CHAPTER SIX
“I should have known!” cried the Seeker-in-Training. “From the moment I saw the public records, I should have known!”
He paced up and down the narrow cell, his body backlit by the glass blocks that reflected the flames of the furnace beyond. His eyes were unseeing, focussed upon something beyond the cell.
“It was all there in the records, plain to my sight. The High Seeker had had three love-mates; all three men had been his prisoner. And I – I can just imagine what he would have done to me if I’d let it continue.” He stood still a moment, breathing heavily as though he had been running from danger, then resumed his frenzied pacing. “I won’t let him do that to me. Not again. I won’t let him hurt me, nor will I let him hurt the other prisoners. I oughtn’t to have left him in the racking room – I ought to have protected the prisoner against him. I took an oath to help the prisoners, and I broke it by running away. I won’t do that again. It’s the prisoners who matter most.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Garrett commented dryly. “I was beginning to wonder whether you’d remembered.”
It was small satisfaction to see the young Seeker turn with pale guilt toward him. Garrett had seated himself on the bed-shelf of his breaking cell; he knew well the long hours of standing that awaited him, and he had no desire to expend energy before then. Certainly not for this man.
Taylor said in a soft voice, “I’m sorry, Garrett. It was wrong of me to tell Mr. Chapman what you had done. I was just— Well, I was close to losing my mind after what I saw.”
It was a temptation – oh, so sweet a temptation – to break Taylor with a full reminder of all he had done, to point out to him that, if he had only heeded Garrett’s warnings, he would not have been such a fool as to strip himself of what little power protected him against the Eternal Dungeon’s dark High Seeker. In the wake of Taylor’s betrayal of him, Garrett relished a vision of Taylor agonizing from the awareness of what idiocy he had committed with the High Seeker.
But Garrett could not afford to indulge himself that way. None of his so-named friends had visited him since his arrest; Taylor was his only contact with the world outside this cell. He needed Taylor, for a while longer at least.
So he said, “I can understand what a shock it must have been for you to learn the truth. And of course you’re right that it’s your duty to help the prisoners. I could aid you with that if I were free.”
He thought it was clever of himself to put it that way – not to appeal to Taylor’s charitable instincts by begging for help, but rather to suggest that they were partners in a joint enterprise. He had a momentary vision of Taylor marching up to the Codifier and demanding his release.
It appeared, though, that Taylor’s visions were not as grand as Garrett’s. He said nothing, but simply looked unhappy.
Garrett sighed and scaled down his plans to fit Taylor’s narrow view of life. “You’ve already been of help,” he said, continuing to try to keep the Seeker sweet. “Thanks to you, my records are safe. I’ve no doubt that the High Seeker’s bully-boys searched my quarters for my copy of the records after they arrested me.”
Taylor turned away from the fiery wall. Even with the shadows deep upon his face, his look of misery was stark.
“Oh, no,” said Garrett slowly. “Bloody blades, no. Tell me you didn’t do it, Taylor. Tell me you didn’t give Smith my copy of the records.”
“I didn’t give it to him,” Taylor replied, his voice drowned in wretchedness. “I left it on the floor of his bedroom.”
So grave was this calamity that, for once, Garrett could not think of the proper biting response. He simply looked at Taylor, and waited for him to wither into ashes.
“I’ll get it back,” Taylor said hastily. “Maybe Mr. Sobel can retrieve it for me—”
“Sobel!” Garrett’s remaining calm blew, like a poorly tended furnace fire. “You ditch-born son of a mare! What sort of fucking brains did your dad leave you with after he beat you? Enough to figure out the earnings from a wager? What makes your dung-filled mind think that you can trust Sobel?”
By the time Garrett had finished with this bit of street invective, Taylor had turned as white as a newly lashed welt, and Garrett wondered whether the Seeker would simply walk out of the cell. But it seemed that Taylor’s mind was on higher matters than Garrett’s low talk. After a moment he said in a husky voice, “He was there. In the rack room. He heard the High Seeker threaten to rape the prisoner, and he did nothing. He even raised the rack to nine – to nine! The High Seeker told me that prisoners are rarely taken above three, yet Mr. Smith was prepared to tear a prisoner’s body apart for his own pleasure. And Mr. Sobel stood by and did nothing.”
It occurred to Garrett, belatedly, that Taylor had not yet been trained for the rack room, and that he had therefore received a distorted picture of what had taken place. Well, it was all to Garrett’s advantage. He pressed further, saying, “It’s not just Sobel. They all know about the High Seeker, from the junior guards on up to the Codifier.”
“The Codifier?” Taylor was now as pale as a prisoner facing the rack.
“Of course! You said that the Codifier gave Smith only three months’ suspension for his infraction. And now you know that Smith raped a prisoner—”
“—which is a death-sentence crime. Oh, sweet blood.” Taylor’s voice sounded as if a hangman were wringing his neck. He pressed his fists against his lips, as though trying to keep back bile. He whispered, “Everyone here is like my father. Everyone. And they fooled me into thinking they cared about the prisoners.”
Garrett started to speak, but decided to let Taylor have time to adjust his eyes to the darkness he had entered. Garrett could not remember the day he himself had realized the world was nothing more than a prison of pain and injustice – his own awakening was too far back. But he had resented Taylor’s innocence, and it was a pleasure to see it broken. In a world where men gambled away their sons’ inheritances, why should a Seeker-in-Training remain oblivious to the truth? Really, Garrett decided, he was giving Taylor the greatest gift the Seeker would ever receive.
He had just opened his mouth to point this out when Taylor said, with surprising firmness, “The Code isn’t corrupt. The High Seeker uses it as a tool to cover his evil deeds, but the tool is sharper than he has guessed – the Code of Seeking is a work of purity, unlike its maker. It could protect the prisoners, if the right men were using it. Perhaps I can persuade some of the junior Seekers and guards to join me in making this dungeon the place it ought to be.”
“You’ll never succeed in that,” Garrett said hastily. “You’d be better off leaving this place, before the High Seeker finds a way to destroy you.”
“I’m oath-bound to remain here,” Taylor said; he was beginning to pace again. “Besides, I won’t hide from what’s happening. Not again. This time I’ll fight back.”
Garrett sighed. His newest plan had been a simple one: persuade Taylor to escape the dungeon and cross the queendom’s borders, taking Garrett with him. But of course the boy would needlessly complicate matters with his high ideals. He was still living in his pretty world where evil torture-gods could be defeated and gambling fathers could be persuaded to come home to their families.
“I must go,” Taylor said unexpectedly. “I must think of ways to fight the High Seeker.”
“He won’t fight you back directly,” Garrett warned him. “He’ll do the same to you as he plans to do to me: he’ll tarnish your reputation.”
Taylor took no notice of this clear hint about the missing records. “I’ll visit you tomorrow,” the Seeker-in-Training said with absent mind. “At least, I’ll try to. It depends on whether I’ll be busy working against the High Seeker.”
Before Garrett could think of anything to say, the young Seeker strode to the door of the cell, gave an authoritative rap there, and was allowed exit by the guards.
Garrett sighed and pulled the blankets of his bed-shelf around his shoulders. He ought to have known
that Taylor would be of no use to him when crisis came. That was the way people were: when you needed them most, they failed you.
o—o—o
The day guards let Elsdon out of the breaking cell. He had taken care that his visit should occur at daytime; he had no desire to speak yet with Mr. Sobel. Besides, come eventide, the High Seeker would be stalking his prey.
He shivered in the coolness of the corridor and turned his eyes away from the darkness at the far end. Layle Smith’s day guards were still watching him, curiosity evident in their expressions as they secured the door. Elsdon opened his mouth to offer some reassuring, Seekerly remark. And then his heart descended. Walking down the corridor, flanked by his night guards, was the High Seeker.
Elsdon stood his ground, though his heart was louder than the steady thud of the High Seeker’s bootsteps on the floor. To Elsdon’s relief, Layle Smith stopped outside of reach. He said, in his usual formal manner, “Mr. Taylor, I am sorry that you were not informed, as you ought to have been. Mr. Gerson is not permitted personal visits.”
“Yes,” said Elsdon, “I’m sure that’s what you want.”
The dungeon was still, but for the faint sound of a prisoner sobbing nearby. Guards stood at duty outside many of the cell doors; several had their heads turned to look toward the High Seeker. Elsdon guessed that Mr. Urman had spread the tale of how Elsdon had reacted after witnessing the High Seeker at work in the rack room.
The High Seeker was motionless, like a spider waiting at the center of his web.
“Look,” said Elsdon, his voice suddenly rough with anger. “I know what you’re doing – I know that everything you do depends on secrecy. You’ll convince the prisoners that this is for their own good, or if not, you’ll find a way to keep them from spreading the news of what you do. Well, it won’t work in this case. If you don’t permit Mr. Gerson to see visitors, then I’ll complain to the Codifier; and if the Codifier won’t listen to me, I’ll alert the magistrates; and if the magistrates won’t heed my warnings, then I’ll petition the Queen; and if the Queen refuses my petition . . .” His voice shook, and he had to pause before finishing. “If no one in authority will stop you, then I’ll spread word of what you are to the people of our queendom, so that you can be stripped of your power, and the prisoners can be saved from you.”
His voice had risen by the end. Even the guards furthest down the corridor were now frankly craning their necks to watch the proceedings, while Mr. Urman’s eyes had gone as wide as a small boy’s. Elsdon did not turn his gaze to see what Mr. Sobel’s expression held. He kept his eyes fixed upon the High Seeker, as he had upon the schoolyard bullies who made the mistake of trying to beat weaker boys in his presence.
If the High Seeker sensed a fraying of his carefully spun web, he showed no sign of it. In a voice as quiet as before, he said, “There is no need to go that far. Mr. Sobel, Mr. Taylor wishes to become better acquainted with the supervisory duties of the Codifier. He is to have access to my prisoners at all times, including when I am searching the prisoners.”
“Yes, sir.” Mr. Sobel’s voice was a soft murmur; Elsdon caught a glimpse of his closed expression.
Layle Smith turned his eyes back to the younger Seeker. “I will speak with Mr. Chapman and have this arrangement formalized with the Codifier. You may want to request access to all of the prisoners in the dungeon, so that you can have the opportunity to compare my techniques with those of the other Seekers.”
For a moment more, the High Seeker’s gaze remained fixed upon Elsdon’s. Then, as though the exchange had been of no importance, he turned to the day guards and relieved them of their duty for that shift. As Elsdon spun on the ball of his foot, he heard the High Seeker giving orders for the night guards to admit him to the cell. His voice was as level as it had been all along.
Not until he had reached the corridor where the Seekers’ cells lay did Elsdon permit himself to pound his fist against the wall and swear under his breath. Garrett had been right. That much was clear now: the High Seeker would seek to continue his reign of terror, not by defending himself, but by defiling Elsdon’s reputation. He would make the Seeker-in-Training appear to be a childish, hysterical young boy whose word could not be trusted in important matters.
It was a technique that Elsdon was well acquainted with.
He fumbled with the key in the lock, feeling the touch of one of the antique torture devices along his back, even though he knew that Layle Smith was now ensconced with his prisoner. Elsdon would need to return quickly to Garrett’s cell, before Layle Smith wreaked any more damage. For now, though, a more vital task lay before him.
Lighting the oil lamp, he searched swiftly and found Garrett’s records where he had dropped them, on the floor next to the High Seeker’s bed. He knelt down and carefully leafed through them, trying to judge whether they had already been tampered with. He suspected they had: the records were one long string of rebukes against Garrett, making it appear that Garrett, too, could not be trusted if he made complaint against the High Seeker. Elsdon’s jaw began to ache from the gritting of his teeth. He read on.
Gradually he became aware that his right calf was touching a hard object. He turned his eyes and saw, in the darkness of the shadows under the bed, a book that had been hastily shoved there. He picked it up slowly, as he might have lifted a poisonous asp. Under the lamplight, the book’s title shone clear: Man’s Cruelty to Man.
The book had been so hastily closed that one of the pages was folded over. Elsdon opened the volume and began to read.
. . . many accounts of the cruel lusts of the torturers in the early years of Yclau’s royal dungeon. We hear, for example, of the tragic fate of a young man delivered for searching to the dungeon. This tale comes from a guard who later wrote a book denouncing the torturer’s actions.
“The prisoner was bound to the rack and stretched until his cries became piteous to the extreme, and he swore that he would confess to any crime his torturer wished. That dark man, however, was not satisfied with what he had accomplished already. Borrowing a dagger from me, he tore open the prisoner’s clothes, exposing the prisoner’s young flesh and ripping blood from the helpless victim’s chest and belly. The prisoner’s renewed cries inflamed the lasciviousness of the torturer. Taking into his hands the Swelling Globe, he reached for the prisoner’s groin . . .”
“Love poems,” muttered Elsdon, and with a flash of energy he hurled the book against the wall, where it landed with a crash, split, and fell to pieces upon the floor.
Something lighter than the book fluttered through the air and landed face up upon the tattered ruins of the volume. Elsdon, who had risen to his feet with Garrett’s records in hand, found himself walking, not toward the door, but toward the ruined book. He knelt down beside it and picked up the piece of card that had landed there.
Upon the card, squeezed flat, was the flower he had given Layle Smith. It was bound to the card by a thread, which carefully wove its way around the stem like spider’s silk. At the bottom of the card, in the High Seeker’s neat handwriting, was a single word: “Elsdon.”
The card with the imprisoned flower slipped from Elsdon’s hands. He buried his face in his palms and began to weep hard.
o—o—o
“Mr. Gerson,” said the High Seeker softly, “I think you have failed to understand the gravity of what you have done, and the seriousness of your present position. You gave Mr. Chapman’s note to a man whom you knew to be unauthorized to carry private communications between Seekers. That he is a Seeker himself is irrelevant, as you well know – he has not finished or even begun his training. To make matters worse, this man was recently a prisoner of the Eternal Dungeon. If you learned anything during your training, it is that former prisoners of this dungeon often require many weeks of healing after their imprisonment. They certainly do not need to have such healing interrupted by a visit to a rack room while it is in use. To make matters doubly worse, the man in question has undergone abuse at his father’s ha
nds over many years – abuse all too similar in appearance to the techniques used by Seekers in the rack room. This you know also, not only because you are the most active member of this dungeon’s gossip circuit, but also because you have claimed this man as your mate.”
The High Seeker’s use of the street word “mate” – rather than the more refined word “friend” – was like a whiplash across Garrett’s face. He felt himself flinch. He had thought that he knew what Seekers were like, from having witnessed Chapman with prisoners, but he was rapidly learning the difference between a workman and a master.
The High Seeker, who had been leaning forward, now placed his hand upon the wall against which Garrett stood, leaning in yet further. Almost the first words Smith had spoken when he came into the cell were to remind Garrett of the Code’s rule against Seekers and prisoners touching each other. The reason for this nursery lesson had not become clear to Garrett until he realized, as the hours passed, that the High Seeker was edging himself closer and closer to Garrett. He was sly in the manner he did so; nobody could have accused him of violating the rule against touching. But the end result of this maneuvering was that Garrett was flattened against the wall, not daring to move lest he touch the High Seeker, be accused of breaking the Code, and end up on the receiving end of Urman’s whip.
He could ask Smith to move, of course. But that would be an easy way to concede him a victory in this war of wills.
“To reveal the private writings of a Seeker is terrible enough,” the High Seeker said, still speaking softly, “but you may well have deprived the Eternal Dungeon of a new Seeker, and the enormity of that crime ought to be clear to you. The Eternal Dungeon is hard pressed to find men who are qualified for such work, and this particular man would suffer much if he were to strip himself of his hood, for he is eternally confined within the dungeon, whether or not he remains a Seeker. I had intended to introduce him slowly to the principles of breaking, in a manner consonant with his sensitive background. Thanks to your intervention, it is doubtful now whether he will be willing to proceed with his training—”
“Give it up, Seeker,” Garrett said. “All this fancy talk of duty to the dungeon is just a screen. You’re miffed that your love-boy saw you for what you truly are: a bloody barbarian, as bad as the Vovimians.”
The look on Urman’s face as Garrett spoke in his native street language almost made Garrett laugh. He wasn’t sure what had motivated Smith to bring in the guards that were usually left outside the cell during a searching. Probably he was trying to cover his tracks, to keep from being falsely accused of abusing his prisoner.
That had left Garrett with one less plan to work with. Now, eight hours later, with his body stiff with weariness, Garrett was inclined to forget all his subtle plotting and to undertake the riskiest of plans: he would goad the High Seeker into showing his true self.
Smith seemed unperturbed. He had arranged matters such that Garrett’s back was against the furnace wall, which was causing sweat to tickle Garrett’s body. Smith was full in the light, but his hood hid all of his face except for his green eyes, asparkle under the firelight.
It occurred to Garrett that Smith must be all too familiar with Garrett’s mode of attack. Hundreds of prisoners must have insulted him; long ago he would have acquired barriers of defense to hold them off. Desperately, Garrett searched back upon Smith’s words, as a Seeker might, to see where Smith’s weakness lay.
And discovered it. Smith had not yet used Taylor’s name. That told Garrett a great deal.
He hesitated. He could be discarding his best weapon if he took this path. But Taylor was the reason he was here, and that bloody boy hadn’t even pretended he’d try to get Garrett released. No, Taylor was of no further use, except insofar as he represented the weak spot in the High Seeker’s defenses.
Garrett smiled at the High Seeker, and had the satisfaction of seeing Smith step back from him. Pressing his advantage, he took a step forward; Smith took two steps back. Now serene in his vision of the future, Garrett said softly, “Oh, but you two deserve each other, don’t you? You’re two of a kind. I’ll wager that what bothered Taylor in the rack room was that he couldn’t get his hands on the prisoner himself. You can see it from the way he talks about his dad. He’s just aching to do the same sort of stuff himself, so he has to keep saying, ‘I’m not like him, he’s disgusting,’ and all the other lies you molesters tell yourselves. You’ll provide him with a new way to lie to himself, won’t you? You’ll give him the chance he wants, to beat prisoners as long and hard as he can. That bloody kin-murderer—”
The cavern collapsed, and its weight fell upon Garrett.
It was a moment before he realized that the High Seeker had him pinned to the wall. He could no longer see the High Seeker’s eyes – they had turned unexpectedly black under the furnace-light – but he could feel the man’s hands pushing him back against the hot wall: hands steady and hard and very powerful. Far more powerful than Garrett had anticipated. Garrett looked at the black gaze pressing at him through the hood, and the thought came to him that he was about to die.
Then a hand took hold of the High Seeker’s arm, and Sobel’s quiet voice said, “Sir . . .”
“Yes.” In the next moment, the mountain of pressure upon Garrett was released. He gasped at the lifting. The High Seeker stepped back, not moving his eyes, which were still dark. His breath was loud and heavy. After a moment, he said, “Mr. Urman. You and Mr. Sobel go off-duty in a short while.”
“Yes, sir, after you relieve—” Urman stopped, then said carefully, “After we are relieved by the day guards, sir.”
Urman had his hand on his dagger, and his gaze lay upon Sobel, who was in turn watching the High Seeker carefully. Both guards were within reach of the High Seeker, and Sobel had placed himself so that he could, if need be, stand between the High Seeker and the prisoner. It was all in accordance with standard procedure, Garrett knew. He too had been trained on how to behave if the Code must be upheld against a Seeker.
The High Seeker looked at neither of the guards beside him. He said, “When you go off-duty, Mr. Urman, I would appreciate it if you would ask the Record-keeper to assign a new Seeker to Mr. Gerson.” He took a step backwards and added, “Thank you, Mr. Sobel. Mr. Gerson, I apologize. Rest assured that you will be in safe hands with your new Seeker.”
He had turned and was opening the cell door with his master key before Garrett was able to recover his senses. Then he shouted, “Don’t think you won’t pay for this, Smith! I’ll see that your hood is removed for this! And when Taylor finds out what you’ve done—”
His voice was cut off by the sound of the cell door closing sharply behind the High Seeker. Garrett stood motionless a moment, struggling with the mixture of emotions Smith had left him with. On the one hand, he was annoyed at himself for giving in to fear; he ought to have known that the High Seeker would not get away with any dark dealings here, not with two guards present. But that made the fact that Smith had tried to do so all the more satisfactory. If the High Seeker had knelt and laid down his whip at Garrett’s feet, the outcome could not have been better.
Smiling, Garrett turned his gaze toward the guards, only to discover, with shock, that both of them were regarding him with reproachful expressions. Bloody blades, what was the matter with them? He was the one who had been assaulted. He was the one who deserved sympathy.
It just went to show what he had known all along: that the Eternal Dungeon would not give him the justice he deserved.
The Eternal Dungeon: a Turn-of-the-Century Toughs omnibus Page 18