Iain Banks - Against a Dark Background

“There,” he sneered. “That should keep you on the right track, eh, my lady?”

She looked calmly at the heavy blue-black manacle and ran her fingers lightly over the rough links of her chain. “You know,” she said, dropping her voice and smiling at him, “some people pay good money for this sort of treatment.” She arched an eyebrow.

His eyes went wide; he clutched at each side of his cowl, pulling it down over his eyes, then with one skinny, shaking hand pointed to the far end of the long, dimly lit gallery. “Out! Get out of my sight! To the Hall Dolorous and much good may it do you!”

The Sea House was a prison without doors. It was a prison within and around all its other functions.

Everyone in the Sea House, from its most senior Abbots and Seigneurs to its most constrained and punished prisoners, was manacled and chained. Each chain ended in a miniature bogey; a set of four linked wheels which ran along flanged rails set into the stones of every corridor, room and external space. These tracks, usually sunk into walls, often embedded in floors, sometimes crossing ceilings, and occasionally supported on little gantries like banisters and rails-traversing large open spaces, constituted the skeleton of the chain system.

The deepest track was narrower than a finger; it connected the senior Brothers to the House by means of intricately jewelled movements and fine chains spun from a choice of precious metals, the exact element used indicating further subdivisions of rank.

The outermost track was used for visitors as well as lay and honoured prisoners; it held a heavy steel chassis attached to an iron chain made from links thicker than a thumb.

The tracks in between provided for two grades of less senior Brothers, the House novices and their servants. Prisoners subject to harsher regimes wore drag-chains attached to their ankles and running on other, still more secure tracks; the lowest of the low were simply chained to dungeon walls. Legend also had it that there were secret places-deep and ancient, or high and (by Sea House standards) relatively modern places-where the chain system did not run, and the Order’s senior officers led lives of unparalleled debauchery behind supposedly non-existent doors… but the Sea House, and the chain system itself, did not encourage the investigation of such rumours.

Sharrow’s chain-guide wheels clicked as she followed a dark corridor which memory told her ascended to the Great Hall.

She encountered one other person on the way; a servant carrying a bulging laundry bundle and heading towards her using the same wall track as she. He stopped by a passing-circuit in the wall, flicked his own chain-guide through a set of ceramic points into the higher of the two tracks and waited-foot tapping impatiently-until she was almost level with him, then as she ducked he swung his chain over her head, down onto the track’s main line, and continued on his way, muttering.

A grubby sock lay fallen on the floor of the corridor; she turned to say something to the monk, but he had already disappeared into the shadows.

The Hall Dolorous was vast, dark and unechoing. Its ceiling lost in darkness, its walls shrouded in great dull flags and faded banners which vanished into a hazy distance, the enormous space felt bitter cold and smelled of charnel smoke. Sharrow shivered and held her scented scarf up to her nose again as she crossed the Hall’s width, her chain clicking along the floor-track with a chittering sound like a monstrous insect.

Breyguhn sat in a high-backed stone chair at a massive granite table which looked capable of supporting a small house. A similar chair was stationed on the far side of the table from her, seven metres away. Above Breyguhn, a slab of crystal larger than the table loomed out of the shadows, hiding the Hall’s ceiling. The streaked, canted window shed a rheumy yellow light down onto the surface of the granite platform.

Breyguhn’s severe face looked even paler than Sharrow remembered; her hair was tightly bunned and she wore a loose, slate-grey shift made from some coarse, thick material.

Sharrow satin the vacant stone chair, legs dangling. Breyguhn’s dark eyes regarded her.

“Sharrow,” she said, her voice flat and faint, seemingly smothered by the pervasive silence of the Hall.

“Breyguhn,” Sharrow nodded. “How are you?”

“I am here.”

“Apart from that,” she said levelly.

“There is no apart from that.”

Breyguhn brought her hands up from her lap to lay her forearms on the cold polished surface of the table, palms up. “What is it you want again? I think they told me but I’ve forgotten.”

Breyguhn was two years younger than Sharrow. She was broader built and a little shorter, with eyes deep set in a face that had once given the impression of strength but now looked pinched and worn.

“I need to find Cenuij,” Sharrow told her. “And… you might be able to help me look for something; an Antiquity.”

“What do you want from Cenuij?” Breyguhn sounded wary.

“The Huhsz have been granted their Passports; they’re about to start hunting me. I need Cenuij on my side.”

Breyguhn sneered. “You’ll be lucky.”

“If he won’t come with me voluntarily, the Huhsz will force him to work with them. They’ll use him to find me.”

Breyguhn’s eyes went wide. “Maybe he’d like that.”

Sharrow shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not, but at the very least, I have to warn him that when the Huhsz find I’ve gone, they might come looking for him.” Sharrow nodded at Breyguhn. “You’re the only person who seems to know exactly where he is.”

Breyguhn shrugged. “I haven’t seen Cenuij for six years,” she said. “They don’t allow visits from loved ones here. They only allow visitors one doesn’t want to see; visitors guaranteed to torment one.” Her mouth twisted humourlessly.

“But you’re in contact with him,” Sharrow said. “He writes.”

Breyguhn smiled, as if with difficulty, out of practice. “Yes, he writes; real letters, on paper. So much more romantic…” Her grin broadened, and Sharrow felt her skin crawl. “They come from Lip City.”

“But does he live there?”

“Yes. I thought you knew.”

“Whereabouts in the city?”

“Isn’t he registered with City Hall?” Breyguhn smiled.

Sharrow frowned. “The place is a barrio, Brey; you know damn well. There are quarters that don’t even have electricity.”

Breyguhn’s smile was wintery. “And whose fault is that, Sharrow?”

“Just tell me where Cenuij is, Brey.”

Breyguhn shrugged. “I have no idea. I have to send my letters post restante.” She looked down at the table top. Her smile faded quickly. “He sounds lonely,” she said in a small voice. “I think he has other loves now, but he sounds lonely.”

“Isn’t there anything in any of his letters-”

Breyguhn looked up, gaze sharp. “Echo Street,” she said suddenly.

“Echo Street.”

“Don’t tell him I told you.”

“All right.”

Breyguhn shivered. She drew her arms off the surface of the granite table and let her hands fall to her lap again. She looked uncertain for a moment. “What else was there?”

“Information on an Antiquity.”

“Had you a particular one in mind?”

“The U.P.”

Breyguhn put her head back and laughed; a faint echo of the noise came back, seconds later, from overhead. She frowned and put one hand over her mouth. “Oh dear; I’ll pay for that later.” She squinted at Sharrow. “You want to go after the Universal Principles?”

“Yes.”

“Why,” Breyguhn said. “That’s the price the Brothers have set for my release; are you doing this for me, Sharrow?” she asked, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “How sweet.”