Page 14 of The Tanglewood Witches (The Three Sisters 1)
Chapter Six
Orpheus tried to understand what had just happened. When he’d kissed Alena, a piece of his heart had somehow passed through his throat to his lips and into her, and now it was walking away from him, sashaying toward an ominous door in a wall that looked to be constructed out of solid stone by the gods themselves.
It made him nervous. He respected Alena and found himself disconcertingly invested in the welfare of the sorceress. He needed more time. Time to woo her. To worship her. To wed her, if that’s where this was going. The wall was a reminder that their time was short. She was right though: the only way out was to face what was ahead of them. They must find the grimoire.
“Wait,” he called. He caught up to her before she could try the door. “It could be dangerous.”
“I’m sure it is dangerous, but the path leads here. This is where we must go.” Without hesitation, she pushed against the door and groaned. “It’s locked.”
He shook his head, beguiled by her bravery and determination. He desperately hoped that tenacity wouldn’t cross into foolishness. He took a closer look at the door, running his hands along the edges. “It’s not locked. It’s a false entrance. Look here. There are no hinges. This is solid stone only carved to look like a door.”
“How do we get inside?”
“There are symbols here.” The way the door was designed, Orpheus had to stand with his back against it to read the strange markings on his right and left. He reached out and placed his fingers on the symbols on either side of his body.
“Orpheus!”
Alena’s scream cut off, and he was transported to the other side of the wall, to a strange interior room lit by burning torches. “Alena? Put your hands against—”
She arrived where he had, right in front of him. “The tricks you teach me,” she said around a smile.
He shook his head and placed his hands on her shoulders. “I’d like to teach you a few more.”
“How about teaching me what this place is and what we’re supposed to do next?”
Orpheus scratched the back of his head and took a closer look at his surroundings. There was nothing here but a couple of torches and a dark, narrow entrance that led to the gods knew where.
“Only one possibility.” He pointed toward a dark doorway.
Alena removed a torch from the wall and handed it to him. “Might as well be able to see what’s going to kill us.” She took a second torch for herself.
Orpheus led the way. The narrow corridor stretched on until they reached a fork. “Left or right?”
Alena stared at the symbols in the stone for a moment. “Left is marked by the symbol for the underworld, right by the symbol for the god of war.
“How do you know that? These symbols are gibberish to me.”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. The symbols aren’t anything I’ve ever seen, but I can understand them.”
“Another gift from your ancestors?”
“Maybe.”
“So which way do we go?” Orpheus held his torch in the entrance to the left passageway.
Nothing, although the smooth stone corridor soon became jagged with rubble. It appeared as if the walls themselves were crumbling. That might be hard to navigate.
He swung his torch around and pointed it toward the right. A skeleton dangled from the far wall, held in place by an arrow through the skull and what remained of decaying flesh. Another skeleton was propped in the corner, its lower jaw open in an eternal scream.
“Left,” he said. “This may come as a surprise to you, but I’m a magician, not a warrior. Considering I don’t have a weapon aside from this torch, our chances of survival seem better in the land of the dead.”
She nodded, swallowing hard at the sight of the skeleton. “Agreed. I don’t know the first thing about fighting. Death we may have a chance against.”
She raised her torch and turned left. They picked their way through the fallen stones as the pathway turned and descended.
“What do you know about the underworld?” Orpheus asked.
“It depends. The Egyptian concept of the underworld is called Duat, and it is a place where souls are judged by Osiris and either given a peaceful afterlife or destroyed.”
