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

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER FOUR

  Thatcher had had a good day. He had gone to bed peacefully, with thoughts of his victory running through his mind, and had slept like a contented cat until evening, when the guards posted outside his cell during the daytime came in to bring him breakfast. His nights spent sleeping on foreign battlefields had not been this tranquil.

  True, he had dreamt of the girl again. He was not sure why she kept turning up in his dreams. He supposed it was human nature to regret the unchangeable.

  He had first noticed her as he and his men were making their sally. She was trying to hide under one of the outside trestle tables that the Yclau women had been raped upon. Thatcher had grinned at her in passing, an automatic reaction. His cousin had a daughter this age, of about three years. He had briefly wondered whether he should take this girl and the other little ones back over the border once this was through, so that they could be placed in the care of civilized parents. Then his mind had been occupied with killing the Yclau women’s tormenters.

  He had not expected his men to take so literally his command to kill all the village inhabitants. The past four villages they had attacked had been little more than gathering points for soldiers who wanted to live near the border: a few camp followers had dwelt there, as well as a few youths too eager to fight the Yclau to wait for the formality of reaching adulthood. No young children had lived there. Thatcher had taken it for granted that his men would have sense enough to leave alone the young children in this village.

  By the time he realized what was happening, it was too late. He dared not reverse his order – he had seen for himself what happened when officers reversed orders in the midst of battle. He and his men were badly outnumbered here; he must not show any weakness by sparing Vovimians that his men were in the midst of killing. He needed to be a model for them of ruthless courage. And so he had stood by and watched as one of his men slit the girl’s throat.

  Well, that was war. Bad events happened all the time, events that could not have been reversed. It wasn’t Thatcher’s fault it had happened – it was the fault of the Vovimian men in the village who had abducted the captives, as well as the women and youths who supported that abduction. The young children were the innocent victims of their cruelty, the sacrifice that Thatcher must make to obtain the Yclau women’s freedom.

  Not that Thatcher expected anyone outside the army to understand this. Especially not the man standing in front of him on that third day of Thatcher’s imprisonment, staring coolly at him through the eye-holes of his hood.

  Thatcher disliked hypocrisy almost as much as he disliked lies. That a man like this should presume to cast judgment over him for what he had done . . . He heard himself say, “I know why you became a Seeker. It’s so that you could have the enjoyment of torturing prisoners.”

  For a moment, he thought the High Seeker would be too much a coward to respond to this attack. Then the High Seeker said softly, “That is not the only reason I became a Seeker, Mr. Owen.”

  Thatcher was temporarily disconcerted; he had not expected the High Seeker to be honest in his reply. Then he grimly smiled. Of course. The High Seeker was using the truth to hide some sort of lie. Probably his main reason for becoming a Seeker was even worse than the one Thatcher had guessed, and he was seeking to obscure this fact with apparent candidness.

  “What are you thinking of?” the High Seeker asked.

  Thatcher’s smile spread at this admission from the High Seeker of his weak ability to see into the minds of prisoners. “Truth,” he said. “Truth used to cover up lies.”

  He expected the High Seeker to question him about his response, but the hooded man merely said, “You seem to have a strong interest in honesty, Mr. Owen. Is that what you hoped to find in the Eternal Dungeon? Honest men?” His voice was light in a manner that Thatcher assumed denoted mockery.

  Thatcher gave a short, humorless laugh. “Not bloody possible. I gave up my search for honest folk long ago, when I was a kid.”

  “Oh?” The High Seeker’s voice was indifferent. Probably his mind was on which instrument of torture to use on Thatcher. “What made you decide this?”

  It seemed as good a way as any to waste time till the real proceedings began, so Thatcher told the tale of the diviner. His feet hurt by the end of the story. One of the rules in this dungeon seemed to be that he was not allowed to sit down in his Seeker’s presence. He hoped the High Seeker’s feet hurt too; the man was too wary of him to seat himself on the bench. The guard who shadowed the High Seeker was standing too. Thatcher could not help but notice how the man’s gaze kept wandering away from the High Seeker during Thatcher’s recital, as though he found the prisoner more interesting than the man he was supposed to be guarding. Thatcher was not surprised. He too would become tired of the High Seeker’s indifference toward others, if he were the guard.

  At the end of the tale, Thatcher waited for the High Seeker to explain, as so many others had explained to Thatcher over the years, that his grandmother loved him and meant well and so he should forgive her for what she had done. Thatcher would sooner have wetted his grandmother’s grave, but he had given up hope of making anyone understand the heinousness of the crime his grandmother had committed. No one in the world cared as much about honesty as Thatcher did – that had become clear long ago.

  The High Seeker made no comment on the tale, though. All that he said was, “You appear to have a number of admirable qualities, Mr. Owen. You wish that honest people existed in this world, you desire to rescue abducted women, you do not seek to prolong the pain of those you kill, you endeavor on occasion to serve the Queen with loyalty—”

  Thatcher had been on the alert for an insult from the moment that this false flattery began. Now he said quickly, “I’ve always served the Queen with loyalty.”

  “Have you?” The High Seeker’s voice sounded more curious than challenging. “This is the Queen’s dungeon, Mr. Owen, and we are the Queen’s Seekers, appointed by the Crown to search prisoners who are placed in our care. Yet from the moment you arrived here, you have sought to fight against the Seekers and their guards, perverting the process of justice ordained by the Queen you claim to serve.”

  Thatcher chewed that thought over for a minute. His immediate instinct was to make a stinging reply, but he prided himself on the fact that he was always willing to admit when he was wrong. Finally he said, “Very well, you have the right to search me – I’ll concede that. But it won’t do you any good. You want me to lie and say I was wrong to lead the rescue of those women. I’ll never do that. I’ll never tell you anything but the truth.”

  “Won’t you?” Once again, the High Seeker’s voice was light, as though he were chatting with an old friend. “It’s rather late for you to make that decision, Mr. Owen. You have already told me several lies. Most of them I think you are genuinely not aware are lies, for which reason I will take no notice of those falsehoods. But one lie I believe you are very much aware that you told, and the manner in which you spoke the lie reveals that.”

  Thatcher did not even bother to ask which of his truths the High Seeker disbelieved. He simply snorted. “So you think I lied to you. Right, then. Do whatever it is you Seekers do when you’re lied to.”

  “I very much regret it, Mr. Owen, but I fear that I must.” The High Seeker’s voice had turned soft. “The Code requires that punishment occur after any prisoner deliberately lies to his Seeker.”

  Thatcher felt his back grow stiff, and he cursed himself for showing that much weakness under the High Seeker’s scrutiny. He had known that this would come – had known that the High Seeker would find an excuse to torture him. Now all he must do was endure the pain, until the High Seeker finally realized that no amount of pain would cause Thatcher to lie about what he had done.

  The High Seeker had made no gesture that Thatcher could see, but the redheaded guard outside must have been listening at the keyhole, for he entered the cell, carefully locked the door behind him, and pulled out his whip from where it hung l
ooped on his belt. Thatcher did not like the look in the guard’s eyes. He had seen that sort of look in the eyes of Vovimians who, in the moment of their charge, wished not only to shoot but also to disembowel with their bayonets. The first guard, the one who shadowed the High Seeker, was far more reassuring; his expression was bland and businesslike. Thatcher turned his attention back to the High Seeker, to see whether he could read anything in the man’s eyes.

  He was just in time to see the High Seeker begin to remove his shirt.

  “What the bloody blades are you doing?” Thatcher was disconcerted. It was not as though he had been unaware of the possibility of this type of attack – he had heard rumors about where the High Seeker’s tastes lay. But he would have expected the High Seeker to be more subtle – to send away witnesses before he began proceedings.

  The High Seeker did not pause. He completed untying the fastenings on his shirt and handed the shirt to his first guard, who was frozen like a statue. Out of the corner of his eye, Thatcher could see that the redhead had likewise gone completely still. If this had happened before, the High Seeker was apparently not in the habit of allowing his guards to watch.

  Thatcher’s rapist – Thatcher could think of him in no other way now – walked toward him. He said, “I am preparing, Mr. Owen, for the punishment.”

  Thatcher thought this was the most unnecessary speech he had ever heard in his life. He braced himself for the fight to come. The High Seeker might have the right to search him, but Thatcher would sooner have given up his right of rebirth than to endure this particular punishment passively.

  He was disconcerted once more as the High Seeker walked past him. The High Seeker stepped over to the far wall and stood facing it; he did not turn. Instead, he raised his arms high over his head. Thatcher was still trying to form theories as to this strange position for an attack when he noticed that the High Seeker was touching a ring that was inset into the wall.

  “Mr. Sobel,” the High Seeker said in a matter-of-fact manner.

  The first guard broke out of his paralysis. He placed the shirt aside on Thatcher’s sleeping bench, and then came forward, pulling something from his pocket. Thatcher had time enough to see that it was a set of keys before the guard reached up and inserted one of the keys into the wall, just above the ring. There was a click, and the bottom of the ring sprang out a couple of inches from its flush position. It now looked like any other whipping ring Thatcher had seen in his years in the army.

  Thatcher was slowly figuring out the reason why the ring was normally kept stored within the wall, and was grudgingly admiring the Seekers for their care in preventing prisoners from having a means to hang themselves. Thus he missed the moment when the guard began to bind the High Seeker’s wrists to the ring with a leather strap he had taken from his pocket.

  “Mr. Boyd,” the High Seeker said, as though following normal routine.

  The redhead looked as though he regarded this exercise as anything but routine; his face had taken on a look of horror. “Sir, no!” he protested as the other guard completed his handiwork. “I couldn’t possibly—”

  “With your permission, sir, I will do it.” The first guard stepped forward and took the whip from the redhead’s grasp. The redhead’s expression changed from horror to incredulity.

  “Thank you, Mr. Sobel. I know that I can count on you to apply the lashes in the proper manner.” The High Seeker’s voice was partly muffled by his arms, which now cradled his face. “Mr. Owen, I would like to speak with you first.”

  Thatcher moved warily toward the far end of the cell. His eye was on the guards rather than the High Seeker. The redhead was now looking over his shoulder, as though trying to decide whether to call for help. The first guard was trying to school his expression, but he was not successful at hiding the grim line of his lips. Thatcher had seen that look before, on the faces of men in the field hospital who were awaiting the moment when their legs would be sawed off.

  Either he had stumbled across the finest actors outside of Vovim, Thatcher decided, or the High Seeker was trying something new and different.

  He could not have guessed this from the High Seeker’s eyes, which appeared just as calm as before. He could see them now, standing as he was along the warm wall, with the furnace fire beyond it touching flames against the frosty glass. The heat made sweat break out on Thatcher, but the High Seeker looked as cool and collected as though he were on a picnic at the seaside.

  “The Eternal Dungeon’s Code of Seeking requires different levels of punishment, Mr. Owen,” he said in a conversational manner. “Five to twenty light lashes are prescribed for minor offenses, in cases where the prisoner has not previously received punishment by those in authority over him, such as prison workers or army officials. Twenty to forty medium lashes are prescribed in cases of minor offenses where the prisoner has previously received beatings by order of authorities. Forty to sixty hard lashes are prescribed in cases of major offenses. Major offenses are defined by the Code as physical attacks upon a Seeker or trying to shift the blame for one’s crime onto an innocent party. Mr. Sobel, what is the appropriate punishment in a case like this?”

  There was the barest of hesitations before the guard replied, in an even voice, “Light lashes, sir.”

  “Mr. Sobel.” The High Seeker did not raise his voice or turn his head to look at the guard, but something changed in his tone that made Thatcher’s flesh prickle.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the guard said quickly. “Medium lashes are the appropriate punishment in this case.”

  “Indeed,” said the High Seeker, “since both you and I have received beatings on the order of authorities, Mr. Owen.”

  Thatcher did not need anyone to tell him what he had received in his past, but he stepped back a bit to look curiously at the High Seeker’s back. Sure enough, though the back was in shadow, Thatcher could see scar marks. They were old and faded, which was why he had not noticed them before.

  “Twenty to forty lashes,” the High Seeker said. “The Seeker receives the right to choose the number of lashes, based on his assessment of the prisoner’s character and the circumstances of the prisoner’s offense. How many lashes do you believe I should receive, Mr. Owen?”

  “Forty,” he replied swiftly. He knew, even as he spoke, that he had fallen into the High Seeker’s trap. He had figured out by now the point of this exercise. The High Seeker would allow a few light lashes to land harmlessly on his back, would writhe and scream for the benefit of his audience, and then, when his prisoner had begun to fear the power of the lash, would order that Thatcher receive the remainder of his self-imposed sentence, delivered at full force. It was the sort of trick Thatcher had come to expect from this man.

  Still, he could not resist requesting the highest number of lashes. Despite what the army clerks might think, he was no sadist – as the High Seeker had rightly said, he had no desire to see others linger in pain, no matter how much they deserved it. Because of this, he had found ways to keep control of his wayward men without need for ordering any lashings.

  He had not been so lucky during his own time as a bottom-ranked soldier. Two weeks in the army, and a trip to the whipping post, had convinced Thatcher that, if he truly wanted to serve the Queen, he would do better to bide his time until he became an officer and could take action on his own initiative. He could still remember the bite of the nine-tail upon his shoulder-blades and his resolute determination to make no sound during the beating. He considered his ability to keep that promise one of the crowning accomplishments of his life.

  And now his torturer, the man who would order Thatcher’s renewed pain, stood bound before him. Yes, Thatcher would like the High Seeker to feel the taste of leather upon his body again, even if the beating was kept light.

  Thatcher switched his attention to the whip in the guard’s hand. It was a single-tail, with no handle that Thatcher could see, but it tapered to its tip, becoming wonderfully thin toward the end. It was much shorter than Thatcher had
imagined it would be, no doubt to take into account the narrow confines of the cell. He wondered whether he could hope that the guard, in his evident state of nerves, would make a costly error in beating his Seeker.

  “Mr. Owen,” said the High Seeker, “it is the duty of the Seeker supervising the punishment to stand next to the prisoner and watch him closely as the beating proceeds, so that he can stop matters if it appears that his prisoner’s health is in grave danger.”

  Thatcher returned to his previous position along the wall, his face touched by a smile of light irony. He had every intention of watching the High Seeker’s eyes as the first blow landed.

  “Are you ready, Mr. Sobel?” the High Seeker asked. He was making no effort to hide his eyes from Thatcher – on the contrary, his gaze was fixed with his prisoner’s.

  “Yes, sir.” The guard holding the whip sounded as though he were anything but ready. The redhead seemed to have given up thought of seeking rescue from other quarters; he was standing with his fists clenched, glaring at Thatcher.

  “One,” said the High Seeker.

  It took Thatcher a moment to realize this was a signal, and by that time the lash had landed. There was no dramatic whistling through the air or cracking, just a soft thud. “Hold a minute!” Thatcher said and put up his hand. The guard with the whip was watching the High Seeker rather than Thatcher, but he made no move to land the second blow, apparently still awaiting the High Seeker’s signal.

  Thatcher came round to the High Seeker’s back. He was vaguely surprised to see a red line there. He ran his finger along it. The blood that had been released under the skin was already beginning to swell into a welt. The lash had been landed carefully, though – there was no cut in the skin along the line.

  Thatcher snorted. “Is this what you call a medium beating?”

  “Yes, it is, you bloodthirsty pig!” replied the redhead with raised voice. “What are you hoping for, gallons of blood?”

  “Mr. Boyd,” the High Seeker said quietly, once again with that edge which made Thatcher’s skin prickle. “If you cannot behave yourself, I will have to ask you to leave. Mr. Owen, the beating will grow more intense as it progresses. May I continue with the punishment?”

  “Continue away,” said Thatcher, feeling as though he were watching a particularly entertaining puppet show. He returned to his previous place and smiled smugly at the High Seeker.

  At the third lash, the High Seeker grunted. Thatcher chuckled at this; evidently the High Seeker was not as skilled as he was at keeping from making noises during punishment. He would have thought the grunt was faked, but the angry red welts were continuing to appear on the High Seeker’s back. Thatcher wondered whether the guard administering the punishment would receive his own beating later, for having lost control of his whip.

  At the twelfth lash, the High Seeker let out a howl. Thatcher was standing close to him in order to watch the eyes, which were now blinking rapidly; he was nearly scared into rebirth by the raw sound that arose from the High Seeker’s throat. The two guards jumped in their places, and the guard with the whip blanched. But he continued to apply the blows, red stripes along the bare back, as the redhead began muttering what sounded suspiciously to Thatcher like death threats.

  There were no more howls, but the grunts continued. By the eighteenth lash, the High Seeker appeared to be trying to climb the wall, standing on his toes and clutching at the ring. Thatcher, who remembered doing the same during his own beating, gave another soft chuckle.

  The High Seeker fainted at the twenty-fifth blow. Thatcher waited to see whether the guards would throw ice water on the bound man or whatever else was usual in this case, but the guard with the whip simply reached into his pocket again and brought out a small vial, which he uncorked and placed under the hood of the High Seeker, hanging limply in his bonds. The vial did its work at reviving the bound man, and the beating continued.

  It was obvious to Thatcher by now that the High Seeker, overcome by the unexpectedly harsh beating, had completely forgotten to give the order for his own release. The guards were clearly unwilling to act without that order. Thatcher, feeling a mixture of bemusement and delight, watched as the second fainting occurred at the thirty-second lash. From that point on, the High Seeker no longer had the strength to call out the numbers of his own beating. Thatcher did so for him, spacing the lashes wide, so that the High Seeker would feel the full impact of each blow. The High Seeker’s eyes were squeezed shut now.

  Thatcher had to admit that the guard with the whip was skilled. Apparently the guard’s only problem was in landing a blow softly; he had no trouble controlling the direction of the whip. The High Seeker’s back was now neatly ridged with parallel lines, none crossing the other; but with forty lashes ordered, it was only a matter of time before the lash-marks kissed each other. The blood began to trickle down the High Seeker’s sweat-laden back at the thirty-sixth blow.

  After the fortieth lash, the High Seeker was barely conscious, so he missed the opportunity to give Thatcher whatever speech he had intended to deliver about how Thatcher would receive worse if he continued in his obstinacy. Thatcher watched the guards help the High Seeker stumble from the cell, without making any commentary of his own.

  He hardly felt it was necessary. In his mind, the High Seeker lay panting on the ground, defeated for a second time.

  o—o—o

  “He’s mad!” hissed Mr. Boyd.

  “Who, the Codifier?” Seward, on the point of pushing a documents box onto the topmost shelf of the documents library, looked down at Mr. Boyd, who was standing below him.

  The other guard frowned. He had been unwilling to enter the dimly lit room in the first place, complaining that he was already close to blindness from the eyestrain of working in the other dim rooms of the dungeon. But Seward, guessing what the nature of this conversation would be, wanted them alone in a room with the door shut.

  Now Seward returned his attention to the box, saying, “There’s nothing in the Code of Seeking that forbids a Seeker from taking punishment in place of a prisoner.”

  When he looked down again, he saw that Mr. Boyd was gaping as though he were locked in a room with a madman. Seward made his way back down the steps of the sliding ladder that could be placed against any of the three walls of the library. “‘A Seeker must be willing to suffer for the prisoners,’” he reminded Mr. Boyd.

  The other guard’s face darkened upon hearing the most famous words in the Code of Seeking. “A Seeker must be willing to suffer if it’s in the best interests of the prisoner for him to do so. How is this supposed to help the prisoner? Will it make him cry and say, ‘I’m so sorry – I was such a terrible man for making you and my victims suffer’? Mr. Sobel, you know better than that!”

  Seward said nothing. His shoulders ached from the past half hour of lifting boxes, and his eyes were watering; the dungeon’s Record-keeper only permitted one safety lamp in this room. It was part of what he missed most about the world above: bright light. Everything was bright in the world he had left behind, while everything in this dungeon was various shades of grey, if not entirely black. . . .

  “Mr. Sobel.” Mr. Boyd seemed to be struggling to keep his voice under control. “You must see what’s happening. From the very start, he’s been unbalanced. No, listen!” He raised his hand, as though Seward had been about to interrupt. “He’s treating this prisoner as cooperative – doesn’t that tell you anything?”

  Seward did not reply. This had been bothering him too, from the first hour of searching. The Code of Seeking had strict rules on how to proceed with prisoners, and one of its strictest rules was that cooperative prisoners should be treated with relative gentleness, while uncooperative prisoners should be treated with harshness and frightened into giving confessions.

  The High Seeker certainly did not lack skill in frightening prisoners. Nor could he be unaware of the rule requiring that cooperative and uncooperative prisoners be treated differently: he had written the rule himself.
From the moment that Seward had accompanied Layle Smith to the High Seeker’s first searching since his madness, the guard had tensed himself in anticipation of the inevitable moment when the prisoner’s defiance would bring out the High Seeker’s dark skill at breaking prisoners through terror.

  And the moment had passed. Mr. Owen had rejected, had defied, had jeered, and Layle Smith had let it all go as though he were dealing with a prisoner quivering with fear and pleading to give his side of the story.

  At first, Seward had thought he had simply missed the signal. The signs of a cooperative prisoner were various: the prisoner could indicate through word or sign that he was willing to answer the Seeker’s questions; he could make clear that, if certain conditions were met, he would make his confession; he could plead innocence in such a manner that his Seeker was convinced by his testimony. Any one of these signals would be enough to require a Seeker to coax the prisoner rather than bear down upon him. But if no such sign appeared . . .

  “He’s treating an uncooperative prisoner as though he were cooperative,” said Mr. Boyd. “He’s breaking the Code. And he’s letting himself be beaten in the prisoner’s place, without there existing any chance that the prisoner will offer a confession as a result of the beating. The High Seeker said so himself on the first day: this prisoner isn’t the type to be moved by images of death. Nor will he be moved by images of torture. The High Seeker has gone out of bounds, Mr. Sobel, and by the time he realizes how far his madness has taken him, it will be too late. We’ll have lost all chance of extracting a confession from the prisoner. Or of helping the prisoner to his rebirth,” he added belatedly.

  Seward moved the ladder further along the railing that it was attached to, reached up to flip the latch locking the ladder in place, and began climbing up the rungs once more. “If you believe that Mr. Smith has broken the Code, it’s your duty to report him to the Codifier,” he told the younger guard.

  “And will you back me?” Mr. Boyd asked. “Will you tell the Codifier that he should assign someone else to the prisoner?”

  Seward shook his head. Below him, a soft stream of cursing began; then it stopped abruptly. He felt a nudge at his knees and looked down to see Mr. Boyd holding a box up toward him.

  The other guard waited until the documents were safely on the shelf before he told Seward quietly, “You’re the one who’s in the cell with him. You’re the one who will have to fight him if he breaks completely. And you know what that means.”

  Seward felt the box shake in his hands. He gripped the ladder tightly, waiting for the tremor to pass, and then raised the box above his head.

  Below him, Mr. Boyd said even more quietly, “If this ends the way I think it will end, I’ll sing your prayers. I vow this.”

  Seward nodded in acknowledgment of the gift, and then leaned on the ladder, resting his sweat-smeared brow upon his forearm.