Allen was barely breathing, his lungs burning from the stagnant, ghost-chilled air. The giant stone guardian was only three paces away, its massive shadow swallowing him whole. With a roar of prehistoric fury, the statue swung. Its fists weren't just stone; they were blunt instruments of execution, whistling through the air with enough force to liquefy bone.
Allen didn't freeze. He leaned into the danger, sprinting forward and sliding between the statue's colossal legs. As the fists pulverized the floor where he'd stood a second ago, sending shards of granite flying like shrapnel, Allen kicked off the wall. He scrambled up the statue's arm, his boots finding purchase on the rough-hewn biceps.
Mid-leap, his wand slashed through the air. "Duro! Morphos!"
A loose paving stone beneath him surged upward, twisting and condensing into a heavy, iron-bound sledgehammer. Allen caught it in mid-air, the weight nearly pulling his arms from their sockets, and channeled every ounce of his momentum into a downward arc.
CRACK.
The hammer collided with the statue's forehead—right between those painted, mocking eyes. The impact echoed through the corridor like a cannon blast. For a heartbeat, the statue stood perfectly still. Then, a spiderweb of glowing red cracks erupted from the point of impact. The giant groaned, a sound of grinding tectonic plates, before it disintegrated into a heap of wet, grey mud and jagged rubble.
The silence that followed was deafening.
"Bloody hell, Allen!" Ron shouted, his voice cracking with relief as he stepped out from behind a pillar. "You just... you just hammered a god into dust! That was mental!"
Nancy didn't cheer. She collapsed where she stood, her knees hitting the sand with a dull thud. She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with jagged, hysterical sobs. The tension of the last hour had finally snapped her.
But Allen didn't put his wand away. He stood over the pile of rubble, his eyes narrowed. "It's too quiet, Ron. Look at the ghosts."
The silver tide hadn't receded. Thousands of translucent figures still hovered in the air, their faces no longer screaming but twisted into masks of expectant hunger. They weren't leaving. They were waiting for something.
A wet, slurping sound came from the pile of mud. The rubble began to vibrate, the individual stones rattling against each other like teeth.
"No... no way," Ron whispered, his celebratory grin vanishing. Nancy stopped crying, her tear-streaked face pale as she watched the mud begin to defy gravity.
The pieces didn't just move; they flew. Sharp shards of granite zipped through the air, narrowly missing Allen's head as they snapped back into place. The mud acted like a supernatural adhesive, sealing the cracks until the statue stood whole once more—larger, angrier, and glowing with a dull, malevolent red light.
"Oh, God, please," Nancy whispered, clutching a crucifix that wasn't there. "Is nothing in this place allowed to stay dead?"
"Merlin's beard, it's a self-repairing golem!" Ron yelled, backing away as the statue raised its reconstructed arms.
Allen felt a cold sweat. He'd broken it physically, and it had laughed at him. He needed something that didn't target the stone, but the soul animating it. His mind flashed back to the Lizardfolk—the way they had been bound by ancient, soul-deep misery until a specific frequency of magic had set them free.
The statue lunged, its massive palm sweeping across the room like a scythe. Allen dived, rolling over the uneven floor as the stone hand smashed the mahogany door behind him, splintering the ancient wood. The ghosts began to wail again, a high-pitched frequency that made Allen's nose start to bleed.
He reached into his inner pocket and felt the warmth of the magic orb he'd taken from Fawkes. It was pulsing in time with his own frantic heartbeat.
"Ron! Nancy! Get down!"
Allen scrambled up a fallen pillar, using the height to keep out of the statue's reach for a few precious seconds. He held the orb aloft, the silver surface reflecting the terrified ghosts. He began to recite the ancient incantation the Lizardfolk had used—not a spell of destruction, but one of release.
As the words left his lips, a shockwave of pure, crystalline light erupted from the orb. It wasn't the harsh, burning light of Lumos, but a soft, moonlight-silver glow that felt like a warm blanket on a winter night.
The effect was instantaneous. As the light touched the ghosts, their distorted, agonizing expressions began to melt. The hollow holes of their eyes filled with a soft luminescence. One by one, the thousands of specters stopped wailing. They looked at their hands, then at Allen.
In a breathtaking, silent movement, the entire spectral army bowed. They prostrated themselves in the dust, a sea of silver shadows offering a final salute to the boy who had ended their eternal torment. Then, like candles being blown out, they simply vanished.
The statue froze mid-strike. Without the ghosts to power its core, the mud lost its grip. The stones didn't just fall; they turned to fine, golden sand, merging with the floor until there was no trace that a guardian had ever existed.
Allen lowered the orb, his chest heaving. The hallway was finally, truly empty.
"Is... is it over?" Ron asked, his voice barely a whisper. He looked around the empty corridor, half-expecting a new horror to emerge from the shadows.
"They're gone, Ron. All of them," Allen said, his voice raspy. He tucked the orb away, feeling a strange sense of melancholy.
Nancy stared at him, her eyes wide with a mix of terror and awe. She didn't say a word; she just stood up, dusting off her clothes with trembling hands, looking at Allen as if he were a god disguised in a schoolboy's robes.
"Well," Allen said, turning his gaze toward the shattered remains of the mahogany door. "We didn't come this far to stand in a hallway. Let's see what they were so desperate to hide."
He stepped through the threshold, his wand tip glowing. The light cut through the darkness of the inner sanctum, and for a moment, Allen forgot how to breathe.
"Allen? What is it? Is there another one?" Ron called out nervously from the doorway.
"No," Allen replied, his voice thick with wonder. "It's... everything."
Ron and Nancy stepped inside, and the sound of their synchronized gasps echoed off the high, vaulted ceiling. Allen waved his wand—"Scourgify!"—and the thick blankets of dust and ancient cobwebs vanished in a whirlwind of magical energy, revealing the true splendor of the chamber.
It was a treasure house of the gods. Piles of jewelry boxes overflowing with lapis lazuli and carnelian were stacked against walls covered in gold-leafed hieroglyphs. A full-sized war chariot, plated in shimmering electrum, stood in the corner. There were gilded lions with emerald eyes, a lotus throne carved from a single block of translucent alabaster, and chests of coins that had been out of circulation for three millennia.
But the center of the room held the true prize.
A massive sarcophagus, crafted from solid, beaten gold, sat atop a plinth of black obsidian. It was encrusted with so many gems—rubies, sapphires, and diamonds—that it seemed to vibrate with reflected light even in the dim glow of their wands.
"Oh, my sweet lord," Nancy whispered, stepping forward as if in a trance. "This... this is more than the British Museum. This is more than everything."
"Allen," Ron said, his eyes glazing over as he stared at the mountain of gold. "We're not just rich. We're 'buy-a-country' rich. We're 'buy-the-Ministry-and-rename-it-after-ourselves' rich."
Allen wasn't looking at the gold. He was looking at the lid of the coffin. He brushed aside a stray pile of pearls to reveal two lines of text etched in the unmistakable, angular script of Ancient Runes.
"I have seen yesterday; I know tomorrow," Allen read aloud.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Nancy asked, her voice shaking. "Is it a warning?"
Allen pointed his wand at the mural directly beneath the text. His heart skipped a beat. The painting depicted three figures—two boys in robes and a girl in strange, modern clothes—standing exactly where they were standing now. In the mural, they were leaning over the coffin, pulling a mask from a figure within.
"He knew," Allen whispered, his skin crawling. "He didn't just build a tomb. He built a waiting room. He's been expecting us for three thousand years."
"Who has?" Ron asked, his hand tightening on his wand.
"The man in the box," Allen said.
He placed his hands on the heavy gold lid. He expected it to require a Herculean effort to move, but the gold slid away as if it were oiled, moving with a silent, ghostly grace. Inside was a secondary, human-shaped coffin, and within that lay the mummy.
It was small—much smaller than the giant statue outside had suggested. It was wrapped in the finest bleached linen, adorned with a collar of gold and turquoise that looked like a falcon's wings. A golden mask, its expression one of serene, eternal wisdom, stared up at them. In its crossed arms, the mummy clutched a wand made of a wood so dark it looked like solidified shadow, tipped with a pulsing black gemstone.
"He was a kid," Ron noted, his voice softening. "Look at the size of him. He wasn't some old Pharaoh."
"This isn't a Pharaoh's burial, Ron," Allen said, leaning closer. "Look at the posture. The crossed arms with the wand... it's the 'Sleeper's Stance.' It's a ritual used by Seers who intended to bridge the gap between lives."
"So he's a wizard?" Nancy asked, stepping back as Allen reached for the golden mask. "A prophet?"
"The greatest of his age, if the runes are right," Allen said.
With a steady hand, Allen lifted the golden mask. Nancy let out a choked gasp and recoiled, her back hitting a pile of gold shields.