I half expected to be barred from entry, so it came as no surprise when the nun caught my elbow in her iron grip. She frowned up at me with a searching gaze of such intensity, I could have sworn I felt the heat of it stinging my face.
I held my tongue, lest my voice--which was familiar to her--give me away. Disguising it was the one thing we hadn't practiced...but if the nun asked me a direct question, I would have to improvise.
Lady Crenshaw chose that moment to intervene. "You see it, too, don't you, Sister?" Interposing herself between me and the nun, she hopped up on her toes and stared at my face. "You're not the first to notice her uncanny resemblance to the Virgin Mary."
"No, no, no." The nun shook my arm. "It's something else entirely."
I tensed, preparing to make a fight of it. Bess and Mrs. Whitaker-Bunyan had already disappeared down the hallway. Perhaps, if I knocked the nun unconscious, I could yet follow my wife and ascertain her secret.
Fortunately, I was spared the trouble. "It's just...you're so very tall." The nun smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "You remind me of my mother."
Relieved, I smiled and shrugged. The nun gave my elbow one last squeeze before releasing her grip.
"People thought she was an awful woman," said the nun. "But she wasn't at all what they expected."
"How unlike Henrietta here," said Lady Crenshaw as she drew me away. "She is exactly what you'd expect her to be."
*****
Lady Crenshaw and I hurried down the plastered hallway in the direction Bess and Mrs. Whitaker-Bunyan had gone. I'd lost sight of the both of them, though I suspected Lady Crenshaw had some idea of where they'd gone.
We passed door after door along the hall, many of them closed. Open doorways revealed tiny, candlelit rooms, little more than convent-style cells, each with one bed, one chair, and one woman. The women, glancing up as we rushed past, looked utterly lost and forlorn. Were they the victims of cruel circumstance, cruel men, or their own cruel natures? I had no way of knowing.
The hall hooked right at its far end, and Lady Crenshaw led me around the corner. More doors lined this leg, all of them closed but for one which was in the process of falling shut. Lady Crenshaw bolted ahead, moving remarkably fast for all the crinoline piled around her legs, and caught the door before it could meet the jamb.
Holding it open, she made a little bow and waved for me to enter. "After you, milady."
"Jolly good." I headed for the reddish light streaming out of the opening. "Bit of a role reversal, wouldn't you say?"
"Not if you judge a book by its cover," said Lady Crenshaw.
*****
The red light was pouring up from below, from a spiral stone staircase descending into the earth. I hesitated at the top, wondering what awaited us at the bottom...and then I started down. Lady Crenshaw followed behind me.
The smell of incense wafted up as I hobbled down the steps, clumsy in the high heels of the boots I was wearing. I kept one hand on the iron railing along the stone wall at all times, bracing myself in case my balance faltered.
It turned out to be a long way down. I counted twenty steps, then thirty, then forty, screwing ever downward into the underground. Always, the red light grew brighter, the incense stronger as we descended...and a clamor of voices rose to greet us, the sound of a crowd. Strange music also swirled up from below, a swell of skirling pipes and fiddles and instruments I couldn't identify.
By the time we reached the bottom, I'd counted ninety-nine steps. Thus ensconced in the bowels of the earth, I stepped forward, casting my eyes over the startling scene before me.
How many times had I set foot in utterly strange settings far removed from everything I knew and held dear? How many times had my heart shuddered in my chest as I gazed upon a bizarre tableau that cast a queer new light on all my assumptions about the universe?
Yet here I was again.
Lady Crenshaw and I stood on an elevated rim at the edge of a vast cavern hewn from the rock. The bowl-like floor of the cavern was filled with an enormous crowd of people, stretching from wall to wall.
All of them, from what I could see, were women...women of all shapes and sizes and colors and nationalities. Women dressed in every style of feminine garb I could imagine, from the corseted dresses of London and Western Europe to the sarongs of India, from the kimonos of Japan to the fur coats of the Eskimos, from the bowlers and serapes of South America to the buckskins and feathers of the American Indians. It was a veritable international army of women, all of them suffused with the crimson light that had drawn us from above.
I could not hope to count them all in that moment, but I estimated that there were thousands, tens of thousands, all encircling a distant dais in the center of the cavern. All watching a single figure on that dais, a woman, all listening to her voice as it echoed throughout the vast space.
At first I thought she might be Countess Calypso, but no. I couldn't be sure if she was anyone I'd ever known. I couldn't understand a word she said, either. She was speaking some kind of foreign language, one I didn't recognize. That alone amazed me, because I'd thought I'd known every language on Earth.
Not that the women in the cavern seemed to have any trouble understanding. As the woman on the dais shouted rapid-fire jumbles of alien words, the crowd around her clapped and cheered and shouted back at her using the same language.
Bess was no exception. I saw her up ahead at the edge of the crowd, alongside Mrs. Whitaker-Bunyan. As I watched, Bess clapped her hands overhead and called out in response to what the woman on the dais was saying. I shuddered, unaccustomed to hearing the words of an alien language emerging from my own dear wife's ruby lips.
I turned to Lady Crenshaw at my side and leaned close, speaking into her ear. "What are they saying? I don't understand a word of it."
"You wouldn't, would you?" Lady Crenshaw raised one eyebrow and looked at me with a considering gaze. After a moment, she seemed to come to a decision, and her expression softened. "Lingua femme, we call it. The language of women. A way for women to communicate no matter where they come from or what the dominant language of their homeland might be."
I scowled at her, taking it all in. "This lingua femme...you've known of it all along?"
Her smirk had a trace of playfulness around the edges. "Among other things, darling."
My mind was working overtime as things started falling into place. I was afraid to ask the next question that occurred to me, afraid to hear the answer from her lips. "Undine." A bitter chill pervaded my body. Cold sweat trickled between my shoulder blades and down my back between the corset and my skin. "Have you been to this place before?"
Lady Crenshaw giggled. "Now, darling." She hooked her arm around my elbow and led me toward the crowd. "How many times have I told you about asking questions when you already know what the answers will be?"
*****
I did not resist as Lady Crenshaw pulled me forward. I was, of course, concerned that Bess would find me out, but a part of me actually hoped that she would. I felt in need of another ally against this army; Bess might be a part of it, but I still held out hope that she would take my side when my true identity was exposed.
As we drew near to Bess and Mrs. Whitaker-Bunyan, the speaker on the central dais began to sing an eerie, keening song. The strange music that had been playing through the cavern rose in pitch and tempo to match her, and the army of women sang along.
As the priestess on the dais (for that was what she seemed to me, a priestess invoking an ancient rite) raised up her arms, so did every woman in the cavern except for Lady Crenshaw. The singing grew higher and faster with each passing second.
"What on Earth are they doing?" I had to shout for Lady Crenshaw to hear me. "Some kind of incantation?"
Lady Crenshaw didn't answer. As we reached the crowd, she too raised her arms and sang along with the priestess.
The red light in the cavern pulsated like pumping blood, growing alternately brighter and darker. Above the priest
ess, the air swirled with thickening pink mist.
"Undine!" I shook her by the shoulder. "What's happening?" But she ignored me.
Suddenly, the swirling mist above the priestess compressed, snapping into a solid form. It was a form I knew well, one that had been foremost in my mind since the day I'd caught my wife coming home late from the market.
It was the same elongated eyeball mounted inside a pyramid-shaped Egyptian symbol as the one that had hung from the silver pendant Bess had tried to conceal. Instead of silver, it looked as if it had been shaped from rippling red plasma, coursing with crackling tongues of energy.
And as I watched, I saw it blink. A lid of scarlet flame swept down and back up within the triangle.
It was then I realized, with a sickening lurch, that this eye belonged to something alive. Something that was gazing down at us all from somewhere else.
Something, I could have sworn, that possessed an intelligence most malevolent.
Why weren't the women in the least bit alarmed? Was I the only one in this vast underground vault who perceived the potential for danger?
"Undine!" With increased urgency, I grabbed Lady Crenshaw's arms and shook her hard. "I need you!"
It was enough to draw her attention and make her stop singing. "Whatever for?"
Suddenly, a great shrieking cry emanated from the hovering eyeball, so loud and so shrill it set my teeth on edge. Another followed, even louder, even shriller.
The piercing shrieks sent me reeling in a circle with hands clapped over my ears. "God save us!" I saw my wife turn and frown as I cried out, doubled over in pain. "What's happening?"
Lady Crenshaw crouched in front of me and took my head in her hands. "Quid pro quo, darling."
I gazed at her through tear-filled eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're a very lucky boy, Algie," said Lady Crenshaw. "You get to witness the start of a new era."
*****
The fiery eyeball swiveled in its pyramid socket, and the red light in the cavern pulsated faster. The army of women from all corners of the globe danced with increasing abandon, wailing an otherworldly song in twisted counterpoint with the eyeball's ear-splitting shrieks.
Only Lady Crenshaw and I remained still at the fringe of the frenzy...and Bess, too, who was suddenly quite interested in watching us both.
"You should be happy for us." Lady Crenshaw smiled. She still held my head in her hands. "We are free at last."
I felt dizzy. Was it the shrieking, the incense, the pulsating light? "Free of what, exactly?"
"Think for a moment," said Lady Crenshaw. "If you were truly a woman, what one thing would you most desire to rid yourself of? What one part of your life would make it least worth living?"
"Corsets?" I was having trouble organizing my thoughts. "High heels?"
Lady Crenshaw shook her head. "One great burden has darkened the lives of women since the beginning of time, shadowing our every moment of existence." She leaned close and kissed me on the forehead. "The pain of childbirth, of course."
The shrieking rose in intensity. The red light flashed faster, ever faster, until it created a strobing effect.
Lady Crenshaw's face flickered like something out of a nightmare. "We have only ever had two options: bear the pain for the good of the human race or forego the pain and stop producing children.
"But now, we have negotiated a third option." Lady Crenshaw smiled. "We have introduced a third category of 'parent' who will change the equation."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bess lean down to stare at me, her image stuttering in the strobing red light. She cocked her head to one side, and her frown deepened with fascination.
Lady Crenshaw kept my own head fastened between her hands as she spun out her tale. "Think of them as gods, darling, from elsewhere. A level up and over, if you will." Her eyes widened with feverish enthusiasm. "Becoming as one with us, they will infuse our systems with divine energies. Thus united, we shall possess the power to remove the agony from the childbirth process.
"We will still feign it for the benefit of your kind, of course." A look of disdain flickered across her face. "Mustn't let the men know our suffering has diminished. Not that keeping you in the dark is much of a challenge, is it?" Her laughter was cruel. "For all your vaunted skill as a wanderer and puzzleventurer, have you ever guessed that the members of the 'fair sex' are the true masters of the world?"
More of her cruel laughter rained down upon me. As I stared at her, I wondered if she'd been like this the whole time I'd been with her. If she'd always nursed this secret loathing even as the two of us had nurtured our covert romance. Had she ever felt love toward me?
Perhaps I could still appeal to her sense of reason. "Bonding yourself to these creatures from beyond. What's to stop them from assuming complete control of you?"
"We have a deal." Lady Crenshaw nodded smugly.
"What if this foothold is the precursor to a full invasion? What if you're opening the door to the end of the world?"
Lady Crenshaw's eyes narrowed. "It will be worth it."
The shrieking of the god-thing and the women continued to grow louder. The strobing of the red light picked up speed. If the deal were about to be consummated, I had a sense my time to thwart it was swiftly expiring.
I decided to try one last appeal. Pulling my head free of Lady Crenshaw's hands, I grabbed her wrists and locked them in an iron grip. "What about the children, damn you? Have you stopped to think how this will affect them?"
Lady Crenshaw shrugged. "There may be added...permutations. A darkness, I'm told. A slight shadow on the souls of future generations.
"But honestly, what can it hurt? If anything, it may strengthen our descendants for the challenges of the 20th Century. We can hardly do worse than the 19th, can we?"
I felt a sudden surge of clarity and self-righteous rage. "What you're proposing is unnatural." I shook her by the wrists in the strobing light, giving rein to my indignation and horror. "We must call a halt to this wicked transaction!"
Just then, a single hand fluttered down like an autumn leaf and landed on my forearm. Shooting a glance in the direction from whence it had come, I saw my wife looking back at me.
The expression on her face was one I had not seen there before: deep sadness entwined with unyielding firmness like ivy on a wall. The aspect that made the strongest impression, however, was what was missing. Perhaps it was the flickering of the red light distorting her features, concealing what I thought should be there...but I could see no trace of it.
No trace of affection in her gaze when she looked at me. Had it ever been there at all, in all the days and nights I'd known her? Thinking back, I couldn't be sure.
Or had I willed it there, as I'd willed all good things in my life into being? As she and these thousands upon thousands of women had willed a new destiny for their sex?
Bess gazed at me in my wig and makeup, my dress and corset and bloomers, and squeezed my arm. I would have liked to have seen a smile on her face, but she gave me none of that. Recognition only, and resignation, and resolution.
And when she spoke, the words were all the more terrible for the absolute lack of regret in her voice.
"It's already done, my Algernon," said Bess as the shrieking and strobing and dancing reached a frantic crescendo around us. "Your own child in my womb is among the first fruits of this new arrangement."
*****
For the first time since he'd started his story, Sir Hogshead raised the bottle of whisky and downed a great swallow. I watched in amazement as he stood there in his smudged makeup and blue dress, guzzling whisky after relating a tale that was disturbing on so many levels.
Those of us who were gathered around him in the billiard room of the Wanderers' Club remained silent for a long moment. We were weighed down by the gravity of Sir Hogshead's story, the sheer emotion with which he'd invested that terrible final sequence.
Yet there he stood, looking ridiculous in that dress, t
hose gloves, those boots. The incongruity was appalling.
Finally, I took it upon myself to break the silence. "How did you escape, Algernon? Was there a struggle?"
Sir Hogshead sighed and shook his head. He stared at the whisky bottle in his grip, perhaps gazing at his strangely-attired reflection in the glass. "I walked away. They let me go."
"That hardly seems likely," said Dr. Yarrow.
"Didn't you punch a few girls, at least?" said Mr. Asteroth-Phipps. "I rather thought that was what you were leading up to."
"They said no one would believe me." Sir Hogshead drank the last swallow of whisky and set down the bottle on the rail of the billiard table. "They said it wouldn't matter if anyone did believe me, because it's too late."
Doctor Yarrow sniffed and straightened his tie. "It does seem a bit far-fetched, old chap."
"I'd think twice before repeating it outside these walls," said Mr. Ravensthorpe. "You're liable to find yourself institutionalized."
"Scandalized at least," said Mr. Trimble.
"Or romanticized," said Mr. Asteroth-Phipps. "Propositioned, even."
"But the women." Sir Hogshead scowled and raised his trembling, black-gloved hands. "They must be stopped. We have to reverse the contamination, or the legacy of our manhoods will be forfeit."
"Perhaps the Royal Marines' Occult Brigade could look into this." Stepping forward, I placed a hand on his shoulder, extending simple camaraderie in spite of his bizarrely inappropriate costume. "But if what you've told us is true, it might already be too late to combat this threat."
Sir Hogshead slumped, staring at the floor for a long moment...then suddenly burst back to vigorous life and shoved me away. "I'll never accept that, Captain Thrice! There must be a way to undo the damage! And I'll find it myself!
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