Forbidden Power

At the Site

I gave him a puzzled look.

"It came to my house in the mail with a cryptic note. I've been trying to figure it out since I got it. Is this not a puzzle ball?" I asked. Have I been wrong this whole time?

"It is a puzzle ball, but it serves more than that purpose. It has a twin brother that we found not far from here. We're not sure what exactly they are for, but, well, just come with me. I'll show you." Doctor Hamid motioned to me to follow him, and I eagerly followed to an area the scientists had designated as a dump for artifacts that they would look at later.

"There," the doctor pointed to a ball amidst some hewn rocks that looked exactly like mine.

"May I?" I asked.

"Of course. I can't make anything of it. I was at first excited about the find until I realized it meant nothing," the doctor said with a shrug.

"It can't mean nothing if it has a twin," I mused, picking up the other ball and comparing it to my own. They were identical in every way. Both were also completely undamaged despite appearing old.

"You're welcome to try and figure out what they're for. This one has baffled me, appearing to be the same size and shape of ancient puzzle balls, but apart from those similarities, it is only a round rock from what I can tell," the doctor said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Unlike him, though, I am a wizard, and I can already feel the energy emanating from the two balls now that they're together. The one I received reacted when I picked up the other one. Almost as if it were alive. I could feel the energy in them now. Not just energy. Mana. They were reacting to each other.

"I see that you don't think they're just round rocks, Teddy. I will leave their mystery to you, then. Report to me if you discover anything about them," Doctor Hamid instructed me. I nodded, not taking my eyes off the two rocks. Doctor Hamid turned to go.

"Where did you find this one?" I asked.

"Over there. It was hidden behind a loose stone of what used to be the house we're working on. We've been hoping to find some other hidden things there," Doctor Hamid said excitedly.

"Hidden? Like by the original owner? Or by happenstance?"

"Who knows if it was by the original owner, but it does appear to have been placed in that hidden area in the house before the city was abandoned. Perhaps by the owner or by someone else who knew about the hidden place behind the stone." he speculated. "Part of the stone had crumbled. That's how it was found."

"How long ago?" I asked.

"A little over a month ago," Doctor Hamid answered and headed back to his digging.

A little over a month ago? Wasn't that the same time frame that I received my puzzle ball? Could it be a coincidence? Or was someone purposely luring me back to Egypt and to this specific place?

I looked at the house that had been unearthed. The city was slowly being uncovered with walls, alleys, and houses slowly emerging from the sand. The house they were currently working on would have been the first one upon entering the city. If my research on ancient magicians is correct, this would have been a magician's house. A wizard, in our current understanding, who would have been placed at the city entrance to be able to react quickly and cast protective magic or fight off invaders should the city be threatened. The magicians were considered the first line of defense for powerful cities. That tells me something about this city that I unfortunately can't share with my fellow archaeologists. It's a powerful city that housed powerful people who were under the protection of a magician stationed at the gates. There's no telling what we'll find here.

But why did he hide this puzzle ball? And in his house? And who or what exactly was he protecting in this city that appears to have been quickly abandoned?

I pressed the puzzle balls together, but nothing happened. They were definitely reacting to each other, but that wasn't enough to unlock their mystery. Maybe I needed to use a magic word or something? I glanced around, but no one was paying me attention. Doctor Hamid was speaking with Marco and Layla, and the other scientists were hard at work meticulously digging out the city.

I took a deep breath and channeled my mana into the puzzle balls. Low blue flames came from my palms and engulfed the rocks, but they gave no reaction. Next I tried to use the same magic I used to manipulate blood flow. Again nothing happened. I tried defensive magic in case these were used for defense, but even that didn't garner any response from them. Disappointed with the results, I slipped them both in my bag and headed back to the others. Doctor Hamid was leading Marco away, so I followed them toward what I guessed would be our tent.

"Teddy!" Layla called me, and I stopped and headed toward her instead. She was waving at me excitedly and pointing up at an area near the roof of the ancient house. "Come here, come here! Look! There's some kind of writing on that stone up there! Do you see it? Can you read it?"

I squinted at what she was talking about. The stone looked pretty normal to me. I could see some grooves in it, but they appeared to be just desert wear.

"I don't see any writing, Layla. Just sand erosion," I told her.

"No! I was looking up at it, and I saw a shape that looked like it was carved! Look closer!" She pointed stubbornly at it, and I rose to my tiptoes to get a better look.

"I don't see it, Layla. Sorry."

"Well, I do! Spray some water on it, and see if that helps it become clearer," she demanded. One thing about Layla, if she says she saw writing, she saw writing. She's no dummy. She's seen sand erosion before. She would know the difference.

I accepted the water spray bottle from her and spritzed the stone.

"There! Don't you see it?" Layla asked excitedly. I c*cked my head, but I still didn't see anything unusual.

"Ugh!" Layla stomped her foot angrily. "I can clearly see it! Two symbols at least!"

I ran my finger over the stone she was pointing at. Still nothing. Layla suddenly sprinted off and returned with charcoal and some paper.

"Lift me up there," she ordered me. I pursed my lips. She wanted me to pick her up? Wasn't that unprofessional?

"Um, I, uh," I stammered.

"Don't make it weird, Teddy. I just want to try and get an impression of it. Getting a ladder would take too long, and I might lose where I see it," she insisted.

I shrugged and squatted down. "Sit on my shoulder."

She boosted herself onto my shoulder and sat on it. Her body felt so small and light. I held her hip with one hand and her legs with the other to help her balance. This is strictly professional. Professional. Archaeologists have to do things like this to get answers sometimes, right? It's not me. She would do this if it was anyone here in order to get the information she wanted. This means nothing. She's a married woman.

I repeated the mantra in my head as I positioned her near the stone she wanted. She excitedly pressed the wax paper against it and ran the charcoal over it like the scientist she was. For good measure she also did the same with the stones abutting the stone she wanted, getting a solid impression of four stones near the eaves of the house.

"There! Got it! You can put me down now. Thank you!" She chirped happily as I carefully lowered her to the ground. She immediately went completely down to the ground on her hands and knees and laid out her impression paper.

"Ah. I see why you couldn't see it. You're too tall. It was almost at eye level with you," she said, moving back and forth on her knees to view the impression from different angles. From my angle, though... I gulped. I shouldn't be thinking of her this way, but this looked...erotic. And her back end that I was trying really hard not to look at was very appealing to me. Nobody has ever extracted this response from me before. I gulped again. She's a married woman, Teddy. An experienced woman. A woman who has to know what this position looks like to a man. Does she not see me as a man?

"Hey, Teddy! Get down here and look at this!" She ordered me.

But I didn't hear that like she meant it. I wanted to grab her hips and come up behind her and press myself against her. That sounds like it would feel so good. As it was, heat was beginning to build in my core, and I began to feel something stir that I had never felt before. Interest. s****l interest. And lust. Desire to press her down and take her right here in the desert.

"Teddy!" She turned to look at me, but I was too tall for her to meet my eyes. They fell... on something else. Something that could not and would not be ignored by her.

"Um, what do you see?" I asked awkwardly. Her eyes were pinned on my bulging pants. I couldn't tell what she was thinking, but she had frozen and licked her lips nervously. Not helping, Layla.

"What do I see?" She repeated the question. Oh, goddess, I just made this worse.

"Yeah, um, the impression. Can you read it?" I said quickly.

"Oh, the impression. Well, it's the angle. I mean, the angle by which you look at it! I mean..." she tore her eyes from me, her face burning red. This was not going well. Why did everything suddenly sound like an innuendo?

"..." I didn't have a response. I just dropped to my knees next to her as she rocked back to sit up. She turned her face from me, but I could see how red her ears were.

"Sorry. This won't happen again," I told her. "I'm usually more professional than this." Might as well hit it head on. It's already awkward. Besides, we are adults, and we've known each other for awhile.

"No. I, um, I should have been more considerate. I breached an unspoken code by having you pick me up. It's my fault. I'm sorry," she apologized.

"Let's just forget about it, okay? You're a married woman, and I know that. I would never cross that line," I assured her.

"Right. There's a line," she agreed, but I heard a twinge of sadness in her tone.

"So, what did the impression show you?" I changed the subject.

"Well, it looks like it must have been carved quickly and from a downward angle. That must be why I could see it but you couldn't. You have to look up at it," she lifted the wax paper and held it up. It was still eye level with me. I took it from her and held it up myself. From this angle, I could see what she had been talking about. It looked unusual.

"What do you make of it?" I asked. I was getting an idea, but I wanted to hear from her first.

"It looks like an inverted pyramid in the middle of a square for the first part. The second looks like, I don't know. A stick? A wall?" She got near me again to look at the impression I was holding up. I set my jaw and ignored how my heart started reacting to her. I've known her for so long. Why now? Why after she was married was I feeling this way?

"I think it looks like a straight line. Like a direction?" I lowered the wax paper and looked over it. Layla was doing the same.

"You know...this street is in a straight line..." Layla observed.

"And it leads into a square-shaped area in the middle of the city..." I agreed, looking ahead at how it emptied into what appeared to be a commons area.

"So... we should start excavating the center of the square right away!" Layla exclaimed excitedly.

"Better wait until tomorrow," I cautioned. "You have a forty minute drive home, and the day is already almost over."

Layla's eyes immediately lost their sparkle, and she looked down in disappointment.

"Oh, right. I do have to go home," she muttered.

"We won't start without you," I promised. She looked up at me, and her expression softened.

"Thanks. I'll be here early tomorrow. I'll leave the getting permission to dig there part to you," she said pleasantly.

"Thanks a lot," I answered sarcastically. Doctor Hamid was known to be stubborn and get stuck on one area until fully excavated.

"Good luck, and see you tomorrow!" Layla laughed, hopping up and sprinting off. I watched her go and felt a pain in my heart. She was going home to her husband and leaving me here in the desert without her.