Devices and Desires e-1

by K. J. Parker

  'Are you all right?' Stesimbracus was roaring in his ear, and he really wanted to laugh, because he obviously wasn't, a dead horse had just fallen on his leg-

  'What's happening?' he heard himself say; but before Stesimbracus could answer, another of the clothes-line prop things dropped out of nowhere and hit him.The point went in on the left side of his collar bone and came out through the small of his back, pinning him upright to the ground.

  War engines, Eiconodoulus thought; and then he realised what must be happening. He tried to move, then remembered he couldn't; and that was the point at which panic hit him, and fear, and all the physical effects that go with them. He could feel his stomach-muscles twist, his bladder loosen, his arms tremble and ache; he could hardly breathe, as though something even heavier than the dead horse was pressing down on his chest. But he knew those feelings, and he knew he could make them go away for a while by concentrating.

  Unbelievably, Stesimbracus was still alive, because he saw him blink, and then his lips moved. He stared for a moment, as much from curiosity as horror or compassion; but a running man chose that moment to trip over him, and pain took over for a while.

  When it let him go again, he saw the fallen runner scrabbling to his feet and leaving; he'd never seen a man run so fast, it was no wonder he'd tripped. He remembered Stesimbracus and looked back. His lips were still moving a little, but his eyes had the empty look that Eiconodoulus had seen before. He felt very bad about having disliked him so much, but it was too late to do anything about it now.

  Experiments showed that he could still move everything apart from the wrecked knee. If he could get to his feet and find something to use as a crutch, he'd be able to stand, possibly even get about. That would probably be a wise course of action. He realised that everything had changed, and until he'd found out exactly how things stood, he couldn't rely on any of the information or the plans of action that had applied a minute ago. That hurt almost worse than the crushed knee. He realised he needed somebody who could tell him what was happening (but that would've been Stesimbracus' job). He was, of course, still the most significant man in this action; everything would depend on how he dealt with it, but he couldn't even stand up.

  Ludicrous, he thought, someone's got to come and find me, I'm needed-Another clothes-prop dropped very close, kicking up dust that blinded him for a moment and reminding him that the bombardment, the source of the damage, was still going on. For a second or two he experimented with various ways of pushing, squirming or bouncing himself to his feet, but they all failed painfully. But he was a resourceful man, he knew it perfectly well, and this wasn't a time to go all to pieces.

  He saw the solution to the problem; it was standing, literally, in front of him. If he grabbed hold of Stesimbracus, he could pull himself up that way, assuming the spike that had transfixed him was firmly enough in the ground. Unfortunately, the poor fellow was still just faintly alive, and for a moment he was too… Eiconodoulus analysed the cause. He was too embarrassed to reach out and grab a handful of a dying man's trouser leg, while the dying man was watching. That seemed to make some sort of sense, but he forced himself to do it nevertheless.

  It worked, just about; he got himself upright, though in the process he dragged the spike out of the ground and it toppled slowly, with its grotesque burden, to the ground. Never mind; he fought to find stability, because nothing mattered more than staying on his feet, his foot, and not crashing back to the ground again. He balanced self-consciously for a second or so. He'd made it.

  He lifted his head and, for the first time since it all started, looked to see what was happening. It didn't look hopeful. There was now a forest of the clothes-prop things, planted slanting in the ground like a spindly crop of beans. Rather too many of them were planted in dead or dying bodies, and there didn't seem to be many living people about. He rationalised: that'd be because they were taking cover, as he'd ordered them to do. He thought about trying to move from where he was. Another spike pitched about three feet away. He looked up; the sky was still full of them, like a distant flock of rooks. This is hopeless, he thought, there's nothing I can do. I might as well let myself fall over, because it'd take less effort and I've got no strength left.

  But he didn't do that. Instead, he took a step forward. Mistake; badly thought out. The ground hit him in the face, and pain took over again. Hopeless. Even if he could stand up and find someone to give orders to, his mind was so blurred and sodden with pain that he couldn't think straight. It was as bad as being drunk (it was the loss of clarity that had put him off drinking, many years ago); that awful sense of knowing what needed to be done, but not being able to order and express the thoughts. He was no use to anybody any more. Best thing would be to lie still and quiet. If he insisted on moving, find a cart and crawl under it, wait for the attack to stop and for someone to come and rescue him.

  (But somehow he knew, as a positive certainty, like someone remembering the past, that none of the spikes were actually going to hit him, not him; it was quite likely that he was going to die-thirst, starvation, heat, throat cut by looters-but it wouldn't be from a clothes-prop dropping out of the sky. Strange, that this comforting but strictly qualified revelation should have been granted to him, because he didn't have any sense of being needed, by destiny, the powers that be, whatever. It was just a fact, a piece of information.)

  One more go at it, he promised himself; I'll have one more try, and if that fails I'll have done my best. He contrived to bounce himself up on to his good knee, and found that if he let the ruined leg drag, like a travois behind a mule, he could haul himself along after a fashion by his elbows. It was a ludicrous way for a grown man to act; it was the sort of thing you'd expect of a child playing a game, pretending to be a snail or a caterpillar. He wouldn't get very far like this, but he could go a little way, just to show willing. So he crawled five yards (the small stones and gravel flayed the points of his elbows, even through the padded sleeves of his aketon) and stopped. A little later, he crawled another five yards. He realised he wasn't actually achieving anything, but he knew he'd just get restless if he lay still and quiet waiting to die.

  Ten distinct stages, five yards at a time, brought him to the shade of a cart. There was somebody else under it. He called out, 'I need help, I can't walk'; the man under the cart didn't move. Eiconodoulus called again, but still no answer. Fine, he thought, he's dead; so he heaved himself forward, banging his forehead on one of the chassis timbers. Only then did the man seem to notice him; he leaned forward, grabbed Eiconodoulus' arm and pulled him under the cart.

  'Thanks,' Eiconodoulus said. The man was staring at him as though he'd never seen a human before. 'What's happening?'

  The man shook his head. 'We're getting slaughtered,' he said, and laughed.

  Shock; takes different people in different ways. 'The mounted escort,' Eiconodoulus said. 'Have you seen them?'

  'All dead,' the man answered. 'I saw it. One shower of bolts, nobody left. All gone.'

  That was a blow. 'Who are you?' he asked. 'Engineer?'

  The man shook his head again. 'Carter,' he replied. 'Soon as I saw what was happening, I dived under here. Fucking waste of time. Those bolts'd go through the woodwork like it's not there.'

  'Are you hurt?'

  'No.' He said it with a wry grin, as though there was something funny about it; then he added, 'You know what's happening, don't you? You know who's shooting at us?'

  Eiconodoulus opened his mouth to answer, then hesitated.

  'It's our own bloody side, that's who,' the man said, his voice rising in anger. 'Got to be. Because those are scorpion bolts, and only the Mezentines have got scorpions. It's our own fucking side shooting at us.'

  Eiconodoulus froze. It was as though the thought was too big to fit in his mind, and had jammed up the opening, making it impossible for him to think at all. 'Can't be,' he said. 'Why? Why would they do that?'

  The man shrugged. 'Don't ask me,' he said. 'I mean, obviously they t
hink we're the enemy.'

  'But…' With an effort, Eiconodoulus forced his mind clear. It was, in fact, entirely possible. He was days later than scheduled, and maybe his messages hadn't reached the main army; they'd assumed he was dead or captured, so they'd sent up more scorpions; they'd arrived and been installed to guard the road, and somehow their observers hadn't recognised his column, had assumed that it must be the enemy. It was possible; in which case…

  He thought about it for a moment. Scorpion bolts; and the Mezentines had a ferociously guarded monopoly on field artillery. It was the only possible explanation.

  'In that case,' he said slowly, 'we've got to tell them, and then they'll stop.'

  'Fine,' the other man snapped. 'You go.'

  'I can't,' Eiconodoulus said, quiet and reasonable. 'My knee's all broken up. I can just about crawl a couple of yards, that's all.'

  The other man was scowling at him; he had a thin, dry face and he spoke with an eastern accent. 'Fucked if I'm going out there,' he said.

  'Why not?' Eiconodoulus said. 'You just told me it's not safe under here. The only way we'll be safe is if someone goes and finds the battery and tells them to stop shooting. I can't do it.' He paused, watching the man's face. 'I wouldn't get fifty yards.'

  He could see the other man doing the mathematics; only two of us, he can't go… 'I'm not going out there,' he said, as though Eiconodoulus had made an indecent suggestion. 'No, you can forget that.'

  Best not to say anything; so he shrugged and kept quiet. The man protested a few more times, then slowly crawled out from under the cart, straightened up-cramp, probably-and began to run, wobbling like a baby calf. Eiconodoulus could only see his legs from the knee down; he followed him until he was out of sight. Well, he thought; it's my job to give orders.

  He lay on his back, and the pleasure of being still and quiet surged through him like a wave. He closed his eyes to rest them, knowing it was impossible to go to sleep, here in the middle of so much danger. He tried to rally his thoughts, but it was too much effort. There wasn't anything he could do anyway. The responsibility was slipping away from him; he wasn't in charge any more, because he had the perfect excuse.

  Light, movement, the sound of voices. His body was awake before he was; he woke up in the act of shrinking away, dragging himself backwards with his elbows. As his eyes opened, he found himself staring at an extraordinary human being. The spectacle reminded him of something he'd read about or heard, maybe in a briefing; the man's face and hands were the most remarkable colour: pale, bone-white tinged with pink. At the back of his mind,he was sure he knew about this, but the only explanations that occurred to him were that the man had been rolling in white slip, the thin clay wash potters paint on the outsides of big jars, or he'd managed to get himself covered in flour.

  Then he remembered; where he was, what had happened, his wrecked knee, the fact that the enemy, the Eremians, were a white-skinned race.

  'Got one,' the man was shouting. 'Over here.' Eiconodoulus wondered what had become of the cart, but he didn't dare take his eyes off the white man. He couldn't see a weapon, but he was under no illusions about what would happen next. The Eremians (a casual aside in a briefing, months ago) don't take prisoners.

  That was that, then.

  (All his adult life, he'd wondered about this moment, which he'd long since accepted as inevitable; the moment when he faced the enemy who would kill him. He'd assumed that it would be a spasm of blind, hurting, thrashing pain and terror-he'd seen wounded animals being dispatched, men being executed, victims of accident and artillery-and it had bothered him, because he'd die a wriggling, squirming, convulsing thing, and the weapon tearing into his body would hurt unbearably. The thought had almost been enough to make him quit the profession, but there had always been good, sensible reasons to hang on for another six months, another year. Now that he faced it, he felt like an explorer or a philosopher finally arriving at the place he'd searched all his life to find; the great question, what will it be like, was finally going to be answered, and he found himself considering the situation objectively, as though he'd have the opportunity to report back to a commission of inquiry. He'd tell them, I felt sick, very wide awake, completely aware of everything everywhere apart from my own body, and calm.)

  Other white men were standing over him; one on each side, maybe two behind. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a spearhead-so it'd be a stab rather than a cut, he noted; good, because puncture wounds kill quickly, by organ damage, whereas slashes tend to kill by shock and loss of blood. A small part of his mind that was still interested in collecting information noted that the white men spoke good Mezentine but with a strong, rather comical accent.

  'What do you want to do?' one of them asked.

  'Take him back with the wagons,' said another, a disembodied voice over his head. The others mumbled agreement, and arms came down out of the air and dragged him up. He stood for a moment, then collapsed.

  'Fuck,' someone said. 'Look at his knee.'

  They don't know I can understand them, he realised. Not that it mattered; he had nothing to say to them. It occurred to him that if he revealed the fact that he could communicate with them, they might torture him for information before they killed him. That thought made him horribly aware of how painful and sensitive his knee was; anything would be better than being hurt by them, death would be much better. Suddenly he felt fear take over; he was shaking, and he couldn't make it stop. His body felt loose, as though all the joints had slipped and come unstrung; all his strength had evaporated, he was hanging from their hands, a dead weight. Why couldn't they just kill him and be done with it?

  'He's in pretty bad shape,' someone said. 'Put him in the wagon and let's get out of here.'

  They carried him, gently. As he was moved along he could see dozens of the white men, busily at work. Some of them were getting the carts ready to drive off, others were plucking up the clothes-props, carrying them in bundles, like men harvesting maize. At that moment, he realised that the Eremians had war engines too (not that it mattered to him, of course) and he'd blundered into a carefully laid ambush. At another time he'd be furious with himself for letting it happen; it was somehow pleasant to be released from the obligation to feel shame and self-reproach.

  They put him carefully in the back of one of his own carts; they laid out blankets for him to lie on, and tried not to jar his knee as they put him down. They made a bad job of it, but he was bewildered by their concern. He'd braced himself for a different kind of pain, the being-dropped, slamming kind, and instead it was the awkward, clumsy sort. A white man sat next to him in the cart, and when it started to move Eiconodoulus nearly screamed, as a jolt twisted his knee the wrong way. The white man frowned at him, then looked away; his hands were clamped tight on the side of the cart.

  Not dead yet, he thought, as the cart pitched and jostled over the ruts and stones; not dead yet, but don't go getting your hopes up. Look at it logically; things can really only get worse. Are hours or days of pain really worth staying alive for? Of course not. Then let's hope they kill me quickly, before this numb feeling wears off and I go to pieces. He tried to calculate in his mind the distance from the ambush site to the city (presumably where they were headed) but he couldn't quite get the map into his mind. It was as if it was part of a dream, in which he'd been a career officer of engineers in charge of a routine convoy, and it was swiftly fading away, as dreams tend to do in the light.

  Ludicrous (he told himself when he woke up) that I should have wasted my last few hours of life in sleep; but then, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed them anyway. He opened his eyes and saw blue sky overhead; the jolting underneath him told him he was still on the cart. He realised that he felt unbearably impatient-why can't they just kill me now, instead of making me live through this interminable cart ride?-and while he'd been asleep his knee had locked up stiff and hurt worse than ever. If it hadn't been for the thought of how ridiculous it would sound, he'd have started demanding
to be killed immediately; he grinned as he heard his own high, querulous voice in his mind, insisting…

  Suddenly a great grey stone shape appeared overhead, like a swooping hawk; he was passing under an arch. The blue sky was edged with grey walls and red roof tiles, and the jolting was the multiple taps of steel-rimmed wheels on cobblestones. Here we are, then-at which point, a desperate feeling of reluctance swept over him, so that if he'd been able to move at all he'd have tried to jump off the cart and run. As it was, all he could do was lever himself up a little way on the points of his elbows. The white man next to him looked down, his face registering no interest. Eiconodoulus' strength ran out and he slipped back to rest.

  Bouncing on cobbles for a very long time; then the cart stopped and the white man jumped up, calling to someone he couldn't see. Four or five of them appeared over him; they lifted him up (that hurt) and put him carefully on something long and flat, possibly a door or a hurdle. He couldn't make out what they were saying; there were unfamiliar words, possibly names. They moved him quickly; he had to close his eyes to keep from getting dizzy.

  For a while after that, things blurred, like drops of water on a painting. He was carried about on the flat thing, then put down, then picked up again and carried some more. There were apparently long periods of lying still, sometimes voices overhead. Occasionally he made out one or two words, but they were meaningless out of context. Then came a long, bad patch; someone was digging about in his damaged knee, twisting it and stabbing into it with a knife or a tool. He opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but hands pushed him down flat. He could see white men standing over him, but he couldn't see the torturer himself. He waited impatiently for the questions to start-why the hell torture someone if you don't ask questions, where's the point?-but all he could hear was the men murmuring to each other. They aren't torturers, they're doctors, he realised; he laughed out loud, and then the pain blotted out everything. He wasn't aware of trying to move, but the men were having trouble keeping him still. At some point, the world went out like a snuffed candle.