Xide Hyrlis was a tall man by the standards of the dwarfish people hereabouts, though he was still shorter than Ferbin or Holse. He was dense-seeming somehow, and dark, with a broad face, a large mouth with teeth that were both too few and too wide, and bright, piercingly blue-purple eyes. His eyes had always fascinated Ferbin as a child; they had an extra, transparent membrane that swept across them, meaning that he never had to blink, never needed to stop seeing the world, however briefly, from the moment he woke to the moment he slept (and he did little enough of that). His hair was black and long and kept in a tidy ponytail. He had a lot of facial hair, neatly trimmed. He wore a better-cut version of the grey uniform worn by most of the people they’d seen so far.
“Xide Hyrlis,” Ferbin said, nodding. “It is good to see you again. I am Prince Ferbin, son of King Hausk.”
“Good to see you again, prince,” Hyrlis said. He looked to one side and seemed to address somebody they could not see. “The son of my old friend King Hausk of the Sarl, of the Eighth, Sursamen.” Hyrlis returned his attention to Ferbin and said, “You are much grown, prince. How are things on the Eighth?” Holse glanced at Ferbin, who was staring straight at Hyrlis. “Ferbin was a hip-high child, last time I saw him,” Hyrlis added to whatever imaginary being was at his side. There really was nobody else anywhere near them, and nothing obvious that he could be addressing.
“I have much to tell you, Hyrlis,” Ferbin said, “little of it good. But first, tell me how I ought to address you. What rank do you hold?”
Hyrlis smiled. He glanced to one side. “A good question, don’t you think?” He looked at Ferbin. “Adviser, you might say. Or Supreme Commander. It’s so hard to know.”
“Choose one, sir,” Holse suggested. “There’s a good gent.”
“Allow me,” Ferbin said coldly, as he looked at Holse, who was smiling innocently, “to present my servant, Choubris Holse.”
“Mr Holse,” Hyrlis said, nodding.
“Sir.”
“And sir will do,” Hyrlis said thoughtfully. “It’s what everybody else calls me.” He caught some sudden tension from Ferbin. “Prince, I know you’ll only ever have called your father ‘sir’ since your majority; however, humour me in this. I am a king of sorts in these parts and command more power than ever your father did.” He grinned. “Unless he’s taken over the whole Shellworld, eh?” He turned his head again, “For yes, such Sursamen is, those of you slow to reference,” he said to his unseen companion as Ferbin — still, Holse thought, looking a little glassy-eyed — said, “As I say, sir, I have much to relate.”
Hyrlis nodded at the bodies bobbing gently in the tanks behind them. “Captured enemy,” he said. “Being kept alive, partially repaired. We wash clear their minds and they become our spies, or assassins, or human bombs, or vectors of disease. Come. We’ll find you a place to flop. And better clothes. You look like twig insects in those.”
They followed him to one of the open-sided runabouts, and as they did, dark figures left various shadows all about them, dissociating from the darkness like parts of it; humans in some near-black dark camouflage suits and armed with ugly-looking guns. Ferbin and Holse both jerked to a stop as they saw the four shadowy figures closing swiftly, silently in on them but Hyrlis, without even looking round, just waved one hand as he took the driving seat of the little wheeled vehicle and said, “My guard. Don’t worry. Jump on.”
Once he knew the dark figures were no threat, Ferbin was quite pleased to see them. Hyrlis must have been talking to them for some reason. That was a relief.
Xide Hyrlis kept a very fine table beneath the kilometres of mountain rock. The chamber was dome-shaped, the servants — young men and girls — glided silently. The stone table they sat around was loaded with highly colourful and exotic foodstuffs and a bewildering variety of bottles. The food was entirely delicious, for all its alien nature, and the drink copious. Ferbin waited until they had finished eating before telling his story.
Hyrlis heard Ferbin out, asking one or two questions along the way. At the end he nodded. “You have my sincere sympathies, prince. I am even sorrier at the manner of your father’s passing than at the fact of it. Nerieth was a warrior and both expected and deserved a warrior’s death. What you’ve described is a murder both cowardly and cruel.”
“Thank you, Hyrlis,” Ferbin said. He looked down, sniffing loudly.
Hyrlis did not seem to notice. He was staring at his wine glass. “I remember tyl Loesp,” he said. He was silent for some moments, then shook his head. “If he harboured such treachery then, he fooled me too.” He looked to one side again. “And do you watch there?” he asked quietly. This time there was definitely nobody present for him to be talking to; the four darkly camouflaged guards had been dismissed when they’d entered Hyrlis’ private quarters and the servants had, just minutes earlier, been told to stay outside the dining chamber until summoned. “Is that part of the entertainment?” Hyrlis said in the same quiet voice. “Is the King’s murder recorded?” He looked back to Ferbin and Holse. Choubris tried to exchange looks with Ferbin, but the other man was staring glassy-eyed at their host again.
Holse wasn’t having it. “Excuse me, sir,” he said to Hyrlis.
From the corner of his eye he could see Ferbin trying to attract his attention. Well, the hell with it. “Might I ask who you’re talking to when you do that?”
“Holse!” Ferbin hissed. He smiled insincerely at Hyrlis. “My servant is impertinent, sir.”
“No, he is inquisitive, prince,” Hyrlis said with a small smile. “In a sense, Holse, I do not know,” he said gently. “And it is just possible that I am addressing nobody at all. However, I strongly suspect that I am talking to quite a number of people.”
Holse frowned. He looked hard in the direction Hyrlis had directed his latest aside.
Hyrlis smiled and waved one hand through the air, as though dispelling smoke. “They are not physically present, Holse. They are — or, I suppose I must allow — they might be watching at a very considerable remove, via spybots, edust, nanoware — whatever you want to call it.”
“I might call it any or all, sir, I’m none the wiser at those words.”
“Holse, if you can’t conduct yourself like a gentleman,” Ferbin said firmly, “you’ll eat with the other servants.” Ferbin looked at Hyrlis. “I may have been too indulgent with him, sir. I apologise on his behalf and my own.”
“No apology required, prince,” Hyrlis said smoothly. “And this is my table, not yours. I’d have Holse here for what you call his impertinence in any event. I am surrounded by too many people unwilling to call me on anything at all; a dissident voice is welcome.”
Ferbin sat back, insulted.
“I believe that I am watched, Holse,” Hyrlis said, “by devices too small to be seen with the human eye, even ones like mine, which are quite keen, if not as keen as they once were.”
“Enemy spies, sir?” Holse asked. He glanced at Ferbin, who looked away ostentatiously.
“No, Holse,” Hyrlis said. “Spies sent by my own people.”
Holse nodded, though with a deep frown.
Hyrlis looked at Ferbin. “Prince, your own matter is of course of far greater importance; however, I think I ought to digress a little here, to explain myself and my situation.”
Ferbin gave a curt nod.
“When I was… with you, amongst you, on the Eighth — advising your father, Ferbin…” Hyrlis said, glancing to the prince but generally addressing both men, “I was employed — at the behest of the Nariscene — by the Culture, the mongrel pan-human and machine civilisation which is one of what you term the Optimae, those civilisations in the first rank of the unSublimed, non-elder groupings. I was an agent for the part of the Culture called Contact, which deals with… foreign affairs, you might say. Contact is charged with discovering and interacting with other civilisations which are not yet part of the galactic community. I was not then with the more rarefied intelligence and espionage part of Contact coyly called Special Circumstances, though I know that SC thought at the time the specific part of Contact I represented was, arguably, encroaching on their territory.” Hyrlis smiled thinly. “Even galaxy-spanning anarchist Utopias of stupefying full-spectrum civilisational power have turf wars within their unacknowledged militaries.”
Hyrlis sighed. “I did, later, become part of Special Circumstances, a decision I look back on now with more regret than pride.” His smile did, indeed, look sad. “When you leave the Culture — and people do, all the time — you
