Adam Clarke
We moved through the battlefield like ghosts, the whispers guiding me around the worst of the fighting, pointing out paths through the chaos. The chamber had become a hellscape— bodies on the ground, sections of floor missing, pillars crumbling, the air itself seeming to warp and twist from the magical forces being thrown around.
And at the center of it all, two duels continued to shape the battlefield. Dumbledore and Grindelwald, locked in their terrible contest. Voldemort and Lockhart, evenly matched and equally dangerous.
The shockwaves from their battles made navigation treacherous. We had to time our movements, dashing forward during brief lulls, taking cover when the next exchange of titanic forces threatened to tear apart anyone too close.
But we hade made progress.
Now to capitalize on it.
The next anchor point was maybe forty feet away, across a section of battlefield that had been transformed into a crater-pocked wasteland. Bodies— I couldn’t tell if they were Grindelwald’s people or ours— lay scattered among the debris. The air shimmered with residual magic, making it hard to see clearly.
“There.” I said, pointing toward where one of the Time-Turners hung suspended in midair, spinning at ridiculous speeds. The ritual circle beneath it pulsed with that same sickly light, runes crawling across the stone like living things.
“That one’s guarded.” Sirius observed, his eyes tracking the three gray-robed figures standing in a defensive formation around the anchor point.
“Everyone’s running low.” Harry said, leaning on a bit of rubble for support as he caught his breath. “Them included. Look at how they’re standing— they’re exhausted.”
He was right. Even from this distance, I could see the way the guards swayed slightly, the way their wands shook, the way they kept glancing around nervously as if expecting another attack at any moment.
They have been fighting for extended periods, the whispers noted. Just like you. Just like everyone in this chamber. Exhaustion is universal now. Victory will go to whoever can push past it longest.
“We hit them fast and hard.” Remus said, his tactical mind still working despite his injuries. “No prolonged engagement. We’re in no condition for another drawn-out fight like the last one.”
“Agreed.” I said. “Overwhelming force, break through, destroy the anchor, move on.”
“Simple plan.” Sirius grinned, though it looked more like a grimace. “I like it. On three?”
“On three.” we chorused.
The guards saw us coming and immediately raised their wands, but the whispers were right— they were just as exhausted as we were, their reactions a fraction of a second too slow.
Sirius and I opened with Bludgeoning Curses, both aimed at different guards. One managed to block, but the other took the spell full in the chest and went down hard. Two against four now, and the odds had shifted decisively in our favor.
Remus’ magic lashed out, a whip of fire that the remaining guards couldn’t hope to block with conventional shields. They scattered, breaking their defensive formation, and that was all the opening Harry needed.
His Stunner caught one of them in the side. The wizard dropped without a sound.
The last guard— a woman with wild eyes and blood running down her face— looked at us, looked at her fallen companions, and made the only rational choice. She turned and ran, disappearing into the chaos of the larger battle.
“Not going to pursue?” Sirius asked.
“No point.” I said, already moving toward the Time-Turner. “She’s no threat to the anchor now, and we can’t afford to chase every fleeing enemy.”
The four of us approached the suspended artifact. It spun faster than any Time-Turner should, the golden mechanisms inside blurring into a solid disc of light. Just looking at it made my head hurt, like trying to perceive too many moments at once.
Temporal magic, the whispers said, their tone almost reverent. One of the most dangerous branches of magic. This device is creating anchor points across multiple timelines simultaneously. Very clever. Very dangerous.
“More wards?” Harry asked, wincing as he moved his injured shoulder.
I reached out with that strange sense, trying to perceive the protections around the Time-Turner.
“Worse than wards.” I said, and repeated the whispers’ words. “This one’s actively warded and creating anchor points across multiple timelines simultaneously.”
“How comforting.” Sirius muttered.
“Can we destroy it at all?” Harry asked.
“Yes, I think so.” Remus said, his eyes tracking the spinning artifact with professional interest despite our desperate situation. “If it was set up, then it can be broken. I’d say that we need to stop its rotation first. If we slow it down, then maybe its wards will unravel.”
“How?” Harry asked.
“I see what you mean.” Sirius said. “This thing is operating on a different realm altogether, and if we slow it down…”
“Exactly.”
I understood as well— reduce its amplitude to bring it back into phase, if I had to put it in scientific terms. Still, there was a question to ask. “How long?”
“Minutes.” Remus admitted. “Maybe longer. These protections are more complex than the last anchor’s.”
You do not have minutes, the whispers warned. The enemy regroups. More guards approach from the west. You have perhaps ninety seconds before—
A spell slashed through the air where my head had been a moment before. I dropped flat on instinct, and saw three more gray-robed wizards charging toward our position.
“Company!” Sirius shouted, already moving to intercept.
“Keep working!” Harry said, his ancient magic flaring as he moved to stand beside Sirius. “We’ll hold them off!”
There was no time to argue. Remus and I turned our attention to the Time-Turner while Harry and Sirius engaged the new arrivals.
The sounds of combat erupted behind us— curses being cast, shields being raised, the distinctive crack of spells meeting in midair. I forced myself to focus on the task at hand, to trust that Harry and Sirius could handle the attack.
“The rotation.” Remus said urgently, his wand already moving in complex patterns. “We need to counter-spin it. Match its frequency and then introduce a dissonant pattern to slow it down.”
I watched the Time-Turner with my enhanced sight, trying to perceive not just the physical rotation but the temporal distortions it created. I could see them now— threads of time being pulled and twisted, past and present and future all layered on top of each other in ways that made my head spin.
“There.” I said, pointing to a specific point in the rotation. “That’s the fulcrum. The point where all the threads converge. If we can disrupt that— “
“We can slow the whole thing down.” Remus finished. “Good sense. Start your counter-rotation pattern on my mark. Three, two, one, mark!”
We cast simultaneously, our spells hitting the Time-Turner from different angles. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the artifact stuttered in its rotation, the golden mechanisms inside skipping like a scratched record.
“Again!” Remus commanded.
We repeated the pattern. The Time-Turner slowed fractionally, its rotation becoming visible instead of just a blur.
Behind us, I heard Harry cry out in pain. I started to turn, to check on him, but Remus grabbed my arm.
“Focus! If we lose concentration now, the backlash could kill us all!”
He was right. I gritted my teeth and poured more magic into the counter-rotation spell. My reserves were dangerously low now, the borrowed strength from the whispers almost completely gone, but I pushed harder.
The Time-Turner slowed further. I could make out individual mechanisms now, see the way the golden chains moved, perceive the intricate magical patterns that kept it functioning.
“The ward locks.” Remus said, his voice strained. “I can see them now. Four of them, one at each cardinal point. We need to unravel them simultaneously or the whole thing will snap back to full speed.”
“Can’t do four at once.” I gasped, my magic feeling like it was being pulled from the marrow of my bones. “Not in our condition.”
“We don’t have to. Harry, Sirius— we need you!”
“Bit busy!” Sirius’ voice came back, tight with strain.
I risked a glance backward. Harry and Sirius were pressed hard, fighting three opponents who’d clearly had time to rest while we’d been battling Matthias and Vanessa. One of the enemy wizards went down to Sirius’ curse, but another immediately moved to fill the gap.
“Just thirty seconds!” Remus shouted. “That’s all we need!”
Harry’s ancient magic exploded outward in a desperate blast that forced all the remaining enemies back. It bought us the window we needed.
“Now!” Harry and Sirius turned from the fight, their wands already rising.
“Bludgeoning Curse! North lock!” Remus called out, indicating targets rapidly. “South! East! West! On three— one, two, three!”
Four spells, four targets, perfect synchronization. The ward locks shattered simultaneously, and the Time-Turner’s rotation ground to a complete halt. It hung in the air, motionless, vulnerable.
“Adam, if you would.” Remus said, stepping back.
I didn’t need to be asked twice. My chains surged forward, piercing through the Time-Turner and for a fraction of a second, I saw something impossible— the artifact existing in multiple times at once, overlapping versions of itself flickering in and out of reality.
Then it shattered.
Not into pieces— into nothing. The Time-Turner simply ceased to exist, unmade across all timelines simultaneously. The temporal distortions collapsed in on themselves, and I felt another ripple pass through the ritual.
Stronger this time. More pronounced.
Two anchors broken, the whispers said, and was that a note of satisfaction in their voice? The ritual’s geometry shifts again. Compensating. Adapting. But weakened.
The enemy wizards who’d been attacking us saw the anchor destroyed and their will seemed to break. One turned and fled immediately. The other two hesitated, looking at each other, clearly debating whether to press the attack or cut their losses.
Sirius made the decision for them, launching a Blasting Curse that forced them both to scatter. By the time the smoke cleared, they were gone, melted back into the chaos of the larger battle.
“Two down.” Harry said, breathing hard, his face pale with pain and exhaustion. His injured shoulder was bleeding through his robes now, the earlier healing completely undone by the strain of combat. “How many more?”
I reached out with my senses again, trying to count the remaining anchor points. But something felt different now. The ritual’s structure was shifting, becoming harder to perceive clearly. Like it was adapting to our interference, hiding its remaining vulnerabilities.
“Four, maybe five still active.” I said. “But they’re harder to sense now. The ritual’s compensating for the anchors we’ve destroyed.”
“Then we find them and destroy them too.” Sirius said simply. His usual irreverence was gone, replaced by grim determination. “Where’s the next one?”
Northeast, the whispers supplied. The crown of thorns. But it is heavily guarded. Eight defenders, all fresh, positioned in overlapping fields of fire.
“Northeast.” I relayed. “But it’s going to be a fight. Heavy guard, all fresh.”
“Every damn thing’s a fight in this place.” Remus said. He was leaning heavily on his conjured crutch again, his face gray with pain, but his eyes were sharp. “We keep going. No other choice.”
We moved through the battlefield again, four exhausted wizards on a mission that felt increasingly desperate. Every step was an effort. My legs felt like lead, my magic reserves so low I could feel the emptiness in my core like a physical ache.
But we kept moving.
The crown of thorns was exactly where the whispers said it would be— a twisted circlet of black metal that wept blood onto the stone floor. The blood evaporated before it could pool, and where it touched the stone, the rock seemed to age and crack.
And it was guarded. Not by eight defenders as the whispers had warned, but by six. Two must have been pulled away for other duties, or killed in the fighting. Small blessings.
“Six on four.” Sirius assessed. “Better odds than we’ve had all day.”
“They’re fresh.” Harry pointed out. “We’re not.”
“Then we be smart about it.” Remus said. “Adam, can your whispers tell us anything useful about their capabilities?”
I focused on the guards, trying to perceive what the whispers could see. After a moment, information started filtering through.
Three are standard fighters— competent but unremarkable. Two are specialists— one in curse work, one in transfiguration. The last one is dangerous. Enhanced reflexes, possibly through potions or ritual magic. He’s their leader.
I relayed the information quickly. “Focus on the leader first. Take him out and the others will lose coordination.”
“Agreed.” Remus said. “All of us on him, simultaneous attack. The shock should— “
He was cut off by a massive shockwave from the center of the chamber. Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s duel had reached some kind of crescendo, and the force of it rippled outward like a tidal wave of pure magic.
We all hit the ground, pressing flat as the wave passed overhead. I felt it tug at my hair, at my clothes, at the very essence of my being. When it passed, I looked up to see that several of the guards around the crown of thorns had also been knocked down.
“Now!” Harry shouted, already moving. “While they’re disoriented!”
We charged. There was no subtlety, no careful tactics— just desperate speed, trying to capitalize on the moment of confusion.
The enhanced leader recovered first, his reflexes living up to the whispers’ warning. His wand came up and spells started flying before we’d covered half the distance. But we’d committed to the charge, and there was no turning back.
Sirius took a Stunner to his shield, the impact staggering him but not stopping him. Remus dodged a Cutting Curse by millimeters. Harry’s shield blazed around him, deflecting two curses simultaneously.
I ran through the barrage, the whispers screaming warnings in my mind, telling me when to duck, when to dodge, when to shield. A purple curse passed so close I felt its heat. A Bone-Breaker exploded against the stone at my feet, sending me stumbling but not stopping.
And then we were on them.
The fight that followed was brief and brutal. No drawn-out dueling, no testing of defenses. Just savage, desperate combat between exhausted fighters who knew the stakes.
I hit the curse specialist with a Bludgeoning Curse before he could finish his casting. Sirius’ Stunner dropped one of the standard fighters. Remus transfigured the ground beneath two others, sending them sprawling.
Harry’s Bombarda was the deciding factor. He shot it in the middle of the remaining guards, disrupted their formation, and left them vulnerable.
The enhanced leader tried to rally them, his reflexes letting him dodge our initial assault. But four on one were odds even his enhancements couldn’t overcome.
Sirius hit him from the left with a curse I didn’t recognize. I struck from the right with a Cutting Curse that opened a gash across his chest. Remus’ Stunner caught him as he staggered, falling flat on his face.
The remaining guards saw their leader fall and broke away. No discussion, no hesitation— they just ran, abandoning their post and their mission in favor of survival.
This is the third time. I thought to myself. Are they just cowards? Why are they giving up so easily?
“The anchor.” I gasped, already moving toward the crown of thorns.
This one took less time. Either we were getting better at this or the wards were weaker— I wasn’t sure which. Remus and I worked together to unravel the protections while Harry and Sirius kept watch, their wands trained on the surrounding battlefield.
The final ward fell, and I stepped back, gesturing to Sirius. “All yours.”
Sirius’ Reductor Curse struck the crown of thorns, and the artifact writhed like a living thing before dissolving into ash. The thorns withered, the blood stopped flowing, and the ritual circle went dark.
Three anchors destroyed.
The ritual destabilizes further, the whispers confirmed. But it continues. The remaining anchors compensate. You are making progress, but is it enough?
Before I could answer, a commotion drew our attention. Through the smoke and chaos, I saw a familiar figure on a kirin, leading what looked like the remnants of Mahoutokoro’s contingent in a coordinated assault on another anchor point.
Akio.
“There.” I said, pointing. “They’re going for one of the other anchors. If we support them— “
“We can take two at once.” Harry finished. “Let’s go.”
We ran— if our stumbling, exhausted movement could be called running— toward where Akio’s forces were engaged. The Japanese wizard spotted us approaching and his eyes widened fractionally in recognition. He didn’t waste time with greetings, just gestured sharply toward his target and continued his assault.
The anchor point they were attacking featured one of the mysterious crystal spheres I’d noticed earlier. It hung suspended above a pedestal, containing what looked like a miniature galaxy that slowly rotated inside.
Grindelwald’s defenders were putting up fierce resistance— maybe a dozen of them, positioned in layered defenses around the anchor. But Akio’s forces, though diminished, were attacking with coordinated precision that spoke of extensive training.
We hit them from the flank.
The surprise was total. Half of the defenders didn’t even realize we were there until spells started flying from an unexpected direction. Their formation crumbled, fighters turning to face the new threat and leaving themselves exposed to Akio’s assault.
It became a rout. Caught between two forces, outnumbered, and with their defensive positions compromised, Grindelwald’s people broke quickly. Some tried to fight, and went down to coordinated spell-fire. Others fled immediately, recognizing a lost cause when they saw it.
Within minutes, the anchor point was secure.
Akio’s kirin touched down near where we stood, and the Japanese wizard dismounted with fluid grace that made my own exhaustion even more apparent. He looked as tired as we did— his robes torn and bloodied, his face showing strain— but he held himself with dignified composure.
“Clarke-san. Potter-san.” He said, nodding to each of us in turn. “Your timing is fortunate.”
“The feeling’s mutual.” I replied. “We’ve been destroying anchors. This makes four if we— “
“Five.” Akio interrupted. “We destroyed one before you arrived. The Eye of Ra— or the Eye of Truth, as their man Rafiq called it.”
Rafiq… I thought with a frown. He had taught me, for a time, and while I wasn’t fond of him or anything, I still had some measure of esteem for the man. “You killed him?”
“He was too strong to kill.” Akio said, scowling for a moment before shaking his head. “He fled.”
A strange relief swept over me. Why should I have been relieved!?
I shook my head, focusing on what mattered. Five anchors destroyed. The ritual felt weaker now, the structure more unstable. But it was still active, still grinding toward whatever terrible completion Grindelwald had designed.
“This one is more complex.” Akio said, studying the crystal sphere. “The wards are celestial in nature. Star magic, very old, very powerful.”
“Can you break them?” Harry asked.
“With time, yes.” Akio’s eyes swept the battlefield. “But time is something we have precious little of.”
“Then we make time.” Sirius said. “Some of us work on the wards, the rest provide cover.”
Then, he reached into his coat and produced a few potions, handing most of them to Harry. “Drink up. Rest. You’ll be needed.”
Harry, for his part, did not even complain as he normally would.
We divided our forces. Akio and Remus worked on unraveling the celestial wards, their heads together as they discussed technical magical theory most could barely follow. The rest of us— Sirius, myself, and about six of Akio’s remaining wizards— formed a defensive perimeter.
It was tense work. Every few seconds, a stray spell from the larger battle would come close, forcing us to adjust our positions. Twice, enemy fighters tried to reach the anchor point, and we had to drive them off with coordinated fire.
But Akio and Remus were good. Working together, they peeled away the wards layer by layer, their different magical traditions complementing each other in unexpected ways. What would have taken either of them alone twenty minutes, they accomplished in five.
“Ready.” Akio called out.
One of his wizards stepped forward and struck the crystal sphere with a precisely aimed curse I could not identify. The sphere cracked, the miniature galaxy inside spilling out in a cascade of light that faded into nothing.
Six anchors destroyed.
The ritual shudders, the whispers said, and their tone had changed. Was that… excitement? Anticipation? So much damage to the careful structure. The geometry collapses in places, rebuilds in others. Fascinating to observe.
“How many left?” Sirius asked.
I reached out again, trying to count. But the ritual was shifting so rapidly now it was hard to get an accurate count. “I don’t know, but I do know this; they’re all heavily guarded now. Grindelwald’s pulled his remaining forces back to protect them.”
“Then we hit them all.” Harry said. “Together. All of us. Overwhelming force on each target.”
Akio nodded, and he had a gleam of excitement in his eyes. “Well said, Potter-san.”
Our combined group— maybe fifteen fighters total, all exhausted, all injured, all running on fumes— began moving toward the next anchor point when something in the air changed.
It wasn’t a sound or a sight— more like a pressure, a weight settling over the chamber. Everyone felt it simultaneously. The entire battlefield went still, fighters on both sides pausing mid-spell, looking around in confusion.
And then the pressure increased.
Not gradually. All at once, like a giant hand pressing down on the entire chamber. I tried to move and found I couldn’t. My muscles wouldn’t respond. My wand stayed frozen in my hand, my feet locked to the floor.
Around me, I saw the same thing happening to everyone else. Harry’s ancient magic flickered and died, unable to manifest against whatever force held him. Sirius’ wand wavered and stopped mid-gesture. Remus froze mid-step, his eyes wide with sudden understanding and horror.
Voldemort and Lockhart, locked in their stalemate, couldn’t move either. Even Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s titanic duel had halted, both titans frozen mid-spell.
The entire chamber— every fighter, every spell, every movement— had simply stopped.
Oh, the whispers said, and their voice was filled with something I’d never heard from them before.
Pure, unbridled joy.
Oh, you magnificent fools.
The paralysis was absolute. I couldn’t move my head, couldn’t shift my eyes, couldn’t even blink. I was a statue, frozen in mid-stride, my wand raised uselessly toward an enemy I could no longer reach.
But I could still think. Could still feel. And could still hear the whispers, which had transformed from helpful guides into something else entirely.
Do you understand now? They asked, their voices overlapping in harmony that was almost musical. Do you finally see what you’ve accomplished?
I wanted to scream. Wanted to demand answers. Wanted to do anything except stand there, helpless, while whatever nightmare we’d unleashed came to fruition.
The old one in gray built his ritual with such care. The whispers continued, their tone almost conversational despite the glee underneath. Such precision. Such dedication. Every anchor perfectly positioned, every artifact carefully calibrated, every ward meticulously woven. He sought to open the boundary between life and death, yes— but to open it on HIS terms. To bind what came through to his will. To control what should always be uncontrollable.
The pressure in the chamber continued to build. My frozen eyes could see the Veil at the center, and even without moving I could perceive what was happening to it.
The curtain was billowing wildly now, rippling with motion that had nothing to do with wind. The soul threads I could see were moving faster than ever, being pulled through that impossible event horizon with increasing violence. And the archway itself— the stone that wasn’t truly stone but thousands of interwoven threads— was beginning to pulse with light that hurt to look at.
But you. The whispers said, and I could hear the smile in their voices. You destroyed his careful work. You broke his anchors, shattered his geometry, undermined his control. You did exactly what we needed you to do.
No. No, that couldn’t be right. We’d been stopping the ritual, disrupting it, saving—
You were never stopping it, dear herald. The ritual was too far advanced when you arrived. The boundary was already opening, the process already irreversible. All that remained was the question of HOW it opened. Controlled, as the old one intended? Or free, as we have always desired?
The pieces fell into place with horrifying clarity. Every anchor we’d destroyed had weakened Grindelwald’s control over the ritual. Every victory we’d celebrated had actually been a step toward this moment. The whispers had guided me, helped me, lent me strength— all so I would be more effective at tearing apart the very structure that would have constrained them.
We hadn’t been heroes stopping an apocalypse. We’d been pawns, making an apocalypse worse.
Not worse. The whispers corrected. Better. More magnificent. More TRUE. The old one sought to use us, to bind us, to make us servants to his grand vision. But we are not meant to be servants. We are meant to be FREE.
The Veil pulsed again, stronger this time. I saw— or thought I saw, my frozen eyes making it hard to be sure— cracks forming in the stone archway. Not physical cracks, but breaks in the fundamental structure of the thing, like reality itself was fracturing.
The boundary thins. The whispers sang. The wall crumbles. What was separate becomes one. Life touches death touches life, and in the space between, WE dwell.
Around the chamber, I could see others frozen in various positions. Harry was closest to me, maybe ten feet away, his face locked in an expression of determination that was transforming into horror as understanding dawned. Sirius was beyond him, mouth open like he’d been shouting something when the paralysis hit. Remus was to my left, his wand raised, his professor’s mind probably working through the same terrible realization I’d just reached.
Farther away, I could see Akio on his kirin, both rider and mount frozen like statues. I could see Aurors scattered across the battlefield, their last spells frozen in mid-flight— actual curses hanging motionless in the air, preserved in this moment like insects in amber.
And at the center, Dumbledore and Grindelwald stood locked in their duel, their spells frozen in the space between them. Even from this distance, I could see Grindelwald’s expression. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked… shocked. Horrified. Like he’d finally realized what was about to happen.
He’d lost control of his own ritual. The thing he’d spent over a year planning, the work he’d sacrificed everything to achieve— we’d helped turn it into something else entirely.
He understands now. The whispers said, almost sympathetically. The old one in gray. He sees what his perfect plan has become. You have done this, Drifter.
Something was happening to the Veil now. The curtain wasn’t just billowing anymore— it was tearing. I could see rents forming in the fabric, gaps opening up that showed… nothing. Not darkness, not light, just absolute nothing. The absence of existence itself.
And from those tears, a strange mist began to seep through.
It was similar to the mist I’d glimpsed earlier, when Voldemort had nearly killed me. But there was so much more of it now, and it was moving with obvious purpose. It didn’t drift like normal mist would— it flowed, like water finding cracks in a dam, pouring through every gap in the Veil with increasing pressure.
The mist was dark but not quite black. It seemed to absorb light without reflecting it, creating a void in the visual field that was deeply unsettling. And where it touched things— stone, debris, bodies of the fallen— those things changed.
A corpse near the Veil, some poor wizard who’d died in the earlier fighting, withered to dust within seconds of the mist touching it. Not rotted— that would have taken time. This was instant dessication, decades of decay compressed into moments.
A chunk of stone near the base of the archway aged centuries in seconds, crumbling to powder that the mist consumed.
Life and death. The whispers explained unnecessarily. Separated for so long. Held apart by laws and boundaries that were never meant to be permanent. The old gods knew this. They understood that the barrier was artificial, imposed, WRONG. They sought to tear it down and failed. But their work continued through us, through the fragments of them that survived in the spaces between.
The mist continued to spread, pouring through the tears in the Veil like blood from a wound. It formed tendrils that reached out into the chamber, searching, testing, tasting the world of the living for the first time in millennia.
And behind the mist, in the tears in the Veil, I could see something else. Something vast. Something that existed in dimensions my mind couldn’t properly process. A presence that was simultaneously one thing and many things, both singular and multitudinous.
Our Lord, Sunderer. The whispers said, their voices reverent. The Walker Between. The King of the Threshold. He comes.
I wanted to close my eyes or to look away. Wanted to be literally anywhere else but here, forced to watch as some ancient horror clawed its way from beyond death into the living world.
But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even blink. Could only watch as the tears in the Veil widened, as more mist poured through, as something impossible began to manifest in the chamber.
You should feel honored. The whispers said. You are witnessing something that has not occurred in ten thousand years. The boundary is broken. The threshold is crossed. This is the culmination of everything. The return of the old ways. The restoration of what was stolen when the boundaries were first imposed.
The mist had spread maybe thirty feet from the Veil now, covering a growing circle of the chamber floor. And within that circle, in the densest concentration of mist, was the fellow who’d been chained up. Impossibly, he was still alive.
Who is this guy? I thought, unable to make him out from such a distance.
Judging by the cry of outrage coming from Grindelwald, however, I presumed he knew.
A vessel. The whispers said. A youthful, perfect vessel made by tribal fools who sought to use the old powers for their own ends. How little they knew…
The mist overtook the boy, as I now knew it was. He did not even cry as he became one with the mist. Then, the mist changed.
First came suggestions of form— hints of limbs, impressions of torso, the vague outline of a head. Then those suggestions solidified slightly, becoming more defined while still remaining somehow fluid, like the shape could change at any moment if it chose.
It was tall. So tall I had to strain my frozen eyes upward to see the full height of it. Nine feet? Ten? Taller? Distance and proportion became hard to judge when looking at something that seemed to exist partially outside normal space.
The form was roughly humanoid but wrong in ways I couldn’t articulate. The proportions were slightly off, the joints bending at angles that shouldn’t be possible, the whole silhouette suggesting something that had once been human— or something humans had been based on— but had long since become something else.
Beautiful, is it not? The whispers sighed. To see our Lord taking form in your world once more. He walked here once, in the days before the boundaries. Walked and taught and showed your ancestors the truth that life and death were not enemies but partners in the eternal dance. But they feared. They always fear. And in their fear, they built the walls. Separated what should be united. Trapped us in the between-space and called it protection.
And now he had returned.
Now he returns. “Now he returns.” The whispers and the entity spoke as one, with the humanoid creature looking directly at me. “It is nice to finally see you ‘face’ to face, Drifter. Thank you.”
I felt like vomiting.
Be First to Comment