CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Nervous, Mr. Sobel?”
Seward, who had been running an automatic eye across all the laborers they passed in the main corridor, looked over at Layle Smith. The High Seeker appeared the same as he always did in public: cool and inscrutable.
“Well, sir, my nerves would probably be better if I hadn’t seen an electric seat in operation,” Seward replied.
The High Seeker gave a low chuckle. Only the High Seeker could have chuckled at mention of the electric seat. “I’d forgotten that you were the dungeon’s representative at that failed experiment. The prisoner lived, as I recall?”
“Yes, sir. He received a pardon afterwards.” Though what good the pardon would do him, Seward could not imagine. Ninety seconds of “electrocution” (as the newspapers termed it), while the palace hangmen tried futilely to get their new device of execution to work properly, was not calculated to leave a condemned prisoner in any bodily state worth living in. The prisoner had been sent afterwards to an asylum for the crippled, Seward had heard.
“Ah, well, no doubt Mr. Wyatt keeps his equipment in better order than the palace hangmen do.” The High Seeker’s voice remained light, as it had ever since his reconciliation with Elsdon Taylor in the previous month. “I remember one hanging I witnessed, several years ago . . .”
Mr. Smith’s gruesome anecdote carried them to the end of the corridor and several yards into the entry hall, still crowded with laborers moving equipment back and forth. Seward glanced quickly around, but could see no sign of the electric rack, much less the generator and steam engine that ran it. “Perhaps Mr. Wyatt has reconsidered offering us the—”
He stopped; the High Seeker had waved him silent. Mr. Smith’s head was up, as though he were a hunting dog. Then, in one of his lightning-quick moves, he turned and strode toward the west wall of the entry hall.
Seward caught up with him just as Mr. Smith reached the door to the Codifier’s rooms and flung it open. A cacophony of hisses, whistles, and screeches flew out of the rooms, as though released to freedom. Following Mr. Smith inside, Seward ducked under the low lintel, closed the door behind him, passed a group of laborers crowded around some object he could not see, nudged his way past the Codifier’s secretary and guards – who trusted him well enough not to bar his way – and was just in time to see the High Seeker stop dead at the threshold to the Codifier’s office.
Seward looked over his shoulder. Where once the waterfall had rushed down the wall unimpeded, now a waterwheel arrested its fall. Attached to the outer rim of the giant wheel were cups, catching the water and carrying it down to the pool where the Hooded Seeker Fish swum. The fish – normally as imperturbable as the Codifier himself – were swimming around in a frenzy, disturbed by the constant waves as each new cup dumped water into the pool.
On the other side of the room – not quite far enough from the water for Seward’s liking – was the electric generator. Black and energetic, it hissed and screeched as it pumped its pistons back and forth, sending out hissing steam that nearly singed Seward when he took a step too close.
Standing in the midst of this all, with his suit damp from water spraying off the wheel, was the Codifier. He said, in a manner somewhat less level than usual, “I would have appreciated it, Mr. Smith, if you had applied for permission to make use of my office.”
Layle Smith’s sigh was audible under his hood. “I’m very sorry, sir. I’ll have these objects removed at once.”
“Do not bother.” The Codifier turned to pick up a daybook, a pen, and a folded piece of paper. “The Queen has been urging me for some time now to take a leave of absence as a reward for my long service in this dungeon. I had planned to wait until Mr. Bergsen was returned from his leave, but in light of the present need for my office, I will start my leave today. If you will allow me passage, Mr. Smith . . .”
The High Seeker, murmuring an acknowledgment of the order, stepped into the office and away from the doorway to let the Codifier pass. Seward stepped back into the secretary’s room, unintentionally pushing back the Codifier’s guards, who had been peering curiously over his shoulder. The guards snapped to attention as the Codifier paused by them and issued them with orders to vacate the premises “so that the High Seeker may have room for his experiment.” Seward began to slip past the Codifier in order to reach the High Seeker; as he did so, something touched his hand. A piece of paper.
He looked at the Codifier. The Codifier glanced at him, nodded, and then turned his attention back to his own guards.
Seward felt relief run through him then. He was not sure why he felt relief; danger still lurked in this room, hideous as a hangman. Perhaps his relief simply came from the fact that he knew where the High Seeker’s special vulnerabilities lay.
As the Codifier and his guards and secretary departed, Seward caught sight of Mr. Urman, who was chatting with one of the laborers. At Seward’s gesture, Mr. Urman came forward.
Seward showed him the note before slipping it into his inner jacket pocket. “Go let him know. Then close that door to the entry hall and stand outside. Don’t allow anyone in who isn’t authorized. If word of this should get around, we’re likely to have half the dungeon inhabitants trying to conduct a rescue operation.”
“Well, then, half the dungeon inhabitants aren’t fools,” replied Mr. Urman. “Why can’t you or I be the one to test the rack? Guards are supposed to suffer for the prisoners too.”
“The Code says that Seekers must be the ones to test new devices of torture.” Seward’s eye went past Mr. Urman to the crowd of laborers. As the crowd shifted, he caught a glimpse of a long, metal table. The legs of the table were elegantly engraved and razor-thin. Seward, who had bumped into enough dungeon equipment over the years to be able to envision the consequences of those razor-thin legs, winced, even before he heard one of the laborers give a shout of rage, followed by a curse.
“Watch your tongue!” Mr. Wyatt, who had been hidden in the crowd, came forward to reprimand the laborer.
“Mr. Wyatt, I want compensation. That bloody rack of yours cut my leg hard. If you don’t pay me square for my healer’s expenses, I’ll see that the Commoners’ Guild pickets you—”
Seward did not hear how this confrontation ended, though he was interested by this sign that the new guild was making its power known in the workplace. Over the sound of the waterwheel, the generator, and the laborer’s complaint, Mr. Urman was saying, “I don’t care what the Code says. If there’s going to be danger—”
Seward’s gaze snapped over to Mr. Urman. “If there is going to be danger, Mr. Urman, you are not going to increase it by failing to do your duty. I need that door guarded. Can you imagine what would happen if someone charged into this room while the rack was in use and knocked into the wrong piece of equipment? Or if we had to deal with a gunman at the very same moment that the experiment took place?”
He kept his voice low, though all of Mr. Wyatt’s laborers were now engaged in a vigorous argument over whether the laborer should receive his compensation, while Mr. Wyatt tried without success to regain control of the situation. Mr. Urman sighed, stared at the wall, and scratched the back of his neck. Finally he said in a low voice, “Well, the laborers aren’t hidden assassins, anyway. I talked to them individually. They’ve all been working for Mr. Wyatt for years; their stories cross-check each other.”
“Well done.” Seward was mildly surprised, but only mildly. He was beginning to realize that, given the right work conditions, Mr. Urman would always go beyond the call of duty.
Seward looked again at the rack. Other than the nasty-looking metal legs and body, the rack appeared no different from any he had used in the past. It even had a wheel, though presumably the wheel was only used to regulate the level of racking, not to actually pull the chains that moved the top bar. The rack was a one-bar model rather than a two-bar model; the only moving part was the bar at the top of the rack, to which the wrist-straps were attached. The other bar, holding the ankle-straps, w
ould remain fixed. That was good to learn; two-bar models were much more inclined to develop problems.
“Best fetch him now,” Mr. Sobel murmured, and Mr. Urman, with a grunt of disgust, disappeared through the door to the entry hall.
Seward turned his attention back to the room. The labor dispute had been resolved; the men had returned to their business, which mainly seemed to consist of installing a switch box on the wall next to the rack. Seward did not like to think what the Codifier would say when he discovered that his secretary’s wall had been drilled into. Some of the men were beginning to lay a line between the switch box and the generator in the next room.
“Mr. Wyatt!” called one of the men – a supervisor rather than a laborer, judging from his accent and the cut of his suit. “We can’t lay the line along the walls. These cave-rocks are too jagged; there’s too great a chance that the rocks would cut through the line.”
Mr. Wyatt sighed heavily, as though the electrical line had entered into conspiracy with his men. “Place it on the floor, then, but put coconut mats over it, so nobody will trip over it.”
The supervisor nodded and then said to the men nearby, “Go fetch the coconut mats, Wright. Flaherty, let’s lay this line as close to the corner of the room as we can. Yes, that’s right – lay it near to the wall, then along that wall, then along the third wall to the switch box. Keep it as far away from the rack as you can. Jimmy, don’t forget to be careful when you switch on the electricity. You know how Mr. Wyatt hates to pay death compensations.”
This brought laughter from the laborers and a frown from Mr. Wyatt, who was apparently unable to appreciate a joke at his expense. Seward waited two-thirds of an hour, until the line and the mats had been placed to the supervisor’s satisfaction; then he glanced at the High Seeker, who was deep in conversation with Mr. Wyatt. Seward sidled up to the supervisor.
The supervisor shook his head, though, when he learned what Seward wanted. “It’s not that I’m going to pretend that things couldn’t go wrong,” he said, “but believe me, we’ve learned from experience: it isn’t safe to touch the prisoner if something does go wrong. Bodies conduct electricity to one another, you know.”
“But if I had rubber gloves on—”
“Under such circumstances, the prisoner would be jerking like a live wire. It would be like trying to hold onto an eel – an electric eel. No, Mr. Sobel, the safest way to save the prisoner if something goes wrong is simply to shut down the generator. We’re trained to do so within two minutes of any crisis arising.”
“And how long,” asked Mr. Sobel, “can the prisoner survive under such circumstances?”
The supervisor gave him a quirk of a smile. “I wish I could tell you. But the truth is that this is a relatively new machine. We’ve only used it on monkeys so far, and an electrocuted monkey can’t be expected to live as long as an electrocuted human. . . . That prisoner who was supposed to be executed by electricity managed to survive for ninety seconds. We’ll just have to hope for the best.”
Mr. Sobel murmured his thanks and then stepped away, wondering whether he should tell the High Seeker that this rack was even more “modern” than Mr. Wyatt had indicated. But at that moment, Mr. Wyatt said, “We’re nearly ready now? Good. Mr. Smith, if you would care to begin. Ah, and this is your guard. Good, good. There’s no need for him to turn the wheel – the wheel is really there only for show, for the electricity regulates it all. I will push the proper buttons myself. But I’m sure your guard feels privileged to be present at the unveiling of so wonderful a machine.” He smiled at Mr. Sobel.
Seward made no reply. He waited until the moment when the High Seeker was sitting down in a chair in order to pull off his boots; then Seward went to the door to the entry hall and opened it.
Elsdon Taylor had just arrived. With his face-cloth down, his expression was hidden, but his body appeared to be as steady as usual.
“It’s an experimental model,” Seward warned him in an undertone. “It’s never been used before, except with animals.”
“Worse than we thought, eh?” Elsdon’s voice sounded understandably grim. “Is everything ready, then?”
“Yes. The High Seeker is just preparing to lie down on it.” Seward glanced over at Mr. Urman, who looked as though he wanted to kill someone, but who was nonetheless standing in guard position next to the door.
Mr. Taylor took a deep breath. Then he walked through the door, saying in a clear voice, “Don’t bother to remove your boots, High Seeker. I’m here to take your place.”
o—o—o
The High Seeker looked up from reading the Codifier’s note. Even with his hood hiding his expression, his stance was such that all of the laborers were staying very, very quiet.
“You convinced the Codifier to order this.” Mr. Smith’s voice was flat as he spoke to Elsdon Taylor.
“No, sir. I was the one who convinced him.”
Everyone turned to look at Seward, who was trying to keep his spine straight. Half the job of being a guard, he had always told the men he trained, is pretending to be brave in the face of certain death.
“You, Mr. Sobel?” Layle Smith’s voice was so quiet that even Mr. Taylor tensed.
Mr. Sobel took a deep breath. “Sir, you have a history of unfortunate interactions with machinery. And right now the Eternal Dungeon is in the midst of . . . matters that require your attention. The Codifier agreed with me that you could not be spared from your duties.”
The water in the hour-clock nearby dripped methodically. Seward kept his eyes lowered.
Finally the High Seeker said, “We will have words about this later, Mr. Sobel.” He turned back to Mr. Taylor. “Why you?”
“Because my healing leave doesn’t end until tomorrow.” As always, when fighting fiercely in battle, Mr. Taylor sounded calm and reasonable. “All of the other Seekers have prisoners assigned to them. I am the only Seeker who is currently free of duties.”
It was as clean a blow as the junior Seeker could have made. Layle Smith’s one weakness – if it could be called that – was that he would never act against the Code. The Code required that all active-duty Seekers, once they had begun a searching, continue to the end. The High Seeker, believing that he alone would be testing the rack, had not thought to arrange that any other Seekers be free of their prisoners on this night.
It had taken Seward quite a bit of coordination between himself, the Record-keeper, and Mr. Taylor to arrange that Mr. Wyatt’s demonstration should take place on the exact same night when the only two Seekers free of their searching duties would be Layle Smith and Elsdon Taylor. Otherwise, too great a chance existed that Mr. Smith would delay the rack-testing in order to “have time to select the proper Seeker,” and would use that time to change the Codifier’s mind.
Unfortunately, this was one of those times when the High Seeker was unlikely to appreciate the hard work that Seward had undertaken on his behalf.
“I must accede, it seems.” The High Seeker’s voice was frustrated and weary as he handed the Codifier’s note back to Elsdon Taylor. There was another note in his voice too, but it was buried so deep that several minutes passed before Seward realized what the hidden emotion must be.
It was eagerness.
o—o—o
A short time later, Mr. Taylor lay strapped to the rack. His voice sounded serenely unconcerned as the High Seeker checked his bindings, but Seward, who knew of the junior Seeker’s past experiences with being bound, could guess that Elsdon Taylor was having to exert all his discipline to keep from screaming.
“How do they feel?” asked the High Seeker. He too was putting on a charade of indifference. Seward prayed that none of the laborers would be foolish enough to steal a look at Layle Smith’s groin.
“Odd,” replied Elsdon Taylor, giving a few tentative tugs at the metal manacles upon the slack chains. “I’m used to leather straps. Even in the Hidden Dungeon, I was placed in those.”
A few of the laborers paused in their work, sta
ring at Elsdon Taylor. Unconcerned, Mr. Wyatt said, “Set the clock higher on the wall – yes, that’s right, so that we can all easily see the time taken during the demonstration. No, don’t worry about placing it near the switch; the clock is controlled by a battery. . . .”
The High Seeker’s voice held a frown as he replied, “We had metal manacles for the racks when you first arrived at this dungeon, you may recall. You were the one who convinced me to change them to a less dangerous material. And even back then, our manacles were padded. To allow yourself to be stretched through the use of bare metal . . .”
“It’s only a test, sir.”
Suddenly, Mr. Wyatt was at their side. “We can of course custom-make the manacles in any material you wish. And any color too. Perhaps a bright pink would liven up the dull colors of this prison. . . .”
Seward turned his attention away. The wiring was evidently finished: a great cable snaking its way along the edges of the room, mainly buried the coconut matting. The supervisor of Mr. Wyatt’s men had just finished connecting the cable to the switchbox on the wall to the left of the rack: the box was red, with a great, hand-sized switch, like a fire alarm. To the right of the rack, the doorway opened minutely as Mr. Urman peered in. Apparently satisfying himself that Mr. Taylor was not dead – yet – he closed the door again.
“Are preparations completed?” Mr. Wyatt asked his supervisor, who waved a hand and then ducked back into the Codifier’s office, from which the sounds of screeching and cranking and splashing continued. “Good, good. Mr. Smith, if you would care to throw the switch . . .”
The High Seeker stood very still. Seward held his breath until Layle Smith said, in a voice much too level, “Thank you, but no. I am not skilled with machinery. I will stand back while you and your men do your work.”
“Please stand very far back, sir.” Elsdon Taylor laughed, but for the first time his laughter held a hint of nervousness.
“Very far back,” the High Seeker agreed. “I will not interfere with the machinery. But I will remain in the room, in order to check that the experiment goes well.” As he spoke, he slid back, as soundlessly as one of the Hooded Seeker Fish, until he was in the far corner of the room, where some of the coconut mats lay piled.
Seward – accustomed at all times to surveying danger points – took a quick look around the room. In the southwest corner stood the door leading to the Codifier’s office. Nobody could enter through there who was not already in the Codifier’s office. In the southeast corner, another door led to the entry hall. Mr. Urman was guarding that, and by this stage of their acquaintance, Seward knew that Mr. Urman would guard the door to the limits of his ability. In the northeast corner, there was only Mr. Wyatt, the ticking clock on the wall, the switch, a small table with a dial-studded metal contraption on it, and Mr. Wyatt’s young assistant, who had evidently been granted the honor of flicking down the switch. Seward took a closer look at the youngster’s expression of concentration and then nodded, satisfied. The boy too would work to the limits of his ability, and Mr. Wyatt was close at hand should anything go wrong.
That left the northwest corner, the corner closest to the breaking cells, where the High Seeker stood absolutely motionless, like a connoisseur of music awaiting the first strain of a symphony.
If there was one thing certain in this world, Seward thought as he looked hastily away, it was that the High Seeker’s attention would not waver from Elsdon Taylor as the young man was racked.
“Begin,” said the High Seeker, so softly that the word might have been a mere wish, but Mr. Wyatt’s young assistant treated this as a signal: he pulled down the switch.
Nothing happened for a moment except that the clock continued to tick. It was one of the modern clocks that did not bother to mark the time intervals except at the thirds. Fully a third of a minute passed as Mr. Wyatt fiddled with the dials of the rack’s control mechanism. The dials looked like a miniature version of the dials at the Parkside Electrical Company, which Seward had toured upon its grand opening two years before.
Then Mr. Wyatt gave a satisfied grunt, and the rack chains began to clank as they moved.
They quickly grew taut. Elsdon drew in his breath audibly, then was quiet as the rack did its work.
“Mr. Taylor?” The High Seeker’s voice remained quiet; his gaze was unmoving from the figure on the rack.
“It’s smooth.” Elsdon Taylor sounded breathless but otherwise calm. “Much smoother than our racks are. Are we past the first level yet? Usually there’s a jerk when we reach the first notch of the rack’s wheel.”
“You just passed the second level,” Mr. Wyatt announced, smiling.
“Slow the pace, please, Mr. Wyatt. It is important for the prisoner’s safety that he not be stretched too quickly.” Mr. Smith did not turn his head to address the department-store manager as he spoke.
Elsdon gave a throaty laugh that sounded tighter than before. “Actually, I’d prefer that this was over as soon as possible. You know why, sir.”
So did Seward, and he was watching Elsdon Taylor anxiously; but there was no sign that the junior Seeker would panic as the manacles continued to bind his body to the rack. Perhaps, Seward thought, that was because of the unchanging shape of the metal manacles: they did not tighten around his wrists, as leather manacles would have done.
“Keep a moderate pace, then, Mr. Wyatt, but do not raise him above the sixth level,” the High Seeker said, his attention still wholly focussed on the figure on the rack. “It is not necessary to raise him all the way to the tenth level.”
So he said, but Seward could hear the longing in his voice. So could the watching laborers; they began to mutter amongst themselves.
“Quiet,” said the High Seeker, and the laborers’ comments cut off immediately.
“Code . . . requires . . . new instruments of torture . . . be tested to their limits.” Elsdon was struggling to speak now.
“These racks have been designed to meet Vovimian specifications,” Mr. Wyatt volunteered helpfully. “So we can take him all the way up to the thirtieth level—”
“No!” The horror and the longing permeated Layle Smith’s voice. Then, taking hold of himself with that whip-cracking self-discipline which had allowed him to rule a dungeon of torture for twenty-two years without destroying its prisoners, he added quietly, “I said six, and we have reached that level.” Mr. Wyatt blinked, evidently disconcerted by the High Seeker’s ability to judge a level simply by watching a prisoner on the rack. “Slacken the chains, please, Mr. Wyatt. Mr. Taylor, you are the prisoner in this experiment; please do not attempt to argue.”
Elsdon Taylor made no reply; from where Seward stood, he could see that Mr. Taylor was beginning to struggle to breathe. Seward took a quick glance at the clock; its minute hand had barely moved. A dangerously quick stretching, but there was no sign that Elsdon Taylor had undergone serious damage, and his greatest suffering – his fear of bondage – would be over soon.
Mr. Wyatt heaved a sigh, spun a dial, and the chains began to slacken. Stepping away from the control mechanism, he said, “Well, that is a great shame. If you were to see how smoothly this tool works at even the highest levels . . .”
As he spoke, Mr. Wyatt moved round the rack, his bulky frame blocking Mr. Smith’s view. Frowning, the High Seeker moved forward in order to keep Mr. Taylor in sight, his gaze never leaving the rack. Thus it was that Layle Smith, the most agile and alert of men, tripped upon the power cord, which was peeking out from one of the coconut mats.
He did not fall, of course. The High Seeker never fell. But he stumbled, dragging the cord forward. Clearly irritated and too absorbed in his love-mate’s ordeal to pay attention to so small a distraction, the High Seeker tried to shake the cord off his foot. This only resulted in him stumbling forward again. He did not notice that the power cord was thus being dragged out of its safe corner.
“Sir, no!”
Seward’s shout of warning came too late. Dragged inexorably forward by the H
igh Seeker, the cord reached one of the razor-thin legs at the bottom of the rack, and with a shower of sparks, the cord divided into two.
And with that division came a demon of death.
o—o—o
Seward was never sure, afterwards, whether he actually saw what he remembered, or whether, as seemed more likely, his memories were drawn from the collective testimony of all who gave witness before the Codifier, with Seward in attendance in order to answer any questions the Codifier had about that testimony. Certainly no man could have seen everything that happened in that short time . . . with the likely exception of the High Seeker.
The sparks travelled with demon speed, up the rack leg and onto the frame. Seward did not see the exact moment when the electricity reached the now-slackened chains, but he heard Elsdon Taylor’s scream.
And then there was no sound from the junior Seeker – only convulsion after convulsion as the demon electricity ravished his body.
Nearby, Mr. Wyatt was shouting to his young assistant, “No, don’t touch the switch, you idiot boy! It’s live! Mathcett—”
But Seward did not wait to hear whether there was a response from Mr. Wyatt’s supervisor, who was tending the generator next door. Layle Smith was the fastest man in the Eternal Dungeon; the only way to be quicker than him was to anticipate where he would go next, and to be there first.
And so it was that, when the High Seeker succeeded in freeing himself from the cord and raced toward the rack, he found his way blocked by his senior night guard.
Seward did not feel any need to say anything. He knew that the High Seeker knew why he was there. Seward’s hand was in his pocket, but before he could decide whether to draw the gun, Mr. Smith uttered a loud huff of exasperation and turned away—
—and kept turning, spinning on his heel so fast that neither Seward nor any other witness saw the moment when Layle Smith’s booted foot swung round and kicked Seward Sobel in the groin.
Inborn quick reflexes and three decades of guardwork saved Seward from losing the ability to father more children; he jerked back so fast that Layle Smith’s boot merely grazed him. But being grazed by the High Seeker’s kick was like being grazed by a bullet. He went down with sparks of pain eating his loins. Only thirty years of training kept him from screaming louder than Elsdon Taylor had. The greatest pain, though, was not in his body. It was in his single thought:
He had failed. He had failed to save the Queen’s heir from death, and now he had failed to save the High Seeker.
He was lying on his back, clutching his groin, with his eyes open in slits. He expected to see Mr. Smith leap over him in a final, fatal swiftness that would join his deadly fate with Elsdon Taylor’s. Instead, Seward felt a hand on his belt, tugging. In the next moment, Mr. Smith had freed the whip. Its lash spun forward, with seemingly no effort, toward the power cord, which was still latched to the rack like a demon clutching at its favorite toy.
The whip snaked round the cord and jerked it back, far enough that the connection between the flowing electricity and the rack was cut. Mr. Taylor gave one final convulsion and was still.
The room, which a moment before had been filled with shouts, was now silent as a tomb as everyone turned to look at the High Seeker. The clock showed that less than one-third a minute had passed since the emergency began. Seward, who had recovered enough that he could now turn his head, expected to see the High Seeker rush toward the rack.
He did not. That was what Seward remembered until the end of his life: the High Seeker did not immediately rush forward to check on his love-mate. Instead, Layle Smith knelt next to his senior night guard and put his hand on Seward’s shoulder. “Are you all right, Mr. Sobel?” he asked.
Seward managed to nod. The High Seeker squeezed his shoulder in a manner that Seward recognized as thanks; then Mr. Smith rose swiftly, still clutching Seward’s whip. He made his way over to the rack, where the laborers were beginning to cluster.
When they saw him coming, they made way for him with alacrity. The minute hand of the clock reached its apex, and the electric wire ceased dancing and sparking. The laborers’ supervisor, emerging from the Codifier’s office with sweat on his face from his recent exertions at stopping the generator hastily, took one look at the situation and softly whistled the men into order. They departed the room silently, passing Mr. Urman, who was standing white-faced in the open doorway, staring at the rack, from which no sound came.
Chains clanked as the High Seeker freed Mr. Taylor from his bondage. Seward managed to pull himself to his feet. A crowd of dungeon-dwellers was beginning to gather at the doorway, but they were being held back by the High Seeker’s day guards, whom Mr. Urman must have recruited to help him in the emergency. Seward managed to catch Mr. Urman’s eye. He mouthed a single word to the junior guard: “Healer.” Mr. Urman nodded, and he raced away.
Seward turned his attention to the remaining men in the room. He could see Elsdon Taylor now: the junior Seeker was motionless on the rack, his eyes closed. The High Seeker, standing next to him, had his left hand circled round Mr. Taylor’s wrist, though it wasn’t clear whether this was meant as a means to take Mr. Taylor’s pulse, or to provide comfort, or to mourn the dead, or for some other, darker purpose.
The meaning of his right hand was all too clear, however.
Mr. Wyatt was fluttering about the High Seeker, like a scarf that flutters in the wind, continually blinding one. “You understand,” he said, “you understand that this is just our display model. The rack we will sell you has more advanced features. Its legs are rounded, to avoid injury, and it has a mechanism to shut off the machinery, should there be—”
“Sir.” Reaching the scene quickly, Seward took firm hold of Mr. Wyatt’s arm.
“What? What? Unhand me, man!” Mr. Wyatt glared at Seward.
Seward did not release him. “Sir, are you familiar with the ballads of the Mad High Seeker?”
“What?” Mr. Wyatt spluttered. “Of course I am. Everyone has heard those old tales. I fail to see why . . .”
His voice trailed off. He had followed Seward’s gaze, which was quite pointedly focussed on the High Seeker’s hand, white-knuckled as Layle Smith continued to clench Seward’s whip.
Seward steered Mr. Wyatt toward the door. “If you will come this way, sir,” he said firmly, “I will be glad to sing you a few of the ballads you may have missed.”
Mr. Wyatt did not wait to hear more. Mumbling something about business – very important business that awaited him at his store – he fled through the doorway.
Seward paused to look back. Elsdon Taylor remained motionless. So was the High Seeker, his head bowed to stare down at the rack. Seward quietly closed the door, to allow Layle Smith to be alone with his love-mate.
As he did so, he turned, and at that moment, two things happened. One was that Mr. Urman shoved his way through the crowd, with the healer running at his heels. The other was that, from the corridor leading to the prisoners’ cells, Mr. Boyd emerged.
On his face was an expression that made Seward’s heart sink.
o—o—o
o—o—o
Codifier: The person charged with enforcing the ethical standards of the Code of Seeking. In the absence of the Codifier, the High Seeker is in charge of determining whether activities in the Eternal Dungeon violate the foundational standards of the Code of Seeking.
—Glossary to Psychologists with Whips: A History of the Eternal Dungeon.
On Guard 9
DECISION
Barrett Boyd
The year 360, the tenth month. (The year 1881 Fallow by the Old Calendar.)
One question I am often asked in the classroom is how the Eternal Dungeon came to be structured along military lines. The answer is simple: Yclau’s royal dungeon originated as a military enquiry unit. It was set up, many centuries before it adopted the name of the Eternal Dungeon, as a means to question enemy soldiers who had been captured. As we might expect from those primitive times, the method
s of enquiry were brutal.
Gradually, as the Thousand Years’ War between Yclau and Vovim became punctuated by longer and longer intervals of peace, the Queen’s torturers began devoting more of their attention to enemies of the state, and then, at the beginning of the modern era, to prisoners who were believed to have committed especially heinous crimes. At no point, though, did the royal dungeon cease to be regarded as a military unit; to the final years of the Thousand Years’ War, it continued to question military prisoners who could not be broken by other army investigators. It may be recalled that Layle Smith’s first prisoner after he returned to his duties as High Seeker in the year 359 was one such man, Thatcher Owen.
The Code of Seeking bears testimony to the dungeon’s military origins, for example in the passage that permitted condemned prison workers to opt for a military punishment. But even without such clauses, it is clear that many of the workers in the Eternal Dungeon were familiar with military discipline, for many of those workers came from military backgrounds. Layle Smith’s father was a soldier, and the High Seeker would no doubt have heard tales from his father about the importance of discipline in the army. Layle Smith’s senior night guard, Seward Sobel, had formerly served as a member of the Queen’s guard, an army unit. Elsdon Taylor’s senior night guard, Barrett Boyd, had been a soldier for three years before he became a prison guard. It cannot be said, therefore, that these men were unaware of the consequences for disobedience . . .
—Psychologists with Whips: A History of the Eternal Dungeon.
The Eternal Dungeon: a Turn-of-the-Century Toughs omnibus Page 92