The Scholar and the Sphinx

Chapter 1-2

It opened its mouth to reveal several rows of serrated teeth, and a wildly delighted look shined in its eyes. “Oh, and what fun fools are…both to play with and to—”

The poker came crashing across the right side of the snake-beast’s head. It flew backward, its head smashing into the mirror above the bureau as its coils twisted about in a frenzy. It swiped Florence’s tea sets and David’s viola clear off the bureau, and they clattered into irreparable pieces on the floor. It burst apart the drawer it had been sitting in, sending the wooden case with David’s secret gift tumbling out.

“You owe me for all those things you broke,” David remarked, readying his poker for another strike.

The snake laughed as it came back around to face him. It was hysterical, manic laughter, as if being bashed in the face by a poker was the most humorous thing the snake had ever been subjected to. “You are amusing, Sandoval! For a human to fight back against an Ilomba, is like a gazelle in the grip of a crocodile’s jaws. I hate it when humans cower and whimper when threatened, like that dainty little morsel that went screaming out of here before.”

Rage brewed in David’s gut, the heat seeping up into his chest and limbs. “Don’t you ever go near my wife again.”

The Ilomba swiveled its head from side to side. “Or else, what? Will you hit me with your iron stick again? Or maybe your sphinx will come and save you?”

David froze, his rage blotted by surprise. “How do you…you’ve been sent by Nyx, haven’t you?”

The Ilomba slithered slowly towards David, who stood his ground. “It will drive you mad, won’t it? If you don’t know the truth. You feel in control if you know everything. But why? Why live in the stifling confines of order and knowledge when madness is so much fun? To try to be in control is to be controlled. Everyone wants you to act as they do, to be ‘sane,’ so they feel safe. There is no such thing as safe.”

Everyone is out to get you! shouted one of the chipped teacups on the floor.

Everyone is out to get you!David watched out of the corner of his eye as the broken porcelain cup began hobbling slowly towards his foot. It did not seem strange to him, nor did his cracked viola craning its neck towards him with the shuddering of a snapped-necked swan. But he was not paying them any mind, for the Ilomba’s eyes held him, enticing and paralyzing him, blending David’s dread and fascination into a concoction beyond his logic.

The Ilomba’s scales brushed David’s leg, as the beast slinked up around his waist. “All this time, you’ve been trying to find answers to the most pointless questions, and you don’t even realize that your mind is being consumed by confusion, blinded by fear…but Madness is freedom from fear, freedom from pesky, paranoid thought…”

Don’t think! Thinking hurts! begged the painted roses in the wallpaper, twittering in childlike unison.

Don’t think! Thinking hurts! Above David, his mother—wasn’t she supposed to be back in Cervera with Padre and his hermosos?—sat in a fine chair on the ceiling, hanging upside down but looking perfectly composed. “What is Florence going to say about that broken tea set? Didn’t I raise you better?”

Padre hermosos “What is Florence going to say about that broken tea set? Didn’t I raise you better?” David’s reflections in the broken mirror shards began conversing among themselves. What did he say about a sphinx? Where is she? We need her right now…She could twist this snake into knots…

What did he say about a sphinx? Where is she? We need her right now…She could twist this snake into knots… The books in the room began flying like bats around his head, hooting words like confused owls. Sphinx…minx…drinks…thinks…stinks…

Sphinx…minx…drinks…thinks…stinks… Scary, scary, scary! chirped the teacups.

Scary, scary, scaryA multitude of clamoring, laughing voices clustered around David, and they nipped and scratched and dug into every inch of his consciousness. Among the throng, he heard his own voice from somewhere outside of himself. Why do I attract these monsters to myself…What if I am a monster? What if I grow fangs and claws and wings and start eating everyone in Paris?

Why do I attract these monsters to myself…What if I am a monster? What if I grow fangs and claws and wings and start eating everyone in Paris? One of David’s shoes giggled, murmuring, I bet Parisians taste like cheese…

I bet Parisians taste like cheese… The voices were all silenced, the talking objects rendered inanimate again by David’s agonized scream as the snake’s teeth clamped down on his arm.

Scorching pain flooded David’s arm and chest, forcing him to drop the poker. The Ilomba swatted the poker away across the floor with a flick of its tail, as it dug its fangs deeper into David’s flesh. David grasped the Ilomba’s face with his free hand, desperately trying to pry the beast off, but he could feel himself growing weaker by the second. Terror stung his heart as he watched the Ilomba bloat even bigger, and he realized that the snake wasn’t pumping venom into him—it was feeding off of him.

When the Ilomba suddenly produced a second neck, upon which sprouted a second smiling human-reptilian head, David nearly vomited.

“Shame. I was expecting more from you,” the second head said. “Don’t worry. You won’t be dead for too long…”

David stopped listening to the Ilomba long enough to realize that the wooden case that had tumbled out of the bureau was within his reach, and the lock had unclasped when the case had hit the floor.

He launched himself at the case, extending his free arm while the Ilomba clung on to his other. His sudden leap caught the Ilomba off guard, and the second head smacked against the floor as David fell heavily on his side. He got close enough to the case to flip it open. He grasped one of the items within—a dagger that curved like a basilisk’s tongue—and drove it into the neck of the Ilomba’s primary head.

The second head wailed as David stabbed again, and this time the dagger sliced clean through. The decapitated head released David’s arm, plunking to the floor, and rolling a few inches before dissolving into a pile of dark mush.

David reached for the case’s other item, a long sword that was the dagger’s brother in style and material. He staggered to his feet, both blades pointed at what remained of the Ilomba. Already, the snake was slowly deflating in size, having lost its food source.

The creature bared its teeth, its eyes bleeding fury at David, but his gaze no longer held its hypnotic power over David. Then its face melted. All its facial features dripped away in viscous sludge, leaving nothing but a smooth surface of black-and-white stripes, a convex shell of painted glass. Yet without a mouth, its raspy voice screeched. “The Night may fear you…even Death may fear you…but Madness fears nothing!”

David raised the sword over his head and brought it down with all his strength to slice the snake in half, but the Ilomba darted away, and the sword’s blade clattered on the floor. The Ilomba, returned to its puny worm size, slipped into a c***k in the wall, and was gone. It left no trace of itself behind except for the oily trail of ooze that it had bled—but after a few moments, the trail fizzled and evaporated like the fading wisps of a bad dream.

David collapsed, straining to gulp air into his body. He dropped his sword and dagger to inspect his wound. The flesh around the snake bite pulsated purple, but then faded rapidly to blue, to greenish, and then returned to David’s normal skin color, that of milk-kissed breakfast tea. Even the puncture marks sealed up and smoothed over, as if concealing some horrible secret never to be uncovered.

The sound of shoes rapping up the stairs caught David’s attention. He breathed deeply, figuring that if the Ilomba had poisoned him, the effects would happen quickly and no rushing to a medic would save him. But his heart continued to beat, his body was not racked with the acidic heat of venom…although, why did his arm look so vein-riddled…and why did he feel so weak…

“David? David!” Florence rushed into the room, kneeling next to his hunched figure. “I heard a horrible crash from outside, and I thought…”

She stopped, dead silent. David turned his face up to look at her. Florence’s eyes were wide, and her breath caught in her throat. She shot up to her feet, staggering a few paces back. Her hands, the givers of gentle gestures and comforting touches, pressed against her lips to keep a scream from escaping.

“Florence…” David immediately noticed his voice did not sound the same. It was raspy, tattered. He picked up one of the broken mirror pieces on the floor and looked at himself.

An old man, with hair the shade of cobwebs and wrinkles of a lifetime of decay, stared back at him.