CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

Riddles in the Dark, Part 2

“Great, now we have a rhyming automaton to contend with,” Jackboot noted.

“It’s the last part of the clue,” Farsight deduced. “The path is laid hidden in Achelous’ test...”

“Achelous,” Sam repeated.

Sam’s mind recalled a sermon from a priestess of Zeus back during one of his Saturday temple visits. There had been one about Hercules and how the hero battled Achelous for the hand of fair Deianira.

“Hercules cut off one of Achelous’s horns, transforming it into the first cornucopia. And Achelous has never forgiven him for this affront or the fact that Hercules stole his bride from him.” The priestess told her tale in that low-pitched narrator’s voice that made everything seem so mysterious and spooky. “Beware, children…the gods have long memories and they never forget a slight.”

Sam’s gaze drifted back to the horned man’s head. “He’s missing a horn... I think this is a statue of Achelous.”

“So, we just need to pass your test?” Thunder asked.

“A trial of wit and nerve,” the Achelous automaton replied.

“Two tests then,” Jackboot guessed. “Which one do we do first?”

“Um, maybe we can do the ‘wit’ part first?” Sam wondered.

A trial of nerve sounded more like a physical confrontation, and Sam would just love to avoid that if possible. Olympus knows he’s had enough head trauma in this past month to last a normal person’s lifetime.

In answer to his request, the automaton of the freshwater god raised three bronze fingers. Then, in a rhyming tone that seemed unnatural for its robotic voice, the automaton said, “I contain cities, but no dwellings. I possess mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?”

Hearing these weird phrases made Sam’s face light up with sudden delight. Although the same couldn’t be said of his friends.

“Bloody Duat, it’s another riddle,” Jackboot sighed. “I’m honestly not very good at riddles.”

“Logic and reason not your kind of thing?” Farsight teased.

Jackboot frowned. “You have a go at it then, Ms. Science-knows-best.”

“I...” It was Farsight’s turn to frown. “I’m not that good with riddles either...”

“Couldn’t you just check for probabilities and find us the answer from across a multiverse of possibilities?” Thunder suggested.

“I might have been able to do that, but,” Farsight’s face crunched up in bewilderment, “I can’t seem to activate my power...not since we walked into this dome.”

“So, if something nasty were to come our way, say a certain musclebound serial killer”—Jackboot folded his arms over his chest—“then you wouldn’t be able to warn us?”

“Yup…my seer-sense is on the fritz,” she confirmed.

“Which means we have a time limit,” Thunder’s brow creased. “Sam, what do you—”

That’s when she noticed how Sam was looking up at the automaton with a face alight with curiosity and joy.

Thunder didn’t know this about him, but Sam loved riddles. Because his father had loved riddles, too. In fact, before the incident that ruined his childhood, Sam would end nearly every night wrapping his little brain around a riddle his father gave him.

“The sphinx isn’t the only horror out there who issues riddles to heroes…and there are places in the world one can’t enter without solving a puzzle first,” his father had stated enthusiastically. “The next generation’s heroes like you should start with riddles and puzzles early so you’ll never get stumped when they appear in your adventures.”

Sam’s mother hadn’t bought his father’s excuse for teaching Sam about riddles though. She had claimed this hobby of theirs existed only because of his father’s love for a certain fantasy novel featuring little halflings who played riddles in the dark.

“Your dad’s a hobbit at heart,” Sam’s mother would often tease.

Ironically enough—while the memory of his parents’ playful banter made him feel wistful for those halcyon days—the time had come for Sam to show off his riddle-solving skills.

“Contain cities but no dwellings, mountains but no trees, and water but no fish,” Sam repeated.

Just in case you’re wondering, I’m not helping you with this, Chiron interrupted Sam’s ruminations. This is the path you chose, so it’s on you to figure it out yourself.

“I know,” Sam whispered.

Not that I don’t know the answer... Chiron chuckled nervously. I just don’t want to mollycoddle you.

“Okay,” Sam replied.

I would have just gone with the path of nerve and gotten it over with—

“Shush,” Sam hissed, but then he frowned immediately afterward. “Aw, Styx...you helped after all.”

Hearing his master’s comments inside his head lit a light bulb in Sam’s brain. A single word was all it took for him to connect the dots of the riddle’s strange phrases.

“A thing that contains cities but no dwellings, a mountain but no trees, and water without fish... I’d wager this thing also has ‘paths’ or ‘routes’ in it?” Sam guessed.

“Like the world, you mean?” Thunder asked.

“No, not the world,” Sam grinned. “Just a map.”

And with that answer, the automaton’s angry expression seemed suddenly less cold. He curled one of his three fingers so that only two remained.

“You’re kidding me...” Farsight’s eyes snapped from Sam to the automaton and then back to Sam. “You got the right answer?”

“A map would have all these details in it, wouldn’t it,” Jackboot realized, prompting him to exchange high-fives with Sam. “Well done, mate.”

The Achelous automaton began his next riddle. “My first two letters speak of man, yet my first three letters also speak of woman. And since my first four letters represent courage, then I must be the bravest of women.”

This is a harder riddle than the first, Sam thought, because it gets me thinking about gender and how men and women are different, but the answer is connected to women…so why mention man at all?

After waiting for a short while—with her foot tapping noisily on the marble floor—Farsight spoke up, “Well, Mr. Riddler-solver, have you figured it out yet? Or are you admitting that you just lucked out last time?”

“You’re a very salty kid, aren’t you?” Jackboot commented.

The pair of them began to argue again, forcing Sam to turn their way so he could shush them. However, as his gaze fell on Farsight, another light bulb lit up in his brain.

“You figured it out, didn’t you?” Thunder guessed.

She was smiling at him, the kind of warm smile that made him all giddy inside. Which was when Sam realized that the answer to this riddle had been standing beside him this whole time.

“Heroine...that’s my answer,” Sam said.

It almost seemed like the Achelous automaton was trying hard not to smile when it lowered another finger.

“How in Thoth’s name did you figure that one out?” Jackboot asked.

“It was simple wordplay...the first two letters are he, which stands for man, while the first three letters are her, which stands for woman,” Sam explained. “Four letters stand for courage—”

“—which could mean hero…and that means the bravest of women would be a heroine,” Farsight finished for him, prompting another frown to appear on her exasperated face. “For Athena’s sake, how can something so simple be so annoyingly elusive?”

“That’s what riddles are,” Sam chuckled. “They mess with you if you let them.”

“But how are you so good at it?” As she asked him this, Thunder’s face was alight with curiosity at this new side of Sam she hadn’t seen before. Funnily enough, she’d never shown him this look either. This sudden interest in Sam that wasn’t related to heroics or the mission made his cheeks blush the color of apples.

“Um, my family…we like riddles,” Sam admitted in a whisper only Thunder could hear.

“You’ve never spoken about them before,” she whispered back.

“I...” Sam lowered his gaze to the floor. “It’s…it’s hard to talk about...”

Sam knew Thunder was aware of his past, and so there was no need to say anything more. But the sadness in his voice prompted Thunder to bump her shoulder against his.

“You have a new family right here.” She nodded playfully toward the two bickering heroes behind them. “They might take some getting used to though.”

He didn’t get teary-eyed or overly emotional in front of her, but Thunder’s heartfelt words meant more to Sam than she could ever imagine. Because, even with Marie watching over him, he’d felt alone most of his life. It was nice to feel like people were beginning to gather around him.

You’ve found some good partners there, kid, Chiron added. Let’s hope none of you go the way of the first Argonauts...or the second, third, and sixth... Hades’ balls, they were a tragic bunch.

“That’s not helping me feel better,” Sam sighed.

Finally, the Achelous automaton unveiled its last riddle. “I have walked on four legs at the coming of dawn... I walk with two legs when the sun is high in the sky... And I shall walk with three legs when the sun falls... What am I?”

Although it was a variation of a riddle he’d heard before, Sam still recognized it instantly. After all, there was no riddle more famous than the one the Sphinx had given Oedipus.

“Man,” Sam stated confidently. “A baby walks on four legs, an adult on two, and an old man might need a cane to walk.”

The Achelous automaton showed off shiny bronze teeth as it gave Sam the creepiest smile he’d ever seen. Then, without warning, it slammed its bronze palm down on the marble floor right where Sam had been standing only a second ago. Luckily, Thunder had used her lightning-quick reflexes to pull him out of harm’s way.

“You have passed the first half of the trial.” the Achelous automaton announced. “Now it is time for the second. Succeed, and you will prove worthy of the secret I keep.”

A loud cracking sound caused everyone to look up.

“Oh, gods,” Thunder gasped.

Cracks had appeared in the dome above them. Three cracks evenly spaced out streaked like spider limbs across the glass dome. Then they broke into thousands of tiny shards, and water began to pour into the space below.

Then, in a voice deep and hollow, the Achelous automaton said, “Let the trial of nerve begin.”