The Scholar, the Sphinx and the Shades of Nyx

by A. R. Cook

  Nico scuttled behind David’s legs. “Please, take him! He’s cleverer than I. He outsmarts me all the time! He’s the one that ruined all of our plans!”

  “He is not the one who made promises to me, and broke them. If I cannot have the wit of the most intelligent creature in the world, then I will make do with the second-most.”

  A tendril from Nyx’s dress shot out, grabbing Nico by the ankle. It slowly dragged him towards her, as the fox kicked and howled. “Please! I’ll make it up to you! Just give me another …” His voice was drowned out as he vanished into Nyx’s essence, imprisoned somewhere inside her form.

  “Bye, Cousin,” Acacia said with a small wave of her paw.

  David would have been happy for Nico’s punishment, except he was concerned with what Nyx would do with them now.

  Nyx sighed, stretching her wings. “I grow tired. It took much of my remaining energy to bring you here. I must preserve what strength I have left, and tend to my incarnation for now. I have more talents ready to collect, after all.” She turned and began to ascend back up into the inky black universe.

  “Are you letting us go?” David asked, even though he worried that might be a stupid thing to say.

  Nyx turned back to him. “Did you want to stay for dinner?”

  Taken aback by the question, not sure if it was a joke or not, David shyly shook his head.

  Nyx returned to him, locking her gaze with his. She cupped his chin in her hand, turning his face from side to side. “You know, my incarnation will need beauty one of these days. You’re a rather handsome boy.”

  David held his breath, petrified.

  “Still … not quite ripe yet.” She released him, and pressed a fingertip to his nose. “Pray that you grow ugly.”

  The next thing David and Acacia knew, they were falling down rapidly, and landed with a heavy sploosh into cold water. They paddled furiously back up to the surface, to find they were in the ocean, outside of Yofune’s lair. They swam to the cave’s edge, and climbed up onto warm, dry rock. Acacia shook herself like a drenched cat, spraying David with cold droplets. David plopped onto his back, feeling the sun warming his skin. Acacia curled up next to him in the comforting sunlight.

  As they lay there, catching their breath, David said, “Well, this has been a busy day, hasn’t it?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Paris, a picturesque portrait of color and light, waited to welcome David under the morning sun, but anticipation and regret pulled him in opposing directions. He was standing in a field several miles from the infamous city, although the gateway from the Curtain that had returned him to this part of France had been about a day’s journey behind him. He had been escorted by the caravan, including Yofune in human form and Tanuki, everyone wanting to spend what short time they had left with David to make it an enjoyable sending-off party. After Acacia had returned to the sirens’ island and the special pocket in the Curtain to collect the wagons, the caravan was back to its full gloriously-colored train, with its white horses in the lead.

  Each gypsy gave David a small gift to remember them by, in the forms of trinkets, woven clothing, and handmade talismans. Gullin did his best to keep an unreadable expression as he removed something from his belt. “There’s something I’d like you to have. A little reminder of ol’ Gullin.” He held out a familiar silver rod.

  “Orthrus? How did you get this back?” David asked. “I thought it was taken by the Lakota.”

  “Quick fingers,” Gullin replied with a grin. “You didn’t expect me to sit out in those woods all night with nothing to protect myself with?”

  “You really want me to have it? No, I couldn’t.”

  “Hey, I want this back someday,” Gullin explained. “This is just to make sure I see you again so you can give it back.” He winked, playfully mussing up David’s hair. “Take care of yourself, boyo.”

  Yofune approached David, but Tanuki cut in front of him to grab the boy by the trouser leg. The badger sniffed back tears. “Do you have to leave already? Didn’t you like my home? We could drink sake all day, go play tricks on the bandits some more, and we could go to the cherry blossom festival next month! Kyoto’s festivals have the best bean-paste buns in all of Japan!”

  David bent down to scratch Tanuki behind the ear. “It sounds wonderful, but I have an apprenticeship here, and I’m already late getting to it.”

  Tanuki furrowed his brows and frowned. “That old shaman said that I’m your spirit guide, and I say you can’t go!”

  “Tanuki,” Yofune reprimanded him, and the badger reluctantly released David’s leg. “David-san has been through much. It is time he goes back to his life. Wish him well.”

  Tanuki sniffled, folded his paws together and bowed. “I will miss you, David-san.”

  “As will I,” Yofune agreed, also bowing. “You are a very special young man, David. You are blessed with much greatness and courage. You will carry those blessings with you throughout your journeys.”

  David picked up the badger gently, cradling him like a lapdog. “Don’t be sad, everyone. We’ll see each other again. After all, someone very special told me, ‘don’t make your goodbyes permanent’.”

  It dawned on him that the hardest goodbye, the one for the person who had taught him that valuable piece of advice, was about to happen. David placed Tanuki down as he stepped forward, and the group parted. Standing in the back of the crowd, silent even though her voice was restored, Acacia watched David approach her. She forced a smile, but it could not mask her grief.

  David reached for her right paw, holding it with no revulsion, no uncertainty. “Acacia, I’m very glad we met. I know you think that you shouldn’t have brought me into your world, but you’ve taught me things I couldn’t have ever begun to figure out on my own. And I won’t forget them, I promise.”

  “You could, you know,” she replied. “Forget all this. I haven’t tried it yet, but if I can go into your dreams, I could probably rearrange a few memories. I could bury all this deeply enough that you won’t remember, or make it all seem like just a dream, or have you think this was a last minute holiday with new friends. You don’t have to forget Gullin, or my family or the others. You’d just forget me, and Nyx and Nico, and all that mess. I’ll see to it that Nyx never comes after you …” A deep, dark shadow crossed her face as she said this, “but you don’t need to have the burden of her on your mind. It would be easier for you to forget.”

  David did not reply at first, for he was saddened that Acacia would consider wiping her image from his memory. “I think someone told me that even painful memories have something to teach us, for the better. Do you know what’s even worse than a painful memory?” He locked his eyes with Acacia, memorizing the gorgeous golden swirls of her irises. “No memory at all.”

  The sphinx nodded. “How did you get so wise?”

  David shrugged. “I have been spending a good deal of time with a sphinx lately. Perhaps something rubbed off on me. Who knows, I may wake up tomorrow with a coat of fur and a pair of wings.”

  The memory David would carry with him for the rest of his life, through his adulthood, through his old age, even when other fragments of his journey would eventually fade from his thoughts, was Acacia’s laugh, clear and brazen and melodious, her happiness that had awaited centuries to finally be heard and be free.

  David went on to his apprenticeship under Monsieur Roland, learning the fine points of architecture until he proved to be quite the prodigy of design. He was given his own living quarters in a wing of the estate, and he often performed odd jobs for the Roland family to earn and save up extra money. It was not long until Monsieur Roland had him involved in many different aspects of his company, and David learned how to gain the trust of investors and how to make wise investments.

  In his free time, David began to write stories, of sirens hosting festivals on hidden islands, and mischievous kappas who tricked evil-doers and loved cucumbers, and dragons from different parts of the world who battled one
another, and of the magical white bison who helped people in need. When Mademoiselle Roland accidentally bumped David’s desk one afternoon, spilling his latest manuscript onto the floor, she took a curious peek at the pages. Immediately she fell in love with his stories, and convinced David to send one of them to a close friend of hers, Louis Hachette, who owned the Hachette Livre publishing company. A letter arrived for David shortly thereafter, stating that Hachette Livre desired to publish his collection of stories. His book sold well—not fantastically, but well—and he became a prominent presence at many bookshops throughout Paris, signing books and giving talks to bibliophiles from every corner of the city.

  David’s greatest artistic accomplishment, though, was in the form of a meticulously drawn design that he showed Monsieur Roland when the elder architect was assisting another landscape architect to redesign the garden of the Tuileries Palace. The Tuileries Garden was a lush space adorned with statues reflecting famous Grecian themes, including one of Pegasus and another of Theseus and the Minotaur. Roland smiled at David’s proposal, commended him for the ingenuity, but he filed the drawing among his papers and it was to remain dormant for many a year.

  Miraculously, several decades later, the proposal would resurface as to what statues should be placed by the quay in the Tuileries Gardens, and just as ancient Thebes had once had one of flesh at its gates, so sphinxes of stone were constructed to welcome visitors to the gardens. It was not the same design as David’s; these sphinxes were based more on the Egyptian model, with a pharaoh’s headdress and no wings, but they have remained steadfast sentinels in the garden to this day.

  There was one thing that bothered David, from time to time. He dreamed often of the beautiful woman with the long dark hair, and the green eyes rimmed in gold, waiting for him on the grassy shore overlooking the sea. Yet, in none of these dreams could he ever quite reach her, quite hear her, as she always was just outside of his range, an invisible field between them. What frustrated him was that he could not tell: was she truly there, trying to speak to him in his dreams and having trouble doing so, or were these only manifestations of his own imagination, his own hopes and desires? If it was the latter, was she not coming to see him in his sleep at all? Had she forgotten about him?

  Gradually, the dreams became less and less frequent, until his dreams were consumed with daily matters, or inspirations for new stories he could write. Eventually, the images of sphinxes masquerading as human vanished altogether.

  David made constant trips on behalf of Monsieur Roland, for acquiring new clients and maintaining good relations with longtime investors. One such trip took him to Barcelona, where after finishing business matters, he paid a long-anticipated visit to the nearby Fernandez estate, where he was warmly welcomed by a very enthusiastic Catarina Fernandez Flores.

  “We were so happy to receive your message that you were visiting!” she exclaimed as she embraced David in a tight hug. “It’s been so long since we’ve heard from you. I feared I was never going to see you again.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve gotten lackadaisical in my viola practice,” David said, “but I was hoping you could refresh my memory a bit.”

  Catarina smiled, noting the brand new black case in the shape of her beloved instrument tucked protectively under his arm. For nearly three years out of practice, he was not bad.

  Into the second year of his apprenticeship, David was on a business trip in London to meet with a new prospective client who wished to commission the Roland Company to design a grand layout for a public park. He had arrived in the late afternoon, and feeling parched, took a brisk walk down a main street to find a watering hole.

  There were plenty of restaurants and taverns in this area, but his eye caught one called The Hunter’s Dogs. What was particular about the pub’s sign was its depiction of the titular dogs, for it was a full bodied profile of one wolfhound, with a second one masked behind it except for its head. It looked like a two-headed dog.

  David thought of the silver tube with the wolves’ heads on each end, tucked away in a safe at his home.

  He entered the pub. It was a rollicking place, as a group of mill workers were gathered around singing old tunes in a corner while downing pints of ale. David sat down at a table, ordered a drink, and waited patiently for something, he was not sure what.

  It was not long before someone clasped him roughly on the shoulder.

  “Looks like the pup’s become a stud, eh, boyo?” laughed the rough voice with the Scottish brogue.

  Gullin yanked David up out of his chair in a hearty hug, slapping him on the back. The Scotsman was as lively and rugged as ever, and not much different except for a slightly more protruding belly. He sat down at David’s table and ordered a round of ale for them both, his treat.

  They spent the next hour discussing their lives from the past two years. David briskly explained his professional successes, and Gullin imparted his tales of various jobs and journeys, most of them unusually “normal” given his background. While he was still technically a member of the Master Huntsmen society, he had fallen out of league with them and rarely saw anything of the supernatural variety anymore. Most of his hunting, nowadays, was purely to sell in the marketplace, pheasants and deer and boar. That was more hobby than vocation, as he was no longer a wandering man.

  “Got myself a lass now,” Gullin said proudly. “Beatrice is a true fire-spark. She can tackle a bear about as well as I, and she’s thrice as ferocious when she wants to be. We’ve got a wee one on the way.”

  “That’s wonderful, Gullin. It’s hard to picture you a family man, I admit.”

  Gullin smirked. “Was a bit odd to settle down, at first. But it feels nice, having someone there in your arms when you fall asleep, and to kiss you when you wake up. I had almost forgot what that felt like.”

  “Is that why you left the caravan?” David asked. “You wanted a quiet life, with a family of your own?”

  Gullin gulped down what was left in his third round of ale before answering. “Truth is, everyone in the caravan parted ways. Some folks joined up with larger caravans, some took their chances to go west to America. Two or three of the young lasses found themselves some well-to-do lads and became happy brides.”

  David was surprised to hear this. “Why did you all leave? You were family to each other.”

  “And we always will be, don’t be fooled. Just that … well,” Gullin scratched his head, with a puzzled look on his face. “Things change, boyo. The mistress … Acacia … felt like she was keeping us from living normal lives. She said she wanted us to have the things everyone has, and that she felt like she was dragging us around without any purpose. She made sure we were all taken care of, gave us all our fair shares and earnings. I think she even set up Isabella with a good rich suitor, by going into this fellow’s dreams and making him think of Isabella all the time until he proposed. She cut herself out of most of the folks’ memories, so they don’t remember the Curtain or nothing, except for me. I refused it. Don’t think she would’ve been able to make me forget everything anyway.”

  Sadness pierced David’s heart. “Acacia’s all alone? Where did she go?”

  Gullin shrugged. “No sayin’. She doesn’t dream-talk with me no more, so I can’t say where she’s been. But I think there was more to it, than just wanting us to have normal lives. I think she was planning something for some time, something she had to do by herself and didn’t want us to get caught up in. An enigma, as always. Best of luck to her.” He raised his empty glass in toast, and David clinked his glass in agreement.

  “I don’t suppose you are going to ask for me to return Orthrus?” David asked with a grin. “You said that the next time I saw you, you’d want it back.”

  Gullin waved his hand at David. “Keep it. I don’t have any need for something like that. I ain’t been caught inside no dragons’ mouths lately,” he laughed, clapping David on the shoulder. His hand lingered there for a moment, and he gave David’s shoulder a light squeeze. “It
was good to see you again, boyo.”

  David raised an eyebrow at him. “Let’s be honest with each other, Gullin. You never really liked me.”

  Gullin sighed. “In the guild, I was trained to be the best of the best. We were the monster slayers, the tamers of the most powerful beasts. It was hard to see someone who could do what I couldn’t do, who could save the one thing on earth I wanted to save. Envy can make a man a fool sometimes. But we were part of the same pack. That made us brothers.” He stood up from his chair. “Makes us brothers. But I’ll still whoop you if I think you need it, don’t forget it.”

  “Hey, I fought a Teumessian fox, if you remember. Don’t think I can’t hold my own,” David reminded him.

  “Eh, and neither of us could hold our own against Beatrice,” Gullin laughed, slapping David on the back again. “By the by, I expect next time I see you that you have yourself a good lass. Build yourself a hat shop to lure ‘em in, if you have to.”

  David nodded, but he couldn’t say that deep down, there was still a small piece of his heart that he couldn’t give away to another woman, not yet. He had come to accept that Catarina was married and well, and he was happy for her. But how can you let go of the last fragment of magic, the final piece of wonderment from a woman who was bound to your dreams? How could you give up the feelings of the one person in the world, in two worlds, who you were destined to save? Didn’t that, by purest definition, mean you were tied to that person for your whole life?

  But Acacia had released the others, allowed them the freedom to live as people should. She had released him too, so to save him from the wrath of Nyx—although it was yet to be determined if the goddess was planning to return for him. Perhaps, he needed to put those days of peril and mystery behind him. There may be something else, something he could not foresee or plan, awaiting him.