What do you call a sphynx that makes riddles set only within a universe of her own creation? Her choice of adversary has been reduced to one—the adventurers who set out to make their name did not consider this attitude “sporting”. Having become a friend, who else but this one would laugh, appreciate the meaning in the phrase, “inches like the inchworm”? Surely and steadily, as much as it is staggered.
This and other obscure phrases are described in tens or hundreds of notebooks, secreted within the clutter of the world. Each morning the friend must go out into the world in search of an answer, or failing that, return with downcast eyes—and suffer the familiar ritual of the mock execution.