Julia Lelieveld and the battle with the underworld

~8~

It felt like I was being pulled up into the air, which gave such a weird feeling in your stomach. And before I knew it I was back on solid ground. I blinked for a moment, because it was a lot lighter than in the underground tunnel.

I looked around and I was standing in a large room with a kind of dome for a roof. The dome had large round openings through which the sun shone, which gave an incredibly beautiful effect in the large round space.

I looked in front of me and saw Rob standing and next to Rob was a beautiful elegant woman. Before I could say anything, I looked back at the gate. But to my horror, this one was gone. I walked to the wall I had come out of. Just stones, no black, shiny liquid. What was this? Where was Renzo?

I looked startled at Rob.

"Rob, where's Renzo?" Subconsciously I said it louder than I intended.

I saw Rob startled. "Julia, this is very inappropriate behavior."

"Inappropriate behavior? Renzo is not here, you promised", I said, full of emotion.

I saw Rob pull his eyebrows together and he seemed to think about it for a moment, but before he could say anything, the woman next to Rob spoke up.

"This has been our decision. We just instructed the elementor that he should go through the gate last. We immediately closed the gate on both sides before he could go through."

I looked her straight in the eye. How mean this was. I clenched my jaw to try not to say stupid things. Because of the way she said elementor, I could tell she thought she was so much better than us.

I turned back and looked at the wall. I was really angry and I knew Renzo would be very angry too. I touched the wall briefly, but felt nothing, just cold stones. I tried to control my emotions. They had nothing to do with this. I already hated the Elders.

I turned around again, straightening my back and walking towards the woman. I extended my hand. "I'm Julia Lelieveld."

She looked contemptuously at my hand, then looked straight at me. "I know, just follow me." And with that saying she turned and walked to the center of the circular room. I looked at Rob in disbelief, he just shook his head and told me to stay calm.

We followed the elegant, beautiful woman. Her voice sounded like a song. But as beautiful as she looked and sounded, the way she treated Rob, Renzo and me made her very ugly.

When we arrived in the middle I saw that the floor was a lot lower. A stone staircase led to a lowered seating area. Large sofas and chairs were neatly aligned. Here and there a table in between. Three persons sat close together in an intense conversation. When we came down the stairs they looked up one by one. Each has a different facial expression.

The one who immediately noticed was the man in the middle. A tall dark man. His age was hard to estimate, he looked about fifty, but he's an Elder, so that must be wrong. He had small wrinkles next to his eyes, but otherwise his skin was still smooth. His eyes were bright against his dark skin. He had bright blue eyes, but with a haze over them. I saw in his eyes that he was old, very old.

His hair was tied to his head in small black curls. He stood up elegantly. His tall build came across as dominant.

Beside him stood a slightly smaller man, his appearance looked like his mid-thirties, but his brown eyes betrayed that he was older too. What was probably first dark brown was now a dull brown color. His red hair and beard stood out against his white skin. He seemed less stately than the dark man.

On the other side of the dark man stood an older woman. I guessed her age in her late fifties, but like the others, her gray eyes were dull. Her hair was up in a nice big gray bun on top of her head. Her small and slender build stood out against the tall dark man next to her.