Calamus gladio fortior

“Victoria Crow,” the woman’s sandpaper voice echoed through the room.

Victoria’s heart skipped a beat.

Already ? Her eyes shot up to the pendulum clock snoozing on the wall. It was only four twenty two; the official letter she had received summoned her for her exam at four thirty. Call her superstitious, but heading to the examination room eight minutes early was not a good omen.

“Ahem,” the woman at the desk scoffed, detaching her obnoxious glasses from her page to look around at the few candidates left sinking in the waiting room’s seats, paralyzed. Two years of classes and late-night study sessions were coming to an anguish-inducing end. After weeks where they had not spared a moment for anything other than revisions - except to clean the puddles of wax that had formed on their desks -, not one of them had brought a book to capitalise on these final minutes. They were no longer beings capable of thought or reason: all that existed was the fear of the monster behind the door.

The woman scrutinized each of their faces. Are you Victoria Crow ? she seemed to be demanding. The lack of answer made her look as though she was hoping to extricate the meaning of Greek statues.

Hands sweating profusely, Victoria stood up. The woman sighed, before directing her towards the door at the end of the narrow corridor.

You can do this, Victoria hammered into her skull with each step. You’ve prepared all year for this. But each next step came the matching thought. You have to do this.

Failure was not an option.

If she failed to answer one of the Sphinx’s three questions, she would fail her exam, and would not integrate the next year.

If she failed to answer one of the Sphinx’s three questions, all her parent’s sacrifices, all her work, all her sleepless nights, all her dreams would be reduced to dust.

Her hand latched onto the pommel of her sword, seeking comfort in the familiarity of its encrusted motifs. At its center, her thumb deciphered the university’s crest and its motto.

Calamus gladio fortior. The pen is mightier than the sword.

Hopefully, that would prove itself to be true.

For, if she failed to answer one of the Sphinx’s three questions, she would have to defend herself against the monster.

And, as far as she was aware, no one had ever survived a fight against the Sphinx.

At last, they reached the massive mahogany door, which read: Silence, exam in progress.

The woman pushed the door ajar, waiting for her to enter. Victoria’s knees wobbled under her weight. With another disgruntled sigh, the woman shoved her back into the room and snapped the door behind her, sealing her into silence and obscurity.

You can do this. Victoria forced herself to take a deep breath. Once her eyes had grown accustomed to the weak light that poured through a single, narrow window, she brushed the room with a glance. Due to the darkness, the room felt edgeless, with all but a stone structure in front of her. Victoria looked down to see its origins, but the floor beyond a few meters from her feet was cloaked in shadows. Her feet were not stepping on lacquered wood, as she had expected, but a sea of bright c

Victoria’s stomach lurched. How many of her classmates had not made it through ?

Her eyes searched for her prosecutor, and, at last, as though emerging from the stone, she saw her.

Her palms clawed onto the edge of the marble pillar she rested on, eager. Her fur bathed in the sunlight, a pure golden, the same golden that erupted inside her eyes. On both sides of her flanks, rows of silken knives curved into wings. Victoria’s eyes trailed up the creature's body, fur fading into supple human skin, into the familiar shape of a woman, until they locked with those of her adversary, slanted diamonds of cunning and curiosity sharpened with a trail of black. Her face looked as though carved from the same marble block she was sitting on: the bridge of her nose boldly cut, her lips tight with the weight and severity of her words.

At her sight, Victoria experienced for the first time what Kant had described as the sublime. She could understand with every fibre of her body, with the depth of her being - not just with a juxtaposition of words - the interwoven fear and magnificence that he had felt at the sight of mountains and thunderstorms. She was a slave to fascination at such cruel beauty.

“What are, in order, the three questions to ask oneself when approaching a work of art according to Goethe?” her voice rebounded against the walls.

What an easy first question !

“The first is : What was the artist trying to do ?. The second: how well did he do it? The third: Was it worth doing ?” she answered. To her surprise, her voice shone with the same unwavering clarity as the Sphinx's.

There was a beat. She craved for some sign that her answer was validated to relieve the chill in her bones. The Sphinx did not move an inch, and uttered its second test:

“ What was the final phrase of Hipparchia of Maroneia's epitaph ?”

Victoria knew this : she had read the figure's epitaph again last Thursday while revising their class on the Cynics.

“My name shall be greater than Atalanta,” she voiced one by one the words projected on the page she conjured from memory. “ for wisdom …”

What was the exact verb that had been used ? It described how intelligence exceeded physical prowess. A word came into focus on the imaginary page in front of her. “Surpass” ? Was that the word she was looking for? The meaning corresponded, but something in her made her doubt.

Sweat pearled down her forehead. A single word out of place and the Sphinx's aciculate claws would be at her throat.

Her tongue tried out the phrase. No, it felt forced, brutal. By instinct, her tongue shaped out the syllable “out".... Was it “outperform” ? Perhaps. “Outperformed” sounded as though it came out of a business review more than from a poem, but this was not quite a poem, it was an epitaph.

Exactly. Wasn’t an epitaph particularly gauged with emotion ?, she countered. She could recall the line had left a strong impression on her upon discovering it. It evoked splendor and confidence, the eternal light of truth. That was it : something bright, terribly bright.

“Outshines mountain running, “ the words slipped from her tongue. She held her breath.

The Sphinx remained still, but a smile carved her cheeks.

Victoria could feel her heart drumming in her chest. There was only one question left. Only one more obstacle.

“Who are you ?”

Her heart sank.

Who are you? What sort of question was that ? It felt as though the question had been plucked out of a totally different exam, as though Victoria had accidentally entered the wrong room. This referred to none of her classes’ syllabus, to none of the books or papers she had read.

She took in several breaths in a pathetic attempt to remedy the wave of panic surging inside of her. Her panting reverberated in the thick silence of the room, ticking away the passing time. They sounded so frail, so humanly weak, so vain Victoria cursed herself internally for betraying her own panic and doubt.

Who was she ?

There were a million ways to approach the question: was she supposed to give a scientific response ? A philosophical one ? A sociological one ?

Who was she?

She was Victoria Crow. There was nothing more self-evident.

But what did it mean to be Victoria Crow ?

She could retell the lives of Descartes, Al-Battani, Wanli of the Ming dynasty or Queen Victoria in the most superfluous details. She could recite what Socrates, Pascal or Nietzsche defined as a human being. But as to who she was, she could not string three words together.

Victoria looked down, eyes veiled with tears. The patches of red at her feet stared back at her.

Answer, Victoria ! Do not end up like us! They seemed to scream.

But she was just like them: just as mortal, just as lost, just as ignorant. In her veins coursed the same blood, the same fear, the same burning passion for knowledge.

She had collected top grades and diplomas; she had hoarded centuries worth of erudition; she had barricaded herself in years of expertise, of commitment to refining her skills, broadening her vision of the world and sharpening her accuracy. Further, higher, faster, she had sought excellence and truth with unforgiving rigor. As she stood there, she was stripped raw of all these tokens she had hung onto as identity. As she stared into Death's cynically beautiful visage, she felt hollow.

Victoria closed her eyes, tears caressing her cheeks. She accepted her fate. Death would devour her, and find nothing under her teeth. She had been taught never to give up during an exam: as hopeless as it was, her final words would be an attempt to answer the question.

“I …..,” she started. The words choked up in her throat. It was almost painful to let them go.

“ I am the nosy wind on my grandmother’s porch. I am my father’s songs and my mother’s touch braiding my hair,” she lost herself into the words, savouring the taste of each, her mind blank. “I am the years that have moulded my body and crafted my mind in their speedy flight. I carry who I was then, but they are no longer me. I am a cemetery animated by the pulse of life. I am my tears and my mistakes, I am my joy under snowflakes. If I am filled with memories, with the gift of each stranger I have met, I am just as empty. Empty, and hungry for learning and novelty.

I am nothing and I am everything at once. I am an endless contradiction. Tell me, Sphinx, are you more lion, bird, or woman ? I am as chimeric as you”.

They rested, buried in silence.

Had she died ?

After several heartbeats, Victoria flung her eyes open. The Sphinx was looking at her, a tear glistening down her diamond eye. WIthout warning, she lept off her pedestal in a fury of wings. Victoria watched, wide-eyes, as the golden beast vanished like a comet into depths cloaked by the shadows.

Ahead, the cut of a door triumphed behind the pedestal.

When Victoria forced the doorknob, she found herself in an empty room.