A Dawn of Dragonfire - By Daniel Arenson Page 0,89

himself. And all this demon could do was grin! Anger made him tremble. If she would cheat, he could cheat too. If she could ask questions to trap him, he could do the same to her.

Without even looking at Lyana, he shouted out his next riddle. It was an old riddle Mori and he would laugh about as children. A trick. A game of words. A cheat.

"Why don't donkeys drink dawn's delicious dew?"

Beside him, Lyana gasped and spun toward him. Her face reddened, and she looked ready to shout, attack him, or faint. Elethor ignored her. He stared at the sphinx, chin raised.

Herathia hissed and glared. "That is no riddle." Her voice crinkled like old parchment. "What game do you play?"

"Answer me, Herathia!" he shouted. "Answer, or can you not? If you fail to solve my riddle, let us pass. These are the terms you agreed to, that the elders of Requiem bound you to. Answer!"

She tossed back her head and screamed, a sound so loud that Lyana covered her ears, and Elethor nearly fainted. Blood spouted from her mouth like a volcano. Her claws thrust, knocking down bodies.

Elethor refused to cow. "Can you not answer?"

She whipped her head down, spraying blood. "I should kill you, mortal. I should rip your head off and chew upon it for a thousand years as you scream in my mouth. Donkeys? Dew? What riddle is this?"

He took a step toward her. Blood filled her eyes, and he stared into them levelly. "That is my riddle. My sister told me this riddle years ago, when we were children. I could not solve it then. Can you?" He shouted over her screeches. "Why don't donkeys drink dawn's delicious dew?"

The wound along her torso split wider. Bodies spilled out, teeming with maggots. Skinned and bloody and headless, the bodies writhed, still alive, fingers groping.

"I asked for a riddle, not a trick, not a cheat!" cried the sphinx. Her voice rose like a storm. "Donkeys drink no dew, mortal! Donkeys in a field? They drink water, mortal. They drink water from a bucket or a stream. What trick is this? I do not accept your riddle. You cheat."

He stood firmly, even as she screamed so loudly, he thought his eardrums would burst. The bodies from her torso convulsed around him, nearly tripping him, but he managed to stay standing, to stare at her, to shout.

"Is that your answer? That donkeys drink from buckets and streams?"

Her skin peeled back, revealing rotten flesh crawling with centipedes. Her head caught flame and ballooned, boils growing across it.

"This is no riddle! He cheats, he tricks us! What is the answer? What is the trick?"

"Elethor!" Lyana cried. "We have to fly! She's going to kill us!"

No, Elethor thought. No, he would not flee. He had fled for too long. He had solved her riddle; he would answer this one too.

"Dawn's dew," he said, "drips from drunken dragons drooling." He smiled mirthlessly. "It's not much of a riddle. But it was enough to stump you."

Her head grew grotesquely, five times its previous size. Segments burst, revealing the skull within. Still she screamed, voice so high-pitched, it tore at Elethor's ears.

"Dawn's dew drips from drunken dragons drooling!" she cried. Her voice rose like steam. "He cheats! A joke! A trick!" Her eyes burst into flame. "You will suffer, Elethor of Requiem. You will suffer for this trickery. Requiem will fall! Her columns will crack and her skeletons will litter the earth. You will watch as she burns! You will watch as your people die. This I curse you with. This I vow to you. Your land will crumble as I do!"

The sphinx burst, shattering into a thousand pieces of flesh. They fell, chunks of meat, onto the bodies, turned to liquid, and seeped into the mountain like rain into soil. The screeching echoed through the chamber, then too fell silent.

She was gone.

The Crimson Archway loomed before Elethor, unblocked.

Slowly, blood on his face, he turned to Lyana. She gaped at him, wet and red. She opened and closed her mouth three times before she could speak.

"That was incredibly, inconceivably stupid!" she said. "Woolhead!"

He nodded. "That's the beauty of it."

She howled and hopped. "How dared you not consult with me first? How could you ask her a… a stupid tongue twister, not even a riddle?"

He shrugged. "It worked, didn't it?" He grasped her arms. "Lyana, that was the idea. The sphinx would have solved any real riddle. She lived here for thousands of years. She had