Gamble

I found my future in a ruin somewhere or other. It was before I met Gourry or even Naga, but it was what set the path for everything else. It was one of those maigcally enchanted ruins with riddle-locked doors and magic challenges and every other sort of nuisance anyone could come up with to make access to the treasure difficult. It was fairly standard for that sort of thing, actually, except for one of the puzzles.

There were two doors. Before each one stood an animated suit of armor. Between them there was a plaque.

"One question, mortal, you may ask.

To choose your path ahead.

One door leads onward to your task;

The other finds you dead.

Of the watchers, one is true.

The other always lies.

Ask but one to answer you,

And let your choice be wise."

This was actually pretty classic, the "Honest/Dishonest Guard Paradox." We'd covered it in a class once. The answer we reached was, "Hey, you! Which door? Tell the truth, because you're going in first."

I couldn't see that my threat would have any effect on two animated suits of armor.

Any sensible person would have turned around. Any true genius of logic would have worked out a question that would reveal the truth. I'm different though, and I always have been. I picked a door, the one to the right. I walked up to it, smiled at the watcher. "How's your day been?"

"Fine, miss."

Then I opened the door and walked through. Since I'm here, you think you know which one I walked through. You might be right, since I survived the fire-breathing five-headed dragon, the trapped ceiling, the thirty golems set to attack, the rat pit, the - ugh - giant slug, the giant bowling ball, and the time-freeze device. Of course, the other door might have lead directly to the nice pile of gold I wound up getting. It might have been a lot less fuss. I don't know which door I took, but either way I won.

That's the future I found. It's the willingness to take that gamble and the readiness to assume that I'm gonna make it. And to do it with a certain flare. Because I'm not going to lose. Of course, I already had this future, since I've always been like this. All I really got in that ruin was one BIG pile of gold.

I wrote this a few months before I joined but like so many of my short Slayers stories, I never posted it . . . I still hoped people would visit my webpage then. No such luck. So here it is.--Lady Belegwen Lightningblade