Chương 192: Ch182- Awake

After the shouting died down and the air stopped vibrating with whatever that hum was, the real trouble began. The gate was open. And now that it was open, no one could close it again. Which meant they would do anything to go in. Dumbledore tried to stall, got about three sentences into a cautionary lecture before the Syrian delegate cut him off with something sharp in Arabic that definitely wasn't "take your time." So, he offered the next best thing.

"Small teams," he said, and for once, it wasn't a suggestion. The ministers didn't argue. They just nodded, already plotting which of their own to toss in first. The historians were another story. Every single one of them tried to look casual. Not one of them managed it. Half had their robes already half-buttoned, parchment rolls tucked under arms, some were even shifting from foot to foot like toddlers desperate for the loo. They wanted in, badly. Who wouldn't? Didn't matter.

Ministers were already pushing for their own people to lead, Aurors, Hit-Wizards, Special Division whatever. Greece had two blokes who looked like they'd been pulled straight from a cursed tomb and handed badges.

"Ah yes," Cassian muttered, "send the lads with pointy sticks. That always works out." Bathsheda gave him a look.

"You're going in anyway."

"Yes," he said.

"But I plan to read it first. Maybe flirt with a few carvings. Light some candles."

"Try not to marry anything this time."

"No promises." The site director laid out the new map while the international teams bickered behind her. The gate was still unstable, but the path around the crater had reformed into something like a passage. The inner ring was pulsing faintly, gold threaded with something darker now. No one liked that. A Syrian Auror started shouting about protective layering. A Greek curse-breaker responded with something vulgar about amateurs. Turkiye, being the host, got first slot. They nominated their team.

Two wands, one rune-reader, one backup healer. Looked solid. Egypt followed. Greece tried to argue for more spots, then got booed. Iraq offered an observer. Syria nominated two field mages and a historian with ink on her sleeves and zero patience. Ayda didn't even look up from his notes.

"Fools." Cassian shifted on the slope, eyes on the crater below.

"If it eats anyone important, maybe the paperwork will slow down."

"No," muttered Edevane.

"It'll just turn them into martyrs and let more idiots in." They weren't trying to get in first so they could slap their names on something. They were greedy, yes... but not for relics or buried power. They were greedy for the thing most people in that tent had forgotten mattered. History. Knowledge. And those didn't shrink when shared. Didn't vanish because someone else got there first. They stuck around. A fresh yell rose near the tent line. Someone had touched something they shouldn't have. Again.

Cassian didn't even blink.

"What's that now, attempt four?"

"Five," muttered Bathsheda, arms folded. He gave an impressed whistle. Another sharp boom rolled across the site. One of the Syrian field mages staggered a step and swore. Days rolled on. People died. More were dragged out burnt or shaking, some never quite right again. The ministers didn't flinch. None of them had expected an easy stroll into a twelve-thousand-year-old site anyway. Every death was written off as "an occupational risk," which sounded neater than we don't care. New teams arrived almost daily.

Healers, curse-breakers, rune theorists. Then more coffins. By the end of the week, the first chambers had opened, small, hollow rooms carved from a single slab of stone, their walls covered in reliefs that shifted when light touched them. Each one told a story. Or tried to. A procession of half-human figures winding round the walls, reaching upward toward something that wasn't there. No treasure yet or any relics. Just old magic, humming faintly under the stone.

By the second chamber, the ministers had stopped pretending to understand any of it. The historians took over, squabbling over meaning, shape, rune syntax, while the living wards kept pulsing above them like a heartbeat. The ministers were arguing about a sealed archway that refused to open, even when every spell in three languages was thrown at it.

"Mr Dumbledore," said the Syrian minister, breathless, "your reputation precedes you. We would welcome your expertise." Translation, fix it before we start blowing things up. Dumbledore peered at the arch like it was an exam question he'd already seen.

"I may not be the right man for this," he said.

"But I know who might be." One of the older historians stepped forward to fill him in.

"We reached the lower chamber this morning," he began.

"At first, we assumed it was a vault. The structure is larger than any of the upper sections, maybe thirty feet high, forty across. Smooth cut. Doesn't seem to be natural." The man went on, his voice now almost a whisper.

"There's a statue in the centre. Human, mostly. Male figure, clothed in goat hide. The detail is... uncanny. He's crouched, half-turned, expression caught mid-panic." Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Someone near the back frowned.

"A guardian?" The historian shook his head.

"No. If he's guarding anything, it's against his will. His face..." He paused, searching for the word.

"It's terrified." Cassian's brow creased. An image flickered in his head before he smothered it. The historian kept talking.

"The door to the next chamber's giving us trouble. The air beyond looks like pure darkness. We've no idea what's inside." A low murmur swept the tent. Cassian's stomach turned.

"I need to see it," he said. A few heads turned his way. The old masters squinted at him. So far, Cassian had shown no intention of going in, not until he heard the description. Most of them knew who he was by now. Some already had an impression, and others, who'd learned from Dumbledore or Ayda, understood that Cassian's reaction wasn't casual. The ministers didn't. The younger historians, especially the loud ones, looked him up and down like he'd interrupted their tea. One of them scoffed.

"And who the hell are you supposed to be? We've been at this for weeks, and half of us can't even get near that wall without-" He stopped mid-word when the Turkish Minister cut him off with a stare sharp enough to skin him alive. The man's moustache quivered as he spoke.

"Mr Rosier. Do you have any idea what we're dealing with?" Cassian met his gaze.

"Not sure yet. But I'll know more when I see it." The tent went quiet. A Greek delegate leaned toward the Turkish Minister, muttered something, got a small nod in return. Both looked back at Cassian.

"Very well," the Turkish man said. Dumbledore followed with the old masters in tow as the historians led the way down into the earth. The air got colder with every step. Dust hung thick, stirred up by the torchlight. The first chamber beyond the cratered door was quiet... too quiet. It was empty. Just walls pressed with runes, their grooves shallow and warped with age. The symbols weren't in any language the others recognised, but Cassian's jaw had already set.

The Turkish warder at the back muttered something to his partner, both raising their wands. They passed two more chambers. The floor sloped gently downward. The torches hissed. Somewhere deeper in, something dripped, steady as a clock. By the fourth room, the markings changed again. They weren't runes anymore... at least, not purely. They were shapes. Figures, maybe. Half-formed bodies tangled into patterns, human and not. Cassian stopped dead. His stomach dropped. Bathsheda glanced back.

"Cass?" He didn't answer. His eyes were locked on the carvings. Then the passage opened into a chamber. It was huge. Perfectly circular. The walls were smooth, unbroken, the carvings gone. All that remained was the statue in the centre. A man. Or what used to be one. Crouched low, turned half away, one hand lifted as if to shield his face. His mouth was open, caught in a silent scream. Every muscle, every vein, frozen in stone. Cassian stepped forward once, twice... then stopped. His face had gone pale.

He took a step back. Bathsheda reached for him, but he didn't move again. Dumbledore's voice came faintly behind them, asking something none of them answered. Cassian couldn't tear his eyes from the statue. Because he'd seen that face before. In memories. Corpus Obstrictus. Cassian's breath caught. The name of the spell hit him like a slap. He knew that one. He'd used it himself, on Lupin, the night Pettigrew had been caught. To hold him in place when the moonlight broke.

Now, staring at the statue, the memory came back. A vast hall. Flickering torchlight. A man in goat-hide robes shouting those same words. Another man frozen mid-motion, face twisted in terror, stone spreading from his skin like frost on glass. The same face Cassian took a step back, heartbeat stuttering. It couldn't be. He blinked hard, but the image didn't fade. The same lines, the same open mouth, the same fear carved into the stone before him. Pain lanced through his skull, so sharp, he staggered.

He pressed a hand to his temple, breath hissing between his teeth. Bathsheda's hand brushed his arm.

"Cass." This couldn't be. It couldn't be. Cassian stared at the statue, throat tight. It should've been impossible. He looked past the stone figure to the gate yawning behind it, to the slick dark pressing against the threshold. He knew that place. He'd seen it, there, in another memory. The same chamber where the man who'd cast Corpus Obstrictus had met his end. After using Apertis Oculus. He'd revealed something that shouldn't have been. And the things that crawled out of that black had torn him apart.

"Cass." Bathsheda's voice pulled him back. She was close now, eyes searching his face.

"Are you alright?" He swallowed hard.

"No." She followed his gaze to the statue, then to the gate.

"Memories?" He nodded. That was all they needed to say. Around them, the chamber had gone quiet. The ministers, the historians, the warders... all were watching him now. Cassian felt the weight of it but didn't look away from the stone man.

"Isn't it just a statue?" one of the younger historians asked, half-whisper, half-scoff. Cassian almost laughed. Just a statue. If only. Dumbledore's frown deepened as his eyes flicked between Cassian and the figure. He'd seen Lupin frozen in that same way, life trapped behind stone. The resemblance was too uncanny to ignore.

"Can you undo it?" Dumbledore asked quietly. Cassian sighed through his nose.

"Yeah. Probably. But I don't know if he's still alive... or if we'll get much out of him if he is." Bathsheda stepped back, wand at the ready. The old masters shifted closer. The ministers muttered in their own languages, unsure whether to stop him or take notes. Cassian raised his wand, tracing a short, quick sigil in the air.

"Let's find out." The rune snapped open in pale light. He pressed his palm forward and muttered the reversal under his breath. The spell hit the statue. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the air rippled. The colour bled back into the man's skin like water seeping through parchment. His limbs twitched, slow at first, then frantic. His mouth opened on a gasp that sounded like the first breath after drowning.

Before anyone could even gasp at the twelve-thousand-year-old statue stirring to life, the man lurched forward, eyes wide and wild, grasping at the air. Cassian caught his arm on instinct, but the man jerked away, shouting something in a language none of them recognised, harsh, ancient, guttural.

"Easy, easy!" A Turkish Hit-Wizard tried, stepping in. The man flinched like he'd been burned. His face was pale, hair matted, eyes the colour of old bronze. Then they saw something even more crazy. The skin around the man's temples, wrinkling, greying, collapsing in on itself as if years were pouring through him all at once.

"Bloody hell," Someone muttered.

"He's ageing." The panic in the man's voice cracked into sobs, then into hoarse shouting. He clawed at the air, at his own arms, as though trying to scrape something off his skin. No spell could reach him, every charm thrown his way fizzled out.

"Cass!" Bathsheda shouted over the noise.

"It's eating through him!"

"I see that!" The old masters pushed forward. One of them, a heavyset wizard with lines carved deep across his face, lifted a hand.

"Move aside." They did. The old man stepped up, wand pointing at his head.

"He's too far gone for us to stabilise him physically," he said, eyes narrowing.

"We'll pull what we can." Before anyone could protest, he pressed his wand to the man's forehead. The man convulsed, screaming, voice echoing off the stone walls like a storm. Cassian could almost feel the magic tearing through the room, something raw and ancient riding its back. The old master's eyes snapped open, wide, bloodshot. His breath hitched, then he pulled his wand back. The statue-man crumpled, the last of his strength spilling out with a single word that sounded like sand sliding over bone. Silence.

The man lay still. The grey had spread up to his scalp now. Whatever time he'd borrowed, it had run out. Bathsheda swallowed, eyes fixed on the body.

"Did you get anything?" The old master's wand hand trembled.

"A word," he rasped.

"Or... maybe a warning." Cassian stepped closer.

"What was it?" The old man looked up, eyes unfocused.

"He said, 'It's awake.'" A chill rolled through the chamber, as if the darkness beyond the gate had been listening.