The Last Witness

by K. J. Parker

  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?”

  I couldn’t speak, so I mouthed the word; nobody. Someone behind me dropped the noose over my head. “Get on with it,” the old man said. I tried to think of something to say, a lie, something he’d want to hear, but—here’s an interesting fact for you. When you’re winded so bad you can’t breathe, you can’t lie, your imagination simply blanks out and making stuff up is impossible, you just can’t do it. You don’t have the strength, simple as that.

  Someone hauled on the rope. I
felt my feet lift off the ground. I felt this excruciating pain. And then—

  * * *

  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  This clerk came to see me; a boy, seventeen at most, with a long turkey neck and big ears. He worked for them, the old man and his son. They were pleased with the job I’d done for them, and would I help them out with another little problem? You’ll recall that I was broke again at this point. Depends what it is, I replied. The clerk said he didn’t know the details, but to meet them outside the Flawless Diamonds of Orthodoxy at third watch that evening. What about the curfew? I asked. The boy just grinned nervously and gave me a piece of paper. It was a draft on the Merchant Union, two hundred angels.

  “He betrayed us,” the old man told me. It was dark and bitter cold, and I’d come out without my scarf (now I come to think of it, I’d traded my scarf for a loaf of bread). “He’ll deny it, of course. He’d rather die than tell. That’s what we need you for.”

  The rest you know. They picked the lock and we all trooped up the stairs quiet as little mice; they woke him up by pulling him out of bed onto the floor. He claimed he was innocent and hadn’t betrayed them or stolen from them, not a bent stuiver. After a while, they threw a rope over a rafter and hung him. I was inside his mind when he died. He’d been telling the truth. He was a lawyer, by the way, acting for the Temple oversight committee.

  “Well?” the old man asked me.

  “Nothing,” I told him. “He was telling the truth. He didn’t betray you. He didn’t steal anything.” I paused. “I could’ve told you that anyhow. There was no need—”

  I got frowned at for that, so I shut up. Customers always think they know best. “You sure?”

  “Positive,” I said. “If he’d had that on his mind, I’d have seen it. But there wasn’t anything.”

  I got the feeling he didn’t believe me. Stupid. Why would I lie? Well, obviously, if I meant to blackmail them or sell them out to their enemies; but I wouldn’t do that, because it’d be unprofessional. I may be no angel but I have standards. Of course, they had no way of knowing that.

  “Get out,” the old man said. “And keep yourself available. We may want you again.”

  “You’ve just made me accessory to a murder,” I said. “I’m not pleased about that.”

  He shook his head. “Not murder,” he said. “Suicide. And don’t you ever talk back to me. Got that?”

  I considered the evidence of my own eyes. There’s this man, hanging from a rafter. The only chair in the room is lying on its side, right under his dangling feet. No sign of forced entry, or anyway, there won’t be, ten minutes from now. Sure looks like suicide, and the only evidence to the contrary is a memory. “Point taken,” I said. It’s amazing how many people construe that as yes. “Suicide,” I said. “Silly me. I’ll go now.”

  “Hold on.” The younger man was looking at me. “Before he goes, he can make himself useful.”

  The old man looked at him; he was nodding stupidly at the hired men. Oh, come on, I thought, there’s six of them. “That’s a point,” the old man said.

  “You can’t afford it,” I told him.

  He grinned at me. “Reduced rate for quantity. Or you could be feeling really depressed and sad.”

  Oh, I thought. Sad enough to jump off the Haymarket bridge, and (as the man said) who would miss me? Fair enough. “Tell you what,” I said. “This one’s on the house.”

  The young man grinned. The old man said he wouldn’t hear of it. The labourer is worthy of his hire. So I did all six of them for fifteen angels each.

  Not that it mattered all that much. Forty-eight hours later I was broke again.

  * * *

  The point being; I died in that room. I know I did, because I remember it clear as day.

  I died, but here I am. Explain that, if you can. Simple. I died, and I was born again, just like it says in the Testament. Proof positive. I have difficulty with the faith aspect of it, but the plain facts admit of no other explanation. Blessed are those who have seen and yet have believed.

  * * *

  We call them the Temple trustees and everybody knows who we mean, but their proper name is the Guardians of the Perpetual Fund for the Proliferation of Orthodoxy. They’re serious men, and they own all the best grazing land from the Hog’s Back right out to the Blackwater, as well as half the prime real estate in the Capital and a whole lot of other nice things, all of which came into the possession of the Fund through the bequests and endowments of former Guardians. The income from these assets is divided between the Commissioners of the Fabric, who maintain and improve the Temple buildings throughout the empire, and the Social Fund, which pays for the soup kitchens and the way stations and the diocesan free schools, not to mention the travelling doctors and the Last Chance advocates who defend prisoners on capital charges who haven’t got the money to hire a real lawyer. I seem to remember someone telling me that about a third of the wealth of the empire passes through the trustees’ hands, and that the trustees themselves are chosen from the select few who have the brains to do the job and so much money of their own that they have no possible incentive to steal; in fact, you have to pay an annual fee equivalent to the cost of outfitting and maintaining a regiment in the field in order to belong to the College of Guardians, and there’s a waiting list a mile long. It’s probably quite true. When you’re that rich, money is just a way of keeping score.

  That was the sort of people I was dealing with; rich, powerful men, peers of the gods, the sort who make and alter truth—What is truth? Truth is what you know, if you’re one of them. Truth is what you own. If the whim takes you, you can say, “On the banks of the Blackwater there’s a city constructed entirely of marble.” Actually, no, there isn’t. “Oh, yes, there is. I had it built, last week.” Or: “There never was a war between the Blemyans and the Aram Chantat.” You go to the Temple library to look up the references to refute this idiotic statement, and all the relevant books are missing all the relevant pages. Or: “Who? There’s no such person.” Indeed. Men like gods who can ordain the future, regulate the present, and amend the past—pretty well everything worthwhile that ever happened in history was done by men like that; they built cities, instituted trade and manufacture, fostered the sciences and the arts, and endowed charities. Let it be so, they said, and it was so. And, quite rightly, what they paid for, they own: the freeholds, the equity. And us. Without them, we’d be dressed in animal skins and living in caves. I believe in them, the way I believe in the Invincible Sun—which is to say, I acknowledge their existence, and their authority, and their power. Doesn’t mean I have to like them. Or Him, for that matter.

  * * *

  When I was nineteen, not long after I left home, I met this girl. I can close my eyes and picture her exactly, as though Euxis the Mannerist had painted her on the inside of my eyelids. Not that Euxis would’ve accepted the commission, since he only ever painted incarnations of perfection, absolute physical beauty—and she was hardly that. Pretty, yes, but—my mother had a saying, she’s prettier than she looks. And anyway, Euxis wasn’t all that good. He couldn’t do hands worth spit.

  The good thing about the way she looked was that she inspired no interest in the handsome, rich, charming young men who could’ve taken her away from me just by noticing her. Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t that sort of girl, but I know perfectly well that some things are outside one’s control. Beauty, of course, is one of them. Alongside the rich, in the pantheon of gods, are the beautiful. They too can change the world, a smile here, a frown there. They can inspire and kill love as easily as a rich man can endow a hospital or arrange a murder, and they do it because they can. But I worshipped her because she was no goddess, and if only there were someone else who could do what I can do, I’d pay him anything he asked for to get her out of my mind. She died, you see, and when I went down on my knees and prayed to the gods to bring her back to life, they just ignored me. Forget her, they told me, move on. I can only assume they
were trying to be funny. Anyhow, I won’t forget that in a hurry, believe me.

  * * *

  My next job for the old man and his son was quick, easy, and safe, or so they told me. A business associate of theirs was to be entrusted with certain sensitive information in order to carry out a certain confidential transaction on their behalf. Once the deal had been done, I was to remove the whole episode from his memory. He had (they told me) been fully informed about my special abilities, and had readily agreed to the procedure. He would just sit there, perfectly still and quiet, while I did my thing. In spite of this, I would be paid the same fee I’d received for more arduous work.

  At the time I was not well off for money, as a result of some unsatisfactory experiments into certain aspects of probability theory. One of the worst things about poverty is that when people like the old man call on you, you’re actually glad to see them. Delighted, I told them, and thank you for your valued custom. They told me a time and a place. I promised I’d be there, and went away to wash my other shirt, because a smart appearance creates a good impression.

  If they’re worth the money, you don’t notice them, not until they’re right on top of you and there’s nothing you can do. These two—I wish I knew their names, so that I could hire them myself if I ever need any help with violence. One of them was vaguely familiar, I may have caught a glimpse of him in the street at some point over the last few days (I never forget a face) and thought nothing of it; the other one I’d never seen before in my life. They hit me with a short wooden club and dropped a sack over my head, and that was that.

  When the sack came off, I barely noticed, because the room was dark. I was vaguely aware of the shape of a man not far away. I was sitting down, but my hands and feet were tied. I heard a man’s voice, not the man whose shape I could just make out. It said, “This thing you do.”

  I waited. Someone nudged the back of my head with a sharp object. “Yes?” I said.

  “The person you do it to,” the voice went on. “Do they know about it?”