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According as it is with the laws that belong to the present life, so shall the Judge act with most just deed towards the man of the Lie and the man of the Right, and him whose false things and good things balance.

—Avesta: Yasna 33 (translated by L. H. Mills).

The Balance 1

TRUTH AND LIES

Dusk Peterson

Historical accounts of the Eternal Dungeon usually skip directly from its most exciting event – the madness of its first High Seeker – to its second most exciting event, an incident that would change the nature of the centuries-old dungeon and revolutionize forever our nation's treatment of prisoners and other societal misfits. This is a shame, for it is a clear that the second event owed a great deal to the first.

It is necessary in this volume, therefore, to linger upon small episodes that, at the time, must have seemed insignificant. The first of these, of course, is the return of Layle Smith to his prisoners.

The documents of the Eternal Dungeon, while frustratingly vague about the nature of the High Seeker's madness, do give us detailed information about the first searching Layle Smith undertook three years later, when he finally returned fully to his duties. We learn from these documents that, although the High Seeker had planned to return to searching prisoners, the exact timing of his return was forced on him by circumstances.

Moreover, the circumstances in question were not ideal. Elsdon Taylor, the Seeker who had cared for Layle Smith during his illness, had recently entered into spiritual isolation in the dungeon's crematorium in order to mourn the death of his father. He was therefore unavailable to serve as a chaperone to Layle Smith, as he had throughout the most serious phase of the High Seeker's mental illness.

It is hardly surprising, then, that the greatest number of documents from this period reveal the anxiety of witnesses as to whether Layle Smith would lose control again. The danger seemed particularly strong, given the crime the prisoner had committed . . .

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

CHAPTER ONE

When Seward Sobel was nineteen years old, he visited a diviner. Not many people in the queendom of Yclau still worshipped the fates, and those who did had an evil reputation. Seward was not bothered by such matters; he arrived as a skeptic and expected to remain so.

His friends – fellow members of the Queen's guard – had already emerged from the tent one by one, chortling over the unlikely futures that had been divined for them. Seward entered the tent grinning. His grin faded, though, as he saw the surroundings.

The surroundings were not horrific; rather, they were pitiful. He had seen etchings of the diviners' rooms in ancient days: peacock feathers spread over life-sized statues of the fates, with magnificent piles of food at the feet of the fates to show the worshippers' love.

The diviner was a very old woman, dressed in a gown that had long since passed the stage of being a rag. She had decorated the tent as best she could with reminders of her religion's glorious past: instead of peacock feathers, there were sparrow feathers; instead of life-sized statues, there were misshapen branches crudely carved into objects that had little resemblance to the divine, except in the eyes of the creator.

At the feet of the carvings were offerings to the fates: a bowl of fruit that too obviously could have served as the diviner's daily meal, and five objects that had been tossed there by Seward's laughing friends: a bootlace, a squashed penny, a used handkerchief, a toothpick, and a tract on the Yclau religion of transformation and rebirth that had replaced the worship of the fates.

It was perhaps a sign of Seward's difference from his friends – or rather, his potential difference – that his first instinct was to flee the tent in shame. The diviner had already seen him, though; she beckoned him forward with a forceful gesture. He came to her unwillingly, confessing with a stammer that he had brought no offering.

The diviner looked at him with canny eyes. "The fates require no gifts," she said. "They are immortal, without need for human trappings. They accept our offerings for our own sake, so that our souls may be better prepared to face the truth of the life they have established for us."

She gave him his divining then. It was a simple one: "Your goal is high. It will bring you pain."

He would have laughed as his friends had, but something held him back. "I've already gone beyond my goal," he said politely. "My only goal was to be a guard in some capacity, and I've been granted the high honor of serving as a guard at the Queen's palace."

The diviner stared him steadily in the eye. "The fates do not lie," she said.

He left then, promising to bring an offering the next day, but when he arrived the following morning, carrying a basket overflowing with food from the Queen's own kitchen, he found that the tent was gone. He never saw the diviner again, and his offering to the fates went unfulfilled.

He changed after that, all his friends agreed. He laughed just as much as before, and he joined in the games of the young men who worked in the palace. No one could accuse him of growing soberly pious, much less cracked in the head. But every now and then, when a death-sentence prisoner passed him, bound for the terrible fates found in the Eternal Dungeon beneath the palace, he would stop speaking abruptly, and his eyes would follow the prisoner, as though he and the prisoner were one.

"War crimes?" said Seward. "That's an unusual charge, isn't it?"

He was standing in the entry hall of the Eternal Dungeon, next to Mr. Boyd, senior day guard for Weldon Chapman, a Seeker who took the day shift. Although they had both worked in the dungeon for many years, Seward rarely had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Boyd, since Seward, as a senior night guard, undertook his duties while his own Seeker searched prisoners, during the night shift.

Or so went the theory. Seward glanced over at the High Seeker, who had just come on duty for the night. After this brief visit to the entry hall, Seward knew, the High Seeker's entire night shift would be spent shut away in his office, signing documentwork. He would only emerge once the return of the bats to the underground dungeon signalled the beginning of dawn.

There was a time, Seward thought with a touch of unusual bitterness, when the prisoners of the Eternal Dungeon sought to hide themselves from the much-feared High Seeker. Now the opposite seemed to be true.

He turned back to Mr. Boyd – Seward had never learned the other guard's first name, and in the formal setting of the Eternal Dungeon this hardly mattered. The younger guard was saying as he flipped a page, "He has led five unauthorized raids on enemy villages during the past year. He keeps saying that he's forced into the raids by circumstances, and his men back him, but the high command finally got tired of his excuses. They figured we'd have the best chance of finding out the truth."

"He's an officer, then?" Seward, through long habit, averted his eyes from the documentwork on Weldon Chapman's new prisoner. He could depend on Mr. Boyd not to offer him private information on the prisoner.

"A lesser officer. He received his rank last year, and no doubt the man that promoted him is regretting it now. You know, the army really ought to hire a Seeker to make all their decisions for them. It would save them the trouble of having to withdraw from making bad judgments."

Seward smiled but said, "Seekers aren't infallible."

"No." Mr. Boyd's gaze drifted away from him. Seward could guess that he was staring at the rigid-backed figure of the High Seeker. Then Mr. Boyd snapped shut the documents box and said, "I'm less worried about Seekers' fallibility than about guards' fallibility. You know that we have a new junior guard in training, Mr. Sobel."

Seward nodded, straddling a chair with an inward sigh of satisfaction at relieving his aching feet. For most of the past three years he had done documentwork during his shift, released from his usual duties by the High Seeker's illness. But the tedium of tying papers with ribbons and filing them in the appropriate boxes had finally become so great that he had asked and been granted permission to take Mr. Boyd's duties for one day, in order to allow the other guard an opportunity to visit his aging parents during the daytime.

"Mr. Meakem," Seward replied. "I had a chance to talk with him briefly when he came on duty. He seems eager to be of use."

"They all are, till they see what the job entails," Mr. Boyd said sourly. He had just arrived back from his visit to the lighted world, and he was still dressed in a plum-colored suit, which made him stand out amidst the grey-uniformed guards milling about in the entry hall. "Mr. Chapman has had eight junior guards leave him since the departure of Gerson. It's as though Gerson jinxed the role of junior guard for every man that followed."

"I'm sure Mr. Urman will be able to keep him in hand," said Seward, referring to the High Seeker's junior night guard, who was presently training to become senior night guard for Weldon Chapman. Seward's gaze had wandered away again, toward the High Seeker, who was now in discussion with Mr. Chapman, no doubt about the Seeker's new prisoner. Seward supposed that he should at least be glad that the High Seeker was now willing to assist other Seekers with problematic prisoners – that had not been the case until recently. If his willingness to assist other Seekers meant that his own guards spent more months in idleness . . . Well, Seward had known that his time in this dungeon would not be pure pleasure.

After all, he could have arrived here as a prisoner.

He felt a jerk of the heart, as he often did when this thought came to him. When he looked back at Mr. Boyd, he saw that the younger guard was frowning, apparently aware that Seward's thoughts were not on their conversation. Seeking to mend the tear he had made in their discussion, Seward said, "Mr. Urman is a competent guard."

"When his mind's on his work." Mr. Boyd, easy at forgiveness, gave a smile. "His thoughts are on the girl he's courting these days. You know how men are who are women-tied."

Seward gave a smile to show he appreciated the joke aimed at himself; then his eyes drifted back to the High Seeker. Seward's wife – whose gifts lay in compassion rather than insight – had nonetheless told him, "The High Seeker needs to return to searching his own prisoners." If his wife could see that – if the entire dungeon could see it – why couldn't the High Seeker?

"I suppose it's harder if you're him."

Seward turned back toward Mr. Boyd, startled. "Who?"

Mr. Boyd laughed and jerked his thumb toward the High Seeker. "Who else? The man whose shadow you are. The man you've been thinking about the whole time we've been talking. It must be hard for him to return his mind to work, when it's been off— Where do you suppose his mind has been? Off at hell?"

Seward thought it was more likely that the High Seeker's mind had been trapped in a dungeon that was the opposite of everything he had been trying to make the Eternal Dungeon into, but he said nothing of this. The High Seeker was crippled by enough gossip without having his senior night guard join in the game. Indeed, it was hardly surprising that the High Seeker hesitated to return to work. The eyes of everyone in this dungeon would be upon him – it could be fairly said that the eyes of the entire world would be upon him, such was the extent of his reputation. Failure with his first prisoner after his illness could mean the end of his career.

"I'll talk with you later," Seward said to Mr. Boyd, barely taking in the other guard's look of sympathetic understanding as he stepped away and began to walk across the entry hall to the hooded man who mastered the Eternal Dungeon.

Few obstacles stood in his way. The entry hall was a high, broad cavern that contained little except tables and chairs pushed against the walls, where they could easily be hidden by the shadows if a prisoner entered the hall. Now, though, the perimeter of the hall was bright with lamplight and the chatter of guards awaiting new prisoners. Seward found himself thinking of Mr. Urman, whose training would be completed soon and who would be transferred into the care of Weldon Chapman. Six months before, Mr. Urman had told Seward that he could no longer stand the idleness and would seek a transfer. Seward had rounded upon him with all the fury of a mother wolf protecting her children, but it had made no difference. It had been a full year since the High Seeker's day guards had resigned, and the Codifier had not bothered to replace them. It was doubtful that anyone would have taken their positions.

At the time of Layle Smith's madness, the dungeon inhabitants had been united behind their High Seeker, doing everything they could to keep his mind from destructing. Yet fame is fickle: as it became less and less certain that the High Seeker would recover the powers that had won him renown throughout the world, the dungeon dwellers had gradually turned away from him in indifference or disgust. So few remained loyal to Layle Smith now: the High Seeker's companion Elsdon Taylor, two or three of the junior Seekers who modelled themselves after him, and a handful of senior members of the dungeon who had worked alongside him for many years.

And the High Seeker's shadow, Seward Sobel, who had been with Layle Smith since the beginning.

The High Seeker was in the midst of turning away from Weldon Chapman when Seward reached him. Seward found his gaze lingering upon his Seeker, looking for changes from the old times. He had seen the High Seeker little more than any other dungeon dwellers had during the time of his illness; Layle Smith had asked for assistance during that period from Elsdon Taylor and Weldon Chapman, but from no one else. Seward wondered whether the same man he had known lay behind the closed face-cloth of the hood, or whether the High Seeker had been irremediably altered during his absence.

The High Seeker's eyes, always cool, raked over Seward as though his senior night guard were a prisoner worthy of being racked. "Yes, Mr. Sobel," he said. "Did you have something you wished to say to me?"

Mr. Sobel was touched by the slight sickness he had felt in his stomach ever since the early days, when his attempts to reach out to a young Seeker in friendship had been rebuffed with a coldness like midwinter wind. He opened his mouth to reply, and then realized, too late, that he had not come prepared with any excuse for speaking to the High Seeker.

Twenty-one years they had worked together, and he still needed an excuse to talk to Layle Smith. He thought this, and thought also of the time of absence when he had lingered each long night in the entry hall, far beyond the time when his shift officially ended, waiting for Layle Smith to call for his services.

Now the High Seeker's eyes were growing narrow through the holes in his hood. Seward began to open his mouth again to make some excuse for his presence when a faint scream cut through his thoughts.

The chatter in the entry hall died in an instant, as though sliced clean with a blade. For a heart's breath, everyone stared at the door that led to the prisoners' cells. Screams were a daily occurrence at the Eternal Dungeon; what had caught everyone's attention was the fact that the scream had cut off abruptly. Out of the corner of his eye, Seward saw the High Seeker's hand go to the side of his belt, as though he expected to find something there.

And then the silence was broken by a whistle – a high, hard whistle that shot through the air like a cannonball. And Seward was running, running as hard as he had ever run since the day in his youth when he saw a revolver in the hand of a man who had murder in his eyes, and whose gaze was turned toward the royal princess.

He ran as he had not run for twenty-six years: but the High Seeker reached the door before him.
 

CHAPTER TWO

Thatcher was having difficulty deciding who to attack first.

It was a familiar problem for him. He stood in the corner of his cell, watching the delivery of his meal. The junior guard placed the tray on his sleeping bench while the senior guard stood at the door with watchful eye and with his hand on his dagger-hilt. The junior guard was the obvious target; he kept flicking frightened glances at Thatcher. He was too obvious a target. The senior guard would flay Thatcher with his whip if he tried that tactic.

The senior guard, though . . . Ah, he was full of possibilities. "Senior" was a relative term – the older guard of the two couldn't be more than halfway through his twenties. He was gripping his dagger-hilt rather than his whip, which was just as Thatcher wanted it. And he had an assured look on his face. Thatcher liked assured looks. They were a sign that someone was about to make a mistake.

Thatcher stepped out of the corner, walking rapidly toward the junior guard. "Excuse me," he said. "I was wondering—"

The guard squealed as he spun round to face Thatcher. The senior guard's grip tightened on his dagger, but as Thatcher paused, he evidently decided to allow the junior guard to handle this challenge alone.

"Yes, Mr. Owen?" The junior guard's voice broke on Thatcher's name, and his face flooded with shame. Thatcher felt a moment of pity for the boy. Though a decade had passed, he could still remember keenly his own shame at his wavering voice at that age. Then he reminded himself who the boy was.

The enemy. No mercy for the enemy.

"I heard— Well, there was a rumor floating in the army that this dungeon has a rule book its workers must abide by, a rule book that lists a prisoner's rights." Thatcher did his best to look sheepish, as though he were imposing upon the guard's time.

The junior guard's blush receded. "The Code of Seeking," he said quickly. "Yes, that tells what your rights are."

"Would it be possible for me to request permission to view a copy of your Code?" Thatcher kept his voice polite. He was watching the senior guard out of the corner of his eye.

"Yes, of course," said the junior guard promptly. "Any prisoner may request permission to read the part of the Code pertaining to his rights. I have a copy here—" His hand, which had been hovering near his whip, rose to his shirt.

"Mr. Meakem, step back!" The senior guard's voice was sharp. No doubt he had seen Thatcher's eye flicking over the space between himself and the junior guard, judging how far he needed to jump. The junior guard – ill-trained, it seemed – looked over his shoulder, turning his face from Thatcher. A perfect moment to pounce, but Thatcher kept his muscles relaxed, and even stepped back a couple of paces as the senior guard came forward.

"I – I'm sorry," he said to the senior guard, letting himself stammer. "I don't mean to cause trouble."

"It's no trouble, Mr. Owen." The assurance was in the senior guard's voice as well as his look. "Mr. Meakem is not yet fully trained, so it would be better if I showed you the information you have requested." He reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a small, leather-bound book, similar in appearance to the devotional book that Thatcher's grandmother had given him as a child, which told of the transformation that awaited him in the afterdeath.

Thatcher stood motionless as the senior guard stepped forward. He kept his eye on the guard's dagger, which would be natural in any case. The senior guard held forward the book to Thatcher as the junior guard – who had not stepped back as ordered – watched the procedure, obviously memorizing the senior guard's movements.

Thatcher took the book with a deliberately tentative hand. He looked down at the cover. Although the volume was the size of the mass-produced devotional books, this book had gold lettering on the cover, bearing the title of the Eternal Dungeon's Code. He opened the cover with a rough hand and took note of how the junior guard winced at his handling of the book.

"The final chapter," the senior guard told him. "You'll find that the information on your rights starts on page 78."

Thatcher began to fumble his way through the book, eliciting more winces from the junior guard, who evidently regarded this book with reverence. Thatcher turned his attention back to the book, slowing his pace of browsing as he became conscious of the senior guard's gaze narrowing. No doubt he was under orders to prevent Thatcher from reading the rest of the book, lest he uncover the Seekers' secrets. The senior guard was to Thatcher's left, against the wall opposite the sleeping bench; the junior guard had moved to the front so as to see better.

Thatcher let his pace of flipping die away and silently read the words before him. "Under no circumstances may a Seeker lie to a prisoner. . . ."

His well-wrought plan was nearly foiled by a tugging desire to burst out laughing. This book was as filled with falsehoods as the devotional book his grandmother had given him. He wondered why the Seekers, who held absolute power over their prisoners, bothered to deceive themselves.

"The final chapter, sir." The senior guard's voice was sharp again. Thatcher flinched as he looked toward the senior guard, and the book flew from his hands, landing two paces away from the junior guard. In an automatic manner, the junior guard began to kneel to pick it up.

"No!" In a flash, the senior guard's dagger was out. It was the signal Thatcher had been awaiting. He did not bother to target the senior guard's dagger arm – no doubt the senior guard was trained to defend himself against such attacks. Instead, Thatcher whirled, burying his fist in the senior guard's stomach.

The senior guard gave a grunt but did not let go of his dagger; he was well trained indeed. Feeling the noose of time tightening on his throat, Thatcher sidestepped the dagger thrusting toward him, grabbed the guard's hair, and slammed the back of his head against the wall. The guard did not lose grip on the dagger, but this unexpected move – not listed in the normal arts of body battle – left him swinging his dagger futilely in the direction that any normal attacker would have taken. Thatcher slammed his head against the wall again, and again.

This was the dangerous moment. His back was now turned to the junior guard; if the junior guard had any training at all, he would use this moment to take out his whip and lash Thatcher into submission.

The junior guard did not do so. Instead, he wasted time by beginning to scream.

The senior guard made no noise. His eyes had rolled up in his head, and a moment later the dagger slipped from the senior guard's hand. Thatcher caught it as it fell. Released from his grip, the senior guard slid to the floor, his eyes closed and his head plastered with blood.

Thatcher turned to look at the junior guard, who was still screaming. The boy's scream cut off abruptly and his eyes widened as he looked at Thatcher, smiling with dagger in hand.

The cell door burst open two minutes later; a guard outside, alerted by the noises within the cell, had sent out a whistle of warning. By then, Thatcher was where he wanted to be: at the far end of the cell, with the boy pinned against his chest and the senior guard's dagger hard against the boy's throat.

The first man who arrived – a civilian, judging from his clothes – took one look at the situation and wisely backed out of the doorway. He glanced over his shoulder at the crowd that was gathering behind him and barked something. Several guards who had begun to wriggle forward stopped in their tracks. There was a moment of indecision as the rescue party stared into the cell at the captor and his captive.

Thatcher was not surprised. He had heard in the army – who had not heard? – that the Eternal Dungeon had been leaderless for the past three years. Its High Seeker had gone mad and killed himself, or had been placed in a cell with strong bindings upon him – the rumors varied. All that was certain was that the High Seeker was no longer at his post. Which meant, Thatcher knew from his experience in the army, that no one here would be willing to take the chance of rescuing the hostage. No one would be so bold as to act without orders.

Thatcher's back was beginning to sweat; he had positioned himself against the wall of thick glass blocks that was next to a furnace. He raised his voice to be heard above the shouts in the corridor, from guards who were just arriving. "I want to talk to one of your Seekers!" he called. "Your highest-ranked Seeker, whoever he may be."

The shouting continued. Thatcher could feel the junior guard shuddering against him; he was making small noises whenever Thatcher pushed the knife harder against his throat. Thatcher wondered whether he had drawn blood yet, but it hardly mattered. He had performed this maneuver enough times to know the difference between causing pain and draining life from a hostage. Not that the hostage ever survived this exercise, but death would come later, once Thatcher was sure of his freedom.

He keenly missed his men. They should be here now, ready to take the daggers and revolvers of the villagers who surrendered. He had worked out this plan long ago, on sleepless nights when he tried to think of more effective ways to fight the enemy. It was so simple: take one vulnerable hostage, and the rest of the village would surrender. And once the villagers had surrendered . . .

This time, he could not kill all the enemies standing before him; he lacked the support of his fellow soldiers. But he could ensure that the enemy did not kill him.

The shouting cut off, as abruptly as the junior guard's scream had. The crowd parted as cleanly as a head being severed from its neck. Through the crowd came two men.

Thatcher's eye was on the first man who entered the cell. He was a couple of decades older than Thatcher, in his late forties, and was dressed in the grey uniform of a guard. He was armed, but he was not touching his weapons, unlike most of the other men in the doorway, who were brandishing daggers and whips as though the mere sight of them would scare Thatcher into submission. This man scarcely looked at Thatcher. The moment he stepped over the threshold he turned his gaze to the man entering the cell behind him. The second man was dressed all in black and wore a hood.

"No weapons!" Thatcher said before the hooded man could speak. "Tell that guard of yours to strip himself, or else to leave the cell."

"As you wish, sir." The Seeker's voice was deep and courteous. His eyes were nearly hidden in the shadows of the hood's eye-holes. He was a tall man, but leanly built; Thatcher knew that he could overcome his opponent in any hand-to-hand fight. Not that it was likely to come to that. Already the Seeker was saying, "Mr. Sobel, disarm yourself, if you please."

The guard did so with eagerness. Thatcher found himself sighing inwardly, wondering whether anyone here would prove to be a worthy opponent. The Seeker's guard handed his dagger to his master, who reached back and handed it to the redheaded civilian standing amongst the guards crowding the doorway. Then the Seeker reached for the guard's whip.

The boy in Thatcher's arms made a sound in his throat, as though protesting this betrayal of his best interests. The Seeker, distracted as he was about to hand the whip back to the man at the door, paused and said in a loud voice, obviously meant to reach the far ends of the crowd, "Do not worry, Mr. Meakem! The prisoner will not harm you."

Thatcher felt laughter building in his belly. The Seeker, in taking the whip from his guard, had gripped it so that it was pointed backwards, useless in a fight. Now the Seeker was staring around the cell, obviously trying to assess whether anything here could prove to be of use to him during the coming battle.

All he found was the senior guard, still slumped to the ground about halfway down the cell. The Seeker took several steps forward in the direction of the unconscious figure, his anxiety causing him to forget about the captor and captive. "Mr. Urman . . ."

"Stay back!" cried Thatcher. The Seeker was still holding the whip backwards in his hand; Thatcher was less worried about this than by the fact that the Seeker's guard, like a shadow of his master, had followed the Seeker forward. That man, at least, had the sort of build that made him look as though he would be capable of winning a body battle.

"No further, unless you want his throat cut." Thatcher pressed his stolen dagger harder against the boy's throat and heard him whimper again.

The Seeker stopped dead in his tracks. "Sir," he said, "you already have one hostage; a second can be of no use to you. Please allow me to remove Mr. Urman from this cell, so that he can be tended to."

Thatcher glanced at the slumped figure and made a quick calculation. He did not want the Seeker to think that he was careless of the welfare of hostages; then the Seeker might begin to guess how little chance there was that the boy in Thatcher's arms would survive this encounter. Besides, if the Seeker ordered his guard to remove the prisoner, Thatcher would have one less person in this cell to deal with. He jerked his head in agreement.

The Seeker immediately leaned forward and murmured something in the ear of his guard. The guard nodded, but to Thatcher's disappointment, the Seeker's guard simply beckoned forth from the doorway the redhead in civilian clothes. The redhead quickly hurried forward, keeping his gaze upon the injured figure. Thatcher held his breath – three men in the cell was two more than he wanted – but nothing happened except that the redhead scooped the injured figure into his arms and disappeared out the door with him. The crowd, now utterly silent, parted to let him through.

"All right," Thatcher said in a rough voice. "I've given you what you want; now let me tell you what you will do for me. You will give orders for my release. You will ensure that no one is in the corridor except yourself and that guard of yours. You will escort me and my hostage from the dungeon, not by way of the main entrance, but through the back entrance by which you receive deliveries—"

He felt laughter rumbling in his belly again at the expressions of the guards at the doorway. "Yes," he said, smiling, "I know more about this dungeon than you think—"

"I doubt that." The Seeker, whose voice till now had been tentative, abruptly turned cold. "If you knew anything about this dungeon—"

Thatcher was never able to figure out later how it happened. It was impossible; no man, holding a whip backwards, could have flung the lash forward with precision. But a moment later, Thatcher felt the sting of the lash upon his face, cutting into the side of his nose and narrowly missing his eye. With a cry, Thatcher began to raise his right hand to his nose. Then he remembered that his right hand held the dagger, and he reached down to return it to the boy's throat.

It was too late. The Seeker's guard, moving as fast as the lash, had sped forward and wrenched the boy out of Thatcher's grasp. Thatcher's dagger followed in the direction of the boy—

And in the next second the dagger fell to the floor, along with Thatcher's knees. He clutched his arm, wondering how it was that a single whiplash could feel so much like a bullet.

Above him, the Seeker said calmly, "If you knew anything about this dungeon, you would know that Seekers do not normally touch weapons, and when they do, they use them. —Mr. Meakem, are you well?"

"Yes, sir." The boy's voice was faint from the doorway, where the Seeker's guard had paused with him; he looked ready to pass out. "He didn't harm me, sir."

Thatcher took several deep breaths. He had endured worse wounds than this in the army, and he had killed men who inflicted such wounds. Before he could plan his next move, though, a figure burst through the doorway, shouting, "Bloody blades, man! Don't you give me enough work caring for the wounds of your tortured prisoners without supplying me with injured guards also?"

The Seeker did not turn his head to look at the new arrival. He was still gripping the whip backwards in an easy manner that Thatcher did not find reassuring.

"Good evening, Mr. Bergsen," he said in a cool manner. "Mr. Meakem may have need of your services, but I would ask that you tend to Mr. Urman first."

"I've just come from him." The healer's voice was grim.

"And how fares he?" The Seeker's voice was utterly level. He sounded as though he were discussing a change in daily rations.

There was a pause. The healer's face was bright red, though incongruously, his anger seemed aimed at the Seeker before him rather than at the prisoner who had scooped the dagger back into his hand and scrambled to his feet, trying to figure out how to attack the opponent before him.

Then the healer said flatly, "The same as the last guard who was attacked in this dungeon."

"I see." The levelness of the Seeker's voice did not change, though the healer's words had caused a murmur to ripple through the crowd.

"Well, sir," said the Seeker to Thatcher, in as cold a manner as before. "I fear that you have just shortened your chances that any magistrate will find you innocent of murder. I would invite you to look at Mr. Urman's body and see the results of your action, but somehow I doubt that you are the sort of man to be moved by images of death." And with another swift movement, too quick to be followed by the eye, he sent his whip lashing forward to encircle Thatcher's wrist. The dagger spun from Thatcher's hand, out of reach.

"Welcome to the Eternal Dungeon, Mr. Owen," the Seeker said. Thatcher, raising eyes that were now stinging with tears, took note of the glacial green eyes before him, and realized in that moment who his opponent was.

Then the mad High Seeker scooped Thatcher's dagger off the floor and turned away, and a moment later Thatcher was alone in his cell, with blood dripping from his wounds.

"Gerson has a lot to answer for," said Mr. Boyd.

They were sitting in the entry hall among the guards, whose chatter was more subdued than usual this afternoon. Even the lamps seemed dimmer than usual. The Eternal Dungeon's Codifier, whose phlegmatic exterior hid a fire that scorched any person unwise enough to draw near, glanced out of his doorway and beckoned the next in a line of guards waiting to offer their testimony as to what had caused so serious a breach in the dungeon's security.

Seward looked away. He had been the third man to give his witness, preceded only by Mr. Meakem and the High Seeker. Rumor held it that the Codifier had visited the prisoner first, to learn his perspective on the assault, but the prisoner had refused to speak to him.

"Nine guards," said Mr. Boyd, slamming down his pen with such force that ink spattered from its nib. "Mr. Meakem offered his resignation before the night was out."

"Perhaps it's just as well," said Seward. "By his own testimony, he showed poor judgment."

Mr. Boyd snorted. "He was only in his third week of training – how else can you expect a pup to act when threatened? I blame Mr. Urman. With four years' experience, he ought to have known better."

Seward said nothing, gathering together his papers into a pile. It was his written report of what had occurred, the first report he had composed on a prisoner for thirty-four months. He wished he could feel more satisfaction at the return to a familiar task.

Mr. Boyd said in a quieter voice, "I'm sorry. I forgot that you trained him."

Seward carefully screwed on the cap of his pen and said, without looking up, "In any case, this hardly seems the moment to be speaking ill words against him."

Mr. Boyd stayed silent. Seward raised his eyes high enough to see the door to the far right of the entry hall, the one that led past the doors to the Seekers' living quarters, then past a doorway leading to the outer portion of the dungeon, and finally ended in a black door likely to go unnoticed. That door led to the healer's office, which was adjoined by the crematorium. Every man, woman, and child who died in the Eternal Dungeon, or who died as the result of trial witness offered by the dungeon's Seekers, was buried in the crematorium's single pit, which seemed to extend to the center of the earth.

Seward wondered when the prayers for the latest dead man would begin. He turned his eyes away to the chair where Mr. Urman usually sat, and then turned again to Mr. Boyd, who was saying, "Did you hear that the Codifier has ordered that the prisoner be transferred to another Seeker? That's why I'm not on watch now. It's just as well – I spent all of last night in bed imagining different ways in which I could throttle Mr. Owen."

"Yes." Seward carefully gathered his papers together, as though the pile were not already neat enough. "I must go. I'm on duty soon."

"So?" Mr. Boyd eyed him curiously. "You'll be the same place I've been all day, doing documentwork here while this mess is worked out."

Seward shook his head. "The High Seeker has need of me. I'm guarding tonight."

It was a moment before Mr. Boyd understood; then his breath rushed in. He said slowly, "He must be mad."

Seward gave him a sharp warning look, and Mr. Boyd added hastily, "I mean the Codifier. He's the one in charge, in cases like this. How the bloody blades could he consider assigning a prisoner who made a murderous attack on a guard, to the Seeker whose guard was the victim?"

"I doubt he had any choice," Seward replied. "This is the first prisoner the High Seeker has asked to be assigned since his illness began. If the Codifier refused him, Mr. Smith might lose all confidence in himself."

"Confidence in himself." Mr. Boyd stared at Seward as though the madness had claimed a new victim. "The prisoner's best interests are what matters, not the Seeker's interests! You know that, the Codifier knows that – sweet blood, even the High Seeker knows that. I can't believe he would wander so far from his duty as to manipulate the Codifier into giving him this prisoner. It's deplorable! The High Seeker is—"

He stopped, though Seward had not shot him any looks. Perhaps his pause was simply due to the fact that Seward had not shown the sort of rage that any other senior guard might have done if his Seeker was attacked. Mr. Boyd was oddly considerate toward the guard who never raised his voice, never threatened violence, never used force of any sort – except when his duty required it of him.

Mr. Boyd glanced at the guards sitting nearby, who were beginning to take interest in the conversation. He lowered his voice and added, "It's not fair to you, Mr. Sobel. If anything goes wrong, you'll be the one who must deal with it. The High Seeker is endangering your life without need. You ought to tell him that."

"My job," said Seward quietly as he drew out his dagger, "is to endanger myself for the High Seeker. That's why I was assigned to him."

There was a long silence. Then Mr. Boyd said, "Very well – you, perhaps. But his other guards— Does he even have any other guards now?"

Seward nodded as he poked a hole into the corner of the pages with his dagger. "The Codifier has assigned Elsdon Taylor's day guards to the High Seeker, since Mr. Taylor is still in mourning."

"They have the easy job, guarding the prisoner when the High Seeker is off-duty. What about the junior night guard? Even under normal circumstances, I can't imagine that anyone would want Mr. Urman's job."

"No." He finished pulling a ribbon through the hole and raised his eyes to Mr. Boyd.

After a long while, Mr. Boyd said, "I can't be your first choice. How many other guards have you asked?"

Seward told him. He could hear some of the whispers at the adjoining tables, and he felt his hands tighten as he tied the knot in the ribbon holding together his report. The only mercy was that the High Seeker had retired to his bed for a brief rest before he began his searching of the prisoner. Though no doubt Layle Smith could guess what was being said. He knew well enough where his duty lay, and he would know how his actions would be regarded by others.

Mr. Boyd drummed his fingers on the wood of the table, cursed softly, and then looked up to say, "Well, it was a nice dream. Throttling the prisoner, I mean. I suppose, though, that he deserves a second chance." He stood up, and the screech of his chair legs rebounded off the cavern walls. "I'd better go arm myself."

Mr. Boyd turned away before Seward had time to ask him whether he believed that it was the prisoner who deserved a second chance, or the High Seeker.
 

CHAPTER THREE

When Thatcher Owen was seventeen years old, he visited a diviner. The diviner lived permanently in the dumping area near Thatcher's town; Thatcher ought to have guessed from that alone what he would see within the tent. As it was, he stood speechless for a moment, appalled at the diviner's surroundings.

"You could live better than this!" he cried.

The diviner was unmoved. "This is the fate that has been decreed for me," he replied. "I am content with what I have been given by the fates."

That was the moment when Thatcher first began to love the diviner. He was old for the type of adoration that boys often hold for their elders, but he had never known his father and had been searching all his life for a man to model himself after. Now, seeing the diviner's quiet contentment with his poverty, Thatcher knew that his search was over.

At the diviner's urging, he revealed why he had come: to resolve a conflict between himself and his grandmother, who was raising him. His grandmother wished him to take over the family business when he reached his adulthood; Thatcher wanted to become a soldier. He had decided to trust to the fates for the decision.

The diviner would not give him an immediate answer. "Never before have I been asked to prophesy how a man should lead his full life," he said. "I must pray upon this for several days before I give you answer."

If Thatcher's heart had not already been pledged to the diviner, it would have leapt to the diviner at the moment he said the word "man" rather than "boy." Thatcher returned to the tent the next day, not expecting to receive an answer yet, but only wishing to be in the presence of so wise and generous a man.

The diviner tolerated his presence. He more than tolerated it: he encouraged Thatcher to visit him, answering all his questions and listening to the boy tell of his troubles in reconciling his conscience with his sense of duty to his grandmother. "The fates have given you a hard road in life," the diviner said. "I can tell that, even without knowing yet what your life will be."

After a few days, the diviner gave the fates' answer, which was cryptic. "The fates say that they have a higher ambition for you than soldiering," he told the boy. "They have not yet said what it is. Perhaps they wish you to discover it for yourself."

It was a hard answer for Thatcher, who had long dreamt of being a soldier, but he accepted it, for love of the diviner. He came every day now, listening to the diviner's talk of the glorious old days when all in Yclau had followed the fates rather than try to determine their own fates in the foolish belief that such efforts could change their lives after death.

And so it went, all that long, lovely summer. Thatcher no longer dreamt of soldiering but of pleasing the diviner who had shown such affection to him. He was determined now to accept whatever life the fates decreed, so as to keep the diviner's love.

Then came the morning when his schoolmaster took ill and Thatcher arrived home from school earlier than usual. His hand was on the door-latch to the house when he heard a familiar voice within.

"It will not be long now," said the diviner. "I dared not proceed too quickly – he would have been suspicious if I had prophesied immediately a future in your family business. But his heart is mine now. He will do whatever I tell him the fates decree."

Thatcher stood up on tiptoe and peered through the door's window of colored glass, just in time to see his grandmother give the diviner a handful of bills. The diviner smiled.

And so Thatcher's life was indeed changed, but not in the way that either the diviner or the grandmother had anticipated.

"The fourth day of the second month of 359," said the High Seeker. "One of the border towns of our queendom was attacked by a Vovimian raiding party. A quarter of the men in the village were killed, three of whom were tortured before their death for information on where the Yclau village's riches were located. A number of women were raped, and several more women were carried off as captives. The high command of the Queen's army, receiving news of the raid shortly after it took place, sent out orders that six units of Yclau soldiers were to be dispatched to pursue the raiders, recover the captive women and booty, and capture as many Vovimian soldiers as was possible. The six dispatched units soon lost the trail of the wily raiders, but a seventh unit, which had not been dispatched, followed the raiders doggedly."

He paused, as though expecting comment at this point, but none came, so he continued: "This is as far as the high command's own records go; the remainder of the report comes from the Yclau unit. Its lieutenant reports that the raiders were traced to a border town in Vovim, from which the soldiers in the raiding party evidently originated. The Vovimian soldiers immediately settled down to a night of celebration for their victory. The other villagers joined the celebration. During this time, the captive women were passed from man to man, undergoing rape at the hands of nearly all the village men. The women of the village held the captured Yclau down so that their men could assault the captives. All of this is reported by the lieutenant and is backed by the testimony of the lieutenant's men.

"In the early hours of the morning, when the sated captors had lapsed into drunken sleep, the Yclau unit attacked the village. The Yclau soldiers encountered greater resistance than they had expected, as every man, woman, and child in the village rose up to prevent the Yclau from saving the captives, who were sobbing in their cellar prison. The Yclau soldiers were forced to kill all the inhabitants of the village in order to save the women. Again, this is the lieutenant's report, and it is backed by his men. The captive women were unable to witness how the rescue took place, but they confirm the lieutenant's account of their rapes. The Vovimian army confirms that all the inhabitants of the village were killed. Although the death figures they give are higher than those supplied by the Yclau lieutenant, they concede that there is no sign that the village inhabitants were tortured or raped before their deaths."

The High Seeker looked up from the piece of paper he had been glancing at. Carefully folding it, he tucked it into his shirt pocket before adding, "A standard report from the present war. The only oddity about the Yclau unit's behavior is the fact that the Vovimian men were not tortured, the Vovimian women were not raped, and the Vovimian women and children were killed. All three events are unusual in wartime. However, the raid might have been overlooked, if not for the fact that, in the past year, four other unauthorized raids took place, all by the same Yclau unit, and all of the same nature."

The High Seeker paused. His hood was licked with light from the flames beyond the glass blocks at the end of the prisoner's cell; his eyes alternated between gold and green as the fire danced in and out of them. His body was stiff, barely moving

He waited a minute. Then, when his recital received no response, he said, "Well?"

"It was defense," Thatcher replied in a bored voice.

He did not bother to say more. He had been over this ground dozens of times now; after each raid, he would be asked the same bloody questions, by the same chair-bound clerks who had never been on the field and who had no idea what conditions were like in battle. In their world of paper and pen and ink, two dozen Yclau soldiers politely asked two hundred Vovimian murderers and rapists to surrender the women they were brutalizing, and the Vovimians immediately handed over the captives. The idea that it might actually be necessary to shed blood in order to save abducted women had never occurred to these bladeless clerks. They were shocked at such an idea – so shocked as to recommend that the unit's lieutenant be placed under arrest and sent to the Eternal Dungeon.

The High Seeker said, "Even if it was defense, the unusual features of the raids remain. Why didn't you torture the men and rape the women? Few Yclau soldiers would have been able to resist the impulse to do so, under such circumstances."

Thatcher passed a hand over his mouth to hide his smile. He could well guess that the High Seeker would regard the lack of desire to torture as puzzling behavior. "There was no need. We were there to rescue the captives and recover the booty, nothing more. If we could have captured the responsible parties and handed them over to the high command for punishment, we would have done so. As it was, the only way to rescue the captives was to kill the enemy. We were outnumbered ten to one; it was a miracle that we were able to save the women."

He allowed resentment to trickle into his voice. In a just world, an officer who managed to rescue captives against odds that high would be raised in rank, not handed over to torturers for questioning. But Thatcher had long known that no justice existed in the world. He was simply pleased that, when it had come to the test, his men had backed him with the truth. He hadn't been sure that they would; he'd encountered too many lies from them in the past.

"You admit that you ordered the death of all the village inhabitants during your five raids?"

"Of course I do," said Thatcher with a gesture of impatience. "I've always been honest in my reports. I don't lie."

The High Seeker's guard – the same man who had rescued the boy from Thatcher – flicked a glance toward Thatcher, and then returned his gaze to the High Seeker. The guard's eyes had remained fixed on his master since the moment that the High Seeker entered the cell. Thatcher had toyed during the intervening night and day with the idea of taking the High Seeker hostage, and his hopes had risen when the man was foolish enough to enter his cell unarmed. But the presence of the armed guard put an end to that plan. Instead, Thatcher must find a way to make the High Seeker see that he was innocent. And the odds against that, Thatcher knew, were even higher than the odds against a successful raid. He had heard too many tales about the High Seeker.

And now he knew that the tales were true. Thatcher cursed himself again as he remembered how the High Seeker and his guard had played him the fool on the previous day. Then he forced himself to pay attention to what the hooded man was saying.

"I am glad that you value honesty, Mr. Owen," said the High Seeker. "We esteem the truth in the Eternal Dungeon."

Thatcher wondered then whether the High Seeker was trained to torture prisoners through laughter. Thatcher ended up bent over double, clutching at his pained sides. "I – I see," he finally sputtered. "I've been searching for honest men all my life. It never occurred to me to search among torturers."

The High Seeker ignored this comment. "So you commanded your men to kill the Vovimian villagers in defense. Including the villagers who weren't soldiers."

Thatcher sobered rapidly. "How do you know they weren't soldiers? Those cursed raiding parties don't dress in uniforms. For all we know, every man in that village had served his turn as a raider. They'd nearly all of them raped the women; they were all a threat."

"And the women of the village?" The High Seeker's voice was quiet.

"Helped their men. You've seen my report, High Seeker – you know that the women took up arms against us. Even the snake-tongued Vovimians don't deny that."

He wondered briefly whether this dagger-prick would arouse a reaction, but the High Seeker merely said, "And the children?"

Thatcher snorted. "'Children'? Some of those so-named children were nearly full-grown, and they'd already been trained in the blood-letting customs of the Vovimians. A Vovimian child with a weapon in his hands can be as dangerous as a full-grown man – you of all people should know that."

This time the guard flicked a glance at Thatcher, his brows drawn low, and Thatcher guessed that the dagger had penetrated that man's skin. But the High Seeker's voice continued to be flat as he said, "The youngest child you killed was barely out of her cradle."

Thatcher felt anger rush into him suddenly. It was always this way when he was questioned. The questions would start out calm and measured; only gradually would Thatcher realize that his questioner was twisting the truth, coming as near as he dared to an outright lie. "We esteem truth in the Eternal Dungeon" – oh, if it were only true. Thatcher thought that he would have been willing to pay any price asked by someone who was really honest with him.

But such a person did not exist, he reminded himself. He had learned that long ago.

"If I explained to you why that was defense also, you wouldn't understand," he replied in a rough voice. "I don't know why you're wasting your time with this game. You have a witness who can testify I killed your guard – and though that was defense as well, no doubt you can twist the truth to make the magistrate send me to the hangman. Then you can burn my body and fling my ashes into the gutter."

"We are somewhat more careful of our prisoners' ashes than that," the High Seeker said softly. "In any case, what took place in this dungeon will not be charged against you unless we are unable to obtain other confessions from you. We prefer not to give witness against prisoners in matters that concern ourselves."

Thatcher permitted himself to bark out a laugh. Of course the High Seeker would be eager to hide from the world the fact that his guards had bumbled the simple task of serving a prisoner his meal. And because of that, the High Seeker was determined to invent another crime for Thatcher to be hung for. Thatcher found himself wondering why the High Seeker did not simply forge a confession and claim it came from Thatcher.

But if he did, of course, he would not be able to torture Thatcher.

Thatcher felt a chill run through his body; then he resolutely thrust that thought aside. He had joined the army knowing that he would undergo pain and might undergo death, but he had been determined to save his Queen and his fellow countryfolk against the connivings of the vicious, lying Vovimians. It had not surprised him much to discover that lies abounded in the Yclau army as well, nor that he should find his life threatened by some of the very men he had been seeking to defend. That was what life was like. He had not expected it to be any different, not for many years.

But if he must be tortured and executed, he would at least hold to his principles, dying as a true man must. As a truthful man must.

He pulled himself upright and said, "Ask me whatever questions you want. You'll get nothing but honest replies from me, however much you'd like me to lie."

The High Seeker did not speak for a moment. Thatcher had been watching him closely since his arrival that evening, intently examining the man's body and eyes for signs of his rumored madness. The High Seeker did not seem in any way hysterical – in fact, he was much milder in manner than Thatcher had expected a Seeker to be. As the torturer spoke, his guard's expression would occasionally waver into brief frowns, as though the High Seeker was taking a path not expected.

Perhaps, then, the High Seeker was mad, but his madness had taken an uncommon form. If so, Thatcher could make use of this knowledge.

He decided to change his tactics. Emitting a hollow laugh, he said, "This is all a charade – having you of all people search me. Don't you think I've heard about you? I know why you've decided to question me yourself. You want to know whether I killed any of your kinfolk."

The High Seeker's voice was calm, measured. "As far as I know, Mr. Owen, I did not have any kinfolk in the villages you destroyed."

"But you could have had kin there, couldn't you? So this is your revenge: you can break my body in order to pay me back for what I did to the Vovimians."

"Can I?" The High Seeker's voice was utterly neutral. Thatcher felt himself itch with irritation. He had successfully used this tactic on all five raids – he had lured a young man into attacking him by taunting him, then had used the youth as a hostage to force the other villagers to surrender.

This time he doubted that he could lure the High Seeker into arm's reach. The man had taken care to place himself as far away from Thatcher as possible, and his guard was watching the proceedings with careful eyes. But if the High Seeker was really as unbalanced as Thatcher guessed, perhaps Thatcher could force him out of his abnormally calm state into whatever frenzy was hidden within him.

"You're just like the villagers I killed," Thatcher said in a voice heavy with mockery. "I've met men like you dozens of times on that side of the border. Cruel, callous— Oh, yes, callous," he said as though the High Seeker had spoken. "I can tell that just by our short acquaintance. Look at your companion!" Thatcher waved a hand toward the guard.

The High Seeker was too well trained to look. Thatcher forced himself to laugh again. "You don't even look at him. He hangs on your every word, probably follows you from room to room like a shadow – and what does he get in return? Nothing. You've probably never looked him straight in the eye the whole time he has worked for you. You barely remember that he exists."

"Mr. Sobel's duty is to watch me," said the High Seeker. "My duty is to watch the prisoner."

Thatcher's blood surged warm through his body. The High Seeker had responded to one of his challenges; it was like seeing an opponent stumble during a fight. He remembered his imaginings about entering into body battle with this man, and he envisioned the High Seeker pinned to the ground, struggling to rise . . .

"And do you care about any of the men who work for you?" asked Thatcher. "Did you care about the guard I killed? Did you instruct him on how to avoid death? If so, your training was poor. I wonder what he was thinking during his final moments of life? I'll bargain he was thinking of your betrayal – he was thinking of how he might have lived to old age, unbloodied, if you hadn't been so cold-hearted as to deny him the training he needed to survive."

He stopped only because he had run out of breath. There was no sign that the High Seeker was paying attention to his words. The man had not moved; his gaze had not faltered; his fists had not clenched.

But when he spoke, it was in a voice so soft that it was nearly lost by the faint sounds of the flames flickering behind Thatcher.

"Mr. Owen," the High Seeker said, "since you are evidently not in the mood to discuss the serious charges placed against you, I think it would be best if we continued this conversation tomorrow. Good evening."

The High Seeker turned his back. The door at the end of the cell was already opening; the redhead, now in the uniform of a guard, had his dagger out, and for a moment it looked as though he would enter the cell. Then he stepped out of the way, and the High Seeker disappeared into the darkness of the corridor, while the first guard followed him as close as a shadow.

Thatcher grinned. In his mind, the High Seeker lay writhing on the ground, stunned into surrendering the first round.

"So who do you reckon you're guarding?" asked Mr. Boyd. "The High Seeker against the prisoner, or the prisoner against the High Seeker?"

Seward took out his dagger, held it a moment over Mr. Boyd's hands, and then deftly sliced the red ribbon that the other guard was holding for him. As Mr. Boyd laid aside the stack of documents they had just bound, Seward said, "It's the duty of every guard to protect prisoners against anyone who might break the Code of Seeking. Including a fellow guard."

Misunderstanding, Mr. Boyd snorted. "As though I could do any damage to the prisoner from behind a closed door. Mr. Sobel, I had my eye pressed to the watch-hole the whole time. The High Seeker nearly went for the prisoner's throat toward the end."

Seward shot him a dark look, jerking his head slightly toward the guards at the other end of their table in the entry hall. He and Mr. Boyd had been released early from their duty of guarding the prisoner's cell, for the day guards had arrived an hour before schedule. No doubt the day guards were driven by the same curiosity that held all of the workers in this dungeon captive: to know whether the High Seeker had attacked his prisoner yet.

Mr. Boyd looked properly rueful. He was not normally prone to gossip; the fact that he had spoken so loudly demonstrated how strong the tension was in the dungeon at the moment. Lowering his voice, Mr. Boyd said, "If you hadn't been there, he would have killed the prisoner. Or mutilated him. Or whatever it is he dreams of doing to prisoners."

Seward knew more than most of the dungeon's inhabitants did about what the High Seeker dreamed of doing to prisoners. He busied himself with tying another bundle of documents before saying, "You could say the same for me."

"Oh, Mr. Sobel." Mr. Boyd, who had been standing in order to place the documents in a storage box destined for the documents library, sighed as he sat down beside Seward at the table. "You don't think anyone could take you seriously when you say that, do you? Your record is spotless. Sweet blood, man, one has only to look at you to see how unlikely it is that you would break the Code! I've never met anyone so serene in disposition. You're like day to the High Seeker's night."

Seward said nothing, curling the ribbon into a perfect loop before tying it.

The other guard, watching him closely, said, "You're worried. You must be. You saw what I saw."

"What I saw," said Seward, carefully slicing the next ribbon, "was a Seeker doing his duty."

Mr. Boyd was silent for a long time after that, watching Seward neatly slice out lengths of ribbon for the coming bundles, each one exactly as long as the previous one. Finally the younger guard said, "He was right, you know."

"The High Seeker?"

"The prisoner. The High Seeker doesn't look straight at you, ever. I'd noticed that."

"It doesn't matter to me if he does," Seward said, leaning over to take another stack of papers and straighten its edges. "He's only a workmaster to me."

Mr. Boyd snorted again, and then lapsed into silence as another guard, wearing a black wrist-band in honor of Mr. Urman, sauntered over to ask, ever so casually, how matters were going with their prisoner.
 

CHAPTER FOUR

Thatcher had had a good day. He had gone to bed peacefully, with thoughts of his victory running through his mind, and had slept like a contented cat until evening, when the guards posted outside his cell during the daytime came in to bring him breakfast. His nights spent sleeping on foreign battlefields had not been this tranquil.

True, he had dreamt of the girl again. He was not sure why she kept turning up in his dreams. He supposed it was human nature to regret the unchangeable.

He had first noticed her as he and his men were making their sally. She was trying to hide under one of the outside trestle tables that the Yclau women had been raped upon. Thatcher had grinned at her in passing, an automatic reaction. His cousin had a daughter this age, of about three years. He had briefly wondered whether he should take this girl and the other little ones back over the border once this was through, so that they could be placed in the care of civilized parents. Then his mind had been occupied with killing the Yclau women's tormenters.

He had not expected his men to take so literally his command to kill all the village inhabitants. The past four villages they had attacked had been little more than gathering points for soldiers who wanted to live near the border: a few camp followers had dwelt there, as well as a few youths too eager to fight the Yclau to wait for the formality of reaching adulthood. No young children had lived there. Thatcher had taken it for granted that his men would have sense enough to leave alone the young children in this village.

By the time he realized what was happening, it was too late. He dared not reverse his order – he had seen for himself what happened when officers reversed orders in the midst of battle. He and his men were badly outnumbered here; he must not show any weakness by sparing Vovimians that his men were in the midst of killing. He needed to be a model for them of ruthless courage. And so he had stood by and watched as one of his men slit the girl's throat.

Well, that was war. Bad events happened all the time, events that could not have been reversed. It wasn't Thatcher's fault it had happened – it was the fault of the Vovimian men in the village who had abducted the captives, as well as the women and youths who supported that abduction. The young children were the innocent victims of their cruelty, the sacrifice that Thatcher must make to obtain the Yclau women's freedom.

Not that Thatcher expected anyone outside the army to understand this. Especially not the man standing in front of him on that third day of Thatcher's imprisonment, staring coolly at him through the eye-holes of his hood.

Thatcher disliked hypocrisy almost as much as he disliked lies. That a man like this should presume to cast judgment over him for what he had done . . . He heard himself say, "I know why you became a Seeker. It's so that you could have the enjoyment of torturing prisoners."

For a moment, he thought the High Seeker would be too much a coward to respond to this attack. Then the High Seeker said softly, "That is not the only reason I became a Seeker, Mr. Owen."

Thatcher was temporarily disconcerted; he had not expected the High Seeker to be honest in his reply. Then he grimly smiled. Of course. The High Seeker was using the truth to hide some sort of lie. Probably his main reason for becoming a Seeker was even worse than the one Thatcher had guessed, and he was seeking to obscure this fact with apparent candidness.

"What are you thinking of?" the High Seeker asked.

Thatcher's smile spread at this admission from the High Seeker of his weak ability to see into the minds of prisoners. "Truth," he said. "Truth used to cover up lies."

He expected the High Seeker to question him about his response, but the hooded man merely said, "You seem to have a strong interest in honesty, Mr. Owen. Is that what you hoped to find in the Eternal Dungeon? Honest men?" His voice was light in a manner that Thatcher assumed denoted mockery.

Thatcher gave a short, humorless laugh. "Not bloody possible. I gave up my search for honest folk long ago, when I was a kid."

"Oh?" The High Seeker's voice was indifferent. Probably his mind was on which instrument of torture to use on Thatcher. "What made you decide this?"

It seemed as good a way as any to waste time till the real proceedings began, so Thatcher told the tale of the diviner. His feet hurt by the end of the story. One of the rules in this dungeon seemed to be that he was not allowed to sit down in his Seeker's presence. He hoped the High Seeker's feet hurt too; the man was too wary of him to seat himself on the bench. The guard who shadowed the High Seeker was standing too. Thatcher could not help but notice how the man's gaze kept wandering away from the High Seeker during Thatcher's recital, as though he found the prisoner more interesting than the man he was supposed to be guarding. Thatcher was not surprised. He too would become tired of the High Seeker's indifference toward others, if he were the guard.

At the end of the tale, Thatcher waited for the High Seeker to explain, as so many others had explained to Thatcher over the years, that his grandmother loved him and meant well and so he should forgive her for what she had done. Thatcher would sooner have wetted his grandmother's grave, but he had given up hope of making anyone understand the heinousness of the crime his grandmother had committed. No one in the world cared as much about honesty as Thatcher did – that had become clear long ago.

The High Seeker made no comment on the tale, though. All that he said was, "You appear to have a number of admirable qualities, Mr. Owen. You wish that honest people existed in this world, you desire to rescue abducted women, you do not seek to prolong the pain of those you kill, you endeavor on occasion to serve the Queen with loyalty—"

Thatcher had been on the alert for an insult from the moment that this false flattery began. Now he said quickly, "I've always served the Queen with loyalty."

"Have you?" The High Seeker's voice sounded more curious than challenging. "This is the Queen's dungeon, Mr. Owen, and we are the Queen's Seekers, appointed by the Crown to search prisoners who are placed in our care. Yet from the moment you arrived here, you have sought to fight against the Seekers and their guards, perverting the process of justice ordained by the Queen you claim to serve."

Thatcher chewed that thought over for a minute. His immediate instinct was to make a stinging reply, but he prided himself on the fact that he was always willing to admit when he was wrong. Finally he said, "Very well, you have the right to search me – I'll concede that. But it won't do you any good. You want me to lie and say I was wrong to lead the rescue of those women. I'll never do that. I'll never tell you anything but the truth."

"Won't you?" Once again, the High Seeker's voice was light, as though he were chatting with an old friend. "It's rather late for you to make that decision, Mr. Owen. You have already told me several lies. Most of them I think you are genuinely not aware are lies, for which reason I will take no notice of those falsehoods. But one lie I believe you are very much aware that you told, and the manner in which you spoke the lie reveals that."

Thatcher did not even bother to ask which of his truths the High Seeker disbelieved. He simply snorted. "So you think I lied to you. Right, then. Do whatever it is you Seekers do when you're lied to."

"I very much regret it, Mr. Owen, but I fear that I must." The High Seeker's voice had turned soft. "The Code requires that punishment occur after any prisoner deliberately lies to his Seeker."

Thatcher felt his back grow stiff, and he cursed himself for showing that much weakness under the High Seeker's scrutiny. He had known that this would come – had known that the High Seeker would find an excuse to torture him. Now all he must do was endure the pain, until the High Seeker finally realized that no amount of pain would cause Thatcher to lie about what he had done.

The High Seeker had made no gesture that Thatcher could see, but the redheaded guard outside must have been listening at the keyhole, for he entered the cell, carefully locked the door behind him, and pulled out his whip from where it hung looped on his belt. Thatcher did not like the look in the guard's eyes. He had seen that sort of look in the eyes of Vovimians who, in the moment of their charge, wished not only to shoot but also to disembowel with their bayonets. The first guard, the one who shadowed the High Seeker, was far more reassuring; his expression was bland and businesslike. Thatcher turned his attention back to the High Seeker, to see whether he could read anything in the man's eyes.

He was just in time to see the High Seeker begin to remove his shirt.

"What the bloody blades are you doing?" Thatcher was disconcerted. It was not as though he had been unaware of the possibility of this type of attack – he had heard rumors about where the High Seeker's tastes lay. But he would have expected the High Seeker to be more subtle – to send away witnesses before he began proceedings.

The High Seeker did not pause. He completed untying the fastenings on his shirt and handed the shirt to his first guard, who was frozen like a statue. Out of the corner of his eye, Thatcher could see that the redhead had likewise gone completely still. If this had happened before, the High Seeker was apparently not in the habit of allowing his guards to watch.

Thatcher's rapist – Thatcher could think of him in no other way now – walked toward him. He said, "I am preparing, Mr. Owen, for the punishment."

Thatcher thought this was the most unnecessary speech he had ever heard in his life. He braced himself for the fight to come. The High Seeker might have the right to search him, but Thatcher would sooner have given up his right of rebirth than to endure this particular punishment passively.

He was disconcerted once more as the High Seeker walked past him. The High Seeker stepped over to the far wall and stood facing it; he did not turn. Instead, he raised his arms high over his head. Thatcher was still trying to form theories as to this strange position for an attack when he noticed that the High Seeker was touching a ring that was inset into the wall.

"Mr. Sobel," the High Seeker said in a matter-of-fact manner.

The first guard broke out of his paralysis. He placed the shirt aside on Thatcher's sleeping bench, and then came forward, pulling something from his pocket. Thatcher had time enough to see that it was a set of keys before the guard reached up and inserted one of the keys into the wall, just above the ring. There was a click, and the bottom of the ring sprang out a couple of inches from its flush position. It now looked like any other whipping ring Thatcher had seen in his years in the army.

Thatcher was slowly figuring out the reason why the ring was normally kept stored within the wall, and was grudgingly admiring the Seekers for their care in preventing prisoners from having a means to hang themselves. Thus he missed the moment when the guard began to bind the High Seeker's wrists to the ring with a leather strap he had taken from his pocket.

"Mr. Boyd," the High Seeker said, as though following normal routine.

The redhead looked as though he regarded this exercise as anything but routine; his face had taken on a look of horror. "Sir, no!" he protested as the other guard completed his handiwork. "I couldn't possibly—"

"With your permission, sir, I will do it." The first guard stepped forward and took the whip from the redhead's grasp. The redhead's expression changed from horror to incredulity.

"Thank you, Mr. Sobel. I know that I can count on you to apply the lashes in the proper manner." The High Seeker's voice was partly muffled by his arms, which now cradled his face. "Mr. Owen, I would like to speak with you first."

Thatcher moved warily toward the far end of the cell. His eye was on the guards rather than the High Seeker. The redhead was now looking over his shoulder, as though trying to decide whether to call for help. The first guard was trying to school his expression, but he was not successful at hiding the grim line of his lips. Thatcher had seen that look before, on the faces of men in the field hospital who were awaiting the moment when their legs would be sawed off.

Either he had stumbled across the finest actors outside of Vovim, Thatcher decided, or the High Seeker was trying something new and different.

He could not have guessed this from the High Seeker's eyes, which appeared just as calm as before. He could see them now, standing as he was along the warm wall, with the furnace fire beyond it touching flames against the frosty glass. The heat made sweat break out on Thatcher, but the High Seeker looked as cool and collected as though he were on a picnic at the seaside.

"The Eternal Dungeon's Code of Seeking requires different levels of punishment, Mr. Owen," he said in a conversational manner. "Five to twenty light lashes are prescribed for minor offenses, in cases where the prisoner has not previously received punishment by those in authority over him, such as prison workers or army officials. Twenty to forty medium lashes are prescribed in cases of minor offences where the prisoner has previously received beatings by order of authorities. Forty to sixty hard lashes are prescribed in cases of major offences. Major offences are defined by the Code as physical attacks upon a Seeker or trying to shift the blame for one's crime onto an innocent party. Mr. Sobel, what is the appropriate punishment in a case like this?"

There was the barest of hesitations before the guard replied, in an even voice, "Light lashes, sir."

"Mr. Sobel." The High Seeker did not raise his voice or turn his head to look at the guard, but something changed in his tone that made Thatcher's flesh prickle.

"I'm sorry, sir," the guard said quickly. "Medium lashes are the appropriate punishment in this case."

"Indeed," said the High Seeker, "since both you and I have received beatings on the order of authorities, Mr. Owen."

Thatcher did not need anyone to tell him what he had received in his past, but he stepped back a bit to look curiously at the High Seeker's back. Sure enough, though the back was in shadow, Thatcher could see scar marks. They were old and faded, which was why he had not noticed them before.

"Twenty to forty lashes," the High Seeker said. "The Seeker receives the right to choose the number of lashes, based on his assessment of the prisoner's character and the circumstances of the prisoner's offence. How many lashes do you believe I should receive, Mr. Owen?"

"Forty," he replied swiftly. He knew, even as he spoke, that he had fallen into the High Seeker's trap. He had figured out by now the point of this exercise. The High Seeker would allow a few light lashes to land harmlessly on his back, would writhe and scream for the benefit of his audience, and then, when his prisoner had begun to fear the power of the lash, would order that Thatcher receive the remainder of his self-imposed sentence, delivered at full force. It was the sort of trick Thatcher had come to expect from this man.

Still, he could not resist requesting the highest number of lashes. Despite what the army clerks might think, he was no sadist – as the High Seeker had rightly said, he had no desire to see others linger in pain, no matter how much they deserved it. Because of this, he had found ways to keep control of his wayward men without need for ordering any lashings.

He had not been so lucky during his own time as a bottom-ranked soldier. Two weeks in the army, and a trip to the whipping post, had convinced Thatcher that, if he truly wanted to serve the Queen, he would do better to bide his time until he became an officer and could take action on his own initiative. He could still remember the bite of the nine-tail upon his shoulder-blades and his resolute determination to make no sound during the beating. He considered his ability to keep that promise one of the crowning accomplishments of his life.

And now his torturer, the man who would order Thatcher's renewed pain, stood bound before him. Yes, Thatcher would like the High Seeker to feel the taste of leather upon his body again, even if the beating was kept light.

Thatcher switched his attention to the whip in the guard's hand. It was a single-tail, with no handle that Thatcher could see, but it tapered to its tip, becoming wonderfully thin toward the end. It was much shorter than Thatcher had imagined it would be, no doubt to take into account the narrow confines of the cell. He wondered whether he could hope that the guard, in his evident state of nerves, would make a costly error in beating his Seeker.

"Mr. Owen," said the High Seeker, "it is the duty of the Seeker supervising the punishment to stand next to the prisoner and watch him closely as the beating proceeds, so that he can stop matters if it appears that his prisoner's health is in grave danger."

Thatcher returned to his previous position along the wall, his face touched by a smile of light irony. He had every intention of watching the High Seeker's eyes as the first blow landed.

"Are you ready, Mr. Sobel?" the High Seeker asked. He was making no effort to hide his eyes from Thatcher – on the contrary, his gaze was fixed with his prisoner's.

"Yes, sir." The guard holding the whip sounded as though he were anything but ready. The redhead seemed to have given up thought of seeking rescue from other quarters; he was standing with his fists clenched, glaring at Thatcher.

"One," said the High Seeker.

It took Thatcher a moment to realize this was a signal, and by that time the lash had landed. There was no dramatic whistling through the air or cracking, just a soft thud. "Hold a minute!" Thatcher said and put up his hand. The guard with the whip was watching the High Seeker rather than Thatcher, but he made no move to land the second blow, apparently still awaiting the High Seeker's signal.

Thatcher came round to the High Seeker's back. He was vaguely surprised to see a red line there. He ran his finger along it. The blood that had been released under the skin was already beginning to swell into a welt. The lash had been landed carefully, though – there was no cut in the skin along the line.

Thatcher snorted. "Is this what you call a medium beating?"

"Yes, it is, you bloodthirsty pig!" replied the redhead with raised voice. "What are you hoping for, gallons of blood?"

"Mr. Boyd," the High Seeker said quietly, once again with that edge which made Thatcher's skin prickle. "If you cannot behave yourself, I will have to ask you to leave. Mr. Owen, the beating will grow more intense as it progresses. May I continue with the punishment?"

"Continue away," said Thatcher, feeling as though he were watching a particularly entertaining puppet show. He returned to his previous place and smiled smugly at the High Seeker.

At the third lash, the High Seeker grunted. Thatcher chuckled at this; evidently the High Seeker was not as skilled as he was at keeping from making noises during punishment. He would have thought the grunt was faked, but the angry red welts were continuing to appear on the High Seeker's back. Thatcher wondered whether the guard administering the punishment would receive his own beating later, for having lost control of his whip.

At the twelfth lash, the High Seeker let out a howl. Thatcher was standing close to him in order to watch the eyes, which were now blinking rapidly; he was nearly scared into rebirth by the raw sound that arose from the High Seeker's throat. The two guards jumped in their places, and the guard with the whip blanched. But he continued to apply the blows, red stripes along the bare back, as the redhead began muttering what sounded suspiciously to Thatcher like death threats.

There were no more howls, but the grunts continued. By the eighteenth lash, the High Seeker appeared to be trying to climb the wall, standing on his toes and clutching at the ring. Thatcher, who remembered doing the same during his own beating, gave another soft chuckle.

The High Seeker fainted at the twenty-fifth blow. Thatcher waited to see whether the guards would throw ice water on the bound man or whatever else was usual in this case, but the guard with the whip simply reached into his pocket again and brought out a small vial, which he uncorked and placed under the hood of the High Seeker, hanging limply in his bonds. The vial did its work at reviving the bound man, and the beating continued.

It was obvious to Thatcher by now that the High Seeker, overcome by the unexpectedly harsh beating, had completely forgotten to give the order for his own release. The guards were clearly unwilling to act without that order. Thatcher, feeling a mixture of bemusement and delight, watched as the second fainting occurred at the thirty-second lash. From that point on, the High Seeker no longer had the strength to call out the numbers of his own beating. Thatcher did so for him, spacing the lashes wide, so that the High Seeker would feel the full impact of each blow. The High Seeker's eyes were squeezed shut now.

Thatcher had to admit that the guard with the whip was skilled. Apparently the guard's only problem was in landing a blow softly; he had no trouble controlling the direction of the whip. The High Seeker's back was now neatly ridged with parallel lines, none crossing the other; but with forty lashes ordered, it was only a matter of time before the lash-marks kissed each other. The blood began to trickle down the High Seeker's sweat-laden back at the thirty-sixth blow.

After the fortieth lash, the High Seeker was barely conscious, so he missed the opportunity to give Thatcher whatever speech he had intended to deliver about how Thatcher would receive worse if he continued in his obstinacy. Thatcher watched the guards help the High Seeker stumble from the cell, without making any commentary of his own.

He hardly felt it was necessary. In his mind, the High Seeker lay panting on the ground, defeated for a second time.

"He's mad!" hissed Mr. Boyd.

"Who, the Codifier?" Seward, on the point of pushing a documents box onto the topmost shelf of the documents library, looked down at Mr. Boyd, who was standing below him.

The other guard frowned. He had been unwilling to enter the dimly lit room in the first place, complaining that he was already close to blindness from the eyestrain of working in the other dim rooms of the dungeon. But Seward, guessing what the nature of this conversation would be, wanted them alone in a room with the door shut.

Now Seward returned his attention to the box, saying, "There's nothing in the Code of Seeking that forbids a Seeker from taking punishment in place of a prisoner."

When he looked down again, he saw that Mr. Boyd was gaping as though he were locked in a room with a madman. Seward made his way back down the steps of the sliding ladder that could be placed against any of the three walls of the library. "'A Seeker must be willing to suffer for the prisoners,'" he reminded Mr. Boyd.

The other guard's face darkened upon hearing the most famous words in the Code of Seeking. "A Seeker must be willing to suffer if it's in the best interests of the prisoner for him to do so. How is this supposed to help the prisoner? Will it make him cry and say, 'I'm so sorry – I was such a terrible man for making you and my victims suffer'? Mr. Sobel, you know better than that!"

Seward said nothing. His shoulders ached from the past half hour of lifting boxes, and his eyes were watering; the dungeon's Record-keeper only permitted one safety lamp in this room. It was part of what he missed most about the world above: bright light. Everything was bright in the world he had left behind, while everything in this dungeon was various shades of grey, if not entirely black. . . .

"Mr. Sobel." Mr. Boyd seemed to be struggling to keep his voice under control. "You must see what's happening. From the very start, he's been unbalanced. No, listen!" He raised his hand, as though Seward had been about to interrupt. "He's treating this prisoner as cooperative – doesn't that tell you anything?"

Seward did not reply. This had been bothering him too, from the first hour of searching. The Code of Seeking had strict rules on how to proceed with prisoners, and one of its strictest rules was that cooperative prisoners should be treated with relative gentleness, while uncooperative prisoners should be treated with harshness and frightened into giving confessions.

The High Seeker certainly did not lack skill in frightening prisoners. Nor could he be unaware of the rule requiring that cooperative and uncooperative prisoners be treated differently: he had written the rule himself. From the moment that Seward had accompanied Layle Smith to the High Seeker's first searching since his madness, the guard had tensed himself in anticipation of the inevitable moment when the prisoner's defiance would bring out the High Seeker's dark skill at breaking prisoners through terror.

And the moment had passed. Mr. Owen had rejected, had defied, had jeered, and Layle Smith had let it all go as though he were dealing with a prisoner quivering with fear and pleading to give his side of the story.

At first, Seward had thought he had simply missed the signal. The signs of a cooperative prisoner were various: the prisoner could indicate through word or sign that he was willing to answer the Seeker's questions; he could make clear that, if certain conditions were met, he would make his confession; he could plead innocence in such a manner that his Seeker was convinced by his testimony. Any one of these signals would be enough to require a Seeker to coax the prisoner rather than bear down upon him. But if no such sign appeared . . .

"He's treating an uncooperative prisoner as though he were cooperative," said Mr. Boyd. "He's breaking the Code. And he's letting himself be beaten in the prisoner's place, without there existing any chance that the prisoner will offer a confession as a result of the beating. The High Seeker said so himself on the first day: this prisoner isn't the type to be moved by images of death. Nor will he be moved by images of torture. The High Seeker has gone out of bounds, Mr. Sobel, and by the time he realizes how far his madness has taken him, it will be too late. We'll have lost all chance of extracting a confession from the prisoner. Or of helping the prisoner to his rebirth," he added belatedly.

Seward moved the ladder further along the railing that it was attached to, reached up to flip the latch locking the ladder in place, and began climbing up the rungs once more. "If you believe that Mr. Smith has broken the Code, it's your duty to report him to the Codifier," he told the younger guard.

"And will you back me?" Mr. Boyd asked. "Will you tell the Codifier that he should assign someone else to the prisoner?"

Seward shook his head. Below him, a soft stream of cursing began; then it stopped abruptly. He felt a nudge at his knees and looked down to see Mr. Boyd holding a box up toward him.

The other guard waited until the documents were safely on the shelf before he told Seward quietly, "You're the one who's in the cell with him. You're the one who will have to fight him if he breaks completely. And you know what that means."

Seward felt the box shake in his hands. He gripped the ladder tightly, waiting for the tremor to pass, and then raised the box above his head.

Below him, Mr. Boyd said even more quietly, "If this ends the way I think it will end, I'll sing your prayers. I vow this."

Seward nodded in acknowledgment of the gift, and then leaned on the ladder, resting his sweat-smeared brow upon his forearm.
 

CHAPTER FIVE

"At the seventh level, the prisoner's difficulty in breathing will increase," said the High Seeker. "He will feel as though a heavy stone is crushing him. The pain will not be confined to his chest, however. Because these new racks are designed to pull from both ends, the pain will be distributed throughout the body. Some prisoners state that the back muscles undergo the greatest agony; such reactions vary from individual to individual. In actual fact, the extremities of the body will be in greatest danger. The prisoner may feel as though blood is spurting through the pores of his fingers. This is an illusion, however. Blood does not begin to pour from the prisoner's body until a higher level, when the sinews snap and the limb-bones are wrenched from their sockets. At that level, lifelong crippling is a certainty and death a distinct possibility—"

"So?" said Thatcher brusquely. "It won't be me that's on the rack."

He was resisting the urge to hug his chest with his arms. The High Seeker's description was not what had prompted this impulse; Thatcher was simply cold. He had assumed that the furnace behind the glass blocks of his cell extended to other parts of the dungeon, but here in the rack room, all the walls were solid stone and the temperature was as crisp as late autumn. Needless to say, no one had offered him a cloak.

The High Seeker turned his head toward Thatcher. It was impossible to tell what lay in the man's expression; the room was nearly pitch dark, lit only by a bracketed lamp that glittered upon instruments hanging from the walls, curved in deadly shapes. Thatcher wondered with grim satisfaction whether he would be allowed to use these on the High Seeker as well.

The High Seeker said softly, "You will be in charge of this racking, as a Seeker is, Mr. Owen. It is important that you understand the stages leading up to a prisoner's breaking."

Thatcher waved his hand as though he were a Seeker graciously allowing a prisoner the opportunity to ramble on about irrelevancies. The High Seeker did not continue to describe the higher levels of the rack, though. Instead, he asked, "Did you ever play Scare when you were a boy?"

Thatcher narrowed his eyes, trying to determine whether the High Seeker was mocking him. "Many times. I always won."

"Then you should enjoy tonight's session. You and I are going to play Scare, Mr. Owen. We are going to see who breaks first: the man being racked, or the man ordering the racking. It is just past dusk now, and we will be together until the end of the night shift. If you decide before dawn arrives that you do not wish to rack me any more, I will have won the Scare. If, on the other hand, I break, either by word or by body, you will have won the Scare."

Thatcher's eyes remained narrow. "And what do I lose if I lose this game?"

"Nothing, Mr. Owen. The Code does not require you to play this game, and if you lose, you will forfeit nothing. If I lose, I forfeit the right to search you further, unless you indicate that you wish to speak further with me."

Thatcher chewed on his lip, trying to consider what truth lay behind the High Seeker's lies. It could be, of course, that the High Seeker was taking a genuine gamble. After all, the man had little to lose: once his searching was completed, Thatcher would be turned over to a magistrate and hanged for his killing of the guard. Probably the High Seeker considered that result a satisfactory enough ending to the game to be willing to forfeit his right to torture Thatcher if he lost.

On the other hand, the High Seeker could be lying. He could be having Thatcher rack him for some other reason. To scare Thatcher with a demonstration of the rack, perhaps? No, that theory held no truth – the High Seeker had already been tortured once, and he knew that Thatcher would not break from witnessing torture upon another man. More likely the High Seeker was trying to make Thatcher feel pity for his prisoner. Thatcher snorted at the thought.

"Do we have a deal?" the High Seeker asked, as though he had been following Thatcher's thoughts.

As if Thatcher had any bloody choice in the matter. "Deal," said Thatcher firmly. "I'll play Scare to you. Tell me, though – what do you consider counts as a breaking by word?" To see the High Seeker rent asunder on this own machine would be sweet, but Thatcher was willing to win by any means.

The High Seeker nodded as though he approved of the question. He was standing a goodly distance from Thatcher, near the bottom of the rack, which forced Thatcher to turn his back on the guards. Thatcher did not like that, even though the High Seeker had sent the most dangerous guard, the redhead, outside to watch the door. The other guard, the one who always kept his eye on the High Seeker, was positioned like a captain at the wheel of the rack. When Thatcher had last looked at him, the guard's gaze had been firmly fixed upon the High Seeker.

"There are two ways in which a prisoner may break," the High Seeker said, trailing his fingers lightly over the wooden edge of the rack-bed. "He may indicate to his Seeker that he wishes to have the torture end. If he does so, this is taken as indication that he will cooperate with his Seeker – perhaps not through an immediate confession, but at least through a willingness to cooperate in the searching. The second means by which a prisoner may break by word is by telling the truth that he has previously lied to. In most cases, this means confessing to his crime."

Thatcher snorted again. "I don't suppose you have any crimes you want to confess to me."

"None that I want to confess to you, no," the High Seeker replied coolly, as though he could have produced a dozen murders for Thatcher if the circumstances had been right. "Therefore your job will be to uncover the truth I have not told you."

Thatcher felt a hard thumping vibrate through his body, like a triumphant cannon-shot near the end of war. "So you admit you've lied to me."

"Lied? No. But I have misled you."

Thatcher sighed at this word-mincing. It was like listening to a thief say, "I did not steal; I merely borrowed." Thatcher asked, "How did you mislead me, then?"

The High Seeker replied, "In the first words I spoke to you when I searched you, I gave you information that was true in a legal sense – I could show you papers that prove the legal truth of what I said. Nonetheless, my words did not represent the full truth. They were a misleading I have made many times, to many people."

Thatcher took a step back so that he could glance over and see how the guard at the wheel was taking all this. The guard was doing a good job of pretending to be indifferent to the conversation, but Thatcher thought he could see a slight crease of puzzlement in the guard's brow.

Which could mean anything. Thatcher decided the topic was worth exploring. "So what truth am I supposed to discover?" he asked.

The High Seeker's voice was very soft when he replied. "My true name."

Thatcher heard the faint gasp even before he turned his head and saw that the guard was gripping the wheel hard, his lips slightly parted. So this was something the guard had not known before. But judging from his reaction, the guard believed the High Seeker's words.

Thatcher felt pure pleasure enter him then, as when he had killed the last inhabitant of the final village he had attacked and had known he could now release the terrified Yclau women from their chains. Whether or not the rest of this was a trick, it would be fun to see whether he could force the High Seeker to reveal something he had not even told his own guard. Perhaps there was a story attached to the name, a bloody story that the High Seeker did not want revealed, lest it show how little qualified he was to run this dungeon. And if Thatcher could make the High Seeker speak that story, in the presence of a witness . . .

Thatcher laughed aloud. "Right," he said. "Let's get started."

Several minutes passed before the High Seeker was secured to the rack, mainly because Thatcher stopped the procedure to argue that his prisoner should be racked naked. The High Seeker had not replied; he had simply turned his gaze to the guard, who had told Thatcher stiffly, "The Code does not permit prisoners to be stripped naked."

Thatcher was tempted to ask to see the exact passage in the Seekers' little devotional book, but he did not want to appear a fool. He already felt out of his depth. Beatings he had seen before, but the only place in Yclau where rackings occurred was in this dungeon. He was supposed to supervise a racking without knowing how to do so.

"How long?" he asked, glancing at the water-clock that he could faintly hear dripping in the corner. He wondered whether the clock was an affectation of the Seekers; he had never seen one outside of a museum. It fit well, though, with the old instruments of torture on the wall.

"This is spring, so the dawn shift will arrive in a little under twelve hours," the High Seeker replied, now lying on the rack and acting as though he did not notice that the guard was binding his hands into straps above his head. "Rackings are permitted to last no more than twelve hours in each twenty-four hour period. They may be much shorter, of course, if the prisoner breaks or if the Seeker judges that it is not wise to continue the torture."

Thatcher ignored the second proviso. "How high can I take you? To the top?" He glanced at the dial on the wheel. It travelled a third of the way round the wheel and was marked from zero to ten, with quarter-marks in between the numbers.

"Not immediately," the High Seeker replied, pausing to suck in his breath as the guard tightened a strap around his middle. "The Code only permits the Seeker to raise the level if the prisoner lies in response to a question concerning his crime. Furthermore, the Seeker may only question the prisoner directly concerning his crime once an hour. This is to prevent the torture from proceeding too quickly, thus placing the prisoner's life in danger."

Thatcher wondered whether the High Seeker was making this all up on the spot. It seemed an unlikely way for torturers to proceed. "What do we talk about in between, then?" he asked with heavy sarcasm. "Hopscotch strategy?"

"Indirect questions are permitted, Mr. Owen. You may question me on any matter that you believe pertains to my true name, provided that you only ask what my name is once per hour. In general, Seekers try to wear down prisoners by asking the prisoners questions that cause them internal pain at the same time that external pain is being applied. When the prisoner can no longer stand the pain, he will break."

This seemed a more likely story. "And once an hour I can raise you a level? Is that it?"

The guard, who had been fastening straps around the High Seeker's ankles, spoke suddenly. "Seekers aren't permitted to raise prisoners more than a quarter level each hour except with the High Seeker's permission."

Thatcher glanced at the wheel and made a quick calculation in his head. A quarter level each hour for twelve hours – that would take the High Seeker no higher than level three. He grimaced. He might have guessed the High Seeker would win the game through cheating.

But even as he thought that, the High Seeker said, "You have my permission, Mr. Owen, to raise me one level each hour, until you reach ten."

Thatcher did not bother to make calculations this time; he could feel a smile sliding onto his face. The High Seeker, who was still acting though he were atop a feather mattress rather than being trussed to a rack, added, "You should know, Mr. Owen, that the stress the prisoner undergoes is a product of the level of the rack multiplied by the amount of time spent on the rack." Thatcher's face must have gone blank, for the High Seeker added, "If you place me on the rack at level three for one hour, the pain I undergo will be three times as much as if you placed me at level one for one hour. Likewise, if you place me at level three for two hours, the pain will be six times as intense as if I spent one hour at level one."

Even with his poor mathematical skills, Thatcher could figure out the rest. A grin spread across his face. By the tenth hour, he would have the High Seeker enduring pain ten times as great as he had during the first hour. And if Thatcher added in the pain from all the previous levels . . .

This would work. It was bound to work. Because, even if the High Seeker turned out to be a Vovimian god in disguise, refusing to tell the truth under the intense pain Thatcher placed him under, his body would still break. The High Seeker had admitted that already. Thatcher wished now that he had not cut off the High Seeker's recital of levels. When would the High Seeker's body be torn in two? At level eight? Nine? Would Thatcher have to wait until level ten? In any case, the High Seeker's doom was certain. One way or another, he would break, and Thatcher, once more, would be the victor in the field.

He turned his grin on the guard, who was now standing stiffly at the wheel. "Take my prisoner up to level one," he ordered. "I want to hear him scream."

By the end of the fourth hour, the room was nearly black. The candle guttered, causing alternate periods of darkness and dimness. The sound of the dripping water-clock was obscured by the sound of heavy breathing.

Between one hoarse gasp and the next, the High Seeker said, "Five."

Thatcher did not need to be told; he could see that the water had reached the next line. He admitted to himself that he was envious of the High Seeker's ability to tell time without being able to see a clock, but he suspected that the High Seeker's habit of announcing each level as it arrived was simply a way for the man to continue to maintain control over the proceedings.

Thatcher hardly needed help with that. He was growing frustrated by his inability to ask the High Seeker the right questions. He had started by asking the obvious questions: Was the High Seeker a spy? Did he work for the King of Vovim? Had he committed any deeds for which he could be arrested? The High Seeker had answered each question in the negative. No doubt he was lying, but Thatcher could not think of any way to prove this. What was worse, the High Seeker seemed undisturbed by the questions. At times, Thatcher could almost imagine he heard a smile in the High Seeker's voice.

Thatcher leaned forward, trying to sight the High Seeker's eyes. They were still impossible to see. "You say you don't work for the Vovimian King," he said. "Does any of your family work for the King?"

"My father did, before his death."

Thatcher felt a rush of excitement enter him. He was getting closer to the truth. "What work did your father do?"

"He was a soldier. He fought in the wars against Yclau."

Better and better. "As an officer?" An officer was responsible, not only for his own deeds, but for any deeds he ordered his men to do. Thatcher had reason to know that.

"No. He was a bottom-ranked soldier."

Thatcher chewed on his lip a moment, trying to figure out how to turn this answer to his advantage. Finally he asked, "What about your mother? Did she work for the King?"

"My mother was from this queendom. My father abducted her and brought her back over the border."

Thatcher regretted the question. That the High Seeker's mother had been Yclau and was a victim of rape did not fit with the sort of portrait he was trying to build. He tried again. "You're like your father, I suppose."

"I was told when I was young that I resembled him."

"In more than face, I'll wager," said Thatcher quickly. "You've raped someone, haven't you?"

"Yes."

Thatcher felt triumph hammer at him. He looked quickly over at the guard, but to his great disappointment, the guard appeared unsurprised by this revelation. The crime had happened since the High Seeker came to the Eternal Dungeon, then. Probably the High Seeker had raped a prisoner – more than one prisoner, perhaps. That would not fit with what the High Seeker had said earlier about committing no deeds for which he could be arrested, unless . . . Yes, it would fit if the Queen permitted her Seekers to rape prisoners. And that seemed all too likely.

Thatcher thought glumly to himself that he was unlikely to rake up anything from the past that would destroy the High Seeker's career. Probably a criminal career was a prerequisite to becoming a torturer. Still, the High Seeker must be sensitive about his true name, or he would not have hidden it from people in this dungeon. Thatcher opened his mouth to ask the most important question.

At that moment, though, the guard reached over and slid his hand under the High Seeker's hood. Thatcher felt irritation enter him. The guard kept stopping to check heartbeats and measure breaths and wipe sweat off the High Seeker. It was as though he were a healer tending a patient rather than a guard helping to rack a prisoner. Thatcher was quite sure that no other prisoner was cared for this tenderly, and he opened his mouth to say so.

But the guard had slipped away from the wheel. Turning his eyes from the High Seeker for the first time, the guard went over and placed a fresh candle in the lamp, lighting it from the old candle. Then he knelt down beside the tank where the overflow of water from the clock drained. Thatcher craned his neck, trying to see whether the guard was tampering with the clock to make it run more quickly. When the guard stood and turned again, he held in his hand a glass with clear liquid in it.

Thatcher stared aghast. "What the bloody blades are you doing?"

"The High Seeker has been sweating profusely," the guard said in the same stiff voice he had used when speaking before. "The Code requires that prisoners be given water when they are dehydrated."

"I don't care what your bloody Code says! I'm in charge here, and I want you to—"

He stopped. The guard had come close enough for Thatcher to see his eyes. It was the first time Thatcher had seen those eyes for more than a flicker of a second; until now, they had been turned toward the High Seeker. Seeing them, Thatcher knew he had made a very great mistake.

The redhead was not the dangerous guard. This one was.

Thatcher felt his muscles tense, as though he had unexpectedly met a predatory wolf that showed its fangs. But the guard's voice was even when he spoke again. "Mr. Smith will be unable to answer your questions if his voice is too dry to speak."

Thatcher's throat felt dry as well. He waved his hand, leaving it vague as to whether he was giving orders or conceding the battle. The guard came forward and carefully lifted the front flap of the hood in such a manner that it continued to shield the High Seeker's face from Thatcher's view. At the same time, the guard's gaze swung away.

That gave Thatcher a new idea. "Wait a minute! " he said. "You told me that the Code doesn't allow prisoners to be stripped naked. But does your Code allow prisoners to keep hoods on their faces while they're being racked?"

The guard said nothing, which was answer enough. Instead, he waited until the High Seeker had finished gulping the water, then lowered the cloth of the hood and looked down at the High Seeker.

The High Seeker said in a strained voice, "Do as Mr. Owen bids you, Mr. Sobel."

The guard stopped looking at the High Seeker after that. Thatcher suspected that the guard was ashamed at the High Seeker for ceding battle to Thatcher. As for Thatcher, he was not prepared for the gust of fury that entered him when he saw the High Seeker's face for the first time.

The High Seeker had taught himself to speak with so pure an Yclau accent that, despite the man's earlier words about his resemblance to his father, it had not occurred to Thatcher that he was racking someone who looked like the enemies he had fought. But there was no trace of the supposed Yclau mother in the High Seeker's features: he had the high cheekbones of a Vovimian. His skin was lighter than Thatcher would have expected, but it was still dark enough to tell of his dark origins. Thatcher found himself wondering whether the man had raped Yclau women, like his father had.

"What is your name?" he asked harshly.

"Layle Smith," the High Seeker replied, as he had at the beginning of each previous hour.

"Take him up to level five," Thatcher snapped at the guard. "And do it quickly."

That was the first level at which the High Seeker screamed. Thatcher relished the sound. He thought to himself about all the prisoners this man had abused and broken, and while Thatcher's questions grew no more clever than before, he could receive satisfaction now at seeing the evidence of pain in the High Seeker's face. By the seventh level, the High Seeker was groaning continuously – no god here. Just a man who was weakening every minute more that he spent in agony.

The guard looked as though his agony was nearly as great as the High Seeker's, but to Thatcher's relief, the guard made no move toward the dagger at his hip. No doubt the High Seeker kept this dangerous dog on a short lease. If not, Thatcher suspected, the dog would have torn Thatcher's throat open several hours before.

"Eleven," the High Seeker whispered at the end of nine hours. "No, ten."

The guard made a move as if to turn the wheel. Thatcher held up his hand. "I give the orders here." He stared down at the High Seeker, trying to make up his mind.

The truth was, he was nervous. He had been waiting now, for two levels, for the body-breaking to occur. And the longer he had to wait, the more he found himself wondering about the consequences of such a breaking. If the High Seeker really was mad enough to let Thatcher break his body – and Thatcher was increasingly of the opinion that madness was at the core of this night's events – then what would happen? Would Thatcher simply be handed over to the magistrate for his execution? Or would a new High Seeker be appointed, one who decided to take revenge on Thatcher for what he had done? Thatcher thought again of the unused instruments on the wall, and he felt his stomach roil.

He chewed his lip, considering his options. He could stop the torture now; that would lose him the Scare, but this was only a game anyway. One way or another, he would end up hanging from a noose. The only question was how much torture he would have to endure until then. What was the point of risking months of torture at the hands of a new High Seeker, just in order to play a game? Was today's victory worth that?

"Eleven," the High Seeker whispered through chattering teeth. His eyes were staring blankly at the ceiling, as though he was not aware of what he said. The word he spoke slid into a groan as a fresh sheen of sweat sprang onto his forehead. The blood vessels in his arms and legs stood out like strings ready to snap. His chest barely moved, though his mouth sucked in air constantly. Tears were flowing freely from his eyes.

The guard once again made a move to heighten the level. "Wait!" said Thatcher quickly, throwing up his hand. He might not have the skills of a Seeker as far as searching a prisoner was concerned, but he had not been made an officer due to dull wits. Something was wrong here.

The guard, the anguished guard who obviously worshipped his Seeker, had twice now tried to raise the level of the racking at the High Seeker's word. He had not done that at any of the previous levels – he had shown great reluctance to move the wheel even when Thatcher issued his orders. The guard must be moving hastily in an attempt to hide something.

The High Seeker's words?

Eleven, the High Seeker had said. Not ten. Nine hours ago he had said, "You have my permission to raise me one level each hour, until you reach ten." Why had he specified ten? Why had he not simply said, "Until you reach the highest point in the racking"?

Thatcher shot a look at the wheel again, knowing already what he would see. The dial only went to ten, but the wheel went much higher than that. Why? To deceive prisoners? It did not matter; what mattered was that this changed everything that Thatcher had been assuming.

He leaned over the rack, appreciating as he did so the stink emanating from the High Seeker's body. This was why the rack room was so cold, obviously – because the prisoner's sweating torment would grow so high.

Thatcher said, "You told me— No, you didn't tell me, but you let me think that your body would break when you reached the tenth level. Will it?"

The guard's hand was frozen on the wheel now; he already knew the answer. Thatcher waited, though, for the High Seeker's faint whisper amidst the groans: "No."

Thatcher smiled. He could feel the sweetness of his victory already. The trick was uncovered – the trick the High Seeker had planned to use to win the Scare. The High Seeker had counted on Thatcher believing that his prisoner's body would break at the tenth level, and on Thatcher losing his nerve before that point. Now, with the trick gone, victory was certain. "What is your name?" he cooed at the High Seeker.

A brief pause, and then: "Down," whispered the High Seeker, and the guard's hand moved the wheel. Slowly, as though he no longer cared whether the High Seeker was released from his pain. Thatcher's smile turned to a grin.

The door of the rack room banged open. The redhead, with murder in his eyes, strode forward and grabbed Thatcher's arm. Thatcher let himself be pulled away, but at the doorway he turned his head to look back. The prisoner lay motionless like a corpse on the ground of a battlefield.

"Third victory; I win the war," Thatcher murmured, and then laughed aloud as he was pulled from the room.

Seward knew that it was only an illusion that the light in the entry hall seemed to have dimmed. The lamps twinkled as brightly as ever in the edges of the vast room; Seward had simply become aware that the light of the entry hall was far overwhelmed by the shadows.

Those shadows were usually cast aside in his mind because they seemed to have no place amidst the lively chatter of the guards. But now the entry hall was utterly silent, as it rarely was except when a prisoner was arriving. Indeed, Seward could not remember the entry hall being this quiet since the worst days of the High Seeker's madness.

He looked across the table at Mr. Boyd, who avoided his gaze. Seward thought to himself that he ought to say something that would reassure the younger guard that he did not blame him for spreading word of what had happened in the rack room. Three dozen guards had seen Seward and Mr. Boyd carry Layle Smith's limp body from the rack room. The truth was better than the types of rumors which could have accompanied that image of the unconscious High Seeker.

Seward broke the silence finally, saying, "Elsdon Taylor is emerging from his two months' mourning tonight."

Mr. Boyd placed three documents into three separate piles before saying, without looking up, "Perhaps he'll be able to help."

No one glanced over from other tables with any indication of interest in the conversation. Everyone in the entry hall seemed weighed down by their own thoughts, or by their memories of the darkness that had overcome this dungeon during the long months of the High Seeker's illness.

There was a difference this time, though. Seward sensed that difference in the frowns, and even more in the lack of enquiries as to whether the High Seeker's body was recovering. Last time Layle Smith had been the victim, but this time the inhabitants of the Eternal Dungeon blamed the High Seeker for what was happening. It was a paradox: they believed the High Seeker to be mad, but because he showed no obvious sign of being mad, they blamed him for his folly.

Seward shot a glance at the narrow door leading to the Codifier's office. The dungeon's ethical supervisor had been busy this month, responding to a bevy of guards – and even Seekers – who wished him to remove the High Seeker from duty. So far the Codifier had responded only with a terse refusal. Except to Seward. He had asked Seward whether he wished to continue with his current duties, and Seward had known that, if he requested to be transferred to another Seeker, the Codifier would remove the High Seeker from his prisoner.

Seward had not requested to be assigned to another Seeker.

He tried to concentrate his thoughts on the documents he was sorting. A number of the guards nearby were gazing into space, as though unable to keep their minds on their work. Across from him, Mr. Boyd gave a frustrated grunt, and then pulled half a dozen documents out of the piles into which he had just sorted them.

So still was the cavern that Seward jumped at the soft sound of a door closing. He looked up and saw that the High Seeker was beginning to walk across the darkness in the middle of the hall.

For a moment, Seward sat paralyzed; then he sprang up and walked forward to meet the High Seeker midway. He could feel that every eye in the entry hall was upon Layle Smith. Seward himself could see that the High Seeker moved in a labored manner, like a man attempting to walk through treacle.

As soon as he reached the High Seeker, Seward said, "Sir, you ought not to be out of your bed. You're not well."

Too late, he realized how this might be taken by the surrounding guards, and by the High Seeker himself. But Layle Smith said simply, "I mend best when I am at my work. Come with me, please." He beckoned past Seward, and Seward turned to see that Mr. Boyd was making his way cautiously forward, slower than the High Seeker evidently cared for.

"Where are we going, sir?" asked Seward, even as he realized that he ought not to be questioning the High Seeker. Not here, in front of the watching audience.

"To finish my searching," the High Seeker said briskly as he turned in the direction of the door leading to the prisoners' cells. He continued to move with difficulty, and Seward wondered whether the healer would burst into the entry hall at any moment, roaring his disapproval that the High Seeker was endangering his health by rising early from his healing bed.

Seward realized that the High Seeker and Mr. Boyd were halfway to the door already, and he hurried to catch up. He was in time to hear Mr. Boyd say in a low voice, "Sir, this is a dangerous prisoner. I ought to assist Mr. Sobel tonight in guarding you."

"No," said the High Seeker without looking at either of them. "The prisoner fears you more than he fears Mr. Sobel, and I want him relaxed tonight. Unwary. Without thought of danger."

Mr. Boyd cast a despairing look at Seward, who gave him a grimace of a smile in thanks for Mr. Boyd's attempt at assistance. Not that he was surprised by Layle Smith's refusal. He set himself into his usual position, as close to the High Seeker as his shadow, and glanced back at the other guards. He half expected to see them rising with daggers and whips in their hands, ready to hold back the mad High Seeker. But everyone in the entry hall seemed as paralyzed as Seward had been before. No one tried to stop the High Seeker from going where his determination took him.

Which left only one man to stop the High Seeker. Seward touched his dagger lightly, as though to assure himself that it was still there, and turned his eyes back to Layle Smith. He dared not look away again – not until this was all over.

They entered the dark corridor leading to the cells.
 

CHAPTER SIX

Thatcher had been having a bad month. It ought to have been a good month: a month's reprieve from being searched by the mad High Seeker, a month to savor his triumph. Instead, he had been plagued every night by dreams of the Vovimian girl, only now they were mixed in with dreams of the High Seeker, lying motionless on the rack. What connection there was between those two images, Thatcher could not imagine, other than that both were defeated enemies.

His only comfort, standing once more in the presence of his Seeker, was that the High Seeker looked as though his month had been worse. He did a good job of hiding it, but Thatcher had seen the man's hand grip the door tight as he entered, clearly using it for support, and his guard was closer to him than before, as though he feared that his Seeker would collapse. The High Seeker was making his best effort to appear as tranquil as on the first day, but tremors ran through his body every minute or so.

Thatcher waited for him to speak, but the High Seeker remained silent, and after a while, Thatcher realized the man had nothing to say. What could he say? Thatcher decided to say it for him.

"You lost," he stated with a smile.

The High Seeker did not bother to deny the fact. He simply stood trembling, like a ghost visiting his former life.

"You're a fool too." Thatcher could not resist tightening the rack another notch. "You thought you could make me feel sorry for you – you, the man spawned from the race that has attacked our queendom all these years. You, trying to break the soldier who has been fighting against your kind. And you actually thought I might pity you." Thatcher laughed.

He saw the guard's hands tighten into fists, and then quickly relax. The High Seeker remained dumb.

"You were a fool on the rack too," Thatcher taunted. "You were so close to winning there – you know that, don't you? I would have conceded you the battle if you'd told me that your body would break when I raised you to ten. But you didn't, you idiot. You went through nine hours of intense pain for nothing. Nothing at all. Fire in your flesh, break-lines in your bones, and it all went to waste because you were too much of a fool to lie to me. You told me the truth—"

He stopped. The tremors continued upon the High Seeker's motionless body, like waves dashing themselves fruitlessly against a solid rock. The guard's gaze remained fixed on his Seeker. He had not yet realized that something had happened.

It took Thatcher some time to find his voice again. Then he asked hoarsely, "What do you want from me?"

"Only what you demand of others, Mr. Owen," the High Seeker replied, as quiet as a hidden viper. "The truth. Can you truly say, in complete honesty, that it was necessary for you to kill those children?"

The corpse on the ground stirred and raised its head. Before Thatcher could react, it had pinned him to the ground in a death-grip.

Seward knew that it could only be his imagination, but he was certain he could hear, from the other end of the dungeon, the soft singing of the guard appointed to the twelve-hour watch in the crematorium.

Seward turned his attention to the bare back before him. Reaching down, he ran his thumbs firmly along the two sides of the spine, eliciting something close to a sigh from the High Seeker.

Layle Smith, sitting in his usual chair and bent over his office desk, said for the third time, "This is not part of your duties, Mr. Sobel."

"I'd just like to see whether I've lost the knack." This was less than truthful. He had gone to the healer that morning and begged him for information on how he might aid the High Seeker's recovery.

Layle Smith no doubt knew this. He knew everything that took place in his dungeon. He remained silent, though. Seward wondered whether he too was thinking of the prayers taking place at the other end of the dungeon.

After a while, Seward said, "You fooled me as well. Up until the last moment, I was sure that you had undergone torture in an attempt to stir compassion in your prisoner."

"It would take greater skill than mine to do that." The High Seeker's voice was muffled. His head was hidden in his arms as he bent over the desk; yet even so his hood remained over his face.

The High Seeker added, "If Mr. Owen had any potential for compassion in him, then surely it would have occurred to him over these long years that his grandmother, in using treacherous methods to try to keep him to her path, had succeeded only in losing that which she valued most. No, Mr. Owen wasn't seeking to learn compassion. He wanted honesty – he wanted high proof that at least one person in the world was willing to be completely truthful to him."

They were silent a while more. The only sound in the office was the faint murmur of guards in the entry hall outside and the flicker of flame in the single oil lamp that was lit. And the singing in Seward's ears.

"Of course he was right."

Seward craned his neck to look to the side of Layle Smith's head, though this was a useless gesture, since all that could be seen was the black cloth of the hood. "Sir?"

A light knock rattled the door. The High Seeker straightened up with what sounded like a suppressed moan. Wordlessly, Seward handed him his shirt. Not until the shirt was completely buttoned and tucked into his trousers did the High Seeker say, "Enter."

The door opened a space, but nothing entered except a head, which poked inside the office. "I don't mean to disturb you, sir," said the visitor, looking between the High Seeker and Seward with faint curiosity.

"There is no need to apologize, Mr. Urman," replied the High Seeker in a cool voice. "How are you feeling?"

Mr. Urman gave a grimace as he opened the door wide enough to slide inside. Leaving the door ajar, he said, "Well, sir, my pain has subsided to daily headaches – the healer says I'm likely to have them for the rest of my life. I told him, if that was the worst legacy I took from a career in the Eternal Dungeon, then I was better off than most of the people who pass through this place."

Seward winced. Mr. Urman, he guessed, was not being intentionally cruel. It was unlikely that he yet knew of the aftermath of the attack.

The High Seeker's voice remained as level as before. "Then you are ready to return to your duties?"

"Yes, sir. That's all I came to tell you. I'll leave now." The guard hesitated, but if the High Seeker had any praise for the young man who had come close to sacrificing his life for the Eternal Dungeon, the praise remained unspoken.

Seward sighed inwardly as the door shut. Out of the many gifts that Layle Smith had been born with, an ability to speak warmly to his fellow humans was not one of them. The High Seeker had undergone torture for a prisoner and would no doubt have risked his life for Mr. Urman. But Mr. Urman did not know this, and so the only impression the guard would carry away from this encounter was that Layle Smith did not value his service. No doubt this would add to the High Seeker's dark reputation in the dungeon.

This thought brought others. Seward was still standing in reverie when the High Seeker said, "What is on your mind, Mr. Sobel?"

Seward jumped in place and felt himself wince again, this time inwardly. It was dangerous to allow the pain he felt sometimes in the High Seeker's presence to occupy his mind for more than a minute. The High Seeker was too well trained at sensing inner turmoil. "Nothing pertaining to my duties, sir," he said quickly. This response had always stopped such conversations in the past.

Once again, it succeeded. The High Seeker turned away and began gathering papers on his desk, saying, "That is how Mr. Owen was right."

"Sir?" It took Seward a moment to connect the High Seeker's remark with what Layle Smith had said before.

"Mr. Owen was right that I was lying to him. I let him think that Mr. Urman was dead, in order to increase the chance that Mr. Owen would confess to his war crimes. I let Mr. Owen think that my aim was to raise compassion in him, when in fact my aim was to reach that moment when he asked me whether my body would break on the rack. I knew exactly what path Mr. Owen would follow, and I led him up it with as much deviousness as his grandmother had shown. Our relationship was based on lies."

Seward did not know what to say for a moment. No doubt Elsdon Taylor was privileged to hear of Layle Smith's self-doubts following a searching. Seward himself had never before heard such words from the High Seeker. Had the madness changed him? Or had something about this particular prisoner prised open a door long kept locked?

At last Seward borrowed words from the Code: "'Under no circumstances may a Seeker lie to a prisoner. He may, however, mislead the prisoner if to do so would be in the prisoner's best interests.'"

"A rule that is open to the worst abuses," said the High Seeker, not looking up to where Seward stood beside him. "No doubt Mr. Owen's grandmother also thought she was following her grandson's best interests by keeping him out of the army. What makes me any different from the grandmother Mr. Owen despised?"

The difference, Seward thought, was that he considered it unlikely that anyone would be prepared to sacrifice their life for Mr. Owen's grandmother. But these were not words he could speak aloud to the High Seeker. He felt again the pain that came to him at moments like this.

"Mr. Sobel." The High Seeker's voice was very soft in a familiar way that made Seward's body tense. "My junior night guard has undergone permanent injury while serving in my dungeon; my body aches as though the High Master of hell has torn it to pieces; my ears are ringing from the sound of the Vovimian ambassador's curses when I suggested during the trial that a confessed child-murderer be granted the mercy of a prison term; and a prisoner of mine lies in the crematorium, in the form of ashes. In short, I am not in a good temper. Either voice what your thought is, or take a break from duty until you can return your mind to your work."

The pain increased. Never, in his years with the High Seeker, had Seward received a reprimand like this. Indeed, he could not remember any time that he had received a reprimand at all – merely mild suggestions on how to improve his performance. He felt his breath heavy within him, as though he stood before the bowl that would hold Mr. Owen's ashes until the twelve hours were over and he was buried in the communal pit.

"Mr. Sobel!" The High Seeker's voice was a whiplash this time.

Seward resisted the urge to flee from the room; it was too late for that. He said truthfully, "I was wondering what your face looked like, sir."

Layle Smith slowly turned his head toward Seward. His eyes were too dim in the lamplight to read. "I was unhooded when I first arrived at the Eternal Dungeon."

"That was many years ago, sir." He thought it best not to add that he had done his best to forget those first, terrifying days of his acquaintance with Layle Smith.

"You saw my face in the rack room. And also, if I have understood Mr. Taylor's account correctly, on the day I entered fully into madness."

"No, sir. I turned away my gaze both times."

The hooded man sitting near him continued to look upon him in the dark light. Seward felt again the desire to flee. Then, to his amazement, he heard a soft chuckle emerge from the hood.

"Mr. Owen is hardly the first person to ask why I took up this work," Layle Smith said. "Other than the obvious reasons, I remain a Seeker because I so often learn valuable lessons from my prisoners." His hand rose to the edge of his face-cloth.

Seward turned his head swiftly away. His heart was running full pace now. "No, sir," he said. "That isn't what I was seeking."

"No?" The High Seeker's voice held mild curiosity. "I seem to recall that, a number of years ago, you offered me the honor of your friendship and were rewarded by a brusque refusal on my part."

Seward ventured to turn his head back. The High Seeker was where he had been before, sitting behind his desk with his fingers touching his face-cloth, waiting.

"That's so," Seward said, accepting both the statement and the implicit apology. "But that was before Mr. Taylor entered this dungeon, sir. Having witnessed the two of you together, and having seen the struggles you both undergo to keep your private relationship from interfering with your public duties . . . Well, sir, I reached the conclusion a couple of years ago that I'm better off simply as your guard. It's easier on both of us that way."

After a moment, Layle Smith's fingers slipped away from the hood. "I see," he said. "Then I confess I'm confused. I sense that something about our present relations with one another disturbs you. If it is not our lack of friendship, then what is it? What is your goal with me?"

The words echoed oddly in Seward's head, as though he had heard them in the far past. He wondered wildly how he had allowed matters to reach this point, beyond anything that the sensible part of him had ever wanted.

Layle Smith waited. Finally Seward said in a low voice, "I was just wondering, sir . . . whether it mattered. My service to you."

The High Seeker's eyes were black holes in his hood. His body had lost its usual rigidity, as it always did when he was breaking prisoners. After a while he said in a flat voice, "You are wondering this because I did not ask you to assist me during the time I was entering into madness, nor during the time of my healing."

Seward said nothing; he could feel that his face must be flush-red by now. It was the act of a child to tug on an elder's shirt and say, "Do you like me? Do you want me to be here? Would you miss me if I left?" The High Seeker had no doubt thought better of him than that. Seward felt the pain renew in him as he wondered whether this momentary lapse on his part would destroy what trust remained between himself and his workmaster.

The High Seeker indicated a chair. After a moment, Seward stiffly sat down across from Layle Smith, feeling as though he had come to this office solely for the purpose of receiving a reprimand, rather than to seek Layle Smith's signature on Seward's latest report. The High Seeker leaned back slightly in his chair, playing with his pen as though it were a dagger. Finally Layle Smith said, "Do you recall the period when you were first appointed to me?"

"Of course, sir." The walls of Seward's throat seemed to be sticking together; he could barely breathe now.

"The Codifier asked me whether I wanted you, or whether he should assign another guard to me. He knew that it would not be easy for me, having a shadow – being shadowed day and night, back in those days. . . . I asked him whether he had told you of my past – of as much of my past as anyone in this dungeon knew in those days. He said that he had not considered it necessary."

The High Seeker leaned forward. His eyes flamed into light under the lamp, green like a cat's. "He advised me to read through your records. I did so, and discovered that you had led as pure a life as any man can hope to live. No crimes. No marks for misbehavior in school. Diamond-bright recommendations from every person who had known you for any length of time. You seemed to have lived a life as stainless as Mercy herself. The question arose in my mind – as the Codifier had intended it to arise – of why a man of unblemished character would seek to work in a dungeon filled with the filthiest criminals of Yclau. And why he would volunteer to work with me."

There was a pause. After a while, Seward realized that he was expected to answer the question. Feeling, as he rarely did, the chill of the dungeon, he said, "I suppose it was because of the diviner, sir."

Through the holes of his hood, Layle Smith raised his eyebrows.

Seward told the story then, stumbling upon the words, for he had never spoken of this to anyone but his wife. By the time he finished, Layle Smith was staring at the wall beyond him. Without shifting his gaze, the High Seeker said, "Do you believe that the diviner told you the truth?"

"I'm sure she didn't, sir." Then, as Layle Smith's gaze snapped over to him, Seward added, "Oh, she may have had powers beyond that of ordinary humans. I wouldn't know. But if she did, I don't think she used them on me. Her fate-telling was too general – her words could have applied to anyone who walked into her dwelling. She didn't waste her powers on someone who had entered her tent in order to mock her. She told me what she thought I wanted to hear, in hopes that I would reward her."

"Indeed." The High Seeker's voice was unsurprised. No doubt he had already deduced this from Seward's tale. "You seem to have encountered corruption at an early age, like Mr. Owen – and you could not even tell yourself, as Mr. Owen could have if he had thought the matter through, that you were as capable of such evil as the person who betrayed you."

"That's just it, Mr. Smith." Seward leaned forward, his voice now earnest. "That was what hurt the most. Until that time I'd thought of myself as you described me before: pure, unblemished in character. I was proud of myself for that. But when I asked myself why it was that my fellow guards mocked the diviner and I did not – why it was that I led a life of straightness while the diviner wound her way down a crooked path – I realized that the answer was the same in both cases. I was lucky. I was born into good circumstances, with good parents who gently taught me right from wrong, and thanks to some inborn gift, I was not drawn into strong temptation to do evil as most other men are. Nothing I had done in my life made me worthy of the praise I had received. I was good, not because I had tried hard to be good, but simply because I found it easy to be good."

The High Seeker said nothing. His eyes were now fixed upon Seward, unwavering but for the light that danced over them.

"I began to look at the people around me," Seward said, "the people I had thought to be my inferiors because they did evil. I began to realize that they might have spent a far greater portion of their lives fighting against temptation than I had. I was no better than the prisoners I had despised. And I began to realize that the men who were strongly drawn to evil, and who kept themselves from doing evil, were much better than I, who had never been strongly drawn to evil."

His voice was hoarse by the end of his speech; he felt drained, as though he had emptied himself of all his blood. He waited.

The High Seeker's gaze drifted down to the table, and to the pen before him. He touched it lightly, and then said, without looking up, "I wanted to attack Mr. Owen when I was searching him. You know that?"

"Yes, sir."

"You know what I would have done to him if I had attacked him?"

"I can guess, sir." He could indeed; he had heard the High Seeker frighten prisoners for two decades, and he could guess how close a link those imaginary threats had with the High Seeker's own dreamings.

In the long silence that followed, the sound of singing swelled strong in Seward's ears. Finally the High Seeker tossed aside the pen and looked up. "I did not ask you to assist me during my illness – though I very much desired your presence – because I feared that I would lose you if you saw the full depths of what I am. That was faithless of me. I ought to have known better, from the clue to your character that your records gave me twenty-one years ago. . . . Mr. Sobel, you do not know of my past."

Seward hesitated, unsure of how to contradict the High Seeker's apparent lapse in memory. "Sir, you revealed three years ago that you once worked in Vovim's Hidden Dungeon. I know that you would have been trained there to abuse prisoners—"

"Mr. Sobel," the High Seeker said softly, "you do not know of my past. You only know the part I made public. Only a few people in this dungeon know the full story of my past: the Codifier, the healer, Mr. Chapman whom I count as friend, and of course Mr. Taylor. Would you like to know what I have not told the rest of the dungeon?"

Seward felt his throat tighten once more, but he nodded, and for the next hour sat appalled, listening to what the world did not know about Layle Smith. The darkness that everyone thought lay within the High Seeker . . . that dim dreadfulness was only a pale shadow to what the High Seeker truly was. It was as though all the darkness of the world had gathered itself into one place, and had chosen to reside in Layle Smith.

After it was all over, and Seward was sitting in a small pool of his own sweat, the High Seeker waited. Seward could not read from his eyes whether he was worried or whether, this time, he held faith in his guard. Seward cleared his throat and said, "Sir, could you teach me the technique you used to keep yourself from attacking Mr. Owen? It might be of help to me, the next time I'm tempted to lose my temper with my wife."

A smile travelled onto Layle Smith's face then. Seward could see it through the change in the High Seeker's eyes. He had watched the High Seeker's eyes smile many times over the years, but in the past, the smile had only appeared when he racked prisoners.

"Of course, Mr. Sobel," Layle Smith said. "And perhaps you can offer suggestions on how I might improve my technique. I imagine that maintaining a peaceful domestic life has taught you valuable lessons."

And so they talked on, and in the brightly lit crematorium, Mr. Boyd reached the end of his song of praise for the executed prisoner. He scattered Thatcher Owen's ashes to start him on his journey into new life, and then returned to the darkness of the Eternal Dungeon.

. . . The danger seemed particularly strong, given the crime the prisoner had committed, yet there is no evidence that Layle Smith allowed his Vovimian heritage to prejudice him against the prisoner who had committed war crimes against his native people.

Indeed, if it were not for the records which tell us that Layle Smith was born and raised in Yclau's neighboring kingdom of Vovim, and that he was trained in Vovim's infamous Hidden Dungeon, it would be hard to know this from the early records of the High Seeker's career in the Eternal Dungeon. Despite the efforts of historians to prove otherwise, it appears that Layle Smith's skills as a Seeker derived, not from his Vovimian training, but from his innate talent.

Yet it was in this very year that Layle Smith's heritage would play a small but crucial role in what must at first have appeared to be nothing more than the usual disputes between dungeon workers, but which ultimately would lead to the greatest crisis the Eternal Dungeon had ever faced.

It is therefore important that, before we witness Layle Smith in the role he played in that crisis, we pause a moment to recall what Layle Smith was on the eve of the crisis: a man of such commitment to help prisoners that he would allow himself to undergo great suffering on their behalf.

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

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