Page 63 of Spelunking Through Hell

He sighed, then looked to his advisers. “My wife is right,” he said. “Our walls are strong, our weaknesses are known, and our world is dying. Tell everyone who isn’t already inside the palace to get inside now, and to bring whatever they don’t want to see burn.”

“There isn’t enough space for everyone to live here indefinitely, sir,” said one of the advisers.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Thomas snapped. “No one else is coming through the barrier. Alice was the end of it. The magic this world has left, the vitality this world has left, it’s all here, and we’re out of time. If we’re going to find a way out of this, it has to happen now. Go and bring everyone inside. Tell them that this is what must be done. Tell them that the Autarch commands it. Only tell them, while there’s still time. Or am I not your unquestioned lord?”

The men looked like they weren’t sure of the answer to that. Several of them glanced unhappily at me, then back to Thomas. It was clear that they weren’t used to women other than maybe Sally appearing at their council table, and that fact sort of made me want to scream. Out of all the killing jars the cosmos had the potential to come up with, why did Thomas wind up in the male-dominated asshole dimension?

Answer: because this was a world populated entirely by people who’d made crossroads bargains and their descendants. Sure, therewere people like Thomas, or Nem, people who had made their bargains for selfless reasons, but if the stories Mary had to tell were anything to go by, people like them would have been in the minority even before they were faced with the need to survive in a shithole full of monsters. The crossroads hadn’t exactly been self-selecting for nice people who didn’t want to hurt anyone else. Put enough assholes in a box and you’re going to find the biggest, strongest assholes rising to the top, like some sort of horrific algae bloom of sphincters. I moved to stand next to him, still smiling sweetly at the group.

“Is he not?” I asked, with acid brightness.

The one with the eyes blinked all six of them, one pair at a time, like a rolling blackout of blinking, and said, “Of course, sir.” That seemed to be the cue the others had been waiting for. They murmured their agreement, one after the other, and began to back away.

Thomas gave a decisive nod. “Then you may go,” he said. “Tell them to come. Tell them we’re locking the doors as soon as the first sentry sounds an alarm. They can’t count on having time to dawdle.”

The advisers nodded and kept backing away until they reached the door. I turned to Thomas, opening my mouth, and he gestured for silence. I frowned at him. That had better not be a new normal in his mind; sure, he’d been a small-time dictator for fifty years, but I’ve never taken well to being shushed.

The advisers left the room. Once we were alone, Thomas said, sounding deeply weary, “If I don’t have the last word, they won’t leave. I’m not sure whose culture carried that tedious little attribute here with it, but when Sally and I were still adjusting to her place here, she would speak after I did, and that would start the conversation over again. Like a perpetual motion machine of endlessly arguing about absolutely damn everything. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to start it up again. Now, before you start shouting at me for shushing you, can we please go and patch you up? Infections are nothing to sneeze at in this place, and it’s not like we have access to antibiotics.”

“It’s really nothing,” I said, shrugging expansively. “Just a few scrapes and bruises.”

“Sweetheart...” He reached up, very gently, to brush his fingertips against my cheek. “While I fully understand that sometimes you’re going to risk getting injured, I don’t like you being this cavalier about hurting yourself. Please stop doing it.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy,” I said. “I’ve had a long time to get used to the idea that sometimes it’s the only way.”

“You’re never going to that so-called uncle of yours again,” he saidfirmly. “The damage you’re dealt now is damage you’ll have to learn to live with for however long we both manage to stay alive.”

“I know.” And I did. I didn’t agree that I was never going to see Naga again, but I was done with rejuvenations. I didn’t need them anymore. Not with Thomas here. Not when we were finally going home. “I’ve had scars before.”

“Not normally because you’d been slicing pieces out of yourself.”

I smiled. “Oh, there were a few times,” I said. “Remember the night I tried to go to Ann Arbor?”

What little humor was left in his expression drained away. “Yes, and you are never allowed to do that again,” he said. “Not when it took this long for you to come home to me. Promise, Alice. Promise me that this is not all an elaborate way of catching the bus to Ann Arbor after all.”

He looked so grave that I couldn’t even object to the fact that he was telling me what to do. Instead, I blinked, and swallowed, and said, “I promise. I just want to get us both home. You have people you need to meet, and I think Sally might murder me after we’re all dead and gone if I don’t get her back to James.”

Thomas laughed, still mirthlessly, and said, “There’s a fair chance, yes. She’s innovative. If anyone could figure out the mechanisms of ghost murder, I think it would be Sally.”

“You’re going to have to tell me how she wound up your right-hand woman one of these days.”

“When we have time for storytelling, we’re both going to have so much we need to say,” said Thomas. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Eighteen

“The first time Frances Healy put her little girl in my arms, the whole world changed. I’m not exaggerating. That baby pulled me far enough away from the crossroads that I got to stay my own person when that shouldn’t have been possible. I’ll owe her for that forever, even if she didn’t know what she was doing.”

—Mary Dunlavy

In the bedroom of a man who’s been missing for fifty years, trying not to smack him while he performs first aid

This would be easierif you’d stop squirming so much,” said Thomas.

“This would beeasierif you’d just let me slap some tape on it and get back to work,” I shot back.

My little tumble out in the field had been worse than adrenaline, shock, and a well-trained resistance to pain had been willing to let me admit before; in addition to a badly skinned arm and elbow, I had managed to dislocate my hip and crack at least one rib, maybe more. It was nothing I hadn’t done full field missions with in the past. It was also nothing Thomas was willing to let me try to just walk off.

He sighed. “Because that would absolutely be the way to discourage you from damaging yourself recreationally. Allow you to run around with a potentially life-threatening injury and pretend that everything is just fine... because you puttapeon it.” He managed to make that sound witheringly disapproving. It was almost impressive.

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