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There was a sound, in the dark – the screech of a bird. The crewmembers on the deck muttered to one another in hushed voices.
‘Second,’ Jaco said, ‘the Operator has sanctioned our voyages. He would not have done so—’
‘No, sir, no.’
Jaco’s eyes widened. He seemed unaccustomed to being interrupted. He was so like Drayn’s mother. He’s higher than the rest of these folk, and it’s nothing to do with a title.
‘I’m sorry, my lord, truly.’ Teel bowed his head. ‘But the Operator is not the Machinery. They are not the same thing.’
Jaco looked back to Harra.
‘Do you think it sees us here, Teel?’
Teel nodded. ‘Yes, my lord. The Machinery knows all.’
They were back in the cabin.
‘My lord.’
Jaco turned towards Teel, who stood at the door again. ‘Death is coming,’ said the captain. ‘Who is it this time?’
But Teel shook his gleaming head. ‘No. That’s not it. Come.’
They all followed Teel through the memory ship, back up to the deck.
‘It’s land,’ said Teel.
Jaco grunted, and stared out into the ocean, which glowed in the light of the dawn. Drayn saw it, then – a grey mass.
‘Have we come home?’ Jaco asked. ‘Or back to the South?’
Teel silenced Jaco with a shake of his head.
‘This is not the Overland, or the southern lands, my lord. We have not found our way by accident.’ Teel squinted out into the greyness. ‘I don’t know where we are.’
Jaco nodded. ‘Have we seen any other ships?’
‘No. There’s no sign of life here at all. But the coast … I cannot be certain, my lord, but to my eye, this is the edge of a wide land. It is no outcrop. If it’s large, then it could be inhabited. And we don’t know who they are, the people that live there.’
Jaco sighed. ‘We have no choice. We must go there.’
The memory took them somewhere else: an expanse of pale-green grass and black, broken stone, at the side of a forest. The wind howled at them.
There were about a dozen crewmembers left untouched by the Blight. They had carved out a small camp at the side of the woods, in the shadow of three great boulders. They had food, and a supply of firewood: a hog was burning on a spit.
‘Why’s it stopped?’ said a voice.
Drayn turned her head, and saw Teel and Jaco, sitting on one of the boulders. Teel seemed healthier than before: his skin was pinker, his flesh thicker, and there was even a thin layer of stubble on his scalp.
‘The Blight?’
Teel nodded.
Jaco shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the climate.’
Teel grunted. ‘It’s like we were being poisoned by someone, and now they’ve decided to … stop poisoning us.’
Jaco did not argue.
‘If someone was doing that to us,’ he said, ‘I wonder why they’ve stopped?’
Teel glanced at the captain. ‘Maybe they’ve got us where they want us.’ He gestured to the other crewmembers, below the rocks. They were spread around in little groups, talking to one another and eating. ‘Everyone’s taken their mind off their work,’ Teel said. ‘Do you know what I mean, my lord?’
Jaco nodded. ‘I do.’
‘It’s just that … I feel something here, my lord. That’s all.’
Jaco stared at their surroundings.
‘Then what should we do, Teel?’
Teel jammed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘We should get back to the ship, my lord.’
Jaco glanced behind him, down to the shore beyond. Drayn could not see it, but she imagined the ship was there, tied to some rocks.
‘We should get back to it, and take our chances on the waves,’ Teel said. ‘Death is coming here, as well. I can feel it.’
The memory shunted forward, into the night. The crew were asleep around their little camp, all except Jaco, who sat at the edge of a rock, staring out into the woods. Drayn glanced quickly around. She saw Jandell and the older Jaco, watching this memory with the same fascination as her.
A noise came from the woods, one that could not be ignored. It was the cry of a newborn baby.
Teel was awake and on his feet, staring out into the trees, tightly grasping a blade. Jaco scrambled down from the rock to Teel’s side. The cry came again, closer than before. This time there were other sounds: the shifting of undergrowth, the crackle of sticks and twigs breaking underfoot.
‘We should get away from here,’ Teel said, in a quiet voice. ‘Nothing good is coming from those woods.’
The memory Jaco shook his head. ‘We don’t have time. And we don’t run away from crying babies.’
Teel grunted. ‘It’s not the baby I’m worried about. It’s whoever’s carrying it.’
The sounds came closer, almost as if the wanderers were at the very edge of the treeline, before they stopped altogether. Even the baby ceased crying. Perhaps a hand has been placed across its mouth.
‘They’ve seen us,’ Teel whispered. There was a tremor in his voice that was oddly unsettling. ‘They’re watching us.’
‘Wouldn’t you?’ Jaco whispered back. ‘If you were carrying a baby through the woods, and you stumbled across a group of strangers, would you run out into the middle of them?’ He glanced at Teel’s blade. ‘When they’re armed?’
The rest of the crew were awake now, too, on their feet and staring out into the woods. The only light came from the moon and the dying glow of the fire. ‘Light a torch,’ Jaco ordered a woman to his right.
He walked forward as the torchlight flickered around the camp. Teel grabbed him by the shoulder, but the captain shook him off. He approached the trees as quietly as he could, raising his hands in the air.
‘I don’t know if you understand me,’ he said, in what Drayn took as an attempt at a friendly voice. ‘We are from another land. We came here by accident, and we only wish to go home.’
There came a noise from the woods. It was not the cry of a baby, but a hushed whisper.
Another moment passed.
‘Please, come out to us,’ Jaco said.
There was silence. Nothing happened.
‘Please,’ Jaco said again. ‘I swear, we mean you no harm.’
And then she came.
The woman was young to look at, somewhere in her twenties or early thirties. But there was an air of something old in the way she carried herself, and in the glances of her eyes. And what eyes they were: green as grass, green as emeralds, green as a snake. Almost as green as the dress she wore, a long gown that wrapped itself around her narrow frame, like it too was alive: a spirit of the forest. She wore her red hair long, the curls cascading past her shoulders, and her skin was a white so unblemished that it could almost have been porcelain.
Drayn heard a gasp: she turned and saw that Jandell had fallen to his knees, his head in his hands. The real Jaco simply watched, his face a slab of stone.
The baby was in the woman’s arms, wrapped in grey rags.
‘Can you understand me, my lady?’ the memory Jaco asked.
The woman stopped walking. She was perhaps ten paces from their camp.
‘Yes, oh yes,’ she said, nodding vigorously. ‘I am from your land, my lord, I know your words well, oh yes.’
The memory Jaco sucked in a breath.
‘How did you get here?’ he asked. ‘We thought we were the first from the Plateau to come to this place – wherever we are.’
‘Oh, it is a terrible place, a terrible place!’ the woman cried. Her voice had a strange, sing-song quality. ‘It is full of terrible people, my lord! They took me, you see, they sailed to our lands in their terrible ships, and they took me away!’
Jaco glanced at the trees.
‘Is that your baby?’
‘Yes, yes, my little girl!’
The woman began to move. The crewmembers tensed up, and Teel raised his blade, but Jaco quietened them with a flick of a finger.
The woman brought the baby to him, and Jaco looked down at the squalling child within the rags. Drayn hurried forward, to catch a glimpse of this infant. She had a thick thatch of black hair, and her wide eyes were the same colour. Strange, but she was not dissimilar to Jaco himself.
‘They want to make her a slave too, my lord!’ the woman cried. ‘But I will not let them! I will throw her into the sea before I allow that!’ She looked at the ground. ‘They used me most cruelly, my lord,’ she said in a quiet voice, gesturing at her child. ‘But I am not sorry to have her, oh no. I will not allow them to take her!’
‘Captain.’
Jaco turned to Teel, who was pointing into the forest.
‘There are lights in the forest, captain.’
The captain squinted into the darkness. Drayn saw it too: a flickering line of torches, coming closer. Drayn could just about make out the sound of voices, shouting and calling, the words muffled by distance.
‘It is them!’ the woman cried. ‘They are coming!’ She grasped Jaco’s arm. ‘They will kill us all if you stay! Take my baby, and leave this place, oh yes, you must leave.’
Jaco seemed to thrum with a restless energy.
‘Very well,’ he said. He turned to Teel. ‘We can launch the ship quickly.’
Teel nodded. ‘Yes. But the instruments—’
‘Oh your little tools and your maps, your little toys, they will work now!’ the woman cried. ‘This place sucks people in with its terrible tricks, but it cannot stop you leaving, oh no!’
Jaco nodded. He did not truly appear to understand, though he knew they had to leave: of that, Drayn was certain.
‘Come with us,’ he said to the woman.
‘No, my lord, no. They will chase you if they see your ship. I will stay here, and I will distract them, oh yes, I am so good at distracting!’ She thrust the child into Jaco’s arms. ‘Take her! Run!’
Jaco seemed to think this over for a moment. ‘Very well,’ he said.
The woman nodded, and turned towards the lights.
‘What is your name?’ Jaco asked.
The woman glanced back at him. ‘I have many names, my lord, but none of them matter here.’
‘What of the girl?’
The woman began to walk away. ‘Call her what you will.’
They were back on board the ship, now, in Jaco’s room. The captain sat at his desk with the child, wrapped in a woollen blanket. She was older than Drayn had first thought: perhaps seven or eight months old.
Teel came to the door.
‘We will tell no one of this,’ Jaco said, ‘apart from my wife. I will keep the child in Paprissi House, until it is time to reveal her. My wife never leaves the house anyway. They will believe she is ours. As for our journey, we went to the South as usual.’
Teel shrugged. ‘That is your concern, my lord.’
Jaco nodded. ‘Yes. It is.’
‘What will you call her?’ Teel asked.
Jaco looked down at the baby.
‘Strange,’ he whispered. ‘When I look at these eyes, sometimes I think I see the slightest hint of purple.’
Teel chuckled. ‘That’s love, playing tricks on you, sir. Makes you see funny things.’
Jaco’s head snapped up. ‘Love?’ He looked down at the baby once more. ‘She looks like one of us, doesn’t she? A Paprissi.’
‘Yes, sir. Pale skinned, my lord. A little Paprissi lady already, just by another name.’
Jaco smiled. ‘She looks like my own grandmother. So there we are – that’s what I’ll name her.’
‘Grandmother?’
Jaco laughed. ‘No.’ He touched the baby’s nose. ‘Katrina.’
CHAPTER 7
Welcome.
The word was scrawled into the wall in white chalk, high above Aranfal’s head. He was alone. A narrow passageway stretched before him, formed of black stone and filled with a pale light.
He had been walking this same corridor now for hours, alone with his thoughts. He felt no tiredness, no hunger, no thirst. He was just a walking, thinking machine, mired in the past, and the present, and the game.
He began to walk again. But the wall was not finished with him, and another word waited up ahead.
To.
He studied it for a moment. Welcome To. So I am collecting words.
The next words came sooner than the others.
The Hallway of Regret.
He gave a sharp nod. Welcome to the Hallway of Regret. I have a sentence now. That’s progress, isn’t it?
There was a noise behind, a kind of creak. He turned, to find a door had opened in the wall. A golden light came from within, so bright it forced him to shield his eyes with an arm. He considered walking in another direction, back the way he had come or further down the corridor. But he knew there was only one way to go, now. The Underland would always take him there, whether he wanted to go or not.
The light was blinding, forcing his eyes closed. He had a curious sensation of floating. There was a sense of nothingness here, carrying him along with it. After a while the intensity of the light began to weaken, though he could still make out very little. He became gradually aware of a presence: he could feel it, rather than see it.
‘I can’t see anything.’
The light dimmed again, and the Watcher could finally fully open his eyes. He was in a vast hall, cut into the shape of a rough circle. All around were doors, carved into the walls in line after line, formed of all kinds of colours and materials. The room itself was empty, save for one, solitary figure.
The creature before him had the rough outline of a human, though human it was not. It was tall and thin, dressed in a blue gown that hung open to expose its birdlike chest. Thin fingers sprouted from webbed hands that sat at the end of elongated arms. Its red mouth was split open by a coruscating smile, sitting under a nose that was unusually normal on that strange face. It was completely bald, though this was not the baldness of a shaved head, or of one whose hair had fallen out: the skin had a strange quality, milk soft and satin supple, like that of a newborn baby. The creature had no eyes: just a smooth patch of skin where they should have been.
‘Time drifts, and time is still,’ it said. Its voice was familiar to Aranfal, yet he could not place it. It had a strange tone, as if it was not the voice of one being at all, but of many, somehow squeezed together into a single stream.
‘Memory is strong, and memory is weak,’ it said.
It did not appear to notice him, but to exist in a kind of suspended reality of its own.
‘Who are you?’ Aranfal asked.
‘There was once a mother, who was herself a daughter, and a mother of mothers for evermore.’
‘I don’t understand.’
He walked around the creature, unsure of what to do. It remained perfectly still as he made a circuit of its ugly form.
‘In the outside, there is a door. In the inside, there is a tree.’
His mind turned to the woman he had encountered when he first came to the Old Place. She talked in much the same way as this thing. He wondered if this was that same creature, or some twisted relation. She had spoken sense, in the end, pointing him on the path to take. But how could he draw some sense from the mouth of this monster, which seemed more distant than even the woman in the well?
‘There is nothing but stars in the sea, there is nothing but droplets in the sky. The words of my fathers were unspoken, but my children sang in rhymes. When I found …’
‘Help me,’ Aranfal said. ‘Please.’
The creature ceased talking. It seemed to incline its head towards him, though he wondered if this was only a trick of his mind.
‘The floor is on the ceiling. The roof is in the ground.’
He had seen people like this, in cells of the See House, men and women who drifted away on the contours of their own ravings. Perhaps they were trying to escape reality; he could not blame them. But floating minds were no use to a Watcher. A Watcher needed answers.
Aranfal had a lot of tricks, to bring someone back to reality. One always worked best though, a tried and trusted manoeuvre for which he had become famous: hurt someone they loved, or threaten to do so. Well, that was not going to work here. There was nothing here that the creature loved.
It occurred to him, then, that perhaps there was something here that the creature cared about. He was here: a human, one who had been permitted to play in the great game and not yet been killed or thrown into some nightmarish pit of memory. Perhaps he was his own bargaining chip.
‘The night turns into more night, until day comes,’ the creature said. ‘But then, the night lasts longer than before.’
‘Being of the Old Place,’ Aranfal said. He did not know what else to call it, yet his words felt foolish. ‘You are far away from me. Come closer, so that we may talk. I know you have summoned me here: allow me to understand you.’
‘There is a world formed of green grass and blue ice. It is our own world, but it is upside down.’
‘If you do not drag yourself away from madness,’ Aranfal whispered, now standing directly before the beast, ‘I will kill myself. I will pick my eyes out and bleed to death. I will make a noose of my cloak, and hang myself. I will die, creature, I will die, and I will not be able to help you.’
The creature was silent.
‘I will die, and it will be your doing.’
And then all at once, the creature came to life: real life, engaged life.
‘Torturer,’ it whispered. A smile stretched across its unlined skin. ‘We were gone, weren’t we? We always go off on our journeys, floating away on the winds of memory. We cannot stop it.’
‘I have met someone like you before.’
The creature only smiled.
‘Who are you?’
‘We are a face of the Old Place. We are the children of humanity, and the parents of Operators and all the other beasts that have spawned from this place.’ It sighed. ‘We are glad we can talk to you, now, as people. But it is hard for us. That is why we need our children: they are focused. They are more like you. We are … we cannot think straight. Sometimes it lasts for millennia.’
It cocked its head to the side, as if noticing Aranfal’s expression for the first time: as if it could actually see.
‘It’s the eyes, isn’t it?’ The creature reached one of its spider hands up to its plum of a mouth and chuckled. ‘It’s always the eyes. We do not feel their absence. In fact, we pity those that have them.’
Aranfal glanced at his surroundings, to the doors that were all around. Some were slightly ajar, and light spilled out from the beyond.
‘Where am I?’
The creature frowned. ‘Didn’t you see the signs? Did we forget the signs?’ It seemed angry for a moment.
‘I saw,’ said Aranfal. ‘The Hallway of Regret.’
The creature grinned, and clapped its strange hands.
‘Indeed.’
‘What do you want?’
It giggled. ‘We will tell you about our eyes, torturer. We do not have eyes, because they are distracting. Do you understand? We do not want to see memories. Not ever. We simply want to feel them. The power in them is so much more than something one can see. And when we feel them – oh, well, we can see them all anyway.’
It reached its hands up and placed them on either side of the Watcher’s head.
‘It is so nice to have you here, in your true flesh and bone. It gives your memories more flavour. A great circle – we feel new memories being born within you, memories of memories, and on and on it goes …’
The creature withdrew from Aranfal, and went suddenly still. ‘We are many. We are eyeless. The Eyeless One, you can call us.’
Aranfal nodded. He felt as though the Old Place was beginning to show itself to him: starting to reveal its weaknesses. It was a god: he could feel that in his bones. But this god was born of mortals. This god lived for human memory. This god was a parasite. It worshipped him, and all the rest of humanity.
There came a great rumble, emanating from somewhere far beneath them. The room shook, and a piece of the ceiling fell, landing with a crack on the floor.
‘Everything is changing,’ the Eyeless One said. ‘We all sit here, pretending to play a game, just like the others we have played for so many long years. But this one is not the same, Aranfal. How can it be, when we are subjected … yes, subjected … to that thing.’
Aranfal opened his mouth to speak again, but the creature held up one of its spider hands, palm facing forward. There was a new edge in its voice. ‘The world is in motion, Aranfal. Can’t you feel it?’
Aranfal nodded. ‘I felt that, yes. What was it?’
The creature seemed suddenly fearful. ‘Ruin is coming. We sit here, having a nice chat, and all the while, Ruin is coming. Ruin has grown so strong, now – stronger than us!’
‘Us? You mean the Old Place?’
The creature made a flurry of tuts. ‘Our children are such wonderful things.’ It clicked two bony fingers, and suddenly they were joined by a group of spectral beings, hallucinations from a fevered dream: Shirkra, Jandell, the Strategist, the Dust Queen, Squatstout, a boy and girl Aranfal did not know, but who he knew in his bones were Operators like the others. ‘We made them to help us, long ago, when we could not help ourselves. They are weapons: the power of memory, warped into creatures that can use it in such amazing ways.’ The creature let out a long, rattling sigh. ‘Among them all, one was the worst, and the best, all at the same time.’ A gesture from a spindly hand, and a new figure appeared. This one, however, was no more than a shadow: a black silhouette, standing at the creature’s side.
‘Who is that?’ Aranfal whispered. He looked around the room, and it seemed to him that the other Operators were cringing away from the shadow man.
‘Ruin,’ the Eyeless One said. ‘He has no host, as yet, though he has been searching …’
‘Ruin is an Operator,’ Aranfal said. He felt himself backing away from the shadow man.
The creature nodded. ‘Yes. And something has happened to him. Two of these children of ours – the lady of Dust and the Bleak Jandell – built something, in our heart, a little while ago. It is a terrible thing. They placed Ruin within, but they did not know what they were doing. They have made him stronger than he ever was before. He is now greater even than us: than the Old Place. That
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