The trees crowd in close to the stone steps that lead up the path. Yellow leaves crunch underfoot. Beyond, there is a fountain.
A low stone wall holds in the green, thick water that lies motionless and opaque at the base. Rusted, black iron bars jut up from the wall and are joined just above head height by newer, horizontal bars that form a cage around the water and the centre of the fountain. Probably to keep kids from messing about in it. Nothing trickles from the pipes just above the waterline.
An obelisk of black stone sits as the centerpiece. Around it is a circular carving of stone, which looks as if it has been placed over the obelisk as a ring might be placed over a finger. The stone ring bears engravings of various animals; fish, oxen and, most unusually, scorpions, as well as depictions of men and women curiously posed in low crouches at odd angles, bringing them level with the beasts. The styling looks Roman, and that's because it is.
She knows this, but most other people wouldn't. Just another fountain in a park with several of them, caught in the midst of a range of suburbanized hills. But she also knows that the stone ring that the Roman's left is far younger than the obelisk that it surrounds. A ward. Their attempt to contain what eminates from the obelisk. Or used to. It seems their crude attempt has lasted so far.
What they didn't know, as she does now, is that the obelisk, ancient before the time of humankind, is itself a ward. It is the container of something deep within it. What, exactly, she doesn't know. And she does not intend to find out.
But there are people who do. And they are coming.
Paddy Dobson
18th October 2020