So I drew a deep breath and took the plunge.
There were more steps and I kept following them. I wondered why my body was not naturally buoyed above them, for I continued to remain erect and each step bore me downward as though on a natural staircase, though my movements were somewhat slowed. I began wondering what I’d do when I could hold my breath no longer.
There were bubbles about Random’s head, and Deirdre’s. I tried to observe what they were doing, but I couldn’t figure it. Their breasts seemed to be rising and falling in a normal manner.
When we were about ten feet beneath the surface, Random glanced at me from where he moved at my left side, and I heard his voice. It was as though I had my ear pressed against the bottom of a bathtub and each of his words came as the sound of someone kicking upon the side.
They were clear, though:
“I don’t think they’ll persuade the dogs to follow, even if the horses do,” he said.
“How are you managing to breathe?” I tried saying, and I heard my own words distantly.
“Relax,” he said quickly. “If you’re holding your breath, let it out and don’t worry. You’ll be able to breathe so long as you don’t venture off the stairway.”
“How can that be?” I asked.
“If we make it, you’ll know,” he said. and his voice had a ringing quality to it, through the cold and passing green.
We were about twenty feet beneath the surface by then, and I exhaled a small amount of air and tried inhaling for perhaps a second.
There was nothing disturbing about the sensation, so I protracted it. There were more bubbles, but beyond that I felt nothing uncomfortable in the transition.
There was no sense of increasing pressure during the next ten feet or so, and I could see the staircase on which we moved as though through a greenish fog. Down, down, down it led. Straight. Direct. And there was some kind of light coming from below us.
“If we can make it through the archway, we’ll be safe,” said my sister.
“You’ll be safe,” Random corrected, and I wondered what he had done to be despised in the place called Rebma.
“If they ride horses which have never made the journey before, then they’ll have to follow on foot,” said Random. “In that case, we’ll make it.”
“So they might not follow—if that is the case,” said Deirdre.
We hurried.
By the time we were perhaps fifty feet below the surface, the waters grew quite dark and chill. But the glow before us and below us increased, and after another ten steps, I could make out the source:
There was a pillar rising to the right. At its top was something globe-like and glowing. Perhaps fifteen steps lower, another such formation occurred to the left. Beyond that, it seemed there was another one on the right, and so on.
When we entered the vicinity of the thing, the waters grew warmer and the stairway itself became clear: it was white, shot through with pink and green, and resembled marble but was not slippery despite the water. It was perhaps fifty feet in width, and there was a wide banister of the same substance on either side.
Fishes swam past us as we walked it. When I looked back over my shoulder, there seemed to be no sign of pursuit.
It became brighter. We entered the vicinity of the first light, and it wasn’t a globe on the top of a pillar. My mind must have added that touch to the phenomenon, to try to rationalize it at least a bit. It appeared to be a flame, about two feet in height, dancing there, as atop a huge torch. I decided to ask about it later, and saved my—if you’ll excuse the expression—breath, for the rapid descent we were making.
After we had entered the alley of light and had passed six more of the torches, Random said, “They’re after us,” and I looked back again and saw distant figures descending, four of them on horseback.
It is a strange feeling to laugh under water and hear yourself.