Aranfal shrugged. ‘That’s part of it, I suppose. But nothing happens without the Strategist’s say so. Not any more. That’s why you’re alive.’
Canning snorted. ‘Why would she want to keep me alive?’
Why indeed?
‘I cannot begin to fathom …’ He thought, for a moment, of the new power in the Overland. He had not seen her since the Selection; no one had. Still, her presence was everywhere, a purple smoke that clogged the lungs and stung the eyes. ‘Perhaps she thinks you will help her.’
‘How could I help her?’
Aranfal squinted at Canning. They had had this conversation many times, here in the darkness of the Bowels, but Canning never seemed to remember. What has happened to him? Has Shirkra rummaged about in his mind a little too much? Aranfal had seen what the female Operator could do. She played with a person’s memories, and she twisted them until they bled. But no. More than that. She took power from them. It reminded him of a story he had read, long ago, as a child in the North: a story about ancient magic, of gods that toyed with men and women, stole from them and abused them, but who always were defeated, in the end, tricked by the same ploys they used against their victims. Were those just stories, or were they history? He smiled at his own hopefulness: Aranfal laughing at Aran Fal.
‘The Strategist only cares about one thing,’ Aranfal said. He looked into the corners, as if she might be hiding there, the thing that had once been Katrina Paprissi. She would not like me talking about her. Or perhaps she would. How would I know? He sighed. What did it matter, anyway? He never knew how things worked in this new world.
‘The Strategist only cares about the Machinery. That’s all. She’s not been here; she’s been searching for it. Perhaps she thinks you can help her find it.’
Canning coughed a laugh. ‘Me? I thought she was the One, whatever that means? She thinks I could help her? Not even Brightling knew where the Machinery was. No one knows, apart from the Operator, and sometimes not even him, if the stories are to be believed. Doesn’t she think I would have said something by now, to get myself away from her … her …’
‘Shirkra,’ Aranfal said, glancing again at the shadows of the cell.
‘Yes. Her Shirkra.’ Canning trembled, and his head lolled forward again. He lifted it with great effort, making a grunting noise.
‘I don’t know what the Strategist thinks,’ Aranfal said with a shrug. ‘I’m just guessing. Maybe she likes the way you smell. How would I know? We never see her.’
Canning’s face broke into a dark smile. ‘Then who rules the Overland? Shirkra?’
Aranfal shrugged again. He was being too free with his words. What does it matter? Shirkra will kill him soon anyway. Whether the Strategist wills it or not, Shirkra will kill this man …
‘No one rules the Overland. The Watchers do what Shirkra wants, but I’m not sure you could call it ruling. I don’t know what the people are doing. I don’t know how they run their lives.’ By running away, if they have any sense.
‘They look after themselves now,’ Canning said. ‘As it should be. We would have been better off all along, without these gods and their machines.’
For a moment, the Watcher was surprised. Is that how we all think of them now? As gods? But his attention was soon diverted by a noise in the corridor outside: a gate being opened, far away.
‘She’s coming again.’ There was a tremor in Canning’s voice. ‘The woman in the white mask.’
Footsteps came to them, delicate feet padding across cold stone.
‘Have you seen what she does to me, Aranfal? Have you been here, when she … I can’t remember. I can’t remember seeing you here.’
The Watcher did not respond. It was too late, now. Shirkra was among them.
She was the same as always, a thin woman in a green dress, curls of red hair flowing behind her mask, that weird thing that approximated her own face and seemed to shift between expressions. It was strange; the Watcher had seen her many times since the events of the Circus, but he could never quite hold a steady image of her in his mind’s eye. To leave her side was to wake from a nightmare; there was always a sense of something vast, terrible, and untouchable, fading into nothingness.
In Mother’s absence, she had emerged as the dominant force in the See House, and in the Centre at large. Her reign was strange and volatile: she would lock herself away for days, and then appear, ordering the Watchers to burn every second house on an unfortunate street, or poison the wells of an almshouse, or swap the stones in a cemetery. It was chaos. But then, so was she.
Still, it was clear she worked within certain boundaries that Mother had laid down. This was agony for her; she took out her anger on Canning, and the other unfortunates she held in the Bowels.
Aranfal, though, had become something of a favourite of the woman in the white mask. It was not a comfortable place to be; sometimes he would have traded places with Canning.
‘Watcher Aranfal!’ she cried, clapping her hands. ‘What a delight! You have been avoiding me, hmm? You have. I know you have.’
She went to him and reached out a hand, brushing a tendril of blond hair from his cheek.
‘Why don’t you love me, Aranfal? I love you.’
‘Thank you, my lady.’
‘Am I wrong, my Aranfal? Do you love me? Tell me. Please. Tell me if you love me, or if you don’t. I can withstand the blow, Aranfal! I am so old, you must realise. I have seen so many come and go, and very few of them loved me, no, very few indeed.’ She sighed. ‘Tell me. Do you love me, or not?’
The Watcher stretched out a smile. ‘I love you, of course, Operator. I love you more than the stars.’
‘More than the stars!’ Shirkra clapped her hands together and spun on her heel, her green dress billowing through the cell. ‘That is good, that is good!’ She halted, and the eyes behind the mask suddenly narrowed. ‘You will not look at another, will you, Aranfal? I should take your eyes, perhaps, and hide them in my little cupboard, and then you will never look at anyone else, for it will be beyond you, hmm?’
Aranfal bowed. ‘As you wish, madam.’
The Operator’s shriek of laughter echoed off the stone walls. ‘As I wish, indeed! Someone who cares for my wishes, hmm? Mother won’t let me do anything, you know. All she worries about is the Machinery! “No fun until we find its remains! Work before play!” Who would have thought that victory would be so boring?’
The Operator walked towards the one-time Tactician, who moaned as she approached. His eyes flickered, and he looked once more to the floor.
She raised a finger, and began to play with a memory.
They were in some kind of a harbour. Before them was a wall, and below that the grey sea. The cobblestones reeked of fish, rotting before them, dead eyes staring up into nothing. Canning was there, a more youthful version, with a woman at his side. She was younger than him, much younger, barely older than eighteen. The girl reached out to Canning and struck him, before climbing the wall, and falling, down to the sea below.
They were back in the cell. There was a dull glow of reddish light, fading into nothing.
The former Tactician wheezed, and blood fell from his lips. How does she make them bleed? ‘It did not happen like that … I know it did not … you have twisted it.’
Shirkra laughed. ‘No one is ever right about memories, not even the people who own them. What does it matter, anyway? They are so much more than … mere records.’
She