The low arch scraped a ribbon of green repair clay off the top of Pip’s shell as the stone raft shot through into the dark.
Inside the adjoining tunnel, the water ran fast and narrow between walls of black shale. There were no lamps here. The only light came from the pale, unsteady glow beneath Pip’s translucent shell plates and the faint blue sparks jumping from the iron bars of the bell clapper’s cage.
Every time the pumice raft struck a submerged boulder, the bronze clapper swung half an inch inside its frame and hummed. The vibration traveled straight through the wet stone slabs, gathering loose static from the mineral-rich torrent until threads of blue current skittered across the deck toward Edris.
Edris lay on his back near the bow, his teeth bared and sweat running into his grey beard. The jolt at the arch had thrown his splinted left hip against a stone cleat. Now a ribbon of blue spark danced along the wet puddle soaking into the lower binding of his wooden splint. He tried to lever himself away using a broken cedar punting pole in his right hand, but pushing against the slick shale wall twisted his broken upper leg so sharply that his breath came out in a thin whistle and the pole slipped from his fingers.
