The Hidden World

Chapter 18

Thomas seized her by the arm and dragged her along with him through the green murk. Her beautiful dream had now become that most hideous kind of nightmare, in which one is pursued by some half-seen horror but can move only in slow motion. She flailed helplessly against the water, hampered by her body's own buoyancy. High above them the colossal shape loomed, black against the dimly luminous surface. She saw a gigantic head swinging from side to side, searching. The sea monster. Was the creature only hunting, or looking for them in particular?

"Faster," Thomas urged, the word escaping his lips in a silver stream of bubbles. He yanked again at her hand. Maeve risked a glance back over her shoulder, saw the long sinuous shape now winding towards them. It was still vague and indistinct through the cloudy brine, but she clearly saw the dull glint of teeth.

"There," Thomas was shouting. "In there!"

A deep shadow had appeared in the weed-hung slope: the gaping entrance of some narrow cave or crevice. There was no time to check how large the inner cavity was, to decide whether it could provide enough shelter. Thomas pushed her in so hastily that she struck her arm on a projecting granite outcrop with bruising force. She squirmed farther in, disregarding the pain', leaving room for him to join her. Uneven rock faces met her groping hands. The cave seemed to go quite far back.

Thomas was now clawing his way through the fissure beside her. Behind him, the weak, watery light coming through the opening was eclipsed by a sudden darkness: the head of Cirein Croin. Looking back, they had a glimpse of grey-green scaly hide, serrated teeth, flat silver eyes as soulless as a fish's. The jagged jaws opened, revealing the huge pale mouth and the throat like a tunnel leading down into darkness. It's too big, thought Maeve in relief. It can't get in ... Then the water around them stirred. They felt the dragging force of suction, like the pull of the tide, saw weeds and small fish spiral out of the crevice and vanish into the gaping maw. Thomas threw himself in front of Maeve and braced himself with all his might against the rocky walls. She clutched at him in turn, terrified that he too would be sucked out. For a small eternity, they clung there, silent in their shared fear, muscles screaming with stress.

At last the jaws closed again, and the head turned sideways. The staring, lidless eye, with its great black pit of a pupil—an eye made for piercing the darkest deeps—was thrust up against the crevice.

Thomas spoke in her ear. "Quick, while its mouth is closed. Go farther in!" He squirmed past her. "The cave narrows and goes upward, see?" He eased back again. "Go on!" he urged, pushing her ahead of him.

She scrambled forward, feeling her way with shaking hands. The crevice did indeed go farther back. She moved as quickly as she could in the darkness, hearing Thomas scrabbling along behind her. Then she felt the sudden movement of the water again, the deadly current that caught at her body and strove to drag her back; she braced herself once more against the slimy stone.

"Tom!" she cried, panicking. "Tom, are you there? Tom!"

A tiny heart-stopping pause, then: "Go on, Maeve. I'm right behind you."

She squirmed ahead. Still the narrow space went on and on; it twisted and turned, but no dead end met her fumbling hands. Even the dim green light was left behind. Not another tunnel, Maeve moaned to herself. Only it was not a tunnel, for it was not human-made. The messengers' tunnel at least had been the same height and breadth throughout its length, but this natural fissure or lava-tube in the hillside sometimes became so narrow that she felt she was being crushed, and only the thought of the monster waiting below enabled Maeve to force herself onward. What, she wondered, would this tunnel lead them to? Some dark and dreary cavern in the mountain's heart? A lair with another monster in it? At least with the messenger's tunnel one knew that there would be daylight at the end.