CHAPTER TWO
The man at the desk, with a worldweary expression and with a whip at his hip, said, “I don’t like this.”
In the Hidden Dungeon, if the High Master said, “I don’t like this,” someone was sure to be bound to a whipping post before long. Layle braced himself.
The High Torturer of the Eternal Dungeon sighed as he pushed the Queen’s note further back on his desk. “I don’t like this,” he repeated. “The Eternal Dungeon has always chosen its own. We’ve only had one case in recent years of the Queen pressing a candidate upon us: that was a highly skilled guard who had worked faithfully for the Queen, who had been showered with awards, and whose sense of honor was agreed to be of the highest degree. In this case . . .” He gestured toward the only other man in the room, namely Layle.
Taking care not to meet the High Torturer’s gaze straight on, Layle said, “Sir, her graciousness said that you possess the right to reject me. If you do not wish me here, I will be glad to leave.”
“Hmm.” The High Torturer tapped his desk with a highly prosaic object, namely an unsharpened pencil. Layle, who could have named a dozen ways in which to torture a prisoner with an unsharpened pencil, kept his gaze lowered. “Yes, I see. You used that abject tone of voice, I suppose, when you were persuading the Queen that you were an innocent youth who had made a few mistakes and deserved a second chance?”
Layle offered no response. The truth was, the whole episode with the Queen was now becoming muddled in his mind; he could not have sworn, on oath to the gods, that his dark desire had not arranged his conduct during that interview. He had become all too aware, during his journey to Yclau, how little control he had over that part of himself.
“Lies, lies, and more bloody lies,” said the High Torturer. “You convict yourself further every time you speak. What would it take, I wonder, to penetrate that barrier of your falsehoods and discover what dwells behind it?”
“The last man who tried that,” said Layle, whose neck was beginning to develop a crick, “had to use a rack to succeed. I understand that your racks here aren’t as good as the ones in Vovim, but perhaps if you placed me on a rack for three times as long as the Vovimian one, quantity would make up for quality.”
The High Torturer was silent for a moment, while outside his office, shouts and laughter continued. Then he gave a soft chuckle. “You must have been a real handful for your previous work-master,” he said. “What are you thinking? That I wouldn’t know one of the oldest methods of breaking, namely goading a prisoner till he loses his temper and gives you what you want? —How old did you say you were?”
“Eighteen years and eight months, sir.”
The High Torturer shook his head. “You must have been nurtured in deception in your cradle to have reached where you are at such a young age.”
“No, sir.” His response was swift, automatic.
The High Torturer, who had been about to toss the Queen’s note into the rubbish, raised his eyebrows. “No?”
“Not from . . . Not at home, sir. I didn’t learn deception there. That came later.”
“Hmm.” The High Torturer’s eyes narrowed, and Layle thought to himself that he might as well write out his life story if he were going to begin volunteering information that the High Torturer could use against him. “You’re an orphan, the Queen said?”
“Yes, sir.” So she had not told him the full story. That was an unexpected gift from Mercy’s grace.
“You were corrupted by bad company, I suppose?” The High Torturer’s voice was bland.
He raised his eyes then. The office was dim, the oil lamp revealing the many expensive furnishings crammed into the small space. He met the High Torturer’s gaze squarely. “Only my own, sir.”
The High Torturer tapped his pencil a half dozen times before waving his hand. “All right, wait outside.”
He waited to see whether any further instructions were forthcoming, but the High Torturer had already turned his attention to the book he had been reading when Layle arrived. Layle recognized the book as being the Code of Seeking. That, more than anything else, told him what sort of place he now dwelt in.
Though from the looks of it, he thought as he pushed closed the office door behind him, he wouldn’t be in this place for long. Unless, of course, the High Torturer chose to lock him in a cell.
Sighing, Layle leaned back against the wall next to the High Torturer’s office, closing his ears to the raucous commotion in front of him. It had come as a shock to him to discover on the previous day that the Queen had no intention of hanging him. A technicality, he was given to understand by her secretary, due to the fact that Layle’s killings as an adult were not considered murder under Vovimian law, which had governed him until his arrival in Yclau.
“Which is not to say,” announced the Queen, “that I am allowing your past to go unpunished. I think you will find that what you consider a reward will in fact cause far deeper pain than if I had simply hanged you.”
Dimly, he was beginning to understand what she had meant. If he had been executed the previous day, repentant for his deeds of the past, his life’s memory would have been severed in a short time, and he would have begun his new life with little or no memory of what he had done in the past. Here in the Eternal Dungeon, though, the constant presence of prisoners would keep sharp the memory of his previous dark deeds. And that, in turn, would keep alive the darkness within him. . . .
He forced himself to open his eyes. Many men crowded the entry hall to the Eternal Dungeon, but even through the haze of tobacco smoke, it was easy to identify which ones were the torturers. They wore black hoods over their heads – albeit with the face-cloths presently flung back – and they carried whips looped and hooked at their belts, some at the right hand and some at the left. Their high-collared jackets were made of rich silk, with gold braiding on their shoulders and with the newly fashionable frog-work fastening shut their jackets. They wore gleaming riding boots whose only purpose must be to show off their high rank, unless horses were hidden in this underground dungeon. The guards in the entry hall were easily identified too, not only because they carried daggers at their hips, but because they were less richly dressed than the torturers: their jackets were of grey worsted.
Layle frowned. He liked to think that he was a person who could see beyond outward appearances – could tell when someone dressed in haughty clothes was actually meek and on the point of breaking – but outward appearances counted a great deal in the art of torture. It seemed to him that the uniform the Eternal Dungeon’s torturers wore – rich silk, as though they were high-born courtiers – clashed with the humility that the Code of Seeking enjoined upon the torturers. What was it that the Code said again? “A torturer is little more than a prisoner himself . . .” What a halfhearted way of phrasing it. The Code ought to say flatly, “Torturers are prisoners,” and it ought to say so straightaway, so that anyone reading the Code would be left in no doubt, from the beginning, as to the status of this dungeon’s torturers.
Or was he simply projecting his own situation onto the other torturers here?
He scanned again the entry hall, which had rocky walls and a ceiling so high that he could not see the top amidst the shadows. Yes, the torturers’ clothing bothered him, and so did the fact that the face-cloths of their hoods were raised. He had read in the Code that the torturers must cover their faces when torturing their prisoners; once he had understood the reason for that, the rule had made sense. But did the authors of the Code really think that the moment of torture was the only time when a prisoner might read the mood of a torturer from his expression? If Layle was a prisoner destined to be tortured (and perhaps that is the case now, part of him whispered), he would be gleaning information about the man who searched him from the moment that he first glimpsed his torturer.
And the information he would glean from the current set of torturers . . . Layle narrowed his eyes. He was barely conscious that he had taken the stance he did when searching prisoners: his feet
planted far apart, his arms crossed, his expression hard as he scrutinized his victim. He did not like what he saw.
If he were a prisoner, if he was destined to be tortured in one of the cells here, he was quite sure that none of the torturers or guards here would intimidate him. All of them looked idle and slightly bored; several were exchanging coarse jests with one another.
And that was another problem: the level of noise in the hall. Layle thought back to his own initial entrance into Vovim’s royal dungeon: the dark corridors where the only sound was the scream of prisoners from behind locked doors. He did not want to turn the Eternal Dungeon into the Hidden Dungeon, but there was nothing about this brightly lit hall, filled with careless chatter and laughter, that would intimidate him if he were to be searched. On the contrary, it would lend him hope that he could escape the worst. And with hope would come a determination to fight his torturer.
He glanced over at the Record-keeper, sitting at his desk near the High Torturer’s office – the only man in this room who seemed to actually have some duties. As Layle watched, a young boy, dressed in the frilly costume of a palace page, dumped a stack of papers on the Record-keeper’s desk before turning and trotting back up the steps to the palace above.
“More?” said the Record-keeper, but his voice was resigned. He was a young man, not much older than Layle, but with spectacles that made him look prematurely mature. He cast a tired look at the new stack of papers and then continued work on one of the many stacks already on his desk.
Layle slid silently behind him – taking care to avoid smudging chalk on the slate-tablet on the wall behind the Record-keeper – and bowed his head so that he could see what work was being done. The Record-keeper was simply making a copy of a routine document, requesting more fuel to be delivered to the dungeon – a sad waste of his training. “Can’t you get one of the apprentices to do that?” Layle asked.
The Record-keeper jerked with surprise, and then glared over his shoulder at Layle. “What are you talking about?” he asked shortly.
Layle – who had been reminding himself that he really must break his habit of creeping up on colleagues at work – opened his mouth and then shut it. This was not the Hidden Dungeon, where a third of the torturers were apprentice boys, whose idleness and arrogance could be stemmed by putting them to work at dull tasks. But if there were no apprentices . . .
“How in the names of . . . How are you going to get through all that work?” Layle just managed to catch himself in time from uttering a Vovimian oath. He made a note to himself that he must learn all of the Yclau oaths. Or was it even proper for a torturer in the Eternal Dungeon to casually swear?
The Record-keeper sighed heavily. “Who knows? The previous man in my position was sacked because he couldn’t keep up with the work. No doubt I’ll be turned out within a month.”
He sounded glum and without hope. Layle, gazing out again upon the torturers and guards who were jesting and gossiping, felt a slow burn of anger begin in him. He could do nothing about the torturers, of course. But the other men in this hall . . .
A group of guards nearby were shouting with excitement over the results of the latest draw of their domino bones on one of the entry hall’s tables. Layle supposed that there was not a group of guards anywhere in the world who would not waste their time in bones-games if given the opportunity. Layle had always received a special pleasure out of flogging such loafing guards in the Hidden Dungeon. Now he walked over to the group. Reminding himself that he was a guest here, he said in his mildest voice (which would have sent chills down the spine of anyone who knew him well), “If you’ve nothing else to do, why not help the Record-keeper? He’s burdened with more work than he can handle.”
The guards turned toward him. They were dressed in a lackadaisical manner: their jackets were unbuttoned, their old-fashioned cravats were untied, and their boots were dirty. They looked blankly at Layle till one of them put voice to the general sentiment: “Who the bloody blades are you to tell us what we should be doing?”
One of the guards, who was resting his boots on a chair as he sipped from a mug of what smelled like rum, said in a nonchalant manner, “He’s right, you know.”
This produced groans from the listeners. Another guard, scooping up his winnings at the bones-game, said, “Oh, sweet blood. Don’t get all dutiful and goody-good on us.”
The other guard simply smiled serenely as he set down his mug. “Go,” he said. “Earn your pay for a change. That goes for the rest of you too.” He addressed the remaining guards.
They groaned loudly, and protested, and even cursed the guard, but they went, saving their final curses for Layle. Layle watched them go, ticking off in his mind how many lashes each of them needed in order to be taken into hand. Then he turned his attention to the guard who possessed mysterious power over the others.
Like the Record-keeper, he was young, no more than a decade older than Layle, and he was somewhat less careless of his appearance than the other guards. His voice was easygoing as he said, “You’re the new man that the Queen sent us, aren’t you? Welcome to the Eternal Dungeon.” Without lifting his boots from the chair, he offered his arm in greeting.
Layle simply looked at him. Apparently, his looks had the same power here as they did on the guards in the Hidden Dungeon, because after a moment, the guard began to look uneasy. He dropped his arm.
Layle waited another minute – timing was everything – before asking in his politest, chilliest voice, “Is it considered proper in the Eternal Dungeon for guards to introduce themselves to their superiors while remaining seated?”
Without moving from his place, the guard lifted his eyebrows. “You’re not a torturer here yet. And even if you become one, it will be a considerable number of years before you’re higher in rank than I am. Anyway” – he smiled, as though trying to take away the sting of his rebuke – “we’re not formal, here in the Eternal Dungeon.”
Layle let his gaze drift away from the guard. “Maybe that’s the problem.”
A new prisoner was just arriving, escorted down the stairs by visiting guards. His arms were bound behind him, and he appeared scared. Then he looked round the bright room, with its mindless chatter, and his expression transformed into hardness and a certain amount of smugness. He actually laughed when he reached the Record-keeper’s desk.
Layle turned his attention back to the guard. The guard had his attention focussed on the prisoner too; another look of uncertainty had travelled over his face. He slowly looked back at Layle. Layle stood with his arms crossed, saying nothing.
The guard took his feet off the chair. He rose. Stiffly he said, “I am Seward Sobel . . . sir.”
“Mr. Sobel.” He was not actually sure how guards were addressed in this dungeon, but the Code seemed so preoccupied with the dignity of the prisoners that it seemed likewise appropriate for Layle to address the guards in a formal manner. “I am glad to make your acquaintance.”
The guard began to reply to this, then stopped. “Excuse me, sir,” he murmured. “The High Torturer has need of me.”
Layle turned and saw that the High Torturer had stepped out of his office; the man was beckoning impatiently toward Seward Sobel, who slipped over to his side with a graceful glide that caused Layle to reassess him. Though, really, he told himself, he should not underestimate the powers of a guard who had the ability to break up a bones-game with minimal fuss.
He looked round the hall again. The guards he had addressed earlier were sitting at another table now, loudly complaining as they penned documents. Layle watched them for a while, but they were doing their work amidst the complaints, so he let them be. He was more concerned about the remaining guards, some of whom were beginning to mock the workers.
“How in the names of Mercy and Hell has this dungeon managed to function till now?” Layle muttered under his breath. The lack of discipline he was witnessing would have been unthinkable in the Hidden Dungeon, where the High Master was quick to lash any guard
found neglecting his duties. Layle supposed that the idleness here represented the greater freedom which the Code permitted to its guards and torturers, but surely freedom need not mean anarchy.
He approached some of the guards engaged in hooting at the “duty boys,” who were turning red-faced at this onslaught of public opinion against them. Sliding softly up to them, Layle said, “Surely you have better things to do than make mock at men who are—”
The rest of his words were lost amidst the loud hoots. “Get out of my way, boy.” One of the guards, who was wearing civilian clothes, grinned and gave Layle a shove.
The sudden silence in the hall was so complete that Layle could hear the flutter of some sort of winged creatures on the dark ceiling above. He looked down at the mocking guard, who was now whimpering at his feet. The other guards were staring at him, as they might stare at a dog that frothed at the mouth.
Feeling a familiar sense of excitement and an unfamiliar sense of shame, Layle said quietly, “I apologize, Mr. . . .”
His victim continued to whimper at his feet. A nearby guard, white-faced, said, “That’s Abraham Longmire. He’s the torturer in charge of the day shift – he’s second in command to the High Torturer.”
Layle gathered that he had just made the worst possible enemy, but he kept his mind from the implications of that. “I apologize, Mr. Longmire. I did not mean to lose my temper like that. But you really must take care not to use force on anyone unless you are prepared for the possibility that the other person will use force in return.”
“What I’ve been telling him for years.” There was gruff respect in the voice of a torturer who had been listening in on the conversation. The nearby guards were avoiding his eye.
Layle was used to that. He glanced round. The rest of the hall was beginning to return to what it considered normal, though the conversation was more subdued than before, and a number of the men in the entry hall were casting wary glances his way. None seemed inclined to interfere with him, though the act that Layle had just committed would have gotten him bound to the High Torturer’s whipping post within seconds, had he committed it in the Hidden Dungeon.
Layle thought with longing of the strict rules of the Hidden Dungeon, the hard measures taken by Master Aeden to keep his young assistant in line. Layle had been fettered there, and a good thing too, or he would have murdered a score of men before his first week in the dungeon was completed.
Now he had nothing holding him back except his desire to serve the Queen and her Code with loyalty.
Feeling sick, he leaned down and tried to help the torturer to his feet. “Are you all right, Mr. Longmire?”
“No, I’m not bloody all right, you fucking—” Mr. Longmire shoved Layle’s hand back, struggling to his feet as he continued to curse. A few of the curses, as it happened, were accurate – Layle was indeed a low-born Vovimian bastard – but he did not allow that fact to be reflected on his face; he kept his expression icy.
After a while, Mr. Longmire seemed to realize that his curses were having no effect. Dusting himself off, he grumbled, “I’ll see that you’re beaten for this.”
So the High Torturer’s whipping post did come into use occasionally? That was helpful to know. Layle said simply, “I will be glad to submit myself to any punishment that the High Torturer considers necessary.”
The guards were eyeing him askance now, obviously unable to figure out this young man who alternated between sudden violence and polite submission. Finally, one of them decided upon an appropriate response. “I’m bored. We might as well do documentwork while we’re waiting for new prisoners to arrive.”
“Good idea,” said another guard, trying manfully to ignore the fact that he and the other guards had been mocking such advice a moment before. “I’ll get some pens from the Record-keeper.”
o—o—o
An hour later, the High Torturer stepped out of the Codifier’s office. He barely noticed his junior night guard’s quiet word of farewell as they parted company; he was busy looking round at the still entry hall, where the loudest sound was the scratching of pens. Every guard in the entry hall was sitting in front of documents; the torturers had left the hall altogether.
Finally the High Torturer made his way over to the desk of the Record-keeper and asked, “What is going on here?”
“A miracle,” replied the Record-keeper. Without looking up from one of the few documents left on his desk, he pointed in the direction of Layle, who was now softly suggesting to a guard that he might want to fasten his jacket.
The High Torturer looked thoughtfully at the young Vovimian for a while before approaching him.
o—o—o
Layle was unsettled by the success he was having in bringing order to the entry hall. He had never tried anything like this before. Disorder had been his goal in the Hidden Dungeon. He had gone beyond the usual boyish pranks that the master torturers were accustomed to receive from their apprentices; the master torturers had learned to be exceedingly wary of Layle when he smiled up at them, even before he reached his journeyman years. Many a master torturer had awakened from what he had thought would be a spell of wine and lovemaking with a splitting headache and the realization that he had given up his wallet to his overnight visitor.
Master Aeden alone had been immune to Layle’s seductions, if only because he knew what Layle’s background had been prior to his arrival at the Hidden Dungeon. “You are a rapist and a murderer,” Master Aeden had once said flatly to him when no one was around to listen, “and I will treat you as such until you learn to behave properly.”
He wondered what Master Aeden would think to find him here, trying to teach the Eternal Dungeon’s guards to behave properly. Then he cast aside all thoughts of the roughly affectionate master torturer. Layle had known, when he fled the Hidden Dungeon, that he would lose the one man in the world who was willing to remain faithful to him, despite what he was. And he had known that, after all he had done over the years, he deserved nothing less than this loss.
He was contemplating this – was thinking of how little he deserved to be standing free in this dungeon – when he heard his name and turned to see the High Torturer beckoning him. He quickly made his way over to the High Torturer, who had not waited to see whether his command was obeyed, but had immediately walked to a door in the rocky wall of the entry hall.
There were guards in front of the door. Layle had noted this the moment he arrived in the entry hall – he was accustomed to counting the exits in any room he entered – and he had therefore assumed that the door led to the dungeon’s prison cells. But when the High Torturer, stepping unchallenged past the guards, opened the door, Layle glimpsed a neat, book-lined office not unlike the High Torturer’s, except that there was a second set of guards watching over a door at the back of the room.
This much he saw before he was pricked by the daggers of the first set of guards.
Reminding himself that he was not to kill anyone in this dungeon, Layle stepped back and eyed the guards with curiosity. They appeared to hold no special animosity against him; the moment he was out of range of the door, they silently sheathed their daggers again. He noticed, however, that they had guns strapped to their right hips – the only guns he had seen in the dungeon so far.
The High Torturer, who had begun to step through the doorway, paused and said to the guards, “He’s wanted inside.”
“We’ve had no instructions, sir.” The guard’s voice was polite but firm. Layle made a mental note that there was at least one guard in this dungeon who knew his business.
The High Torturer sighed. “Edwins?”
An older man appeared in the frame of the doorway, holding a book. Even without seeing his ink-stained hands, Layle would have known he was a secretary; he had the look about him of a man who has been bothered at important business. “You should have requested a pass for him,” he said to the High Torturer.
The High Torturer accepted this scolding silently, though with a frown. The
secretary said to the guards, “He’s wanted inside.”
The chief guard, without moving his gaze from Layle, said, “You will strip yourself, sir.”
Layle glanced at the High Torturer to see whether the guard was making mock, but the High Torturer simply said to the guard in a weary voice, “Will you at least let him past you so that he can have privacy as he strips?”
“No,” replied the guard. “We’ve been warned about him.”
Again, there appeared to be no animosity in him; his tone was businesslike. Fascinated, Layle stripped himself of his clothes, glancing once over his shoulder to see what the reaction was of the other men in the entry hall. A few of them were eyeing him – that was hardly surprising, given his age and his looks – but nobody seemed particularly surprised that he should be taking off his clothes. He gathered that this ritual was not unknown.
He and his clothes were searched with ruthless efficiency before he was permitted into the secretary’s room. Then he was searched again by the second set of guards. By now thoroughly intrigued as to his destination, Layle gathered up his clothes and his dignity and stepped into the room beyond the second set of guards.
The first thing he saw was Seward Sobel, standing with his back to the door, his head bowed as he listened to someone speaking to him from the desk that he stood in front of. With his back now pricking with warning, Layle stepped closer until he could see the man behind the desk.
“Josh,” said the High Torturer, coming forward as the guards closed the door behind them, “here he is. Layle, I believe that you have already met our Codifier . . .”
But Layle barely heard him; still naked, he was standing aghast, staring at the man behind the desk. He blurted out, “I thought you were the Queen’s secretary!”
“I am,” said the Codifier in an unperturbed fashion, folding his hands upon his desk.
The High Torturer inserted, “It is customary for the Queen’s secretary to serve as our Codifier. Our current Codifier is in the process of resigning from his other duties, however, so that he can devote full time to supervising the Eternal Dungeon.” From the tone in his voice, it did not appear that the High Torturer approved of this decision.
Layle, remembering belatedly that he ought to clothe himself, pulled his undervest over his head as he felt his heart sink. Of all the men in the world he should have antagonized, he had chosen the Eternal Dungeon’s Codifier. The Codifier, who was appointed to enforce the Code of Seeking. The man who had greater power in this dungeon than even the High Torturer.
The man who could no doubt order his arrest the moment he believed that Layle had failed to serve the Queen with loyalty.
He had, perhaps, five minutes left before that eventuality. He decided to spend the time in a useful fashion. “Useful,” in Layle’s vocabulary, meant marking the exits and the weapons in this room.
There was not much here to cheer his heart. Like the entry hall, this “room” in the underground dungeon was no more than an untamed cavern; the Codifier’s desk was located near a waterfall and pool. Any weapons here were artfully hidden, though Layle eyed the stalagmites hopefully for a moment before deciding they were too thick to be wrenched from the ground. One exit was behind him, too heavily guarded to be of use to him. The only other exit was what appeared to be a bank vault at the back of the room. He could take hostages—
It was at this venture that he remembered that he was here, not as a prisoner taken captive unwillingly, but as a self-confessed criminal who had agreed to any punishment that the Queen deemed necessary. Feeling his doom closing in on him, he concentrated his attention on the Queen’s representative.
The Codifier appeared to enjoy lingering punishments, for he was sitting back in his chair, remaining silent as the High Torturer said, “Well, young Layle, I can’t say that it’s been easy to make a decision over what to do with you. Normally, any torturer who is new to this dungeon is given a period of training, during which his performance is under scrutiny. If he is judged unworthy of the traditions of the Code, he is released from his training and is usually permitted to depart from this dungeon.”
“Usually,” emphasized the Codifier.
“As you say, Josh,” agreed the High Torturer. “We guard our secrets of searching well; if we believe that a torturer-in-training will blab those secrets to the world, he is sentenced to isolation in a life prison. We do not have that problem very often,” he added dryly. “The torturers we consider to be potential dangers are never allowed to enter this dungeon.”
“But in this case . . .” The Codifier delicately left the sentence unfinished.
“In your case, we have decided that you cannot be trusted with even the power of a torturer-in-training unless we are reasonably certain that you have the ability to complete your training.” As he spoke, the High Torturer seated himself in the only remaining chair. “Therefore, with the agreement of the Codifier, I am setting a test for you. I will allow you to search a prisoner. You will be judged by your performance in searching that prisoner. If you pass the test, you will be accepted as a torturer-in-training, with all the accompanying supervision and discipline which comes with that position.”
“Yes, sir,” said Layle, whose back was not unfamiliar with the taste of a whip.
There was a pause. The waterfall gurgled, one of the guards outside spoke to somebody, the Codifier’s pocket-watch ticked. Mr. Sobel, though he had stepped aside to allow the Codifier full access to the new arrival, had not yet looked at Layle. Layle waited, wondering what the others expected him to say.
The High Torturer added, “The prisoner I am giving you is an important one. We have evidence that he has committed a rape against the Queen’s own niece. The evidence is enough to convict him; however, the Queen wants a full confession so that the prisoner cannot weasel out of his deeds when he is brought before the magistrate. We have instructions from the Queen to break the prisoner thoroughly, using whatever methods we deem necessary.”
“Yes, sir,” he replied in an easy manner. He had thought that the transition from Vovimian torturer to Yclau torturer would be more difficult than this, but evidently the High Torturer was giving him a simple case for his test. Break the prisoner. Use any methods necessary. Layle could carry out such instructions in his sleep.
The High Seeker added, “I understand that you have already met my senior-most guard, Seward Sobel.”
Layle felt the desire then to slit the throats of all the men in front of him. Such an impulse was his natural reaction when he found himself in a bad position, even though he knew that he was the one who was to blame in this case.
The Codifier, the High Torturer, Mr. Longmire, Mr. Sobel . . . Gods above and below, he’d managed to anger or alienate all four of the highest-ranked men in this dungeon. He doubted he could have changed matters where the Codifier and the High Torturer were concerned, but surely he possessed enough intelligence that he could have checked who was in charge here before he began issuing indiscriminate reprimands.
Mr. Sobel had enough mercy not to laugh openly at him. The High Torturer continued, “Sobel has the authority to stop any activities you engage in. I want you to understand that. You will obey any order he gives you in the breaking cell, and if you do not, you will be placed under arrest and charged with whatever crime seems appropriate. You are not to act as you did in your previous workplace.”
“Yes, sir.” He wondered what the three men in front of him thought he was going to do – rape his prisoner?
Probably. They must know how breakings were conducted in the Hidden Dungeon, if only because Layle had taken such care to inform the Queen.
But did they understand that he had acted under orders in the Hidden Dungeon? That Master Aeden would have beaten him bloody – and had, on more than one occasion – if he’d deviated from those orders in the slightest? From what Layle had seen so far, he possessed far more self-discipline than any other torturer in this dungeon.
He had enough sense not to say thi
s. The three men were waiting again, apparently expecting him to say more, but he could not figure out what it was they wanted him to say. He had been given orders; he had promised to obey them. Did they want his baubles as surety for his promise?
He was perilously close to smiling. And then he knew, from the narrowing of the Codifier’s eyes, that he had passed over that line.
But all that the Codifier said was, “You will need this.” He pushed something over his desk: a black volume with gold lettering.
Layle slowly picked up the Code of Seeking. The soft leather binding felt familiar to his hand. He opened the book to its front flyleaf. Yes, there it was: the signature of the man who had owned the volume before Layle.
—his hands tighten upon the soft flesh of the neck, the prisoner’s breathing stops, the body begins to flail in a useless attempt to escape death—
“Layle Smith?”
He opened his eyes. Or rather, he did not open his eyes, for his eyes were open already, but the dark film that had clouded them was gone, along with the visions, the smells, the touch, the feeling of the prisoner dying under his hands . . .
“Yes?” He wasn’t sure who had spoken, so he kept his gaze directed toward the book, waiting a few seconds before looking up.
They were all staring at him. He wondered how long he had been gone. He carefully tucked the Code of Seeking into his jacket pocket before they should notice that his hands were shaking.
“That will be enough, I think,” said the Codifier, and with these highly ambiguous words, he dismissed his audience.
o—o—o
Leaning against a doorpost, Mr. Sobel reached into his jacket pocket, took out a leather case, flipped it open, and pulled a long, red cylinder from the satin lining. He offered it to Layle. “Cigarette, sir?”
“No,” replied Layle shortly.
Mr. Sobel lit his cigarette with the aid of an oil lamp bracketed to the corridor wall before saying, “You prefer a cigar or pipe?”
“I don’t smoke.” Layle had not smoked since the day, at age five, that his mother found him valiantly puffing away at one of his father’s cigars and had given him such a mournful look that he had immediately tossed away the offending article.
Even his father had refrained from smoking in his mother’s presence. Or so his mother had told him; he had no memory of his mother’s abductor.
Mr. Sobel emitted a long breath of smoke before asking, “Not even at your last workplace, sir? I heard that smoking’s permitted in the Border District prisons.”
“What?” Layle frowned. He was wondering, not only what in the gods’ name that Mr. Sobel was talking about, but also how long the guard was going to keep up his sarcastic manner of calling Layle “sir.”
“Blackstone Prison – isn’t that where you came from, sir? In the Border District?”
It took Layle a moment to remember that “Blackstone Prison” was the Hidden Dungeon’s official name this month. Then he realized Mr. Sobel’s mistake. “I’m from the Border District, yes,” he said, in as smooth a manner as he always possessed when he lied. “Or at least” – it was best to temper one’s lies with occasional truths – “my mother was from that district. I didn’t work at Blackstone for long.”
“Well, no, sir, you wouldn’t have.” Mr. Sobel smiled at him. “Which school did you attend, if I may ask?”
He needed to put an end to this right here, before Mr. Sobel realized that the Blackstone Prison that Layle had worked at was not located in the Border District of Yclau. “The best my family could afford,” he said. “Which is to say, you’ve never heard of it. Have you been a guard at the Eternal Dungeon since leaving school?”
Suddenly the guard seemed to be taking a great interest in the smoke winding upwards from his cigarette. “No, sir. I’ve only worked here for five years. I was a member of the Queen’s Guard before then.”
A highly skilled guard who had worked faithfully for the Queen, who had been showered with awards, and whose sense of honor was agreed to be of the highest degree. . . . The High Torturer’s words whispered in Layle’s memory. Layle looked at Mr. Sobel with renewed interest. He said slowly, “Were you allowed to smoke in the Queen’s Guard?”
Mr. Sobel’s gaze flicked back to Layle. “No, sir. I only picked up that habit after arriving at the Eternal Dungeon.”
Layle made no reply. After a moment, Mr. Sobel added with a smile, “Of course, the High Torturer would flay my back if I smoked while in a breaking cell. But we guards have long shifts standing outside the prisoners’ cells. I’m sure you understand.”
“Oh, yes,” said Layle, “I understand.” He understood that smoking on duty was a killing offense in the Hidden Dungeon. Not even he had been tempted to break that rule.
He was not sure how much of his contempt for the Eternal Dungeon’s lax ways showed on his face, but Mr. Sobel straightened, stubbed out his cigarette, and said stiffly, “Would you like to see one of the breaking cells now, sir?”
“If you please.” He turned his attention to the corridor they were standing in.
It was dull. Layle had expected that. He had known that he would not find here any of the depictions of Hell’s domain that decorated Vovimian prisons, reminding prisoners of the fate that awaited them – and reminding torturers that they must obey Hell’s representative, the King.
But no decorations whatsoever? No carvings on the lintels, no scrolled metalwork on the lamp brackets, no mosaics on the floor, no paintings on the ceiling? It was not as though the corridor even spoke of stark terror; its walls were painted a pleasant green. How in the names of all the gods did the torturers here manage to intimidate their prisoners in such a setting?
Perhaps the cells were more frightening. Layle waited impatiently as Mr. Sobel brought out a set of keys and used one of them to open a cell door. Then the guard stepped back, allowing Layle to enter first.
Layle had to set aside a momentary fear that he was being tricked into imprisonment. He stepped inside the cell, his eyes adjusting quickly to the darkness within.
There was nothing there. No brands, no bores, no thumbscrews, no leg-locks . . . nothing but a squat iron stove, well blackened, in the middle of the room.
He gazed upon it as he might have gazed upon the embodiment of Mercy. Here at last was what he had been seeking: a sign that the Eternal Dungeon was on a higher plane than the prisons he had known before.
Warmth. Warmth for the prisoners, humane comfort. Layle did not know of a single prison in Vovim that provided stoves for its prisoners. He stared down at the sign of mercy, asking, “Are these in all the cells?”
“All except the rack rooms and the torturers’ living cells, sir.”
Layle turned round slowly to look at Mr. Sobel in the dim light. “Our . . . living cells, did you say?”
“Yes, sir. That’s what the torturers’ apartments are called. I don’t know whether you realize that the torturers here take an oath to remain eternally bound within this dungeon—”
“I know that.” He turned his attention back to the stove. Comfort to the prisoners that was not offered to their torturers. And the torturers had named their own living quarters in a manner that reminded the torturers of their fellowship to the prisoners being searched. . . . Oh, gods, this was a prison like no other.
He had been right to come here. He had been very right.
He forced himself to look round at the rest of the room. Beside him, Mr. Sobel said, “I can bring in a lamp, sir. . . .”
He shook his head. “No need. I can see.” Not that there was much to see. The room was empty except for a toiletry set in the corner and a stone shelf with a mattress and blankets and pillows atop it – pillows! “Is this how the cells are normally furnished?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. The prisoners are left unchained, so we don’t place the instruments of torture in here, lest they use them as weapons against us. However, there’s a whipping ring over there.” Mr. Sobel pointed toward the end of the cell.
Layle looked at the whipping ring, high up on the wall, and then looked back at the sheets. “How many prisoners have hanged themselves from the whipping ring?”
Mr. Sobel looked disconcerted. “Ah . . . too many, sir. The High Torturer has been trying to determine a solution to that problem.”
Layle nodded, began to turn away, and then found himself reaching forward to open the stove.
There was wood inside. He closed the stove and said, “How many prisoners have used the wood – or worse, flaming wood – to fight their way past the guards?”
Mr. Sobel looked even more disconcerted. “None while I’ve been here, sir.”
“One of them will, eventually. You should figure out some way to prevent the prisoners from being able to open their stoves. Locks, perhaps.”
Mr. Sobel promptly pulled out a memorandum book and pencil from his jacket, jotted down a note, and said, “I’ll pass on that suggestion to the High Torturer, sir. Is there anything else you would like to see?”
“The instruments of torture,” he replied, pointing out the obvious. Though he supposed that, in the Eternal Dungeon, this might not be so obvious a statement.
“They’re kept in the rack rooms, sir. If you’ll come this way . . .”
They made their way back into the corridor as Layle reflected that, if Mr. Sobel was being sarcastic, he was maintaining a wonderful consistency about it. Could it be that his honor was high enough to permit him to overlook Layle’s initial mistake?
Layle was not used to dealing with honorable guards. The primary duty of the guards in the Hidden Dungeon had been to keep the torturers imprisoned. Layle, who had clearly possessed no desire to leave his satisfying work there, had been granted special permission to take occasional trips outside the dungeon, and since Layle was still young, Master Aeden had been permitted to accompany him. But many a torturer had tried to slip past the guards, only to be viciously wounded in the process. In the Hidden Dungeon, the guards were the only men feared more than the torturers.
Layle ran his eye along the guards standing outside the cell doors. He did not like what he saw. Most of the men were smoking; a few were sipping from flasks, and he guessed that they were not drinking water. All of them were chatting with one another, barely taking notice of the doors behind them.
“How many prisoners escape from this dungeon each year?” Layle asked abruptly.
Mr. Sobel hesitated, and then recited the figure. It was less than Layle had expected. He supposed that the torturers’ humane treatment of their prisoners made a difference in how many prisoners attempted to escape. But given a determined prisoner, paired with a lax guard . . .
Suddenly Mr. Sobel paused before a guard. “Argus,” he said, “stop whistling.”
“Why should I?” asked the guard in an unconcerned manner.
Layle winced. But Mr. Sobel merely said, “Aside from the fact that I’ve given you an order, you might have the brains to remember what happened to Orton after the High Torturer heard him whistling. The High Torturer really hates whistling, Argus.”
Argus’s face drained to the color of curd. “I didn’t know.”
“Now you do. Don’t make that mistake again, will you?”
Layle waited until they were halfway down the corridor before he asked, “Is this your first command position?”
Mr. Sobel looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. “Ah . . . yes, sir. Why do you ask?”
“Because you’re being too soft. You should have ordered him flogged the moment he defied your orders.”
“Beatings can only occur in this dungeon where the Code permits it, or where the High Torturer orders it, sir.” Mr. Sobel’s voice had turned expressionless.
Layle, pausing, scrabbled in his coat pocket a moment before bringing out his copy of the Code. He flipped through it till he found the section on the guards.
Mr. Sobel was correct; nowhere in the Code of Seeking were guards enjoined to punish disobedient guards who were under their control. Layle closed the book, thinking hard. It was becoming clear that the punishment of guards and torturers in this dungeon was a matter of the High Torturer’s whims; whistling was severely punished, because it bothered the High Torturer, while smoking and drinking and gambling were not. Cursing was something that the High Torturer himself did. Layle asked incredulously, “Are you saying, Mr. Sobel, that you must seek permission from the High Torturer before beating a guard who spits in your face?”
Mr. Sobel hesitated before replying, “Enforcement of the Code lies in the hands of the Codifier and the High Torturer, sir. I act only under their orders in matters not covered by the Code.”
Layle bit his lip before he should say something foolish. In this dungeon, questioning the wisdom of the Code must be like walking into a temple and questioning the wisdom of the sacred dramas.
He was silent for several minutes. Finally, as they reached a portion of the corridor that was dim, Layle said, “In my last workplace, the High Mas— The keeper had complete power over us. But he delegated that power, permitting the senior members of the prison to punish junior members.”
Frowning, Mr. Sobel said, “I’m not sure whether some of the senior members here could be trusted with that sort of power, sir.”
“Well,” said Layle, giving what he thought was a reasonable response, “in that case, why should they be permitted to hold high rank?”
Mr. Sobel cast him a look, too brief to be interpreted, as he paused in front of a door. “Here we are, sir.”
Layle had already figured that out. Screams were emanating from the door opposite to the one that Mr. Sobel was opening: hoarse, desperate, pleading screams that made his body thrum in a delightful manner. He waited, heart pounding, to see what lay within the empty rack room.
Again, Mr. Sobel stepped aside to let him inside. Layle’s eyes had already adjusted to the darkness of the corridor; he took a quick inventory of what lay upon the dark ceiling and walls. The instruments were plentiful: brands, bores, thumbscrews, leg-locks, and many more. A few of the instruments he had known were missing, though: no iron chair, no pulley—
—can hear that the prisoner has returned to his hoarse crying. “Please,” the prisoner whispers. “Oh please, oh please, oh please. Letmedieletmedieletmedie—”
“Sir? Sir?”
The darkness of the Hidden Dungeon’s rack room faded from his eyes, leaving him staring at the darkness of the Eternal Dungeon’s rack room. For a brief moment, he thought he would be sucked into the dreaming again; then he managed to wrench the rack room’s door toward him, slamming it shut.
This time he could not hide his trembling. Mr. Sobel touched him lightly on the shoulder, asking, “Are you all right, sir?”
“I’m fine.” He just managed to keep himself from thrusting Mr. Sobel against the wall; instead, he slipped out from under the guard’s hand. “I’ve been travelling too much; I’ve barely received any sleep for the past few days.” This much was the truth. “And it’s well past midnight. . . .”
“Well, sir, the High Torturer has placed you on the night shift, but it takes some time to get adjusted to that.” The guard’s voice was sympathetic. “If you’d like to rest now, you can make an early start tomorrow evening.”
“That would probably be best.” In the dimness of the corridor, he surreptitiously rubbed the sweat off his palms, trying his best to ignore the scream nearby. The scream did not come from his dreaming; he need not fear it. “Where am I staying?”
Mr. Sobel hesitated before replying, “I’ll show you to your room, sir.”
“There’s no need; I can follow your directions.” The quicker he was away from observation, the better; he was perilously close to vomiting.
“It’s no trouble, sir; if you’ll just come this way . . .”
“Oh, by all that lies underground – I’m going to bed! Do you want to join me there?”
Shock shattered Mr. Sobel’s expression. For a moment, Layle feared that the guard had recognized Layle?
??s oath – obscure though it was – as Vovimian in origin. Then Mr. Sobel said stiffly, “Sir, I would need permission from the High Torturer—”
Recognizing his error belatedly, he cut off the response with a slicing gesture. “I wasn’t serious in my offer.”
Mr. Sobel began to speak, then evidently thought better of it and lowered his eyes.
Mr. Sobel’s reactions – his clear distaste at what he thought Layle wanted, his willingness to obey orders, his submissive gesture – were not helping Layle in his attempt to regain control of himself. He snarled, “Well, show me the room, then, so that you can be on your way.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” The guard did not look up. “I’m under orders to share quarters with you.”
Layle decided, after a moment’s reflection, not to kill him. It was not the guard’s fault if the High Torturer failed to trust Layle – and why should the High Torturer trust him? In the last few moments, Layle had received all the confirmation he needed that he was a danger to this dungeon. “Fine,” he said crisply. “But I need to lie down. If you wouldn’t mind . . .”
“Of course, sir.” The guard’s voice turned solicitous once more as he guided Layle out of the corridor, into another one, and past two separate sets of guards.
Layle waited until they had reached a different part of the dungeon – one where serving-women strode freely, much to his dismay – before he spoke the thought that had been growing in his mind. “Are guards forced to sleep with the torturers here?”
“Not forced, sir,” Mr. Sobel replied quickly. “The High Torturer would never stand for that.”
Layle made no reply. After a time, as they reached a side corridor that was free of traffic, Mr. Sobel added in a low voice, “It’s well known among the guards that, if certain torturers ask for such favors from you, and if you refuse, it’s unlikely that your career will advance in this dungeon.”
Layle thought about this at length as they made their way through the endless maze of corridors. Anything to keep his mind off the women they had passed. Finally he said, “The Code of Seeking requires the torturers to assist murderers and rapists in recognizing and repenting of their misdeeds. How can any torturer guide a prisoner to true repentance for rape when the torturer himself has bullied a guard into his bed?”
He looked over at Mr. Sobel, who was staring straight ahead at some faraway destination. Finally the guard said, without looking Layle’s way, “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t have an answer to that question.”