I guess it doesn’t, or it’d be a lot warmer in here.” She tapped on the rocks and listened. “Sounds solid enough.”
Paili wrapped both arms around Mara’s waist. “Go back. . . . I scared.”
“It’s okay.” Mara pushed on the ground with her free hand. The rocky layer bent downward, and small cracks etched jagged streaks in every direction. “Hmmm . . . Maybe it’s not so solid after all.” Grunting under the Paili-sized load, Mara pivoted on her knees and headed back. “I think we’d better ”
Suddenly the floor crumbled away. “Whoooaaa!” Mara slid into a gaping hole with Paili still latched to her waist. Mara clawed at the sloping sides until her fingers snagged something solid, keeping her from sliding any farther. Pain rifled through her arms as she and Paili dangled over a seemingly bottomless pit.
“Paili!” she screamed. “Hang on!”
Chapter 7
THE ABYSS
Paili’s arms tightened around Mara’s waist, nearly squeezing her breath away. Grunting and pulling, Mara inched higher. Ignoring her throbbing shoulder, she lunged upward, and her fingers groped for a new handhold until they finally found a sturdy ridge. As she dragged their bodies higher, streams of light flowed past her eyes like windblown fog, filtering into the slope and disappearing. Sounds of snapping arose from below, like hungry crocodiles vaulting to catch hold of her feet. Mara lunged again and caught the upper lip of the pit with one hand, then the other.
“Paili! Climb out!”
Paili clambered up Mara’s back and jumped from her shoulders to solid ground. Dropping to her knees, she grabbed Mara behind her upper arms and pulled much harder than seemed possible for a little girl. Mara dug her feet into the slope and scrambled to safety, then rolled to the ground, puffing.
Paili laid a hand on Mara’s cheek. “You okay?”
Mara rubbed her aching shoulder. “I think I’m okay.” She sat up and looked her in the eye. “What about you?”
“I . . . bleeding again.”
Mara scanned her body. “Where?”
Paili showed her a cut on her elbow. “Here.”
Mara eyed it closely. “It’s not too bad.” She looked over Paili’s shoulder at the pit a mere two steps away. She pushed Paili gently to the side and crawled slowly to the edge.
The ground near the pit seemed sturdy now, so she inched close and peered into the hole. Streams of light rose and fell as if something down below inhaled and exhaled radiant energy. With each rhythmic pulse, some of the light disappeared into spots on the wall, sucked in by some kind of mysterious force.
Mara slid her fingers down the side and touched one of the spots. It felt smooth and hard, like a polished stone. While probing the surface, she caught the edge, and the stone shifted. Another stream of light flowed up, weaved between her fingers, and disappeared into the stone. She pried it loose and laid it in her palm. Fitting snugly between the heel of her hand and the base of her fingers, a multifaceted jewel glittered at her, a faint beam of light emanating from one side.
Paili touched it with her fingertip. “Pretty!”
Mara closed her fist. “Yes, but what is it?”
Paili shrugged her shoulders. As Mara rose to her feet, a low moan drifted up from the pit. Both girls jumped back, clutching each other. A new chill ran across Mara’s skin, and she inched farther away.
Paili hung on to her elbow, shivering, while Mara stroked her hair. “I think we’ll look for magnetite somewhere else, okay?”
“Far . . . away.”
After several more steps backwards, Mara turned and held Paili’s hand. “If we tell Morgan about the pit and the gem, maybe we won’t have to make quota today.”
“Fig cakes?” Paili asked.
Mara strode forward, peering through the dimness. “Let’s not push it. I’m just hoping we don’t get whipped.”
Mara and Paili slid into the warm spring, each girl finding a place to sit so that the soothing water covered her dirty, scraped shoulders.
With a flickering lantern at her feet, Morgan sat on a rocky ledge next to the pool, holding the gem in her fingers and examining it carefully. “A deep pit, you say? How deep?”
Mara reached for her outer tunic and pulled it into the bath with her. “I couldn’t see the bottom.” She scrubbed her tunic in the bubbling water. “It was strange,” she said, looking up at Morgan. “Light streamed up and down, and some of it got sucked into that gem.”
“Very interesting.” Morgan drew the gem up to her eyes. “Did you notice