Letters in Praise of Emptiness

Letters in Praise of Emptiness

Very slowly, Remus reached into his pocket.

Keep its gaze. He gripped his wand with sweaty fingers. Don't look away.

He squinted into the late afternoon sunlight and tried to draw his wand without moving his arm or blinking. The creature huffed and stamped angrily.

Remus stumbled backward quickly.

Not so much stamped, he decided, taking another step, as plodded. Plodded angrily.

"Now, there," he said, in what he hoped was a non-threatening voice. "No need to be upset. I mean you no harm. I am perfectly willing--eager, even--to give you wide berth." He continued moving away, his feet sinking into the sandy ground. "It's just that this bit of land bears some resemblance to a road, and I suspect it is the road I am supposed to be following. I certainly don't mean to intrude upon your...whatever it was you were doing when I so rudely interrupted."

They had warned him about the roads: shear drops, rockslides, icy shrouds of fog, and overloaded lorries creeping along like drunken Erumpents. The hostile local wizards had also merited a few words of caution from Li's relatives in MacLeod Ganj; twelve centuries of strict isolationism are not easily breached, even by so bumbling and bloody-minded a western fool as Remus Lupin. The altitude, as well, they did go on and on about the altitude, moaning dramatically and grasping their heads to demonstrate, lest Remus misunderstand, the precise reaction expected of a lowlander travelling into the mountains. And Remus' final query, just one mention of the monks of the mysterious dark monastery--Nag Khung Dgon Pa--earned hushed whispers and dire predictions. Accepting their advice with gratitude and growing alarm, Remus had boarded the bus to Leh feeling quite well-counselled.

Nobody mentioned wild camels.

Quickening his backward pace, Remus wondered how much space was required to avoid challenging a camel. He tripped over an uneven patch of ground and froze, eyeing the animal warily. Nobody ever mentions the wild camels. The camel stared down at him, unmoving. Its expression wasn't quite threatening, he had to admit, but it was uncannily familiar. Muggle tourists, Ministry officials, scholars and camels, they all wore the same look of bemused arrogance, the look that said, "I have no idea what I'm doing here, but, by golly, it's my right to be doing it!"

Laughing to himself, Remus relaxed his hold on his wand and stood straighter, adjusting the straps of the rucksack on his shoulders. "I'm not laughing at you," he said reassuringly. The camel blinked. "I'm going to step around this way. You needn't move an inch."

Remus left the road and circled the camel at a distance of about fifteen feet. The animal turned its head to watch him but did not move. When he was sufficiently past, Remus returned to the narrow, sandy track. The road wound over low, rolling hills and through clumps of leafy trees at the edge of the dunes, not unlike the one in which he and the camel had surprised one another.

It was late afternoon, and the shadows were long. Soon the sun would fall behind the snow-covered peaks in the west, and doubt tugged at Remus' mind. He had no way of knowing if he was on the correct road. When the car had become mired in the sand a few hours ago, his Ladakhi driver had launched into a lengthy speech, quite possibly discussing the state of the tyres, the distance to the monastery, the difficulty of driving in so remote a region, the likelihood of being set upon by wild camels, or any number of topics pertinent to a traveller's survival in the Nubra Valley. Remus hadn't understood a single word.

After employing a series of elaborate gestures and exhausting the full extent of his very limited Tibetan vocabulary, Remus had managed to confirm that this was the road to the monastery and that he would be better off walking than waiting for men from Hundar to help with the car. He had set off toward the monastery, and the driver started walking toward the village.

His confidence in the chosen route had faded somewhat through the afternoon. The wizards in Leh had told him that the monastery was in the mountains, with no mention of the Sahara-like dunes that seemed so out of place surrounded by the peaks of the high Himalaya. But he stayed on the road, half-heartedly reasoning that even if he didn't reach the monastery by the time the full moon rose tomorrow night, there were no people within a day's journey for him to endanger.

A few miles down the road, Remus felt a shiver of magic and paused. The scenery before him rippled and shifted; he took another dozen steps, and the view snapped into sharp relief. The mountains were suddenly much closer than they had been, and he could see where the dunes ended against barren, rocky hills. It was a simple Muggle-repelling charm, basic misdirection and mirage designed to make the mountains seem farther away than they actually were. The road led into the mouth of a steep valley no more than three miles ahead. Remus smiled with relief and resumed walking, encouraged by the unmistakable sign of wizards in the region.

He reached the edge of the dunes just as the sun set. Remus glanced back over the barren terrain, and a flicker of movement caught his eye. A creature was galloping swiftly on the crest of a distant dune, silhouetted against the mountains that still glowed with evening sunlight. Wild camels, he thought, shaking his head. Then he frowned. It didn't move quite like a camel; it stepped too lightly and the curve of its back was even more misshapen than a camel's humps. But the animal vanished from sight, and Remus turned toward the mountains.

The road narrowed as it climbed into the valley, eventually fading to nothing more than a path etched into the hillside. The moon, nearly full, cast shadows among the stones and provided enough light for Remus to clearly see the rugged and alien landscape. Except for the trail, there was no sign of men in these mountains at all. The ground was not trampled by nomads' animal herds, and the trail looked as though it hadn't been walked in years. Ignoring his misgivings, Remus tried to enjoy the cool, peaceful night.

When another tingle of magic brushed his skin, Remus slowed uncertainly. It was different from the earlier protective charm, a faint fire rather than a refreshing breeze, prickly, warm and vaguely familiar. The hair on the back of his neck rose, but Remus continued and the charm did not impede him.

As he emerged from the magic flow, Remus remembered the sensation and understood what it was. The line in the dunes had been a Muggle-repelling charm, but this ward was more specific, a spell he had encountered only once before but doubted he would ever forget.

This was a human-repelling charm.

Remus stopped, his heart thudding rapidly in his chest. You will understand. That's what Matsyamohandra had said when he gave Remus the name of the monastery. You will be safe. Possibilities stampeded through Remus' mind, and he silently cursed Matsyamohandra for refusing to explain. It could be monastery of werewolves, though Remus had never heard of such a thing. Perhaps it was centaurs--they would certainly enjoy a place so remote and empty of humans as Ladakh--or perhaps it was something else entirely. He recalled snippets of stories, begrudgingly shared by the wizards in Leh, about creatures unique to Ladakh that had survived for centuries apart from the wizarding world.

After a few moments of fruitless internal debate, Remus started up the trail again. Whatever the species that had constructed the human-repelling charm, Matsyamohandra had been adamant that, with them, Remus would find a safe haven for the full moon. The old man was inscrutable and often infuriating, but he did not lie. The assurances spoken in the sunlit ashram in Haridwar, however, seemed weak beneath the bright Ladakhi moon; it had been years, after all, since Matsyamohandra had travelled to the land of the high peaks and passes.

But Remus followed the trail. If he was honest with himself, he knew that it wasn't merely the lack of a better option that propelled him forward. He was also immensely curious about who, or what, lived in this protected monastery, hidden so far from the wizarding world.

Another hour passed before the monastery came into view. A soaring, narrow spire rose above a ridge and, as the trail rounded the shoulder of the mountain, the monastery emerged--a dark, angular shape against the moonlit peaks. It looked nothing like any gompa he had seen in Ladakh. Taller than it was wide, the structure consisted almost entirely of mismatched towers leaning together asymmetrically, as if a child had piled his blocks at the edge of the valley. Yellow light glowed from scattered windows, warm and welcoming despite the imposing, almost sinister, shape of the building. The trail widened as it approached the massive gates, lined on both sides by even rows of gnarled, ancient trees that blocked the moonlight. Remus felt like a boy in a Muggle fairy tale, approaching the sorcerer's keep with trepidation, and he smiled in spite of his edginess. If there was a beautiful princess imprisoned in the highest tower, she was in for a disappointment, poor lass, with no hero to rescue her except a dishevelled, dead tired, rather less-than-dashing werewolf who would rather share a cuppa with the sorcerer than fight him, and would probably hurt himself embarrassingly if he tried to brandish a sword.

The dull metal gates were twice as high as a man and intricately decorated with scenes sharply illuminated by moonlight. Armies, kings, mages and beasts swarmed across the broad grey surface, encircled by strange letters that Remus didn't recognise. He searched but found no bell or knocker. His smile quickly fading, he raised a fist and pounded on the gate. A bone-rattling boom echoed within the keep and across the valley.

Remus jumped backward, staring at his hand in amazement as the sound reverberated and faded. He hadn't struck the gate that hard, but the Amplification Charm--or whatever it was--certainly eliminated the possibility that his arrival would go unnoticed. He waited, suddenly aware of the slight wind that had risen, rustling the leaves of the trees behind him.

A deafening metallic clang sounded from within, and Remus started again, then chided his jittery nerves. It was the sound of locks disengaging, a series of bolts and bars sliding free. The last ring faded, and Remus held his breath in the sudden silence. Then the gate began to swing open. Warm yellow light spilled out; he blinked against the unexpected brightness and resisted the urge to step back yet again.

The shadow of a man appeared the light, and he came forward, opening his arms in welcome. "Mr. Lupin! We've been expecting you."

Remus opened his mouth to return the greeting but instead blurted, "You have?"

"Yes, of course." The man motioned for Remus to enter, standing aside. No longer a silhouette, the man was tall and thin, dressed in the simple robes of a Buddhist monk, though his features were distinctly European. He spoke with a slight accent--Spanish, Remus thought. "Your friend in Haridwar wrote to us some weeks ago. We have not heard from him in years, but friends of Matsyamohandra are always welcome here."

"He did?" Remus asked, aware of how stupid he sounded. He was annoyed but not surprised; it was just the sort of thing Matsyamohandra would neglect to mention.

The man laughed, a rich sound that filled the large stone hall. He waved a narrow hand and the gate began to close; Remus watched the complicated array of locks slide into place and tried to ignore the feeling that he was now trapped inside. "Welcome to Nag Khung Dgon Pa, Mr. Lupin. I am Nicodemo Alejo Octavio Roque de Madrigal." The man extended his hand and smiled.

Remus reached to shake his hand, then froze.

It was a friendly smile, bright and open, lighting his dark eyes as well as his mouth.

His fanged mouth.

Nicodemo Alejo Octavio Roque de Madrigal was a vampire.

Remus hesitated a shade too long, and the smile began to fade. A mocking female voice rose in his memory: It is another game we play, the proliferation of names. We do love the games that the children cannot win. But he recovered quickly and shook the offered hand. "Thank you," he said quickly. "I didn't know you were expecting me." It took Remus only a second to decide that an admission of ignorance was preferable to a possible insult. He asked, "What shall I call you?"

Still smiling, the man replied, "Nicodemo will suffice." He led Remus through the torch-lit hall. Colourful tapestries hung on the walls; Nicodemo's bare feet padded softly on the exquisite Kashmiri carpet that lay over the dark grey stone. He slowed his pace to walk beside Remus and explained, "In this monastery we reserve our formality for study and meditation. We cling to our names because they are our oldest comfort, but when we step onto the Eight-Fold path we shed the traditions and laws that shackle our counterparts elsewhere in the world. You need not worry."

Of course not, Remus thought. What is there to worry about in a monastery full of Buddhist vampires? "Thank you," he said again, following Nicodemo through a pair of troll-sized wooden doors. "I appreciate--"

His voice faded as they entered the next chamber, and the carefully worded thanks flew from his mind. While the entrance hall had been simple and grand, the adjacent chamber was nothing short of magnificent. Smooth, cylindrical walls soared upward, presumably ending at the top of one of the high towers; Remus could not see the ceiling in the murky darkness. The walls were crowded with torches, windows, mosaics, tapestries, statues, paintings, alcoves, balconies and staircases, a lively chaos of colour and architectural whimsy. A sculpture of a winged angel menaced a portrait of a singing shepherdess; a crooked, winding and impossibly frail metal staircase twisted up one wall and vanished into a round portal more than one hundred feet overhead; an intricate red and black stone mosaic of archaic letters and runes, each as tall as a man, spiralled from the floor into the shadows overhead; a herd of winged horses, fashioned from an impossible quantity of silver metal, were inlaid in the dark stone of the tower; graceful balconies and delicate arches opened into rooms and corridors on higher levels. In the centre of the room, atop a pedestal of black stone laced with veins of white crystal, there was a massive statue of the Buddha, his beatific smiling face carved into the purest white stone Remus had ever seen; fresh flowers of every colour littered the base of the pedestal. Six tall doorways opened into the chamber, all but one glowing with golden light.

Remus realised that his mouth was hanging open.

"I--this is--Wow." He blinked, then glanced at Nicodemo, who was smiling with unmistakable pleasure.

"Splendid, is it not?"

"Who built this?" Remus asked, turning slowly to see the whole of the chamber. In one of the open corridors above, a line of robed monks passed by; their voices and laughter drifted down through the tower.

"We do not know," Nicodemo replied. Remus looked at him in surprise, and Nicodemo waved a hand upward. "The tower itself is far older than the monastery, far older than the wizarding history in Ladakh. This is the oldest part of the fortress. As you can see, it has been modified in every century, altered by every age. We assume it was built to protect the guhaa, but we do not know when, or by whom."

"Guhaa?" The word was unfamiliar to Remus.

"The cave." Nicodemo motioned toward the one dark doorway. "The guhaa, the andhakaara. It has many names. Matsyamohandra told you none of this?"

Remus smiled ruefully. "No, he didn't. He told me there was a safe place for the full moon, and nothing more." He stepped toward the dark doorway almost unconsciously, his fascination thoroughly burying any apprehension at finding himself in a fortress of vampires.

Nicodemo placed a restraining hand on Remus' shoulder. "I will show you tomorrow, if you wish," he said, his voice suddenly quiet. "But the andhakaara is best avoided when one is tired." Then his tone brightened, and he said, "You are either very brave or very foolish to have sought our monastery, knowing nothing of what you would find."

Remus had been thinking the same thing himself--he had decided upon "very foolish" at least an hour ago--and he smiled sheepishly.

Nicodemo added, "It is quite late, and you are hungry, no?"

With a wave of his hand, he sent Remus' rucksack to some unseen room. Remus recalled reading that, while vampiric wizards still needed wands to do magic, several hundred years of practice meant that they rarely needed to hold the wand and point it for the desired effect. Nicodemo led Remus through one of the tall doorways into another chamber, this one awash in the artwork of Renaissance humanists. From there, it was a dizzying series of corridors and staircases, ascending two levels then descending one, passing open rooms and dim chambers. Several monks greeted Nicodemo and welcomed Remus cheerfully; they were both men and women, their faces and accents from all over the world. Every one of them was a vampire.

Remus and Nicodemo arrived in a long, narrow dining chamber that had a single wooden table in the centre. The table was empty but for a handful of monks gathered near a fire that roared in a huge stone fireplace. Not afraid of fire, then, Remus noticed, following Nicodemo to a seat at the end. These monks greeted him as pleasantly as all the others had, and Nicodemo trotted out a series of lengthy introductions. The ridiculously long names flew through Remus' head, as he smiled politely and sat down next to a young girl--Clara, if he had heard correctly--with flowing golden hair and clear blue eyes. The Princess in the tower, he thought with amusement.

"It has been decades since a werewolf last travelled to this place," she said in greeting. Her accent was English, but the cadence reminded Remus of the oldest portraits at Hogwarts. He felt foolish for having seen her as a young girl; she was probably several hundred years old.

Across the table, a dark-skinned man with a lilting Arabic accent raised a stone goblet and added, "I do hope you find the meal satisfactory. Claude was once cook for Louis the Fourteenth, but now he has very few opportunities to exercise his skills." The man sipped from his goblet and licked his red lips clean.

The meal was good, though a bit stale, as though the food had been stored under a Preservation Charm for a very long time. Remus chewed the bread slowly, wondering what topics were appropriate for conversation whilst dining with Buddhist vampires. So, how long does it take for the undead to reach nirvana? And how does that 'respect for all life' bit work when you fill your goblets with blood? He decided, after a moment's contemplation, that he would be safest asking about the weather.

The monks had no trouble making conversation, however. They asked him polite questions about the world away from the monastery, and Remus answered as best he could. Unfortunately, he soon realised that the last rumours to reach the monastery had been of the growing power Grindelwald, and the monks had little interest in the politics of the modern world. They inquired about his purpose in travelling to Ladakh, and Remus shared with them his interest in magical landscapes and intention of studying the peculiar characteristics of the Nubra Valley.

Amused, Nicodemo observed, "The wizards of Ladakh do not share the secrets of their land easily. It is too easy for them to hide in the mountains, pretending that the world beyond does not exist." Something of Remus' unspoken question must have shown on his face, for Nicodemo continued, "Although it must seem to you that we do the same. Think, rather, that we dedicate ourselves to the acceptance of impermanence, while they focus their efforts on preventing change in a world that is designed to evolve. Tell me, have you had any luck obtaining their aid in your task?"

"Very little," Remus replied cheerfully. "But I can learn quite a bit without help, so it's not a wasted effort."

The conversation fell into a lull. Remus swallowed, then asked, "How long has the monastery been here?"

The blonde woman, Clara, answered, "Eight centuries, though the fortress is much older."

Remus tried to find a polite way to ask his next question. "And how--why--" He hesitated, quailing a bit under the unwavering gazes of the monks. "I've never heard of such a place," he began awkwardly.

"It is the only such place," one man replied, and the others laughed.

"How many monks are here?"

"Just over three hundred," Nicodemo replied.

Three hundred, Remus repeated silently. Three hundred vampires who have decided to become Buddhist monks in a monastery located as far from the civilised world as it is possible to be while still on earth. Remus had always known that the Dark Arts texts he studied in school were riddled with myths and outright mistakes; the information about werewolves was often faulty enough to make him laugh. But he was fairly certain that the description of vampires as accursed, undead Dark Creatures, who fed on blood and were quite difficult to kill, was accurate. It is all true, laughed a voice in his memory, as clear and close as if she were now whispering in his ear. We pass the centuries with bloodsport and nasty little games. Do not look so surprised, child. We all haven't the pleasure of being woefully misunderstood. Remus ran his finger along the edge of the wooden plate, opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and remained silent. The monks were watching him, their expressions serene and utterly unreadable.

"We choose to leave the world behind," Clara told him suddenly, answering a question he hadn't yet voiced. "For our own reasons, perhaps too complex to explain. I believe you have met vampires in the world, many who would not choose this path?"

"Not many," he replied. "Just one."

Looking around the table at the half-dozen openly curious faces, Remus suddenly felt very, very young and very far from home.

* * *

After supper, Nicodemo took Remus to a room high in one of the towers. The climb reminded Remus how far he had walked that day and how tired he was despite the whirling activity in his mind. The room was wedge-shaped and quite comfortable, with a colourful Kashmiri carpet on the stone floor and a simple wooden bed set against one of the straight walls. His rucksack was on a chair beside the bed.

He thanked Nicodemo, and then he was alone.

Remus walked over to the large window and pushed the casement open. Leaning out into the chill night, he looked down at the valley floor, hundreds of feet below. The landscape was eerie and silent. He still felt the familiar tension and pull of the moon, but it was dampened under pure physical exhaustion. Remus wondered why he hadn't before thought of lengthy treks through camel-infested sands and climbs in mysterious ancient monasteries as preparation for the full moon. He inhaled deeply and absently rubbed at his right wrist, trying to ignore the ghostly memory of thin fingers pressing bruises into his skin.

With a yawn, Remus turned away from the window. There was a large basin of warm water on a table against the wall. He washed his face and hands, then removed his shirt and folded it neatly over the back of the chair. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he rummaged in his rucksack, not really sure what he was looking for but feeling too restless to sleep immediately. He found his research notes but had no interest in perusing them. When he set the notebook aside, a folded sheet of parchment fell out, and Remus smiled. He smoothed it open on the bed. It was a crude drawing, a swath of jagged peaks with the stick figure of a man perched on one summit and a shaggy yak balanced on another. Across the top were scrawled the words Have a safe journey Professor Lupin! Childish signatures decorated the bottom of the drawing. The boys from the ashram had given it to him just before he left for Ladakh and they went home for the summer. He had promised to teach them how to bring their drawings to life when they returned in the autumn, and he remembered that he needed to write to Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew, to ask if they would mind parting with Peter's old books about magical sketches.

Remus tucked the parchment back into the journal and slid the book into the rucksack. His fingers brushed against a familiar curve of leather, and his breath caught in his throat. Forcing himself to breathe steadily again, he knew that it was high time he stopped pretending to be surprised. Pulling the leather collar from the pack, Remus fingered it gently, tracing over the single word inscribed in the leather. Padfoot. His Aunt Gwen had packed his things and sent them to Haridwar three years ago, and he still wondered if she had known what she was doing when she placed this collar in the box. At first Remus had struggled to ignore it, hiding it beneath the clean linens in the cupboard or under scraps of parchment in his desk drawer. Then he had carried it down to the Ganges every morning before dawn and tried to toss it into the swift current. Finally, he had started bringing it with him on his travels throughout India, telling himself that someday he would find a ravine deep enough, a bridge high enough, a desert vast enough, some wild and empty place where he could drop the collar and walk away.

Pushing the collar back into the rucksack, Remus set the bag aside and lay back on the bed. The window was still open, and he knew he would probably be cold later, but the blankets were thick and he was too tired to cross the room again. Remus closed his eyes and inhaled the clean night air. Through the open window, he heard a distant sound, voices chanting or simple music. As he drifted to sleep the music seemed to amplify and grow, echoing off the stone walls and surrounding him.

* * *

When Remus awoke, the sky was clear and tinted with gold over the shadowy peaks. Shocking cold air bit at his nose and face, and he snuggled down beneath the woollen blankets. His body was still tired from the trek, but his mind was alert, his nerves already anticipating the moon. He felt itchy despite the soft linens and vaguely nauseous, and he had no desire to rise just yet. Remus stayed in bed and watched the last of the stars fade from the sky.

And he thought about her.

He had spoken the truth the night before. There was, supposedly, a large community of vampires in England, but Remus had only ever met one. From the earliest days of the fight against Voldemort, there had been rumours that the Dark Wizard was convincing vampires to help him, although nobody knew what Voldemort could offer to those who survived for hundreds of years by simply taking whatever they wanted. There were more pressing rumours to investigate, more immediate dangers to face, and if a young couple was found with neat punctures in their throats, drained of blood and as pale as snow, there was never any reason to link the attack to the Death Eaters and their lord. With Muggle-born wizards vanishing nearly every week, Aurors violently attacked on straightforward raids, the Ministry struggling frantically for options and the list of trustworthy contacts growing shorter every day, everyone in the Order had assumed that vampires were the least of their problems.

They had been right, in the end. Remus rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. In the end, it hadn't mattered that Remus had accidentally stumbled through a human-repelling charm while searching an abandoned pub, that as he descended into the cellar he didn't notice Gideon's and Emmeline's voices growing fainter, that he didn't recognise the faint tingle of magic on his skin and didn't react quickly enough to dodge the flash of red light that burst from the darkness.

He had awoken, hours later, sprawled on the floor in a room of dull grey stone. She was sitting in a simple wooden chair, dressed in a pink Muggle sundress. Her long legs were crossed, her dark hair twisted in an elegant knot; she sipped a glass of red wine and fingered her necklace, a ruby teardrop on a silver chain. She watched him wake, her countenance a mask of amusement as he gaped stupidly about the room and slowly realised what had happened.

Good evening, wolf, she said. I have a proposition for you.

Then she smiled, and Remus had known that the goblet was not filled with wine.

In the cold early morning, Remus exhaled slowly and opened his eyes. He didn't want to think about her, though he supposed it was inevitable in this place. Through the window, the sky behind the Himalayan peaks was golden and nearly blinding; another minute or two and the sun would be up. He pushed himself upright and rolled his neck and shoulders to ease some of the tension. Standing, he winced slightly at the cold stone on his bare feet. The basin was again filled with warm, clean water. He washed his face, brushed his teeth and shaved. As he turned to dress in clean clothes, the sun rose; a glow of brilliant yellow light filled his tower room.

Remus stood at the window, buttoning his shirt. The landscape, though rugged and strange, seemed gentler in the early morning, brushed with pale green, endless and empty. He had half-expected to wake and find that the monastery had been a dream, so strange and unexpected was the place. After living for three years at the ashram in Haridwar and a few weeks in the simple huts and tents of Ladakh, the grandeur and power of the fortress felt unreal, even to a man who had attended school for seven years in one of the most magical places in Europe.

Running his hand through his hair to smooth it, Remus pulled open the door and stepped into the dim corridor. He didn't clearly remember the route Nicodemo had taken the night before, but he figured that going down was a good start. The tower was lined with closed doors and cold torches, the only light coming from narrow windows slit through the stone of the outer wall. He met no one while descending the long spiral staircase. The stairs ended in a broad corridor that opened into the central tower. Remus didn't know if he should go right or left--didn't know where he should go at all--so he stepped over to the iron railing and looked down.

Remus was relieved to see a few monks crossing the massive chamber. Sunlight filled the tower, though there didn't seem to be windows enough to account for it, and the frieze of silvery winged horses encircling the room glowed with an unnatural light. When Remus turned his gaze upward, he could see the spire narrowing into a slender stiletto of dark stone. He looked down again and watched the robed monks passing through the chamber, walking by the great Buddha unhurriedly. None of them entered or exited the dark doorway. Their pale robes stood out against the black and blue floor, a mosaic of large stones set in a geometrical pattern. Tracing the lines of the pattern with his eye, Remus realised that it was a single large symbol--an asymmetrical cross intersected by three scythe-like curves--familiar enough to nudge his memory, but he could not remember where he'd seen it before.

"What do you think of our humble monastery, Remus Lupin?"

Startled, Remus spun around. It was Clara, the blonde woman with the Botticelli face and sweet smile. "Humble?" Remus raised an eyebrow and returned the smile.

"We dare not take pride in the works of those who have gone before us," she replied, standing at the railing beside him. "We did not build this place. We merely...found it."

"And nobody knows who built it?"

She looked at him with wide blue eyes and shrugged. "There are stories, but the truth is long buried in time, in myth mingled with history."

"It reminds me of Hogwarts," Remus said suddenly, though he hadn't recognised the similarity before. He considered adding an explanation, but, as Clara's accent was English, he did not want to insult her by assuming he knew something she did not. And even if he weren't carefully avoiding the pitfalls of vampire etiquette, he didn't know if he could explain further. There was nothing outwardly similar about the two places; the fortress had a harsh, ancient edge quite unlike Hogwarts' reassuring Scottish strength. It was the magic, Remus decided, the feeling that witches and wizards--and vampires and werewolves--were but a small, insignificant component of a system that was tantalisingly close to magical chaos.

Clara seemed to be thinking about the comparison. "In a small way, perhaps," she conceded, "though it has been a very long time since I last saw Hogwarts. Have they changed the laws to allow those who are not human to attend?"

"Not exactly." Remus shook his head, half-smiling. Clara looked no more than fifteen or sixteen, and he wondered if she had been forced to leave Hogwarts when she became a vampire, centuries ago. "Well, there are no laws, but I was allowed at school only because the headmaster arranged to keep my condition hidden."

"I see." Clara sighed and stepped away from the railing. "Humans do cling to the most foolish of customs. Come, you would like some breakfast? And Nicodemo tells me that you wish to see the caves."

"I would," Remus agreed, though he wasn't very hungry. "Although I don't know what's in the caves. Are they through that door?" he asked, pointing to the dark doorway.

"Yes." Clara paused, biting her lower lip as if she were thinking of saying more. But then she simply added, "That is the entrance. But first, you will eat." She led him through the winding corridors to a room much smaller than the dining hall of the night before. A simple breakfast of bread and tea appeared before Remus, and while he ate, Clara told him little things about the monastery and herself, speaking, he knew, only to be polite. She had been at the monastery for four hundred years, but she said nothing about her life before that.

When Remus finished the last of his tea, she stood up. "To the andhakaara, then."

Remus stood as well. "What does that mean? The caves?"

"Andhakaara means darkness. But it is the same. Come, this way."

At the entrance to the caves, Clara selected a torch from a plain wooden stand and muttered an incantation under her breath to light it. She paused and turned to Remus; the blue flame made her pale skin seem almost translucent.

"Follow closely, and do not touch the walls," she said, then stepped through the doorway.