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

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER SIX

  “It had to be a Seeker,” Elsdon said. “I can see that.”

  They were in the High Seeker’s sitting room, in the late afternoon hours preceding the start of Layle’s shift. Elsdon, patched up and clucked over by the Eternal Dungeon’s healer, was still on healing leave. He sat curled up within an armchair, watching Layle as the High Seeker drizzled honey onto fruit, the only nourishment that Elsdon’s stomach was yet able to tolerate.

  “Seekers are the only men in the queendom who are oath-bound to suffer for the sake of prisoners,” Elsdon continued, his hand reaching up to touch the red-bordered cloth of his hood. “All of this was done for the sake of Vovim’s prisoners, present and future. The Queen couldn’t have asked anyone but a Seeker to undergo torture for the sake of the prisoners.”

  “It had to be a Seeker,” Layle agreed. “But it didn’t have to be you.” He cursed softly as the fruit knife slipped, biting into his thumb.

  Elsdon took the fruit Layle offered to him on a plate, but did not eat it. “Of course it had to be me,” he said. “I’m a Seeker-in-Training; I would have had to undergo torture in any case. And I needed an experience like this to strip away my innocence. I needed to see how evil can disguise itself as good.” He stopped then, but Layle said nothing, so Elsdon added, “If you’d asked any of the true Seekers to do this, it would have been unnecessary suffering for them. And I’d been your prisoner, and before that I’d been in the hands of my father. You knew that I was capable of surviving prolonged torture.”

  “In many ways that made you the least qualified man to go.” Layle had retreated to the food-serving area. He had remained seated beside the carriage driver during Elsdon’s slow journey back from Vovim, and since their arrival home to the Eternal Dungeon he had kept at a distance from Elsdon, as a Seeker keeps his distance from his prisoner. “An inexperienced Seeker . . . A former prisoner who had only recently undergone searching . . . A young man who had been abused for many years, and who is still not fully healed from that abuse . . .”

  Elsdon sighed, putting the fruit onto the table nearby. “Layle, you act as though what mattered most was my own welfare. We know that’s not the case. What mattered most was whether I was the Seeker who could help the prisoners. The prisoners’ best interests come first.”

  “I wasn’t honest with you about what you would be facing.” Layle’s voice was stiff.

  Elsdon gave a sharp laugh. “No, thank every rule in the Code that you weren’t! I would have told Master Aeden everything to keep him from binding me.”

  Layle stared down at the knife in his hand. After a moment he said, “I thought it unlikely that it would go that far. The spies that the Queen sent to keep track of the second ambassador lost him shortly before he reached the Hidden Dungeon, but they were able to learn that both ambassadors had been placed in my old master’s hands. Master Aeden proceeds slowly with prisoners; that’s his normal style. I didn’t think it likely that he’d place you on the rack or bind you in any other way before we rescued you.”

  “Did you hope it wasn’t likely,” Elsdon asked quietly, “or did you hope that it would happen?”

  Layle’s hand closed convulsively on the knife. Once again blood began to trickle, but the High Seeker appeared not to notice. For a moment he stared down at the knife blankly; then he carefully laid the knife aside and walked past Elsdon into the bedroom. He shut the door behind him.

  It took a moment for Elsdon to shrug off the blanket Layle had placed over his shoulders and wrench himself out of the chair. Every small movement he made still hurt. Wincing, he walked to the bedroom door and opened it. Layle was standing in the corner of the bedroom, in the tiny space between the wall and the table next to the bed. He had been staring down at the black-bound book on the table, but as Elsdon entered, he turned his head toward the wall, as though in response to an anticipated blow.

  “Layle,” Elsdon said, his voice breathless from the pain of walking, “this isn’t about me, is it? This is about you. About what I learned of you in Vovim. About what you wouldn’t tell me.”

  Layle looked back at Elsdon. The High Seeker’s face was half-hidden by his hood. He said nothing.

  Elsdon walked forward until he was within arm’s reach of Layle. “You wouldn’t tell me the truth before,” he said. “Answer me honestly now.”

  “I will.” Layle’s voice was low. He had turned his gaze away from Elsdon and was staring again at the black book.

  “The day before I left, when we were in bed together here . . . You wore your face-cloth up then. That was because you were imagining you were in Vovim, wasn’t it?”

  Layle’s throat moved as he swallowed. “Yes.”

  “You were dreaming of what you thought would happen to me in Vovim, and you were imagining yourself being the one doing it.”

  A second swallow; this time the reply was lower. “Yes.”

  “And while we were separated – did you pleasure yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when you did, you thought about what was happening to me in Vovim.”

  “Yes.” Layle’s voice could barely be heard now.

  Elsdon took a step forward, so that he was nearly abreast Layle, but he did not touch the High Seeker. He said, in a voice as low as Layle’s had been, “You miss Vovim, don’t you? You miss being able to rape prisoners.”

  A pause, then a whisper: “Yes.”

  “And the next time we go to bed—”

  “No!”

  Elsdon stepped back as Layle whirled to face him. The High Seeker’s face was incised with deep lines of emotion. “No,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I’ll never do that to you again, Elsdon. Mr. Taylor. I’d already made that decision before you left. I knew that you’d learn what I am from my master; I knew— If ever the day comes, many years from now, when you have healed enough from this that you can forgive me, and are willing to honor me again with your friendship— But not more than that. I swear, I don’t hope for more than that from you.”

  Elsdon sighed. “Layle, what are you going to do, stop thinking about sex for the rest of your life? Whether you’re with me the next time you think of sex or whether you’re alone by yourself, I know what image is going to come into your mind. I know that what I suffered under Master Aeden will give you pleasure.”

  Layle was still a moment. Then he turned slowly and pressed his body against the corner of the room, as though seeking to escape. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I should never have taken you as my love-mate. I don’t know what I can do to—” His voice broke off.

  Elsdon looked at the huddled figure, his own dull pain forgotten as he put his effort into reading the signals that Layle’s body sent him. After a while he said, “Master Aeden was a wise man.”

  Layle made no reply.

  “He showed me important things about the Eternal Dungeon,” Elsdon added. “Things I hadn’t known before.”

  “I’m sure the Codifier will welcome hearing what you learned.” Layle’s voice was low.

  “Yes, I plan to speak to him about what I learned. Among other things, Master Aeden made me realize that the Code of Seeking contains a number of flaws that could increase the suffering of the prisoners. That’s more true of the fifth revision than of previous revisions.”

  Layle looked down at the black book on the table; his hand went out to touch it. “So,” he said hollowly, “even this I have tainted. I might have guessed.” With one swift movement he shoved the book from the table; then he collapsed to his knees in the corner, his face buried within his hands.

  Elsdon looked at the book, which lay face-down upon the floor. He walked over, picked it up, carefully dusted off the cover, and returned to where he had stood before. Groaning with the effort, he went down upon one knee so that his head was level with Layle’s.

  The High Seeker did not look up; he was collapsed into himself, blind of all sight. Elsdon said quietly, “You were wrong not to tell me everything about yourself. You sho
uld have been honest with me and offered me the choice of whether to remain with you.”

  “Yes.” Layle’s voice came choked.

  Elsdon paused a moment, looking at the crumpled figure before him. Then he said, “Master Aeden talked about the dishonesty of Seekers. He said that we take what is ugly and place a varnish of beauty upon it, making it seem as though the ugly is beautiful.”

  “Yes.” Layle’s voice, still muffled by his hands, sounded now as though he were being strangled. “I know that’s what I’ve done. I’m evil all through, and I’ve tried to pretend there is beauty within me. What I’ve done to you— And the prisoners here; I must have made them suffer too—”

  He raised his face. It was shining from the tears. “What shall I do?” he whispered. “I don’t trust myself even in this, to decide how to save the world from my vile destruction. . . .”

  Elsdon fingered the gold lettering upon the black book before he said, in a level voice, “I guessed what you were while your master was raping me. Would you like to know what I was thinking then?”

  Layle’s hands clutched at his trousers, but he gave a slight nod, and this time he did not turn away. He kept his gaze fixed upon Elsdon, as the prisoners of the Eternal Dungeon are instructed to look upon their Seeker when they are tortured.

  “I thought to myself, ‘If I survive this, then I will go back to the Eternal Dungeon and tell Layle what has happened, and he will receive pleasure from hearing how I suffered. And then he will take that pleasure and turn it into an act of love between us, and my healing will begin.’”

  Layle was motionless. Even his chest had ceased to rise and fall. Elsdon reached out and placed the Code of Seeking in his hands.

  “Master Aeden was a wise man,” he told Layle, “but he was wrong about this. He was a good man who chose to work within an evil system. He sullied his golden soul. But you . . . When you transformed me from a murderer into a man whose life is dedicated to using his violent impulses to help others, that wasn’t a varnish. That was true ugliness turning to true beauty. You did the same to yourself when you made the decision to leave Vovim, though the deepest parts of you continue to ache from that decision. Your dreamings call you to a life of rape and senseless pain – yet every day you walk into the cells here and devote your life to helping prisoners transform themselves away from evil. That is true beauty. You are true beauty.”

  Layle continued to stare for a moment before his eyes dropped to the book. His thumb, crusted with black blood from the cutting, traced its way over the golden words upon the cover. Elsdon, watching him, stood up; then he gasped, and for a moment his world spun. He began to fall – and then he felt Layle’s hand at his elbow, steadying him.

  The tears had dried upon Layle’s face. He placed the book back on the table. For a moment more the High Seeker’s gaze travelled over Elsdon’s face. Then Layle reached forward and took the hood from Elsdon’s head.

  “It is necessary that a guilty prisoner should be broken,” he said in a colorless voice, “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.”

  As he spoke, the High Seeker ripped from the bottom of Elsdon’s hood the red strip that marked Elsdon as a Seeker-in-Training. Tossing the red cloth aside, Layle placed the hood upon Elsdon’s head once more: a black hood, the hood of a true Seeker.

  Elsdon let out his breath slowly. “Thank you, High Seeker,” he said quietly.

  Layle took Elsdon’s hand in his and brought the back of it up to his lips. His head remained bowed over the hand as he said, his voice tight once more, “When the history of the Eternal Dungeon is written, I will have been forgotten. It is you they will remember.”

  Elsdon smiled as he freed his hand and raised it to Layle’s face. His fingers pushed back Layle’s hair from his eyes as he said, “We can’t be separated.”

  Then he drew Layle forward to his kiss.

  o—o—o

  o—o—o

  . . . Unfortunately, we no longer possess the name of the sixth revision’s insightful author, nor do we know what events shaped his views. Internal evidence, however, in the form of certain phrases that match passages in Layle Smith’s unpublished letters, suggest that the author was a Seeker who had at some time worked in close consultation with the first High Seeker.

  By reading the sixth revision with a careful eye, we can learn much about its author. He was evidently a man of great loyalty and generosity, who wished to give Layle Smith full credit for what he had accomplished. Yet he was also a man of forceful character and independence of mind, who was not afraid to depart from his master’s work where he believed it to be in error. Indeed, despite the loss of all other information on the sixth revision’s author, we know nearly as much about him as we do about Layle Smith.

  It is said that what men are is more important than what men do. Yet perhaps it is the case that what men do ultimately determines what men are.

  —Psychologists with Whips: A History of the Eternal Dungeon.

  Rebirth 5

  AS A SEEKER

  The year 356, the tenth month. (The year 1880 Clover by the Old Calendar.)

  Some historians have argued in recent years that the first High Seeker of the Eternal Dungeon deserves little or no credit for the astounding improvements in the handling of criminals that took place during his lifetime. A man who began his life as a murderer and rapist, and who capped his achievements by going mad, does not merit the praise he has been given. Or so the argument goes.

  Whichever side one takes in this debate over who did what, it is important to point out that what united the Seekers of the Eternal Dungeon's Golden Age is more important than what divided them – for one quality all Seekers shared. Much as modern historians would like to turn their heads in shame from this period, it is in the tale of Layle Smith's mental illness that we must seek the most shining example of this quality. . . .

  —Psychologists with Whips: A History of the Eternal Dungeon.