I’m not sure how I was able to keep reading that. Maybe it was easier to process since it was written down. Maybe I was distracted by trying to work out what it all meant. Maybe I had no emotions left to give. Maybe, just maybe, it simply didn’t matter. After all, how could any explanation make what we had found either better or worse? Could we change anything by grieving and raging? A girl had been strapped down to a chair and left to struggle in vain against her bonds until she tired and starved and died and rotted – did there need to be a few pieces of paper left over to tell us just how horrible that was?

  That doesn’t mean it was an easy read though. Far from it. Still being in the lucky position of ‘only Gnomish speaker’, it was my job to translate the damn thing. Would you believe me if I said that the first emotion I felt when I started was excitement? A somewhat muted excitement, but excitement nevertheless. I’m an archaeologist after all, and here in my hands was a document from nearly a thousand years ago, still-legible and describing events from the greatest war ever fought. I’d have to be a truly terrible archaeologist not to feel a rush at finding this. I came to the plains of Denofell looking for scraps like this, and found a whole feast. A shame that it was a feast of rot and mould, with poisoned wine and murderous guests.

  I read it aloud from start to finish, pushing through in a rasp or a whisper whenever my breath hitched, stuttering and faltering when I had to choke back the sobs that threatened to break free, and leaning close to make the best of sections that were damaged by time, fire, or fresh tears. I read it with Tove’s hand on my back all the while, anchoring me in the here-and-now while image after image flashed through my mind; visions sparked by these reports that were so easy to picture. Images of arcane explosions tearing into formations of soldiers, armies encamped around cities seeing which would starve first, artillery launched across an entire battlefield sent to slam into my body, of injured men and women screaming in the mud, of the heart-wrenching feeling when new orders were delivered which claimed to offer heroism and glory but obviously promised only deaths by the thousand.

  I’ve always had a vivid imagination, but this felt like something else. Something about this place was turning the words into something more like memories. I wasn’t just reading, I was remembering. For all that this happened 900 years before I was even born, it was clearer in my mind’s eye than last week. I didn’t know where they were coming from, but pictures slammed into my mind one after the next, memories of myself fighting these battles on the page, clashing with the immutable fact that this was ancient history even to Alf. These weren’t my memories, couldn’t be my memories, and yet being here seemed to grant them strength, multiplying in my head and expanding into other battles, other sieges, other campaigns aside from the ones on the page. Battles I’d never read about, fought over towns that no longer existed, and with a vast array of weapons and forces. These towering Gnomish constructs featured heavily, in varying forms which showcased a range of purposes suited for each design.

  In my memories I could see this very Colossus, looking at the outside from across a battlefield as it trampled heathens by the dozen. Its eyes blazed a fiery orange, its arm blasted death, and her body bore a thousand scorches and dents where boulders and spells and more had slammed against it; but it still marched. I remembered taking comfort in its continuing survival, before swinging my ponderous, oversized head back to the task at hand, blasting at ranks of Dark Elf warriors, the heavy, arcane cannons mounted on my cheeks heating to a scorching, glowing red as they unleashed shot after shot-

  I clasped my head in my hands as I finished reading, screwing my eyes shut and trying to banish these brutal, chaotic scenes back to the history books where they belonged.

  I’d explored enough tombs

  I’d been in enough battles

  to know that memory could be tangible,

  to know the ebbs and flows of war,

  how powerful it was,

  how powerful I was,

  and know what effects it could have,

  and just what terror I could instill

  so I did my best to focus on what I knew was true and present and real, letting the feeling of Tove’s hand anchor me to the now.

  and being in this place was merely unlocking the door behind which truth and horror lurked, reawakening me to fight again in a war I could never escape.

  I let my real set of memories displace these external ones as I opened my eyes and saw this tomb again, blinking at the unfamiliar faces of these intruders, feeling the touch of this strange Dwarven woman and the unfamiliar sensation of gratitude that came with it, wordlessly thanking her for her steadfast support, even if all she thought she was doing was putting a comforting hand on someone’s shoulder.

  “Are you alright Indy?” Tove asked. I realised that I was hunched over the desk, still clutching my head and apparently breathing hard. “Did you not just see that?” I replied, straightening myself out and laying my hands carefully back on the table. “See what?” she asked. I turned to look at them, seeing confusion writ large across their faces. I could feel my heart pounding in deep, heavy pulses that reached every part of my body. “Indy, see what? she asked again.

  “The images,” I said. “The battles, the armies, the sieges…” I trailed off. “All the things that were written on the pages, everything that-” I checked the reports again, “that ‘High Commander Moesol Torsal’ talked about here.” Still more blank looks. “Nothing?” I asked. “Nothing at all?”

  “Well the writing was certainly graphic,” Nalfis hedged, “I could very much see it in my mind's eye, that’s for-” I cut him off.

  “No, not like that, like…” I floundered for an explanation. “Like, you could actually see it, hear it. Like it wasn’t a report, it was a memory.” Still no reply, which I admit was a bit worrying.

  “Maybe it’s because you were the one reading it in the actual Gnomish?” Alf suggested. “We’re just getting it second-hand after all.”

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  “I guess so,” I allowed. It was technically a possibility, even if it was a stretch. “I don’t know, it was so real, like I was there.” Nobody had any other suggestions about that, and honestly neither did I. This was, frankly, weird as fuck. I now also had the weird sensation of remembering other memories (which is quite meta). I filed them away mentally, at least knowing they weren’t ‘mine’. In a way, it was like reading a book or watching a film, only that you had been in the story, and knew how it felt to be there.

  We sat in quiet thought for a few moments, still feeling the rhythmic rise and fall of the machine as it strode on relentlessly. Endlessly. The enthusiasm I’d once held to explore this thing had now been entirely extinguished as we’d discovered the truth of its purpose and function. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

  Nalfis cast a melancholy look over the body of the pilot before he asked the next question. “What should we do with her? I don’t see how we can bury her, but… well we can’t just leave her like this, surely?”

  “We should burn her,” someone replied. It took a few seconds of silence and noticing everyone looking at me, for me to belatedly realise that I had said that. I didn’t even remember having the thought. It had just been an instinctive answer, though I stood by it. “Look at that body,” I said. “It was nothing more than a prison for her. Besides, she’ll be in Valhalla by now.” I was confident of that at least.

  “She wasn’t armed though,” Alf pointed out, “I can’t even see a weapon in here.” I fixed him with the flattest, most unimpressed look I could muster before continuing. “Then you might want to look a bit harder, old man.” His face registered confusion and a bit of annoyance, but I saw Nalfis’s eyes go wide with realisation and some degree of panic. “Oh gods,” he whispered. He looked around the room – the ceiling, the walls, the chair, the girl, the reports, and finally back to me. “She was armed, wasn’t she?” he said, rising and walking slowly towards the windows at the front of the room, craning his head forwards and looking down. He gave a single, hysterical chuckle; a choked ‘Ha’ noise more than any actual amusement.

  “Could you two fill the rest of us in, please?” Tove impatiently asked. Nalfis locked eyes with me and I waved him on, trusting that he’d probably come to the same conclusion as I had if his reaction was anything to go by. Also, he was a far better storyteller than I am. He sat cross-legged on the floor, backlit by the orange glow of the exterior lamps, spilling through the windows. He beckoned us to join, and we all sat too (with a lot of groaning in Alf’s case) in a small circle, like we were hearing a campfire story.

  “Think about the reports,” he started. “Close your eyes, cast your minds into the past, and picture this room all those years ago.” I don’t know if anyone else shut their eyes, but I did; letting his melodic voice carry me back in time to the world he described.

  “It was a time of war. A time of a war so devastating and cruel that it will leave scars a thousand years into the future and banish an entire race from our world. A war fought not for land, conquest or glory, not for the claim of a spurned heir, but to replace the very gods themselves, and bring darkness to all of Midgard. This was a war where no measure was off the table, and no price was too high for victory. You, we, are all aware there will be no further chances, that it is win or die, and we are all ready to do whatever it takes to grasp that victory.”

  He’s definitely the better storyteller, I reflected, listening raptly as his narrative unfurled.

  “Now see yourself in here. You are the commander, carrying all that awesome and terrible weight. To you has been entrusted a weapon so advanced and powerful that it can single-handedly tip the scales of a battle, and so a war. It represents the collective struggle and sacrifice of your entire people, and its loss would carry an incalculable cost in both gold and hope.

  “Every one of your waking moments is spent issuing and receiving orders, prioritising tasks, responding to communiques, planning your next actions, overseeing repairs, or fighting battles on a scale you could hardly imagine before, but by now are distressingly normal. Your fatigue is perpetual, and your scarce sleep is disturbed by nightmares or rude awakenings, fresh issues which require your immediate and personal attention. Every decision you make is based on a cost-benefit balance that you measure in lives. Hundreds or thousands of them sitting on each side of the scale, waiting for you to decide which are worth saving, and which are a necessary sacrifice.

  “Innumerable tasks pull your time and attention every which way, and among them are the reports you must write. It is vital that a log be kept after all, and though there are others whose job it is to copy and distribute it, you must write it. You must put all the most important information in, but you want to keep it as brief as possible, saving yourself time and effort that could be better spent on more immediate concerns. You note your location, the date, combat readiness, and an overview of recent orders, reports, and actions. Additionally, you add your personal insights as an experienced and senior military commander, giving some clarity, reflections, or opinions.

  “All of this is normal. It is what you expect to send your superiors, and you expect similar reports from your subordinates, the ones who manage the different parts of this huge machine, to help you understand at a glance the state of your force. But you have been ordered to include further information. Reports on something you are barely comfortable knowing about, hardly understand, but grudgingly accept. The girl in the chair.

  “For reasons you aren’t entirely able to understand, this girl is paramount to the operations of your machine. You know the ‘what’ – who she is, what her role is, how to keep her in working order and such. You know enough to make sure you can do your job properly, submit the right reports to the right people, and keep fighting, but the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ elude you. You are a soldier though, obliged to follow orders, and willing to put your own moral discomfort aside in pursuit of victory.

  “The war drags on. Your machine performs admirably, but constantly. The operational tempo pushes you and your crew to extremes in so many ways. Resupply is whatever you can scavenge, repairs are only whatever you can conduct in the field, and relief is a distant dream. All the while, you are monitoring this girl. Before each battle she must be seated in the chair, increasingly this must happen by force. By the time each battle finishes, you are left with a shivering, broken, incoherent, bleeding wreck of a person. All you can do is hope that she recovers, even partially, before the next battle, both for her sake and yours – because you need her in that chair. There can be no respite for her, no kindness from you. This machine fights, or you risk the entire war.

  “And then you fight the greatest and most horrifying battle you have ever seen – and you lose. Your allies are decimated, your machine crippled, your crew dead, and you are trapped. You know that you will die soon, and you know that all your efforts, and all the horrors you have seen and done were all for nothing. At the end of it all, why should it matter that you try to free this girl from that seat? If the hatches are sealed, if the internal defences kill anything they see, what help can you hope to offer her? Surely it would be just as much of a mercy to leave her to the fate you will all soon meet.

  “Unless it will help.” He finally paused in his narration, changing his tone from animated storyteller to concerned philosopher. “Commander Torsal wrote that the internal security had already been turned, the hatches already sealed. Why go to the effort of removing her? How is taking her out going to change those things?” I grimaced, already having a theory, while Tove and Alf frowned in apparent thought. He continued in a voice barely above a whisper. “Because she wasn’t directing this machine,” he explained. “She was this machine.”