Chapter 8: Riddle War - Part 2

Pa jumped up and down with enthusiasm, seeming not to care where his wand was pointing.

Not wanting to be struck by a stray bolt, Durri raised his voice and said, "Yes! Let's begin! You start, Mr. Pa. If you will."

The ogre calmed down, his chest heaving with apparent exertion. "All right, yep, I've been saving this one!" He gave a coy chuckle. "I've got an eye, but I can't see, and, and, I'm not alive, either! What am I?"

Durri frowned. "Erm, a needle?"

A look of utter astonishment came over Pa's face. A bead of sweat dripped from his chin. "Impossible!" he breathed.

"It really wasn't that hard," said Durri in an apologetic tone. Pa looked as though his spirit had been crushed, and it somehow made Durri feel bad.

Ma rolled her eyes. "I told you that was a stupid riddle," she said. "That's why I said not to use it on the coppers, remember?"

She pointed her wand at Durri's face. "My husband may be an idjit, but I think you'll find my e-nigmas a tad more cir-cuitous."

Durri tilted his head. "I thought we weren't supposed to use big words."

Ma made a rude gesture. "The man who builds me doesn't want me! The man who buys me doesn't need me! The man who needs me has no way of knowing. What am I?" She said this in dark and dramatic tone.

'Ma sure seems to enjoy showing off,' thought Durri.

This dredged up an old, old memory of his own mother.

Durri's father, who died of fisherman's lung when Durri was young, used to tell him stories every night before bed. After his father died, Durri's mother took up the practice.

She didn't always tell stories, though. Sometimes she sang songs.

Other times, she told him riddles.

She'd told him 'this' riddle. Durri was sure of it! But what was the answer? He remembered it frightening him, and making him sad, and his mother hugging him tightly and telling him she was sorry and that everything would be okay.

He remembered.

"Thanks, Mama," he whispered, and met the female ogre's gaze. "You're a coffin, right?"

She didn't react like Pa had, but snapped her mouth shut and glared at Durri. "Your turn," she growled.

Durri nodded. This one was a classic among builders, but maybe it would be new to these two. "A construction worker falls from a hundred-foot ladder, but is completely unhurt! How is this possible?"

Ma's eyebrows scrunched together as she thought, but Pa's face brightened immediately. "He's wearin' armor, 'obviously!' How stupid you think we are? You really think we don't know about armor?"

Durri was taken aback. "Erm, no. He fell from the bottom ring. You know, a few inches off the ground."

Pa stomped a bare foot in the dirt. "That ain't no fair! My answer was better. My turn. I live in the ground and I'm covered in eyes, but I'm not an animal—"

"Give it a rest!" Ma snapped. "You lost fair and square, idjit! It's 'my' turn."

She glared at Durri. "You're in a dark, dark room, black as the grave. You have a candle, a lamp, and a stove, but only one match, and in a minute's time, demons will rise to eat your soul unless you drive them away with enough ill-uuumination. What do you light first?"

Durri frowned. That was a bit of a strange riddle. He thought back to his childhood, but his mother had certainly never told him a riddle as dreadful as that!

"Can I have a minute?" he asked.

Pa raised his wand. "Thirty seconds!"

Ma sighed. "Come on, we never set a time limit."

The silly idea of standing in place for days and starving the ogres into surrendering came to Durri's mind, but he brushed it aside.

'Demons?' he thought. 'How am I supposed to know how much light is enough to keep them away? Shouldn't I just light the stove first? That would surely give the most light. But does the riddle imply only one source isn't enough? How long does it take to light the candle and lamp?'

The more he thought about it, the more confused he became. "How much light do I need, and how long before the demons come?" he asked slowly. "Come on, you have to give me all the information at once. This isn't fair."

Ma smirked. "If you can't see the answer, just say so. You already got every peeer-tinent detail you need."

Durri closed his eyes. "Candle, lamp, stove, but only..."

Oh.

Of course.

Durri's eyes snapped open. "The first thing you light... is the match!"

Ma's mouth fell half open. "No one's ever figured that out! Even Pa's been guessing it wrong for years!"

The male ogre looked even more shocked than he had a moment before. "I need to sit down," he muttered. "The match. I was starin' at the answer all this time."

Durri felt a little better about his own intelligence. "My turn again." He thought back to the riddles his mother used to tell him, trying to remember which one was the hardest for him to solve.

That was so many years ago.

So many years of that wonderful lady raising him the best she could.

Durri would win here for her.

He remembered her hardest riddle. It rhymed, but he'd follow the rules and alter it a bit.

"I'm born from an egg without any feet. My cry means death, and I eat my prey whole. What am I?"

Ma smirked. "Come on. You really got nothing better than that? I overestimated you."

"What's your answer?" Durri asked calmly.

She pointed her wand at him, glaring with contempt. "Snake," she said. "No limbs, born from an egg. Its hiss means you're gonna get bitten and die. It swallows its prey whole. It's like you weren't even trying."

Durri smiled. "Wrong."

Ma's eyes narrowed. "What did you just say?"

"Not a snake—"

"Cheater!" Ma screamed, and blasted a bolt at Durri!

He hurled himself to the ground the moment he saw her jerk of reaction, then sprinted toward them as Pa's matching blast whizzed over his shoulder.

Durri threw his arms wide, clotheslining the ogres, throwing them all to the ground.

The wands went flying.

So did the ogres' fists.

They pummeled Durri with savage blows.

He hardly felt it.

Durri reared up, flexing whatever counted as his muscles as he grabbed each ogre by their horns and 'slammed' them together!

They fell unconscious on the ground, one on each side of him.

"A frog," said Durri, poking at the crater-like fist marks in his torso.

"No feet, because it's a tadpole at first. A frog croaks—get it? Because 'croaking' means 'dying.'" Durri chuckled. "And they snatch flies from their air. I don't blame you, though. The wrong answer seems obvious."

He rose, patted his clay flesh back into shape, and began ransacking the cheating ogres' cottage.