The Memory

by Gerrard Cowan

  The Old Child was on his knees. His face was contorted in pain, his eyes screwed tight, his mouth curled into a snarl. He now wore a pale-blue gown, which rippled like water in the moonlight. He was the endless sea, and Ruin was the fire of the world.

  The chains were alive. They gathered around the Old Child, cutting into him. He was not fighting back, as the shackle and the chains and memories suffocated him. Strangled by pain. Ruin would consume him, and the memory he held.

  ‘Take my hand,’ Drayn said, turning to look at Canning, whose gaze was fixed on Brandione. He did not seem to hear. ‘Take my hand,’ she repeated.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Canning whispered. ‘Can’t you feel the power inside him? That memory is a glory.’

  He seemed to shake himself, and looked at Drayn.

  ‘We need to help him,’ he said.

  The girl nodded. She took Canning by the hand. She did not know where she was going, but she somehow knew the way.

  They were on a wall.

  They had come to a fortress, a vast thing of towers and stone. The wall was a great defensive structure, taller by far than the buildings behind. Brandione stood alone, staring out through a small opening. His hands were pressed up against the stone, as if he was attempting to physically hold something back, something fierce and unrelenting. Drayn and Canning ran to his side, to gaze through eyeholes of their own.

  The land below them was a bowl of fire: roiling, endless flame. Occasionally Drayn could see things there, in that conflagration: a pair of eyes, unblinking, burning with a fire of their own. There were chains, too, in the fire: they gathered together and shot forward, crashing against the wall and making the fortress shake.

  ‘I need to protect it,’ Brandione said. He did not look at them, but jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘I need to guard the wall, or he will take it.’

  Canning touched Drayn on the shoulder. She looked where he was pointing; behind them, below the wall and in a kind of courtyard, was a great cannon, lying useless on the ground.

  ‘That’s the wrong approach, Brandione,’ said Canning. ‘You need to attack him with it, not protect it.’

  Brandione did not respond.

  ‘He can’t hear you,’ Drayn said. ‘Ruin is destroying him.’ Drayn looked once more through an eyehole at that fire below. ‘Something’s wrong here.’

  Canning was staring at the former General.

  ‘This is Brandione,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. I don’t know what you—’

  He swung his head towards her.

  ‘I mean, this is Brandione. It is not the Old Child.’ He turned back to Brandione. ‘He needs to give himself over to the memory. He must allow himself to be consumed. Do you understand, Charls? Ruin will kill you if you don’t.’

  But the man simply stared out, out beyond the wall. There came another barrage of chains: the wall shook again, and great chunks of stone began to fall to the ground.

  ‘He’s losing,’ Drayn said. ‘He needs time.’

  Canning looked at her. He reached out a hand.

  ‘Then we will give him time.’

  They turned as one towards the wall. They climbed upon the edge, and they jumped down into the fire and the chains.

  CHAPTER 32

  The flames burned and the chains tightened around Brandione. Closer, closer, closer.

  He was nowhere at all, but he saw everything. He flickered through memory, along the roads and lanes of the Overland, that land of his birth. There he was, in a dusty village of the South; now in the College; now in the Fortress; now in the damned, benighted West. Little shards of the past, prickling his skin.

  Was there ever an Overland at all? Perhaps it was a fantasy: perhaps the Underland is reality. He did not know if these thoughts were his own, or those of the new creature. The Old Child.

  He was a host for this being. Together, they would destroy Ruin. But he did not feel it. Sometimes he thought he heard something. A different voice spoke within him, a whisper from the shadows of the ancient world. Fight it. Fight him. The memory was within him, but it was not yet a part of him. He felt an urge to protect it from Ruin, though he knew this was foolish. I can’t stop him taking it, until I become one with it.

  But he did not know how. Before long, he would be there; he would burn away Brandione’s ignorance and strangle it with his chains.

  We can do great things, the memory told him. Allow me to become one with you.

  The Queen was there again.

  ‘You are the Last Doubter. Do you know what that means? I have seen you in the storm of memory. It speaks to me in a thousand voices, and sometimes it deceives. But I know this to be true. The Last Doubter will destroy Ruin. You must accept the First Memory into your heart. You must throw your old self away.’

  The Dust Queen faded away. Brandione did not know it then, but this was the last time he would ever see that creature, that power of the world who had called him the Last Doubter, who had found him in a prison in the desert and placed the world in his hands.

  And so Brandione wandered through memory and time. The First Memory was at his side, sometimes appearing as a thin line of smoke, sometimes assuming the form of a person, a vision of darkness, of Absence. He willed himself to embrace this thing: to truly become a host. He knew this would end his mortal life, but he was not afraid of that. He had always known that an early death awaited him, from the day he walked out of the College and into the armies of the Overland. This would be glory on an unrivalled scale.

  But he could not do it, and he did not know why. He was lost, now, lost in the world, lost within himself. He felt helpless: a piece of wood on a surging stream, carried by forces he could never control.

  As this thought took hold of him, an old anger began to grow, the same rage he had felt all his life. I am Charls Brandione.

  He was not like others of the world. He had clawed his way to the pinnacle of the Overland, not through the whims of some machine, but thanks to his own efforts, his own talents. He would no longer call for aid to the Dust Queen, or any other being of the Old Place. He would win by being Charls Brandione.

  He felt a fire burn at him: the fire of Ruin. But he paid it no mind.

  ‘Who is Charls Brandione?’

  There were two others at either side of him, sitting at a table. But there were not three of them in this room; there was only one.

  The room was divided into two sections. To his left, it had the appearance of a library, a cluttered space of books and dust. The Brandione at this side of the table was young, and wore the dark cloak of a scholar.

  To the right was the Map Room of the Overland, a dark, marble space with the borders of the country engraved upon the ground. The Brandione of this place was closer to today’s man, a weary figure in a battered leather breastplate, his eyes locked on his younger self.

  The soldier and the scholar.

  The two men turned and stared at him. All was silent here; even the flames of Ruin seemed to die away, their harsh light fading from the memory world of Charls Brandione.

  ‘She waited for both of you,’ he said to the men. ‘Ten millennia ago, she saw us, and she waited for us. We are the Last Doubter.’

  The two men spoke as one.

  ‘We must use both sides.’

  Brandione nodded. ‘I am a soldier. I am a scholar. And I am more besides. I am … I am …’

  He felt something appear in his grasp. It was a book: The Days Before the Fall. He found it long ago, in the Museum of Older Times, when all this madness had begun. He flicked through its pages, gazing once more at the painted images of the Operators, Jandell and Squatstout and Shirkra and all the rest of them. But then he came to two others, ones he had not recognised before: a grown man and woman, hand in hand. They had changed: the woman was now in the form of Katrina Paprissi, staring out at him with purple eyes. The man, though, took no form at all; he was only a thing of fire and shadow, formed roughly into the contours of a person. This man seemed to change under Bra
ndione’s gaze, shifting from one creature to another, flickering from the shadow to Brightling to other, stranger beings. Brandione saw power when he looked at this thing, power beyond anything in this world. He saw a creature that held all memories in its grasp, and could not be tricked or overwhelmed.

  ‘He owns the world,’ said the two other Brandiones. ‘He owns all the world, except one thing: the First Memory.’

  A new page had been opened, though he did not remember turning it. A great heart was painted there, black and festering, pumping streams of putrid blood that ran off the paper and into his lap.

  ‘It has a heart,’ he whispered. ‘All things with a heart can die.’

  The book fell away into dust, and was reborn as something else: a dagger, old and worn. His dagger, a little weapon he had carried for half his life. He knew, though, that the dagger was not for Ruin. Steel would not harm that thing. Only memory could do that. Only the First Memory.

  ‘You must truly become a host,’ said the scholar. ‘You must become a weapon.’

  ‘I am ready,’ said Brandione.

  ‘You are not ready,’ said the soldier. ‘You will only be ready when you are gone.’

  Brandione looked at the dagger.

  ‘A part of you resists,’ said the scholar.

  ‘Kill it,’ said the soldier.

  Brandione nodded.

  ‘The blade is not for Ruin,’ he whispered.

  He looked at the two younger versions of himself, and all of them shared a smile, as Charls Brandione plunged a dagger into his neck.

  The Old Child sat on a platform of chains.

  Ruin stood before him, wreathed by flame. The Old Child was held firm by the shackle and the chains, countless chains, all of them wrapped around him, squeezing the life from him. The chains fell away, far down to the ground below. They were a part of Ruin, and they were formed of all the Old Place. The Old Child could not escape these bonds, while Ruin put all his heart into them. But the Old Child felt no fear. He knew that all would be well. Soon Ruin would turn away. He would drop his guard, and loosen his grip. The Old Child knew it.

  A movement seized his attention. Two mortals were standing at the side of Ruin. He did not know where they had come from, but he remembered seeing them, somewhere else. They came to help my host. They are helping me.

  Ruin had not noticed them; all his focus was on the Old Child. He did not see them, as they each raised their right hands towards him, palms open. Power formed there: a little blue flame in the man’s hand, and a swirling storm in miniature in the girl’s. As one, they pulled those hands back and pushed them against Ruin.

  At first, the gaze of Ruin remained resolutely focused on the Old Child. But after a moment he seemed to acknowledge these creatures at his side. They were not harming him, the Old Child saw. They were simply annoying him. The Old Child felt such love for these mortals in that moment. He saw what they had achieved, at such risk to themselves.

  And that was enough. Ruin turned his gaze from the Old Child for a moment, and slackened his grip. The Old Child stood, and cast aside his chains.

  Ruin swung back towards him, his eyes burning black and red. But it was too late. The Old Child was unleashed.

  CHAPTER 33

  The man called Brandione was gone.

  Drayn was on her knees, exhausted, her power spent. She looked to the other side of Ruin and saw Canning there, in the same condition as her. Ruin had only glanced at them in anger, and it had almost destroyed them.

  But it did not matter any more: the Old Child was here.

  The Old Child began to walk forward, his gaze set intently on Ruin. Darkness gathered around him like a smoke; he held it in his hands. It came from his hands. His neck shackle was gone. He raised a hand in the air, and the rest of the chains collapsed as well, until the platform was gone and they stood on nothing but air. He clicked his fingers together and they all began to float downwards, back onto the hill.

  Ruin faced the Old Child and smiled, though it was uncertain. The stars seemed more numerous than before, and the hill was bathed in their light.

  Canning was at Drayn’s side.

  ‘We did it,’ he whispered.

  Drayn nodded. ‘We did something. But it’s not over.’ A new thought came to her. ‘The Old Child is separate from Ruin. That woman – that Queen – took it away from the Old Place. There are two gods now: two gods of memory.’ She could feel both of them in her memories, melded with all the magic of the past. ‘These creatures are the power of memory. If they die, so does our power.’

  She felt a surge of relief. She did not want any power. Not any more. She wanted only to return to normal, to her island, to her Cranwyl. But when she looked at Canning, she saw a fear in his eyes that she had never seen before.

  Ruin took a step towards the Old Child. His flames were gone, but there was a fire in his eyes.

  ‘I destroyed the Great Absence. How could a memory of the Absence ever hurt me?’

  The Old Child shook his head. The darkness swirled around him, this memory of something older than any of them. It was a nothingness, but it was not empty. It was a hunger that wanted to throw them all in its jaws.

  ‘I am not the Absence,’ said the Old Child. It was the voice of Brandione, though there was something else there besides. ‘I am the First Memory. I will destroy us both.’

  The Old Child smiled, and the man that was Brandione fell into smoke. The smoke gathered together, into the shape of a person, and ran forward, towards Ruin.

  CHAPTER 34

  Canning watched with a blend of horror and hope as Ruin raised a hand and cast the Old Child to the ground, like a supplicant before him. Horror, because he knew what was going to happen: Ruin would defeat the Old Child. The First Memory would be consumed by the god, and the world would belong to him, the endless past and the tortured future, all of it forevermore. But there was hope, too: a strange, splintered kind of hope. If Ruin lives, the power of memories lives. My power lives.

  ‘How could one memory alone threaten me? You will not destroy us; you will live on, within me.’ Ruin laughed. ‘You are a beautiful thing. I will enjoy bringing you inside me.’

  He gestured with a finger, and the Old Child was dragged forward. Ruin became a flame, golden and black, and the darkness of the Old Child vanished into his fury.

  Canning wept, then. He wept with joy and sadness, as the story of the mortal world came to an end, but the power of memory lived on.

  CHAPTER 35

  The Old Child was lost in flame and shadow.

  A name surfaced in the swirling mist of his mind. Charls Brandione. The Last Doubter. A soldier and a scholar. The words seemed to hold some significance. Words of the host. Words of my body.

  He was so young, and so old, all at once. He felt the weight of time within his being, but looked at the world through fresh eyes. He was the youngest of the Operators, and the oldest.

  He had come now to Ruin. So much memory was here, in this creature. It had swallowed the Old Place. It held the power of the world in its grip, like a spider in its web. Oh, and what a web that must be, stretching through the Old Place and into every mortal mind. Memory was tied to it, and it was tied to memory.

  A storm of power surrounded him, formed of flame and darkness. The Old Child smiled. He did not know how to feel fear. He looked upwards, and saw a great patch of darkness. That was the centre of the beast: the heart of this god. It floated downwards, until it hung over the Old Child.

  There has never been a creature like me. All memory is within me, and I am within all memory.

  ‘No,’ said the Old Child. ‘Not all memory. Not me.’

  The Old Child had a vague recollection of its mortal self: a man, a soldier, a scholar. That man seemed to be there, at the Old Child’s side. He was of the Old Place, and beyond it. He gave a slight nod. Both parts of the Old Child knew the lie of the road ahead, and were agreed on the direction.

  A soldier is always willing to die.
/>   ‘You have allowed me inside your being,’ said the Old Child. ‘You have allowed me inside. And now you will fall.’

  There was a great shudder, in the flaming darkness. I sense your power. But you cannot harm me.

  ‘There is something you do not know, Ruin; something that has always been hidden from the children of the Old Place.’

  There came an uneasy laugh.

  Your tricks will not help you now.

  ‘I will tell you, Ruin. You see, only one thing is more powerful than memory,’ the Old Child said. ‘The Absence told mortals this secret, in the beginning of everything. It has been hidden from you, but I know the truth.’

  There was a tremor in the maelstrom: a tremble of fear.

  The Old Child looked within itself to the very core of the First Memory: the beautiful wasteland of the Absence, the first thing that mortal eyes ever saw. This was the centre of its existence, the blood that flowed through its veins. It was the stuff of creation, and the febrile matter of destruction.

  ‘The only thing more powerful than a memory,’ the Old Child said, ‘is the death of a memory.’

  The Old Child took this power in its hands, and set itself aflame.

  CHAPTER 36

  The flames died, and Ruin stood alone. Canning looked from this creature to Drayn, and knew what she was thinking. It is over. The god has won.

  But when he looked once more at Ruin, he saw there was a certain look in his eye. A fearful look. The god glanced around the hill; his eyes burned, but not with their usual flame. This was the darkness of the Old Child. It was the blackness of creation, a cosmic emptiness. It was the memory of a creature that was older than all the ages of the universe. All of Ruin’s being now crawled with this thing: this memory of Absence.

  Ruin looked upwards to the starry sky, and he screamed. He screamed as the darkness burned through the skin of Brightling. He screamed as his body was rent apart. He screamed as he fell into a broken corpse of fire and shadow, rolling out over the hill and away on the winds of the mortal world.