Good evening friends
It’s been a while since I put out any fiction on here, despite the purported aims of the blog. Not that I don’t love you all and appreciate your eyes, but the last few months have been spent writing things that are potentially, and excitingly, maybe to be published elsewhere!
In the meantime, I’ve revisited my magical Doolittle character, Darot Sonmargot. I promise to finish the story I started before, but as with all things characters develop and grow as you play with them. So here is a new installment with a new adversary to tackle. I hope you enjoy it.
A gentle reminder, that my Podcast Desert Island Dictator is still available on all good content providers, and I am currently on the hunt for guests, so if you believe that you’d be good for it, then please do get in touch.
I’m also returning to live comedy. I can announce early that on August 6th, I’ll be performing my new show Futurist at the Museum of Comedy. Tickets to follow soon!
Anyway, without further ado:
The Sphinx and the Scholar
On an island, in the centre of a great lake stood a university. It was grand, and stuffed to the rafters with scholars keen to prove that theirs was the greatest and cleverest of all institutions across the known world. So satisfied were they that only those of a sharp mind and intellectual rigour should ever cross from the mainland onto the inner sanctum where they may study the stars and the moon and all other such lofty pursuits of scholars, that they sent off into the world and had installed, on the bridge, a guard. It took the form of a great cat cast from a shining black stone and before any could pass they must answer its riddle. The currents and eddies of the lake made travel across the water treacherous and the only way into the university was past its guard. This way, the scholars guarded their university, and their reputation for quick wit and sharpness grew and grew.
That is, until one day, in the dark of winter when the lake froze and became impassable and the university relied on food being brought in from outside. That day, the cat began to ask new questions. Questions that they could not answer. In a panic, the university sent for Darot Sonmargot, a veterinary practitioner known to have some knowledge of those creatures that strayed from the material sciences, and rather more importantly, was known for being indebted and could therefore be relied upon to be discreet.
“Are you absolutely sure that they are not proper riddles?”
“Of course we are!” The scholar snapped irritably, “Who do you think we are?”
“How is ‘Would you torture to save someone you love?’, a riddle?” said another, “A conundrum perhaps, a question well, not quite sophisticated enough for philosophy-”
“Indeed,” warbled a third. Darot noticed that this particular one wobbled as he spoke, from his jowls to the tips of his fingers, like a string player doing vibrato, “Merely the dull conversation of a drunk.” He had himself put away more than a few flasks of berry wine and belched a little before nodding to Darot, “No offence.”
“None taken,” said Darot.
“A more interesting question,” said the second, a reedy man with shoulders so thin that the heavy hood of his deep blue scholarly cap threatened to completely overpower them and flop to the floor, “Would be, one is stood at the conducting switch of a railroad track. Coming from the underground hurtles a carriage which is unable to stop. Tied to the track are a number of poor innocents who will assuredly be crushed. But when one turns to change the course of the railcar, one notices that another man is tied to the other fork. Would you pull the lever, knowing that you yourself would have caused his death?”
Darot didn’t think this was an interesting question at all.
“In any case sirrah,” the first scholar spoke, “Neither is a riddle.”
“Quite, quite,” burbled the second and the third nodded sagely.
“We are scholars Master Sonmargot,” said the first, “We know riddles..”
“I can be cracked, I can be made. I can be told, I can be played. What am I?” said the third.
“Please, let us leave the wordplay for those who study it,” said the first. He was a elderly and his scholars hood was covered in a more ornate tapestry than the others. Around the nape of his neck, the cape was tied with a golden rope and tiny calligraphy scratched scroll displaying his rank. “Master Sonmargot, we may be men of the intellectual world, but we have a problem of the earth and for that we turn to you. You have quite a reputation in these matters, even if, if you don’t mind my saying so, such matters are not those that we scholars would demean ourselves to know of…”
Another flurry of “Quite so” followed this. Darot Sonmargot’s smile had become rather fixed.
“In short sir, we, though we would not demean ourselves to muddy in these matters too long have consulted together at the university and we have come to the conclusion that our sphinx is sick. And you are a doctor of such matters are you not?”
“I am,” said Darot. He drained his cup, “Though I should warn you gentlemen that this is not a creature with which I am familiar.”
“Of course you are not,” wobbled the third, “Where would man such as you have seen a sphinx on this island, nay, this side of the Sarubund. We and only we have possession of one as is our right!”
“But do you think you can help?” said the first.
“Gentlemen,” Darot stood and bowed. The three scholars were sat the other side of an long trellis table on which was rested an astonishing array of cured meats, dried fruit and wines of which Darot had been permitted a single cup and small wooden bowl, “I will attend immediately.”
“Excellent,” warbled the third, “You will be put up with the boot polishers and guardsmen. Bread and cheese will be brought until such time as you are finished and payment can be arranged.”
It was, Darot considered, better than nothing. “Thank you good scholars,” he said, “By the way, the answer is, ‘a joke’”.
“Excuse me?” snapped the irritable one.
“What can be cracked, made, told and played?” said Darot, “The answer is a joke.”
“Oh very good, very good,” guffawed the third. “I did think you a dour fellow when you arrived, work clothes and seriousness but perhaps you may be some amusement after all.”
Darot bowed curtly. “I’ll begin right away.”
The accommodation was sparse, though not entirely uncomfortable. Darot quickly found that he had not, as he had feared been placed in some sort of garrison where he would be forced to spend his nights alongside belching and farting guardsmen. Darot did not particularly enjoy any kind of military company but guardsmen he liked least of all. They were fine for a gorse-broth occasionally and those of them for whom cynicism or boredom had completely shorn them of any connection to their actual vocation could be relatively pleasant company, but guardsmen were mostly, in Darot’s experience, particularly prone to the sort of syndrome that any man adorned in military garb but without any actual experience of a good war tended to develop. The guardsman of a University, he surmised, especially one as solipsistic as this, would be particularly prone.
Instead, Darot was pleased to find that he had been placed in a small single garret with enough paraffin to read at night and a charming view over the University itself. Darot assumed when he arrived, and judging on the graffiti etched into the bottom of the room’s writing desk he was correct on his assumption, that the room had belonged to an undergraduate, or perhaps even a fellow of the college in need of a bolt-hole away from the prying eyes and gossiping of scholars in the main quadrangle.
The University itself was an impressive sight. It was not, and could never be as truly grand as any of the colleges over the Sarubund, or the great Ost towers, great spheres of learning that had been built through sweat and blood and quills scratching on vellum for hundreds of years, the constant beneficiary of kings or emperors or governments desperate to affiliate themselves with higher knowledge and their grad reputations. But it was grand nonetheless. Built on a long island in the centre of a glittering lake and encircled with glistening white walls, the main colleges of the university were distinguished by carefully constructed dome and spires that towered above the jungle extended to the lake shores. Most of all, the university was a testament to the hodgepodge of cultures that had financed and influenced it: a spindly spire here, a great concave debating circle there. Surrounding it were jaunty piers where elegant punts and skiffs were moored to take scholars back and forth to the surrounding towns and minor colleges on the shoreside. From Darot’s garret he could see the great gate of the college with its tall gargoyles carved from deep marble and the grand bridge where scholars, townsfolk and goods were carted to and from the great college and their voracious appetites for knowledge, food and entertainment. On a normal day the bridge would have been buzzing with freight and the comings and goings of scholars but that day it was silent. A barrier had been erected on the townside with guardsmen positioned along it, all stood at the ready with the nervous energy of men who had never truly seen action. Draped across the bridge, with its long tail looped lazily around one of its ornately decorated buttresses, basked the sphinx.
Darot leaned against the windowsill and looked down on the animal. It was spectacularly large. Its skin was jet black, textured like hardened onyx and refracted sunlight off it into pretty spools that dotted the bridge and surrounding walls. The sphinx’s face was ostensibly a woman’s he thought, flatter than any person and, at the corner of its upturned lips were vicious fangs to match the talons that extended menacingly from each paw. But for all its size and threat, the sphinx, curled like all cats did, bedding down into the sides of the bridge.
He opened his veterinary bag, with its assortment of ointments and paraphernalia and shuffled through them needlessly.
“Well,” he said, “We won’t be needing any of that.
He dragged his stool to the window and carried on his observation of the creature. Hours passed and the animal never moved. Darot drank every inch of it in. The scholars had refused him access to their library on principle, but in there surely there would be something more than the titbits of information that he half-remembered about it.
When the porter came to announce that there was meat and cheese waiting for him in the mess if he so needed it, Darot told him to take a message back that he would begin in the morning. He strode down to the mess with his food and listened in to the gossiping and belching of the local watchmen. A few rounds of Bones got their tongues loose, not that they needed much convincing.
“Gives me the chills,” one was saying, “Just sat there. Never moving.”
“What if it never does?” said another, “That’d be a turn out for the books. They’d have to evacuate the university in the end. Or starve. Most of the pointy-heads would never leave their precious books.”
“Wouldn’t mind that,” said the first, “I just can’t take many more shifts. What if it decides it’s bored of the bridge, nobody’s spoken to it in a long time – it might need a bit of intellectual stimulation.”
“What would you know about that?” another smirked. He had, Darot noticed the sparkle eyes of a flicks user. There were, no doubt users even amongst the soft-caped scholars in the university and their supply had just become a lot more constricted.
“Shut up Garrot,” sniped the first, “I’m just sayin’ is all. Gives me the shakes.”
Darot sipped his berry wine and, when the talk moved to some local tiff with a landlord and his tenants (all of whom were apparently the worst wastrels any man could wish for, too bone idle to get and keep any sort of gainful long term employment and yet simultaneously storing and hiding veritable piles of secret wealth whilst living in tenanted slum housing), he decided to take his leave.
“But you’re ten down,” said Garrot, eyes still dancing from the flicks. “Come, stay a while and lose the rest.”
The other, a ruddy, oxlike man chuckled darkly, “Bastard doesn’t want to die a poor man tomorrow. Come SonMargot, lose a few more hands, you can’t take that money with you.”
The next morning, Darot realised that he’d become something of an overnight celebrity. A few hungover guardsmen gave him sardonic salutes when he stepped out of his accommodation and onto the sludge-laden roads of the town.
“Good luck,” one spat along with his morning’s chewing tobacco.
“Have you kept Vichu’s’ coin on your body or in your room?” called another, “Only we might want it when you’re dead.”
Darot shrugged. The coins were a weight in his pocket. He hoped they wouldn’t slow him if he needed to move quickly, but he had no intention of leaving anything of value in his room. Besides, if he could not do anything about this beast, but he wasn’t injured in the process he would need at least some money to leave town with.
He wandered the promenade, taking in the town. Morning crowds were already queueing by carts or milling about at the shore, dangling their feet into the gently lapping waters and gossiping excitedly. Sizzling shellfish fried in great pots with butter, herbs and tiny spiced moth wings set Darot’s tongue on edge. The bread and cheese would only go so far. A batch of morning dough was being kneaded into flatbreads at a bakery already festooned with gaggles of children and their harassed parents, who herded and cajoled them whilst they remonstrated with shopkeepers who puffed and blustered, one eye on their goods and the other on the light fingers of children gathering around the sweetbuns. Austerely dressed students with patches on their robes scuttled about. Even one or two scholars from the lesser mainland colleges could be seen waiting curiously on daises at the more expensive inns. Visible from a distance on the other side of the lake, skilfully guided through the eddies and currents, deadly to large grain boats was a small flotilla of elaborately carved skiffs waiting on the lake’s inland water
Darot’s heart dropped as the crowds grew denser at the bridge. Of course word had spread and they were here for him.
At the bridge, the gangly scholar from the night before waited irritably.
“You said first light,” he snapped.
The scholar sniffed, “Quite a crowd this morning. I suppose they would to see some action.”
“I fear they will be disappointed,” said Darot. The promised reward would be enough to house him all winter. He could not help but think that his reputation, all that he really had to trade on would not be improved by this job, even if he cured the creature within an hour, “This morning I must simply examine it.”
“Perhaps,” said the scholar, “Though action there still may be.” He looked pensively at the bridge where the sphinx lolled, luxuriating in the morning light, “I suppose you would like to see-“
“I’m afraid I must,” said Darot.
“You,” snapped the scholar and gestured at a guardsman who’s face drained of colour, “Go and challenge for entry.”
The guardsman trebled, “But sirrah, I ain’t no good at riddles…”
“That will be acceptable,” snapped the scholar, “Since the sphinx is not telling any. Now, go or I shall have you court marshalled and your children sold to a brothel.”
The guard gulped. He gripped his spear and set off onto the polished flagstones of the bridge. A hush descended. The scent of the foods still wafted from their cooking pots but the cries of the chefs hawking their wares were gone.
The guard walked alone, and the sphinx waited.
Darot expected there to be a great clanking and crunching when the statue came to life, but the Sphinx moved like water with quick, silent motion. It propped itself onto its front legs. Its tail whipped from the trellis of the bridge and its stretched out luxuriously, rubbing its belly against the road. It opened its mouth wide and yawned.
“Ah, good,” it said, “It has been a while.” Its voice was silky and cultured. But the claws that uncurled from its paws were razor sharp.
“Allow me to pass,” said the guardsman though his voice trembled.
“If,” smiled the sphinx, “You can answer this question. In the year 305, the Great Playhouse of Saru performed an opera. A woman was cast as Lord Lindshold for the first time without a chaperone, because she was at the time divorced. But who was her husband?”
The scholar sniffed, “Any educated man knows this.”
Darot watched he guard who had gone white, “Well, I am willing to bet our friend does not.”
“Quite,” said the scholar, “And neither I expect do you.”
The guard was speaking again, with a tremor in his voice, “I fear, that I no longer require the bridge.”
“But that is not how this works,” The sphinx sprang to his feet, “I have been deprived on an answer.”
The guard could take no more. He dropped his staff and ran shrieking towards the shore. He did not get far. The sphinx’s great paws shot out and within a moment the poor man was dangling from her grasp, wriggling like a trapped mouse.
“The city,” yelled Darot, “Lady Rucanne caused scandal by bribing the legislature to dissolve her symbolic marriage to the city itself, which she was obliged to take as a noble widow. It allowed her to liquidate her assets and join the theatre.”
The sphinx let its paws fall, dropping the poor man who fell to the stone flagstones with an almighty clang. Darot decided to stall for a little more time. “She was reputed to be quite the actor, drinker and lover until she vanished under mysterious circumstances.”
The sphinx turned its great head and Darot immediately regretted opening his mouth, though it was, he supposed, unavoidable.
“Quite correct,” said the Sphinx, “Though I did not ask you.”
“Yet I answered,” said Darot, “Now, let our friend go and perhaps we should talk.”
The sphinx cocked its head, “Finally, somebody who wants conversation. All the others are just so…” she flicked the terrified guardsman with a claw, sending him skittering across the bridge. He let out a little shriek and scuttled away, nearly knocking the infuriated scholar over before diving into the crowd.
Darot stepped onto the bridge, bracing his boots against the ice.
“Let me past sphinx,” he said.
He noticed that, out there on the flagstones, as the icy wind whipped past and stung his cheeks, his voice sounded awfully small even against the silence of the watching crowds. The sphinx loomed over him. Her face was carved with exquisite detail, from the dimples of her cheeks to the cruel sharpness of her fangs. When she smiled, her eyes crinkled.
“If you wish to pass,” said the Sphinx, “You must answer.”
Darot nodded.
“Very well,” said the Sphinx, “Answer this. Why should I not kill you?”
“That’s it?” said Darot.
“It is your riddle,” said the Sphinx. “Come now, do not stall me.”
“Because you are profoundly sick,” said Darot, “And I am the person who has been asked to cure you.”
Once again, silence descended across the bridge, the waiting crowd and the considering sphinx. For all the skill of the carver, Darot could not see any expression in its eyes.
“But I do not think that I am ill,” said the Sphinx.
“No,” said Darot, “And I do not think you are either. But you have not attacked and therefore you have accepted my answer and you should let me pass.”
The Sphinx harrumphed and shifted its weight to allow a tight path. From his own side of the bridge, a storm of applause died in the freezing winter air. He tried not to look at the Sphinx, though that was very difficult because it loomed over him with every single step that he took. He reached her great flanks for where its tail curled across the bridge and when he did, in a burst of courage, slapped his hand against the creatures flank as if it was a horse that had been subjected to a day of hard riding.
“It’s alright,” he said, “I’ll be back soon for a proper conversation.”
The Sphinx purred. Darot had expected its body to be as cold as the rock it was carved from, but it was warm and when it felt its great stomach heave and rumble.
“Very well,” it said, “But bring me something worth knowing.”
“Only,” said Darot, “If you ask for it.”
A welcome party was waiting to greet Darot on the other side of the bridge. All were extravagantly dressed, befitting their ranks as collegiate of the inner island. One of them, who was particularly festooned in finery, he recognised as the portly scholar from the day before who clapped him on the back and chuckled as he stepped off the bridge.
“Very amusing,” he said, “A grand old show. Worth every second of the dismal sled over this morning. I am certain that it will go down famously. But do you think that you can cure the beast? After all,” he lowered his voice, “Can’t have our guard only letting merchants who double up as sharp tongued opera fanatics through. Though that would be amusing.”
Darot was ushered from the crowds and, under the shade of a sycamore tree, in a quiet cloister, where the dribbling of a semi-erotic water feature provided the only accompaniment to his thoughts, he collapsed and listened to the slow inhalation and exhalation of his breath.
Presently, the portly scholar returned, flanked by porters with bread and cheese for him.
“I must apologise for the quality,” he said, “Without the bridge getting food across it is difficult…” Darot stuffed the bread into his mouth. He was not one to complain, but the scholar certainly did not appear short on food.
“I should like to access the library,” said Darot.
The scholar hooted, “A library? But which one.” He flung open his arms, “My boy you are in one, or thousands. The college is all libraries. A hundred thousand stacks, but I do hope you do not think that you can find a cure in our pages…” He frowned, “Scholars of far greater qualification than yourself have tried.”
“I believe that I will,” said Darot, “Perhaps they simply did not find the correct book.”
“You are interesting Sonmargot,” said the scholar, “Though I do wonder if I am mistaking interest for arrogances. Nevertheless, you may have access to some of our books. Tell me, what interests you.”
“Oh,” said Darot, “This and that.”
The library was cavernous, as Darot had expected and, like many newer universities built in the colonies it could not quite mask its lack of history. The universities that he had seen across the Saru were informal, messy places and the whole library smelled of vellum and paraffin. Take a wrong turn past a stack and you could easily find yourself at a writing desk that had stood for hundreds of years, cracked and riddled with the graffiti of youthful hands now long dead, each adding just a few more notes of knowledge and layer after layer of dust mites into the ancient library. Instead, this library peacocked its insecurity with cheap affections of grandeur.
“Impressive is it not,” said the scholar, who he had learned on the walk’s name was Robert, an adjunct scholar form the school of Heliotropic Engineering.
“Yes,” Darot lied. The gaudiness was making him feel a little sick.
“I suppose for an autodidact such as yourself it is all new,” smiled Robert, “But fear not, this is but the least of our great halls. Our keepers will help you find what you seek.”
What Darot really needed was to be left alone, but he doubted that he’d be allowed that pleasure. The clerk and servants that had already spotted him in his work overalls had given him a filthy eye and their attitude did not improve when Robert told them what he was there for. He might be a professional, employed to take care of a situation that was actively endangering their existence, but he was a non-scholar being allowed into the library.
In the end he settled on allowing a few chirping archivist who followed him with increased scepticism as he picked up books on the original conquest of the Saru, the Origin of Dinue, Histories of the Lucky Boys and a pamphlet on what to do in the event of a rinkrin attack.
“Are you sure you do not need guidance,” one of the archivists asked. She was frowning at a copy of the Romantic History of Erdine the Beautiful Nosed which Darot picked up and thumbed through before dropping it into his ever growing pile.
“This one,” he replied, “I shall start with.”
The archivists muttered.
Darot returned to the Sphinx that night as promised. A few of the crowd had waited for his return but he had chosen the hour and departed as secretly as was reasonable. The books he carried on a small trolley which he wheeled onto the bridge.
“Be careful,” Robert had snapped, “There is college property there.”
He reached the sphinx, who was pretending to doze directly in the middle of the bridge and set his torch into an empty brazier. The light of it flickered and cast a sheen across the creature’s haunch. Darot sat down against the side of the bridge and settled into the brickwork, just as the sphinx itself was bedded into the flats and trusses that made up the bridge. It watched him curiously from under lidded eyes. Darot shuffled into the light, removed the Romantic History, and begun to read.
“On Thrumond our study begins of that Ladie Most Faire,” he said, “Erdine was the daughter of her first lineage, who was daughter of Margot and latterly Helga. Her father, who married no Lord, but SonMandie, who was not worthy of a patronym…”
As he read, the sphinx shuffled closer. She placed her great head atop her paws. She listened intently. Then, during a particularly long chapter, this time about one of Erdine’s lurid affairs, she opened her mouth.
“So, the author of this book consider that Lord Rhuardri is a man of good repute, despite his obviously breach of the Chivalric Code?”
“It seems so,” said Darot.
“Harrumph”, said the Sphinx, “I don’t think much of that.”
Darot paused, “Shall I?”
“Yes,” said the Sphinx dismissively, “Please do.”
He turned the page, and carried on the tale, though he noticed that the Sphinx was leaning closer this time. After the Romantic History, he paused for a drink and began a new scroll. This time a dissertation on the making of butterfly wings. Again, the Sphinx listened intently but also queried him regularly, and incisively. Hours of desperately cold night passed, and finally, though it brought little warmth, the early cracks of dawn appeared. Darot then stood.
“I am afraid I must go,” he said, “Will you let me pass? I will return.”
The sphinx frowned, “Fine, but you must answer my riddle.”
“Speak it,” said Darot, “Though I have answered many questions tonight.”
“Will you bring me something worth knowing.”
“Yes,” said Darot, “But I want you to ask that of everybody.”
The sphinx considered, “Yes.” Then she stood and allowed Darot to squeeze pas but as he left, she called after him.
“Am I sick?”
“I do not believe so,” said Daort, “I think you are like everybody here. A scholar.”
For a week, Darot returned to the Sphinx to read and for her part, she kept her promise. Those that were allowed to pass were those that told it something worth knowing. The scholars of the university were naturally furious for the sphinx delighted in (as far as they could tell), anything, from bawdy tales and rumours to little known facts and old wives tales.
“You have cured nothing,” raged one, “Now she lets all and sundry into our grand halls.”
“Who is she anyway,” snarled another, “To decide what is worth knowing? I myself told her the title of my dissertation, On the Titration of Lunar Seasons and she told me that rend me limb from limb if I didn’t tell something more interesting. Then some oaf from the undergraduate accommodation told her that he’d just discovered that he was in love with a boy in his labs and the hideous creature let him swan through.”
“Quite,” tutted the third, “To decide that is for us, the scholars of this University. What kind of establishment would we be were we to trust her with our admissions policy?”
Still, with much grimacing and legal wrangling, they paid up roughly a third of what they owed for an improper curing and told Darot that under no circumstances should be expect to ever be employed by them again. As for the Sphinx, every night a scholar was appointed to read to her. At first, as was inevitable that was a task for the most fleabitten undergraduates who came to the university without capital or patronage. But a few more senior scholars joined in for the novelty, if nothing else. Robert certainly grew to enjoy her company, and for her part, the Sphinx became quite the debater. She forgot nothing that she was told and soon enough, scholars were pitting themselves against her great depths of knowledge and making and testing brand new theories just from a night of idle chitchat. The Sphinx never asked for credit, nor recognition. She just did as she had after Darot’s visit. She asked everybody who entered to tell them something interesting.
As for what kind of university it became? Darot heard that it was a much better one.