Almost overcome with relief, we swam shoreward and then staggered out of the water and threw ourselves onto the sandy ground.
Only to hear an eerie hooting whistle coming out of the twilight on the lake.
Looking around, I saw the enormous snaky neck of an aquatic dinosaur rising, rising up from the depths of the lake, higher and higher like an enormous escalator of living flesh silhouetted against the glowing pastel sunset. Our duckbill wriggled free of my arms and ran to worm his body as close to Anya as he could.
“The Loch Ness Monster,” I whispered.
“What?”
Suddenly it all became clear to me. The damned tyrannosaur would have waded into the lake after us, except that the lake was inhabited by even bigger dinosaurs who had made it their territory. As far as the tyrannosaur was concerned, anything in the water was meat for the beastie who lived in the lake. That was why it had left us alone.
The lake dinosaur hooted again, then ducked its long neck back beneath the waves.
I rolled onto my back and laughed uncontrollably, like a madman or a soldier who becomes hysterical after facing certain unavoidable death and living through it. We had literally been between the devil and the deep blue sea without even knowing it.
CHAPTER 18
My laughter subsided quickly enough. We were truly trapped and I knew it.
“I don’t see anything funny,” Anya said in the purpling shadows of the twilight.
“It isn’t funny,” I agreed. “But what else can we do except laugh? One or more tyrannosaurs are patrolling through the woods, one or more even bigger monsters prowling through the lake, and we’re caught in between. It’s beyond funny. It’s cosmic. If the Creators could see us now, they’d be splitting their sides laughing at the stupid blind ridiculousness of it all.”
“We can get past the tyrannosaur,” she said, a hint of cold disapproval, almost anger, in her voice. I noticed that she assumed there was only the one monster lurking in the woods, waiting for us.
“You think so?” I felt bitterly cynical.
“Once it’s fully night we can slip through the woods—”
“And go where? All we’ll be accomplishing is to make Set’s game a little more interesting.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Yes,” I said. “Transform yourself into your true form and leave me here alone.”
She gasped as if I had slapped her. “Orion—you… you’re angry with me?”
I said nothing. My blood seethed with frustration and fury. I raged silently at the Creators for putting us here. I railed inwardly at myself for being so helpless.
Anya was saying, “You know that I can’t metamorphose unless there’s sufficient energy for the transformation. And I won’t leave you no matter what happens.”
“There is a way for you to escape,” I said, my anger cooling. “I’ll go into the woods first and lead the tyrannosaurs away from you. Then you can get through safely. We can meet back at the duckbill nests—”
“No.” She said it flatly, with finality. Even in the gathering darkness I could sense the toss of her ebony hair as she shook her head.
“We can’t—”
“Whatever we do,” Anya said firmly, “we do together.”
“Don’t you understand?” I begged her. “We’re trapped here. It’s hopeless. Get away while you can.”
Anya stepped close to me and touched my cheek with her cool, soft hand. Her gray eyes looked deeply into mine. I felt the tension that had been cramping my neck and back muscles easing, dissolving.
“This is unlike you, Orion. You’ve never given up before, no matter what we faced.”
“We’ve never been in a situation like this.” But even as I said it, I felt calmer, less depressed.
“As you said a few days ago, my love, we still live. And while we live we must fight against Set and his monstrous designs, whatever they are.”
She was right and I knew it. I also knew that there was no way for me to resist her. She was one of the Creators, and I was one of her creatures.
“And whatever we do, my unhappy love,” Anya said, her voice dropping lower, “we will do together. To the death, if necessary.”