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

by Dusk Peterson

CHAPTER TWELVE

  Rolling his pencil back and forth on the dining table with the greatest of ease, Mr. Yates smiled when Barrett had finished speaking. “Mr. Boyd,” he said, “you’ll forgive me, I hope, if I’m blunt: You’re exceedingly naive if you’ve ever thought that Seekers are infallible.”

  Wincing, Barrett took a sip of his morning tea. “It’s not that. Working under Mr. Chapman . . . Well, he never tried to disguise when he was puzzled about how to proceed in a case. But I always thought that, when it came to the Seekers with greater skills, men like Mr. Taylor . . .”

  Mr. Yates shook his head as he pushed toward Barrett a basket of scones that were shaped like rings of rebirth. “Even the High Seeker has never claimed to be a Vovimian god. We all make mistakes, Mr. Boyd. And what of it? Just because the magistrates sometimes sentence an innocent prisoner to be hanged, does that mean we should abolish the magistracy? Shall we allow criminals to roam the streets at will because we’re afraid to take the chance of harming an innocent prisoner?”

  Barrett tore his scone in half. “Imprisonment is one thing. What we do in the rack room, though . . .”

  Mr. Yates sighed heavily as he buttered his scone. No jam and clotted cream appeared on the table. The prisoners were not permitted those with their tea; therefore, neither were the other dungeon inhabitants. “Look, Mr. Boyd, you’re making it sound as though every prisoner who walks into the Eternal Dungeon ends up on the rack. On the contrary, it’s the vicious prisoners – the ones who have almost certainly committed murder or rape – who are placed there. Consider how it works. A prisoner disobeys a minor rule, such as failing to stand in the presence of his Seeker. The way the United Order of Prisons would like the world to think, we immediately rack the prisoner. You know that’s not the case; the prisoner is sentenced to a minor punishment – as low as five lashes, depending on his past history of being punished in the lighted world. Usually that’s all it takes to keep a prisoner under control. —More tea?” He offered Mr. Barrett the pitcher as Barrett stared morosely at his empty cup. Barrett shook his head. Mr. Yates continued, “So then the same prisoner attacks a guard. Well, it’s not unknown for an innocent prisoner to attack a guard in a moment of panic. So he’s only whipped at that point. Since it’s a second offense, he receives forty to sixty heavy lashes. If you were an innocent, law-abiding man, and you were given sixty heavy lashes, would you immediately conclude, ‘I should test my Seeker’s patience, and risk being put on the rack’?” Mr. Yates shook his head as he sipped from his cup. “No, Mr. Boyd, virtually the only prisoners who end up in the rack room are the ones who are unscrupulous murderers and rapists. Ninety-eight point five percent guilty. I didn’t pick that figure out of the ash-pit; it’s the number of racked men who are subsequently sentenced to death by the magistrates.”

  “And how do you know that the magistrates are right?” Barrett asked, tearing his scone in half. “Have you followed the hanged men into afterdeath to determine their guilt?”

  Mr. Yates smiled. “I said that the magistrates are fallible, not utter dunces. —Are you planning to eat that?” He pointed to Barrett’s plate. Barrett, looking blankly down at his scone, realized that he had shredded the scone into a dozen pieces.

  Mr. Yates laughed at his expression. “I must go; I’m due on duty. Don’t worry, Mr. Boyd; all of us ask these questions sooner or later. You’re just a bit later than most of us in settling matters with your conscience.” Patting his mustache with his napkin, he reached over, scooped up the pencil, thrust it into his breast pocket, and left the table, whistling blithely.

  o—o—o

  Abandoning the scone he had tortured, Mr. Boyd rose to his feet and looked around. This being the beginning of the day shift, the dining hall was largely abandoned. Even the water closet – usually the most popular spot in the dungeon – was sporting an “out of order” sign. Mr. Boyd saw Mr. Sobel – whose time of labor, like the High Seeker’s, often lasted well through the dawn shift – enter the room. Mr. Boyd began walking over to him. Mr. Sobel was the wisest guard Barrett knew; no doubt he would be able to offer better answers than Mr. Yates had.

  Then Barrett saw Finlay standing on a chair, waving his latest sketch in the air for Mr. Sobel’s benefit: a drawing of a group of men shouting at one another. By the time Barrett reached Mr. Sobel, the other guard was standing beside the table, solemnly examining the sketch as Finlay chattered on.

  “—couldn’t draw the fists right. See?” Finlay pointed.

  “I see,” acknowledged his father. “Well, I’m afraid I don’t have the skills to help you. But perhaps the High Seeker would be willing to lend you some of his art books.”

  “Should I ask him now?” Finlay looked doubtfully at the table next to them, where the High Seeker was speaking in undertones to the dungeon’s day supervisor, Weldon Chapman.

  Mr. Sobel shook his head. “He’s still on duty; I’ll convey your request to him later. Besides, it’s time for your bath.” He pointed to the doorway of the dining hall, where a round-bellied woman stood, with two young girls holding her hands.

  Finlay groaned, but after a stern look from his father, he clambered down from the table and trotted over to his mother, waving the sketch for her to see. Barrett hesitated, realizing that Mr. Sobel must still be on duty, but the other guard waved him into a chair.

  Mr. Sobel himself did not sit down. He turned round a chair and rested his bottom upon the backrest, leaving Barrett to wonder whether Mr. Sobel was off-duty after all. Barrett glanced again at Layle Smith. Surely Mr. Sobel would not be following around the High Seeker if he had been dismissed from duty?

  “You look tired,” Seward remarked to Mr. Sobel, wondering how to broach the topic that was bothering him.

  Mr. Sobel sighed and rubbed the skin next to his eyes. His gaze, however, remained fixed on the High Seeker. “It’s been quite a night. On top of everything else, a prisoner decided to smash one of the supposedly unbreakable plates of glass that protect the new ceiling-lights in the cells. He managed to slice his wrists with the glass before his guards reached him.”

  “Sweet blood,” said Barrett softly. “Is he alive?”

  “Oh, yes. His guards moved quickly enough to prevent death.”

  “Is he the High Seeker’s prisoner?” Barrett ventured. Mr. Sobel, he knew, was disinclined to take credit when he acted in an exemplary manner.

  Mr. Sobel shook his head, though. “Mr. Chapman’s prisoner. Poor Mr. Chapman. This will bring back the wrong sort of memories.”

  Barrett began to ask why, then remembered. According to Mr. Urman – whose gossip ranged farther than the junior guard’s own time in the dungeon – back in the days when Mr. Chapman served as a guard, he had been the unfortunate man who had been on duty during one of the dungeon’s few successful suicides.

  “Neither episode was his fault,” Barrett countered.

  “Of course not. But the older suicide still looms in his conscience.”

  Barrett began to speak, then stopped. It had finally occurred to him that the suicidal prisoner who was on Mr. Sobel’s mind was not Mr. Chapman’s old prisoner.

  “Seward,” he said – one of the few times he had spoken the senior night guard’s given name, though the two of them had become fast friends the previous year, during the hair-raising case of Thatcher Owen. “It wasn’t your fault either.”

  Mr. Sobel gave him a crooked smile, glancing briefly his way before returning his gaze to the High Seeker. “So everyone told me at the time. But it keeps me awake some nights, knowing that a man is forever trapped in afterdeath, unable to be reborn, because of my careless talk to the junior guard.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Barrett said slowly, leaning back in his chair.

  Mr. Sobel’s gaze snapped over to him, then quickly back to the High Seeker. “What do you mean?”

  “You know that my father is chaplain at Parkside University.” Barrett waited until Mr. Sobel nodded before adding, “He tells me that some of the
greatest minds at the university today believe that the traditional interpretation of the ancient injunction against suicide is wrong. It is likely, they say, that the injunction against suicide was only meant to cover cases where death was otherwise unlikely, and the suicide was undertaken for selfish reasons. So rebirth would still be permitted to, say, a prisoner who turned himself over to the authorities as reparation for his crimes, even though he knew that he would be hanged . . . or, as another example, a condemned prisoner who killed himself because he couldn’t bear the thought of being hanged—”

  “Have you said this to anyone in the dungeon?”

  “What?” Barrett was startled; Mr. Sobel did not ordinarily interrupt other people. “No, I don’t think so. Why—?”

  “Then you will not do so. Mr. Boyd, that is an order.”

  Barrett stared at the other guard’s stern expression for a moment; then he felt a flush of embarrassment enter his face. “Of course, sir,” he said softly, glancing to ascertain that nobody was close enough to have heard him. The only possible exception was the High Seeker, which was hardly comforting. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

  “The last thing this dungeon needs,” Mr. Sobel said, equally softly, “is a group of junior guards who have taken it into their heads that the prisoners here would be better off if they committed suicide. Thank you for seeking to comfort me, but our job is to protect lives, not to worry about abstruse philosophical debates.”

  “Yes, sir.” His face was feeling very hot indeed, though he could not help asking, “And if the university debates end up carrying over to the rest of the lighted world, so that everyone here eventually realizes that a prisoner who kills himself isn’t necessarily denied rebirth?”

  Mr. Sobel sighed. “I’m going to hope that such an event happens after our time.”

  He was looking tired again. Barrett felt regret eat at him for the additional burden he had placed on the High Seeker’s guard. He asked, “Shall I fetch you some tea?”

  “No, thank you.” Mr. Sobel’s gaze wandered away again. “As soon as I’m released from duty, I plan to fall into bed and sleep for two days.”

  “I see.” A two-day break from duty for Mr. Sobel meant that one of the High Seeker’s prisoners had just been executed. This had indeed not been a good day for Mr. Sobel. Seeking to lighten the mood, Barrett said, “If your children allow you that much time to sleep.”

  But it was the wrong remark to make, for Mr. Sobel replied quietly, “Yes. My daughters have been kept awake by nightmares for the past few nights.”

  “Oh.” Barrett thought again of Finlay’s latest sketch, and he winced.

  Mr. Sobel sighed heavily. “My wife and I have been seriously considering whether we should move the children into the lighted world. Until this point, Finlay and his sisters have acted like normal children. But now . . .”

  “You’d move out of the dungeon?” Barrett raised his eyebrows. By tradition, the High Seeker’s senior-most guard always roomed in the outer dungeon.

  Mr. Sobel shook his head. “Not me. My duties don’t permit it. No, it would mean a separation from my wife and children, which is why she and I have been agonizing over this matter.”

  Barrett rose then, as though he were a gas balloon that had abruptly lost its ballast. “You look deathly weary; I’m sure the last thing you want is to be carrying on a long conversation. I’ll drop by and see you in a couple of days, shall I?”

  “I’d enjoy that.” Mr. Sobel barely took his eyes off Barrett long enough to give him a nod of farewell; then he turned his attention back to the High Seeker. Mr. Smith was continuing to speak quietly with Mr. Chapman, who now had his head bowed.

  Barrett turned away. Mr. Sobel was a family man, Barrett reflected. He did not deserve to be burdened with other men’s troubles during the hours when he was dealing with family matters.

  Besides, Barrett had just been forcefully reminded that Mr. Sobel was the High Seeker’s senior night guard. If Mr. Sobel knew how deep Barrett’s doubts went, he might feel duty-bound to report the matter to the High Seeker.

  And so Barrett could not seek advice from him. That left . . .

  His eye drifted over to a familiar spot: the place where, more and more during the past weeks, he had found himself sitting.

  o—o—o

  As usual, the two of them were there: Mr. Crofford and Mr. Urman. The latter had evidently just come off-duty, for he was still in uniform. However, today a Seeker had joined the two guards. Barrett hesitated, but Mr. Crofford caught sight of him and smiled, and so Barrett walked over to join the group.

  As he reached the table and slipped unobtrusively into a seat, Mr. Ferris was saying, “. . . was a real handful, I tell you. After two months, Mr. Jenson handed the boy over to me, saying, ‘If you can survive him, your work will be worth it. I don’t have the strength to handle him.’ That was saying something, I’ll tell you.”

  “So why was he so difficult?” Mr. Urman asked. “Too traditionalist to accept the innovations of the Eternal Dungeon?”

  Mr. Ferris snorted. As usual, he was hooded, but the amusement was plain in his voice as he said, “Traditionalist? He was the most radical boy who ever walked through the gates of this dungeon. He questioned everything, and he accepted nothing that he was taught without testing it for himself. Every morning he would come to me and say, in a deceptively polite voice, ‘Excuse me, sir, but I’ve discovered a couple of ways in which the Code of Seeking, in its present form, could be used to exploit the prisoners.’ Then he’d rattle off a dozen or so complaints that he’d compiled overnight. . . . At first I made the mistake of trying to brush off his complaints.”

  “What did he do?” With his chin resting on his fists, Mr. Crofford looked wholly absorbed in the tale.

  “Can’t you guess?” Mr. Urman shot back. “He exploited the prisoners.”

  “He exploited the Code,” Mr. Ferris corrected. “He’d take advantage of the Code to twist it into a weapon against the prisoners . . . but always stopped just a hair’s breadth short of harming them. Oh, he was a handful, all right. My assignment was like trying to control a bomb-throwing anarchist; I barely slept during the time we worked together. I’ve never been so relieved as the day when Layle Smith ended his period as a Torturer-in-Training.”

  “And now he’s trying to keep the dungeon frozen in time,” Mr. Crofford said mournfully.

  Mr. Ferris sucked at his straw, even though his glass was empty – the sure sign of a former pipe-smoker who now lived in a dungeon where smoking was forbidden. “Ah, well, that always happens when one grows old. One day you wake up and discover that a new generation has displaced your own, and has its own ideas on how to run things.”

  “That’s exactly how it feels,” inserted Barrett. “As though this dungeon has been divided into two schools of thought: an old school that wants to keep things the way they are, and a new school that wants to move forward.”

  “And Elsdon Taylor is heading the new school,” Mr. Urman inserted.

  But Mr. Ferris was shaking his head. “You young ones shouldn’t discount the value of tradition. Even Mr. Smith, when he was young, knew that he was building upon a treasure. He never went so far as to break the Code – that’s important to remember. He’s no hypocrite. He has always believed in bringing about change while abiding by the Code.”

  “But he’s not even talking about change any more!” Mr. Crofford protested.

  “Maybe not at the moment.” Mr. Ferris abandoned the straw and leaned forward. “I’ll tell you how I think things are. The High Seeker has had problems recently in keeping control over some of the guards. Junior guards,” he added with a wink. “And some of the junior Seekers, like Mr. Newton, are too filled with a sense of their own self-importance to heed his orders. I’ll make a safe prediction: Once Layle Smith has brought those young rebels to heel, this dungeon will return to normal. Until then,” he added with a smile in his voice, “it’s business as usual for us senior members. Isn’t
that right, Mr. Boyd?”

  Barrett hesitated, wondering whether to offer an honest answer, but at that moment, Mr. Ferris looked over his shoulder and said, “Ah, High Seeker. We were just speaking of you.”

  Barrett jumped in place, as though he had been touched by an electric spark, and then he hastily rose to his feet and turned to face Layle Smith. The other guards were doing likewise. Mr. Ferris followed suit at a more leisurely pace.

  “Oh, dear.” The High Seeker’s voice was utterly expressionless, which was usually a bad sign. “Should I go away again?”

  All of the guards tensed, but Mr. Ferris merely slapped Layle Smith on the back and laughed. “You have the driest sense of humor of any man I know,” he told the High Seeker, leaving his hand on Mr. Smith’s back as he turned his colleague around and began walking forward. “Did you receive the invitation for my seventieth birthday celebration?”

  “I did,” the High Seeker replied as he walked beside Mr. Ferris. “I believe that Mr. Taylor will be sending his acceptance. I fear that I cannot attend; I have too much work at the moment. I thank you for your kind invitation, however. . . .”

  Their voices faded as they drew away. They were not quite far enough away, to Barrett’s mind, when Mr. Urman said in an acid voice, “He always has a fucking cold-blooded manner of speaking.”

  Barrett winced; sometimes, Mr. Urman’s commoner origins showed themselves all too plainly. Mr. Crofford, always willing to overlook his friend’s vulgarities, said only, “He likes Mr. Ferris, though.”

  Mr. Urman emitted a sniff. “You mean, Mr. Ferris likes him. All that nonsense Mr. Ferris spoke about how Mr. Smith was just trying to keep control over a few junior members . . .”

  “The High Seeker likes Mr. Ferris too,” Mr. Crofford insisted. “Did you see how he let Mr. Ferris touch him? If any of us had done that, he’d have given us a look that turned us into blocks of ice.”

  “I suppose that age and seniority have their privileges.” Mr. Urman dismissed the matter with a wave of the hand.

  “No, it’s more than that, if Mr. Ferris trained him,” Barrett argued. “Training someone creates a link—” He stopped; Mr. Crofford was smiling at him.

  Mr. Urman shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never trained anyone.” But he did not look up as he spoke; he was fiddling with the dice in his hand.

  Mr. Crofford voiced Barrett’s thoughts. “Mr. Sobel trained you, D., and you’re working with him again. How are matters going between you two?”

  Mr. Urman simply shrugged. Barrett, watching the dice, said, “Game?” Generosity was what prompted his offer; dominoes was his preferred game, as it was for most of the guards in the dungeon. Only commoners – or men like Mr. Urman, who had been raised among commoners – played dice.

  Mr. Urman shrugged again but shoved the dice over to Barrett. “No stakes,” he said.

  “No stakes,” Barrett agreed. Even the dungeon’s whist players – whose stake-games had been benignly ignored by the authorities for decades – had decided that it was wiser to adhere strictly to the Code for the time being.

  They threw dice in turns, with Mr. Crofford keeping score; the game mainly went in Barrett’s favor. Finally Mr. Urman said abruptly, “I think people are misjudging Mr. Sobel.”

  “Oh?” Barrett threw the dice, got triple nines, and threw again.

  “Yes, everyone is saying that he shares the High Seeker’s views, just because he carries out the High Seeker’s orders. Well, I carry out the High Seeker’s orders too, and I’m bloody well not on the High Seeker’s side. We— That is, I think he’s waiting for the right moment to make a stand against the High Seeker. Not yet, not over small matters like tardiness and drunkenness—”

  Barrett looked up quickly from the dice. “Has something new happened?”

  Mr. Urman looked over at Mr. Crofford, who said softly, “The notice went up in the entry hall an hour ago. Mr. Milz, Mr. Prosser, and Mr. Gamage are being suspended for tardiness . . . and Mr. Raupp is being dismissed from employment altogether.”

  “What?” Barrett half rose to his feet. “Mr. Raupp is the most promising young guard this dungeon has! Was he really drunk on duty?”

  He directed his question at Mr. Urman, but that guard said nothing. It was remarkable, Barrett thought, how Mr. Urman’s willingness to circulate gossip ceased abruptly whenever the gossip concerned prisoners whom he himself had guarded.

  Mr. Crofford, though, was able to supply the missing details. “The story that Mr. Raupp has been telling is that he attended a family dinner, the evening before last, which honored his great-grandmother’s death and rebirth. He hadn’t planned to drink, but his brothers urged him to join in the toast honoring his great-grandmother’s transformation to a new life. He took just one sip and then set the drink down. It was only two-thirds of an hour past midnight, and he wasn’t due to work again till yesterday’s dusk shift; he was never even close to being tipsy. But he spilled some of the wine on his shirt, and the junior guard on the day shift smelled it when they exchanged shifts. The junior day guard reported him to the Codifier, and when searched, Mr. Raupp admitted to the High Seeker that he had broken the Code’s rule against guards drinking on the same day as they are due for duty.”

  “Maybe the High Seeker didn’t believe his tale,” suggested Barrett, who was barely aware now that he had just tossed a throw that had won him the dice game.

  “Mr. Raupp said that the High Seeker did believe him. He said that Mr. Smith told him, ‘I’m very sorry, Mr. Raupp, but the Code of Seeking must be upheld.’”

  Barrett swallowed down several curses before saying, “At this rate, there won’t be any decent guards left in this dungeon.”

  Mr. Urman gave a sharp, humorless laugh as he frowned at Barrett’s winning throw. “You think that’s a coincidence?”

  “What do you mean?” Barrett leaned back in his seat. The dining hall was empty now except for the three of them. Even Mr. Sobel had followed the High Seeker and Mr. Ferris out of the hall. From the direction of the kitchen came the sound of pump-water, the clash of the stoneware plates that all dungeon inhabitants ate upon, and subdued chatter. Straining his ear, Barrett thought he caught a scrap of the dishwashers’ conversation. The outer-dungeon laborers were also concerned by this latest turn of events, it seemed.

  “You just mark me, Mr. Boyd: The High Seeker will get rid of every man who opposes him and will replace them with workers who are willing to lick his boots.” Mr. Urman scooped up the dice. “Another game?”

  Barrett shook his head. His thoughts had drifted back to Mr. Sobel. Three suspensions, one expulsion, an attempted suicide, and an execution . . . all in one night. No wonder Mr. Sobel had looked tired.

  Mr. Crofford said, “I’ll play.”

  On the point of pocketing the dice, Mr. Urman paused to look at him. “You don’t know how. I had to teach you how to score us just now.”

  Mr. Crofford smiled at him. “You could teach me the rest.”

  Mr. Urman fingered the dice. “Maybe. I’d like to— Well, that’s something for us to talk about. Mr. Boyd, do you think you could possibly—?”

  In the midst of what sounded like a surprisingly polite request for Mr. Boyd to depart, Mr. Urman shut his mouth. Mr. Sobel had suddenly appeared at the table. He gave a silent nod of greeting to Barrett and Mr. Crofford, then leaned over and murmured something in Mr. Urman’s ear.

  Mr. Urman growled deep inside his throat, but made no other protest. Mr. Sobel departed, as silently as he had come. Mr. Urman stood up and straightened his jacket and cravat, then checked the weapons at his belt. Barrett, looking in the direction that Mr. Sobel had departed, saw that the High Seeker was looming in the doorway.

  “Another arrest?” suggested Barrett.

  Mr. Urman made no reply to his question. He simply tossed the dice into Mr. Crofford’s hands. “Here,” he said. “I’ll teach you later.”

  o—o—o

  For a while after Mr. Urman followed Layle Smit
h and his senior night guard out of the room, there was silence. Mr. Crofford kept his head bowed, fingering the dice until Barrett said, “I’ll teach you, if you like.”

  Mr. Crofford raised his head. His expression was so startled that it was clear that his mind was on something other than the bone-smooth dice in his hand. But after a moment, he smiled and said, “Thank you, sir.”

  “We’re off-duty,” Barrett reminded him as he took the dice. “And at the rate you’re advancing in your work, you’ll be receiving your seniority soon. After a few years, perhaps you’ll have risen so high that I’ll be calling you sir.”

  Mr. Crofford gave a wan smile. “Oh, I don’t intend to apply for seniority. I’m content to be one of those guards who follows others’ lead. Except . . .”

  “Except?” Barrett paused in the midst of throwing the dice.

  Mr. Crofford bit his lip, stared at the dice, and finally burst out, “It was easier being a junior guard before now.”

  Barrett’s eyes nearly went to the doorway through which Mr. Urman had exited. Then he saw the dark smudges under Mr. Crofford’s eyes and realized that the young guard’s worries preceded today’s events . . . though they had perhaps been increased by them.

  “It used to be easy,” said Mr. Crofford, his voice wringing misery from every word. “If you reported someone whom you believed had broken the Code, he’d get a fair trial. It was that way with Mr. Chapman: when he reported himself for beating a prisoner who had been trying to obey his orders, the Codifier and High Seeker took into account that Mr. Chapman’s mind was in disarray because he had recently lost his baby son. But now . . .” Mr. Crofford took hold of one of the dice, and his hand clenched around it. “I don’t know. It seems like the world has gone mad since Fae died.”

  Fae had been Mr. Crofford’s fiancée, who had died on the eve of their wedding, in a most senseless manner: she had tangled her foot in her skirt while climbing a ladder to help her servants hang wedding bunting from an outside balcony. She had fallen hard, had hit her head on a stone, and had died within minutes.

  Mr. Crofford, Barrett knew, had taken the death equally hard: even though an entire year had passed since the death, only recently had Mr. Crofford stripped himself of his mourning armband. Barrett said quietly, “I don’t have the knowledge to help you with the latter problem, I’m afraid; I’ve never been engaged or even had a love-mate, however briefly.”

  “Really?” Mr. Crofford was startled out of his sable thoughts.

  Barrett smiled. “Really. But as for the rest . . . The Seekers have always had the same problem, you know.”

  “What do you mean?” Resting his chin on his fists once more, Mr. Crofford regarded Barrett with a quizzical eye.

  “Don’t you realize that every Seeker who sends a prisoner to a magistrate is stepping on hot coals until he discovers whether the magistrate will give the prisoner a fair trial? Mr. Taylor’s first prisoner didn’t receive a fair trial: he was hung, although there were extenuating circumstances for his murder. Mr. Taylor told me that he was only able to comfort himself afterwards with the knowledge that he had done what he could for the prisoner: he had helped the prisoner enter into his transformation, the prisoner had made indirect reparation for his crime by seeking to help draw Mr. Smith from his madness . . . and so the prisoner was as close as any unrepentant murderer can be to entering into his rebirth.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Crofford slowly. “So your advice is . . .”

  “Keep your mind on your own work. Any man you report for breaking the Code may or may not receive a fair trial, but you’ve done what you can for the prisoners in this dungeon . . . and also for the breaker of the Code, who is facing his own need for transformation.”

  Mr. Crofford smiled suddenly: a vivid, sun-bright smile. “That makes it easier. That makes it much, much easier. Thank you, Mr. Boyd.” He scooped up the dice. “I’ll sleep better tonight. Meet you for a game at the dusk shift?”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” said Barrett. But as he watched Mr. Crofford walk away, he was left with uneasiness. Not merely about his own questions, which remained unanswered, but about the answer he had given Mr. Crofford. He had the terrible feeling that he had offered the young guard an analogy that was dangerously wrong.

  For what if there were only one magistrate, and his judgments were always unbalanced?