The Budding Metalinguist

LV

Lillian waited a few minutes for Em to get a ways away before starting out of the building. She nervously fingered the vial in her pocket as she paced out the door. Just as she stepped out of the structure, she noticed a small nook in the outside wall and headed over to investigate.

The nook was relatively rectangular. In the center of it, about level with the wall, hovered a vertical rod, about an inch in diameter. Lillian stared, trying to figure out what was keeping the rod suspended in midair. She curled her fingers around its outside, curious if anything inside the cavity was holding it in place. The moment one of her fingers brushed the rod, she was catapulted backwards across the walkway. She landed hard on the other side of the entrance to the structure. Arms pinwheeling, feet stumbling, she tripped and foundered over the edge of the walkway.

Reflexively, Lillian threw up her arms in a desperate attempt to catch the edge of the walkway. But she was too late. She relaxed her limbs and waited until her fall brought her to another walkway.

She didn't have to wait long. Within seconds, she landed on the surface of another slipstone walkway. Body tingling, she got to her feet.

This was not good. She hoped there were signs here, because otherwise she wouldn't be able to find her way back. And being lost in the Alin Gap was definitely something she didn't want to risk.

She looked along the walkway, squinting in the midst of the fog and straining to see farther. There was no sign in sight. She groaned and turned her gaze the other way.

Lillian froze.

Far along the pathway, shrouded in fog, the form of a dark figure was barely visible. Lillian felt all possible metalanguage she might be able to use shut down, Idea by Idea. Communication. Motion. Opening. Whatever metalanguage the Sphinx was using controlled her and compelled her to move.

The very way that Lillian was forced to walk seemed unnatural, disturbing, uncanny. She walked carefully, deliberately. Staring directly at the Sphinx with an empty expression. The walk was just slow enough to give her enough time to realize what was about to happen.

Once Lillian came within a few feet of the Sphinx, she abruptly stopped, still staring directly at its face. The Sphinx was humanoid, but the entirety of its body was such a deep and inky black that it appeared less like a person and more like a person-shaped hole torn in the fabric of reality. The Sphinx stood perfectly, eerily still, its feet floating inches above the ground, its arms hanging motionlessly.

Despite Lillian's terror and fear for her life, she couldn't help but notice how interesting it was that the Sphinx used the Idea of Communication. She hadn't exactly been expecting it to speak out loud, but still, it seemed surprising that it would use such a simple idea to communicate its intentions.

Lillian understood that the Sphinx's apparent "riddle" had a much deeper meaning. Being well versed in the Idea of Communication provided her with a Rosetta stone to understand what the Sphinx was attempting to convey.

The literal meaning of the riddle was obscure, confusing, and generally too vague to be understandable.

First cannot fight, trapped within night, eyes have gone white from thievery of sight, nothing is right, everything wrong.

Second is mind, frozen in time, nothing is fine since nothing can climb, every sign shows something is gone.

Third cannot say, day after day, but what it may, just yea or nay, dangerous fey, dangerous song.

Lillian recognized that this was not something she would be able to decrypt. Whatever understanding she had of Sphinxes was clearly not extensive enough for her to be able to interpret the meaning of its riddle. And so, instead, she concentrated on the deeper meaning, behind just the words. An endless void of a grief so deep that Lillian found herself lost, staring into a point deep in the blackness of the Sphinx's face, trying desperately to interpret its sorrow.

She began to question her inherent assumption that Sphinxes were shells of beings, existing only to destroy and endanger those who roamed the Alin Gap. This Sphinx was trapped. It was being forced by its own nature to end the lives of those who dared to disturb it.

It didn't want to be doing this.

Lillian began to realize what this Sphinx was truly trying to do. It was desperate now, deeply wishing for Lillian to understand it. It wanted her to answer.

She gazed into its face in a last display of her desperation. She reached out to it, hoping she could form a connection, hoping she could save herself and now even save the Sphinx from whatever state in which it had been trapped. She closed her eyes and expressed a last distraught message through the Idea of Communication.

You...

So this was it...

Suddenly, something snapped. Lillian's limbs relaxed and she collapsed to the ground in a heap. Pushing herself up, she looked above her, watching as the Sphinx's form wavered. A ripple of blackness propagated along its arm, a few drops of nothingness falling from its fingers and pooling on the slipstone of the pathway.

And then the Sphinx began to fall apart.

Its levitation abruptly ceased and its feet splashed into the ground, its liquid black surface spreading across the walkway into a wide pool. A thin hiss began to emanate from the pool as ripples of darkness bounced across its surface in quick succession. It was several seconds before Lillian noticed the puddle of liquid beginning to drain.

Her mind worked quickly. There was no drain in the walkway. Was the liquid simply vaporizing into the nothingness it appeared to be? Was the liquid flowing in between the surface of the slipstone, or through a rift into one of the other worlds?

And then Lillian recalled something Dakota had taught her. Nearly a month ago now.

With shaking hands, she dug the vial from her pocket and uncapped it. The Idea of Motion was all she needed to call all the liquid into the vial. She capped it tightly and held it up, examining it carefully.

Solvent. The only substance capable of damaging slipstone.

She stared back down at the hole-riddled pathway. Tiny pits and scars proliferated the surface of the slipstone where drops of Solvent had splashed. In the center of the pathway lay a wide hole where most of the Solvent had drained. Lillian stepped closer, staring into the hole with an instinctual dread.

Framed within the scarred, pitted edges of the slipstone was the serene and untroubled face of a young girl.