The Snake Stone

78

Yashim pulled himself into the tunnel like a snake disappearing into its hole. Light from the doorway danced and sparkled on the walls: ahead lay only darkness.

Two steps. Five steps. He was deep inside now, crouched in the dark. He turned around, with difficulty, resisting the urge to press his back in panic against the low roof of the tunnel. Breathing hard, he looked back at the mouth of the tunnel, toward the light.

He saw a pair of sandaled feet approach the rim of the great tank. The man knelt down. Yashim could see his knees, and the arm reaching into the tank. The man stood up. He began to move along the rim of the tank as Yashim had done moments before. He took a step down, and stopped. After a moment he moved on, disappearing from view.

The man was coming down the basins like a semicircular flight of stairs, stopping and opening the little pipes as he came.

Yashim took several steps backward, shrinking farther into the darkness of the tunnel.

As he watched, an orange light began to flicker against the side wall, close to the opening. He had not realized that the man was carrying a torch.

Yashim’s mind raced, riffling through a pack of images. He saw the boy waiting for his father on the low, stone wall.

He saw the sun setting. The boy at the door of the siphon, calling his father’s name. A little hand closing around a silver ball. A dented little hollow ball like the one that had fallen from the spigot just minutes before. It seemed an age.

Yashim worked himself around, facing the darkness. Feeling the horror of a light at his back. Feeling the weight of the tunnel on his bent neck.

He put out his hands, touched the rough masonry on either side, and began to creep forward into the dark.