She looked at Paul with a skeptical expression, but his words did impress themselves. "You must! Or we shall fall to our deaths!" Without further arguing, she dove headlong into the gurgling waters and found that there was now head room to breathe below the narrow passage that had led them to the batand spider infested cave.
A splash nearby proved Paul's arrival at her side, and she soon found his hands encircling her own, as they were treading water to stay afloat. The flood receded but slowly, and intense cold seeped deep into the duos bones. A sudden gurgling and whooshing noise, was accompanied by an alarmingly rapid drop in the water level.
Paul and Ainea found themselves dropping at a frightening rate as the water was sucked away into unknown depths, threatening to take the two humans with it to their destruction. They held together, trying to maintain position above the circle of stones that was becoming visible below. When the tallest of the boulders surfaced two pairs of hands clung to it and to each other, while the water tore and tugged, trying to dislodge them.
Cold, wet and tired, they finally felt solid ground under their feet, thankful to have survived another of the ingenious traps.
|