Page 64 of Spelunking Through Hell

Not as impressive as the pain. As soon as we’d started to leave the council room and he’d seen the way I was walking, he’d whisked me away to his room and ordered me to sit on the bed while he got his first aid kit, supplementing it with the supplies from mine, which was muchbetter stocked. He had local painkiller made from bromeliad sap, which was helping to numb the pain, although not enough to keep me from wanting to slap his hands away.

I settled for scowling at him, clenching my fists in the blankets until my joints ached, waiting for him to be done. He was gingerly prodding my ribs back into their proper place, rolling a sheet of sticking plaster over the damaged area. I was trying not to pull away. Setting a rib without the aid of modern medicine is a team sport, or at least it is when you’re not allowed to just slap tape over it and snap it back into place.

“You really don’t need to do this,” I said, trying to sound more apologetic than aggravated. “I still have a couple of recovery charms on me, if you’ll just let me get some electrolyte powder from my bag.”

Thomas scowled and kept working. “I think using those charms frivolously counts as hurting yourself when you don’t have to,” he said. “Your body isn’t built to move that energy around, and it costs more than I like you paying.”

“I wonder if there’s an actual physical difference between sorcerers and non-sorcerers,” I said. “We have three of you now. If we popped you all into a CT scanner, would it show something it wouldn’t show for the rest of us?”

“I have no idea what you just said, but you’ll have plenty of time to experiment on me later. I hope.”

“You know, that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s said to me in years.”

He sighed as he pulled his hands away and leaned back, frowning. “I hope you never have cause to say that again,” he said. “This should hold, for now. I’d still like you to see our medic, but—”

“But you need me with the defenders holding the line, and we’re going home,” I said. “Either I’ll get it set on Earth, or I’ll ask Helen to help me when we get back to Ithaca. Or we’ll all die here. If it’s that one, it won’t matter if I die with a few cracked ribs, as long as I don’t get hit hard enough to puncture a lung.”

Thomas’ frown deepened. “I wish you hadn’t come here just to die with me,” he said, leaning forward until our foreheads touched. He exhaled heavily, closing his eyes. “I wish you’d found me twenty years ago, when this place still had some life left in it, and we would have had time.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think Icouldfind you until the crossroads were gone, and it turns out that took a sorcerer,” I said. “Our sorcerer, that we made together, two generations ago. I can’t wait for you to meet everyone.”

“I hope I have the chance.” He straightened up and sighed. “Alice... I didn’t tell the council everything.”

“Yeah, I figured, since it feels sort of like the timeline sped up a lot while Sally and I were out meeting the neighbors. Can I assume you’re going to tell me now?”

“Yes, but first—your Ithacan friends.” He sobered. “How long were they going to give you before they followed?”

“Helen said they had to go to Empusa to get back the book Naga took, but once they finished their research, if they were going to come, they planned to do it right away,” I said. “Why?”

“Because when I took down the barrier in hopes of getting even a few weeks’ more magical supply, I discovered that it had been helping to maintain the structural integrity of the remaining dimensional membrane.”

Shit. “That sounds bad. Is that as bad as it sounds?”

He didn’t even bother to nod, just closed his eyes and wearily pinched the bridge of his nose. “It is. The membrane was always going to fail completely, with the pneuma gone. It was inevitable. What I didn’t realize was that without my spell holding it together from this side... the process is accelerating now. Even before I took the barrier down, we didn’t have much time. Taking everyone into the compound only shortens what remains. Our supplies aren’t infinite, and with the pneuma gone and the membrane dissolving, we’re not going to be able to rebuild them. I expect the atmosphere outside my wards to start dissipating at any moment.” He grimaced. “After that happens, the air inside the wards will start to slip away. I don’t have enough power left to keep it here.”

“So how long do you think we have?”

“I don’t know, exactly. It’s not like the final extinction of a world that’s been essentially kept in formaldehyde by an evil cosmic force that has now dissipated is a widely-studied phenomenon. It could be days, weeks—we might have time for the food to run out, and wouldn’t that be a nice twist? Especially if we’re able to convince any of the O’Vera to take refuge with us, given their customary appetites.” He shook his head. “I’m a fool for thinking I owe these people anything.”

I knew from his tone that he didn’t mean the ones he’d already taken responsibility for. I grabbed his hand, pulling him closer to me.

“No, you’re not,” I said. “You’re a good man. The Covenant couldn’t break you. The crossroads couldn’t break you. This place couldn’t break you. Because you’re a good man, and that’s why you want to help the people who didn’t deserve to be here. I know thatmost folks who make bargains with the crossroads don’t do it for the altruistic reasons that you did...” And he broke in long enough to laugh, a short, bitter sound. I didn’t let go of his hand. “But that doesn’t mean they deserve to die whatever death comes when the world dissolves under your feet and drops you into the void. Is there even a void in a dead universe? Can you even die? Or do you just... float in emptiness, forever?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does.”

“So let’s not find out.” I squeezed his hand, hard. “Helen and Phoebe are either on their way, or they’re not. Either way, can we afford to wait for them?”

He shook his head.

“Can we afford to wait until everyone left in your territory is inside, along with any more of the neighbors who want to join us?”

He nodded.

“All right. Can you live with yourself if not everyone comes inside? If not everyone agrees to be saved?”

The Thomas I knew would have said yes without hesitation. As long as the people he’d claimed personal responsibility for were safe, he’d be able to deal with whatever result everyone else brought down on their own heads. He protected what was his, and the rest could go hang as far as he was concerned. This Thomas hesitated, looking conflicted. He was silent for a long time. Long enough that I started to worry about what his answer was going to be. But he didn’t pull his hand out of mine, and he didn’t look away from me.

“Before you got here, before Sally got here, I might have said no,” he said finally, with grating, brutal honesty. “I’m here for the same reason as many of these people, or if not them, their ancestors. I made a bargain. I knew what the costs could be. I knew, from the things Mary wouldn’t say—not the things she wasn’t allowed to say, the things shewouldn’t—that I was dealing with something unnatural. That whatever the crossroads were, they shouldn’t be. And I did it anyway, because I was too desperate and too selfish to let you go. My selfishness brought me here, just like theirs did. Why should I escape if they don’t?”

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