TO THE GATES OF THE UNDERWORLD
The plain was vast and the skies so high they seemed to have no end. The velvety snow stretched as far as the eye could see and slender fringes were tinkling merrily under the ice bridges. A flock of Trillers flew above their heads in a light lapping of wings and vanished in a spray of light drops.
The cold was so pure it felt like you were breathing in the origins of the world.
They were going in a slow procession, Calcifer and the black dragon at the head, the golden Pumpkin at the tail.
At first they had been silent, as if the Axis would open at any time, like a huge fog door before them. Then someone had reminded them with a strangled giggle that the prophecy had mentioned midnight and the tension had loosened up a bit.
Vivienne was leading the way, consulting the astrolabe from time to time, and swaying elegantly on her high-heels boots, her red hair dancing on her hips. Christopher was trying to keep up with her, but it was not as easy as it seemed.
Behind them, Günter was humming softly, gazing wonderingly at the landscape, his hands in his sleeves as if they were gone only for a simple stroll. Pepper was walking next to him. The elf was wearing apple green wellies, a bright yellow jacket and red earmuffs on his flapping bat ears. He was muttering something unintelligible about the freezing cold or the restriction on the number of pots he had been allowed to pack.
Wendy had slipped her lit wand in the back pocket of her overalls and the vehicle was following her like a big puppy. She was chatting with Matilda who was stumbling in the snow.
Euphrosine was walking by the Pumpkin, sometimes touching as if to pat it or to lean on it and catch her breath.
Scorpius had been the first in the line, then he had slowed down to ask Günter a question and now he was lagging behind, deep in dark thoughts.
Terrence took from his bag the oldest manuscript of the Antarctic library: it was a thick notebook of observations made on a book that was missing: the Journey to the Center of the Earth – To The Heart of Extraordinary Secrets and Back Again – The Diary of an Ordinary Wizard, by the prominent alchemist Arne Saknussem. Half of the notes were written in ancient runes and the other was written in English so badly scrawled you almost needed to translate it too.
Terrence somehow managed to open the notebook while still walking and munched on the tip of his pencil, rereading the post-it stuck on the top of a page. Several questions were scribbled there and an arrow was pointing at a drawing of a lamppost.
- "Can you help me with that?" he asked, moving closer to Scorpius.
- "Ask Albus."
- "He's... otherwise occupied", the healer muttered, casting a brief glance towards the fur dragon who was frolicking in the snow at the head of the line.
- "Ask Günter then. He's the linguist."
- "Please, Scorp'..."
The young government agent let out an annoyed grunt. He pulled off a mitten with his teeth, taking the book in his other hand.
- "What do you want to know?"
- "Here. They are saying this lamppost marks the way out of the Axis, aren't they?"
Scorpius frowned.
- "Um... yeah, more or less. The "way out of the dream", to be more precise. Look, the translator hesitated too. Such convoluted way of speaking… I guess you could say it's correct."
- "Why a lamppost? And why did we not find it anywhere? We could've sneaked into the Axis through the stage door."
- "How should I know? You're the brains."
Terrence snorted and grabbed the shoulder of his friend before he could walk away.
- "Wait, can you also check that one: or on the livid waters glides Agatha's boat?"
This time, though it was with a disgusted look, Scorpius accepted the chewed pencil and a piece of paper. He stopped and focused, circling some runes, tapping his forehead with the gum side of the pencil and drawing question marks above the sentence faded by time and study.
- "It's not quite accurate. One should read or on the white waters goes away the boat of the secret kingdom" instead. It doesn't make a huge difference in meaning, but – well."
- "Um", said Terrence, lost in his thoughts.
- "Why do you go over this again, anyway? Don't you think that since 1877, it's been translated in all conceivable ways?"
The healer pulled a face.
- "What I think is that because they kept rereading the notes and filling up books with observations from it, those before us eventually forgot to ask themselves the right questions."
- "Like what, for example?" Scorpius asked, amused, putting back his mitten and starting to walk again.
- "Such as: Calcifer. If he comes from the Axis, why not just letting him free and following him? He certainly knows the way home."
Euphrosine cleared her throat behind them.
- "Oh, some did try", she said, her voice quavering with irony. "The Tower almost collapsed."
Terrence shot her a piercing glance.
- "But today, nothing happened and you did not look like you were thinking it would. When did Calcifer become a part of the Tower? He only shows up in the records after 1927..."
Euphrosine blushed and did not answer. She passed by them briskly and went ahead.
- "What did you mean?" Scorpius asked.
The healer ignored him and turned a page of the notebook.
- "Ah, can you also..."
- "No", resolutely cut in the government agent, walking off. "Later, at the break."
Terrence chuckled and caught up with him in a few strides.
- "I should have taken Ancient Runes..." he sighed.
- "You already had too many elective courses, Swanson", Scorpius grumbled.
- "With a Time-Turner, I could have", said his friend dreamily. "Professor Longbottom told me they lent one to a particularly brilliant student, once."
- "Let me guess: if it was in his generation, it has to be Albus' aunt. She's the brightest witch I've never seen..."
A burst of interest flashed in the eyes of the healer.
- "Is it true what they say? That Hermione Granger-Weasley has many other jobs within the ministry and that her being the head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures is just a cover?"
- "You shouldn't read the Quibbler", Scorpius said, rolling his eyes. "This rag may have had its heyday a moment in History, but truth is it really is lunatic."
- "Come on, you must know... you work for the Secret Service..."
The young government agent shook his head sternly.
- "Well, I'll ask the son of the minister, then, he must know", finally said Terrence, in a tone that was not as light as he would have wanted.
Scorpius stared at him.
- "You're starting to sound like Cadwallader, you know", he finally said in a low voice.
Terrence only grunted.
Like a desert of winding white dunes, a sastrugi field was now in front of them. There was a glowing halo around the sun, formed by tiny crystals hanging in the air. Some clouds were stretched in a light gray band above Crystal Tusks Crest.
At noon, they had a break in the middle of nowhere and lunched heartily.
- "If we keep going this way, we'll end up at the French Station", said Vivienne when all their bellies were full and they were all vaguely sleepy. She put back the astrolabe at her belt. "The French are the closest to the South Pole", she added so that they could better picture where they were.
- "Merlin protects us all", grumbled Pepper.
- "Are t-they b-b-bad?" Matilda worried.
- "No, not at all", laughed Günter. "But their cycle is much more difficult to live with than ours."
- "Aren't they set in days of twelve hours of light?" asked Wendy. "They can't have left it like the Muggles, it's positively unbearable. I'd feel buried half of the year."
- "Well, it is reality, though", objected Christopher. "Antarctic is in daylight six months a year and under a night lid the rest of the time. If we wanted to conduct objective studies, we shouldn't have changed the cycle by magic."
- "I don't see how that affects his dear stones", Scorpius whispered, leaning toward Terrence who snickered.
- "Apparently, the Norwegians went with a cycle of twenty-six hours", Euphrosine said thoughtfully. "I wonder if it was to work more or to get more sleep..."
Calcifer was playing at guzzling the snow the dragon was digging out in a splash of white powder. The flakes were melting before reaching the throat of the small fire daemon who was clucking happily.
- "In any case, the French have the worst cycle of Antarctica", said Günter. "It seems the one who set it was a wizard who had worked as an pilot among the Muggles - you know, people who drive their flying machines - and who loved sunsets. As a result, their days are about three hours long and they can see sunsets just by going to the other side of the station."
- "Ridiculous!" Scorpius said. "They can't be very effective like that!"
- "Romantic", Vivienne cooed. "But it can't be very good for your complexion."
- "Toothless! Let Albus out or come have a bite!" called out Wendy, who had gotten up.
But the dragon did not listen. Shaking his shaggy black fur like a puppy, he was squirming, waving his tail, and suddenly jumped on Calcifer who fled away, uttering a shrill cry of joy.
- "Is Potter is really conscious inside?" Christopher asked, looking extremely skeptical. "Because I never thought he could be this... childish."
Matilda also looked confused.
- "It's hard to explain", groaned Terrence. "Try to imagine that you... nah, never mind."
- "Let us trust Dewis", said Wendy, sitting down again. "What I think is: Toothless is the body, Albus the heart and Dewis the brains. It's going to be fine."
Scorpius cringed.
- "If only it were that simple... I liked it better when we were trying to communicate with him and teaching him how to control the switching. It feels like we're back to the beginning..."
Günter took off his glasses, wiped them on his handkerchief and put them back on his nose. Under his thick orange wool cap, a few gray hairs were fluttering in the cold wind.
- "Isn't life made of moments like this one?" he whispered. "When it seems we're going in circles, doesn't it rather mean that we are getting to the next step?"
Pepper cleared his throat.
- "Time to go", he said with a frown of his big bushy eyebrows.
- "That's a nice way to say stop raving", Christopher quipped in a whisper to Vivienne who giggled, taking the hand he was holding out to help her up.
The others were already packing, except for Matilda who was thoughtfully watching the dragon rolling in the snow. She clearly saw the moment when both Calcifer and his playmate stopped romping and straightened up, attentive. They sniffed the white mist billowing in the wind, shared a look, and then took the lead of the procession again.
The afternoon stretched the line on the plain. Fatigue was beginning to weight on them, turning some of them mute, but apprehension was loosening the tongue of others.
Terrence was walking with Günter who was telling him how he had met Pepper.
- "On the evening of the snowstorm, at the Hog's Head, he was in a tizzy. The elves had understood the Dark Lord was back for true, you see, and not all of them were convinced a pimply teenager was our best chance against such evil..."
He cast a quick glance towards the dragon who was leading them without slowing down, his neck stretched forward.
- "I know Harry Potter saved the world in the end, but at the time it wasn't so obvious he would. It seemed unfair and foolish for the fate of the nation to rest on his shoulders. Pepper had a grudge against his girlfriend who was knitting clothes and littered the castle with them, and he thought the third one of the gang – Albus' uncle, if memory serves me well – wasn't much of a hero either."
He had a sad little smile.
- "Appearances, Terrence, are hard to kill... especially when the government itself stirs up trouble in people's minds."
They remained silent a few moments. The snow was crunching under their feet like wafer biscuits and, behind them, the golden pumpkin was rolling forward, leaving behind a trace like one of a potbellied centipede. The others were a hundred meters ahead of them, except for Matilda they had passed when she was tying her laces: it was so cold her wand was quivering.
- "Why did you come to Antarctica?" finally asked the healer.
Günter drew a deep breath.
- "I lost my wife and daughter during Wizards World War I", he said hoarsely. "They were killed by inferi while I was in conference in London. That evening at the Hog's Head, I was drinking to their memory... I was bitter, lonely – useless. Had been like that for more than fifteen years. My life had no meaning. I was studying lost civilizations instead of alive people and my son kept telling me I had a bone where my heart should have been. So when a tipsy Pepper started telling me we were on the brink of another world war, I..."
He gave a little shrug, like if he was apologizing.
- "I wanted to do something. I knew that if there was power somewhere the Dark Lord would fatally become interested in it. I had heard about the researches on the Axis in Antarctica, I knew they needed a linguist. I wanted to be part of the fight, I didn't want a kid with glasses to be more courageous than me..."
His lips pursed and for a moment, his eyes clouded.
- "Truth is I ran away", he confessed. "The gates had been shut for forty years already and it was not until 2007 that they finally reopened - and we did not find their location in time ... my life has been a repeated failure", he added in a low voice.
- "Why are you telling me now?" asked Terrence, his blue eyes not letting go of his team leader's gaze.
- "Because if anything happens to me during this expedition, I'd rather you'd have heard my story from my own lips", said Günter. "Grief darkens people's words. And my son has suffered enough to remember only bad things about me."
But the healer was not listening anymore. He was quickly calculating in his head and frowned suddenly.
- "When Rina Kettlery and her team were stationed here... in 1957... when the Shufflers of Light disappeared and the Japanese left their dogs behind... it was the last time anyone was able to find the Gates and to go down in the Axis. The fire-tailed foxes came in 1927. What on Earth makes the Gates open, then? Thirty years closed, once fifty, another time twenty... it doesn't make sense."
- "The greater the offense, the longer forgiveness has to be waited upon", said sententiously Calcifer, popping next to them in a rustle of sparks. "The foxes wouldn't have been able to come across the Axis if everything had gone as usual. Arne Saknussemm, the old fool, had no idea what he was doing, when he put on paper what he had discovered - what the Shufflers had granted him to see, out of goodness."
- "I am not too convinced of the goodness of the Shufflers, if you ask me", grunted Terrence, absently rubbing his neck.
- "Before some showed zeal, the Gates opened every ten years", continued Calcifer, casting a strange look towards Euphrosine who was walking a few meters ahead. He curled on himself, crackling like a fire of pine needles. "Ah-ah-ah, those were some good times! The smell of flowers was..."
- "Flowers!" Terrence sniggered. "Humph. You're quite the poet, log head. Apart from pretty frozen crystals, there's nothing that grows with petals around here, Calcifer. This is Antarctica."
- "Well, there are asterolines", slipped in the shy voice of Matilda.
Terrence gave her a shocked look, as if she had betrayed him, then he straightened the strap of his bag on his shoulder and patted the lump of the book in his bag.
- "Anyway", he went on, "what I'd like to know is when Euphrosine came to Inlandsis Station. From what Rina Kettlery was yelling on Christmas Day, she was already there in 1957... t'was seventy years ago! How old is she, exactly?"
- "That's not something you can ask a lady", Günter said with an embarrassed tone.
- "In the library, in one of the books of the Magical Bubbles & Other Paranormal Boils section, there's a drawing on a page that crumbles when you touch it", continued the healer, knitting his eyebrows again. "It's a heart with the letters J and E inside, wrote in ancient letters."
- "Pendragon was an incorrigible schoolboy", chuckled Calcifer.
- "Do you know how old that drawing is, littl' smoky fellow? I did a test to find out. A hundred years old! Euphrosine and her fiancé can't..."
He paused.
- "During the transmission, Euphrosine said she was older than Rina Kettlery. That would mean she's at least…"
His blue eyes widened behind his glasses.
- "Is that true?" he cried, turning to Günter who was avoiding his gaze.
Terrence took a few steps, still in shock, and then stopped again, so abruptly that Matilda thumped against his long lean back and stifled a little yelp.
- "So that means Euphrosine was there in 2007, when you didn't find the Gates", he said slowly. "Why did she not guide you to the Axis? If she had gone down there already twice, she..."
Günter shook his head sadly.
- "It's not that simple. Neither Calcifer nor Euphrosine know where the Gates will open. They can recognize the signs when the time approaches, but they can't remember the way home."
- "But Euphrosine d-does not c-come from t-the Axis", Matilda objected.
The old man did not answer, his eyes staring hard at Calcifer.
- "So you knew..." Terrence mumbled. "That she had always been there, that she couldn't tell us about it, that she was the key..."
- "Euphrosine Howler isn't the key to anything", cut in Calcifer sharply. "But it was bad of you to keep silent, old man. The curse was meant to be lifted if someone found about it. The Tower is full of drafts and half-shut doors, and yet you never dared tell anyone of what you heard – of what you deducted from your observations."
- "Secrets of others are not to be shared", Günter replied curtly. "If you wanted to go home earlier, Mr. Insolent, you should have done a better deed than condemning a lady to silence."
- "She wasn't a lady!" squealed the fire daemon, glowing red. "She was just a hysterical little girl and I was scared, it hurt - and it was their fault... They were ripping off m…"
He stopped abruptly and sputtered sparks, as if it was his turn to be shut up by an ancient spell. The snow was smoking where his dancing shadow brushed it.
Terrence and Günter only looked at him without pity, but Matilda stepped forward and held out a timid hand to the flames that were hissing painfully.
- "It's o-over..." she whispered tearfully. "There, there... everything will be alright..."
Calcifer curled up under the caress, closing his eyes half and the sparks on his head went from bright scarlet to orange and then to a soft greenish yellow.
The others were waiting, watching them from a distance with curiosity.
"Everything will be alright."
Terrence bit his lip to stifle a groan of bitter irony.
How many times had Albus uttered the very same words since he knew him? People with a big heart could be so naïve! Nothing always went alright...
In fact, at this very moment, they were all walking towards something that was going to turn horribly wrong and Terrence, who knew it, was doing absolutely nothing to stop them.
oOoOoOo
The purple sky was stretched over the plain and the slopes of Crystal Tusks Crest were glittering in the fading light. A red steam was rising on the horizon and the sinking golden sun was blurred like a mirage.
A bright white star lit up, all alone above the icy vastness.
- "Where are we?" Günter asked wearily. "And what time is it?"
- "We're on the border between the French and the American territories", said Christopher, consulting the floating map he had unfolded with his wand.
- "It's four minutes after eleven, UK time", Scorpius announced after consulting his pocket watch. He hurried to put back on his mittens and thrust his hands under his armpits to try to warm them up.
Terrence, next to him, was blowing on his and was rubbing them against each other. His face was red and his nose was running.
Pepper was sitting in the snow, unpacking a small stove, sandwiches and a big teapot.
- "A s-star?" stuttered Matilda, leaning back her head to look at the purple sky. "I thought t-they had f-fallen. All of them."
She was the only one who did not look frozen to the bone and it was probably because Calcifer was snuggled in the hood of her green overall, where he was softly snoring.
- "It's not a star", Vivienne said flatly, consulting again the astrolabe.
Euphrosine sat on her tapestry bag and devoured her corned beef sandwich with appetite. Her wrinkled face was strained with fatigue but her blue eyes were shining of anticipation.
Slowly, the shadows were growing. The ice was moaning in the darkness and whispers came with the howl of the wind in the rifts. From time to time, a distant yelp broke out, startling the team members. Their breaths, in the glow of the wands and the stove, added to this hazy and disturbing atmosphere.
Shivering, Wendy cast a glance around, curling her fingers around the hot cup of tea that the elf had just handed her. She buried her chin in the thick pink scarf Hermione had given her and looked around for the dragon.
He was sniffing the breeze, his ears perked up. The falling snow was swirling in the wind around him, and pearls sprinkled his ebony fur. He trotted around, like if he was drawing a circle, and then stopped again, listening to the night.
Then he came back to the Pumpkin, sneezing a bit, puffing out his wings to get rid of the flakes speckling his black feathers.
- "What do you think he's sniffing, exactly?" Terrence whispered to Scorpius, who was drinking his tea too fast and burning his tongue. "The smell of foxes' wet fur? Or does the Axis stink of sulfur like the mouth of hell?"
There was a dazzling tingling then Albus materialized beside them.
- "Actually, it's more like the scent of flowers", he said hoarsely. "It feels like there's some sort of a greenhouse with fruit trees in full bloom, somewhere - and I feel that is where we must go."
He coughed and spat in the snow.
- "Flowers", Terrence whispered, looking at the scarlet one that had just blossomed on the white ground. He stepped forward to catch his friend who was wobbling on his feet. "I see. I still think we're going right into a wall, like that."
- "But the wall will open", Albus said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
He smiled. He looked exhausted but seemed more at peace than he had been for days.
- "I wasn't talking of the Axis", the healer sighed.
Albus' green eyes glowed gold briefly.
- "Come", he said, turning to the others. "We need to go. It's almost time."
Without waiting, he changed back to a dragon and disappeared into the night. They hastily threw away what was left of their dinner and set off again, forgetting their aching muscles and their chilled bones. In Matilda's hood, Calcifer woke up and his eyes gleamed intensely.
They walked for a really – really – long time. Their lifted wands cast a silvery clarity on the uneven meandering of the sastrugi, as they slipped and cursed quietly. They crossed an ice bridge so narrow they had to go one after one, followed by the Pumpkin under the weight of which some stalactites cracked and fell far below in the black sea. They did not know if they were going up or down, but the unique and immobile star above their heads seemed to become closer and closer. Ahead of them, the dragon was not slowing down and neither was Calcifer, who was now floating beside him like a red lantern in a nightmarish fog.
Suddenly, Christopher, who was walking with an iron stick, saw a spark slam on the ground.
- "Stop!" he called, kneeling and sweeping off the snow. "There's rock!"
- "Impossible", said Günter, turning round. "The rock is more than three thousand meters below the surface of Antarctica."
He pushed up his orange woolen hat. His gray hair was sticky with perspiration and his glasses were sliding down on his nose.
- "Oh", Matilda gasped, pointing at something over the shoulder of Terrence who followed her gaze and let out an exclamation of surprise.
Something was flowing up silently from the ground, in the night: a flickering light, golden dust, translucent bubbles, a warm breath with the distinct scent of white plum tree blossom.
Scorpius clenched his fists in his pocket. Wendy's eyes widened. A chill raised the little hairs on Vivienne's nape. Euphrosine clasped her hands and a tear rolled down her wrinkled cheek.
- "At last", grumbled Pepper.
The dragon and Calcifer were leaning over the crater. Toothless sniffed in and held out a cautious paw to touch the luminescent dust rising to the strange star.
- "Here we come!" chuckled Calcifer, looping euphorically, illuminating the darkness like vermilion fireworks.
- "Come… home… home… home…" the echo answered with a gentle female voice.
Günter swallowed hard.
- "We found it", he croaked. " Finally. The Axis. The gate of the place where all secrets are hidden."
TBC
Next chapter: INTO THE WELL
Down we go, and there starts their journey to the core of all things... "Renounce", the bloody letters said. Christopher will be the first one to face a choice, but before... darkness awaits, incredible landscapes will unfold in front of their eyes and we'll learn a bit more about the Pumpkin!