The Wolf, the Ram and the Hart: Dante
by redmoon
Dante

I am the way into the city of woe,
I am the way to a forsaken people,
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
---Canto Third

"Ow, buggar!" Spike hopped to one side, finding a seat on a relatively flat boulder. He laid his left leg awkwardly across his lap, pulling his boot from his foot.

"Giving up already?" Willow smirked. "We're not even in the bowels of hell, yet. This is like, the tonsils.."

Spike emptied the contents of his boot onto the cave floor, hearing, rather than seeing the angular clasts clatter to the dust. "I'm not complainin'," he shrugged. "The cloud cover here is practically designed for vampires." He gave his boot one last tap, then tugged it back into place on his foot. "Aside from it bein a little toasty in here, I rather fancy this place."

"I don't think your feet share your enthusiasm," Willow sat herself down on a similar boulder, massaging her ankles with a grimace. "Neither do mine."

Buffy was standing a little ways farther into the dim cave, examining the intricately carved rear wall. It was covered floor to ceiling with interlocking symbols and glyphs. Presumably depicting some cloaking enchantment, keeping whatever resided beyond safe from whatever it was in the universe it had to fear.

"Kinda creepy, isn't it?" Willow stood and approached Buffy from behind. "What do they have to hide from?"

Buffy clenched her jaw, raising a speculative eyebrow. "Us."

"My feet don't share your enthusiasm," Spike called out from behind them.

"How do you suppose we get in?" Will asked, her hand probing up and down the surface of the wall.

"Only one way I can think of," Buffy dropped her rucksack to the floor of the cave with a thud, sending up a small cloud of orange dust. Her hand plunged into the pack and pulled out a heavy steel hammer-head. She slid the thick wooden handle she also carried into the head's hole, driving it in as far as it would go. With a sigh, she drew the improvised sledge hammer back above her head and brought it crashing into the glyphs.

There was an audible groan from the cave, obviously the reverberation of the impact throughout the accoustically perfect walls, but sounding much like an animal being punched in the gut.

The result, however, satisfied both the Slayer and the witch. The wall, as evidenced by the hole now punctured through it, was only a few inches thick; an artificial construct dividing the cave across its middle.

It took only a few hammer blows to clear a hole large enough for a person to squeeze through. Soon, all three of them were crouching in the utter blackness.

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