Inversions by Iain M. Banks Read Free Book Online

as a glance, but I am as glad of one as the other.’ She paused and DeWar drew a breath to speak, but then she nodded down at the board and said, ‘Are you going to move, or not?’
    DeWar sighed and gestured at the board. ‘Is there any point, if I am so deficient an adversary?’
    ‘You must play, and play to win even if you know you will probably lose,’ Perrund told him. ‘Otherwise you should not have agreed to begin the game in the first place.’
    ‘You changed the nature of the game when you informed me of my weakness.’
    ‘Ah no, the game was always the same, DeWar,’ Perrund said, sitting suddenly forward, her eyes seeming to flash as she added with a degree of relish, ‘I merely opened your eyes to it.’
    DeWar laughed. ‘Indeed you did, my lady.’ He sat forward and went to move his Protector piece, then sat back again and with a despairing gesture said, ‘No. I concede, my lady. You have won.’
    There was some commotion amongst the group of concubines nearest to the doors which led into the rest of the harem. In his high pulpit, the chief eunuch Stike wobbled to his feet and bowed to the small figure bustling into the long chamber.
    ‘DeWar!’ the Protector UrLeyn called, hauling his jacket on over his shoulders as he strode towards them. ‘And Perrund! My dear! My darling!’
    Perrund stood suddenly, and DeWar watched her face come alive again, the eyes widening, her expression softening and her face blossoming into the most dazzling smile as UrLeyn approached. DeWar stood too, the faintest of hurt expressions vanishing from his face, to be replaced by a relieved smile and a look of professional seriousness.

Culture 6 - Inversions
    3. THE DOCTOR
    Master, you asked to know most particularly of any sorties which the Doctor made outside the Palace of Efernze. What I am about to relate took place the afternoon following our summons to the hidden chamber and our encounter with the chief torturer Nolieti.
    A storm raged above the city, making of the sky a darkly boiling mass. Fissures of lightning split that gloom with an eye-blinding brightness, as though they were the concentrated blues of the everyday sky fighting to prise the blackness of the clouds apart and shine upon the ground again, however briefly. The westerly waters of Crater Lake leapt against the city’s ancient harbour walls and surged amongst the deserted outer docks. It made even the ships within the sheltered inner quays roll and shift uneasily, their hulls compressing the cane fenders to make them creak and crack in protest, while their tall masts swung across the black sky like a forest of disputing metronomes.
    The wind whistled through the streets of the city as we made our way out of the Blister Gate and headed across Market Square towards the Warren. An empty stall had been blown over in the square and its sack roof flapped and tore in the gusts, clapping against the cobblestones like a trapped wrestler slapping the ground as he begs for mercy.
    The rain came in blustery torrents, stinging and cold. The Doctor handed me her heavy medicine bag as she wrapped and buttoned her cloak more tightly about her. I still believe that this along with her jacket and coat should be purple, as she is a physician. However, when she had first arrived two years earlier the doctors of the city had let it be known that they would take a dim view of her pretending to this badge of their rank, and the Doctor herself had seemed indifferent in the matter, and so as a rule she wore mostly dark and black clothes (though sometimes, in a certain light, in some of the garments she paid to have made by one of the court tailors, I thought one could just catch a hint of purple in the weave).
    The wretch who had brought us out into this awfulness limped on ahead, glancing back at us every now and again as if to make sure we were still there. How I wished we were not. If ever there was a day for curling up by a roaring fire with a cup of mulled wine and a