Artemis Hexley and the Circle of Khanna

Chapter 19: Lyre, Lyre

The Easter holidays were coming to a close, and therefore the daily meetings of the Circle of Khanna would soon be ending. Although all of its members had grown far more proficient at combative and defensive spells and had learned more about curses and curse-breaking in general, the Circle had yet to unearth any truly useful information pertaining to the final Cursed Vault or its whereabouts.

"I mean, we know it's in the lake," Artemis told Bill. "We just don't know where in the lake, exactly. There's nothing in the library, and like Talbott said, you can't tell anything from the surface of the water."

Bill sighed. "In which case, we are going to have to think about looking under the surface."

"What? Actually go down there ourselves and take a look around?"

"I don't see that we have much choice," said Bill. "Though Godric knows how long it will take us, the lake is vast."

"There's a lot of us, though. If we all split up and look then we can cover more... well, not ground, but you know..."

Artemis shrugged and Bill sighed again. That afternoon, he taught the Circle of Khanna how to perform the Bubblehead Charm, which would enable them to breathe underwater. Once all the members had managed the spell, they set off for the lakeshore, and each jumped off the jetty into the lake one at a time.

Though the spring weather was mild, and the temperatures had been getting steadily warmer since the start of April, the water was still cold. As her body hit the surface of the lake, Artemis took a deep breath and kept holding it once fully submerged, forgetting about the bubble of air surrounding her face for almost a minute. Once she had remembered that she could breathe easily under the water, she swam towards the others, just about able to see them through the murk.

"Is that everyone?" asked Bill, his voice so muffled that Artemis had to rely on lip reading to fully understand what he was saying. After a murmur of assent from the group, he nodded. "Great. So, there are eighteen of us, so I say we split into three groups of six. That means that we have big enough groups to protect each other if needs be. We know the Grindylows have been more aggressive of late, that might extend to the other creatures in the lake, too."

"Water serpents, kelpies, merpeople, the Squid," Alanza giggled and clapped her hands together, disrupting the water in front of her. "This is all so exciting."

"Yes, it's thrilling," Bill cast a brief look at Charlie, who shrugged. "Shall we get-"

Bill's question was interrupted by the sudden rush of a current and the sound of voices approaching with it, less muffled than any human sound would be. The Circle of Khanna moved closer together, all of them raising their wands as they looked in the direction from which the noise and movement were coming.

Swimming through the dark water towards them were a group of people unlike any others Artemis had ever seen in her life. Green-haired and grey-skinned, they propelled themselves forward not with legs, but with long silver tails. They wore necklaces made of jagged pebbles and in their hands they held spears. As they got closer, Artemis could see that their eyes were yellow, as were their teeth when they opened their mouths to speak.

The merpeople's voices carried through the water far better than Bill's or Alanza's had, however, their speech was unintelligible to Artemis. From the tone of their voices, she could guess that they were angry or, at the very least, suspicious to have human trespassers in their midst.

"We aren't here to hurt you," Artemis told the merman closest to her, who seemed to be the one in charge. "I swear, we are looking for the Cursed Vault. We're just trying to help."

Either the merman had not understood Artemis' words or he had not believed her, for he bared his yellow teeth, made a hissing sound between them, and began to speak again, his voice raised as he released another barrage of words that Artemis did not understand.