"The End of the Sphinx" comes from my deep and abiding love for Greeco-Roman mythology. From "The God Beneath the Sea" to "300," I've always enjoyed stories that revisit those old tales. I will never forget the magic and majesty of listening to an elderly storyteller reciting sections of "The Odyssey" while strumming a lyre, the feeling of being transported entirely to a world as real as our own, and as foreign as the moon. That's what I wanted to do with "The Sphinx."
The Sphinx was lovely. Everyone told her so.
Well, some things are harder to believe than others.
The Sphinx lived all alone on a rocky promontory at the height of a stony mountain pass. There was not much to do, not much to see. When she was in a restless mood, she would climb to the top of the pass, flapping her uselessly heavy gold wings to fight for balance. Her claws raked the rough boulders of the ascent, bringing coppery blood in the wake of pain. But from the highest point of the pass, she could see the world.
It looked like this. Turning toward the sunrise, she could see an expanse of grey rock dotted with ancient olive groves. From the groves, smoke rose in the evenings. This was where people lived, and people avoided the Sphinx. Her vision was perfect, but all her hawk’s eyes told her was that whenever people happened to turn their faces to her eyrie, they shuddered and looked away.
Where the sun set, where Apollo’s chariot sank nightly in a blaze of horizontal fire, was the sea. Humans plied the sea in their tiny toy ships, intent on distant vistas, and never knew that the Sphinx was watching. She liked that. There was no shudder when sailors looked toward her perch. All they saw was the majesty of the mountains.
Certainly, she had visitors. They were the reason she never strayed long from her post beside the rocky path. The visitors were the ones who told her she was beautiful.
It wasn’t for the compliments that she stayed in the lower reaches of the pass, the places where there was no gorgeous view of the glory of the Gods’ world. It was for the company.
One day, in eons gone by, when men had not yet learned to fear her existence, a man came through the pass. He had been separated from his caravan, but was determined to find a way over the mountains.
She was hiding, as was her custom when these two-legged creatures approached. But this man raised a feeling of pity in her. Maybe it was a kind of yearning. Still, how could she, whose genesis was divine, admit a desire for contact with mortals?
As he approached, she emerged, wing-tip by wing-tip, from behind her concealing boulder. The weak sun glinted off the gold of her headdress, off her blazing feathers, and for a moment, he was blinded. Then, he shrieked and fainted dead away.
She leapt from the promontory and fidgeted, her lions’ claws scraping the stone beneath her pads. Had she killed it, this fragile-looking biped? She closed her hawk eyes and listened, and heard him breathe.
Her tongue was the gentlest thing about her, so with it she put the hair out of his face and moved his sprawling body into a more comfortable position. With her claws, she straightened his robe, not daring to touch his mortal body with their razor-sharpness. And she waited.
His eyes fluttered open. ‘It’s a dream,’ was what he said.The Sphinx cleared her throat. She had not spoken aloud to another living creature capable of understanding in centuries. ‘I am glad you are not hurt,’ she said formally. Then, with sudden concern, ‘You aren’t hurt, are you?’
His delirium continued. ‘You are so... beautiful,’ he said.
She blushed. Goddesses were beautiful, not monsters.
‘Stay with me,’ she said. ‘Please. Keep me company.’
His brow furrowed. ‘I can’t. I’m due in Corinth. I must get to my ship.’
Her clear eyes filled with tears. He was beautiful himself. She hadn’t known that about humans, that they could so resemble the Gods. His eyes were blue and as clear as her own, although she didn’t have a looking glass to use for the comparison.
‘Please stay.’
‘I can’t,’ said the man. ‘I have lots of things to do. But someone will stay. You are so pretty.’
The Sphinx returned to her ledge in a powerful spring, lion muscles rippling. And from that height, she watched the man go. He retreated from her, glancing back over his shoulder again and again, until she realized that what she must have was terrible beauty. One leap, and she was airborne. Just long enough to come down hard on the man’s back.
And that’s how it went.
She didn’t know her legend, that she was supposed to ask a riddle, and that the price of failure was death. She just knew that, instead of her path being shunned, she was suddenly sought out.
The Gods had done it, Hermes probably, in a fit of malicious humour, had spread the tale. The legend grew that a prize of inestimable value waited for the man who could defeat the Sphinx at her game. And because humans are humans, because men are men, no one considered that the story had one obvious hole in it. Listeners managed to ignore that the Sphinx had nothing to gain in the contest, and everything to lose.
Certainly, she ate the men she killed. There was little enough food in the pass. She grew sleek and her skinny body filled out until her fur shimmered and her down gleamed. She was more beautiful than ever.
‘Will you stay?’ she asked each traveller. ‘I am very lonely. Or will you take me with you and introduce me to your people? I am nothing to fear.’
Some ran. They died the quickest. Some backed away slowly, afraid to turn from her. Sometimes they even did themselves in, falling off the path to die on the rocks below. A few laughed, their bravado an acrid scent in her nostrils. Those she ripped to pieces and left for the carrion birds.
But one day, a different sort of man appeared. He was dressed in the garb of a shepherd, and carried enough weapons to equip a small army. He didn’t look surprised to see her. In fact, his first words were, ‘Oh, there you are.’
She straightened, her claws scraping on the stone. ‘Were you looking for me?’
‘Indeed.’ He drew a sword from its metal sheath, placing the rest of his arsenal, except for a sturdy buckler, on the ground. ‘Well? Ready yourself.’
Plaintive, not understanding this shift in traditional events, she repeated her usual query. ‘Will you stay with me?’
‘Until the deed is done,’ he said.
Then she understood. This human meant to kill her. She considered him differently now. Somehow, the fact he had come to do her specific injury made him more desirable than any man who had yet approached her lair. ‘Please stay with me,’ she said. ‘I know veins of gold. I know rock-falls where the amethyst is as thick on the ground as purple grapes at harvest. I can pluck you rough diamonds from a stream where the water runs so clear you can drink without knowing you have done so.’
He laughed. Not as those who infuriated her did, but pleasantly. He was not afraid. ‘And what would I eat?’
‘Men come,’ she said. It was not much of an answer. ‘Sometimes I catch eagles.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he told her, and raised his sword.
‘You could take me with you,’ she suggested. ‘I am beautiful. Many have told me. It’s true, isn’t it? I could ornament your home. I am very patient. What fun we could have! I could sit at your front gate, and only turn my head when your enemies came. And all I would ask is that you would talk to me.’ She had wanted to say, ‘that you would love me,’ but that didn’t seem like a proper thing to say at all.
‘Oh, my darling,’ he said, lowering his weapon. ‘I have a destiny. You are not part of it. I’m sorry. Poor thing. To be so lovely, and all alone.’
He turned away, collecting his things around him once more.
‘Are you leaving?’ she wailed. ‘You can’t go. I can take you to the top of the world, where you can see the ocean. It’s the most beautiful place in the world. You must see it!’
All he said, softly, was, ‘I’ve sailed on the ocean.’
That was the damning point. All her lonely existence, she had dreamed of companionship, of one day seeing the wonders of the world up close instead of the way a circling hawk sees a miniature rabbit far below. All she wanted was to be loved, as she was admired.
‘At least, tell me your name,’ she said, but her voice was failing her, fading like shadows burnt away by the noonday sun.
‘Oedipus,’ he said. ‘Don’t despair, lovely creature. I’m sure that someone will stay, one day.’
He vanished from sight. The Sphinx suddenly saw the whole of her future stretched out before her like more empty road, like a path studded with blades, and climbed to the top of her pass. Not even from there could she see the man, who had slipped into the spaces between rocks and out of her sight forever.
Sighing, she unfurled her useless wings and threw herself down.
