The Strategist

by Gerrard Cowan

  Raxx smiled. ‘Very, is the answer. But the size was not important. What mattered were the inhabitants: mortals and immortals, sharing the world. Sharing other things, too: we let them play with our memories. We even let them take some memories away, within reason. In return, they helped us build our Empire, with all their knowledge of the past.’

  ‘Why did it fail?’ Canning narrowed his eyes. ‘It sounds perfect.’

  Raxx shrugged. ‘It’s not in their nature to share: not all of their natures, anyway. There have been so many different eras of the world, Canning. We know little about them. But you can be sure that we were slaves. To some of the Old Ones, that is the way it should have remained. One of them – a volatile creature – decided to bring an end to the Empire.’

  ‘Shirkra,’ Canning said.

  For a moment, Raxx seemed curious. ‘Yes. She launched an attack on us, and a war began. As you know, Canning, no human army could stand against even one of those things – not back then, anyway. But what would come after the war? Should life return to how it was – or should the mortals be enslaved? That was the great question facing the Old Ones, and it divided them deeply. So they decided to do what they had always done, in their arrogance – they would play a game, and the winner would decide what to do with us. In this game, the Old Ones used humans as pawns. Pawns. Unluckily for them, Jandell selected a very special human as his pawn – his name was Arandel.’

  Canning gasped. ‘The prophet of the Machinery.’

  Raxx nodded. ‘Arandel was unlike any other participant in the game, in all of history. He learned something, in the Old Place. He learned how to use the power of memory. He learned how to Manipulate the Operators, even the Old Ones: he could imprison them, or hurt them, or steal from them. A pawn no more.’

  ‘How could he do that?’

  Raxx’s eyes widened. ‘Memories were created long ago, by a god. It’s an old word, but it’s the only word that suffices. Its name was the Absence: it was a god, and a bit of its power lives on in them.’ She held out her palm. ‘Memories have a magic in them, Canning. You can hurt someone with a memory. You can learn from their memories. Or you can do other things … deeper things. You can touch an ancient power.’ A small, red flame appeared in her palm, and flickered for a moment, before she snapped it shut.

  ‘Arandel escaped the game. He taught his technique to others: soon, the Operators were no longer playing a game, but fighting for their very survival. It was a war – and we almost won! But Arandel came to an arrangement with Jandell, who built the glorious Machinery for him. He became the first ruler of your country. That was the last contact we had with your people, until very recently.’

  Canning was struggling to take this in. ‘Why didn’t the people here go with Arandel?’

  She shrugged. ‘Some of us didn’t want to leave our home in the South. Others were happy to go, or to stay in the North, but not under the rule of your Machinery. They founded other countries, other nations. I believe you have now destroyed them all.’

  Canning nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Raxx laughed. ‘The Machinery is a wondrous thing indeed.’ She rubbed her head, and sighed. ‘But the war was not yet over. In fact, it is still being fought today. Two of the most powerful of the Operators remained here, in the South, with many other immortals – not so old, but powerful creatures nonetheless. We have fought them ever since. Sometimes we are able to Manipulate them, and we use their knowledge to learn of wonderful things, things those creatures remember from older, greater civilisations: cannon and the like. But at other times, they gain the upper hand, and they torment us.’

  ‘The Duet. They’re the powerful ones.’

  She nodded. ‘Recently, they went north, as you know. We chased them. And that’s when we found you. I could feel your abilities, even then. And so I brought you here, to test you. I wanted to see if you could make a Manipulator. And I have been very, very impressed.’

  She reached down to her side, and produced two mugs, handing one to Canning. He sniffed it, and screwed up his nose at the bitter smell.

  ‘This is one of the cities of the Remnants, our term for the ruined South,’ Raxx continued. ‘The war here has lasted for such a long time that the boundaries between the Old Place and reality have been utterly compromised. It is hard to tell where the realm of memory ends, and the real world begins. The only humans who can survive here are the Manipulators, and the people they protect. The two Autocrats you confronted were weak. We can control them for long periods. I doubt you could have got away with a full confrontation with the Duet, had you met them unawares.

  ‘Tell me,’ Raxx said, standing again and walking to the painting on the wall. ‘What do you see when you look at this?’

  ‘A boy, on the edge of a cliff.’

  Raxx raised her eyebrows. ‘Interesting. I see something completely different. This painting is a creation of the Arch Manipulator: he formed it from a memory.’ She grinned. ‘The Arch Manipulator is powerful indeed. You see only what he wants you to see when you look upon this painting.’

  ‘Who is the Arch Manipulator?’

  Raxx clapped her hands together. ‘Why don’t we go and meet him? I know he will be dying to make your acquaintance. He will admire your natural strength.’

  As they left the room, Canning felt weaker than he ever had before, and that was saying something.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Aranfal opened his eyes.

  It was as if a vast, dark beach had been overturned above the world. Everything was covered in black sand, shifting in strange patterns and stretching away into nothingness. The sun burned blood red, hanging like a wound in a sky that was as dark as the sand itself.

  ‘What are the rules?’ he said, though no one was there to hear him. ‘How do I play the game?’

  But no reply came.

  The red sun burned in the dark sky, and there was nothing in the world but Aranfal the torturer and the black, black sand.

  He sighed, pulled his cloak tight around his body, and began to walk.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Brandione was once more on the black sands, under their red sun.

  How did I get here? He remembered approaching the Circus. Inside, there had been faces, thousands of them, staring and laughing. Who were they? And then there was a pit. No. Not a pit. A Portal.

  ‘You will not win.’

  Brandione turned, and she was before him.

  He had seen Katrina Paprissi in the flesh only once, and that was a fleeting glimpse during the siege of Northern Blown. Still, he knew immediately that she had been utterly changed. The woman before him was as tall as two people. Her skin was as pale as before, and her hair was still black, but her rags of mourning were now the purple of Strategists, and her eyes sparkled with the same colour. She held a mask in her right hand; as she stared at him, she lifted it to her face and put it on.

  Without meaning to do so, Brandione closed his eyes, shutting out this image. But it did not matter; she was still there, in his vision, this beautiful, warped creature, hidden behind the face of a rat.

  He opened his eyes again.

  ‘The game will soon begin,’ the Strategist said.

  This could not be the voice of Katrina Paprissi. This voice was ancient; it was the waves of the Peripheral Sea, or the winds of the Wite. The Strategist smiled beneath her mask, and a ripple passed across the black sands.

  ‘Has it not already begun?’ said Brandione.

  The Strategist shook her head. ‘You are here, but the rules have not been explained. The Gamesman waits for you, far ahead.’

  ‘Who?’

  She laughed.

  ‘Memories are strange things, you know. They are never how we remember them.’ She chuckled. ‘A memory can bring us warmth, or a memory can freeze us. A memory is a friend, and a memory is an enemy. A memory is a shield, and a memory is a dagger. There is such power in memories. They are born of the universe itself.’

  She
looked away from Brandione.

  ‘You are the pawn of the Dust Queen, most ancient of all living beings. Two of your foes are already here. They are the Watcher Aleah, who plays for Shirkra, and my own pawn, the torturer Aranfal. Do you know him?’

  Brandione felt a coldness in his stomach. ‘I know him, yes. He will be hard to beat.’ He meant it.

  She approached him, and reached out a ragged arm. She touched his face with her fingers, very gently, and Brandione felt only coldness.

  ‘You fear the Queen,’ he whispered.

  The Strategist laughed, and it echoed across the black sands. ‘Do I fear the Queen of Dust? The creature of flowing memory? Everything fears her, my child, everything that ever was. But Ruin has grown stronger than her, and Ruin is coming. Nothing can stop it now. When the game is over, she will take me to the Machinery, and I will bring Ruin. She has promised me this, even if you win. Do you understand?’

  ‘What if I find the First Memory?’

  The Strategist twisted her body around his until they stood side by side. She put one arm around him, and swept the other across the black sands of the desert.

  ‘You will not find it; the Old Place will never allow anyone to find it. The desert will engulf you, and add you to the sands.’

  The sun burned purple for a heartbeat, and the Strategist was gone.

  The Last Doubter pulled his cloak tight across his shoulders, and marched into the sands.

  Chapter Thirty

  It was the worst day of Drayn’s life.

  She was back at the house with Alexander, on the morning everything changed. They were in the main hallway of the building, standing beside a stone statue of Haddon Thonn, an early leader of their House. He always seemed like such a kind man. But that must have been a mistake.

  He was a Thonn.

  ‘This is your last memory, in the Choosing,’ Alexander said.

  Drayn nodded. She knew it would be. If I’m Chosen or Unchosen, it’ll be because of what the Voice sees here. She wasn’t sure she cared, any more. She couldn’t forget now. She couldn’t box the memory away again, even if Cranwyl was there to help her.

  She’d have to remember what happened that day.

  There was a movement ahead, and the doors of the small reception room creaked open. Dad came staggering out, red-faced, a bottle of something in his hand. He had been drinking all night. Drayn remembered that, now.

  Mother and the younger Drayn came after him. There was something imperious about Mother, and never more so than at this moment. Here was the House of Thonn personified. She held something in her hands, but it was hidden under the folds of her scarlet gown. Drayn knew what it was.

  There was no one else there. Not even Cranwyl. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. No one interfered in the affairs of the House of Thonn, if they knew anything about the House of Thonn. And everyone on the Habitation knew all about the House of Thonn.

  Drayn studied her younger self with a sense of detachment. Who was that girl, on this day? Who was she now? Would the Voice admire her, or hate her?

  ‘Teron. Where are you going?’

  Mother’s tone was deadening, and Dad felt it, even in his drunken state. He fell into silence, except for his ragged breaths, and stood staring at the floor for a few moments before turning to his wife and daughter.

  ‘You can say what you want,’ he said, his voice strangely clear, ‘but I’m going to the Autocrat. I’m going to tell him what you’ve done. He’d never stand for it, if he only knew.’

  Mother smiled. It was sweet, on the surface.

  ‘Teron,’ she said, pacing forward slowly. ‘Are you insane? What is it you plan on telling the Autocrat?’

  ‘About you,’ Dad spat, jabbing a finger at the head of the House of Thonn. ‘I’m going to tell him what you did to your own brother.’

  Mother laughed. ‘Teron, the Houses have run this island for ten thousand years. Do you truly think the Lord Autocrat is so blind that he doesn’t know how things work?’

  Dad stared at her with bulging eyes.

  ‘And even if you’re right,’ Mother continued, coming closer, ‘how will you explain your involvement in it all? You were there, weren’t you? You didn’t start to whinge about it all until recently. You’re as much a murderer as the rest of us.’

  Dad shook his head again. He seemed to be sobering up. Perhaps if they’d given him a little longer, he would have come to his senses. But they didn’t. They couldn’t. This was the House of Thonn.

  ‘You are proposing to humiliate the House of Thonn, which one day your daughter will lead. Do you not love us, Teron? You mustn’t, I think. You wouldn’t embarrass us like this if you really did.’

  ‘I’m doing this for Drayn.’

  ‘You don’t know what Drayn needs. You can’t even look after yourself. What happened to you?’

  Dad sighed, and his chest rattled. ‘The House of Thonn happened to me.’

  Mother drew her hands out from underneath her gown. She was holding a long dagger with a golden hilt. Drayn had never seen this blade before, and she would never see it again.

  Dad nodded. He did not seem surprised. Drayn wondered, now, if this was what he had wanted all along. He was too much of a coward to kill himself, so he did the one thing that would guarantee his death at someone else’s hand: he threatened the House of Thonn.

  ‘At least send the girl outside,’ Dad said. He sounded stronger.

  Mother shook her head. ‘I can’t do that. It’s like I said before – there are unpleasant things you must accept, if you’re to lead this House.’ She turned to Drayn, and smiled.

  She kept smiling as the blade went in.

  **

  They stood there, in the hallway, Drayn and Alexander. The people from the memory were frozen. Father was slumped on the floor, blood blooming across his chest. Mother stood over him, and Drayn hovered in the background.

  It spoke, then: a word that echoed across the Old Place, with all the weight of the ages.

  Unchosen.

  **

  The memory vanished. Drayn and Alexander were in a wide and gloomy passageway.

  ‘No,’ Alexander said, looking around him. ‘This can’t be right.’

  Drayn shrugged. ‘No one gets Chosen, Alexander.’ She pointed along the passageway, to where it vanished into shadow. ‘I’ll bet this leads to the cave, and I’ll walk out with all the other Unchosen. With Cranwyl, maybe.’ She grinned. ‘I suppose the House will go to one of Simeon’s children. That means he won, in the end.’

  ‘No.’ Alexander shook his head. His eyes were wide. ‘I sensed something there – but no, it can’t be.’

  Drayn began to walk, but Alexander ran up behind her and grasped her arm.

  ‘Did you lie to the Voice? Was that memory … false?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  Alexander’s eyes widened. ‘I know when people are lying to me. And I can feel it upon you – you have tricked the Voice!’

  He looked to the ceiling. ‘Did you hear that? She tricked you! That memory was false! You must test her again!’

  Drayn grabbed Alexander by the shoulders. ‘Shut up, Alexander!’

  Alexander turned his gaze from the ceiling. ‘How did you do it? How did you put us in a false memory?’

  Drayn bit her lip. ‘I don’t know.’ It was the truth. She had not wanted to go there again, and so they went to another place.

  Alexander leaned forward. ‘What really happened?’

  Drayn hesitated for a moment.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  An image filled her head, then, of her father slumping backwards, clutching at a blade. She stood before him, her eyes smiling. Her mother came up behind her, and placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders, before leaning forward and plucking the dagger from Teron’s stomach. Good, Mother had said. You’ve done well. This is just the sort of thing you have to do, to lead the House of Thonn.

  Drayn pushed the memory away, though it was not l
ike before. This time, she knew she would never be rid of it, no matter how hard she tried.

  She turned to the passageway. At the end, she could just about make out a dull light.

  ‘I have to go now, Alexander. To the edge of the cliff.’

  The boy nodded. ‘You are brave, Drayn Thonn. You remind me of my sister.’

  Drayn smiled, then turned her back on Alexander Paprissi. She began to march towards the real world, and the edge of the cliff.

  She did not feel afraid. She would see Cranwyl, now; she could feel it.

  She was never afraid when she was with Cranwyl.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The hands vanished, and Brightling got to her feet.

  She was in a hallway. To her left was a coat stand, shaped like some strange bird, its wings outstretched, its beak hanging open. It was dark, but she could just about make out images on the tiles below her feet: masks, in the shape of a rat’s head. The image of our new ruler. I remember the day she got it from the hand of the Operator himself.

  She walked further inside the building, and as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she gradually realised she was not alone. A desk ran along the wall at the back; a woman sat there, her features hidden behind a veil.

  ‘What is this place?’ Brightling asked.

  ‘This is the Museum of Older Times.’

  I know that name. Katrina went here the night she disappeared.

  ‘What am I doing here?’

  The woman laughed. ‘How am I supposed to know?’ There was something melancholic about her. ‘You came to me; I did not go to you.’

  There was movement above; Brightling had failed to discern the staircase in the gloom. You’re getting rusty. Two old men appeared there, one tall and rangy, the other short and overweight. A light glowed in the room behind them, and lifted the darkness by a fraction.

  ‘We weren’t expecting anyone,’ said the short one.

  ‘No,’ said the tall one. He grinned at Brightling. ‘It’s nice to have surprises.’ His expression soured. ‘You haven’t been sent by the landlord, have you?’