He was on his back, sunken into black sand. Above him was a dark sky, in which burned a red sun. The Underland. I am searching for a memory.
‘… was very young, I played a game where I ran from one side of the Old Place to the other. Well, that’s what I tried to do. But how can one travel through a god?’
There was a thin line of smoke in the sky: pale against the blackness. He had not noticed it before.
‘And it did not like me there, oh no. It is capricious. It is harsh. Like its children. Like its parents.’
A face appeared above him, one that he knew well: the face of a young-looking man with long blond hair. He wore a green gown, covered with images of people and animals and shapes.
‘Well, get up,’ he said.
Aranfal climbed to his feet and cast a glance at the creature before him. There was something different about the Gamesman. He seemed stronger, surer of himself. Of course he is. He’s the Gamesman, and this is a game: it’s where he belongs.
‘Why were you lying in the sand?’ the Gamesman asked. ‘Was it comfortable?’
Aranfal glanced at the endless, black expanse. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can’t remember.’
The Gamesman laughed. ‘Memories, eh?’ He clapped his hands. ‘What would we be without them?’
Aranfal looked into the distance. There seemed to be a structure of some kind far ahead, though he could not make out what it was.
‘How is the game played?’ he asked.
The Gamesman put an arm around him. There was a whisper in the desert.
‘The Old Place guards the First Memory with the greatest care. It has never shown it to anyone, and it likely never will.’ There was a sad look in his eyes, as if he was gazing at a condemned man. ‘No one has ever found it. But it does love mortals, Aranfal. It does love you: its parents.’
‘I’m here forever,’ Aranfal said with certainty. ‘I will never escape.’
‘No one has,’ the Gamesman said. ‘Well, all except for Arandel. But he was so … powerful.’ He smiled at Aranfal. ‘You have a similar name, but you do not have that power, Aranfal. You will be like the rest of them.’
‘Where are they?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ The Gamesman shrugged. ‘You can do nothing but follow the path ahead.’
With a bow, the Gamesman was gone, leaving Aranfal no more knowledgeable than if he had never appeared in the first place.
The torturer walked and walked, across the black sand, towards whatever was before him, alone among the endless expanse. It took time for the image to crystallise. At first, he was merely aware of a change in the darkness. He could not tell what it was; he only knew it was there.
But as he went, its shape and outline grew clearer. It is formed of stone and wood. There is something at the top. What is it? It is …
It was a well.
Aranfal approached it carefully. It seemed ordinary enough, the same as any other well he had seen before. A large bucket swayed above, though there was no wind in this place. The Watcher carefully leaned over the side and glanced below. Anything could be hiding down there, a cautious voice warned him. But he could only see the blackness.
‘Hello?’ he called into the dark, feeling strangely embarrassed.
His voice echoed in the deep, but no response came. He wasn’t sure what he had expected.
A sound from behind seized his attention. A figure was approaching at great speed, a moving mass of hair and shawls, emitting exasperated shouts. Aranfal wondered at first if it was the Gamesman, but he soon realised this was something new. And likely disastrous.
‘Five times we walked together, five times,’ came a voice from the shawls. ‘In all the trees in the orchard, no apples could we find. The dog sits alone in the courtyard: it is sick, and Father will kill it in the morning.’
The figure walked to the other side of the well, ignoring him completely. Aranfal darted around the structure, padding quietly across the black sand, trying to make out the features of this new arrival. But every time he came close, a thatch of wiry brown hair or a bunched-up mass of material would block his view. Even the creature’s hands were hidden in a pair of dark gloves. The voice seemed female, though he could not even be sure of that.
‘Are you an Operator?’ he asked.
The newcomer did not acknowledge the question, but kept talking in her cascading spiel of nonsense.
‘The candles are sparkling in the corridor, and there is a creak upon the floorboards. Nights are longer here, near the ice fields, where they never seem to end. When I walked into the street, there was a fire, such a fire, and none of my friends returned.’
The newcomer leaned over the side of the well, so that her words fell into the darkness and echoed within the pit below.
‘I walked eleven miles to the next village, but my love had already passed. I kept a green bird in a silver cage. When I learned to write my name, I carved it upon my skin.’
The figure made a circle of the well.
‘I found a straw man in the field. I kept a spider in a jar.’
Is this a code?
‘I could not go that day, though I wish I had, for only I could have stopped him. My hounds are all three-legged. The clock in the spire is ticking, my love, the clock in the spire is ticking.’
Aranfal closed his eyes, and the words took on a different shape. They were building blocks, he realised; the speaker was constructing something. But what is it? What is she making?
‘On the fourteenth night I wept for him. On the eighteenth night I laughed.’
She speaks of memories. He did not know if this was his own voice.
‘In the stars I saw a name. It was … torturer.’
Aranfal’s eyes snapped open.
‘What did you say?’
But the newcomer was not listening. She had climbed onto the side of the well, into which she poured her ceaseless words.
‘Fire,’ she said. ‘I saw a fire, in the deep, ten thousand years ago. Such things were put there; such things.’
The figure leapt onto the rope, feet resting on the bucket, gazing into the pit.
‘The cat is so unhappy!’
With that, she descended into the well.
Aranfal stood staring into the darkness for a moment, feeling utterly helpless in this desert. Mother should have picked another. He searched within for the Strategist’s knowledge. Mother, come to me. Tell me what to do. But she did not speak to him.
He looked once more at the sand, at the blackness that rolled on and on. It seemed to shift as he stared. Was there a breeze here, now? The red sun flickered in the sky.
He turned back to the well, where the bucket was slowly creaking its way upwards. There was only one way to go.
‘Where are we?’ he asked in the darkness.
No answer came.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Let me see you.’
‘I thought of something I wanted, once, and it came. That is the way to do it. There are five men and three women, standing at the doorway. The hat is on the stand …’
I thought of something I wanted, once, and it came. Aranfal’s mind turned irresistibly to home. He saw in his mind’s