CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“The riddle-masters have been unleashed.”
Jones had spoken in a deep, solemn, and extremely loud voice. Steve jerked awake and instantly threw himself off the bench to the marble pavement. When he’d regained a few of his scattered wits, he turned to the young man. “What the hell are you doing? Channeling James Earl Jones?”
The young embodiment of the Hanged Man was still seated in the lotus position, his eyes open, but the pupils had rolled up into his head so only the white sclera showed. The deep and sonorous voice rolled out again, “They are flying north. They seek Lucifer, the Morning Star, as was prophesied.”
“Now that you’re awake, take a look at that.” Old Howard pointed at the statue. The face had changed–it took Steve a couple of minutes to realize that the eyes were sharp and blue, which wasn’t nearly as disturbing as the fact that they were clearly no longer oxidized copper but quite alive. All along the edges of the sweeping cloak, hundreds of small human hands were appearing.
Their eyes were blue as well.
Send Money clicked and Barnaby came on. “The Star has chosen to save the Ace of Swords. That’s the good news. The bad news is I can see two stone sphinxes flying in your direction.”
Steve asked. “How can a stone sphinx fly?”
“Pretty damn fast, from what I can tell,” the computer answered. “You’ve got about two minutes to work out your defense.”
“MY defense?” Steve protested. “Fighting isn’t really one of my strengths. If you’ve noticed, I’ve generally depended on Ace in that department unless that was temporarily impossible.”
“Well, think of something fast, because the Master Chief isn’t going to be much help for the next thirty minutes or so.” the computer said. “I’m going to go offline and see if I can pull in a couple of favors, but at the moment, it’s all on you.”
“That’s comforting,” Steve muttered. He turned to Old Howard. “You were a fighting man. Any ideas?”
“I’m afraid not,” the ghost said. “Wisdom and Power–that’s their names–usually rest on the steps of the Scottish Rite Temple on 16th Street, and there’s always been too much etheric crap flying around there for me. Looks like the Masons are pissed–what did you do?”
“Do?” Steve was embarrassed as his voice rose to a bat-like squeak. He coughed and fought his vocal cords back down. “I didn’t do a damn thing, but people have been trying to kill me since I woke up this morning. I’m totally innocent.”
“Sure, buddy, sure. Whatever you say.”
Steve glared at the ghost and then turned to Jones. “Can you do anything?”
Hamilton’s eyes rolled back into sight; he paused for a moment as if assessing the situation, and then pulled his legs out of the lotus position. From the curses and groans, Steve guessed that finding his feet tucked high up on his thighs was something new.
“I take it that your yoga is a bit rusty?” Steve said.
“Yoga?” The young man panted. “Who the hell does yoga? Damn, I feel like my knees have been ripped out of their sockets.” He looked at Steve suspiciously. “Did you roofie me? I feel like I’ve been beaten and screwed senseless–not necessarily in that order.”
“Absolutely not.” Steve threw a thumb at Old Howard. “You can ask the ghost here.”
Hamilton stared at him for a second and then burst into laughter. “No, if you’re reduced to using a ghost as a character witness, I guess I’ll have to believe you. What’s going on?”
“You were the one who warned us,” Steve said. “You don’t remember? A couple of sphinxes–or is that sphinxi? Sphinxettes? Anyway, two of those things with human heads and the bodies of lions are heading our way. Apparently, they’ve got a beef with Ace over there.”
“Wow, look at those hands go!” Hamilton pointed to where the blond woman was lying. “Do you think it’s because each hand can see what it’s doing? I’d just get all confused.”
Steve looked. It was all a bit vague–like something seen through frosted glass–but it did look as if the hundred hands flying over Ace’s unconscious body were efficiently dismantling the tough blonde woman into component parts, and placing the parts into neatly divided piles on the paving stones. He wrenched his eyes away, hoping that this wasn’t the obscene torture it sure as hell looked like.
“Let’s not get sidetracked,” Steve said. “We’ve got to hold off these seagulls on steroids until Barnaby can work something out. Have you got any defensive magic, or are you just into prophetic warnings?”
“I can make prophetic warnings?”
“I guess that answers that question.” Steve turned back to Old Howard. “Take yourself up about a hundred feet and let me know as soon as you see them.”
The ghost looked as if Steve had suddenly begun to speak in tongues. “I can’t fly!”
“Can you walk through walls?”
“Well, sure, but–”
“OK, you couldn’t walk through walls when you were alive and you couldn’t fly when you were alive,” Steve said reasonably. “So, the odds are you can fly now that you’re dead, so get the hell up there and play lookout!”
Old Howard looked thoughtful and then slowly began to rise into the air.
The smartphone buzzed briefly and when Steve looked at the screen, he saw the now-familiar image of the Fool–the young man with his flower and bindle blissfully walking off a cliff. He thought of the poor kid falling hundreds of feet to certain death and felt a little jealous. The lucky little bastard didn’t have to deal with sphinxes.
Send Money began to play the eerie guitar intro to the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter. Steve just looked at the screen. Then the phone segued into Raise Your Glass.
Steve said, “Nope. I still don’t get it.” The screen flashed red and then
PUT YOU’RE THE GOD DAMN SHIELD UP MORON!
“Finally, something rational. From now on, you can lose the cute musical hints, OK?”
Steve concentrated on the flower on the card and the now- familiar hemisphere appeared. With a bit of concentration, he managed to flip it so that it was overhead like an umbrella and then expanded it so that it covered everything from where they were sitting to the marble ledge where the avatar continued to take Ace apart like a Japanese car factory stuck in reverse gear. All this seemed quite natural–until he realized he had no idea how he’d accomplished it.
On the positive side, once again, there wasn’t the ripping pain that usually accompanied his use of magic, and it felt as if the shield was stronger. Unfortunately, he’d have to wait until it was sphinx-tested to be sure.
“Ahoy, Mr. Idiot!”
Steve shook his head in irritation and shouted up to Old Howard. “I’m the bloody Fool, not an idiot.”
“Six of one, really. I thought you’d like to know that your adversaries are almost here.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but I don’t usually see stone demons flying about,” the ghost said. “Mind you, they could be pigeons, but then they’d be a couple of big damn pigeons.”
Steve pulled Hamilton with him as he moved to stand by Ace– or at least the construction kit that had once been Ace. It seemed logical that a smaller shield would be stronger. He had a fleeting thought that logic might not be relevant in this situation.
Two enormous objects striking the iridescent and, now that he thought about it, somewhat flimsy shield directly above his head, abruptly terminated his digression into magical ontology. He stood frozen in pure terror as the gossamer material flexed inward under the strain of several tons of granite moving at high speed.
An enormous stone paw–accessorized with long and extremely sharp stone talons–descended to within inches of Steve’s head before slowing, stopping, and finally rebounding.
“Wow.”
He glanced over at Hamilton. The young man pointed down at Steve’s feet–his loafers had been driven six inches into the marble paving stones. Wishing he’d thought of it earlier,
he created a golden spear, widened it into a pillar, and fitted it so that it supported the shield like a tent pole.
Steve checked on Ace and regretted it immediately. The statue was putting her back together but the blonde warrior looked like an IKEA corner cupboard in the very first stages of construction. Steve was thankful that the avatar appeared to be doing all the repairs without any sign of blood. It was a small blessing, but he was thankful for anything that made the process more bearable.
Old Howard floated down and bounced off the top of the shield in the slow-motion way that astronauts used to run on the Moon. He shrugged apologetically and drifted off toward the BMW.
Now that his attention had been drawn outside the shield, Steve looked to see what had happened to their attackers. Each of them was about the size of a Lincoln Town Car and, from the evidence of torn grass, furrowed earth, and toppled gravestones, considerably heavier. One was on her back with her enormous stone head–complete with elaborate headdress–stuck inside a marble mausoleum about the size of a small vacation cabin. As he watched; she slid ten-inch-long claws up between her neck and the marble enclosure. A short, violent wrench of the leonine forelegs turned the crypt into a cloud of white powder. The other had evidently bounced higher than her twin–she had smashed almost straight down on a relatively new grave and was now climbing grimly out of the sphinx-shaped hole she’d pounded into the soft earth. After she emerged, she shook herself like a dog to dislodge the decayed remnants of the grave’s previous occupant.
Once she was sufficiently clean, she spoke. “The Fool is mortal and this mortal is a fool.”
Her sister responded from the other side of the shield. “Our order has a death mandate made. Thus, for both man and maid, a date with death is decreed.”
Steve was stumped. All he could think of was an old palindrome about Napoleon so he said, “Able was I ere I saw Elba,” with all the pretentiousness he could muster.
The two enormous effigies looked at each other, shrugged, and began to advance towards Steve–only slowed slightly by a tendency to sink up to the knees in soft patches. Steve decided to give up any more attempts at out-emoting them. Clearly, these were professionals.
Instead, he went straight to his habitual Plan B: insults. “So, I’ve been told that your names are Wisdom and Power. But neither of you wusses had the power to break my shield, and after those landings, I haven’t been impressed your wisdom.”
The only response was a duet of dark and menacing growls. “OK, that might qualify you guys for the bass section of a Ukrainian Orthodox choir, especially with those beards,” Steve said. “But I didn’t think your specialty was in brute force and empty threats. I’ve been hearing all about how you two are the brainiacs with the unanswerable riddles. I guess my sources were mistaken.”
Now on both sides of the enclosed patio, the sphinxes struck in unison, taking massive swipes at the shield. Steve could see golden lines appearing where their claws gouged into–well, into whatever made up his shelter. He closed his eyes; he hadn’t used the shield enough to get over the ingrained assumption that whatever hit it would end up hitting him.
When there was no pain and his searching fingers couldn’t find any deep wounds or arterial bleeding, he opened one eye and then the other. He tested the shield–poking at it in his mind the way a patient pokes a tongue into the space where the dentist has pulled a tooth. It was definitely weaker.
There didn’t seem to be any good reasons to let the thugs outside know that they could affect his defenses, so he continued to taunt them. “Not all that tough, are we? Can’t even dent a mortal’s miserable little shield.”
The creature on his left peered at the shield and examined everything inside. Suddenly pointing a claw at Hamilton Jones, she said,
“A man in terrible suffering, Hung by one leg see,
His head planted in the earth, Feet rooted to the world tree.”
Her sister rumbled from the other side.
“The Hanged Man knows. Life is the wager,
We await the contest,
Truth both game and savior.”
Both beasts settled like watchful cats. Steve looked at Hamilton. “I think they were talking about you. Have you got a clue what they were talking about?”
“Hell, no–” Jones began and then went rigid as his eyes rolled up into his head and his voice dropped again into a deep and sonorous register.
“When the Sphinx, that singing bitch, was here, her riddle was not something the first man to stroll along could solve– a prophet was required.”
The sphinx on the right said, “Thou hast certainly savaged Sophocles as a lion tears its game.”
“Savages will savage,” her sister responded. “’Tis time for this prophet to prove his claim.”
Muscles suddenly relaxing, Jones grabbed his throat– apparently the prophetic fit had passed. He said, in his normal voice but with a definite rasp, “Damn. What’s going on? My vocal cords are on fire.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Steve put a hand on his arm to steady him. “Just try and keep your eyeballs where they belong for a moment, will you? You’re creeping me out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s not important. Mom always taught me not to draw attention to the afflictions of others.” Steve thought a moment. “‘That singing bitch,’ huh?”
“What?”
“That’s what you just said.” Steve patted the increasingly distressed young man on the shoulder. “I think they’re talking about the riddle game. From what little Homer I can remember, the sphinx would ask every passerby a riddle and eat the ones who got it wrong. Which was apparently everyone until Ulysses figured it out.”
“Uh, from what I remember from high school,” Jones said hesitantly, “it was Sophocles and Oedipus.”
“Who cares? Oedipus was a momma’s boy, anyway.” Steve turned and spoke to the closest sphinx. “Enough with the archaic language. You’ve been hanging out next to the sidewalk on 16th Street for over a century. I’m not buying the idea that you can’t speak like normal people. So, which one are you?” He pointed to the sphinx on the right.
The creature nodded, the pharaonic headpiece swinging. “Yes, we know the argot of this withered and joyless age. I am Power.”
“And I am Wisdom.” The monster on the other side said. “Although after having to listen to several thousand working girls ask drivers if they’d like a good time, it’s a miracle that I have any wisdom left. I mean, OMG, WTF?”
“Let’s not go too far. I know that if I can understand teenage-girl slang, it’s automatically outdated and lame. That has to be an exponentially worse crime in your case.” Steve took a deep breath. “So, it’s the riddle game?”
Wisdom nodded. “If you make a mistake–or speak anything but the whole truth–your mystic defense is toast. The Fool is a pure being, all of his power stems from his innocence.”
Power added, “I’m not sure that virtuous honesty is your strong suit, Steve Rowan. You are a journalist, after all.”
Steve sputtered. “I resent that remark!”
“Do you deny it?”
“Umm. No.”
“Good answer.” Power smiled, which involved a fairly horrible display of pointed teeth. “Now, shall we get on with the riddles?”
Steve nodded.
“And don’t even think of trying anything like ‘What’s it got in its pocketses?’” Wisdom added. “We might be stone but we’re not stupid.”
Old Howard yelled from somewhere above them, “Remains to be seen, old girl.” Both sphinxes looked up at him and growled.
“Let me get this straight,” Steve asked. “We both get to ask riddles, right? First to get one wrong loses.”
Power grumbled deep in her chest. “Back in the day, we didn’t allow the challenger a riddle.”
“That might be true, but those days of a one-sided and unequal division of rights are long gone,” Steve argued. “Hell, women changed the rules; yo
u should at least abide by them.”
“All right,” Power said. “Nevertheless, we go first.”
“Just like women,” Steve grumbled. “Demand equality and still want to be first through the door. Well, I’ve never won that fight with mortal women; I can’t see any reason I’d win it now. Do your worst.”
Wisdom began to speak. “What speaks with one voice, goes on four feet in the morning–”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Steve interrupted. “I know it’s a battle for my life and all that but everyone knows that one. You haven’t played this game much since that Greek dude came by, right? Well, he told the entire world the answer. Humans crawl on four feet in the morning of their lives, walk on two feet in the day, and use a cane in their old age. I mean, you might as well ask what a man does standing, a woman does sitting, and a dog does on three legs.”
“Well, they go to the–” Wisdom began, but Power interrupted loudly. “No, you old queen! They shake hands.”
Steve looked from one to the other. “I think I could call for an instant replay on that one, but why don’t we call the first round a draw and move on?”
He snuck in a quick look at Ace. The statue had put all of the physical parts back together and appeared to be working on the intangibles. Well, at least that was what Steve assumed was happening as the myriad hands picked up small bits of nothing and placed them carefully into her body.
Either way, it didn’t look like it would be long before the Ace of Swords would be back in playing condition. Steve gave Hamilton Jones as significant a look as he could manage and began to sidle closer to the reconstruction site.
“This time I get to go first,” Steve said. “I’m going with one that everyone who’s ever tried to work for a computer company could answer in his or her sleep. A man is in a room with solid walls, floor, and ceiling. There are no doors. He has a round table and a mirror. How does he get out?”
The two creatures both put their chins on their front paws and appeared to be thinking deeply. After a long while, they both shook their heads. Wisdom said, “The answer is that he cannot.”
The Last American Wizard Page 16