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

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER TWO

  Sunlight poured down upon Elsdon. Standing still, he lifted his face to it, drinking in the rays filtered through the crystalline ceiling.

  He wondered sometimes where the crystal rock lay in the lighted world above. In a secluded courtyard of the royal palace that sprawled over the Eternal Dungeon? In an alleyway of the surrounding city, unnoticed except by prowling cats? He had amused himself one day by lying on the floor and watching the ceiling while guards and Seekers patiently stepped over the newest and youngest Seeker imprisoned in the Eternal Dungeon.

  No darkness had passed over the lighted crystal except for the broad darkness of cloud; no footsteps had marred the passage of light. All day Elsdon had lain there, napping sometimes, as this was his time of sleep. Whenever he woke, he would watch the light with a fixed gaze, seeing how its intensity changed as the hours passed and the sun shifted in the sky.

  The sun itself he never saw; nor would he ever see it again. Or so he had thought.

  A shadow touched him, and he turned to see Mr. Sobel leaning over the chair where the High Seeker sat, in order to hand Layle a sealed letter. Elsdon had just time enough to see that the seal upon the letter was of royal gold; then Layle slipped the letter into the inner pocket of his shirt and asked, “Are you ready for the conference?”

  Mr. Sobel flicked a glance at Elsdon. “The Queen has briefed me on what will be expected of me. Though I imagine that, when I arrive in Vovim, I’ll spend most of my time answering questions from other delegates on what it’s like to work under the most famous torturer in the world. . . . Unless, perhaps, they have met you already?”

  “I doubt it.” Layle lifted his drink and slid the cup’s straw under the face-cloth of his hood. He sipped from it before saying, “I’ve had a look at the list of delegates, and none of their names are familiar. None of those prison workers have made consultation visits to the Eternal Dungeon. For that very reason, though, you’re likely to endure a great deal of scrutiny. I suggest that you keep your mouth closed and devote your time to listening. You’ll learn more that way.”

  Mr. Sobel nodded. His hand touched lightly the coiled whip at his hip as he flicked another glance at Elsdon. Watching the guard take his leave, Elsdon thought to himself that Mr. Sobel had probably already learned a great deal during his eighteen years working with Layle. And indeed, in the next moments, Mr. Sobel began to make his way to the other guards and Seekers who were standing or relaxing in chairs near to Layle and Elsdon. The men nodded in response to whatever quiet comment Mr. Sobel made, and within a few minutes, all of the chairs near Layle and Elsdon had been emptied, permitting Layle to engage in private conversation while enjoying the rare luxury of feeling warm sunlight on his body.

  Elsdon glanced about the room, at the tables and chairs and the bar stand where a guard took his turn giving out drinks. No outer dungeon workers were here today. They were rarely seen here in any case, since only guards and Seekers were normally permitted in this common room. Indeed, the room had been designed primarily for the Seekers alone, since they were the only people in the dungeon who were otherwise deprived of sunlight.

  “Blackstone,” said Elsdon abruptly.

  Layle, sipping at his drink again, raised his eyebrows; Elsdon could barely see the movement through the eye-holes in the High Seeker’s hood.

  “That’s where your records stated you came from,” Elsdon explained. “They said you’d been transferred from duties at Blackstone Prison.”

  “Ah, yes, I’d forgotten.” Layle laid the drink down upon the wood of the common-room table, marked with the stains of dozens of Seekers’ cups. “That was the name of the prison where the Hidden Dungeon was housed when I left it. As it happens, there are several prisons in Yclau named Blackstone as well. Nobody has ever bothered to ask me which one I worked at.”

  He kept his voice low as he spoke. Elsdon found himself twisting his neck to look at the nearest group of guards, who were taking no notice of the conversation. Turning his head took Layle out of his vision; Elsdon’s own hood, he had discovered, was as effective a barrier to sight as blinders on a horse. It made it easier for him to understand why Layle had developed the habit of keeping his eyes fixed upon whomever he was speaking to.

  Looking back at the High Seeker, he said quietly, “No one else knows?”

  “The Queen knows,” Layle replied, leaning back in his seat, “and her Secretary, and the Codifier and Mr. Bergsen. My predecessor to this title knew, before his death.”

  “But no one else knows the full truth about you.”

  “No one in Yclau.” Layle made the faintest of pressures upon the final word. He spoke the words in Yclau perfectly; his accent was that of a high-born gentleman from west Yclau.

  After a moment, the High Seeker leaned forward and said, “You don’t appear surprised.”

  “I suppose I’m not,” Elsdon replied slowly. “It provides the answer to a mystery that had puzzled me. You told me when we first met last year that you had worked as a torturer for twenty years. You’re always exact in your statements, yet I learned later that you’d only worked in the Eternal Dungeon since you were eighteen. That left three years unaccounted for, and I found it hard to believe that any lesser prison would train a fifteen-year-old in torture.”

  “Vovimian apprenticeships begin much earlier,” Layle replied. “Some of the boys I worked with in the Hidden Dungeon were younger than I.”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  During the silence that followed, cups clanked as the barman cleared them away from tables. The room was beginning to empty. Seekers and guards from the night shift were drifting back to their rooms for bed, while the day guards and Seekers were already at their work.

  Layle said softly, “Do you?”

  Elsdon nodded. “I do now. I always wondered that about you – how you’d become a sadist. I knew how it was that I became a murderer: my father molded me into that form through his abuse. Not that that was any excuse for what I did, but I could not have developed the temptation to murder if it hadn’t been for my father. Now I know what it was that made you the way you are. The King’s Torturers took you when you were still young and impressionable. They corrupted you into an instrument of evil—”

  He stopped; Layle had risen to his feet and was staring toward the door of the Seekers’ common room. Elsdon looked over to it quickly, but no one stood there. He turned his gaze back to the High Seeker, who was staring blindly forth.

  After a while Layle said, “I was not a passive instrument.”

  “No more than I was blameless in the murder of my sister. I know that, Layle; I understand that you believe you have wrongdoings to atone for. You told me that long ago, that you had undertaken deeds at your last workplace which you regretted. But, love, you showed me that I couldn’t hold the full guilt of my sister’s murder. If my father hadn’t instilled violent feelings within me, I would never have been tempted into acting on those feelings. You mustn’t let yourself be weighed down by needless guilt, High Seeker. That’s a lesson you taught me.”

  Layle, standing in sunlight and staring into darkness, made no reply. Elsdon sighed and tried once more. “Love, I called you a sadist, but you’re a sadist in your dreamings only. You’ve never allowed yourself to dwell in private pleasure on a real prisoner’s pain—”

  “Some of my dreamings are based on my memories of the Hidden Dungeon.”

  It was a shock that beat hard through Elsdon’s body. A minute passed before he could catch his breath, and during all that long minute, Layle continued to stare blankly forth into space. Some of the Seekers and guards in the room were beginning to notice. Elsdon saw that a number of them were muttering to each other, with evident uneasiness in their postures.

  Finally, Elsdon said, “I wish you’d told me before, Layle. I didn’t know you were carrying that guilt upon you. I can see how it would have happened, though. If the Vovimian torturers are as terrible as you say, some of them must have tortured for the sake of plea
sure, and you being young as you were, that must have impressed itself upon you at the time. It would be hard for you now to think back at such times without remembering the pleasure the King’s Torturers felt, and that would lead to— Well. All I’m trying to say is that this is in the past. You’ve been reborn since then, love; you’ve lived a different life since you came to the Eternal Dungeon. You’ve never allowed yourself to receive pleasure from a prisoner’s pain since you became a Seeker, not unless your pleasure could in some way benefit the prisoner. So please, don’t allow the darkness of your past to overwhelm the light of what you have become.”

  Still Layle did not speak. The mutterings were growing louder now. Elsdon could see that the barman was talking with one of the senior Seekers, evidently consulting him over how to quell the disruption. Elsdon wondered whether he ought to speak of this to Layle.

  Then the High Seeker turned away abruptly. As the mutterings died into silence, he said quietly, “This isn’t the proper place for us to talk.” Without looking again at Elsdon, he strode toward the door.

  A path opened for him as he walked forward. No one spoke to him.

  o—o—o

  They ended up in the rack room. Elsdon wasn’t particularly surprised; Layle had brought him here on many occasions during his nine months of training. Elsdon suspected that was an exercise in self-control for the High Seeker, since it was in this room that the High Seeker had first let Elsdon guess Layle’s love for him.

  Elsdon knew why it had happened here, of course. He glanced at the High Seeker, but Layle’s thoughts seemed to be focussed on his work. He had flipped up his face-cloth once the door was closed and was frowning as he tugged at the great wheel at the head of the rack.

  “Bloody controls,” he said. “I don’t know why we bother to use precise machinery if it’s going to break down half the time we’re using it. We might as well revert back to using Vovimian-style racks.”

  Elsdon tried to remember what the difference was, but he was distracted by the sight of Layle going down on his knees before the rack, as though in obeisance to an altar of worship. After a moment, Elsdon realized that the High Seeker was examining the rack’s gears.

  “May the torture-god of hell rack forever the idiot who designed this—”

  Layle had the most colorful collection of oaths of anyone whom Elsdon had ever met. It had never occurred to Elsdon to wonder why. The High Seeker prostrated himself in the dirt, rolled onto his back, and pulled himself into the shallow space between the floor and the rack.

  “Take it up one-quarter for me.” Layle’s voice emerged hollow from his hiding place.

  Elsdon stepped forward and spent a moment checking that the locking mechanism was off before he gently tugged the wheel over the great notch that normally held it in check. The wheel spun forward without any urging on his part, its complex system of gears and weights compelling it to spin until it was locked. The straps at the top of the rack twitched.

  A moment later, Elsdon felt the soft tug at his hands that told him he had reached the first quarter of the first of ten marks. He held the wheel in place and pushed in the locking mechanism, but when he released the wheel he found that it had somehow slipped out of the lock. It drifted forward, making the straps dance on the rack until he had jerked the wheel back down to its starting place, past the notch.

  More oaths emerged from under the rack; he guessed that Layle must be invoking every god in Vovim to his cause. Elsdon felt a ball grow suddenly hard in his chest. “Layle,” he said, “do you believe in rebirth?”

  Layle emerged from under the rack, his hood askew. He pulled himself into a sitting position, took off the hood, and spent a moment wiping the dust from it before saying, “Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”

  “I wasn’t sure. Vovimians don’t believe in rebirth. . . .”

  Layle placed the hood on his head, checked a moment that the face-cloth was still clipped out of the way, then rose and matched his gaze to Elsdon’s. “I am Yclau,” he said softly. “By right of the Queen’s mercy to me and by my own choice, if not by birth.”

  “Does that mean you no longer believe in the gods of Vovim?”

  A quirk of a smile appeared at the edge of Layle’s mouth. “Let’s just say that, when the torture-god calls me to his hell-dungeon to pay for what I have done in this life, I plan to dispute his right to my soul. . . . Will you take a look underneath this monstrosity that dares to call itself a machine, and tell me whether my eyes deceive themselves?”

  Elsdon squirmed his way under the rack. Coughing against the dust in the darkness there, he said, “You couldn’t have raped me, you know.”

  A silence followed. “What are you saying?” Layle asked.

  “In your dreaming. You couldn’t have raped me from the head of the rack. The wheel’s in the way.”

  He heard what might have been a choke from Layle, and might merely have been a wry laugh. Elsdon’s thoughts had wandered away to the gears he felt under his fingers. After a moment, he cried, “Bloody blades!”

  “It’s as bad as I thought, then?”

  “Whichever blacksmith fixed this last time unhooked the gear to the locking mechanism! If you take the wheel up, it can’t lock. The wheel will just keep spinning till it reaches ten.”

  “It will spin higher than that,” Layle said grimly. “These racks are designed to go up to thirty.”

  “Thirty!” Startled, Elsdon pushed himself out from under the rack and peered up at the High Seeker from the floor. “But I thought the racks here only went up to the tenth level. They’re dangerous enough at that level.”

  “We only take the racks up to ten. But the locking mechanism is produced to a uniform design, so that it can be sold to a variety of countries. The torturers in the Hidden Dungeon need a locking mechanism that will still be of use when they place the prisoner at level thirty.”

  Elsdon stood up, wiped his dusty hands on his trousers, and pulled his hood free of the tangle it had made in the back of his head. He said, “A prisoner would be torn asunder if he were raised to so high a level.”

  “Yes.”

  The High Seeker said nothing more. Elsdon forced a humorless smile onto his face and said, “Are you telling me this to warn me of what the King’s Torturers are like? Or to try to scare me from going on this mission?”

  “The former. We both know that you wouldn’t need to be raised to level thirty to break in the hands of a torturer.”

  Elsdon looked past Layle, beyond the wheel to where the straps lay limp upon the bed of the rack. He felt a shiver go through him, and he nodded.

  He raised his eyes to Layle at last and said, “If you’re looking for someone to withhold secrets under torture, I’m the worst person you could have selected for this mission.”

  Layle shook his head. “If the Queen wanted you to keep secrets, she would never have chosen you. Your mission is a simple one: to show the Vovimians the difference between barbaric care of prisoners and humane care of prisoners.”

  “By introducing them to the Code of Seeking, you mean?” Elsdon looked over to the bench at the back of the room. It held a slim black volume, as did the benches in all of the rack rooms – a visible reminder to the Seekers and guards who worked here of who their true master was.

  “Well,” Elsdon said, “I have the Code memorized – more than memorized. I’m not an eloquent speaker, though.”

  “You won’t need to be, with the King,” said Layle in a dry manner. “When you enter his presence, he’ll either decide that you’re the savior of his people or that you’re a tool of the torture-god. Either way, he won’t care how well you give your speech.”

  “And if he should decide I’m a villain and send me to his torturers? Do I tell them about the Code?” Elsdon tried to speak lightly, but he could feel his muscles knotting.

  Layle’s hands slid onto Elsdon’s shoulders. Elsdon’s breath hissed in with surprise. The High Seeker rarely touched him outside of their living cell; most certain
ly he had taken care never to touch Elsdon in this place. Elsdon knew why.

  “If the worst should come, and you should be placed in the unmerciful hands of the King’s Torturers,” Layle said softly, “I know, without any doubt at all, that your presence there will transform the Hidden Dungeon. Perhaps not as far as all of us in Yclau would like, but I believe that your suffering will make a difference to the prisoners in Vovim. Otherwise, I would not send you there.”

  Elsdon could not speak for a time. Then he said, in a voice that trembled too much for his liking, “If I manage to persuade the Vovimians to reform their prisons . . . will you be willing to complete my training and let me become a true Seeker?”

  Layle’s hands fell from Elsdon’s shoulders. The High Seeker took a step backwards. “You could have finished your training by now, if you’d wished.”

  Elsdon forced himself to laugh. “You mean, if I’d been willing to finish my training under Mr. Chapman. Layle, you’re the only person in the Eternal Dungeon who doesn’t understand why I chose to wait till you were returned to your duties before undertaking the final weeks of my training. Everyone else here knows that you’re giving me the best training I could receive.”

  Layle said nothing. Instead, he turned and began playing with the wheel control.

  Elsdon said, “I thought at first that you wouldn’t end my training because you didn’t think I could do well on the final part . . . the torture.”

  Layle shook his head without looking up. “All that’s asked of you for that final training is that you be willing to endure whatever pain any of your prisoners might have to endure. Whether you do so well or ill is of no matter. It is the willingness that matters.”

  “If that’s so, then why won’t you take this from me?” Elsdon’s hand rose to the red strip of cloth lining the edge of his hood, marking him as a Seeker-in-Training. “What is it that makes me ill-qualified to be a true Seeker?”

  Layle reached under the wheel, adjusted something, and said, “Innocence.”

  Elsdon gave an incredulous laugh. “You think I’m still innocent? After all I’ve been through?”

  Layle sighed and leaned his left arm upon the wheel. The fingers of his right hand travelled down to stroke the controls. “Elsdon, in certain ways you arrived in this dungeon with less innocence than most of the men and women who walk through the gates above. Thanks to your father, you knew evil to its depths. But you are still inclined to trust too much—”

  “Because I trust you, you mean.” Elsdon strove to push back the impatience in his voice. “Layle, that’s not going to change, no matter how long you train me.”

  “I’m not asking you to utterly distrust your prisoners, but simply to be aware of their limitations: to know how much evil they are capable of committing, and to take that into account in your searching. If you ask more of your prisoner than he or she can give, the results are likely to be bitter for you both. You have no idea how, in the past hour of our conversation, you have revealed yourself to be entirely unsuited to take on the full responsibilities of a Seeker.”

  It came like a blow across Elsdon’s face. He had to close his eyes a moment before opening them and saying, with throat tight, “So teach me. That’s your job.”

  Layle’s hand slid up to cover his face. Then his hand fell, his shoulders straightened, and he turned. “I am not a god,” he said. “I cannot be sure of what will happen to you in Vovim. Are you certain that you wish to undertake this mission?”

  “I took an oath to help the prisoners,” Elsdon said softly. “Even if they’re Vovimian prisoners, I think the oath still binds me.”

  He could not tell, from Layle’s expression, whether he had said the right thing. To break the awkward silence, he added, “Besides, what Seeker wouldn’t welcome the chance to visit the lighted world for a while?”

  Layle raised his eyebrows, and another thought came home to Elsdon. “My death sentence,” he said. “It’s still active. The magistrates won’t invoke it, if you release me from here for this mission?”

  Layle shook his head. “When the Magisterial Guild agreed to allow you to train to be a Seeker, they knew that your duties might require you, on a rare occasion, to re-enter the lighted world. The Queen has already suspended your sentence for the interval of this mission.”

  “Oh.” Elsdon could guess that was Layle’s doing. He felt, as he often did, that he was miles behind the High Seeker in a path that Layle had long since trail-blazed. He struggled in his mind for a more intelligent question to ask. “Is there anything you can tell me about the Hidden Dungeon that would be of help to me?”

  Layle appeared to worry at the question, like a hound tearing at a bone. Then he said, “The King’s Torturers are prisoners.”

  Elsdon waited to see whether Layle would add anything to this obvious statement. At last he said, “Yes?”

  “Greater prisoners than we are. Seekers are eternally confined to the dungeon, but by our own choice; even you exercised some choice in the matter. The King’s Torturers have no choice. They are simply told that they will be torturers, and they know that if they fail to satisfy the King with their work, then they will be swept away in one of the periodic ‘cleansings’ the King undertakes upon the Hidden Dungeon every few years. New rules – such as the Code could be – mean nothing to the torturers except that those rules provide new excuses by which the King might execute them. These are men who have no incentive to change their work conditions, and every incentive to continue in the traditions of breaking that have worked for them in the past. Don’t underestimate the amount of opposition to reform that you will find amongst the Vovimian torturers.”

  Elsdon nodded, but he found himself saying, “I can’t imagine how even the most hardened torturer could fail to be moved by what he read in the Code of Seeking.”

  “You’d be surprised,” said Layle, his dry manner returning, but within his voice was a new note. He glanced, seemingly involuntarily, toward the black volume at the other end of the room.

  Elsdon found himself standing by the volume before he knew he had stirred. He picked up the book, brushing his hand over the soft leather and the worn edges of the pages. Opening the book carefully, he flipped to the page he wanted, and read aloud, “‘It is necessary that a guilty prisoner should be broken and that the prisoner should be made to acknowledge his fault. But after the breaking must come the healing, so that the prisoner may be made to see how, in whatever time he has left in his life, he can transform what was evil into good. Any man who can accomplish this task may be rightly termed a true Seeker, for he has learned the path by which to seek men’s souls, and to prepare them for rebirth.’” Elsdon raised his head. Smiling at Layle, he said, “That’s my favorite passage. You wrote it; it only appears in the fifth revision of the Code.”

  Layle came forward slowly and took the book into his hands. He held it a minute, looking down at the neat green print on the page, then said in a low voice, “Ordinary men ensure their immortality by begetting and raising children. Those of us who are Seekers, and who have taken vows that bar us from marriage, must find another way to be remembered. Perhaps it is vanity on my part, but I would like to think that, when the history of the Eternal Dungeon is finally written, I will receive a sentence or two because my name appears on the title page of this book.” He glanced at Elsdon and then looked quickly down at the book again, saying, “My own favorite passage is a sentence that I didn’t write; it was there from the beginning. ‘A Seeker must be willing to suffer for the prisoners.’”

  Elsdon had not laid his hand aside when Layle took the book. He allowed his palm to move forward and cover Layle’s hand. “You helped shape that sentence,” he said softly. “The word used in the original version of the Code was ‘torturer.’”

  Layle turned his gaze slowly toward Elsdon again. At sight of his eyes, Elsdon felt his breath hitch within his throat. The High Seeker’s eyes had turned glassy, like that of a horse which is sickly or blind. His pupils were w
ide, moving slightly at the sight of something beyond this room. His hand turned slack under Elsdon’s palm.

  Layle dropped the Code.

  Elsdon caught the book before it reached the floor. In the same moment, the High Seeker began to blink. Elsdon turned his face away before Layle should see his expression. He had witnessed this look in Layle’s eyes many times during the twelve months he had known the High Seeker – more times, probably, than any other person in the dungeon. Apart from the dungeon healer and the Codifier, Elsdon alone knew what it was that Layle saw in those moments of unseeing which so unnerved the other inhabitants of the dungeon.

  Such was Layle’s dark reputation that the other inhabitants no doubt imagined that their High Seeker was relishing visions of unimaginable horrors, dwelling with delight upon thoughts of prisoners screaming hopelessly for mercy.

  Elsdon only wished this weren’t the case. Setting the book aside, he tried to remember all that usually accompanied that look, when Layle and he were alone together: the gentle touches, the loving caresses. It was easy enough for Elsdon to think of such things when lying upon a soft mattress and pillow.

  Not when standing next to an instrument of torture. He turned back to Layle, who, in his usual manner, was pretending that the moment of dreaming had not occurred.

  “If you have need of help while you’re in Vovim, send word to Mr. Sobel at the prison conference,” the High Seeker said. “I’ll be too far away for you to reach me in an emergency, but the conference is being held near the King’s palace, and Mr. Sobel may be able to offer you advice. Oh, and you’d best adjust your sleep schedule – you’ll be awake during the daytime from now on. I’ve arranged for you to meet with the Queen this afternoon; then you’ll sleep in the palace overnight. Your carriage to Vovim leaves at dawn tomorrow.”

  After a moment, Elsdon realized that Seekers should not gape. He said, “So soon? I thought . . . Well, I can spend the rest of this morning with you, at least.”

  “No. I have to see the Codifier about having this rack mended, before we should have need of it. We’ll talk when you return.”

  Layle had turned away and was about to walk to the door when Elsdon caught hold of him. For a moment it appeared that the High Seeker would jerk himself away from his subordinate’s grasp. Then he allowed himself to be pulled forward into Elsdon’s arms and into Elsdon’s kiss.

  When Elsdon finally drew back, he found that Layle’s eyes were closed. The High Seeker’s jaw muscles were tightened, as though in pain. His lips moved soundlessly.

  “Layle?”

  The High Seeker’s eyes opened. For a moment it appeared that he would speak the words he had mouthed. Then he said, in the same formal voice as before, “We’ll talk when you return.”

  He walked away, before Elsdon could gather his wits to remind his love-mate that his return was by no means certain.

  The High Seeker had reached the door and was pulling down the face-cloth of his hood when Elsdon cried, “Layle!”

  The High Seeker turned. He was too far from the single lamp in the room for Elsdon to be able to read the expression in his eyes, but his posture had returned to the formality with which he held himself through most of his waking hours. He waited in silence.

  “You’ll be remembered by future generations for more than your revision of the Code,” Elsdon said. “You know what they say: What men are is more important than what men do.”

  The High Seeker stepped back. His hand found the latch to the door without seeking it. He said, in a voice so soft that it barely reached Elsdon, “Oh, I hope not. I have prayed for two decades that those words are not true.”

  And then he was gone.