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

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER THREE

  The queue to the hot water fount was long; the journey back to the table was crowded. Layle kept being jostled on all sides, both by those who could not see that he was carrying a cup and by those who could. He tried looking coolly upon the people around him, and this was as effective with the torturers here as it had been with the inhabitants of the Eternal Dungeon. A path opened for him.

  One brawny fellow, though, met Layle’s cool gaze with a cold stare of his own. He stood his ground and deliberately elbowed Layle as he passed. Some of the water from Layle’s cup spilled upon the other torturer’s sleeve. The man cursed and drew back his fist.

  Layle felt a rush of heat enter him, such as he had not felt since the early days of his apprenticehood, when custom required that he defend his place to the other apprentices by physical means. The trial had not lasted long, alas, and after that short but pleasurable period, Master Aeden had kept Layle well leashed with his discipline, as the master torturer would have leashed a dangerous dog.

  Layle’s swift mind had already sped ahead to the moment when he cracked the aggressor’s spine . . . and then just as swiftly sped back, reeled in by his conscience. Before he had the opportunity to form a second plan, though, someone grabbed his opponent’s arm and whispered in his ear. Layle heard the words, “High Seeker,” and then, “Hidden Dungeon,” and then, as though reaching the culmination of this recital of his great deeds, “Fourteen murders. Started when he was twelve. Not to be trifled with.”

  The aggressor raised his eyebrows in appreciation of this litany and stepped back. Layle glanced round at the remainder of the crowd, who looked disappointed, as though they had been hoping for a demonstration of Layle’s powers. Layle ignored them and made his way over to the table where Master Aeden awaited him. The master torturer gave him a quick smile, as he had on the occasions in Layle’s youth when his apprentice had resisted temptation, but he remained silent as Layle lifted the half-empty cup to his lips.

  It had almost reached its destination when his hand jerked. His other hand went up to touch his face, and then the back of his head.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Master Aeden, raising his voice to be heard amidst the shouting nearby.

  “My hood. It’s gone.” He tried to keep the panic out of his voice, though his nakedness stung at him. He felt once more the eyes of the crowd, watching him, looking at his face.

  “I was wondering when you’d notice. You don’t think they would have let you keep that, do you? It will have been taken from you during your searching. . . . A pity. I would have liked to have seen you in the full uniform of a Seeker.”

  Layle said nothing as he sipped at the water, which was bitter with minerals. He had only the vaguest memory of the process by which he had entered this dungeon. There had been questions, he remembered now, and before that there had been travel . . . From Yclau? He remembered a raging battle, one that he had thought took place between the soldiers of Vovim and one of the kingdom’s small neighbors – a battle that he initially believed had resulted in the shifting of borders, so that the foreign dungeon had fallen under Vovimian control.

  Now he suspected that there had only been two figures in that battle. And he was in the dwelling place of one of them. He wondered whether the battle had been lengthy, or whether Mercy had given up on him quickly.

  “Master Aeden?” The soft voice came from behind Layle. He turned his head to see that standing behind him was the young girl he had seen in the entry hall; her right arm was covered with drying blood. She reached over to the table and dropped an object there. “Thank you,” she said. “I found mine.”

  “You’re quite welcome, my dear,” said Master Aeden, pulling the blood-stained pincers over to his side of the table. “And did they come in handy?”

  “Oh, yes! I had her in torment all day!” The girl’s face shone for a moment, and then dimmed somewhat as she added, “I hurt her too much. I nearly broke her.”

  “Ah,” said Master Aeden sympathetically. “And have you received your punishment for that?”

  She nodded and proudly displayed her bloody arm for the master torturer’s inspection. He chuckled and patted her arm, saying, “Well, run along, my dear, and get some rest. It will be time for your next shift before you know it.”

  The girl skipped away. Master Aeden’s smile dropped the moment she left the table, but he waited until she was out of view before saying, “Vicious little wench. I’d hate to be one of her prisoners. She started with puppies when she was three; then, when she got bored with them, she began torturing babies. When she finally strangled her own baby brother, she was arrested. Because of her age, she was handed over to the specialists.” He began picking at the pincer’s dried blood with his fingernail. “I don’t think she was one of mine. If I’d executed someone that young, I’m sure I’d remember.”

  “Master,” Layle said softly, “am I dead?”

  Master Aeden looked up from the pincers and grimaced. “If you are, my dear, then I’m very sorry. It hadn’t occurred to me that you’d be pulled prematurely from life. I sent word to the High Master of your talents when news reached here from new-come prisoners that you had entered into madness. I had the notion that, if you were here, you might be rescued from your madness and given work that you enjoyed.”

  Layle said, “If only I knew which it was this time – death or madness.”

  Master Aeden chuckled. “Ah, yes, I’d forgotten how the Yclau look upon such matters. So I’m a creation of your imagination, am I?”

  Layle shook his head. “I haven’t strayed that far from my roots.”

  “Mm.” Master Aeden picked more blood off his pincer before saying, “So either you’re dead, and I’m really your old master, or you’re in a dreaming, and I’m a divine messenger, sent to you in the guise of someone familiar in order to tell you something important. Frankly, I like the idea of being a divine messenger. It gives me a feeling of importance.”

  “You wouldn’t like to be a messenger of Mercy in the house of a rival god.”

  Master Aeden chuckled again as he sipped at his own drink, a brown and yellow mixture that Layle had dared not ask him about. “That would be problematic, I agree. But as I am, in fact, merely a lowly servant of the High Master, I needn’t worry about getting caught in the middle of divine rivalries. Perhaps you’re the messenger?” He raised his eyebrows. “I can see that you would relish such a role.”

  “Whether I’m dead, mad, or on a mission for Mercy, I need to find my way out of here,” Layle responded, feeling his body tense. “Elsdon will come looking for me and no doubt place himself in danger again. Master, I need your help.”

  “Oh?” Master Aeden sipped steadily from his cup. “And why is it that I should help you?”

  There was a long silence, which made no impact on the cacophony of voices from the men, women, and children around them, who were arguing in loud voices, or engaging in fist fights, or throwing objects at one another, or simply watching the spectacle with pleased grins.

  In the only peaceful corner of the common cavern, Layle felt the first signs of a shattering. A minute passed before he could find strength to say, “I thought you’d forgiven me.”

  “I said I was no longer angry, my dear – anger is a wasteful emotion, as I told you long ago. But forgiveness is quite another matter. It is not easy to forgive someone you have trained and cared for and loved, and who offers his thanks for this service by arranging your death.”

  Layle sat motionless for a moment. Then he pushed his cup carefully to the side and pushed back his chair. He was on the point of rising when Master Aeden’s hand caught his wrist.

  “Sit,” his master said sternly. Layle did, though only because his stomach was beginning to churn, so that it seemed safer to remain off his feet. Master Aeden did not remove his hand. His thumb began to stroke Layle’s wrist as he said, “It was not easy to forgive you, but I tell you truly that when I first saw you earlier today, calling me master and turning to me
as you had when you were a boy, it brought back all that had been good between us and drove out the bitterness I have felt since my death. So I ask your forgiveness in turn, for bringing you where you did not want to be. I trust you will recognize that my motive was as much loneliness as anything else.”

  Layle glanced at the turmoil around the common cavern, and then turned back to his master, sitting peacefully with his hand still stroking Layle. “I always wondered about you,” Layle said. “You could have been so much more than you were.”

  His master nodded. “I thought about that early in my life, when I was first commanded to become an apprentice torturer for the King. I thought to myself, ‘I can be what I’ve been till now, one of the lowest members of the higher order. Or I can join the lower order of mankind and be among the best of them.’” His hand slipped from Layle as he said reflectively, “I don’t think Mercy was pleased with me for my choice. I suspect that’s why she allowed the High Master to gain custody of me.”

  “Then help me now,” Layle said, leaning forward. “Help me to escape.”

  A smile played upon Master Aeden’s lips as he reached again for his drink. “My dear, say that a little louder. I’m not sure everyone in this cavern heard you.”

  Layle looked around and caught the looks of several people who were listening avidly to this small spectacle. They turned their eyes away hastily as he gave them his cool gaze.

  Picking up his drink, Layle waited until his mouth was shielded from all prying eyes before he murmured, “I’m sorry. I’ve been living in Yclau, where the Queen trusts her torturers enough not to spy on them.”

  Master Aeden set his cup aside and began work again at cleaning the pincers, scattering flecks of blood onto the slab of ice that served as a table. “I doubt that the High Master would go to the trouble of setting spies amidst us.”

  Layle closed his eyes momentarily, feeling the weariness of ignorance sweep through him. “I’ve definitely been too long away from Vovim. I’d forgotten.”

  He opened his eyes to see that Master Aeden was smiling at him. “That too, of course, but I tend not to worry overly much about such a possibility. There are quite a lot of torturers here, and the chances of our meeting that particular one . . . Well, the odds are small. No, I was thinking of other means of communication with the High Master. Look around us – what do you see?”

  Layle glanced at the turbulence and replied, “Fights . . . More fights . . . Gossip.”

  “You always hated gossip,” Master Aeden said approvingly. “I’m afraid that’s the main pastime here. The High Master permits us our theater, but other than that, we possess few ways to fill our leisure hours. Mind you, gossip takes a while to reach the High Master – it has to go through several committees first. But some time later today, he will hear that you asked me to help you to escape, and if you should by that time be missing . . .” Master Aeden shrugged.

  “Then come with me.” Layle kept the cup pressed against his lips, and his voice low. “If you know a way out of here, we could both take it.”

  “You offered me that choice once before.” Master Aeden’s smile returned. “My answer is the same this time as it was two decades ago. I know of no way out, and even if I did, I wouldn’t take it. My dear, look again around you. Do you see anyone here who looks to you to be innocent of grave crimes?”

  Layle did not have to look; he shook his head. Despite popular belief, his inbuilt instinct for judging the guilt of his prisoners was not infallible, but it was highly skillful. It had warned him since his arrival in this dungeon that he was among dangerous people. Every gesture, every remark, every look in the eyes, told tales too dark for him to speak aloud.

  He put down his cup. “I can see why this place would suit you. Your conscience need no longer bother you.”

  “Of course.” Master Aeden raised his eyebrows. “I’m doing work for the High Master – I may not be as pious as you, but that means something to me. I am punishing the wicked for their ill deeds. We don’t receive petty riff-raff here, Layle. Everyone who arrives here committed terrible crimes.”

  “Like myself,” Layle said quietly.

  “Or myself. Come, my dear, I know that this isn’t the workplace you would have chosen – but now that you’re here, can’t you reconcile yourself to serving divinity?”

  Layle shook his head. “Mercy, perhaps. But the High Master you serve . . . I cannot work in a dungeon without a Code.”

  “Ah.” Master Aeden nodded. “I thought it came down to that. There lies your true god, and you will not forsake him for a foreign god. Well, my dear, there is nothing that can be done about that.”

  “Isn’t there?” Layle was careful to shield his lips with his cup before speaking.

  Master Aeden merely snorted, though. “Can you see the group in this cavern rebelling against the High Master who gives them such delightful work?”

  “Rebellions usually come from those who believe themselves to be oppressed.” Layle did not bother to shield his mouth as he made this commonplace remark. He had done nothing more than voice the perennial fear of every prison worker.

  Master Aeden chuckled and rose to his feet. “Come,” he said.

  Curious stares accompanied Layle as he and Master Aeden left the common cavern, but no one followed them out onto the spiral balcony that turned and whirled until it became a pathway filled with ice-cells. Further down, under the translucent ceilings of corridors, torturers walked to and fro between the ice-cells, but here in the balcony above the place of torture, the walkway was empty except for the master torturer and his former apprentice.

  Master Aeden leaned his forearms upon the bar of white ice that served as a balcony railing. The chill wind blew back the hair from his face, revealing the face of kind cruelty that Layle remembered from his youth. He supposed that people must see something similar when they looked at himself, though in his better moments he liked to think that what he dispensed was hard kindness. He followed his master’s gaze to the ice-cell directly below them, which could be easily seen as the pit narrowed and the circling pathway tightened its coil.

  It was a larger cell than the others, filled with dozens of men and women and children. None of them were bound or appeared to be undergoing torture. The only sign that they were prisoners were the armed guards watching them.

  The prisoners did not watch the guards; they were busy trying to maim one another.

  Layle had to turn his gaze away momentarily before he was able to regain control. Then, placing his will under the mastery that had become ingrained in him, he turned his eyes back and watched with professional detachment as an old man sought desperately to fend off the fists of a young man who had attacked him. Nearby, two girls of maiden age were pulling at each other’s hair and kicking each other’s shins. Their screams of rage rose to where Layle stood.

  “Watch that one,” Master Aeden said, pointing to a man wearing bright red. “I’ve had my eye on him for days – he has won every duel he was waged.”

  A man wearing green, who had been lounging in the corner as he scrutinized the proceedings with narrowed eyes, came forward and said something to the man in red. He smiled as he spoke. The man in red immediately slammed his fist forward, but the man in green laughed and caught the other man’s arm. There was a moment of struggle as the man in red sought to break free. Then, clear through the air, came the sound of a bone breaking.

  The man in red fell to his knees, whimpering, as the fighting around him paused momentarily, everyone turning to see this change in hierarchy. The man in green smiled down at his defeated opponent.

  Then the guards were there, pushing everyone aside. They took hold of the man in red, hauling him to his feet. His arms were bound behind his back, and the guards pulled him from the room as he sobbed.

  The other man was removed too, but in a more subtle manner. One of the guards spoke to the man in green at length. He nodded and then strode toward the door and walked out of the ice-cell, unchallenged by any
of the guards at the door. As he left, the other prisoners drew back from him silently.

  “The victor becomes a torturer,” Master Aeden said softly. “The loser remains a prisoner. The loser will be tortured forever. The victor will be his torturer.”

  Layle turned his head to look at his master. Master Aeden’s smile had disappeared as though it had never known the dwelling place of his face.

  “How long were you in that holding cell?” Layle asked.

  “Long enough that I don’t like to think about it.” Master Aeden’s voice remained soft. Then he shook himself, as though releasing himself from the bonds of memory. “There are your revolutionaries, my dear. Every one of them holds the ambition to become a torturer. If you led them in a rebellion against their torturers, their only goal would be to take over the jobs of their tormenters.”

  Layle said nothing. He was watching the progress of the red-clothed man as he began to struggle to break free from the guards. The man bit into the arm of one of the guards; as he raised his face, mouth red with blood, Layle caught a glimpse of his furious, deadly eyes.

  “You’ve been too long away from hardened prisoners, my dear,” Master Aeden said, patting his hand.

  “Not so long as that. Most of the prisoners we receive at the Eternal Dungeon are like that. When they arrive.”

  Master Aeden’s hand stiffened upon his. “And when they leave?”

  Layle looked over at his master. “I sent you a book several years ago. Did it reach you?”

  Master Aeden’s smile returned as though it had never left. He reached behind his back, tucked up his shirt, and pulled an object out from its hiding place. Carefully, he laid on the balcony railing a black-bound volume with gold letters stamped upon its face.

  Layle gazed down at it, not speaking. His throat had closed tight. Master Aeden said quietly, “It was kind of you to translate it into Vovimian, my dear. Yes, I’ve read it – many times. I’ve often thought that you have the skills of an artist, to portray an idealistic world that will never exist.”

  Layle said finally, “You were able to smuggle this into hell?”

  “I had it on my person when I died. I never left it in my cell at the Hidden Dungeon – that wouldn’t have been wise.”

  Layle nodded. This book was contraband material in Vovim, and the torturers’ living cells were searched every few months. Master Aeden fingered the soft leather of the binding before adding, “It was discovered upon me when I was searched, of course, and was taken from me. A few weeks after my arrival, it was returned to me, with an accompanying message from the High Master that he had found it to be amusing reading. He suggested that I turn it into a comedy for one of our theater productions.”

  Layle stared down at the holding cell, watching the prisoners there as he had watched the prisoners entering the Eternal Dungeon. That girl, pulling the hair of her opponent – yes, even without having seen her records, he guessed how she could be dealt with. . . .

  “My dear,” Master Aeden said mildly, “when you are quiet for so long, I begin to worry. What are you plotting?”

  “A play,” said Layle, “such as this place has never seen.”

  Time held still for a breath’s space. Then: “Ah.” Master Aeden placed the pincers atop the book to prevent the volume from being swept off the balcony by the wind. “My dear, I hate to pull down your stagework before you have begun, but there are certain rules here, and those rules are enforced. You will not be permitted to break your prisoners, either through physical pain or through mental pain.”

  “I have no intention of breaking my prisoner. Nonetheless, when I am through, he will be broken.” He turned his eyes toward Master Aeden. “You told me that the conditions of my work required me to remain here until I was finished with my prisoner. Is that right?”

  He saw a flicker in Master Aeden’s expression. He was not surprised; his master had read the black-bound volume.

  “And what would you like me to do?” his master asked quietly.

  Layle let out his breath, which he had been holding. “Answer questions. That’s all. If the other torturers have questions, will you tell them the answers?”

  “My dear, if the other torturers have questions about your work, they’ll be flocking to me for answers. I’d be glad to enlighten them. If you can prove to all of us that this book has any truth to it.” His hand rested lightly upon the Code of Seeking.

  “You ought to know that it does,” Layle said softly. “I was a murderer when you met me.”

  The wind whistled hollowly through the pit; shards of flying frost bit at Layle’s skin. Master Aeden said nothing, but his grip tightened on the book. A rumble rose, like far-off thunder.

  Layle had time only to see that Master Aeden was still holding the volume. Then the ground gave way under him, and he was sliding off the icy path into the void of the pit.

  A yank upon his belt jerked the breath out of him. He felt himself hauled back onto the pathway; then he lay panting as the quivering ground settled down. Below him, the pincers that had been lying upon the book spun endlessly downward into the pit. Above him, Master Aeden was cursing.

  “He must be in a foul mood today. He doesn’t usually do that between shifts.” He helped Layle to his feet and said, “I’m sorry, my dear. I wouldn’t have taken you onto the balcony if I’d known that would happen. I think that’s a sign we should get you to your workplace, so that you can start with your prisoner.” He released Layle and softly brushed hoarfrost from the black-bound volume, still secure in his hand.

  Layle turned his head, alerted by voices. Nearby, at the doorway to the common cavern, torturers were pouring out, evidently taking the earthquake as a signal that the High Master was displeased with them for their idleness. A few of them scurried down the pathway toward the ice-cells, but most of them lingered on the balcony, watching Layle out of the corner of their eyes.

  “My audience has arrived,” Layle murmured.

  “And the play begins,” Master Aeden replied, yet more softly. “Layle, you will have to torture the prisoner. You won’t be excused from that duty.”

  Layle recognized the urgent warning in his master’s voice and nodded. “Prisoners such as arrive here won’t proceed far before they need torture as discipline. Don’t worry, I won’t disappoint the High Master in that respect.” He moved his gaze away from the curious spectators and asked, “May I see my prisoner before the prisoner sees me?”

  “Certainly.” There was an odd note in Master Aeden’s voice: a challenging tone, such as he had used on the occasions when he assigned a particularly difficult prisoner to Layle. “He’s right over there, my dear. He has been told that you’re coming.”

  Layle followed the line of Master Aeden’s finger. The prisoner was not hard to sight; he was in the highest of the ice-cells, huddled in a corner with his arms wrapped around his legs. His head was bowed, but as Layle watched, the prisoner raised his head and dropped it back against the wall. Tears shone like frost upon his face.

  “No.” The word was so hoarse that Layle did not recognize for a moment his own voice. “No.”

  Master Aeden shrugged. “Well, my dear, I did warn you that you were considered to be the only appropriate person to handle him.”

  Layle said nothing. He felt himself shiver under the chill wind, while in the ice-cell below, Elsdon Taylor awaited the arrival of his torturer.