Prosper's Demon

by K. J. Parker

  “Surely there must be something I can do?”

  I shook my head. “Not a lot, no.”

  “But—” Poor sod. Windows of understanding were opening in his mind, but through them poured something that wasn’t really light. “Master Prosper—”

  I nodded. “He’s smart,” I said. “Not Master Prosper. Him. He’ll have known all about that, you can bet your life.”

  “The experiment. The philosopher-king. There must be something—”

  I breathed out slowly, as though I’d just put down a very heavy weight. “Master Prosper,” I told him, “doesn’t believe in demonic possession. He thinks it’s just superstition. In his view, the Invincible Sun is a ball of burning gas floating an incomprehensible distance over our heads, and demons are how we account for the symptoms and effects of various disorders and diseases, entirely mechanical in origin, curable with herbs and therapies. I’ve read his book, and the case he makes out for it is overwhelming. Did you know, he reckons we weren’t created on the sixth day? Instead we’re the descendants of those furry things from Permia who live in treetops. I was entirely convinced, until I remembered it isn’t actually true. Anyhow, we haven’t got a hope in hell of persuading Master Prosper to let me in there, and right now, his word is law. Which is just as well,” I added, “because the only possible thing I could do to make things a bit better and avoid the disasters that must inevitably follow would be to kill the baby.”

  He stared at me, opened his mouth, closed it again. I think people hate me the most when they realize I’m right.

  “Which I’d do,” I went on, “easy as breathing, because I’d have to. But it wouldn’t make me very popular with the Duke, and like I mentioned just now, I’m mortal. And while I can’t feel nearly so much pain as He can, I can still feel rather a lot. Hence just as well. For me, anyhow.”

  I felt sorry for the chaplain, and I’m not the most sympathetic person you’ll ever meet. So, yes, I felt guilty. I don’t cause the problem, but I’m definitely part of it. Between 55 and 60 percent, I’d say.

  “What should we do?” he asked me.

  I made a show of thinking about that. “You,” I said, “are going to arrange for a transfer, to a post a very, very long way away from here. It may mean less money and less status, but believe me, it’ll be worth it.”

  He stared at me with those dead fish eyes, then nodded. “You?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I’ll think of something.”

  * * *

  Think of something. Think like Him. What would He do?

  I didn’t have a happy childhood. My parents were prosperous, good people and loved me very much, but I was a miserable, spiteful child, given to picking fights with kids who were bigger and stronger than me, and getting beaten bloody by them. They asked me: Why do you do it, it makes no sense, you know you can’t beat us, we’re bigger than you are? Why don’t you pick on someone your own size—or, better still, someone smaller?

  I couldn’t tell them they’d completely missed the point, obviously. So I carried on baiting them, and they carried on beating me up and feeling sorry for me, and if it ever occurred to me to wonder why I needed to do these stupid things, I simply assumed that it was just one more of the many simple and obvious things that I didn’t know yet, but would in the fullness of time. Meanwhile, I just knew, without being able to explain or show my working. After all, you don’t ask why the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. It just is.

  Then one day one of the bigger boys got sick. His friends went to see him and came away horrified. Half the time, they said, he was yelling and screaming and thrashing about, and the rest of the time he just sat there, as if he were dead or something. It was a while before I could visit him, because he’d beaten me up so badly I was confined to bed; but when I felt strong enough I sneaked out of our house and sneaked into his. I wanted to see him suffering, because he’d hurt me.

  I crawled in through a window. His parents had strapped him down tight on a stretcher, for his own good, because they loved him. I stood over him. His eyes were tight shut. I said his name. He opened his eyes and looked at me.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” He said. “You again.”

  For a moment I was confused; then I realized. I realized that I could see Him. Him, the enemy inside my enemy: the cat, the prey. Of course, I knew a tiny bit about it, demonic possession—the tiny bit that everyone knows, of which 90 percent is garbage. “I can see you,” I said.

  It, no, He grinned at me. Small world.

  I could hear Him inside my head. “You shouldn’t be in there,” I said aloud. “Is it you hurting my friend?”

  Not your friend. He smashed your face in. He really did you over. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?

  “That’s like saying the cat’s cat is a dog. You shouldn’t be in there.”

  Poor devil, He must have thought it’s just a kid, I’ll risk it. So what? What are you going to do about it?

  I showed him. And, being very young and clumsy and inexperienced and uneducated, and not knowing my own strength—well. Fortunately, nobody could ever prove that I’d been in that room; and even if they could have, they’d have had a devil of a job explaining how a nine-year-old child could have done that much damage, even when the victim was strapped to a board.

  * * *

  They calculate (probably the same bunch of scholarly know-it-alls who came up with the figure 72,936) that in a botched extraction, whatever the host feels, the demon feels it ten times as much. Based on my experience, I’d say that’s roughly accurate. But they don’t die, and we do. As I said: equilibrium.

  What would He do? Well, I knew the answer to that. He wouldn’t bother.

  It’s a lie to say They’re incapable of compassion, because self-pity is still pity, and they’re red-hot on that. But put Themselves out to rescue someone else, an individual, a country, a whole region? Forget it. But suppose They had to; a direct order from whatever passes among Them as a hierarchy, authority, chain of command? No idea if They’ve got one, but for the sake of argument.

  I had one ally, but useless and busy packing his books and vestments for a long sea voyage. I needed another ally, but all I had to choose from was enemies. So? Story of my life.

  When you’re making something, you don’t choose the tools you use because you like them, because they’re your particular friends. You choose the ones that will be most useful. Well, then. That’s what He’d do.

  * * *

  Modesty, said Master Prosper (speaking slowly, so his duty biographer could take dictation) is simply saying about yourself what other people think about you, and therefore preventing them from saying it out loud. It’s certainly a shortcoming of which Master Prosper was entirely innocent. And what he loved above all other things was being right.

  Not merely having people acknowledge that he’s right; because they may be wrong, more than likely in fact, because everyone else is so dumb. No, it doesn’t satisfy him unless he believes it himself. So, in order to get Master Prosper to like me, I had to give him an opportunity to prove that he was right and I was wrong, deluded, an idiot. Easy peasy.

  My friend the chaplain had left me with a letter of introduction addressed to the chamberlain asking if he’d be so kind as to introduce a certain favorite cousin of his to Master Prosper. Said cousin had long been a fanatical admirer of the great man’s work, et cetera, and if it was remotely possible that the Master might be induced to spare him a few moments of his inexpressibly precious time—

  My guess is that the chaplain had something really good—not just the standard palace dirt but something so rank, you’d need gloves and a mask just to think about it—on the chamberlain, because the very next day I got my papers—full pass, permission to enter the royal apartments at will, all manner of rich and wonderful things, together with a note from Master Prosper’s deputy assistant junior secretary stating that the most brilliant man who ever l
ived would be pleased to receive me in such and such a room at such and such a time. Friends in high places, I said to myself. Sometimes I’m so stupid, I’m amazed I manage to breathe.

  * * *

  I was prepared for a fat man in the same way that someone who has grown up on the shores of a five-acre inland lake is prepared for the sea. There was a lot of Master Prosper. Quite how much of it was necessary, I wouldn’t care to say; maybe 60 percent, which was roughly the ratio of genius to bullshit that made up his mental and spiritual being, so probably about that.

  Sixty percent of Master Prosper would have been a tall, handsome, imposing man, with a perfectly bald head of prodigious size, and a high, pleasant voice, and hands like a girl. You could tell he was an artist by the way he’d had the room composed, right down to moving the windows (I could see the new plaster) so that he’d be perfectly lit, sitting in his marvelous gold and ebony throne—his own work, and uncharacteristically actually almost finished—to receive disciples and worshippers in the late morning and early evening. It was a big room, forty feet square, and apart from the great man and the great man’s chair, all it contained was a low, three-legged stool. I could see why. Anything more would have been clutter.

  The chamberlain had told me, whatever you do, look him straight in the eye; he can’t be doing with toadies and flatterers, only sincere admirers. And what an eye it was: small, clear, bright blue, and singular, its twin having been lost to an exploding flask during some exceptionally important chemical experiment. In its place was a ball of clear glass, transparent and slightly magnifying. I could see how that would be an asset in the course of abstruse philosophical debate. Catch sight of it when you aren’t absolutely prepared, and your mind goes instantly blank.

  (Mine did. Tell you why later.)

  He smiled at me. People don’t usually do that. “You wanted to talk to me.”

  I nodded. “I want to ask you something.”

  “Ask away.”

  “What do you believe,” I said, “is the greatest force for good in the whole world?”

  He thought about it for nearly a whole half heartbeat. “Art,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  Well, I thought, that didn’t take long. “Could you possibly explain why you think that?”

  He nodded graciously. “Because art,” he said, “is beauty, and beauty is the essence of goodness made visible or audible. When you look at a beautiful statue or listen to beautiful music, you are looking at and listening to beauty, which is goodness itself, a force no human can withstand for very long. Therefore, by creating beauty, the artist opens doors and windows in the human mind through which goodness can come flooding in. What we call evil is simply darkness, the absence of light. Light dispels darkness; goodness dispels evil. Beauty dispels evil. Therefore art is the greatest force for good in the whole world.”

  I nodded. Then I said, “Excuse me, but that’s bullshit.”

  He grinned at me. “Yes,” he said. “And no. What I just told you is essentially true, but only under ideal conditions. And conditions are so very rarely ideal.”

  “For example?”

  “If you see light through a glass or a raindrop, the light can be distorted. There’s a saying, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Actually, that’s wrong. Beauty is absolute, but the eye of the beholder”—he closed his good eye, leaving the glass monstrosity staring straight at me—“is capable of weakening or corrupting it. If you pass light through a raindrop, you break it up into its component parts. If you pass beauty through the eye of an imperfect beholder, you may get nothing; just canvas daubed with oil, or a piece of stone, or the noise made by blowing down a tube with holes in it. Also,” he added, “the art may not be particularly good art.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  “To counter which,” he went on, “we must train the eye, so that the beholder beholds correctly. And we must make good art. When we’ve done that, art can be the greatest force for good in the world.”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I said is, not can be.”

  He laughed. “But you used the superlative, greatest. There are other forces for good, and very strong some of them may be, but you asked for the greatest, and I answered the question you asked. I was also generous enough to point out certain conditions and qualifications, which I needn’t have done, strictly speaking.”

  “I see,” I said. “And so you create art to make the world better.”

  Tiny nod. “And for money,” he said, and paused; and when I didn’t laugh, continued, “but mostly to open windows in dark places. Such as this.”

  “You have a project in hand?”

  Bigger nod. “The Duke has commissioned me,” he said, “to cast for him a great bronze statue to be set up in the parade grounds out there beyond the palace. I have agreed. I shall cast a statue of a colossal bronze horse. It will be my lesser masterpiece.”

  “Ah yes,” I said. “After the child.”

  I’d said the right thing. “Art is the greatest force for good, but only under the right conditions. Second greatest is the creation of a truly wise and good king. Under the conditions prevailing, the second best is more likely to have more effect more quickly. Once the land is ruled by a truly wise and good king, the conditions necessary for the greatest force to be effective will be established.”

  That was all right, then. “Thank you,” I said.

  “I’ve answered your question?”

  “Perfectly. Now I know.”

  “Knowledge is everything.”

  “Thank you. I’ll go now.”

  It took me all my strength and determination to back out of the room. As I left, pausing on the threshold to wipe sweat out of my eyes, I glanced at the great man’s face. He was white as a sheet.

  * * *

  Let me inside your head for a moment. You’re thinking: Something is wrong here. That was supposed to be a true record of a debate between—well, yes, some nonentity on the one hand, but on the other, the greatest genius who ever lived. So, either the record is accurate and Prosper of Schanz was just an egotistical fat man, or the narrative is in error, and (come to think of it) we have only this clown’s word that he ever met Prosper—

  There is, of course, a perfectly reasonable explanation. You try holding two conversations simultaneously, and see how you like it.

  It came as a shock, now I think of it, to meet a new face after so many years in the business. When I say face—

  I don’t know you, I said.

  She—I’ll come back to that in a minute—She looked at me as though I was unimportant but mildly interesting. I don’t suppose you do, she said.

  Of course, I said, I wouldn’t. You’re from Schanz, presumably.

  A smile, faintly patronizing but so what? Falhoel, actually. But well outside your territory. Where I’m originally from, you really don’t want to know.

  Of course, I said, and realized I’d repeated myself. He lived in Falhoel for a while.

  Published Principles of Mathematics there. And that’s where I picked him up.

  And that’s why he hasn’t published since?

  She sort of twinkled at me; smart, She didn’t need to say, I like a boy with spirit. I picked him up before he wrote Principles.

  Ah.

  Why She? To which I can only say, you had to be there. She looked like—well, maybe they all look like that in Falhoel; in which case, I definitely got a raw deal when the territories were apportioned. I doubt it, though. And why on earth should I be surprised? We—humans—aren’t all the same. Some of us look and talk and act like gods and goddesses; some of us look and talk and act like pigs. Just that on my patch, I’d only ever encountered pigs. But so what? That’s no more than the difference between Downtown and Old Town, after all.

  Now, then, She said. You’re not going to be difficult, are you?

  I thought about it. I have a duty.

  She yawned. Yes, of course you do. And if you insist, I’ll leav
e.

  And take half his brains with you?

  More than half. She twinkled again. Say about sixty percent. And wouldn’t that be a loss to the human race?

  Prosper of Schanz, the greatest, et cetera. Yes, I said.

  Well, then. Or you could leave me in peace. It’s not like I’m doing anyone any harm, after all.

  I thought about that too. You must be, I said. You have a duty.

  Oh, well, in the very long term, obviously, yes. Her voice was like honey; the sweet-scented honey, where the bees suck on lavender. There’s a grand design, in which he plays a part. But it’s very big. It’s so big you have to stand a long way back to see it. Close up, what harm am I doing? Quite the reverse, actually.

  I had to ask. Everything he’s ever done, everything he’s achieved. That was all—?

  Oh, not everything. Just the best bits. At a rough guess, I’d say sixty percent.

  Not just the paintings and the sculptures (though I had it on the very best authority that art is the greatest force for good in the world). The science, the medicine, the engineering; so little of which he’d so far published—

  And which would all be lost, She broke in, if I had to pack my bags and go. But if I stay—

  He’ll start finishing things.

  That made Her giggle. You could put it like that, yes. No promises, mind. But why not?

  I frowned. Why should you? What about your duty?

  Tut-tut. Silly me. I think Saloninus puts it so well—

  And oftentimes, to bring us to our harm,

  The instruments of darkness tell us truths

  —which, She went on, is only the half of it. It’s so easy to think in black-and-white all the time, either I win or you do. But it’s so much easier and better if we both win. One of us more than the other, maybe, but both of us, definitely. Can’t you see the sense in that? No, I don’t suppose you can.

  I felt hurt. Sure, I said. Like a joint venture. We get something out of it, so do you. No, come to think of it, I can’t imagine that. You and us, collaborating—