Erik and Dovecrest joined hands and stood beside the altar, while Mark and the soldiers stood back and out of the way, just in case the portal tried to draw them in.
“Are you ready?” Dovecrest asked.
“Yes,” Erik said. He didn’t want to wait another minute. He needed to do something and do it now. He’d already done too much waiting for one day.
“All right,” the Indian said. “It may take a few minutes to prepare the way. But when it happens, we’ll know. We jump onto the altar together and go through.”
“I’m ready.”
Dovecrest began a low, melodic chant in his native language. At first the chant was so subtle that Erik thought the man was humming, and thought it odd. But gradually the pitch and volume increased and it turned from a hum into a song. Erik couldn’t understand the words, or even the meaning, but he found the cadence and rhythm comforting, somehow, as if this were a familiar song he had heard since he was a child. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. If this worked, he’d need all of his strength and all of his wits. He still wasn’t sure how they’d destroy the demon when they found it, and Dovecrest had done his best to avoid all mention of that subject. It was as if he himself didn’t know.
But Erik knew they couldn’t do anything until they passed this first test and actually crossed over into the demon’s realm. He wondered if it were really hell, or just a different world, or a different reality. He’d never quite thought of hell as having a portal connecting it with this world. Apparently, though, those devil worshippers from colonial times had created just such a portal, a gate. A gateway to hell.
He felt the Indian’s voice growing stronger, more confident, and he felt the real world beginning to dissolve around him. Once it began, it happened quickly. He opened his eyes and saw the altar clouding over with a smooth, gray mist.
Dovecrest squeezed his hand.
“Now,” he said, reverting to English as he stopped his chant.
The two men jumped onto the altar. Erik felt its solid, rocky surface beneath his feet, but only for a moment. Then the very rock itself began to transform. First it turned rubbery, as if he were standing on the surface of a jogging track that had been covered with that cork-like rubbery substance designed to absorb shock. Then it became even more spongy; he felt his feet sink in more deeply. He had his eyes open but couldn’t see anything through the haze.
It seemed that sound had not become nonexistent also. It felt like he was inside a hollow chamber and insulated from all noise. Even if he tried to talk he suspected his voice would just not exist here. It was if he were entering some gigantic vacuum.
He looked over at Dovecrest but could not see the man, even though their hands were still tightly locked. Then the very rock beneath them disappeared. The solid bottom dropped away and the very ground beneath his feet was gone and he began to fall.