He came from the east, with the morning sun, shimmering like a desert mirage. Cayenne, the young princess of the Banzaka tribe, was the first one to see him. A day before, she had everything. A handsome warrior who'd won her hand in marriage, the secret recipe for cornmeal cake, and a beautiful feather headdress. Not to mention five hundred people who worshipped her and listened to her every word, and a pristine city, perhaps the most advanced of its time. But all this would change.
She was out on her morning walk; complete with berry-basket and new leather sandals. Her black hair fanned out behind her milk chocolate skin, matching the ebony depths of her almond-shaped eyes. The Princess wore a black silver ring in the shape of a snake. Cayenne was humming the latest fire-song when she saw him, the scowling stranger standing atop the great mountain.
The stranger just… appeared there. One minute, she was bending down to pick a flower, and the second she looked up, the man was standing there, blocking her view of the sun. She gaped at the man who looked nothing like the warriors back home. His skin was pale white, and his hair the color of silver. The man was wearing a full black set of robes instead of the customary deerskin loincloth. There was a broken hourglass in his hand, but of course she didn't see it. He looked at it and cursed. Scowling again, he pulled out a thin wooden stick and muttered a few words under his breath. A white light flashed around him, and a light sprinkling of rain began to fall around him, giving him relief from the harsh temperatures of Banzaka. In Cayenne's mind, there was no doubt about it; this man was a god. Dropping her flower basket with a thud, she started running to the village to warn the others. However the man noticed, and he eyed her with a self satisfied sneer.
An hour later, Cayenne was back, almost the entire tribe following her with offerings of food, jewels and leather moccasins for the "god." He was in the same place she found him, standing imperiously in the rain that fell only on him. His gray eyes, framed with black lashes, were again fixed intently on Cayenne. He muttered something, holding up the wooden stick, and the sky turned black. There was no rain, but thunder and lightning filled the heavens. Terrified, she, as well as the rest of her tribe, bowed down low to him. The sounds ceased, and the sky was once again blue. The man floated through the sky to the natives, with an imperious, yet expectant air. He looked at the chief and began to speak in a different language.
"Ha-wha-ta-tai-ma-yish-yit?" he said, which made no sense to the tribe whatsoever. They began bowing nervously and again offering him the food, saying prayers in their language. He tried again, to no avail. Frustrated, he again looked at Cayenne. They made eye contact, and she looked into those grey depths, and saw the entire universe.
Odd things began to happen. She floated into the air beside him, and Cayenne found she could hear him in her head.
"What time is it?"
"…"
"All right… how old are you?"
"18 heat seasons."
"What heat season is it?"
"The season of the wolf."
Cayenne noticed the man frown slightly at her, looking her up and down. Chills ran up her spine at his scrutiny. But she felt the connection break, and her attention was brought back to the real world. Her tribespeople were staring at Cayenne with weird looks on their faces. She looked down, and realized why. Her old deerskin clothes were gone, and she was dressed in a brilliant gown made out of some satiny white material. She would have felt hot had it not been for the rain that fell softly on her and her alone. A wreath of white flowers crowned her ebony tresses. And from that day on, her life changed.
Cayenne was sacrificed to the new god, and she was burned alive, but she lived. In the pyre, she felt no heat, merely a gentle tickling, while others cried, watching her body burn as they thought. The god magicked her body away, and a second later, she found herself in a brilliant prison, made of … ice? She touched it, but it wasn't cold… it was crystal. The woman was now spinning in violently fast circles, flames erupting everywhere. She looked down again, and found that she was wearing a filmy white nightgown-dress that was tight in all the right places. The god came in, licking his lips in a way that scared her.
"My dear, you are inside a mountain, and inside the unbreakable claustrum crystallinus." And those were the last words she ever heard a human being say. Day after day and night after night, she stayed in the prison, satisfying his perverse pleasures. This was so till her 21st birthday, when he managed to fix the hourglass that hung around his neck. With a sneer and a nod, the "god" went back to the future.
The Princess Cayenne was left in her own time, 6000 BC. She spent the rest of her life in her cage. Which was not very long, considering she was already insane from lack of company, it was freezing cold inside the dormant volcano without the spells the god had cast to make it warm, and she had no food. The last three days of her existence, she was screaming, raving, and ranting of death. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her skin was a ghastly yellow color when she died. Cayenne became a demon.
* Present times*
Claustrum Crystallinus, a prison of crystal. Once thought of as the place where the gods came to Earth, it was now reduced to a secluded mineshaft under the wizard prison Azkaban. These Latin words were etched into a wooden plank, now thrown to the side, classified as rubble. A group of men had long ago come and taken away the cage.
There were many legends about the creation of this wizard prison. Did man create it? How did this landmass appear in the middle of nowhere, so conveniently hidden from Muggle eyes, without any wizarding charms at all? One such legend, condemned by early scholars as "ludicrous," seemed to answer the millions of questions perfectly. That very legend of old would manifest itself in modern times, correcting the warped theories of scholars, and uniting the most unlikely people in the process…
Dozens of figures clad in black robes knelt on the ground, forming a large circle. One man stood in the middle, beside a small fire. Unlike the others, his head was not bent down. Instead, he was looking straight into the fire; it cast an eerie light on his face. The one feature that set him apart from the others was the silver hand attached to his otherwise normal wrist.
With a flick of the aforementioned wrist, he tossed a glittery powder into the fire, causing the flames to turn gold. Immediately, the figures in black stood up, looks of grim satisfaction, anticipation, and excitement crossed their faces. Two men moved aside, creating a gap in the circle for more black robed figures that strode through arrogantly. They were half-escorting, half-dragging someone, also in black. They stepped into the center of the circle and threw the person roughly on the ground, revealing a woman with an ugly black mark on her forearm. Had these been different circumstances, she would've been quite attractive. The woman was trembling violently, but she looked up at the fire defiantly and began to speak.
"O exalted demon, please accept your humble host."
The black figures around her began chanting incantations of demonax apparum.
The small gold fire now erupted into larger, violent blue flames. The incantations became more frenzied, voices laced with anticipation. Suddenly, the woman shrieked an ungodly shriek, like a mother seeing her child die in her arms. Her head was jerked up, as if by an unseen force. The fire now got warmer, turning the color of blood. A shadowy black figure rose like a column of smoke from the flames and started emitting smoke skulls. The woman's eyes now matching the color of the flames, widened as the smoky being flew into her mouth and she gasped in horror. Her body fell limp as a corpse, and it was pulled into the flames, now black as the jaws of death.
The spectators were now silent, watching the horrific scene unfolding in front of them. The rock walls of the cavern were now glowing. Iridescent gems of matchless quality began to twist out of the stone slabs, and into the woman's body, creating deep gashes in her skin, and spilling blood onto the dirt. Her eyes opened and her jaw dropped. Thirteen glistening diamonds floated out of her gaping mouth and up through the ceiling into the floors of Azkaban. A black silver crystal contorted itself into the shape of a circular snake and flew onto her finger, making a hideously beautiful ring. The woman was now spinning violently, flames erupting everywhere. The silver hand snapped its fingers once again, calling everyone to attention. The death eaters began to slowly file out of the room without a second glance back, leaving the woman to her fate.