CHAPTER XI: OMINOUS OBELISK
Behind the curtain, Illonel sat down and crossed his slender legs, staring intently into the elven girl's eyes. Occasionally a waiter would shuffle past, but they were so enamored with Illonel's performance, they just smiled and rushed on.
"What's wrong, Emily? Slow down…" he started as she began to blubber uncontrollably.
"I'm…I'm sorry Illonel. I'm just worried of him…" she said, controlling her emotions with a pronounced swallow.
"Who?" Illonel asked – surely, she meant one of the other two mage apprentices that had trained him in wizard cantrips…he had recognized her as one of his tutors straightaway upon entering the ballroom.
"Stev. He's…he's contracted the sickness, I believe…" she said, getting so quiet she was barely above a whisper.
"The sickness? The tainted water sickness? How?"
"I don't know…I'm merely an apprentice…but the new head mage hasn't been appointed yet, so long after Wyvhern's termination…leaving us quite vulnerable. I can't get an audience with the Duke…it's impossible…"
A waiter flew by, stopping long enough to get Illonel's autograph.
"That was nice of you…" Emily smiled through her tears – she was exceptionally pretty, even though her small amount of dark makeup ran down her cheeks.
Illonel smiled back and raised a cloth, wiping off one of her cheeks tenderly. "I just wrote 'back to work, lad'." They smiled and stared into each other's eyes for only a second before the smiled vanished from Emily's face. Not needing any further prodding, Illonel stood up.
"Come. I'll ask my traveling group to help Stev," he said triumphantly.
"Illonel…are these people your…friends?" Emily asked, finally standing and putting a hand on his shoulder.
Illonel shrugged, blinked his eyes deeply and walked out of Emily's reach. "Could be."
"Should we tell someone? Can we meet with the Duke again?" Sic asked after Illonel introduced both Emily and her situation.
"No, we've tried – the Duke has left the mansion…or at least, so say the guards," Illonel retorted.
"Then we should just scream out that the water poisoning is back! I mean, send the crowd into a panic and disappear in the commotion!" Celathiel mused as the group headed for the exit.
"Yeah!" Furrius chimed in, fully swayed by Celathiel's idea. "No faster way to spread the word than through mass panic!"
Illonel, Barakus, Sic, Emily and Krougu looked at the two half-elves as if they were genetically fused at the ear and covered in thick, orange fur.
"I swear on life itself that if you do that, you won't be walking out of here a whole man," Illonel whispered to them.
"You'd never see it coming…" Krougu said, fingering his shortsword.
"Okay! Fine, jeez…" Celathiel gave up.
"We'll just tell the first watchtower of guards we see…" Emily added, raising an eyebrow at the man she had allowed herself to dance with. "Idiot," she added very quietly under her breath.
"I think she's the head mage…" Celathiel whispered conspiratorially to Furrius. Illonel proceeded to punch the headstrong magician in his bony nose.
"Ready, sirs? Oh…and madam," the guard near the dressing room asked, escorting them through the maze of doors outside to the carriage.
"Where to?" the carriage driver asked gruffly. "Been rented for the day, mates. Where ya headed?"
Emily nodded at Illonel and he spoke up. "Can you take us five miles outside town? Heading east?"
"Five miles, eh? Outta town…hmmm…"
Furrius and Illonel both immediately shot out two sums of gold; Furrius merely offered one piece, while Illonel offered ten.
"Do I get all eleven, then?" he grinned and flashed a mouth full of yellow flecks he called 'teeth'. As they approached the first guard post, Furrius hastily popped his head out of the moving carriage door.
"The water sickness is back! Just thought you'd like to know!"
The bewildered guard took the information to heart, but still shot them a bewildered look as they passed, tearing up the windy road out of town.
After about twenty minutes of silent travel, they approached the area Emily had specified. "This is the concentration site of the spell that controls the reservoir. Here I think we'll get an answer. I…I've never been here before…I just know of it through Wyvhern and the other high mages."
"We'll be back – stay here and you get the other half," Illonel said, thrusting six gold pieces at the driver.
"I'll stay up the hill…no offense. I won't go nowhere! I promise!" he pleaded as the cleric of death and magic shot him a stern look.
"Fine, go," Illonel concluded. The carriage took off, stopping nearly five-hundred feet away.
"I sure hope he doesn't leave us out here…" Furrius said to Illonel, walking away from the spooked driver.
"Eh. If he does, we're five gold richer."
Surveying the area, the seven adventurers were astonished by the sheer scope of things: a massive, black obelisk towered in front of them in the center of a dirty clearing. It rose like a massive, manmade hill. Not perfectly circular, the four sides of the oval pillar each had a large circular pattern like on their cloaks – each with a different arrangement of hands. One had both hands up; one pointed to the right and up; the left and up; the right and down. It wasn't a code for anything they understood – it didn't seem to be a clock, for the hands didn't operate the same way; it didn't seem to be a compass, for there was more than one hand on each face.
"Well look what I've found…" Krougu said, pulling back a bush about twenty feet directly behind the right and up clock face. Underneath the overgrowth stood a miniature replica of the massive pillar – small, but nearly the same. Surely enough, in each of the four directions the faces pointed, there was a smaller obelisk, surrounding the center one. Each of the smaller stones only had two faces – one facing toward the center stone, one facing away.
Emily reached forward toward a small obelisk, her finger almost grazing the small circle – the smaller obelisk's symbols lacked the hands that the center symbols had…
A small set of hands started to show up as Emily touched the spot – but nothing else happened. The group crowded around her as Barakus and Sic stepped back, looking out for anything out of the ordinary…which was pretty much everything, at this point.
"Maybe…" Illonel said, clutching his cloak with the symbols.
"Let me wear it – please," Emily said, not waiting for an answer. She tossed the cloak on and as she touched the symbol this time, a set of hands stuck. She rotated the protruding disk with a light graze of her finger until it 'clicked', settled into the stone and the hands disappeared.
"Doesn't work on the big ones…" Krougu said, rubbing his hands across the center obelisk.
"Well, looks simple enough," Furrius said, putting on his cloak beside Celathiel. "We just have to do that to the rest of them." He stood across from Emily and waited for the signal as Celathiel stood on the other side of the obelisk.
"Guys, good idea?" Sic stammered, looking at the large stone pillar. "I mean, this is magic we don't know, shouldn't be tampering with…"
"Stop," Barakus commanded, a hint of pleading in his voice.
"Illonel," Furrius said, pulling the elven warrior out of Emily's earshot, "do you trust this girl?"
Illonel pursed his lips and nodded, walking over to Barakus to borrow his cloak. The two cloak-less members of the entourage stood well past the smaller obelisks. In turn, Furrius, Celathiel and Illonel turned their symbols, each wearing a cloak.
After the inner symbols were finished, they began on the outside ones.
"Wait…they're opposite…maybe we should do them in opposite order?" Celathiel posed.
"Or opposite direction…" Illonel thought, adding complexity to the mix.
"Or opposite ANYTHING! Let's just go with opposite order!" Furrius shot, growing impatient.
And they did – Illonel turned his outside symbol until it clicked – upon doing so, the ground at their feet rumbled. Small pebbles and chunks of the obelisk shook free and pelted the ground with soft clacking noises. Ever so slightly, the giant symbols in the center of the obelisk started to rotate – to the right. The symbols themselves didn't move – the obelisk itself was moving.
"Either we're doing something really wrong or really, really right…" Celathiel said as he slid his into place. The obelisk moved much more this time, almost a foot. Furrius could notice small cracks forming in the rock, and the center symbols seemed to have light shining behind them…but behind rock? Light could shine through parchment…but not rock as thick as an obelisk, surely…
They had to steady themselves with the small pillars after Furrius finished his sequence – the rocking of the ground became fierce and unwieldy. Emily finished her side as the obelisk finished rotating – each of the giant symbols spun individually and disappeared into the rock, which was now twisting in sections, as if it was constructed of two completely different stone buildings. After twisting for an entire quarter rotation, they saw four identical hollowed pathways into the thirty-foot obelisk on each side, crisscrossing in the center. Furrius awkwardly waved at Celathiel on the opposite side as Krougu began to step forward.
"Wait," he said, igniting a fist-sized stone with a light spell. He tossed it into the center of the pillar, illuminating the dark center – all they could truly make out was another short pillar with a flat top. Sizing it up, Krougu, Illonel, Furrius, Emily and Celathiel entered the cramped area.
"We're gonna keep watch…" Sic said, climbing up to Barakus' shoulders. "Hey, I could get used to this…"
Barakus laughed, shaking the gnome on his shoulders in the process.
"More symbols? C'mon…" Furrius said, looking at the center pillar – atop its flat surface were grooved indentations, forming four circles, all hands pointing up and down. Behind each symbol on the walls were four large symbols, identical to the ones on the outside of the obelisk. The cleric reached up and began to move the large symbol to match the ones in the center podium – as he did so, the clock on the back of his cloak moved with it.
"Look at that!" Krougu exclaimed, fascinated by the magic at work.
"What?" Furrius turned around, thoroughly ruining the display. Illonel showed him as the four of them matched each wall to the center.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Sic said as he bobbed up and down on Barakus' shoulders – the doorway into the obelisk had begun to close a second before, after the sequence was completed…with a mighty kick against a small pillar, Barakus vaulted himself and Sic into the closing doorway, meeting his friends in the center just before the portal snapped shut.
Celathiel helped Sic stand, brushing his vest off. "Nice of you to join us. Welcome to the creepy obelisk."