Chapter 13
“And you’re sure that there won’t be any… unwanted side effects?”
“Well, as certain as anyone can be when dabbling in untested extradimensional magic. But for the purpose of actual discussion, I’d estimate the odds of the gate closing versus not closing is about seventy to twenty.”
“Well, I suppose the odds could be worse.” Harry sighed to himself. “And you’re certain that the gate is a good idea?”
As Harry spoke the last line, he gesticulated at what stood before himself, the Weasley Twins and Luna. More precisely, he was gesticulating at the stone archway that he had spent the last week painstakingly carving the sigils from the design Luna had supplied him with, along with the runes that Luna and he had determined to be the best replacements for certain sigils.
“Well, it’s not as though it’ll become a permanent Gate, merely act as the frame for us to open one again, if necessary.”
“And the Madness you built the arch from was enchanted properly?”
“Why, of course it is. Uncle Sheo helped me enchant it quite a while ago, in anticipation of something like this. That just leaves the question of who the mechanic is.”
“Um, what does that even mean?”
“I have to agree with Fred, what’s going on? Why are we standing in front of an archway?”
All Harry could do after that was sigh before responding.
“We’re using an inscribed morpholith to open a temporary transliminal gateway. Lovegood, I assume you just had a Sigil Stone lying around?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, could you translate what you said for us normal people?”
“Do you really want to me to explain the esoteric theory behind Oblivion and the Aurbis?” Seeing the confusion on their faces, he continued. “That’s what I thought. Just stand there, look pretty and we’ll weave your Magnic frequency into the activation. Now, back to the question at hand. You were responsible for the Madness and the Sigil Stone, so logically you would be the mechanic.”
“Yes, but you enchanted the archway with the Nedic, Futhark and pre-Mythic runes, along with the Daedric sigils. One could argue that we’re both the transliminal mechanic.”
“Together then?”
“I suppose so.”
As one, Harry and Luna picked up the Sigil Stone that was resting on a plinth in front of them. As they set the Stone into the hollow space that was for it, Luna began chanting something that she was presumably told by Sheogorath. As she chanted, Harry pulled on the Nightingale Oath he and the Twins had sworn, to pull on the scant frequency they possessed. As he did so, he wove his own frequency into the thread. Guided by the thaumavocal blueprint that Luna was reciting, Harry pushed the threads of magic into the Sigil Stone.
With a booming crack, the empty space between the columns of the archway was suddenly filled with a swirling void of dark green, black and bright purple.
“You’ve had the most experience with actually interacting with Padomaic magic, Lovegood. So… what now?” Harry asked, turning to Luna.
“Now, you simply watch.” Luna replied as she touched her finger to the Gate.
As she did, she pulled her hand back, pulling a transparent thread with her, twirling it about into an intricate, intertwined and knotted pattern before clicking her fingers and repeating what she did over and over again until she had formed an intricate seal of intertwined tentacles surrounding the face of the Wabbajack.
“Curator, if you could activate the seal?”
Walking up to the floating image, Harry raised his hand and placed it in front of the seal, palm loosely open, his fingers bent just so, and suddenly shoved his now fully open palm into the image, sending a pulse of Magicka through the ghostly threads.
What followed was a noise that could be likened to an incredibly loud inhale, which went on long enough that Harry thought it would never end, before a loud, high-pitched gong-like noise resounded throughout the room.
“Was that supposed to happ…?” Harry asked after his ears had stopped ringing, trailing off as he saw something on the ground, which he promptly walked over to pick up.
“Well. I must say this was rather unexpected.”
“I find myself having to agree Aureal. I take it you know what this is?” Harry asked as he began to read the book.
“I have a guess, but no, I was talking about the tentacles.”
“Sorry what?”
“Harry, there were tentacles where your feet were a couple seconds ago.” Fred chimed in.
“Small tentacles, but still there.” George added.
“I…” Harry sighed. “I’ll deal with that later. Back to the book. You said you had a guess?”
“It’s likely an Arcanist’s Tome, given that it’s a book but distinctly not a Black Book.”
“You know what, I’ll just ask. Lord Mora, is this an Arcanist’s Tome?”
“I had wondered where that specific tome had wandered off to. The madness child is correct in her assumption.”
“Wait, so you didn’t send this to me?”
“Oh goodness no. I could have only sent it as a transferral with the ritual you perform to send artifacts to my domain. Beyond that, those Tomes have rather higher levels of sentience. They seek out the mage they wish to bond with.”
“Huh. Well, you were right Lovegood.” Harry said, still paging through the book. “Runeforms, eh? So, let’s see, if I just…”
Trailing off Harry, still looking at the book, raised his unoccupied hand and swept it about in a circle, summoning a ring of arcane sigils that he pushed his hand through, before swiftly flicking it up, causing a wave of sharp tentacles to sweep across the room.
“Well. I think we ought to check if what we did actually worked.”