In Training (The Eternal Dungeon: Rebirth #4) ¶ DRM-free multiformat e-book: epub, html, mobi/Kindle, pdf, doc
"Such was Layle's dark reputation that the other prison workers no doubt imagined that their High Seeker was relishing visions of unimaginable horrors, dwelling with delight upon thoughts of prisoners screaming hopelessly for mercy. . . . Elsdon only wished this weren't the case."
Unexpected danger reveals to a young torturer the dark mystery of his love-mate's past . . . as well as unpleasant revelations about himself.
Assigned by his Queen with the task of bringing peace, Elsdon Taylor has witnessed his mission go terribly wrong. Now he is left in a desperate position. His only hope lies with the man he loves most, but Elsdon is beginning to realize that he knows much less about his love-mate than he had assumed. Confronted with clear evidence of his love-mate's dark past, can Elsdon find the strength to hold out for as long as it takes for rescue to arrive? Will Elsdon even want rescue by the time his ordeal is over?
This suspenseful novella (short novel) can be read on its own or as the fourth story in the "Rebirth" 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
Elsdon squirmed his way under the rack. Coughing against the dust in the darkness there, he said, "You couldn't have raped me, you know."
A silence followed. "What are you saying?" Layle asked.
"In your dreaming. You couldn't have raped me from the head of the rack. The wheel's in the way."
He heard what might have been a choke from Layle, and might merely have been a wry laugh. Elsdon's thoughts had wandered away to the gears he felt under his fingers. After a moment, he cried, "Bloody blades!"
"It's as bad as I thought, then?"
"Whichever blacksmith fixed this last time unhooked the gear to the locking mechanism! If you take the wheel up, it can't lock. The wheel will just keep spinning till it reaches ten."
"It will spin higher than that," Layle said grimly. "These racks are designed to go up to thirty."
"Thirty!" Startled, Elsdon pushed himself out from under the rack and peered up at the High Seeker from the floor. "But I thought the racks here only went up to the tenth level. They're dangerous enough at that level."
"We only take the racks up to ten. But the locking mechanism is produced to a uniform design, so that it can be sold to a variety of countries. The torturers in the Hidden Dungeon need a locking mechanism that will still be of use when they place the prisoner at level thirty."
Elsdon stood up, wiped his dusty hands on his trousers, and pulled his hood free of the tangle it had made in the back of his head. He said, "A prisoner would be torn asunder if he were raised to so high a level."
"Yes."
The High Seeker said nothing more. Elsdon forced a humorless smile onto his face and said, "Are you telling me this to warn me of what the King's Torturers are like? Or to try to scare me from going on this mission?"
"The former. We both know that you wouldn't need to be raised to level thirty to break in the hands of a torturer."
Elsdon looked past Layle, beyond the wheel to where the straps lay limp upon the bed of the rack. He felt a shiver go through him, and he nodded.
He raised his eyes to Layle at last and said, "If you're looking for someone to withhold secrets under torture, I'm the worst person you could have selected for this mission."
Layle shook his head. "If the Queen wanted you to keep secrets, she would never have chosen you. Your mission is a simple one: to show the Vovimians the difference between barbaric care of prisoners and humane care of prisoners."
"By introducing them to the 'Code of Seeking,' you mean?" Elsdon looked over to the bench at the back of the room. It held a slim black volume, as did the benches in all of the rack rooms – a visible reminder to the Seekers and guards who worked here of who their true master was.
"Well," Elsdon said, "I have the Code memorized – more than memorized. I'm not an eloquent speaker, though."
"You won't need to be, with the King," said Layle in a dry manner. "When you enter his presence, he'll either decide that you're the savior of his people or that you're a tool of the torture-god. Either way, he won't care how well you give your speech."
"And if he should decide I'm a villain and send me to his torturers? Do I tell them about the Code?" Elsdon tried to speak lightly, but he could feel his muscles knotting.
Layle's hands slid onto Elsdon's shoulders. Elsdon's breath hissed in with surprise. The High Seeker rarely touched him outside of their living cell; most certainly he had taken care never to touch Elsdon in this place. Elsdon knew why.
"If the worst should come, and you should be placed in the unmerciful hands of the King's Torturers," Layle said softly, "I know, without any doubt at all, that your presence there will transform the Hidden Dungeon. Perhaps not as far as all of us in Yclau would like, but I believe that your suffering will make a difference to the prisoners in Vovim. Otherwise, I would not send you there."