Page 52 of Spelunking Through Hell

“Right.” Thomas shook his head, eyes hard. “I don’t want to know why you had to know that. I feel that the story of your life while we’ve been apart is going to drive me to drink.”

“It drives me to drink on a fairly regular basis, and I was there,” I said cheerfully, and rose. “So you’re shoring up the defenses and setting guards. Anything else?”

“Sally will be taking a detachment of our men to meet the Haspers on the field. They’re quick to act when they perceive weakness, but they will generally retreat with equal speed when met with proportionate force. She’s repelled them before. Will you be able to work with her if I send you along?”

“That’s more up to her than it is to me,” I said. “But seeing as we both have a vested interest in keeping you alive, yes.”

“Very well.” He crossed to the door before turning back to face me. “I’ll talk to her. But for the moment, will you come with me, please? There’s something else I want you to see.”

“You know I’ve been happy to go anywhere with you since I was sixteen,” I said, and stood, stretching before I walked over to join him. Unhygienic as it might be, I hadn’t bothered to remove my shoes before lying down on the bed, and since he hadn’t said anything about it, I was assuming he didn’t care about a little mud on the blankets. Which made sense, given that we’d both been bleeding when we made it to bed in the first place.

“Yes, and you know I’ve always been careful not to take advantage of that.” He leaned over and kissed the crown of my head before opening the bedroom door and leading me out into the hall.

The throne room was empty when we reached it. Thomas took my hand, pulling me with him as he made for the far wall. I went willingly enough. Honestly, it was nice to be following someone I trusted for a change. That had been a rare enough occurrence over the past fifty years.

He pressed his hand against a seemingly unremarkable piece of masonry and murmured a phrase under his breath, too low for me to understand what he was saying. The air around him briefly flashed with the sharp pre-storm smell of ozone, and when he pulled his hand away, there was a door there. It hadn’t appeared. It had always been there. I simply hadn’t been able to see it before.

I gave him a sidelong look. “A little less shy about showing off the sorcery these days, are we?”

“When you’re living as a wizard king, it seems a bit silly to pretend that you aren’t one,” he said, with a small, almost abashed bob of his head. “I’m sure it’s been excellent for helping me get past some of my issues with the thought that others might see what I can do. I’m not as sure how I’ll handle a return to Earth and the need to be more circumspect.”

“Yeah, but you’ll be circumspect with the tailypo and your family and access to chocolate, and that should make up for a lot.”

He laughed and pushed the door open. “I apologize, but I may not be able to add you to the list of people who can access this space on their own. My magic has run low enough at this point that even modifying the protections on this space may be beyond me or may weaken the locks to the point where they become useless.”

“It’s fine, sweetie. I’ve changed the locks on the house twice since you disappeared, and I can’t give you keys right now, either. We’ll take care of it.”

“The places where you choose practicality will never cease to bewilder and delight me,” he said, stepping through the door into another narrow hall. I frowned as I followed.

“This doesn’t look like the rest of the compound,” I said. “Neither did your room. Too small, too square, too... not anatomically optimized for whoever used to live here. What’s the deal?”

“This place was built for people whose needs were not a biped’s,” he said. “After discovering that it contained too few rooms optimized for human use, I set to convincing the stone to allow me to make some.”

That was a daunting thought. Sorcerers, as far as I was aware, were usually proficient in a single element, with both Thomas and Annie favoring fire. “You... convinced thestone?”

“Yes. It was a profligate waste of power, but I was angry, and I was panicked, and I had no idea how much I would come to need it later.”

At the end of the hall, he paused to light a lantern, revealing a room that was the mirror of his bedchamber, sans window, occupied by a large table. I pulled away from him immediately, turning toward the nearest wall. It, like all the others, was covered in a large, obviously hand-drawn map. The closest one showed what I guessed, given my limited experience so far, was probably the compound where we were standing. I glanced to Thomas, eyebrows raised, and he nodded in confirmation.

“My council meets here,” he said. “We needed to be able to chart our defenses and our resources in an organized manner.”

“Hence the lock.”

“Yes. If the compound were ever to be taken, Sally and the others would get the noncombatants here as quickly as they could, then seal the door behind them. In less dangerous hours, the door opens for me, for her, and for selected members of the council.” He gestured toward another map, this one larger and more abstract.

“This map shows you the extent of my territory. We can’t get aerial views, of course, but we have no accessors here to calculate the property taxes.” He managed to sound faintly amused.

I moved closer to that map, blinking at it for a moment before turning to face him. “This looks like an entire village?”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Not everyone who lives under my protection can fit inside our household. There are fields to be maintained, if nothing else, although we’ve had sparser crops every year. The water is drying up, and the soil is turning fallow. Aside from that, there are craftsmen who need more space than the compound allows, guards to be trained, and children to be schooled.”

“How many people are we talking here? Ballpark figures are fine if you don’t have exact numbers.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before saying, “Three hundred and sixty-two as of the last census. It was five hundred when the barrier closed. I can’t keep them alive much longer.”

“Fortunately, you won’t have to.”

The next map was more absence than actuality, showing the outlines of several jagged, irregular areas. The center area matched the shape of Thomas’ territory. “The neighbors,” he said. “I have no idea whether the exterior borders are still accurate. It’s been years since we’ve had the resources to go out and verify them. It’s been years since we’ve had the resources for a lot of things that should be done.”

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