Iain Banks - Against a Dark Background

“Fourth millennium,” Feril said. “They lost one drill at ninety kilometres under the Blaist mountains and the replacement was never used. That must be part of the back-up head.”

“What about the inscription?” Geis protested. “The runes?”

“Serial numbers,” Feril said.

“Rubbish!” Geis said. He looked furious, but didn’t take the argument any further. Molgarin/Chrolleser groaned in the seat alongside: Geis glared at him. “Oh, shut up!”

Sharrow put the Crownstar back in the casing with the Addendum and closed the cover.

She paced on round the table. She drew an ornamented, jewelstudded sword from an equally impractical-looking scabbard. The sword’s edges were thick and flat. She shook her head and slid the sword back into its sheath.

“What exactly is this place, Geis?” she asked as she continued to look around. “Some sort of den?”

“Breyguhn found it,” Geis said with a tired air, “when she came in here looking for the Universal Principles. After the Sad Brothers refused to ransom her, I meant to use this place to provide apartments for her, even though they insisted she still had to be chained. Later they went back even on that concession, but by that time I was looking for somewhere secure and I came to an arrangement with the Sad Brothers.”

“And where is Brey?” Sharrow asked.

Geis glanced over at the screens on the wall. “Now? Probably having to listen to Tidesong; then they let her eat with the other prisoners.”

Sharrow looked around the tall, shadowy spaces of the chamber. “And you were going to give all this to Brey, were you?”

“Yes,” Geis said. “Because she’s family, Sharrow. The way you’re family.”

“Right. And of course you’d never dream of doing anything horrid to me, would you?”

“Sharrow,” Geis said. “I’ve been trying to help you from the beginning; I have been helping you from the beginning. I tried to rescue you from this… monster, at his Keep.” Geis nodded at the man tied to the other seat. “It wasn’t my fault the Huhsz attacked at the same time. I’d no idea they were there.” Geis sounded bitter. “Some of my forces did get in and found this material here; they managed to retrieve it and bring it to me. Brave men died to rescue this collection, Sharrow. You shouldn’t make fun of it.”

“Geis,” she said, not looking at him, “you’ve had minutes to think up a better excuse than that. I’m disappointed.”

Geis closed his eyes for a moment. “You, whatever your name is,” he said wearily to Feril. “You must be capable of reason. Please try to talk some sense into my cousin.”

“I am afraid that as far as I understand them, I believe Lady Sharrow’s suspicions may well be justified, Count Geis,” Feril said regretfully.

“You fucking piece of junk,” Geis roared, shaking the chair he was tied to. “Untie me!”

Geis was breathing hard and looked flushed. He had been wearing trous and a slim-fitting tunic-top over a white shirt; Sharrow had torn the shirt into strips to tie him and Molgarin/ Chrolleser up with. She hadn’t bothered to put his tunic-top back on and he looked pathetic and vulnerable, stripped to the waist. She frowned at his midriff.

“Geis,” she said. “Is that the start of a paunch?”

“Sharrow!” Geis shouted, sucking his belly in. “Stop this nonsense! Let me go!”

“Maybe,” she said. “Once you’ve given me the key to the Lazy Gun.”

“I don’t have the key,” he said. “I do have clinics… which could perhaps help rid you of that awful thing in your skull which-”

“You don’t have the key,” Sharrow said, “but you do have clinics where they might be able to crack the lock’s genetic code and manufacture a key, yes, Geis?” she said, smiling. “Except you’re not supposed to know what sort of key is on the lock. Though, actually you might; old Molgarin here might have told you it was a gene-lock. There was no need to cover up there, but you did.” She shook her head. “You’re slipping badly, Geis.” She looked disapproving. “I have to say I think you’re letting the whole family down here.”

“Sharrow-” Geis said evenly.

“Oh, Geis, just admit it. You’ve been following in old Gorko’s footsteps, collecting all the things he tried to collect, trying to complete his work and somehow-I don’t know what your absurd scheme actually is-at least weaken the World Court, even if you can’t actually destroy it.” She looked at the bank of screens which filled one alcoved wall of the chamber. “Oh; how is our latest war going?” she asked. “Does it fit in with your plans, or not?”

“Sharrow,” Geis said again, struggling to control his voice. “I know you’ve been through a tough time recently-”

(She grimaced and shook her head and made a well-not-really motion with one hand.)

“- but you really are being quite thoroughly paranoid!”

“What a wonderful idea it must have seerned,” she said, ignoring him and crossing her arms as she sat up on the big stone table. “Doing that old Mind Bomb trick again. You know; the one old Ethce Lebmellin did for you, where one signal turns everybody’s guns off. But this time doing it with an entire fortress, and it meant your boys-well, not your boys, because you couldn’t risk your own people being caught, but the people you could use who nobody knew were yours; the Sad Brothers-they could come in like knights of old; with bandamyions! And swords! And flowing capes!”

She clapped her hands. “You’d get it all, wouldn’t you, Geis? Miz dead; taunted and played with for months using all that nonsense about the sial races in Tile so everybody thought he was being paranoid, and then finally killing him off with the paranoia made real! My, you must have been creaming your pants when you thought that one up. And you’d have all the things we looked for, all the things you wanted but couldn’t be seen to go for yourself, and you set up this dummy-” she nodded at Molgarin/Chrolleser, “- to be fall-guy, so you could blame it all on him. No doubt you told him he’d get away, but would he? Would he always be out there so you had something to keep me safe from, or were you going to run him through with your mighty broadsword, just for me?”

Geis stared at her, appalled.

“And I was supposed to feel so fucking grateful, wasn’t I, Geis?-” she said, shaking her head. “I was meant to fall into your arms. Or am I flattering myself?” She looked puzzled. “Was that part of the deal or not?”

“I loved you, Sharrow,” Geis said, sounding more sad than anything else. “I still love you. Just let me out of this and I’ll prove it all. I do love you, and I do love this family and our race-Oh, smile your cynical smile if you want, Sharrow, but I mean it. Everything I’ve had to do has been done for love.”

Feril turned to her then and said, “I think somebody is coming.” It nodded at the low door set underneath the two giant diamond leaf ikons.

Sharrow turned to face the door and pointed the gun at it. She heard the chink-chink noise of a chain and guessed who it might be.

The door opened and Breyguhn entered. She was dressed as Sharrow remembered, in a plain, grey shift, though the gown was dirtier than it had been. Her eyes looked wild; when she gazed at Sharrow, then at the android, then at Ceis, it was with a strange blankness. She carried a pile of books awkwardly in her arms. Her right hand was still joined to the track in the wall via a manacle and chain, but it was steel now rather than iron.

Sharrow let her gun down. “Hello again,” she said. “Feril; this is my half-sister, Breyguhn.”

Feril turned and bowed slightly.