I sigh with relief as I watch the winged creature fly. She lands in front of the largest of the tents, then limps into the shadow between it and another. A loud crash, the sound of several large metal somethings collapsing, reaches us.
“What’s she doing?”
Harpoc stays silent and I glance up into his face. His expression remains neutral, watching.
More clanking and clattering.
I strain to see into the darkness between the tents to no avail.
After a protracted silence, another fierce roar rises but dies seconds later.
Harpoc closes his eyes and bows his head.
“What’s she doing?”
“Come.” He drops his arm from my shoulders and nods toward the tents.
A rock fills the pit of my stomach as I shrug my coat back over my shoulders. I fear I know what we’ll find but refuse to think it into existence.
Anxiety erupts inside me like a volcano the closer we get, and my scalp starts to prickle.
“You don’t need to see this,” Harpoc says when the tip of her tufted tail comes into focus. It doesn’t move.
Breathe, Pell. Breathe.
“I… I think I do.”
“Pell, have you ever seen...” His metallic eyes are soft.
I swallow. “I’ve seen a dead cat.”
Harpoc gives me a long look.
I know it’ll be different than a cat, but I need to see what my words have caused, and I nod him on.
The tent’s shadow makes sight difficult, but there’s no mistaking the dark hulking shape that lays as still as the granite it has, most recently, until today, been crafted of.
“I’m going to grab a flashlight. Wait here,” my companion says and heads toward the command tent we spoke to the others in.
I feel alone the instant he disappears around the corner of the tent and draw my hands across myself, surveying the dark shape of the still creature. I realize how used to Harpoc’s comforting presence I’ve gotten in just a few hours.
Get a grip, Pell, you’re better than this.
Not one sound penetrates the stillness of the night; not a bird’s chirp, not a locust’s soft buzzing, not a mouse’s scurrying, nothing. It’s as if nature itself holds its collective breath until we discover what’s become of the sphinx.
A couple minutes later a flashlight beam announces Harpoc’s return. “Here you go,” he says, handing me another.
I run my light over the beast’s pinkish fur from its hind feet toward its head, then step forward, my gut tightening.
She lays headfirst on a heap of jumbled tools; the handles of shovels and spades peek out from beneath her stomach and chest along with a growing pool of red.
I inhale sharply.
Harpoc strides to her shoulder and with a mighty push, rolls her on her side.
A squeak escapes me when I spot a pickax jutting from her heart. She’s killed herself after I proved I knew the answer to her riddle… just like the sphinx at Thebes centuries before. She decided to when she assessed her life would be meaningless.
What have you done, Pell? I bite my lip.
I should be happy that she’s no longer a danger, but I can’t escape the wave of sadness that washes over me. Until this afternoon, I thought sphinxes exist only in myth. She’s somehow been subjected to some weird stasis as a statue and has finally killed herself… because of me.
No matter how bizarre the situation, to be the cause of any being’s death, let alone by suicide… leaves me feeling… what? Hollow, uneasy… fitting words escape me.
“Hey…,” Harpoc says, motioning me toward him.
I stop beside him, and one hand in my coat pocket, the other still shining the light on the sphinx, I long for him to wrap his arm around me again and tell me… tell me that I’m not a bad person for causing this, that the meaninglessness I feel will fade in time, that everything will be okay.
Emotion bubbles up inside me unbidden, and I can’t swallow back a tear that persists in escape. I swipe at the thing, taking a deep breath.
Keep it together, Pell. But my admonition rings hollow.
Without a word, Harpoc draws me against his muscled chest, wraps his arms around me, and holds me close.
It takes me several minutes to compose myself, not that I’m a crying mess because I’m not, but when I finally step back Harpoc gives me a warm smile. It isn’t mocking or chiding as many have been up until now. No, this is a genuine smile that I chose to believe means he’s glad he can be here to comfort and support me. It looks good on him.
Harpoc has some depth, and I want to get to know him better.
Whoa, Pell. Not smart. Don’t fall for him.
I find a Kleenex in my pocket and blow my nose.
“Her choice is not your fault, Pell. Don’t try to take responsibility for it.”
“But if I hadn’t brought her—”
“She decided she had nothing to live for, not you.”
“We didn’t exactly counter her arguments.”
“And you knew of something for her to do to feel valued?”
“No. I did think about it, but I came up empty.”
“Exactly. She arrived in a time no longer hers, and she knew it.”
“I brought her here when she never should have been. I did that to her.”
“You didn’t know. You can’t hold yourself responsible for what you’re blind to. You saw only opportunity. You didn’t know about secret magic much less what it would do.”
My head knows he’s right, but my shoulders droop all the same.
Harpoc reaches forward and, with a finger, draws my chin up. “If you’d have known what would happen, would you have read that scroll?”
I jerk my head away. “No, of course not.”
He bobs his head. “There you go. Lesson learned. It was a mistake you
