Alicia found herself racing back through the Nevergreen Forest, momentarily surprised by Sarah Gate’s speed and agility. The slice of pie was sloshing around, an uncomfortable reminder of the strange conversation that had just taken place in the hut. Even though Alicia loved puzzles, she wasn’t too keen on mysteries and even less enamored of being dropped into the midst of intrigue. This T. T. LeClerc sounded like someone she would rather not meet. Alicia picked up the pace. She wasn’t likely to lose the target; she just felt claustrophobic and couldn’t wait to emerge from the murky woods.
Sarah Gate finally stopped. A thin sheen of moisture reflected the diffuse light at the edge of the wood. She put a finger to her lips. Alicia pulled up on tiptoe. She quietly stepped on a twig, which did not reciprocate. With a loud crack, the twig became kindling, and the two ladies’ presence became known. A thin gray creature popped up out of the gray grass and hailed them.
“Hail!”
Sarah sighed. “Hello, Nathan. Go tell them we’re here. This young lady will help us.”
“Wonderful!”
The gray creature took off toward a small building. Alicia followed its progress. She gasped as her line of sight intersected with the hulking structure dwarfing the small building. “What is that?”
Sarah said, “Oh, that’s the Administration Building where Harris works. We will not have time to visit. We’ll follow Nathan to the Crypt in a moment. But first, we need to go there.” She pointed to the left of the Crypt. A slightly larger building shared the dark shadow of the Administration Building. Sarah began jogging toward it.
The building was an elegant block of concrete, reached by a laughingly tiny escalator. Over the double doors, Alicia noted the engraved letters proclaiming the structure as the Lexicon Library. As they ran up the three steps and through the doors, she wondered if that was redundant.
Sarah guided Alicia directly to a room labeled Multimedia. The room was an eerie copy of the lobby at the Gates’ home. The chandelier in this room was not as grand. In fact, it looked as if it hadn’t seen a feather duster in ages. However, the floor was highly polished and there were a dozen doors, just like the hut’s lobby. Just then, one of those doors opened and a familiar person in an impeccable white tuxedo emerged.
Theodore approached them. Gone was the servile demeanor. In its place was the efficient mask of a seasoned bureaucrat. In one motion, he simultaneously handed a device to Alicia and a clipboard to Sarah. Without a word, Sarah unhooked the pen and signed out the device. Equally silent, Theodore nodded civilly and spun on his heel. He counter-signed the receipt as he walked back through the door.
“Well, take good care of that, dear. It took 17 years to make that Lexibus.”
Alicia stared at the device. “I see it has only one button. What does it do?”
“It lets you choose between dictionary, thesaurus and puzzle. The design is clever, as you are never more than one click from puzzle mode. You talk into that little hole.”
Alicia spoke into the hole. “Testing, testing, one, two, three.” Instantly, the device lit up and displayed a brief list:
Alicia giggled delightedly. She understood why they had made this detour: this gadget would be so useful!
Sarah smiled. This girl just might get us out of this mess. She gently touched Alicia on the elbow to guide her from the room and back outside. “Mind your step, dear. The escalator doesn’t always reverse automatically. T.T. tampered with it, of course.”
Incongruously, Sarah jumped to the ground. Alicia decided to see how quickly she could run down the up escalator. With only three steps, it wasn’t much of a challenge and she quickly rejoined Sarah on the pervasive gray grass. They set off for the Crypt.
***
The interior of the Crypt was as unremarkable as the hut had been grand. Eight dark black tables, eight white chairs. Eight little creatures perched on the seats, every one of them too short to touch the floor with their feet. To Alicia, they looked like kindergartners in the wrong classroom.
Sarah read her mind. “Do not let their appearance fool you. These togglers have been creating puzzles for decades. The youngest is half a century old!” She walked toward the smallest creature. “Hi, Chute.”
“Hello, Sarah. Nathan alerted us, so we prepared a separate table for our distinguished guests.” Chute hopped down from his chair and escorted Sarah and Alicia to a much larger and even blacker table. The chairs at this table were even whiter and shinier. He pulled out both and bowed gallantly.
“Thank you,” sighed Sarah, as she sank gratefully down onto the chair.
“Thank you,” echoed Alicia. She placed the Lexibus on the table and waited.
Chute walked back to the cluster of tables. “Let me introduce my colleagues, in no particular order.” He walked from table to table, giving Alicia a moment to associate names and faces. “This is Rocky, Moe and Sizzles. Over here are the twins, Eenie and Meenie. Finally, we have Papaya and Minie.” He bowed at the only other ladies in the room.
“Pleased to meet you,” murmured Alicia. She wondered if they were pulling her leg. She looked over at Sarah, hoping to intercept a knowing twinkle or a smile of amusement. Detecting neither, she spoke up, “Okay. Let me see if I have this straight.” Pointing to each, she repeated, “Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe. Rocky, Paper, Sizzles, Chute!”
The togglers applauded. Chute gave Alicia a gap-toothed smile. Papaya squeaked, “Almost, dear. That one is Eenie and I’m Papaya.” She added, “Meenie has a mole on his nose, if that helps.”
Sarah stood up. “Well, I’ll leave you all to it. I must be getting back.” She gave Alicia a final pat on the arm and scampered out of the Crypt.
Chute followed her to the door and locked it behind her. As he turned back to the newcomer, he clapped his hands twice, sharply. A large projection screen descended from the ceiling until it reached Alicia’s eye level. An image faded in, filling the screen with an out-of-focus Valentine. Chute began to speak.
Composer vs. Solver
“The two hearts of every puzzle beat in opposition. Though the composer parries the thrust of the solver, the heart of the solver is dominant and must always win. The composer’s heart submits with resistance. In this way, both composer and solver grow stronger.
Logic and Reason
“The two minds of every puzzle coexist as equals. Logic and Reason walk together. Neither mind suborns or subrogates the other. The purity of truth shines brightly within both.
Patience and Passion
“The two voices of every puzzle oscillate for attention. Patience and Passion, in full harmony, echo the siren song of the ultimate challenge; by their silence, we judge a puzzle unworthy.
Pattern and Symbol
“The two spirits of every puzzle manifest the life-force. Pattern and Symbol shape each construction, imparting the personality that makes a puzzle popular.”
The screen went blank. Chute looked at Alicia expectantly.
Alicia stared back, dumbly. “I’m sorry, what?”
Chute clapped sharply, twice. The screen ascended with a whisper. He looked sadly up at Alicia. “The key to obscurity is to be clear.”
Papaya cleared her throat. “Chute, may I?”
Chute returned to his table, dejected with his failure to communicate. “Sure, go ahead.”
Papaya remained seated. With a raised voice, she asked, “What is your name, dear?”
Alicia snapped back to the present. “Alicia Waters.”
Papaya was happy to have wrested the girl’s attention from the shredded remains of Chute’s pomposity. “Well, Alicia, do you like to solve puzzles?”
Alicia smiled. “Yes, ma’am, I do.”
“But you don’t like Tic-Tac-Toe, I’ll bet.”
“That’s not a puzzle. But no, I don’t.”
With two sentences, Papaya had established to the others that Alicia knew the difference between games and puzzles and had a sense of what made puzzles enjoyable. Still, she didn’t want Chute to feel totally useless, so she added, “Because it practically cries out that it is too trivial, no?”
Alicia nodded. That’s right. She wanted to add that she didn’t like fill-ins, no matter how hard they were. However, she felt that she had regained some ground after her moronic reply to Chute. She remained silent.
Papaya nodded along with her. “Very well. I’ll bet a smart girl like you doesn’t like fill-ins.”
Alicia laughed. “How did you know?”
Papaya just smiled. No sense in alarming the girl with the team’s profile of her solving abilities. Besides, one cryptogram wasn’t statistically significant. Instead, she assured her that even the togglers had their favorites.
Not wishing to be left out of this female-bonding episode, Minie chimed in, “I hate acrostics. They don’t know whether they want to be crosswords or fill-ins. Either way, they have too much going on.”
Alicia was thoroughly enjoying herself. She pitched her voice low and intoned through her nose, “By their silence, patience and passion voice their displeasure.”
The room turned frosty. Eight pairs of eyes lasered on the impertinent visitor. Meenie broke the silence—he tittered. Soon, all the togglers were laughing. Even Chute joined in.
Papaya shouted, “Welcome, Alicia! You’re just what we need in this stuffy old room. We were just having you on. We all have very thick skin. Comes with age, you know.”
Just the same, Alicia decided not to push her luck. Her poor heart was still hammering. She smiled weakly and started fiddling with her Lexibus. This served to bring the togglers back on point.
“Have you tried the Lexibus?” Sizzles was speaking, now. “I’m the one who keeps the puzzles updated.”
On safe ground again, Alicia became animated. “Yes, I did! I said, ‘Testing, testing, one, two, three’ and it gave me ‘microphone’, which I thought was pretty neat.
Sizzles lit up. “Heh, just a little engineering humor. Wait until you get more of Sarah’s pie. We like to have contests between the Lexibus and her marmalade. The pie doesn’t know the current terminology but usually kills Lexie on archaic words.”
Alicia asked, “What was tess, though? It printed out something about cryptic three.”
“Ah, that’s for fillers. Crossword puzzles need lots of weird constructions, abbreviations and whatnot.” Sizzles thought for a moment. “I’m pretty sure it’s a plural of a musical scale. You know, do, re, me.”
Alicia frowned. “I thought that was tee, eye.”
Sizzles nodded, “Yes, of course. But there are variant spellings.”
Alicia shrugged. “Okay.”
Chute got up again. “Alicia, you’ll be spending a bit of time with each of us. The sooner you really know how to use the Lexibus, the sooner we can unravel Taupe’s nefarious coil of sabotage.
This time, the chill in the room was real.
Part 5: Guild Complex
