Harry amidst the Vaults of Stone

Chapter 15

The wizard's comet-spangled robes flapped at his heels as he exited, and there followed a deep silence.

"What I like about Dumbledore," Badluk said eventually, "Is that he at least has the capability to be candid. That said, it still comes as a refreshing surprise when he does choose to speak plainly."

Only Gurmsalt, Bogripple and Badluk had been present for the meeting. Badluk often wondered whether the dark-eyed Bogripple ever slept.

"Duplicitous, yes, and utterly self-serving, yes. But at least he is upfront with us about his duplicity and his dedication to his own goals. I have no doubt he is considerably less open in his political dealings amongst his own kind."

The other two goblins nodded.

"What I like about Albus Dumbledore," King Gurmsalt said, "is that he would prefer that Harry Potter live with us than with his closest magical relatives through the Black line, House Malfoy. I like this very much, because this is a preference I myself share."

"I assume that underscored his actions in originally leaving Harry with his muggle relatives," Badluk said.

Manager Bogripple said nothing for a while, and then excused himself. "I believe I need to check what news could be of such import that it forced Dumbledore to leave us abruptly in the middle of a meeting he asked for."

Black folded the newspaper in a swift motion, his face wrinkling into a frown. It was a rather different face than the one the world had traditionally associated with Azkaban escapee, Sirius Black. It was a little fuller, a little neater. It had a few more lines, but less hollow eyes and a more pensive expression. A change in eye colour and the appearance of a braided blonde beard to match his new hairstyle were also prominent amongst the changes that had been made over the last few months.

Eventually his expression changed again and he let out a short bark of nervous laughter. Goblins, huh? Funny how his mind kept turning back to that. His crazy cousin Bella was a more pressing concern, but... huh. Goblins.

Well, there was only one way he could go up against a tough mob like that. Judging by a few carefully-worded quotes, the old man seemed to have come out neutral in the shouting match that the issue had become, but still. Time to take a chance with his trust, and write back to Dumbledore.

"Did you see those phosphorescent mangroves? We're almost in the Monsaic Tunnels now," Ratspan said warningly from behind Harry. "We should turn back and take one of the loop paths."

Harry sneered, hastening his stride. In one hand he gripped his staff, and the other was held stiffly on the pommel of the long knife thrust through his belt. "What's wrong with the Monsaic Tunnels?"

His goblin companion suddenly grabbed him by the collar and spun him around. "Harry! What is wrong with you today? Eat a bad bug or something?"

A fat spark leaped from the end of Harry's white oak staff and grounded itself on the cavern floor. The human boy looked shocked for a moment, before his scowl returned and he looked back up at his friend.

"What. What's wrong with you?"

"Harry. We can't hunt in there."

Harry tried to shake him off, frowning. "Because the caverns exist in a precious state of untouched nature, yes?"

Ratspan dug in his heels, refusing to release his grip. "No. Because we'll die."

"Oh, come on. What are you afraid of?"

"Hodags, grippers, giant cave crocodiles, knids, shambling mounds, flocks of firebats, and ypotryll," the goblin boy promptly rattled off. "Death bottles, ophiotauruses, mandrakes bigger than I am, questing beasts, cavern wyverns, subterranean swampuses, joint snakes-"

"We'd be safe with joint snakes," Harry interjected. He relaxed very slightly, and let go of his staff, which stayed balanced upright on the rough rock floor. "And I'd like a chance to try to talk to a wyvern, just to confirm that Parseltongue doesn't work on them."

Ratspan stared at him for a moment, then released his companion's collar and continued. "...giant squonks, clawed cave tortoises, bloodflowers, deathgleaners, pretty much everything else with 'death' right there in its name, hidebehinds, ilithids, slithersuckers-"

Harry folded his arms. "Half of these things are extinct, you realise."

"No, you mean that half of these things have not recently been seen by anyone who has then lived to tell of it."

"You're getting hysterical."

"I'm not going in the Monsaic Tunnels," Ratspan said flatly.

Harry shrugged, picked up his staff again, and made to turn back in the direction they had been heading. "Fine."

"And neither are you. Come on, Harry, we'll take the Red Flint Loop, come out near Boulderclaw, and see what we can bag on the way back." The goblin poked him in the side with the butt of his spear.

Harry bared his teeth, still scowling, but Ratspan stared him down.

"Fine," he repeated eventually.

They turned, and walked back in silence for a while.

"So... this latest wizard business is causing you trouble, yes?" the goblin asked cautiously.

Harry missed a step, then kept walking. His fist was clenched tightly around his staff. "What do you mean?"

Ratspan's orange eyes flickered across to him. "The wizards above kick up a rockfall about you living here, that dark witch escapes, possibly to hunt you down... then you apparently show a real interest in hunting for the first time, and you're increasingly reckless about it. It's not hard to see that you're stressed, afraid, and lashing out."

Harry sneered, but said nothing.

After a few minutes, he admitted, "Okay, maybe. People are terrified of this Bellatrix Lestrange. It's far worse than when Black escaped. Even Badluk was talking about keeping me below the bank for a while, and maybe even cancelling that thing they're organising for the newspapers. I'm just nervous, alright?"

The goblin shot him an odd look. "You're safer in Underfoot than anywhere. I just don't think that placing yourself in danger by trying to stalk the Monsaic Tunnels is a reasonable response to the security risk."

"At least it's a productive use of my time," Harry grumbled.

"You don't even like red meat. Your teeth are too blunt to handle it."

"Yes I do and no they're not. What are you, my guardian?"

"If I was, I'd have beat the stupid out of you by now."

"Pah. You couldn't beat pig iron with a troll to help you hammer."

"You're the troll."

"Ooh, witty. You're just jealous that you don't have a dark witch after you. What are you grinning at, anyway?"

"Nothing. You- look out!"

"What?" Harry turned, and the creature bore him to the ground with a painful crash.

In Diagon Alley, half a mile above, shoppers wrapped their cloaks about them and hurried away from the circuitously patrolling Aurors. Each red-robed trio shepherded a shackled Dementor between them, in case of Lestrange sightings.

The word on the frightened lips of the public was "attacks", and the mood was one of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Bellatrix Lestrange had a Reputation, with a capital R. Attacks were her speciality; attacks of any sort. She could not be said to be big on anything else.

Revelations about Harry Potter's home life had been well and truly overshadowed: yesterday's news.

Bill Weasley stuffed his folded newspaper into his pocket and turned away from the Wanted posters in the shop window. The notices showed mug shot after mug shot of an insane Lestrange, "mass murderer", each cackling in silent synchrony. The vista of black-and-white madness was broken only by the occasional offer of reward for news of one Sirius Black, "accomplice". The default assumption was that he helped his fellow Death Eater escape.

Bill hurried towards the Leaky Cauldron, skirting nervously around the pacing Dementors and the red-robed magic users metaphorically nipping at their undead heels.

Seeing them up close was ...not pleasant.

There was a new contract on the Gringotts books to test the new wards on Azkaban prison. Well-paid, but somehow, he didn't feel like he'd be joining that team.

Harry blinked away the flashing lights, and gasped for breath as some monstrous creature scrabbled at his chest, eerily silent in its attack.

"Harry! Move, you-"

He rolled clumsily aside, catching a glimpse of a glittering grey surface and collecting a powerful kick in the ribs for his trouble. Harry managed to scramble upright as warm blood splashed across his wrist.

He had no idea what had attacked them; the tunnel was barely lit by the faint luminescence of distant mushrooms. Harry held his staff carefully in front of him as he scrabbled for his glasses. When he managed to replace them on his nose, the darksight charm kicked in, and he saw a large, mottled grey shape lying on its side on the tunnel floor, kicking its legs fitfully. It blended in perfectly with the cavern floor.

Ratspan's spear was buried in the creature's neck. The goblin boy was bending over, hands on his thighs, panting heavily.

After checking his companion wasn't wounded, Harry crouched down beside the dying animal. He rubbed absently at his left side, where its foot had connected. That was probably going to bruise, despite the leather.

"Cavern chameleon. I've heard about these." Harry stared into the bulbous yellow eyes of the creature as it bled out.

"Hoggle the Earthy has one as a pet," Ratspan gasped, slumping to the ground. "Nowhere near as big. Eats bugs. Possibly people too. Have to ask him later."

The human boy cautiously reached out towards the lizard, which was larger than he was, and lifted one of its feet. When he looked at it against the dim light from distant tunnel end, it immediately took on a greenish colour.

There was the metallic noise of Ratspan drawing his knife, practical as ever. "We'll each haul back a haunch and a section of tail. And I'll take the skin, thank you. Katlok will be able to do something with it. She's thinking of being a leatherworker, or maybe an armourer."

"Shutz's sister? Tailoring does seem to run in their family." Harry turned on the magnification charm on his glasses and looked at the giant chameleon's toes in fascination. Then he recognised the tone of his friend's voice. "Ohhhh. You like her, yes?"

"No."

"Yeah, you like her."

"She's just a really good friend."

"Sure." Harry reluctantly let go of the creature's limb, and drew his own knife to help with the butchering – a tedious process made only slightly faster by goblin-charms. "Can I've just a bit of the skin, though? Off the feet, perhaps?"

"Yeah, sure. Where was your snake, anyway?" Ratstpan asked. "She usually keeps an eye out for nonsense like this."

"Prettyroot decided to stay home."

"Why?"

Harry finally flashed a small grin, the first of the morning. "She didn't want to go outside with me when I was 'like an avalanche'."

"Mother-rusting snake is smarter than you are."

Five goblins sat in an office, drinking, smoking or standing patiently, depending on their preference.

"This Lestrange business could not have come at a worse time, could it?" Gurmsalt grumbled. "There's been a nest of spider trolls sighted on the west side of Outer Underfoot, just next to Cutmythroat Ravine."

Shindig of the International Department raised an eyebrow. "Why is that a problem? Send in the guards, and be sure to cut off their heads so they don't regenerate."

"Jeervis has submitted a request to the Council that he be allowed to capture them and see if they can be trained to serve."

"You mean Jeervis the Foolhardy?"

"Do you know any other Jeervis who would want to catch a potentially deadly, relatively unheard-of species, and train them as butlers?"

"Ah."

King Gurmsalt got up from his seat and poked moodily at the fire. "Are our security concerns all addressed, then?"

Spinkrod, never one to waste a word, nodded.

"Redsteel, Spinkrod and I have spoken to all the guards individually," Bogripple added.

"Where is Redsteel, anyway? Dumbledore remembered to ask after her."

"Still with Commander Flaghaggard."

"Hmmm."

Gurmsalt turned to the fifth goblin in the room, who tamped a pinch of valley herb into his pipe and nodded back. "Sibilig has met with the Head Warder, too," Badluk said. "I think all is as locked down as it could be. There is no whisper of the Lestrange witch, though. Or Black."

"I find I must agree with you: it is a refreshing surprise when Dumbledore is open with us. In fact, I confess I found it quite entertaining to hear him lay out why he thought the escapee Black is innocent, and how he could have come to be imprisoned in the first place. On the other hand, I am utterly unastonished to hear that this new Minister is refusing to listen about it. One felon helping another break out, despite the government's best efforts, is so much a better story than two unrelated escapes from the inescapable prison."

"People do like to think in stories," Bogripple muttered.

"Fudge appears to be keeping up the fine traditions of every Minister Of One Narrow Area Of Magic to date," Badluk said dryly. "What did Dumbledore call him? A cat's paw for the old blood, yes?"

"Yes."

"If Dumbledore is so very, very reliable and trustworthy, then what of this 'special business' of his?" Shindig asked, an extra frown in his cracked voice.

"His exact words were that he felt it the right time to place 'something of great importance', wink implied, in a high-security vault. It cannot be all that important, or he would have paid five times as much for the highest security, not the seventh level. It is only meant to be there a short time, I believe."

"The 'right time', yes? That time being, following the escape of a dangerous dark witch?"

Bogripple shrugged.

"Is there any chance it is not some form of trap?" Shindig pressed.

"No."

"What is this 'something of great importance', then? And what is it to the Lestrange woman?"

"Obviously we would not dare presume to investigate what a client chooses to place in a vault they have hired," Bogripple said dryly, sliding a piece of parchment across the table to his fellow Manager, who read it with interest.

"Hmmm. Extra precautions may be in order, yes?"

"Yes. We are low on staff, of course."

Gurmsalt tapped his fingers irritably against the polished stone side of the fireplace. "How many of our humans have resigned now, Shindig?"

The goblin who managed the curse-breakers shrugged. "Nine at various levels. None of those from Teuyork's normal group, of course, but some of the others who helped. A dozen or so of the lessers left because they thought the boy should have been 'given back', but I don't think we are counting idiots in our tallies, yes? Lackeys and clerks' aides, mainly."

"Did any ask to have the goblin-oath released in exchange for Obliviation?" Badluk asked with interest.

"Only one. The others have kept their tongues locked." Shindig shrugged. "Not surprising, really."

Director Gurmsalt leaned back against the wall with a sigh. "We've lost enough that we will have to hold off on purchasing one of the new Cairo dig sites. We no longer have the staff surplus to send over."

"A great pity," Shindig said, "but a small cost in the long run. I will contact Gringotts Melbourne and the Toronto Gringotts-Bollards Collective. They always seem to have spare wizards to recruit from. Something in the water, I think."

"How many years of actual experience did we lose, altogether?"

Shindig scowled in thought. "Close to a hundred."

"Worth it," Bogripple said immediately. "My agents are of the opinion that if it weren't for this Bellatrix Lestrange business, Fudge would probably have invaded Gringotts in search of the boy."

"Nobody is that stupid, surely."

"How did he complete his campaign without blundering?"

"Excellent coaching, I assume. Malfoy..."

"Yes." Shindig knocked back the last dregs of oak-gall coffee in his chipped mug. "The Marchbanks-Malfoy-Mungo's arrangement is off, I take it?"

"Of course. Besides, the deal was made with Bagnold, and I hear that she has left the country."

Gurmsalt shrugged. "Let her go. She is nothing."

"Fascinating," Filius Flitwick muttered, leaning a little closer to the dragon.

Gitzmado the beast handler shook the set of clankers again in one thickly-leather-wrapped hand. "A mixture of positive and negative reinforcements," he said, grinning ferally as the old land-drake cowered.

"What's the negative reinforcement?" Harry asked, standing on the balls of his feet and ready to run at a moment's notice.

"Whippin's."

The dragon lowered its head meekly to the ground and splayed its talons over its face. Filius slowly reached out until he was stroking its cartilaginous whiskers.

Harry examined the hammer-springs on the second set of clankers. "And the positive reinforcement?"

"Gentler whippin's."

The dragon whined piteously. Harry frowned.

"Don't trust that'un," Gitzmado cautioned. "He's liable to fight back when he's cornered. Lost four fingers before I learned that!"

The goblin's cackling laughter rang out in the depths of Gringotts.

Since the beetle was out of the basket, Gringotts held a minor function – something between a press conference and a soiree – which the bank was seldom wont to do. There was little doubt that the Boy Who Lived making an appearance was central to the affair.

Harry comported himself well, meeting someone he recognised as a Gringotts-friendly reporter, as well as the acerbic and conservative Head Editor of the Daily Prophet. A few other journalists from international news and minor magazines vied constantly for his attention, while the observers from the ICW were a little more reserved. Harry shook many hands over the course of the evening, including one belonging to an imposing figure who was introduced to him as Tiberius Ogden. Another, named Commander Bones, looked him up and down and told him that the combined weight of the Howlers she'd had about him would outweigh the boy himself.

The guest list was short, and security was tight, as might be expected. The goblins intercepted many gatecrashers trying to sneak, Apparate or, in one case, portkey in. These unfortunates were redirected by the wards to the effluent pits beneath the dragon cages.

At one point, Brother Filius gave a disapproving frown when a white-bearded wizard manifested himself for a moment before being caught and flung back into the ether. The goblin sorcerers in charge of the security wards later reported shakily that Albus Dumbledore had managed to tear himself free of the enchantments and Apparate away again before being dropped into the dragon muck.

The evening progressed without much further interruption. Bill Weasley earned a commendation for personally tackling somebody in a too-short invisibility cloak who managed to sneak past the guards during the distraction, having spotted the soles of the intruder's feet.

More of Gringotts' senior human employees continued to drift around the marble floor, keeping an eye out for unsavoury elements. Conversation drifted between topics such as the Lestrange escape, immigration, the Centaurian Question, Lockhart's recovery, the colours that best matched Harry's eyes (the driving obsession of one particularly inane magazine journalist), and the Dementor patrols.

It was an off-hand comment made by one of the guests about "soul-sucking fiends" that reminded Harry of something he had been meaning to investigate.

A small hand traced a line of lettering on a dusty page in a dusty book from a dusty shelf. The lettering itself was not dusty, but tried its best to give the impression that it was.

Sibilig, who was tending to the growth of a particularly virulent-coloured fungus in a terracotta pot on the windowsill, frowned at the boy. "Still caught up in this 'soul' nonsense? Dementors kill. Nobody seems to know how."

Harry stopped trying to translate the archaic English, and put down the book. "Everything wizards write about the field takes their soul as a given, and then rambles on from there. How do they know that there is a defining essence which makes people themselves? That it is not just the brain? The muggles have shown that when the brain is damaged, people change. What does a 'soul' actually explain? Why do people think mysticism is a good answer to anything? What happened to-" he slipped into English – "not multiplying entities unnecessarily?"

Harry's foster mother gave an elaborate shrug. "Wizards do not listen to their nonmagical brethren, perhaps out of fear that they will discover just how many things they do not know. Or perhaps they just do not believe that the brain is the locus of personality. Most people are not rational, most of the time, and humans seem to believe whatever they can get away with."

Sibilig pinched off a filament of fungus that was beginning to wither.

Harry sighed. He knew that goblins didn't believe anything survived death, but that seemed like something you'd really want to be sure of one way or the other – with Dementors wandering around, as well as one or possibly two escaped murderers, and Hogwarts only months away.

He pointed at a book of ebon from the pile around him. "Claims to be about soul magic, is about blood." He pointed at another, with a yellow sign upon it. "Claims to be about soul magic, is about the mind." Another, a dusty desert tome. "Claims to be about soul magic, is about inherited genetic traits, as far as I can make out."

Sibilig replaced the plant pot, and pointed to the shelf where Harry kept his – disapproving scowl – wizarding books. "Claims to be about 'Defence Against the Dark Arts', is about 'Defence Against the Dark Arts'. Brother Filius says you are to read all of it. Perhaps start from there, and worry about the rest later?"

Harry sighed, and went to fetch the book down.

Gitztick peered around the doorframe. "Coming fishing, Harry?"

"Sorry," he said, glancing up at her as he tugged on his other boot. "I've things planned already."

"Oh? Where are you headed today?"

"The Upper Reaches, for fossil-hunting."

"Why don't you just go explore the Bone Forest? There are lots there, and it's much closer."

Harry stood up, and threw a sack of straw over his shoulder. "I want to take some home and study them, and also compare the ones I find in the Upper Reaches to the ones in the Bone Forest."

"To see if they're different?"

"Well. Yeah, but the really interesting thing would be if they were the same!"

The goblin girl shook her head. "Whatever. We'll be in the Blue Moon Spring if you change your mind."

"Rocks fall on it, boulders crush it, mountains of slag, gravel and brimstone." Harry continued to swear as his finger traced the text in the scroll, head shaking gloomily with every line.

Ratspan, who had just wandered into the cavern clearing, shouldered his spear and looked at the human boy. Then he glanced at Brother Filius sitting on a stack of rocks in the distance, at the different-sized discs of iron floating in the air at various heights, and then back at his friend.

"Not working as it's meant to?" the goblin hazarded.

"It's working exactly as the text implies it should," Harry snarled.

There was a moment of silence.

"That's a bad thing," the human boy elucidated.

The next moment of silence was broken by one of the weights suddenly dropping out of the air. It clattered a short distance across the cavern floor.

"He was hoping to have the privilege of needing to unlearn what he has learned," Filius said cheerfully.

Harry shook the scroll fitfully, then threw it to the ground. "Nothing Bashiok the Somewhat Lucid says about levitation charms makes sense if you think about it for more than three seconds. Nothing. They didn't even have a theory of gravity when he wrote this! Yet the spells work just like he describes. The weights reach some critical point and just snap out of the air, they don't descend as the spell slowly bleeds power – which it clearly does!"

Harry paced back and forth, jabbing his wand in the direction of the fallen iron discs.

"There's no correlation between the weight used, the distance you lift them, and how long the spell lasts! Or rather, there is, but it's not internally consistent! That's even worse! And if you combine a feather-weight spell, it doesn't extend the levitation charm! It lasts half as long!"

Ratspan turned to Brother Filius. "Has he had his nutrient potion today? I think maybe the healers put something in it to calm him down."

The half-goblin professor shook his head. "It was an interesting alternative idea he came up with. But Bashiok the Somewhat Lucid is simply the recognised authority on the matter, and he says that size differences do not effect the duration of charm unless they move the object into a different one of his seven categories."

Harry scowled. "Seven arbitrary categories. I don't – I still don't believe it."

"And that is why you fail."

"Size should matter! Gravity is at work all around us – here, between you, me, that idiot with the spear, the rock, everywhere, yes? Even between the land and the iron weights. Magic is a discrete force, its power is bound, a known quantity. How can it treat a one-handspan disc exactly the same as a three-handspan disc?"

"Well," Ratspan said, ignoring this, "I was just told to tell you that lunch is going to be late today. I'll leave you to it, then."

Harry waved his wand, and the remainder of the weights fell.

Flitwick hopped off his perch and ambled over. "It's still good that you're testing things, though. This is how major discoveries are made. There is always a why, always something more to learn today. Never clear your mind of questions."

"I know, I know."

"And with a little practise, you will be able to levitate the weights yourself in future experiments," the wizard chirped.

"I hope so. I just wish I hadn't bothered wasting my time on all that maths, since I didn't even get a good result."

Filius looked at him curiously. "A negative result is still a result, surely. So, you're persevering with maths even though it's hard? Or because it's hard, perhaps?"

Harry snorted in disgust. "Because it's useful."

It started off as a day like any other.

Harry woke up, put on his clothes and charmed glasses, drank the potion that replaced natural sunlight in his day-to-day life, and had cave pear jam on yellowcap wafers for breakfast. Then he swept the floor, let Prettyroot out into the garden, and headed to the language library. It was mid-July, and he would be going on a visit to the estuarine Mer in a week, staying until just before his eleventh birthday. He had spent a lot of the last week practising his swimming.

After a morning of wrestling with declensions of Mermish nouns, Harry walked up the winding thoroughfare to Gringotts, to help with the pruning of a Doppelgänger Fig tree in one of the inner courtyards. Recently, the bank layout had been changed so that everyone passing through the seventh level of the vaults had to stop at a checkpoint above the Unfathomable Maze. A dozen goblin guards with probity probes and aura-piercing crossbows were posted there, watching the cart traffic.

Harry said hello to his foster aunt Talliapa, and had just been waved through to the line of parked mine carts near the rails leading up into the six-hundreds, when an ear-bursting klaxon pierced the air and echoed from the deeps.

The bank had been breached.

The alarms were coming from beneath.

The noise of a security ward being tripped was met with a brief oath whispered in a chilling voice. Moments later, the cloistered darkness of the great Below was torn apart by flashes of light. Even as dead feet began to shuffle, something insubstantial spiralled up from the unbridled gloom, activating a delayed spell placed in a certain waterfall.

The deathly Unsdugu, lurching one by one from the chasms and passageways of the Unfathomable Maze, came to an abrupt halt when they encountered a wall of magical smoke in which half-formed faces screamed in pain. A mine cart sped by them in a metallic blur, bending out of shape in its attempts to fling itself from the rails. In its wake, the body of a dragon flopped from a niche in the cavern wall. The corpse swayed limply at the ends of its chains as the last light flickered out of its eyes.

Less than a minute later, in the deepest region of the Below, the mine cart slowed. It was no longer running on the twisted tracks, but floating above them on a corona of shadows. The small wagon slowed, stopped, and tilted over. Clawed, skeletal hands immediately reached up from the gravelly dirt to tear the passengers apart, the guardians of the Maze waking in response to the alarms.

With a single spoken word, the bones withered, and with just one more, they were dust on the wind. Doorways melted into a grotesque shape ahead of two moving figures; the Dead Sea Runes that adorned the ceilings flared and died as a sickly green tide of light washed inexorably over them.

Far above, the main staircase behind the raging torrent of the Thief's Downfall was torn and shaken by fiery serpents. Around it, armoured goblins wrestled with the gibbering wraiths of their own fears brought to life.

At the end of a winding passageway on the eighth and deepest level of Gringotts, human footsteps clattered against bare rock. Fingers pressed against a vault door that was true-forged from adamant and stranger metals. The guardian spirits of a dozen imp-locks instantly fled. The blue metal melted away into the rock face, and a shape darted into the room, to return mere seconds later.

A question was voiced, a hasty confirmation given.

Glowing red eyes, embedded in a head that was strangely twisted, turned slowly upwards. A long incantation in an ancient, blasphemous tongue tore through the bones of the earth, splitting the stone ceiling asunder.

A cold wind breezed into being.

A pair of dark figures ascended.

Author's notes:

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