Douglas didn't dodge.
He just watched as the hand passed right through his shoulder.
No pain.
But a current of warmth was pulled from the point of contact.
Douglas saw it clearly—an incredibly faint wisp of white vapor, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, was tugged from his body by the pigment arm. It was dragged back into the wall, absorbed into the faceless spirit.
The spirit's outline solidified by a ten-thousandth.
"Persistent drain. Magic and body heat."
Douglas made the assessment instantly. His tone was calm, like he was analyzing a Peeves in a classroom.
"It's not a lethal strike. It's a war of attrition. To reach the end, you either endure it, or…"
He glanced at Bill.
Bill was snapping pictures frantically, his face a mix of obsession and fervor.
"Brilliant! He's conflated the concept of the ba—the soul fragment—with the ka—the life force—through the curse! These spirits are feeding on our ka to mend their incomplete ba!"
More arms reached out from the murals on both walls, like hungry tentacles waving silently in the air.
Douglas ignored the academic lunatic beside him.
He raised his wand.
No light shone from its tip.
"Mirror Flower, Water Moon!"
He cast the intricate charm in an extremely subtle way.
The magic didn't form a barrier. It didn't try to attack the spirits.
It seeped into the surrounding environment like a drop of ink dispersing in clear water.
In the next moment, something strange happened.
The waving arms seemed to lose their target instantly.
They swept past Douglas and Bill—beside them, above their heads, near their feet—but could no longer touch them accurately.
To the perceptions of those memory echoes, the two living men had become a flowing current of air with no vital signs.
"Inspired!"
Bill lowered his camera, genuine admiration in his voice.
"You've tricked the curse itself! It can't lock onto the target!"
Douglas stowed his wand and started walking forward. "His magic is interesting. The foundation is ancient. It leans more toward a pact of rules than a direct clash of energies."
He watched the spirit arms groping uselessly around them, thoughtful.
"It's different from my Runespoor's Bind. Ankh-Ka's curse distorts the target's definition. It doesn't stop you. It makes you non-existent on a conceptual level."
Douglas thought for a moment, then summarized.
"Like Muggles say, you can't wake someone who's pretending to sleep. Right now, we are the ones pretending to sleep."
The sensation was bizarre. Like walking through a silent horror film where they were merely two ghostly spectators, irrelevant to the plot.
The burial passage wasn't long. After about five minutes, it opened up ahead.
A circular tomb chamber appeared.
In its center stood seven clay urns.
And scattered around the urns were piles of white, bleached bones.
The skeletons had completely ossified in the dry air, taking on a fragile, porcelain-like quality. Judging by the shapes and number of skulls, at least a dozen intruders had made it this far.
Bill swept his wand-light over them, frowning slightly. No residual magical traces clung to the bones. Impossible to tell if they'd been Muggles or wizards in life.
As if, within this space, all pasts had been erased. Leaving only this single, equalizing end.
The moment the two men stepped into the chamber, the piles of bones served as a silent warning. The seven urns came alive at once.
HMMMMMMMM—
An invisible wave of sound, like a sledgehammer, slammed against their mental shields.
The noise was a red-hot iron poker, ramming into their brains, trying to scramble their thoughts into boiling magma.
Bill's body shuddered violently, but he dug his heels in and stabilized instantly.
He wasn't panicked. Instead, a look of "of course" settled on his face.
"Thirst Resonance," he ground out through clenched teeth, his voice strained from the mental pressure.
"Landmarks in the Sandstorm mentioned it. The three jars rolling in the storm, their low hum could drive even camels to madness."
Douglas felt just as awful. He simply raised a hand and knocked his knuckles against his temple, not too hard, not too soft. Like recalibrating a faulty instrument.
"In The Jar Man and the Green Lizard," Douglas said, his voice steady, "the old man told the child they were hungry." He looked at Bill. They exchanged a knowing glance.
"Those arrogant bastards would definitely try to tank it with Finite Incantatem or Protego," Bill said with a sharp grin, a professional scorn coloring his pale face as his gaze swept over the bones on the floor.
"And end up like them. Knocked out cold right here."
"Then let's not let our host go thirsty," Douglas said.
They raised their wands at almost the same time.
"Aguamenti!"
"Aguamenti!"
Two streams of clear, bright water erupted from their wand tips. Like two living, supple silver serpents, they traced graceful arcs through the air before sliding, gentle and precise, into the two outermost urns.
Hssssssss—
The water meeting clay that had been parched for millennia released a long, satisfied sigh.
The high-frequency resonance from the two water-filled urns ceased instantly. The mind-rending assault weakened by two-sevenths.
"It works!"
Bill's spirits lifted. He immediately aimed his wand at the third urn.
When the seventh urn was finally filled, the world fell silent.
No. Not absolute silence.
The aggressive, brutal noise vanished completely.
Replaced by a low, complex chorus that seemed to rise from the depths of the earth.
Seven distinct whispers drifted from the seven water-soaked urns, intertwining. No longer grating, they now carried a strange, ancient rhythm.
Douglas closed his eyes, sorting through each one.
The one on the far left: dry and hollow. Hunger.
The one beside it: sly and shifting. Deceit.
The third: lost and wandering. Forgetfulness.
The fourth: repressed and seething. Wrath.
The fifth: damp and heavy. Sorrow.
The sixth: trembling. Fear.
And the one in the very center, the largest urn. Its voice was the clearest, steadiest, most ancient of all. It simply repeated the same word, over and over, in a tone utterly devoid of feeling.
"Key," Douglas whispered, opening his eyes.
Bill had already lowered his wand, his face alight with the rapturous joy of solving an impossible puzzle.
"That's it! They're not guardians! They're instruments! An orchestra of seven sealed emotions!"
Douglas's gaze settled on the smooth stone wall at the far end of the chamber.
~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~
Read up to (120+ ) advanced chapters on Patre\on
Visit us here:
patreon.com/GoldenLong
Happy reading, everyone!