As a tool for long-distance teleportation, Vanishing Cabinets possessed a range far beyond that of Apparition, perhaps even limitless.
They were also far more stable than Portkeys. While Portkeys could transport individuals over great distances, they were unreliable for mass transport and could not carry excessive weight or numbers of passengers.
Vanishing Cabinets, by contrast, required no pre-established network like the Floo Network, nor any Floo Powder for precise destination targeting.
Their greatest advantage lay in their ability to sustain continuous, two-way transport between paired cabinets, without restriction on the number of people or items. Once a link was established, hundreds could pass through in succession, and the connection would not weaken.
With such a system, entire groups could be assembled or evacuated within moments.
That was precisely why Sylas had decided to recreate and perfect the Vanishing Cabinet design, first to restore a functional pair, and then to master its magical principles in order to expand and evolve them.
Once successful, he planned to install Vanishing Cabinets between Bree City, Hogsmeade, and Isengard, linking them directly to Weathertop Castle.
When that network was complete, decrees could be transmitted instantly, and reinforcements could be dispatched or withdrawn at a moment's notice, eliminating the slow, day-long travel that currently separated his cities.
Unlike the Floo Network, which depended on limited Floo Powder production and could not sustain such scale, Vanishing Cabinets promised unrestricted communication and transport.
Sylas still controlled all Floo Powder production personally. For now, it was rare and precious, but he was already considering establishing a Magical Industry Division to mass-produce Floo Powder under his supervision.
Once that infrastructure was in place, public fireplaces could be set up in every major city across his domain, and Floo Powder could be made available for purchase by citizens, allowing all residents access to magical transport.
But that was a project for later.
For now, Sylas focused entirely on the Vanishing Cabinets.
He selected a section of Mallorn tree branch, thick as a barrel. For the colossal tree, this was only a minor offshoot, it would not even notice its loss.
He processed the wood carefully, cutting, sanding, and polishing the planks before taking up a mithril carving knife to inscribe ancient runes into the surface.
Each stroke was precise and deliberate. A single misplaced line could cause the cabinet's enchantments to collapse or even explode.
By the time the carvings were complete, an entire week had passed.
Then, like a craftsman-architect, Sylas assembled the enchanted planks, joining them into a tall, three-meter obelisk-shaped cabinet.
The outer bark of the Mallorn tree was silver-gray, but its inner wood gleamed with a soft golden hue, shimmering faintly under light as if the cabinet were cast from gold itself.
Though the design was simple, the intricate patterns of glowing runes etched across its surface gave it an air of solemn grandeur, a perfect blend of craftsmanship and magic.
Once the first cabinet was finished, Sylas used the remaining wood to create a second, identical one.
But at this stage, both were still inert, mere shells waiting to be awakened.
He opened their doors and began drawing Runic matrices inside with powdered mithril and phoenix ink. Thousands of interconnected runes spiraled together, forming a grand pattern that resembled both a spell circle and a dimensional gate.
The work took him another month to complete.
When Sylas finally stepped back, exhausted but satisfied, he couldn't help but exhale a quiet sigh.
It was no wonder Vanishing Cabinets were so rare and valuable in the wizarding world. Even with his vast knowledge and power, the process had taken weeks of focus.
It wasn't just the secrecy of their creation that made them priceless, it was their sheer complexity.
Standing before the two completed cabinets, Sylas placed them back-to-back in his workshop, then stepped toward the first one.
He inserted his wand into the key slot and began chanting softly.
Magic flowed from the wand into the cabinet's runes. One by one, they lit up with golden light, spreading across the surface until the whole cabinet glowed faintly, thrumming with arcane resonance.
The air rippled, faint distortions forming around it as a deep hum filled the room.
Then Sylas moved to the second cabinet and repeated the process.
As the same runes flared to life, the two cabinets resonated in perfect unison.
A thin, shimmering thread of light appeared between them, vanishing almost immediately, but Sylas felt the link form instantly, as if the two were no longer separate objects but two ends of the same doorway.
When he opened the doors of the first cabinet, the interior was shrouded in complete darkness.
The runes inside had disappeared, leaving behind a shadowy void that seemed far deeper than its physical dimensions.
From the outside, the cabinet was barely a meter deep. But when Sylas reached out and waved his hand before the darkness, a strange chill brushed across his fingertips, like wind flowing through an unseen tunnel.
Standing at the doorway and peering inside, Sylas saw that the back panel directly opposite the door had transformed into a bottomless, pitch-black corridor.
The darkness within was so absolute that even light could not pierce it, like the mouth of a void devouring the world, a passage that seemed to lead to nowhere, or perhaps everywhere.
Sylas smiled faintly.
That sight alone told him the Vanishing Cabinets had been successfully completed.
He crossed to the second cabinet and opened its doors. The same impenetrable shadow yawned within, an endless, lightless expanse connecting to the first.
Though his creation was a success, Sylas did not immediately test it himself.
He flicked his fingers, summoning a small snake that slithered obediently to his side. Speaking in the hissing rhythm of Parseltongue, he gave it a simple command:
"Go. Enter the dark passage, and return to me."
The serpent bowed its head and slipped into the first cabinet, vanishing soundlessly into the gloom.
A breath later, it crawled out from the second cabinet on the opposite side of the room.
A smile tugged at Sylas's lips. The transfer had worked flawlessly.
Still, he preferred caution over arrogance. He repeated the experiment several times, sending different objects, stones, scrolls, even a small enchanted lantern, through the link. Each emerged intact and unchanged.
Only when he was certain of its safety did Sylas finally step into the cabinet himself.
The moment he crossed the threshold, his vision was swallowed by shadow.
All sound vanished; even the rhythm of his own heartbeat seemed to dissolve.
Then, as suddenly as it came, the darkness released him.
Light returned, and when he blinked, he found himself standing inside the other Vanishing Cabinet.
He pushed the doors open and stepped out, both astonished and delighted.
The transition had been utterly seamless, smoother and faster than Apparition, more stable than Portkeys, and without the slightest trace of vertigo or distortion.
There had been no feeling of being compressed into a rubber tube, no spinning, no nausea, only a brief plunge into darkness, followed by effortless arrival.
It was as if he had simply walked through a doorway.
Even more fascinatingly, Sylas realized that the experience bore remarkable similarity to the passage at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, stepping through a wall of shadow and emerging elsewhere.
Perhaps, he thought, the famed platform in the British Wizarding World had been designed using the same magical principles as these Vanishing Cabinets.
Satisfied with the results, Sylas began contemplating placement.
In the wizarding world, Vanishing Cabinets had gradually faded from use. Their extinction made sense, with Apparition for short distances, Portkeys for long-range transport, and the cheap, household convenience of the Floo Network, few found reason to construct such intricate and costly devices.
Yet Sylas saw what others had missed.
Compared to those methods, Vanishing Cabinets offered unmatched stability and could transport vast numbers of people simultaneously, something no other magical method could achieve.
In that alone lay their unparalleled strategic value.
So he decided on their destinations.
He placed one cabinet permanently inside Weathertop Castle, and carried the other to Hildórien, far in the East.
Hildórien, the cradle of humankind, still suffused with the divine light of Eru Ilúvatar, served as Sylas's personal sanctuary, his hidden garden.
There, among rivers of silver mist and forests untouched by evil, he installed the second cabinet within a marble pavilion he had built himself.
When he stepped back through the doorway, he emerged instantly inside Weathertop Castle.
With the existence of vanishing cabinets, traveling between Weathertop and Hildórien would be as convenient as visiting a neighbor.