Page 53 of Spelunking Through Hell

The last map was his territory, again, at roughly the same magnification as the second, but with a charcoal circle drawn to overlap it, centered on the compound. That line had clearly been rubbed out and redrawn several times, each circle smaller than the last. I blinked at it, then turned an inquiring look toward him.

“The line of our magical defenses,” he said. “Within that circle, the air is purified and replenished, and the translation spells function. Outside it... I can’t protect them. I can’t protect any of us.”

He sounded so utterly miserable that I wanted to kiss him until he smiled again. Instead, I damped the impulse down and asked, “How many of your people are trained for combat?”

“A little more than half. I think the most recent roster put it at twohundred and three. Of those, a hundred and twelve serve as guards.” He moved toward the door. I followed. “The rest have families to care for or work in the fields or the village. I don’t demand service, only that everyone do what they can to help our community survive.”

“Sounds fair enough, especially for an autocratic warlord.”

He offered me a faint smile before stepping out of the room.

I followed, extinguishing the lantern behind me.

The throne room was still empty. He took my hand as we walked across it, retracing the path of my earlier flight. I glanced at him sidelong, aware that I was looking at him a lot, as much to reassure myself that he was still here as to assess his mood. He was looking straight ahead, profile still so achingly familiar. He might have doubted me. I’d never done the same to him.

We walked down a curving hall I didn’t recognize, bypassing the courtyard, winding up back at the entrance to the room where I’d been taken after I woke up. I balked, stopping dead in the middle of the hall, and Thomas pulled me along with him toward the door.

“You can’t avoid them just because you made some natural if incorrect assumptions,” he said. “Come along. Please.”

I stopped fighting and let him lead me through the door. The room was empty, no guards or women in pajamas. I looked at Thomas, bemused. He smiled a little. “Wait,” he said.

“If we’re just going to stand here, we could pass the time by making out,” I suggested.

“We’re about to have company.”

I didn’t have time to ask him what he meant by that before Sally stepped through one of the arches on the opposite wall, followed by a group of women, roughly half in the pajamas they’d been wearing the first time I’d seen them, the others in more practical rough cloth and leather. A few had children with them, ranging in age from toddlers to teens. None of the kids were in pajamas. Only about half of them had shoes.

Thomas turned to face them, his smile growing, and called, “Sally! A word?” He didn’t move away from me. That was something of a relief.

“Sure, boss,” she said, and shot me a poisonous smile as she sauntered past us to the storage room where we’d met—oh, wait, where I’d beaten the crap out of her.

“We’ll only be a moment,” said Thomas, and kissed my cheek before he followed her.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, waving him off as I focused on the new arrivals. “Hello. And you would be?”

“We are the Autarch’s senior women,” said the one who appeared to be the leader. She looked perfectly human, as long as I ignored the two extra arms, one below each of the standard pair. One hand rested on the shoulder of a child with the same arrangement of limbs who stared at me with huge, liquid eyes. “We were told you wanted to meet the children. My name is Aadya.”

“You were?” I glanced at the door Thomas and Sally had vanished through. “Well, that was a little presumptuous of whoever told you that, but sure, we can roll with it. Nice to meet you.”

“Their fathers patrol the walls and work with us in the fields and hall,” continued the woman—Aadya—calmly. “We have been told we can admit this to you, for the deep fiction does not extend to your ears.”

“The deep fiction being...?”

“That our beloved Autarch gathers the women who enter this land unwillingly to himself because he cannot be satisfied in the absence of his lost bride,” said the woman, patiently. “It is a great and terrible love story. The children sing it every Winterbreak, to celebrate.”

“Huh,” I said.

“But he takes us to his home and hearth and leaves us to our own devices,” she continued. “We are free in his custody, as we couldn’t be outside these walls, and those of us who wish children and find mates of a compatible species are encouraged to bear them, providing we will claim him as their father, for the sake of leaving his rule unchallenged.”

“That’s ridiculous and patriarchal as hell, but I’m coming to expect that from this dimension,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you. But shouldn’t we be preparing for a war?”

“Yes,” said Sally, emerging from the other room with Thomas at her heels. She shot me a measuring look. “Are you ready?”

I met her assessing gaze with my own. “Born ready,” I said.

Thomas came up behind me, and I stepped back so that I was half-resting against his chest. He slid an arm around my waist.

“My Autarch,” said the woman who had spoken to me before, “is your mate a warrior, too?”

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