After lingering for what felt like an age, Danae nodded to Orpheus, and they both re-emerged from the tunnel. With each step along the tendril-lined path, her heart fought harder to escape the confines of her chest. If this was the entrance to the Underworld, why was it apparently left unguarded?
As they drew nearer the bronze door, she could see it too was webbed with finger-thin roots. There were no markings or any sign of a knocker or handle. Below the glowing strands, the great doors seemed to be just slabs of plain metal.
The surface world was littered with statues, murals and effigies of the Olympians. She had expected a vast likeness of Hades to preside over the entrance to his kingdom, something to state his ownership. But the Lord of the Underworld seemed surprisingly unostentatious.
‘How do we get in?’ whispered Orpheus.
Danae ran her hands over the crease in the doors, then pushed. Unsurprisingly the bronze did not move.
‘Get back.’
Orpheus did as she bid him. She summoned a swell of life-threads into her hands and hurled a blast of wind at the doors. The bronze shuddered, ringing like a great bell, but remained in place. The roots recoiled where the concentrated air had struck them, then slowly snaked back into place.
‘Gods, it’s like they’re some sort of creature,’ breathed Orpheus.
Danae glanced behind her, searching for any crimson eyes looming from the passage. None came.
‘Keep a look out for shades, I’m going to try and climb over.’
She waded through the roots to the right of the door, then began ascending the twisted wall, all the while trying not to think about the surprisingly warm, flesh-like quality of the coils.
‘They’re holding my weight. Come on,’ she called to Orpheus when she had almost reached the top. ‘I’m coming, Hylas,’ she murmured under her breath.
Then the tendril beneath her moved. Quick as a heron darting for its prey, the root whipped from under her feet and, before she hit the ground, caught her around her waist. She barely had time to cry out before it had tossed her into the air to land in a heap back on the path.
‘Are you all right?’ Orpheus ran over to her.
Danae sat up, bruised but otherwise unharmed. She took the musician’s outstretched hand, and he heaved her to her feet.
‘I’m really starting to hate those roots.’
Danae sat on the path, sweat prickling her brow as she glared at the bronze doors. She and Orpheus had made several more attempts to climb the root walls and each time were unceremoniously tossed back to the ground. She had returned to trying force, rumbling the earth and whipping torrent after torrent of air into the glowing tendrils, but each time she cleared a hole, they immediately wove back into their original pattern. And no matter how many life-threads she flung at the doors, the bronze gates remained steadfast.
Weariness began to weigh heavy in her limbs. She couldn’t keep using her finite supply of life-threads, not with the risk of more shades appearing at any moment. She had given thought to draining threads from the network of roots, but they were so strange and otherworldly, she was afraid of what they might do to her if she consumed them.
Orpheus crouched beside the tangled tendrils, gazing at their undulating lights and giving them the occasional prod.
‘We could wait for someone else to open the door?’ he offered. ‘There must be someone behind there who needs to come out at some point.’
‘Gods know how long that will be.’ Danae pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. This was almost worse than being lost in the dark.
‘Daeira!’
She jerked her hands away from her face.
Orpheus was on his feet, his face shining with excitement. ‘It’s the roots!’
She opened her mouth to question his meaning, then realized she could hear the vibrations again.
‘They’re making the music.’ Orpheus grinned, staring at the tendrils like they were the chorus of a play.
As she watched him, her eyes widened. Force evidently wasn’t going to work, but charm might.
‘Orpheus, sing!’
‘What?’
She pushed herself to her feet. ‘My powers evidently aren’t much help here. If the roots can make music, they may respond to it. We’ve got to try. Or we can sit here and wait for more shades to come through those doors and kill us.’
