Gerrard Cowan - The Strategist

She snatched the mask from her face and placed it on the table. Jandell was young again, though his palm was still empty. He gave her a weak smile. I have hurt him. The mask has hurt him.

‘What is this thing?’ Brightling whispered. She looked at her mask, which had formed into the face of a young woman, placid and plain.

‘Memories are what we live for,’ Jandell said, ‘because memories are life itself.’ He nodded at the dark mask. ‘That is the opposite of life. It is all that remains of our old enemy: a thing called the Absence. A creature that wished only to destroy memory, and all of memory’s children, and life itself. The masks your Watchers wear are formed of the Old Place, and give them a little sliver of its power: the power of memory. Your mask senses memories, but only to destroy them.’

‘When I have worn it, sometimes … I have felt I could strip out a person’s soul.’

Jandell did not respond. Brightling took the mask in her hand, and hid it away again.

‘Was Katrina a memory, Operator?’

Jandell sighed.

‘There is no Katrina any more. She is subsumed by the One. My people …’

He stared at her, unblinking. ‘This body is not mine; I took it long ago, because it suits me. I feel whole when I am within its memories. I warp it now, as I wish, but I did not create it. It is the same with Katrina; whatever she once was has now gone, replaced by a creature of memory. My mother.’

Brightling ran a finger along her mask. ‘If she is a creature of memory, Operator – then I could use my mask—’

Jandell silenced her with a finger. ‘You could not stand against her. And neither could that mask – remember, the Absence was defeated. That is only a shard of it, a piece of its corpse, and it would be defeated again.’

Brightling nodded, but she was unconvinced. A fantasy took life in her febrile imagination, and she grasped her mask. One day, I will destroy the thing that has possessed her, and I will bring Katrina back.

**

‘Look ahead,’ said Jandell.

Brightling pulled her black cloak around her and walked to the deck. The Operator had given her the garment, along with several pairs of trousers and shirts. She had no idea where the clothes had come from, but she was glad of them. Perhaps they are memories, too.

‘What is it?’

‘It is land, Amyllia.’

She squinted, and could just make out a patch of darkness, rising up from the water far in the distance.

‘Is it where Squatstout lives, Operator?’

‘Yes. My brother.’ The Operator sighed.

He turned to face her.

‘We will be there in a day.’

**

Brightling knew, when she woke, that something had changed.

She climbed from her bed hesitantly, and made her way to the deck. Jandell was already there. ‘It will grow larger, as you watch,’ he said. His back was turned to her.

The Watcher looked ahead. The island seemed no closer than it had the day before. However, as she looked, it appeared to lurch forward, forcing its way into view.

It was as if a mountain had been plucked from its home and dropped into the water, far from where it was supposed to be. There was nothing else in view, nothing but this black rock that reached from the sea to the sky: a balled fist, where the See House was a claw.

‘Our destination,’ Jandell said. Something had changed once again in the Operator. He still appeared young, but the lightness and vitality of the previous days had vanished. He was weaker, to the Watcher’s eye.

‘This is not a good place,’ Brightling said, sucking on her pipe and blowing pale smoke into the still air. ‘I am afraid of it.’

The Operator nodded.

‘Have you been here before, Jandell?’

‘No. I never had the inclination. I wish now that I had.’

‘Why?’

The Operator shrugged. ‘To see what sort of creature Squatstout has become.’

**

‘Squatstout knows we are here,’ Jandell said.

Brightling looked up from the deck of the ship. The cliff was a vast, dark wall, as impenetrable as the battlements of Northern Blown. Far above them, lined along the edge, she could make out people holding torches in the night. In the middle was a lumpen creature in a peasant’s shawl. Squatstout.

‘This seems a lovely place,’ said Brightling. ‘Operator, have you seen these?’

There were corpses in the water. They had not been there for long, by the look of them. She thought of the Bony Shore, and the things that Katrina found there, long ago. Brightling had told the girl they were just rocks. Perhaps they came from this place.

Jandell glanced at the bodies in the waves, before turning his attention back to the island. ‘There is an inlet here.’

Brightling studied the shore, and saw nothing but black stone. But the boat, guided by some invisible force, threaded its way through the boulders until the rocks hung over their heads and to their sides.

They had entered a cave, and she could see nothing.

‘Operator …’

There was a jolt, and the ship shuddered violently to a stop.

‘Do not be concerned,’ said Jandell. ‘They will find us soon.’

There came a noise of footsteps, and the cave filled with light. Brightling saw that the ship had run up onto the ground, on a patch of land mercifully free of jagged rocks.

They were in a giant chamber, carved from the very centre of the island. People were milling around, carrying their torches. Directly below, at the front of the ship, stood Squatstout. This was not the cringing servant Brightling remembered, but a lord, his posture erect, his eyes cool and watchful. Was this really the same creature that had once followed Aranfal around the Centre? He seemed tauter, somehow. He was still the same small, fat man, but there was an edge to him, now.

‘I knew you would come here, Jandell,’ Squatstout said with a smile. ‘I always knew you would come.’

‘Impressive. I only found out recently myself,’ Jandell replied.

‘Indeed. You left it a very long time, a very long time, which some would construe as rude, though not I. I have watched you, and I know you have been most busy.’

Jandell bowed.

‘But I am being so rude!’ Squatstout cried. ‘These are my companions, and my loyal servants,’ he said, gesturing behind him. ‘I call them my Guards.’

There were about a dozen Guards. Their faces were hidden behind gleaming masks, from which hung long, silver beaks, giving them the appearance of monstrous, metallic birds. They all wore chainmail under short green cloaks, and on their heads were wide-brimmed hats. Some held pikes.

Beyond this group were others, maybe a hundred of them, people with pale faces and curious eyes.

‘Come, join me for dinner,’ said Squatstout. There was a hissing quality to his voice that Brightling had not appreciated before. ‘We have a great deal to discuss, but I would not – I would not – have you go hungry in my home.’

As they clambered down from the ship, a bell began to ring.

**

Squatstout took them to a stone staircase embedded in the wall and leading into the heart of the island. The staircase was narrow, its stones slick with damp. The torches of Squatstout’s companions illuminated the way. On and on it went, through rock and mud, up into the island.

Brightling was sandwiched between several of the strange, beaked Guards. As she looked at their pikes, she thought of the bodies in the water. She felt under her cloak, and brushed a finger across her handcannon.

There was a commotion ahead, and the group came to a halt. Peering into the torchlight, Brightling saw one of the Guards huddled together with Squatstout, muttering incomprehensible words. His beak was painted a dull gold, and he seemed to hold a senior position, judging from the way the others kept their distance. Squatstout gestured at a section of the cave wall, and the Guard touched it with a gloved hand. The wall fell away, and the group marched through.