Читать книгу The Machinery - Gerrard Cowan - Страница 8

Sometimes Katrina felt older than the world itself.

She had first experienced the sensation as a child, before the Operator took her brother, before her mother died and her father sailed away. It was as if part of her was broken, the part that should have governed childhood and put a fire into youth.

No. It wasn’t broken. It was there, all right. But it was not alone. By its side was something else entirely, a tired creature that gazed on the world with weary comprehension, unsurprised by anything.

The feeling had grown stronger over the years. When her brother was taken, the old part of her had begun to dominate. Don’t tell anyone what you saw. What would they do, if they knew? How would they treat you, if they thought you were telling lies about the Operator? And so she had told no one, not even her father or Brightling. Sometimes, though, she wondered if the Tactician knew anyway. Nothing could stay hidden from her for very long.

She had hated it, at first. It conflicted with some of her most cherished beliefs about herself. She saw herself as courageous, perhaps even reckless; the older part restrained her. She saw beauty in the world, in the trees and in the mountains; the older part snorted at such sentimentality. She recoiled at some elements of the Watcher’s life, the cruelty and the treachery; the older part reminded her of the practicalities of the world, and of the hard decisions one must make to thrive.

She became aware, as time went by – she never knew how – that other people were not like this. Other people, people like Brightling, were complete. They were whole. She was two jagged halves.

But she had grown to appreciate it. She found herself able to tap into it, when she needed to. It was as if she had a deep and cool reservoir, hidden within her, which she could use to extinguish even the most searing of flames.

It was another mask.

‘Where is your mask?’

She jolted.

‘I do not have one yet.’

Aranfal frowned. ‘Why not?’

‘I am still an Apprentice.’

‘You are how old?’

Which part? ‘I am 21.’

‘Hmm. That is old, to still be an Apprentice. And even an Apprentice may wear a mask.’

‘Brightling—’

‘Tactician Brightling.’

‘Tactician Brightling says I can visit the Hall of Masks when we are back from the North.’

Aranfal nodded. ‘Well, good for you. I’m sure you’ll get the prettiest mask in all the fucking Hall.’

Katrina bit her tongue, though it took all her willpower. Or rather, it took all the power of her older half to beat down the tempestuous girl.

‘Are you celebrating the end of Expansion then, petal?’ Aranfal asked.

‘No. There are no celebrations.’

‘Why not? I thought you young people would have drunk half of Northern Blown by now.’

‘No. The Overland is mourning for the Strategist, Watcher.’ And I am not permitted to fraternise with young people, or with anyone who isn’t Brightling.

Aranfal nodded. ‘I know that, girl. Don’t take me for a fool.’

The older part once again suppressed her natural instincts, which this time pointed towards violence. ‘I am sorry, Watcher Aranfal.’

He nodded. ‘Good.’

They remained in silence for a moment.

‘Why am I here, Watcher?’ She looked around the hall. It was just as she would have expected from a place like this, all stone and straw and fireplaces and wood. Aranfal was sitting at a long, oak table, papers scattered before him. Dozens of candles burned around the hall.

‘Why are you here? How should I know?’

‘Brightling told me to come. She said you had something to show me.’

‘She said that?’ He squinted his eyes. ‘Was she any more specific?’

‘No.’

Aranfal sighed, and pointed at the papers. ‘Well, in that case, she must want you to bathe alongside me in the glamour of my life. At the moment I’m cataloguing the sheep and cattle in the surrounding fields. Yes indeed, being a Watcher is truly glorious at all times, as you will find out one day.’ He broke into a smile. ‘Although perhaps not, now that I think about it. You’ll get the plum jobs, I have no doubt.’

Katrina bowed her head, and did not speak. Aranfal had always been this way with her, though she did not know why. No Watcher outranked him, save Brightling herself; he was arguably the most powerful man in the world, now that Kane was dead, or if he was not, only Charls Brandione had more of a claim. But when he looked upon her, he did so with envy. The youthful part of her could not see this; it was her older self that recognised this emotion, and laughed at Aranfal for being so weak.

‘I firstly have to be made a Watcher,’ said Katrina, ‘which is easier said than done.’

There was a knock at the door, and a young Watcher entered, in a bull mask. He approached Aranfal, handed him a piece of parchment, and scuttled away, bowing as he went.

Aranfal scanned the parchment, and smiled.

‘Ah, now I understand,’ he said with a nod.

‘Understand what?’

He lifted the parchment. ‘It’s from Brightling. There’s going to be an interrogation, led by yours truly, and you are to attend. How does that sound?’

‘Excellent, Watcher.’ Nightmarish, said her younger self, and the other half did not disagree.

Seablast was a broken man.

Gone was the proud bearing of the warrior King, that sense of power he had conveyed only the day before. In its place was a downcast creature, his eyes dead, his black hair unkempt, his armour replaced with a dirty and torn white shirt. He even seemed thinner, shrunken, as if the loss of his lands had physically deflated him. He sat on a wooden stool before a stone table, and his legs and arms were shackled, like some kind of Doubter or common criminal.

Katrina stood at the back of the cell, pressed against a clammy wall. She wished she already had a mask of her own, when Seablast looked up at her. But he did not seem to see. His eyes looked through her, into nothing.

Aranfal took a seat opposite the King. He did not wear his raven’s mask, but laid it on the table, in front of Seablast. The King seemed to come to life when he noticed this strange object, this black, alien artefact that had made its way into his world, signifying the end of so much he had once held inviolable. Aranfal could have looked into the heart of the King, if he only chose to wear his mask. But it did not work like that. A Watcher only used his mask when he had to. Sometimes, wearing the mask actually hurt.

‘Do you recognise this?’ Aranfal had a certain tone to his voice, sometimes. Katrina pressed herself against the wall, willing it to suck her in.

‘That is a mask, Watcher,’ said the King. ‘I know all about you people. You live in a tower on a hill by the sea, and you run around with little masks on, and you think they are a gateway into people’s souls. Sometimes the masks are trees, sometimes they are people, sometimes they are cats, and sometimes they are dogs. Sometimes the masks are even made to look like sweet little birdies.’

He grinned at Aranfal, but Katrina saw through the smiles. He had lost everything, he was a husk of a man, yet still he felt the need to be combative. That wouldn’t do much good against Aranfal. That wouldn’t do much good at all.

Aranfal nodded, once, short and sharp. ‘Very good, King. It is a mask. But that is not what I meant to say. What I meant to say is, do you recognise this mask, in particular?’

Seablast thought this over for a moment, casting glances at the raven, which stared up at him from the table, waiting and watching. Katrina hated that bird, and feared it too. Seablast seemed unafraid. That will change.

‘Yes,’ the King said. ‘It is the raven of Aranfal, the renowned Watcher, Brightling’s hand-servant and general dogsbody. It is the mask of a weak man, who torments his victims by hurting their loved ones. It is the mask of a non-person.’

And then Seablast spat at Aranfal. It was a pathetic effort, the detritus of a dried and parched mouth. But it was not the quantity that mattered; it was the act itself.

In one cool, swift movement, Aranfal was on his feet. He leaned over the table and smacked the King with the back of his hand, sending a crack echoing in the cell like a shot from a handcannon. Seablast was knocked back, and would have fallen from his stool had it not been for his chains. He righted himself and glared at Aranfal through watery eyes, the right side of his face blooming red.

‘So, this is how the Watchers of the Overland treat kings,’ he said, his voice trembling.

‘King? You are a king no longer, Seablast. But don’t worry about that. You will have a place in history. You will always be remembered as the last independent ruler on the Plateau, who lost his lands through his own idiocy. Your name will echo through the ages. Children will sing songs mocking you, and drunks will lie in the gutter, puke drying on their lips, and thank the Machinery that they are not Seablast, knowing that it could be worse.’

Aranfal shrugged.

‘I am still a king,’ Seablast said. ‘One is born a king, by dint of one’s blood, which flows through the ages like a river. One is not Selected to rule by a machine; one is Selected to rule by one’s ancestry.’

‘Ancestry? Let’s look at your ancestry. Your father was a great man. He was respected by everyone in our land. He was a true diplomat, and he would have kept his people free, if he sat on the throne today.’

‘He was a weak streak of piss, and he only kept us free by placing us under the boot of the Strategist and your bitch of a superior. That is not being a king.’

‘Then what is being a king? Not only have you lost your kingdom, but through your mischief-making you have brought Anflef and Siren Down and all the other little kingdoms up here to their knees, too. All these old countries, gone forever, because of you. Not that it is a bad thing. Your subjects – apologies, our subjects – will now revel in the glory of the world.’

‘The Machinery? You don’t even know what it is!’ Seablast laughed. ‘You just trust the Operator, some fucking trickster who lives in another realm and pulls the wool over your eyes. He is a king, Aranfal the raven, just as I am. Except he will never give up his power, not to anyone in the world.’

‘And yet you handed your lands over to us, freely.’

‘Hardly freely. And it was my worst mistake. I should have kept fighting, without allies. I should have let my daughters die. It would have been better than this life.’

Aranfal sighed, and leaned back in his chair, knitting his hands behind his head.

‘I don’t think this little philosophical chitchat is getting us anywhere.’

Seablast shook his head. ‘No.’

Aranfal turned to Katrina. ‘Is this what you imagined an interrogation to be?’

Katrina started, and pushed herself off the wall. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘Maybe? What does maybe mean?’

‘No, it’s not what I imagined an interrogation to be.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re not asking him any questions.’

Aranfal snapped his fingers together. ‘I knew I’d forgotten something.’ He turned to face Seablast again. ‘Your Majesty, if I were a Doubter, in the kingdom of Northern Blown, where would I be most likely to hide?’

Seablast laughed. ‘Everyone here is a Doubter. You have given them nothing to believe in.’

Aranfal’s eyes widened. ‘Everyone? You know, we have a prison for Doubters, in the South of our lands, in the heart of the desert of the Wite. It’s been there for ten millennia, yet none of us know what’s in there, or even who mans it. You know why that is? Because no one ever leaves the Prison of the Doubters. So if all your people are Doubters, do I need to send them all down there?’

Seablast looked away from Aranfal.

‘Because I could do that, Seablast. It would be pretty hard work. There would be a lot of carts and carriages and horses and so forth. But we’re the masters of a continent, now. There’s not much we can’t do, when we put our minds to it. So I ask again – should I send everyone down there?’

Seablast did not reply.

Aranfal nodded. ‘I’m getting fucking tired of you, and this place. I’m from the North too, Seablast, though it’s colder and nastier than anywhere you’ve been. I don’t want to be in the North any more, understood? I want to go home. So let me ask you again – where would I find the Doubters in this fucking dump?’

Seablast met Aranfal’s gaze. ‘I tell you truthfully, I do not know any Doubters. They could be anywhere.’

‘What about your lieutenants? Those pricks in the throne room, back when you were a king? A few of them have gone missing, haven’t they? I bet they’re out and about now, planning to right your honour and make some trouble for us. Aren’t they? What are their names?’

Seablast remained silent, and his eyes focused on the table.

‘All I need is their names.’

‘I don’t know who you’re talking about. And I don’t see why they’d be Doubters.’

Aranfal turned to Katrina, his eyes blazing, his body shaking with fury. She could not tell if it was real or part of his act, but the older part of her told her to do whatever he asked.

‘Paprissi, there’s a bag on the floor beside you. Bring it over here.’

Katrina looked to her side, and saw a brown satchel. She instantly snatched it in her hand and walked to Aranfal’s side.

‘Unfold it on the table.’

She did as she was told. The bag turned into a gleaming array of knives, axes and other tools the Apprentice Watcher had never seen before and had no name for. She knew, however, for a certainty, that she would not like to be on the wrong end of any of them.

‘I’ll get her to use these,’ Aranfal whispered, jabbing a thumb at Katrina. ‘The only thing is, this is her first interrogation, so she might be clumsy. Thumbs and things might get lost forever.’

Katrina felt her stomach turn. You are a Watcher, girl, said the older part of herself. You know what this life is.

But this was never supposed to be my life, the younger side responded, in a rare moment of defiance.

She steeled herself, and smiled at the King, in what she hoped was a sinister manner. But it was evidently unsuccessful. Seablast smiled back at her, and winked. Winked.

‘Is there something amusing, your Majesty?’ Aranfal asked. His tone was smoothing, cool. He knew something the others did not.

‘I’ve been tortured before, by people worse than you,’ the King said. ‘Once I spent a couple of weeks as the guest of some snow bandits. I was humiliated, to fall into their hands. But I got myself free, pretty quickly.’ He grinned.

‘I’ve met snow bandits before, too, your Majesty. I’m from a similar background to them, in point of fact. And they are a nasty bunch. But they are not worse than us. Besides, what makes you think we are going to torture you?’

The King’s expression flickered from confusion to something else entirely: fear.

‘Katrina.’ Aranfal looked to Katrina again. ‘Gather up this bag of tricks, like a good little Apprentice, and take a walk down the corridor, till you come to the fifth cell from this one. It’s a nasty cell, that one, your Majesty, not like your own lovely abode. Once you get there, Katrina, pass on my regards to the King’s daughters. Don’t tell them he’s here. Don’t even ask them any questions. Just cut off bits of them. Let’s say – one finger each. Or a toe? What do you think, your Majesty – what would they prefer to lose?’

The King’s face was grey, his eyes once more on the table. But he did not protest. He did not say a word. By the Machinery, tell him whatever he wants, you idiot. Don’t force me to do this.

‘Seablast, you know I am a bad man,’ Aranfal said. ‘And you know I am committed to my work, and to the Machinery. Tell me where your missing minions are, or your daughters will suffer for your obstinacy.’

The King sighed, and his very bones seemed to rattle. When he looked at Aranfal, there was something new in his eye: resignation.

No. Please don’t do it, Seablast.

‘I already told you,’ said the King. ‘I made a mistake in my throne room. Do what you want. My girls would be better dead, than living under your rule.’

Aranfal lifted a finger. ‘Not my rule. The rule of the Selected.’

He packed up the instruments, and handed the bag to Katrina again.

‘Well, off you go, then.’

As Katrina walked down the corridor, she knew which part of her personality to turn to.

This is what being a Watcher is.

Get in there, do it quickly, get out again.

Show them no emotion.

Do a good job, and you will be recognised.

The world is a hard and cruel place, Katrina. You know that better than anyone. We do what we must to survive. We do what we must to thrive.

Only once did the other part get in.

What would father think of you now? Is this what he would have wanted for you?

She stood at the cell door, the fifth one along.

If father cared about you, he wouldn’t have left you to be raised by Watchers, now would he?

She pushed inside.

There was only one woman in this cell, and she was not a daughter of King Seablast.

‘Aleah.’

Thank the Machinery.

The woman sat at a table, a book open before her. Katrina knew her as one of the more ambitious generation of younger Watchers, the ones on the rung below Aranfal. She was unusually chubby for a Watcher, with unkempt blonde hair strewn around her face.

‘Has he said anything yet?’

‘No, Watcher.’

‘He didn’t break down again, when Aranfal threatened his daughters?’

‘Not this time.’

‘But he thinks you are hacking bits off them. He’ll be talking now, I bet. If he isn’t, we’ll try a different tack. Maybe we’ll send you in again in a while, with a finger. We’ll just take one off a corpse, so don’t worry.’

‘Where are his daughters?’

‘No idea. Maybe they’re dead. Or maybe old Aranfal let them go. Sometimes he’s soft, you know. I would have put the King in the same room as them, and made him watch what I did. But Aranfal only does that kind of thing when he has to. He’s soft.’

The woman seemed to catch herself, and grinned. ‘I jest, of course. He’s a genius at this type of thing. No one better.’

The door behind them opened, and Aranfal entered. He nodded at Aleah, and pointed to the door, waiting until she had left the room before he spoke.

‘The King has told me everything he knows. He reckons there will be some rebels out there, but it doesn’t sound to me like we’ve much to worry about. Only took another five minutes. It’s funny how it works, sometimes. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. I just placed thoughts in his head, about what we knew and what we were doing. Having relatives is a very dangerous business. You are lucky, to be alone.’

I am?

‘So, there you have it, Katrina. The psychological art of the interrogation.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘In your next class, we really will chop off someone’s finger.’ He laughed. ‘But it’ll have to wait. You’re to go back south with Brightling in the morning.’

Katrina bowed. ‘Thank you, Watcher. This has been a good education.’

‘Hmm. Everything is.’

She left Aranfal alone in the cell, and took herself away from the dungeons of Northern Blown. As she made her way up the stairs, one part of her wept with relief that she had not been forced to torture a girl, just to torment her father.

The other part was disappointed.