Page 58 of Spelunking Through Hell

The newcomers looked like they didn’t quite believe her—I guess good things weren’t very common in their lives—but they fell in willingly enough as we started moving again, our group expanding to surround theirs, with Sally moving at the front and the guards largely clustered around her. The rest filled out the sides, or walked with me at the back, pacing the slower strangers.

We walked until the shape of the compound appeared in the distance, and several of the younger women stopped dead. The guards who had been serving as unofficial escorts stopped in turn, intentionally rattling their weapons. Sally looked back at us impatiently, then at me, and gestured for us to keep moving.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “We’re almost there.”

“I can’t,” said one of the girls. “I’m sorry, I thought I could, but I can’t, I can’t, I can’t hand myself over to a monster just because he says he means me no harm. I may not be able to go home, but I can’t go inside those walls. Women who enter the undying wizard’s clutches don’t come out again.”

“So why did youbringus here?” demanded the teen who’d spoken before. She shot him a sour look.

“Because you’re not a woman,” she said. “You can enter and live, and leave this world, and be free. Go for my sake, even if I can’t come for yours.”

It was as touching as it was pointless. I sighed, forcing my expression to stay as neutral as possible as I said, “Thomas—that’s his name, Thomas, not ‘the undying wizard’—isn’t a monster,” I said. “He sends his people to collect new arrivals to protect them from people like your Patriarch, who didn’t think women should get a choice in who they belong to.”

“I always thought that was a little bit ironic,” said Nem.

I looked at her curiously. She shrugged.

“I sold my soul and family name to escape a marriage I didn’t want to be entrapped by, and when the unanswered prayer took me and hurled me through creation in exchange, I landed here, and was trapped into a marriage I would never have agreed to, had I been given half a choice.” She sighed. “And now I am old, and have never married, for all that I have long had a husband, and will never see my home again.”

“You might,” I said. She looked far enough from human that I hadno idea what species she was or how long its members lived, but she wasn’t ancient. “If we do this right, we all might. But we don’t have a lot of time, and the charm letting me easily breathe the air outside the compound won’t last forever, so if we could get moving?” I paused. “If the crossroads put you here, how have you been able to survive? The air isn’t any good outside the barrier.”

“Our root stock is Lilu,” said Nem, almost proudly. “The air cannot poison us, for our bodies refuse to be so easily killed.”

I blinked. “Huh,” I said finally. “I guess that’s one way to do it.”

The Lilu aren’t that unique, as biological organisms go; all bipeds are built on essentially the same biological plan, and if not for the protein issues, a lot more of us would probably be cross fertile. That’s the real secret of the Lilu, as far as I can tell; they don’t have allergies, unless you count aconite, which mostly repels them. The only thing that can poison a Lilu is, again, aconite, which isn’t even found in most dimensions.

The air was better this side of the barrier, but not as good as it was inside the compound, and even Sally was starting to show some signs of strain, while these exhausted, starving people were all perfectly fresh. Maybe their lungs worked more efficiently on top of everything else?

Musing on biology was fun, but it wasn’t getting us to the compound, or me back to Thomas. I focused on the woman who’d objected. “The man you call the undying wizard is my husband, and I don’t share,” I said. “Even if he wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t let him. I might hurthimfor suggesting it. So can we keep moving? Please?”

One of the smaller children whimpered—the universal sound of the hungry child. That seemed to decide her. The woman looked to the kid, sighed, and nodded.

“We move,” she said.

And we did.

None of the Murray women were particularly interested in making conversation as we walked, too exhausted and beaten down to really feel comfortable talking to someone they saw as allied with one of their oldest enemies. The woman and the teenage boy who seemed to enjoy squabbling with her were walking together, heads almost touching as they muttered between themselves. I dropped back to walk beside them.

“Hey,” I said after a moment, when they didn’t react to my presence. “You two all right?”

They looked around at me, almost guiltily. That was... concerning, under the circumstances. I frowned.

“You better not be planning anything. I don’t usually invite people home for dinner right after I meet them, and I’m not going to appreciate it if you abuse my husband’s hospitality.”

“We’re not planning anything,” said Cer. “The Patriarch was always very clear that anyone who enters the territory of the undying wizard disappears and is never seen again. This is hard for us. I’m sorry.”

“My sister was married to the Patriarch upon reaching her maturity,” said the boy, trying to sound unconcerned, anxiety slipping through in his tone. “If your husband attempts to claim her, he’ll be asking her to break the bonds of her fidelity, and the unanswered prayer will strike them both down where they stand.”

The unanswered... the older Lilu woman had said the same thing. “Do you mean the crossroads?” I asked cautiously.

“Some people call the prayer that,” said Cer. “They’re wrong. Faithless and wrong.”

Right. “And your Patriarch married you when you were, what, eighteen?”

“When I ceased to be a child.” She ducked her head. “There is not much food to be had. My mother was much younger than I am when she bore the first of my siblings. It’s possible that I’m flawed in the eyes of the world. The Patriarch would surely have cast me aside soon.”

The more I heard about this Patriarch, the less I liked him. It seemed as if he was the reality of what Thomas had been trying to make himself look like to the world outside his walls: abusive, parasitic, and awful. “What, is this the dimension of dudes making bad decisions that the rest of us just have to live with? Are any of these stupid factions led by women? Don’t answer that. If you say yes, I’ll want to go talk to them, and if you say no, I’m going to turn around and march back to wherever the hell it is you came from in order to tell your Patriarch to go fuck himself.”

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