Against a Dark Background

by Iain M. Banks

  “But it is God’s book, Your Majesty!” the skinny monk whined, jaw trembling as his thin hands struggled to open the book’s jeweled metal casing.

  “God’s book?” the King bellowed, standing up in the Stom Throne. This was…what was it called? Sacrilege! The great throne swung to and fro while the King glared down at the hapless monk. “Did you say God’s book?” he shouted. He raised his hand, to order the heretical…heretic be taken away.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” the monk said, suddenly pulling the book apart, pages riffling. “Because it is blank!”

  He held the book up before him like a shield, face turned away from the King’s wrath, while the flittering white pages fell fanning apart.

  The King glanced round at his courtiers. They looked surprised and angry. He was aware that he was standing up in the swinging throne, in a position that might make a lesser man look a fool.

  He thought quickly. Then he realized that it was quite funny. He started to laugh. He sat down in his throne, laughing, and looked round his courtiers, until they started to laugh too.

  “What, good monk? Are they all blank?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty!” the skinny monk said, gulping, laying the first book down and taking up the next from the second clerk. “See!” He put that one down, lifted the next and the next and the last. “See, Your Majesty! See, see; all blank! And look; the pages themselves are too slick and shiny to be written upon; no ink-pen will write, and even lasers will simply reflect. They cannot even be used as blank notebooks. They are truly Useless books!”

  “What?” shouted the King. He put his head back and roared with laughter. “Useless!” he shouted, lying back in the Stom Throne and laughing so much that his sides ached. “Useless!”

  He laughed until he started to cough. He waved away a courtier holding a glass of wine and sat forward in the throne, smiling kindly down at the monk.

  “You are a good fellow, little monk, and a credit to your Order. You may stay as Our guest, and we shall have more to say to each other.” Intensely pleased at having successfully completed such an elegant speech, the King snapped his fingers at a secretary, who scurried forward, pen and pad at the ready, his head bowed. “See Our little monk is made welcome,” the King told him. “Find good apartments for him.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  The secretary led the relieved monk away. The King inspected the shiny-paged books. He chuckled, and ordered them to be put with the smaller Useless items in the castle’s trophy gallery.

  * * *

  “Shit,” said Cenuij, sitting on the bed in Miz and Dloan’s room, staring at the little stick-on screen Miz had unrolled onto the covers. It showed a ghostly view of a glass display-cabinet containing a collection of old-fashioned electrical goods.

  “Looks like a shop-window display from a historical drama,” Miz said. He rotated the nightsight view the fake jewel on the cover of the book was seeing, but all it showed was more useless kitchen hardware.

  “Safe to broadcast this?” Dloan said, peering at the screen.

  Miz shrugged. “It’s pseudo-directional after the initiating squirt and the transmitter’s freq-hopping. I doubt they have stuff to pick this up, even if they’re not quite as low-tech as they pretend to be.”

  “I trust this works on the same principle,” Cenuij said, holding up the miniature book on the thong round his neck. Beneath the rags he’d worn to make his way to The Broken Neck, he wore the plain black habit he’d dressed in since they’d entered the Kingdom.

  “Yeah,” Miz said, “but don’t use it except in an emergency, just in case.” He tried the sonic display from another jewel set into the cover of the bugged book in the castle, but all it showed in the screen was a mono holo of the interior of a small display-case. The last fake jewel, an electrical field sensor, registered nothing, not even any activity in the electrical gear around it. Obviously any back-up power-sources they’d ever had had run out long ago.

  “Nothing,” Miz said, clicking the screen off.

  “I thought he’d put them in with the one other book he had,” Cenuij admitted. He shrugged. “Oh well, they got me into the castle. And His Majesty’s confidence.”

  “Fun in there?” Zefla asked, pouring herself and the others a drink.

  Cenuij waved one arm. “Stacked to the rafters with treasure, trash, petty jealousies, pathetic plots, superstition and suspicion,” he said.

  “You must feel at home, Cenuij,” Sharrow said.

  “Absolutely,” he agreed. “I’m not missing you at all.”

  “Had a chance to look for the book yet?” Miz asked.

  “Give me time,” Cenuij said, annoyed. “I’ve only been there two days; it’s a little early to start inquiring about the castle treasures. So far I’ve met the King once, the Queen and a couple of extremely unpleasant children far too often already, and I’ve had to hang out with a bunch of vapidly vicious courtiers and cretinously religious functionaries. The unholy life in Pharpech appears to consist largely of rising at an extremely early hour and chanting curses to God in drafty chapels between profoundly uninspiring meals and bouts of gossip whose mind-boggling pettiness is rivaled only by its poisonous malevolence.

  “So far all I’ve discovered about the castle vaults is their approximate location. I suspect they’re higher-tech than the rest of this squalid retro theme-park, but I don’t know any more yet.” Cenuij drank quickly from his wine-mug. “So, what have you tourists been up to, while I’ve been infiltrating the very heart of the Kingdom and winning the confidence of its most powerful inhabitant, at no small risk to myself?”

  “Oh, just farting around.” Miz grinned.

  “We checked the weapons and stuff,” Dloan said.

  “We burned the extra hollow pages from the Useless books,” Zefla said, “eventually.”

  “Miz has identified the place the local criminal fraternity while away those long hours between acts of villainy,” Sharrow said. “Dloan is planning a journey into the deep country to make contact with the rebels, and Zefla and I are making discreet inquiries about the various artisan, merchant-class and women’s rights reform movements.”

  “Oh well, at least you’re keeping yourselves busy,” Cenuij said. He smiled.

  “It passes the time while you’re doing all the work, Cenny,” Sharrow told him.

  The cathedral clock chimed flatly in the distance. Cenuij drained his wine-mug. “Quite. Well, that’s the hour for evensong; time to go and sing God’s hatreds. I’d better get back and carry on doing all that work, hadn’t I?” He handed Sharrow the mug. “Thanks for the wine.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  The thief swung into the booth, through the floor-length dirty curtains and down onto the trestle bench across from Miz. The noise of the smoky inn abated only slightly as the heavy curtains swung back. A couple of yellow-glowing candles, one on each of the narrow booth’s side walls, flickered in the draft.

  The thief was small for a Miykennsian. Dressed in dark, undistinguished clothes, he had a beard, several facial scars on his pale skin, and greasy hair. His nose was wide, the nostrils flared above lips set in a sneer. His eyes were deep-set, hidden.

  “You wanted to see me, Golter-man?” His voice was quiet and hoarse, but there was a strange smoothness about it that reminded Miz of a razor applied to flesh; the way it slipped in, without pain at first, almost unnoticed.

  Miz sat back, holding his tankard of mullbeer. “Yes,” he said. He nodded at the table. “Would you like a drink?”

  The thief’s lips briefly shaped themselves into a smile. “I’ve one coming; why don’t you pay for it?”

  “All right.” Miz sipped at his drink, saw the thief watching him with his contemptuous sneer, then opened his throat and sank about half the beer and set the tankard down with a thump on the rough wooden table. He wiped his lips with his sleeve for good measure.

  The man sitting on the other side of the table didn’t look impressed. The curtain opened be
hind him; he turned and grabbed the wrist of the serving girl who came through, grinning at her as she put the bottle and cup down on the table. She smiled nervously back.

  The thief turned to Miz. “Well, pay the girl.”

  Miz dug into the pocket of his jerkin and handed the girl some coins. She gaped at what he’d given her, then tried to close her hand and turn quickly away.

  The thief still held her wrist; he yanked her so that she fell back against the table. She gave a small cry of pain. The thief prized open her fingers and lifted out the money Miz had given her. He looked at the coins and seemed surprised. He took two of them, reached up and slipped them both down the girl’s bodice, then pushed her upright and slapped her behind as he propelled her out of the booth. He bit on a coin then put it and the rest away in his dark tunic.

  “You over-tipped,” he said, breaking the seal on the bottle and pouring some of the trax spirit into the little bark cup.

  “Yeah,” Miz said. “What with that and this old-fashioned courtesy displayed to women-folk, I’m finding it really hard to fit in here.”

  The thief drank from the cup, watching Miz over the rim. His throat moved as he swallowed. He refilled the cup. “I heard Golter men hand their women their cocks to keep when they take up with them.”

  “Only the lucky ones,” Miz said. The thief looked levelly at him. Miz shrugged, spread his hands. “You didn’t hear where they keep them.”

  The thief drank the second cup of trax, then flicked the last of the spirit out onto the rough table top. He spat into the little cup, wiped round the bowl with the hem of his hide waistcoat, then leaned across the table to Miz, holding up the cup in his hands as though it was some jewel. “Drink?” he said, putting his other hand on the bottle.

  Miz shoved the tankard over to the other man, took the bark cup and let the other man fill it. Miz knocked the trax back in one go. It was rough; he tried not to cough. The thief drained the tankard, then leaned back, stuck his head out through the curtain and shouted something.

  The serving girl came back through the curtain with another cup and two tankards full of beer. She looked at the thief, who looked at Miz.

  Miz said, “Oh, no, please, allow me,” and dug for more coins in his jerkin.

  He paid the girl roughly what the thief had let her keep the last time. She still looked pleased.

  “So,” said the thief. “What was it you wanted?”

  Miz supped his beer. “I might be interested in exporting some ethnic artifacts,” he said.

  “Apply to the castle,” the thief told him.

  Miz shrugged. “The ethnic artifacts I’m interested in…” Miz put his head to one side, looking up at the ceiling beyond the open-roofed booth, “. . . aren’t actually for sale. But I’d pay a good price to somebody who might help me come into possession of them.”

  The thief swirled his beer round in his tankard. “What things are you talking about? Where are they?”

  “Could be almost anything,” Miz said. “Some of them…” He imitated the thief, swirling his beer around in his tankard, “. . . might be in the castle.”

  The thief looked into his eyes. “The castle?” he said, flatly.

  Miz nodded. “Yes. How practical do you think it might be to have something from the castle fall into one’s hands?”

  The thief nodded, seeming to look away. He stood slowly, holding the tankard. “Wait here,” he said. “I have somebody who might be able to help you.” He backed out of the booth through the dull, heavy curtains.

  Miz sat alone for a moment. He drank his beer. He looked round the grubby booth. The place reeked of sweat, spilled drink, possibly spilled blood, and something Miz suspected was beer gone badly off. The Eye and Poker; he’d heard more inspiring names for inns. This one was in the less reputable part of Pharpech town, down the steep side of the hill from the castle and out to the east in an area of creakily tumbledown tenements that housed stinking tanneries and bonemeal works. Even with a gun in his pocket and a viblade in his boot he’d felt vulnerable walking in here.

  He looked up at the top edge of the booth wall, a meter above his head and a meter below the yellow-stained ceiling of the bar. He was sure he could see little brown stalactites on the ceiling.

  He turned his attention to the bark wall behind him. Now he looked carefully, there was a distinct line of greasy blackness at about scalp height, where countless unwashed heads of probably inhabited hair had left their mark over the years. Miz tutted, disgusted, and felt the back of his head. He altered his position in the seat, lifting his feet up and sitting sideways on the bench, his head against the side wall of the booth.

  The noise from the bar seemed to have faded. He turned his head, frowning.

  The heavy curtains jerked. Three crossbow bolts thudded into the bark at the back of the booth, neatly into the lower part of the greasy line he’d looked at a few seconds earlier, where his head had been.

  He stared at them. Then he pulled his gun from his pocket and pushed the beer tankard over so that it spilled beer across the table and down spattering onto the stained floor; the puddle spread to the hem of the booth’s curtains, where it would be visible from the bar outside.

  Miz got up on his knees and swung quickly and silently across to the trestle bench on the other side of the table. He sat on the table, feet on the bench, to one side of the booth. It was still very quiet outside; just a few whispers and the noise of a chair or two being scraped across uneven floorboards. There were three little tears in the heavy curtains where the quarrels had entered. The holes let in tiny beams of smoky light.

  He waited, gun ready, heart pounding.

  The curtain moved millimetrically; the light from one of the three holes blinked out.

  He thrust an arm through the divide in the curtains and grabbed the man outside by the neck as he threw himself forward and out. He landed crouching, his back to the narrow bark divide between two booths, his arm tight round the neck of the man he’d grabbed, who thudded sitting onto the floor. It was the thief he’d first spoken to; Miz rammed his gun in just under the man’s right ear.

  The bar had cleared almost entirely; only a haze of smoke and a few unfinished drinks on the tables showed that the place had been packed a few minutes earlier. Standing with their backs to the bar itself were three men holding crossbows. One of them had reloaded, one was about to fit the bolt into its groove, and the other had frozen in the act of pulling the crossbow taut again.

  The one with the loaded crossbow was pointing it at him. Miz forced the thief’s head to one side with the barrel of the laser. The thief smelled rancid; he struggled a little but Miz pulled his arm tighter round his neck, never taking his eyes off the man with the crossbow. The thief went still. He wheezed as he breathed.

  There were a couple of other men still in the bar, near the doorway; they both held heavy-looking pistols, but they seemed to be backing off toward the doors. Miz was more worried about the booth next to his. He thought he glimpsed its curtain move out of the corner of his eye. He shifted across the floor so that his back was to the curtains of the booth he’d been in.

  “Now, boys,” Miz said, grinning at the man with the crossbow. “Let’s just take this sensibly and nobody’ll get hurt.” He stood up slowly, keeping the thief between himself and the three men with the crossbows. “What do you say?”

  Nobody said anything. The thief in his arm went on wheezing. Miz could feel the man trying to swallow. He loosened his grip just a little. “Perhaps our friend here has something he’d like to contribute.”

  The two men near the doors slipped outside. Miz prodded the thief with the gun again. “Say something calming.”

  “Let him go,” gasped the thief. Still no reaction.

  These bozos are waiting on something, Miz thought. He heard a noise somewhere behind him in the booth. They’d gone over the top! There was a squelching noise from the floor behind him. He whirled round, taking the thief with him. A long thin blade flashed o
ut of the curtains and thudded into the thief’s torso just under the sternum, the glistening point appearing out of his back through the hide of his tunic. He made a grunting noise.

  Miz had already ducked, dropping and turning. The crossbow bolt smacked into the back of the thief’s skull, sending his body jackknifing forward through the curtains and into the man holding the knife, forcing him to fall backward over the table.

  Miz’s gun made a crackling, spitting noise. The man who’d fired the crossbow shook as the beams hit his chest, flames licking round the edges of the little craters on his jacket. He dropped the crossbow and hung his head. He stood like that for a moment, while Miz moved away from the booth where the man with the knife was still trying to extricate himself from the curtains and the body of the thief. Then the crossbow man fell slowly back, whacking his head off the bar and crumpling to the floor. Blood sizzled against the flames flickering on his jacket.

  The other two crossbow men looked at each other. The one who had now loaded his quarrel smiled nervously at Miz. He nodded at Miz’s gun, swallowing.

  “We didn’t realize you was from the castle,” he said, and very carefully took the quarrel back out of its groove. The other man released the tension in his bow and let it fall to the ground. They both glanced at the dead man lying on the floor.

  The man in the booth got the thief’s body off him and from behind the curtains shouted, “Me neither, sire!” A terrified bearded face poked slowly from behind the booth’s curtains.

  Miz looked warily around. He smiled insincerely at the two crossbow men and the knife-wielder. “Boys, you’re going to see me out of this rather rough neighborhood.” He glanced at the man in the booth. “You go to the front door and get the heroes out there to give you their guns.”

  The bearded man gulped. He came out from behind the curtains, leaving the thief’s body lying half in and half out of the booth. He walked to the door. He opened it gently and called out. There was some conversation, which became heated, and then the sound of running footsteps. The bearded man smiled at Miz in a sickly fashion. “They ran away, sire,” he said.