The Consultation (The Eternal Dungeon: Transformation #4) ¶ DRM-free multiformat e-book: epub, html, mobi/Kindle, pdf, doc

"'I can see why this place would suit you. Your conscience need no longer bother you.'"

He has come from the Eternal Dungeon to offer his services to another prison's head torturer. The only trouble is that the head torturer likes him too much.

Separated from his love-mate and forced to serve in a prison whose practices violate the ethical code that he has long obeyed, the High Seeker of the Eternal Dungeon finds himself surrounded by temptation: the bodies of prisoners, stripped to provide pleasure for their torturers.

Then the greatest temptation of all arrives. This one, the High Seeker realizes, he may need to surrender to, for the sake of his ethical code.

This suspenseful novella (short novel) can be read on its own or as the fourth and final story in the "Transformation" volume of The Eternal Dungeon, an award-winning speculative fiction series set in a nineteenth-century prison where the psychologists wield whips. Friendship, family, gay love, and rebellion are intertwining plotlines in the series.

EXCERPT

The High Seeker ran his thumb over the curve of the surface. The surface was chill and slick to the touch, and so transparent that he could see all that lay beneath it: the white skin of the prisoner encased in ice.

Layle's hand ran up the ice above the prisoner's chest; his eyes were taking in the signs of age upon the prisoner's body. Then he reached the throat, and his thumb halted. The ice curved with the throat, following the line of the prisoner's body as though the body wore tight clothing. Layle pressed his thumb more firmly against the ice.

It stung like a dozen bees upon his skin, but within seconds, water began to drip slowly down from where Layle's thumb heated the ice. After several more minutes, he had reached the whitened skin.

It felt chill as well, but it was warmer than the ice. Under his thumb came a faint beating, at slow, irregular intervals. He spent a moment calculating its rate from the regular rhythm of his own breath. Then he brushed his thumb across the skin, feeling the height of the goose-pimples there.

The throat moved slightly, embracing a swallow. He waited until the prisoner's swallow was gone, then closed his eyes and concentrated his hearing on the barely perceptible whisper of air emerging from the hole he had created: a breath, shallow, labored, coming at fitful intervals. Layle let his thumb slide away and he stepped back, frowning.

"Well?"

Layle glanced over his shoulder at his master. In this ice-covered cavern, the phosphorescent light was brighter than in the corridors outside, and Master Aeden's pupils were small spots against brown fields. Layle turned back to look at the prisoner. The man's whole body was encased in ice, including the eyes, but the glass-like ice showed the slight movement of the prisoner's eyes as he looked from his torturer to the High Seeker. His pupils were so wide that they nearly swallowed the color of his eyes.

Layle reached over to the cavern wall upon which the prisoner was attached, standing stiffly upright. Pulling off a shard of ice, he raised it until it caught afire with light. The light-ray hit the prisoner in the eyes, but there was no change, either in his expression or in the eyes.

Layle let the shard fall with a tinkle to the ground. "How long has he been like this?"

"Can't you tell?" Master Aeden's voice was challenging, as it had been when he was training Layle.

"Yes. But my answer doesn't match the evidence before me."

"So what do you see?" his master asked softly.

Layle let his gaze travel once more over the frigid form before he said, "The prisoner is about forty-five years old. He has worked as a laborer, probably in the fields, judging from the types of cuts on his hands. He is in the early stages of freezing. He can still understand easily any questions he is asked, and if you were to allow him freedom from the ice, his movements would be little impaired. He is at the stage where freezing is a pain, not yet a comfort to be embraced. The warmth is being slowly sucked from him. He is . . . four degrees colder than usual, I think."

He heard a sigh from behind. "Ah, my dear," Master Aeden said. "I think your coming here is worth it to me just to hear those words. There have been times over the years when I wondered whether my memories of you were nothing more than the fond dreamings of a torturer nearing old age, who has created in his mind the image of an infallible apprentice."

"Then let me break that image through my fallibility," Layle said, his gaze transfixed upon the prisoner's eyes, shifting from one speaker to the next. "At a minimum, your prisoner could not have been here for less than six hours – it would have taken that long for the ice to take the form it has. Moreover, he is entirely encased in ice, with no breathing hole. He should be dead by now. What's keeping him alive?"

"If I told you, would you understand?"

Despite himself, Layle felt a small smile touch his lips. "No. Knowledge of machinery was never my strength."

"Yes, I'd gathered that from the number of times you broke my rack while it was under your use." Master Aeden's voice was dry. "If you hadn't been as skilled with prisoners as you were, I would have confined you to using the Adoration."

"Too slow." Layle reached forward and touched the prisoner's skin again. The heartbeat had not changed. "There are better methods of breaking prisoners."

He heard a sigh behind him. "Our eternal argument. I fancied you had come to recognize the value of a sure, steady method of dealing pain to prisoners."

Layle said only, "How long has the torture lasted?"

"Sixteen months. That's right, isn't it?" Master Aeden raised his voice, and the prisoner shifted his eyes toward the speaker. Otherwise, there was no movement of the eyes to indicate surprise.

Layle felt a coldness enter his stomach and a wave of heat enter him further down. It was a combination he was used to, so he paid it no mind. "Why?" he asked quietly. "The prisoner can't even confess his crime to you – you've sealed his mouth."

"Why should we want to hear his confession? We already know what he's done."

There was a small silence, disturbed only by the wind whistling through the cavern. Where Layle's thumb had lain upon the prisoner's throat, the moisture had returned to ice.

"I see," Layle said in a voice he could not strip of bitterness. "So this is like the rapes you taught me to perform as a boy. It doesn't matter that the prisoner has given his confession; you will continue his pain for a while longer, in order to demonstrate your power over him."

He was aware, even as he spoke, that he was acting in an unprofessional manner, criticizing a colleague in front of a prisoner. He could not stop himself. This was how it had been in the old days, when he and his master had halted periodically in their work to argue with raised voices over the proper method by which to proceed, while the prisoner writhed between them, awaiting his fate.

Now there was only silence. Finally Layle turned his head slowly. Master Aeden was looking at him with an expression that would have been unreadable, had Layle not been who he was. As it was, he could sense clearly the mixture of anger and pain that his master was successfully hiding from the rest of the world. "You are mistaken," Master Aeden said softly. "This prisoner was searched and confessed before his arrival here. This is a punishment dungeon."

Layle turned his gaze swiftly back to the prisoner. The prisoner followed him with his eyes, the remainder of his body immobile.

Sixteen months?

Sweet blood, that was only the beginning. Layle felt his chest grow tight, all the pleasurable warmth below forgotten. He had known this was happening in Vovim. He should not be surprised. He should not feel the pain anew.

This prisoner before him was the fruit of Layle Smith's tireless efforts to extend prison reform into his native land. As the result of international pressure that Layle had orchestrated upon Vovim, the King of Vovim had agreed to lift the traditional death sentence for some of the lesser crimes.

And here was what the King had given the prisoners instead. Lifelong torture.

Layle felt a grip upon his shoulder, and he became aware at the same moment that someone was softly cursing. It was himself. He bit his lip closed and let Master Aeden steer him out of the cavern. He was shivering as though he were the one encased in ice, and he was not surprised when Master Aeden, without comment, dropped his cloak back upon Layle's shoulders. His master's arm followed, and Layle allowed himself to be guided down the curving corridor.