(For Alden Ashforth and Paul Reale)



Suffering alone does not lead to great art. At least that¡¯s what I¡¯ve always thought. Here on Ondine IV, that strange super-planetary mass, which is actually the burned out surface of a dead star, life lends itself easily to thoughts of the morbid, thoughts of suffering and the musings of the not quite sane. Of course, our capital city of Scarbo is much better known for its artistic luminaries (who gather here from all across the galaxy to create, to buy and to study with the masters of the nine great arts for which we are justly famous) than for its dungeons. But the dungeons, and the tenth great art, the art of the torturer, are really the pillar of civilization upon which all the rest are sustained.
Now this might seem strange to you, who are outsiders to our trade and traditions. Art, indeed all the arts, are practiced on many of the planets of the galaxy, as they have been since time immemorial. There are Scunge-Runners from Dirnalli XI, Skin-Painters from Van Gogh¡¯s Cluster, Musicians from the Euphonia system with its twinned planets of Concord and Discord. There are even revivalists from New Cambridge, who mimic the arts of Old Urth, from which it is said all our Human arts originally derive, including the tenth discipline (although many do not regard it as an art form at all, but that is from sheer ignorance and not truly a difference in classificatory theoretical category). But if you are a truly great artist, or even if you merely aspire to become one, you will come at last to Ondine, and if you are lucky you will fulfill the promise--and, of course, naturally, pay the Price.
I could already tell that today was going to be a difficult day. Many subjects, once having entered into the intermediate levels of pain and suffering simply fall by the wayside. This is not to say that they turn up dead, or even missing, after all we have our insurance premiums to think about. The difficult thing about the Price is that it is a non-linear synaptic progression. No two artists ever take the same path, and sometimes the path itself becomes so bewildering, such a fractal flux of pain and endurance that the logic trees fracture into an infinity of choices, which the subject is no longer able to follow. In a sense they fall out of grace. No longer able to endure the suffering which is the very nature of greatness (our tenth maxim is that ¡°Only the unendurable can lead to the unfathomable¡±) they abandon the quest, or in some cases are literally booted from the program. Of course, they receive the finest of medical care, including the delicate neurosurgeries which remove all traces down to the finest mimetic associations of their suffering. But, they also lose the path to artistic greatness. Fortunately, we have an excellent relationship with the Cognoscenti of Ultima VIII, that center of Galactic commerce and culture, and those who fail the training here are typically recruited into one of the Great Houses, where they can live a useful and productive life in the lucrative field of Chartered Accountancy.
Today¡¯s subject, however, had no such easy alternatives open to him. Not everyone who enters the Palace of Earthly Delights (for so we style the Tenth House) is truly suited for the unendurable suffering inflicted by the torturer¡¯s art. Usually, our journeymen can screen them through a simple shared service of suffering. Occasionally, a Master, such as myself, must be called in for judgement. I had dealt with one such occasion this very morning. I was called into the room by Karalis, one of our more talented journeyman, and very possibly the future head of the Guild. His subject, it seemed, was a young lady from Altair IV, one of the water-worlds halfway across the galaxy. ¡°You have subjected her to the preliminary agonies?¡± I asked Karalis. The subject, of course, could not respond, she being bound and gagged, with the appropriate software and hardware connections emplaced in the various openings of her body.
¡°I have, Milord, and although the traceries seem both of great substance and great agony, her fortitude is somewhat questionable.¡±
¡°Questionable, you say?¡± I asked. Knowing Karalis to be a diligent and forthright worker, I continued, ¡°You have, of course, followed her through the nine attitudes and the twelve lesser agonies.¡±
¡°Oh indeed, Milord, and her response was most gratifying.¡±
The following process is, quite naturally, the sacred heart of our torturer¡¯s art. Quite unbeknownst to our subjects, we ride invisibly beside them in cybernetic space, experiencing pain for pain, jot for jot, exactly what they do. How else to judge their fortitude, their worthiness of the Promise, if not by following their payment of the Price, even as we ourselves exact it? And, of course, this is what has always distinguished the greatest Masters of our Art as artists. For who can have more ability to endure suffering and be subjected to pain than the Master Torturer? Whose empathy for his subjects can be greater than he who must show no sympathy at all if he is to guide them on to the artistic greatness which is to be their reward?
Of course, we could design systems that let us monitor our subjects¡¯ condition without sharing their subjective experience of pain. But then we too would become little more than chartered accountants of human misery, designing this bit of indignity, that bit of humiliation, and this further push of searing agony, all to be weighed in on the general ledger of artistic worthiness. Why then, use human agents at all? One could simply design a series of machines with self-diagnosing expert systems to do the job. Of course, then there would be the problem of the Promise.
We call it ¡°The Promise¡±, because in the end, that¡¯s all it really is, a promise. One which is fulfilled more often than not, but because art is human, and because, above all, it is art, there can be no guarantees that the Promise will be fulfilled. Even the greatest master torturer can only lead the artist through that searing agony of hell to where the self¡¯s own truest inner knowledge suddenly opens like a flower before the transcendental pain gestalt. We can only show the way, like a finger pointing at the seven moons of Valhalla IX. In the end, the last, fateful steps of the journey must be made by the artist herself. Certainly, we can avoid unnecessary suffering, and we terminate most subjects before they have accomplished even ten per cent of the journey (please understand that terminate means we send them to the psychometricians, not something more sinister as the phrase might otherwise be understood). And those subjects themselves are the gifted few who have passed through the most stringent of entrance examinations.
But even a successful applicant to the College of Torture, may, in the end, find herself booted from the program, either for flaws in artistic temperament, or simply through a hidden failure to achieve the necessary levels of pain and degradation which the torturing process involves. This morning¡¯s case was a typical example. In such cases, the decision is never an easy one. Katerina Khadjiaouannou was Altair IV¡¯s most gifted Nomothetisynthecist. Nomothetic Synthecism is itself an extremely difficult art, and there is scarcely a single Master produced in two generations. Katerina¡¯s teachers had seen the potential in her early, and had nurtured her gifts to the best of their not inconsiderable ability. While at twenty-five she had already surpassed the greatest among her teachers, the true spark of immortal greatness had yet to be ignited, and so the College of Nomothesis had sent her halfway across the galaxy to us.
I seated myself in the Chair of Consummation and replayed Katerina¡¯s agonies. What a deft touch with the neuronic whip Karalis had! At each tender lash of pain, I was reminded of my own carefree and joyous youth. Certainly, he had applied each humiliation with just the proper degree of tension and control, and Katerina¡¯s responses seemed entirely natural and appropriate. When I came to the eleventh and twelfth lesser agonies, which have to do with both physical and emotional distress, I could see where he felt Katerina might be flagging. Fearing that this was an indication of her inability to endure the more severe tests of the Major Agonies, he had called me in for a second opinion in what would have been an otherwise routine operation. Such is typical in the life of the Journeyman torturer, and Karalis, with his impeccable sense of propriety, had done exactly the right thing.
While I could sense Katerina¡¯s moments of weakness, I did not believe that this was a fatal flaw in her character program. No, all we would have to do was to reinforce the self-loathing and abnegation of the sixth and seventh programs and everything would go well. Such moments are where the more mature judgement of the Master Torturer must come into play. Here, I felt that the chances of a successful completion far exceeded the risks, and there was no doubt in my mind that we should continue the process. I informed Karalis of this conclusion, and, searing them both with a jolt from my pocket taser I turned to leave the room, saying ¡°continue as before.¡± From the corner of my eyes, I could see Katerina weeping, although whether from joy or despair, I did not know.
Having finished my rounds with the journeymen, I now had nothing to keep me from that least pleasant of tasks, a session with a most recalcitrant and unsuitable subject. I had led him through the first five of the Greater Agonies, but to little avail. While my subject may have had all the fortitude in the galaxy, in the argot of the college, we called him a ¡°horse¡± - a dull subject, but one capable of pulling nearly any load, he simply lacked the aesthetic sensitivities necessary to become a true artist. That he had passed the entrance examinations at all was as much a matter of political connivance within the Palace (here on Ondine, we are perhaps the last of the closet Monarchists in the galaxy) as it was a matter of his almost legendary endurance. A shame that he had not applied to become a professional within the College of Torture. In that case, we might have trained him well and truly. Even though he might never have made the progression from Journeyman to Master, which always requires the transcendental gestalt of ¡°Aahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!¡±, and is not, as some believe, merely a matter of serving time, or gaining an adequately detailed knowledge of the psychophysiology of pain (after all an expert system can do this), still, he would have been a fine colleague and a valuable contributor to the Torturers¡¯ community.
But no, this particular subject was Hell-bent (in the most literal fashion, I thought, remembering the terrifying braces and clamps of the third major agony) on finding true artistic greatness within himself. Haroun, the Ascended One, teaches us in the Three-Fold-Path, that all beings contain the essence of greatness within them. Though a true believer, and counted as one of the faithful, in my heart of hearts, I do not see how this can be so. I have seen truth and the transcendental open to the unlikeliest of persons and in the least likely of places. Yet, this occurs always and only in the ripeness of the perfection of time. In that one perfect moment of perfect agony, the victim is always the right person, in the right place at the right time. It is this concordance which we torturers believe, that allows us to fulfill our part in the Great Art. Perhaps Haroun had meant that greatness exists in all beings at the proper time. Truly, I do not know. But the seeds of greatness are either present or absent at any specific time, and it is my job to know this, and with my current subject, greatness was clearly and simply absent.
¡°Well Dimitri, how are we feeling today?¡± I asked with a smile. Now, you must understand that the first five major agonies are designed to break the subject in both body and spirit. Then, after the depths of physical and mental anguish have been reached, the subject is literally turned inside out with the psychological tortures of self-loathing which accompany the sixth and seventh major agonies, a process designed to leave the subject empty of everything save the true, untouchable, unreachable inner self.
¡°Quite well, as a matter of fact. I can really feel myself making excellent progress, Master,¡± he said with a smile. I felt my heart drop to the pit of my stomach. ¡°Dimitri,¡± I replied, ¡°you know, you¡¯re not supposed to enjoy this process.¡± I continued, ¡°this is supposed to be agonizing torture, literal hell, not a trip to the playground.¡±
¡°Why not?¡± he inquired. ¡°Master Chang always told us ¡®no pain no gain.¡±
¡°Really Dimitri,¡± I answered, ¡°this is neither the time, nor the place for platitudes. I¡¯d threaten to punish you further, but I already know that won¡¯t work. In fact, it¡¯s the termination of your punishment that I¡¯ve come to talk about, ¡° I finished.
As I saw the look of depression spread across Dimitri¡¯s features, I realized what a sparkling innovation this might be for the sixth major agony. Just when the subject feels that he is making real progress, hold out the prospect that it has all been for nothing, a total denial of individual self-worth! What a perfectly marvelous dilemma--leave the subject caught between the fear of self destruction and the fear of having it withheld. I would have to begin refining this new program on the morrow. At present though, I still had today¡¯s unenviable task to contend with.
¡°Now, I can see by the expression on your face, Dimitri, that you¡¯re hoping that this is only some form of preparation for the agonies to come,¡± I said. ¡°Sadly, I must tell you that this is not so, at least not in your case.¡± To cheer him up I said, ¡°however, the idea is intriguing, and when it is fully worked out, it shall be added to the College¡¯s repertoire, there to be immortalized as ¡°The Dimitri Gambit.¡±
¡°But surely, you¡¯ve not come here to dismiss me, Master?¡± Dimitri asked in a hurt tone of voice.
¡°I fear that there is nothing else left to do at this point, Dimitri,¡± I said, my voice swollen with emotion. ¡°You know that the ancient formula of our people is The Promise and the Price,¡± I continued. For the promise to be true, the price must also be true, and that is why so much suffering is endured for the sake of the revelation which leads to artistic greatness.
Dimitri nodded understandingly, for such is part and parcel of the education of every child on our planet.
¡°But Dimitri, you must think about it from the other direction too,¡± I said. ¡°For the price to be worthy, the promise must be genuine. There¡¯s no point in senseless suffering which can lead nowhere and which does nobody any good at all.¡±
¡°After all,¡± I went on, ¡°that was the whole reason our ancestors created the College of Torture--that we might monitor and modify and, if necessary, put a stop, to the suffering of artists. You know as well as I do that although all great artists must endure great suffering, great suffering does not necessarily engender great art. And so it is, I¡¯m afraid, in your case. You¡¯ve suffered enough Dimitri, it¡¯s time to go home.¡±
¡°But I don¡¯t want to stop,¡± he cried. ¡°Especially not now that I¡¯m so close.¡±
Before he could continue further, I cut him off. ¡°Dimitri,¡± I said disparagingly, ¡°you were never close. You weren¡¯t even on the same planet. We only let you into the program because of palace politics. We only kept you here because there was nothing that I or any of the other Masters could do about it. But really, things have gone quite far enough, and this pointless exercise is leading both of us absolutely nowhere.¡±
Predictably, and that is one of the weaknesses of the unworthy, their predictability, he began to argue. Like a pendulum in phase space, the artistically unsuited move with a remarkable periodicity. I have always wondered if there is not a gene or a chromosome within which is hidden some hitherto unknown strange attractor for strange attractors. A kind of meta-strange attractor which drives the artistic impulse. In any case, Dimitri had obviously been born without it. Because this thought is heretical, I have never fully voiced it before, but I feel that some things should not be kept secret, even without the confines of our Guild.
¡°No more arguments, Dimitri,¡± I said unstrapping him. ¡°You know as well as I do, that when the Headmaster of the Guild dismisses you, you¡¯re dismissed. Once and for all. Final. That¡¯s it.¡±
¡°But what will I do, Master?¡± he replied, and at this he sat down on the floor of his cell and began to weep.
¡°Come, come, Dimitri, I said comforting him (for now that he was among the Dismissed, we were allowed to show our emotion and compassion), it¡¯s not all that bad.
¡°But it is, it is,¡± he wept. ¡°How can I ever face my family, my friends, anybody, even strangers, knowing that I¡¯ve failed as an artist.¡±
¡°Think about it this way, Your Majesty,¡± I replied, ¡°politics is an art all in itself.¡±