FIDGET, BATRISHAN PRINCE OF DARKNESS
The Quest For Darkness
A rather ghastly memory, really. It had barely been two to four weeks since the codfish's blasted lover amputated his right leg and Fidget's peg leg was still killing him. The carpenter who managed to carve a peg leg out of enchanted pine for the Batrishan had warned the latter that it would take a while for the artificial limb to connect with the actual flesh and bone and eventually make one. While he was grateful to avoid relying on only one foot, Fidget's mind was still boiling with rage.
"A wing ripped by a codfish and now a leg amputated," he grumbled underneath his black cloak. The sky was dark and clouds covered the full moon as Fidget crossed the bricked road in order to reach the pub's door. Good thing that the local town had no resident going out at night; otherwise they'd mistake him for a creature of the devil going out to seek mischief.
Technically, it was half true: he did look scary with his Batrishan features, his wing brace, and his peg leg. And he was heading towards the Leaking Cauldron, the one area where mere humans were afraid to step in.
He pushed the old door open and stepped into the dark, shabby pub and inn, full of magic users and other unholy humanoids that Fidget would have never encountered back in Aldorada due to his old country's religion. No one seemed to notice or care that a figure bundled up in a black cloak and making odd stomping noises with his peg leg as it headed towards the bar. They probably thought that he was just another customer or traveler coming in for a drink.
True, Fidget would have never believed that he'd one day step into a pub full of witchcraft in order to seek certain answers for his quest to obtain revenge. But as they say, desperate times called for desperate measures.
"Welcome to the Leaky Cauldron," the barman said as Fidget sat at the bar. "My name is Tom. What can I serve you? Butterbeer? Pumpkin Juice? Firewhisky? Or perhaps Gillywater?" To answer Tom's question, Fidget tossed out of his cloak a small bag full of hundreds of golden coins onto the counter. The money's golden shine glimmered in the barman's eyes.
"Firewhisky and information on where I can find the Valley of A Thousand Whispers in exchange for all that money," Fidget said quietly. Tom said nothing at first. He briefly turned his back on the cloaked customer before giving the latter a mug full of firewhisky and taking the bag of coins.
"My cousin Darnell works in the Untold Secrets Archives underneath Flourish & Blotts, the local bookstore for wizards. Only in the Archives can anyone find mystical secrets, such as the place you seek, that are forbidden to the public's ears," Tom whispered to Fidget. "If you really wish to risk life in the prison of Azkaban, then you'll have to go to Diagon Alley during the witching hour and head straight to Flourish & Blotts. Darnell works there 7 days a week, so he'll be the only one left in the store. You'll know it's him when you see the complete whiteness in his eyes and he'll ask you what wind brings you here to Flourish & Blotts. If you tell him that it's the zephyr seeking desire banging on the glass of his windows. Darnell will instantly know you want to visit the Archives. He might ask you a price for it, though."
"I'll handle it," Fidget said through underneath his cloak. "How can I get to Diagon Alley?"
"We have a secret entrance in each of the Leaky Cauldron's restrooms in case human mobs ever attack us. You literally have to flush yourself into the handicapped toilet."
"It shouldn't be that horrible." The Batrishan took a large sip of his firewhisky as a toast to the quest that would eventually lead him to his revenge.
Around midnight
"It was horrible," Fidget muttered to himself as he lifted himself up from the dirty street pavement. Honestly, he didn't believe that Tom meant it when he said that you needed to flush yourself into the handicapped toilet. Right after Fidget finished his hot firewhisky, he went to the pub's male restroom and sat on the handicapped toilet, which literally sucked him once he pulled down the handle. After going through circles of toilet water pipes, Fidget had arrived in a silent Diagon Alley with his body soaked of the ghastly water he hoped to never bathe in ever again.
He eventually found Flourish & Blotts, a small shop with large windows revealing the inside's massive collection of books. It would have been hard to notice the small staircase and cash register with all those books covering nearly every inch of the store.
Fidget opened the door, releasing one of the doorbell's small rings. Now that he was inside, he could definetly smell the odor of old parchment, sandalwood, and polished wood.
He walked towards the cash register, where a chocolate-colored skin man dressed in a wizard's black robe and a white hat similar to a kufi.
"What wind brings you here to Flourish & Blotts?" he asked. He lifted his head towards the cloaked Batrishan and revealed his eyes...white and blank as marble. So that was Darnell, Tom's cousin. How the white barman ever managed to have a blind, black cousin was quite a question for Fidget's mind.
"It's the zephyr seeking desire banging on the glass of his windows," Fidget said. Darnell simply nodded and made a hand gesture, indicating Fidget to follow him, as he got up and led Fidget towards the next room of the store. They went through a maze of stacked books and tables until they stopped in front of a large mirror. At first, Fidget didn't understand why they were facing their reflections until he noticed Darnell pulling out a necklace with a pendant made out of a glass shard from underneath his collar. He bent down and placed the shard onto the mirror's bottom right corner, right where a mirror shard shaped exactly like the pendant was missing. Once the mirror and the pendant made contact, a humming noise similar to those coming from organs was heard, and the mirror's glass began to dissolve, revealing a dark passage with a staircase going downward.
"Crafty," Fidget commented. Darnell pulled out a wand, summoned a ball of light from it, and guided Fidget down the stairs while the glass reappeared behind them.
"Isn't it?" Darnell said proudly. "The Untold Secret Archives needs some serious security for protection. As you've probably been told, it's not an ordinary library with ordinary information meant for anyone. Why, Flourish & Blotts would be ruined if our Ministry Of Magic ever discovered the Archives!" After walking down what seemed to be endless stairs, they eventually arrived on solid ground. With the wand's ball of light, they could see some books in large bookshelves that seemed to move...literally...in order to create changing maze patterns.
"How come the bookshelves are moving?" Fidget asked as Darnell cautiously guided him through the maze.
"For inner security. Should a thief be able to break through our mirror entrance, then he'll end up lost in this moving maze with no way out forever." They passed a few skeletons on the floor, thus indicating that there have been several attempts to rob from the library. One skeleton seemed to be tangled in some sort of yarn thread, which made Fidget guess that even Ariadne's thread couldn't beat the maze. "So, what kind of secret information do you seek?"
"I seek something that could help me find the Valley of A Thousand Whispers," Fidget answered.
Darnell chuckled in amusement. "You're searching for Bartok Ashiva Rex?"
"What makes you say that?" Fidget clung on to the sword hidden underneath his cloak...just in case he needed to pull it out.
"Bartok is the only person crazy enough to live there. The Batrishan spent so many centuries alive, watching life come and go peacefully or violently, and the one place he chose as both exile and sanctuary is a subtropical desert almost drier than the one of Agrabah itself and with wind blowing sounds barely louder than whispers." He stopped in front of an aisle of scrolls and pulled out a sandy yellow colored one.
"Fitting name for the valley." Fidget shrugged. "How long has he lived there?"
"Hard to say." Darnell unrolled the scroll and had a glance at it. "Last time I heard, he might have been there since 1431 after his friend Joan got burned at the stake. I think they might have been lovers." He shook it off and showed Fidget the scroll, which revealed a map of a desert hidden in a mountain range. "The Valley of A Thousand Whispers is hidden in these mountains in the South-Western Hemisphere. My advice would be that you follow the sunset in order to get there."
"At what price may I have the scroll?" Fidget asked. He began to look through his cloak for his other set of money until he felt his hood being pulled off and Darnell snatching a piece of the Batrishan's dark hair.
"OUCH!" Fidget yelped. "What was that for?"
"For paying your price," Darnell shrugged. He pulled out a vial from his robe and placed the hair in it, causing a violet aura to appear in it. "Batrishan hair is worth a lot of money in the black market these days."
"And you simply couldn't ask me to give you a piece of my hair?" Fidget hissed.
"What can I say? I'm a man of humor."
Fidget grumbled to himself, but said nothing. After all, both of them had obtained what they wanted. Darnell led Fidget out of the Untold Secrets Archives and back to Flourish & Blotts. The two shook hands and went their separate ways, with Darnell staying in the bookstore and Fidget making his way back to the Leaky Cauldron before eventually flying off to his quest.
Meanwhile, Darnell observed the violet aura that was moving and circulating the Batrishan's hair like mist above a bog within the vial. The wizard's hands could feel a powerful force coming from the vial as his skin touched the glass.
"That's quite an aura of dark magic," a voice commented. Darnell turned to see a dark-hearted man sitting near the counter, reading a book. "I must admit: for a Batrishan, it's unusually dark and...so powerful."
"Does he even know how to use it, Lord Zoso?" Darnell asked as he watched the Dark One shut the book and put it on the counter.
"Unfortunately no," Zoso sighed. "To think that such potential in darkness is lurking in him, waiting to wake up...Of course, he does have darkness exposing itself currently. But it's not enough."
"Perhaps you can motivate him to succumb?" Darnell suggested as he handed the vial to the Dark One. The latter smirked as he watched the vial's aura.
"No. He will be the one making his own darkness, a darkness much more powerful than the Dark One's. That is what the Fates' have assigned Fidget, or as they dubbed him, the Batrishan Prince Of Darkness."
"And Ashiva in all of this?"
"Ashiva is a patient one. He knows and tells Fidget's patron what he thinks is best for his descendant. Of course, the above has advised me to use this to locate an extra key that will unlock the door to the Batrishan's triumph." Zoso held the vial in the air when he said the word 'this'.
"And the extra key will be?" Darnell waited eagerly.
"A person that will aid the Batrishan in his lust for revenge leading to his soul consumed by power," Zoso cackled. "My future reincarnation. Rumplestiltskin."