K Parker: Devices and Desires

If it had been a sudden illness, say, or a freak accident; if he'd been stabbed in the street or killed in a war; you could get angry about that, the stuff of tragedy. But to find yourself in the cells waiting to be strangled to death, all on account of a few measurements; it was so bewildering, so impossible to understand, that he could only feel numb. He simply hadn't seen it coming. It was like being beaten at chess by a four-year-old.

The door started to open, and immediately he thought, here it is. But when Bollo came in (still looking decidedly thoughtful), he didn't usher in the man in the black hood, the ends of the bowstring doubled round his gloved hands. The man who was with him was no stranger.

Ziani looked up. 'Falier?' he said.

'Me,' Falier answered. Bollo glanced at him, nodded, left the cell and bolted the door behind him. 'I came…'

'To say goodbye,' Ziani helped him out. 'It's all right, I'm being really calm about it. Sort of stunned, really. With any luck, by the time the truth hits me I'll have been dead for an hour. Sit down.'

His friend looked round. 'What on?'

'The floor.'

'All right.' Falier folded his long legs and rested his bottom tentatively on the flagstones. 'It's bloody cold in here, Ziani. You want to ask to see the manager.'

'It'll be a damn sight colder where I'm going,' Ziani replied. 'Isn't that what they say? Abominators and traitors go to the great ice pool, stand up to their necks in freezing cold water for all eternity?'

Falier frowned. 'You believe that?'

'Absolutely,' Ziani said. 'A chaplain told me, so it must be true.' He closed his eyes for a moment. 'Gallows humour, you see,' he said. 'It means I'm either incredibly brave in the face of death, or so hopelessly corrupt I don't even take eternal damnation seriously.'

'Right,' Falier said, looking at him. 'Sorry,' he said, 'I haven't got a clue what to say.'

'Don't worry about it. After all, if you really piss me off and I hold a grudge for the rest of my life, that's-what, three-quarters of an hour? You can handle it.'

Falier shook his head. 'You always were a kidder, Ziani,' he said. 'Always Laughing Boy. It was bloody annoying in a foreman, but you make a good martyr.'

'Martyr!' Ziani opened his eyes and laughed. 'Fine. If someone'd do me a favour and let me know what I'm dying for, I'll try and do it justice.'

'Oh, they'll come up with something,' Falier said. 'Well, I guess this is the bit where I ask you if you've got any messages. For Ariessa, and Moritsa. Sorry,' he added.

Ziani shrugged. 'Think of something for me, you're good with words. Anything I could come up with would be way short of the mark: I love you, I miss you, I wish this hadn't happened. They deserve better than that.'

Actually' Falier sounded like he was the condemned man. 'It's Ariessa and Moritsa I wanted to talk to you about. I'm really sorry to have to bring this up, but it's got to be done. Ziani, you do realise what's going to happen to them, don't you?'

For the first time, a little worm of fear wriggled in Ziani's stomach. 'I don't know what you mean,' he said.

Falier took a deep breath. 'Your pension, Ziani, from the Guild. You're a condemned man, an enemy of the state.'

'Yes, but they haven't done anything wrong.' The worm was running up his spine now.

'Neither have you, but that doesn't mean…' Falier dried up for a moment. 'It's the law, Ziani,' he said. 'They don't get the pension. Look, obviously I'll do what I can, and the lads at the factory, I'm sure they'll want to help. But-'

'What do you mean, it's the law? I never heard of anything like that.'

'I'm sorry,' Falier replied, 'but it's true. I checked. It's terrible, really wicked if you ask me. I don't know how they can be so cruel.'

'But hang on a moment.' Ziani tried to rally his scattered thoughts, but they wouldn't come when he called. 'Falier, what are they going to do? What're they going to live on, for God's sake?'

Falier looked grave. 'Ariessa says she'll try and get work,' he said. 'But that's not going to be easy; not for the widow of-' He stopped. 'I don't think I ought to have told you,' he said. 'Dying with something like this on your mind. But I was thinking.'

Ziani looked up. He knew that tone of voice. 'What? There's something I can do, isn't there?'

'You could make a deal,' he said.

That made no sense at all. 'How? I don't understand.'

'You could ask to see the investigator. There's still time. You could say, if they let Ariessa keep your pension, you'll tell them who your accomplices are.'

Accomplices. He knew what the word meant, but it made no sense in this context. 'No I can't,' he said. 'There weren't any. I didn't tell anybody about it, even, it was just me.'

'They don't know that.' Falier paused for a moment, then went on: 'It's politics, you see, Ziani. People they don't like, people they'd love an excuse to get rid of. And it wouldn't take much imagination to figure out who they'd be likely to be. If you said the right names, they'd be prepared to listen. In return for a signed deposition-'

'I couldn't do that,' Ziani said. 'They'd be killed, it'd be murder.'

'I know.' Falier frowned a little. 'But Ariessa, and Moritsa-'

Ziani was silent for a moment. It'd be murder; fine. He could regret it for the rest of his life. But if it meant his wife and daughter would get his pension, what did a few murders matter? Besides, the men he'd be murdering would all be high officials in the Guild… The thought of revenge had never even crossed his mind before.

'You think they'd go for that?'

'It's got to be worth a try,' Falier said. 'Face it, Ziani, what else can you do for them, in here, in the time you've got left?'

He considered the idea. A few minutes ago, he'd been clinging to the thought that it didn't matter, any of it. He'd practically erased himself, every trace, from the world. But leaving behind something like this-poverty, misery, destitution-was quite different. The only thing that mattered was Ariessa and Moritsa; if it meant they'd be all right, he would cheerfully burn down the world.

'What's the plan?' he said.

Falier smiled. 'Leave it to me,' he said. 'I can get in to see the secretary of the expediencies committee-'

'How?'

'I got in here, didn't I? Obviously there's not a lot of time. I'd better go.'

All right.'

Falier moved to the door, paused. 'It's the right thing to do, Ziani,' he said. 'This whole thing's a bloody mess, but at least there's still something you can do. That's got to be good.'

'I suppose.'

'I'll be back in an hour.' Falier knocked on the door; it opened and he left. Remarkable, Ziani thought; I've known Falier most of my life and I never knew he had magic powers. Always thought he was just ordinary, like me. But he can walk through doors, and I can't.

Hard to measure time in a cell, where you can't see the sunlight. Pulse; each heartbeat is more or less a second. But counting-sixty sixties is three thousand six hundred-would be too much effort and a waste of his rapidly dwindling supply of life. Ziani looked round; he was an abominator, apparently, but still an engineer. He thought for a moment, then grinned and pulled off his boot, then his sock. With his teeth, he nibbled a small hole; then he scooped a handful of the grimy grey sand off the floor and persuaded it into the sock. That done, he hung the sock from a splinter of wood in the doorframe, with his empty drinking-cup directly underneath. Then he found his pulse, and counted while the sand trickled through the hole in the sock into the cup. When it had all run through, he stopped counting-two hundred and fifty-eight, near as made no odds four minutes. He drew a line in the dirt beside him, and refilled the sock. There; he'd made himself a clock.