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Chapter 47 - Greece

There were problems with building a circle in Greece. Hermione and I didn't know where the old circle had been, and Phaedra told us that she had heard rumours of an ancient source of magic but didn't know its location. "Perhaps Aristotle can help you. He studies our history and lives in the northeast of mainland Greece, where the ancient circle was supposed to be – somewhere near, in, or under Mount Olympus."

So even if there was an ancient circle, and I wasn't certain this was the case, we couldn't be sure that it retained enough magical strength to be detected by our sensors. Even if we could sense it with a broom fly-over, that wouldn't tell us the location of the entrance to the cavern. We were dependent upon the Greeks. Beyond that, we lacked a spare lodestone. I had no idea where or how to search for one. Hermione said she would think about it, but off-hand she didn't know exactly how we would go about Witch sculpting one. Since magical energy was none too strong in Greece, we'd have to sculpt the lodestone on site. Apparating it into the Greek cavern would be far too dangerous a task.

Hermione and I were debating the best course of action, as we lay on blankets beneath a tree on the Hogwarts lawn. Cissy tore herself away from the planning of the clinic design to join us. So did Adrienne, who was carrying her infant son in a pouch on her back. Adrienne said she had been watching us and was curious what weighty issue had us so locked in rapt discussion. Hermione explained.

"Wouldn't Odin know?" Cissy inquired.

He might. He certainly spent time wondering our world back in that day. I wouldn't be surprised if he had presented as one of the Greek Gods.

"Thank you, that's an excellent suggestion. I'll try to contact him through Yggdrasil."

Odin told me that of course he knew of the magical circle in ancient Greece. He had led the ancients as they built the thing. It was his own 'ancient' design. He'd be happy to Apparate us there. He'd meet us inside the Hogwarts pyramid.

Odin had clearly read Frijjo's plans to take over Asgard. "That Frijjo was a totally contemptible manipulator. To think I loved such an awful person. Her main secret weapon for taking over Asgard was me. She was very beautiful, but I can resist wenchly charms. She had secret weapons I was unaware of. She had what you call Siren skills. She also used both a love potion and a friendship potion on me. It is she who reinforced my love of wandering. It is she who repeatedly discussed how the ancient Aesir had learned to be noncorporeal and become the Light Guardian. She created that yearning in me. What is bodiless travel through space to a fierce warrior and ruler of a world? She counted on my incorporation into the Light Guardian ridding herself of me forever. You didn't read all her journal. After the first ten pages, she copies twenty pages of her thoughts from many years ago – written records in danger of perishing to time. I can follow her schemes from four of your millennia ago. She preyed upon Ve during my early wanderings. It was she who convinced him he could be the greatest God ever. It was she who persuaded him to build the fortress and to share all his knowledge with her. Ve knew an astonishing amount of dark magic. It was she who led Ve into seid-space and insanity. That alone is enough reason to hate her memory forever.

"But you need a ride to the Olympian circle. Grab my hands. I think just Hermione and Ginny for the first trip. I'm not as attuned to your magical energy as your people are. This won't be an easy trip and two is all I can transport safely. Sorry, Barb, you can travel on the next wave. Has Hermione packed everything you will need? Magical viewers? The camera? You might need your brooms. And measurement tools. Oh, bring lights. If the circle has totally lost power from lack of tuning or physical damage, the cavern lights won't come on when we arrive."

We grabbed Odin's hands. It was a several second, stomach-turning, churning trip through space, followed by a three-foot drop to a slightly uneven stone floor in a dark cavern, which improved to merely dim, once the cavern lights did their best to turn on. If the floor hadn't been coated with a couple inches of lightly packed rock dust, I think I might have seriously injured myself. My left knee did feel sore, as did my right ankle. I could stand. I could walk. I turned on the light bar I held in the hand, which wasn't clasping Odin's. I had been stupid. I could have landed less awkwardly had I been able to see. Landing in the dark is tough, especially when you must allow an extra margin of safety above an uncertain ground level. Not Odin's fault, I doubt he had been here in a couple thousand years. Hermione had come in only a foot above the floor and seemed unphased by her landing, although she followed my lead in turning on her light.

As Odin apologised to me "sorry, it's been a long time since I've Apparated to this cavern and never from Hogwarts," I realised that I had remained upright only because Odin had a firm hold upon my arm and had kept me from falling. "Can you walk?" I tried. I succeeded. Holding my light aloft, I walked over to the outer ring of the circle. Like the early British circles, this ring was tall basalts. The basalts had obviously been connected by a fine silver mesh, but at a spot several yards to my left a rock had fallen from the ceiling of the cavern and rent the silver mesh. I suspected that was not the only reason the circle wasn't working.

Hermione had given her light bar to Odin and was taking pictures of the circle. I pointed out damage as we walked around the outer ring. Only one other area was damaged and this was minor damage from the amount of dust weighting down the silver webbing enough that the strands were distorted and multiple layers of the fine silver thread were touching in several spots between two of the larger basalts at the rear of the circle. Hermione took close-up pictures and tried to blow off the dust with her wand. Most of the dust was willing to be blown away, but the lightened webbing did not spring back to its normal shape.

"I get the sense that this circle was turned off. When we work our way inside, I'll try to restart it," Hermione told me. "This is the largest circle we've seen. Same for the cavern size."

"Back then, I had yet to invent my modern circles. I built on a grand scale then. I found this cavern almost by accident. It was less than half this size. I and the Goblin ancients of your world made it what you see now. I wish we had more light. I remember this place as truly magnificent, and it was powerful enough to launch a civilisation. I miss those days. I enjoy your company and know you to be true friends, but back then I was worshipped. Heady stuff!"

The next circle was made up of calcite crystals. Just by the curve of the circle as I moved between the two nearest crystals, I could tell that there are a lot of them. When I commented upon this observation, Odin mused "there are twenty-seven of them. That is because twenty-seven is one of my favorite numbers. This ring seems to be in good shape. Over two-thousand years and this circle was never vandalized. Back in the day, many ancient Greeks knew how to find this cavern. It had its keepers. They and the other worthies who visited here kept its secret. This was the most revered spot on your world. Then it was completely forgotten. It will bring joy to my heart to see this circle returned to life. I must help you; I mean I must join you in the actual hard work, from rebuilding the circle to cleaning the muck of the ages from this sacred place. I can't stay full time, there really are pressing needs on Asgard. You also must help on my world."

There was another ring of much shorter crystals. "They are what you call tourmaline," Odin explained. "I brought them from Vanaheimer. That world produced excellent crystals. Mined out long ago. It is a far more ancient place than this world. Look at the silver braiding. I used a loose twisted spiral pattern back then - double strand with support wire at intervals to hold the shape. I loved that shape." He held his light bar up close to the silver strands so I could see what he meant. It looked like the silver was engaged in a delicate dance. For some reason, this ring was totally undamaged. I counted twenty-seven tourmalines.

We move inward to what I had hoped we would find: the lodestone. I wasn't surprised to see it. As Odin had said, the circle had clearly escaped vandals. I can only describe the lodestone as humongous. I measured both with my natural stride and by laying one shoe directly in front of the other and counting. This stone was thirteen to fourteen feet on a side. Strangely, it was only a foot tall, which is why we hadn't spotted it immediately. "How much of the lodestone is buried?" I asked Odin.

"Just two feet. It is far from being a cube. This is just how I thought to do it back then. It does make it much easier to work on the gems atop the lodestone."

"You made this lodestone - it's not natural stone, none of them are, are they," Hermione's tone was almost accusatory, as if she felt she had been deliberately excluded from a vital secret, which she had every right to know.

"Of course, I made it. It's not as detailed as your method for making purple diamonds, but it requires more brute magical force. You're so smart, I thought you understood. I really wasn't trying to keep you uneducated. You and Ginny, and whichever of your friends you trust enough, really are my chosen successors. It has taken me a while to fully internalise that obvious conclusion. Hopes for Frijjo and for Vili were very hard to lay aside. So much of my history has been with them. You are young Witches from a young world. In the back of my mind are still images of a very unsophisticated Terra, a very superstitious and illogical Terra. I have been progressively setting that thinking aside. Frijjo and Vili never could do that. I can tell from Frijjo's writings and my discussions with Vili that right up to the present, they saw Terrans as primitives for them to rule. Frijjo saw how well your pyramid was defended but blamed all that on magical technology you stole from me and secrets I unwisely revealed to you. She saw absolutely nothing wrong with what Vili did to Adrienne, including the attempt to steal her son - she saw him as wiser and entitled to decide what was best. I apologise for my brother. I know I can never release him. In his way, he is more dangerous than Ve was."

"I know how difficult it is to lose a brother," I sympathized with Odin. Hermione gave me the side eye, thinking I was talking about Percy. It was mostly Fred, but Percy's accusation that I was a cold-blooded killer had unnerved me and made him seem more alien than family.

I had been examining the central lodestone as I listened to the internal thoughts which Odin spoke aloud. The design of magical circles had changed. This one had a large central quartz cylinder embedded in the surface. This was surrounded by a circle of six, quite large, rubies. Around that was a circle of a dozen tourmalines. All the gems were cemented in place with silver, but there was no hint that they had ever been linked by silver webbing.

"Exactly how old is this circle," I asked Odin. "It seems it must be a lot more than five-thousand years old."

"Not a lot more than that, perhaps a little over six-thousand years. It wasn't the classical Greek civilisation which this circle sparked, it was the Minoans, who developed a thousand years after I built this circle. Back then, it was me and the Goblins and a very few, very primitive, totally nonmagical humans. Have you seen what you need to see? It's more than a little chilly here."

"I have, as soon as Hermione finishes examining and photographing the gems, I'm good to go. I think we have everything here that we'll need to restart the circle. We'll bring our Greek friends when we return."

"I'm almost finished, but I still want to try to re-start the circle and view it through our magical force detectors. That will give us more information on just how much work needs to be done. This should be a safe, interesting, highly educational, experience for our Hogwarts students. Ron may want to put on his professor hat again. The gems are too dirty to do a detailed examination, but I found no gross problems. It's time to fire this circle up. I suggest that for safety sake, you and Odin move outside the rings. I'll Apparate out of here as soon as I start it. I really want to get the cavern lights to work, so that we can get a good look at everything before we leave. The cavern is too large and too dark for my camera flash to be much help.

Odin and I obeyed and left the circle, finding and pointing out to Hermione a nice open space for her to Apparate to, where there weren't any stones or large pebbles hiding amidst the dust. Hermione nodded acknowledgement, then touched her wand to the central quartz. The circle sprang to life and an instant later Hermione was standing beside us. The circle had significant problems, most of which we had already identified. We spent a few minutes studying the magical force lines through our viewers. The gap in the basalt wiring was causing a serious imbalance, the two spots where the silver webbing between the calcites was misshapen with individual strands touching seemed to have melted, and most serious of all, the main output power from the lower quartz cylinder was splatting off the ceiling. I assumed this meant that the quartz cylinder, which should be in the ceiling directly above the quartz on the lodestar was either missing, damaged, or misaligned.

Hermione quickly took a series of pictures, while I quickly Witch painted the force lines I had observed. This took a very uncomfortable hour, as the circle had progressed to screaming in our heads. Hermione finally killed the thing and we all returned to the Hogwarts pyramid. I had two and a half of the four paintings I had intended to make. I didn't mind Hermione's cutting my painting short. It was a mercy.

We almost immediately had a meeting of Hermione's committee, with Phaedra and Aristotle added. Everyone was encouraged by our report on the condition of the Olympus circle and grateful that we had that circle's designer to help us resurrect it. Everyone agreed that we must begin work immediately. Odin stated that of course Olympus counted as a Quest stop. Of course, it made sense for Ron to lead a larger group of Hogwarts students. That would be allowed for this Quest stop. "Really, Questing is less important than just doing at this time. The Questers have already proven their mettle. They must lead this effort, but all you propose is good," Odin acknowledged.

The Greeks were very pleased to be getting their ancient circle back. Phaedra would join our expedition. She would bring three of her sister Witches and her phoenix. How could the Greeks not participate in such a venture?

We were home for two and a half days. Hermione and I each got to spend one full uninterrupted day with our husbands. Then duty called. We Apparated back to Olympus. In addition to silver and back-up quartzes and gems for the ancient circle, we also took materials to build a modern circle next to the ancient one. Odin wanted to experiment with that approach. I was eager to find out how to tune the pair. Odin didn't know how or if this would work, so it was a giant and very interesting experiment.

It was also a very slow and laborious experiment. We spent only a day and a half repairing the ancient circle. Unfortunately, this had to be preceded by five days of laborious cleaning the circle and inspecting the condition of the cleaned gems, calcites, and quartzes. Not all of us could work on the circle at the same time, even though I had split my crew into three shifts. Half of the crew was left to muck out the cavern itself. This required filling buckets and sacks with debris and Apparating them to the surface. Mona was the only student adept enough at Apparation to transport debris to the surface. She was assisted by aurors - one to transport debris and two to others for protection. I could tell that Mona gloried in this sign of being more adult that the other students. It seemed to more than compensate for being assigned to muck-out duty.

Our biggest problem with both work and comfort was the darkness and cold in the cavern. We were reliant on battery-powered lights. Since our supply of batteries was limited, we couldn't run many lights round the clock. We used our eternal flames, but they polluted the air and used up oxygen. Each of us spent only our 8-hour shift in the cavern, then Apparated to a sleeping, eating and planning venue, which our Greek hosts had set up for us. After the first four shifts, with the need for extra batteries becoming imperative, Aristotle went on a purchasing expedition. He recruited friends to shop in other parts of Athens and Greece on succeeding days, because we didn't want our volume of battery buying to draw notice.

"Didn't this cavern have an actual ventilation system in the old days?" I almost begged Odin to rack his memory for a solution.

"It must have. It obviously failed over the centuries. I'll talk to Yggdrasil. That which I can no longer remember, Yggdrasil remembers for me. That would be a good trick for you to use."

Odin learned that he had indeed explained the ventilation system to Yggdrasil. He could show us where the ventilation shafts entered the cavern. We explored the two ground level shafts, holding lit torches in front of them. There was no air flow. I sent Aagog to the ceiling to investigate the two shafts. She sensed no air flow in the first shaft and was unable to locate the second shaft. She told me that she would climb the shaft she had found and search for the obstruction. It was not surprising that the external entrance to the shafts had been blocked after so many years.

Waiting for Aagog to return was a lot more difficult than I expected. I knew she might have a long climb and didn't expect an instant return, but as I cleaned rubble, I kept glancing at the shaft to see if she was returning down it. I shook my head, not knowing why I placed so much significance on Aagog's exploration. Captain Davies had told me that we could transport liquid oxygen to the cavern, the same way we Apparated all our supplies. That should suffice to give us enough breathing air keep the circle operable. It was presently sputtering along well enough to give us light and not scream in our heads that it needed re-tuning. It just somehow felt that having that shaft cleared would make us all a lot safer. Natural air versus Muggle technology.

Tendra nudged my shoulder. "You must come and see what I found."

She led me to the rear wall of the cavern, which she and several others had been cleaning. "I knew that this was Goblin construction. Odin said so and I recognize the ancient rock-working technique. But... I've found writing. It is in very ancient Goblin-speak. I can't read more than a word or two, but here," she pointed at a thoroughly washed section of polished cavern wall, surrounded by the normal rough chisel pattern of the Goblin workmen. "Words, chiseled into the wall. They must be very important. This is the only polished section of wall we've discovered so far. The ancients wanted these words to be read!"

I called to Hermione to join us. As I was pointing to the writing and asking Hermione if she thought she could translate, Aagog lowered herself on a spider thread, right in the middle of our group.

"The path is clear for a long way. I leave silk so you can measure. I leave thing that Hermione give me. It is where tunnel is blocked. I could not go higher."

"It's a radio transmitter," Hermione explained. "It won't penetrate much stone or soil, but if it is very near the surface, you might detect it with the receiver I am about to give to you. Take your broom and fly over the area. I thought if you were very careful, feeling for obstacles at intervals and then Apparating several thousand feet above the last obstacle, that you could Apparate straight up and then ride your broom in a search pattern with the receiver and one of the viewers. I'll work on translating the ancient Goblin-speak while you do that. Harry would want me to say this: please be careful!"

Barb and Ron insisted upon coming with me. Since we thought that Odin might recall surface features, as viewed from the air, we also recruited him. We had only brought four brooms with us and this used all of them. We measured Aagog's silk to determine the absolute minimum distance we would have to Apparate. There were exactly six-hundred and twenty-six feet of silk. We were very far underground. Aagog was a larger spider than when I first met her, but spinning all of that silk must have taken a log out of her. I brought her a full pound of minced and insisted that she eat right away. She then drank quite a lot of water.