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Wayward cast a glance at Brandione, who did not attempt to hide his incomprehension. The courtier giggled.
‘I am … what is the word? I am pretentious.’ He giggled. ‘I’m young, you know, very young, compared to the others. I have to make up for it by appearing knowledgeable.’ He grinned.
Brandione nodded. ‘Tell me in small words. I’m just a soldier.’
Wayward grimaced and raised a finger. ‘And a scholar. A soldier and a scholar. The Last Doubter: a man the Queen saw long ago.’ He waved his hands above his head, as if scrabbling there for the right words. ‘The Queen will only answer what she wants to answer, or what is proper for her to answer. However, she does want to answer. The more specific your question, the more precise you are, the less chance there is that she will respond. But if you are nice and general, then she will speak to you, for she can twist your question as she wishes. Hmm?’
Brandione nodded. ‘I think I understand.’
Wayward nodded. ‘Good. I am not surprised. For you are not just a soldier. You are a soldier …’
The tent began to fade away before Wayward could finish.
**
He was back in the blackness.
‘Question.’
The voice filled the void, the word echoing into the blackness. The eyes were no longer to be seen.
The one-time General searched for a question. There was something pathetic about him, this ridiculous animal, suspended in a world of higher beings, scrabbling around in his fleshy brain for something to say. In his days as a scholar – the days before soldiering, the days before the end of the world – he had read about ancient cultures. They were hives of ignorance, he had been taught, where people saw gods in the trees and the rivers. In some of the old stories, these people had met with their gods, conversed with them as equals, and even tricked them. Here he was, now, playing that same role. He was no different to the savages who walked the Plateau in the days before the Machinery.
But we were never any different, were we? The thought burst to life like a black weed. What was the Operator, if not a god? What was the Machinery?
Her eyes were before him again, no longer angry but hungry, waiting for him to speak. A god, and her mortal. But there were no tricks to be played here. Not with her.
Nice and general.
He opened his mouth, and the eyes widened.
‘What comes next?’ he asked.
The eyes widened. The darkness around them was slowly replaced with the outlines of three faces, and in a heartbeat she was before him, shining in her glory. She had taken a youthful appearance, her hair falling in golden curls, her cheeks rosy and unblemished. She wore three silver dresses, lengthy garments of a gleaming material, shining with the light of the stars and studded with tiny black stones. She grinned at him with three red mouths. She seemed more substantial than usual, though streams of dust fell away from the tips of her fingers.
She was beautiful, but she faded from his mind as soon as he turned away from her, like the memories she showed him. He closed his eyes and the image of her vanished, with only the outline remaining, only the sense of her. But when he opened them again, she was there, more terrifying and radiant and impossible than before.
‘That,’ the Dust Queen said, ‘is a good question.’
Smiles broke out across her three youthful faces, and she raised her hands. The dust at the edge of her fingers began to flow more quickly, falling away into the ether. In a moment she had disintegrated into sand. It swirled forward, encircling Brandione, and he heard her voice in his own mind.
A game.
**
He opened his eyes, and the darkness had gone.
They were on a beach, of sorts, but unlike any the former General had ever seen. The sand beneath his feet was black, and the sun in the dark sky was blood red. The water of the sea beyond crashed rhythmically against the shore, over and over, like the movements of a machine. The air here was cold, and still, and deadening.
‘Where are we?’
The Queen was by his side. She seemed smaller, somehow.
‘The Old Place,’ she said. ‘The Underland. Two of the names it has been given, over the long years.’ One of her figures knelt down, and scooped up some of the black sand in a hand. She lifted the sand up, and shared it with the other two. All of them held it in the air, and allowed it to drop from their fingers.
‘Why is the sand black?’ Brandione asked.
A moment passed, before the Dust Queen answered.
‘It is not truly sand,’ she said. ‘It is a memory. Or more than one, perhaps, fused together, and residing here in the Old Place.’
‘Sand is not black. And the sun is not red.’
The Dust Queen raised her eyebrows. ‘Have you seen all sand, my Last Doubter? Have you seen every beach since the beginning of the world?’ She pointed her three right hands at the burning orb above. ‘Have you witnessed every age of that star? Do you know what it was in its youth?’
Brandione shook his head.
‘No,’ said the Queen. ‘But the Old Place does.’ She sighed. ‘Do you know what it is?’
‘The home of the Machinery.’
The Queen laughed. ‘Yes, yes.’ She pinched three forefingers and three thumbs tightly together, and raised them to her eyes. ‘But only for a sliver of its lifespan: the most recent moments in its long years.’
Brandione blinked, and suddenly the three bodies surrounded him, her faces inches from his own.
‘Everything in this place is a memory,’ she said. She gestured at the beach around them. ‘Memories have power, because humanity was made to die, to burn in beauty and flutter out, in wave after glorious wave.’ She pointed to the sea. ‘The creator hated that: how could he not, when he would live forever?’
‘The creator?’ He thought of the endless chasm, and the intelligence he had felt there, that sense of conflict.
She ignored him.
‘He wanted something to remain: something of each of them, something that would not die. He took mortal memories, and gave them power to make them last forever, so he would always have them to play with.’ She smiled. ‘It was his great mistake. The immortal power he placed in memories grew beyond even his control. Something new emerged: a thing that could rival even him.’ She glanced around, with a blend of love and fear in her eyes. ‘This place.’
She sighed. The three young women flickered into something else: old creatures, balding and stooped, their skin lined and fragile. But the moment passed, and the young Dust Queen returned, staring sadly at the sands.
Brandione looked from this creature of three bodies, to the red sun, then down to the black sand at his feet. Thoughts of the past appeared in his mind, unbidden memories rushing through him in a flood. He thought of his days in the College, and then the army. He looked back on his unrelenting ascent to the top of the Overland’s military hierarchy, his role as Strategist Kane’s senior advisor, and all the things that once seemed weighty in his mind. He was a man of many parts, someone had once told him. He was ambitious, but not boastful: popular with those above and below him, but not a craver of adulation. He had seemed a quiet and modest man, but, in truth, he revelled in his complexity. They never saw him coming, because they did not know what to make of him. A soldier and a scholar.
He looked to his left, and for a moment he caught a glimpse of a figure from his past: Provost Hone, the head of the College. The old man was standing far away, beside a towering black dune. He smiled, and Brandione was reminded of all the love he had been shown by men like that, all the counsel they had given him, all the ways they had lifted him up, and propelled him to glory.
But Hone began to fade away, until only his smile was left, hanging ludicrously in the air. It disappeared, and Brandione was reminded that the past was dead, and he was here now, with a three-bodied creature from ancient times, on a beach from a memory, and that none of the things he had accomplished mattered any more.
‘Memories,’ the Queen said. She shook her three heads.
Something new had appeared at the Queen’s side. It was a table, a circular thing formed of a dark green stone, surrounded by great wooden chairs that seemed to have grown straight out of the sand. Brandione approached it, and looked upon its surface. A vortex of shapes and symbols twisted before him, dancing across the stone, laughing at his ignorance in an ancient and unknowable tongue.
Five figurines had been spread across the table’s surface. They were formed of different materials – wood, glass, stone – but they each were shaped into a person. He went through them, one after the other, lifting them up and examining them carefully. One of them was oddly familiar, though he could not think why: a plump woman, wearing a Watcher’s mask that had been formed into the face of a cat. Another figurine meant nothing to him: a young girl, slight, but displaying a kind of defiant bravery. The girl held a parchment, on which tiny letters had been written. Brandione held it to his eye and read the meaningless words: House of Thonn.
‘I saw that girl, long ago,’ the Dust Queen whispered. ‘She is not a citizen of your Overland. She has never set foot on your Plateau. But she will help to reshape your world. She will fall, and she will rise again. The Fallen Girl.’
Brandione studied the figurine for a moment longer, then placed her back on the table, near the plump woman. He knew the other figurines only too well. He lifted one of them, formed of painted glass: a youngish man with narrow features, his hair painted a garish yellow. His hands were steepled, the tips of his fingers resting at the base of his chin. He wore an aquamarine cloak.
Brandione glanced at the Queen, whose eyes sparkled at him.
‘This is Aranfal,’ he said. ‘A Watcher of the Overland.’ He sighed. ‘A torturer, like all the rest of them. But he was the worst.’ He raised the figurine to his eye. ‘In the … olden times, he took me on a journey to a museum in the Far Below. Him and Squatstout.’ The thought of the little man sent a shudder through him.
The Queen laughed. ‘Squatstout!’
Brandione looked up at her. ‘Yes. He’s an assistant to the Watchers. Do you know him?’
The Dust Queen shook her three heads. ‘He is not an assistant to the Watchers. He is a thing of the oldest ages. He is a creature of the shadows, though he longs for the light. He is a glory of the world.’
‘He is like you?’
The Queen favoured him with three faint smiles.
Brandione placed Aranfal back on the table, and lifted another figurine. The marble was formed into the shape of a fat man, clad in a shawl. He was bald, and even in this form, a heavy sadness clouded his eyes.
‘Canning,’ Brandione said, placing the last Expansion Tactician back into his place upon the swirling board. ‘He was always a good man, though he was weak.’
‘A strange man,’ the Queen said. ‘He is complex, though he sees no good in himself. He has been suppressed by others, through his life; the higher he climbed, the worse it all became.’
‘He was not a bad person,’ Brandione said, ‘but he was not a good Tactician.’
Three sets of shoulders shrugged. ‘He was Selected by the Machinery. You all followed it blindly, yet you loathed one of its choices.’
Brandione nodded. ‘Perhaps. But it’s too late now. We will never know what he could have achieved.’
The Queen laughed. ‘Never know? The game has not even begun, Brandione.’ She pointed one of her fingers at the last figurine. ‘Pick that one up.’
Brandione lifted the final piece, and held it before him.
‘I know this man better than all the others,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps I only thought I did.’
The figure of Brandione was carved of wood. It showed the one-time General as he once had been, clad in his leather armour, upright and proud. He thought of himself now, still wearing the rags of a prisoner. Am I still a General, with my army of dust? No. The old Brandione was dead; he had died with the Overland. They all had. He began to long for this person, and for all the things he had worn, all the things he had been, when he was Charls Brandione, leader of the Overland’s armies, at the right hand of the Strategist …
The Dust Queen coughed. The rags disappeared, and his armour returned. A handcannon hung from his left side, and a sword from the other. He nodded at her, but his mind was elsewhere.
‘Question,’ she said.
His mind swirled with possibilities. He could ask her about this game, perhaps. He could ask her what his role was to be in the future. But strangely, these did not seem to matter.
He turned back to the board. ‘What are you?’
He wondered if the question was too specific. But then the Dust Queen smiled.
Chapter Two (#ud6eded5f-c42b-5a3b-9075-148af20b11db)
‘Canning.’
The last Tactician in the Overland sat on a wooden stool, wearing only a ragged smock. He was thin, these days. He lifted his head and glanced at Aranfal, before turning once more to the dirt.
‘Tactician Canning,’ the Watcher said. He wasn’t supposed to use that title. Not any more. But he couldn’t help himself.
Free Canning, if you can. That’s what Jandell had said. The one we called the Operator, before we knew there was more than one.
The prisoner forced his head up and looked at Aranfal again, his eyes dull in the candlelight. He was attempting to control himself. The greatness of the spirit. How many times had Aranfal seen that, here, in the Bowels of the See House?
But never like this. Canning is braver than he looks.
‘Water. Please.’
Aranfal walked out into the corridor, scanning it quickly. Operator Shirkra would not like it if she knew he was helping Canning. She wouldn’t like it at all.
He crouched down, and pulled a stone up from the floor. Inside the hole was a wooden cup of water, hidden on another visit. The liquid looked rancid, but Canning wouldn’t mind. It might keep him alive. And he still wants to live, though only the Machinery knows why.
The Watcher returned to the cell, and lifted the cup to Canning’s lips. The former Tactician drank greedily, dirty water slopping across his cheeks. He gave Aranfal a hopeful look when he had finished. The Watcher had seen that look many times, too, down here. For a moment, memories crowded his vision: the broken rubble of his past.
‘There is no more,’ Aranfal said. ‘It wouldn’t do you any good, anyway. You shouldn’t have too much, in your state.’
Canning nodded. His head fell forward, and it seemed for a moment that he might have fallen asleep. Before long, however, he hacked out a cough, and looked up again at the Watcher.
‘You’re helping me. Why?’
Because Jandell asked me to, in the ruins of the Circus. But it wasn’t Aranfal who bowed to the Operator, back then. Aranfal would have nodded, before running as far as he could. No: Aranfal was fading away, and Aran Fal was returning. That was the boy who went to the See House all those years ago: the boy whose names were forced together by Brightling herself. Not perfect, not by a long shot. But a man who helps another man in the Bowels of the See House.
He studied Canning again. There was something different about the former Tactician, something that had changed fundamentally. The Watcher struggled for the word. Toughness, perhaps? Was he changing, too? Did the end of the Machinery do something to them all – free them to become themselves?
‘Because you’re not allowed to die,’ he said.
‘Ah.’ Canning nodded. ‘Shirkra. She likes having me here. She likes to hurt me.’
Aranfal shrugged. ‘That’s part of it, I suppose. But nothing happens without the Strategist’s say so. Not any more. That’s why you’re alive.’
Canning snorted. ‘Why would she want to keep me alive?’
Why indeed?
‘I cannot begin to fathom …’ He thought, for a moment, of the new power in the Overland. He had not seen her since the Selection; no one had. Still, her presence was everywhere, a purple smoke that clogged the lungs and stung the eyes. ‘Perhaps she thinks you will help her.’
‘How could I help her?’
Aranfal squinted at Canning. They had had this conversation many times, here in the darkness of the Bowels, but Canning never seemed to remember. What has happened to him? Has Shirkra rummaged about in his mind a little too much? Aranfal had seen what the female Operator could do. She played with a person’s memories, and she twisted them until they bled. But no. More than that. She took power from them. It reminded him of a story he had read, long ago, as a child in the North: a story about ancient magic, of gods that toyed with men and women, stole from them and abused them, but who always were defeated, in the end, tricked by the same ploys they used against their victims. Were those just stories, or were they history? He smiled at his own hopefulness: Aranfal laughing at Aran Fal.
‘The Strategist only cares about one thing,’ Aranfal said. He looked into the corners, as if she might be hiding there, the thing that had once been Katrina Paprissi. She would not like me talking about her. Or perhaps she would. How would I know? He sighed. What did it matter, anyway? He never knew how things worked in this new world.
‘The Strategist only cares about the Machinery. That’s all. She’s not been here; she’s been searching for it. Perhaps she thinks you can help her find it.’
Canning coughed a laugh. ‘Me? I thought she was the One, whatever that means? She thinks I could help her? Not even Brightling knew where the Machinery was. No one knows, apart from the Operator, and sometimes not even him, if the stories are to be believed. Doesn’t she think I would have said something by now, to get myself away from her … her …’
