branches once held a bouquet of foliage. One that would have created a canopy above had those leaves still been there. However, now it just gave the forest a creepy, abandoned look and one seemingly void of all life.
Pretty soon the pathway became lost to a bed of dry, dead leaves that crunched under our feet as though we were stepping on a packet of potato chips. I had to question how this had happened considering it had rained not long ago and should have been a soggy mess of sludge. Yet here we were, crunching our way through the forest with the silence only welcoming us again whenever we stopped. I didn't know how long it was that we walked, but I couldn't imagine much time had passed seeing as when I looked back over my shoulder, I could still make out the glow of the town we had left behind.
“Not far now,” Trice said as if he was reading my mind. and he was right, it wasn't more than a couple of minutes before we stopped in front of what looked like a manmade cave. The rounded entrance had been decorated with carved stone blocks that went from the ground level all the way round to the other side. The only break in the circular decoration was a V shape keystone mounted at the centre at the very top. It was carved with some sort of demonic symbol I couldn't read, if I were to hazard a guess, I would have said it held information about the destination the portal led to.
But other than the stonework, there wasn’t really anything else that would have led you to believe this was a place of significance. Nothing screamed ‘here lies a portal to a different realm’ or that there was anything special about this place, as it could have been the entrance to some hibernating demon’s home.
However, that was about to change, as the portal keeper pulled a glass vial from inside his jacket, one that looked like it belonged as some fancy handle on a dagger as it was that type of shape. From this distance I could see it was decorated in swirls of hammered gold, and it was only when he twisted them that it made the same symbol that was carved on the keystone.
After he did this, the glass filled with some sort of blue cloud before it was released, seeping out of the end in a glow of tiny blue sparks. There were thousands of them that looked like little fireflies that all started to group together to form what looked like a giant key. The portal keeper then extended his arm out with the key in hand, and the closer to the centre of the opening he reached was when something happened. A curtain of power appeared in a shimmering wave of fabric as if caught in the breeze. It reminded me of the near invisible force that kept Lucius and me apart back at the Tree of Souls temple.
But then the gleaming wall began to turn into something more, and as the key was pushed forward it became that of a solid keyhole. The moment the key was inserted, the shimmering wall intensified and became a swirling colour of purples, blues and greens, with an ominous black framing the edges. This was obviously now signifying that the portal had been opened.
It was nothing like the portal I'd first stepped into when coming to Hell, after stepping through the centre of the tree. For all I knew, every portal in Hell was something different to the next, most likely depending on where the destination led you to. But all I cared about was that this particular destination was going to be closer to Lucius' castle because I feared that time was quickly running out.
I went to take a step forward, and stopped the moment I felt it. That creeping feeling that I felt dancing up my spine when in the tavern just came back to me and I couldn't help but look over my shoulder, feeling as though we were being watched. In fact, it became something so tangible that I could almost reach out and touch it. I could taste the metallic bitterness in the air as if something wasn't quite right.
“Trice, do you feel that?” I asked, making him look down at me first before he looked to where my eyes were rooted in the forest behind us.