Zynchra agreed to accompany the party for a short time. They were willing to go anywhere in either castle as well as the connecting tunnel and labyrinth. But beyond that, they would retreat.

  The labyrinth was not unlike the tunnels the party had trudged through not long prior. Thesa, for her part, was on edge without recognizing that was why.

  Zynchra moved with an idiosyncratic grace although their knees were unaligned it was obvious that they had a lot of practice controlling their shared body.

  When the path split, they didn't hesitate to point to the left. “Follow me/me,” they [Messaged]. Then, they added, “leading the way through this winding labyrinth fills us with a yearning nostalgia.”

  “Who did you guide before?” Merijest asked.

  They replied “She/I guided me/her,” they replied.

  “Wait, can you tell me if you think of yourself as one person or two?” Thesa asked. She was invested. How much had Wriv and Flini given to one another? Was Merijest going to want this as well? Thesa didn't know what path a counter-cultural relationship was meant to follow. There had to be a path, right?

  “One/Two and two/one,” they replied. “In some sense, we/we now share three separate bodies.”

  “But what is it like to remember one moment from the perspective of two separate bodies?” Merijest asked.

  Zynchra pondered, then replied. “It is a depth of time. I/I can only compare it to seeing depth with two eyes. But it is more even than that. I/I perceive a depth of sight, of touch, of temperature and color.” They brought their hands together. “Wriv/Flini holds Flini/Wriv. Flini/Wriv is held. Even my/my memories become new when brought together with hers/hers.”

  When they came to another split, Zynchra instantly dropped into a lopsided crouch. They were taken aback at the presence of another figure.

  The silhouette alone was confounding. And it let out something like a baleful squeal.

  “Looks like a Ground Sphinx,” Merijest whispered.

  “That is a Sphinx?!” Witmie said behind covered eyes. “I’ve never heard of a Sphinx like that.”

  “It’s not actually a close relation, but the superficial similarities were enough for someone.” Merijest admitted.

  “It will pose a riddle,” Zynchra [Messaged]. “Brace your lungs, my/my friends.”

  The head of the Ground Sphinx began rotating like a clock and rather than surprising the party with a familiar variety of humanoid speech, the Ground Sphinx opened its beak and began warbling. in the Dead Tongue, “Khositiveth zbon ithvliekik ithkhevrenik vrizbevri…”

  Merijest’s eyes widened. “Get down!” She shouted and in an instant her wings expanded to the length of the corridor and in one swift motion she pushed the whole party down.

  As the floor and walls began to churn, Thesa asked, “what is it saying?”

  “It’s moving some things around. It’s hard to know exactly what it’s making until it's done speaking,” Merijest replied. Her wings shielded the party from flying clumps of dirt and stone.

  “It will try to trap us in the riddle until we die,” Zynchra [Messaged].

  “Or escape,” Witmie said.

  “That is difficult,” Zynchra replied. “When Flini was trapped, she was only saved when Wriv came looking for her.”

  Rising from within the walls and floor emerged molten rock, dim and searing. It swelled like blood through the membrane of an infected artery.

  Sweat broke onto Thesa’s forehead. As the shade from the demoness’s spread wings began to recede, Thesa looked back to find Merijest nearly melting. Before she could reach for her demoness, a squeezing puncture of pain erupted in her arm. The place where Frostbite had birthed from apparently retained some ice magic. And higher on her arm, The Peppermint Wyrm was squirming and shriveling. Thesa held onto Merijest with her free arm, but was herself shriveling with pain.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Altogether the sudden heat was not a welcome sensation.

  Witmie, sweating but no worse for wear, turned to Durn and Zynchra. “Can you get some fresh air in here?” she asked.

  “I can’t make much wind down here,” Durn shrugged through labored breaths.

  And then with a flash of green, they were all separated and each awoke in divided chambers.

  ***

  As she took in her surroundings, Merijest curled up, wrapping herself in her own wings and running a low current of cold magic to return her body to equilibrium.

  A bespoke bust of the Ground Sphinx protruded from the wall like a hunting trophy. Beneath the statue was inscribed the riddle:

  Weightless, I chatter and lead her astray.

  Flies by the moon but with me she will stay.

  Drawn in, seductive, with beauty abound.

  Dies in my stomach to never be found.

  Merijest unwrapped herself, no longer afraid. She’d heard this one although she never found the answer completely satisfying.

  “A moth to a flame,” she said, now standing tall.

  The words glowed like hot iron and then shifted. The floor in front of the statue churned and opened to fire and stoney fumes. When it closed the fumes faded, the text had changed:

  Mis-mixed together one seat of life writhes,

  choking another with red or night skies,

  sweet contradiction, a generous name

  given to one who extinguishes flame.

  “I've answered your riddle, now let me go,” Merijest demanded, but fumes began to seep into the room and she assumed this was meant to be a sort of time limit. She hadn't heard this riddle before, but she would need to puzzle it out. A ‘seat of life’ which was ‘red or midnight’ sounded like blood.

  The other one was less clear, but ‘sweet contradiction, a generous name,’ was enough to bring her to the answer. ‘Chest of Wine’ was a euphemism for internal bleeding of the lungs.

  She said as much and the wall began to shift again. She needed to think of a different kind of solution.

  ***

  Thesa rubbed her eyes. She had been clinging to Merijest only for her hands to slip through empty air. The magma had cooled and the heat had dissipated.

  Beneath the statue on the wall, the stone was inscribed with four lines of carved words, but before Thesa could start reading them, the words shifted and reformed into a single line:

  Who are you?

  Thesa looked around and then, finding nothing else in the room, said, “I am Thesa.”

  The head of the statue made a one-third rotation clockwise. The beak of the statue opened to pour sand onto the floor. The pile was considerable, and Thesa found herself unable to get a foothold atop the layer of sand which now covered the floor.

  The wall churned and the letters in the wall shifted.

  Who set your mother to ruin?

  Thesa’s thoughts swam. What did that even mean? Was the Ground Sphinx trying to dredge up her guilt?

  “I guess…I did…” Thesa murmured. “She wasn’t eating because of me and I sent her to Beautuk’s realm. So it’s my fault, I guess.”

  The beak of the statue opened and more sand poured out. Thesa's knees were now below the growing pile. Then the statue’s mouth closed and the head rotated another third clockwise. Now the letters read:

  Why did Beautuk choose you?

  “I could perform a miracle, I guess,” Thesa said, uncertain. Even to this point she had never questioned it. Why had Beautuk chosen her?

  Again the beak of the statue opened and sand poured out. The room was more than halfway filled now and Thesa could hardly move through the loose sand. The mouth closed and the head rotated again so that the face was now up-right.

  The text on the wall, now positioned above the statue rather than below, read:

  One correct. One incorrect. One partial correct.

  Thesa thought back on the questions. The ‘one correct’ must be my name. Even if I had some secret original name I was given long ago, the question hadn't asked for every name that applies to me. But which of the others were correct or partially correct? I'm at least partially responsible for mom… She wasn't eating enough so she could feed me. So maybe there's something I'm missing there. And maybe I'm completely wrong about why Beautuk chose me?

  “Wait, what kind of riddle is this?” Thesa asked. “Why are you trying to teach me things about myself?”

  The text changed again:

  You must escape ItherBeau by sea. I will find you then.

  Thesa was utterly confused, but suddenly the sand began to drain from the room. The statue on the wall crumbled, and the words fell away.

  ***

  Every member of the party looked ragged.

  Witmie was curled into a ball with her hands over her eyes and Durn was on all fours breathing heavily.

  The black portions of Merijest’s eyes were bloodshot with subtle veins the color of the night-sky.

  “What happened?” Thesa asked. The Ground Sphinx was nowhere to be seen.

  “I had to use the Dead Tongue,” Merijest said. “You should never use it without a plan, so I kept it simple. It was so hard to think with the riddles and the fumes and… But I did it, and I'm fine,” she said. Then Merijest leaned forward and spit blood.

  Thesa helped her demoness to the floor. With Witmie clinging to her arm, Durn approached and cast a minor healing spell on Merijest.

  “What was even the point of all that?” Witmie asked from her spot on the ground. “What does a Ground Sphinx get out of a riddle in the first place? Why not just kill us with all that power?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Merijest shrugged. “Psychic energy? Fun? Psychosexual fun? Financial compensation? A mild thrill? It could be anything.”

  Slowly, they all gathered around. Witmie, Durn, and Merijest began sharing information about the riddles they were faced with.

  Despite their similarly ragged appearance, Zynchra had not been subjected to a riddle. Still, the shifting terrain had been tough to survive and they sat with legs crossed and arms wrapped around themselves in a sort of hug.

  “What about you, Thesa,” Merijest asked. “Did you have riddles?”

  Thesa's face must have shown something because Merijest immediately sat up, despite herself, with a painful groan.

  “Thesa are you ok?” she asked and held a hand out. Thesa took the hand, laid down beside Merijest and buried her head in her demoness's feathers. She didn't want anyone to see her. She just wanted to hold onto Merijest.

  ***

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