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The sorcerer grabbed Emhyr by his lapel and yanked, hard. Emhyr felt the tingle and pull of the portal as he passed through it. Finally, he stumbled and fell to his knees as the sorcerer let go. The room spinning around him was torchlit, the floor roughly hewn into bedrock. The smell of ash and sulfur made his stomach turn, but not as bad as the stink of a large predator stinging in his nose with every breath.
There was the pop and rush of another portal as the sorcerer disappeared. Emhyr pushed himself back up, his hand going to his hidden dagger. Whatever he’d been left facing, he would be damned if he went down without a fight. He heard a rattling breath, much too close for comfort. Blindly, he struck out with his dagger, burying it deep into flesh. The creature screamed. A huge, heavy paw knocked him across the room until he hit a wall. It hurt so much he almost passed out.
Heavy steps drew near. The creature was gigantic. Emhyr’s eyes travelled up from the paws with their sword like claws over the body of the lion until they reached a face that was mostly human. “Ouch,” the sphinx complained. Emhyr’s dagger was dropped to the floor with a tinkling noise. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Abducting me,” Emhyr groaned as he sat up. He leaned his pounding head back against the wall and closed his eyes. “Wasn’t very nice either.”
“I didn’t abduct you, little human,” the sphinx sniffed. “I am merely bound to be your jailor, for the time being.”
“For the time being,” Emhyr echoed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you aren’t going anywhere.”
“Not even if I answer your riddle?” Emhyr blinked open one eye.
“No. The pesky little sorcerer that called me forbade it in a way I cannot circumvent.” The sphinx sighed. “So sure you’d best me. But at least he left me this.” It waved a book.
“Oh, reading material. How delightful.”
“Full of riddles. You mortal creatures are so delightful.” The sphinx chuckled. “I mean, listen to this.” It opened the book to an earmarked page and read: “What has lots of eyes, but can’t see?”
Emhyr was suddenly overcome by a terrible feeling regarding the nature of the creature. “...I have no idea,” he said slowly. “Enlighten me.”
The sphinx grinned broadly, revealing a concerning amount of teeth. “A potato.” It broke into almost hysterical laughter.
Emhyr forced himself not to slap a hand against his face. “And this book,” he asked tersely. “Is full of those wonderful riddles?”
“Oh, yes,” the creature rejoiced. “Want to hear another? Of course you do. What has many teeth, yet cannot bite?”
In the privacy of his mind, Emhyr cursed this form of torture as he counted to ten. “False teeth?”
“So uncreative,” the sphinx tutted. “No, it’s a comb, silly. A comb!”
Emhyr wished the impact against the wall had split his skull. No matter how uncooperative and unresponsive he was, the creature kept asking him questions from the book and laughing itself sick over the correct answers. And it kept encouraging him to join it. Finally, after what felt like half the book Emhyr caved.
“Fine. Alright. What kind of room has no door and no windows?”
The sphinx thought for a moment. “A room. With no door. No windows. Like a box?”
Emhyr shrugged. He had no intention of helping it back to hysterics.
For a long, blissful moment, the sphinx was silent. Yet, eventually, it shook its head. “I can’t think of the answer.”
“A mushroom.”
“A mushroom?” The sphinx shook its head. “A mushroom! Oh, that is clever. Another, human, another!”
Emhyr buried his face in his hands. “Two is company, three’s a crowd. So what is four and five?” He hated himself almost as much as he hated the fucking sphinx for even knowing this.
“A gaggle and ...and a mob?” the sphinx guessed.
Emhyr shook his head. He listened to its attempts for a while, shaking his head intermittently.
It eventually hung its head. “I am bested. What is four and five, human?”
“Nine,” Emhyr said flatly. He counted to three in his head before the sphinx bursted out laughing. If only the sphinx would eat him already.
Eventually, he could slip into an uneasy sleep, despite the annoyingly loud expressions of mirth around him. It helped that there was nothing else to do, that he was exhausted, and that with every waking moment, he could feel his brain and sense of humor deteriorate.
He was woken when the sphinx slapped its paw on the ground, shaking the entire room in its anger. “You cannot take him! He is mine! My friend! My prize! Mine to guard!”
“But before that, he was mine. Mine in heart, mine in friendship, mine to protect,” a painfully familiar voice responded, and albeit a little shaky it was still full of conviction and determination. “So, can you not… duel me over him? To solve this impasse.”
“A duel? You wish to fight me, puny human?” The sphinx drew itself up to its full height.
“No, perish the thought. I think the traditional way to duel a sphinx is by asking riddles,” Mererid replied. Emhyr bit back a sigh of relief. Mererid was fiendishly good at riddles. Many an evening had been passed between them by thinking up riddles to ask each other. This could work out. “You may even start, as is tradition.”
“Fine,” the sphinx moaned. “Let’s see. I look flat, but I am deep. Hidden realms I shelter. Lives I take, but food I offer. I have no heart, but offer pleasure as well as death. No man can own me, yet I encompass what all men need. What am I?”
Emhyr wished he could see past the sphinx as Mererid thought. Finally, after a long silence, Mererid let out a pleased sigh. “That has to be the ocean,” he concluded. “The surface can be flat as a mirror, but it’s depth is unimaginable. The beasts of this depth are just as strange to us. Many a fisher has died, but many people have lived because of a catch drawn from the sea. There is not one heart of the ocean, but people enjoy the beaches at their leisure, just as they are washed out in storms. There is no way to own the ocean. But every man, woman and child has to drink water, of which the ocean consists. Am I correct?”
“Entirely,” the sphinx rumbled. “Your turn.”
“Maybe something in the same vein?” Mererid suggested in a tone Emhyr knew all too well. “I am beautiful, up in the sky. I am magical, yet I cannot fly. To people I bring luck, and to some people riches. The boy at my end does whatever he wishes. What am I?”
“Bah, an old riddle,” the sphinx spat. “You’re a rainbow. Too easy, human. Your friend is far more entertaining.”
“Was he? I thought this was the kind of riddles we all enjoyed.” Mererid sighed. “Your turn, and I shall think of something more clever.”
The sphinx’ tail swished over the floor, disturbing dust. Emhyr sneezed. “What is,” it said, clicking its tongue. “So fragile that saying its name breaks it?”
Mererid laughed. “Silence. Easy, since your face was saying this word loud and clear.”
“The sneeze irritated me,” the sphinx huffed. “So, let me hear a better riddle.”
“What can you never have for breakfast?” Emhyr could hear the smile in Mererid’s voice. Rightly so, he suspected. The sphinx would like it once it’d figured out the riddle.
Its tail stilled as it thought. “It cannot be any food. But it has to be food. So…”
“Ready to give up?” Emhyr asked. It earned him a flick with the tail across his cheek.
“Not yet.” The sphinx purred. “There’s more than one answer to this.”
“Go on,” Mererid prompted.
“Is it… lunch and supper?”
“Very good.” Mererid clapped. “I’d also accepted dinner.”
“That was much better,” the sphinx admitted. “So, let me think. Ah, yes. What starts with T, ends with T and has T in it?”
Mererid chuckled. It was very easy for someone who had to handle said object every day, Emhyr assumed. He only got it because the sphinx had treated him to the riddle earlier. “It’s a teapot. Starts with the letter, ends with the letter, has the beverage inside. In that vein: It starts with an e, yet only contains one letter. What is it?”
“E!” the sphinx snapped. “What else would it be, if it has only one letter. It’s the one it starts with. E!”
“No, guess again.” Mererid sounded very pleased with himself.
The sphinx snorted. It growled a little. “S?”
“Not quite. Last try.”
This time, the sphinx thought long and hard. “L, X, F. H, if you squint. N and M.”
“All wrong. Which means I win. So, if you’d please step aside, oh ghastly demon?”
“Not so fast.” The sphinx slammed its fist on the ground. “What’s the answer?”
“An envelope,” Emhyr murmured. He’d expected another smack with the tail, but none came. Instead, the sphinx turned around slowly. “You guessed it?”
Emhyr shrugged. He couldn’t rightly tell the sphinx that Mererid had thought that up just the week before. “It’s not that hard.”
“Fine,” the beast grumbled. It stepped aside. A wave of elation overcame Emhyr as he looked into Mererid’s face. The most unlikely rescuer. Yet the most welcome face he could wish to see. “You’re free to go,” the sphinx added.
Emhyr bowed. “Thank you very much. I shall see to it that, once this mess has been all cleared up, you’ll be sent more books like the one you so enjoyed. All of them, if I have my way.”
“You have been fun, human. Au revoir.” The sphinx sighed. “I will miss your company.”
“If I may ask: How did you befriend a sphinx, your Imperial Majesty?” Mererid asked once they were outside. To Emhyr’s surprise, they weren’t underground, but up a tower.
“I told it puns,” Emhyr sighed. There were no guards waiting for them, so he took Mererid’s hand and pulled him into a tight hug. “I missed you. Your wisdom and quiet and calm nature. I missed your presence. I missed you, Mererid.”
He sighed in contentment when Mererid hugged him back. “I was quite worried myself. Which is why I followed this lead straight away. Not even the spies have worked this out yet .”
“You have my permission to kiss me,” Emhyr murmured. “If you still need it after all this time.”
Mererid tilted his head up with a hand under his chin. He smiled as he leaned forward to close the distance between their lips. Emhyr’s eyes fluttered closed. As always, it felt like he was just where he was supposed to be in Mererid’s arms.