Whether made of flesh or made of stone, sphinxes adore riddles and games. The best way to avoid losing any limbs is to correctly answer whatever they ask. But in this case, I was having a difficult time figuring out what the question was in the first place. So far, I had managed to determine that one of them always lied and one of them always told the truth—although I wasn’t entirely certain which one was which—while the third one, for some reason, only recited nature poetry.
I remembered there was a way to solve this kind of puzzle, but I couldn’t for the life of me recall what it was.
“Will you answer this question with a lie?” I asked.
“No,” said the first sphinx, grinning to reveal its pointed stone teeth.
“No,” the second sphinx replied as well.
“A lone fallen leaf / Floats across the placid pond / Autumn has arrived,” said the third one.
I’d been hoping one of the sphinxes would say it was lying, get caught in a paradox, and…I don’t know. Explode, maybe.
There might have been no solution at all. I didn’t think the third one was working quite right. It was noticeably more chipped and weathered than its fellows, and its nose had fallen off. If it had been a patient of mine and not a statue, I would have diagnosed it with late-stage syphilis.
Treat with a carefully measured mixture of arsenical compounds and elemental bismuth,I thought automatically.Keep watch for signs of toxicity; the medicine can be as dangerous as the disease unless the dosage is precise.
But the sphinx was not my patient, statues could not catch syphilis—or at least, I very much hoped they could not—and arsenic would have had little effect on natural erosion. I didn’t treat patients anymore anyway. To be honest, I never really had; I’d only assisted my mother and father in their work.
My job was to go on nonsensical quests and solve annoying puzzles. Although I’d been failing at that here, and I was beginning to fear my wits were about to prove fatally slow.
“You have two questions remaining,” said the first sphinx.
“And then,” said the second, “we will not eat you.”
It was probably unreasonable to hope that the first one was the liar and the second was telling the truth.
“A blanket of snow,” said the third, “Untouched by morning footsteps / Glitters like granite.”
“That’s hardly a relevant verse at the moment,” I told the sphinx with a huff. “It’s not even cold yet. There won’t be any snow for months.”
It tried to sniff disdainfully through its missing nose, scrunching its face up so tightly that a few more pebbles cracked off and fell to the ground.
The day was, in fact, bright and clear, a crisp morning in early autumn that for once promised no rain. A lone cloud stretched across the sky, a thick white line with wisps reaching out from the center in straight, regular rows. It looked like the spine and ribs of some enormous skeleton suspended in midair. Behind the sphinxes, a single row of trees topped the rise, their leaves just beginning to show the first hints of red and gold. And beyond, on the other side of the slope, spread a broad flat field overrun by tall, yellowing grass.
Which made the sphinxes a problem, because I was supposed to plough that field and sow it with teeth.
A thousand teeth, to be precise. I had no idea why; my stepmother hadn’t bothered to explain. She never did before sending me or my sisters off on one of her bizarre quests. But when the queen says go, you go. I had tried refusing once, and it wasn’t an experience I cared to repeat anytime soon.
All three of us, Jonquil and Calla and me, had been assigned the tooth task. But my stepmother hadn’t told any of us where the field was, if she even knew. Calla, my younger half sister—we’re a blended family—had set off for the east. My stepsister, Jonquil, the eldest, had set off for the west. Both of them left their spouses behind at the palace and traveled far and wide across the earth in search of the proper location.
I, in the meantime, decided to get a start on the tedious process of gathering a thousand teeth. After a few days spent dickering with dentists, I didn’t have anywhere near enough, so I started going door to door. As it turns out, people exhibit a widevariety of reactions to a stranger asking if they happen to have any spare teeth lying around, but none of them could be described as delight.
The sphinxes were waiting for my next question with unconcealed impatience. “If I asked whether I could just walk past you, what would you say?” I hazarded in ill-considered desperation.
“I would say no,” said the sphinx I thought was telling the truth, crouching down and lashing its tail.
“I would say yes,” said the sphinx I thought was lying, rearing up and stretching its claws.
“The sun-dappled grass / Beneath the windblown branches—”
“I get it,” I told them with a tired sigh. “One more question and then you’ll eat me. Or maybe you won’t. Or maybe you’ll describe the ocean waves crashing against the rocky shore.”
“Oh, that’s a good one!” said the sphinx with no nose.
“Feel free to use it if you want.” Perhaps playing muse to the sphinx would help somehow. It seemed unlikely.
I had managed to obtain enough teeth for the ploughing, although only because I’d had a lucky break the week before. In the middle of my tooth-collecting rounds, I’d been accosted by a fairy who accused me of trying to muscle in on her turf. She’d been gathering children’s teeth for centuries. In exchange, she left small coins under their pillows. An odd hobby, but the habits of fairies were often difficult to understand. For instance, my sister-in-law, Gnoflwhogir, made necklaces out of the left ears of her enemies. I tried very hard not to be Gnoflwhogir’s enemy.
