Against a Dark Background Read online

  The brother looked down, eyes wide.

  “Get…your…filthy…female foot out of my d—” he said, raising his gaze to find that he was looking down the barrel of a large hand gun. She pressed his nose with it. His eyes crossed, focusing on the stubby silencer.

  He swung the door open slowly, his chain rattling. “Come in,” he croaked.

  The silencer muzzle left a little white circle imprinted on the gray flesh at the tip of his nose.

  “But, sire! She threatened me!”

  “I’m sure. However, little brother, you are uninjured; a state subject to amendment, should you ever speak back to me like that again. You will take the Lady Sharrow’s weapon, issue a receipt, then escort our guest to the Chain Gallery and equip her with a visitor’s chain. At once.” The holo image of Seigneur Jalistre’s head, bright in the dim and musty gatekeeper’s cell, turned to her. The Seigneur’s broad, oiled face smiled thinly.

  “Lady Sharrow, your sister will receive you in the Hall Dolorous. She has been expecting you.”

  “ Half-sister. Thanks,” Sharrow said. The holo faded.

  She turned and handed her gun to the furiously scowling gatekeeper. He took it, dropped it in a drawer, scribbled quickly on a slip of plastic, threw it at her and whirled away. “This way, woman,” he snarled. “We’ll find you a nice heavy chain, I think. Oh yes.” He scuttled off, muttering; his own chain rattled along the wall-tracks to the doorway as she followed.

  The monk snapped the manacle over her right wrist and rattled the heavy iron chain vigorously, snapping it taut against the wall a few times, jerking her arm.

  “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 jeweled 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 honored 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 nonexistent doors…but the Sea House, and the chain system itself, did not encourage the investigation of such rumors.

  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 toward 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 meters 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-gray shift made from some coarse, thick material.

  Sharrow sat in 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 humorlessly.

  “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.”

  “It’s for both of us,” Sharrow said. She found herself dropping her voice even though she knew that it made no difference if the Sea House’s masters were listening in. “I need the bit of…incidental information, the directions the work is supposed to contain. Once I have that, I guarantee I’ll give the book to the Sad Brothers. You’ll be free to leave here.”

  Breyguhn put one hand fanned across her chest and fluttered her eyelids dramatically. “And why do you think I can help?” she asked, her voice artificially high.

  Sharrow gritted her teeth. “Because,” she said, “the last time I was here you told me they let you use the libraries. You thought you were on the trail at last. And—”

  “Yes.” Breyguhn’s eyes narrowed. “And I sent you,” she hissed, “a letter.” She glanced round then leaned closer. “I told you I had found the way,” she whispered. “The means to discover…that book.”

  Sharrow sighed. She remembered the letter from Breyguhn; handwritten, barely legible, confused and full of wild accusations, bizarre, rambling political tirades and screeds of incomprehensible pseudo-religious rantings. Breyguhn’s claim in the course of it that she knew how to find the lost book had been mentioned almost as an aside in the midst of a manically passionate attack on the legal-political system in general and the World Court in particular. Sharrow had dismissed it at the time as literally incredible. “Yes, Brey,” she said. “And I wrote back to tell you I wasn’t in the Antiquities business any more.”

  “But I told you only you could find it!” Breyguhn spat the words out.

  Sharrow nodded slowly, looking away. “Indeed you did.”

  “And you didn’t believe me.”

  Sharrow shrugged. “You were the one who thought the book was here.”

  “Maybe it is,” Breyguhn said, eyes narrowing. “Maybe they’re all here; the U.P., the Gnost, the Analysis of Major Journeys; all of them; every damn book Golter’s ever had and then lost in ten thousand years and more. They might all be here; a million Uniques, a million treasures, all buried here, lost, thrown away to rot on the dung-pile this place is.” She directed a small, thin smile at Sharrow. “I haven’t found them, but they might be here. Even the Brothers themselves don’t know. The House has secrets even they haven’t guessed at.”

  “I’m sure,” Sharrow said, tapping her fingers on the granite table. “Now—”

  Breyguhn’s eyes narrowed. “We both know what the book’s supposed to lead to; what are you going to do with that?”

  “Give it to the Huhsz,” Sharrow said. She gave a small laugh, glancing round the vast shadows around them. “We both have…eccentric cults to pay off.” She settled her gaze on Breyguhn again. “So. What have you got? What is it you know that—?”

  “Blood fealty,” Breyguhn said suddenly.

  Sharrow frowned. “What?”

  “Blood fealty,” Breyguhn repeated. “Grandfather’s inner circle of aides and servants were under genetic thrall to him; he’d had behavioral patterns programmed into them.”

  “I know; it was one of the reasons the World Court fell on him from the height it did.”

  “Huh,” Breyguhn sighed, eyes bright for a moment. “Yes; if he’d got to a couple of their judges, or Corp chief execs with that sort of power…” She shook her head.

  Sharrow sighed. “So it’s outlawed.”

  “Indeed. Outlawed.” Breyguhn nodded. “Complete embargo; even in a war they won’t release it.” She talked quickly now, words spilling over each other. “But the old raptor hid information that way.” Her eyes glittered. “When he knew those death-kites of the World Court were closing in on him, he had the most precious things hidden where only his descendants could find them! He did! He did it! I know; I’ve seen the records of the family laboratories; they’re here!”

  She sat forward in the great seat, resting her arms on the table surface. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “The Brothers scavenged much of what our grandfather built up, Sharrow; like filcher birds, on instinct. They don’t do anything with it, they don’t seem to care about the outside world; they just gather for gathering’s sake…but it’s been lying moldering here for fifty years and only my researches have unearthed it!”

  Sharrow leaned forward. “What?” she said, trying to remain calm.

  “The secret! All the secrets! All the things he’d found, all the Antiquities; ones he’d collected, ones he’d simply tracked down but not yet gathered to him! Locations programmed into his servants, to be played back by us!”

  Sharrow sat back. “You’re sure?”

  “Certain!” Breyguhn’s sallow, grimacing face was lowered almost to the surface of the table. Her hands were fists, beating the polished granite for emphasis, making her iron chain rattle and clink. “ ‘The female line’ can access these secrets,” she hissed.

  “That’s all I know, and I don’t know if it includes me; I was born after he was brought down, while he was awaiting trial, and he probably wasn’t able to issue the instructions to his clinicians, but you must have inherited the access genes from your mother…if they weren’t scrambled by all that radiation or your precious SNB.”

  Sharrow waved her hand, dismissing this. “Not a problem; but what do I have to do?”

  Breyguhn looked suddenly wary, sitting up and back and looking around quickly. “You promise you’ll turn the book over to the Brothers once you have what you want from it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You really promise? I’ll tell Cenuij you promised.”

  Sharrow raised one hand. “Look, I promise.”

  Breyguhn leaned forward, her chin touching the granite table, her eyes wide. “For the U.P.?” she whispered. “Bencil Dornay.”

  “What?” Sharrow said, hardly catching the name. “Tansil…?”

  “No! Not Tansil! A man; Bencil; Bencil Dornay, of Vernasayal.”

  “All right,” Sharrow said, nodding. “So do I just ask him, or what?”

  Breyguhn giggled suddenly and put her unmanacled hand over her mouth in an unsettlingly girlish gesture. “No, Sharrow,” she said, smirking. “No, you can’t just ask him.”

  “What then?”

  “You have to exchange body fluids.”

  “What?” Sharrow said, sitting back.

  Breyguhn giggled again, glancing round nervously as she did so. “Oh,” Breyguhn waved one hand, her smirk subsiding. “A kiss will do; though you’d have to bite him. Or scratch him with fresh saliva under your fingernail. Anything that draws blood; infects him.” She suppressed another giggle. “And I think the implication is you’re supposed to do it in public, to
o. Isn’t that too delicious?”

  Sharrow looked suspicious. “Are you serious?”

  Breyguhn shrugged, her eyes wide. “Perfectly; but then what have you got to lose, Sharrow? You used to love a bit of rough voyeurism with the servant classes, didn’t you?”

  “Hell yes; or their pets.”

  “Bencil Dornay,” Breyguhn hissed. “Don’t forget!”

  “I swear. On my much-donated honor.”

  “Sharrow! It’s not funny. Don’t you see what the world needs? Don’t you know what this family has been working toward for generations? What Gorko achieved; what Geis might, if he was given the space, the chance?”

  Sharrow closed her eyes.

  “You selfish clown, Sharrow! You can’t see it! You’re like all the others; ears on the grass, waiting harvest. How long must we go on like this? These eternal cycles; boom and slump, poverty and frivolity while the death-hand of the Corps and the Colleges and Churches and Court turns the handle; what’s the point? Stagnation! Meaninglessness!” Breyguhn shouted. “Our destiny is beyond! We need Antiquities; as banners, as rallying points, as bribes if need be; weapons if that’s what they are! Break out of the cycle! We need soldiers, not lawyers! One strong man or strong woman with the will, not pandering to the lowest common denominator with endless petty compromises!”

  “Breyguhn…” Sharrow said, opening her eyes and feeling suddenly very tired.

  “How long have we had space travel?” Breyguhn shouted, smacking her fist into the table surface; the chain whipped down, scattering chips of granite. Breyguhn didn’t seem to notice. “Seven thousand years! Seven thousand years!” she roared, standing, throwing her arms wide, voice echoing from above. Sharrow heard a bell ringing somewhere.

  “Seventy centuries, Sharrow! Seven millennia of footling about in the one miserable system, crawling from rock to rock, losing the gift twice and after all this time half of what we once achieved is like magic to us now!”

  Flecks of spittle made little arcs in the air from Breyguhn’s lips; they shone in the thin yellow light then fell to spot the broad surface of the huge table. “Evolution has stopped! The weak and the halt breed, diluting the species; they drag us all down into the mire; we must cut ourselves free!”