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

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER TWO

  He had awoken, on that day after, to find himself lying alone in bed.

  He discovered this with a quick grope of the hands over the bedcovers, without opening his eyes. As High Seeker, he was one of the Seekers entitled to a double bed, though he had slept alone until the day before. Now, it appeared, the previous pattern would continue.

  It had all been a dreaming, then: the promise of everlasting love, the passion that had followed upon that promise, the warmth of Elsdon’s body – and more importantly, the warmth of his companionship. Layle had expected it to happen one day: his dreamings had become so real that he had begun to believe them.

  He refused to open his eyes. He was afraid that, if he did, he would see something that would force him to confront a far worse possibility: that he had indeed slept with Elsdon, and that Elsdon had crept away while he slept, irreparably damaged by their brief joining.

  The covers of the bed were scratchy wool – more scratchy than they needed to be. A form of asceticism, a penance for what he had done in the past and what, from time to time, despite all his will, he continued to do. He lay on his back, his eyes closed, trying to force himself to rise. Time could be of the essence in healing Elsdon – if there was still any chance of healing the young Seeker whom he had hurt so badly so many times now. Perhaps it would be best to let others take over the task he had failed at. . . .

  The bedsprings creaked.

  He reacted automatically, which meant he reacted violently. Reaching toward the only loose object at hand – the night-table next to the bed – he grasped it by its leg, wrenched it from the floor, and had begun to swing it toward the intruder before he checked himself in time.

  He opened his eyes. Elsdon, fully clothed and hooded but with his face-cloth raised, sat beside him. He looked, Layle realized with amazement, more amused than fearful.

  “By all that is sacred,” Elsdon said, speaking the mildest of oaths, “is this how you always greet your love-mates upon awakening?”

  Layle slowly lowered the night-table, feeling the blood thunder within his body. “I’ve never had a love-mate before who slept with me.”

  “I can see why, if this is how you wake from your sleep.”

  Layle slowly raised himself into a sitting position. Elsdon was still smiling, he noted with growing incredulity. The Seeker-in-Training had made a joke about the fact that Layle was a killer born.

  Perhaps he was still sleeping. He rubbed his eyes.

  “I’m sorry to wake you,” said Elsdon softly, “but Mr. Chapman told me yesterday that I should report to him at the beginning of today’s night shift. That’s not long from now.” He glanced in the direction of the water-clock in the corner of the room.

  Layle did not need to glance that way. He knew the sounds of the dungeon like a mother knows the sounds of her baby. It said something about his state of mind that he had slept all the way into the brief dusk period between the day and night shifts.

  “I have to report as well,” said Layle. He began to reach toward the night-table, realized that he had toppled all the objects on it onto the floor, and reached down to fish his hood off the ground. “I need to appear in the dragon’s lair.”

  “Oh.” Elsdon stood and watched as Layle settled the frame holding the hood onto his head, then smoothed down the cloth that hid the sides and back of his head and neck. “Will that be bad for you? I mean, I know the Codifier isn’t the most patient man . . .”

  “Bad?” Layle raised his eyebrows as he placed onto the night-table the Code of Seeking, one of the objects he had tumbled onto the floor. “Bad is meeting you in the corridor and hearing you threaten to send me to the hangman. Being lectured by the Codifier about my lack of control is easy by comparison.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and then Elsdon burst into laughter. He tossed Layle the shirt he had been groping for, one of the many articles of clothing that had ended up strewn on the floor the previous night. Layle was still wearing his trousers – an old habit, for he had never stripped himself fully when raping prisoners in the Hidden Dungeon. Remaining partially clothed allowed a Vovimian torturer to make his prisoner feel vulnerable in his or her nakedness. As Layle stood up and tried to brush out the creases in his trousers, he wondered how long it would be before he could break himself of such old habits. Or whether it was even possible to do so.

  “I’m sorry.” Elsdon smiled at him. “I’m sure you know that. I badly misjudged you.”

  He felt worry touch him then, like a knife. “You didn’t misjudge me. I’m as dangerous as you surmised, and I’ve done in the past what you thought I was doing in the present.”

  “Then I misjudged myself. Layle . . . I remembered yesterday how I killed my sister.”

  In the midst of tying his shirt closed – the shirt was mussed, but the Codifier wouldn’t care – Layle grew still. He searched Elsdon’s face, trying to read the pain behind it.

  He had known that this would happen eventually. During the past three months, as Elsdon underwent his transition from prisoner to Seeker-in-Training, the young man had gone from the extreme of believing that he was entirely to blame for his kin-murder to the other extreme of believing that he was entirely blameless for the murder. Of course, he might have been entirely blameless, but his loss of memory suggested otherwise. Prisoners did not forget bloody crimes they had committed unless they were trying to hide truths from themselves.

  Now the danger existed that Elsdon would return to his old self-hatred. Layle said carefully, “Murders rarely take place for only one reason.”

  Elsdon sighed. “Layle, I know that. I know I wouldn’t have murdered Sara if my father hadn’t bound and beaten me harshly for years. But I also know now that . . . I had a choice. There was a moment when I could have stopped myself from killing Sara, and I didn’t do so.” He turned his face, staring in the direction of the unlit sitting chamber. “It makes me wonder whether I am worthy to be a Seeker.”

  Layle stepped forward then and took Elsdon lightly by both shoulders, forcing the young man to face him. “None of us are completely worthy to hold the power we do, myself least of all. Whatever you have done is small in comparison to what I have done in the past – believe me when I say that.” As Elsdon opened his mouth to ask questions Layle had no desire to answer, Layle rushed on: “We are the lucky ones.”

  “Lucky ones?” With his brows drawn low, Elsdon frowned.

  Layle nodded. “Weldon Chapman and other Seekers like him who have committed no abuses in their past – they are the ones who find it hardest to remind themselves that they are no better than the prisoners. It’s a constant temptation we face as Seekers: to think ourselves superior to the men and women we search. You and I have all the reminder we need that this is not so.”

  Elsdon’s expression grew intense as he thought this through. Layle had to resist the impulse to run his thumb down the skin of Elsdon’s flawless cheek, as smooth and pale and perfect as an ivory carving. He was still absorbing with wonder the knowledge that, after so many years of hard-fought restraint, he could now permit himself to touch someone he desired.

  Elsdon said, “I don’t think that’s going to be enough to remind me of how fortunate I am. Layle, I ought to be dead. I would have died at the hangman’s noose if you hadn’t rescued me. And yet, for the past two days, I’ve been doing my best to destroy you.”

  “You had what seemed to be good reason. You believed I was abusing this dungeon’s prisoners.”

  Elsdon shook his head so vigorously that his wheat-gold hair peered out from beneath his hood. “It wasn’t only that. If you had committed crimes, then I should have treated you like any prisoner should be treated – I should have been concerned about the well-being of your soul. But I wasn’t. It’s as you said before: I was arrogant. I wanted to think myself superior to you. Even the knowledge that I had committed kin-murder didn’t prevent me from lording myself over you.”

  Layle said nothing. It was clear enough to him that it was no ac
cident that Elsdon had transferred his affection and his obedience from a father who abused his son to a High Seeker who had darkness dwelling in his soul. It was clear enough also why Elsdon had reacted with vehement hatred when he suspected the High Seeker of using his power to abuse his prisoners. Elsdon’s father, who had caused him so much suffering, was far away. Layle was near at hand.

  That much was clear; the surprise was that, in the space of a very short time, Elsdon had been able to forgive Layle – had symbolically forgiven his father for all the pain he had undergone at that wretched man’s hands. Where had Elsdon found the strength to do that, and where had he found the wisdom to realize the danger he posed to prisoners? Layle was still trying to puzzle that out.

  Elsdon said in a low voice, “Layle, you’re High Seeker, and everyone says you’re the most gifted prison worker in the world. How do you prevent yourself from feeling superior to the prisoners?”

  “I remember my dreamings.”

  Elsdon was silent for a minute. From the corridor came the sound of voices: guards and Seekers from the night shift, making their way to work. Layle did not move. His primary duty lay here, with his former prisoner.

  When it became clear that Elsdon would not reply, Layle said quietly, “My dreamings are all I need to remind me that, without a great deal of mercy from people I have known over the years, I would be a justly executed prisoner rather than a man who receives the privilege of helping prisoners to their transformation and rebirth. You will find your own method of retaining gratitude for your good fortune. All of us who become Seekers develop a method to keep this thought in mind.”

  “The hangman’s noose.” Elsdon’s voice was level. “I have to find a way to keep that image in my mind.”

  “Perhaps.” He released the Seeker-in-Training and stepped back; Elsdon’s death was not an image he cared to dwell upon. “However, I have my own noose hanging over me at the moment.”

  The side of Elsdon’s mouth crooked upwards. “You’re about to be late to your appointment with the Codifier.”

  “Precisely.”

  o—o—o

  The corridor leading from the Seekers’ cells to the rest of the inner dungeon was mercifully deserted as Layle and Elsdon departed on that day after, coughing into their fists. Only one furnace stoker could be dimly seen through the black smoke that continually fogged this hallway, despite the best efforts of the dungeon’s ventilation system. The stoker was too absorbed in his task to pay attention to the hooded men walking in the opposite direction.

  Layle knew that he would not be so lucky once he reached the entry hall. Once again he cursed the designer of the dungeon, who had made the entry hall the primary passage point for anyone trying to reach the offices and the prisoners’ cells. At the other end of the corridor lay a second route to that area, added half a century ago, after a fire blocked the entry hall, cutting off all escape by the prisoners and those tending them. That route, however, would take them past the hallway to the rack rooms. Layle did not want Elsdon reminded of the last time they had met in that place, when Layle had been unable to hide his arousal at the sight of a tormented prisoner.

  So he must endure the scrutiny of everyone in the entry hall – which would mean most of the night shift, now at the beginning of the evening. He paused at the door leading to the entry hall. Keeping his voice low in order to avoid being overheard by the guards on the other side of the door, he said, “Mr. Taylor, you understand that, outside my living cell, I cannot show you any favoritism.”

  Elsdon nodded. Most of his face was hidden by the hood, but his eyes appeared unconcerned. “Our relations must be formal when you’re on duty. I realize that, High Seeker; you made that clear when you first offered me your friendship.”

  Layle had no inner-dungeon duties now, nor would he until he had paid the penalty for his recent attack on a prisoner. But there was no point in emphasizing what they both knew. He waved Elsdon forward, remaining out of sight of the doorway as Elsdon passed into the entry hall. It would not be long before the entire dungeon population discovered that he had taken his Seeker-in-Training as a love-mate, but there was no point in being obvious about it. With luck, the news would trickle out gradually and be thereby dissipated in intensity.

  He waited a full three minutes before he went up to the door and rapped on it the complex code that changed weekly, allowing guards to know when a fellow guard or Seeker was entering the inner dungeon. The Eternal Dungeon, whose standards of employment were high, always had a shortage of guards; it was deemed more important to have a pair of guards facing inward, toward the prisoners who might try to escape, than toward the outer dungeon that few invaders ever entered.

  He hesitated, and then added his own code, identifying himself as High Seeker. He was not surprised, however, to find that the guards had their blades unsheathed by the time he stepped through the door. He had a reputation, and that reputation had worsened during the past week.

  He kept his voice matter-of-fact as he said, “The Codifier is expecting me, I believe.”

  The guard he was addressing hesitated, and then glanced to the right, toward a point within the entry hall. Layle followed his gaze and was in time to see the dungeon’s senior-most guard, Seward Sobel, nod his agreement that the High Seeker should be allowed entrance. Mr. Sobel immediately returned to his conversation with Elsdon Taylor.

  Elsdon was inconspicuous in this hall filled with Seekers similarly garbed in black trousers, shirt, and hood. All of the Seekers bore a passing resemblance to the dark-winged bats that were currently rushing through the cavernous hall, heading toward the open gates that would take them to the palace above the dungeon, and then, after a brief flight, through a window always left open for their passage.

  None of the Seekers here could pass through those gates themselves, unless on official business, for all had bound themselves by an oath that imprisoned them eternally within the dungeon. Which made the process of living together all the more delicate, Layle had often reflected. If serious quarrels arose between two Seekers, they could not move to separate towns, as might be possible if they lived in the lighted world. They must find a way to endure the sight of each other for the rest of their lives.

  The result of this – in addition to the Code’s injunction that Seekers treat their prisoners with courtesy – was that Seekers were the politest men whom Layle had ever met in his life. His own innate courtesy, which had earned him stares and sometimes scorn from the torturers in the Hidden Dungeon, was regarded as normal behavior in the Eternal Dungeon.

  Guards, on the other hand . . . Layle stared round the entry hall without moving his head, secure in the knowledge that his eye shifts could not be seen this far away by his observers. And observers he had in abundance. While even the junior-most Seekers were making a token effort to ignore his entrance, most of the guards were staring openly at the man who, after a day of being accused of heinous crimes by his new student, had broken the Code by attacking a prisoner.

  Layle knew that the story would only have grown in the telling. By now, he was sure, half the guards were certain that he had maliciously beaten, racked, burnt, and raped a prisoner. What else would explain a man of his high title being given six months’ suspension?

  It would be useless to explain to most of the guards – whose knowledge of the Code tended to be confined to their own duties – that it was precisely because he held such an exalted position that he had been punished so heavily for shoving a prisoner against the wall. If he was permitted to get away with a blatant violation of the Code, no matter how small, then any other Seeker might follow his example.

  He could only hope that his own guards, who had witnessed the Code-breaking, would understand this. His gaze drifted back to Mr. Sobel, who was still speaking with Elsdon. At that moment, something Elsdon said made Mr. Sobel’s gaze jump over to Layle. For the briefest of moments, the guard’s gaze held the High Seeker’s; then Mr. Sobel turned his attention back to Elsdon.

&nb
sp; Layle felt his muscles tense. He had known that most of the dungeon inhabitants would disapprove of his new relationship with Elsdon, but he had not considered how this might affect his interactions with his own guards. He wished that Elsdon had left him the opportunity to tell Mr. Sobel himself. He had to admit, though, that it was Elsdon’s right to break the news: the Seeker-in-Training and the guard were becoming close friends.

  Still, Layle hoped this was not a sign that Elsdon was planning to discuss the matter indiscriminately. Layle frowned. He disliked intensely all forms of gossip; it would lessen his regard for Elsdon if he discovered that the young man engaged in behind-the-back whispers.

  Next to him, the door-guard coughed. “You may enter, sir.”

  He realized, too late, that he was blocking the path of several Seekers who were trying to reach their workplaces. Murmuring an acknowledgment of the guard’s words, he took several steps into the entry hall, thinking to himself that he ought to hurry to the Codifier’s office. Mr. Daniels’s usual hours were from the beginning of the dawn shift to the end of the dusk shift; that he was willing to meet Layle at the beginning of the night shift was a concession, and he would not be pleased by delays. Layle took another step forward.

  At that moment, though, Elsdon broke away from Mr. Sobel and walked over to the desk of the Record-keeper, who, amidst all the noise of early-evening conversations, was single-mindedly thumbing through a stack of documents. He ignored Elsdon as the young man halted at the side of his desk.

  Layle halted too. He could see only Elsdon’s back, and could read nothing from it, but three months of dealing with the Seeker-in-Training had taught him to be wary of Elsdon’s unexpected moves.

  The Record-keeper finally deigned to look up. “Well?” he said sharply.

  “I want to transfer to new living quarters.”

  Elsdon’s voice, which was louder than the Record-keeper’s had been, rang clearly through the cavern of the entry hall, echoing against the stone walls. Conversation in the hall stopped abruptly. Layle wasn’t surprised. After all that had occurred between himself and Elsdon during the past two days, the observers were probably sure that Elsdon was about to resign from his training and request to be moved to the outer dungeon.

  Layle wasn’t entirely sure they were wrong. He waited, his stomach clenched, as the Record-keeper smoothly drew a sheet of paper from a stack that looked as though it were about to collapse from its overweening height. “I see,” said the Record-keeper in a voice that suggested such requests were a bane upon his life. “And where do you wish to be transferred to?”

  “To the High Seeker’s cell. He and I are love-mates now.”

  A collective gasp filled the cavern. Layle raised his eyes to heaven, and then lowered them to hell. No, behind-the-back whispers were evidently not Elsdon Taylor’s manner of spreading news.

  Elsdon had turned his head to look at Mr. Sobel; judging from the crinkles around his eyes, he was grinning. Mr. Sobel, Layle was relieved to see, had a small smile on his face. All around the entry hall, however, the expressions of astonishment were transmuting, without effort, into expressions of anger and alarm. Some of the guards looked as though they wanted to rush forward and snatch Elsdon away from the dangerous man who had kidnapped his body and soul.

  “I see.” The Record-keeper’s voice was dry. “In that case, you will need to make three copies of this form, and I will require the High Seeker’s signature below yours. Under ‘reason for transfer,’” he added yet more dryly, “you need only say, ‘Private concerns.’”

  Elsdon laughed. So did Mr. Sobel. After a minute, so did a number of other guards and Seekers. The tension in the hall lessened somewhat.

  Layle let out his breath slowly, and then counted to three high rackings before he walked forward. He had always considered himself the most democratic of High Seekers, often allowing his men independence in their decisions. But he was the one who permitted the independence. He was not used to having someone under his command alter the course of his life without consulting him.

  On the other hand, he was not the sort to create a public fuss either. There was no point now in doing what he had planned to do, namely walk past Elsdon as though there was no connection between the two of them. Pausing as he came abreast of the other man, he laid his hand on Elsdon’s shoulder and said quietly, “I’ll see you tomorrow. I suggest that you get a full day’s rest before you come to see me again.”

  Elsdon’s eyes appeared deceptively innocent as the young Seeker said, “Of course, sir. Whatever you wish.”

  o—o—o

  The network of gossip in the Eternal Dungeon was so well knit that Layle did not have to ask a single person that day how Elsdon’s time was spent. Everyone he met told him, often with significantly raised eyebrows.

  At the beginning of Elsdon’s shift, in the early evening, Weldon Chapman had quizzed the young man on what he knew of the Code of Seeking that bound all Seekers. Learning that Elsdon was weak in his remembrance of certain passages, Mr. Chapman had wisely set the Seeker-in-Training to work at memorizing the whole Code by heart. Knowledge of the meaning of the passages would come slowly to Elsdon, Layle knew, and more from experience in living the Code than from lectures, but knowing every word of the Code was a necessary start.

  By his midnight break, Elsdon had proceeded much further in the memorization than anyone might have expected. He then asked and received permission to visit the prisoner whom Layle had attacked at the start of the previous evening, after the prisoner spoke vile insults against Elsdon. The prisoner, as it happened, was a former guard who had purported to be a friend of Elsdon’s.

  From all accounts, the interview did not go well. The prisoner ended up shouting insults at Elsdon at the top of his lungs. Elsdon kept Seekerly cool throughout the verbal attack. Mr. Chapman finally intervened, barring Elsdon from further visits, no doubt to the relief of the Seeker-in-Training.

  Elsdon’s pre-dawn hours were spent in the guardroom, being trained for hand-to-hand combat by Layle’s senior night guard, Seward Sobel. Seekers were forbidden from touching prisoners, but many prisoners over the years had not held such qualms themselves. Although a Seeker’s first required act, upon being physically attacked, was to try to retreat and call for help from his guards, sometimes such help was delayed long enough that a Seeker must defend himself. Since Seekers carried no weapons, they were taught how to fight with their hands and feet, and how to disable an armed opponent.

  This was a dangerous moment in many Seekers’ training, for Layle was hardly the only Seeker who had arrived at the Eternal Dungeon with violence in his past. But here too the accounts all agreed: Elsdon had behaved properly during his first session of defense training, using neither too much force nor too little.

  Learning hand-to-hand combat was an exhausting ordeal, so Layle was not surprised to learn that Elsdon had taken his advice to sleep alone before coming to see the High Seeker. Layle himself slept fitfully. His first night in suspension had been far from pleasant.

  The Codifier, having scorched Layle to the bones on the previous evening for his lamentable loss of temper with a prisoner, had now turned his attention, inevitably, to Layle’s conduct with the dungeon’s newest Seeker-in-Training. Mr. Daniels reminded Layle, with merciless thoroughness, of what events had led to the dungeon’s last loss of a Seeker-in-Training, and how Layle had sworn, after that episode, that he would never again choose a Seeker under his training to be his love-mate. Indeed, he had gone so far as to pledge to take no love-mates ever after, though Mr. Daniels had dryly indicated on that occasion that the Code did not require celibacy of the dungeon’s High Seekers, and that he saw no danger in Layle bonding himself with another senior Seeker who was of his own age.

  And now Layle had breached his promise. It did not help that Mr. Daniels was of the new way of thinking in such matters, believing that it was wrong for any man to take a male love-mate unless his partner was of equal rank and age. Layle had been raised to be
lieve otherwise. He had worried about the fact that Elsdon was so much under his power as a Seeker-in-Training, but it had not occurred to him to worry about the fact that Elsdon was half his age.

  Now he forced himself to think the matter through. Though he could say, with all honesty, that he believed he would have fallen in love with Elsdon if their ages had been reversed, he had to admit to himself that Elsdon’s youth – the contrast between his innocence and Layle’s maturity – was part of what made him appealing to Layle. And the more Layle thought about it, the more this fact alarmed him. Did he want Elsdon innocent so that Layle could care for him, could train him in the skills he would need during his manhood? Or did Layle simply want a love-mate who was too innocent to fight back against any abuse inflicted upon him? And even if Layle’s motives were pure, what would happen in a few years when Elsdon entered fully into his manhood? Already, Elsdon was showing signs that he was Layle’s equal in emotional strength. Perhaps one day he would be stronger than Layle. Would Layle’s love for him die when that happened?

  By late morning, Layle gave up the attempt to sleep and went to see Weldon Chapman. The Seeker who normally supervised the dungeon’s day shift – and was now thrust into the position of supervising the entire dungeon – looked haggard. Although another, lower-ranked senior Seeker had been given direct supervision over the day shift, the man who supervised the entire dungeon necessarily had erratic hours, being on call at any moment when he should be needed. Mr. Chapman, Layle knew, had now spent more than two days and nights awake as he rescheduled the shifts of Seekers and guards to take into account Layle’s absence, as well as supervising the training of a young Seeker whom Layle, by all rights, should have been in charge of.

  Nonetheless, Mr. Chapman had his report ready. Although Layle officially had no inner-dungeon duties during his suspension and would be expected to spend most of his six months assisting with work in the outer dungeon, it was nonetheless necessary that Mr. Chapman keep Layle informed of what was taking place in the inner dungeon so that Layle could smoothly return to his work as High Seeker when the suspension was complete.

  Much of Mr. Chapman’s report centered upon Elsdon. The young Seeker was proceeding well, Mr. Chapman informed Layle. After an exceedingly shaky start, he seemed to be focussing his mind on his work tasks. Assuming that his mind was not distracted by any further traumatic events, Elsdon Taylor ought to succeed in completing his training.

  Mr. Chapman added no further commentary to his report; he had no need to. Layle returned to his cell and spent several hours thinking hard, fingering the thick pieces of cloth that he was considering having the dungeon’s guards use as bindings for future prisoners on the rack, as cushioning within the metal manacles that were currently used. By the time Elsdon arrived at his door, two hours before the beginning of the dusk shift, Layle was ready for him.

  Elsdon entered the High Seeker’s living cell by way of the key that Layle had given him, shedding clothes the moment he closed the door. He had kicked off his boots within three steps of his arrival, had his shirt knots untied within six, and by the time he reached where Layle sat in his armchair, he was busy sweeping off his hood to reveal the golden-brown hair underneath.

  Layle felt a swelling at the groin, which he ignored. “What are you doing?” he asked in the calm, cool voice that invariably made dungeon dwellers nervous.

  Elsdon merely smiled. “Getting ready for bed.”

  The Seeker-in-Training had just come from bed, but Layle did not ask the obvious. Instead he said in that same cool voice, “Your presumption is remarkable.”

  Elsdon’s hands paused on his belt-knot; his eyes searched Layle’s face. Layle kept his expression unrevealing. He remained motionless in his seat, the position of a High Seeker interviewing a wayward student.

  “Is something wrong?” Elsdon asked finally.

  “If you must ask, then that is a sign that something is indeed very wrong. When did I give you permission to move into this cell?”

  Elsdon’s hands dropped from his belt. He opened his mouth, hesitated, and then said, “I thought—”

  “You thought. Yes. Who gave you permission to refer to me as your love-mate?”

  “But you said—” Elsdon halted himself this time. Layle waited patiently for him to retrace his way to the non-existent moment when the High Seeker had spoken that word. Layle had been very careful not to speak the word; he had been allowing all initiative to come from Elsdon’s side.

  Now he would turn that initiative into a weapon against the Seeker-in-Training.

  “You didn’t use the word,” Elsdon said carefully, “but every conversation we held yesterday rested on the assumption—”

  “So you announced to the entire dungeon that I was your love-mate. Who gave you permission to gossip about us like an old woman?”

  That blow was unmistakable. The blood rushed into Elsdon’s face. Layle felt another swelling at the groin, accompanied by a faint sickness in his stomach. He ignored both sensations.

  “If you had thought the matter through clearly,” Layle continued, not holding back the blows now that he was started, “it might have occurred to you that I had my doubts about you. It might have occurred to you that you’re too young, too inexperienced – or rather, experienced in the wrong way.”

  A blow straight between the legs. This time Elsdon turned white. The swelling at Layle’s groin could no longer be ignored, and he began to cross his legs to hide it. Then he changed his mind. Let Elsdon see the effects of this conversation on the High Seeker. That would bring the conversation to an end all the quicker.

  “I have no need for a gossip,” Layle declared. “A presumptuous, arrogant gossip who assumes that, because he has received the privilege of one night with me, he may bond himself to me. Had it occurred to you that I might be testing you?”

  He hoped it did not occur to Elsdon that every sentence he had spoken was either a hypothetical statement or a question. The Code of Seeking required that no direct lie be told to a prisoner, but Seekers could indirectly mislead prisoners by asking them questions and making hypothetical statements that the prisoners would read in the wrong way. Layle indeed had no need for a presumptuous, arrogant gossip. With any luck, Elsdon would draw the wrong conclusion and never realize how desperately Layle needed him.

  Elsdon’s face remained as white as ashes. Layle hoped that the color arose from rage. He had no desire to inflict permanent damage on Elsdon – or rather, he had the desire but would not allow himself to indulge it. All that he wanted here was to raise Elsdon’s anger to the point where the young Seeker stormed out of the cell, breaking off their bond of his own will. Better that, than a protracted argument between them.

  Elsdon’s gaze shifted over Layle’s face; Layle kept it impassive, though he was beginning to wish that he had kept the face-cloth of his hood down. That was the purpose of the hood: to hide a Seeker’s emotions from the prisoner. This prisoner was far too skilled at reading expressions for Layle’s peace of mind.

  Suddenly Elsdon knelt at Layle’s feet. Layle’s hardness jumped against his belly; his mouth went dry.

  “You’re scared,” Elsdon said quietly.

  He found he could not speak. He should have anticipated that this would happen; it had happened far too many times when Elsdon was his prisoner.

  For a prisoner to turn the tables on his Seeker was not unknown. Every Seeker had experienced, with chagrin, the moment when a prisoner took control of the conversation. Even Layle had occasionally been the unfortunate victim in such cases.

  But when a prisoner took control, it was invariably in order to attack his Seeker. Not until three months ago had Layle encountered, for the first time, a prisoner who turned the tables in order to search and transform his Seeker.

  When he had discovered that Elsdon was committing the same act with the High Seeker’s normally impenetrable senior night guard, Layle had known that Elsdon possessed the gifts of a Seeker. It had not occurred to him, tho
ugh, that Elsdon might exercise those gifts when they were in private.

  And yet he should have known. Elsdon had done it once before, on the night when they made love. Layle could have cursed himself.

  “They’ve been telling you all day that you shouldn’t take me as your love-mate, haven’t they?” Elsdon voice was gentle. “I know how it is – my acquaintances have been saying the same to me. Not all of them, but enough to frighten me. They’ve been telling me spook tales about what you’d do to me in bed. We’ll just have to find a way to overcome our fears. Seward says that every couple is afraid at the beginning of a bonding.”

  He found his tongue finally. “Mr. Taylor, I am ending this absurd arrangement. Now.”

  “But you can’t.” Elsdon kept his voice soft. “Love, I know that you’re used to issuing orders as High Seeker, but that’s not how matters work here. We both agreed to become love-mates, so we both need to agree if we’re to end our mateship.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” He could feel control slipping from him with every word he spoke, an unpleasant sensation bringing back long-buried memories of his capture and imprisonment at the end of his years as a murderer. “You could leave me at any moment, against my wish.”

  “And that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  The blow of Elsdon’s words stopped the breath in his throat. He could feel his skin turn cold as the blood drained from it. Elsdon reached forward and took his hand.

  “Love, I understand why you’re afraid,” he said, his voice still soft. “Every man you’ve approached with love in the past has ended up rejecting you. It’s natural for you to assume that the same will happen with me. But I told you last night: I won’t leave you.”

  He closed his eyes. He could feel hot wetness pricking at the sides of his eyes. Gods below and above, he would not allow himself to weep again in Elsdon’s presence. He opened his eyes and said, in as steady a voice as he could manage, “They were right to leave me. Elsdon, I’m a danger to you.”

  The side of Elsdon’s mouth crooked upward. “Good. Danger is what I need in my life.”

  An innocent answer, Layle reflected. He considered telling Elsdon of all that he was, of all that he had done in his past. That would certainly drive the young man away; it nearly drove Layle’s soul from his body whenever he contemplated his past. But he could not risk harming Elsdon that far. If he had confessed to Elsdon two nights ago, when the other man pledged his love . . . But he had not, and now Elsdon would know, not only how much evil lay within Layle, but also that Layle had hidden something vitally important from him.

  He could not risk breaking Elsdon beyond mending. However much part of him wanted to.

  On impulse, he reached forward and grabbed Elsdon’s hair, pulling the younger Seeker’s head back so that his neck was bared to Layle’s mercy. Elsdon’s gasp burned in his belly like wildfire. He leaned forward and just managed to keep himself from biting off a chunk of Elsdon’s throat. Instead, he nibbled his way down, tasting the sweetness of the sweat that had suddenly sprung to the surface. Elsdon’s continued gasps turned his hardness to iron.

  By the time he released Elsdon’s hair, Layle was breathing deeply. He waited while Elsdon wiped the tears off his face. Then Layle said, in a voice as cold as his body was hot, “Well? Is this what you wanted?”

  When Elsdon looked up at him, his face held an expression of such inflexible stubbornness that all of Layle’s fighting instincts sprang into a position, poised for battle.

  Elsdon’s voice was quiet, though, as he said, “Because of what my father did to me, I can’t bear having my body held captive. You know that. But you wouldn’t have done that to me if you weren’t trying to scare me away.”

  “Elsdon, you don’t know what I’d do to you. I could destroy you, and you wouldn’t even know what I was doing until it was too late—”

  “I doubt that.”

  Unwonted confidence. Elsdon was only eighteen, Layle reminded himself. The youth was at an age when he thought he could survive all ordeals. All that was needed here was proof that Elsdon was wrong.

  All of Layle’s heat was replaced in a single moment by coldness in the cavern of his stomach. To do what he had just done was risk enough, but to prove to Elsdon how much danger he was in . . . Could Layle control himself throughout such a test?

  He must.

  He was still trying to decide which path he should take when Elsdon blurted out, “I’m clean.”

  “Clean?” Layle stared blankly at his love-mate for a moment; then he noticed that Elsdon’s ears were turning pink.

  Elsdon licked his lips with a nervous twitch as he lowered his eyes. “I felt like a fool last time, not knowing half of what we were doing. So I asked Seward to tell me what I needed to know. He said he hadn’t slept with a man since he was a year or so younger than me, but he passed on what he remembered. And he . . . he showed me where the hose was in the guards’ washroom.” Elsdon raised his eyes; his entire face was pink now.

  The path unrolled below Layle’s feet, as though he had planned this. At that moment, without warning, Elsdon leaned forward and licked the cloth over the bulge in Layle’s trousers.

  Layle took in a deep breath and held it as he felt the soft warmth of Elsdon’s tongue glide over his clothed shaft. He knew that there many rumors in the Eternal Dungeon concerning his sexuality. One of those rumors was that he was unable to go cock-high except with the aid of his dreamings. Elsdon had already figured out that this was far from true.

  What remained true was that the High Seeker could not reach the zenith of his desire except by dreaming that he was abusing his bed-partner . . . or actually doing so.

  He reached forward.

  o—o—o

  Elsdon was heavy, but no heavier than other prisoners he had carried over the years. What was disconcerting was how the young man seemed to know instinctively how to arouse Layle. He let his head loll against Layle’s chest, as though he were drugged or too badly injured to be able to resist the High Seeker. Layle’s heartbeat thumped hard like a lash.

  He laid Elsdon on his back on the bed, which still had its covers pulled back from when he had arisen from his restless sleeplessness. He knew how he would have proceeded if this were the Hidden Dungeon and he were ordered to treat a prisoner gently. Binding the prisoner’s hands behind his back, he would have sat on his victim’s chest and slapped him over and over, until the prisoner pleaded for mercy. He would have slapped the prisoner more, until his victim understood that he would receive no mercy in this place.

  Then he would have twisted and bitten the prisoner’s nipples until the prisoner’s face was drowning in tears. Finally, he would have jerked the prisoner’s trousers and drawers from his body, laying his nakedness open to whatever devices Layle chose to use.

  He contented himself with jerking Elsdon’s trousers and drawers from his body. He had learned on the night of their lovemaking that the young man did not mind a certain amount of roughness in bed, provided that his body was not held captive in any way. So Layle was not particularly surprised to see Elsdon’s shaft spring up as he pulled off the cloth. Elsdon was doing his best to hide a smile.

  Layle allowed himself to stare down for a minute upon the flawless ivory skin, lightly furred with blond hair; the nut-brown sac lying quietly between the legs; the slenderly powerful muscles in arm and thigh; the scars that curved round from the buttocks. The last made his loins alight like a furnace.

  Elsdon was not succeeding now in keeping the smile from his face. Looking down at his grin, Layle wondered whether, if he and Elsdon remained together for another twenty years or more, he would ever take the other man for granted. He had heard that such things happened among long-term love-mates – that someone who seemed fresh and all-important grew stale eventually through familiarity. After a few years, he supposed, he would barely notice if Elsdon stripped himself like this.

  It scarcely mattered. He would not have the opportunity to test the strength of his love.r />
  “Do you trust me?” he asked softly.

  Elsdon’s grin disappeared, but his nod came without hesitation. Layle had known that it would. He waited a moment to allow Elsdon to qualify his acquiescence; when the young man did not, Layle turned and walked toward the night-stand.

  That piece of furniture usually stood next to his bed, but after the previous evening’s incident, he had pulled it over to the side of the room, lest Elsdon startle him out of his sleep again. In addition to a black volume, the night-stand currently held a bottle of lamp-oil, a box of matches, a towel, a basin, and a water jug, filled to the brim.

  He scooped a bit of water onto his finger and tasted it. It was blood-warm but fresh. The maid had left the water only a short time before, during her usual mid-afternoon visit, bringing a clean chamber-pot as well.

  Layle paid no attention to that pot as he rummaged inside the shelves of the night-stand. He had used the pot shortly before the maid arrived; he had no doubt, from what Elsdon had said before, that the Seeker-in-Training had similarly refreshed himself. Layle’s interest lay in another item within the night-stand: a yellow bar of lemon soap.

  The water was warm enough that the soap melted easily. Layle’s scrubbed his hands and forearms thoroughly. A new theory was drifting amongst the members of the Healing Guild that washing one’s hands before surgery cut down on the number of deaths that occurred in the period following the surgery. The theory made sense to Layle; he could well imagine that grains of grime, hidden under fingernails or in the folds of the skin, might end up lodging within the patient and impede the already delicate chances that a patient would recover from having his flesh cut open.

  Mr. Bergsen, the Eternal Dungeon’s healer, thought the theory was poppycock. He and Layle had argued the matter at length one day, while Mr. Bergsen brought out statistics based on his own eight years as an army surgeon, back in his youth.

  Finally Layle had said, in a flat voice, “I’ve been inside more bodies than you have.”

  Mr. Bergsen’s mouth had opened. Nothing had emerged. After a painful minute, the healer had changed the subject.

  Now Layle carefully examined his fingernails. He had deliberately kept them long during his years in the Hidden Dungeon; long nails were so very helpful if one should need to gouge out eyes. By contrast, in the Eternal Dungeon he had always kept his fingernails well trimmed. Still, he was dissatisfied with what he saw. After another rummage through the night-stand, he found what he was looking for and spent a minute sandpapering the ends of his nails.

  Finally he was ready. He turned round. Elsdon had not moved, other than to tilt his head to watch Layle. The young man was squinting, and a frown had travelled onto his face.

  For a moment, Layle thought Elsdon had guessed. Then he realized that the problem lay in the lack of light. Layle burned less oil than any other inhabitant of the inner dungeon; his eyesight was so acute that he rarely needed more than one lamp alight in his cell. At the moment, the only lamp dribbling light into the bedroom was the one he had left in the sitting room.

  He turned back to the night-stand and reached toward the lamp-oil there. As he did so, his eye drifted over to the black volume next to it. He hesitated, then opened the Code of Seeking and let his finger fall aimlessly on a passage. It was an old game among Seekers; they did this playfully, to see what their fortunes would be for that day.

  The sentence he touched was written in his own blunt words: “Pain is sometimes necessary for a prisoner to recognize the truth.”

  He had written those words in memory of his own painful awakening to the truth about himself. For Elsdon, he knew, the pain would need to come in another way. He hoped he was right in believing that the pain was necessary.

  Closing the book, he took up the oil and a match, and carried them over to the paraffin lamp that was attached to the wall next to his bed. Elsdon watched him silently, with his shaft still poking up, as though he were trying to catch Layle’s attention. Layle refilled the lamp, lit the flame, and was just setting the empty bottle aside when he remembered.

  His gaze flew toward the open doorway to the sitting room. There, inconspicuous on the floor, lay another empty bottle, one that had held lovemaking lubricant two nights ago, before he had depleted it.

  Layle closed his eyes. Through gritted teeth, he said, “I did not write this play as a comedy.”

  “High Seeker?” Elsdon’s voice sounded puzzled.

  Layle did not open his eyes. The lubricant, he decided, would probably not have been slick enough in any case; it would have dried too easily. What he needed was grease of some sort. In the Hidden Dungeon, abundant supplies of grease had always been available.

  But this was not the Hidden Dungeon. He could hardly go to the Eternal Dungeon’s healer and ask him for grease taken from the latest corpse of a prisoner.

  Elsdon coughed. Opening his eyes, Layle saw that the young man’s ears had turned pink again. After examining his expression for a moment, Layle sighed heavily. “Where is it this time?”

  Elsdon turned even pinker. “Just outside the door. Seward was planning to use it on his wedding night, but he told me that I could—”

  Layle did not wait to hear more. He headed toward the door that led to the inner-dungeon corridor outside his cell.

  He paused at the threshold, coughing as he so often did at the presence of the smoke from the open furnaces that ran alongside the corridor, heating the prisoners’ cells. The furnaces had been installed when he was still a junior Seeker, at his suggestion. At the time, it had seemed an improvement over the old, dangerous stoves that had previously heated each prisoner’s cell.

  Now the furnaces were an archaism, a reminder of an older era. He and Elsdon had had their first fight over those furnaces, one week after Elsdon was released from his imprisonment. It had been Layle’s first warning that life with Elsdon would be far from easy.

  Layle sighed. No doubt the young Seeker was right, and he should heat the dungeon by more modern methods, such as flues admitting hot air from a central, steam-powered furnace. The Eternal Dungeon had long been noted for its stubborn adherence to tradition; it was still using methods of torture that had existed for centuries. Matters had only grown worse since the Eternal Dungeon elevated to the High Seekership a man who – unbeknownst to most of the dungeon inhabitants – had been born and raised in the Kingdom of Vovim, which had not yet been touched by the industrial revolution that was sweeping through neighboring nations.

  Machines broke in Layle’s presence; that was what the matter came down to. He had lost track of how many racks had mysteriously ceased to function while he was using them. Even oil lamps had been known to fizzle and die when he walked near them. Toilets backed up, guns carried by visiting soldiers backfired, and the laborers in the outer dungeon’s kitchen had long ago begged their High Seeker not to come near the ovens, which had a tendency to turn cold at his approach.

  Layle sighed again as he stooped to pick up the tin lying on the floor beside the door. By the time he died, he supposed, the Eternal Dungeon would still be lost in the distant past, unwilling to take advantage of all the modern wonders that the Queendom of Yclau now had to offer. It was just as well that tonight he would need no machinery other than what his own body had to offer.

  He unscrewed the lid of the tin and sniffed the contents, then scooped out a bit of them with his fingers and licked what lay there. Vegetable grease, he decided; he had tasted it in meals often enough. It would not have occurred to him to use it in the bedroom. Mr. Sobel was a forward-thinking man; little wonder that Layle’s senior night guard got along so well with Elsdon.

  Elsdon was where he had left him, lying naked on the bed. Or rather, not quite as Layle had left him, for, in the short space of time Layle had been gone, Elsdon had managed somehow to tie Layle’s two ropes tautly between the high railing at the head of the bed and the equally high railing at the foot of the bed. They shadowed the bed now like a canopy. Elsdon’s legs were draped ove
r both the ropes, leaving his bottom wide open to Layle’s use.

  Layle paused at the doorway, trying to figure out what sort of engineering skill it would take to have arranged this setting in so short a time. Then he shook his head. “Thank the gods you weren’t born in Vovim,” he muttered.

  “Layle?” Elsdon’s forehead creased with clear puzzlement at this use of a Vovimian oath. He had propped up his head with a pillow, and Layle could see his face, flushed and sweaty after his strenuous exercise.

  Layle felt himself stir then. Elsdon grinned, obviously pleased by this testimony to his engineering skills. Layle did not bother to explain that he was stirred by Elsdon’s exhaustion, so similar to the exhaustion of the many prisoners that had fallen into his hands in the Hidden Dungeon. Instead he stepped onto the bed, carefully stepped his way over one of the ropes holding Elsdon’s legs aloft in the air, and knelt in the narrow space between the ropes. He opened the jar.

  Elsdon showed no surprise as Layle carefully covered the fingers of his right hand in the grease. Layle had not supposed that he would. Until two nights before, Elsdon had been a virgin, and a singularly ill-educated virgin, at that. He probably thought that finger-opening was the ordinary method by which men began each session of making love.

  Perhaps it was, when men made love; Layle wouldn’t know. In the Hidden Dungeon, he had only used his fingers to open up virgins he wished to seduce. Now he had a different exercise in mind.

  Elsdon had closed his eyes, preparing himself for what was come. This allowed Layle to finish his own preparations without causing any due puzzlement from the young Seeker. The tin was nearly empty by the time he was through, but that made no difference. He would only be doing this once.

  His first finger, pushed in slowly and gently, caused Elsdon to sigh and nuzzle the pillow with his cheek, like a calf seeking milk from its mother. Layle’s gentleness was scarcely needed; Elsdon was as wide open to him now as the arms of a joyful wife welcoming home her long-lost husband. Layle added a second finger, and then, after a short while, a third.

  This one created resistance; he paused to allow Elsdon time to relax further. He could feel, tender under his fingers, the soft walls of the cavity that lay within – “The softest walls in a man’s body,” the master torturer who had trained him at the Hidden Dungeon had once told him, before showing him what could be done to those walls.

  Four fingers; still, Elsdon showed no sign that he was aware of what Layle was planning. Layle wondered whether he thought his love-mate had entered him now in the conventional manner. Once, out of curiosity, Layle had asked his fellow apprentice at the Hidden Dungeon to enter him – a safe enough request, since he knew that this sort of exercise bored Millard, unless it was done to a prisoner. Indeed, Millard had been hard put to keep back his yawns long enough to offer his commentary on what he was doing. It was surprisingly difficult for Layle to guess from feel alone which objects Millard had inserted into his body, a fact that Layle had stored in his memory as useful to his work.

  Afterwards, he had offered to allow Millard the same opportunity, an offer which Millard refused with such brusqueness that Layle had immediately known far more about Millard than his fellow apprentice had ever intended for him to know. But that was long ago; Millard, he supposed, was now working as a master torturer in the Hidden Dungeon, undoubtedly hating the apprentice he had once helped to train. Layle wondered sometimes why his mind continued to dwell on that torturer, who epitomized all that he had sought to escape by coming to the Eternal Dungeon.

  He was allowing his mind to wander, which was dangerous in his present situation – indeed, deadly. He stroked the walls with his fingers again. Were they warmer than before? Warmth would mean blood, and blood would mean that tension was building in Elsdon. But the cavity remained the same temperature it had been from the beginning. He pulled out slightly, tucked his thumb into his palm, curved his hand like a saber, and pushed in his whole hand.

  He entered as smoothly as a honed blade entering a wound. Never before, in his long experience, had one of his captives opened himself so readily to Layle. This, despite the fact that Layle’s skill at seduction had been spoken of in awed whispers by his fellow apprentices – and, on occasion, by the master torturers. Any prisoner he chose, for his amusement, to seduce before executing, accepted him willingly; but always there was that resistance at the beginning, from sheer unfamiliarity of taking anything so large into their cavity.

  He felt no resistance here, other than the usual one of making it past the rings at the entrance. Elsdon’s shaft remained stiff, but it rested heavy against his body now. The young man was breathing deeply, his eyes still closed, his hands folded calmly over his stomach.

  Layle was breathing deeply too. Iron was against his belly again as he envisioned what he could do in the moments before Elsdon realized what was happening. But it was always better to wait. The moment when the prisoner realized what had happened, and guessed what would follow, was always the best.

  He used the minute to try to feel the shape of what lay within. Each man or woman or child he had entered was shaped differently; with some it was best to keep his hand as it was, curved. But with Elsdon, he could tell, there was room enough to move. He began to sharpen the curve, his fingers and palm coming together like pincers on flesh; he could hear Elsdon’s breath turn ragged as Layle’s fingers expanded the walls of his cavity. For a moment, Layle thought he felt his nails scrape against the wall, creating a long, beautiful wound. But no blood followed; instead, his fingers closed down on his palm, and he was able to create a fist.

  He felt warmth flood around his fist, like the gush of hot fluid a pregnant woman gives out at the birth of a child, or when she has been stabbed in the stomach by her torturer. Even before Layle felt Elsdon’s rings clamp down upon his wrist, he knew that the other man had realized what he was doing.

  He raised his eyes. The young Seeker’s face, always cream in color, had turned yet more pale. His shaft had shrivelled and shrunk, as though trying to hide itself. His lips were parted in a wordless plea. Layle held his eyes for a long moment, allowing Elsdon to realize what might come next – to realize also how easily Layle had placed his love-mate’s life under threat, without Elsdon’s guessing what was happening.

  “Submit,” Layle said quietly.

  Elsdon did so in an instant, his body relaxing to accept whatever Layle gave him, though the warmth of his tension remained. Layle was not surprised. Elsdon had trained himself, at a very young age, to accept pain at the hands of his father; it would take some time before he learned to defy orders, even ones that threatened his life. And he had just made it possible, through his acquiescence, that he would not be permitted that much time in his life.

  Layle could see from Elsdon’s expression that he understood all this – that he now saw how few defenses he had against the High Seeker’s skill at destruction. In his mind’s eye, Layle envisioned the journey ahead: the slow travel of his fist through the winding cavity within Elsdon’s body, till he had nearly reached Elsdon’s heart, and then the moment when he pummelled Elsdon, wrenching the deepest part of Elsdon apart and sending him into agonizing death.

  When his vision cleared again, he saw the fear in Elsdon’s face. The young man knew well enough what it meant when Layle’s gaze grew distant. And this time, unlike the last, the High Seeker had offered no guarantee that he would not act on his dreamings. Indeed, he had warned quite the opposite.

  Yet still Elsdon lay acquiescent, unbound by anything except his own willingness to accept whatever Layle gave him. The perfect victim, his skin covered with sweat, shining bright in the lamplight like a treasure waiting to be plundered.

  Layle closed his eyes and began to move his fist.

  It was some minutes before Elsdon finally spoke. By the time he did, Layle had picked up the towel on the night-stand and was using it to wipe off the grease on his right arm. He could see clearly the line upon his wrist, showing the place where he had sto
pped in his journey into Elsdon’s body.

  He was still breathing heavily, his shaft as angry as a wound at being denied its satisfaction. Because of this, Elsdon had to repeat his question twice before Layle took in what he was saying.

  He replied, without looking back, “At a brothel.”

  “Surely not!” Elsdon sounded shocked, and understandably so. Two generations before, Yclau’s brothels had been reformed to rid them of children who might be taken advantage of by the patrons. Now only grown women who had chosen this profession sold themselves there; young men under the age of twenty-one were not permitted entrance, either to sell or to buy. Layle himself had never visited an Yclau brothel, for he had barely turned eighteen when he left the lighted world to make his home in the Eternal Dungeon.

  Vovimian brothels were quite different, but Layle did not bother to explain this. “Not through my own experience. A tor—” He caught himself just in time and amended, “I learned this technique from a guard at the prison where I last worked. It was quite popular at the house of pleasure he had visited regularly before he was employed by the prison.” And was popular at every other brothel in Vovim, but there was no need to tell Elsdon that either.

  “Then it isn’t used to kill?”

  He turned slowly. Elsdon was lying on his side now, facing Layle; his legs were folded and hugged up against his chest. His face was still pale.

  Layle said nothing, and Elsdon added, “If it was common at this brothel, I don’t see how it could have been used as a murder weapon. A whore-mistress would hardly want to go to the expense to hire new women to replace the ones who had died, and she would have faced murder charges if anything had happened to her women.”

  Not in Vovim, where nobody took notice of a dead prostitute, and where it was easy enough for a whore-master to renew his stock by buying a boy for a few pennies from his starving parents. But Layle could not say this, so he only replied, “Danger exists, regardless as to whether killing is intended. High prices are charged for this technique.”

  The moment he spoke, he knew he had made a mistake, even before Elsdon’s face lit up like the flames of the reborn. Layle had forgotten, for a moment, that he was supposed to have lived all his life in Yclau.

  In Vovim, prostitutes had no rights. They did as they were told to by their whore-masters, or they were thrown on the streets, usually to starve, for they received none of the money that their whore-masters charged to patrons. In Yclau, on the other hand, prostitutes chose freely their patrons and their acts, and they received all but a percentage of their earnings. The whore-mistresses were there only as a guild official, to ensure that work conditions were maintained at a high level and that the women received fair treatment under Yclau’s laws.

  “So they must enjoy doing it,” Elsdon said, drawing the obvious conclusion as he sat up, brushing back with his arm one of the ropes that still canopied the bed. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t offer to do it.”

  Layle tossed the grease-covered towel aside, trying to figure out how to wind his way out of the maze of lies he had created. Even if Elsdon could be told the truth, the truth was not simple. Layle knew well enough, from his own experiments, that his travels into the depths of his prisoners could give enjoyment to the prisoners. That was the reason he had chosen this as a method of seduction. The brute force would come later, when the prisoner grew unwary.

  He sighed, drawing the back of his hand over his forehead and leaving a streak of grease there. “Elsdon,” he said, his normally level voice cracking, “have you not understood what’s been happening here?”

  “I understand,” Elsdon said in the soft voice that had initially fooled Layle into thinking the youth was entirely powerless. “I understand that you just offered yourself the greatest temptation you’ve ever received, and you refused to allow yourself to act on it.”

  Layle stared. Elsdon smiled. “Love,” he said, his voice as warm as his body had been, “don’t you see that everything you’ve done since I entered this cell today has only increased my faith in you? I’ve sometimes doubted whether you willed good toward me – to my shame, I doubted it a short time ago. But I’ve never doubted your ability to control yourself. Even now, you could destroy me at a whim, through words alone. I know you have that ability; I’ve heard the tales about you. And yet you’ve done nothing to harm me, not in any lasting way.” His smile faded, and his voice grew more serious. “I won’t leave you, Layle. You’d have to drive me away, and you won’t do that, because it would hurt me too much.”

  Layle closed his eyes. Behind them, swimming like images in a sea, he could see the destruction he had envisioned wreaking upon Elsdon. The destruction lay there, within his reach.

  He opened his eyes. Elsdon continued to sit there, deceptively still.

  “Too late,” Layle said, his voice breaking again.

  “Too late?” The other Seeker frowned.

  “I wondered what would happen between us on the day when your emotional strength surpassed mine. It’s too late for me to worry about that.”

  For the first time, Elsdon looked uncertain. “I didn’t think . . . Layle, I thought this was something you’d want me to do. Something any Seeker would do for a friend.”

  Layle’s mouth quirked as he walked forward. “No Seeker has ever been fool enough to try to break me. No Seeker would have succeeded if he’d tried. Elsdon, I pity Weldon Chapman. Training you will be like training a wild cub that’s just discovered its strength.”

  Elsdon laughed as Layle sat down beside him. Layle responded by drawing Elsdon into his arm. The young Seeker rested his head on his love-mate’s shoulder, for all the world as though Layle had been the one offering comfort.

  The gesture seemed oddly natural. Stroking Elsdon’s hair, Layle said, “I knew what you were by the time I came to love you. Your mixture of strength and submission is part of what made me love you. I just didn’t realize at the time how much power that gave you over me, Seeker-in-Training.” Then, as Elsdon stirred uneasily within his arm, Layle kissed the top of his head. “I think I can reassure the Codifier now that I have mated myself to a man who is my equal in rank, in all the ways that matter most. . . . You still have much to learn, though. You let matters slip out of your control here, which would be dangerous if I were a prisoner. I’m glad,” he said, his voice turning dry, “that I won’t play a totally useless role in your life.”

  Elsdon laughed softly. “Hardly, High Seeker. You have the experience I lack, and I expect to learn from you. So you trust me?”

  “With my life.” His arm tightened briefly round Elsdon.

  “You believe I won’t leave you?”

  That was a harder question to answer. “If ever the time comes when I grow more dangerous to you than I am now, you would be wise to leave me. But until then . . .” He drew in his breath deeply, feeling, for the first time, the sharpness of the cool air of the dungeon. “Until then, I believe that you wish to stay with me, and I won’t try to dissuade you again.” He reached back toward the blanket to draw it over Elsdon’s shoulders, realizing that the young man, so new to the dungeon, was probably a good deal more chilled than Layle would be if he were stripped naked in this room.

  “Good,” said Elsdon, with the relief of a man who has set aside a trivial dispute. “Then you won’t mind doing whatever-you-call-that to me again?”

  His hand stilled on the blanket. He looked over at his love-mate, who was waiting. “Elsdon, don’t make mock in such matters.”

  “I’m quite serious, love.”

  Indeed, he looked as serious as he had been since the conversation began. Layle drew in breath, tried to speak, and fell silent.

  “It’s dangerous.” Elsdon spoke the words for him. “Deadly dangerous if something should go wrong. Layle, you haven’t been listening to what I’ve been saying. I told you, danger is what I need in my life.”

  He retraced the conversation back to its source and recognized the moment that – from Elsdon’s perspective – the
ir discussion had gone astray from the more important topic he had been raising. Then Layle traced the conversation back further, to its origins.

  He stared at the young Seeker, finding it difficult to believe he had read the other man’s thoughts correctly. “Elsdon,” he said slowly, “there are safer ways to keep images of death in mind than by dancing with death.”

  “But this is the way you chose, and this way works for me.” Elsdon’s voice was deeply serious now, as though he were discussing the fate of a prisoner. “Layle, I can’t afford to risk thinking myself superior again to any prisoner. A prisoner could die needlessly if I did that, or I could fail to guide him to rebirth. Risking my life for a prisoner . . . Isn’t that what the Code teaches us to do? And the risk can’t be that great, or the prostitutes would never do this – nor would you have done it to me, even to frighten me.”

  He stared at the wall, trying to think of an answer to make. It was true enough that, out of the dozens of prisoners he had done this to, none had begun to die until the moment he set out to kill them. His skill was too great for that. But on the slim chance that he should make a mistake . . .

  “That’s what I need,” Elsdon said softly. “That small chance. Not a large one – it would be foolish to throw my life away needlessly. But a small chance of dying, every now and then, to remind me of how great my fortune is, and how little I deserve that fortune. Layle, the moment when I realized what you were doing and thought I might die . . . that was the moment when I felt more like a Seeker than in any moment since I became one. I saw my death, and I knew that, if I was permitted the opportunity, I would do everything I could to bring my prisoners to rebirth.”

  He was silent. Elsdon had offered him the only argument he could not counter: that what he did would benefit Elsdon’s prisoners. Finally he met the other man’s eyes.

  “You have reason enough to do this,” he said. “What reason can you offer me to risk killing the person I love most in this world?”

  “I don’t know,” Elsdon replied quietly. “Perhaps you’ll find that reason.”