Devices and Desires (88 page)

After the select committee’s report had been received and considered by the council, it was resolved that the mercenary forces
presently in the country should be retained temporarily to secure the borders and deal with insurgent activity in the few
remaining pockets of resistance. Meanwhile, the council authorized the dispatch of ambassadors to the Vadani to demand the
surrender of Duke Orsea, the abominator Vaatzes and Duke Valens — the last named to stand trial in respect of an unprovoked
and illegal act of war against the Republic. Should these demands not be met within seven days, a formal declaration of war
would be made, and preparations for the dispatch of an expeditionary force would be expedited.

In a closed meeting, a joint subcommittee of the Compliance and Security directorates interviewed Falier Zenonis of the ordnance
factory and commended him for his part in bringing the operation against Civitas Eremiae to a satisfactory conclusion. The
subcommittee pointed out that it was not possible for his contribution to be officially recognized; however, a formal commendation
would be entered on his personnel record, and the subcommittee felt it was extremely likely that he would reap a tangible
reward for his actions in due course. Closely questioned by Commissioner Psellus, Falier Zenonis stated that, in spite of
his long acquaintance with the traitor Vaatzes, he could provide no convincing explanation for Vaatzes’ conduct in the matter
of the betrayal of the city; in his personal opinion, Zenonis added, Vaatzes acted as a result of deep-seated mental instability
exacerbated by feelings of guilt resulting from the high level of casualties inflicted by the weapons he had made for the
Eremians. Asked if he believed that Vaatzes was still alive, Zenonis replied that he was sure of it.

The Vadani refused to comply with the Republic’s demands, as expressed in resolution composite 50979. Accordingly, a written
declaration of war was drawn up and delivered to Duke Valens by special messenger.

She heard him; the click of the latch, the sigh of the curtain behind the door that kept out the draft, his boot-heel on the
flagstones. She caught her breath for a moment.

“Falier?” she said.

“I’m home.”

She stood up quickly and tucked the letter she’d been reading behind a cushion. He’d be tired after his journey; she could
retrieve it once he’d gone to bed. She stirred the fire with the poker; it was dying down and the charcoal scuttle was empty.

“Come through and sit down,” she said. “You must be worn out.”

The door of the cramped back room opened, and he came in. He looked terrible. Exhaustion didn’t suit him at all. He smiled
wanly at her and dropped into the chair, still holding his hat in his left hand.

“Moritsa’s asleep,” she said. “She wanted to wait up for you but I said no, she’s got school tomorrow.”

He nodded. “We got held up on the road,” he said.

“I thought that was what must’ve happened,” she replied. “Can I get you anything?”

He pulled a face. “I’m too tired to eat,” he said with a yawn.

“Get an early night,” she said. “You can tell me all about it in the morning.”

He yawned again. “I’ll just sit here for a bit,” he said. Then he added, “He got away.”

She frowned. “Oh.”

“We’re pretty sure of it, anyway,” he said. He paused. On the way home he’d made up his mind not to say anything about the
letter, even to her. “The likeliest thing is that he escaped over the border.”

“Good,” she said. “It’ll be better for us.”

“Oh, they’ll keep going after him,” Falier said. “Still, there’s nothing we can do about it, so the hell with it for now.”
He grinned lopsidedly. “Miss me?”

“Of course I missed you,” she said. “Was it very bad?”

He nodded. “I hope I’m home for good now. There’s going to be a lot of work on at the factory, they’re going to need me here.”

He’d started to mumble, and his chin was down on his chest; any moment now he’d slide into sleep, right on top of that stupid
letter. She promised herself: first thing in the morning after he’d left for work, she’d put it on the fire, along with all
the rest of them. It’d only cause trouble, no end of it, if he happened to find them. Besides, by now she knew all the good
bits by heart, and she wouldn’t miss the rest. Especially, she thought, the poetry.

From the sound of his breathing he was asleep. She sat down in the window-seat and looked at him for a while. Then she got
slowly to her feet and raked the fire.

Much as I enjoy doing all my own stunts, I draw the line at picking fights with large, dangerous animals. I’m profoundly grateful,
therefore, to Geoff Williams and Ian Farrington, for their insights into hunting the boar the hard way. My thanks are also
due to Ken Funnell, for teaching me everything I know about machining; Tom Holt, for a crash course in cuir bouilli; and Tom
Jennings and Ray Mullet, for the makings of the brigandine.

K. J. Parker is a pseudonym. Find more about the author at
www.kjparker.com
.

Without giving too much away, can you give us some background to The Engineer Trilogy?

Basically, it’s a love story, which is why tens of thousands die, cities are torched, nations overthrown, and everybody betrays
everybody else at least once. It’s also a story about a very ordinary man who’s forced, through no real fault of his own,
to do extraordinary things in order to achieve a very simple, everyday objective. Furthermore, it’s an exploration of the
nature of manufacture, artifice, and fabrication — the things we make, the reasons we make them, the ambivalence of everything
we create, and the effects on other people of what we make. Ambitious, or what?

Your protagonist in
Devices and Desires,
Ziani Vaatzes, is not a typical fantasy hero in the traditional sense, is he? Was it a deliberate attempt to distance yourself
from the default post-Tolkien fantasy formula that led you to choose an engineer rather than, say, a soldier?

I don’t think so. Vaatzes couldn’t be a traditional fantasy hero, because his motivation is completely mundane and unheroic;
it’s the lengths he has to go to in order to achieve it that both give him extraordinary stature and rob him of his humanity.
I chose an engineer because I needed a catalyst figure, someone who sets in motion a mechanism that involves everybody around
him. The man who designs and builds a space shuttle or a nuclear warhead isn’t primarily an explorer or a mass murderer; he’s
an engineer. It’s the use to which his artifact is put, usually by other people, that makes the difference. Vaatzes is both
the maker of the machine and the man who uses it, and yet he’s just a very ordinary man who’s caught up in other mechanisms,
not of his own making, that he can’t control.

There seems to be a recurring theme in your work of a single warrior taking on a whole group of attackers at one go. Are you
a secret martial arts film fan?

Martial arts films, no. Ever since I was too young to play with dangerous sharp objects, I’ve studied combat and war, in roughly
the same way a doctor studies a disease she’d one day like to cure. In the course of my researches, I’ve learned the basics
of the European medieval and Renaissance martial arts (which, I guiltily confess, was a whole lot of fun) as well as read
every authentic account of duels and personal combats that I’ve been able to lay my paws on (most of my fight sequences are
rehashes of accounts of genuine duels or encounters, at least as far as the moves are concerned; I believe that nothing gives
that authentic feel quite as much as the genuine article with the serial numbers filed off ). The overwhelming leitmotif that
comes through all such accounts is that fights are lost through misjudgment, incompetence, or sheer bad luck rather than won
by courage, skill, or Secret Ninja Combat Arts, and I hope this comes through in my descriptions.

How extensively do you plot your novels before you start writing them? Do you plot the entire trilogy/series before you start
writing or do you prefer to let the story roam where it will?

I try to have the whole thing plotted out in some detail before I start. Sometimes the characters take over and lead me astray
— in fact, they’d be pretty poor characters if they didn’t — but usually a judicious combination of carrots and sticks gets
them back in line before things get out of hand.

Some authors talk of their characters “surprising” them by their actions. Is this something that has happened to you?

Not really, because I try to map out their actions well in advance. The interesting bit, in which they often surprise me,
is their
re
actions to the unpleasant experiences I put them through. Gorgas Loredan, for instance, completely won me over by the end
of the Fencer books, and I must admit I can’t wait to see how Valens handles the truly horrible stuff I have lined up for
him in book two.

Do you see any particular trends in recent fantasy?

I confess I don’t follow the genre closely enough to make an informed comment (and I’d like my pontifications in reply to
the question below to be interpreted accordingly). This is because of the chameleon effect: if I admire a writer’s work, subconsciously
I’m tempted to indulge in the sincerest form of flattery.

Do you have any particular favorite authors who have influenced your work?

I have favorite authors, and I have authors who’ve influenced my work. For example, I don’t much enjoy reading Iain M. Banks,
simply because his worldview and mine don’t coincide much, but I’ve learned an enormous amount from his masterful use of structure
and language. Ditto J. K. Rowling, and her exquisite skill in developing an extended story line and designing characters who
can go the distance.

Devices and Desires
is the beginning of your third fantasy trilogy. Have you ever been tempted to write a longer series, George R. R. Martin–
or Robert Jordan– style?

Temptation is always with us, but as a friend of mine is fond of saying, the difference between luck and a Land Rover is that
luck doesn’t work better if you push it. I’d like one day to acquire sufficient technical skill to write, say, a seven-part
series. I’d also like to be president of the United States, but that’s equally unlikely.

Finally, do you have a personal theory on why fantasy is so popular these days?

Evelyn Waugh said of P. G. Wodehouse (who was also, in his way, a writer of fantasy), “He has made a world for us to live
in and delight in. He will continue to release future generations from a captivity that may be more irksome than our own.”
(Quoted from memory — something to that effect.) That’s a large part of it, I guess. Because modern Western society is such
a mess, we have a longing for simpler, better worlds — not necessarily places where everything is perfect, like in Tolkien’s
Shire, but places where the problems we have to confront in our daily lives are at least
soluble
by, for example, defeating an evil overlord or throwing a ring into a volcano. The solution may be horrendously dangerous
and strenuous, but it’s straightforward; we can at least understand it, whereas real life in the twenty-first century is largely
incomprehensible, and we feel powerless to do anything about it. In fantasy, we can believe in good and evil, whereas in real
life both those concepts are increasingly nebulous.

By these criteria, of course, I don’t write fantasy.… I prefer to create imaginary analogies to the bewildering, inescapable
forces that govern real life, as a way of examining the ways in which we try and cope with them. Likewise I don’t have heroes
and villains for the same reason I don’t have dragons and goblins; I believe that all four species are equally mythical. Which
brings me kicking and screaming back to the question, I guess. Fantasy is popular because, since heroes and villains don’t
exist, it’s absolutely necessary to our survival as a species to invent them.

introducing

If you enjoyed
DEVICES AND DESIRES,
look out for

Book Two of the Engineer Trilogy

by K. J. Parker

“The way to a man’s heart,” Valens quoted, drawing the rapier from its scabbard, “is proverbially through his stomach, but
if you want to get into his brain, I recommend the eye socket.”

He moved his right arm into the third guard, concentrated for a moment on the small gold ring that hung by a thread from the
center rafter of the stable, frowned, and relaxed. Lifting the sword again, he tapped the ring gently on its side, setting
it swinging like a pendulum. As it reached the upper limit of its swing and hung for a fraction of a second in the air, he
moved fluently into the lunge. The tip of the rapier passed exactly through the middle of the ring without touching the sides.
Valens grinned and stepped back. Not bad, he congratulated himself, after seven years of not practicing, and his poor ignorant
student wasn’t to know that he’d cheated.

“There you go,” he said, handing Vaatzes the rapier. “Now you try.” Vaatzes wasn’t to know it was cheating, but Valens knew.
The exercise he’d just demonstrated wasn’t the one he’d so grudgingly learned, in this same stable, as a boy of fifteen. The
correct form was piercing the stationary ring, passing the sword through the middle without making it move. He’d never been
able to get it right, for all the sullen effort he’d lavished on it, so he’d cheated by turning it into a moving target, and
he was cheating again now. The fact that he’d subverted the exercise by making it harder was beside the point.

“You made it look easy,” Vaatzes said mildly. “It’s not, is it?”

Valens smiled. “No,” he said.

Vaatzes wrapped his hand around the sword hilt, precisely as he’d been shown — a quick study, evidently. It had taken Valens
a month to master the grip when he was learning. The difference was, he reflected, that Vaatzes wanted to learn. That, he
realized, was what was so very strange about the Mezentine. He wanted to learn
everything.