The Curse of the GateKeeper (James Potter #2) (42 page)

Several minutes later, James found himself in a darkened room in Slytherin's personal chambers. The room was quite low, stone-walled, and surrounded by tapestries depicting rather unpleasant scenes of dancing skeletons and flaming mountains. Tables on both sides of the room gave James the impression that this was Slytherin's personal magical laboratory. The table on the right was laden with gigantic books, parchments, quills, and paints; the one on the left was arrayed with a mind-boggling collection of vials, jars, and pots, all arranged on stacked shelves surrounding a large cauldron. Only one candle burned in the room, blood-red and embedded in the top of a human skull. James had the distinct and unsettling impression that very few people had ever seen this room. He sat against the rear wall in a very straight chair with a high ladder-back. It was rather uncomfortable, but it was the only chair from which he could see himself in the oval-shaped mirror. Slytherin had positioned the mirror on an easel in front of the double doors, assuring that James could not approach the doors without leaving his reflection.

"As much as I would enjoy interviewing you immediately," Slytherin had explained, "I am a very busy wizard, and you've caught me at a rather bad time. Let me assure you, though: as soon as I complete my evening's appointment, you will have my full and undivided attention."

With that, Slytherin had pulled the doors mostly closed, but not completely. Through the gap, James could see a tiny portion of Slytherin's main office. As James waited, he could hear the bald wizard moving about, shuffling parchments and muttering darkly. Finally, there came a single, loud knock on the outer office door.

"How quaint of you to pretend you are not already in the room, my friend," Slytherin's voice said. "I sensed your arrival minutes ago, but I assumed it rude to say so. Please do make yourself comfortable."

Through the crack in the double doors, James saw a shadow move. A figure passed in front of the crack. There was the creak of a heavy footstep, and then a deep sigh.

"I despise the very stone of this place," a deep, rumbling voice said. "The cobbles of its floors are like knives to my feet. I'd call up the fires of the earth's belly to consume it if I could, and damn your miserable college."

In the darkness of the laboratory, James gasped. He recognized the voice of Slytherin's visitor. It was incredible, and yet it seemed to fit all too well. How could he not have made this connection before? His heart pounded and he strained his ears to listen.

"I sympathize, Merlinus," Slytherin said. "This must be a very disquieting homecoming for you. Still, you cannot imagine that we'd have allowed this castle to go unoccupied. As you may guess, not a single Muggle lord wished to claim it after Lord Hadyn's unfortunate… accident. Ironically, they believe the castle is cursed rather than magically fortified. I join you, however, in despising much of what this place has become. My fellow founders are increasingly double-minded. They coddle the unmagicked and the dirty half-bloods. They plot against me as we speak. I fear that my time here is near an end."

"What a pitiful shame," Merlin said, his voice oozing contempt. "And you had once believed this college would be the dawn of your pureblood utopia. You must be positively heartbroken."

"My 'pureblood utopia', as you call it, will be a reality whether I assist it or not, my friend," Slytherin said. "It is the nature of things. The rulers of this world will only live among the cattle for so long before they rise up. My role in the process is insignificant, although I admit I wished to live to see the day. And do not pretend disgust at my words, Merlinus. You are the greatest proof of my claims even if you deign to ignore it."

"You believe that I detest the unmagicked as you do, but I am not so simple-minded," Merlin said dismissively. "One rabid wolf doesn't justify killing the pack. Domination is your only aim, not justice."

"Is it wrong to dominate those unworthy of equality?" Slytherin replied, as if he and Merlin had had this argument many times before. "One can make the claim that it is a kindness to govern those who are unable to govern themselves. Besides…," here, Slytherin's voice became silky, "it was more than one rabid wolf, wasn't it?"

There was a long silence, and then Merlin said, "I'll not speak of such things with you."

"Oh, but you do not need to," Slytherin replied. "Everyone knows the truth of what happened now, don't they? After all, it happened right here, four moons past. It is the gossip even of the Muggle peasants how the great Merlinus was humiliated by the Lord Hadyn and his accomplice. How it must boil your blood to know your name has become a paean to foolish love."

"I'll not speak of such things with you," Merlin repeated slowly, his voice low and dangerous.

"I'll be friend enough not to remind you that you were warned from entangling yourself with the Muggle woman," Slytherin went on, ignoring Merlin's words. "Judith, I believe her name was? Known jokingly among the peasants as the Lady of the Lake? Even I implored you not to lower yourself to her affections. Love makes a fool of any man who indulges it, and the greater the man, the greater the fool he must become. You were a very great man, Merlinus. And yet even you were not immune. Love blinded you when your wits should have been at their sharpest. Perhaps, had you not been so enamored, you might have seen the truth."

"Hadyn gave me her corpse," Merlin growled menacingly. "He promised to return her to me. It was the bargain he agreed to if I doubled his lands and fortified this very castle. But how was I to guess that the man would dare cheat me so gravely while still maintaining the letter of his bargain?"

"He gave you a corpse," Slytherin said sorrowfully. "But you might have known it was not hers. The body was spoiled beyond recognition, but you were the great Merlin. You could have divined the truth had you tried. But you chose not to."

"She was to have been my wife," Merlin said, and his voice was like distant thunder. It rumbled the floor beneath James' feet. "I could not bear it. I could not bear even to look at that decimated body."

"And Hadyn knew such would be the case. Otherwise, how could he have dared attempt such obvious trickery? He knew you would be too stricken to verify the body was truly your Judith. And finally, when you planned your revenge, when you tracked his coach through the forest, you could have divined the truth even then. You could have used the birds and the trees to look into the coach, to assure yourself of who was inside, but you didn't. Your rage, fuelled by your love for the poor Muggle woman, blinded you, didn't it? If you had but looked, you could have known the truth. You could have saved her. For, as everyone now knows, Lord Hadyn loved Judith as well. He claimed her as his own, and she allowed him to. He gave you the body of a dead servant woman and kept Judith for himself. She betrayed you."

"She had no choice!" Merlin cried, his voice cracking.

"There's always a choice," Slytherin insisted. "She could have died for your love, couldn't she? But no, she chose to be with him instead. She chose to be with him that very day, in his coach."

"She was only human! She believed I would come for her!"

"She was only human," Slytherin agreed. "A flawed, weak, unmagicked human, despite your own pathetic attempts to teach her the arts. And then, in the name of your love-blind revenge, she was a dead human. Lost, along with her new husband, Hadyn, in a mysteriously tragic coach accident. Drowned, wasn't it? They say the storm came up with the force of Jupiter himself, washing the coach right off the bridge. It was carried quite some way, they say, and smashed to sticks. Along with every… person… inside."

"I will NOT speak of such THINGS WITH YOU!" Merlin suddenly roared, shaking the very walls. There was a flash of angry light as every candle and every flame in the fireplace suddenly exploded into a blue torch. The flame on the red candle in the laboratory erupted upwards, brightly illuminating the room for one terrifying moment. Then, as suddenly as it had happened, the moment passed. The room plunged back into darkness.

In the silence that followed, Slytherin's voice was quiet and silky. "Forgive me, my friend. I've decided it is my duty to remind you of what was taken from you, and who took it. I warned you not to trust the Muggles. They are beasts, incapable of nobility. Their only role is servitude. We are their masters. It is not only our right to rule them; it is our duty. For their sake as well as ours."

"You are a lying snake, Salazar Slytherin," Merlin seethed.

"Snake I may be," Slytherin chuckled, "but liar I am not. You are here because you agree with me, although your foolish conscience bids you not to admit it."

Merlin said, "In fact, I am only here because you have something I need."

Slytherin sighed. "Yes, I know. I have already spoken to your apprentice, Austramaddux, and for once, I agree with him. Your plan is for the best. This world is no longer yours, Merlinus. The kingdoms advance their civilizations. They parse the land and plow it; they tear down the forests and turn them into hovels. They are taming the earth, rendering it mute to you. I alone know what that does to your powers, for you are unlike other wizards, my friend. You are not a wizard at all. You are a sorcerer, perhaps the very last and best of your kind. I am glad you have accepted my suggestion to step out of this plane of existence. You will return to a better time. Austramaddux will watch for it."

"There may never again
be
such a time," Merlin said gravely. "But it matters not. You are right about one thing: this world is no longer fit for me, nor I for it. The days are darkened before my very eyes, and by my own bloody hands. I have chosen to remove myself from the realm of men, but for my own reasons, Slytherin. You would not understand them. Your heart is as dark as pitch."

"And yet it is of something dark that you've come to speak, my friend," Slytherin replied without missing a beat. "I have divined it. The stone knows when it is wanted."

"Don't mock me, Slytherin. I know you desire me to break the boundary of worlds
without
the stone, for you would then control that which returned with me."

"You speak of the legend of the Gatekeeper's Curse? You mustn't take such things seriously. My, what dreams and fancies idle men imagine, don't they?"

"I am not fooled by your guile. You have the stone, and the Darkbag, for you are a lover of such dark trinkets. If I am to do what no other man on this world is capable of doing, I will do it with the tools no other man on this world could possibly need."

"Tell me, Merlinus," Slytherin said conversationally, "what do you know of these 'trinkets'?"

"As if the stories of them were not plain enough for a child," Merlin sighed. "The Darkbag contains the last remnant of pure nothingness left from the dawn of time. Its uses are myriad and unique. The stone, however, is the only relic from pre-time. It is a single black onyx, whose origin is the Void between the worlds. It is immune to time; thus, it is the Beacon of the Gatekeeper. The holder of the stone may be granted visions of those who've passed unto death. But more importantly, he who possesses the stone is the Gatekeeper's Ambassador, should that creature ever cross into the realm of men."

"Surely you do not believe in such things," Slytherin teased, and yet James could tell that Slytherin himself believed them fully.

"I believe that none have ever dared to test the legends," Merlin stated flatly. "But that is only because none have ever been capable of it. It is pure speculation that he who breaks the boundary between the worlds for any length of time will attract the Gatekeeper of the Void, possibly bringing it back with him. If I do it, and if I return, I wish to be the charge of anything that returns with me."

"But why?" Slytherin suddenly rasped, his voice eager and dripping with hate. "Let the Destroyer be loosed upon the earth! If man is the scourge of this world, reducing your power bit by bit, eating it up like locusts, then let the Gatekeeper be descended upon them! It is their due! If my prediction is accurate, then the realm of the wizards will have overcome the Muggles by that day. The magical kingdom will be able to defend itself against the Gatekeeper, and possibly even ally with it! Only the Muggle insects and the impure will be destroyed by its hand, and good riddance! The legend says that the Curse of the Gatekeeper will hearken a new age! An age of purity, of crystalline perfection! So let it be, Merlinus! Be the harbinger of the Curse! What more fitting way to reclaim your title as king of all wizards?"

"If I am to be the harbinger of the Curse, I wish to control it," Merlin replied calmly.

"I would have it no other way," Slytherin answered. "Without the Beacon Stone, you might not even gain the attention of the Gatekeeper. However…"

Merlin waited silently, but James, still sitting in the dark of the laboratory, could sense the great wizard simmering, his rage all but smoking off his skin.

Slytherin went on. "The stone is far too powerful to be removed from the earth entirely. Knowing this day might come, however, I have arranged for it to be split into two equal pieces. The halves have been set into two rings. One ring will go with you; the other will stay with me."