The Sphinx

Time passes for a brother much the same as it does for a sister, but all that stands between may be as different as night from day. When the Sorceress took the baby girl and her parents from their small cabin, she returned with them to the door in the darkest woods at the source of the creek which had never seen the sunlight. In one arm she held the girl, and with the other hand she held the wishing pearl. “I am not cruel,” she said to the hunter and his wife, “and your child will come to no harm, but I have no one to guard my door and no one to watch over my lands, and you each have a debt to me.”

To the hunter she said, “You will guard this door. You may carry those who are my guests to my lands. No other mortal eyes may fall upon this door, and none who seek to force entry may be suffered to live.” With this decree, she nodded her head and the hunter was changed into a great eagle. “If you must stretch your wings, you may do so in the cavern beneath the earth, over my lake, and nowhere else. You may not stray from the door and you are never to leave these darkest woods.” So the hunter became an eagle, and the Sorceress opened the door in the hill and stepped through it, bringing the hunter’s wife and the child with her.

The door opened onto a forest of trees with black bark and black leaves, on a path of black dirt with black rocks. But perhaps this was all an illusion of the darkness. When the hunter’s wife looked behind her she could see no door, but the woods were, after all, very dark. “You will watch over my lands,” said the Sorceress to the hunter’s wife. “You may escort those who are my guests to my home. Should any other mortals get so far as this, you may do with them what you will, so long as they do not leave these lands while living.” With this decree, she touched the hunter’s wife on her forehead, changing her into a lioness. “All my lands are yours in which to roam, but you are never to leave them.” So, the hunter’s wife became a lioness.

The Sorceress left her lioness and returned to her small cottage, where she replaced the wishing pearl in its box, locked the box with her key, and hung the key about her neck, so that once again no one could use the pearl, not even herself. She looked down at the child in her arms and thought to herself, “What to do with you, child. You have no debt to me yourself; you are simply the price others have paid for their lies. There is no reason for you to live without seeing the sun. I will give you what freedom I may, and perhaps you will be more of a daughter to me than others long past.”

Now, the Sorceress’ house had many doors, and not all doors lead to the same places, for it was the home of a Sorceress. She wandered down a long hallway and opened a door which lead into a castle build on the cliff of a mountain which stood above the forest where she lived. She summoned her servants who lived in the castle, and told them to care for the child as if it were her own. The servants of the Sorceress were all manner of men and beasts, and some were men who had once been beasts and some were beasts who had once been men. All of them paid their debts in servitude, some debts being worse than others, and so all of them cared for the child. In this way, the girl was raised in the castle by all the creatures of the earth.

The Sorceress visited the child every day, always at different times. Sometimes she had little time she could spend with the child, whereas other times she would be with her all day, and none of the servants would stray near. The very first thing the Sorceress taught the child was fairness in all things. She taught her about bargains and promises. “You cannot break a word once it is spoken. Words are the strongest things in the world, stronger than steel. Be always true to your word, and that strength will be your own,” she said. And the child understood, for she had been born with her eyes open. “Some bargains will be hard,” said the Sorceress, “but you must abide by them always. You owe your life to truth. You pay for a lie with a life.”

Thus the child learned as much of life as the Sorceress could tell her. From all the servants of the Sorceress she, learned to read and write and speak in all the languages of all the beasts, and she learned to think as the beasts as well. Her mind was not one mind, but many, and all together she knew more than all her teachers before she could walk. But the Sorceress’ knowledge was vast, as she had been to all four corners of the earth and read all the books of the spiders, so as the child learned to walk there was still much for the Sorceress to teach her.

Once the child was able to walk and became a girl, the Sorceress took her from the castle to her island. “It is time you met your mother,” said the Sorceress to the girl. “Now that you can stand and walk, you can meet her on your own two legs with your own two eyes.” She lead the girl through the dark woods with its black trees and out to the black shores of the island where the lioness waited. “Your mother serves me,” she explained, “as does your father. This was not her bargain, but her marriage was, and so the debt owed by one was paid by two. You were such a bargain as well, and yet it was not for servitude, so I choose to teach you as best I may. Go now to your mother, for it has been too long since she saw you.”

The girl ran over to her mother, the lioness, and hugged her. They spoke of nothing and everything, of all those nothings which are everything to a child and to a parent. The lioness let her daughter ride on her back, and because the girl spoke all the languages of the beasts, there was no difficulty in their communications. The girl did not notice when the Sorceress left the shore, left her alone with her mother, and it seemed like no time at all before the Sorceress returned with a blanket and some food. The girl realized she was quite hungry, and so she, and her mother the lioness, and the Sorceress all stopped for lunch. The Sorceress slipped away again, and the girl whiled away the rest of the day with her mother, until at last the Sorceress returned again to take her back to the castle. “Tomorrow,” she said, “you will meet your father.”

As always, the Sorceress was as good as her word. She took the girl through a maze of hallways in the castle until she found a door that seemed, to the girl, like every other door in the castle. But when the Sorceress opened the door, they came out into the forest around the creek which had never seen the light. “Your father serves me as well,” said the Sorceress. “Such was his bargain.” They came to the hill with the door in it where the girl’s father, the eagle, stood guard. “Go now to your father, for it has been too long since he saw you.”

The girl ran up to her father and hugged him. He tossed her in the air with his great wings and spoiled her, as all fathers do their daughters. He took her flying across the endless lake below the earth, and because the girl spoke all the languages of the beasts, there was no difficult in their communications. The day passed much as the day before, so swiftly the girl felt the hours as minutes, and only the weariness of her body told the truth of time. The Sorceress carried the exhausted girl back to her bed in the castle, and let her sleep and rest all the next day.

When the girl was rested, the Sorceress said, “Today, I will teach you about doors.” She took the girl by the hand and led her throughout the castle. “Every door has a secret, and if you can convince the door to tell you its secret, you may follow it through to whatever door you wish. Now I will teach you all the secrets of the doors in my castle.” She did, and so the girl learned how to go where she wished from all the doors in the castle. “As long as you know its secrets,” the Sorceress explained, “any door will lead to another, and the secret of a door is always the place where that door truly leads. Now that you know the secret of all these doors, you may visit with your mother and father whenever you wish. Now it is time for bed, but tomorrow I will show you the doors in my home.”

The next day, as she had promised, the Sorceress took the girl to her small cottage and showed her the doors to the library, and to many other rooms. “I have learned much in all my years, far more than I can teach you in such a short time, but find your way to my books and you shall be on the true path.” From then on, though the Sorceress still taught the girl, she also let her learn on her own. The girl would spend hours in the library, and hours more playing on the island with her mother, and still more hours flying over the lake with her father. She cut her hair short, but her legs grew long and her eyes asked questions.

One day, the girl found the Sorceress in her library and said, “I have great fun playing with my mother the lioness, but she is so fast, and can leap so high, and twist with such agility. Could you not teach me how to move as she does?”

The Sorceress had grown quite fond of the girl in the passing years, so she was in some ways inclined to indulge her. “Of course, my child. I will show you how to become a lioness, and then you may play all you like with your mother.” The girl was pleased, and that very afternoon the Sorceress taught her how every part of every animal has a name. She taught the girl the names for each part of her body, a hundred ten times over, and then taught her all the names for each part of a lioness. “Now, if you teach all the parts of your body both names, you will be able to give them whichever name you wish, and in so doing you may be a lioness if you choose.”

The girl was happy and she dashed off to frolic with her mother the very next day. She showed her mother how she changed from a girl to a lioness and back again, and though her mother seemed pleased, she also seemed just a little bit sad. Though the girl knew many things, she did not know how to ask her mother why she looked pleased and sad at once; however, this passed quickly and she spent hours at play as a lioness.

The girl found the Sorceress in her library on another day and said, “I am filled with joy when my father the eagle takes me for such long flights, but I sometimes worry I might fall, and I wish I could fly as he does, and so play in the air. Could you not teach me how I might move as he does?”

The Sorceress replied, “Of course, my child. I will show you how to become an eagle, and then you may fly with your father as much as you wish.” The Sorceress had already taught the girl all the names of her body, thus it was but a matter of teaching her all the names of all the parts of an eagle. “Now you may teach all these names to your body as well, and so you shall be able to name your body as the eagle, or the lioness, or whichever you wish, and you may be an eagle if you choose.”

On the very next day, she dashed off to fly with her father. She showed him how she changed from a girl to an eagle and back again, and once more she saw both pleasure and sadness at the same time. She still did not know how to ask what she wanted to know, though the question was in her eyes. But the sadness passed and together the father and his daughter flew for many hours over the lake.

This made the girl quite happy for no small amount of time. Not only could she run from one end of the island to the other with her mother, and fly far across the endless cave with her father, but she could roam the forest with the wolves and pumas, and fly amongst the mountains with the hawks and ospreys. She learned to read the secrets of spiders, as the Sorceress did, and she learned every inch of the forest and every rock of the mountain. Her shadow grew longer, and her eyes found even more questions. But at last the day came when she found the Sorceress in her library and she said, “You have taught me so much and given me everything, but I have never flow in the sunlight with my father or played under the sky with my mother. Can you not spare them from their duties at any time? Surely, it is not so much for them to see the sun again?”

Well, the Sorceress was by this time very fond of the girl who still had no name. The girl, now a young woman, was learning all the Sorceress could hope, so she granted the request. Thus the young woman was at last able to go out into the world with her mother and her father. Though her parents had to return to the darkest forest, she was happy and wanted for nothing. Though she was a young woman, she did not go out into the world of men, for she had no desire to see it. But the world of men was making its way deeper into the forest, and the time when her world and theirs met would not be long in coming.