The treasury and its guardian

I didn't really want to go to the Twilight Zone after everything that had happened. I'd been there three times, and all three times I had gotten in trouble; and that's an understatement. Yet I survived. I couldn't hope to be that lucky the fourth time. But it was in the Twilight Zone that the seventh Key might be hidden, if Merlin was to be believed. 

Besides the Horned Patrol guarding the treasure, the area was teeming with all sorts of other evil creatures, most of which I knew from the books I had read in the Irratian library. And there was only one entrance, the Black Gates of the Edge. Of course, I would have preferred to go through the back door, but there wasn't one. 

At least this time we came prepared. I thought we had. With Victoria's help, I made the adjustment to the Keys and was very surprised that it worked for me. Maybe I really would become a wizard. 

As usual, it was cold and windy at the Edge. I wrapped myself in a scarf to protect my freezing neck, which was deprived of its usual protection from the tricks of the weather. Victoria spent a lot of time and efforts trying to make the rest of my scorched hair look more or less decent, finally making me a short haircut. It looked a little weird, but Victoria said it made me look like my old self, so it wasn't too bad.

Her words brought my thoughts back to the dangerous direction and I repeated the same mantra to myself for half an hour: "Victoria is not Gemma, she is Alex's wife.” It didn't help much though. 

We walked for three hours, talking about various things, before we reached the arch. There were two rectangular stones standing upright; the third, crooked and not looking very secure, lay on top of them.

"It's this way," Victoria said.

I didn't like the idea.

"Can we go around this thing?" I offered. "I'm afraid something might fall on our heads."

"It won't work," Victoria objected. "This is the Gate, and it does not lead to the other side."

"Do you think it's safe?"

"We'll see."

As we approached, the view through the Gate changed. A moment before,  I could see the continuation of the path through the Gate, and a bluish boulder with a stunted bush sticking out from underneath it, but now the whole opening was filled with blackness. Absolute, cosmic blackness.

I stepped back and saw the same bush and the path. I stepped forward and saw the veil of darkness. It was frightening. 

I looked at Victoria. She shrugged and took my hand. Then we walked forward. A moment of dizziness, millions of icy needles digging into our skin, and we found ourselves in a long, narrow corridor under the open sky.

"What do you think?" I asked, looking around.

"It looks like a maze," Victoria guessed.

 I would have preferred her to be wrong, but it was indeed a labyrinth. An intricate network of stone tunnels that seemed completely impassable to me.

"What if we get lost?" I asked again.

"We won't," Victoria answered, looking at her amulet, "it will guide us.”

I had heard of the "right side rule" once. Something like, if you're in a maze, always turn right and you're sure to come to an exit. That sounds nice, but it's not true. We turned right, then left, then around and around, but finally, with the help of the amulet, we reached the exit to see an iron-clad door. 

At the door sat a sphinx, as still as a stone statue. Yet I could feel the tension of a compressed spring within it: take a step forward, cross the invisible boundary - and the ancient mechanism would click, the spring would release, pushing the mighty body of the guard forward on the unfortunate thief.

"Should we run away before it's too late?" Vic whispered.

"I wouldn't turn my back on it," I replied  quietly.

So we slowly walked forward, holding our swords in front of us. They seemed to be of little use against such a beast, but the comfortable grip in my hand gave me confidence. I tried to remember everything I had ever heard about sphinxes. Unfortunately, none of it sounded good. Man-eating squabblers, extremely vicious and vengeful creatures.

"There you are," the sphinx greeted us. "It's been a long journey, Your Highness!"

"Good to see you, Guardian of the South Gate," Victoria replied. "Why have you left your post?"

They were acquainted? What a surprise.

"My position is here now," the sphinx replied arrogantly. "I guard this door, and no one but the boss will pass through here except my master."

"Your master?" Victoria looked quite naturally surprised. "Do you have a master other than the rulers of Irrat, whom you have faithfully served for centuries?"

"Rulers of Irrat?" the sphinx spat. "Those treacherous wizards? I never served them willingly! The despicable Jurhek, the tamer of the Great Shadow, could not solve my riddle or defeat me in a fair fight. I was ready to taste his flesh, but the villain didn't want to lose fairly and turned me to stone. For centuries I stood on my thousandfold cursed post! The sun burned me, the rain poured down on me, the winds destroyed my body, the birds shat on my head, and almost every passerby took it upon himself to desecrate the stone I sat on! But my master came and set me free! Now my post is here!”

"That means you have moved from one cage to another, right?" I admitted.

Sphinx turned its head and looked at me. "Just look at him! He's the one!" it exclaimed. "Oh my God!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"Don't you know?"

"Know what?"

Sphinx chuckled, "You don’t know your roots. But I won't tell you."

"Won't tell me what?" I repeated.

"Nothing."

"Then don't speak. I don't need your secret," I cried out, hoping the sphinx would actually say something. "You are a slave. You'll die like a slave. Carved in stone, at least you had immortality."

"My master will set me free if I kill you," the sphinx replied, standing up and opening its wings.

"Wait a minute! Wait," I shouted, remembering one thing about this beast. "How about some riddles?"

"You didn't solve the last one."

"Wow, that was a riddle, really?”

"All right, tell me your riddle," the sphinx generously allowed, "only it won't change anything except that I’ll add it to my collection of riddles."

"Hangs pear, stomach can’t bear," I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

The sphinx burst out laughing, "What nonsense! Of course the pear is poisoned!

"No, no, no! You didn't guess," I rejoiced.

"Maybe it's rotten?" the sphinx guessed.

"You're wrong again."

While I got the sphinx's attention, Vic moved slowly along the maze wall, trying to get to the creature from behind.

The sphinx looked offended. "It's a lousy riddle.  Does it even have an answer?"

"It has."

The sphinx became pensive. Meanwhile, Victoria approached him.

"Listen, you, whatever your name is?" the Sphinx said to me. "Tell me the answer to your riddle! I'm really hungry."

"No way, think for yourself."

"Please."

"In this case, tell me the answer to yours first."

"I can't," the beast shook its head. "It's not my secret."

Then it was my turn to pretend to be offended: "I don't understand why you're so nervous. As you said, I’m going to die in a few minutes. So what's the problem?"

The sphinx shook its head again. "You can never guess how the cards will fall."

"What cards?" I really took offense. "Say it now."

It still hesitated, but at that moment Victoria reached out and touched the beast's back with the tip of the Heart of Night. The sphinx turned to stone as the spell was cast.

"It looks much better that way," Vic said, putting the blade back in its sheath.

"It was about to tell me something important," I said sadly.

"Oh, I'm really sorry," Victoria spread her hands. "But we have nothing to do with it now."

The sphinx's carcass completely blocked the passage - we had to crawl under the petrified guardian. The door was locked, but before I could take a closer look at the lock, Vic opened it with a short spell. Magic. 

Behind the door we found the dark passage, wet, cold and cobwebbed. The first thing I encountered was a pile of scrap metal, which crumbled with a terrible rumble, raising a cloud of dust.

"You're so clumsy," Victoria grumbled when we stopped sneezing.

"It's bloody dark."

"The magic vision, you idiot," she sighed, but created the glowing ball that rose to the ceiling.

The scrap metal turned out to be the remains of a knight in armor. A yellow shinbone protruded from a rusty armored boot.

We carefully walked around the remains and  kept going. Soon we found the next door, and there was no lock on it.

 "How about some magic?" I asked.

"No problem," she chuckled, and the door opened.

It led to another corridor, and at the end of it was another door that I had to struggle with: the magic didn't work on it. Finally I cracked it, and we entered a room whose contents could have rivaled Aladdin's cave, so many treasures were there.

"You see," Victoria stretched and looked around.

"It will take us until the Second Coming to find the Key here," I said grimly.

"Do you have any idea what this Tiara looks like?" Victoria asked.

"I think it's jeweled."

"Wow! That's so helpful."

"But it's true. Look, every Key has gems on it. Helyswort has sapphires," I began to curl my fingers, "Esterlior has diamonds, the Heart of Night has black pearls, the Master's Ring has a ruby, your amulet has an emerald, the Eye of Chaos has a yellow diamond. So there should be gems in the Tiara too, I just can't think of which ones."

"Okay, let's have a look," Victoria sighed and went to the nearest pile of jewelry.

We rummaged through  this priceless junk for quite some time and I was beginning to think that we were wasting our time.

"Vic, can't this Tiara be summoned by some kind of spell?" I asked, pausing to catch my breath.

She straightened up and brushed a red strand of hair from her forehead. "It's not a piece of iron, it's the Key," she objected. "It's protected from such actions.”

"Too bad," I sighed and suddenly remembered something: "Alex once told me about the affinity of the Keys and their mutual attraction. Something like, if you have a few Keys, you can just call for another one. I just don't know how to do that."

"Let's try," she nodded. "Wait a bit, let me think about it."

Anyway, it didn't work. It was a good idea, and the message was powerful. The energy wave we created blew most of the dump into the air, but the Tiara didn't come to us.

"So it's not here," I said, disappointed. "I wondered if it ever was."

"Who knows," Vic shrugged. "But there had to be some reason for putting the sphinx at the entrance."

"It's a good thing it has turned to stone," I admitted. "I haven’t recovered after the dragon yet."

We returned the same way, closed all the doors, climbed over the sphinx, made a quick dash through the labyrinth, and went outside, leaving the stone archway behind.

"Well, Archie," Vic said as we walked back to the gate, "do you have any other ideas?"

"Nope."

"Too bad," she sighed, "I was hoping to break into another treasury to get a pair of earrings to go with my pendant."

"You don't need a treasury," I objected, "just tell me what earrings you want and I'll bring them to you. I know some jewelers."

"It was a joke," she laughed. "It just doesn't seem right to find a treasure cave and not take anything."

"You're right," I agreed, making an assumption, "Maybe this treasure is enchanted? You steal a bracelet, you keep the company of the sphinx or that poor guy at the exit. I saw some gold chains around his neck."

She laughed. I always loved her laugh - so tinkling and carefree. "That's strange coming from the famous tomb raider."

"I just never took anything for myself," I explained, "Archie Corney is an artifact hunter, not a thief."

"Oh, sorry," she laughed again. "I didn't mean to offend you."

At that moment I saw something moving on the horizon and pointed at it. We hid behind the nearest rock. A few minutes later, a squad of the Horned Patrol rushed by on their way to the treasury.

"Time to escape," I said. "Can we fly away?"

"That won't work here. The properties of the substance," Victoria explained vaguely.

"But Merlin flew."

"He's a raven, flying is natural to birds."

"Then plan B: run!"

So we ran, not stopping until we reached the Gates. We didn't meet the Horned Ones, by the way. Just as we entered the Lace, we breathed a sigh of relief.

"Where are we going now?" Vic asked a traditional question.

"To Irrat, I think. We'll gather our people and get ready."

"I hope Alex makes himself known," she sighed. “I would try to contact him, but I can’t because of all these time loops."