“HOLLIE?” a voice called from the endless tunnel.
“Jordan?” Claire leant forward to see if she could see him clinging onto the edge.
“FALL! THE ENTRANCE IS DOWN HERE, QUICKLY I THINK THE HOLE IS FILLING BACK UP AGAIN!” Jordan shouted.
The rocks and dirt, as Jordan warned, seemed to be floating upwards and rejoining the ground which they stood on, closing the gap.
“The entrance is down there, we need to go down there,” Hollie instructed frantically.
“Ladies first is what only a gentlemen would say, and right now, I am.” Broudie stepped back.
“Right I’ll go first, hurry behind else you’ll be trapped above ground and then eaten by those stupid tree monsters.” Hollie bent her knees and then sprang into the air, descending into darkness.
“C’mon Jay.” Claire leapt off the edge, squealing as she fell.
“Let’s go,” Broudie told, running past Jay and bombing down as well.
Jay took one last look behind him at the old, scraggily trees with their deep yellow eyes, and then jumped, squeezing through a tiny gap. His heart was beating fast as he zoomed down into darkness. Above was only a small dot of white light, which eventually disappeared.
Air was rushing past his ears as he plummeted down the hole, they were popping more than popcorn in the sun.
Then he heard Jordan’s voice,
“Jay, Claire, Broudie, are all of you here.” Jay looked down and could make out two small torches lighting up some small faces.
“Claire, Broudie, where’s Ja-”
Jay stopped inches away from the floor as the air suddenly froze and his stomach launched forward in a churning, super-queasy jolt.
A second later, he hit the ground.
“Now there’s the problem with that spell, it breaks your fall so you don’t die, but then drops you so as you break your nose.” Jay heard Broudie moaning as usual.
“Jay, are you alright.” Hollie picked Jay off the floor, presuming it was Hollie as all he could see was two face lit by the torches.
“Where are we?” Jay asked.
“We’re in the temple, the temple of Barthimia,” Hollie announced excitedly and still on a high from the action.
“There’s a door,” Jordan told, moving the torch from his face to an old, golden door knob, screwed onto a dark wood door.
“Do we enter?” Broudie questioned.
“Yes, if we’re all ready that is?” Hollie asked.
“Right, let’s go.” Jordan reached out with his hand and turned the door knob. There was a click of the door unlocking and then the creak of it swinging open.
The moment the door opened, flames erupted from the many torches hung on each side of the hall. What showed was a long hallway, arched ceiling and a dusty, marble floor.
“We need the directions,” Jay remembered.
“I’ve got them, right, here.” Hollie rustled through what must have been her bag. She pulled out a piece of paper and lowered Claire’s torch to it.
“Where first?” Broudie pondered.
“Well, when there’s a choice, we’ll have to go left. But for now I think straight forward is the only way,” Hollie answered.
“I guess I’m going first,” Jordan said, pushing the door fully back and entering the hallway. He grabbed one of the torches and wriggled it out of its stiff, rusty holder. He gave it to Broudie and then began walking.
Broudie went in next, then followed by Claire, Jay and finally Hollie. Jay and Hollie picked out their own torches and the five teenagers crept through the eerie hall.
They stooped through the tunnel, flickering lights of orange dazzling at the corners of their eyes. Dust clouds were being sent upwards in puffs with every careful step they took.
This continued for a few minutes, until they finally came to a halt.
“Claire, why d’you stop?” Jay rubbed his head.
“Because Jordan stopped,” Claire told.
“Guys we’re coming into a big room,” Jordan called back, his voice echoing down the hallway.
“Well go inside then,” Hollie shouted from behind.
Jay started shuffling forward again. A few footsteps and he began to raise his head, the ceiling was getting higher. He stretched out his hands and realised that the tunnel was getting wider as well.
“Now this is a room.” Jay heard Jordan declare.
He moved to his right and the cave room came into sight. A big, beautiful, white chandelier was hung on the ceiling, illuminating every corner of the large, circular room.
It was like a dome of dark grey stone, rigid and untouched. The hallway opened up to the middle of the circular room, three doorways directly opposite them. One at the bottom left, one in the middle at the top, and one at the bottom right.
The middle door had winding steps leading up, and a beautiful flower perched randomly next to it – the only sign of colour in the room.
“Wow, this place is amazing,” Claire said.
“You’re telling me,” Hollie agreed.
“Why is that flower there?” Broudie asked.
“Dunno, it’s quite pretty isn’t it,” Jordan thought.
“I’m gonna take it as a souvenir, it’d look great in my dorm.” Claire began to stroll over towards the flower.
“Claire, stop!” Hollie called.
“What?”
“It might be a trap,” Hollie told.
“A flower? What’s it gonna do? Turn into a chimera,” Claire laughed.
It seemed the Chimera was the most famous of all the creatures as Jay had heard the name mentioned a lot, and every time, he pictured the day he first felt fire as just a warmth, when the monster had roared with that powerful blaze.
“You never know. But just on the safe side, leave it,” Hollie instructed.
Claire rolled her eyes and walked back to the group.
“So which way was it?” Jordan questioned.
“Left,” Jay replied.
“But wouldn’t it be the big gleaming centre door,” Broudie thought.
“No, Frederick said left, so left is right,” Hollie insisted.
“So we go right. Get it?” Jordan giggled.
“Might be funny in a different situation Jord.” Hollie shook her head.
“What if Frederick gave us the wrong directions for the temple?” Claire pondered.
“You saw the way he told us, he knew it off by heart,” Hollie persisted.
“So, left it is.” Jordan walked off towards the left doorway. They all followed, every step echoing a dark, cold tone.
As they veered closer, they noticed that the doorway led onto another hall, this one very old and dusty, and with no lights in at all.
“We can’t see in here,” Claire complained, bending her neck so as she didn’t scrape her head on the rocky ceiling.
“Well when it was built, I doubt they thought about lighting much,” Broudie told.
“We’ve got torches, it’ll be fine.” Hollie pushed her torch ahead and lit up the small cramped hall to reveal a long incline in front.
“A hill, oh c’mon why couldn’t they make this easier for us,” Jordan moaned starting the small hike up the steep bank.
A minute or so later the steep hike levelled off and Jordan gasped,
“Gods, this is creepy.”
“What’s creepy?” Broudie asked climbing out from the tunnel. They all piled out into a small box room, one candle flickering above a tiny oak table.
“What is this place?” Jay questioned.
“Dunno, what’s that on the table?” Hollie pointed out a slab of rock lying in the centre of the table.
“It’s got a message on,” Jordan told edging slowly closer to the table.
“Careful,” Hollie cautioned, hurrying to his side with everyone else.
They reached the table and Jordan stretched out his hand.
“Wait. Is there a door in here?” Broudie stopped, stealing Hollie’s torch and moving it round the room
.
No door was in sight as Broudie completed his three-sixty look around.
“What if it’s a trap?” Jay questioned.
“Well, there isn’t anywhere to go, and there isn’t anything else in here,” Hollie stated.
“It’s got writing on,” Jordan told, peering closer at the slab.
He reached out with his hands, checked with Hollie, and then picked up the rock slab.
Suddenly the sound of a conveyor belt rolling blasted into life, and three cages lowered down into the room. They all squinted their eyes, trying to see what was inside.
SCREECH!!
The sound of squawking lit some torches around the room. Then what was inside the cages became clear…
In each cage was one giant vulture, with long reptilian claws and a bony stomach hidden under a dark, black plumage.
Perched above the giant vulture bodies were faces, faces so hypnotising, they were hard to describe. The eyes seemed to soak into Jay’s mind, blurring up his vision and swirling his sight, making him dizzy and confused.
“SIRENS!!” Hollie shouted.
Jay shook himself out of the daze and turned away from the evil vultures.
“Put the wax in!” Jordan ordered, pulling out two splodges of wax from his pockets and stuffing them in his ears.
Jay followed his lead and stuffed his two wax blobs in his own ears, muting the sound around him slightly.
“Hollie put the wax in your ears,” Broudie told.
“NO, THERE’S SOMETHING BLOCKING THE SIRENS SONG BUT IT’S GETTING WEAKER, YOU CAN TAKE OUT THE WAX FROM YOUR EARS!” Hollie screamed, ordering them to remove the wax.
“It must be some sort of timed challenge,” Jay thought.
“Yeah! Now, read the slab,” Hollie instructed.
“It’s written in Greek,” Jordan replied.
“Then you can read it, go on,” Hollie agreed.
Jay kept his eyes away from the vulture women, just in case he got dazed again. He looked over at the slab as Jordan read aloud:
I live in the sea, I breathe in water,
Gaea of whom I am a daughter,
Come near me or my friend, your life won’t be spared,
For we have devoured the ones who have dared.
“It’s a riddle,” Jay blurted.
“So we need to work out who ‘I’ is?” Claire questioned.
“Yep, and before the sirens song reaches our ears,” Hollie added.
“So this person is obviously Greek,” Jordan said.
“And lives in the sea,” Broudie added.
“Might be a nereid or Hippocampi,” Hollie suggested.
“WRONG, WRONG!” A deep voice groaned.
“I breathe in water is saying again that this person lives in the water,” Claire continued.
“Gaea of whom I am a daughter. Who’s Gaea?” Jay asked.
“The earth goddess,” Jordan answered.
“So it’s a child of the earth goddess,” Jay concluded.
He felt completely useless, standing in a room, the riddle their only means of escaping. He had no clue what the riddle was on about, he was new to all this stuff. He shouldn’t even be on this quest, Amy should’ve taken his place, she has more experience. Jay shuffled on the spot uneasily, as the other continued to try and take apart the lines of the riddle.
“Yeah, like the hydra,” Hollie told.
“WRONG.” the deep voice rattled the whole room as it spoke.
“Stop guessing and naming who it could be, we might only have a few chances to guess it!” Broudie shouted at Hollie.
“Ok so the next line reads, come near me or my friend your life won’t be spared,” Jordan read out the cryptic writing, which looked like a load of scribbles to Jay.
But, although he couldn’t read it from a distant, as he peered closer the writing seemed to make sense.
He could read Greek writing! Jay smiled a bit but then shook himself back to earth with a quick glance at the situation he was in now.
“So this person has a partner, and they both are evil ones,” Hollie thought.
“They must be monsters,” Claire stated. The harmonic tunes of the sirens were slowly getting less faint by this stage. It only really sounded like a continuous note harmony.
“For we have devoured the ones who have dared. So they eat them?” Broudie pondered.
“Were looking for a child of Gaea, who lives in the sea and has a partner who devours people just like itself,” Jay pieced together, trying to be useful.
“There aren’t any monsters like that. The giants live on land, the chimaera lives on land, nothing,” Jordan shrugged.
“Don’t say their na-”
“WRONG, WRONG, ONE GUESS REMAINING!” Broudie was interrupted.
“Oh gods,” Jay cursed.
“I got it, it begins with a c. That sea monster,” Jordan chirped up.
“Oh yeah, I know which one you’re on about, something like cormas,” Claire agreed.
“NO! We’ve lost our last guess.” Jay’s throat closed as he prepared for the final words of the voice.
The anticipation rose in the room like smoke from a blazing fire.
“Were not,” Hollie said a silent moment later. “I think it only picks up Geek speech.”
“That’s convenient,” Claire thanked.
“Don’t worry we’ve got time to think of the answer,” Hollie said calmly.
“No we haven’t I can hear the siren songs already. They’re so lovely and so, so soft,” Jay told, falling into another daze.
The voices filled his head, pouring through his mind and possessing him. He swayed happily.
Their songs seemed to comfort him and make everything seem so great in life. Jay could even hear words. Then suddenly he was awoken when Hollie shouted,
“CHARYBDIS!”
“CORRECT, DOOR OPEN!” The voice ordered. A door appeared behind the sirens, dark with no lighting.
“Theeeey do not knoooooow,” The sirens called in a high-pitched song.
“Run for it!” Hollie instructed, leaping round the wooden table, scooting between the sirens and heading for the door. She reached into her pockets and pulled out some wax, which she stuffed in her ears on the way.
“C’mon.” Jordan put down the slab of rock, grabbed Jay by the arm and pulled him towards the door.
They crossed through the sirens that began to stretch their wings and necks. The soft songs stopped and they turned to face the door.
Jay looked back as they raced through the doorway. One last look into their evil eyes.
“Thrown to mortality, he tuuuurned on them, built a-” The sirens songs was immediately closed off as the door was shut tight by a falling boulder.
“Jordan, wait, they were telling me something,” Jay called out, trying to loosen Jordan’s grip on his arm.
“Not now Jay.” Jordan tugged at him.
Jay shook his head and he felt in control of himself again, but the sirens song didn’t seem so tempting and hypnotising, more trustworthy and truthful.
Then Jay remembered what it had said in the book, it had said the creatures sing truth and of the future. But what they’d said wasn’t exactly a certain give-away about how he’d die or anything.
Jay ran behind Jordan for a minute or so, continuingly thinking of what the sirens could of told him if he had just heard a little bit more.
Then he threw the thought out of his mind, this was what the sirens did, they lured people with their songs. Maybe they were trying to get him to come closer so as they could tear him apart.
That was probably it, they were just trying to lure him and his friends.
With that safely settled, Jay followed.
“Whoa!” Hollie screamed ahead of him, after a minute of racing the treacherous tunnels.
“Hollie, are you alright?” Jordan shouted, his voice echoing through the tunnel, sending that same col, eerie feeling through Jay’s bones.
“What’s happened?”
Jay asked as another few different squeals emerged from in front.
Looking down he saw Jordan, Claire and Broudie all with their hands clutched onto a small rock. He then realised what had happened.
“Jay, pull us up.” Jordan took one of his hands off the rock and reached up. Jay bent down and tried to help him, but Jordan slipped, knocking Claire and Broudie down the slide.
“Help us up,” Jordan gasped, he was holding onto Jay’s hand completely now.
“Ready? One, two, three…” Jay lifted with all his strength, but he couldn’t hold him. He slipped on the ground, and Jordan dragged him down the slide behind him.
Jay fell on his front, smashing his ribs against the slide walls, making him groan with pain.
Jay and Jordan slid down the slippery surface, twisting round corners, hurt and groaning.
They must have been so deep underground now just one misplaced knock and the soil could just collapse in on them.
“I’LL BREAK YOUR FALL!” Hollie shouted from below.
Suddenly the slide they were sliding down disappeared and they freefell towards the floor.
Then suddenly Jay stopped in midair and face-planted the hard surface.
“They need to get a cleaner round here with a feather duster, it’s well dusty,” Broudie said, pulling Jay to his feet.
Jay held his stomach and his face in pain and then opened his eyes, trying to forget how much his body hurt.
“C’mon, we don’t know how long we’ve got in here, there might be a timer so as you can’t take too long.” Hollie pulled Jordan up and then took a look around.
They were in a small room, with a ceiling fifty ft high, and two doors in front.
“Which way next Hol?” Claire asked.
“Left again,” Hollie read out. “Let’s go.”
Another gloomy tunnel was this one, more eerie atmosphere that misted over them as they steadily paced through.
A while later they emerged at a crossroad, another left or right turn.
“Right this time,” Hollie instructed, moving towards the doorway.
They walked through and then had to climb up a mountain of steps.
“Blimming hell, did they not think about how tired people would be if they came in here, gods,” Claire complained.
“Well I think that was the idea,” Broudie told.
“Guys, there’s a massive chamber up here,” Hollie declared.
Jay looked up and saw a brightly lit room above.
“As long as it has nothing in it, then I’ll come up,” Jordan said timidly.
“If you think floors can come alive then yeah,” Claire laughed, as she too reached the top.
“Don’t laugh, there are actually such things,” Broudie corrected.
“Does Greek mythology get any weirder?” Jay asked.
“They can still here you if they want y’know, you can still get blasted off the face of Gaea,” Jordan told.
“God, is that this blimming earth goddess again?” Jay shook his head, climbing up the last few steps. Any ounce of humour was a relief and a sort of pinch in the arm to say everyone was still alive.
“That’s gods, not god,” Jordan corrected.
Jay decided to keep quiet as he reached the top and looked around the chamber.
Torches were hung everywhere, and twenty odd columns stood, cracks scattered around them. There was no sound, and when Hollie spoke, her voice echoed loudly two or three times,
“Our temple should be this big.”
“Too right,” Jay agreed.
“What are we supposed to do in here?” Claire asked.
“Have a look around, I think,” Jordan answered, creeping up to one of the stone columns, and feeling it with his hand.
“Well according to the directions Frederick gave us,” Hollie pulled out her little sheet of paper, “we’re supposed to go in the centre.”
“The centre of the temple or like the middle as in a middle doorway?” Broudie questioned.
“Well probably the middle doorway,” Hollie replied.
“But there isn’t any door in here,” Jordan told.
“There must be something in here we have to do, like in the siren room.”
“So we’re looking for a slab of rock,” Jay suggested.
“Not just a slab of rock, anything.” Hollie walked off to another column and bent round the corner to see if anything lay behind it. “Well c’mon then,” she added, “haven’t got all day.”
They split up around the temple, but Jay always made sure he was close enough, or in eyesight of someone at all times, just in case anything weird happened.
He walked over to one of the stone columns and circled it. The stone was covered in cracks and dust. He felt around the stone column and it was ice cold.
Then he walked over into the centre of the room.
There were three slightly thicker columns that stood quite close together.
Jay circled the three columns slowly, searching for anything not of the norm.
But nothing.
He felt them and they weren’t as cold as the previous column, in fact, they were quite warm. Or was that just Jay being picky and cautious of everything?
He looked back to check everyone was still searching and that at least one person was in eye sight. He spotted Jordan and then slipped through into the centre of the three pillars.
He stood still and then did a three sixty turn to see if anything was there.
“UNLEASH!!!” The same deep voice as in the siren room groaned.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Broudie said.
The room started shaking like there was an earthquake and Jay leapt from between the three pillars.
Hollie, Jordan, Broudie and Claire all came to Jay’s side.
They stood there motionless as the three pillars began to rise.
‘ROTATION!’
(Chapter 15)