Chapter 10
Harry flew his broom as close to the wild waves as he could, loving the occasional spray of cold water in his face. He estimated that flying across the ocean to the Grim Gorges would take about four to five hours at its most narrow point, but he didn't mind spending all that time on his broom.
As it turned out, Harry loved flying.
And once this nightmare was behind them and Rylan was dead for good, Harry vowed to himself to do a lot more flying, even if just for fun.
It had been a long time since Harry had been able to do something just for fun.
The southern continent was an unexplored part of Santika, since the area that could be reached from the northern continent was completely covered by the Grim Gorges, where the barok ruled. No one had ever managed to explore inland more than a few dozen miles without running into one of the vicious beasts. Most had never made it out again.
Harry was also determined to explore more of the southern continent on his broom in the future. In the air he'd be safe. He hoped.
V was flying alongside Harry, his large wings flapping steadily to keep up. Karakas floated behind them as Harry pulled him along. He'd become like part of the furniture at this point, after months of his constant presence, since Harry couldn't send him back to the beyond for fear of Rylan getting his bloody hands on him again.
A rocky coastline came into view and Harry sat up on his broom in confusion. According to his calculations he had at least another hour before he'd reach the Grim Gorges.
Before they reached the shore, Harry stopped in the air, hovering above the waves as he stared at the land before him.
There were houses built along parts of the coastline, high above the rocky cliffs.
No one lived in the Grim Gorges. No one would survive even trying.
"What is this place?" Harry muttered, as V landed to perch on the handle of Harry's broomstick.
"By the Sun Goddess, it's real," Karakas breathed as he floated beside Harry.
"What is?" Harry turned to look at his mentor in question, surprised by the almost worshipful expression on Karakas' face.
"Sildar," Karakas whispered.
Harry frowned. In Santireen Sildar meant as much as 'safe home'.
"Look, look," V said, flapping his wings while hopping impatiently.
As Harry slowly flew to the rocky cliffs, Karakas kept up with him. "There are stories of an island where sorcerers once lived freely," Karakas said, raising his voice to be heard over the crashing of the waves. "I believe this is that island."
"Huh." Harry looked around him with wide eyes as he slowly made his way inland. The place was deserted, the stone houses empty and dilapidated, the gardens and roads overgrown. Harry saw wild olive groves, orange trees that were almost swallowed by the weeds around them, and darting between the houses were goats. They looked feral rather than wild, and they had probably been left behind when the original population had disappeared.
While Harry made his way further inland, he saw a large flock of feral chickens pecking around a flowery meadow, and what he believed were two feral pigs ducking into some brushland when they spotted him.
Somehow the people who'd once lived here had left everything behind. As Harry made his way out of what appeared to be a sizable village with lots of empty, stone houses, he wondered what had happened here.
Before the thought had even fully formed in his head, Harry knew the answer, though.
Rylan.
Rylan happened.
Harry could see it. A peaceful community of sorcerers, welcoming a magical stranger into their midst. Rylan would have acted the part, of course, of a kind man, there to help teach or something equally beneficial for the community.
And then the children would have started disappearing.
Perhaps snatched from their homes in the middle of the night, without a sound, their parents waking up in the morning to find their beds empty.
Fear would have gripped the community, spreading around the whole island like a unstoppable plague. People would have fled to all four corners of the wind to spare their families, leaving all they had behind.
The island seemed to be rectangular in shape, with several villages dotting the landscape. There were many remnants of a once thriving agricultural community, not to mention a few decaying docks where once fishing boats would have moored.
"Nice, nice," V cawed as he peered at everything around them from his perch on Harry's broom.
It was nice. More than nice.
It was a potential home.
Harry touched down in the centre of a small, cobbled town square, surrounded by white buildings that once were shops and homes and what seemed to be a town hall of sorts. The moment his feet touched the ground he was overcome by a wave of magic.
Wards. Strong wards. And if Harry was right, they were probably designed to keep non-magical folk from ever finding the place, which explained why it was still deserted after all these years.
Harry found a stone bench outside an empty shop and sat down to have some water and dried fruits.
"Home, home," V cawed as he landed on Harry's knee and accepted some dried apple to eat.
"Yeah, it could be," Harry agreed, quietly in awe of what they had discovered. This could be a real home for all the magical people left in Santika.
A new start for their small community. A place for families to live and grow.
"This is more than I ever imagined," Karakas sighed as he came back from exploring the town. "Harry, you must revive this sanctuary."
"Already planning on it." Harry sipped his bidon and chewed on some dried apricot. "Once our business with Rylan is finished, we'll make our home here."
"Good, good," V crowed and promptly snatched the apricot from Harry's fingers, the little thief.
"For now, we can use it as a base of operations while we try to snatch a barok." Harry kept the next piece of apricot well away from his companion.
"Excellent plan," Karakas agreed.
After his short break, Harry flew across the island to the shore closest to the Grim Gorges and selected a lone, stone house that stood beside a small cops of trees, surrounded by wild meadows high up on a cliff.
This would be his home from now on.
With his new wand, Harry cleaned out the house, which consisted of several rooms downstairs and a large attic where one could just stand up in. There was also a root cellar and an outhouse. Harry got everything spick and span and then went looking for a few fallen trees and broken branches to transfigure into some simple furniture.
Harry still spent the night in his tent, which he pitched beside the house, but it was nice to have a real, solid home to fall back on.
The next morning Harry didn't waste any time, and after a quick breakfast of porridge and herbal tea he mounted his broom and continued his journey to the Grim Gorges, nerves building in his stomach with every mile he drew closer to the unexplored continent.
The coastline that greeted him looked very similar to Sildar, with rocky beaches and high cliffs, occupied by many seabirds flying to and from the ocean. In the distance Harry saw some animal darting across the steep cliffs that appeared to be wild goats or sheep or something similar.
Once Harry crested the cliffs the most amazing landscape greeted him, one of endless, rocky canyons stretching out like a giant maze in all directions. Their walls were steep and their tops were flat with short trees and brush covering them. The bottoms of the canyons were sometimes narrow and dark and other times wide with rivers running through them.
The view before him went on and on as Harry flew high over the canyons further inland, and Harry genuinely found himself in awe of what he was seeing. Even V seemed impressed as he flew quietly beside Harry.
"To see the Grim Gorges with our own eyes," Karakas sighed beside Harry. "It is a miracle, to be sure."
Harry allowed himself a few minutes to admire all he saw, but then he focussed himself on his task again, which was to find a suitable place to create a ritual circle, covered by a magical trap.
The problem was that Harry had no clue where exactly he might find a barok. As the local apex predator, their numbers would be quite low if they were to sustain a healthy population without wiping out all available prey.
Auntie Eustice, who'd naturally studied all information there was available on the barok, had theorized that they were nocturnal hunters. Their dark colouration would help them blend in to their surroundings, their four eyes would perhaps give them night vision, and their ability to make their bodies glow might allow them to communicate with each other in the darkness.
Harry hoped his aunt was right, because that meant he could set up his ritual circle in peace during daylight hours before playing bait and luring a barok into it during the night.
Just for the occasion Harry had learned a night vision charm from Patroclus, one he'd often used during his time as an Auror.
Harry found a suitable site for his trap at the bottom of a wide canyon, right beside a small river, just where the canyon narrowed into a natural bottleneck and any animal chasing him would be forced to walk right across the ritual circle. Harry summoned his family, as they had discussed, to play lookout and watch Harry's back. And his front, and also his sides, because Harry was not afraid to admit that he was rather terrified.
Still, it was the only realistic chance they had to get rid of Rylan once and for all, so Harry pushed his fears away and focussed on the task at hand.
Auntie Eustice stayed by his side, to patiently guide him through creating the circle, even though Harry had practiced the whole ordeal at least a dozen times and knew what he had to do by heart. Everyone else spread out around the canyon, looking around carefully. V was flying circles above all of them
Once Harry got spooked by a furry critter with a long, bushy tail, the size of a medium dog. The critter seemed equally spooked by Harry and quickly fled straight up the canyon wall. Harry released a shuddering breath and went back to work. The ritual circle was done, and all he needed to do was inscribe the trap on the nearby canyon walls, which would create a transfigured cage of stone around the beast to hold it in place.
"Fly, fly!" V screeched from high above, quickly followed by his mum's desperate cry of, "Harry, go!"
At once Harry yanked his broom, which he kept within arm's reach at all times, under himself and pushed himself up in the air, and it was not a second too soon because out of the shadows behind him erupted a giant beast, maw opened wide, silver teeth glittering in the sunlight.
Well, so much for the barok only hunting at night.
Harry pushed his broom as high as he could as fast as he could, but the beast still managed to hook one clawed paw in the bristles on the end of Harry's broom, pulling Harry back down again.
Fuck, that thing was quick. And strong.
Out of nowhere V divebombed the barok, pecking at a few of his eyes enough to force it back and Harry was able to push all his magic into his broom to give it enough momentum so the barok was pulled away from his broom by its own weight, claws tearing splinters off the wood.
The bristles were ruined, though, and Harry's broom wobbled ferociously as Harry quickly steered it towards the widest part of the canyon. It was well documented that baroks could climb up straight walls and Harry didn't want to be anywhere near a wall when it did so. It took everything Harry had to keep his shaking broom in the air, but he managed to make it to the flat top of a nearby canyon, his legs trembling when he touched down.
The moment V landed on his shoulder, Harry apparated them back to his new home on Sildar, where he promptly sat down in the dirt in front of the house, inhaling breath after breath and not feeling like he was getting any air at all.
"You all right?" James asked as he crouched beside his son, since Harry had pulled his family with him on instinct as he fled.
"Yeah, I think so," Harry finally managed to say when his vision stopped swimming. "Fuck."
"Next time he should use a disillusionment charm," Patroclus said, his arms crossed tightly while he scowled at the rest of them. That had been a fierce discussion, if a disillusionment charm would keep Harry safer or not. One argument for use had been that if the barok couldn't see him it would have a harder time pinpointing his direct location, even if it did smell him. One argument against had been that if his family couldn't see him either they couldn't warn him properly.
"Fine, fine," Fleamont sighed, now apparently conceding that Patroclus might have had a point all along. "Use the charm next time, Harry."
"Yeah," Harry agreed quietly.
"And perhaps apparate away instead of trying to use your broom," Euphemia suggested delicately with a kind smile.
Harry hung his head and snorted. Yeah, that had been a bit of a stupid move, but reaching for his broom had been sheer instinct. "Duly noted."
"Look at this as a learning experience," Auntie Eustice said in her usual practical tone. "Now you know what the barok really looks like and how it moves. And the circle is already done and waiting for you."
That was perhaps the best way to look at it, Harry decided as he stumbled to his feet, legs still feeling a little weak. His only alternative was to run around in little circles, screaming his head off in sheer terror because that fucking thing had genuinely been terrifying.
Harry took a few days off, to calm down and rest and fix his broom. Thankfully there were plenty of suitable branches to be found around his new home to supply bristles. Harry also got running water going in his house, thanks to the many household charms Euphemia had taught him over the years, and he transfigured a nice bed, so his new home was now entirely habitable and Harry slept in it from that moment on.
Once his broom was repaired, Harry went back to the Grim Gorges, his plans adjusted accordingly. He apparated straight to the spot of his ritual circle, disillusionment charm already in place. Harry kept his broom nearby, but also told himself to apparate away at the first sign of trouble as his family once again kept watch.
A wild sheep that came barrelling down the canyon wall had Harry apparate away in a hurry, only for his family to tell him to return since there had been no threat, but Harry wasn't taking any chances.
Not after he'd seen how big the mouth of a barok really was.
Thankfully, no more interruptions occurred and Harry was able to finish inscribing the trap and then the whole setup was ready and all Harry had to do now was play bait and lure a barok close.
Inhaling deep breath after deep breath, Harry mounted his broom and cancelled his disillusionment charm. He slowly flew up and down a few canyons, keeping a very close eye on the shadowy parts of the canyon wall where the baroks liked to hide.
It took what felt like hours before Harry saw movement to his right. A brief glow of orange, followed by the ultraviolet reflection of four eyes and then the beast burst out of the shadows and Harry rushed away towards the trap, the barok hot on his heels as it ran vertically across the canyon walls.
It was all over in seconds. Harry raced right over the circle and the barok followed him just as fast, only to be met by a stone cage the moment a paw touched the circle.
A loud roar, followed by a deafening screeched made it clear the barok wasn't happy.
"Quickly!" Auntie Eustice ordered as Harry almost fell off his broom so he could power the runes. "You don't know if its calling for some of its friends!"
Fuck, Harry really didn't want to consider that. Rindyll was already there, waiting beside the caged, furious barok, as she'd been part of the watch party.
Harry sliced open his palm with the small knife he carried on his belt and pressed his bloody palm on the correct rune. "Now!" Harry said, looking up at a grinning Rindyll, who immediately floated inside the barok while Harry started the chant.
The magic was heady and overwhelming and pulled at his very core, but Harry kept going, kept chanting, because this was the only chance they had.
This had to work.
The barok threw its large body against the stone bars, claws scratching at the ground so dust flew everywhere.
The stone cracked.
Harry chanted and his magic poured out of him until his vision swam and the corners turned dark.
The cage broke in a rumble of stone and Harry fell backwards into the sand, utterly spent, eyes closing on their own accord.
When Harry came to, there was a barok hovering over him.
Eyes wide, Harry remained perfectly still as the beast sniffed him all over, eyes glowing and teeth glittering.
"Er…" Harry whispered, at a loss of what to do. Magic wouldn't work and there was nowhere to run as the barok was half on top of him, so even if Harry apparated away he'd simply pull the beast with him. "Rindyll?" Harry asked quietly, hoping against hope that the ritual had worked.
The barok leaned its large head closer, gazing deeply in his eyes, and it took Harry a moment to realize what the beast wanted.
After Harry's escape, when he'd lost the collar and he'd finally been able to use all of his magic, Dorea and Charis had insisted that Harry learn Legilimency. He'd been studying Occlumency since he was a child and he was quite good at it, but they insisted that Legilimency was equally as important. And during their lessons Rindyll had always been a willing assistant for Harry to practice on.
Slowly, carefully, Harry gazed into the beast's eyes and connected with its mind.
"Rindyll?" Harry asked the barok mentally.
"Yes. No." Rindyll replied, much to Harry's relief. "I am not her anymore. I am not alone. We are someone new."
"All right," Harry said out loud, figuring that Rindyll could understand him just fine as he spoke. "But it worked?" Because that seemed to be the most important thing here.
"Yes," Rindyll the barok said with a smile in her voice. "We are strong now. And we will help you kill the monster."
Harry released a breath that he must have been holding his entire life, his body going utterly limp in sheer relief. "Thank you." Reaching up a tentative hand, Harry carefully touched the strong jaw that hovered over him. The scales there were surprisingly soft and Harry slowly stroked his palm across it.
"I miss you, Rindyll," he whispered, voice oddly choked suddenly. "But I'm happy you're alive again."
"We're here, Harry. We'll stay." Rindyll moved back a little so Harry could get up and it took a moment to get to his feet since he was utterly exhausted after performing that kind of soul magic.
V landed on his shoulder, giving the barok a wary look before bumping his wing against the side of Harry's head. "Well done, well done."
"Make a portkey, Harry," Lily suggested as the family gathered around them. "It will cost you a lot less energy than apparating."
Harry turned a nearby rock into a portkey to his home and Rindyll the barok eagerly placed her huge paw on it. One sharp pull later they landed safely, and Harry only had energy to drink a cup of water before falling face down on his bed for a much needed nap. When he woke up again, hours later, he found V sitting on top of the roof, keeping watch over Rindyll, who was chasing seabirds up and down the cliffs outside Harry's home.
Once the barok spotted him, she came dashing towards him, looking a lot like a young animal that had only just learned to walk. It must be strange, Harry mused, to suddenly find yourself occupying a body that had an entirely different physiology than you were used to.
"Hello, Rindyll," Harry said with a smile as the beast almost crashed against the house as she tried to come to a stop. "Having fun?"
"I am not Rindyll anymore," the barok said in a serious tone. "Rindyll was weak, always the prey. We are strong, always the predator."
"Would you like a new name then?" Harry asked, trying to understand Rindyll's reasoning. He never thought of Rindyll as weak, but then again, he wasn't sharing a body with an apex predator, so who knew what was really going on inside the beast's mind.
The barok titled her head in an almost human gesture. "Yes. You pick."
"All right. Let me think about that." Harry gently stroked his hand across the unnamed barok's head. "Would you like to kill Rylan now or wait until tomorrow?"
"Kill, kill," cawed V from his position on the roof.
"Yes, kill now." The barok briefly bared her silver teeth in what seemed like a terrifying grin.
Harry strolled towards the meadow beside his home, not a care in the world. He wasn't afraid, not anymore.
Rylan was as good as dead, he just didn't know it yet.
Taking his time, Harry drew the ritual circle needed to open a portal to the deathlands. He wasn't planning on walking it, no, he just wanted to open a portal to bring Rylan to him. It seemed like the easiest way to force a meeting.
Just as the sun was setting the circle was done and Harry summoned a few seagulls to sacrifice so the runes could be powered. Harry stood in the circle, started the chant and the moment a small dark disk appeared the magic in the air around Harry changed, and not because he made contact with the beyond.
Rylan was opening a portal straight to him, and Harry slowly stepped out of his own circle so he could wait for Rylan's arrival.
"Boy," Rylan grumbled as he stepped out of the portal some ten yards away. "Have you been keeping that traitor tied to you?"
"Karakas?" Harry asked while pretending to find the whole conversation boring already. "Yeah, he's been around. He didn't much appreciate you torturing him even beyond the grave."
"What I did to Karakas pales in comparison to what I'm going to do to you, mark my words." Rylan stalked closer, grey eyes glowing and face set in a tight mask filled with the security that he was the strongest being around and none could defeat him.
Harry was about to sorely prove him wrong.
"Do you remember Rindyll?" Harry asked with a tilt of his head as Rylan stopped in front of him, teeth bared in a wicked grin. "The girl you brutally raped and murdered?"
"Your little bitch?" Rylan sneered down at Harry. "Yes, I remember her. A bit of a dull fuck, to be honest."
"Well, she's not dull now, I assure you." Harry gestured behind Rylan with a lazy wave of his hand. "I got her a new body."
Rylan looked over his shoulder to see the barok crawl over the edge of the cliffs, the setting sun framing her body in a wreath of light, ultraviolet eyes blazing in the dusk, body lighting up with orange flames from within.
And Harry cherished the look of sheer terror on Rylan's face, skin paling rapidly while his eyes almost bulged out of his head, as he raised his fists, purple flames erupting from them. The barok never gave him a chance to utter even a single spell as she closed the distance in a few giant leaps and tore into the necromancer.
Harry quickly stepped back but was still hit with a few sprays of warm blood. V, who as usual sat perched on Harry's shoulder, flapped his wings in annoyance but stayed put to watch the show.
And what a show it was. Harry had never seen anything like it, chunks of bloody meat flying around, ribs cracking and limbs tearing, until only a pile of unidentifiable remains were left. As Harry inspected the piles around him he was pretty sure the head was missing entirely, but he wasn't about to scold the barok for doing what baroks did best.
"Dead, dead!" V crowed in victory and flew up to circle above them.
"Thank you," Harry said to the barok as he sank down into the grass beneath him, uncaring that it was smeared with blood.
It was over, truly over. And for the first time since Harry had learned that he was a slave in a violent world he felt like his life was finally his own.
The barok released a satisfying rumble as she sat down in the grass beside him, licking her lips with a blue tongue.
Beside Harry's shoe something gold glittered and as Harry reached for it, he realized it was the bloodstone Rylan had always kept around his neck and which Harry was sure was tied to the rituals Rylan used to assure his own immortality. Harry would keep it for now, study it and see if he could use it for good, to maybe give all the lives that were lost because of it some meaning.
V landed on Harry's outstretched leg and peered intently at the red stone. "Make talk, make talk."
"What?" Harry frowned down at his companion.
"Make bad man talk," V cawed while giving Harry an impatient look, and Harry realized what V was trying to say.
Holy fuck!
He could do that. He could summon Rylan from the beyond and force him to talk, to teach Harry everything he knew. Harry's smile turned into a positively vicious smirk. He was the one in charge now and there was nothing Rylan could do about it.
"Good bird," Harry said with a huge smile while he scratched V's feathery breast with a finger. V closed his eyes, leaning into the touch. "We'll do that. We'll make that monster tell us everything he knows."
Harry's family came drifting over. Harry had told them to wait in the house, to watch the show from the windows, because he didn't want the souls of his loved ones in literal reach of an enemy necromancer.
"Is that…" Lily asked as she looked around the meadow in shock.
"That's most of him, yes," Harry said as he looked up at his family with a chuckle. "We did it."
"That we did," James said, offering Harry a proud nod.
"You need to sneak into Bram's castle and collect Rylan's private library. Not to mention his secret stash of artifacts," Patroclus said.
Auntie Eustice gasped in outrage. "You knew that monster had a library and you never mentioned it?"
Rolling his eyes, Patroclus gestured harshly at his sister. "This is exactly why I didn't mention it sooner. You wouldn't have allowed anyone any rest until the books were collected."
Auntie Eustice sniffed and turned her back on her brother. "That man." Then she looked down at Harry over her nose. "You should probably go as soon as possible, though. Those books should be saved from whatever barbaric warlord ends up taking Bram's throne next."
"I'll put it on the list," Harry said easily. And he would sneak into Bram's castle soon, because he was curious about the treasures Rylan had been hiding just as much as Auntie Eustice was. And thanks to his broom he could make a trip like that easily even in case direct apparition was too far.
After that was done, Harry was planning on fixing up a few homes on Sildar, maybe even a whole town. Thanks to his new wand and his talent in transfiguration that wouldn't be a problem at all. After that he'd probably go look for the Mardigans and Valdis, Genka and Vinka and all the magical children there, to invite them to make their new homes on Sildar.
Harry frowned as he stared at the night's sky, the sun now completely disappeared beyond the horizon. Rylan must have had a spell or ritual to identify magical children, to find them before Karakas invented the summoning ritual. Harry would learn that magic and find all the magical children, and adults, left in Santika and invite them to come live on the island.
They could create a whole new magical community, one safe from warlords and their perverted expectations of magical children.
The barok rumbled happily beside him while Harry kept scratching V's chest, his family floating around him as they chatted amongst themselves, and Harry was filled with a sense of peace and happiness that seemed almost foreign to him.
"What about Keket?" Harry asked as he glanced at the Barok beside him. It meant 'free girl' in Santireen.
The barok nodded her massive head, eyes crinkling in approvement.
"All right." Harry went back to staring that sky. That was one thing done. Now he still had to figure out what and who V was, but that could wait. First he had a library to save, and then a magical community to build.