The Strategist
Ruin is coming.For ten millennia, the Machinery Selected the greatest leaders of humanity, bringing glory to the Overland. But the Machinery came with a Prophecy: in the 10,000th year, it will break, and Ruin will come.Now, the Prophecy is being fulfilled. The Machinery has Selected a terrible being to rule the Overland, an immortal who cares little for the humans she governs. Some call her the Strategist. Others call her the One. Everyone knows her as Mother.Mother will do anything to find the Machinery and finally bring Ruin. But only one creature knows where the Machinery is – the Dust Queen, an ancient being of three bodies and endless power.And if Mother wants the Dust Queen’s help, she must ready herself for a game. A game from older times. A game of memory. A game in which mortals are nothing more than pawns.
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The Strategist
GERRARD COWAN
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2017
Copyright © Gerrard Cowan 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017.
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 authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.
Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008121822
Version: 2017-08-09
For my parents, Marie and Ronnie, and my sister, Rosaleen
Table of Contents
âWhat is the Machinery?â the man asked.
There was silence for a moment, and then a great sigh, somewhere far away.
The man opened his eyes, to a black, starless expanse. He was alone, held up by invisible strings: a puppet in the abyss.
The man flexed his fingers. He reached up to his face, felt the stubble, and confirmed he was what he had always been: Charls Brandione. A physical being. Not a nothing.
He looked into the dark, and searched for her.
The Dust Queen.
âAsk me another question,â she said.
It was strange, that voice of hers: three people speaking at once, and one voice from three mouths. He sensed she was impatient, and the thought sent a spasm of laughter through him. How could he hold such power over her?
He turned his head, focused on another stretch of darkness. She had taken him here before, many times. What was this place? It was a void, yet there was something there, in the darkness: a deep intelligence, like that of the Queen, but older even than her, its thoughts stretching across age after age. He could feel it. He could hear the whispers of its greatness. There was a conflict within this unknowable mind; he could taste it.
The darkness changed. Three sets of unblinking eyes appeared before him.
âAsk me another question.â The eyes narrowed. He could ignore her no longer. But only one question ever came to mind. It was a question she would not answer, but it mattered more than anything else. Everything was tied up with it: the old world and whatever had taken its place; the rules they lived by, all their fears and dreams.
âWhat is the Machinery?â
The eyes blinked.
**
He was back in his tent.
No: not tent. He had been in many tents before, in the wars. The wars, the wars, the endless wars, now a bloody dream. This was a great hall, a monstrosity of flowing silk, dyed into violent shades of red and gold. In the centre stood a magnificent table, covered with maps of the Machinery knew where and bowls of fruit in a riot of colours. Candles burned on thick iron stands, and a gigantic bed dominated one wall. Along another was a series of wooden shelves, groaning with incomprehensible books. Brandione sat at a gleaming mahogany desk, the knobs on its drawers shaped into likenesses of his own face. In a corner was a bust of the Queen, or rather three busts growing from one base, staring at him with wicked intent.
Wayward was standing before him, smiling his usual smile. Tonight he wore a velvet coat of dark purple; shreds of cloth of the same colour were threaded through the braids of his hair.
Brandione turned his gaze to the entrance, a flapping segment of parchment. Outside, the sand was cold and blue in the moonlight. There was a desert, there. Was it the Wite? He did not know. Questions, Wayward, and the tent. Thatâs all there is. Questions, Wayward, and the tent.
âYou were gone for a long time,â Wayward said.
