Privateer headed off to the right, past a row of display cases, around a corner, saw a mummy, a suit of ancient Egyptian technological armor, and the Sphinx.
    Like Scott a firm believer in the rules of the Game, Privateer drew his rapier and saluted. "En garde!"
    Then he tried a magnetic scan to see if this was another illusion, but before he could do so the Sphinx lunged at him, and he was forced to retreat from the swing of the heavy blade. He magnetically dragged the suit of armor from its case and pulled it down to block the other's advance, at which the thief ran up the side of a display case and along the wall to come down at him from above. Privateer located a support girder and ran up it, crossed the ceiling and returned to the floor, tried a disarming attack but the Sphinx was too quick for it, and a series of backflips carried him out of reach.
    "Touché," the Swordbearer remarked.
    The Sphinx lunged, missed. There was a mutual pause.

Thunderbolt headed off to the right, looking for energy signatures to determine where the hologram signal was coming from. He paused at some half-sensed motion, saw the Sphinx right behind him with sword raised and realized that it was another illusion. The sword passed harmlessly through his neck, with only a brief sensation of wind.

Scott went up the center-left passage and looked inside the nearest painted sarcophagus; empty.
    "What did you expect to find in there?"
    "Either nothing or you," he replied honestly, switching his perceptive region to look behind him.
    "Hm. Are you allowed two answers to a riddle?"
    "Sounded more like a question."
    "If you're looking for a riddle...."

Privateer's duel continued. He made a second try at disarming the Sphinx magnetically, but there was nothing there to touch; it was a hologram, of course.

On the roof, Phoenix Talon turned a circle, scanning around him for signs that the Sphinx might be making a break for it. Suddenly, there was a chariot there, the Sphinx sprinting across the rooftop and leaping into it with a bag of loot.
    "Halt! In the name of the Revolution!" Phoenix Talon shouted at him, ran over and tried to nerve strike him.
    Sphinx raised his arm, which had a bracer of odd designed fastened around it. A powerful bolt of electricity flung Talon thirty feet away from the back of the chariot. The thief shouted something in some foreign language, and the chariot took off. Phoenix Talon flipped back to his feet, launched a cable and—far from the first time—found himself dangling from a moving vehicle, high above the streets of Boston. He started climbing. There was no sign of rockets or any other motive force, but from some angles he thought he saw ghostly horses running before the chariot. Weird Shit.
    "I admire your courage, if not your intelligence," the Sphinx began, leaning over the side of the chariot. He cut the cable just as Phoenix Talon was throwing the grenade. It went off over the chariot instead of inside, but the driver began cursing in Greek, wrestling with the machine to try to keep it aloft.
    Phoenix Talon, in the meantime, had splashed down more or less safely into Muddy Creek, which flows near the museum and the Fens. Now all he had to worry about was the likelihood of contracting cholera from its less-than-sparkling waters.

"So you're looking for a riddle? Listen carefully and I'll begin," the Sphinx smiled and recited:
    You'll find me next among those who
    fear death by water.
    Hate them? Some of my best friends!
    The hologram vanished. Music began playing; Tom Lehrer's "Oedipus Rex." Scott was beginning to suspect more strongly that this was not Felix. He couldn't quite see the grand old thief doing Tom Lehrer.

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