The Memory

The road gave way to a dirt path. As the night came in, trees sprang up on either side, great sentinels that loomed over them, moaning and swaying in the air. The darkness beyond crackled with sound: the movements of animals among the branches and twigs of the forest floor.

Drayn did not know what she had expected when she first set sail with Jandell. In some ways, she was disappointed by what she had found: wind and rain and rocks and trees. But there were other things, here, that she had never experienced. The land was vast: she had seen that when they first landed. Even the smell here was different, coming at her in waves: the scent of a fire, fuelled by strange things.

‘We are almost there,’ Jaco said. It was growing difficult to see him, up ahead in the gloom. ‘I hope you’re not tired, Drayn.’

‘No,’ the girl said.

Allos spoke, then. She could not see him, but he was near her side.

‘What powers? Why, when you will not turn to them?’

For a moment Drayn was confused. ‘Powers? What powers do I have, is that what you mean?’

‘He is talking to me,’ Jandell whispered. ‘He knows what I am. Perhaps he has seen my kind before.’

‘Yes, before,’ Allos said. ‘For such a long time before, the powers were here.’

‘He’s wondering why I ride this horse,’ Jandell said. ‘He wonders why I don’t lift us all up, with the click of a finger, and take us where we need to go.’

‘They are things, indeed, that matter now,’ Allos said.

Drayn searched for Allos, in the dark. He was nowhere to be seen. He was from this place, unlike Jaco Paprissi. The language he spoke was not his own. The land, though, was his, and he could disappear against it as he wished.

‘I am a thing of memory,’ Jandell said. ‘But I am far from the only one. When I draw on the power, sometimes others can sense me: not all of them, and not always, but some of them.’

‘And there are some you are hiding from, Operator,’ said Jaco.

Jandell did not respond.

A light appeared before them. It was a torch, raised high in the centre of the path, far away from the trees. They took their horses around it, on either side.

‘We are almost there,’ Jaco said.

Drayn saw that the base of the torch had been shaped into a figure. No: it was many figures, stacked one on top of the other, naked human beings. At the top, one of them held the torch in his hand.

‘Men and women,’ Allos said. He emerged at her side. ‘Together. That is the future: no powers but those of the world itself, and the people who live here.’

He nodded at the fire, before pushing on up the path.

They passed by more of the torches as they went deeper into the woods. After a while, the distances between the flames grew shorter, until they reached one every ten paces or so. The dirt path began to widen and became a road once more, paved with wide grey stones. Drayn felt something change in the world around her: more memories crowded in, cluttering her mind.

‘Look ahead,’ Jandell said.

She leaned around him. The road was coming to an end: before it was a high wall, formed of spiked wooden poles. There were figures walking along the edge, though she could not make them out clearly.

Jaco rode ahead of them, and the gate opened.

The road continued for another while. Signs of civilisation began to emerge: the smell of animals, the sounds of distant conversations. They passed through another gate, and then another, shell after shell of defences. The trees began to thin out, until they disappeared altogether.

Another gate came. This time, though, things were different. The roar of people could be heard all around them, even in the night, and the world was cast in a golden glare from a thousand torches.

Jaco turned to them, and grinned. ‘Here we are, then. The heart of our little civilisation!’

The gate opened, the small party entered, and the world changed.

They had come to a town square, its surface a muddy mess, ramshackle dwellings of stone and wood leaning over its sides. The place was crowded with men and women, talking among themselves, drinking from wooden cups. Torches burned all around, though Drayn wondered if they were necessary: the moon above them seemed somehow larger than normal, a vast sphere of blue light, surrounded by infinite, sparkling stars.

No one seemed to notice the newcomers when they first passed through the gate. After a while, however, that began to change. Fingers pointed at them from small, whispering groups. Drayn glanced at some of the people and saw they were like Allos, pale skinned, but rough and raw.

Jaco led them away from the square. They passed through side streets and byways, all of them teeming with life. The buildings varied madly in their construction, from relatively stable stone structures to leaning piles of wood, though they were similar in one important way: none was taller than one or two storeys.

‘We are here,’ said Jaco.

In many ways, the building before them was much the same as the others they had passed: a stone structure, low and long. But there was something very different about it. Its lines were neater and sharper, the path before it swept clean. A man and a woman stood at either side, holding spears.

Jaco led them to the door, and nodded to the guards. He beckoned to the small group, who followed him inside. They were now in a large, well-kept room, its only furniture a great table surrounded by rough-hewn chairs. There were no paintings on the walls, no statues, no tapestries, only a handful of glowing candles. Still, there was an air of importance to the place: a sense of ordered authority.

Jaco whispered something to Allos, who nodded and vanished through a door on one side of the room. The old man took a seat at the table, and indicated to the others to join him. Drayn sat in a chair at Jaco’s side, but Jandell remained on his feet, studying the hall.

‘Do you like it, Operator?’ Jaco asked, gesturing at the room. ‘This is a minor version of Memory Hall, I suppose you could say. It’s the centre of our world.’

‘No,’ Jandell said. ‘I built Memory Hall. You made this yourselves, with your own hands.’ There was admiration in his voice. Perhaps it was even pride.

‘Indeed,’ Jaco said. ‘No fanciness here. No names, no titles. This is just the Hall.’

‘And what are you?’ Jandell asked.

Jaco shrugged. ‘Just a Councillor. One of ten, elected by the people. Anyone can run for the job, as they like, no matter who they are. No children, though.’ He grimaced. ‘I think that was the Machinery’s worst mistake. Was there ever a good child Strategist?’

Allos entered the room again, carrying a tray of food. It was simple stuff: white meats, wooden cups of water, bread. He placed it on the table, and disappeared once more.

‘Allos there is a Councillor, too,’ Jaco said. ‘He won a seat in the last election.’

‘Why’s he serving you food, then?’ Drayn asked.

Both faces turned to her.

‘Because he likes to help.’ Jaco frowned. ‘You’re not an Overlander. I can tell. Yet we speak the same language. Where are you from?’

Drayn was about to speak, but Jandell held up a hand to silence her. ‘It doesn’t matter. All that matters is where we’re going.’

He took a seat opposite Jaco. ‘But why are you hiding here, Paprissi?’

‘Hiding?’ Jaco laughed. ‘Who’s hiding? I came here for the same reasons as you, Jandell. To find answers.’

The two men – human and Operator – stared hard at one another.

‘What is this place?’ Drayn asked.

Jaco shrugged. ‘We just call it the Newlands.’

‘Is this the only city here?’

Jaco leaned back in his chair, and bit his lip. ‘As far as I know, this is the only city in the Newlands. But we’re not the only people here, not by a long way. There are communities all along the coast, and in the interior, far outside the forest’s boundaries. We don’t see them often. We try to avoid them, to be honest. It’s a savage place.’

Allos returned and took a seat by Jandell’s side. He held a strange object in his hands, a kind of spiked, purple fruit, which he began to methodically peel.

‘Allos and his people lived in the forest, and along the coast, when we came,’ Jaco said, smiling at the bald man. ‘They still do. But now they have a new life: a civilised life, speaking a civilised tongue. Here, in the city, they’re still protected by the trees, still hidden from their enemies. But now they can enjoy … stability.’

Allos fixed Drayn with a stare.

‘Our language is foreign to you,’ she said.

‘Different, once, but not so different now,’ Allos said.

The Operator stood. ‘We have not come here to learn about language.’ He seemed to grow taller; his shadow fell across the hall. ‘I found this place in Squatstout’s heart. He knew about it, though how much, I cannot tell. This place is so important …’

Drayn found she could not turn away from Jaco, this proud, wounded, fascinating man. As she looked at him, the conversation of the others fell away, and the noise of the city outside began to disappear, replaced with an incessant drumming, thudding in her mind. She felt something, as she looked at him. She felt the corner of a memory, and she ran the fingers of her mind along its burning edge.

‘There is an important memory here,’ Drayn whispered. ‘It’s inside him. I can feel it.’

Jandell raised a hand. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Jaco will tell us anything we need …’

But it was too late. They had already gone inside.

CHAPTER 3

‘What is the Old Place? Is it a country, or is it a creature? Does it have thoughts? Does it know itself, any more? Did it ever? Once, when I …’

Aranfal opened his eyes.

He was on his back, sunken into black sand. Above him was a dark sky, in which burned a red sun. The Underland. I am searching for a memory.

‘… was very young, I played a game where I ran from one side of the Old Place to the other. Well, that’s what I tried to do. But how can one travel through a god?’

There was a thin line of smoke in the sky: pale against the blackness. He had not noticed it before.

‘And it did not like me there, oh no. It is capricious. It is harsh. Like its children. Like its parents.’

A face appeared above him, one that he knew well: the face of a young-looking man with long blond hair. He wore a green gown, covered with images of people and animals and shapes.

‘Well, get up,’ he said.

Aranfal climbed to his feet and cast a glance at the creature before him. There was something different about the Gamesman. He seemed stronger, surer of himself. Of course he is. He’s the Gamesman, and this is a game: it’s where he belongs.

‘Why were you lying in the sand?’ the Gamesman asked. ‘Was it comfortable?’

Aranfal glanced at the endless, black expanse. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can’t remember.’

The Gamesman laughed. ‘Memories, eh?’ He clapped his hands. ‘What would we be without them?’

Aranfal looked into the distance. There seemed to be a structure of some kind far ahead, though he could not make out what it was.

‘How is the game played?’ he asked.

The Gamesman put an arm around him. There was a whisper in the desert.

‘The Old Place guards the First Memory with the greatest care. It has never shown it to anyone, and it likely never will.’ There was a sad look in his eyes, as if he was gazing at a condemned man. ‘No one has ever found it. But it does love mortals, Aranfal. It does love you: its parents.’

‘I’m here forever,’ Aranfal said with certainty. ‘I will never escape.’

‘No one has,’ the Gamesman said. ‘Well, all except for Arandel. But he was so … powerful.’ He smiled at Aranfal. ‘You have a similar name, but you do not have that power, Aranfal. You will be like the rest of them.’

‘Where are they?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ The Gamesman shrugged. ‘You can do nothing but follow the path ahead.’

With a bow, the Gamesman was gone, leaving Aranfal no more knowledgeable than if he had never appeared in the first place.

The torturer walked and walked, across the black sand, towards whatever was before him, alone among the endless expanse. It took time for the image to crystallise. At first, he was merely aware of a change in the darkness. He could not tell what it was; he only knew it was there.

But as he went, its shape and outline grew clearer. It is formed of stone and wood. There is something at the top. What is it? It is …

It was a well.

Aranfal approached it carefully. It seemed ordinary enough, the same as any other well he had seen before. A large bucket swayed above, though there was no wind in this place. The Watcher carefully leaned over the side and glanced below. Anything could be hiding down there, a cautious voice warned him. But he could only see the blackness.

‘Hello?’ he called into the dark, feeling strangely embarrassed.

His voice echoed in the deep, but no response came. He wasn’t sure what he had expected.

A sound from behind seized his attention. A figure was approaching at great speed, a moving mass of hair and shawls, emitting exasperated shouts. Aranfal wondered at first if it was the Gamesman, but he soon realised this was something new. And likely disastrous.

‘Five times we walked together, five times,’ came a voice from the shawls. ‘In all the trees in the orchard, no apples could we find. The dog sits alone in the courtyard: it is sick, and Father will kill it in the morning.’

The figure walked to the other side of the well, ignoring him completely. Aranfal darted around the structure, padding quietly across the black sand, trying to make out the features of this new arrival. But every time he came close, a thatch of wiry brown hair or a bunched-up mass of material would block his view. Even the creature’s hands were hidden in a pair of dark gloves. The voice seemed female, though he could not even be sure of that.

‘Are you an Operator?’ he asked.

The newcomer did not acknowledge the question, but kept talking in her cascading spiel of nonsense.

‘The candles are sparkling in the corridor, and there is a creak upon the floorboards. Nights are longer here, near the ice fields, where they never seem to end. When I walked into the street, there was a fire, such a fire, and none of my friends returned.’

The newcomer leaned over the side of the well, so that her words fell into the darkness and echoed within the pit below.

‘I walked eleven miles to the next village, but my love had already passed. I kept a green bird in a silver cage. When I learned to write my name, I carved it upon my skin.’

The figure made a circle of the well.

‘I found a straw man in the field. I kept a spider in a jar.’

Is this a code?

‘I could not go that day, though I wish I had, for only I could have stopped him. My hounds are all three-legged. The clock in the spire is ticking, my love, the clock in the spire is ticking.’

Aranfal closed his eyes, and the words took on a different shape. They were building blocks, he realised; the speaker was constructing something. But what is it? What is she making?

‘On the fourteenth night I wept for him. On the eighteenth night I laughed.’

She speaks of memories. He did not know if this was his own voice.

‘In the stars I saw a name. It was … torturer.’

Aranfal’s eyes snapped open.

‘What did you say?’

But the newcomer was not listening. She had climbed onto the side of the well, into which she poured her ceaseless words.

‘Fire,’ she said. ‘I saw a fire, in the deep, ten thousand years ago. Such things were put there; such things.’

The figure leapt onto the rope, feet resting on the bucket, gazing into the pit.

‘The cat is so unhappy!’

With that, she descended into the well.

Aranfal stood staring into the darkness for a moment, feeling utterly helpless in this desert. Mother should have picked another. He searched within for the Strategist’s knowledge. Mother, come to me. Tell me what to do. But she did not speak to him.

He looked once more at the sand, at the blackness that rolled on and on. It seemed to shift as he stared. Was there a breeze here, now? The red sun flickered in the sky.

He turned back to the well, where the bucket was slowly creaking its way upwards. There was only one way to go.

‘Where are we?’ he asked in the darkness.

No answer came.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Let me see you.’

‘I thought of something I wanted, once, and it came. That is the way to do it. There are five men and three women, standing at the doorway. The hat is on the stand …’

I thought of something I wanted, once, and it came. Aranfal’s mind turned irresistibly to home. He saw in his mind’s eye the great fireplace, and imagined the light it cast, the scurrying shadows that played across his collection …

He opened his eyes.

‘How?’

He had come to his quarters in the See House. Standing at the fireplace was the figure he had met in the desert, the person he had followed down the well. This time, however, she had revealed herself. She was a young woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties, though he was wise enough to know that appearances could be deceptive, especially in the Underland. She had a bedraggled, hunted look, as if startled from sleep. She was plump, and pale, with small brown eyes. Her thick hair stuck out from her head like a brush.

‘How did we get here?’ Aranfal asked.

The woman opened her mouth, and Aranfal steeled himself for another onslaught of nonsense. But this time was different. Even the way she spoke had changed; her voice was lighter and softer.

‘Memories,’ she said. ‘All that matters in this world, or any other.’ She seemed confused. ‘Ah. We can think in straight lines, now. It isn’t always easy for us.’

She looked at the fire. She flicked a glance at him, and it appeared as though she might say something else. But she seemed to think better of it and turned her gaze back onto the flames.

Aranfal took a step towards the woman. She glared at him, and he stopped walking.

‘What were those things you were saying?’ he asked her. ‘Up above?’

She spun away from the fire and crossed the room, until she was an inch from his nose. She grasped him by the shoulders.

‘Torturer! Is it you?’

Aranfal nodded, and the woman glanced at the ceiling with fear in her eyes.

‘You are here for the game.’ She turned her head and a hundred different faces flickered before him, men and women of many ages and complexions. ‘There has not been a game since the last one. When was that? A moment ago, or a lifetime?’

‘Ten thousand years,’ said Aranfal.

‘Ah – good, only a moment.’ A look of confusion entered her eyes. ‘The game has begun. Why are you here?’

‘I do not know. I thought that perhaps you would show me the way.’

She looked over his shoulder. Aranfal turned and saw another room, far ahead, cast in a gloomy light.

‘What is in there?’ He turned back to her. ‘Where are you sending me?’

The woman cocked her head to the side. ‘Far from the road, it stood: the tree that never was.’

‘What?’

‘I saw a star, in the distance, though it did not see me.’

Oh no.

The woman smiled at him.

‘There was a frog, and a pond, in the golden glade. But I could not go there.’

She turned away, and shadows surrounded her. Her voice grew softer as she faded away.

‘I was with a child: my child. But it all soon came to an end.’

He was alone, then. He turned to face the new room, and went deeper into the Underland.

CHAPTER 4

‘Time is a funny thing,’ said the King of the Remnants.

His prisoners did not reply.

‘Not so long ago, I lived at the top of a pyramid,’ he whispered. ‘What was it called again?’

He gnawed at his lower lip. How could he forget the name of that place, the black monstrosity that had been his home? He toyed with it, plucking his way through possibilities, until it came to him, floating on the stew of his mind.

‘The Fortress of Expansion,’ he said at last, clapping his hands. ‘Yes, that was it. I lived there, you know, for many years. I was pitiful, back then. I was like a little animal – do you understand? I feel so different, now. But it took a while to get me here, didn’t it? I didn’t just wake up one day, feeling better about things. It wasn’t even my … not even my powers, I would say. Not even the things I can do, and the titles I’ve got, down here. No – it was nothing but time.’

Far above, through a ceiling of thick glass, Canning could make out the sky outside. Sky. Could it even be called a sky, that tempest of storms? A swirling darkness hung above the Remnants; even in the daytime, the light of the sun peered out only occasionally from behind the clouds, as if by accident. What did that to the sky?

‘Was it you?’ he asked, turning to his prisoners and pointing a finger at the great ceiling above. ‘Did you do that?’

He smiled at the Duet. Once he had feared these creatures with such a burning intensity. He had feared their cruelty and their power, the sense that he was an insect, waiting to be crushed. But I’m not an insect any more.

They were lying on the ground, utterly still, curled together at the side of his throne. My dogs. He chuckled at the thought. They stared blankly ahead at the cavernous hall, this great space of steel and stone. They belonged to him now; they could do nothing unless he willed it. How did this happen? His recollection of those events was hazy. They had taken him to a memory, and he had trapped them inside it. Him. At first, they had been suspended in a kind of flickering light. Now, the light was gone, but they were still trapped; they were still in his power. Perhaps the light was never there. Perhaps it was only in my mind.

What had he done to them? They had gone to a great forest, high up in a tree. He had grown angry with them; he had felt himself capable of tugging at the memory, feeling his way through its power and using it for himself. And then he was back in the real world – if the Remnants could be called that – and they were his prisoners. When he looked at Boy and Girl, prostrated at his feet, utterly helpless, only one word came to mind. It was a word from the old books, a word from an age before science, before civilisation, before the Machinery.

Magic.

There was magic in memories, and he was very, very good at using it. He was so good, in fact, that he had trapped two ancient powers and made them into his pets.

I am a magician.

‘Your majesty.’

Canning snapped back to reality, to find Arch Manipulator Darrlan standing before him. The boy grinned, though it was uneasy. He always seems so uneasy, these days.

‘How long have you been there?’

‘Oh, five, six minutes, your majesty.’

‘And I have been …?’

‘In a reverie, my lord, positively in a reverie.’ He giggled and cast a nervous glance at the Duet.

Canning nodded. He found that his own memories could take a strange hold of him, if he allowed them. Getting drunk on the past.

He glanced at his surroundings. I am here. I know I am here. But somehow, it does not feel true. How could it be true?

This was a throne room like no other he had seen or read about. It was a vast space, formed largely of metal, like so much of the Remnants: functional, durable, with no regard for beauty. The throne was a small, ugly affair, built into the wall itself and reached by a series of narrow steps. Canning was now sitting in this blackened metallic lump. There were no paintings on the walls, no tapestries, no artefacts to commemorate the history of this world. Good. Why would we want to remember anything in a world like ours?