The Machinery

GERRARD COWAN

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2015

Copyright © Gerrard Cowan 2015

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015. Cover image © Shutterstock.com

Gerrard Cowan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Ebook Edition © September 2015 ISBN: 978-0-00-810354-5

Version: 2015-08-10

For Sarah, Finn and Evie

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-one

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

I am breaking, the Machinery said.

Alexander had not heard it for days.

I am breaking.

It sounded different tonight: like a child.

‘Again,’ said Amile. The tutor’s voice seemed distant, as if it came from another room. ‘Recite it again.’

Alexander looked to the window. His sister was below, playing with marbles in the courtyard. I’ll try to speak to father again tonight. He knew he would be called a liar. But there was no other choice; he had to make them understand.

The boy turned to face Amile, and started over again.

‘On the third day, the tribe gathered on the Primary Hill, to be entertained by the madman.

‘“This is when all shall change,” the madman said. But the people did not believe him, and laughed in their ignorance.

‘“You will be punished,” said one.

‘“Punished by the Gods,” said another.’

I am breaking.

Alexander paused, and looked to the ceiling. There was nothing there.

Ruin will come with the One. You know who it is.

‘Continue.’ Amile’s hooked nose twitched. ‘And mean it; as things stand, you are lying to us both.’

Alexander looked once more to the window. Clack, clack, clack, went the marbles.

‘The prophet Arandel lifted a stone. He held it before his people and said: “This is matter; it too has energy. It too is understood by the Machinery, which knows the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea, the rocks at the core and the reptiles of the South. These words have been spoken by the Operator.”

‘The people laughed again. “If he told you all this, Arandel – where is he?” Arandel dropped the stone and looked to the sky.

‘“He is here.”’

Amile was smiling.

‘In the centre of the ground, at the peak of the hill, ten paces from where they sat, a fire had started to burn, as if of its own accord.

‘“Arandel, what have you done?”

‘“What witchcraft is this?” But their talking ceased, for they had seen something in the fire. A man stepped forth from the blaze, his cloak burning with flames of its own, dark and cold. The people wept, for they saw in this cloak the reflections of their own souls.

‘“He has come from the ground itself,” said Arandel. “From the ground and into flame, to the salvation of us all.”

‘This man came amid them and, as the tribe fell back and cowered before him, opened his arms. “It is your first Selection year,” he said. “You have been chosen. Nothing will be the same for you now.”

‘He walked among them.

‘“I have come from the Underland. I have come to save the Plateau.”’

Amile clapped his hands. ‘In seven years, Paprissi, that is the best that you have read.’

Alexander bowed.

‘What happened next?’

The boy cleared his throat.

‘And so the tribe received the Machinery, the power of the Underland. It would choose the greatest leaders of the Overland, its Tacticians and Strategists, from now until the end of time, be they bakers or butchers, merchants or artists, boys or girls, men or women. And thus, the Overland would grow under their wisdom, to become the envy of all the great Plateau.

‘In return for this gift, the Operator asked only one thing; that the people must never question the Selections of the Machinery.’

‘And long may it continue,’ said Amile. ‘The Machinery knows.’

‘The Machinery knows,’ said Alexander. And I know the Machinery.

Before Alexander was a red velvet curtain, fastened by a golden knot. The boy stood still for a moment, wondering if he had been noticed.

‘Come.’

Sucking in a breath, Alexander pushed through.

The study was an airy, spherical, stone-walled space, its ceiling formed of thick clear glass that could be winched open at points to allow the entry of cooling airs. It was night, now; starlight illumined everything. This room, unlike its counterparts in other parts of the dreary mansion, was in constant flux. Perhaps it reflected the mind and travels of Jaco Paprissi, Alexander’s father, the head of the Paprissi Financial House and lord of the manor.

Jaco and his men were the only Overlanders allowed to sail from the Plateau, and he had just returned from his most recent voyage. Items were still being unpacked from the wooden chests that filled the great courtyard, the most interesting or curious gravitating upwards to this study where they could be examined more closely. Alexander drank it in: on the second shelf to his left, a wooden statue depicted a man and a woman locked in primitive combat; above this, a row of silver instruments, like finely wrought blades; and on the floor to his right, a bronze representation of some kind of war machine, what appeared to be a trebuchet lined with cannon, rolling forward of its own accord.

In the centre of the room was a brass contraption, a long thick tube covered in golden letters in some foreign tongue. At the bottom of the tube was an eyepiece, into which Jaco peered.

‘This is new,’ the older man said. ‘It is … incredible. You can see things … well, it matters not.’

He turned to the boy and grinned.

‘It’s much better than banks and credit, eh?’

Jaco left his new toy and walked to his son, putting a hand on his shoulder and smiling down at him.

It is coming. The voice had grown weaker.

‘How was the lesson, Alexander?’

I’ll tell him, thought the boy. I’ll tell him. But he was afraid. Why should he believe me this time?

‘It was all right, but Amile made me do—’

‘The same thing all over again?’

‘Yes!’

‘The arrival of the Operator and the Gifting of the Machinery?’

‘Yes!’

Jaco laughed. ‘I hated it too, when I was your age. I wondered why I had to learn this stuff, when there was a whole world out there waiting to be found. But as I grew older, I began to see things differently.’

‘How?’

‘Well, things change. Your life goes off in different paths. And the Overland changes, too. Even the Plateau changes. The city grows, Tacticians and Strategists come and go. But one thing remains the same: the Machinery. It is the constant. It is important that we remember its birth.’

‘The Machinery knows.’

‘The Machinery knows,’ his father echoed, before leaping to his feet and returning to his lettered tube. Alexander hesitated before taking the plunge.

‘Father … I think I have heard it again.’

Jaco stopped dead, his hands falling to his side.

‘No, boy. You have not.’

Silence fell on the study.

‘It told me again, father. The Machinery told me who it is. I know who will bring Ruin.’

‘No.’ Jaco turned his eyes upon his son. ‘No. This is the madness of old women and Doubters.’ He held the boy’s gaze for a moment, then turned back to his machine. ‘I assume you are going to play in the Great Hall tonight?’

‘Yes, father.’

‘Good. Take your mind off this foolishness. And don’t stay up too long; it is already late.’

The elder Paprissi leaned down and put his eye to the telescope.

‘Yes, father.’

The Great Hall covered the entire southern section of the ground floor of Paprissi House. It was one of the oldest surviving parts of the building, its stone walls the remnants of an ancient keep: a place of faded nooks and crannies, dark snugs and cubbyholes. The summer light was fading as Alexander entered, casting shadows that darkened the aspects of the Paprissi forebears staring blankly down at their young descendant.

Alexander sat with his legs crossed in the middle of the cold stone floor, just next to the dining table, swinging a thin piece of white parchment through the air in a kind of sporadic dance. This strange, private little ceremony helped unleash his imagination. He was transported to other realms: to flaming battles on open plains; to dynastic struggles with Doubter kings; to the ruins of ancient cities, heavy with sorcery. Here, he could control events. Here, he did not feel like a plaything of a voice.

The One will come here …

The boy’s gaze floated to the Operator shrine, at the back of the hall. It had been there for as long as the hall itself, a grey statue on a black chair, proud and solemn. The sculptors of the Middle Period were renowned for the subtlety of their work, Amile had told Alexander; hence the fine detail of the wrinkled face, the perfect smoothness of the bald head, the laughing wisdom of the eyes. The cloak, though, was the symbol of the Operator; it had been refreshed in more recent years by one of the new artists of the Centre, and the talent of this master shone through, from the strange swirls of purple and black to the hints of faces in the ether.

GET OUT.

Alexander swung round. The voice seemed closer now, more urgent, as if the speaker was behind him. There was no one there. I can do nothing.

He turned back to the statue.

There was someone in its place.

‘Play, play, playing, like the little child you are.’

He – it – regarded Alexander thoughtfully, steadily rapping the arm of his dark throne with his sharp fingers. He was filth itself: his mangy skin red with scabs, his grey tongue flickering at the sides of his mouth. A torn gown billowed out onto the floor around him, coating the flagstones like oil on water, its colours in perpetual motion like the sky in a summer thunderstorm. The faces were ghosts in a silken prison.

‘Do you know who I am, Alexander?’

The boy was silent.

‘I am the Operator.’

The voice echoed of another world. A time before the Machinery.

‘I have known it for a long time,’ the Operator said. ‘You here, on your Plateau, you have known only ten millennia of it. But it has been my companion for much, much longer.’

Alexander steeled himself. Somehow, he always had known that this would happen.

‘How did you do that? How did you make a statue come to life?’

The Operator seemed surprised by the question. ‘I am a child of the Underland, boy. I know all its pathways and byways.’

He leaned forward in his throne, placing his head in his hands.

‘You have evaded me for some time, Alexander. I heard the Machinery speaking, you know. Oh yes. I could hear it, in the night, though its words were hidden from me. It took me a long time to find you, such a long time.’

‘It does not trust you. It knows you do not believe it.’

The Operator laughed, and the room seemed to darken. ‘I like you, Alexander. I like that you think you can talk to me, in such a way, about my own creation.’

‘You do not understand it fully, Operator. If you did, you would believe the words. Ruin is coming.’

The Operator slammed his fist on the arm of his chair. ‘Tell me what it has told you. Then we will see what I believe.’

Alexander approached the Operator. ‘Your enemy has returned, Operator. You thought you had destroyed the One, all those years ago. But you failed. The One has returned, and the One will bring Ruin.’

The Operator was on his feet in an instant, and loomed over Alexander. The faces in his cloak cringed, afraid of their master.

‘That is a lie,’ the Operator said, his voice trembling. ‘You have read a book about the past, I think, one that I overlooked. I have been too lenient with you all. You use these words you do not understand. The One is dead, and the Prophecy is a lie.’

The boy did not answer. He looked hopefully at the door, but no one was coming for him. Was his grandmother outside, sitting in her old chair?

There was a pattering of rain on the windows.

‘That is not what the Machinery told you,’ the Operator sighed. ‘It cannot be. Something is wrong with it, and it has told you, and you will not tell me.’

‘I have already told you the truth.’

The Operator shook his head. ‘No. No, that is not what it told you. But I will find the truth.’ He glided over to Alexander’s side and wrapped a long arm around the boy’s shoulder.

‘We will go to the Underland. You will be happier there. Yes, oh yes. We will be able to study your broken brain.’ Alexander snatched a quick look at a jagged smile; he willed himself to resist, but something had encircled and taken power over him, and he could do nothing but follow the strange creature to the window.

The Operator gathered him in his arms, smiled, and leapt into the rain of the night. They seemed to fall slowly, like feathers in the breeze. The authority that had been exerted over the boy allowed no room for fear. There was no need to scream, it assured him, no need to cry out or fight back. We are floating, not falling.

As he fell, he looked up and saw a face at the window: a girl gazing down at him; a girl with round black eyes and long black hair; a girl with marbles in her hands.

But then Alexander Paprissi was gone forever: gone below the earth.

Chapter Two

‘Could I take part today, Tactician? I believe I am ready.’

‘Why do you think you are ready?’

‘I have served my time. I have trained now for almost fifteen years.’

‘Almost fifteen years, indeed. And you think you are ready. Ready for what?’

‘For whatever you need me to do, Tactician. I could go in there now, if you like, and—’

‘You are always overreaching, Katrina. You must develop caution.’

Katrina Paprissi nodded. She had heard this a thousand times before. As ever, she smiled at the Tactician, before brushing some sand from her feet.

They were alone on the shore. Behind them loomed the great edifice of Northern Blown, the once dominant fortress that had stood apart from the Overland for longer than any other power. It had managed this through a mix of skilful diplomacy, deference, solid defences and the fact that its desolate lands were the least attractive in the entire Plateau. But now, its day was coming to a close. The castle seemed downcast in the bleached light of the dawn, as if aware that soon, perhaps this very day, its time would end. Even its curtain wall seemed to sag, as if willing itself to collapse before the onslaught of modernity.

‘Are you even listening to me, Paprissi? No, I imagine you are off in your world. What’s it like there?’

Katrina forced herself to meet Tactician Brightling’s gaze. She still found it difficult to look directly at those grey eyes. Brightling was the Watching Tactician of the Overland, her authority reflected in her golden gown and the silver half-moon crown that sat so easily upon her head. She was in her middle years, but her thin frame was hard with muscle. White hair flowed around her like a mane, unruffled even by the wind that whistled in from the sea.

Brightling was a woman of the new era, the progress of which she was hastening through her work. A pair of semicircular spectacles sat on her nose, the frame wrought from ivory. From the Tactician’s mouth hung a pipe, an elegant, curling affair of cedar wood. She wore a handcannon on her side, the hilt a twisted swirl of stars, the barrel inlaid with diamonds.

‘Katrina, by the Machinery, will you take your turn!’

The wind picked up, then: it tore through Katrina’s long black hair and laughed at her white rags, wearing her legs raw.

‘Now,’ the Tactician said, a new hardness in her voice.

Katrina looked at the board with bleary eyes. She hated Progress. This game was designed for people just like Tactician Brightling: cold souls with no stirring of action. Indeed, Brightling had actually designed its latest iteration. The woman had sat on the Progress Council for longer than she had been a Tactician.

They said the Operator himself had invented the First Iteration of Progress. Katrina wondered if that game had borne any resemblance to this version, the Nine Hundredth and Seventy-Fourth Iteration, which had been active for two years. She was just getting used to this one, which usually meant a new Iteration was imminent.

‘Tactician, do we really have to play this? Does it not seem strange to you? We’re about to conquer the Plateau, and we’re sitting here playing a stupid board of Progress.’

Brightling did not respond, but fixed Katrina with a stare. The young woman turned her attention to the board, her courage evaporating into the wind.

Katrina had the East and the South of the board, Brightling the North and the West. Her tiles were white, the Tactician’s black. She could see that she was in an impossible position. Over half of Brightling’s forces were poised to take the South, and Katrina had just one Watching tile remaining. How does this thing work again? A Watching tile destroys an Expansion tile, but only if there are no Operator cards left in the opponent’s hand. Does Brightling have a card?

‘You should take care what you do with that. I can see a move that would open your options and expose one of my flanks. Remember, I have only two Watching tiles left, while you retain two cards. You are still in this game. Do not overreach.’

Katrina studied the board again.

‘This game is impossible.’

‘This game always evolves, but it is not impossible. Everything evolves, everything changes. We must adapt to that.’

‘Except the Machinery.’

‘Except the Machinery.’

Katrina looked up to see that Brightling was smiling at her, white hair now blowing in the wind. The last of the Paprissis lifted her Watching tile, and prepared to put it in place.

‘Madam.’

Aranfal had appeared from nowhere, as he always did. He had the appearance of some creature of this icy habitat, with his aquamarine cloak and dirty blond hair: a beast that had crawled onto the beach. Amusement played across his thin face, his blue eyes alight with a joke that no one else was ever told.

‘Aranfal, welcome. What news?’

‘Good news, Madam Tactician.’ Aranfal’s voice was smooth and deep, his accent hinting at the far North, where they now sat. ‘King Seablast has agreed to grant you an audience.’

‘Good!’ Tactician Brightling clapped her hands. ‘How did he seem?’

‘Oh, obstreperous, my lady. Most incorrigible. But that could be a good sign. It might be a show.’

‘Yes, Aranfal. It might be. How many Watchers in the building?’

‘Two, madam, apart from me.’

‘And you will join them now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘In the ceiling, madam.’

‘Good.’

Aranfal smiled at his superior and bowed. He cast an uneasy glance in Katrina’s direction. They had never got on. She suspected he envied her closeness to the Tactician. He seemed on the verge of speaking to her, before something on the ground distracted him.

‘What’s this?’ He lifted a yellow and black object, around a foot in length.

‘I think it’s a bone,’ Katrina whispered.

‘Be quiet, Katrina.’

‘It is, Tactician. It is an arm bone. There are more, further along the shore.’

‘Ridiculous. It is a rock, perhaps. A formation of some kind.’

Aranfal chuckled. ‘The northerners call this the Bony Shore, madam. Perhaps it is aptly named?’

‘Nonsense. Where would they come from?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps they drift here from a darker place. A terrible place, where people are thrown to the sea …’

Brightling tutted. ‘You do not know, Aranfal. Do not talk about this.’

She waved Aranfal away, and turned back to Katrina.

‘Your mind is full of nonsense. If your father could see you, plucking rocks from the beach and calling them bones, he would be horrified.’ She sighed, gathering her composure. ‘We will go in.’ She pointed to the fortress. ‘You are about to witness history, my girl.’

Katrina sucked in a breath. ‘I can come in this time?’

‘Yes, yes. But you will not do anything, Katrina, do you understand? You are there to observe me, and Aranfal.’

‘Yes, madam.’

Brightling turned to leave.

‘Madam, the game.’

The Tactician waved at the table.

‘It’s just a stupid board of Progress.’

‘There – that is it, then: the last holdout on the Plateau. Prepare the cannon, men! Prepare the cannon!’

General Charls Brandione reluctantly turned to face his assistant. Farringer was a cringing, scraping man of at least sixty who stared at the enemy position through his weasel eyes and scratched his arse with the hilt of his stumpy sword. He had an unaccountable love of fashion and had come to the field in full, ancient plate armour – heavy, inflexible, and useless in modern warfare. To make matters worse, he had festooned it with ribbons and feathers. The decorations ranged across the full gamut of gaudiness, from the orange of a sunburst to the pinks and greens of some southern bird.

Brandione’s armour was less striking, but better placed, allowing for manoeuvrability: a battered steel breastplate, a plate for his back, and a standard steel helmet, worn and rusted through years of use but solid and dependable.

‘Farringer, bring me a map of the city.’

The older man hesitated.

‘But General, I want to see—’

‘Now, Farringer – do it now.’

Prepare the cannon. Brandione smiled at that as he turned back to the great wall of Northern Blown. All around him, men struggled with the new artillery pieces, cursing as they hoisted them awkwardly into position. Soldiers traipsed to the supply lines to collect barrels of precious gunpowder, recently arrived from the West, which they gingerly rolled back to their iron dragons.

It was the smell that got to Brandione, more than anything else: that acrid stench.

But they were powerful, oh yes. Brandione had seen them in action since their first development. Rapid advances over the last two decades meant the largest could fire stones weighing hundreds of pounds, though the damned things seemed to kill more of his own troops than the enemy, when he ever got to use them.

He tapped the weapon at his side. This sort of cannon, he could live with: one that fitted in his hand.

When he looked to the fortress before him, some faith in the old ways returned. The new weapons were powerful, true, when pointed in the right direction and not falling victim to one of their many flaws. But Northern Blown was old, and hardened through constant war. Standing in resplendent isolation, with the Northern Peripheral Sea behind it, it looked like it had been torn from the Plateau itself, a living creature of alleyways and moss-covered towers that had forced its way into the continent. And all around it stood that jagged iron wall, thirty feet thick at its weakest point.

Between Brandione and this armoured metropolis were spread the more conventional forces of the Overland, still active today despite all the changes in the world, a metallic mass of thousands of serrated pikes and halberds that shimmered in the early afternoon light. Dotted among them were the siege machines of old: trebuchets, catapults and battering rams, all standing at the foot of the city. In a way, these reassured him more than the exploding iron pipes.

Is this really the end? Brandione had served the Overland for almost fifteen years, ever since he had left the College and turned his back on a career as an Administrator. He had seen towns razed to the ground and ploughed through corpses. He had struck down rebellion in the West. He had seen cities fall, here in the North. Is all of that really over, now? Or will we find a new enemy, one worse than all the others?

He shook himself; there was no time for this, not any more. He eyed the walls for signs of the enemy. Still nothing. He shifted on his feet.

‘Surrender?’ King Seablast was red in the face. ‘Tactician, know that Overland waves have broken against my wall in the past. Yours will be no different; we will cast you into the Peripheral Sea.’

Seablast is a warrior, thought Katrina. Even here, in his throne room, with our forces all around, he is prepared to fight. He was a thickset man, stout without being fat, his belly like a cannonball. He wore a wooden breastplate below a chainmail mesh, his helmet at his feet and his sword at his side. He was standing over Brightling, who sat in a high-backed, silver chair. The King leaned in close, his black beard almost touching her forehead and his bright-blue eyes blazing into her own.

Katrina stood some way behind the Tactician, her attention flickering between the scene before her and the furnishings and trappings of the throne room. Light spilled through four huge, stained-glass windows, bathing everything in a hazy purple and orange glow. At the far end of the hall, beneath a window on which was engraved a flaming sword, sat the throne itself, a large but unadorned iron chair that spoke of older times.

A slight cough from Brightling was enough to refocus Katrina’s attention. The Tactician was unruffled, smiling serenely at the King. She had been disarmed of her handcannon and sword upon entering the castle, but seemed utterly at ease.

‘You come here,’ Seablast continued, beginning to pace his throne room, ‘with a handful of troops and fire spouters, and you make the most outrageous demands of me. I know where this comes from. It is that toy of yours, that machine; it makes politicians of you all. But our walls will stand against politicians and toys.’

The King’s retinue laughed. As Brightling lazily regarded the monarch over the rim of her spectacles, her smile grew thinner.

‘What year is this, madam?’ asked the King, cocking his head to the side.

‘I do not know what the date is in the heathen calendar, but by our reckoning it is the 10,000th year.’

The King whistled between his teeth. ‘A bad time for you then, no?’

Brightling was very still as the King spoke.

‘Did you know, men, that according to the bullshit beliefs these people follow, on the 10,000th year since the Gifting of the Machinery, it will all far apart? It will break!’

The men laughed.

‘That is an evil Prophecy,’ said Brightling, so quietly that Katrina struggled to hear her.

The King shrugged. ‘That may be so, but I know that many of your people believe it.’ He turned back to his men, a glint in his eye. ‘You won’t find that Prophecy in their Book of the Machinery, lads. No one knows where it comes from, they say. It’s an old wives’ tale. But enough of these bastards believe it. Enough of them think that something really bad will happen. Well, I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.’ He spat on the ground, inches from Brightling’s feet. ‘I have sent word to our vassals,’ he said, leaning over the Tactician’s chair again. ‘They will be here within the day. I suggest you and your friends return to your machine, before it dies.’

Tactician Brightling nodded slowly, appearing to think this over. Then she was on her feet, the King and his guards taking an involuntary step backwards.

‘Your vassals?’

‘Yes!’ The King was nervous now; Katrina could feel it. His anger was exaggerated, his confidence feigned. ‘The Second City; Anflef; Siren Down. These three and others will come at my command.’

The Tactician cocked her head to the side and smiled again.

‘Do you read books, your Majesty?’ she asked, her face a picture of wide-eyed innocence.

The King hesitated. ‘My kingdom, madam, contains the greatest scholars on all the Plateau.’

‘You should know, then, your Majesty, that I have allies of my own.’

There was a flurry of black as three robed figures fell from somewhere in the ceiling to the stone floor. The King’s guards leapt into belated action, swinging their swords wildly. They halted as quickly as they had begun when they saw that, in the arms of each of the masked strangers, was one of Seablast’s daughters.

The King became very still.

‘No doubt you have steeled yourself for such a scenario, King,’ the Tactician said. She returned to her seat, patting away the creases in her gown.

Seablast said nothing, but Katrina noticed a slight movement in his sword hand. Brightling turned to one of her Watchers; Katrina saw immediately that it was Aranfal, wearing his raven’s mask, a black and twisted thing that still frightened her, even today. The girl in his arms was the youngest, perhaps ten or eleven years old, with long, curly, blonde hair, thin, regal limbs, and fierce blue eyes. Katrina was suddenly seized by the image of her own brother, in the Operator’s arms, falling through the earth to the Underland. Is he afraid, still? Is he even alive? She had told no one what she had seen, back then, in the Great Hall of Paprissi House. Not even Brightling. What would she tell them, anyway? She had not been able to hear much of what the Operator had said; all she knew was that Alexander had been taken. Perhaps it never actually happened. Perhaps her family was destroyed for another reason.

There is no time for these thoughts. Not now.

‘Do you surrender, King?’ Brightling asked.

Seablast looked at his daughter; Katrina could not read the expression in his eyes. Was he weighing up his options? His daughter or his kingdom? He nodded at the girl, an almost imperceptible tilt of his head, and turned back to the Tactician.

‘No, madam. I do not.’

Brightling sighed and nodded to Aranfal. A slight jerk of a gloved hand and the girl’s neck was bleeding. She flinched, but did not cry out.

There were some parts of being a Watcher that Katrina Paprissi did not like.

‘The Second City, Anflef and Siren Down,’ Tactician Brightling said again. ‘Your Majesty, do you have a map?’

‘What?’ the King stammered, his eyes on his daughter, whose face had grown pale.

‘A map, your Majesty. Have you not heard of such things? They are developing so well. Oh, forgive me,’ said Tactician Brightling. ‘There it is.’

She walked to the southern wall, on which hung a map of the Plateau, if it could be called that; it was an unsophisticated affair, lacking the remotest sense of distance and perspective. Brightling reached into her shoe and withdrew a short, thin blade. The guards had not dared to carry out a thorough search, Katrina realised. It was always the same way.

‘The Second City, Anflef and Siren Down,’ Brightling said, pointing each out on the map with her blade. ‘The Second City,’ she said again, before slashing the city away. ‘Anflef,’ she said, and tore it apart. ‘Siren Down,’ she concluded, stabbing into its position with her knife, which vibrated as it stuck into the wall.

‘Your Majesty, you should pay more attention to your neighbours,’ she said, turning to the King. ‘These three allies of yours are now part of the Overland and under the beneficence of the Machinery.’

Seablast’s face was a pallid grey, his arms limp at his sides.

‘That cannot be,’ he hissed. ‘I would have heard something.’

‘Why? Your Majesty, while you slept, I conquered. Some of your allies fell to the General Brandione, a clever man who knows his way around the most terrible weapons you have ever seen. Others fell to me. I won’t tell you how I did it.’

Brightling’s smile returned.

‘If you become part of the Overland, willingly, the Machinery will forgive you. You will have a chance, like every one of its subjects, to rule the greatest nation in the world, if you are Selected.’

‘To be one of the politicians,’ the King rasped, his eyeballs rolling. ‘And if we resist?’

‘Then an entire continent will be thrown against the walls of this city.’

Farringer came stumbling back, lifting his visor to expose his sweat-drenched face.

‘What happened here, anyway?’ he asked, handing Brandione the map. ‘Why did they declare war?’

Brandione sensed a new tone in the older man’s voice: fear. Farringer was not made for this.

‘They have a new leader,’ he replied. ‘Their last King died a year ago. He was a clever old sod, that particular Seablast. He towed the line, and tugged his forelock, and did whatever Brightling told him to do. The new one is possessed with … something. You know the type.’

‘He thought he could lead his people against the Machinery.’

‘Yes.’ Brandione rolled his eyes and drew a finger across his throat.

Farringer chuckled and spat in the dirt. ‘Where’s Brightling?’

‘She’s in the city, talking to the King.’

‘He let her in?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well then, this should not take long.’

As if in response, the great gate of Northern Blown began to open. The troops jolted to life, hoisting their weapons and leaping to attention at their war machines. But only two individuals emerged: Tactician Brightling, admired and distrusted in equal measure by the soldiery of the Overland, and King Seablast, whose very beard looked disconsolate. He lumbered along behind Brightling, a prisoner without chains.

There was someone else there, too: a girl in a state of mourning, to judge by her white rags. She flittered along behind the Tactician and the King, her footfalls swift and light, her black hair gleaming in the cold northern sun. Brandione had not seen her before: some Watcher, no doubt.

How had Brightling managed it? She had been able to enter one of the greatest fortresses in the world and persuade it to surrender, and not for the first time. Brandione had served with her before, here in the North and in the Western Rebellion. There had been other times like this one, when his skills were entirely worthless. Even when they did deploy their military might, she was always somewhere nearby, giving him little words of advice, he who had forgotten more about war than anyone else could remember, he who had been hand-picked by the Strategist himself to serve as his most senior adviser. Truly, there was something about the Tactician. She had been a Watcher for twenty years before her Selection, Brandione knew. That was a long time to serve the See House. The troops bowed as she brushed past, lowering their heads and averting their gazes.

The Tactician and her prisoner arrived at Brightling’s tent, a modest, green affair, and entered, the girl following in their wake.

‘No battle with Northern Blown, then,’ Farringer said.

‘No.’

‘What are your orders, sir?’

‘Nothing. We wait on Brightling.’

‘Ah! It looks like they’re done already.’

Indeed so. Just moments after she had entered the tent, Brightling had reappeared. Brandione could not see the expression on the Tactician’s face, but could well imagine her satisfaction.

Brightling crossed the bloodless battlefield to a trebuchet, wind-battered and pockmarked with arrows. Its operators scrambled away as the Tactician scaled the machine, refusing all offers of assistance. The troops crowded around her without prompting, Brandione among them.

Brightling pointed to the defeated city.

‘After a journey of almost ten millennia, the process of Expansion is complete.’

The soldiers cheered.

‘The city of Northern Blown, which just an hour ago was at war with the Overland, has now realised the truth of the Machinery. This is a great day.’

The cheers of the troops grew louder; they loved her ability to spare them a fight.

‘This victory does not belong to us, but to Northern Blown,’ Brightling continued. ‘Its people will now share in the glory of the world: the Machinery.’

Brandione wondered if the people inside the city knew what their King had done.

‘The Machinery knows,’ said Brightling.

The cheers became deafening. Brightling closed her eyes, taking it in. She was enjoying this, Brandione knew: the adulation of the crowd. Perhaps she had hated being an ordinary Watcher, skulking in the shadows while others took the glory. Now she was the focus of attention. It was not even her role, by rights: Expansion was the remit of Tactician Canning. But he would not mind. He had not been one of the Machinery’s most successful Selections; he always gave the impression of wanting to be somewhere, anywhere, other than the Fortress of Expansion.

Brightling lowered her eyes and looked back down at the crowd, whose applause was dying. She opened her mouth to continuing speaking, but was unexpectedly interrupted.

A commotion had begun on the edge of the troops. A small, thin man in the coarse goatskin of a peasant was rushing up and down the lines in an agitated state. With his spindly limbs and bulging eyes, he had the look of a panicking insect.

‘It is a messenger,’ Farringer said, screwing his eyes up tightly. ‘He doesn’t bring good news, by the look of him.’

Well spotted. Brandione hailed a nearby soldier. ‘Bring him here.’

The trooper ran off and cuffed the anxious man around the neck, dragging him to the trebuchet.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Brandione demanded. ‘You’re disturbing the Tactician’s speech.’

The messenger burst out of the sentry’s arms. A cluster of troops immediately made for him, but Brandione stopped them with a raised finger.

‘Let him speak.’

The wretch fell to his knees. ‘Are you General Brandione, the Strategist’s adviser?’ he asked.

‘Yes. What of it?’

‘I bring terrible news, lord; the worst in sixty-two years!’

Farringer stepped forward.

‘What do you mean to say? What is wrong?’

But Brandione already knew. It is sixty-two years since Kane was Selected.

The man doubled over, his body shaking. After a fit of coughing and shivering, he stood, dragging himself up by grabbing onto Farringer’s arm and rising to his full, unimposing height.

‘Strategist Kane is dead!’

Chapter Three

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.

Chapter Four

‘Is it Aran Fal, two names, or Aranfal, one name?’

‘Aranfal, one name.’

‘Just Aranfal? No surname?’

‘Correct.’

The Administrator raised his eyebrows. He was a stout man, his skin a dark brown, his bald head scrunched into folds of fat. He wore a gown of silver silk, embroidered with flowers; it hung open to expose his flabby flesh, and was tied with only a loose knot to hide his most private of parts.

He made quite the contrast with Aranfal, who was as thin as a rake and as pale as a spectre, his sunken features and grey eyes framed by a curtain of blond hair. He wore his blue cloak over a dark woollen shirt and hempen trousers. The pair of them looked like the build-up to a joke, sitting in the Great Hall of Northern Blown with nothing but a crackling fire for company.

‘That is … odd,’ the Administrator said. He stared at his papers as if they might offer some explanation. The search appeared to fail. ‘Uh, why is it so?’

Aranfal allowed his thin mouth to fall into a grimace. In truth, he did not mind the questions, but he couldn’t allow this man to assert himself too boldly.

‘Ah, not that it matters, Watcher,’ the Administrator said, leaning back in his chair and smiling broadly. He did not want to appear frightened, but Aranfal could see it in him. He had seen it all before. ‘I was just interested. I am not used to the ways of the North.’ He giggled.

Aranfal stood and threw a log into the flames. They crackled back at him appreciatively.

‘It’s not a northern thing, Administrator. If you must know, it came about when I was a young man. A boy, really. I lost my name when I went to the See House.’

‘You … forgive me, Aranfal, but how can a person lose their name?’

‘It was taken from me, by the Tactician.’

There was a moment of silence as Aranfal took his seat again, sighing with pleasure as he unfolded himself into the furs of the furniture. They did not make chairs like this, in the South. They did not make rooms like this in the South, either. There was a fire on each of the four walls. The stony ground was caked in the filth of dogs and the detritus of ten thousand meals, and the room was unadorned with paintings or fresco or any of the other fads of the Centre. The hall was filled with long wooden tables, scattered with brass pots and knives and cracked plates. At the top of the room, on a raised level, was a high table, where once the King had sat with his family and his most senior functionaries. No more. Modernity ruled here now.

Aranfal turned back to the Administrator. The man’s eyes were wide discs. He had placed his papers on his lap.

‘Tactician Brightling stole your name,’ he whispered. ‘Is there nothing that woman cannot do?’

Aranfal barked a laugh. ‘No, truly there isn’t. Here is what happened. I showed up in the Centre, in that black tower, a boy down from the cold North. Brightling took an interest in me. She decided she didn’t like Aran Fal, though, and since then I have been Aranfal.’

‘She didn’t like Aran Fal the name, or Aran Fal the person?’

A pause. ‘Both of them are gone now.’ The Watcher mocked himself inwardly for his melodrama. ‘I have spent almost half my life as a Watcher, now. As Aranfal.’

‘And a fine job you have made of it.’ The Administrator raised his glass of wine, before remembering that Aranfal was not drinking. He shrugged, and took a long slurp by himself.

They sat in silence for a while, staring into the flames. They used peat as fuel, up here, digging it from the bogs. Sometimes they found bodies there, in the soggy muck, preserved for thousands of years, from before the Machinery, even. The fuel took a while to get going, but when it did, the smell was delicious. It transported him back to older days. He had been happy as a child, hadn’t he? He could not remember. That was the world of Aran Fal.

He snapped back to reality, to find that the Administrator was staring at him. The man was making a habit of that. What did he think was going to happen, if he stopped looking?

‘Have you completed the inventory?’

The Administrator started, then hurried to gather up his papers. ‘Yes, master Watcher, it’s all in here. Nothing of any great significance, the usual old weaponry, not much use to us now. We can probably melt it down. Some jewels, though. I think the Tactician would like them. And sundry clothes, dishes, etc.’

‘Nothing of any tremendous value.’

‘No,’ the Administrator said with a slight shrug, before raising a finger. ‘Apart from the land itself. This is a good spot to control. From here we can keep watch of the northern waters.’

Aranfal nodded. ‘Do you expect some enemy to appear from those waters?’

The Administrator fell silent. He thinks I’m trying to catch him in a trap. If only he were so important!

‘Administrator, I am not trying to trick you. It is important now to think to the future. You would find that everyone in the See House feels the same way, right to the very top.’

The Administrator smiled nervously. ‘Well, you know what people say, other lands across distant seas, and all that. Better to be careful.’

‘Indeed.’

Silence reigned again. Eventually the Administrator bent over and lifted a bell, which he raised in the air and vigorously shook, creating a cacophony that made Aranfal want to throw the thing into the flames, along with its bearer. Before long a servant came scampering through the main door of the hall, wineskin in hand, and ran to the Administrator’s side, delicately refilling his drink before once again rushing out to some other part of the castle.

The Administrator did not once make eye contact with the servant. Aranfal despised this type of behaviour. It was something he had seen many times, especially among Administrators and other middling sorts. Funny, he spent his days with the most powerful people in the Plateau, but he never saw them act this way. It seemed that those with the real authority never felt the need to put it on display. It was just there, for the entire world to see, whether handed to them by the Machinery or not.

Aranfal was growing very tired of this little man.

‘Administrator,’ he said softly, ‘I want to get my work done up here as fast as possible, and go home. Have your men found anything suspicious?’

The Administrator leant forward, glancing theatrically into the shadows.

‘Do you mean … Doubters?’ he whispered.

‘Yes.’

The Administrator nodded. ‘Well, as you know, Watcher Aranfal, we humble servants lack your skills in such matters. Indeed, we do not even possess your beautiful masks, so we must look into people’s souls with only our own eyes—’

‘Please, just tell me how many.’

‘Hmm. Well, we have not yet found the ones the King mentioned, I am afraid. Perhaps you have had better luck on that front?’

‘No.’ The King was probably lying. People will say anything, sometimes. Perhaps I should visit him again.

‘But we have found three others.’

‘Three? That’s quite good, Administrator.’

‘Yes, well, you know …’

Aranfal leaned forward. ‘They made themselves quite easy to find, didn’t they?’

The Administrator cleared his throat. ‘Well, you may say that, but really I think we deserve some credit—’

‘Where did you find them?’

The Administrator cringed. ‘Uh, well, one of my men found them when he was out for a walk, you know, with a lady, as it were. They had just taken themselves up to the Bony Shore, and there they were, as bold as you like, three of them, on the sand, huddled around a little fire, and talking openly about the Machinery breaking. Strange-looking creatures, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘And your man and his lady friend, they are certain they heard these people speculate on the Machinery?’

‘Oh, worse than that, Watcher Aranfal. These folk were saying that the Machinery was breaking. They were delighted by that, by all accounts. They acted as though it was the best thing they’d ever heard, dancing around the fire.’

‘And your man can definitely be trusted?’

‘Oh yes. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. They have already confessed. They are positively joyful about it, you know! They seem to like the thought of all the things you folk will do to them in the Bowels of the See House. Some people are like that. I heard there are folk in the West—’

‘I will speak to them myself. Where are they being held?’

‘In the dungeons, sir. Handy thing about old places like this.’ He flicked a hand at the walls. ‘They have such lovely dungeons.’

Aranfal stood and bowed to the Administrator.

‘If you find any more Doubters, Administrator, do let me know straight away.’

The Administrator seemed taken aback. ‘I wasn’t hiding anything from you! I just thought you might like to relax first, what with all the exertions of taking this place, you know.’

‘Thank you.’ Aranfal placed his hand in his cloak and felt it, hanging loosely from his belt: his raven’s mask. It always reassured him, knowing it was there. He felt almost naked without it, but had decided the Administrator might feel slightly unnerved, sitting across from a twisted raven that could see into his soul.

He turned to leave, and got halfway to the door before the Administrator started yapping again.

‘Oh, Watcher?’

‘Yes?’

‘I have not told you my name.’

One little scare won’t hurt him. It might do him good.

Aranfal flipped the mask into his hand and onto his face in one smooth movement.

‘That’s all right,’ he said, staring at the Administrator through the savage holes of his mask. ‘I already know everything I need to about you.’

As the Watcher left the Great Hall it took everything in his power to stifle a laugh at the look in the Administrator’s eyes.

In truth, Aranfal was not the same as Aran Fal. Aran Fal was dead, and Brightling killed him.

Aran Fal was murdered early on, when he first joined the Watchers. He was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kind of fellow, the honest son of an honest father, a golden stereotype who skipped his way along the road to the Centre. His was a soft kind of worldview, though he considered himself a paragon of courage. He was ambitious, yes, but ambition without an edge leads only in one direction, and that is to the edge of a cliff.

How had this big-hearted dreamer ended up among the black-clad operatives of the See House, with their strange masks and their brutish ways? Well, like many a young man, he thought he could change things. He did not like the world as he found it. He thought it could do with some revisions. There was no power in the world like that of the Watchers, the servants of the great Brightling, who at that stage was just establishing herself as the power of the Overland. To the young Aran Fal, the Watchers were the focus of all excitement, adventure, and potential.

He did not have a plan when he went to the Centre. It took him months to walk along those roads, alone for long periods with only his thoughts. They called the Overland a city, but he never understood why. Parts of it were nothing but vast empty spaces, with not a soul in sight. Aranfal had used the time poorly. He did not consider his options, or analyse the pitfalls that could lie ahead. Oh, how he had changed since then.

Despite everything, the Watchers took him in. He saw it as a just reward for his confidence. Perhaps that was even true. Or perhaps they saw something else, within him. Perhaps they saw Aranfal.

Eventually, she saw him, and she liked him, and she took him under her dark wing. She showed him many things, not least her technique for extracting information from recalcitrant Doubters.

‘If you do not co-operate with me,’ he told the prisoner, ‘I will find other ways to take it from you.’

The man before him was unlike anyone Aranfal had seen before. This was not to do with his physical appearance; in that regard, he was like many an inhabitant of the Centre. His skin was olive, and he wore his black hair long, tied back behind his shoulders. He had a sharp kind of face, all angles and edges, like something from a painting of one of the old families; a short beard stabbed out from the bottom of his chin. His dark eyes were constantly on the move, examining and dissecting his surroundings. He was like any wealthy merchant or Administrator, though his clothes were odd: he wore a torn red cloak, like an itinerant.

When the man spoke it was with an utter confidence that suggested he was unaware of the seriousness of his situation.

‘There is nothing you can do to me, Watcher of the Overland.’ He grinned as he said those last words, as if that exalted title was somehow amusing. He did not seem at all perturbed by the chains that bound him to his chair, or put out by the rough treatment he had already received at the hands of some more thuggish Watchers.

Aranfal was sitting opposite the man. He glanced around the room. It was a place of cold wet stone, of chains and dripping water and flickering candles. It was worse even than the cell they’d used for Seablast. A weaker man would already be spilling out his guts, in a place like this.

‘What is your name, Doubter?’

‘Gibbet.’

‘Do not lie to me.’

‘I am not.’

There was a pause.

‘Where are you from?’ Aranfal narrowed his eyes. ‘I hear hints of … what, the North, in your accent?’

‘But you hear the North everywhere, Watcher Aranfal, don’t you? You can’t escape it. No, I am not from your North. No.’

Aranfal smiled at the man, but it was a false thing. How do you know my name?

‘You have already confessed to your hatred of the Overland and the Machinery, long may it save us. You will tell me your plans now, or you will suffer the consequences.’

‘My plans? I have no plan. The plan was put in motion ten millennia ago, when the Promise was made.’

‘You will tell me your plan, Doubter.’

‘Ruin is coming. You can do what you want to me, but you cannot halt its rise.’

Aranfal rapped his knuckles on the table. ‘I will look into you,’ he said. He reached down and lifted his raven mask from the floor, slipping it on with a flourish. The subjects of interrogations often melted before the mask, afraid that all their secrets would be exposed. This man did not. He simply leaned forward in his chair, clasped his hands together, and stared at the raven with a dark smile.

Strange. Aranfal had a greater mastery of the mask than any Watcher, save Brightling. He would look through its hollow eyes, and sensations would gather within him, hints of treachery and rebellion; they would form like smoke, and he would inhale them. Sometimes he would be transported to other places, to the memories of the subject, and watch their Doubting take place. But with this man, there was nothing.

He removed his mask.

‘How did you do that?’ He failed to conceal his disappointment.

The man laughed. ‘I know the creature who makes your masks, Aranfal. I know him. I have known him from days of old. His tricks will not work with me.’

Aranfal sighed. ‘Do you know my mistress?’

‘I know of Brightling, if that is who you mean. But she is not your mistress. You will learn who your true mistress is, in time.’

Aranfal slammed a hand down on the table. ‘Brightling is my mistress, Doubter. Do you know her?’

‘I do.’

‘She is clever, you know. She taught me ways to extract information, even from those who are strong.’

‘Please, try your damnedest.’

Aranfal whistled, a strange shriek of a sound. The door to the cell opened immediately, and a burly Watcher entered, pushing a woman before him. She was relatively young, perhaps in her mid thirties. She had the same olive skin as Gibbet, but she was plumper. Her head was shaved down to the stubble; on her forehead was a tattoo of an eye, wide and staring.

‘This is a friend of yours, is it not?’ Aranfal asked.

Gibbet nodded. He grinned at the woman. Still he smiles.

‘Her name is Hood, as strange a name as your own.’

‘Oh, Watcher, I am far stranger than old Gibbet,’ said Hood.

Gibbet and Hood laughed in unison.

‘Your laughter upsets me,’ Aranfal whispered. ‘Doubters should not be allowed to laugh.’

He nodded at the other Watcher, who grunted as he threw Hood to the floor.

‘You should not have laughed,’ Aranfal said again.

The other Watcher raised his leg and stamped on Hood’s chest.

‘Do not laugh at us again,’ Aranfal whispered.

The beating that Hood received at the fists and boots of the Watcher was as savage as any Aranfal had witnessed. The woman’s bones cracked like kindling, and her face quickly dissolved into a bloodied pulp, the tattoo now impossible to discern. Aranfal turned away in disgust. He did not care for brutality, especially when his true target was the man, not the woman. But it was as Brightling had always said. A person will endure much suffering, but they will not stand for so much as a misplaced hair on a loved one’s head. This woman had no hair, but the meaning was the same. It had worked for him more times than he cared to remember. Some subjects, like old Seablast, did not even need to witness the torment of their loved ones, to fall apart. It was almost always a sure route to success.

Except this time, it wasn’t.

The woman did not cry out. She did not resist the blows as they rained down on her. She smiled. Through it all, she was grinning.

And Gibbet laughed.

Something is very wrong.

Aranfal leaned over Gibbet. ‘You laugh, still you laugh. But know that this treatment’ – he pointed at Hood upon the floor – ‘is just the tiniest taste of what I can do. I am not an impatient man. I can make things far worse, over a much longer period of time. Do you follow my meaning?’

But Gibbet kept laughing. He laughed as he looked into Aranfal’s eyes. He laughed as he looked at his companion. He laughed as he stood, and he laughed as he cast his chains aside, as if they were formed of butter. He laughed as he picked up Aranfal’s mask, and he laughed as he put it on.

‘No,’ was all Aranfal managed to say.

‘Yes,’ said the man, removing the mask and tossing it to the ground. ‘These things remind me too much of their maker.’ He pointed to Hood, and Aranfal glanced in the woman’s direction. She was on her feet, her wounds healed, her tattoo staring out, once again pristine. In her right hand she held the severed head of the brutish Watcher; his torso was beneath her left boot.

‘Now,’ Gibbet said to Aranfal. ‘Whatever will we do with you?’

Chapter Five

‘You are now the oldest of all our leaders,’ said Darrah, leaning back in her chair and staring at the ceiling, eyes wide, as if the thought had just this second occurred to her. ‘And by some way, too. How does that feel? It must be bloody awful.’

Annara Rangle, Tactician of the West, placed her book face down on the table. She removed her eyeglasses and lowered her head, fixing Darrah with a stare. It was a look her father had perfected: cold eyes, on the edge between anger and restraint. Not a look you wanted to see, from him. But she couldn’t do it. She never could. Not to Darrah, anyway.

The Tactician burst into laughter. Her sparrow chest rattled and one of her remaining curls of grey hair bounced about.

‘Although, on second thoughts,’ Darrah said, ‘those are not the giggles of an old lady. Stop them, please; they are an affront to my ears.’ She clasped her hands over the offended organs.

Rangle pouted her dry lips and slapped a hand across her mouth. ‘Mng mm shorry.’

‘You will be sorry,’ Darrah said, lifting a fist, and Rangle laughed again.

How many assistants spoke to their Tactician in this way? She had often wondered. And so she asked.

‘How many assistants speak to their Tacticians in this way?’ She assumed once again her father’s mask of disapproval.

Darrah raised a finger.

‘Not many.’ She stood, and walked to her Tactician, who remained seated. The assistant reached down with her finger, and stroked Rangle’s cheek, just once, lightly. ‘But we are more than that, aren’t we?’

Rangle brushed the hand away. ‘Not here,’ she whispered, staring up into the darkened rafters.

Darrah laughed, and took the chair beside the Tactician, burying herself in one of the many texts that lay before them.

Rangle glanced around the room. I should heed my own words more often, here. It would not do for the Watchers to know too much about my weaknesses. Especially this one. She squeezed Darrah’s knee; the gesture was met with a pout.

The Tactician laughed. She turned to her surroundings, looking again for eyes in the shadows. But there was no one there, or not that she could see. Of course, that didn’t mean they weren’t observing her and making notes. Brightling’s servants would pride themselves on being unobtrusive. That was their job, after all.

But it was worth it. This place was the only thing that brought joy to her life, apart from Darrah. The Watchers’ Library was a glory of the world, though the world did not know it. It was a vast space, cluttered with shelves and dust, free of any attempt at organisation or categorization, so totally unlike the plain and insipid collections of the College. And the books here could not be found in the College. These were texts and parchments that the Watchers monitored and controlled, on behalf of the Operator himself. They peered into the dark cracks of the Overland, into parts of history that were hidden from the people as a whole: overly ambitious Tacticians stalked the pages, with aims of tricking the Machinery; reigns of terror and disaster were detailed, their histories too painful to be remembered; and there were other things, too, which made no sense, or at least not at first. Things from before the Machinery itself.

Thank the Machinery for Tactician Brightling. If she hadn’t let me use this place, I think I would be dead.

‘We should go to Watchfold soon, Tactician. The Administrators will be getting anxious.’

Rangle sighed. ‘They are already anxious, Darrah. They have been hounding me.’

‘They need your wisdom, my lady.’

‘They need my stamp of approval for their little projects. That’s all they need.’

Darrah had served Rangle for fifteen years now, though it felt like longer. She had changed little in that time: a round face, plump, turning to fat, but lively and warm; a stout, powerful little body, with arms like axe handles; black hair that she cut herself into savage spikes; skin of a light brown, like Rangle’s own. She was from the Middle West, like the Tactician, and had wandered one day into Watchfold, demanding a job. She had come a long way, she had said. Watchfold could not even be classed as the true West, she had said. It was like calling Redbarrel the North, or the Far Below the South; they were all too close to the Centre, founded at a time when the Overland was just a speck on the Plateau.

It was lucky Rangle had spotted her. The Administrators would have thrown her onto the road.

They were in the White Rooms, a suite of apartments in Memory Hall that served as the Tactician’s base in the Centre. In truth, this felt more like home than Watchfold Hall, where she was obliged to spend some weeks of the year. It was only a short journey down Greatgift from the See House, home of her beloved library. And the rooms themselves were far more to her taste. A large, central reception room dominated the apartments. It was lavishly appointed, from the lengthy dining table to the furniture that was scattered about the space. The main art feature was a fresco depicting the glorious death of the Third Strategist, who fell fighting in some southern war, arrows honeycombing his torso. His blood sprayed across the wall.

Rangle had even shifted her bed into this room, placing it behind a golden curtain. She liked the air here; it helped her to sleep, something that never came naturally.

The Tactician had been sitting at the dining table now for almost four hours, slowly leafing through the same old text. A lamp sent swirling shadows across the fresco. How many people have stared at that work of art? Which Tacticians have stayed here, have sat in this very chair? She had asked questions like these since she was a girl, watching her father hack a vineyard from the wilderness. Did anyone live here before us? Did savages dance their rituals among those rocks, before the Overland came?

Where have they gone?

Darrah threw herself into the seat beside Rangle.

‘What’s this one, then?’

Rangle smiled, and gently touched a page. ‘It is a very old one.’

‘All the ones you read are very old. Why don’t you read anything new?’

‘There is no fun in the new. I know about the new. I live the new.’

‘You do not.’ Darrah stuck out her tongue. ‘Garron Grinn is here, by the way. He’s shuffling about in the hallway.’

Rangle glared at Darrah. ‘And you thought you wouldn’t tell me till now?’

‘You said you didn’t want to speak to any Administrators until at least the 27th day of the 11th Month of the 10,000th year.’

‘Shut up. Send him in.’

Darrah pouted, leapt up from her chair, and vanished through the doorway. Rangle heard some murmuring outside, before Administrator Garron Grinn shuffled before her.

He was a tall man, and at least as old as herself, giving him a stooped, crooked posture, like a broken finger. A grey beard fell from his chin in unkempt spikes, mixing freely with the silver mat of hair that hung from his irritating head. His skin was black, as were his morose eyes, with which he cast sad little glances at his surroundings. He had a habit of clucking his tongue lightly when he saw something he didn’t like, which was often. He was, as usual, dressed in a heavy brown cloak, underlining his carefully contrived air of austerity.

Rangle had known Garron Grinn since she was sixteen years old, when she had first been whisked away from the vineyard to Watchfold. He had not changed in all that time. I’m sure that’s the same cloak.

‘Garron Grinn,’ she said, trying to sound as displeased as possible. ‘Did you receive my message?’

‘No, my lady,’ came the melancholy response.

‘Are you sure? Did my servant summon you from your bed in the middle of the night, demanding your presence in the White Rooms of Memory Hall?’

‘No.’

‘Are you certain, Garron Grinn?’ It was always both names with him, never just Garron. ‘Ah, then I know. My pigeon flew to you, with a message tied to its little foot. This instructed you to come hither, with all possible haste! That’s what happened, is it not?’

‘It is not, my lady.’

‘Then I came to you, in a vision, surrounded in white—’

‘You did not.’

‘Did you just interrupt me?’

‘No.’ He clucked his tongue.

She sighed, not to herself, but at Garron Grinn. ‘If none of these things happened, Administrator, then why, by the Machinery, are you standing before me now?’

Garron Grinn bowed, and it was a strange thing to witness. His rickety body creaked as he manoeuvred it back to what passed for a standing position.

‘We must discuss business, my lady.’

There came a giggle from the hallway.

‘Darrah,’ Rangle called, ‘please could you find something to occupy you elsewhere? Maybe in the People’s Level?’

There came a series of theatrical tuts, then the sound of feet tapping away along the corridor.

Garron Grinn clucked his tongue again. ‘Business,’ he said.

‘You can take care of business better than I.’ She meant it.

‘No. You were Selected. It is your duty.’

She rolled her eyes, as she had a million times before. It was most likely better suited to a teenage girl.

‘Very well.’ The Tactician of the West waved a hand at Darrah’s recently vacated chair.

Garron Grinn sat down, which was a much more complicated process than one could reasonably expect. After much sighing and creaking, he reached into the folds of his cloak and withdrew a sheaf of papers.

‘Applications for business licences; harvest figures; petty crimes. For you to review,’ he wheezed. ‘But there is no rush.’

That surprised her. No rush? There was always a rush where business was concerned, or so she had been led to believe.

Rangle flicked through the papers absentmindedly. ‘If there is no rush, then why are you here?’

Garron Grinn turned around in his chair, staring out into the shadows.

‘It’s all right,’ said the Tactician. ‘There is no one here but ourselves.’

The Administrator nodded, and clucked his tongue yet again. ‘It is the Watchers, Tactician.’

‘What of them?’ She cocked her head and gave Garron Grinn an accusatory look. ‘Have you done something wrong? Well, I won’t help you. You’ve always been up to no good. I knew it.’

Garron Grinn squinted. ‘No. Of course not. But I fear … that they have become interested in us. In our little capital.’

‘Watchfold? Fine. Let them. They are right to be. They are the power of this land, are they not? It would almost be an insult if they weren’t interested.’

Garron Grinn squinted again. ‘Ah, ah, ah, well, I suppose that is true. But don’t you …’ His eyes fell onto the old book that lay before the Tactician.

‘You think they care about my studies?’ Rangle asked with a chuckle. ‘I assure you, they know all about it, as you well know. Brightling herself gives me access to their library.’

‘Hmm.’

He had never liked her studies. Well, it mattered not. The Machinery had Selected her, not him. But he had a point, though he did not realise it. There were some things she did that the Watchers might not like. My study group. But Brightling did not know about that. She could not know about it. And Garron Grinn certainly did not know about it.

‘Garron Grinn, please. What is this all about?’

The Administrator reached back into his cloak. This time he withdrew a single piece of parchment, on which a series of names had been scrawled in red ink.

‘This was given to me by the Watchers in Watchfold. It is a list of suspected Doubters.’

Rangle shrugged. ‘The Watchers see Doubters everywhere. That’s their job. Let them round up these characters.’

Garron Grinn raised a skeletal finger. ‘That is not the point. This is more serious. These people have taken their Doubting to a bad level. They are pamphleteers, playwrights, that type of thing. As you know, the Watchers take a very dim view of unlicensed arts.’

Rangle was beginning to understand. Cultural control was fundamental to the Watchers; they simply would not tolerate anything that took place beyond their sanction. If this was happening in Watchfold, right under the nose of the Tactician of the West, it could look very bad indeed. Especially when said nose rarely made an appearance in its domain.

‘How long has all this been going on?’

‘It’s hard to tell. Some of these people are new to us, some of them we have discussed before. They are all harmless, in my opinion. But my opinion does not matter.’

‘What have the Watchers said?’

‘They haven’t said anything, though they’ve been seen on the dockside and in the Warrens. They’ve even turned up in the High Town.’

‘But not in the countryside?’ The countryside. A quaint name for half a continent.

‘Not as yet, my lady. But when the rot grips Watchfold, it quickly spreads. At least, that is what the Watchers say. And no one wants another rebellion in the West, madam.’

No. No one wants that. Not ever again.

‘Hmm. Then they are concerned,’ Rangle said. ‘And they think we are doing nothing about it. That is not good.’

Indeed it was not good. They could not attack her directly: not a Tactician, Selected by the Machinery. But they could make life uncomfortable. Did Brightling know about this? If she became irritated, she could close off the library.

She could ban me from it forever.

Garron Grinn sighed. ‘The question is, what do we do about it?’ His eyes flashed as they met hers.

Rangle thought it over for a moment. ‘Well, we cannot fight it, that’s for sure. I will go and speak with Brightling. Perhaps she will appreciate it, if we show at least some interest in the affairs of our area.’

‘Yes, madam. Perhaps.’

When Garron Grinn left, Rangle thought of summoning Darrah back to the apartments. But it was growing late. Better to be alone.

She took herself off to her private room, and reached up to a shelf, from which she removed it: the book that mattered most. She had shown it to none of the members of the study group, not even Darrah.

It was an old thing – the very oldest she had found, in fact. But it did not look it; the pages were formed of a tough substance, which had survived the ages, and even the binding was unbroken. But she could feel the millennia on its pages. This was a thing from long ago: from the very beginning of it all. It had no title that she could see. In fact, it was entirely empty, comprising just a single image on a single page, in the very centre of the manuscript. It had been painted in oil, which still shimmered as if it had been created that very morning.

A woman stood alone upon a rock, her shoulders hunched. She had been attacked, or had attacked someone else; her emerald dress was torn, her red hair hung in matted clumps, and her pale skin was bruised and bloodied. But there was a defiant gleam in her green eyes, as she stared from the confines of the page. If she had lost her battle, she knew she would win her war.

In her left hand she held a mask, as white as her skin. It seemed to have a life of its own: from its own eyes poured hatred, and its mouth was a sneer. In her right hand was a silver full-moon crown, the type worn by Strategists. It was stained red.

Below this woman, in a harsh scrawl, someone had written: Ruin will come with the One.

Chapter Six

Not even the People’s Level of Memory Hall could hold the crowds that came for the wake of Strategist Kane.

The old man lay in state in the centre of the hall, his body resting on a circular grey stone, his hands clasped on his chest and his grey hair flowing around his silver full-moon crown. He wore a silken gown of Strategist purple embroidered with recurring patterns of the number 9938: the year of his Selection. On his feet were slippers of silver satin, and an ivory brooch in the shape of an open hand was pinned to his chest. A forty-strong bodyguard surrounded the deathstone, armed with handcannon and sword and eyeing the hordes suspiciously.

Katrina leaned against the Southern Gate, alone in the crowd, exhausted and bored. It had taken weeks to reach the Centre, travelling in a line of carriages and military paraphernalia. The long journey through the ices of the North had been tense and silent, despite the great bloodless victory that had been achieved over Northern Blown. It was never easy to spend time with the Tactician, and Kane’s death hung over everyone like a miserable spectre.

It had been weeks now, months, since the Strategist had died, yet still they had only reached his wake. Nothing ever happened quickly in the Overland. Not quick enough for Katrina, anyway. It was one of her many flaws, according to Brightling. You must develop caution, Katrina. You are always overreaching. But Brightling only saw the young part of her. She had observed her Apprentice for years, and was the greatest Watcher of the land, yet still she could not see all of her.

Grief was everywhere: the people mourned for the Strategist. Ahead of Katrina was a knot of old women, their worn hemp shawls marking them out as peasants. To their right a girl clung to her father, staring at Katrina from above his shoulder. She was surely too young to comprehend the day’s events, but her eyes were red: perhaps she had been swept along by the emotion around her. Katrina wondered if the source of all this misery was not so much the death of the Strategist, but what it entailed. No one had wanted a Selection in the 10,000th year.

As she looked to the weeping mourners, the Apprentice Watcher wondered how they would behave when they attended the Strategist’s actual funeral. This was all for show, was it not? But Katrina could not pretend. Not where Kane was concerned. Neither part of her had ever liked him, and both were glad to see the back of his racking cough and lecherous glances.

It was a rare day that she was allowed to visit Memory Hall, the regal home of the Strategist. Her place was in the See House, the black tower of the Watchers that stood alone and resplendent on the Priador. Memory Hall was a smaller affair, a squat, red marble palace in the centre of Greatgift Avenue. Yet the sense of history here – her history, her country’s history – was palpable.

The walls were hung with tapestries, each recording an historical event, from the Gifting of the Machinery onwards. The greatest individuals were immortalised in statues of bronze and stone and gold, staring blindly down upon their descendants. There was Strategist Arandel, the prophet of the Machinery, standing in gold eighteen feet tall at the Eastern Gate, naked apart from his peasant’s smock. Opposite him were the stone figures of the Five Warriors, Tacticians of the Early Period, who glared down at onlookers from their destriers. And there by the staircase, so small he was barely visible, stood Strategist Lalle, who died just two days after his Selection at the age of ninety-six, by falling down that very staircase.

She was about to move forward into the crowd, when all eyes suddenly swung in her direction. Behind her, the gate was opening.

Brightling was dressed to mourn, a robe of white rags partly obscured by a black satin gown trimmed with Tactician gold. Her face wore a look of suffering that was so profound it was almost poised: a single tear glimmered on her right cheek, trailing a path through her blusher. Her white hair flowed freely; this struck Katrina as odd, at first, until she realised that the Tacticians would all have removed their half-moon crowns. The Strategist was dead, meaning that all the Cabinet, including the Tacticians, would now face a new Selection.

Brightling floated forward to the deathstone, the crowd melting before her and Katrina following in her wake. A dense silence breathed through the People’s Level as the Tactician came to the body of her late superior. She leaned over the corpse, the tear balancing for a moment on her cheek before falling to the old man’s pallid face. She reached a hand out, but seemed to quickly think better of it and pulled back, turning her perfectly miserable countenance to her Apprentice.

‘Come, Katrina.’

Together, walking almost in step, Tactician and Apprentice strode forward to the staircase, the eyes of the crowd still upon them. Katrina felt exposed, under their gazes. She was used to being shunted around in the shadows, but lately the Tactician had placed her in the foreground, in preparation for her elevation to a Watcher. If they actually make you one.

When they reached the base of the stairs, Brightling stopped and turned to the crowd, pointing a finger to the ground, to the Underland. The people fell to their knees, bowing their heads so low that their lips almost touched the stone floor.

In a short, sharp movement, Brightling pulled her hand back down to her side and turned around. Katrina briefly looked behind as they climbed, and saw that the people remained on their knees, driven to the ground by a woman whose time as a Tactician could be over in a matter of days.

‘Ah, good afternoon, Tactician,’ came a male voice after they had climbed ten or so steps.

Canning, the Tactician for Expansion, crawled out of a compartment in the side of the wall. The man could not abide crowds. In contrast to Brightling, he appeared to be adapting to life without pomp quite easily, clothed in a hairy woollen smock that was tied at the waist with a length of knotted vine, the uniform of the market trader he had been fourteen years before, when he was Selected. He clambered to his feet, sweat cascading down his fleshy face.

‘Good afternoon, Tactician Canning,’ Brightling smiled, as the rotund man brushed the dirt from his smock. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Yes, I suppose. These things have to be done.’ He glanced at the black staircase that snaked its way upwards. ‘On we go, then. May as well start.’ He pushed past them and began to climb, his stout legs struggling up the steps. It was not long before he lagged behind the two women, wheezing in their wake.

Eventually they turned off the stairs. Before them was a wide corridor, the walls and floor formed of silver and interlaid with old stones; there were no paintings, statues or tapestries to obscure their terrible gleam.

At the end of the corridor was a huge, silver door. Four helmeted, armoured guards stood to attention as the Tacticians approached.

‘Watching and Expansion!’ came a cry from an unseen herald, as the small party swept through the entrance into the sumptuous heart of the Overland.

The first thing Katrina noticed was the chandelier, a vast construct of a thousand candles, overwhelming the room in flickering light and blue smoke. Servants pushed wheeled ladders around it, scrabbling upwards to relight extinguished flames. The room had a heavy, sleepy feel, like some brothel of the Far Below.

An immense fresco covered the walls, telling of the Gifting of the Machinery. The observer’s eyes were first drawn to an image of a savage tribe: they wore animal pelts, and some had bones as jewellery. Before them stood Arandel, the prophet of the Machinery and the herald of the Operator. The people looked upon him with loathing.

The events depicted on the next wall took the scene forward, to the moment of the Operator’s arrival. Arandel, benign and beatific, stood on the Primary Hill, his arms open as he implored the people to listen to his words. Behind him burned a great fire, from which emerged the Operator, his cloak a living thing of dark flame that swirled with faces.

I know you, thought the younger part of Katrina. I have seen you.

Do not think about it, said the older part. It doesn’t help you to think about it.

Agreed.

One scene stretched out across both the east and south walls: a depiction of the three buildings that were left to the people by the Operator. Straight ahead was the See House, the home of the Watchers, a crooked black tower on the edge of the Priador. Behind it, a night sky was smeared with stars. In the centre, painted over the corner where the east and south walls met, sat the Circus, the great stadium of the Overland, built at the very spot on the Primary Hill where the people had first encountered the Operator and where Selections still occurred today. The sky was lightening at this point, the marble edifice surrounded by dusk. To its right, smaller than the other buildings but somehow more imposing, was Memory Hall, the red palace in which they all now stood, its black windows winking at the viewer.

Katrina turned from the walls. Ahead of her, at the far end of the room, was a golden throne.

‘Do you know what that is, Katrina?’ Brightling asked.

‘Yes, madam.’

‘Well, off you go then. Pay your respects.’

Katrina nodded, then hesitantly padded forward.

This chair had hosted the backsides of the greatest men and women of the world: the Strategists, Selected by the Machinery to rule the Overland. As she stared at the seat, a sense of history drew up within her, making her dizzy: somehow, despite everything she knew, she could not convince herself that Arandel, Lalle, Kane, Obland, Syer, Barrio, and all the rest, had sat just five feet from where she now knelt.

‘It seems simple at first, doesn’t it?’

Katrina looked up with a start to see Tactician Canning at her side.

‘Yes. I thought it would be …’

‘More grandiose.’

‘Yes.’

‘You can’t see it all in the smoke. Give it a moment – look to the sides.’

Canning backed away as Katrina studied the throne. After a moment, the smoke cleared and it emerged: an almost perfect statue of the Operator, sitting on the edge of the great chair with his legs crossed and his arms folded in his lap. His cloak fell in waves around the base of the throne, strange images of trapped souls painted onto its surface. A hooked nose sat beneath two hollow black eyes, their expression impassive, neutral.

Katrina had hardened over the years, grown accustomed to seeing his image. And yet, there he was, again in the form of a statue – the creature that had taken her brother.

You think that, but do you know? You could be mad.

‘Brightling, is your skivvy done with her gawping? Is there not much to be discussed among us?’

The voice came from above.

‘Black hair, pale skin, nice girlie, very nice. Regal, I would say. From the Centre, yes. A Balatto, perhaps? No, too pretty, too delectable. A strange appearance. What is she?’

Grotius, the Tactician of the North, leered down at her. He was a huge man, fatter even than Canning. Even here in the Cabinet room, above the Strategist’s Throne itself, he gnawed on the fried wing of some massive bird, wiping his hands on the bloodied apron he retained from his pre-Selection career as a butcher. Servants flittered around him, carefully wiping blood and grease from the golden robes that were visible just below the apron. A red cleaver hung ominously at his waist.

‘Grotius, be quiet. You northern ape—’

‘Western whore.’

‘Redbarrel rat.’

This new voice came from the western wall. Katrina realised, now, that the room was broken into stepped levels: in the gloom, she could make out three sets of stairs, one leading to Grotius on the northern wall, another to this new speaker, the third to the south, at the door through which they had entered.

‘I am ignoring you, now, Grotius.’

Rangle, the Tactician of the West, was old; Katrina judged the woman to be in her eighth decade, to guess from the few wisps of grey hair that clung to her withered scalp. It was said she had wept for days when her Selection was announced: a rare reaction indeed among the ambitious denizens of the Overland. Rangle had only ever had one wish in life, they said: to study at the College. Her Selection put an end to all that.

‘No! No, I don’t want it! Mummy!’

Katrina turned to the southern wall. Bardon, ruler of the South, was nine years old: the youngest Tactician for fifty years. He was a small thing, even for his age, and looked as if a gust of wind could carry him away. He was a beautiful child, his skin a light brown and his wide eyes a striking blue. He sat atop a heap of silk-covered feather pillows, almost drowning in his golden gown, toying with a wooden doll and glancing nervously around the room. A chubby, harassed-looking woman, who Katrina assumed was the child’s mother, stood behind his throne: her efforts to hand him his official papers were not well received.

‘Katrina – come here now. That is enough.’

Two silver chairs sat on the lower level, in the centre of the floor: Katrina must have walked through them without realising. Canning and Brightling were sitting on them, side by side. The Watching Tactician motioned to Katrina to join her before turning to her colleague.

‘Who is chairing the Cabinet, Canning?’

‘Hmm? Oh, Tactician Bardon, I believe. His mother is trying to give him his notes.’

They all glanced up at the southern wall, where Tactician Bardon had finally been persuaded to accept his papers, a sullen expression on his face. Brightling hissed under her breath:

‘The boy! On a day like this!’

‘Yes.’

‘Well,’ sighed Brightling, ‘there is nothing to be done.’

Bardon suddenly looked at the crowd, head snapping up from the papers like a startled rabbit. He clapped his hands together and the room fell into total silence, bar the slurping of Tactician Grotius’s gums on avian bones.

Bardon glanced at his hands, as if shocked by what he had done, then smiled, lifted the papers, and began to read in a high-pitched, faltering voice:

‘Almost seven weeks ago, the Strategist of the Overland, Kane, who was Selected by the Machinery, was found dead. You will all be aware of this.’

Tactician Rangle made a little noise.

‘We, the Tacticians of the people, were Selected to serve for our lifetimes, or until the death of the Strategist, when all must be cast asunder and made anew. That time has come.’

The boy cast a glance at his mother, who gave him a reassuring smile and stuck two thumbs up.

Bardon turned back to the room. ‘We must begin the process of Selection,’ he said. ‘The Machinery, its messages interpreted and transmitted by the Operator, will bring forth a new Cabinet to replace the old, a new leadership for our people. All, some, or none of us may be Selected again. It matters not: what matters is the glory of the Overland.’

A round of applause erupted from the Tacticians and their assistants. Brightling smiled; Rangle twitched; Canning reached for his wine and Grotius finished his dinner.

Tactician Bardon glanced into the far corners of the room.

‘I now call on the Operator of the Machinery to tell us when the Selection will be, so that we may prepare the people for their examination and our minds for judgement.’

Katrina gripped Brightling’s throne. Is he going to come here? asked the younger part of herself. If he does, you say nothing, and remain calm.

‘There!’

Katrina was not sure who had spoken, but it did not matter; she had seen it too.

A piece of paper was floating in the air from the ceiling above, dipping and reeling like a feather before landing at Tactician Bardon’s feet. Katrina studied the ceiling for any sign of the Operator, but realised it was pointless. It was like trying to catch a sunbeam.

Bardon seemed unsure of himself. He touched the paper, quickly withdrawing his hand as if expecting a shock. When this did not occur, he picked it up.

‘Three weeks’ time for the Tacticians,’ he whispered, ‘and five for the Strategist.’

Silence held for a moment, before the room broke into chaos. Some assistants ran from the hall to spread the word; others chattered excitedly in little groups. Grotius ate his chicken; Rangle read her book; Brightling examined her fingernails; Canning looked to the floor; and Bardon beamed with pride. But all of them, Katrina saw, cast jealous looks in their colleagues’ directions.

She knew what they were thinking; she had lived with a Tactician long enough to read them. Five weeks for the Machinery to absorb the will of the people. Five weeks until the current group of Tacticians would gather once again by the Portal, the very place where the prophet Arandel had announced the coming of the Machinery, to receive the information they dreaded and anticipated in equal measure. Five weeks, and they would all find out. But they already knew one thing: the favourite for the role of Strategist, given their talents and experience, had to be one of them.

Had it not?

Chapter Seven

Rangle remained in her apartments after the gathering of the Cabinet, and did not leave for days.

Kane’s death had affected her in ways she could never have anticipated. She had not liked the man. There was a cruel streak to him. It was nothing severe, just a low-level meanness. She had known him longer than anyone on the Plateau, and she had seen it on many occasions. When she was first Selected, he had spoken with her, and quickly discovered her ambition to study at the College. He said it would be possible, that he would arrange everything. But when she arrived at the Great Hall, her name was not on the register. They all knew who she was, the students and the Scholars; they knew how she had been humiliated. They would never mock a Tactician of the Overland, not to her face. But she saw it; their eyes smiled at her.

She knew he was old. She wondered at his longevity, if truth were told. That cough of his. Those wasted limbs. But still he continued, pestering females, bringing whores to the Cabinet. She had known he would die before long. She could feel death stalking them both, while Brightling and the others looked to the future and schemed.

But something was wrong, in this death.

‘How could he fall from the balcony?’ Darrah had asked. ‘He must have sat there a hundred thousand times. How could he contrive to fall?’

She had not responded. She could not. She didn’t believe it either. But she had to. Brightling said he had fallen, so he had fallen.

Someone knocked at the study door.

‘Come in, Darrah.’

The younger woman held a bowl of soup in her hands. By the side was a torn chunk of black bread.

‘You should eat.’

Rangle nodded and waved to the table, where Darrah set down the food.

‘Are you coming to bed tonight?’ Darrah glanced at the corner of the study, where Rangle kept a single bed. The Tactician stayed here sometimes, when she felt the need for solitude. Darrah did not understand, and did not like it.

‘I don’t know.’

Darrah nodded. Her eyes burned. ‘The others have arrived.’

Rangle smiled. ‘Good. Tell them I will be there very soon. And get them soup, if they want it.’

Darrah nodded, almost imperceptibly, and stormed out of the room. That girl would be better off without me. I should end it.

But I won’t.

There was one thing in the world that prevented Annara Rangle from following Kane off the balcony of Memory Hall. It was not Darrah, and it certainly wasn’t her exalted station. It was her study group.

She started it about three years into her life as a Tactician. There were three members back then; Rangle herself, a curious Administrator called Eddvard, and Brynn, the Tactician of the North in those faraway days.

It began by accident. She had been to the library of the College – it was the only one she could access, at that time, and she was grateful for it – and had borrowed a Middle Period work of philosophy, The Halls of the Underland. She had always been obsessed with the Underland. What was this place? Some of the writings described it as another place of existence, or as a repository of historical memory. Some people had accessed it, the stories said, but only when the Underland wished to be entered. Otherwise, its gateways were always closed. And yet, there were so many strange things in the world that could not have come from the Overland. She had always been certain of it.

This book was a revelation. It argued that there was no Underland or Overland, but one country; the Underland could be seen in our daily lives. It was a strange little text, and its author was unknown, which was perhaps well for him or her; the book was not considered Doubting in these enlightened, modern days, but who knew what they would have thought back then, when things were darker and ignorance reigned. It played an important role in the Tactician’s life. One evening she was reading it in her study in the apartments (even then she stayed away from Watchfold), when Brynn had arrived unannounced. She heard him enter too late; he was looking over her shoulder before she even knew he was there.

‘I have thought about that book for ten years now,’ he whispered. He was very young, just a few years older than her; there was something calming in his brown eyes. He was from the West, too, but there the similarities ended; he came from wealth, far greater than that of her family. He stank of it.

‘Sometimes I look around me, and I see things, and I am sure they are not of the Overland.’ She remembered his words as clearly as if he had spoken yesterday. ‘They cannot be. Do you understand me?’

She was frightened. She could still feel the fear, even now. ‘I do understand you.’

He nodded, and left the room, forgetting whatever business he had come to discuss. But two days later he returned, with some manuscripts from his own collection. They met in the evenings, after Cabinet meetings; no one suspected a thing. Why would they? He was a Tactician, and they had business to attend to. One day he had simply shown up with Eddvard, as if the Administrator had always attended their clandestine discussions. No one ever asked why he started coming; it was better that way.

Over the years, the group changed members. Brynn died unexpectedly a few years into their studies, to be replaced as Tactician of the North by Syrrian, who was in turn succeeded by Grotius, the disgusting bastard. Eddvard passed away not much later. But the group carried on. As the years rolled by, Rangle grew better at identifying like-minded individuals. She was proud of her success; they had never been discovered.

She wondered what would happen, if Brightling found out. Would it even be considered a threat, the ramblings of an old lady and her friends? Perhaps it would anger the Watching Tactician. After all, she had allowed Rangle access to the greatest library in the Overland, its shelves stacked with dangerous knowledge. How would she feel, if she knew Rangle was showing these books to other people?

All we do is ask questions. Could that really anger her? The Tactician of the West did not care to find out. All that any Doubter seems to do is ask questions. It would not matter how important one was, if one was found to be a Doubter.

They were all there, seated at the long table, when she came into the main reception room. Darrah had only lit one of the tall candles, leaving the main lamps extinguished. A strange, weak light played across the faces of the members of Rangle’s study group.

There were three members these days, apart from her. They were clustered together at one end of the table, whispering among themselves. In the centre, at what he undoubtedly perceived to be the head of the table, was Lanurus Randalo. In many ways he was a rather pitiable creature. He was the head of an illustrious family, whose wealth had originally been built by some hardy Randalos who cornered an offshoot of the northern fur trade. From these tough, resourceful people had descended a line of weaklings and dilettantes, who spent their days carousing and dipping their toes into a succession of ill-starred careers and ventures. They never spoke of the business that had made them rich; there was no allusion to it in their coat of arms, no hint of it in their halls. Their snobbery was almost amusing in its crassness, especially as their share in the original venture was all that kept them afloat.

Lanurus was the scion of this brood. He was a sharp-nosed thing, with long chestnut hair that he slathered with oils and an eclectic array of jewellery that encrusted his ears, nose and fingers. His pale skin had turned a sickly yellow over the years, perhaps through his legendarily poor diet, though it did not manifest itself in any extra weight; on the contrary, he was a rattling bag of bones. He was older than he looked; he had to be, for Rangle had known him now for almost two decades, and his appearance had never changed.

To Lanurus’s right sat an entirely contrasting character. Maro Danussa was a short man, but he made up for it in sheer bulk; his chair seemed to warp under his weight. But his girth was of a different order to Grotius’s, the hideous wretch, or even to Canning’s. It was muscle, not fat; he was a round ball of sinew. He was black, and his eyes were quick and wary. He shaved his head entirely, save for a single band of hair that ran from the middle of his brow to the back of his skull.

Rangle did not know what he did in the real world, and she had never asked. But he had attended her group now for almost ten years, and though his interventions were rare, they were thoughtful when they came.

Finally, there was Darrah. She smiled up at Rangle when the Tactician entered, and rolled her eyes at whatever Lanurus had been saying.

‘Tactician,’ Lanurus said, getting to his feet and opening his arms. Rangle embraced him, and took a seat by Darrah.

‘You should call me Annara, Lanurus.’

‘Yes, I know. I will do so from now on, Tactician.’

This had been a little tradition of theirs for almost twenty years.

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