6:9
“Gwen,” Kim called over her shoulder. “Faster.”
“Move it!” Gwen hollered up the stairs and then upped her pace. Kim kept her back plastered to Gwen’s, her shoulder pressed to the curving wall, and the light out in front of her. It made for an awkward climb, but she wasn’t exactly sure she wanted the oozing darkness at her back. After what felt like minutes, but it was real hard to tell what with the darkness and the slow going backwards, they made the top of the stairs and Kim took up a position on the stoop with the light projecting down at the writhing dark that had stopped about five steps down.
“What is it?” Ivan spoke over Kim’s shoulder, looking down the stairs.
“Not sure. Didn’t ask.”
“Ben?” Ivan directed to the other man.
“Asked. Didn’t answer.”
“Weird.”
“Yep.”
“Why don’t both of you take a step back?”
Kim nodded and followed Ivan’s direction. Ben did the same. As their feet cleared the final step there was a rushing sound and then a stone wall came thudding down from the ceiling, blocking off the stairs. Kim, whose feet were really close to the step, fell back with a muffled oath. Ben, lighter on his feet, danced away without a ruffled hair. Kim spit her hair out of her face and considered that maybe next adventure she’d bring a hair tie. Gah.
Once the hair situation was somewhat in hand, Kim shifted to look around the room. It was dark. What a surprise. She played her light over the area to get a visual. The walls were curved, suggesting they may have reached the interior of the tower. Ben leaned against the wall next to where the stairs had been and was staring down at where the wall met the floor.
“Is there darkness seeping under the wall?” It was actually a valid question, considering he’d thought the walls of the staircase glowed could be he wasn’t seeing right. This thought lead Kim to focusing on the wall with her light. Then realizing that wasn’t the right answer seeing as how the darkness had retracted from the light on the stairs.
She pulled the light back so that it illuminated the area but stopped about a foot or so short of the wall. And then she waited. One. Two. Th- Yup, that was ooze alright.
“Get back from the wall!”
Ben jumped away. Dan, further along the curve and also leaning, did the same. Fact was every single person jumped back from the wall. Except for Siobhan who had discovered a panel that separated from the wall and had just started removing it and darned if she was going to stop just because someone yelled. If that was her criterion, she’d never get any work done. Kindergarteners could *yell*.
She propped her alchemical light against the wall so she could use both hands to remove the panel. The stone released, revealing a series of raised symbols hidden beneath. She bunched, prepared to take the weight of the panel but it proved to be really light. Way too light, really, for a panel of stone. But sure. Magick.
The symbols revealed were common ones. A circle. A reversed triangle. Half circle in all configurations – facing to the right, the left, up, and down. U shape up. U shape down. Horizontal line. All together there were – she counted – twenty-six. The obvious leap was a symbol for each letter. But what was the ‘clue’?
She ran her hand along the left edge where the panel had been, then a bit further. And realized there was no grout between some of the stones bordering where the plaque was. She picked up her light and played it over the area. The wall was made up of unevenly matched stones. The kind of thing you’d expect of a tower in a tale because tales always went for the picturesque more than the practical. The practical would have been bricks or stones cut into rectangular shapes that would stack neatly. Such bricks would have made finding the seam so much easier but Siobhan was persistent.
“Whatcha lookin’ at?”
Siobhan jumped about six inches when Patti spoke from behind her. She didn’t stop her perusal but did answer. “I think there’s a door here.”
“Well, that’s good since we are apparently sealed in here and stuff is oozing under the walls.”
Siobhan turned. “What?”
“I’m sure it’s not anything to worry about.” Patti had been with the group long enough now that Siobhan read exactly what Patti wanted her to in the words, which was exactly the opposite of what she was saying. “But it might be good if you sped it up. Just a little bit.”
Siobhan stiffened then turned back to the wall. “I’m pretty sure this is a door and this,” she waved her hand at the symbols next to the space, “is probably how we open it.”
“So, what does ‘temptaris numeros esse’ mean?”
Siobhan darted a gaze back to Patti. “Why?”
“Because it’s right there.” Patti poked a finger at the floor.
“What?” Siobhan backed up and looked at the floor where her torch was illuminating the words Patti read. They were worn, as if hundreds of feet had trudged over them, but still legible. “How did I miss that?”
Patti shrugged. “Forest? Trees? Interesting hidden panel in the wall must more interesting than something clearly carved in the floor? So, what does it mean?”
“Attempt the impossible,” Siobhan translated. “It’s a common saying among alchemists.”
“So, maybe it-”
Patti and Siobhan turned as one as Gwen cried out, “Ow! Cold!”
A finger of darkness had snaked out of the wall and was wrapped around Gwen’s ankle. As Siobhan and Patti watched the khaki of Gwen’s pants released an acrid cloud and then everything below where the darkness was wrapped separated and slid to pool on the top of her boot. Gwen kicked but the shadow did not dislodge. “Ah! Get it off!”
“Ah!” Kim pulled up a small ball of fire and shot it at the base of the wall where the darkness holding Gwen had originated. At the touch of the light the darkness pulled back from Gwen’s leg and retreated under the wall.
“The actual fuck?” Kim proclaimed, hand in the air, fingers spread.
“Are you okay?” Prairie rushed over to Gwen who had bent over and was massaging her leg.
“Yeah. Okay. It just- Wow, it was so cold it actually burned.”
Kim bent over, directing the alchemical light she held at Gwen’s skin. “This light is weird but I think your skin is yellow. Maybe white.”
“Let me,” Prairie said, crouching to look at Gwen’s leg. She nodded. “It looks like an ice burn. See,” she pointed at a point near Gwen’s calf, “there’s blisters forming along the line.”
“Ew!” Gwen bent and clapped her hand to the light line marked in her skin. After a moment she pulled her hand back. Then frowned, the expression oddly twisted in the alchemy light. “It didn’t heal.”
Prairie peered at the burn. “It needs to be warmed first. Here.” She started to pull off her cardigan but Kim stopped her.
“Let me try.” Hovering her hand over Gwen’s skin she released a pulse of heat.
“There’s more coming in. From everywhere!” Dempsey yelled. Rushing over he dropped a knee to the ground and drove the bottom of his shield into the floor in front of Gwen, blocking off another finger of darkness that was insinuating itself between the wall and her.
Kim looked up from her task to yell, “Do not let the shadows grab you! They burn!”
Ivan rushed forward and swung his alchemy light in an arch near the floor and the darkness retracted. But as soon as he moved the light it came back, oozing from the floor where it met the walls.
“Over here!” Ben called from the left.
“Here too!” Dan cried from the right.
“Here,” Kim handed off her alchemy light to Dan who immediately bent down and started to methodically move along the wall, pushing the darkness back. His moving slowly seemed to have a slightly better effect than Ivan’s swinging. Probably because he was keeping the light in one place for long enough to cause the darkness some pain. Or whatever the darkness felt when it hit the light.
Dempsey looked around, his gaze lighting on the darkness that was seeping in everywhere there wasn’t a light.
“Face the walls,” he called then dug the crystal out of his pocket, invoked its power, then planted it in the center of the space. This effectively made a circle of light behind the one that the group made with their bodies. Good; where the light seeped between them the darkness retreated. Bad; the nine of them made a fairly decent wall behind which the light was trapped. It caused huge shadows to fall forward from each of them, creating dark spaces ripe for the oozing darkness to flow into.
Ben writhed away from the reach of one, darting to the side and exposing the finger of darkness to the bright light behind him. It immediately shrunk back, but as soon as it hit the hyper-darkness of Ben’s shadow it stopped its retreat. Then darted forward again. Ben darted. It pulled back. It darted. Ben darted. Do-si-do. It was a dance that Ben was only going to be able to keep up for so long. Eventually he’d tire. The darkness would not.
The darkness continued to seep through the floor and walls and encroach on everyone, trying to make contact. Ivan held his light low, with each slow swing the darkness receded but it was an aggressive hunter and did not seem prepared to give up. Dan did the same with the light he held.
Prairie stood in front of Kim and Gwen, holding out the alchemy light. “Is her skin warming?” she called back to Kim.
“Think so. I’m better at burning than warming and I’m kind of afraid to burn her.”
“Burn her if you have to.”
“What?”
“She wasn’t able to fix the burn from the shadow. I think it might be some kind of chemical reaction which will continue until you get her skin warmed up. But, I’m pretty sure she can fix a regular burn.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
Gwen gritted her teeth, clenching her hand hard around her leg until the skin above and below the fingers turned white. “Just do it. It can’t hurt worse that this.”
“We need to work on the door!” Siobhan called out from where she was studying the panel next to what was probably the door.
“What do we need to do?” Dempsey held his spot, yelling over to her.
“Solve a puzzle.”
Dempsey rolled his eyes. “Of course, we do. What have you got?”
Patti backed into Siobhan. “We can’t stay here. Your light isn’t holding back the shadows enough.”
Siobhan eyed the wall, then the encroaching shadows, biting her lip. Patti was right. They needed to be closer to the crystal Dempsey had placed. It would be easier to defend the group than to defend six or seven and then she and who ever was helping her as an outlier.
Picking up her light she backed towards the circle, pushing Patti behind her. Dempsey stepped to the side to make room for them.
Siobhan handed her light to Patti. “Here, use this to keep the shadows from this side if you can.”
Patti nodded and thrust the light out like a light saber, cutting into the thick shadows formed by their bodies. Prairie pushed in on the other side of Dempsey and did the same with her light. Dempsey dug the bottom of his shield into the ground in the space between he and Siobhan, forming a wall that held off the shadows.
Inside the circle Gwen screamed. Kim drew in a deep breath.
“Try no-” she cut off on a curse. “She passed out,” Kim announced to the room. I can’t-”
Siobhan tossed a look back over her shoulder, taking in Kim kneeling beside Siobhan’s unconscious body. She snatched a potion from her bandolier and shoved it across the floor towards Kim. “Potion!”
As Kim snatched it off the ground, Siobhan turned back to face the darkness and the puzzle of the door. Once she did Dempsey pressed. “So, what is the puzzle?”
“In front of the door, carved in the floor, is ‘temptaris numeros esse’. Which translates to-”
“Attempt the impossible,” Dempsey finished.
Siobhan stared at him. He shrugged. “Not as dumb as I look.”
“Well, okay.” Siobhan didn’t waste time on responding with something they both knew would be a platitude. “We also have a panel with twenty-six symbols on it.”
“Twenty-six characters in the alphabet.”
“Yes.”
“Think it’s a coded phrase?”
Siobhan rubbed her ear. “Maybe. It’s the most obvious choice.”
“And sometimes the most obvious answer is the right one. So what would the phrase be?”
Siobhan scrunched up her mouth and shook her head. “No clue.”
“Well,” Patti offered from the other side, still waving the light, “You kind of do. ‘Tempter whatshamajigger etsy’.”
“The first solution was the Tria Prima,” Prairie called from Dempsey’s other side. “So, what does that have in common with this saying?”
Siobhan didn’t hesitate. “Alchemy. But that doesn’t help me come up with a key to figure out what symbol goes with what letter. Or what to spell out once we have it.” She squinted at the dark wall where the door was and sighed. “This is impossible.”
“Well, you need to attempt the impossible, right?” Prairie’s soft voice stole the bite from the admonition.
“Tell me what temptaris numeros esse could mean in alchemy,” Dempsey prodded.
Siobhan frowned. “Well, it’s something that alchemists have said since starting the Great Work.”
“Which is creating the Philosopher’s Stone, right?”
Siobhan made a waffling gesture with her hand. “Only in the most basic sense.”
From within the circle Gwen gasped. It loosened some of the tension from Siobhan’s shoulders.
“How so?” Dempsey’s question got her back on track.
“It’s more a concept of personal and-”
“If we both step to the side together,” Ivan called, drawing Siobhan’s attention and stopping her words.
“Focus,” Dempsey said in a gruff tone. “Trust your friends to do what they need to do while you figure out a way for us to get out of here.”
Siobhan nodded and continued, “The great work, or the Magnum Opus, is the way alchemists describe spiritual transmutation.”
“What details are there that could be represented by one of the symbols on the wall?”
Siobhan cast her mind back to the symbols. “I’m not sure. They are pretty rudimentary. The philosophy behind the Magnum Opus had four stages.” She counted off on her fingers. “The blackening, called nigredo. The whitening, albedo. The yellowing, citrinitas. And the reddening, rubedo.”
“Are any of the symbols colored?”
Siobhan pictured the wall. Shook her head. “No.”
“Okay. Then move on. What else?”
“Birds like ravens, swans, and phoenix were used to represent the progression through the colors.”
“Any birds on the wall?”
“Only if you thought really abstract. But, no, at most you might be able to argue one of the symbols could be a bird in flight but not that there were multiple birds.”
The sound of Ivan, Dan, Ben, and Kim calling out played under her words, the rise and fall of their voices fading into a cadence that put Siobhan’s mind into a beta state.
“From there you get a lot more complicated, spelling out either seven, twelve, or fourteen stages of the process. But none of them were definitive and they all had different descriptions and orders of practice.” She shook her head. “Alchemy may be Magick but it’s one that has its feet in science. So, you end up with a lot of scientific method. What Kim refers to as throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.”
“Do any of those processes make sense based on the symbols?”
With her eyes unfocused Siobhan envisioned the symbols as fluorescent green images swirling in the air. Horizontal line. Vertical line. Diagonal to the left and right. Asterisk. Diamond. They spun, overlapping each other to form other patterns. Forming elemental symbols like the ones she’d stuck back together in the cave.
Siobhan considered then shook her head. “No. They are all too complicated. The symbols are rudimentary. Circles. Square-”
She tapered off, then muttered under her breath, “It can’t be that simple.”
“Occam’s Razor,” Dempsey supplied.
Siobhan turned her head to look at him.
“The simplest answer is most often correct.”
“You are pretty much the opposite of ‘stupid as you look’,” Siobhan hazarded.
Dempsey shrugged, huge. “So, what’s the simplest answer?”
“The Squared Circle, which is a circle within a square within a triangle within another circle, is the alchemical symbol representing the interplay of the four elements of matter which is the result of the Great Work.” She stared into the darkness, working her idea over in her mind. “The Tria Prima and the niches say alchemy. Reference to the Magnum Opus with the quote ‘temptaris numeros esse’. Alchemy. Even the water rats.”
“What about the water rats?” Patti asked, pausing her sweep to look at Siobhan.
“They are abnormally large.”
“Yeees,” Patti drew out the word.
“And they weren’t aggressive. Like a predator would normally be if someone encroached on their habit.”
“We don’t know that. Kim froze the first ones. They could have been attacking.”
“Could have been. But were they?”
“I don’t think so,” Prairie said from the other side. “They seemed more curious.”
“You get anything when your were signing to them?” Siobhan asked Patti.
“No. Not really. I’m not an animal whisperer! They just seem to listen to me.”
“Okay.” Siobhan raised her hands in defense, then continued. “They also released some kind of mind-altering gas. Very much not normal.”
“They could be Magickal?” Patti offered.
“They likely are, but what if they also are products of alchemy?” At Patti’s questioning look, she said quickly. “It’s just a thought. And not really important right now. I was just exploring an idea.”
“So, you think the answer is this square circle triangle thing?” Dempsey asked.
“It’s worth a try. Otherwise we have to try to hack a code without a key or a clue as to where to start.” Siobhan shrugged, then turned her head to call over the play of voices around the circle. “I think I might have an idea of how to get out of here.”
“Lay it on us,” Ivan called.
“We need to get to the wall in front of me. So,” she turned to Dempsey, “you need to go and pick up your crystal. You seem to be the only one it doesn’t blind. Which, ps, I’ll probably be interested in later.”
Dempsey nodded then propped his shield against Siobhan’s legs and stepped into the center of the circle to recover the crystal.
“Don’t lower its light at all,” Siobhan ordered, lifting the shield. Darn, it was heavy. “It seems to be keeping the shadows at bay. I need you to move towards me and I need the rest to move so the circle stays the same. Sorry, you’ll need to keep pointing out so you don’t get blinded by the crystal.”
There was shuffling sounds from behind Siobhan and then the light was moving towards her and she, Prairie, and Patti were surging forward to stay ahead of the light and keep the formation intact.
“Okay,” she called out as she hit the wall. “Stop!”
Hovering her hand over the symbols on the wall, he slanted a glance towards Patti. “Here goes nothing.”
“What’s the worse that could happen?” Patti quipped.
“We could all die,” Prairie offered from the other side.
Patti sucked in a breath. “Downer.”
Siobhan smiled and touched the circle, cringing a little as if doing so would protect her from a blast. When nothing happened she opened her eyes.
“One down,” she called.
“Cool!” Gwen called from somewhere behind her. The sound of her friend’s voice further served to sooth Siobhan, making the next breath she drew cleansing and deep.
“So,” Siobhan called, “I have a choice now. Assume we’re going from the outside in and pick the triangle. Or inside out and pick the square.”
“What’s your gut?” Ivan called.
“Not sure.”
“What’s the worse that could happen if you’re wrong?”
“Death?”
“Yeah,” Kim called, “that would suck. Try not to be wrong.”
“Hey,” Ivan suggested, “Maybe we’ll all just pass out like that other time.”
“And get eaten by the darkness,” Ben offered.
“That, too, would suck,” Kim said.
“We believe in you, Siobhan!” Gwen called. “You’ve got this!”
“Do I?” Siobhan muttered under her breath. “Do I really?”
“You described it to me as circle within square within triangle within circle. Why in that order?”
“The large circle represents the universe. Some see the triangle as the ether or spirit world.”
“Oh,” Prairie said from Siobhan’s left.
“But it can also be the union of body, mind, and soul. The square is the earth with the four corners representing the four elements. The interior circle represents man and woman which are seen as the two halves of our nature brought together through alchemy.”
“That’s deep, man,” Patti mumbled.
“Right?” Siobhan whispered back. She then pitched her voice louder, “Alchemy perceives the union of man and woman to be the merging of spiritual and physical natures. Anyhow. You start with the self, so the small circle, contained within the world which is the square, bound within the unifying force of the triangle, and then within the universe.”
“Sounds like an answer to me,” Dempsey said.
Dan finally spoke. “We trust you, Siobhan. This is your expertise. If we blow up,” he paused, maybe he was shrugging but she couldn’t turn to tell, then said, “it was good knowing all of you.”
“For sure,” Kim added, “We’ll die loudly.”
“Hey, Dempsey?” Gwen called, “Sorry you joined us?”
“More every minute.”
Enter The Woods 