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

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER FOUR

  As always at the dawn shift, the entrance to the outer dungeon’s dining hall was crowded with night-shift guards coming off duty to eat a leisurely supper, as well as day-shift guards catching a quick breakfast before they went on duty. Using the privilege of his rank – a privilege much needed on days like this, when his time was short – Barrett bypassed the long queue for outer-dungeon laborers, the shorter queue for junior guards and junior Seekers, and headed for the briefest queue of all, for senior guards and senior Seekers. He passed Mr. Taylor on the way; the young Seeker did not notice Barrett, being absorbed in conversation with another junior Seeker.

  It bemused Barrett that, in theory anyway, his rank was greater than that of his new Seeker. In practice, if a senior guard overturned the orders of a junior Seeker for any reason other than to resolve an emergency, he was likely to receive a beating shortly thereafter, under the watchful eye of the High Seeker. Every guard who had undergone this exercise agreed that the High Seeker’s watchful eye was worse than the beating.

  Senior rank had its advantages for a guard, though. For one thing, he could give orders to junior guards without discussing them first with a Seeker. Of yet greater importance, to Barrett’s mind, was that the food in the dungeon’s dining hall was still likely to be hot by the time he tasted it.

  He had nearly reached the door when he tripped over an obstacle. Looking down, he saw four-year-old Finlay, who was sitting cross-legged as he sketched people in the queue with a piece of charcoal upon paper.

  Artistry was an unusual ambition for an Yclau child, but Finlay was said to have pawed through the High Seeker’s collection of art books one day while his father was discussing business in Mr. Smith’s living cell. Since that time, Finlay was a predictable presence at any large gathering in the outer dungeon; he always had pencil or charcoal or crayon in hand, creating portraits that bore a certain rough resemblance to the people he saw.

  At age thirty-two, Barrett was still a bachelor, though he no longer had the excuse of his army career to explain his periodic visits to brothels rather than to tea parties where respectable women might be courted. Any time he began to be tempted to settle into domestic life, he had only to visit Mr. Sobel’s living quarters, filled with the stink of babies’ groin-cloths and with Finlay shouting his insistence that he would die if his parents didn’t buy him a new sketch-pad.

  Still, Barrett found children tolerable in small doses. Crouching down, he pointed to the mess of lines, asking, “Is that me?”

  Finlay cast him a scornful look. “It’s the lady.”

  Glancing round, Barrett finally found the “lady”: a rotund washerwoman. Barrett looked again at the sketch. With greater scrutiny, he saw how the messy lines represented the washerwoman’s face, alight with enjoyment as she exchanged gossip with a neighbor.

  “You have a gift,” Barrett said with such surprise that Finlay gave him another scornful look.

  “I’ve been working all year,” he said, as though presenting his twenty-years’ credentials as a craftsman.

  “So I see,” replied Barrett, trying hard not to laugh. Mr. Sobel, he knew, treated his eldest child’s ambitions with the greatest seriousness, though he could hardly be happy that Finlay had chosen work which would place him in the commoners’ class, unless the boy lost his head entirely and moved to Vovim, where artists held higher rank. Barrett supposed that Mr. Sobel was simply hoping that Finlay would outgrow his ambition. Rising to his feet, Barrett had a sudden vision of Finlay in a dozen years: a young man as handsome as his father, stubbornly determined to remain an artist, no matter what price he paid.

  Barrett felt his heart’s pace increase.

  He shook his head as he turned away. He could not decide whether Mr. Sobel would be amused or appalled to know that Barrett had been inwardly stirred at the thought of what Finlay might become, but perhaps it was time for Barrett to put down roots by taking a woman or youth as his love-mate – perhaps even a man, since the Code permitted him that.

  The trouble was in deciding where to send down those roots.

  A waiter was standing by the door when Barrett arrived at the head of the queue. “Will you sit at the head table as usual, sir?” the man asked briskly, smoothing down the napkin draped over his forearm.

  “Yes. —No, wait.” He craned his neck to see the head table, where senior guards and their guests usually sat and where, in theory, senior Seekers could sit. The Seekers, though, usually took food in their living cells, since eating while wearing a hood was not the easiest activity. Mr. Taylor was one of the few Seekers regularly seen in the dining hall, and even he often opted to dine in the cell he shared with the High Seeker.

  Mr. Sobel was nowhere to be seen at the head table, and Barrett really did not relish the idea of listening to the other senior guards comment on how wise the High Seeker was to enforce the Code. He glanced round the room, which was the largest in the outer dungeon, but was certainly not large enough to accommodate all the dungeon dwellers at one time. Finally he caught sight of Mr. Phelps, who was junior night guard to Elsdon Taylor. He was sitting with two other guards who had their backs to Barrett.

  “At Mr. Phelps’s table, if you please,” he said, pointing. The waiter went down on both knees in acknowledgment of the command – the laborers in the Eternal Dungeon tended to be as old-fashioned as their surroundings – and then quickly rose and began breaking their path to the table through the crowd of junior guards and Seekers who must find their own way to the tables.

  A good opportunity, Barrett thought, to get to know better the guard who would be working directly under him. He had been somewhat worried when he learned of his appointment; a junior guard who failed to be appointed to an open senior position above him could make life miserable for the guard who took his place. But one brief talk with Mr. Phelps after the closed meeting in the entry hall had provided Barrett with the measure of the man. Mr. Phelps was without ambition, happy to be working in the Eternal Dungeon, but with no aspirations to rise above his present position. Indeed, he was the sort of guard who, while able to take initiative where needed, preferred following orders – the perfect sort of junior guard, from Barrett’s perspective. He had heard that Mr. Urman had provided a less happy life for his senior guards through the years.

  Too late, as they approached the table, Barrett saw that one of Mr. Phelps’s companions was Mr. Urman. Before Barrett could decide whether the pleasure of Mr. Phelps’s company would be worth the accompanying commentary by Mr. Urman, Mr. Phelps rose to his feet.

  “You may have my chair, sir,” he said, holding the chair back in waiting, in clear acknowledgment of Barrett’s higher rank. “I was about to join the queue.” He jerked his head toward the line of men and women nearby, waiting to use one of the few water closets in the dungeon. It was installed for the sake of workers such as Mr. Phelps, who did not live in the dungeon and so could not make use of a chamber-pot in their rooms. More than one dungeon dweller such as Barrett, though, had been known to wait in the ever-long queue out of nostalgia for the conveniences of modern living that they had sacrificed upon leaving the lighted world. Barrett was sure that he was not the only dungeon dweller who, on nights when the chamber-pot filled to its brim, wondered whether the sacrifice was worth it.

  Barrett took the proffered seat, sighing inwardly. To leave now would make clear enough which guard he was trying to escape, for nobody could think that he’d want to flee from the presence of the third man at the table, Mr. Crofford.

  “Nonsense,” said Mr. Urman to the younger guard as Barrett sat down. “That announcement was bloody nonsense. The High Seeker’s wits have been addled again.”

  Mr. Crofford wriggled in his chair, as though he had sat in something nasty. “I’m not sure about that,” he said in his usual soft, hesitant voice. “Mr. Ferris says that Mr. Smith is just being a bit rash. He says that’s natural in someone as young as the High Seeker is, and that he’ll see things more clearly soon.”

  Mr
. Urman snorted as the waiter, returning swiftly to the table, began setting down their food. In the Eternal Dungeon, there was no choice of menu; long-term dungeon residents ate the same food as the prisoners did, which meant they ate plain but well.

  “The High Seeker is what – nearly two decades older than you?” Mr. Urman responded with an angry gesture that nearly upset the water pitcher being placed in front of him by the waiter. “And he’s been a torturer since he was fifteen. He’s had time and enough to learn his trade.”

  “He didn’t come to the Eternal Dungeon till he was eighteen,” Mr. Crofford protested as he neatly placed his napkin on his lap while the waiter slipped away.

  “No, he didn’t, did he?” Mr. Urman said in a significant fashion.

  In the silence that followed, the only sound that could be heard, other than the loud, cheerful chatter of nearby dungeon dwellers, was the scrape of Mr. Urman’s spoon on the bottom of his stew bowl. Then Mr. Crofford said, “That was a long time ago. He hasn’t been a Vovimian torturer for years. And anyway, the Eternal Dungeon is a dungeon of torture too.”

  Mr. Urman raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps it shouldn’t be.”

  Barrett sputtered into his stew spoon. Mr. Crofford was too busy looking shocked to notice. “Mr. Urman!” he said. “Don’t say that you’re one of those radicals who believes torture should be abolished!”

  Mr. Urman gave a slight shrug that suggested world-weariness. “I’ve been working in prisons for nine years, since I was nineteen,” he said, as though he were decades above Mr. Crofford in age, rather than only four years older. “I’ve learned that, if you hurt a prisoner enough, he’ll say anything he thinks you want to hear. Which is all very well if you’re interested in nothing but a confession. But here in the Eternal Dungeon, we’re supposed to be interested in more than just an admission of guilt.”

  “The Code permits torture,” Barrett said, drawn into the conversation despite himself.

  “If you look at the first version of the Code, from a century and a half ago, you’ll see that it permitted use of the strappado. Times change, Mr. Boyd. When prison workers are wise enough to admit to past errors, times change for the better.”

  Barrett fell silent, returning his attention to the stew, for Mr. Urman’s remark came perilously close to thoughts that had long littered his mind late at night, when he was unable to sleep after a day of racking a prisoner. It was Mr. Crofford who responded, “Mr. Ferris says that external pain is sometimes necessary to make a prisoner’s mind break through into recognition of the horrors he has committed by bringing pain to the world.”

  Mr. Urman snorted again as he waved down the waiter, who was passing their table. “So lawful pain will teach him that unlawful pain is wrong? You and your fine Mr. Ferris never took lessons in logic, I’d guess. —This stew is cold,” he told the waiter. “Doesn’t anyone here know how to give proper service?”

  The waiter looked down his nose at Mr. Urman. “I wouldn’t know about that, sir. Did you receive better training in such matters?”

  “You bloody—!” Mr. Urman was on his feet in an instant, nearly spilling his stew as he grabbed the waiter by his collar with one hand and swung back his fist with the other. Before Barrett could think to react, Mr. Crofford had bounced up and pinioned Mr. Urman’s arms behind him.

  “D., no!” the younger guard said urgently. “The High Seeker is watching!”

  Mr. Urman went still at once. Barrett quickly located the High Seeker, but Layle Smith, if he had noticed anything, was doing a good job of pretending that he was absorbed in conversation with Elsdon Taylor, who had just entered the dining hall.

  The waiter, looking shaken, smoothed down his shirt. “My apologies, sir,” he said to Mr. Urman. “My remark was uncalled for.”

  “Yes, well, I’m sorry too,” replied Mr. Urman as he shook himself free from Mr. Crofford and sat down. “I’m sorry you don’t know how to deliver a bowl of stew when it’s still warm. Now get out of my sight.”

  The waiter’s lips thinned, but he departed. Barrett said, keeping his voice mild, “You won’t make friends that way.”

  “I don’t need friends; I need people to stop ragging me about my accent. You never see anyone ragging Mr. Chapman about his accent, and he was born a commoner. I just picked up the accent from my classmates.”

  “You’re too easy to tease,” Mr. Crofford suggested, eyeing Mr. Urman carefully as he sat down, as though fearing he might attack someone else. “Mr. Chapman merely laughs when anyone makes fun of his accent.”

  “Mr. Crofford is right,” contributed Barrett. “If you learned to laugh at yourself, matters would go a lot easier for you here.”

  “Maybe I’ve had enough people laughing at me in my life without joining my mockery to theirs,” Mr. Urman said, thrusting the stew away so quickly that it spilled on the tablecloth. “So what do you think of the High Seeker’s announcement, Mr. Boyd? Or are you afraid the High Seeker will beat you if you’re honest with your opinions?”

  Barrett refused to be goaded. “My honest opinion,” he said, “is that Finlay Sobel is headed in the direction of being a skilled artist.”

  Mr. Urman groaned. Mr. Crofford laughed, and then stopped abruptly, looking at something over Mr. Barrett’s shoulder. A deep voice, filled with amusement, said, “Are you seeking to confirm the worst nightmares of a father about his best and brightest?”

  Grinning, Barrett turned to pull an empty chair forward from a nearby table. “You could put an end to his sketches easily. He’d obey you if you told him to stop drawing.”

  Mr. Sobel shook his head as he seated himself beside Barrett. “My wife says those drawings are the best insight we could have into what’s going through Finlay’s mind. We worry, you know, about bringing up children in a place like this. —Thank you.” This was to Mr. Crofford, who had passed a wicker basket of buns to Mr. Sobel.

  “Judging from today’s drawing, I’d say that you have nothing to fear,” Barrett responded.

  “Unless, of course, he begins drawing pictures of guards getting into fist fights with waiters.” Mr. Sobel did not look up as he tore open a bun. “Mr. Urman, I never want to see a scene like that occurring in this dining hall again.”

  “The waiter made mock.” Surprisingly, the respondent was Mr. Crofford.

  Mr. Sobel flashed him a smile. “The High Seeker surmised as much. Which is why I was sent here to reprimand Mr. Urman, rather than the High Seeker coming himself. Contrary to rumors, Mr. Smith does have a sense of justice.”

  Mr. Urman snorted, but had sense enough to keep quiet otherwise. Scattering bun crumbs into his stew, Barrett said, “Rumors are always flying about Layle Smith, but the latest dread foretellings are all speculation so far. The High Seeker likes to frighten prisoners so that he won’t need to do worse than frighten them. He’s likely doing the same to us.”

  “Oh, the High Seeker enjoys frightening prisoners, that’s for certain,” said Mr. Urman, tossing his napkin aside, as though he had lost interest in the meal. “In fact, I can think of only one thing Layle Smith enjoys more than frightening prisoners.”

  “If everyone behaves themselves, it won’t come to that,” Mr. Sobel responded, taking the glass of water that Mr. Crofford had poured and offered him. “And you had better learn to curb your tongue about such matters, Mr. Urman, because you’ve been reassigned.”

  “To Mr. Chapman?” Mr. Urman said. His voice was light, but Barrett saw the flash of hope in his eyes at the thought of the open senior guard position.

  “To Mr. Smith. Junior night guard. We’ll be working together again.”

  “I’ve already been his bloody junior night guard,” Mr. Urman grumbled.

  “Language, Mr. Urman,” cautioned Mr. Sobel. “Even though you’re off-duty, you should be setting an example for more junior guards.” He nodded in the direction of Mr. Crofford.

  “Oh, he already taught me that word,” Mr. Crofford said with a smile. “He taught me an entire list of words
to call my Seeker when he requires me to work overtime. Nobody gives vocabulary lessons like D. Urman.”

  Barrett collapsed into helpless laughter. Mr. Crofford and Mr. Sobel quickly followed him with chortles. After a moment of indecision as to whether he should take offense, Mr. Urman joined the merriment as people at the surrounding tables smiled.

  o—o—o

  That night, though, while lying in his old bed in the lighted world, Barrett could not sleep. He got up, clothed himself in a dressing gown, and pulled open the curtains.

  His childhood bedroom looked out upon the high-fenced walls of the back garden of a mid-class townhouse. The neatly mowed lawn was white as bones under the moonlight. Pushing one of the windowpanes open, Barrett leaned out, smelling the onion-sharp scent of summer grass. He had played croquet on that lawn with his sisters and brothers and cousins when he was young, absentmindedly hearing the grown-ups talk of city crime, and of the need for more patrol soldiers and prison workers.

  His mother had wept with joy when he had left the army in order to become a guard in the Eternal Dungeon; his father had pounded him on the back, beaming as he said over and over, “A great honor. A great honor. The people of Yclau are in your debt.”

  Barrett closed the window and returned to the coolness of his bed, where he lay sleepless until dawn.

  o—o—o

  o—o—o

  . . . Too firmly, as history would later judge – but in saying that, we have the benefit of hindsight.

  To the most objective observers of that time, the men who had no strong feelings one way or another on the issue of torture, the essential conflict in the Eternal Dungeon was not over prison ethics but over authority. If we recall the power that Layle Smith’s predecessor had exercised over his torturers and guards, we see why that must be so. Yet we miss the point if we throw forth epithets like “dictator” about Layle Smith.

  By the standards of his era, the Eternal Dungeon’s High Seeker was an exceptionally generous employer. In an age when disobedience over the slightest matter would routinely result in the dismissal of an employee, Layle Smith stands out as having been strikingly willing to listen sympathetically to complaints about work conditions in his dungeon.

  How, then, did a man like that become known, during the year 360, as a harsh and brutal employer? There is no paradox here; in fact, the answer lies in what appears to be the paradox of Layle Smith’s gentleness toward the men who worked for him. But that is a matter which will become clearer as we turn our attention to events in the summer of 360.

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

  On Guard 2

  PROTECTION

  Seward Sobel

  The year 360, the seventh month. (The year 1881 Fallow by the Old Calendar.)

  Guard: Assistant to the Seekers, charged with restraint.

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