Against A Dark Background (69 page)

They walked unhindered through the midst of the chained. Nobody followed them. Feril carried the moaning man. She limped in front, following his whispered directions.

They took a creakingly ancient lift, descending into the bowels of the House down a circular shaft.

He watched the scene at the gatehouse on the monitor. Armed monks swarmed over the wreckage and ran along the walls. Ancient weapons were hauled out from under tarpaulins inside longneglected towers; geriatric tanks were trundled out of storage and hauled into positions where their rusty cannons could cover the breach.

He shook his head. He ought to have attended to this. He had been foolish to rely so much - as they had - on the reputation of the place keeping people away.

He checked the bank of broadcast and subscription-beamed monitors again. Most stations local to southern Caltasp were blanked out. The rest of Golter was reporting on the small war that had broken out with the Rebel States. The Court was keeping a surprisingly firm grip on the relevant facts. His own information was that the war had already gone tactically nuclear, and larger weapons couldn’t be ruled out. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it was depressing and elating at the same time; another pointless war, another increase in Golter’s lamentably high background radiation level and yet more destruction . . . But this might be the beginning of the end for the World Court. The time might be coming.

He looked at the House monitor screens.-They really ought to have proper security surveillance. There wasn’t even any surviving record of exactly what had happened at the gate; the recording apparatus had been sited in the gatehouse itself.

The chamber’s rear-interior door chimed. He checked the monitor.

It was that fool Chrolleser . . . He started to look away .

1. 1. 1. and Sharrow.
         

He looked back, stunned.

Chrolleser looked feverish and sweaty; he held the HandCannon he’d asked to keep after the fiasco in the Keep. It was pointed at Sharrow’s head.

Sir!’ he gulped.
Sir; look! I have her! And she has brought the Gun!’

He closed his mouth; it must have fallen open. He pulled the monitor view back. The two were alone in the long corridor that led back to the old elevator shaft. The Gun was strapped to Sharrow’s side. Her eyes looked old and defeated, her face grey and wan. So that was who had wrecked the door! He should have guessed.

`Come in!’ he yelled, punching the door button. He buzzed the Restricted Library, switched the desk camera on and directed the transmission to the Library, then jumped up from his seat and ran across the chamber, up the flight of stone steps and along the balcony to the opening door.

He skidded to a stop in front of it as Sharrow clicked a magazine back into place in the stock of the HandCannon, cocked the gun and pointed it at a spot between his eyes.

Behind her Chrolleser seemed to have fainted, head lolling to one side, even though he was still standing up. Then something moved underneath his bulky habit and he bent forward. The actor collapsed to the floor, moaning; the android the team had taken with them from Vembyr slid out from under the back of Chrolleser’s habit, holding a laser rifle.

He was aware that his mouth had opened again. He stared from Sharrow to Chrolleser to the android, then back to Sharrow again.

She smiled. `Hello, Geis,’ she said. The HandCannon in her bandaged hand barely wavered as she punched him in the jaw with her other fist.

‘No! No, Sharrow! You’ve got the whole thing wrong! I captured Molgarin. He’s my prisoner. Look, I’m just glad you’re safe!’ He laughed. `That’s quite a right jab you have there, but come on, this is ridiculous. Sharrow. Untie me.’

The chamber was big, irregularly shaped on several levels and tall-ceilinged. It was so packed with treasures that it looked like nothing more than a giant junk shop. Geis sat tied to one seat, Molgarin or Chrolleser or whatever his name was to another. The android stood in front of them, the laser rifle in its hand.

Geis had bled a little from one side of his mouth. He worked his chin now and again as he talked to her. The other man was mumbling, barely conscious.

Sharrow walked round the big stone table that dominated the chamber’s central area and on which she had deposited the Lazy Gun. The enormous table was loaded to overflowing with a whole trove of treasures; the less valuable items were not quite priceless.

She looked up from the casing of the Universal Principles to a rack of weapons she recognised from the undercroft of the tower in the fjord. A system of pulleys kept a load of jewel-encrusted harnesses suspended over the table. The harnesses looked about the right size for bandamyions. On the wall behind were a couple of giant diamond leaf ikons from the time of the Lizard Court. They were each the size of a house and she had read about them in school; they had been missing for three thousand years. There was a small door underneath the two ikons with wall tracks leading from it; the chain system extended even to here.

She drew her hand over the ceramic cover of a book probably old enough to have predated the first millennium, and looked round the chamber again, rubbing her fingers together. She thought she recognised some of the more classical treasures from the old gold mine store, deep under the Blue Hills in Piphram.

`You’ve always liked a clutter, haven’t you, Geis?’

Sharrow, please,’ Geis said.
You’re making a terrible mistake here.’

She turned and frowned at him.
Good grief,’ she said.
Do people actually say that? Well, well.’

She opened the case of the Universal Principles. The Crownstar Addendum lay inside, draped over what looked like a piece of cut glass the size and approximate shape of a crown.

`What’s this?’ she said, hauling the heavy, thickly glittering ring out. There was some sort of writing engraved round the rim; she didn’t recognise the alphabet.

That,’ Geis said,
is the Crownstar.’

`This lump of glass?’ She didn’t try to disguise the disappointment in her voice. The so-called Crownstar’s prongs were cut off-set, like a series of sharp, canted escarpments.

It’s not glass,’ Geis said, sighing.
It’s diamond. A single, pure flawless diamond. Be careful with it.’

Uh-huh,’ she said sceptically.
Feril?’

The android looked at the torus in her hands.

`It is a diamond,’ it said.

See?’ Geis said to her, smiling.
The Crownstar.’

Well,’ Feril said with a hint of apology in its voice,
it might be that, too, but originally it was part of a triple-filament deep-crust drillbit.’

`What?’ Geis said, looking at the android as though it was mad.

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 tray 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 genelock. 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.