A Practical Guide to Conquering the World Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2022 by One Reluctant Lemming Company Ltd.

  Excerpt from Brother Red copyright © 2021 by Adrian Selby

  Excerpt from Engines of Empire copyright © 2022 by R. S. Ford

  Cover design by Lauren Panepinto

  Cover images by Shutterstock

  Cover copyright © 2022 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  First Edition: January 2022

  Simultaneously published in Great Britain by Orbit

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2021940496

  ISBNs: 9780316498616 (trade paperback), 9780316498647 (ebook)

  E3-20211103-JV-NF-ORI

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Translator’s Note

  Discover More

  Extras Meet the Author

  A Preview of Brother Red

  A Preview of Engines of Empire

  Also by K. J. Parker

  Constantiae constanter

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  1

  My name is Felix. It means lucky: there’s irony for you. This is the true history of the intended and unintended consequences of my life, the bad stuff I did on purpose, the good stuff that happened in spite of me.

  It’s unfortunate that I’m the main character in this story. I can see why everybody would want to hear about what I’m going to tell you – the most amazing thing that’s happened in our lifetimes, quite possibly ever, the greatest story ever told – but me? I don’t think so. I’ve found that people quite like me at first and can put up with me for a little while after that, but it’s like they say in medicine, the dose makes the poison. Unfortunately, I come with the story. You want one, you’re going to have to put up with the other. Sorry about that.

  I was dreaming about – well, that stuff – when someone shook me and I woke up.

  I’m not at my best when I’ve just been dragged out of sleep. I saw three soldiers, in armour and uniform. I thought, oh God, they’ve come to arrest me, for my crime. Then I remembered, that was years ago and a very long way away, in another jurisdiction.

  “You the translator?”

  The sergeant spoke in barbarous Robur; in case he’d got the wrong man, presumably. “Yes, that’s me,” I replied in Echmen.

  “Sorry to disturb you, sir,” he lied, “but you’re needed.”

  Someone had lit the lamp. I glanced over the sergeant’s head at the window. “It’s the middle of the night,” I said. “Can’t it wait?”

  “No, sir.”

  The Echmen invented diplomatic immunity, so I guessed they probably wouldn’t kill me if I refused. Nor, I suspected, would they go away. “Fine,” I said. “Just give me a few minutes to get dressed, would you?”

  “Sorry, sir. Our orders are, fetch you straight away.”

  I felt that little twist in my stomach. “Yes, all right, but would you please wait outside?”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  I suppose he was used to arresting people, rather than escorting diplomats. I told myself it didn’t matter, then threw back the sheets and hopped out of bed. I thought I’d managed to keep my back to him as I hauled myself into my trousers, but a sharp intake of breath told me I hadn’t. I pulled on my shirt and turned to face him.

  “What the hell happened to you?” he asked.

  “Ready when you are,” I said.

  The Echmen are a remarkable people, and one of the areas in which they excel is architecture. Everything they build is as big, complicated and ornate as they can possibly manage, and the Imperial palace is, quite properly, the supreme expression of Echmen aesthetics. They say that they build to impress the gods; seen from the Portals of the Sunrise, therefore, a hundred miles over our heads, the palace is a dazzling fusion of geometry and art. At ground level, it’s a rabbit warren. I know for a fact that from my garret in the lower west wing to the offices of the diplomatic service where I did most of my work was a hundred yards in a straight line, as measured by the divine dividers, but one thousand, eight hundred and forty-odd yards actual distance travelled; up stairs, along passages, down stairs, along more passages, through galleries, across cloisters, and every inch of the way decorated with the most bewilderingly lovely examples of abstract art. From my quarters to the cells underneath the Justice department is even shorter on paper and about twice as far on foot. Which gave me plenty of time to talk to my new friend the sergeant, something I really didn’t want to do.

  “Are you a—?” he asked. “You know.”

  Yes, I knew. But I deliberately misunderstood him. “Translator,” I said. “Yes. Who am I going to see?”

  “Sorry, sir, classified.”

  “I’m only asking,” I said, “because if it’s a language I don’t know, we’re all wasting our time.”

  “Dejauzi, sir.”

  Fine; I know Dejauzi, God only knows why. As far as anyone knows, Dejauzi speakers occupy about a third of the surface of the world, but since they’re peaceful, they don’t have anything anyone wants and they’re too fast moving, fly and vicious to be harvestable as manpower, they’re of very little interest to any of the three major governments. Actually, none of those three statements is true, but that’s what everybody believes. I learned Dejauzi when I was convalescing, because there happened to be a Dejauzi grammar lying about. It’s one of the easiest spoken languages in the world, with practically no irregular verbs.

  Please note that I didn’t use the word dungeon. That would be utterly misleading. The cells, which I’d never been to before, turned out to be characteristically Echmen: graceful, symmetrical, exquisitely proportioned rooms which happened to be used for storing criminals. I think the only difference between the cell I was shown into and my own apartment was the steel door and the fact that only the ceiling was decorated, with stunningly lovely mosaic.

  Inside the cel
l, an Echmen official, standing holding a document, and a teenage female in Echmen court dress but with the unmistakeable Dejauzi hair and makeup, sitting on a sort of stone bench. The official scowled at my sergeant. “You took your time,” he said.

  “Sorry, sir.” He apologised a lot, that sergeant, though I don’t think he meant it.

  “This him?”

  “Sir.”

  The official nodded, and the sergeant retreated, standing in front of the door.

  “Sorry to drag you out of bed,” the official said. “But our man’s sick. You know Dejauzi.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good man. Right, read this to her in Dejauzi, and then you can go.”

  He handed me the document. It was written in that horrible Echmen law style they insist on using for official stuff, even though the characters are obsolete for everyday use; in effect, you have to know an additional eight thousand characters in order to make sense of it. Fortunately, I do.

  I looked at the girl, who wasn’t looking at me. Then I read her the document, which was her death warrant. When I’d finished, she looked up and scowled at me.

  “Ask her if she’s understood,” the official said.

  “Do you understand?” I asked her.

  “Fuck off.”

  “She understands.”

  The official nodded. “Ask her if she wishes to make any legal representations.”

  So I did that. “Go fuck yourself,” she said.

  “Not at this time,” I translated.

  “And tell him to go fuck himself, too,” she added.

  “But she reserves the right to make representations at a later date.”

  The official grunted. “She’d better get a move on, then. Her head’s coming off at dawn.”

  I turned back to her. “The arsehole says you’re—”

  “Yes, I know. I heard him.”

  “You can talk Echmen?”

  “Better than you can, blueskin.”

  “Do you want me to get you a lawyer?”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Ah,” I said, “would that that were possible. I’m sorry. I hope—” I tried to remember what little I knew about Dejauzida religion. “May the Great-Great watch over you,” I said.

  “Fuck the Great-Great. I’m Hus.”

  I bowed politely, then turned back to the official. “Can I have a word with you outside?” I said.

  He looked surprised, but nodded. The sergeant stood aside to let us pass.

  “What did she do?” I asked.

  “Nothing. She’s a hostage.”

  Ah. Hostage for good behaviour. The daughter of some chieftain, deposited with the Echmen as a guarantee on the signing of a treaty. If the treaty is broken, the hostage is killed. “So the Hus have broken—”

  “The Dejauzida.”

  “She’s not Dejauzida, she’s Hus.”

  He stared at me. “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what she says,” I told him. “Also, she’s got a blue lifelock in her hair, and the Dejauzida lifelock is green, and the tattoos on her face are the double peacock, which is Hus.”

  “You’re sure about that.”

  “Yes,” I said. “No Dejauzi would have the double peacock, it’s taboo.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud. You’re sure.”

  “I’ve got a book you can borrow, if it’d help.”

  He didn’t tell me what I could do with my book. He didn’t have to. “You’re coming with me,” he said. “We’ve got to get this sorted out.”

  “Just a moment,” I said. “I’m not an expert on tribal nomads, and I don’t think my ambassador would want me getting involved in Echmen foreign affairs.”

  “Maybe you should have thought about that before you opened your big mouth,” he replied, reasonably enough. “Come on, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  It was a long night. Half a dozen officials of escalating importance had to be hauled out of their beds, explained to and induced to sign and seal things, and all of them wanted to know what the blueskin had to do with anything; with just under an hour to go, the permanent assistant deputy something-or-other pulled a sad face and said it was a terrible shame but too late to do anything about it now; whereupon one of the other officials (by now we were trailing along a small army of sleep-deprived government officers, like someone driving geese to market) pointed out that if they executed a friendly hostage, they’d all be in the shit, and it turned out that there was just enough time after all. A stay of execution was drawn up and sealed, and they needed a translator to translate it…

  “You again,” she said.

  “It’s all right. There’s been a mistake. You’re not going to die after all.”

  She gave me a look I’ll never forget. “Are you serious?”

  “They thought you were the Dejauzi hostage. I explained that you’re Hus. You are Hus, aren’t you?”

  “They made a mistake.”

  “Yes, but it’s all sorted out now. You are Hus, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I’m bloody Hus, what do you think these are, pimples? They threw me in here and told me they were going to kill me, and it’s all a mistake. Oh for—”

  “But it’s all right now,” I said. “It’s all been—”

  “No, it fucking isn’t all right. I’ve been scared shitless. I’ve been sitting here all night thinking this is it, I’m going to die, and all because some idiot—”

  Tears had cut deep channels in her chalk-white makeup. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But it’s all been sorted out, they’re going to let you go. But first I’ve got to read this to you, or it won’t be legal.”

  “You what?”

  “Shut up,” I said, “and let me read you this. Then you can go.”

  She took a long, deep breath. “Get on with it, then.”

  So I read her the document. “Do you understand?” I said.

  “Of course I understand, what do you think I am, simple?”

  “I need you to say you understand, it’s a required formality.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “You keep saying that,” I said. “Thank you for your patience. Goodbye.”

  I turned to leave. “By the way,” I told the official – the first one, who’d shared the whole wonderful experience with me, “she can understand Echmen perfectly, so you didn’t need me after all.”

  He looked mildly stunned. “She didn’t say.”

  “Did you ask?” I replied, and walked out of the cell.

  Needless to say I got hopelessly lost trying to find my way back to my room, so my grand gesture turned round and bit me, the way grand gestures generally do. Even so.

  Easy mistake to make. The Dejauzida and the Hus look identical, speak the same language and come from the same ethnic stock, but otherwise they’re completely different. The Dejauzida worship the Great-Great, the Hus are fire-worshippers, like the Echmen (though I gather it’s sort of a different fire). They hate each other like poison, as do the other twenty or so entirely distinct and separate nations that look just like the Dejauzida and speak the same language. Which is just as well for us, according to the monumental Concerning the Savages, our standard reference in the diplomatic service; because if they didn’t, and they all got along like one big happy family instead of ripping each other’s throats out at the slightest provocation, they’d be unstoppable and a real and present danger to civilisation.

  There are a hell of a lot of them, that’s for sure. Nobody knows quite how many; they certainly don’t. They live in the badlands that run across the northern top end of all the three great empires, an area so vast that you can’t really get your head around it. They don’t read or write – don’t rather than can’t, please note; there’s all sorts of things we do and they don’t, which is why we tend to write them off as half-human savages. But, according to them, they don’t do them because they don’t want to, and they point to us and say, look what reading and writing and living in cities have turned
you into, and we want no part of that. Well, it’s a point of view.

  But the practical upshot of that is, if you want to find out anything about them, you’re entirely reliant on the testimony of outsiders, most of whom have agendas of their own. The Dejauzida don’t come and visit us if they can possibly help it, so such evidence as there is derives from diplomatic missions – invariably unsuccessful – and the few half-witted traders who thought against all the evidence that it might be possible to sell things to them. Failure doesn’t tend to make people well disposed towards those who thwarted them, and it’s easy to explain your lack of success by saying that the people who didn’t want to know are ignorant barbarians.

  Some people can manage perfectly well on next to no sleep; not me. Also, like money, sleep is something I find hard to come by. By the time I eventually got back to my garret (up no less than eighty-seven winding stone stairs) I knew it was pointless going back to bed. I only had a couple of hours before I was due back on duty (the Echmen have these wonderful water clocks), and a night spent trudging up and down had left me sweaty and undiplomatically bedraggled. I plodded down the stairs to the cistern, washed off the worst of the sweat, then back up again to put on some respectable clothes and drag a comb through my hair.

  Since I had a bit of time in hand, I made a detour to the clerks’ office. It’s a huge place. Once upon a time, the north wing of the palace was a monastery, staffed by a thousand monks, all praying for the souls of dead emperors. What’s now the clerks’ room used to be the monks’ dormitory, and even so the clerks are cramped for space. The Echmen invented writing, and they’re very fond of written records.

  One of the thousand-odd clerks working there – only one – was a Lystragonian, and how he came to end up working for the Imperial secretariat must be a fascinating story, though I’ve never been able to drag it out of him. But he and I were the only Robur-speakers, below senior administrative level, in the whole of that vast complex, so we’d got into the habit of talking to each other.

  The work ethic in the clerks’ office isn’t unbearably intense, so nobody minds if friends drop in and share a bowl of tea. My friend was happy to see me, since none of the Echmen clerks was prepared to talk to him. I told him about the amusing mix-up that nearly cost an innocent woman her life. Just to be on the safe side, I asked him could he possibly check the records and confirm that there was a Hus hostage on the books? Because if not, I’d just caused a monumental bog-up, and I’d need to explain myself to my ambassador before he heard all about it from the Echmen.