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We did. We were on some sort of rocky surface which descended into the sea. I didn't know how we would breathe while we walked it, but Deirdre didn't seem worried about it, so I tried not to be.
But I was.
When the water swirled and swished about our heads, I was very worried. Deirdre walked straight ahead, though, descending, and I followed, and Random followed. Each few feet there was a drop. We were descending an enormous staircase, and it was named Faiella-bionin, I knew.
One more step would bring the water above my head, but Deirdre had already dropped below the water line.
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 ma
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.
"Let them," I said, and I touched the hilt of my blade, "for now we have made it this far, I feel a power upon me!"
We hurried though, and off to our left and to our right the water grew black as ink. Only the stairway was illuminated, in our mad flight down it, and distantly I saw what appeared to be a mighty arch.
Deirdre was leaping down the stairs two at a time, and there came a vibration now, from the staccato beat of the horses' hooves behind us.
The band of armed men-filling the way from banister to banister-was far behind and above. But the four horsemen had gained on us. We followed Deirdre as she rushed downward, and my hand stayed upon my blade.
Three, four, five. We passed that many lights before I looked back again and saw that the horsemen were perhaps fifty feet above us. The footmen were now almost out of sight. The archway loomed ahead, perhaps two hundred feet distant. Big, shining like alabaster, and carved with Tritons, sea nymphs, mermaids, and dolphins, it was. And there seemed to be people on the other side of it.
"They must wonder why we have come there," said Random.
"It will be an academic point if we don't make it," I replied, hurrying, as another glance revealed that the horsemen had gained ten feet on us.
I drew my blade then, and It flashed in the torchlight. Random followed suit.
After another twenty steps or so, the vibrations were terrible within the green and we turned, so as not to be cut down as we ran.
They were almost upon us. The gates lay a hundred feet to our back, and it might have been a hundred miles, unless we could take the four horsemen.
I crouched, as the man who was headed toward me swung his blade. There was another rider to his right and slightly to his rear, so naturally I moved to his left, near to the rail. This required that he strike cross-body, as he held his blade in his right hand.
When he struck, I parried in quarte and riposted.
He was leaning far forward in the saddle, and the point of my blade entered his neck on the right side.
A great billow of blood, like crimson smoke, arose and swirled within the greenish light. Crazily, I wished Van Gogh were there to see it.
The horse continued past, and I leaped at the second rider from the rear.
He turned to parry the stroke, succeeded. But the force of his speed through the water and the strength of my blow removed him from the saddle. As he fell, I kicked, and he drifted. I struck at him, hovering there above me, and he parried again, but this carried him beyond the rail. I heard him scream as the pressure of the waters came upon him. Then he was silent.
I turned my attention then to Random, who had slain both a horse and a man and was dueling with a second man on foot. By the time I reached them, he had slain the man and was laughing. The blood billowed above them, and I suddenly realized that I had known mad, sad, bad Vincent Van Gogh, and it was really too bad that he couldn't have painted this.
The footmen were perhaps a hundred feet behind us, and we turned and headed toward the arches. Deirdre had already passed through them.
We ran and we made it. There were many swords at our sides, and the footmen turned back. Then we sheathed our blades, and Random said, "I've had it," and we moved to join with the band of people who had stood to defend us.