The little faerie danced and twirled on the palm of her hand, folding its limbs and wings in an elastic manner before flying away.
Taunauk smirked and then turned his attention to the ornate door in front of them. “Ask the faeries how we pass through.”
Helesys studied the little creatures. “It is an odd thing. With the fishmen I could not understand their language but felt the meaning of their chattering. I understand the creature, Lull, plainly.
“As did I. It spoke the common tongue.”
”With the diseased fishmen and with the faeries, I do not understand them, nor sense their intent.”
“Some creatures are far too strange. Does the moss speak with itself?” The barbarian nodded to the stone statues covered with it. “It must; it knows where to grow. Perhaps that is why the faces of the statues are not…”
Taunauk trailed off as a pair of faeries floated toward the face of a statue. They traced a circle with their tiny hands, one faerie starting from the top and the other from the bottom and flew around in a clockwise circle. They stayed perfectly opposite each other as they traced around the statue, their path steadily shrinking, steadily converging on the center of the statue’s clam-face.
The whole display took little more than a minute and as the faeries traced their paths, Helesys saw the statue’s face dull to a deep gray as the tiny creatures swept dissolved the faint green moss trying to get a hold on the claim-face.
And when the pair of glowing faeries reached the center their bodies burned white-hot and their spinning grew faster and then blurred together until two became one. Then in a brilliant, silent flash, the merged body split into three blue faeries.
Helesys and Taunauk watched, spellbound as the faeries joined their brethren floating around the stone room. The other faeries, if they perceived the event, reacted in no way to it.
“So much for your theory,” the elf weaver jested.
“...The moss still speaks.” He sighed as if weighing more words, then added, “Then we are on our own and must find a way through this door.”
Helesys sensed there was more her comrade wanted to say, but stayed silent. The hulking warrior bent down and grabbed the bottom of the door and grunted in strain as he tried to lift the stone with nothing but brute force. The stone did not budge. He gave up after a few moments.
“There must be a way,” he said.
Helesys turned her attention to the door as well. It was an intricate design and as she looked at it closer she realized it was a locking mechanism. There were a dozen pipes, but only some formed a path from the ceiling, around the door and ended at the floor—only these connected paths had water trickling through them. The other pipes were short, the longest no more than the length of a forearm and the majority only a hand-length.
If the pipes controlled the door then the different pieces could be moved. Helesys touched the stone, pushing and pulling—it only took a moment for a lone piece to spin. It was situated on a spinning plate which held four different pieces of piping. Though it took only a small force to find, it took both hands to spin the stone. As the plate and pieces spun, one of the flowing, completed lines was disconnected, and water dripped down the wall.
The elf weaver both ignored the dripping water and made a mental note of the original position, but continued spinning the plate. The next piece of stone piping did not connect properly, but the next piece did, redirecting the flow of water—yet still not making a complete path to the floor.
As she spun the stone plate, she heard the muffled clank of gears behind the wall. Helesys smiled. “Simple enough.”
Taunauk grunted in affirmation. “I will watch the entrance.”
She waved the barbarian away and looked over the rest of the piping—of the puzzle. She found five circles in all that changed the layout of the pipes and set to the task. It would be easy enough to simply try combinations until the correct one was achieved, but that would take time. Time they did not have. Who knew if the fishmen made routine rounds or if they would file in by the dozens to give thanks to these gods or ancestors. Helesys doubted they would be happy about their intrusion.
So she examined the wall further, listening to the clank of gears behind the wall. Then the stone door grumbled, but did not budge. She eyed the door curiously. “Taunauk, come try to lift this again.”
The barbarian came over quickly and stooped down, again grunting in strain. This time they heard the dull scrapes of stone—of movement—but Taunauk could not do more than budge it. He groaned in frustration and stalked back over to the entrance.
Helesys spun the dials again, each time trying to turn them in such a way to make complete paths to the floor—since it seemed the gears only moved when paths were formed. Minutes passed as the elf tried combinations but none elicited that promising grumble of stone.
Something in the mechanisms was affecting the weight of the stone door.
“Quiet,” the barbarian hissed.
The weaver turned and saw the faint movement of shadow in the hall. She ducked behind one of the two large statues that flanked the entrance. Footsteps. Then two fishmen warriors stepped into the room and stopped between the two statues. They regarded the place with a quiet, tandem gnashing that reminded Helesys of the cadence of prayer. After a moment they turned to leave. Neither the elf nor the human moved until they could no longer hear the footsteps.
Outside, the chattering of hundreds of fishmen was ever present. Helesys desperately wanted to get back to the trickling of water and the puzzle that might lead to their salvation.
“The mechanism,” Taunauk whispered.
Helesys set to purpose and a thought occurred to her: If the mechanisms affected
