Excerpt from Inversions by Iain M. Banks, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The chief torturer Nolieti stood between this apparatus and a broad workbench covered with various metal bowls, jars and bottles and a collection of instruments that might have originated in the workplaces of a mason, a carpenter, a butcher and a surgeon. Nolieti was shaking his broad, scarred grey head. His rough and sinewy hands were on his hips and his glare was fastened on the withered form of the encaged man. Below the metal contraption enclosing the unfortunate fellow stood a broad square tray of stone with a drain hole at one corner. Dark fluid like blood had splattered there. Long white shapes in the darkness might have been teeth.

Nolieti turned round when he heard us approach. "About fucking time," he spat, fixing his stare on first me, then the Doctor and then Unoure (who, I noticed, as the Doctor stuffed her kerchief back into a pocket in her jacket, was making a show of folding the black blindfold he had been told to use on her).

"My fault," the Doctor said in a matter-of-fact manner, stepping past Nolieti. She bent down at the man's rear. She grimaced, nose wrinkling, then came to the side of the apparatus and with one hand on the iron hoops of the frame-chair brought it squeaking and complaining round until the man was in a more conventional sitting position. The fellow looked in a terrible state. His face was grey, his skin was burned in places, and his mouth and jaw had collapsed. Little rivulets of blood had dried under each of his ears. The Doctor put her hand through the iron hoops and tried to open one of the man's eyes. He made a terrible, low groaning sound. There was a sort of sucking, tearing noise and the man gave a plaintive moan like a kind of distant scream before settling into a ragged, rhythmic, bubbling noise that might have been breathing. The Doctor bent forward to peer into the man's face and I heard her give a small gasp.

Nolieti snorted. "Looking for these?" he asked the Doctor, and flourished a small bowl at her.

The Doctor barely glanced at the bowl, but smiled thinly at the torturer. She rotated the iron chair to its previous position and went back to look at the caged man's rear. She pulled away some blood-soaked rags and gave another grimace. I thanked the gods that he was pointing away from me and prayed that whatever the Doctor might have to do would not require my assistance.

"What seems to be the problem?" the Doctor asked Nolieti, who seemed momentarily nonplussed.

"Well," the chief torturer said after a pause. "He won't stop bleeding out his arse, will he?"

The Doctor nodded. "You must have let your pokers get too cold," she said casually, squatting and opening her bag and laying it by the side of the stone drain-tray.

Nolieti went to the Doctor's side and bent down over her. "How it happened isn't any of your fucking business, woman," he said into her ear. "Your business is to get this fucker well enough to be questioned so he can tell us what the King needs to know."

"Does the King know?" the Doctor asked, looking up, an expression of innocent interest on her face. "Did he order this? Does he even know of the existence of this unfortunate? Or was it guard commander Adlain who thought the Kingdom would fall unless this poor devil suffered?"

Nolieti stood up. "None of that is your business," he said sullenly. "Just do your job and get out." He bent down again and stuck his mouth by her ear. "And never you mind the King or the guard commander. I'm king down here, and I say you'd best attend to your own business and leave me to mine."

"But it is my business," the Doctor said evenly, ignoring the threatening bulk of the man poised over her. "If I know what was done to him, and how it was done, I might be better able to treat him."

"Oh, I could show you, Doctor," the chief torturer said, looking up at his assistant and winking. "And we have special treats we save just for the ladies, don't we, Unoure?"

Copyright © 2000 by Iain M. Banks