CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Barrett had been in the Battle of the Wilderness. He had seen men blown to bits by cannon, mowed down by rifle-fire, explode into fragments by shells, and die long, slow deaths in the following weeks from dysentery, lung-worm, and other such diseases that ate out the insides of a man until nothing was left but a screaming hollow.
On the whole, he thought, he would rather be back on the battlefield than standing in the High Seeker’s office.
All faint hopes he had held that he might have been summoned here from his living quarters in order to be commended for his investigative work on Mr. Holloway’s past had died in the moment that he realized Mr. Sobel and Mr. Urman would be escorting him to the High Seeker. To be escorted by Layle Smith’s guards was as good as having an eyeless hood placed over one’s head as one was taken to a breaking cell. An escort meant he was under arrest.
Now he was in the High Seeker’s office, standing in stiff formality with his arms at his side, chasing a dozen thoughts: At what point he would be ordered to strip down to the minimal clothes worn by prisoners. How to get word to his parents of his arrest. How to defend his lack of readiness in protecting his Seeker against a prisoner who had been charged with eight murders and an attempted murder.
That must be the reason he was here. He could think of no other way in which he had failed in his duty as a guard. Guards who failed to protect their Seekers usually received reprimands, not arrests – but then, he was not just any guard. He was senior night guard to the High Seeker’s love-mate.
The High Seeker made him wait a long time before deigning to look up. He was sitting behind his desk, perusing Mr. Taylor’s reports on his searching of Mr. Holloway. Probably, Barrett thought as sickness built in his stomach, the fact that he had failed to anticipate Mr. Holloway’s attack on himself during the first day of searching would also be brought forth as evidence of his dereliction of duties.
The High Seeker finally lifted his head. Under the newly installed electric lights, his eyes looked brighter than ever, like two pools of green slime. “Mr. Taylor ordered a medium beating for the prisoner.”
“S-sir?” He was taken off-guard and stumbled on this single word.
“Your prisoner attacked a guard – yourself – and your Seeker ordered that he receive twenty medium lashes for the offense. The Code calls for at least forty heavy lashes in such a case.”
The sickness suddenly increased, to the point where vomit filled his throat and mouth. He was not here because he was under arrest, he realized. He was here to provide witness against another man who was under arrest.
He swallowed the sickness and said breathlessly, “Sir, the Code permits a lower punishment if the prisoner’s body is too frail to withstand a heavy beating.”
“The healer should have been brought in to judge that.”
“The healer was busy with another prisoner when this happened, sir.” He was on safer ground now. “In my capacity as the guard who gave the beating, I advised my Seeker against a heavy beating. Since Mr. Taylor is a junior Seeker, he deferred to my greater experience in such matters.”
Layle Smith folded his hands over the documentwork, like a magistrate at his judging. “Mr. Boyd,” he said softly, “it is mistake to characterize Mr. Taylor as someone who ‘defers to greater experience.’ We both know otherwise. Mr. Taylor defers to no one, where a prisoner’s welfare is concerned. As his own report shows, he made the decision to give the prisoner a medium beating, and you backed his decision.”
Barrett hesitated, unable to know how to respond to this entirely accurate account of what had happened. If he denied Mr. Taylor’s account, then Mr. Taylor could be beaten for issuing a false report.
Layle Smith leaned forward. With a voice as liquid as molten iron, he said, “Your job, Mr. Boyd, is to place the prisoner’s welfare above all other considerations. Too light a punishment can ultimately lead to loss of the prisoner’s rebirth, which is what every one of us is striving for. Mr. Taylor has, as you say, lesser experience than your own. Your own experience should have told you what to do.”
He felt his back ache as he drew himself up further. “Sir,” he said in a stiff voice, “I have served as a guard in the Eternal Dungeon for nine years. Five of those years have been spent as a senior guard. Before that, I served as a soldier in the Queen’s army for three years, was promoted twice, and ended up as a guard in the unit for army investigators. I think I know under what circumstances it is proper to report my superior to a higher authority for breaking the rules.”
Mr. Smith responded to this speech by shaking his head and leaning back in his chair. His fingers began to play with the silver letter-opener on his desk, rubbing up and down the flat of the blade. “Either I am not doing a good enough job of making myself understood, Mr. Boyd, or you are being willfully obtuse. I hope it is the former case, because the last thing I need in my life at the moment is a recalcitrant senior guard. Let me be clearer: You are not standing in this office because you failed to report Mr. Taylor’s decision. You are here because you failed to overrule it.”
Barrett’s breath stopped in his throat. Before he could think of what to reply, the High Seeker leaned forward. This time the light glittered in his eyes.
“Mr. Taylor is under your care, Mr. Boyd,” the High Seeker said, soft as a slithering snake. “If you do not understand what that means, I will spell it out for you. If you fail to overrule your Seeker the next time he makes a decision that endangers your prisoner’s path to rebirth, and if it becomes necessary for me to order that your Seeker be beaten, you will be the man I order to apply the lashes. And if higher punishment should be needed, then your final act as a guard will be to witness Mr. Taylor’s hanging.”
A very long pause followed. The High Seeker did not move his gaze. Barrett finally managed to get his tongue detached from the roof of his mouth. “Sir,” he said hoarsely, “you are speaking of your love-mate.”
Mr. Smith’s gaze drifted away to the papers under his hands. “I show favoritism to no one. Out.”
“Sir—”
“Get out of this office, before I am forced to make threats against Mr. Phelps as well. Do not test my patience.”
Layle Smith’s hand was now gripping the hilt of the letter opener. Barrett, stumbling backwards, managed to get the door open without turning his back on the High Seeker. Then he stepped through, closed the door, and collapsed against it.
A hand appeared in front of his face, holding a handkerchief. Gratefully he took the cloth and wiped the sweat from his face. By the time he handed the handkerchief back to Mr. Sobel, he had managed to steady himself. He glanced at Mr. Urman, expecting to see a smirk on the junior guard’s face, but Mr. Urman, standing to the left side of the doorway, was doing a good job of pretending to be interested in the Record-keeper, who was striking out the name of an executed prisoner on his tablet.
Barrett turned his attention back to Mr. Sobel, who was standing on the left side of the doorway. Wondering how much the senior guard had overheard, he said, “Mr. Sobel, he wouldn’t— He must be—”
“Blustering?” suggested the other guard softly.
A shudder ran through Barrett’s body. He felt his hands form into fists. “What do I do now?” he asked, as plaintively as a child.
“Deliver the High Seeker’s message, I suppose,” Mr. Sobel responded. Then, as Barrett stared, he added, “Mr. Boyd, you really don’t think, do you, that Mr. Smith would arrange for you to be escorted here purely in order to scare you? By the time the dusk shift starts, word will have spread to the far ends of this dungeon that you were summoned to the High Seeker under guard. I think you should deliver the High Seeker’s message to the proper person before that person begins to fear the worst for you.”
Barrett tried to wipe the sweat off the back of his neck with his palm. “Mr. Sobel,” he said, keeping his voice quiet, “matters have reached a new low if the High Seeker is using one of the dungeon’s guards to deliver death threats.”
Mr. Sobel’s gaze flicked away toward the Record-keeper’s tablet, filled with crossed-out names. “The High Seeker never delivers a threat to dungeon dwellers unless he fears that he will need to carry it out,” he said quietly. “Do you know why he believes he might be forced to carry it out in this case?”
Barrett wiped his sweaty palm on his trouser-leg. “Yes,” he said bleakly. “Curse it, yes. I can guess.”
“The life of a guard,” said Mr. Urman, inserting his dark humor. “Now you get to serve as mediator between battling love-mates. Like I said, enjoy your job, mate.”
o—o—o
Elsdon Taylor stood brooding outside his prisoner’s cell. Since his arrival in the dungeon, he had grown into a tall man, about the same height as the High Seeker. He outdid the High Seeker in neatness. Somehow he managed matters so that his uniform was always perfectly in place: the shirt-knots all in a line, the belt-knot precisely centered, the boots so well buffed that one would have sworn that the junior Seeker had his own private boot-boy. Though perhaps, Barrett thought in a moment of insight, the High Seeker simply liked to watch his love-mate shine boots.
Now Mr. Taylor was biting his thumbs. At least, Barrett assumed that was what was happening to the hands gripping each other underneath the hood. It reminded him, forcibly, that his Seeker was still only twenty-three years of age.
The hood was a new one; it hid any sign of a bandage, but Barrett had been in the healer’s surgery when the glass-cut was tended to, and he knew that this wound, at least, could not be troubling his Seeker badly.
Finally the hands slipped out from behind the cloth, and Mr. Taylor said, “This is my fault.”
“Sir—”
Mr. Taylor waved away his protest. “For your ears only,” he said softly. “You deserve an explanation. I had a fight with the High Seeker this afternoon over Mr. Holloway. I told him that I wouldn’t permit Mr. Holloway to be punished for what had happened, regardless of what the healer may declare about his state of mind. The High Seeker pointed out that the Code requires the use of the rack upon a second offense of this sort. I said that, if the author of the fifth revision of the Code – who most assuredly should have known better – had not considered the possibility of a prisoner attacking his Seeker and guard due to mental illness, then that was not the fault of my prisoner, and I wouldn’t allow him to suffer needlessly, simply to satisfy a formality. The High Seeker ordered me to use the rack. I told him he’d have to hang me first.”
Barrett sucked in his breath. “Sir,” he said cautiously, “that remark was not . . .” He struggled for an appropriate word.
“Tactful?” The sadness in Mr. Taylor’s voice was so strong that Barrett did not need to see his face to guess at its expression. “Yes, it was a blow between the legs. I know that ordering my death would hurt the High Seeker far more than if he were to spend eternity being tortured in the Vovimian hell. Yet he would do it if his duty required it of him.”
Barrett decided that “safe” was the word he had been searching for. “I find that hard to believe, sir.” He tried to make his response sound convincing.
“We both would.” Mr. Taylor’s voice was firm. “Mr. Boyd, you haven’t taken the oath of eternal commitment; you don’t understand how it is for us Seekers. ‘I am willing to suffer for the sake of the prisoners’ – that is what we all swear, and by this, we not only mean that we are willing to suffer with our own bodies. We also mean that we are willing to sacrifice what is dearest to us, if need be. The High Seeker and I agreed upon that when we first became love-mates – we agreed that if we ever faced the choice between the welfare of a prisoner and the welfare of one of us, the prisoner must come first.”
Barrett was remembering now why he had decided never to try to earn the right to become a Seeker. It wasn’t simply that he was ill-qualified for the role; it was that all Seekers were lunatics. Functioning lunatics, yes, but something vital had been cut out of them – their hearts, perhaps.
Mr. Taylor continued, “It’s the same for me. Even though I know that it would tear the High Seeker’s soul apart to punish me, I can’t allow that to stand in the way of what I believe is right. That’s why I refused to follow his order.”
Barrett sighed. Faintly behind the door – too faintly to be clearly discerned, for breaking-cell doors were thick – he could hear the high, light voice of the healer, questioning Mr. Holloway. “And this is the High Seeker’s reply to what you said.”
Mr. Taylor nodded. “He is telling me that, if I disobey his order, my senior night guard will be the one to pay the price.”
Only Elsdon Taylor, Barrett thought, could have characterized his own death in such a manner. Barrett ran his fingers through his hair, trying not to be distracted by his growing realization that his entire interview with the High Seeker had been a sham.
Mr. Taylor had submitted his report about Mr. Holloway’s first attack how long ago? Two months? It was unlikely that the High Seeker had waited two months to read a report on an attack committed by the prisoner of his love-mate. Yet Layle Smith had waited two months before summoning Barrett to his office. Had the High Seeker actually stated that Elsdon Taylor should have ordered forty heavy strokes for the prisoner? Thinking back on the interview, Barrett could not remember a moment at which Mr. Smith had explicitly made that statement. He had simply allowed Barrett to think that this was the source of his anger. Yet, as the High Seeker himself had tacitly acknowledged, the Code permitted a lower punishment.
Barrett sighed. The High Seeker, he now realized, had never really cared whether Elsdon Taylor had ordered twenty medium strokes. He had simply used that incident as an excuse to have Barrett deliver a message to Mr. Taylor about the racking. And Barrett, falling for the High Seeker’s trick as smoothly as any naive prisoner, had delivered the message.
Well, it was a message that he would have delivered in any case, if the High Seeker had been so courteous as to ask him. There was no way in all the Queendom of Yclau that Barrett was going to allow his Seeker to be hanged.
“Sir,” he said carefully, “I would prefer not to see my career destroyed.” He paused to let Mr. Taylor absorb this. “More importantly, though, I would prefer not to see this dungeon destroyed. You say that you vowed to suffer for the prisoners – do you mean all of the prisoners, or just this one?”
Mr. Taylor began to speak, and then hesitated, evidently seeing what came next.
Barrett pressed his point home. “Sir, if you refuse to rack this one prisoner, all that will happen is that Mr. Holloway will be transferred to another Seeker who will rack him, and you will be executed. And the High Seeker, in all likelihood, will go mad again. Without you at his side, can you be certain that he will be able to hold himself back this time from destroying the Eternal Dungeon?”
Elsdon Taylor covered his face. Not simply his eyes; he placed his palms over his face. With muffled words, he said, “I cannot harm a prisoner in order to prevent a greater harm from occurring. Any Seeker could use that excuse to commit atrocities. The Vovimian torturers claim that they are preserving the King’s peace when they abuse their prisoners.”
Barrett wondered how Seekers managed to continue to break their prisoners when they saw them in pain. He certainly did not possess that skill. “Well, sir,” he said, drawing back from what he had said, “this may all be moot. It’s plain to see that the prisoner isn’t fit for the rack, either physically or mentally, and so the healer—”
As though summoned, there came a tap on the door. Barrett checked the door’s watch-hole to be sure that Mr. Holloway was standing well away from the exit, and then he unlocked and opened the door to allow the healer to depart.
The healer was a brunette who wore her hair unbound, in the Vovimian fashion for women that Barrett’s father had once described as “shameless.” She was undoubtedly Yclau, though, with her pale skin and her elite accent that echoed that of the Queen’s ladies. She was quite young, about the age of Mr. Urman. Barrett had felt nervous about
leaving her alone with the prisoner, envisioning her bringing a scalpel out of her medical bag and inciting a murderous attack. She was slender and slight, with high breasts that looked – from a murderer’s perspective – as though they were just made to have blood spattered upon them.
“Sir,” said the healer, “kindly raise your eyes above my neckline.”
Barrett felt the blush cover his entire face. Rather than raise his eyes, he dipped them, staring down at his boots. They were dusty and scuffed, in marked contrast with his Seeker’s.
Mr. Taylor murmured a question, and the healer responded, “Well, he’s in remarkably good health. I hope that my body is in as fine a shape when I reach his age.”
Barrett raised his eyes in time to see Elsdon Taylor stiffen. The Seeker’s voice was level, though, as he said, “He underwent greater than average pain when he was beaten.”
“His back is not a good a place for punishment, no.” The healer pushed a piece of hair behind her ear in an absentminded manner. “I’m afraid I can’t authorize any further beatings. But the rest of his body is another matter. He has a wiry frame and a good heart and lungs. His family history shows no trace of heart disease or stroke or any other disease that might make racking him medically risky. Being purely cautionary, I would advise that you not take him up to the highest levels. Nothing above seven.”
Level seven was only three levels short of the highest level. Mr. Taylor formed his hands into fists, and then released them, so quickly that Barrett barely saw the movement. “And his mind?”
The healer shrugged as she checked that her bag was snapped closed. “Borderline.”
“Borderline?”
“Mentally well for most of his life, but with recent episodes of illness. I certainly can’t certify that he would remain insane if given proper treatment.”
“Madam,” said Mr. Taylor, the levelness in his voice not quite so controlled as before, “if you do not certify him as insane, there will be no proper treatment. He will die in an execution room – or possibly on the rack.”
The healer tilted her head, staring up at Mr. Taylor. “Are you advising me to issue a false report, Mr. Taylor?”
“I am advising you to place the welfare of the prisoner above all other considerations,” Mr. Taylor responded. “I was under the impression that this was your job as a healer.”
“Oh? Then you have received a false impression of the role of healers. My job is to place the welfare of our society first, and if I arrange for this man to be released, that won’t happen.” The healer’s voice snapped like a whip.
There was a pause. Further down the corridor, in the direction of the rack rooms, a prisoner was screaming. Mr. Taylor said in a soothing voice, as though she were a hysterical prisoner, “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
The healer sighed and made another attempt to push her hair away from her face. “Mr. Taylor, do you know why I am here?” She did not wait for a response, but instead added, “My younger sister died last year.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that, madam.” Mr. Taylor, whose own younger sister had died at his murderous hands, sounded genuinely grieved.
“She was killed by a murderer. Her purity was taken from her before she was killed, and her death is believed to have been lengthy – perhaps several hours.”
Barrett winced. In a colorless voice, Mr. Taylor said, “And you came here in hope that you could assist the Seekers in bringing other such men to justice?”
“I came here to determine whether the Seekers have any sense of justice. You see, this was not the first time my sister’s murderer had acted. He had killed in the past. When he was finally arrested and sent to the Eternal Dungeon, his Seeker argued in court that he ought to be released, due to his repentance for his acts. And he was released. Because this dungeon’s healer had certified him as permanently insane.”
The screams had dwindled to pleas now. A door further down the corridor opened and shut. Mr. Taylor said, “Madam, this is a terrible tale, and with your permission I will pass it on to the High Seeker in hopes that the Eternal Dungeon can prevent any such thing from happening again. Your sister’s murderer ought to have been sent to an asylum for the insane.”
“He was sent to an asylum for the insane.” The healer sounded anything but hysterical; her voice was flat. “Houses of mental illness are not designed to imprison criminals, Mr. Taylor. A man who has broken into houses and killed without being detected is hardly going to be deterred by the sort of locks and guards that keep in ordinary men and women.”
“If he had been sent to a life prison—”
“Matters would have been no better, for guards at such prisons are not trained to deal with the insane. Mr. Taylor, if you Seekers had any sort of compassion, either for the murderers or for their victims, you would put insane murderers out of their misery, in the same way that we put down a vicious dog who has begun foaming at the mouth. That is what is in the prisoner’s best interests, sir, not releasing him so that he commits more crimes.” The healer took up the side of her skirt with her free hand. “You will excuse me, Mr. Taylor. I have work to do today.” She swept past the Seeker, her bag firmly in hand, and strode down the corridor in the direction of her surgery.
Watching her go, Barrett murmured, “And I thought she would be too soft to condemn any man to torture.”
Mr. Taylor made no reply; he had turned to look at Mr. Phelps, who was hurrying down the corridor. As the junior night guard reached them, he panted, “I’m sorry for being late to my shift, sir.”
“Delayed by the Record-keeper?” Mr. Taylor kept his voice as mild as he always did with his prisoners.
Mr. Phelps, who had evidently learned Mr. Taylor’s ways, stiffened into the stance of a guard being reprimanded. “No, sir. By the High Seeker. He asked me to let you know that Rack Room D is open for use today.”
Barrett bit off a remark about the precipitousness of Layle Smith. Such was the High Seeker’s skill that he might have read the outcome of the healer’s inspection from her prior demeanor.
Mr. Taylor was silent for a long moment. Nearby, Mr. Ferris had emerged from his breaking cell and was speaking in a low voice with Mr. Crofford. Mr. Ferris’s senior night guard looked half asleep.
“Mr. Phelps, I confess to having a poor ear, where class is concerned,” said Mr. Taylor abruptly. “I know that you are of the mid-class – what of Mr. Birchfield and Mr. Underwood?”
“Why, they’re both mid-class too, sir,” said Mr. Phelps, looking surprised at this turn in the interrogation.
“They have very clear mid-class accents, sir,” Barrett said, having a better sense of what information Mr. Taylor was seeking. “The day guards are in no danger of being attacked by the prisoner, if your surmise about his motive is correct.”
Mr. Taylor nodded. “Then from this time forth, Mr. Boyd, you will only enter this cell when Mr. Phelps or one of the day guards is present, and you will confine your visits to urgent communications that cannot be delivered by the other guards. On no account will you enter the cell alone.”
“What about you, sir?” Mr. Phelps asked, relaxing as he grasped that he was no longer the center of his Seeker’s attention. “Should one of us be present when you enter the cell?”
“I?” Mr. Taylor’s gaze drifted past them, in the direction of the entry hall. “I am feeling rather unwell at the moment, I’m afraid. An after-effect of the attack, no doubt. I am going to take healing leave until further notice; I know that I can depend on the four of you to care for the prisoner while I’m gone.”
“Yes, sir,” said Barrett, and stepped out of Mr. Taylor’s path. But Elsdon Taylor made no move toward the entry hall; instead, he turned and made his way back to the far exit of the dungeon, the one that led directly to the Seekers’ cells.
Mr. Phelps stared after him. “By all that is sacred, what is he doing? I’ve never known him to ask for healing leave. He has continued to search prisoners at times when he was ready to faint from his
sickness.”
Mr. Phelps had kept his voice discreet. Barrett, glancing around to be sure that no one was within earshot, kept his voice equally discreet when he replied. “What he is doing, Mr. Phelps, is buying time for the prisoner.”
o—o—o
o—o—o
. . . But it must never be forgotten that Layle Smith’s father was, in modern parlance, a terrorist, and that, like all idealistic terrorists, he must have believed that terror was the only means by which to protect his nation, his province, and his family. This being the case, we can see why, in the earliest days that Layle Smith worked in the Eternal Dungeon, one of his closest acquaintances was on record as saying that the young torturer’s most dangerous characteristic was his desire to protect the prisoners.
It is ironic that the speaker of these words was Seward Sobel, who would help Layle Smith carry out his reign of terror in the year 360.
—Psychologists with Whips: A History of the Eternal Dungeon.
On Guard 6
ADVICE
Seward Sobel
The year 360, the ninth month. (The year 1881 Fallow by the Old Calendar.)
Senior-most guard: The guard who holds highest rank under a Seeker. Rank is determined by a Seeker’s shift: if a Seeker is on the day shift, his senior-most guard is his senior day guard, while if a Seeker is on the night shift, his senior-most guard is his senior night guard. A senior-most guard is not only charged with restraining prisoners, but also with supervising any member of the dungeon who requires supervision.
—Glossary to Psychologists with Whips: A History of the Eternal Dungeon.
The Eternal Dungeon: a Turn-of-the-Century Toughs omnibus Page 89
