PHOENIX ASCENDING IX-- GODS AND MONSTERS
Viktor Krum looked surprisingly mortal for a god.
Romulus surveyed the Bulgarian seeker almost lazily as they followed Livia's massive backside on its haphazard way across the dunes. Sick of not knowing where Posthumous was taking him, Romulus had turned his intrests to other fronts. It was the first time since they had landed themselves in the godforsaken Roman province that he could remember taking a mild interest in Krum, who seemed oblivious to the new attention. Tilting his head slightly, Romulus felt himself smile. Though he was a superstar across seven continents, Krum wasn't really remarkably striking. Passable might even be pushing the envelope. Curly black hair fell into his face, its Eastern Block pale already red from the hot Sahara sun. His thick black brows crowned Viktor's brooding eyes, which were deep-set in a face that seemed to naturally scowl. All in all Romulus saw Krum as modern-day version of Ivan the Terrible.
"Yes?"
Romulus blinked, looking around for the sound of the voice, feeling a slight shock when he saw that it was Krum himself, squinting in the bright sunlight. He was still scowling. "What?" Romulus spat back, turning his face away quickly, forcing a break with Krum's eye contact.
"You vere looking at me," Krum said matter-of-factly, his absurd accent making the accusation seem almost ludicrous.
"No, I wasn't," Romulus lied, eyes fixed on Livia's hindquarters.
"Yes, you vere."
"No, I wasn't!" Romulus lashed out violently, giving Krum an angry stare.
"Alright you vere not," Krum said in a tone that made it quite clear he was just humoring Romulus. A silence held for a few moments before Krum, who didn't seem to be catching Romulus's anti-social signals, decided to take another stab at conversation. "Do you think ve'll ever find them?"
"Find who?" Romulus snapped, glaring at Krum.
Krum looked rather confused. "Her-my-oh-knee and her friends" at the blank look on Romulus's face he decided to elaborate. "Ron Veasley? Harry Potter?"
Romulus felt his face clench up in frustration, "What does bloody Harry Potter have to do with anything?"
"Isn't that vhy you are here?" Krum asked, his face almost as confused as Romulus's own.
"Obviously not, since I have no idea what he has to do with anything," the older man snapped, kicking the sand angrily.
"Harry and his friends found the Greyvillian Responder before ve did," Krum said matter-of-factly. "We came back here to rescue them."
"You came back here to rescue them," Romulus said scathingly, looking at Krum with growing dislike.
Krum's naivete was sickening. "Then vhy are you here?"
Romulus nearly exploded. "Because you're a goddamn idiot, that's why! I'm a squib, Krum, do you know what that is?" Krum nodded dumbly, taken aback by the other man's outburst. "I don't know anything about magic and I don't trust it. It's never gotten me anywhere good. I had just seen that goddamn tube eat my bloody brother when he touched it and there you were lunging for the damn thing! I tried to stop you, but I got sucked along for the ride." Romulus walked up right next to Krum and grabbed him by the robes. "I don't give a damn about your fucking friends, I just want to get the hell out of here."
This did not have the intimidating effect that Romulus hoped. He nearly spat in frustration when he saw the grin creeping across Krum's face. "You don't not care." The Bulgarian seeker smiled.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Romulus growled, confused by the double negative. He dropped Krum angrily, feeling slightly gratified when the seeker hit the ground with a sickening crunch.
Krum got up calmly from the sand and began dusting himself off. "If you don't care then why did you try and stop the tube from eating me?"
"I don't care," Romulus repeated through clenched teeth.
Krum's smile was more than a touch sarcastic, "Of course you don't."
----
With a sudden lurch, the wagon ground to a halt. Harry gripped the side of the cart in shock, but the three desert tribesmen seemed relatively unfazed. Anan leapt out of the wagon without so much as a backwards glance, Harran a few paces behind him. Innoch gave Harry a friendly smile and motioned him to follow before he too disappeared over the edge. Leaving Harran's ruined blade on the wagon's floor, Harry followed.
The intense African sun momentarily blinded him. Blinking furiously, Harry had to shut his eyes before he could get a good look at his surroundings. No longer was he in the never-ending desert. Anan's caravan had come to rest in the shadow of some unknown mountain range, and though sand was still underfoot, various scruffy shrubs were dotted about, clinging to life with only raw stringy determination.
Harry smelt it first.
It reminded him vaguely of that night in the graveyard, tied to a tombstone, fumes from a bubbling cauldron laying waste to his senses.
A second memory popped unbidden to the forefront of Harry's mind: a battlefield where knights and beast lay dying among their trampled standards. Their swords were stained with blood and the scent of charred flesh was buoyed by the wind as carrion birds circled high above.
Shuddering, Harry pushed the memory from his mind. Still the funny charred stench lingered in his nostrils. Slowly, somehow knowing and yet dreading what he would find behind him, Harry turned around.
It was hell.
Blackened huts lay in ruin, still smoldering from a previous blaze. Vultures wandered aimlessly amidst the rubble, cawing excitedly when they stumbled across a corpse that wasn't to badly burned to eat. The bodies of several horses lay in a pile, gutted and skinned, their rich stench almost as appalling as their rotting bodies. Harry took a few steps into the rubble and paled. A child's fragile hand from the nearest building, flames still licking at its fingers,
"I'm sorry you had to see this," Harry looked up to see Innoch standing beside him.
"Who would do something like this?" Harry stammered, already knowing the answer to his own question as he looked upwards to where the Dark Mark still hovered, its scull and all to visible in the noon-day sun.
"Your Pettigrew," Innoch answered quietly, eyes focused on Harran, who had fallen to the sand, beating it with his fists and wailing uncontrollably. "Harran left his village to report the theft of five children," he started. "He returned to find it burned to the ground and his family not yet cold."
"But, why?" Harry knew how naive he sounded, but he couldn't keep his confusion bottled in any longer. "If the children is all they want, why did they burn the village?"
"Who knows what they really want," Innoch said bitterly. "Who knows why men seed destruction and hatred on the earth. Until we do, I'm afraid there will be many more villages like this one."
"It's wrong," Harry said forcefully.
"It's war," Innoch replied.
Unknowingly, Anan cut them off. Drawing his great broadsword he lifted it high above his head, letting it catch the noontime sun. Harry nearly jumped straight out of his skin when Innoch followed suit, joined by the five other caravan riders, dotted at various places across the ruined village. "Nossas almas não descansarão até que o sangue deste murderer flua sobre" Anan cried, his gravely voice ringing out across the shallow valley. "Para fora da terra como um rio!" Then all seven horsemen gave a simultaneous shout before thrusting their swords hilt-deep into the sound.
For a moment, a supreme silence reigned, broken only by the uncontrollable sobs of Harran.
"It's a binding oath of revenge," Innoch said quietly, answering Harry's unspoken question as he pulled his sword from the sand. "Translated into Latin, Our souls will not rest until the blood of this murderer flows across our land like a river--"
"Wait," Harry lifted up his hand, scarcely believing Innoch's words. "What do you mean, translated into Latin?"
A bemused smile crossed Innoch's brown features. "What do you think we're speaking? Greek?"
Harry didn't get a chance to reply, for a small sound of applause caught his attention. Wheeling around, Harry saw three figures leading a scraggly looking donkey down the nearest hillside. Their leader was a man so incredibly thin; he looked as if he could be sucked through a straw. He was clapping, no small feat with a donkey tether under his arm. "Jolly good show, Anan! That's the best native ritual I've seen yet!" he called out, his voice echoing against the foothills.
Anan seemed to know the newcomer, as did the rest of the horsemen, including Innoch. They all turned to gather in a tight knot around their leader, watching the three men progress down the hillside with thinly veiled excitement. Harry, hopelessly confused, could only follow suit.
"This is the smallest payment I've seen yet, Posthumous," Anan called out in reply, holding up a tiny coin purse.
"In time my friend, in time," the thin man, Posthumous replied, jogging down the nearest dune and grinding to a halt in front of the group of horsemen. "I am a man of limited means."
"And I'm a man of limited patience," Anan growled. For a moment, Harry though that Anan was going to strike the thin man across his face, but then the chieftain surprised everyone by drawing Posthumous into a tight embrace. "It's been too long," he smiled, breaking the tension.
"It has," Posthumous agreed, untangling himself from the horseman's firm grasp. "But not time wasted. I've learned that he docks in Carthage in a week's time." There was a maniacal glint in Posthumous's eye, an intensity that reminded Harry slightly of Mad-Eye Moody.
"Not now, Posthumous. I have a crisis on my hands," Anan gestured around at the burned village, an expression of anger on his face. "Bandits are stealing the tribe's children, burning our homes and killing our horses. I have to make contact with our allies in the mountains."
"Not the giants, Anan!" Posthumous began, his skin and bone face darkening into a scowl. But whatever was wrong with the giants, Harry would never learn, for upon catching sight of Posthumous's companions, he simply ceased to listen. He had never though that he would be so glad in his life to see Viktor Krum.
Krum smiled back at Harry. Never had Harry seen such a grin stretched across the Bulgarian Seeker's face.
"Hello, Viktor," Harry beamed, feeling a wave of incredible relief wash over him.
"Harry," Viktor acknowledged, nodding as the second man stepped forward.
Harry felt as if something inside of his was about to explode. All his doubt, confusion and insecurity melted away. There was no mistaking it, it would really be alright. "Professor Lupin," he grinned madly.
Romulus stopped dead in his tracks, biting back the automatic sneer. For the fist time in his life, he had no idea what to say. There was something about Harry Potter, something beyond all of legend, something so hopeful and alive and innately good that Romulus felt all his walls crumble away out from under him, leaving him on a level plain, exposed, face to face with this expectant boy.
A single fact grew prevalent in his mind. Harry Potter was genuine. He had no hidden motivation, no secret game. Harry was pure untapped truth. The smile he gave Romulus was real, no product of a drug-induced high. Ebbing withdrawal or not, Romulus couldn't bring himself to taunt this boy who had awakened something in him he had thought long dead, this boy who made him feel.
"I'm not Professor Lupin," Romulus said, stumbling on his words like a child first learning to walk. "I'm his brother. Romulus."
And for the first time in fifteen years, Romulus Lupin honestly smiled.
----
The Locates spell worked like, well, a charm. Though only a thin red trail of light snaking from the tip of Sirius's wand it pulled them all, Remus, Ron, and Hermione like a lodestone. Fragile and thin as it was, that light was all that connected them to Harry Potter, the boy that had drawn them together and somehow, inexplicably, changed them. So they could only helplessly follow, watching as the sand melded into scrubby brush and the dunes into rolling foothills. They climbed higher and higher, hillocks changing into mountains, always following that red trail of light.
Remus could never say how long they climbed, maybe it was some effect of the Locates spell, but forever seemed to roll by when no time had really past at all. They could have been following the charm for days; hours, centuries and none of them would know the difference. They were lost in their own parcel of time, fragmented and whole, focused on their single quest.
And then, the lazy tranquility that had invaded all of their minds just broke.
Remus shook his head slightly, feeling as if he had emerged out of a dense fog. He shut his eyes and then opened them, to be faced with Vix, who looked more than a little confused.
"Where are we?" It was Ron, who was looking around the mountains with a rather dazed expression on his face. Remus shook his head again. He felt Ron's confusion, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember leaving the desert.
"The charm," it was Sirius, his voice sounding more gruff than usual. "It's gone." He held up his wand, and no red light trailed out of the end.
"Then where's Harry?" Hermione said, a flicker of worry crossing her face.
"Shhh--" Ron held up his hand. "I think I hear something."
Remus strained his ears, and sure enough, there was an unfamiliar sound drifting over the nearest bluff: laughter, music, chatter; alien noises after two days in the deep desert.
Cautiously, the five of them crept up the hillock, skulking wordlessly, alert for any sign of danger. Suddenly a big bellowing voice nearly jarred Remus out of his scull, "Liok (hic) I always said, there (hic) ain't no one who makes the bleedin' (hic hic) whisky better than Grunn'ilda!" the voice finished to be seconded by a round of drunken cheers.
Ron and Hermione exchanged a simultaneous grin of delight. "Hagrid!" they screamed in unison as they ran over the hill.
Remus couldn't help but smiling as he followed them. There was Hagrid, two beer steins in his meaty hands. He had given up trying to drink; now nearly smothered by both Ron and Hermione. Harry, who had been sitting between Romulus and a nomad Remus didn't know leapt up and began running towards Sirius, who looked happier than Remus had seen him in days. Olympe Maxime was there, roasting sausages over a fire with Viktor Krum and a woman so large Beauxboton's headmistress looked positively petite. As Remus stared around, he realized that most of the lumps he had mistaken as foothills were actually people. These giants were mingling among the smaller humans with relative ease. He was beginning to wonder how many giants there actually were when he got the shock of a lifetime.
"Hello, Remus." Blinking dumbly, Moony found himself staring into the crisp blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore.
----
An icy wind whistled a bittersweet croon through the tiny holes between the cement skyscrapers, its high-pitched squeal reminiscent of a banshee's scream.
A cry of death inescapable.
Gripping the door frame, Gabriel stumbled out of the Ministry lab, icy wind biting him through to the core.
But he couldn't feel any colder than he already was.
Gabriel slid on a patch of ice and instinctively threw his hands out in front of him, cringing inwardly as the asphalt dug into his palm.
Over.
It was all over.
Every drop of hope, heart, humanity had been wrung out of him, whipped away by the ice cold wind to be shelved in a manila file folder bearing a single name.
The name of his downfall.
His devil.
His father.
And still the tears wouldn't come. They were lost like everything else, in a vat of extreme emptiness.
"Cox," Gabriel didn't even look up, though the Scottish brogue was unmistakable. He remained frozen on the pavement, while his heart beat a steady drone in his ears.
"Cox." Gabriel couldn't bring himself to face Mad-Eye Moody. He couldn't look upon the old auror who was the well of all his suffering and pain. If it wasn't for Moody and his godforsaken quest for revenge, Gabriel wouldn't be lying in the icy gutter of this frozen street, bitter and cold, dead to life. If it wasn't for Moody, he would still have a job, he would still have a home, he would still be the son of Sejanus Cox.
"Cox!" Moody took a step closer to Gabriel's motionless form, prodding the younger wizard with his peg leg. "Get up and fight like a man, Cox!" Moody's voice rang hard in Gabriel's ears.
Still he didn't move.
"Get up!" Moody's wooden leg hit Gabriel full across the back. With the harsh blow, Gabriel felt a wave of anger wash over him. "Cox! Get up!" Mad-Eye yelled.
"I'm not," Gabriel looked up at Moody, suddenly finding his voice. He spoke in such a low growl however, that his tone was almost unrecognizable.
"Not what?" Moody snorted, hard pressed to take the cowering Gabriel seriously.
"Not Cox," Gabriel hissed, a sneering smile creeping across his face when he saw the confusion flash across Moody's own features. Let the old man wonder, he thought. Wonder led to questions and questions led to fear.
A sudden though crossed Gabriel's mind. It was a thought that a thought that would have made his cringe in revulsion a month, a week, even a day earlier. But in the last hour his life had shattered into pieces that try as he might, could never again make a whole. The happy-go-lucky reporter who worked for Dumbledore and ordered Chinese at two AM while listening to old Ramones's albums was dead. He was not Cox, and he didn't ever have to be again.
"What the devil do you mean--" but Moody's words were cut off in a strangled scream as Gabriel gripped his wooden leg and pulled him down hard. Moody's peg snapped in two as he hit the pavement. The old man grunted and tried to pull himself up, but his left arm was twisted at an impossible angle, broken and useless.
Instantly, Gabriel leapt on top of the Auror, pushing Moody flush up against the asphalt. Every ounce of pain, every second of suffering, every pint of angst initiated by the old man welled up inside Gabriel, exploding outwards with a force a thousand times more powerful than Moody's bitter hatred.
Gabriel raised his fist and brought it down hard upon the Auror's scarred visage, causing Moody's glass eye to pop out of its socket, shattering into a thousand pieces as it hit the pavement. Moody made a strangled noise of protest, but Gabriel only hit him harder, picking up the old man's scull and smashing it down upon the icy curb. He repeated the beating again and again until the scull grew soft and mushy in his hands. Reason and sanity stood by and watched him, laughing.
Then, without warning, he stopped.
Gabriel stared blankly at the corpse, at the bits of blood and brain and bone scattered across the curbside like confetti. He shut his eyes. Then opened them.
Moody was still there.
He wanted to cry.
But he couldn't.
Gabriel bit his lip, but it was already to late, he was hardening on the inside and he was powerless to stop it. Staring at the ruined corpse, splayed in the street like a rag doll, he could only feel a grim sort of satisfaction.
Well, that was that.
Gabriel knew what he had to do.
Slowly, Gabriel staggered to his feet, leaving a bloody handprint on the curb where he gripped it for support. Leaving Moody in the gutter, Gabriel walked calmly down the sidewalk to where a Muggle phone booth stood. Staggering a little as he strode inside, he dialed the main number for the Ministry, a little-known code he had learned in his stint at the Prophet. Gabriel noticed with an almost bemused satisfaction that every time his finger touched the telephone's buttons, the turned the white plastic a deep red.
The phone rang.
Once.
Twice.
"Hello?" A crisp secretarial voice sounded from the other end, jarring Gabriel slightly.
Gabriel took a deep breath before beginning. "Tell Minister Malfoy that Gabriel Cox is taking him up on his offer--" A dial tone cut him off. Phone still at his ear, Gabriel looked up. A long thin finger was on the receiver, pushing it down, and ending his call.
"That won't be necessary," a smooth voice hissed in his ear as the hand let go of the receiver and wrapped itself around Gabriel's throat, tracing the line of his jaw.
Gabriel let the phone slide out of his bloody grip; not even daring to turn around as the stranger with the smooth voice inched closer to him. "Oh that's not necessary at all," Lord Voldemort purred, "Not for my little Lucifer."
----
Next up on As the Empire Turns: A long a treacherous PLOT CHAPTER. All is revealed, Dumbledore explains, Posthumous schemes, Remus and Romulus have some twin angst, Moody stays dead, and Pettigrew tries his hand at drug dealing! All in all, everyone talks far too much for their own good :O)
Hey to everyone out there! NB- This chapter is un-beta-ed because I wanted to let Rowena have fun on her Spring Break (while I'm at school ::grrrr:: :O) ) Anan's revenge speech was in Portuguese, which he obviously would not be speaking, I couldn't find a site online that translated Arabic/Aramaic, and I'm not fluent in either :O). Also, I am taking horrible liberties with history and geography and I apologize to any Ancient Roman buffs out there.
Thanks to everyone that reviewed the last one: FrogWizard, Silimay, Pandora Souris-Cadavre (yes, all of my knowledge of Ancient Rome comes from I Claudius :: I'm sorry!:: and I am taking a horrible author's license with history that I'm afraid will only get worse :O) ), my favourite CLS, Kerr, Viktor'sGurl (I do believe we're the only Hermione/Viktor people on ff.net :O), if there's any more of you out there you have seen the light, drop me a line), lucynoir (my little sister, so she gets an extra smile :O) ), Jane, Moon (I'm more than a little glad you decided to come back with Fowl Play, awesome! Quack, quack indeed :O) ), Kat, Juliana my one and only dancin' queen, Merlin the Owl (gotta love the sn, you fit right in with the plot :O) ), Lucinda, Erica (Good luck at Crew :O), and thanks for reviewing), Altra (I'm sorry, there won't be much Draco :O(, tho Lucius will pop up in a bit), Amanita Lestrange, my lovely beta, who's having fun on Spring Break while I get to slave away at school… Rowena Alana, Key, NS, Rogstar, my fav. little spider :O) Aragog, Katie Bell (To answer your Minister question, Malfoy bribed his way in), Kali ma (it is rather Star Wars, isn't it :O) )
And thanks to everyone that reviewed Warsaw: NS, orion, CLS, no name, Lady Ev, Juliana, Katie Bell, PixyChick, Kerr, Hermione 2000, chocolate fireguard, Rooty Beer!, Anne, Sorceress, Viktor'sGurl, Amandah, Rowena Alana, netshark, Crystal Music, Crymson Tyrdrop, magical*little*me, EowynStar, lucynoir, Landry Anne, Aurora Light, Erica, RavenLady, Labyrinth Dumbledore
Please Read and Review, and I love you all :O)
