Philea coughs, trips, and lands harshly in the dirt of the road. She pulls herself up a branch of a nearby tree and stumbles forward. Her destination lies down the road, the light of torches just barely visible from where she falters.
“Thebes…” she barely groans out, before a heavy and oppressive weight pins her to the tree. A massive lion’s paw pressing on her throat and ribs, threatening her last breath.
A woman’s head inches closer to Philea’s face. Her long black hair frames Philea’s face as she stretches open a long, toothy grin. The head was the size of Philea’s torso, and the mouth was mostly canines and fangs.
A heavy breath escapes the creature’s lungs, smelling of sickly sweet rot and copper. “What speaks with one voice, walks on four legs…are you…are you paying attention?” The creature lets up the pressure of her lion’s paw. Even if the woman escapes from the beast’s grasp, she still could have pounced on her, ripped from nape to flank…but the Sphinx was curious.
“Woman…why do you burn so much? Your skin feels like fire upon my paws. Your eyes are glassing over…”
Philea’s fear gives way to a bloody cough upon the Sphinx’s paw and then she passes out. Instinctively the beast catches her, more gently than she knew she could be.
“In a way…I guess that is an answer of sorts.” The Sphinx goes to bite the neck of the unconscious woman in front of her and drag her back to the cave, but then she remembers that mortals don’t have that soft patch of excess skin to grab onto. So instead she wrapped the stranger in her front right paw and walked on three legs toward her cave.
Philea wakes and finds herself wrapped in warm down. The feathers are much larger than any fowl she had ever seen before, but she doesn’t care, she’s warm. As she almost falls back asleep, safe in these giant wings, she hears…
snap
She looks toward the sound, following the contours of the gigantic feline body she was curled against and sees the torso and head of a man fall into view, one arm missing.
crack
Philea fails to catch a frightened gasp as her eyes follow the beast’s body upwards. She finds the missing limb dangling from that giant toothy maw before her eyes connect with her captor’s. The beast spits out what remains of the unlucky traveler.
“You’re awake…and since it’s a new day…let me ask you one more time. What speaks with one voice…” The beast’s eyes drift down Philea’s neck, and notices the pendant dangling from a thick hemp cord: the maze-like wheel of the tripartite goddess of crossroads, Hekate.
“Hmmm, you’re far from Thessaly…aren’t you, witch.” The Sphinx rolls this information around her head like a boulder up a mountain before she modifies her riddle…again. “What flowers grow upon these hills of Boeotia that you’d use to cure your curse, witch?”
Philea didn’t even remember her answer, just the cold ache that came when the Sphinx stood up, taking her warm wings with her, and left the cave to hunt down some flowers and herbs.
As she enters the cave, Philea ponders the years that had passed since her first night she shared a fire with the Sphinx. The warmth, the tension, the riddles. Oh gods, so many riddles. She lifts the purple curtain that acts as a makeshift door, and is greeted with that toothy maw spread in a wide grin.
“Phi! Phi! I have a new riddle! I’ve spent the entire time you’ve been gone coming up with this one! I think you will really like it.”
Philea lets the curtain fall behind her as she brings the basket deeper into the cave, placing it next to the ember-filled pit in the center of the room. “Then let’s hear it.”
The Sphinx rolls on her back, looking upside down at Philea as she begins to speak. “Two sisters live upon these lands…and the first births the second sister, but then…then the second sister births the first. Yeah…yeah…so…Who are they?”
“Who are the sisters?”
“Yes yes…should I say ‘sisters?’ Or is ‘they’ clear enough?”
Philea pulls out a large lamb leg from the basket and begins to massage herbs and salt into the thick flesh. “I think either is fine, but your tone. Tighten the words a bit. Maybe go, ‘Two sisters live upon these lands. The first births the second, and then the second births the first. Who are they?’ That sounds…I’m not sure…but I think it sounds more confident.”
The Sphinx’s grin grows wider as she closes her eyes and follows the imaginary stylus writing the words on a tablet. “Yes! Yes! Much better. But do you know, Phi? Do you know who they are? The sisters?”
Philea pauses massaging the lamb leg as she raises a well seasoned hand to her chin. “If I had to guess…I think it’s the Day and Night.” Philea walks towards the upside down beast, “Is that right?” She punctuates her question with a quick peck on the Sphinx’s cheek.
The beast shivers for a second, warmth and heat and blood rushing down her spine, making her sun-worn face grow bright red. “How have you enchanted me so?”
Philea laughs, walking back toward the meal as the Sphinx readjusts herself to a seated position, the top of her head just barely shorter than the roof of this room. Philea looks back, “No no, one riddle per day. You know the rules.”
Laying down, playfully frustrated, the beast finally notices what Philea has brought home with her from Thebes. “Blegh, lamb. Nobody likes the taste of lamb…I miss man-flesh…”
“Well, this is something we can both eat, and besides, you were the one that decided to go into hiding after that new king embarrassed your pride.”
The Sphinx snarls something under her breath, “He got lucky…”
Philea turns around after starting the fire again. “Actually, speaking of him, you won’t believe the rumor I heard about him while at the market. It’s a tragedy really, but so bizarre. Apparently he had a prophecy about him, tried to avoid the dang thing, and whoops, now the Queen’s dead and he ran into the woods with her hairpin. You will not believe why.”
Philea maps the lines slowly etched into the Sphinx’s skin over the years. Her fingers trace along down her cheek, to the fur that starts at her shoulders, then blends into feathers. The feathers had been grey since she first met the beast, but now patches of her lion body where speckled with salt and pepper.
The Sphinx lifted her head gently, blinking at Philea slowly as if to say, I see you. I’m here with you.
Her voice came out rough, less wind from her massive lungs than she expected. The closest thing the beast could get to a whisper. “You remind me of someone…yes…just like her” She raised a paw as if to mimic the tracing touching Philea played across her hide, but instead winced and rested still.
Philea took the poultice she had been preparing earlier today and began to rub it into her fur along her joints, making sure to work it into the sensitive and often chafed skin beneath her wings.
“Yeah? Who do I remind you of?”
Rolling onto her side the Sphinx answers, “She was a beautiful witch. She…she lived with me for a while…and I think she answered my riddles every day…so I let her stay. Much smarter than that blind king wandering through the woods…”
Philea smiled gently and walked in front of the Sphinx. “Can you share with me one of your riddles?”
The Sphinx nods and begins to say, “I have one…if you want…” She paused, and then frowned. “I swear, I knew more riddles than there are stars in the sky.”
“That’s okay, but…do you mind if I ask you a riddle?”
The Sphinx nods slowly.
“What speaks with one voice, walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening.”
The Sphinx smiles and opens her mouth before pausing, “I…I don’t know…”
Philea brushes the Sphinx’s gray hair and says “That’s okay…maybe you’ll know again tomorrow.”
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Stephen Hemmer Fiction 