The Pandahem Cycle I

Chapter sixteen

Chapter sixteen

Red waterWhoever crafted those steps was a master mason. There was not a fissure between tread and riser you could slide a hair through. Down that slippery slope in the utter darkness we slid, straight down, whoosh, helter-skelter, helplessly.

People slid into me, and whirled away, and the cries bounced from the roof, weirdly, echoing like bats trapped in a vault.

How long we skidded down I do not know. It could not have been much above four or five minutes; it felt like a lifetime. Without warning, smashingly, I went feet first into water. The shock knocked the breath from my lungs.

In a moment or two, with lungs aflame, I surfaced.

Flinging the hair back from my eyes and staring around I saw the darkness relieved by a somber red glow. Even as I watched and the heads