The Eternal Dungeon: a Turn-of-the-Century Toughs omnibus

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER THREE

  The corridor was cold. It was always cold. Elsdon had been startled when he first learned that the prisoners being searched were the only inner dungeon inhabitants granted the luxury of a furnace. He had grown accustomed since then to the dungeon’s autumn chill, which remained the same year-round.

  Much like its master. He stole a look at the High Seeker as they walked side by side down the corridor between the prisoners’ cells, passing an occasional pair of guards flanking the door to a cell that was in use.

  “You must never lie to a prisoner,” the High Seeker said. “The Code is quite strict about that, and equally strict in its penalties for violation of this rule. You must never lie, though you may often be called upon to mislead.”

  “What is the difference?” Elsdon asked, his mind only half fastened upon what the High Seeker was saying. His thoughts were instead upon the stiffness of Layle’s posture, which he remembered from the day they first met. Layle had only relaxed that stiffness once during Elsdon’s imprisonment, when Elsdon was being beaten; it had given Elsdon a mistaken impression of the High Seeker’s character. Since that time, Elsdon had seen the High Seeker relaxed and informal many times – but only when he was alone with Elsdon, in the privacy of Layle’s cell.

  “I misled you when you were my prisoner,” the High Seeker replied. “I led you to believe that I was searching you for the truth about the crime you were accused of committing, when in fact I was setting up the conditions by which you would break yourself and admit your wrongdoing. Were you resentful of my misleading when you learned of it?”

  Elsdon did not have to think back that far. He shook his head at once. “I knew that you had done it for my sake.”

  “But if I had lied to you – if I had told you that my questions to you were aimed at my breaking you – would that have made a difference in how you regarded me?”

  Elsdon nodded slowly. They had passed into darkness: no lamps lit this end of the corridor, and no guards stood in front of the doors here. The High Seeker paused before one of the doors and pulled his ring of keys from his inner pocket. He slipped off one of the keys and handed it to Elsdon.

  “This is a master key,” he said in a low tone. “It will open any cell where prisoners are searched. Under ordinary circumstances you will not need to use it – the guards will let you in and out of any cell where a prisoner is present – but you may need it in an emergency. Keep the key under your pillow when you sleep and within your inner pocket when you’re awake, and never allow a prisoner to guess that you hold it. Some prisoners would kill you to possess that key.”

  His voice was matter-of-fact. Elsdon carefully threaded the key onto his own key-ring, which so far carried only the keys to his cell and Layle’s. He was slipping the ring back into his inner pocket when Layle gestured toward the door they stood before.

  Elsdon leaned forward and fumbled with the lock in the dark corridor. He did not succeed in turning the key until Layle, stepping further down the corridor, retrieved a lamp from where it hung on the wall and brought it over to illuminate the door. Elsdon had just time enough to see what was written above the door before he stepped inside and Layle’s light caught the contents of the interior. Then Elsdon forgot to breathe.

  The room was slightly larger than a breaking cell, but colder; the cell did not end against a furnace-warmed wall, as a breaking cell would, but instead against the same cold stone that lined the other walls. Upon this stone hung black objects of varying sizes. They were too far hidden into the shadows for Elsdon to catch more than a glimpse of them: something narrow and pointed, something else long and sharp, something else blunt and hard . . .

  His mind was not upon the wall decorations. All of his attention was focussed upon the great table in the midst of the room, and the straps at its head and foot.

  He felt Layle’s hand upon his shoulder, and he jerked away from the touch automatically. Then he forced himself to remember that he was a Seeker. This was his workplace; he ought not to be reacting as though he were a prisoner being brought here. He sucked in several breaths of chill air, then walked forward and inspected the rack more closely.

  From the books Layle had instructed him to read, Elsdon knew that racks came in many shapes. This one was of a simple design. The foot of it held a fixed bar with straps on it for the ankles; the head of the rack held a moveable bar with straps for the wrists. The most impressive feature of the rack was not the bars or straps but the giant wheel which controlled the moveable bar. It was placed flat against the head of the rack and was nearly as high as a man. Approaching it, Elsdon found that his chin barely rose over it, and his arms must be spread nearly to full width to span the circle. The wheel led to a mechanism that was unintelligible to Elsdon, but he could see that the movement of the wheel was divided into exact intervals by a series of notches hidden from the view of any prisoner who lay upon the rack. Indeed, only the guard controlling the rack would be able to see the notches, Elsdon decided, peering down at the hidden control. The levels inscribed upon the control went from zero to ten, and four notches quartered each level.

  His gaze wandered back to the moveable bar, and from there to the straps. He swallowed.

  “How much does this stretch the prisoner?” he heard himself ask in a hollow voice.

  “Hold onto a strap and see,” the High Seeker suggested.

  Moving cautiously round to the side of the rack, Elsdon picked up one of the straps; it was made of calfskin and was soft to the touch. He took firm hold of the strap, then braced himself.

  The High Seeker, standing now at the wheel, turned it minutely. There was a click, and the strap tugged slightly in Elsdon’s hand, as a child might tug at the hand of a parent.

  Elsdon looked over at the High Seeker, startled. “That didn’t hurt!”

  “It’s more impressive when accompanied by the lecture of a Seeker, explaining the terrible effects of the machine,” Layle said dryly. “But no, the rack’s primary purpose is not to hurt the prisoner – it is to drive fear into the prisoner. We use it only on the worst prisoners, the ones who have broken the Code repeatedly and without remorse. Such prisoners are unlikely to break through pain alone; fear is the best weapon we can use against them.”

  Elsdon let the strap drop and went over to Layle’s side. The wheel had turned over to the first notch, one quarter of the way from zero to one. “But is the rack dangerous to the prisoner?”

  “Not at the lower levels. At the higher levels . . . In theory, a healthy man should not receive permanent damage if he is placed at level ten. But we cannot always know the full state of health of our prisoners, despite the dungeon healer’s careful examination of their medical records. We have had prisoners suffer heart death while on the rack.”

  Again, his voice was matter-of-fact. Elsdon gave him a sharp look. After a moment, Layle added, “All rackings must be approved by me, and I rarely permit Seekers to take their prisoners beyond level three. The primary point of this room, as I say, is not to cause pain, but to cause fear. Hence the decorations.” He waved his hand toward the walls.

  The lamp, which Layle had laid upon the groin-high bed of the rack, did not quite shed its light upon the walls. Elsdon had to go over to the wall and touch one of the objects before he could be sure of what hung there. Then he looked back at Layle and said, in a voice that he hoped was steady, “These are from the old dungeon?”

  “The royal dungeon that existed in Yclau before the Eternal Dungeon was formed? No, those were destroyed at the time that the Code of Seeking was first issued. These belong to me.”

  Elsdon stared at him, his hand dropping from the black iron. “You collect instruments of torture?”

  “Antique ones.” Layle’s voice was bland. “Some of the dealers who sell the books I own also sell objects such as these. Hung here, they make a great impression upon prisoners entering this cell. We’ve had prisoners break the moment they saw these instruments—”

  “—thus saving you from havi
ng to rack the prisoners. Yes, I see.” Elsdon ran his hand over the iron, which was thin at one end, but gradually grew into a globular shape. At the other end of the instrument, a pair of long handles regulated by a notched bar allowed the instrument to be slowly opened. “What is this?” Elsdon asked.

  The High Seeker stepped forward and slid his palm lightly over the surface of the cold metal, as a man might slide his hand along a cheek. “This,” he said, “is the Swelling Globe. It is no longer in use in most countries of the world, though it continues to be used in Vovim – this is a Vovimian model.”

  “The books you had me read say that the Vovimian torturers are the most barbaric men of that barbarian culture,” commented Elsdon.

  The High Seeker’s gaze did not stray from the object he was stroking. “The books are right. If you want to know what Yclau’s dungeon was like in the years before the Code was compiled, you need only look to Vovim’s Hidden Dungeon. The Vovimians continue to practice methods of breaking that all civilized countries have abandoned.”

  “How is the Swelling Globe used?”

  For the first time, Layle looked over at Elsdon. His hand dropped from the metal. “It was used in the prisoners’ orifices,” he said coolly. “I will lend you a book that describes the exact nature of its use. Do you have any other questions while we are here?”

  “Yes,” said Elsdon. “I’m wondering whether the question you were afraid I’d ask earlier was whether you ever take love-mates.”

  His school days were not long over; he could still remember vividly the varied expressions on his schoolmasters’ faces when he would unexpectedly ask questions that would turn a class discussion upon its head. Some of his schoolmasters had been angry; others, for reasons he had not fully understood at the time, had been pleased. He now knew, as he had not known in those days, that this gift for being able to take other people by surprise was one of his qualifications for being a Seeker. Yet it was still startling to see Layle suddenly jerk his head away, and to know that he had succeeded in catching the High Seeker off-guard.

  After a moment, the High Seeker said in a detached voice, “As I stated earlier, I do not consider it wise for a senior Seeker to enter into bonds with a Seeker he supervises.”

  “But you supervise all of the Seekers – does that mean you never take a love-mate? Surely the Code doesn’t require the High Seeker to be celibate. If it did, then it would spell out so important a rule more clearly.”

  He waited breathlessly for the next few moments, trying to read what he could from Layle’s rigid posture – the High Seeker’s face was still turned away. Then the High Seeker moved.

  Not toward him; away from him, rounding the head of the rack so that he stood half-hidden by the opposite side of the table. When this was done, he turned his face back. His eyes were now as cool as they ever were, dark under the dim lamplight.

  “It was a personal decision,” the High Seeker said impassively, “and as such is not a proper subject for conversation during my on-duty hours. Do you have any other questions? If not, then I must start my preparations for searching my prisoner tonight.”

  His tone was dismissive. Elsdon felt desperation well within him, coalescing into a hardness inside his throat.

  “Please,” he said, keeping his voice soft, “you must know why I’m asking this. Even if you don’t want— If you want me to go away, I will, but I need to know whether it bothers you. That I feel this way. If you think it’s wrong for me to feel this – if it’s a violation of my duty as a Seeker or as your friend – I could try to stop myself—”

  He broke off. As he was speaking, he had taken a step toward the High Seeker, following Layle’s path over to the side of the rack. Now the High Seeker moved again, turning to round the corner at the foot of the rack, so that he remained half-hidden from Elsdon.

  Elsdon possessed several qualities which qualified him to be a Seeker, but the most important was this: he could read words and gestures to understand what lay beneath them. He had not used that skill on all occasions in his life. His strong desire to please his father had blinded him, making him incapable of recognizing the truth about his father’s abusive nature. And there had been times – more times than Elsdon liked to think of – when his wild anger against a bully-boy blinded him to the boy’s better nature. But discernment was a skill that had served him well more than once in the schoolyard, and now, without warning, it came into play once more.

  Few other men, had they been standing in that room, would have understood Layle’s withdrawal to be anything other than an indication that the High Seeker wished to remain distant. But Elsdon – his mind adding up the dim light, the height of the rack, and the height of the High Seeker – recognized what those other men would have missed.

  His breath whistled in. The High Seeker stiffened yet further. Speaking softly, as though uttering sacred words, Elsdon said, “You want me.”

  Layle did not reply. Elsdon moved toward him slowly, as though toward a frightened animal. As he rounded the corner of the rack, he was careful to keep his eyes fixed upon Layle’s hooded eyes rather than look lower. The High Seeker did not withdraw this time, nor turn his gaze away, but his hand tightened upon the fixed bar of the rack.

  “It’s all right,” said Elsdon, keeping his voice soft as he halted, an arm’s length from Layle. “Even if you only want a night with me—”

  “No!” Layle’s voice held horror, like that of man who, being presented with a twelve-course meal, is told that he will only be granted a quarter of an hour in which to consume it.

  “Well, then . . .” Elsdon’s voice trailed off; he was struggling to hold back the impulse to grab the High Seeker and kiss him with passionate joy. Every part of his body was throbbing hard now.

  The High Seeker closed his eyes and let out his breath slowly. “Mr. Taylor,” he said, his tone still formal, “I did not make lightly my decision not to enter into bonds with other Seekers.”

  “You said that you won’t bond with Seekers you supervise. Is that the real reason you won’t bond with me? If there’s something about me that bothers you . . .”

  Layle’s fingernails dug into the wood of the fixed bar. He had turned his head away again. Elsdon waited, his Seekerly sense warning him not to press the matter, though his body continued to throb.

  After a moment, the High Seeker made a sound in his throat, and with a sudden jerk of movement he took from his trouser pocket two items: a pencil and one of the stiff cards that Seekers carried at all times. Bending over, he wrote down a few words, then handed the card to Elsdon, who stared at the three names written there. “What is this?” Elsdon asked.

  “My prior love-mates,” Layle replied. “You will not be able to contact Mr. Partridge or Mr. Zinner, but I suggest that you consult their records. In the case of Mr. Chapman, you can supplement his records by speaking with him—”

  “Layle!” Elsdon stared with wide eyes at the High Seeker. “Are you giving me references?”

  “I’m on duty,” the High Seeker reminded him in a chill voice.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Elsdon replied quickly. He looked down at the list again, then crumpled it and let it fall to the floor.

  Layle said nothing; he simply scooped up the card, smoothed it out, turned it over to its blank side, and wrote something there. As he finished, he said quietly, “This gives you permission to consult my sealed records. —No,” he added, cutting off Elsdon’s protests. “This is not a matter I will discuss further with you until you know more about me. If, after you have made your investigations, you wish to talk about what you have learned, you may come to my cell two hours before the night shift begins tomorrow. If you would prefer not to discuss it, then come to my office at the beginning of the night shift, and we will discuss how to begin your training.”

  As he spoke, he slipped the card into Elsdon’s trouser pocket. Doing so required him to step close to Elsdon, and for a moment afterwards Layle was still, his hand in Elsdon’s pocket, his hood
ed face close to Elsdon’s.

  The sound of a door banging open startled both of them into leaping apart. Turning his head, Elsdon saw a young woman standing at the door with bucket and mop in hand.

  “Oh!” said the serving-woman. “I’m sorry, sirs. I didn’t realize this cell was in use.” She gave a lingering look at Elsdon, then a narrower look at the High Seeker, and then closed the door.

  The High Seeker sighed, turning to inspect one of the straps on the rack. “Another lesson I failed to mention is that you should always lock the door to any room in which you plan to hold private conversations with other Seekers. Otherwise you will learn – as you are about to learn – how well oiled the gossip circuit is in this dungeon.”

  “Sir, I didn’t mean to—”

  “Tomorrow,” the High Seeker said firmly. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow, after your research, should you still wish to do so. Or we’ll discuss your training at my office. In either case, I have work to do.”

  Elsdon dared not ignore the tone of dismissal in Layle’s voice. He walked rapidly back to the door and stepped into the corridor. But when he turned to close the door behind him, he saw that the High Seeker was looking, not at the strap he was testing in his hand, but at Elsdon.

  Then the High Seeker turned his head away, as though his interest had been caught by the mysterious object called the Swelling Globe, and Elsdon softly closed the door.

  o—o—o

  “I must have been mad!” cried Elsdon Taylor. “What made me do it?”

  Garrett, who was dividing his soiled clothes into piles – he didn’t possess a Seeker’s privilege of being cared for by a serving-woman – paused to look up at the young Seeker holding his head in his hands as he stared upward for an answer.

  “Do you know that some spiders will wait for days in order to lure their selected prey into their webs?” Garrett asked conversationally. “Their patience is legendary in the animal queendom.”

  “You have spiders in your room?” Taylor said in a distracted manner, obviously having no interest in Garrett’s words.

  Garrett sighed. Sometimes he wondered what sort of qualifications Seekers needed, other than high birth. He tried again. “Maybe it’s what he wanted.”

  “Wanted?” Taylor looked at Garrett with the expression of a small boy who has wandered into a wagering room and is stunned by what he sees there. “You told me the High Seeker wanted someone inexperienced – how could he want me to be so bold as to press him into love?”

  It was impossible to resist. Garrett threw aside his original words and said, “Some men like that, you know. They like juniors who are bold to them. Smith respects me all the more because I don’t grovel to him, like some of the other guards do.”

  Taylor said nothing. He had an irritating habit of remaining silent whenever he disagreed with Garrett, which made it difficult to argue with him. Annoyed, Garrett threw the last of his soiled clothes into one of the piles and said, “You got what you wanted, didn’t you? You’ve got your chance to go to bed with Smith.”

  “After I do research on him, he says. Research! What kind of cold-blooded request is that? Next he’ll be asking me to write up a report on him, citing my sources.”

  “Perhaps that’s his problem.” Garrett seated himself, wrapping his legs around the back of a chair. “Perhaps his previous love-bonds ended because he was too cold. Perhaps he doesn’t know the proper way to court someone he loves.”

  Garrett wondered, as he spoke, whether there was any truth to what he said. It puzzled him, why he was taking so much trouble to lead Taylor down this path. It wasn’t as though he disliked the boy – the truth was, Garrett was closer to Taylor than anyone else in the dungeon. Taylor knew, as no one else here did, what it was like to have your childhood stripped from you by your father. If circumstances had been different, Garrett would have poured out all the secrets of his soul to Taylor.

  But he had learned under his father’s roof the folly of making himself vulnerable to another person. It was as he had told Taylor: people respected you more if you were tough, if you showed that you couldn’t be pushed around. That was a secret the High Seeker had learned well.

  Garrett pressed Taylor harder. “Smith may think that he wants you to follow his orders, but inwardly I’d guess that he’s hoping you’ll defy him. He needs you to show him the true nature of courting – that he should spurn all that documentwork.”

  “He does like it when I speak boldly to him,” Taylor said in a subdued voice. “It puzzled me at first.”

  “Well, there you are. Go to him tonight and give him what he wants: a partner to match him in boldness and strength.”

  Taylor contemplated this a while as Garrett nudged the clothes piles with his foot, thinking about all the chores that awaited him before his shift began: delivering his clothes to the communal laundry room, going onto his hands and knees to scrub the floor of his apartment, then taking the long walk down to the communal dining hall, where the food was only half as good as the Seekers’ privately delivered food was rumored to be. He wondered whether Taylor had ever done any housework in his life, or whether his concept of labor extended no further than schoolroom sums.

  Finally Taylor said, “I’ll look up the public records. I would have done that in any case, because Mr. Smith advised me to look at everyone’s public records. But beyond that— I think you’re right, Garrett. If the High Seeker had given me an official order, that would be different, but if we disagree on personal matters— I think it’s part of my friendship to him to tell him when I disagree.”

  “Of course it is.” It wasn’t often Taylor acknowledged that Garrett was right. Garrett was feeling amiable enough to add, “While you’re visiting the Record-keeper, you should make a copy of your own records.”

  “Why’s that?” Taylor asked in a distant manner, his mind obviously still fixated upon the High Seeker.

  “In case they alter your records, of course.”

  He managed to startle the Seeker out of his thoughts. Taylor stared as he said, “Surely not.”

  “Taylor.” Garrett sought to keep the condescension out of his voice, though it was a struggle. “Think about it. Suppose that you made a mistake in your work, and one of your superiors – a senior Seeker, say – wanted to have you punished. And suppose that your records wouldn’t support such a punishment, because you’d been so good at your work. Don’t you think the senior Seeker would be tempted to alter your records to make your past seem worse than it was? And it would be so easy to do. That bloody Record-keeper lets everyone see your records, both your friends and your enemies.”

  “So you made a copy of your records?” Taylor seemed genuinely interested in this tale.

  “Of course – and I had the Record-keeper sign each page as proof that it was an official copy. See?”

  As he spoke, he rose and took the three strides necessary to reach his bed. He pulled the records from under the mattress and held them out toward the Seeker.

  As Taylor reached for them, though, Garrett pulled his hand back. “I can’t show them to you, Taylor. You’re not trained yet.”

  Taylor’s expression was laughable. The Seeker was quiet a moment before saying, “I think that I’m only forbidden from looking at private communications. I’m permitted to see public records.”

  “Yes, of course; I’d forgotten.” Garrett spoke lightly as he handed over the records.

  Taylor took them in his hands but did not open the binder holding them. Instead he said, “Is it safe keeping them here? If the Record-keeper knows you have them, couldn’t someone search for them in your quarters?”

  It was at times like this that Garrett was proud to claim acquaintance with Taylor. The boy was not the halfwit he sometimes seemed to be; he had a natural mind for conspiracies, though it was untrained. “I’ve worried about that,” Garrett admitted frankly. “I thought of hiding them elsewhere in the dungeon, but I wasn’t sure where safety lay.” Cocking his head sideways as he looked at
Taylor, he said, “How about your quarters? No one is likely to search a Seeker’s cell.”

  “All right,” Taylor said agreeably. “If you really think it’s necessary.”

  “It is,” Garrett replied firmly. “You have to take precautions like that, Taylor. People will take advantage of you otherwise.”

  “The High Seeker said something like that.”

  Garrett could have laughed. Of course the High Seeker would say that, and of course Taylor would miss the true significance of Smith’s remark. Garrett could guess why the High Seeker was playing can’t-catch-me with Taylor, and what he hoped to gain by it. Taylor must seem like an easy prize to Smith.

  And how wrong the High Seeker was. Garrett, who had come to know Taylor well during the past three months, recognized that the young Seeker was not the easy prize he appeared to be. He was naive, yes, but under that naiveté was a toughness that had drawn Garrett into friendship with him. When the High Seeker discovered the core of what Taylor was, he would be faced with an unpleasant surprise.

  And then, Garrett thought with delight, Garrett could have his revenge upon Smith for shaming him in front of Taylor. It made him go hot to think about it – of how Smith had taken Garrett off-guard in his office and made him seem to be a coward before Taylor.

  Smith would pay highly for that. As for Taylor – well, it would be a shock for him as well. But it would be the right sort of shock. It was time that the boy grew up and learned how the world really worked.

  He was fortunate to have Garrett as his mate.