangest thing about it. That honour was reserved for the things that surrounded the curtain and crawled along its fabric, moving with a febrile energy, alive and intelligent.

  Hands.

  Drayn walked slowly to the curtain, keeping the hands in view at all times. Were these the things that had taken her here, brought them all to the Choosing for ten millennia? She peered beneath the material. The hands were pointing towards her now, snatching wildly. She did not feel afraid of them. Well, maybe a bit.

  ‘I wouldn’t get too close to them,’ someone said.

  There was no one there. Could this be the Voice?

  ‘Where are you?’ Drayn asked.

  ‘Here.’

  The speaker was behind the curtain.

  ‘Are you the Voice?’

  There came a snigger. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you threw your voice just now, didn’t you? How did you do that, by the Autocrat’s belly?’

  A face appeared beneath the curtain, and the hands moved away. It was a boy, a couple of years younger than her by the looks of him. He was pale, and had curls of black hair.

  ‘How did you get here?’ he asked.

  ‘These things grabbed me for the Choosing,’ she said, casting a vicious glance at the hands.

  ‘And they took you here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know where you are?’

  ‘The Old Place.’

  The boy nodded. ‘Yes. Not the deepest part. But you are here.’

  ‘If I’m not in deep, can I get out and go home?’ She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. ‘Back down through the caves?’

  The boy laughed. ‘No, you can’t get out of here. You’d just spend forever searching through the tunnels, I’m afraid. But you’re welcome to try.’

  Drayn shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, in the firmest tone she could muster. There’s only one way to find Cranwyl. ‘I want to take part in the Choosing.’

  She moved forward an inch, and the hands went wild.

  ‘Ah, ah!’ cried the boy behind the curtain. ‘You can’t just walk into the deepest Old Place. The hands will tear you up.’

  ‘Then why did they put me here? I’m supposed to take part in the Choosing.’

  The boy blinked, and Drayn’s own hands curled into hard little knots. ‘How do I get through?’

  The boy grinned at her. ‘I can sort it out for you. But you have to promise me something.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That you’ll let me be your guide down here, through your Choosing. I’m so bored, you see. There are others, too, who like to serve as guides – ones who’ve been here much longer than me. And they’ve all failed, haven’t they? I’m better than them. The Voice actually spoke to me, a long time ago. Oh, it tricked me! I thought it was the Machinery itself, at the time, but I’ve learned so much more about it since then. I reckon I know it better than anyone. So you stick with me. OK?’

  Drayn thought this over. Can’t see anything wrong with it. I’ll need a guide, anyway.

  ‘Fair enough.’

  The boy nodded, and disappeared. She heard noises beyond, the sound of hushed and hurried words, before his face reappeared.

  ‘They’ll let you through now.’

  Drayn hesitated. The hands looked as hostile as ever.

  ‘Honestly,’ said the boy. ‘I’ve no reason to lie to you. Look.’

  He reached out and gently patted one of the hands. It did not stir.

  ‘How do I know they’ll be like that for me? How do I know they won’t tear me limb from limb?’

  The boy shrugged. ‘You’ll just have to trust me. I am your guide, after all.’

  Drayn sighed, and screwed her eyes closed. Heroes face trials in all the great stories.

  She crawled under the curtain, until she stood at the other side with the boy.

  He smacked her on the shoulder.

  ‘There! Told you I wouldn’t betray you!’

  She brushed his hand aside. ‘Who are you? What are you doing down here, in this place?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve been here for years. I’m part of the furniture now, to be honest. I couldn’t live in the Overland any more.’

  ‘The Overland? What is the Overland?’

  ‘You don’t know it? It’s where the strangers are from.’

  ‘The creature, and the woman, in the boat?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘So you are from the same country as those people?’ Drayn asked.

  The boy shrugged. ‘I once lived in the same place as them, but I haven’t been there now for such a long time.’ His shoulders slumped. ‘I’ll never go back again. Now I’m just a thing of memory, really, like everything else down here. But it doesn’t matter. What’s your name?’

  She stuck out her hand. ‘Drayn.’

  ‘Drayn. That’s a nice name.’

  He took her hand and shook it vigorously.

  ‘My name is Alexander Paprissi.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Canning could not remember his escape.

  That was not completely true. He remembered the events, he believed, in a kind of haphazard order. But he could no longer recall the sense of power that had flowed within him. The stuff of memories itself.

  Now it was gone, and he was nothing more than Timmon Canning, standing at an iron gate, somewhere deep within the Bowels of the See House. Water flowed around his feet: some kind of sewer, perhaps. It didn’t bother him. He had seen worse.

  With an effort he did not know he was capable of, the former master of the Fortress of Expansion grasped the gate and jolted it forward by inches. It started to give way slightly, and he redoubled his efforts, until metal screeched against stone and the gate fell away.

  He stumbled through into a narrow stream, where the effluent fell. He turned and looked up, and was surprised to find that the See House was a long way away, high on its perch upon the Priador. How far under the earth do the Bowels go?

  He began to walk, then, and he did not stop during the night, his fear of Shirkra overcoming his physical weakness. He left the coast far behind, going west on Greatgift. At first he kept to the shadows, and for a time he lost himself among the alleys and lanes that interweaved with the great thoroughfare of the Overland. But he soon realised this was unnecessary; there was no one on the streets. Not a soul stopped him as he went, and no Watcher followed him al
ong the way. Not that he could tell, anyway.

  **

  So he walked openly on the avenue, into the West, through the domes and cobbles of the Centre. Time went by in fits and starts, and he could not tell how long he had walked. Once, he looked to the sky and saw the sun burning upon him like a yellow eye. But when he looked again it had been replaced with a pale moon, that unhealthy orb he had watched from the Fortress on so many nights.

  He had no direction and no purpose. But as the streets faded into rough tracks, the buildings into shacks and hovels, it dawned on him that he had taken an old and familiar path. Eventually – he could not tell how long the journey had taken – it loomed before him, terrible and majestic: the Fortress of Expansion.

  He walked on, up through its gates, a strange sense of affection flowering in his gut. Home. He had never looked upon the black pyramid with these eyes. It was never home; it was a prison. But now, something had changed. And all it took was a little torture in the Bowels of the See House.

  He reached the great wooden doors of the Fortress. There were no soldiers to be seen, and the doors were locked shut; even the green lights had been extinguished. He had hated those baleful lights, once, but now he would have given anything to see them again.

  Why have I come here? Perhaps he could find a way into the Fortress, and secrete himself among its hidden chambers. But how long would it be before Shirkra or the Strategist found me, or one of their Watchers?

  ‘Where else would you go, if not here?’

  Timmon Canning was not a brave man at the best of times. Now, as he stood alone at the base of a giant black fortress, was not the ideal occasion to hear strange voices in the dark.

  He resisted the urge to soil himself, and slowly turned. This is the end. They are Watchers. They will send me back to her, and I will live forever in a world of nightmares, with half-mad Annya for company.

  He turned, looked up, and found himself facing two small children.

  They were a boy and a girl, identical twins by the look of them, with dark skin and long curls of black hair falling to their shoulders. They had the same striking blue eyes, like shards of glass that had been impaled into their skulls, and wore the same azure robes, clothing that was ancient before the Machinery. They held hands, and their faces were broken by mad grins.