Page 18 of Spelunking Through Hell

“I skimmed it,” I said. “Why did you tell me there was nothing past Ithaca?”

He looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

“The first page,” I said. “He says there are dimensions and habitable worlds past Ithaca, and if he could survive on Helos, I can survive wherever he went. I want to follow his trail. I want to see what he found.”

“He was a satyr,” said Naga. “His environmental needs were similar to a human’s. If he survived past Ithaca... yes, you could survive there, too. But your body cannot carry any more crossings than it already holds.”

“Hence why I’m here, asking you if you can give me something external,” I said, trying to sound patient. Everything about this was making me uncomfortable, stillness most of all. I had a direction now. I couldgo.

“We decided on tattooing to match your husband’s example, and because you would be unlikely to lose them without losing parts of your body too large to survive,” he said. “Possessions can be lost. External things can be torn away. You would be taking a dear risk if you chose to carry something that was not embedded in your skin.”

“Not until I’m more than seven jumps out, I wouldn’t,” I said. “If I can get that far without using my own charms, I can get back.”

Naga looked dubious, but put the book down on his desk, fingers lingering on the cover, before slithering over to one of the shelves. “If you lose these, we’ll lose you,” he cautioned. “I can’t send someone to retrieve you.”

“I know.” For all that he was a professor of extra-dimensional studies, Naga didn’t travel much himself. Neither did many of the people who thronged around him, the other professors, the employees, the younger students. The University of K’larth attracted scholars from dozens of dimensions, but apart from coming to class and popping home to see their families, most of them found my predisposition for wide-ranging as strange as my own family did. No one had ever been able to tell me precisely why that was the case, or maybe I just hadn’t pressed them for an answer.

It’s funny, really. For some species, dimensional travel was as easy as doing a bit of math or casting a spell or closing their eyes and concentrating. For others, it was virtually impossible. I couldn’t do things the Johrlac way—their math was miles beyond me—and without magic to fuel my crossings, I can’t travel using any of the natural mechanisms of those species, but it seemed like we should have been able to find a method to make this easier. To go allStar Trek, but with dimensions instead of outer space.

Naga’s species had found the keys to dimensional travel, probably aided by the fact that snakes have very little friction and can slide through dimensional membranes with distressing ease, and then decided that while it should be studied as much as possible, it shouldn’t bedonewhen it could be avoided. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand much about their culture. Most of my time with them had been spent here in the estate, passing through.

Naga reached into a deep vase and pulled out two... I suppose the best English term for them would be “charm bracelets,” although each of them was large enough for me to wear as a necklace. They jingled faintly as he slithered back to me and held them out. “Here.”

I took the necklaces from his hand, trying to handle them as carefully as I could. They had to be at least stable enough to deal with ordinary movement, or he wouldn’t have let me touch them, and anything that couldn’t take at least as much jostling as a grenade wasn’t going to do me much good.

Each of them had five little glass beads on it, and each bead contained a swirling silver liquid. I glanced up. “One crossing each?”

“Break the bead and open one door,” said Naga. “You can go ten out before you have to start using your own charms, if you’re careful, and don’t get yourself so badly hurt that you can’t go any farther. Please try not to die out there.”

“I’ll do my best.” I slipped the necklaces on over my head, andfought the urge to ask him why, if we had crossings in such an easy, portable form that he could have ten of them in his office just waiting to be used, I needed to have them etched into my skin. The answer wouldn’t have mattered. The crossing tattoos took up so little real estate, body-wise, compared to everything else, and everything else was there because it needed to be. He’d been anticipating my future needs, not trying to keep me away from a resource.

“Each one will use up as much of your bodily reserves as a crossing etched into your skin, so be careful.”

“I’ll pack extra electrolyte powder,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Of course, Alice. All I’ve ever wanted to do is help you in your quest.”

I smiled at him, touched the necklaces now hanging against my chest, taking some reassurance in the weight of them, and turned to leave the room.

Naga apparently hadn’t realized that for me to have read the books at all, I would have needed to activate a translation charm, or that it would still be in effect, because before I could move out of hearing, he hissed, in his own language,

“Curse the endless curiosity of monkeys.”

I couldn’t stop and tell him I understood, not without starting something I didn’t have time for and that wouldn’t make any difference right now anyway. I left the room, pausing in the hallway for a moment to blink, then took a deep breath and continued on. I needed to get my things.

It was time to go.

My pack—which was important enough to me that I would have gone back to Helos to get it even if I hadn’t been in the middle of a job—contained mostly weapons, ammunition, and spare clothing. I filled the remaining space with electrolyte powder, more bullets, and the other two books before untying my robe and dropping it to the floor, turning to the dresser that held more clothing than weapons.

I was never the most fashionable girl in Buckley, and spending most of my time around people who have no idea what’s attractive for a human hasn’t helped with that. Pretty much all my drawers were filled with the same things, simple, practical clothing that I could move in without getting snagged on something, cut to accommodate as manyknives as I could cram under a shirt. So I didn’t have to think about what I was going to wear, just pull it on and fasten the buttons, and then I was ready to go.

Strapping on my weapons took longer. Mama’s revolvers went back to my belt, as always, and from there, it was a game of hide and seek with everything else. The last thing I put on was my boots, sturdy enough to run over crusted lava if I moved fast and the convection didn’t kill me, sufficiently broken in that if I had to wear them for the next three days, the worst thing I’d have to worry about would be the smell. All told, it took me less than ten minutes to get ready.

I spent the whole time watching the door, waiting for Naga to realize that I must have translated the text somehow. I didn’t know why his last words had left me with such a bad feeling, but it sat in my stomach like a stone, too heavy to carry for long, making everything else seem uncertain and sour. He didn’t show up. No one did.

Sighing, I slung my pack over my shoulders and hooked the map case over one arm. The same bad feeling that told me I needed to be concerned about how Naga was going to react to having spoken candidly in my presence was telling me not to leave it behind, and I trust my feelings, especially when I don’t understand them. They haven’t steered me wrong yet.

Time to see if these beads worked as advertised. I took a deep breath, reached up, and snapped one off the necklace where it dangled, dropping it to the floor and grinding it under my heel. A wave of dizziness washed over me even as I closed my eyes and focused on Ithaca, a world that was familiar enough by this point that I didn’t even need to think of a direction, just the destination. Everything shifted around me.

---