Читать книгу The Strategist - Gerrard Cowan - Страница 10

Canning had never had ambitions.

No – that was not quite true. He had them, all right. But they were quiet, dreamy things: not the burning desires of so many of his fellow citizens. All he had ever wanted was to immerse himself in the mundane: to live a humble life, a quiet existence, far away from the Centre and the Fortress, from Brightling and her schemes.

But there was no escaping the Machinery.

And where had it taken him, this dream he never wanted? The Bowels of the See House. They had found him after the Selection, and taken him away. His memory of those events was broken. He had seen a creature dressed in purple rags, standing tall, that thing in the white mask by her side. The new Strategist was a girl he once knew: Katrina Paprissi, the last of her name.

But no longer. That girl was gone now.

It was a very different type of Selection. There were none of the usual trappings: no parchment from the Operator, no phalanx of Watchers spreading from the Circus in a black arc, scouring the land for the chosen ones. There had been a flame, but a person had emerged, if she could be called a person.

He had fallen over somewhere, he remembered. He was always falling over. Feet had trampled him into the dirt. When he managed to snatch glances at his surroundings, he saw people charging towards the new Strategist, holding their arms out. There was something about them; they were possessed, like in the stories about the old gods. Canning forced his way to his feet to get a better view, but it was too late; there were too many bodies in the way. He grabbed a man by the shoulder, without knowing why. Human contact, perhaps? The man turned and stared through the Tactician; his eyes were stagnant pools.

Whatever was driving these people to the Strategist had not affected him, he realised. Hope grew. He could sneak away: run to the West, perhaps, and hide himself in a vineyard or a tobacco farm or a mine. But then he felt a cold hand at his own shoulder, and turned to face a Watcher.

He had been here, in this room, this cell, for as long as he could remember. Was there ever a time before this cell? He had new memories, now, things he was certain had never occurred, or at least not to him. He had been to a city of dark spires, where people plucked out their eyes, just to avoid looking at her, the woman in the white mask. He had seen a temple, a place of wisdom, reduced to ashes by the power of her mind, its inhabitants throwing themselves into the flame to escape her gaze.

Her name was Shirkra.

She had brought all this before him when she visited. She had penetrated him, used him, tormented him with visions. No, not visions. Memories.

She was here again, now. How long has she been here?

‘You’re wondering why I am hurting you,’ she said, her voice free of emotion.

Canning nodded.

The Operator – for that was what she was, she had told him so herself – shrugged her narrow shoulders, and giggled. Her red hair bounced in curls. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

‘It’s not your fault, really, I suppose. You didn’t mean to be Selected. You are unlucky, so unlucky, to have been Selected when you were. Mother told me to kill you all, long ago. I didn’t get you all, though, did I? The white-haired woman is gone, and you’re still alive. But it doesn’t matter, does it? Perhaps it never mattered – perhaps she made me do those things, just to distract me! To keep me out of the way, me and my Chaos! But still, we have you, and she doesn’t want to kill you now. That means I can play with you forever. What fun!’

**

Sometimes, Aranfal was there, too. Canning did not resent the Watcher. It was not his fault everything had come to this. It was all her.

Aranfal gave him cups of water.

**

‘When will this end?’ he asked her one night. He was unsure if he had spoken, or simply thought the question; it did not seem to matter with her.

‘It does not have to end, so it may never end,’ she said. ‘It might be good to make you into a story. Yes, everyone would know what you suffered, oh yes, down here, at my hand, and then they would never seek to place themselves against Mother.’

‘I did not place myself against her.’

‘Hmm, perhaps, perhaps. But the Machinery Selected you, and that is the same thing.’

She raised her arms, and took him back to the day he was Selected.

**

The Watchers had come early in the morning. Strange, but he had already known what they wanted. He had known when he woke. His room was a hovel, tucked into the back of a shop, stinking of fish, like everything else, with one dirty window facing out onto the lane. It had been grey, and cold, as it always was. He was thinner then, before all the lonely gluttony of the Centre, and as he stood from the bed he wrapped his smock tightly around his bones. He looked out the window; a girl with a stick in her hand was staring back. She pointed it at him, and ran away. He never did find out who she was.

He left the hovel with a sense of dread. He knew, of course, that a new Tactician had been Selected. He had begged the Machinery to leave him alone. He hated the idea of being Selected, which meant he probably would be. Things always went like that for him.

He quickly exited the lane and joined the main street, planning to go to the market as usual. He hoped this feeling was misplaced, or that they would not find him. But he did not make it very far. As soon as he turned onto the street, they were on top of him: the Watchers. He remembered it so clearly. There were three of them, narrow creatures, all wearing eagle masks. One of them held a parchment. He scoured it quickly, and then approached Canning.

‘You are Canning, the market trader,’ he said in a thin voice.

Canning wondered how they had known where to find him, though he later learned much that was strange about the Watchers.

‘I am,’ he replied, feeling a fool.

The Watchers fell to their knees, arms raised towards Canning, and with one voice began their spiel about the Machinery and how it had Selected him in its glory. But he was not paying attention. He was looking to the edge of the gathering crowd, where a young woman was standing. Her face was torn with misery.

‘Stand,’ he told the Watchers. It was the single occasion he ever summoned the courage to issue orders to these people. ‘When must I go?’

‘You are a Tactician,’ said one, though she seemed utterly unconvinced. ‘You may stay or go as you please.’

The first Watcher came forward again. ‘But of course, your people need you to lead them into Expansion – to conquer the very Plateau itself!’

The new Tactician nodded. ‘I will need one day,’ he said.

When the Watchers had gone, Canning moved into the ogling crowd. ‘All of you, leave,’ he said.

‘You’re enjoying dishing out commands,’ said Annya, the only one to stay behind.

‘I am not. I want to stay here.’

‘You can’t. You’ve been Selected. You’re going to leave me behind.’

She gave him that look of hers, then, such a strange look, wounded and piercing at once, a trembling defiance. And she turned and ran from him.

He chased her all the way to the dock, where they stood before that hateful wall. She had done this many times before. She was half mad, he had been told. Half-mad Annya. But he never thought she would really do it. No, he never thought that.

When she turned to face him, she was crying.

‘You have ruined my life,’ she said. There was no emotion in her voice.

‘Annya.’ He reached out a hand to her, but she knocked it away. ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen. How could I have meant for this to happen? The Machinery Selected me. It wasn’t the other way around.’

Annya walked to him, so their faces almost touched. ‘They say it only picks those that want to be picked. That’s what my father said.’

‘Believe me, it is not true.’

She snorted.

‘You can come with me,’ he said, lamely.

‘Tacticians aren’t allowed wives.’

‘It could be a secret.’

In an instant she struck him. He raised his hand to his stinging face.

‘And then I can be your … what, whore? Up there in your pyramid, hidden away like a secret?’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

Something changed, then. The anger seemed to leave her.

‘I can’t do that,’ she said.

Canning nodded. And then, as if it was the simplest act in the world, the love of his life climbed onto the wall, and threw her young body into the sea.

He never understood why she did it. Sometimes he thought it was an accident; perhaps she only meant to scare him, and had taken a tumble. But no. She had jumped. Half-mad Annya.

This was the memory the Operator brought before him, more than any other. When he asked her why she did it, she just shrugged.

She brought other memories, too: things that happened after he was Selected, and some that occurred long before. They were all twisted, somehow: a shade darker than he remembered. But when he was wrapped inside them, he was powerless. He would have done anything she asked of him. She preyed upon his old fears; she drained him of all hope.

All the while, she seemed to take such joy from his memories. She sparked with a strange power, as she wallowed in them. Once, he turned to her, and the woman was gone, replaced with a flickering light. It had a kind of elemental force, and he could not look upon it for long.

He never knew a memory could hurt so much. He never knew a good memory could be woven into something bad, or a bad memory made harder to bear. But she showed him it was so.

Strangest of all were the memories that were not his own. Could he even be certain they were memories, or were they the creations of her imagination? They were terrible, whatever they were; she could lift things from them, and make them real. How much power does she have?

And that was how the last Tactician in the Overland spent his days.