Sphinx, I said. Terrible creature, head of a mortal woman, but the body of a lion, and the wings of a bird. You don’t want to mess with her. She stands at the top of the pass there, just where you was headed. She stops every traveler with a riddle. If they can’t answer it right, she throws them down to their deaths on the rocks below. Nobody’s answered the riddle yet. Trade nor traffic from the north can’t get through to Thebes. You want to go there, you’d best go all the way round the mountain to avoid her.”
