It was a door, but its placement made no sense.

The same size and shape as the other doors that had led to my first two Gifts, this one was standing upright in the middle of the sandy floor, but it had to be a trick of the eye. There was nothing supporting the door-no structure built around it, no beams holding it up, no wires attached. And it didn't appear to be buried in the ground either. The door just stood there, perfectly straight and upright, looking like it should fall down. There were iron handles on both sides.

Joseph and I walked up to it. I touched its wooden surface, its handles, and it all felt very solid. I walked around it, looking at it from all directions. It was just a door, standing there, leading to nowhere. What was its purpose? What good would it do me to walk through it? I would only step through and be in the same place—it didn't make sense.

I caught myself. Did a door in the middle of the woods make any sense, or one inside a volcano? When I received the Gift of Ice, Farmer had said something about how we weren't really in the volcano—that the door was some kind of a gateway to a magic place where I could meet him.

So despite what my eyes were telling me, I probably just needed to walk through it and I would end up somewhere else.

“What do you think?” I asked Joseph.

“I … guess you should go through the door. What else is there to do? And I know that this is where my part ends, from what I've heard about your other experiences.” He smiled his normal Joseph grin. “Good luck, little buddy.”

I shook his hand, for what reason I have no idea. Then I turned, put my hand on the iron handle, and took a deep breath. I was just about to pull it open when a strange voice echoed off the watery walls—a metallic, slithering sound.

“I would not do that if I were you.”

I pulled my hand off the handle and looked around for the source of the voice. At first I thought it might be Joseph, but the look on his face proved me wrong. He was as baffled as I was, searching the cavern for any sign of our mystery speaker. Plus, the voice would have been impossible for Joseph to imitate—it was just not … human. It was the way I would imagine a snake would sound if it could talk, put through some kind of electronic manipulation.

It scared me to death.

Joseph and I walked around the door and the cavern, searching every inch of the place, but we didn't see anyone. I was just about to explain it away as a trick recording or something left by the Givers when a swift wind began to blow, twisting particles of sand into a mini-tornado over by one of the walls of the cavern. The tornado moved closer to the wall, and then they touched. The spinning wind pulled water out of the ocean, through the wall of air and into the tornado, until a tall funnel of blue water formed, spiraling with increasing rapidity. It moved away from the wall once it was roughly the size of a man.

Then, as we watched in astonishment, the twirling water ceased to spin, and became an elongated bubbly mass. Seconds later it took on definition, forming the image of a grown man, shimmering reflections traveling up and down its length. Before long, there was a person made completely of water standing in front of us, staring with translucent, wet eyes.

“Thank you for heeding my advice,” it said with the voice of wet electricity. “Sorry I'm a bit late—I'd given in to the notion that no one would ever come to this place.”

When it spoke, its lips moved like molten silver, its body glowing like liquid crystal. I was battling inside my head trying to convince myself that what stood before me was not some freak apparition of my imagination.

“You're … late?” I asked.

“Well, yes, obviously I am late. I am just appearing while you have been here long enough to do a fool thing like opening that door before I've spoken with you.”

“Are you … real?” I asked.

“Dear boy, have a gander, will you? Do I look real to you? For pity's sake, can you not see that I am made out of water? Of course I am not real!” The watery man shook his head, and threw up his arms in impatient disgust.

“If you're not real,” Joseph said, “then how are you standing here, speaking to us?”

“Do you not know the name of this place?” he asked.

“Well … yeah. The Tower of Air.”

“And do you think the Givers go around naming things for no particular reason than to sound nifty?”

“Well—”

“Air! That is what forms me, that is what creates my voice. It is a powerful thing, air. Very powerful indeed.”

“What is your purpose here?” I asked. “Why did you stop me from going through the door—how do we even know you're really a messenger from the Givers?”

“What, do I look like a Shadow Ka to you, boy? I may be a temporary configuration of water particles fashioned by anomalous wind inertia, but have some manners! I'm here to help you.”

For some reason, his last statement relieved any lingering sense of fear, and I realized that I was beginning to like this guy.

“Next thing you'll be saying is that I'm ‘all wet,’ a tiresome pun that I hope to never hear again. Now, come, we all know the Tower is failing, and that our time is short.” He walked over to us, his legs making gurgled sounds with each step. “I have been placed here, in this place, to give you one message. It is about this door.”

He lifted his right arm, indicating the erect door in the middle of the cavern.

“You don't need me to tell you that it is rather unusual for a door to be standing in this manner in the middle of a room, much less at the bottom of the ocean in a cavern of air. You can enter this door from either direction—from the north, over there,” he pointed, “or from the south, over there,” he pointed to the opposite side.

“The direction you choose will determine the place to which you will go. One will kill you, the other will bring you to the Third Gift—which is quite fascinating if I may interject on that point.”

He fell silent.

“Well,” I finally said, “are you going to tell us how we can figure out which way is the right one?”

“What? Oh! Yes, yes, of course. Sorry, I was having an old daydream of mine, the one where I get swallowed by a mermaid. Now, where were we? Ah yes, the door.” He paused, and put a glistening finger to his lips.

“As you well know by now, the Givers are mysterious, and love to speak in riddles. It's more annoying than having sand in your underpants, but I promise you, there is a definite purpose to it. Riddles can teach us, can make us smarter—they help us better understand and appreciate things once we figure them out. Wouldn't you agree?”

I nodded, but felt a feeling of dread as I remembered the last riddle I'd had to live through. The thought of those flying spears and the crumbling rift made me shudder.

“I am only a messenger,” the apparition continued, “and nothing more, so let's get on with it, shall we? Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?” I asked.

“Why, the Riddle of the Infinite Door.”