Smolder
By Kukaburry
Chapter 5 - Tomb Raiders
Gray, swirling mist enveloped everyone and a roaring sensation nearly exploded their eardrums. Seconds, or maybe hours later, dry heat replaced the cool dampness of England. The heat burned Arie's lungs and she began coughing, trying to regain the air that had escaped from her chest. At the end of Arie's third cough the vortex stopped whirring, the roaring died away, and the earth leapt up to slam into her legs, knocking her knees into loose sand. Muggles walking between the pyramids ignored the group that appeared out of thin air.
Heavy beams of light reflected off the sand, temporarily blinding Arie and the rest of the group except Cole who had the sense to wear sunglasses. Eyes adjusting to the light, Arie finally threw a hand on her brow to block the intense rays and was completely winded by the vision before her. The Pyramids were colossal, far more impressive than her mind had ever imagined.
"If everyone is finished gawking, we have people waiting for us at the pyramid over there."
Arie turned to behind them and and surprisingly found a sprawling city only a few hundred meters from where they stood. For years she had imagined the pyramids out in the most remote regions of the desert, yet she realized they would have been erected near civilizations for easy access. The muggles had raised large gates to block entrance from the pyramids, but they didn't notice the magical wards thrown all over the area to keep them from wandering into danger. The second pyramid had looked close enough, but after a kilometer it seemed liked they weren't getting any closer.
"Do we need to take a break?" Cole asked, looking at the worn out expressions on Arie and Bob's faces.
Both she and Bob piped up 'No', even though their bodies protested. "Why can't we apparate there?" Arie huffed between steps.
"They don't allow any use of transportation spells within this area to stop people from looting some of the more precious items stored in the pyramids."
"You mean like gold?"
A secretive smile appeared on Cole's face. "Among other things."
Twenty minutes later they entered one of the greatest monuments in the world. "Welcome, we're glad you could make it," a petite woman in her early forties met them near the entrance. Two wizards stood guard on either side of the door. "If you could each drop your wands into the box here so we can clear you." Arie, third in line, watched Bob and Tash drop their wands in the bucket. The woman looked at a small screen in front of her after muttering several inaudible spells.
After everyone's approval into the pyramid, a tall, slender man with thinning hair, droopy eyes, and saggy skin commanded them to follow him into a lower chamber. He introduced himself as Geb. "Security has been tightened up around here. We have wards on most of the major chambers and many of the passageways are impassable. I'm sure all of you noticed a pyramid directly behind this one, it is a decoy version of this pyramid we have set up for the muggles to stop them from destroying historical documents."
Arie wondered what was so important in these pyramids that they would go to such lengths to keep it secret. Cole's comment of 'among other things' led her to believe that beneath her feet there were very dangerous magical artifacts. The object of her thoughts began walking in-step with her, but continued to look straight ahead.
"You will be working in the second oldest antechamber we have been able to secure." Arie's ears perked up at 'secured'. Definitely something dangerous in this pyramid. "We have patrols every few hours, so please don't wander. If they catch you in restricted areas we will send you for immediate detention at the Egyptian ministry." He paused and gave a yellow-toothed smile. "Trust me, you don't want to deal with them." The path winded hundreds of meters downwards. At one juncture Geb stopped everyone suddenly and told them to lay flat on the ground. A sudden gust blew everyone's hair and a ghostly whisper hmmd in their ears. Arie looked to the right and found Cole looking directly at her with a conspiratorial smile on his lips and she gave him a small smile of her own, finally feeling a sense of excitement replace her feeling of wonderment. The rest of their journey was uneventful in comparison.
"We're here," Geb announced. Fine layers of dust drifted up with every step they took through the chamber. Arie felt slightly let down at the lack of splendour, but felt awed at the amount of writing on the walls. Light emitted from a large orb floating around the ceiling. "Just so you know the orb will match the light from outside. It will change for night and day. I know you are all probably tired from your trip," he looked around at their drained faces, "so we have set up your tent over here. I would recommend an hour nap, nothin' longer, then I can go over our mission here."
Two halves split the tent. The first half belonged to the women and the second half belonged to the men, much to their disappointment. There was only five rooms available for the men so they had to divide rooms evenly meaning the twins got one room, Bob and Marty got another, while Tash, Sull, and Cole got their own rooms. The men also had to deal with sharing one bathroom while the women each got their own bathrooms. After crying 'sexism' for several minutes, the men finally settled down and accepted that life wasn't fair.
Arie pulled the drape over her doorway, took off her shorts, and slipped into bed where she fell asleep instantly. What felt like seconds later, she awoke to the sound of Geb yelling at everyone to meet him in the dining room. "How many rooms are in this bloody tent?" Arie asked herself aloud. She nearly smacked into Nina as she fumbled through her door cover. "'Scuse me."
Tash, Nina, Arie, Bob and Marty were all sleepy-eyed, Sull, Dave, Henry, and Cole looked like they hadn't shut their eyes in the past hour. "So, I know you are all excited about what we are all doing in this area." Nine blank stares looked back at him. "What we're doing is trying to decode the third and fourth wall. We've been working on it for the past three years, but you'll see why we've had trouble with it. These walls need to be decoded as soon as possible because, and this must be kept confidential, we think these runes are the link to a new set of spells. Spells unlike any we've ever found before. These spells were known by the elite wizards only. Arie and Nina, from what I've heard you two you would be familiar with the pharaohs and wizards. The pharaohs used the wizards to make their people believe that they were gods. The power of these wizards is well beyond anything current wizards are capable of."
Arie leaned forward, heart racing in anticipation. "We think we have finally found the spells that these wizards possessed right here in this room." A collective gasp met his statement. "We've brought you in because you are a collection of the best runes decoders, history experts, and spell decoders we could find." Arie looked around the circle and wondered what expertise the others had. "Now, we found out that the Runes shift three times a day, so you will all be working in shifts of three."
"I have given Marty the pairings to assign later." His face became grim. "Now, I need to discuss a few rules we have here. I'm afraid that all contact with you will be cut. No owls. No house elves. No mirrors. Your possessions are currently being searched," he gestured to a medium-height wizard standing guard at the entrance to the dining room. "This is entirely for your safety. There are dark wizards out there who would love to get their hands on this find." His eyes dared anyone to objects. "The second rule is that you must remain down here unless there is an escort. Someone will be here daily, if we can afford it. We have very little funding available to us, and we are short on men as it is. Do not attempt to get out yourself or you will find yourself in grave peril. We have lost better witches and wizards than yourselves to stupidity."
"Are we being treated like prisoners?" Sull asked, voice low and angry.
"Of course not. Like I said, you are free to walk the Pyramids, but the only safe area is this room. Even then, things can wander in here." The hair on Aries arms stood on end, and a thick silence overtook everyone. "So I encourage you to wait for a guide to lead you back."
Cole spoke up from the other end of the table. "Can I offer more galleons in exchange for a guard 24 hours?"
"You have already been more than generous by funding this search, Mr. Carver. I'm afraid that money isn't the only issue here. People are getting scared off by the legends surrounding the pyramids. Local wizards hold a stronger belief in them than anyone else, and since our government is restricting travel from abroad, I'm afraid we can't keep up the supply of workers in the pyramids."
Everyone else continued to listen to Geb's warning about the pyramids, but Arie's brain remained on Cole's last name. She had heard the name multiple times in the same way as Fred's: In Witch Weekly's young entrepreneur's category. Cole Carver owned a dozen companies at the tender age of thirty-one. He also knew more about historical artifacts than even Professor Binns, and he probably knew how to decode ruins just as well as Arie. Fred and George had always joked that the only reason he made Witch Weekly more than they did was because he was prettier than them. After seeing Cole in the flesh, she had to agree with their argument, he was more attractive. Catching her staring at him, Cole winked and Arie couldn't help blushing at this boldness.
"We will start at eight in the morning tomorrow. We have the earlier work written for you to study tonight. Get to know each other."
Marty spoke up. "We can tell each other about ourselves at dinner. Geb has copies of the first two rune walls for you here. We can eat lunch now and read through everything."
Food appeared on the table and Arie was suddenly struck with a strange longing to be back at Hogwarts, but the feeling drifted away after a few minutes. After lunch, Arie took a copy of the runes and studied them in her room. Even though she had the decoding on another page, she tried to challenge herself to decode it. If there was one thing she prided herself in, it was hard work. Five hours later, and a couple of peeks at her cheat sheet, Arie had the first wall and part of the second decoded. It was not consistent with runes she had studied before, it had multiple meanings, like riddles, written within many of the sentences. The creatures, sphinxes, suddenly made much more sense to Arie.
The aroma of fresh baked potatoes caused her stomach to growl. Stretching her back and arms, she stood and headed to the dinner table. Everyone except Nina and Tash were present, already feasting on hot, steaming food. "Where's Geb?" She asked, sitting between Marty and Bob.
"He left to go home. He said we're on our own until the morning."
Tash and Nina arrived a couple of minutes later, then Marty clinked a glass to get everyone's attention. "How about we go around the table and introduce ourselves? I'll start. I'm Marty Leibowitz and I come from London. I've studied runes for the past three years since I left Hogwarts. I'm leading the runes team at the British Ministry of Magic."
Sull was from Russia and had been an auror for fifteen years before switching to magic decoding. Nina was from Spain and worked in the British Ministry as a historian, she also admitted that she had been seeing Tash for the past couple of years. Tash was from London and had been in the department of magical decoding for more than a decade. Arie wondered why she had never seen either of them before, but then she remembered that the Ministry had over twenty thousand people working for it. The twins were originally from Ireland, but had grown up in the Netherlands and attended Durmstrang. Henry was a historian and Dave was a magic decoder. Cole, of course, was a historian. Bob went into a ten minute story about year-long stint as an auror and how he lost the tip of nose in a fight against a dragon.
Finally Arie found herself in the spotlight. "I'm Arie Williams. I'm from a little town in England. I work with Bob and Marty in the runes department and I was in classes with Marty at Hogwarts."
Dave piped up with a little joke. "So you're not going to tell us that you and Marty are dating?"
Marty saved Arie from replying by laughing and saying, "No. She's dating the famous Fred Weasley." The grin on his face told Arie that he knew otherwise.
"I'm not dating anyone you idiot," Arie snapped. "Don't go talking for other people Liebowitz. I know some pretty good hexes that I want to try out."
"Children, children," Cole interrupted Arie's threats. "Do I need to put you two in time out?"
Arie glared at him. "Thanks dad."
"How about I just tell everyone who they're working with before Arie sets fire to someone."
"Does that happen often?" Henry asked curiously.
Only to people who deserve it," Arie replied half-jokingly. Cole eyed her with increasing interest.
"So, we have Sull, me, and Henry. Tash, Nina, and Bob." Looking around, Arie knew who she was getting put with. "That leaves Dave, Arie, and Cole." As much as she didn't want to admit it, the idea of working with Cole excited her. Similar thoughts must have gone through Cole's head since he met her eyes with a heated stare. This project would prove very interesting, indeed.
Another day, another chapter. I rewrote this one a couple of times to set up the right tone. I think I got it finally. Let me know how you guys are liking it! ~Kukaburry