‘I am Timmon Canning. I was a Tactician of the Overland, though it was not the right place for me. I sold fish in the market.’
‘No,’ Darrlan said. ‘You are more than that. Far more. Though you are partly correct: you are not a Tactician of the Overland. Perhaps the Machinery saw your greatness, without understanding its purpose.’
Canning snorted. ‘I have had some success, playing with memories, or whatever they are. But greatness?’ He gave the boy a sceptical glance, but part of him wondered at his own words. He did feel different. Stronger.
The Arch Manipulator shook his head. He turned away from the plinth and began to pace the room.
‘Our battles with the Duet have lasted for a long, long, time, Canning. They have not been without their victories. Great heroes and heroines have appeared: men and women who were able to beat down the Duet for a minute, two minutes, and really exploit them. The other, weaker, immortals have been easier to defeat. Our society has advanced in fits and starts, all depending on these moments. It’s quite pathetic, really. We are the heirs to a broken Empire. Everything we have achieved, we stole from other beings.
‘Apart from these moments, we have only been able to defend ourselves. At that, we have been successful. The Duet have won terrible victories against us, and we have suffered. But so far, we have clung on in our little cities. Whether that is down to our talents, I do not know: more likely the Duet allow us to live, like cats toying with mice.’
The Arch Manipulator laughed, but there was no humour to it.
‘Some of us are good Manipulators, and some of us are excellent Manipulators, but nobody has ever matched the abilities of Arandel. He could overpower any Old One. He could hold them in a memory, and use them as he wished. That is why Jandell made peace with him: because he could not defeat him.
‘Many here see Arandel as a traitor. He should have ruined the immortals, they say. He should have stayed here, in the heart of the Empire; he should never have made a pact with the enemy, and built a new country in the North.
‘But we Manipulators do not think this way, Canning. We understand why Arandel did what he did. War is not a glorious thing, and a war of memory is worst of all. Besides, who would want to live in a world without the immortals? Wouldn’t something glorious die with them? In the old Empire, we all worked together – Jandell and the others would share their knowledge with the leaders of the mortals, knowledge they had accrued over their long lives. In return, mortals would allow the Operators to play with their memories. Wouldn’t that be a good way to live, if we could return to it some day?’
Canning shrugged, and Darrlan grinned at him.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ the boy went on. ‘The past is gone. We must think of the present.’ He walked back to the plinth, and placed his hand gingerly on the black cloth.
‘Before Arandel built his country in the North, he spoke to those who wished to stay in the South. In fact, he encouraged them to stay. There would be need of an independent place, one day, he said. There would be a need for a country, separate from what he was doing with Jandell.’
He looked again at the plinth. ‘The future, Canning, is in many ways nothing more than the endless repetition of the past. Don’t you think?’
‘I do not know.’
Darrlan smiled. ‘Arandel was so powerful, Canning, that he could … see things, in the power of memory. He had the power to glimpse the future, by looking to the past. He told us, before he left the South forever, that one day a powerful Manipulator would emerge in this wasted land: a Manipulator who would have the abilities of Arandel himself. A Manipulator capable of holding Operators for as long as he chose. The Great Manipulator – the one to lead us in the final struggle with the immortals.’
Darrlan grasped the cloth tight in his small fist. ‘He saw this person, Canning. He saw him in his mind, and he left us a portrait. It is a strange thing. It is empty. But it will show us the face of the Great Manipulator, when the Great Manipulator arrives.’
No. Not again. Please, let me lead a normal life.
The Arch Manipulator gave a sharp pull, and the cloth fell away, revealing a wooden stand, upon which was a small canvas in a golden frame.
The canvas was blank.
Canning grinned, and sighed with relief. ‘Well, there you are. No Great Manipulator here.’
But as he gazed upon the canvas, he saw it begin to change. Colour bloomed across the surface, swirling and twisting until the outlines of a face appeared, a chubby face, the face of a weakling, no, the face of someone who was more than a weakling, the face of a new man, a powerful man …
The Arch Manipulator was on his knees.
‘Canning, you are the Great Manipulator,’ the boy said, his arms outstretched, his mouth a crooked smile. ‘The King of the Remnants.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
‘Ask me a question.’
Drayn pushed her hands into her pockets, and stared at her island as it faded away. They had left the great rock behind many hours before, yet still it was there: a stone monster of the sea, basking in the moonlight.
‘You are a memory,’ she said.
‘That is not a question.’
Jandell had appeared at her side, wearing his strange cloak. Faces formed, and fell away, over and over, on that dark material. There was a strength to him that she had not seen before. His features were somehow thicker, more muscular.
‘I am many memories,’ Jandell said. ‘I was born of the power of memory, like my brothers and sisters, in the distant past. We were made to fight a god: a conflicted god, caught between a timeless death and his new life as a creator.’ He placed a hand on her shoulder.
She nodded, and turned back to the Habitation.
‘Will you miss your family?’ he asked.
Drayn thought of Mother, and shook her head. ‘I never had much of a family. I had a House. And I won’t miss my House at all.’
‘There’s nobody at all, back there, then, that you care for? No friends, even?’
Her mind filled with an image, for a moment, of a man who had always been by her side. She had not seen Cranwyl since the Choosing. She had gone away with Jandell, and never looked back. She had taken the memory of him, and she had locked it away.
‘No.’
**
‘You have not asked where we are going,’ Jandell said.
They were on the deck of the ship again. It was morning, and the water glowed. Drayn wondered how the vessel propelled itself forward. She had never been on such a thing before, not even the fishing vessels they used near the Habitation. But even she knew there was something strange about this boat. It was a dream; they were travelling forward on the back of a dream.
‘You told me before,’ she said. ‘Into the East.’
Jandell nodded. ‘Yes. But you haven’t asked me anything about it.’ He grinned. He appeared youthful, but there was something about him that spoke of a terrible weariness.
‘I don’t mind where we go,’ she said. ‘I trust you.’
Jandell bowed. ‘Of course. You are the Fallen Girl.’
‘How did you know that? How did you know it was me?’
Jandell sighed. ‘I am the first spoiled youth of creation, Drayn. My parents gave me all the love in the universe, and it made me into an arrogant thing. It has always been my bane.’
For a moment, a vision flashed across Drayn’s mind of a decomposing corpse, its skin rotten and crawling with insects.
‘I should have listened,’ Jandell continued. ‘I should have listened when the Dust Queen told me about the Machinery. You were there: you heard what she said. She was right about everything.’
‘Yes, but how did you know I was the Fallen Girl?’
‘Because you fell.’
‘Oh.’
Jandell laughed. ‘You fell, but you returned. I looked inside you, and I found such memories, stored away, such powerful things. I touched them, only for a moment, and they gave me new power. I will grow stronge
r, now, with you at my side. You are a great … person. You will be a help to me: I know it. I need you.’
He turned to face the waters. ‘We must find where Mother came from. There is more there. People who can help. I can feel it.’
‘Who is Mother? And who is out there?’
‘Mother is Mother, and I am her son. As for who is out there, I do not know. But they are there. I know it.’
‘Was Squatstout her son, too? And the Protector?’
Jandell gave her a quizzical look. ‘The Protector? That thing was made by Squatstout, I feel. Plucked from a memory, long ago, to serve as his companion.’
‘What will happen to him? Will he die?’
‘Die? He is a thing of memory. It is hard for a memory to ever die.’
‘So Squatstout might not be dead, either.’
Jandell did not respond.
**
Time was irrelevant, on the waters, with Jandell. All they did was talk about days of old. He told her many things.
They often sat inside the ship itself, in a room like a great hall, where there always seemed to be a banquet. The food was strange. Drayn chewed on a piece of bread, and it tasted like a memory.
‘What is the Machinery?’ she asked him one evening.
He gave her a funny look. ‘It is a broken thing,’ he said, and a look of terrible sadness passed over his face, before he smiled. ‘But all is not lost. Ruin has not yet come.’
She nodded, though she did not understand. ‘Something is happening to you. I can feel it.’
Jandell put his head in his hands. ‘I am in one of my moods,’ he whispered. It was meant to be a light-hearted comment, but it had just the opposite effect.
‘Do you have many moods?’
Jandell pulled his hands away, and gave her a curious look. ‘I was born from a bleak place, you know, Fallen Girl. Sorrow made me, and for such a long time, I made more sorrow. I found such strength in those memories. But then I changed; I felt something new. What is the word …’
Drayn closed her eyes. For the briefest of moments, she could feel Jandell’s mind.
‘Regret,’ she said. ‘Or guilt.’
She met his gaze.
‘Yes,’ Jandell said. ‘It changed me. I began to look for new paths. I would do anything to avoid this feeling … this regret. This guilt. I tried to make amends.’ He laughed. ‘How ridiculous.’
‘No. It is good.’
He waved a hand. ‘But I am still myself, Drayn Thonn. I will always be myself. There is no denying it. We built the Machinery to make things better, do you understand? But when it began to break, I became the old Jandell again; I became the Bleak Jandell, without even realising it, and I did terrible things. I thought I had no choice.’ He smiled at her. ‘I sense painful memories, beyond the waters. I feel them, where we are going. I must confront a moment from my past, and I must atone for it.’
He placed his head in his hands again, and spoke no more.
**
After days or weeks or months of sailing, they saw land.
It was the first land Drayn had ever seen beyond the island. It stretched as far as her eye could see, right across the horizon, a jagged line of grey rocks.
‘We will be there soon,’ Jandell said.
**
And they were.
They came to an inlet. The ship dragged itself forward, onwards and onwards, until it ran up on the sand and seemed to sigh.
‘Come,’ Jandell said.
They climbed down from the vessel. The beach was wide and empty, overhung with outcrops of stone.
‘This way,’ Jandell said.
He led her up the beach, until they came to gently inclining grasslands. They climbed for an hour, perhaps more, until the land levelled off. On and on it went, into nothing, nothing but green grass studded with rocks, like black and white bones.
‘This way,’ Jandell said again, and led them forward.
**
‘Do you see that?’
Drayn squinted, studying the horizon.
‘No.’
‘There,’ Jandell said, taking her hand and pointing her finger. ‘Over there.’
She looked again. ‘It’s a building.’
Jandell nodded. ‘The outskirts of a town.’
They began to walk on, towards the building. But they did not get far.
‘Halt,’ came a voice from the ground.
People appeared all around them, dressed in green, their faces painted the same colour.
‘Such disguises,’ Jandell breathed.
One of the men stepped forward. He was old, his face a patchwork of wrinkles, his head a thatch of grey hairs. He had a long beard, and he carried a spear in his hand. He looked different from the others, somehow.
‘I know you, Operator,’ he said, in a strange voice from another land. ‘Do you know me?’
Jandell walked to the man, and studied him carefully.
‘Yes,’ he said.
He fell to his knees.
‘Forgive me.’
The old man turned to Drayn.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
The old man looked from the girl, to Jandell, and back again.
‘Tell her who I am, Operator.’
Jandell stood.
‘His name is Jaco Paprissi,’ whispered the creature in the cloak. ‘I took his son away.’
About the Author
Gerrard Cowan is the author of The Machinery trilogy, the story of a world whose leaders are chosen by a machine - until the machine breaks.
He lives in Ireland with his wife Sarah and their children. His first known work was a collection of poems on monsters, written for Halloween when he was eight; it is sadly lost to civilisation. When he isn’t writing strange fantasy books he works as a freelance journalist. He can be found at gerrardcowan.com, at facebook.com/gerrardcowanauthor and @GerrardCowan on Twitter.
Also by Gerrard Cowan
The Machinery
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