Ian saw it all. Because he had taken the city's point of view.
He descended, further and further, as the realm slipped past the veil and into the land of the dead. As if judged and cast down by a force too ancient and terrible to name, the realm was dragged from its rightful plane into endless shadow.
An entire civilisation, its people, its stories, forgotten. Oblivion claimed all. The wind was the only voice now, howling endlessly as it stirred the black sand and buried all hope.
The uproar was deafening.
Desolate. Unbearably tragic.
The screams of children, the desperate shouts of fathers, the choked sobs of mothers, it all blended into a storm of noise so painful that Ian instinctively covered his ears, grimacing.
"Surely… surely I've glimpsed some forbidden piece of history..." He muttered, just as he caught sight of the little girl and her yellow Kneazle once more, only now, they were phantoms, one with the forsaken city.
Some knew the fate they had suffered. Others never would. Either way, the anguish and collapse of the realm seemed to awaken something long dormant.
The blood moon returned in silence, as if opening a single crimson eye. It seemed almost sluggish, like it had been roused from a slumber lasting eons.
"Squawk!"
Without warning,
A harsh, warped cry rang out, jarring Ian from his reverie. A black shape tore through a fissure in the air, screeching.
"Bloody hell! You gave me a fright!" Ian cursed, catching the intruder by the neck.
It was a black Phoenix, his companion, squirming indignantly.
"You've got a habit of turning up when least expected," Ian muttered, stuffing the irritable creature into his robes. "Crossing the boundary between life and death... Typical Phoenix behaviour."
As he turned to examine the remnants of the vision, he wasn't sure if it was the Phoenix's presence or something else entirely, but the scene began to unravel.
The city, the toppled streets, the screaming people, the little girl with her yellow Kneazle, everything froze.
Then, like a mirage touched by wind, it all began to fade.
The dream was dissolving.
The outer edges of the vision shimmered, then blurred. The harrowing images vanished without a trace, swallowed once more by the black sand from which they had risen.
Even the gleaming lines shaped by Ian's Patronus Charm began to fall apart, transfiguring into tiny motes of light that drifted silently on the breeze, carried into the vast nothingness beyond.
As if they had never existed.
Everything returned to silence.
Yet as Ian firmly clutched his robes, pressing them down to stop the black Phoenix from wriggling free and squawking again, he was startled to see a dilapidated tower materialising not far from where the black sand had just vanished.
"That's odd, it wasn't there before." Ian narrowed his eyes, vaguely recognising the outline. It resembled the protective tower he'd seen in the spectral echoes of the past.
Many legendary witches and wizards had once ascended that tower, likely in a desperate effort to delay the onset of the calamity. Such a structure, in Ian's mind, could only be the product of supreme magical craftsmanship, surely an Alchemical Artefact of extraordinary complexity.
After all, it had managed to hold back destruction on a scale beyond any ordinary spellwork. Not even Hogwarts' most obscure tomes had mentioned something like it.
Just as Ian hesitated, wondering whether the structure was truly real or merely another lingering echo of the past,
"Squawk!" The black Phoenix, though trapped under Ian's robes, found a gap and slipped through, diving to the ground at his feet before taking off again.
The creature was absurdly quick.
By the time Ian registered what had happened, the Phoenix had already taken wing and was darting toward the broken tower. Ian could only summon his enchanted cloak and soar after it.
"It really just... appeared out of nowhere!"
Ian soon landed before the strange tower, staring up at the cracked stone with a mix of awe and bewilderment. He couldn't comprehend it; had it always been here, hidden from view? Or had it somehow lingered, a relic from the spectral past now forced into reality?
Under the pale light of the blood moon, the mottled shadows and swirling black sand painted everything in a grim half-glow. The crumbling tower seemed to have been eaten away by something corrosive, the kind of magical decay that even time dared not touch.
Its windows had long shattered, leaving behind hollow frames that gazed blankly over the barren landscape. The deep cracks running across the tower's body resembled dried-up veins.
Even in the Twilight Zone, it seemed, time left its scars.
Perhaps this tower, like the realm it once belonged to, had been exiled to this liminal world of the dead? Ian could only speculate. His knowledge, extensive though it was, fell short of explaining such a phenomenon.
"What's inside, then? Why are you so worked up?" Ian called to the black Phoenix, now perched atop the highest ledge, as if urging him to follow.
"Squawk!"
The Phoenix let out another eerie shriek before diving through a shattered window.
Ian attempted to squeeze in after it, but the narrow opening was far too small.
"Well, I'm hardly a bird. Front door it is." With an exaggerated sigh, he dropped to the ground and approached the tower's entrance.
The original door had long since crumbled away, and the empty doorway allowed him to step right in. The cracked stone floor groaned underfoot, and the first thing that caught his eye was a towering clock embedded in the wall.
Astonishingly, it appeared largely intact.
Except,
All of the hands were missing.
"This is definitely an Alchemical Artefact..." Ian muttered, frowning at the strange timepiece. He noticed that the surface was covered in broken inscriptions, delicately etched lines that bore the unmistakable mark of wizard-made magic.
Unlike the grim death runes or eldritch sigils he'd encountered in older relics, these carvings seemed almost familiar, human in design. Still, they weren't standard Runes, nor anything taught at Hogwarts. They belonged to a more ancient and esoteric branch of spellcraft. Perhaps Professor Morgan or even Nicolas Flamel might be able to identify them.
"My knowledge is still woefully inadequate. I really must study harder," Ian said aloud, shaking his head with self-reproach.
Then, with the dedication of a determined magus-in-training, he pulled out an assortment of charmed tools and carefully pried the massive clock, easily taller than himself, off the wall. He tucked it neatly into his bewitched pouch.
Instantly, he felt the pouch grow heavier.
Though it was protected by an Undetectable Extension Charm, the weight wasn't entirely negated. Ian had enchanted it further to redistribute the burden, but even so,
There were limits.
He could reduce the heaviness of some objects, but not eliminate it entirely. At least, not with his current magical prowess. Creating a truly weightless "pocket dimension" was still beyond him.
That said, Ian's abilities were already exceptional. Not many witches or wizards could claim to carry half of Hogwarts in their bag.
"I just hope I can take it out of the Twilight Zone..." Ian mumbled to himself, frowning. He'd tried similar things before, conducting all sorts of magical experiments to see what could cross over into the real world.
Other than the piece of enchanted dress gifted by Professor Morgan, he'd only managed to extract things like stones, objects with no inherent vitality. Anything living, like plants, simply withered or vanished.
Artifacts like Professor Morgan's golden platter, Pendero's sword, and Ariana's old straw hat had all come from the outside world and could be taken out, just not by him. Ian still hadn't uncovered the logic behind it all.
"This clock's from the human world originally, right? Surely the Twilight Zone has no claim over it..." Ian muttered, glancing around the tower once more with the hopeful eyes of a treasure-hunter, ready to pry loose anything else that might prove useful.
If it weren't for the limited capacity of his enchanted pouch, Ian would have seriously considered collecting some of the black sand too, perhaps even finding a way to stuff the entire tower inside. The echoes from the past had already made it quite clear that this tower was no ordinary ruin.
(To Be Continued…)
You can read ahead up to 110 chapters on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395