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

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER THREE

  For a moment, the torturer did nothing but look down upon the man in the bed. His uniform was very plain: just black trousers and a black shirt and the black hood that covered his head. From where he stood frozen, Yeslin could see that the front part of the hood was unmarred but for two eye-holes. What lay behind these – whether anything lay behind these – Yeslin could not tell, for the Seeker stood in the shadows.

  Then the Seeker walked forward with measured steps, like a guard before a funeral pyre. He reached the bed and leaned over, saying something so softly that Yeslin, just a few feet away, could not hear him.

  His father’s eyes flew open. He stared up at the Seeker, his face turning pale, and the torturer spoke again softly. His father’s breath rushed in, and he began to choke on whatever reply he had been about to make. His hands were now clutching the bed-cloth. The Seeker waited, stooping dark over the dying man.

  Suddenly, without knowing he had moved, Yeslin was beside his father. He pushed the Seeker back with a shove, shouting, “Go away! Leave my father alone!”

  The Seeker took two involuntary steps back, then stopped and straightened. Close as he was, Yeslin still could not tell whether the torturer had eyes. The Seeker’s eyeless gaze remained weighted upon him, crushing all breath from Yeslin’s chest.

  Then he felt his arms pinioned painfully behind his back, and he gave a cry. From behind him, Mr. Pevsner said breathlessly, “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll see that you aren’t disturbed again.” He pushed Yeslin forward, so quickly that Yeslin could not see whether the Seeker turned his head to watch them go, or whether his attention had returned to the man on the bed.

  Within seconds, they had reached the entrance to the stairwell. Mr. Pevsner released him, thrusting Yeslin forward as he said, “Go downstairs. Stay there.”

  “But—”

  The door slammed closed before he could finish speaking. Yeslin heard the key turn in its lock. He stood motionless, trying to hear what was taking place beyond the door, but the room was as silent as death.

  He looked behind him. The door leading to the steps to the servants’ quarters was shut, and Yeslin could hear no sound from abovestairs. Evidently Manfred had been given instructions to keep everyone below until the Seeker was gone. Yeslin put his hand on the knob to the belowstairs door. Then, abruptly, he turned away and made his way over to the door of the closet.

  He worked quickly, but as quietly as possible, pulling off the shelves and piling them to the side of the closet. When he was through, he carefully closed the closet door; then, groping in the dark, he pulled away the panel at the back of the old garden shed.

  He often wondered whether anyone besides himself knew about the panelled entrance. Surely his father did not, or he would have spoken of it when he found Yeslin exploring the closet. Had the dead daughter known of it, perhaps? It seemed like the sort of secret that generations of this household’s children would know of, and it pleased Yeslin to think of the girl using this secret entrance to sneak in and out of the house, as her fancy wished.

  The hidden entrance did not lead to the death room, which until a few weeks before had been the house’s dining room. Instead, the entrance led to the deserted front parlor. Yeslin, ducking his way through the secret entrance, paused to kneel on the floor and wipe his hands free of the dirt he had acquired while removing the shelves. His way was blocked by a straight-backed piano, which stood catercorner from the rest of the furniture in the room, hiding the corner of the front parlor and the panelled entrance to the old garden shed. The dust in this corner was an inch thick; Yeslin guessed that no one had tried to move the heavy piano for years, perhaps decades. He was not sure that he could move it himself; nor had he tried to do so on the one previous occasion when he had visited this room, before his father had forbidden him to come into the front parlor. But if he could not move the piano, he could climb over it, and he was sure his father would understand why he had disobeyed orders. After all, his father’s life lay in peril.

  He was thinking of this, still kneeling upon the dirt and trying to formulate a plan to save his father, when he heard voices in the entrance hall. His breath halted. He looked round quickly, seeking a spy-hole from his position, but he could see none; the piano, straight-backed, rose like a wall before him.

  Then he heard a door squeak, and he knew he was trapped.

  Mr. Pevsner’s voice said, as he entered the room, “You can see for yourself, sir, how ill my brother is. We have placed him downstairs so that he can be within easy reach of visitors, but we dare not move him again. The healer fears that my brother will die if he leaves his bed. He could in no way survive a journey to the Eternal Dungeon.”

  “Sir,” replied the Seeker in a soft voice, “you seem to be under a misapprehension. I do not possess the power to arrest men; my duties are confined to searching prisoners who have been sent to the dungeon by the Queen or by the lesser prisons. I am not here to arrest your brother.”

  “I see.” Mr. Pevsner’s voice was closer now. Yeslin, crouching in the dust, tried to crane his neck to look up, but he could see nothing other than the ceiling, and the chandelier hanging from it, and a bit of the wall holding the hearth.

  There was a clink, and then a gurgle, and Yeslin knew that Mr. Pevsner must be pouring a drink. “In that case, sir, would it be too bold of me to enquire as to your intentions here?”

  “I am here on behalf of your brother’s son. —No, thank you, I do not drink on duty.”

  There was a silence, and then Mr. Pevsner said, “He is alive, then.”

  “Most certainly.” The Seeker sounded matter-of-fact, as though the possibility of his prisoner dying had not occurred to him. “He is eternally confined. Hearing, however, of his father’s imminent death—”

  “How did he hear of that?” Mr. Pevsner asked swiftly. There was a clink, as he evidently set down the glass.

  A small pause followed, and then the Seeker said, “I believe he received word from a member of this household.”

  “Which member?” asked Mr. Pevsner sharply.

  “I regret, sir, that I am not at liberty to say.” The Seeker’s voice was mild in comparison to Mr. Pevsner’s. He did not sound in the least like a torturer.

  “Never mind,” said Mr. Pevsner slowly. “I think I know who it was. He has hinted more than once . . . But no matter. You were speaking of your prisoner, sir; forgive my interruption.”

  “The prisoner,” continued the Seeker, “hearing of his father’s imminent death, wished to send a message to him. Since it was not clear whether your brother would be well enough to read a letter, I agreed to convey the message to him myself.”

  “That is generous of you, sir.” Mr. Pevsner had taken on a more genial tone, no doubt as a result of the Seeker’s mildness. “As it happens, it is unlikely my brother will die any time soon. We have held the death vigil now because the healer says that death is certain, but we are unsure as to whether it will take weeks or months for my brother to die. It seemed best to hold the vigil now, when my brother was still in a state where he could appreciate his neighbors’ signs of respect. So there was no need for you to trouble yourself to carry an urgent message – still, I will ensure that your visit is not wasted. If you give me the message, I will be glad to convey it to my brother.”

  “I fear that is not possible,” the Seeker replied softly. “The message is for your brother’s ears alone. However, if you wish to assist me, you could answer some questions.”

  There was a silence, followed by footsteps. Yeslin had just managed to slip himself into a seated position, but now he froze, terrified to move. Mr. Pevsner had come into view. He leaned against the mantelpiece, his arm brushing a pedestalled vase that sat above the hearth. “I am at your service, sir, as much as I can be,” he replied in a light voice. “You understand that, being my brother’s lawyer, I am honor-bound by my oath to my guild not to divulge private information from my clients.”

  The Seeker ignored this statement of res
ervation. “Well, then, Mr. . . .”

  “Pevsner,” the lawyer supplied.

  “But you are his brother?”

  “His step-brother, sir. My father was remarried after my mother’s death, to a widow whose husband had died at war and had left no provision for his wife and son. My brother Auburn was still a baby at the time.”

  “So you are the eldest son?”

  “By a few years.”

  “Yet your father left his house and business to your younger brother?”

  Mr. Pevsner’s fingers, which had been drumming upon the base of the pedestal, stopped abruptly. He said in a frigid voice, “I am sorry, sir; I do not follow your train of thought.”

  “I was wondering how well acquainted you were with the events that took place in this household two years ago.”

  “Ah.” Mr. Pevsner’s hand relaxed, and he resumed his drumming. “Not very well acquainted, to my sorrow, sir. I moved away from the capital when my brother’s children were still young. I had not visited this house for many years at the time that my nephew committed his murder.”

  “You were not in touch with any of your family members?”

  “Only by letter.” Mr. Pevsner made it sound as though he still lived in the days when letters took months to reach their recipients.

  “So you were not aware of what your brother was doing to his son.”

  Yeslin had to place his hand rapidly over his mouth to stifle a cry. Fortunately, Mr. Pevsner did not sight the movement; he was staring with narrowed eyes at the Seeker. He said carefully, “I am not aware that anything of an unlawful nature took place between my brother and his son.”

  The Seeker said nothing. The silence stretched, and then stretched further, like thread upon a distaff. Finally Mr. Pevsner added, “Of course I was aware that there was tension between my brother and my nephew. I very much regret that I was not present to assist my family during those many years. As soon as I received word of the tragedy, I hurried home to be of as much help as I could.”

  “And that is when you took over your brother’s affairs.” The Seeker’s voice was so neutral that he might have been discussing the weather, but Yeslin saw Mr. Pevsner stiffen again.

  “At my brother’s request, I took on some of his burdens,” he said. “I am his lawyer, after all.”

  “Then you will know of his will.”

  “His will?” Mr. Pevsner’s hand tightened with a clutch upon the pedestal of the closed vase, and for a moment it looked as though he would tip it over.

  “Your brother’s will. When he dies, who will inherit the house and business?”

  “I regret, sir, that my oath as a lawyer does not permit me to divulge such information.” Mr. Pevsner’s voice was cool.

  “Then you will inherit the house and business?”

  “Sir!” Mr. Pevsner drew himself up to his full height. “I do not know what your intentions are in asking such a question, but I assure you that I have engaged in no actions contrary to the ethics of the Lawyers’ Guild. I do not permit myself to serve as lawyer to my brother in any matter which would benefit myself.”

  “I see.” The Seeker’s voice was reflective. “Well, if that is the case, then your oath cannot prevent you from speaking of your brother’s will. If you benefit from it, then it must have been drawn up by another lawyer. Unless I am wrong, and you are not the recipient of your brother’s fortune?”

  Mr. Pevsner’s mouth opened, and remained open. Yeslin, crouching as low as he could behind the piano, could see the dilemma as clearly as the lawyer. If Mr. Pevsner refused to speak, then the Seeker would take this as an admission that Mr. Pevsner was his brother’s heir and had engaged in crookery with his brother’s will. But if Mr. Pevsner spoke . . .

  It came to Yeslin suddenly that he was witnessing a Seeker at his work. It had not occurred to him until now that Seekers might have ways to tear the truth from their prisoners, other than through torture. He resisted the impulse to raise his head high enough to see whether the Seeker’s eyes were as deceptively mild as his voice.

  Mr. Pevsner, defeated, said in a wooden manner, “My brother’s heir is my nephew.”

  “Oh?” There was a faint skepticism to the Seeker’s voice; Yeslin could not tell whether it was play-acted. “But your nephew is eternally confined.”

  Mr. Pevsner sighed heavily; the sigh sounded genuine. “I have advised my brother to change his will to reflect the reality of the situation. He will not do so. My brother is . . . very tender-hearted. He is reluctant to acknowledge that his son is lost to him forever.”

  “And so, since the will has not been changed, the house and business will go to his next nearest kin – would that be you?”

  Mr. Pevsner stiffened once more. After a moment he said, in an equally stiff voice, “That is for the magistrates to decide.”

  “And his other son?”

  “What?” Mr. Pevsner seemed momentarily disconcerted. He stared with furrowed brow at the Seeker.

  “The boy I met just now. He referred to your brother as his father.”

  “Oh, him.” Mr. Pevsner relaxed. “He is nothing. An urchin whom my brother brought home from the streets. My brother is very tender-hearted.” This time there was the faintest note of disapproval in the words.

  “He is an orphan, then?”

  “Yeslin? Sweet buds, no – his parents are alive and well.”

  “But you say that he was living on the streets.”

  Mr. Pevsner shrugged. “He chose to live there. His parents are drunkards and beat him. Or so he says.” The skepticism in his voice was less well masked than the Seeker’s had been.

  “And so your brother has adopted him?”

  Mr. Pevsner gave a short laugh. “Adopted him? Adopted a commoner boy?”

  “Yet he calls your brother ‘father.’”

  Mr. Pevsner sniffed. “It pleases him to do so. My brother indulges him.”

  “I see.” Nothing could be read in the Seeker’s voice. Yeslin wished again that he could see the man’s eyes. “Then, if the will has not been changed, your brother has made no provision for the boy after his death?”

  Mr. Pevsner merely shrugged his reply.

  “What will happen to him after your brother dies?” the Seeker persisted.

  “I suppose he will return home,” Mr. Pevsner said indifferently.

  “To his parents who beat him?” The Seeker’s voice remained mild.

  “Or he will find work. He is only two years short of his majority; he could easily pass himself off as an eighteen-year-old – or simply seek one of the many jobs available to boys.”

  There was silence. Yeslin was beginning to see how the Seeker used silence as his weapon, drawing men’s confessions through it. He wondered whether Mr. Pevsner recognized this.

  The lawyer’s hand tightened once again on the vase. He said sharply, “I fail to understand your interest in this matter, sir.”

  “I was just remembering,” the Seeker said softly, “what you said before, about your regret at not being present to help your family.”

  “I am sorry, but I do not understand what relevance that remark has to this discussion.”

  “No,” the Seeker said, yet more softly, “you would not.”

  Mr. Pevsner, who was beginning to turn red in the face, opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the Seeker said in a changed tone, “Thank you for your assistance, sir. If it is not of trouble to you, I would like time alone for a while, in order to recover from my journey and to prepare myself for my meeting with your brother.”

  “Ah.” Relief at the end of the questioning was clear in Mr. Pevsner’s face. “Yes, of course. You understand, sir, that, as my brother’s lawyer, I must be present at any meeting between himself and a man of governmental authority.”

  To Yeslin’s surprise, the Seeker simply replied, “I understand. If you will allow me time to prepare myself . . .”

  Mr. Pevsner’s eyes narrowed, as though he suspected the Seeker of wishing to
attempt some betrayal, but the Seeker did not speak further, so the lawyer said, “Of course, sir. You may remain here; no one will disturb you unless you pull the bell-rope, in which case my brother’s butler will come to serve you. I will leave you for . . . half of an hour? Or perhaps an hour?” He apparently received a nod to the latter question, for he added, “I have work of my own to do in any case. I need to speak with one of the house’s servants.”

  His voice had turned grim, and Yeslin felt his stomach flip. He remained motionless, though, as Mr. Pevsner moved away, out of sight of him. “I will return, then, at the end of an hour,” the lawyer said. “It would be best, sir, for you not to disturb my brother until then. The shock of a stranger’s entrance could irreparably damage his remaining health.”

  “Of course,” said the Seeker in his mild voice. “I assure you, I will not disturb your household by entering the entrance hall. I agree that it would be wrong to inflict a stranger’s presence on your brother during his illness.”

  “Then if you will excuse me, sir . . .”

  The door of the front parlor opened and closed. Yeslin waited to hear the front door of the house open, but the sound of Mr. Pevsner’s footsteps walked in the opposite direction, and Yeslin realized that the lawyer did not wish to use the front door. The sound of its bell could be heard as far as the servants’ quarters and would bring Manfred up to investigate.

  Another door opened; Yeslin knew that it must belong to his father’s bedroom. He heard the very faint sound of metal scraping as Mr. Pevsner locked the door from the inside. A minute later the door to the stairwell creaked.

  Yeslin jumped in place and looked behind him, but the closet door, though slightly ajar, was still safely closed. He heard Mr. Pevsner pass through the stairwell; then the door to the side yard opened and closed. And then there was silence.

  Yeslin tried to remember whether he had heard the lawyer lock the servants’ door to his father’s bedroom. If Mr. Pevsner had not . . . He sat for a moment, trying to figure out whether he could depart from this room without being heard. Then he looked up and caught a glimpse of black.

  The Seeker was walking toward his corner. Toward the piano.

  o—o—o

  Yeslin had no time in which to decide whether it would be safer to remain motionless. He was too busy scrambling backwards beyond the open panel, back into the safety of the closet.

  He had forgotten the shelves leaning against the side of the closet. He tripped over them, falling backwards against the closet door, which thunked with the sound of his head hitting it, and then sprang open with a bang. Another loud thunk followed as he fell onto his back, sprawled across the floor.

  He raised his head, which was ringing from the blow. He was just in time to see a pair of black-trousered legs descend swiftly from the air onto the floor between the piano and the panel. Yeslin realized that the Seeker must have used his hands to vault over the piano, but he had no time to think about the oddness of this, for he was too busy trying to scramble backwards with his hands and feet and bottom, in a desperate effort to escape the black-hooded carnivore.

  His pain-filled head thunked against a solid barrier once more; he had reached the washbasin and was trapped against it. He saw the Seeker double over to make his passage through the secret entrance. Then, within a few steps, the Seeker was in the stairwell, looming over him.

  Despite the brightness of the light streaming through the windows, the Seeker’s eye-holes were still blank. He seemed as tall as the palace walls from where Yeslin sat, pressed against the washbasin. The Seeker had no weapons on his belt, but Yeslin had already witnessed how weapons could be superfluous for the torturer. He felt his heart hammering in his chest, and he could not seem to breathe. But he heard himself say in a trembling voice, “You can have the house and business. I don’t want them.”

  For a moment there was silence. Then the Seeker raised his hand, and Yeslin shrank into himself in preparation for the blow.

  The blow did not fall. Instead, the Seeker put his fingers to the hood and peeled it back over his head – not the entire hood, but the front part, which was apparently made of a separate cloth from the rest of the hood. The Seeker’s face came into view.

  The right corner of the Seeker’s mouth was lifted slightly, in the suggestion of a smile. “You’re quicker of wit than Uncle Harden,” said the Seeker.

  Yeslin did not reply; he was too busy staring. What struck him first of all was how young the figure before him was. He had imagined that the Seeker would be in the prime of his manhood, perhaps thirty years of age. Yet the young man standing before him could not be more than four or five years older than Yeslin. He was also quite the best-looking youth that Yeslin had ever seen, with flawless white skin and deep blue eyes and brown hair touched with gold.

  For so many months now Yeslin had imagined what this house’s murderer looked like. In all his imaginings, it had not occurred to Yeslin that Elsdon Taylor would look like his father.

  Then he reminded himself that Mr. Pevsner also looked like his father. Tension entered into Yeslin’s muscles; the Seeker must have sensed the slight movement, for the faint smile disappeared from his lips. He looked down at Yeslin, still looming over him like a black bird of prey. Finally he said, “I’m not here for my inheritance. I—”

  A door behind him banged, and the Seeker quickly pulled down the face-cloth of his hood. A voice behind him said, “Son?”

  Yeslin craned his neck to look, but his father was not gazing at him. The focus of his attention was the Seeker, who had turned swiftly to face the man clutching the doorpost. Yeslin’s father was in his thin nightshirt and was standing in bare feet; the nightcap was slipping off his head. He said in a quavering voice, “You’re here . . .”

  “Sir—” said the Seeker, but he had no chance to speak. Yeslin’s father stumbled forward, and the Seeker, apparently in an effort to keep the man from falling to the floor, came forward and put out his hand.

  But Yeslin’s father seemed to gain strength as he came forward. He bore the Seeker backwards, as though on a wave, saying, “You’re here! I knew that you would come. And it’s all here – everything that’s yours. Your room. The house. The business. I’ve kept it all for you. It’s all yours now.”

  “Sir . . .” The Seeker was now standing against the outside wall of the closet, but his father took no notice, crowding closer to the Seeker, as though he might escape.

  “You’ll stay, won’t you?” his father said in a pleading voice. “You won’t go away again? You can have anything you want. It will be like it was in the old days, son. . . .”

  He was chest-to-chest with the Seeker now, yet the Seeker was making no attempt to push him back. His hood was still down, and he had flattened himself against the wall; he was as motionless as a butterfly pinned to a card. But from where Yeslin sat on the floor, he could see that the Seeker’s hands had formed into fists.

  Yeslin was trying to figure out how he could rescue his father from those fists when the door beside him opened, and he heard Rab say, “Why, sir, what are you doing out of bed? You ought not to be on your feet, sir – no, not at all.”

  “I—” His father seemed suddenly flustered and took a step back. “I – I must talk with him—”

  “But you can do that from your bed, sir,” Rab stated firmly, walking forward. “Here, let me help you, sir. You ought not to be on your feet, sir; not when you’re unwell.”

  His father made inarticulate sounds of protest, but Rab took him decisively by the elbow and steered him away from the Seeker, who made no attempt to interfere. Yeslin came to his senses and scrambled up from the floor. He hesitated, but the Seeker remained where he was, against the wall to the closet, so Yeslin hurried past him into his father’s bedroom.

  When he got there, he found that Rab had already laid his father out upon the bed and pulled the covers over him. His father’s eyes were closed again. Rab, sighting Yeslin, came forward and met him in the middle of the room. />
  “What’s that Seeker doing here?” he hissed.

  Yeslin hesitated, looking past Rab toward his father. “He’s here to talk,” he said finally.

  “Well, get rid of him! He’s disturbing the master.”

  Yeslin wondered how Rab envisioned him expelling a hooded Seeker from the house. Then he remembered something more important. “Rab,” he whispered, “Mr. Pevsner is looking for you. He knows that you’ve been corresponding with . . . with Elsdon Taylor.”

  “Aye?” There was no surprise in Rab’s voice as he spoke, but his shoulders sagged. After a moment more he said, in a dull voice, “Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later.” He looked over at Yeslin and gave him half a smile. “Now, don’t you worry. I’m a skilled driver, and trained drivers are in demand. I’ll be able to find a new position in no time.”

  Yeslin sucked at his lower lip. Handsome young trained drivers were in demand, he had no doubt, but not carriage-drivers the age of Rab. And without any guild to care for him. . . . It’s mighty cold on the streets in winter, Rab’s voice whispered within him.

  “It’s not fair!” Yeslin said passionately, though he remembered to keep his voice low. “You’ve worked here all your life, since you were a boy! Mr. Pevsner has no right to turn you out!”

  “Who’d stop him?” Rab said simply. He gripped Yeslin’s shoulder, as though steadying him, but his next words were nothing except, “I’d best go pack my things before he finds me. I don’t want to be here to listen to his farewell lecture.”

  Yeslin, who had seen Gillie reduced to tears that morning during Mr. Pevsner’s speech of dismissal, did not reply. Rab squeezed his shoulder again and said, “I’ll come say goodbye before I leave. But till then, you get rid of that Seeker. You’ve got to be the one to take care of the master now.” He stepped past Yeslin, moving as slowly as he had when climbing down the ladder.

  Yeslin watched until Rab had disappeared into the stairwell; then he walked over to the bed. His father was breathing unevenly, but no more so than he had earlier that morning. Yeslin watched him carefully for a minute. Then, reassured by the signs of continued life, he made his way back to the stairwell.

  The stairwell had now reached the high brightness of mid-morning, with light slipping in through the small windowed door leading to the outside and pelting in with full force through the southern windows. The room was empty but for the Seeker, who had his back to Yeslin. He was standing before the washbasin, scooping water up to his face. His hands froze as the door squeaked behind him. Yeslin said, “It’s me.”

  The Seeker moved again, reaching for a towel. He carefully wiped his face dry before turning round to Yeslin. With the morning light falling full upon it, his skin seemed whiter than before; his eyes were as deep as river-water. They indeed looked mild.

  “Thank you,” he said in his deceptively quiet voice. “I couldn’t speak to Rab. I’m not permitted to let anyone except my family know what I’ve become.”

  Keeping a careful distance from the Seeker, Yeslin asked, “If you’re not here for the money, then why are you here?”

  He tried to make his voice as belligerent as Rab’s would be in such circumstances, but failed. He found himself wondering whether he would be better off cultivating a mild tone, as the Seeker did.

  The Seeker did not respond at once. His gaze drifted toward the southern windows, lingering there. Finally he said, without moving his eyes back to Yeslin, “Among other things, to see Sara.”

  Yeslin, whose hands were behind his back, gripped the doorknob tightly. He stared gaping a moment, wondering how he should interpret this odd turn of events. Then he felt a blade of chill enter him. While on the streets last winter, he had heard a rumor that one of the Seekers had gone mad. Was it this Seeker? Had he left the dungeon only because his insanity had driven him forth to wreak destruction elsewhere?

  But in the same moment, the Seeker added softly, “Do you know where she’s buried?” He still did not move his gaze from the windows.

  Yeslin let out his breath slowly. “She’s in the front parlor,” he replied.

  The Seeker’s gaze snapped toward him, and Yeslin realized belatedly that his reply must sound as mad as the Seeker’s previous enquiry. He said quickly, “In an urn. On the mantelpiece.”

  The Seeker did not seem reassured by this additional information. “In the front parlor?” he said. “Sweet blood, what is she doing there? Why hasn’t Father buried her?”

  “He plans to!” Yeslin replied, swift as always to his father’s defense. “He has talked about it. It’s just . . . I think he doesn’t want to think about it. Sir,” he added belatedly. The word stuck in his throat, as it did when he applied the title to Mr. Pevsner, but he dared not anger the Seeker. Not with his father lying vulnerable in the next room.

  The Seeker’s gaze drifted away again, southwards. “In the front parlor,” he said softly. “No one ever goes there. She’d have hated that.”

  Yeslin said nothing. He took a few steps forward to see what the Seeker was gazing at in the yard, but no one was standing within the fence, and the carriages had disappeared from the drive at the front of the house. All that could be seen was what could always be seen: a distant bit of the street, the well-made houses beyond it, and, rising above all else, the Queen’s palace, marred only by a thin line of smoke, barely visible.

  So softly that he might have been speaking to himself, the Seeker said, “We used to go to the Parkside crematorium together, to visit our mother’s tomb. Sara always liked it there. She said it must be comforting to be surrounded by the ashes of other people who had entered into their rebirth. Once she heard that commoners are sometimes buried in a communal ash pit, and she thought that was even better. . . . We have a crematorium in the Eternal Dungeon. It has, not one Flame of Rebirth, but hundreds of them: hundreds of candles kept lit by the Seekers and guards in memory of the prisoners who have been buried there within recent memory. I have thirteen candles there. That’s how many of my prisoners have died.”

  The cold blade that had touched Yeslin before plunged into his gut. He had almost forgotten, amidst the Seeker’s softness, what this man was. But now it all made sense. Of course Elsdon Taylor had become a Seeker. What other work was appropriate for a murderer? Yeslin supposed that the Seekers must pick carefully among their prisoners, selecting the ones who would be most talented at destroying other prisoners.

  He looked again at the thin line of smoke, rising out of the rocks below the palace, never-ending. He felt as though he were choking on it.

  Then the Seeker added softly, “I’ll be buried there one day. All the Seekers are, because we’ve all taken oaths to remain eternally confined within the dungeon. There have been two Seekers and three guards buried there since I arrived. They were all killed by prisoners, or died of injuries they received from prisoners long ago. Another Seeker is close to death now.”

  Yeslin did not know what to reply. Finally he said, “Guards are buried there too?”

  The Seeker nodded without removing his gaze from the smoke of the Flames of Rebirth. “Anyone who has worked at the Eternal Dungeon at any time can be buried there. We have an enormous pit for the ashes – centuries will pass before it is filled. We’ve even honored requests for burial from people who had visited our crematorium at some time in their lives and were so impressed by it that they wished to end their lives there. There’s nearly always someone in the crematorium, Seeker or guard, singing prayers for the dead. The High Seeker sometimes has to come to the crematorium to drag away whichever Seekers and guards are lingering there, because they’re on duty. Once you get there, you can’t forget the souls of those who have died because of you. . . .”

  His hands were suddenly fists once more; he leaned toward the windows, like a man yearning for his love-mate. Yeslin stood uncertainly in the center of the stairwell. He wondered what his father would do in this situation, and then he knew.

  “Sir,” he said, his voice an imitation of his fathe
r’s, “would it please you to sit down?”

  The Seeker turned his head slowly toward Yeslin. His face was drawn into tight lines now, and his skin seemed even paler than before. He gazed at Yeslin for a long moment, and then nodded.

  Yeslin looked round, but of course there was no chair in this place. He wondered whether he should invite the Seeker to vault over the piano again so that he could seat himself in the front parlor. Finally, in desperation, Yeslin gestured toward the flight of stairs leading upward. There were chairs in his own room, though it made his skin creep to think of this man re-entering the place of his murder. Perhaps he should take the Seeker into his father’s old bedroom, which was presently inhabited by Mr. Pevsner’s belongings. Yeslin guessed that Mr. Pevsner would be hunting Rab for a long time.

  The Seeker followed his gesture, moving toward the staircase. He had placed his hand upon the stair-rail when he froze, looking upward. Yeslin hurried over to his side and tilted his head to see who was standing upstairs.

  No one was there. Manfred must have pulled the servants hastily from their cleaning chores upstairs, for the door to one of the rooms was still open – not Yeslin’s room, but the room opposite it. From where he stood, Yeslin could glimpse the furniture he had seen on rare occasions, when the servants came into the room to dust: a bed, a chair, a desk, and, sitting on the desk, a neat pile of schoolbooks.

  He looked over at the Seeker, who remained motionless. The Seeker’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, and Yeslin could hear the heaviness of his breath. Yeslin stared at him, uncomprehending. The murder had taken place in Sara Taylor’s bedroom; why should the sight of his own bedroom affect Elsdon Taylor like this?

  The Seeker gripped the stair-rail hard, his knuckles white against pale skin. His face was growing whiter by the moment, and his breath seemed to have stopped. Suddenly Yeslin realized that the Seeker was about to pass out.

  He grabbed hold of Elsdon Taylor’s arm, felt the man’s body sag against him, and managed to turn him round in time that the man sunk onto one of the steps. Unbidden, he pushed Elsdon Taylor’s head down between his knees, and he heard his father’s son begin to gasp, sucking in breaths of air. Yeslin, with his hand still on Elsdon Taylor’s back, turned his head to look up the stairs. A chair, a desk, some books – and just at the edge of the doorway, barely visible, a bed.

  A bed. Something important had been said about that bed earlier in the day; Yeslin strove to remember. Beside him, the gasping continued. Elsdon Taylor’s hands tightened and released on his legs over and over, like a man trying to grasp a slippery life-rope.

  Yeslin stared up at the bed. It looked much like his own, made of solid wood with finely carved legs. He scrutinized the bed-leg he could barely glimpse, as though it might bring him a clue. It was all brown – all but for a grey line that striped it. He followed the line of grey: it snaked its way up onto the corner of the bed, disappearing under the bedcovers. He supposed that the maid who swept this room had not noticed it, or she would have removed whatever it was that was tied to the bed.

  Tied. Then Yeslin remembered.

  He suddenly felt weak himself. He sank down onto the step beside Elsdon Taylor. There was barely enough room between the wall and his father’s son for him to sit. He could feel clearly now the tremors that ran through Elsdon Taylor’s body, wave after wave of shuddering. The young man had raised his head high enough to bury it in his hands.

  Yeslin put his hand lightly onto Elsdon Taylor’s back. He was barely aware of the man beneath his touch; he was seeing again in his eye the grey rope tied to the bed-leg, snaking its way under the covers. Surely there must be another reason for that rope. Perhaps Elsdon Taylor had placed it there himself, intending to tie his sister to his bed before murdering her. And Elsdon Taylor was only reacting this way because he was remembering the murder.

  Yeslin thought this; but he heard his voice say, “So it’s true.”

  Elsdon Taylor’s fingers parted; he peered at Yeslin sidelong, his eyes shimmering. Then he closed his eyes again. He nodded wordlessly.

  Yeslin did not speak again. He could hear faintly below them the voices of servants and the clash of dishes from the death vigil as they were cleaned. The yard was silent, and the clattering of passing carriages on the street was steady. Elsdon Taylor seemed unwilling, or unable, to emerge from the burial ground of his hands. Finally Yeslin nudged him.

  The fingers opened again; the eyes stared blindly at the clean handkerchief that Yeslin proffered. Slowly, Elsdon Taylor straightened up. He took the handkerchief, wiped his face dry, blew his nose, and returned the handkerchief to Yeslin with a wordless nod of thanks.

  Yeslin, licking his dry lips, pocketed the handkerchief and waited. Elsdon Taylor’s gaze had turned away from him. He was staring past the stair balusters toward the thin line of smoke rising from the rocks.

  Yeslin said in a voice that was tight, “Your mother . . .”

  Elsdon Taylor said softly, his gaze on the smoke, “I think my father pushed her during an argument, and she fell down the front stairs to her death. I’ve never been entirely sure, though. I was just four at the time, and I only saw her body afterwards.”

  Yeslin had once happened across his youngest sister lying unconscious on the floor after his mother had beaten her in a drunken rage; he could imagine all too vividly what Elsdon Taylor had seen.

  His heart was beating hard now. After a minute’s silence, the young Seeker turned his gaze toward Yeslin and asked quietly, “Has he harmed you?”

  “No!” responded Yeslin with automatic swiftness. Then, more slowly, “No. No. I . . . I think he wanted to hit me a few times. But he stopped himself from doing so.”

  “I’m glad,” Elsdon Taylor said, his voice still quiet. “I was afraid, when I saw you here. You look so much like I was at your age: eager to defend others, unable to defend yourself. . . .”

  Yeslin felt warmth enter into his face, accompanied by a strong feeling of shame. He was not what Elsdon Taylor thought he was. Yeslin had defended his father without thought, and on no other occasion had he ever tried to defend anyone. It had not occurred to him to do so.

  Elsdon Taylor’s gaze had drifted away again, as though pulled by an invisible string. Yeslin asked in a low voice, “Have you come to arrest him?”

  Elsdon Taylor shook his head but did not remove his gaze from the smoke. Finally Yeslin asked, “Why do you keep looking back toward the Eternal Dungeon?”

  Elsdon Taylor removed his gaze from the horizon. From the look in his eyes, it appeared that it had cost him something to do so. “A friend of mine is ill there.”

  Yeslin was silent, tracing patterns in their conversation. Then he said, “The Seeker who’s dying?”

  Elsdon Taylor flicked a glance at him, but after a moment he nodded. “It’s not certain whether he will die. I was the one caring for him. Without me there— I’m worried about him.”

  Yeslin said slowly, “Why are you here, then?”

  “I received word that Father was dying.”

  “But . . .” Involuntarily, Yeslin looked up the stairs again. From where he sat, most of the bed was hidden from view, but he could see that the desk chair was pushed back, as though its inhabitant had recently risen. “But . . . he beat you. And – and killed your mother. And . . . he wanted you to be tortured to death.” Yeslin stumbled over the words; he still could not believe them. But Elsdon Taylor believed this had happened; that was clear from the way his face tightened at the final words. The young man looked away abruptly, and for a moment his breath was heavy again. Then he steadied himself and looked back.

  “Do you believe in rebirth?” he asked softly.

  Yeslin stared blankly at him. “Of course.”

  “Then when a man dies, without acknowledging to himself that he has committed terrible wrongdoings against others . . . Do you believe that he will be reborn?”

  Fear clutched at Yeslin suddenly, like a drunken man. He swallowed, and swallowed again, and sai
d finally, “That’s why you’re here? To help Father turn to rebirth?”

  Elsdon Taylor nodded.

  “But . . .” This time Yeslin rose from his seat to look at the bed. The rope there was pulled so tight that it looked as though it were at the breaking point. He tore his gaze away finally and stared with wordless bewilderment at Elsdon Taylor.

  “It’s my duty,” Elsdon Taylor replied softly to his silent enquiry. “My duty not only as his son, but as a Seeker. That’s our primary duty as Seekers: to help guilty prisoners prepare themselves for their rebirth. To lift from them any self-deception they may hold about what they have done, and to allow them the opportunity to express their regret so that, if the magistrate sentences them to execution, their rebirth will be swift.”

  “But he beat you. . . .” This time, the words seemed less strange. Yeslin swallowed and tried again. “You said you weren’t here to arrest him. He’s not a prisoner.”

  “No,” Elsdon Taylor said quietly. “He’s not. And that’s my fault.”

  Yeslin furrowed his brow in puzzlement, and Elsdon Taylor responded by rising from the step. Without looking back at the scene above, he swung himself round the last of the balusters, as a boy might, and took the few steps necessary to bring himself back to the southern windows. Yeslin followed him to the windows, noticing for the first time that the Seeker was no taller than himself. They stared together at the line of smoke marking the location of the Eternal Dungeon.

  After a while, Elsdon Taylor said, “The Eternal Dungeon is the best place in Yclau for criminals to receive an opportunity to confess their crimes, but it’s not the only place. If my father had been arrested for my mother’s death, or for what he did to me, he might have had the chance to acknowledge to himself what he had done. But I was misguided as a boy; I thought it was my duty to remain silent to everyone about what he was doing. And then I killed Sara, and in doing so, I stripped my father of the opportunity to be searched for his crimes. I was the only witness to what he had done, and no magistrate would believe the word of a murderer. So my father is free – free in the way that the lighted world sees it, but still imprisoned by his crimes. And unless I can find a way to help him acknowledge his fault, he’ll remain imprisoned after death, unable to be transformed and reborn into a new life.”

  Elsdon Taylor laid his hands flat upon the window panes, as though seeking to break through a barrier. His voice remained soft as he said, “The Codifier understands. He’s the only man in the Eternal Dungeon who has the power to give me permission to leave there. Ordinarily I’d be bound to remain in the dungeon, both by my sentence and by the oath I took as a Seeker. But I told the Codifier that I believed it was my duty as a Seeker to try to turn my father to rebirth, because it was my fault he hadn’t been arrested for his crimes. So the Codifier gave me permission to visit my father for a brief while. In case I could be of help to him, as to my other prisoners.”

  Yeslin’s mind had wandered back to the image of the tight rope bound to the bed. Had his father also thought that he was helping his son to rebirth by beating him? Yeslin strongly suspected that Elsdon Taylor had done nothing more than become what his father was, torturing his prisoners as his father had once tortured him. The only difference was that the Seeker’s torture received the approval of the Queen and of all high-born members of Yclau society. Yeslin felt again the terrible helplessness he had often felt upon contemplating all the evil forces that pervaded his world.

  Then he looked at Elsdon Taylor, noting again the taut expression. There was another difference between the Seeker and his father; Yeslin was sure of it. It came through in every word that Elsdon Taylor spoke and in every movement of his body. Perhaps it was only that the Seeker, lighting candles for his dead prisoners, was willing to acknowledge what he had done.

  And meanwhile, in this house an ash-urn lay on the mantelpiece, pushed back in memory.

  “I thought I’d have the strength to do this.” Elsdon Taylor’s voice was no more than a whisper now. “It has been two years; I’ve had time to heal. But now that I’m here—”

  “Wait!” Yeslin said spontaneously. His mouth raced ahead of his thoughts; he had to think a moment as the Seeker turned puzzled eyes toward him. Then Yeslin said, “Wait here. Don’t go anywhere. Just – just wait.” He paused the mote of time it took Elsdon Taylor to nod; then he sped off.

  He slowed at the door, opening it cautiously. The room seemed very large with the vigil guests gone. Yeslin could remember it as he had first seen it, on the morning after his father had brought him home: a vast room, filled with odd bits of furniture and mysterious eating implements. Now, stripped by Mr. Pevsner of its original furnishings, the room looked stark.

  His father was awake. He had managed to pull himself into a sitting position and was struggling to swing his legs over the bed. Closing the door behind him, Yeslin hurried forward. His father, seeing him, looked relieved. “He’s still here, isn’t he? He hasn’t gone?”

  “He’s still here,” Yeslin assured him. “He’ll be in to talk with you in a minute. . . .” As he spoke, he tucked the bedcovers over his father, settling him back against the headboard. His father, flushed in the face from the effort to rise, twitched nervously.

  “Oh, but I must speak to him now!” he cried. “I must make him understand! I was so angry at him, you see,” he explained to Yeslin, who had sat down on the bed beside him. “I was so very angry after what he did. It was only later that I realized it was my fault. I raised him the wrong way. I beat him too much. . . . Or I didn’t beat him enough. . . . I’ve never been quite sure which it was.” He looked over at Yeslin, who was now frozen in place, unable to move. “I thought, with you, I’d try not beating you. It worked, didn’t it?”

  His voice, pleading like a child’s, broke Yeslin’s paralysis. “Yes, sir,” he whispered. “It worked.”

  He expected his father to correct his use of the formal title, but his father merely reached over and squeezed his hand. “You understand,” he said. “I knew that you would. And you see, don’t you, why I have to give him back his place? It’s because I wronged him. I must give him back what he had before. You don’t mind, do you? That I’m giving him what I gave to you?”

  He peered with worried enquiry at Yeslin, as though sensing that he was demanding a great deal. Yeslin felt as though the full weight of the Queen’s palace was crushing his chest, and he could feel the sobs rising in him, seeking to escape. But he kept his hand clasped around the sick man’s and said, as gently as Elsdon Taylor had when speaking of his father, “I understand, sir. But, sir, if you’re sorry for how you treated your son, couldn’t you tell him that? I think he would want to know.”

  “Yes!” The sick man embraced this suggestion. “Yes, that’s what I must do. I’ll tell him I’m sorry I beat him too much. Or that I didn’t beat him enough—”

  “No!”

  Auburn Taylor gaped at him, and Yeslin realized that this was the first time he had ever contradicted the housemaster. He made his voice gentle again as he said, “Sir, if you say that to him, you’ll only confuse matters. Don’t you think it would be better simply to tell him that you’re sorry?”

  “Yes,” said Auburn Taylor slowly. “Yes, you’re right. He’s a clever boy, but he has always been a bit slow to understand certain things. I need to keep things simple, so he’ll understand.”

  A soft knock sounded at the door. The door opened minutely, and Elsdon Taylor looked in. He had not pulled down his hood; his naked face was still pale. Yeslin rose to his feet, gesturing the Seeker in. Then he looked back at Auburn Taylor.

  Auburn Taylor seemed to be struggling for breath. He waited until his son was standing at the foot of his bed before he said, “Son, I want you to know that I’m sorry. For . . . for the way things were when I raised you. And for being angry at you afterwards. That was wrong of me.”

  For a moment Elsdon Taylor remained looking down at his father, and Yeslin felt the same uneasiness that had touched him
when the Seeker was at his work with Mr. Pevsner. He wondered how much Elsdon Taylor was seeing.

  But what the Seeker saw was apparently enough, for he stepped forward and, without hesitation, bent onto one knee beside the bed.

  “Sir,” he said softly, “I forgave you long ago for what happened, and I hope that you will also forgive me for the wrongs I did to you and to my sister.”

  Auburn Taylor’s face flinched at the word “sister,” but he reached out and took his son’s hand. Yeslin, watching carefully, saw Elsdon Taylor tense as his father touched him. But not until he was standing on his feet again did the Seeker carefully remove his hand and say, “Your apology means much to me, sir, but I have learned in the Eternal Dungeon that expressions of regret are not enough. It is necessary for the guilty person to seek to make reparation for what he has done.”

  Yeslin, suddenly worried, looked at Auburn Taylor to see how he would respond to this. The housemaster licked his lips, glanced at Yeslin, and then said, “How . . . What sort of reparation do you want me to make?”

  Elsdon Taylor was silent a minute. Then he said softly, “I murdered my sister.”

  This time Auburn Taylor’s pain was clear. He turned his face, like a man who has received a blow. Elsdon Taylor, as though he had not witnessed this sign of distress, continued, “I cannot bring Sara back to life. But family means more to me now than it ever did when I was a boy, for I will never again be able to live in the lighted world, and my family is my strongest tie here. Sir, if you love me and wish to make reparation for what you did, then adopt Yeslin and give to him what you would have given me, so that I may still have family after you have gone.”

  Auburn Taylor’s expression cleared of its pain. He stared with wonder at his son, then at Yeslin. “Yes . . .” he said slowly. “Yes, this is right. It’s right that you should have a brother to make up for—” His voice ended on a choke, and for a minute there was silence, but for the heaviness of Auburn Taylor’s breath. Yeslin hurried over to his side and felt Auburn Taylor take his hand. His father peered up at him; the tears were clear in his eyes.

  Yeslin looked at Elsdon Taylor. The Seeker seemed to have drawn into himself; his gaze was blank, seeing something beyond this room. Yeslin could guess what it was. With a sudden impulse – such impulses seemed to be taking over Yeslin’s life now – he leaned forward and whispered in his father’s ear.

  His father’s eyes widened as he spoke. When Yeslin had finished, his father looked up at him, seeking confirmation of what he had spoken, and Yeslin nodded. He squeezed his father’s hand, hoping that he would not have to instruct him once more.

  He did not have to. His father, clearing his throat, said, “Son . . . Elsdon, your brother tells me that you have come here despite the fact that you have an ill friend in the Eternal Dungeon who requires your care.”

  “You mustn’t worry about that, sir.” Elsdon Taylor’s voice was quiet.

  “Nonsense!” Suddenly his father seemed to gain vigor. He sat upright in his bed, glaring at the Seeker. “How many times have I told you, Elsdon, that your highest duty is to care for your family and friends? I understand that you came here because you did not know I had anyone to care for me. But now that you know I am cared for” – he patted Yeslin’s arm – “you must return to your friend, who has greater need of you than I do.”

  Elsdon Taylor did not reply immediately. His gaze drifted over to Yeslin, standing beside his father. Then he said in a quiet manner, “Thank you, sir. I very much appreciate your understanding. It is true that I would not have been able to stay with you for long in any case; my leave is only for three days. Since it seems you will be well for some remaining time . . .”

  “You go back to your home.” His father waved a hand airily, as though dismissing a boy who was neglecting his duty. “I’ll be fine now.”

  “Yes,” said the Seeker softly. “I can see that you will be.”

  Yeslin looked at his father. His father’s hand was trembling in Yeslin’s grasp; Yeslin did not think that the return of his eldest son had made any difference to Auburn Taylor’s physical health. But there was a strength in his eyes that had not been there during all the time Yeslin knew him. A faint smile played on the housemaster’s lips. He looked at this moment very much like his son.

  Yeslin turned back toward the Seeker, only to find that he was gone; the door to the entrance hall was just closing. His breath caught, and he looked at his father. “Father, may I . . .?”

  “Yes, of course.” His father gave another airy wave of his hand. “You run along. I’ll simply . . .” He looked around for an excuse to dismiss Yeslin. “I’ll read. Yes, that’s what I’ll do, I’ll read. Where is Harden, by the way?”

  “He’ll be back soon,” Yeslin replied, his mind crowding with too many thoughts at once. “He’s searching for Rab.”

  “Oh?” His father lost interest. “Well, run along, do. Don’t idle your time, son.” And with that, he pulled a book from his bed-stand and buried himself in its pages.

  Yeslin nearly did himself injury in his haste to run back through the closet and climb over the piano. He managed to overcome the barrier without harming himself or the instrument, and then he grabbed the object he wanted and ran. He reached the door to the entrance hall just as Elsdon Taylor pulled his cloak from the hook in the hallway. It was without hood, Yeslin saw; the hood he had noticed before was that of the Seeker’s uniform. The Seeker raised his hand to pull down his face-cloth, and then noticed Yeslin standing at the open doorway to the front parlor, cradling the urn.

  “Here,” said Yeslin, holding out the closed vase to Elsdon Taylor. “You take it. He’ll never notice it’s gone, and if he does, he’ll be glad you’ve taken it. You can bury her in your crematorium and light a candle for her there.”

  Elsdon Taylor took the urn from him slowly, his gaze fixed upon the small object. Finally he lifted his eyes to look at Yeslin. He said quietly, “I can’t leave the dungeon, but I can receive letters, as well as visits from my family. If you would like to write me, and perhaps visit some time . . .”

  Yeslin felt a smile spread across his face. He nodded and then added, “Don’t worry about Father. I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone.”

  The Seeker smiled. It was the first time he had given a full smile, and Yeslin’s breath escaped him at sight of the serene beauty of that smile. Elsdon Taylor leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. The kiss was feather-light, like the touch of a petal.

  Then the face-cloth of the hood came down and his brother left, bearing the urn of their murdered sister.

  The bell from the front door chimed loudly. Yeslin heard a stirring from below, and he knew that Manfred would be there soon to investigate who had passed through the door. He knew that he should hurry back into the stairwell before he was found where he should not be. But his brother had left the door ajar, and faintly through the doorway Yeslin could hear Mr. Pevsner’s voice speaking sharply, accompanied by another person’s soft gasps: the sound of a man trying not to cry.

  He heard footsteps coming up the stairs, then the sound of his father greeting Manfred cheerfully, then the sound of the door from his father’s bedroom opening as Manfred entered the entrance hall. And then Yeslin made up his mind.

  Without looking Manfred’s way, Yeslin walked into the entrance hall and through the front door, slamming it closed behind him. The bell chimed, high and loud. Yeslin smiled grimly. His father could wait; an injustice was taking place, and Yeslin was the only one who could stop it.

  As he walked forward, he raised his voice in The Ballad of the Liberated Prisoner.

  o—o—o

  o—o—o

  . . . For it was at this juncture in the history of Yclau’s dungeon that a fateful meeting occurred which would change the future of the queendom of Yclau. I refer, of course, to the meeting of sixteen-year-old Yeslin Bainbridge with a Seeker.

  We do not know which Seeker young Bainbridge met, nor what words were exchanged d
uring that meeting. Indeed, some historians have expressed doubt that such a meeting actually occurred, given that Seekers were almost never allowed to leave the Eternal Dungeon. The most likely explanation is that Bainbridge met the Seeker in the small stretch of palace corridor where Seekers were permitted to travel in order to give evidence about prisoners in the courtrooms. In any case, it is impossible to deny that Bainbridge, who until that time had lived a quiet and unassuming life, underwent a startling transformation.

  Of that meeting, Bainbridge would later write: “As I spoke with the Seeker, he granted me a vision of a different world than the one in which I had been living – a world in which evil was not endured passively but was fought against, regardless of the consequences for oneself.”

  Every schoolchild knows the result of this meeting: of Bainbridge’s decision to establish the queendom’s first guild for commoners. The Commoners’ Guild, the most important trade union in our queendom’s history, would battle passionately against the higher classes’ complacent oppression of the working class and eventually create an Yclau where, if class divisions were not erased, they were at least questioned.

  But all of that lay in the future in the autumn of 357. Around the time that Bainbridge was meeting his destiny, an equally serious crisis was taking place in the Eternal Dungeon, where the High Seeker was struggling to retain his sanity. At this point it seems best to switch to the narrative of Weldon Chapman.

  Although I had helped to care for the High Seeker in his illness, the greatest responsibility lay with Mr. Elsdon Taylor, a young Seeker of outstanding gifts in both his professional life and his private life. I have already said that the High Seeker found it exceedingly difficult to establish close relations with others around him. Because of this, Mr. Taylor was the High Seeker’s only intimate friend, and this intimacy played a central role in preventing the High Seeker’s condition from worsening.

  In the ninth month of 357, at a time when we all feared that the High Seeker was returning to madness, Mr. Taylor received news that required him to take a leave of absence from his work as companion to the High Seeker. Only the highest dictates of duty could have persuaded Mr. Taylor to leave, for he and I both feared that the temporary loss of his presence would cause the High Seeker to break down altogether.

  Since the news Mr. Taylor received was so urgent that he was forced to leave immediately to make arrangements for his new work, I was delegated with the duty of informing the High Seeker of Mr. Taylor’s departure. After I had told the High Seeker in his private quarters, he was motionless for a long time – so long that I began to fear that the worst had happened. Then, for the first time in many days, he began to speak to me, in halting sentences and garbled words that I could barely understand. Gradually I realized that the High Seeker was sharing such confidences as he had never before granted to me, nor, I believe, to any person other than Mr. Taylor. I realized then that the High Seeker, knowing that he could not survive this crisis without the assistance of a friend, had chosen to take the only course of action left open to him and was establishing the bonds of friendship with me.

  I have no doubt that the High Seeker undertook this difficult step, not for his own sake, but for the sake of Mr. Taylor, for he must have known the grief and guilt Mr. Taylor would have felt if he had returned to find that the High Seeker had entered into madness due to his absence. It was one of many occasions on which I witnessed the High Seeker sacrifice his personal comfort for the sake of others.

  Whatever Layle Smith’s initial motives may have been, this was the start of what would become the most famous friendship in the history of the Eternal Dungeon – a friendship that would, as much as Bainbridge’s meeting with a Seeker, change the future of Yclau. For it was Weldon Chapman who would write the only contemporary biography of Layle Smith and who would also preserve many of Layle Smith’s letters and sayings. This information, in turn, would be used by future generations in Yclau as a foundation for the new science of psychology.

  Thus a seemingly unconnected series of events – the arrival of the first woman Seeker, the temporary absence of a junior Seeker, and Weldon Chapman’s willingness to help the High Seeker in any way possible – would lead to the preservation of invaluable knowledge that might otherwise have been lost. It was far from the first unexpected twist in the history of the Eternal Dungeon, and it would most certainly not be the last turning point in Layle Smith’s slow return from madness.

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

  Transformation 3

  A PRISONER HAS NEED

  The year 358, the sixth month. (The year 1881 Barley by the Old Calendar.)

  The mental illness of the Eternal Dungeon’s first High Seeker has become the stuff of song and legend, with many a mother telling her child scare-tales about the “Mad Torturer.” Yet the earliest songs, along with documents from the first High Seeker’s time, treat with sympathy Layle Smith’s lifelong battle with mental illness. Some contemporary witnesses even suggested that his talents as High Seeker derived directly from that struggle.

  We are fortunate to possess Layle Smith’s own account of the most serious phase of his illness, which occurred toward the end of his thirty-fourth year, and which is known to historians as the First Madness of 356. (The Second Madness occurred in the following year, 357, and did not reach the same heights of crisis.)

  Layle Smith’s account takes the form of a letter to the palace healer, who had evidently heard of the case and wished to know the details so that he could treat patients who were similarly afflicted. Because of the importance of this letter, I am quoting it in full. The second sentence of the letter contains the most complete description that we possess of the nature of Layle Smith’s illness.

  I do not know whether anything I tell you will be of assistance, since the circumstances of my breaking were unusual. I understand that you have been in touch with Mr. Bergsen [the Eternal Dungeon’s healer], so you will know that the cause of my mind-breaking was certain dreamings that consisted of memories of deeds I committed during the unfortunate years of my youth, combined with my own imaginings. I have been in consultation with Mr. Bergsen concerning these dreamings since the time I first came to the Eternal Dungeon, but my concern was initially ethical rather than medical, for the dreamings did not become entirely uncontrollable until the time of my breaking.

  The change in my dreamings came about because of a regrettable coincidence of circumstances. Certain orders I had given as High Seeker, and the consequences of those orders, caused me to fear that I would act on my dreamings. Soon afterwards, at my foolish request, I was temporarily released from my regular duties, which had always provided the main alternative to my dreamings. The dreamings began to play more and more a central role in my life, both because they provided a pleasant way for me to retreat from the pain of my fear, and also because I mistakenly believed that it was best for me to retreat into my dreamings rather than run the risk of acting out my imaginings in real life.

  Too late I came to realize that I had lost the ability to even partially control the dreamings – they came and went as they would. As time continued, I began to be sucked into the dreamings more and more. It was like being sucked into a strong current that threatens to drown one. Despite the best efforts of those who cared for me, I was not strong enough to be able to defy this current. I therefore placed a formal request with the Codifier [the official who had supervision over the dungeon workers in ethical matters] that I should be released from my oath to be a Seeker, since I believed that my mind had so far deteriorated that I was a danger to the dungeon inhabitants. He refused my request, instead binding me into the care of Mr. Taylor [Elsdon Taylor, a Seeker who was evidently sharing Layle Smith’s living quarters at that time].

  The crisis came when the dreamings took over me entirely. I am told that, for a period of two nights and a day, I neither ate nor slept nor responded to any word or touch but simply stared blankly, lost in the dreamwor
ld I had created.

  I must tell you that it is entirely due to the efforts and skill of Mr. Taylor that I was not lost altogether. Despite the fact that he was committed at that time to assisting a difficult prisoner who was reaching the end of his searching, Mr. Taylor cared for me tirelessly during my breaking, allowing himself virtually no sleep as the seriousness of my illness increased. During the period of the crisis, I remember finding myself lost in the sweetly nightmarish world of my imaginings, knowing that I was trapped but unable to make my way past the guards who barred the doors in my dreaming. Then I began to hear a voice say over and over to me, “A prisoner has need of you. A prisoner has need of you.” My vision of the real world returned, and I saw that Mr. Taylor was the person speaking.

  If he had tried to plead or argue with me at that point, I think that I would have slipped back forever into the dreaming. Instead he told me, in a quite matter-of-fact manner, that I must ready myself to go to a prisoner’s trial. I did this, believing, in my madness, that the prisoner was my own and that I was duty-bound to provide witness at his trial.

  I went to the trial, accompanied both by Mr. Taylor and by Mr. Chapman [Weldon Chapman, a Seeker], who had been present during much of my illness. Of course, the prisoner in question was Mr. Taylor’s. I sat with Mr. Chapman in the back of the judging room, listening to Mr. Taylor do his best to rescue the prisoner from the death sentence. (Alas, he was unsuccessful.)

  It is hard to describe what happened next. It is not that my mind began to reason; I was too far into the madness for that. Rather, it was as though I remembered things I had forgotten. It came to me as I listened to Mr. Taylor that he was carrying out a duty I was neglecting. I realized that prisoners like the one he was assisting required my help too, and that it made no difference how seductively beautiful my terrible dreamings were to me. My duty required me to be in the real world of the Eternal Dungeon.

  After the trial, Mr. Taylor and I were able to meet privately. He told me that, with the end of his obligation to his previous prisoner, we could now work together on another prisoner as soon as I was ready to return to my duties. This news helped to bring me back to myself, and it was then that I first began to speak and to engage in other normal activities. But I believe that my return from madness occurred in the judging room, when I remembered that a Seeker must be willing to suffer for the prisoners.

  I have not quoted this letter for the information it provides on Layle Smith’s mental illness (since he is frustratingly vague on the full nature of his illness). Rather, I have quoted it because, more than any document besides Layle Smith’s revision of the Code of Seeking, the letter gives insight into the High Seeker’s nature and the nature of the men and women who worked alongside him during the Golden Age of the Eternal Dungeon.

  Any student of psychology who is reading this book will recognize the final words of Layle Smith’s letter, since they are the opening words (with appropriate changes in terminology) of the Code of Psychology. Like Layle Smith, every psychologist today knows that he must be willing to suffer for his patients.

  Yet words that appear earlier in Layle Smith’s letter are of equal significance: “A prisoner has need of you.” These words, which gave Layle Smith the strength to begin to pull away from his madness, explain why he and the other Seekers went to such lengths to help the Eternal Dungeon’s prisoners. It was this fundamental belief that the prisoners had need of the Seekers which led many Seekers to pass beyond professional duty in assisting prisoners, and to make their assistance personal in nature.

  The Eternal Dungeon’s documents record many examples of this personal assistance. . . .

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