Gerrard Cowan - The Machinery

In a short, sharp movement, Brightling pulled her hand back down to her side and turned around. Katrina briefly looked behind as they climbed, and saw that the people remained on their knees, driven to the ground by a woman whose time as a Tactician could be over in a matter of days.

‘Ah, good afternoon, Tactician,’ came a male voice after they had climbed ten or so steps.

Canning, the Tactician for Expansion, crawled out of a compartment in the side of the wall. The man could not abide crowds. In contrast to Brightling, he appeared to be adapting to life without pomp quite easily, clothed in a hairy woollen smock that was tied at the waist with a length of knotted vine, the uniform of the market trader he had been fourteen years before, when he was Selected. He clambered to his feet, sweat cascading down his fleshy face.

‘Good afternoon, Tactician Canning,’ Brightling smiled, as the rotund man brushed the dirt from his smock. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Yes, I suppose. These things have to be done.’ He glanced at the black staircase that snaked its way upwards. ‘On we go, then. May as well start.’ He pushed past them and began to climb, his stout legs struggling up the steps. It was not long before he lagged behind the two women, wheezing in their wake.

Eventually they turned off the stairs. Before them was a wide corridor, the walls and floor formed of silver and interlaid with old stones; there were no paintings, statues or tapestries to obscure their terrible gleam.

At the end of the corridor was a huge, silver door. Four helmeted, armoured guards stood to attention as the Tacticians approached.

‘Watching and Expansion!’ came a cry from an unseen herald, as the small party swept through the entrance into the sumptuous heart of the Overland.

The first thing Katrina noticed was the chandelier, a vast construct of a thousand candles, overwhelming the room in flickering light and blue smoke. Servants pushed wheeled ladders around it, scrabbling upwards to relight extinguished flames. The room had a heavy, sleepy feel, like some brothel of the Far Below.

An immense fresco covered the walls, telling of the Gifting of the Machinery. The observer’s eyes were first drawn to an image of a savage tribe: they wore animal pelts, and some had bones as jewellery. Before them stood Arandel, the prophet of the Machinery and the herald of the Operator. The people looked upon him with loathing.

The events depicted on the next wall took the scene forward, to the moment of the Operator’s arrival. Arandel, benign and beatific, stood on the Primary Hill, his arms open as he implored the people to listen to his words. Behind him burned a great fire, from which emerged the Operator, his cloak a living thing of dark flame that swirled with faces.

I know you, thought the younger part of Katrina. I have seen you.

Do not think about it, said the older part. It doesn’t help you to think about it.

Agreed.

One scene stretched out across both the east and south walls: a depiction of the three buildings that were left to the people by the Operator. Straight ahead was the See House, the home of the Watchers, a crooked black tower on the edge of the Priador. Behind it, a night sky was smeared with stars. In the centre, painted over the corner where the east and south walls met, sat the Circus, the great stadium of the Overland, built at the very spot on the Primary Hill where the people had first encountered the Operator and where Selections still occurred today. The sky was lightening at this point, the marble edifice surrounded by dusk. To its right, smaller than the other buildings but somehow more imposing, was Memory Hall, the red palace in which they all now stood, its black windows winking at the viewer.

Katrina turned from the walls. Ahead of her, at the far end of the room, was a golden throne.

‘Do you know what that is, Katrina?’ Brightling asked.

‘Yes, madam.’

‘Well, off you go then. Pay your respects.’

Katrina nodded, then hesitantly padded forward.

This chair had hosted the backsides of the greatest men and women of the world: the Strategists, Selected by the Machinery to rule the Overland. As she stared at the seat, a sense of history drew up within her, making her dizzy: somehow, despite everything she knew, she could not convince herself that Arandel, Lalle, Kane, Obland, Syer, Barrio, and all the rest, had sat just five feet from where she now knelt.

‘It seems simple at first, doesn’t it?’

Katrina looked up with a start to see Tactician Canning at her side.

‘Yes. I thought it would be …’

‘More grandiose.’

‘Yes.’

‘You can’t see it all in the smoke. Give it a moment – look to the sides.’

Canning backed away as Katrina studied the throne. After a moment, the smoke cleared and it emerged: an almost perfect statue of the Operator, sitting on the edge of the great chair with his legs crossed and his arms folded in his lap. His cloak fell in waves around the base of the throne, strange images of trapped souls painted onto its surface. A hooked nose sat beneath two hollow black eyes, their expression impassive, neutral.

Katrina had hardened over the years, grown accustomed to seeing his image. And yet, there he was, again in the form of a statue – the creature that had taken her brother.

You think that, but do you know? You could be mad.

‘Brightling, is your skivvy done with her gawping? Is there not much to be discussed among us?’

The voice came from above.

‘Black hair, pale skin, nice girlie, very nice. Regal, I would say. From the Centre, yes. A Balatto, perhaps? No, too pretty, too delectable. A strange appearance. What is she?’

Grotius, the Tactician of the North, leered down at her. He was a huge man, fatter even than Canning. Even here in the Cabinet room, above the Strategist’s Throne itself, he gnawed on the fried wing of some massive bird, wiping his hands on the bloodied apron he retained from his pre-Selection career as a butcher. Servants flittered around him, carefully wiping blood and grease from the golden robes that were visible just below the apron. A red cleaver hung ominously at his waist.

‘Grotius, be quiet. You northern ape—’

‘Western whore.’

‘Redbarrel rat.’

This new voice came from the western wall. Katrina realised, now, that the room was broken into stepped levels: in the gloom, she could make out three sets of stairs, one leading to Grotius on the northern wall, another to this new speaker, the third to the south, at the door through which they had entered.

‘I am ignoring you, now, Grotius.’

Rangle, the Tactician of the West, was old; Katrina judged the woman to be in her eighth decade, to guess from the few wisps of grey hair that clung to her withered scalp. It was said she had wept for days when her Selection was announced: a rare reaction indeed among the ambitious denizens of the Overland. Rangle had only ever had one wish in life, they said: to study at the College. Her Selection put an end to all that.

‘No! No, I don’t want it! Mummy!’

Katrina turned to the southern wall. Bardon, ruler of the South, was nine years old: the youngest Tactician for fifty years. He was a small thing, even for his age, and looked as if a gust of wind could carry him away. He was a beautiful child, his skin a light brown and his wide eyes a striking blue. He sat atop a heap of silk-covered feather pillows, almost drowning in his golden gown, toying with a wooden doll and glancing nervously around the room. A chubby, harassed-looking woman, who Katrina assumed was the child’s mother, stood behind his throne: her efforts to hand him his official papers were not well received.