The Machinery

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Rangle smiled. ‘Good. Tell them I will be there very soon. And get them soup, if they want it.’

Darrah nodded, almost imperceptibly, and stormed out of the room. That girl would be better off without me. I should end it.

But I won’t.

There was one thing in the world that prevented Annara Rangle from following Kane off the balcony of Memory Hall. It was not Darrah, and it certainly wasn’t her exalted station. It was her study group.

She started it about three years into her life as a Tactician. There were three members back then; Rangle herself, a curious Administrator called Eddvard, and Brynn, the Tactician of the North in those faraway days.

It began by accident. She had been to the library of the College – it was the only one she could access, at that time, and she was grateful for it – and had borrowed a Middle Period work of philosophy, The Halls of the Underland.She had always been obsessed with the Underland. What was this place? Some of the writings described it as another place of existence, or as a repository of historical memory. Some people had accessed it, the stories said, but only when the Underland wished to be entered. Otherwise, its gateways were always closed. And yet, there were so many strange things in the world that could not have come from the Overland. She had always been certain of it.

This book was a revelation. It argued that there was no Underland or Overland, but one country; the Underland could be seen in our daily lives. It was a strange little text, and its author was unknown, which was perhaps well for him or her; the book was not considered Doubting in these enlightened, modern days, but who knew what they would have thought back then, when things were darker and ignorance reigned. It played an important role in the Tactician’s life. One evening she was reading it in her study in the apartments (even then she stayed away from Watchfold), when Brynn had arrived unannounced. She heard him enter too late; he was looking over her shoulder before she even knew he was there.

‘I have thought about that book for ten years now,’ he whispered. He was very young, just a few years older than her; there was something calming in his brown eyes. He was from the West, too, but there the similarities ended; he came from wealth, far greater than that of her family. He stank of it.

‘Sometimes I look around me, and I see things, and I am sure they are not of the Overland.’ She remembered his words as clearly as if he had spoken yesterday. ‘They cannot be. Do you understand me?’

She was frightened. She could still feel the fear, even now. ‘I do understand you.’

He nodded, and left the room, forgetting whatever business he had come to discuss. But two days later he returned, with some manuscripts from his own collection. They met in the evenings, after Cabinet meetings; no one suspected a thing. Why would they? He was a Tactician, and they had business to attend to. One day he had simply shown up with Eddvard, as if the Administrator had always attended their clandestine discussions. No one ever asked why he started coming; it was better that way.

Over the years, the group changed members. Brynn died unexpectedly a few years into their studies, to be replaced as Tactician of the North by Syrrian, who was in turn succeeded by Grotius, the disgusting bastard. Eddvard passed away not much later. But the group carried on. As the years rolled by, Rangle grew better at identifying like-minded individuals. She was proud of her success; they had never been discovered.

She wondered what would happen, if Brightling found out. Would it even be considered a threat, the ramblings of an old lady and her friends? Perhaps it would anger the Watching Tactician. After all, she had allowed Rangle access to the greatest library in the Overland, its shelves stacked with dangerous knowledge. How would she feel, if she knew Rangle was showing these books to other people?

All we do is ask questions. Could that really anger her? The Tactician of the West did not care to find out. All that any Doubter seems to do is ask questions. It would not matter how important one was, if one was found to be a Doubter.

They were all there, seated at the long table, when she came into the main reception room. Darrah had only lit one of the tall candles, leaving the main lamps extinguished. A strange, weak light played across the faces of the members of Rangle’s study group.

There were three members these days, apart from her. They were clustered together at one end of the table, whispering among themselves. In the centre, at what he undoubtedly perceived to be the head of the table, was Lanurus Randalo. In many ways he was a rather pitiable creature. He was the head of an illustrious family, whose wealth had originally been built by some hardy Randalos who cornered an offshoot of the northern fur trade. From these tough, resourceful people had descended a line of weaklings and dilettantes, who spent their days carousing and dipping their toes into a succession of ill-starred careers and ventures. They never spoke of the business that had made them rich; there was no allusion to it in their coat of arms, no hint of it in their halls. Their snobbery was almost amusing in its crassness, especially as their share in the original venture was all that kept them afloat.

Lanurus was the scion of this brood. He was a sharp-nosed thing, with long chestnut hair that he slathered with oils and an eclectic array of jewellery that encrusted his ears, nose and fingers. His pale skin had turned a sickly yellow over the years, perhaps through his legendarily poor diet, though it did not manifest itself in any extra weight; on the contrary, he was a rattling bag of bones. He was older than he looked; he had to be, for Rangle had known him now for almost two decades, and his appearance had never changed.

To Lanurus’s right sat an entirely contrasting character. Maro Danussa was a short man, but he made up for it in sheer bulk; his chair seemed to warp under his weight. But his girth was of a different order to Grotius’s, the hideous wretch, or even to Canning’s. It was muscle, not fat; he was a round ball of sinew. He was black, and his eyes were quick and wary. He shaved his head entirely, save for a single band of hair that ran from the middle of his brow to the back of his skull.

Rangle did not know what he did in the real world, and she had never asked. But he had attended her group now for almost ten years, and though his interventions were rare, they were thoughtful when they came.

Finally, there was Darrah. She smiled up at Rangle when the Tactician entered, and rolled her eyes at whatever Lanurus had been saying.

‘Tactician,’ Lanurus said, getting to his feet and opening his arms. Rangle embraced him, and took a seat by Darrah.

‘You should call me Annara, Lanurus.’

‘Yes, I know. I will do so from now on, Tactician.’

This had been a little tradition of theirs for almost twenty years.