Chapter 23

The Quest Begins

Raya walked up the stairs, tired and weary. She snuck quietly into the Seventh Year Girl dormitories and sat down on her bed. She was about to start removing her clothes to put on her nightclothes when she happened to look at the top drawer of her nightstand. Green light was emitting from inside the drawer. Raya almost seemed transfixed by the light. She opened the drawer and saw that the light was coming from the bottom compartment.
She took out all the little trinkets on in the drawer and then removed the bottom. There the Key to Novia, the gem beautiful green gem was glowing with a seemingly frantic energy. She grasped the gem. Its heat startled her and she knocked over an inkbottle onto a fresh sheet of parchment. What should have happened is that the ink would splatter all over the place and bleed through the paper and soak all the paper underneath. And yet this did not happen. Instead the spilled ink seemed magnetize and was drawn to the paper spelling out words with a spidery script. Raya whirled around to look.

It spelled out: "The Doorway Can Be Opened, The Time Will Soon Come, That The Grounded Door, With Blood Willingly Spilled, Will Open And The Jewel Will Shine Forever Green."
Raya barely had enough time to read before the words sunk into the page and new ones appeared.
This Time: "Within The Stone Walls, Of Great Knowledge, Where The Great One Dwells, May the Holy Book Be Found, But Not Without Test."
Again the words sunk into the page and new ones took their place.
"A Maze Of Seeming Death Lies Before Thee, Let The Pair Take The Road, One Belongs To The Great Realm, And The Other A Warrior That Defends It."
And again.

"Let The Book Be Your Guide, To Your True Quest, The Star Door, That Leads You To The Realm That Needs The Aid, Of Warrior Great And Companion True"

And once more.

"The Maze Lies Behind Where The Unicorn's Horn Touches The Water, And The Griffin Comes To Play, Where The Dragon Breathes Fire, And All Is Mounted On The Wall."

The words disappeared and no others came to replace them.

Raya stood for a moment and let everything sink. Then she ran as fast as she could out of the Girls' dormitories and out of the common room and into the hallway. Carefully avoiding the Prefects she made her silently to the library. She opened the doors and made sure they didn't make a sound when she shut them.

She made her way into the Restricted Section.

She took out her wand and muttered a spell: Expiscor (A searching charm).

Immediately a bookshelf in the farthest corner lit up gold. Raya walked over to it. The books where all about the same subjects: other worlds, transportation into them, and next to these where books on secret passages in Hogwarts.

Then Ray whispered two other spells: Diffindo and Silencio

The chains enclosing the books slowly shrunk away and all the books that would have yelled where silenced.

She then began to search through the books for the ones she needed.

She began at the top.

She searched through all the books about other worlds.

"Kobalos, no, Novia, where's Novia?" Raya was speaking to herself when she found it, "Novia, The World of the Ancients."

Raya set the book down on the bench in front of her as she searched for another book. About Transportations.

Finally after much searching she found a book she thought would be of some help, "Transportation into the Ancient Worlds."

She put this book down on top of the last.

After another long search she found another book, that she knew was perfect for her purpose, "Hogwarts' Secret Chambers: Unknown even to the Headmaster."

"Excellent," said Raya and she slipped the books under her coat and made her way out of the Restricted Section.

She sat herself down at a table in the main part of the library and cast an invisibility charm around her for until the night was over and she was allowed to be in the library.

After breakfast Hermione, Ron, Harry, Ginny, Neville, and Luna all breathed a sigh of relief that it was the weekend.

"Thank God!" said Ginny, on their way to the library, "I don't think I can stand one more class with Snape barking orders at me left and right."

"I know what you mean," said Ron, opening the library door, "after this library visit I'm not looking at one book all weekend!

"What!" cried Hermione, "How is that possible?"

"Believe me Hermione, for anyone but you it's defiantly possible," said Ron.

"Hey," said Luna softly, "Harry, look."

Harry looked over to see his sister.

"Wow!" said Neville, "we haven't seen her for a while!"

Raya now sat in a secluded corner with her nose in a large, thick book.

"What do you suppose she's looking up?" asked Hermione.

"I'm not sure," said Harry, "but I suppose if she hasn't tried to talk to us yet, she doesn't feel like talking yet."

"I guess you're right," said Ron, "we can invite her to eat with us tonight though, just to let her know that we still care about her."

"Good idea," said Ginny.

Hermione walked over to the Potion section and took the book that all the seventh years needed for their weekend Potions homework and the friends left with one last glance towards Raya.

Raya however did not notice them there. She had found what she had been looking for. She had her nose buried in "Hogwarts' Secret Chambers Unknown even to the Headmaster." She had found a passage that told her everything she needed to know.

"The chosen one will be shown the message; the warrior from the world of Novia. And in the Labyrinth she will be tested of her skill and if she succeeds in the tests she will be presented with the book that contains all the secrets of the mysterious worlds and different dimensions. With her she will bring a companion that is of Novia and is not of Novia. The Labyrinth lies behind the tapestry of the Unicorn, Griffin, and the Dragon hanging on a wall in the third floor corridor.

The warrior will be tested of her strength, logic, agility, compassion, endurance, honor, loyalty, and will to sacrifice. Eight tests to prove whether the warrior is worthy enough to read the Book of Secrets, kept from the human eye for so long."

"That's it," breathed Raya, and she stood up and ran out of the library despite the yells from Madam Pince telling her to put the books back.

Raya ran through Hogwarts and out into the courtyard. There was Andreanna, the Novian, speaking lightly with Riley Ahearn of Hufflepuff.

"Andreanna!" called Raya and she ran up to the pair. "Hello Riley."

"Hello," said Riley, his large dark eyes twinkling lightly.

"Andreanna, I must speak with you," said Raya, then casting an apologetic look towards Riley, "alone."

Andreanna said goodbye to Riley and she and Raya departed.

"What do you need?" asked Andreanna. "Is anything the matter?"

"I need your help," said Raya.

"Of course," said Andreanna, "anything."

"Are you sure?" asked Raya, "I am going to ask of you a high favor."

"What is it?" asked Andreanna.

Raya looked about her, as if checking then in a whispered voice said, "Amin anta lle tua yassen e guldur templa." (I need your help with a magic travel).

"Mani uma lle merna amin ten'?" asked Andreanna. (What do you want me for?)

"Ta kwentra amin e' e mahana," explained Raya (It told me in a message), "tanya amin ron anta er tanya nae en Novia ar' nae n'en Novia." (that I would need one that was of Novia and is not of Novia).

"Ar' tanya et amin ten' amin n'uma bara e' Novia ae' amin naa Novian," said Andreanna nodding her head. (And that is me for I do not dwell in Novia but I am Novian).

"Exactly," said Raya, and they found themselves on a deserted staircase. "I need to go on a mission through a maze found in the center of Hogwarts, underground. In which I will find the Book of Secrets."

"The Book of Secrets!" exclaimed Andreanna, her eyes widening, "you dare to take the quest. Many have tried and none have survived."

"None of them were the chosen one," said Raya, "I was shone the message. Because I bare the Stone of Novia."

And Raya lifted the green gem out of her pocket.

Andreanna gingerly, and with a shaky hand, placed her fingertips atop the stone only to jerk back quickly.

"I will help you," said Andreanna, after gazing at the stone for a long while. "Do you know how to get to the maze?"

"The book said it was on a tapestry in the third floor corridor," said Raya and she and Andreanna climbed the rest of the stairs up to the third floor.

They quickly opened the door and stepped inside the forbidden corridor. As soon as they took another step inside the passageway, all the torches lit up.

"Well, that's better," said Andreanna, looking towards Raya optimistically.

They walked down the hallway, hearing their footsteps echo on the stone floor, and resonate in the silence.

"Here it is," said Raya, and they stood before a tapestry.

The tapestry was made of a heavy golden fabric and covered a large section of the wall. In the tapestry there was a pond surrounded by beautiful flowers. There was a unicorn also, taking a drink the tip of its horn just touching the water, making ripples in the fabric water. And a Griffin there was at the other side of the pond on its hind feet clawing playfully at the sky. And in the sky, above the unicorn, was a dragon breathing a red silk stream of fire from its mouth.

"This is it," said Raya to the tapestry, then she turned to look at Andreanna, "it has everything that the message said."

"Alright," said Andreanna, "we've found it. Now did the message say anything about how to open it."

"No," said Raya, "I wonder if it even needs any special thing to open it. What if we just pulled it aside."

She stepped forward and pulled back at the side of the tapestry. It pulled away easily revealing what looked like a map of Novia engraved in the wall.

"Okay," said Andreanna, "the tapestry wasn't the hard part. I'm guessing this is the stumper part of the puzzle."

"I guess so," said Raya, "neither the message or the book that I read said anything about this. They just said the Labyrinth lies behind the tapestry."

"What are we going to do?" asked Andreanna, and she began running her hands over the engraved wall, trying to see if there was a level or a secret knot or anything to open up the wall.

"I'm not sure," said Raya, "Maybe…maybe it needs a password."

"And how do we find that?" asked Andreanna, "there are a lot of words and chances are likely that we aren't going to be able to just guess it."

"Well you must know something about this, this Labyrinth was made by your people," said Raya, "you must have some idea to what the password might be."

"Sorry," said Andreanna, her hands fell to her sides and she stepped back, "unless the password is 'Open Sesame' I'm fresh out of ideas."

And with that the ground started to shake slightly and both girls' attention turned to the wall map which was parting down the middle. Soon the map had disappeared into the walls on either side of it and in its place was a pitch-black tunnel.

"Open Sesame?" said Raya, looking at Andreanna.

"I didn't make the password," said Andreanna and they stepped into the darkness.

They walked down the tunnel a couple of steps when both girls felt a steep incline in the tunnel.

"Wait," said Raya, "probably best to have a little light."

Raya took out her wand, "Lumos."

They looked around them and saw that it was no different than any other underground tunnel. They took another step, and suddenly there was no more floor.

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