RA WESTWOOD
Based on the world of Harry Potter,
created by J.K. Rowling
Chapter 3
The Library and the Crypt
“Lumos.”
Noah’s wand lit a dazzling sphere of the Ancient Library of Alexandria. Columns shot beyond the light-- easily a hundred feet up--as if keeping the dense and infinite dark from crashing down. Ancient hieroglyphs curled over the marble floor like willow branches. The light from Noah’s wand slipped into the carvings and set them ablaze. The pair stalked the entry through a tunnel of golden statues.
“Who rouses me from my slumber?” a voice boomed from the dark just behind them. Crowe, always quicker to draw, spun with wand brandished, only to face the foe with an incredulous snort. Noah spun and added his chuckle to Crowe’s. A portly statue braced his eyes against the Lumos. He swam in loose billows of a toga, an engraving under sandal-clad feet reading, ‘Socrates.’
“You would be the one to ask all the questions, wouldn’t you?” Noah chided.
The two turned from a grumbling Socrates, and walked through the tunnel of sleeping legends. Past Aesop, Confucius, Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Merlin, Shakespeare, Aesalon and Dumbledore lay the atrium. The lag between footfall and echo suggested a room larger than a Quidditch pitch. Hovering blue torches guarded innumerable arteries and veins which branched from the Library’s heart. A whole history of knowledge lay waiting to be found.
Noah frowned. “It would take years to explore all these paths.”
“Maybe this is daft optimism on my part but...,” Crowe pulled the wand from his pocket and thrust it before him. “Accio Oblivion Hex!” his voice pulsed into the dark and faded. The hoped scroll didn’t arrive.
“Well,” Crowe mused, “the dark priest’s name was Deximose, so how about… Reperio Deximose!” As if pulled by marionette strings, his wand pivoted left and quivered toward a passage that looked to be mote on the horizon.
Crowe’s eyebrows arched, pleased with his ingenuity. “I’d wager this is the way.”
“Beats the Dewey Decimal System,” Noah quipped.
“Dewy whatsit?” Crowe’s face melted to confusion.
Noah sighed. “Muggle joke.”
Crowe shrugged and followed his wand. From Noah’s vantage it seemed Crowe was walking an invisible dog. Through rune-laden arches, down a wide staircase they winnowed to and fro, turning and turning and turning until Noah was certain they’d gone about face and were walking back to start. Worse than the tedious distance was the growl of moving walls just behind them as the maze re-arranged.
“How is it You-Know-Who didn’t catch drift of this hex?” Noah felt the urge to speak, to suppress the awful rumble of the maze shifting at their backs. “It seems the kind of thing that was right up his alley.”
Descending yet another staircase, Crowe flashed the mischievous smile he’d worked to near perfection over the thirty-some years he’d been using it.
“The Dark Lord refused to look,” Crowe huffed. “Before it was scribbled into that Potions book five years ago, the Oblivion Hex was just a Muggle story. He wouldn’t have profaned his majestic ears with Muggle filth, would he? The story was happened upon just before his fall by the one lieutenant who wasn’t wont to pass it to him.”
Noah nodded, beaming pride for his friend’s detective work.
“It’s almost a pity, Crowe - you would have been the bane of the Death Eaters.”
Crowe’s eyes shot to the floor. “Yep,” he said.
The pair walked for what felt hours. Feet sore, legs heavy, Noah almost cried when he and Crowe were halted by a dead end. Crowe dug his heels to the floor, hands on hips. Noah stopped behind at the empty room’s entry. The space was a claustrophobic ten by ten, polar opposite to the opulence behind. The walls were jagged, as if earth had resisted the slice through its bosom. A lone candelabra mounted opposite the door waved fingers of light and shadow over the tiny room.
“It’s a dead end,” defeat poisoned Noah’s voice.
Crowe, by contrast, was beaming to rival the sun. His wand had ceased its dance and pointed without quiver to the ground beneath his feet.
“On the contrary,” He stepped aside to give Noah vantage. “I’ve found it.” Crowe then waved Noah away, his eyes locked to the floor. “You’ll want to step back.”
Before Noah was conscious of what his friend was doing, Crowe had swooshed his wand toward the floor, spell shouted loud enough to wake Socrates again.
“Deprimo!” Crowe bellowed.
The room exploded, shockwave choking the breath from Noah’s lungs. A maelstrom of gravel and dust blotted light to dark. Noah’s weight vanished, arms pulled skyward as the floor evaporated under him. Noah fell only for a moment, until the jolt of ground stung ankles and knees. Unbalanced and disoriented, Noah crumpled face to sand.
“Merlin’s beard!” Noah groaned, pushing himself from the pebbles. “You just demolished part of the Ancient Library of Alexandria!”
Settling debris revealed Crowe unfazed by Noah’s scolds. Already to his feet, Crowe’s attention was undivided to the center of this lower chamber. A muslin-wrapped body lay on a sandstone pedestal. The walls of this crypt had seen countless centuries, pocked with the echoes of spiders and vermin. The back wall, directly under the candelabra, whispered well worn hieroglyphs. Noah circled to the regal ibises and kohl-lined eyes.
“What’s it say?” Crowe asked, staring between Noah and the hieroglyphs with hungry eyes.
“Not sure,” Noah shrugged.
Crowe circled his wand toward Noah, and outward leak of the impatience building within. “You're the librarian “ give it a shot.”
Noah turned back to the glyphs, heavy exhale carrying notes of growing uneasiness.
“In the reign of Pharaoh… somebody (can’t read that symbol)… Two sons were born “ one prince and one slave. By the slave mother’s guile, prince and slave were swapped, unbeknownst to even great and powerful Pharaoh. Pauper was groomed for greatness in the palace, while the prince toiled in squalor, burdensome to the slave mother.
“In time the slave child grew and ascended to Pharaoh. The slave mother, with her dying breaths, whispered her secret to the now-grown prince. By guile gleaned from his surrogate-mother, the prince cheated his way into the palace, becoming High Priest to the Pharaoh. The High Priest’s right hand worked in worship of his god the Pharaoh, while his left schemed the Pharaoh’s death. So the Priest was called, ‘Deximose.’
“In time, Deximose, bargaining with the underworld, became a powerful sorcerer. Whispers carried rumor of a spell to erase history, so to undo that which the slave mother had schemed upon their births. But on the day Deximose had chosen to cast his god the Pharaoh to Oblivion, the Pharaoh, wise beyond Deximose’s esteem, ambushed the dark Priest with an army of able men. So Deximose himself fell to the underworld, thrashing against his assassins until the darkness of Oblivion was all he could see.”
Noah, squatting at the bottom of the wall where the fable ended, turned to see a crimson smile covering Crowe’s face.
“That’s the exact fable the Saharan nomads told me. This is it,” Crowe breathed. “Let’s not risk any counter-hexes. Help me move this geezer Muggle-style.” Crowe stepped forward, arms like fork tines, and wedged his hands under the corpse. AWith a deep inhale, Crowe's nose wrinkled. “Stinks worse than LaPorta's breath, this one."
Noah stayed fast. “This isn’t right.”
With a disgusted tut, Crowe heaved against the body, kicking clouds of debris as he struggled for traction. His sweat splashed craters in the sand, but the mummy wouldn’t budge.
“Enchanted in place,” he huffed, hands to hips.
Noah had seen enough. “Let’s go,” he said. “You can apologize to Marson, I can talk us out of blowing up the floor, but desecrating this crypt will land us in Azkaban.”
Crowe leaned against the pedestal, kneading his brow. “Darkness of Oblivion was all he could see,” he mumbled. Noah crossed to the pedestal and clapped Crowe’s shoulder.
“C'mon. We’ll requisition for a full examination tomorrow.”
Crowe wouldn’t break gaze from the muslin swaddles, repeating, “Darkness of Oblivion was all he could see,” as if it were a mantra. Eyes suddenly wide, he shot forward, hands yearning to the mummy’s face.
“Crowe!” Noah cuffed his friend’s biceps.
“Geroffame!” Crowe shuddered his elbow square to Noah’s jaw. Noah howled, surprise stumbling him to the wall. Stars punched through his vision, painting the small crypt with spheres of floating light. Through the dazzling pain, Noah heard Crowe growling like dog from the center of the room. When the stars burning Noah’s vision supernovaed to blackness, Noah gasped, horror pulling the air from his lungs.
Crowe kneeled astride the mummy, clawing at its face like a hyena. Long ribbons of fabric twisted through the air as they fell to sand. The punch of rotten meat saturated the air. Then, as quickly as it had started, Crowe’s cloudburst of activity dried out. Dainty thumb and forefinger peeled a ribbon from over the mummy’s eyes.
“I have it,” he growled, tense laughter bubbling his face. Eyes glowing red, Crowe shot his wand to the candelabra sputtering above. His lips pulled back in a snarl.
“Esse Evanesco Totalus!"
A perfect black sphere emerged from the tip of his wand. The crypt’s shadows spiraled to the eye of this hurricane as it shot toward the candelabra. The flames sputtered choking smoke as it approached, fainter and fainter until...
* * *
Noah puzzled over the bare wall above them, head light as if he’d swallowed helium. It seemed darkness had clenched around his sphere of Lumos.
“Did something just…?” Noah couldn’t pluck words to finish his question.
Crowe crouched on the pedestal at center, wand shivering from his outstretched hand.
“The Oblivion Hex...,” Crowe’s breath rasped from his chest. “Prior Incantato.” The silvery ghost of a candelabra warbled against the wall above them. Crowe raised his arms in celebration.
“I’ve done ahhh”!”
A gurgling scream choked victory from Crowe’s throat. The corpse below him started thrashing like a wild hippogriff. As if shuttling the comforter after a long slumber, the mummy swiped Crowe from the sandstone pedestal. He flew rag doll limp and slammed the wall with a sound like melon cracked open, crumpling limp on the sand. Crowe writhed in pain, groans drooling from his lips.
The High Priest’s corpse jumped from the pedestal, standing over two meters tall. Dried blood crusted over its rotten blue flesh, eyes shriveled and puckered like lemon-sucked lips. Leather eyelids shuddered, trying to force sight into decayed eyes. A jagged aperture of shredded skin revealed a mouth full of teeth like broken glass. To glance at it, Deximose’s mummy looked like an Animagi trapped between man and beast. A slit from cheek to collarbone revealed sinew and bone. The unholy creature advanced on Noah, muslin trailing like pennants.
Noah wasted no time in fleeing, shooting a spectrum of jinxes. The mummy swatted the spells like mosquitoes from its face.
“Crowe!” Noah slid knees to sand before his friend. “Talk to me!”
Crowe rolled onto his back, eyes fluttering white. “Jus’ need a sec - bugger knocked my air out.”
They didn’t have a second. The mummy advanced on them, massive hand recoiled to strike. With a flick of Noah’s wand, Crowe lost his gravity and hovered to the chamber above. His friend safe, Noah spun and blindly cast.
“Incendio!” Ruby flame jet from his wand as the creature raked Noah’s face. Pain stung electric as blood streamed into his eyes. Vision blotted red, Noah only heard the Mummy’s frantic cry recede. His mind’s eye saw the creature flailing to snuff hungry flames. Like a crab Noah scuttled to the wall. He heard Crowe grumble and stir above.
“Crowe!” he screamed. “He’s hit me! I can’t see! Hover me up!”
“Sorry Noah,” Crowe’s voice slithered down, licking Noah’s ear. “You’ll have to go it alone.”
Noah was certain the blood screaming through his ears had scrambled Crowe’s words. He craned his neck for a better vantage. Through the crimson veil, Noah saw cross-armed Crowe at the precipice.
“Use the Oblivion Hex!” Noah cried.
“Can’t,” Crowe graveled, “The Oblivion Hex would disappear with the mummy.”
Fire’s waning glow and a calmer cry across the crypt told Noah the mummy would soon return.
“Quick! Anything! Please!”
Crowe stepped from the ledge.
“We were meant to be Aurors, Noah. Not writers. Not bloody librarians. I’m going to put history right. It should have been us hunting The Dark Lord. I’m going to the ministry to Hex the brat who pilfered our futures. I’ll make it so The Boy Who Lived was never born. The Dark Lord will return and we’ll ascend as history’s greatest Aurors!”
Crowe stepped from Noah’s vision. “I’d say sorry but I’m not. Even if you die in this crypt, you’ll be reborn to a world that worships us as gods!” Crowe’s voice darkened and died as he entered the shifting maze.
Noah’s heart sank. He was alone, an unstoppable monster eclipsing his bloodied vision.