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

Only those elements time cannot wear,
Were made before me, and beyond time I stand.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
—Canto Third

It took two hollow thunks for the second flare to come to life, sputtering and popping uncertainly for a moment before filling the stairwell with its eerie green essence. Along with the light, came the acrid smell of barium carbonate, overpowering the dried corpse stench.

Spike waved his hand in front of his face. “I smelled better than that when I was alive.” He walked slightly ahead of the Slayer, hopping briskly from broad stair to stair.

“Spike, don’t get too far-” Buffy cautioned but was abruptly cut off by a yelp of surprise from below. “Spike?” Buffy hurried down the rest of the stairs, Willow follow after, staying out of the cloud of green lit smoke trailing behind the flare.

They found Spike hastily getting up from the floor, brushing his leather duster clean of floor ash. “Startled me’s all,” he muttered, indicating the fierce carving at head level at the bottom of the stairs.

The head was that of a vampire. It was stone, carved from the red trachyte of hardened lava. Its eyes were glaring savagely down at them, set with obsidian which glinted green in the flare’s light. Its fangs were also obsidian, their luster making them look wet with saliva.

Willow shuddered and followed the other two, ducking low to pass under it. Immediately, the stair ended, opening into another vast cavern, surpassed in grandeur only by the first. The ceiling of this cavern could be seen, just at the edge of vision, a dome of roughly solid rock.


Spike reached down for a boulder, the size of his head, and lifted it with ease. He lobbed it to Buffy who braced herself, but caught it’s light weight with a look of surprise.

“Rhyolite,” Spike answered her curious glance. “This whole place is a lava tube.” He clapped his hands free of dust, pondering the far wall. “We’re in a bloody volcano.” He turned back to see Buffy and Willow exchange curious, and somewhat amused expressions. His lips tightened with annoyance. “I read a book once,” he said harshly.

Buffy shrugged and continued forward, noting the lack of bodies here. Either no one had ever gotten this far before, she mused, or no one had failed to get only this far. Preferring the latter, but suspecting the former and flanked by her two comrades, she approached the distant far wall, her expression losing all of its amusement by the time the sheer face rose before them.

“Always the walls with them,” Willow muttered. Rising from the surface of the rough wall was a smoothly graven outline: a doorframe. However, where the doorway should have been was only more of the same rough rock. Willow indicated the only inscription scrawled onto the rock; on the lintel of the door frame, where it had been smoothed. “This isn’t a demonic language,” she observed. "In fact,” she squinted at the writing.

Abbandoni tutta la speranza, tutta coloro che entra qui

“I think it’s Italian,” she exclaimed.

“You think?” Spike muttered. “And you’ve been living in Rome for how long?”

“Will,” Buffy held her flare to one side of the writing, throwing it into deep relief, “can you read it?”

Willow stepped closer. “The runes are a bit crude,” she murmured. “Abbandoni, well, that’s abandon. Tutta is all. La speranza...”

“The hope,” Buffy interjected. “Abandon all the hope-”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Spike threw up his hands. “Look, it doesn’t take a genius! Abandon all hope, you who enter here.” He sighed in annoyance. “Where does a chap have to go to find someone with a decent education these days?”

“Well I’ll tell you where you can go,” Buffy began, eyeing the doorframe with interest, “but I’m really more interested in getting through this door before whatever it was that killed those people back there wakes up.”

“Buff, look here,” Willow had been running her fingers over the rough surface of the stone where the door should have been and had found a small smooth spot. “What is it?”

Buffy squinted, bringing the hissing flare closer. She pressed her finger to the small two inch diameter smooth spot, frowning. “Spike, come here, what does this feel like to you?”

Spike sighed and stuck his finger beside Willow and Buffy’s. Instantly, the spot got hot. Very hot. Willow yelped and pulled her hand back, ringing her hand in pain. Buffy and Spike did likewise, Spike sucking on the end of his finger. “What the hell was that?” Spike asked annoyed.

“Look,” Buffy pointed. The spot was glowing. It wasn’t its surface reflecting the glare of the flare. The spot was glowing red. “I think we just woke it up.”

Suddenly a shaft of light erupted from the spot, seizing the three adventurers, hurling them back across the chamber. The three bodies thudded against the rear wall, twenty meters off the ground.

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