Meg - Swims in Dangerous Lake

I liked a good simple choice. I grabbed Meg’s hand. Together we jumped.

Ah, subterranean rivers. So cold. So fast. So very full of rocks.

You’d think all those jagged, spearlike stones in the water would have been eroded over time by the swift current, but no. They clubbed and clawed and stabbed me relentlessly as I sped by. We hurtled through darkness, spinning and somersaulting at the mercy of the river, my head going under and coming back out at random intervals. Somehow, I always picked the wrong moment to try breathing. Despite it all, I kept my grip on Meg’s hand.

I have no idea how long this water torture lasted. It seemed longer than most centuries I’d lived through—except perhaps the fourteenth CE, a horrible time to be alive. I was starting to wonder whether I would die of hypothermia, drowning, or blunt-force trauma when Meg’s grip tightened on mine. My arm was nearly wrenched out of its socket when we lurched to a stop. Some superhuman force hauled me out of the river like a dugong in a fishing net.

I landed on a slick stone ledge. I curled up, spluttering, shivering, miserable. I was dimly aware of Meg coughing and retching next to me. Someone’s pointy-toed shoe kicked me between the shoulder blades.

“Get up, get up!” Grr-Fred said. “No time to nap!”

I groaned. “Is this what naps look like on your planet?”

He loomed over me, his police hat miraculously intact, his fists planted on his hips. It occurred to me that he must have pulled us out of the river when he spotted this ledge, but that seemed impossible. Grr-Fred must have had to have enough body strength to bench-press a washing machine.

“The forest bulls can swim!” he reminded me. “We must be gone before they can sniff out this ledge. Here.”

He handed me a piece of jerky. At least it smelled like it had been jerky before our dip in the River Ouch. Now it looked more like deli-sliced sea sponge.

“Eat it,” he ordered.

He handed a piece to Meg as well. Her beekeeper’s hat had been swept away in the flood, leaving her with a hairdo that looked like a dead wet badger. Her glasses were cockeyed. She had a few scrapes on her arms. Some of her seed packages had exploded in her gardening belt, giving her a bumper crop of acorn squash around her waist. But otherwise she looked well enough. She shoved the jerky in her mouth and chewed.

***

The Tower of Nero, Chapter 19