Star Wars_ Splinter of the Mind's Eye - Alan Dean Foster [52]
“I … don’t know how much longer I can … keep this up, Luke.”
“Neither do I,” he confessed tiredly, his frantic gaze hunting for someplace, anyplace, to conceal themselves.
“What about a tree?”
“Already thought of that,” he informed her, as they stumbled on. “That thing could pull us out of the biggest tree here, or push it down.”
“It’s getting closer,” she exclaimed, with a backward glance. Her voice was starting to crack.
Luke squinted, saw what appeared to be a regular line of rocks. “Over there,” he urged.
They staggered up to what turned out to be, not a natural formation, but an artificial construct. Each stone was shaped in a hexagonal pattern and fitted to its neighbors without any visible cement or putty. A peculiar tripod of wood and plaited vines decorated with paint or dyes was arranged above the circular wall.
“Looks like some kind of ceremonial cistern,” the Princess decided as they stumbled the last few meters toward it. “Maybe it holds water for a dry season.” She looked back. The merciless pale horror continued remorselessly toward them.
Luke started to put a foot over the wall, got a glimpse beyond it at the same time and recoiled in terror The stone wall surrounded a pit a good nine or ten meters in circumference. Though the sunlight here was far from bright, filtered as it was through mist and rain, it was sufficient to indicate that the empty gulf yawning beneath him was of frightening depth.
The Princess got a look at it too, sucked in her breath. “Luke, we can’t …” But he was running round the edge of the abyss, calling to her.
“Over here, Leia!” She hurried around the side, came up to him.
“Luke, we can’t stay …” He shook his head, pointed to something inside the wall. Leaning over, she saw the cause of his excitement.
They were standing at a place where the wall had been cut away. A gateway covered with indecipherable alien scrawl framed the stoneless section. Attached to small stone pillars were two vines. They descended into the darkness, intertwining to form a strange spiral ladder.
“Luke, I don’t know …” she began.
He dropped to the ground, grabbed one of the vines and tugged on it with all his strength. The vine didn’t give. Behind them, the wandrella had approached to within fifteen meters. It opened its toothy maw. A low, lymph-curdling ululation issued from within.
That made up Luke’s mind. “We haven’t got a choice,” he insisted.
“Down there, Luke?” The Princess shook her head. “We can’t. We don’t know what …”
“I’d rather die in a dark hole,” he said tightly, staring hard at her, “than be some monster’s breakfast.” Then he started down the vine ladder. “Come on,” he urged her, yelling upward. “It’ll hold both of us!” He continued his descent.
A last look at the quivering mouth hunching toward her and the Princess swung both legs over the side of the pit and started down into nothingness. It was not quite black as night, but dark enough so that Luke had to feel for each succeeding rung. Once he moved too quickly and almost fell. With his right leg he felt around for the next rung.
There was no next rung.
He’d reached the bottom of the ladder.
“Hold it!” he shouted softly up to Leia. The slight echo of the pit gave his voice a sepulchral quality. Above, he could barely make out her frightened face as she turned to look down at him.
“What is it … what’s the matter?”
“End of the line.” Beyond his feet he could see only unending blackness. It seemed as if they’d descended no distance at all. But as his eyes adjusted to the light, he thought he saw something a couple of steps above and to his right.
Climbing, he soon made contact with the Princess’ feet. After calming her, he reached out, stepped off to one side. The ledge he’d spotted was barely a meter wide, but another of the tough vines had been attached to the wall above it, running parallel to the ledge about waist-high. Carefully, Luke hooked one arm over the vine. “There’s a ledge, Leia,” he explained, reaching out a hand for her. She stepped over, grabbed the vine with