a small excerpt from my novel "The Omniconstant"

Chapter Forty-three





Lycabettus hill.





15:30





A woman is
sitting in front of the iron door of a small cavity that encloses a sacred
place of worship, a small chapel with white walls and amateur iconographies. It
is the Church of Isidoroi Saints,  exactly as Jordan Dabolort had described it to Roxanne Fell when they were on the hill at noon after their small
time travel. Roxanne had left the hill in search of a few items that the old
man had dictated to her, trying to memorise some details
he had told her to remember.





This woman is dressed in a beautiful
spring dress, a blue, light shale on her hair and
thick shortsight glasses. She is trying to look inside the cavity to spot the hole. The dim light
and the outside reflection on her glasses makes it
very hard for her to distinguish many details. She
notices a plate writing in Greek that there is an underground passing near the Altar. She easily
translates the Ancient Greek transcript.  Then she looks at the modest altar. It
is easier for her to notice, because of its whiteness
and the reflection the marble works on every single sunray that enters, but there is not really much to see. Other than four rectangular badly-carved
marbles that create a small table, there is nothing else that would fit a hole.





Where is the tunnel which leads to Galatsi and from there
to Penteli Mountain? And even if I see it, how will I enter through
these rusted bars?





Suddenly,
as she is making this thought, trying to find ways to improvise, she witnesses
the most improbable scene in front of her weak eyes. The altar inside the
chapel moves leftwards covering the plate and behind on the back cave wall a
half-man-sized hole appears. A shadow appears from inside and the woman jumps
back. She is terrified. This is not what she expected to see when she sat there
in front of the chapel.





“Who the
hell are you?” she tells the man who approaches the iron bars. She turns and
gets ready to start running, but a spark of hope suddenly dictates to her to
wait a second longer.





“Don’t run,
Miss, wait. I mean you no harm!” calls the man fast before she runs. “Here, use
this key for the chain lock.”





As she
turns she sees him extent his sleeved, obviously muscled arm through the bars.
She takes an indecisive step closer again.





Only ten
centimetres away from her fingers the man pulls his hand back inside. “You are
Jordan Dablmort’s envoy, right?” he tells the woman. “Cause if you aren’t, and
you follow me in the tunnel, I can kill you in a second! And even if you escape
me, you will be lost and the next one who finds you, will not spare you, trust
me. So, tell me now, are you his messenger?”





“Do I look
to you like I am not?” she awkwardly asks him, losing her patience. “Cause if I
did, you wouldn’t even have talked to me, for that I am sure.”





“Ok, you have
me there, here is the key.” The man says smiling and she takes the key with no
further delay, really anxious to see what the Athens underworld wants to reveal
to her.