Authors: K. J. Parker
I find that when you’re in a deep pit of doubt and perplexity, Fate jumps in and provides you with an answer, almost invariably the wrong one. As in this case. First thing I saw when the sun rose was a farmhouse, practically rearing up on its hind legs at me out of the early morning mist. I thought; there’ll be boots in there. I’ll walk up to the door and offer to buy a pair. Easy as that.
Idiot. A stranger hobbling up out of nowhere wanting to buy footwear would tend to snag in the memory, particularly out in the wild, where nothing ever happens. I had good reason to wish not to be memorable. The hell with it, I thought. I was by now more or less resigned to the fact that I’m no angel; what’s one more minor transgression? Be a man. Steal the stupid boots.
Sad fact. It’s not enough to be a thief. You need to be a good thief. I’m not. My problem is, I don’t look where I’m going. I try, ever so hard; but sooner or later there’ll be a chair or a table or a tin plate or a bowl of apples that I somehow contrive to overlook. Crash it goes on the hard flagstone floor, and that’s that. Here we go again.
The farmer was an old man, feeble, with a bad leg. I could’ve taken him easily. His son and his four grandsons were a different matter. What they were doing, hanging around the house when the sun was well up and they should’ve been out grafting, I have no idea. They didn’t approve of thieves. There was an apple tree just outside the back door, with a low branch sticking out practically at a right angle. They had, they assured me, plenty of rope, not to mention a dung heap. And besides, they said, who’d miss me?
The human memory is a wonderful thing. They say that when you die, at the moment of departure, your entire life flashes past your eyes in a fraction of a second. This isn’t actually true; but all sorts of stuff crowds into your mind when you’re standing on the bed of a cart with a rope round your neck; among them, in my case, the circumstances of my sister’s accident. To be honest, I hadn’t given it much thought in the intervening time—tried to put it out of my mind, I guess, and who can blame me?—but it came right back to me at that precise moment, and I remember thinking, I wish I could do that trick where I went into her mind and pulled the memory out, it’d be really useful right now if I could do that. And suddenly I found I could.
False modesty aside, it was a tour de force. Six men and five women, one after the other, in a matter of seconds. I’ve done bigger jobs since, but that’s with the benefit of considerable experience. For what was only my second go at it, I did remarkably well. Incentive helps, of course. It wasn’t the neatest work I ever did, I had to hurt them quite a lot—like I cared—the pain kept them off balance and sort of woozy, which helped considerably. When I’d finished, we were left with this tableau; a kid standing on a cart under the apple tree, with six men and five women crowded round. No rope, I’d chucked that into the nettles. How we all got there, a total mystery to everybody except me.
I cleared my throat. I think my voice must’ve been a bit high and croaky, but I did my best. “Well, thanks for that,” I remember saying. “I’d better be getting along.”
One of the grandsons helped me down off the cart. He had a sort of dazed look. I took a long stride, and felt the dewy wet grass under my feet. “I almost forgot,” I said. “The boots.”
The old man looked at me. “What?”
“The boots,” I repeated. “Really kind of you.” He was still holding them in his hand; evidence, I guess. I reached out, took them, and pulled them on. Lousy fit, but what can you do? “Thanks again,” I said, and walked quickly away. You learn not to look back. It takes some doing, but it’s worth the effort.
* * *
I’m not the sort of man that people tend to remember. Just look at me and you’ll agree. I’m about five seven, thickset, small nose, small ears, low forehead, leg-of-pork forearms, the typical farm boy up from the country. I slip out of people’s minds as easily as a wriggling fish. People hardly notice me, in the street, in a crowded room. Most of the time, I might as well not be there.
Remember what I told you about why I don’t like doing priests? For three days afterwards, I wandered around feeling useless and stupid, like having a headache but without the pain. I knew there was something on my mind, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I filled the time in with chores. I bought a new (to me) pair of boots. I fixed the leak in the roof—at that time I was living in the roofspace above a grain store; one wall had cracked and was bulging out in a disturbing fashion, so it was empty until the owners raised the money to repair it; the rats had the ground floor, I had the penthouse. I mended both my shirts where they’d started to fray. Stuff like that.
And then, on my way to the market early, to see if I could buy some windfall apples cheap, I met a man I knew slightly. I pretended I hadn’t seen him. He called out my name. I stopped.
“Long time no see,” he said.
“I’ve been busy,” I told him.
He nodded. “Working?”
“Yes.”
“Splendid. Get paid?”
“Yes.”
“In funds, then.”
I sighed a little sigh. “Yes.”
“Destiny,” he said, and grinned. “Back of the Sincerity & Trust, one hour after sunset. Be there.”
I walked away without saying a word.
* * *
I sometimes wonder if I’m like that hero in the old legends whose strength was as the strength of ten, but only as long as the sun was in the sky. In my case, strength of will. All that day, while the Invincible Sun rode the heavens, blessing us poor mortals with the sacrament of His light, I was utterly determined. I wasn’t going. No force on Earth would get me within a mile of the Sincerity until noon tomorrow. Throughout the morning I felt the power within me grow; at midday, I was solid as a rock. I stayed that way till halfway through the afternoon, and as the shadows began to lengthen I kept checking up on myself, to see if my strength of purpose was going to hold out—and it did, right up till the first red streaks began to show in the sky. I don’t know, maybe I’m more like a werewolf or something like that. Maybe it’s the darkness that affects me, or more precisely the yellow glow of lighted windows. They call to me; come inside, they say, where it’s warm and friendly. I noticed to my surprise that I was only two blocks from the Sincerity. The light was fading rapidly. I quickened my pace and walked the other way.
I believe it happens a lot in deserts. You walk and walk and keep on walking, and suddenly you realise you’ve gone in a circle and you’re back where you started from. In this case, just across the street from the back door of the Sincerity at one hour after sunset.
About half of them I knew, if only slightly. The usual crowd. They’d already started. A tall, thin elderly man I didn’t know had the dice. He was trying to make six. A man I knew well tapped me on the shoulder, nodded, and said, “Bet?”
I shook my head. “Just here to watch.”
He laughed. “Ten angels. I’ll give you five to one.”
“Bet.”
The thin old man made his six. My ten angels had become fifty. I nearly always start off with a win.
* * *
So there I was, at dawn the next day, considerably poorer than the day I was born, but blessed with a useful skill with which I could earn money. Just as well, really.
I remembered that I had an appointment to see a prospective customer. I headed back home, washed, shaved, put on my clean shirt and my new boots. I’ll say this for myself, I’ve got this gambling thing well under control now. As soon as I run out of money, I stop; I never ever play with markers or get into debt. Someone once told me I gamble so as to get rid of all the money I make. There may be something in that. If I’d kept what I’ve made over the years, right now I’d have more money than the government.
Disgustingly bright and early (I’m not a morning person) I walked out into Cornmarket, heading west. On the corner of Sheep Street and Coppergate I realised someone was following me. I didn’t look round. I guess I’d detected him by the way his footsteps kept perfect time with my own—it sounds a bit paranoid, but I have experience in these matters, believe me. I did my best not to do anything that would let him know I’d noticed him.
I had two options. Either I could keep to the main streets, where there were plenty of people, or I could lead him off the beaten track down into the little dark alleys between Coppergate and Lower Town, where I stood a reasonable chance of losing him or jumping him. Like a fool, I chose the latter. In my defence, I would like to point out that I have the memories of God only knows how many fights, together comprising a better combat education that you’d get in any military academy anywhere. I know about that sort of thing.
Rather too much, in fact. Out back of the carpet warehouse in Tanners Yard there’s an old gateway with two massive pillars; I’d noticed it a long time ago, with just such a contingency in mind. I led him there, ducked in between the pillars, and vanished. He stopped and looked round to see where I’d gone. As soon as his back was turned, I was on him like the proverbial snake.
The law in these parts disapproves of carrying weapons of any sort in public places, but since when is three feet of waxed string a weapon? Answer; when you slip it over a man’s head, cross the ends over at the base of his neck, and pull hard. My trouble is, I don’t know my own strength.
I was so stunned and disgusted with myself that I was almost too late to get inside his head before all the lights went out. It was a scramble. I know from experience, it’s not pleasant to be in there when someone dies. I had just enough time to grab what I wanted and run.
Sure enough (I stood over him, looking down); he’d been hired by one of my satisfied customers, for five angels. I ask you, five angels. It’s about time the hired killers in this town got organised.
* * *
Well, it’s inevitable. When I consume the memory of the last surviving witness, I become the last surviving witness, and there’s nobody to clear out my head cleanly and humanely. You can’t blame them; I don’t. My set scale of fees includes a levy, to cover the inconvenience and mental trauma of monotonously regular attempts on my life.
But I don’t hold it against my clients. I can’t afford to.
When you’ve been inside someone’s head, you know him, intimately; what he looks like is substantially irrelevant and uninteresting. I turned him over with my foot. Age thirty-five (I already knew that), the big, hollow frame of an ex-soldier who hasn’t been eating too well lately. He had red hair and blue eyes. So what?
I always reckon that you gain something from pretty well every experience, however bad it may be. From him (whoever he was) I took away a picture of dawn in the Claygess Mountains, a rapturous explosion of light, blue skies, green fir trees, and snow. Just thinking of it makes me feel clean. That and a move whereby, when someone’s behind you and strangling you, a slight rearrangement of the feet and shift of your centre of balance enables you to throw them over your shoulder like a sack of feathers. If he’d remembered it a trifle earlier, he’d probably have made it. Ah, well.
* * *
By a curious coincidence, the man who’d hired him to kill me was the man I was on my way to meet. He was surprised to see me.
“You said you had a job for me,” I said.
“Changed my mind.”
“Ah.” I nodded slowly. “In that case, there’s just the matter of my consultancy fee.”
He looked at me. Sometimes I think I’m not the only one who can see inside people’s heads. “Fine,” he said. “How much?”
“Five hundred angels.”
He licked his lips. “Five hundred.”
“Yes.”
“Draft? On the Gorgai brothers? I haven’t got that much in cash.”
I know the Gorgai brothers better than they know themselves. “All right,” I said.
I stood over him while he wrote, then thanked him politely and left. I felt happy; I was back in the money again. Happiness in this world is by definition a transitory state, and two small tumbling ivory cubes put me back where I’d started from twelve hours later, but at least I had the memory of being rich, for a little while. Only memory endures. I learned that the hard way.
* * *
Two days later I had another client, a genuine one who paid. It was a something-and-nothing job, really rather touching; he was fifty-six and rich and wanted to marry again, but there was this one memory of his dead wife that really broke him up, and could I help? Of course. To me, it was just an image of a moderately pretty girl in old-fashioned clothes arranging flowers, in a bay window in an old house in the country. When I’d finished he gave me that blank look;
I know who you are and why you’re here, but I have no idea why it was so important
.
It sort of offends me that when I do my best work, the customer hasn’t a clue how much I’ve done for him. It’s like painting a masterpiece for a blind patron.
* * *
I distinctly remember the next time I met the old man and his son.
I was fast asleep, and then I hit the floor and woke up. The last time I fell out of bed, I was four (I remember it well).
I opened my eyes, and saw a ring of faces looking down at me. Two of them I recognised. The old man said, “Get him up.”
Two of the other faces grabbed my arms and hauled me upright. They were strong and not very gentle. I know half a dozen ways of dealing with a situation like that, but those memories came from men twice my weight, and besides, I wasn’t in the mood.
“You betrayed us,” the old man said.
I was stunned. “Me? God, no, I’d never do a thing like that. Never.”
For that I got a fist like oak in my solar plexus. “Who did you tell?” the old man asked. Stupid; I couldn’t answer, because I had no breath in my body. “Who did you tell?” the old man repeated. I tried to breathe in, but I was all blocked up inside. I saw him nod, and someone hit me again. “What did you do with the money you stole from us?” I shook my head. “I never stole from you, I wouldn’t dare.” Then someone threw a rope over the crossbeam of the rafters directly overhead.
Oh,
I thought.
“One more time,” the old man said. “Who did you tell?”