CHAPTER FIVE
“At the seventh level, the prisoner’s difficulty in breathing will increase,” said the High Seeker. “He will feel as though a heavy stone is crushing him. The pain will not be confined to his chest, however. Because these new racks are designed to pull from both ends, the pain will be distributed throughout the body. Some prisoners state that the back muscles undergo the greatest agony; such reactions vary from individual to individual. In actual fact, the extremities of the body will be in greatest danger. The prisoner may feel as though blood is spurting through the pores of his fingers. This is an illusion, however. Blood does not begin to pour from the prisoner’s body until a higher level, when the sinews snap and the limb-bones are wrenched from their sockets. At that level, lifelong crippling is a certainty and death a distinct possibility—”
“So?” said Thatcher brusquely. “It won’t be me that’s on the rack.”
He was resisting the urge to hug his chest with his arms. The High Seeker’s description was not what had prompted this impulse; Thatcher was simply cold. He had assumed that the furnace behind the glass blocks of his cell extended to other parts of the dungeon, but here in the rack room, all the walls were solid stone and the temperature was as crisp as late autumn. Needless to say, no one had offered him a cloak.
The High Seeker turned his head toward Thatcher. It was impossible to tell what lay in the man’s expression; the room was nearly pitch dark, lit only by a bracketed lamp that glittered upon instruments hanging from the walls, curved in deadly shapes. Thatcher wondered with grim satisfaction whether he would be allowed to use these on the High Seeker as well.
The High Seeker said softly, “You will be in charge of this racking, as a Seeker is, Mr. Owen. It is important that you understand the stages leading up to a prisoner’s breaking.”
Thatcher waved his hand as though he were a Seeker graciously allowing a prisoner the opportunity to ramble on about irrelevancies. The High Seeker did not continue to describe the higher levels of the rack, though. Instead, he asked, “Did you ever play Scare when you were a boy?”
Thatcher narrowed his eyes, trying to determine whether the High Seeker was mocking him. “Many times. I always won.”
“Then you should enjoy tonight’s session. You and I are going to play Scare, Mr. Owen. We are going to see who breaks first: the man being racked, or the man ordering the racking. It is just past dusk now, and we will be together until the end of the night shift. If you decide before dawn arrives that you do not wish to rack me any more, I will have won the Scare. If, on the other hand, I break, either by word or by body, you will have won the Scare.”
Thatcher’s eyes remained narrow. “And what do I lose if I lose this game?”
“Nothing, Mr. Owen. The Code does not require you to play this game, and if you lose, you will forfeit nothing. If I lose, I forfeit the right to search you further, unless you indicate that you wish to speak further with me.”
Thatcher chewed on his lip, trying to consider what truth lay behind the High Seeker’s lies. It could be, of course, that the High Seeker was taking a genuine gamble. After all, the man had little to lose: once his searching was completed, Thatcher would be turned over to a magistrate and hanged for his killing of the guard. Probably the High Seeker considered that result a satisfactory enough ending to the game to be willing to forfeit his right to torture Thatcher if he lost.
On the other hand, the High Seeker could be lying. He could be having Thatcher rack him for some other reason. To scare Thatcher with a demonstration of the rack, perhaps? No, that theory held no truth – the High Seeker had already been tortured once, and he knew that Thatcher would not break from witnessing torture upon another man. More likely the High Seeker was trying to make Thatcher feel pity for his prisoner. Thatcher snorted at the thought.
“Do we have a deal?” the High Seeker asked, as though he had been following Thatcher’s thoughts.
As if Thatcher had any bloody choice in the matter. “Deal,” said Thatcher firmly. “I’ll play Scare to you. Tell me, though – what do you consider counts as a breaking by word?” To see the High Seeker rent asunder on this own machine would be sweet, but Thatcher was willing to win by any means.
The High Seeker nodded as though he approved of the question. He was standing a goodly distance from Thatcher, near the bottom of the rack, which forced Thatcher to turn his back on the guards. Thatcher did not like that, even though the High Seeker had sent the most dangerous guard, the redhead, outside to watch the door. The other guard, the one who always kept his eye on the High Seeker, was positioned like a captain at the wheel of the rack. When Thatcher had last looked at him, the guard’s gaze had been firmly fixed upon the High Seeker.
“There are two ways in which a prisoner may break,” the High Seeker said, trailing his fingers lightly over the wooden edge of the rack-bed. “He may indicate to his Seeker that he wishes to have the torture end. If he does so, this is taken as indication that he will cooperate with his Seeker – perhaps not through an immediate confession, but at least through a willingness to cooperate in the searching. The second means by which a prisoner may break by word is by telling the truth that he has previously lied to. In most cases, this means confessing to his crime.”
Thatcher snorted again. “I don’t suppose you have any crimes you want to confess to me.”
“None that I want to confess to you, no,” the High Seeker replied coolly, as though he could have produced a dozen murders for Thatcher if the circumstances had been right. “Therefore your job will be to uncover the truth I have not told you.”
Thatcher felt a hard thumping vibrate through his body, like a triumphant cannon-shot near the end of war. “So you admit you’ve lied to me.”
“Lied? No. But I have misled you.”
Thatcher sighed at this word-mincing. It was like listening to a thief say, “I did not steal; I merely borrowed.” Thatcher asked, “How did you mislead me, then?”
The High Seeker replied, “In the first words I spoke to you when I searched you, I gave you information that was true in a legal sense – I could show you papers that prove the legal truth of what I said. Nonetheless, my words did not represent the full truth. They were a misleading I have made many times, to many people.”
Thatcher took a step back so that he could glance over and see how the guard at the wheel was taking all this. The guard was doing a good job of pretending to be indifferent to the conversation, but Thatcher thought he could see a slight crease of puzzlement in the guard’s brow.
Which could mean anything. Thatcher decided the topic was worth exploring. “So what truth am I supposed to discover?” he asked.
The High Seeker’s voice was very soft when he replied. “My true name.”
Thatcher heard the faint gasp even before he turned his head and saw that the guard was gripping the wheel hard, his lips slightly parted. So this was something the guard had not known before. But judging from his reaction, the guard believed the High Seeker’s words.
Thatcher felt pure pleasure enter him then, as when he had killed the last inhabitant of the final village he had attacked and had known he could now release the terrified Yclau women from their chains. Whether or not the rest of this was a trick, it would be fun to see whether he could force the High Seeker to reveal something he had not even told his own guard. Perhaps there was a story attached to the name, a bloody story that the High Seeker did not want revealed, lest it show how little qualified he was to run this dungeon. And if Thatcher could make the High Seeker speak that story, in the presence of a witness . . .
Thatcher laughed aloud. “Right,” he said. “Let’s get started.”
Several minutes passed before the High Seeker was secured to the rack, mainly because Thatcher stopped the procedure to argue that his prisoner should be racked naked. The High Seeker had not replied; he had simply turned his gaze to the guard, who had told Thatcher stiffly, “The Code does not permit prisoners to be stripped naked.”
&n
bsp; Thatcher was tempted to ask to see the exact passage in the Seekers’ little devotional book, but he did not want to appear a fool. He already felt out of his depth. Beatings he had seen before, but the only place in Yclau where rackings occurred was in this dungeon. He was supposed to supervise a racking without knowing how to do so.
“How long?” he asked, glancing at the water-clock that he could faintly hear dripping in the corner. He wondered whether the clock was an affectation of the Seekers; he had never seen one outside of a museum. It fit well, though, with the old instruments of torture on the wall.
“This is spring, so the dawn shift will arrive in a little under twelve hours,” the High Seeker replied, now lying on the rack and acting as though he did not notice that the guard was binding his hands into straps above his head. “Rackings are permitted to last no more than twelve hours in each twenty-four hour period. They may be much shorter, of course, if the prisoner breaks or if the Seeker judges that it is not wise to continue the torture.”
Thatcher ignored the second proviso. “How high can I take you? To the top?” He glanced at the dial on the wheel. It travelled a third of the way round the wheel and was marked from zero to ten, with quarter-marks in between the numbers.
“Not immediately,” the High Seeker replied, pausing to suck in his breath as the guard tightened a strap around his middle. “The Code only permits the Seeker to raise the level if the prisoner lies in response to a question concerning his crime. Furthermore, the Seeker may only question the prisoner directly concerning his crime once an hour. This is to prevent the torture from proceeding too quickly, thus placing the prisoner’s life in danger.”
Thatcher wondered whether the High Seeker was making this all up on the spot. It seemed an unlikely way for torturers to proceed. “What do we talk about in between, then?” he asked with heavy sarcasm. “Hopscotch strategy?”
“Indirect questions are permitted, Mr. Owen. You may question me on any matter that you believe pertains to my true name, provided that you only ask what my name is once per hour. In general, Seekers try to wear down prisoners by asking the prisoners questions that cause them internal pain at the same time that external pain is being applied. When the prisoner can no longer stand the pain, he will break.”
This seemed a more likely story. “And once an hour I can raise you a level? Is that it?”
The guard, who had been fastening straps around the High Seeker’s ankles, spoke suddenly. “Seekers aren’t permitted to raise prisoners more than a quarter level each hour except with the High Seeker’s permission.”
Thatcher glanced at the wheel and made a quick calculation in his head. A quarter level each hour for twelve hours – that would take the High Seeker no higher than level three. He grimaced. He might have guessed the High Seeker would win the game through cheating.
But even as he thought that, the High Seeker said, “You have my permission, Mr. Owen, to raise me one level each hour, until you reach ten.”
Thatcher did not bother to make calculations this time; he could feel a smile sliding onto his face. The High Seeker, who was still acting though he were atop a feather mattress rather than being trussed to a rack, added, “You should know, Mr. Owen, that the stress the prisoner undergoes is a product of the level of the rack multiplied by the amount of time spent on the rack.” Thatcher’s face must have gone blank, for the High Seeker added, “If you place me on the rack at level three for one hour, the pain I undergo will be three times as much as if you placed me at level one for one hour. Likewise, if you place me at level three for two hours, the pain will be six times as intense as if I spent one hour at level one.”
Even with his poor mathematical skills, Thatcher could figure out the rest. A grin spread across his face. By the tenth hour, he would have the High Seeker enduring pain ten times as great as he had during the first hour. And if Thatcher added in the pain from all the previous levels . . .
This would work. It was bound to work. Because, even if the High Seeker turned out to be a Vovimian god in disguise, refusing to tell the truth under the intense pain Thatcher placed him under, his body would still break. The High Seeker had admitted that already. Thatcher wished now that he had not cut off the High Seeker’s recital of levels. When would the High Seeker’s body be torn in two? At level eight? Nine? Would Thatcher have to wait until level ten? In any case, the High Seeker’s doom was certain. One way or another, he would break, and Thatcher, once more, would be the victor in the field.
He turned his grin on the guard, who was now standing stiffly at the wheel. “Take my prisoner up to level one,” he ordered. “I want to hear him scream.”
By the end of the fourth hour, the room was nearly black. The candle guttered, causing alternate periods of darkness and dimness. The sound of the dripping water-clock was obscured by the sound of heavy breathing.
Between one hoarse gasp and the next, the High Seeker said, “Five.”
Thatcher did not need to be told; he could see that the water had reached the next line. He admitted to himself that he was envious of the High Seeker’s ability to tell time without being able to see a clock, but he suspected that the High Seeker’s habit of announcing each level as it arrived was simply a way for the man to continue to maintain control over the proceedings.
Thatcher hardly needed help with that. He was growing frustrated by his inability to ask the High Seeker the right questions. He had started by asking the obvious questions: Was the High Seeker a spy? Did he work for the King of Vovim? Had he committed any deeds for which he could be arrested? The High Seeker had answered each question in the negative. No doubt he was lying, but Thatcher could not think of any way to prove this. What was worse, the High Seeker seemed undisturbed by the questions. At times, Thatcher could almost imagine he heard a smile in the High Seeker’s voice.
Thatcher leaned forward, trying to sight the High Seeker’s eyes. They were still impossible to see. “You say you don’t work for the Vovimian King,” he said. “Does any of your family work for the King?”
“My father did, before his death.”
Thatcher felt a rush of excitement enter him. He was getting closer to the truth. “What work did your father do?”
“He was a soldier. He fought in the wars against Yclau.”
Better and better. “As an officer?” An officer was responsible, not only for his own deeds, but for any deeds he ordered his men to do. Thatcher had reason to know that.
“No. He was a bottom-ranked soldier.”
Thatcher chewed on his lip a moment, trying to figure out how to turn this answer to his advantage. Finally he asked, “What about your mother? Did she work for the King?”
“My mother was from this queendom. My father abducted her and brought her back over the border.”
Thatcher regretted the question. That the High Seeker’s mother had been Yclau and was a victim of rape did not fit with the sort of portrait he was trying to build. He tried again. “You’re like your father, I suppose.”
“I was told when I was young that I resembled him.”
“In more than face, I’ll wager,” said Thatcher quickly. “You’ve raped someone, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
Thatcher felt triumph hammer at him. He looked quickly over at the guard, but to his great disappointment, the guard appeared unsurprised by this revelation. The crime had happened since the High Seeker came to the Eternal Dungeon, then. Probably the High Seeker had raped a prisoner – more than one prisoner, perhaps. That would not fit with what the High Seeker had said earlier about committing no deeds for which he could be arrested, unless . . . Yes, it would fit if the Queen permitted her Seekers to rape prisoners. And that seemed all too likely.
Thatcher thought glumly to himself that he was unlikely to rake up anything from the past that would destroy the High Seeker’s career. Probably a criminal career was a prerequisite to becoming a torturer. Still, the High Seeker must be sensitive about his true name, or he would not have
hidden it from people in this dungeon. Thatcher opened his mouth to ask the most important question.
At that moment, though, the guard reached over and slid his hand under the High Seeker’s hood. Thatcher felt irritation enter him. The guard kept stopping to check heartbeats and measure breaths and wipe sweat off the High Seeker. It was as though he were a healer tending a patient rather than a guard helping to rack a prisoner. Thatcher was quite sure that no other prisoner was cared for this tenderly, and he opened his mouth to say so.
But the guard had slipped away from the wheel. Turning his eyes from the High Seeker for the first time, the guard went over and placed a fresh candle in the lamp, lighting it from the old candle. Then he knelt down beside the tank where the overflow of water from the clock drained. Thatcher craned his neck, trying to see whether the guard was tampering with the clock to make it run more quickly. When the guard stood and turned again, he held in his hand a glass with clear liquid in it.
Thatcher stared aghast. “What the bloody blades are you doing?”
“The High Seeker has been sweating profusely,” the guard said in the same stiff voice he had used when speaking before. “The Code requires that prisoners be given water when they are dehydrated.”
“I don’t care what your bloody Code says! I’m in charge here, and I want you to—”
He stopped. The guard had come close enough for Thatcher to see his eyes. It was the first time Thatcher had seen those eyes for more than a flicker of a second; until now, they had been turned toward the High Seeker. Seeing them, Thatcher knew he had made a very great mistake.
The redhead was not the dangerous guard. This one was.
Thatcher felt his muscles tense, as though he had unexpectedly met a predatory wolf that showed its fangs. But the guard’s voice was even when he spoke again. “Mr. Smith will be unable to answer your questions if his voice is too dry to speak.”
Thatcher’s throat felt dry as well. He waved his hand, leaving it vague as to whether he was giving orders or conceding the battle. The guard came forward and carefully lifted the front flap of the hood in such a manner that it continued to shield the High Seeker’s face from Thatcher’s view. At the same time, the guard’s gaze swung away.
That gave Thatcher a new idea. “Wait a minute! ” he said. “You told me that the Code doesn’t allow prisoners to be stripped naked. But does your Code allow prisoners to keep hoods on their faces while they’re being racked?”
The guard said nothing, which was answer enough. Instead, he waited until the High Seeker had finished gulping the water, then lowered the cloth of the hood and looked down at the High Seeker.
The High Seeker said in a strained voice, “Do as Mr. Owen bids you, Mr. Sobel.”
The guard stopped looking at the High Seeker after that. Thatcher suspected that the guard was ashamed at the High Seeker for ceding battle to Thatcher. As for Thatcher, he was not prepared for the gust of fury that entered him when he saw the High Seeker’s face for the first time.
The High Seeker had taught himself to speak with so pure an Yclau accent that, despite the man’s earlier words about his resemblance to his father, it had not occurred to Thatcher that he was racking someone who looked like the enemies he had fought. But there was no trace of the supposed Yclau mother in the High Seeker’s features: he had the high cheekbones of a Vovimian. His skin was lighter than Thatcher would have expected, but it was still dark enough to tell of his dark origins. Thatcher found himself wondering whether the man had raped Yclau women, like his father had.
“What is your name?” he asked harshly.
“Layle Smith,” the High Seeker replied, as he had at the beginning of each previous hour.
“Take him up to level five,” Thatcher snapped at the guard. “And do it quickly.”
That was the first level at which the High Seeker screamed. Thatcher relished the sound. He thought to himself about all the prisoners this man had abused and broken, and while Thatcher’s questions grew no more clever than before, he could receive satisfaction now at seeing the evidence of pain in the High Seeker’s face. By the seventh level, the High Seeker was groaning continuously – no god here. Just a man who was weakening every minute more that he spent in agony.
The guard looked as though his agony was nearly as great as the High Seeker’s, but to Thatcher’s relief, the guard made no move toward the dagger at his hip. No doubt the High Seeker kept this dangerous dog on a short lease. If not, Thatcher suspected, the dog would have torn Thatcher’s throat open several hours before.
“Eleven,” the High Seeker whispered at the end of nine hours. “No, ten.”
The guard made a move as if to turn the wheel. Thatcher held up his hand. “I give the orders here.” He stared down at the High Seeker, trying to make up his mind.
The truth was, he was nervous. He had been waiting now, for two levels, for the body-breaking to occur. And the longer he had to wait, the more he found himself wondering about the consequences of such a breaking. If the High Seeker really was mad enough to let Thatcher break his body – and Thatcher was increasingly of the opinion that madness was at the core of this night’s events – then what would happen? Would Thatcher simply be handed over to the magistrate for his execution? Or would a new High Seeker be appointed, one who decided to take revenge on Thatcher for what he had done? Thatcher thought again of the unused instruments on the wall, and he felt his stomach roil.
He chewed his lip, considering his options. He could stop the torture now; that would lose him the Scare, but this was only a game anyway. One way or another, he would end up hanging from a noose. The only question was how much torture he would have to endure until then. What was the point of risking months of torture at the hands of a new High Seeker, just in order to play a game? Was today’s victory worth that?
“Eleven,” the High Seeker whispered through chattering teeth. His eyes were staring blankly at the ceiling, as though he was not aware of what he said. The word he spoke slid into a groan as a fresh sheen of sweat sprang onto his forehead. The blood vessels in his arms and legs stood out like strings ready to snap. His chest barely moved, though his mouth sucked in air constantly. Tears were flowing freely from his eyes.
The guard once again made a move to heighten the level. “Wait!” said Thatcher quickly, throwing up his hand. He might not have the skills of a Seeker as far as searching a prisoner was concerned, but he had not been made an officer due to dull wits. Something was wrong here.
The guard, the anguished guard who obviously worshipped his Seeker, had twice now tried to raise the level of the racking at the High Seeker’s word. He had not done that at any of the previous levels – he had shown great reluctance to move the wheel even when Thatcher issued his orders. The guard must be moving hastily in an attempt to hide something.
The High Seeker’s words?
Eleven, the High Seeker had said. Not ten. Nine hours ago he had said, “You have my permission to raise me one level each hour, until you reach ten.” Why had he specified ten? Why had he not simply said, “Until you reach the highest point in the racking”?
Thatcher shot a look at the wheel again, knowing already what he would see. The dial only went to ten, but the wheel went much higher than that. Why? To deceive prisoners? It did not matter; what mattered was that this changed everything that Thatcher had been assuming.
He leaned over the rack, appreciating as he did so the stink emanating from the High Seeker’s body. This was why the rack room was so cold, obviously – because the prisoner’s sweating torment would grow so high.
Thatcher said, “You told me— No, you didn’t tell me, but you let me think that your body would break when you reached the tenth level. Will it?”
The guard’s hand was frozen on the wheel now; he already knew the answer. Thatcher waited, though, for the High Seeker’s faint whisper amidst the groans: “No.”
Thatcher smiled. He could feel the sweetness of his victory already. The trick was uncovered �
� the trick the High Seeker had planned to use to win the Scare. The High Seeker had counted on Thatcher believing that his prisoner’s body would break at the tenth level, and on Thatcher losing his nerve before that point. Now, with the trick gone, victory was certain. “What is your name?” he cooed at the High Seeker.
A brief pause, and then: “Down,” whispered the High Seeker, and the guard’s hand moved the wheel. Slowly, as though he no longer cared whether the High Seeker was released from his pain. Thatcher’s smile turned to a grin.
The door of the rack room banged open. The redhead, with murder in his eyes, strode forward and grabbed Thatcher’s arm. Thatcher let himself be pulled away, but at the doorway he turned his head to look back. The prisoner lay motionless like a corpse on the ground of a battlefield.
“Third victory; I win the war,” Thatcher murmured, and then laughed aloud as he was pulled from the room.
o—o—o
Seward knew that it was only an illusion that the light in the entry hall seemed to have dimmed. The lamps twinkled as brightly as ever in the edges of the vast room; Seward had simply become aware that the light of the entry hall was far overwhelmed by the shadows.
Those shadows were usually cast aside in his mind because they seemed to have no place amidst the lively chatter of the guards. But now the entry hall was utterly silent, as it rarely was except when a prisoner was arriving. Indeed, Seward could not remember the entry hall being this quiet since the worst days of the High Seeker’s madness.
He looked across the table at Mr. Boyd, who avoided his gaze. Seward thought to himself that he ought to say something that would reassure the younger guard that he did not blame him for spreading word of what had happened in the rack room. Three dozen guards had seen Seward and Mr. Boyd carry Layle Smith’s limp body from the rack room. The truth was better than the types of rumors which could have accompanied that image of the unconscious High Seeker.
Seward broke the silence finally, saying, “Elsdon Taylor is emerging from his two months’ mourning tonight.”
Mr. Boyd placed three documents into three separate piles before saying, without looking up, “Perhaps he’ll be able to help.”
No one glanced over from other tables with any indication of interest in the conversation. Everyone in the entry hall seemed weighed down by their own thoughts, or by their memories of the darkness that had overcome this dungeon during the long months of the High Seeker’s illness.
There was a difference this time, though. Seward sensed that difference in the frowns, and even more in the lack of enquiries as to whether the High Seeker’s body was recovering. Last time Layle Smith had been the victim, but this time the inhabitants of the Eternal Dungeon blamed the High Seeker for what was happening. It was a paradox: they believed the High Seeker to be mad, but because he showed no obvious sign of being mad, they blamed him for his folly.
Seward shot a glance at the narrow door leading to the Codifier’s office. The dungeon’s ethical supervisor had been busy this month, responding to a bevy of guards – and even Seekers – who wished him to remove the High Seeker from duty. So far the Codifier had responded only with a terse refusal. Except to Seward. He had asked Seward whether he wished to continue with his current duties, and Seward had known that, if he requested to be transferred to another Seeker, the Codifier would remove the High Seeker from his prisoner.
Seward had not requested to be assigned to another Seeker.
He tried to concentrate his thoughts on the documents he was sorting. A number of the guards nearby were gazing into space, as though unable to keep their minds on their work. Across from him, Mr. Boyd gave a frustrated grunt, and then pulled half a dozen documents out of the piles into which he had just sorted them.
So still was the cavern that Seward jumped at the soft sound of a door closing. He looked up and saw that the High Seeker was beginning to walk across the darkness in the middle of the hall.
For a moment, Seward sat paralyzed; then he sprang up and walked forward to meet the High Seeker midway. He could feel that every eye in the entry hall was upon Layle Smith. Seward himself could see that the High Seeker moved in a labored manner, like a man attempting to walk through treacle.
As soon as he reached the High Seeker, Seward said, “Sir, you ought not to be out of your bed. You’re not well.”
Too late, he realized how this might be taken by the surrounding guards, and by the High Seeker himself. But Layle Smith said simply, “I mend best when I am at my work. Come with me, please.” He beckoned past Seward, and Seward turned to see that Mr. Boyd was making his way cautiously forward, slower than the High Seeker evidently cared for.
“Where are we going, sir?” asked Seward, even as he realized that he ought not to be questioning the High Seeker. Not here, in front of the watching audience.
“To finish my searching,” the High Seeker said briskly as he turned in the direction of the door leading to the prisoners’ cells. He continued to move with difficulty, and Seward wondered whether the healer would burst into the entry hall at any moment, roaring his disapproval that the High Seeker was endangering his health by rising early from his healing bed.
Seward realized that the High Seeker and Mr. Boyd were halfway to the door already, and he hurried to catch up. He was in time to hear Mr. Boyd say in a low voice, “Sir, this is a dangerous prisoner. I ought to assist Mr. Sobel tonight in guarding you.”
“No,” said the High Seeker without looking at either of them. “The prisoner fears you more than he fears Mr. Sobel, and I want him relaxed tonight. Unwary. Without thought of danger.”
Mr. Boyd cast a despairing look at Seward, who gave him a grimace of a smile in thanks for Mr. Boyd’s attempt at assistance. Not that he was surprised by Layle Smith’s refusal. He set himself into his usual position, as close to the High Seeker as his shadow, and glanced back at the other guards. He half expected to see them rising with daggers and whips in their hands, ready to hold back the mad High Seeker. But everyone in the entry hall seemed as paralyzed as Seward had been before. No one tried to stop the High Seeker from going where his determination took him.
Which left only one man to stop the High Seeker. Seward touched his dagger lightly, as though to assure himself that it was still there, and turned his eyes back to Layle Smith. He dared not look away again – not until this was all over.
They entered the dark corridor leading to the cells.
The Eternal Dungeon: a Turn-of-the-Century Toughs omnibus Page 61