The Solution by Lord Craxton

The Seven Secret Words

Before we even start with the main puzzle, we have to unlock it. The main page contains a picture with several text entry fields (marked by “?”), and directions for finding the seven words to enter. As the directions say, the images are all fragments of larger images on Cliff’s site, but they’re all in out-of-the-way places. You don’t need to find all of the images — if you find some or most of them, you may be able to deduce the rest of the clues. I myself wasn’t able to find the eyeball image. The breakdown is as such:

		First Image: Sighing spinster This is from a puzzle that was cut from The Fool’s Errand. Cliff mentions it in the HotU interview. From the front page, click “Cliff Johnson,” then “Interview with the Fool.” Scroll about a third of the way down the page. The clue revealed is A-VO-OON.

		Second Image: Life Vests This is from a publicity photo of Brett Miles, president of Miles Computing, which published Cliff’s early games. From the front page, click “The Fool’s Errand,” then “Miles Computing.” You get the clue B-EC-REE.

		Third Image: Small Yellow Letters Those who’ve played At The Carnival will recognize this as one of the word-search puzzles. From the front page, click “At the Carnival,” then “Screen Shots.” Scroll about halfway down the page to find the image you’re looking for. The clue is C-OC-LVE.

		Fourth Image: Piece of Earth An obscure one. This is from poster art for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which inspired the original box art for 3 in Three. From the front page, click “3 in Three,” then “Brad Parker artwork.” The clue is D-IK-FFY.

		Fifth Image: Big Red Letters A snippet of an advertisement for Philips’ CD-I machine, for which Cliff created CD-ROM games. From the front page, click “Merlin/Labyrinth,” then “See magazine advertisement.” The clue is E-RC-CGY.

		Sixth Image: Eyeballing 3 The toughest image to find. It’s from 3 in Three, but you won’t find it there. Notice the putrid green color around the eyeball? It’s a bug that shows up when played with the Mac emulator Executor. From the front page, click “Downloads,” then “for Windows,” then “quirks” and scroll all the way down to the bottom. The clue is F-RO-ADE.

		Seventh Image: Got Milk? If you’ve nosed around Cliff’s “Curiosities” page, you’ll probably remember this. It’s a picture of Alex, from “A Clockwork Orange.” From the front page, click “Curiosities,” then the picture of Alex. (Second from the left in the row of five). The clue is G-LU-INI.

Now we can put the clues together (1 letter + 2 letters + 3 letters) and we get:

ARCADE   BIKINI   COCOON   DECREE   EVOLVE   FLUFFY   GROGGY

Enter those words, in that order, into the boxes. They’ll be replaced by seven buttons, each of which will bring up a page for you to print out. (Also some more directions- scroll down to the bottom of each new page.)

Assembling the Map

Just like in The Fool’s Errand, the main puzzle revolves around a map that must be assembled using context clues from the text. Each paragraph of the text, except the first three and the last three, features a speaker from one of the face cards of the Tarot. The red carpet on the map pieces connects one character to the ones immediately before and after him. Line them up so that the red carpet forms a continuous line, and there you have it. Of course, it’s never that simple. The text always mentions the speaker’s office, but never his suit. Fortunately, there are other, subtler clues in the text as well, and contrary to what Lewis Caroll said, sometimes the best place to start is in the middle. So let’s put on the deerstalker are skip down to the ninth paragraph (sixth speaker):

“Then our WAGONS or produce are RUINED!” the Queen clamors to the Page. “If none are USEABLE, then HERE I will relieve the CULPRIT of his head.”

“Lower your SWORD!” the King enjoins, peering at one Queen and then the other, “Your FLORA is SCARLET, I note. How many BOUGHS have you BROUGHT?”

“One, EXACTLY,” the Queen replies. “DO you chase after your BORZOI?” She said to the Page. “Why are you HUNTING WOLVES BY the sea?”

So we have a King between two Queens, one of which is carring a sword, obviously the Queen of Swords, the other a single “BOUGH” of “SCARLET” “FLORA” - a rose. This is Queen of Wands - look at the picture. Based on the identities of the two Queens, the King could be either the King of Swords or the King of Pentacles- the other two Kings couldn’t connect those two Queens. We’ll Leave this position open for now. Either way, the Queen of Wands will be connected to the next speaker on her left side.

The next speaker is a Page. He can’t be Wands, because his piece can only connect to one above or to the left of him. He could be Swords or Pentacles, but Cups is most likely. Why? The text notes then when the Page speaks, he “huffs and puffs,” as if exhausted. The Page of Cups is pictured running very fast, (so fast, in fact, that his hat is flying off), wheras the other two seem to be exerting themselves much less. Additionally, the Queen of Wands refers to him “HUNTING WOLVES BY the sea,” and the sea is visible in the Page of Cups picture. (Also, the Page’s map piece reads “HE DASHES FOR THE LOST FISH,” but we’re getting ahead of ourselves now.)

Next is a Knight, and we can rule out Swords and Wands right away because of connectivity. Pentacles is a possibility. However, notice the Knight says “Let my BROTHER chase his carp.” This refers to the Page of Cups, chasing fish by the sea. If the Knight is that Page’s brother, that would probably make him the Knight of Cups.

Next is a King, and either Wands or Cups will fit. Thereafter is another Knight. If the preceding King is Wands,
then this Knight could only be Swords (Cups is accounted for, and wouldn’t connect anyway, Pentacles wouldn’t connect, and Wands would connect, but the path would then dead-end against the Page of Cups). If the King is Cups, the Knight would have to be Pentacles, followed by King of Pentacles, Queen of Pentacles, Page of Pentacles... and then nothing, as the path dead-ends against the left edge of the Knight of Pentacles.

So the King following the Knight of Cups must be Wands, followed by the Knight of Swords. And the fearsome Knight of Swords fits the corresponding paragraph much better then the somber Knight of Pentacles.

Following the Knight of Swords is a King, which must be Cups - Wands is accounted for and the other two wouldn’t connect.

Next is a Queen, followed by a page and another Queen. The available Queens are Pentacles and Cups. If the first Queen is Cups, then the Page would be either Swords, who could not then connect to the Queen of Pentacles, or Swords, who would connect to the Queen of Pentacles just before the path dead-ends against the King of Wands.

So the first Queen must be Pentacles, followed by Page of Pentacles and Queen of Cups.

One could also determine this based on the argument that the King of Cups would be unlikely to address his own Queen with the line “You are BLASPHEMERS, one and all,” but some historical Kings and Queens would disagree. Besides, the hour is late and the wine has been flowing freely. :)

From here it’s simple. The text ends after the Queen of Cups, but since the path is continuous, we can loop back around to the first speaker. He is a King, and Swords and Pentacles are unaccounted for. He is followed by a Knight, then a Page, Knight, another Page, and back to the Queen of Swords.

If the first speaker is King of Cups, the path goes off in completely the wrong direction and peters out without getting back to the Queen of Swords.

So it must be the King of Swords, which would make the King between the Queen of Swords and Queen of Wands the King of Pentacles.

Then Knight of Pentacles, Page of Wands, Knight of Pentacles, Page of Swords, and the map is complete.

This is only one way to figure out the map. You can also discover which speaker is which judging by their tone, the descriptions on the map pieces, or just by exhaustive search.

The finished map is a 4X4 square, with the path tracing an hourglass-like route through it.

Aligning the Words

The next step is to arrange the red words from the text in the boxes on the borders of the corresponding map pieces. It’s obvious, though not directly stated, that the letters that land in the double-bordered white boxes will by used for the final puzzle. This isn’t difficult — the directions clearly state the words go clockwise, in the order they appear in the paragraph, and that the path never breaks a word into two pieces. The only problem is, where’s the starting point?

As you may have noticed, the letters printed just inside the borders are not haphazard. They spell out a sentence describing the subject of the particular card. For example, the letters on the Page of Pentacles spell out “HE GAZES IN HOPES OF WEALTH.” And whaddya know, if we start the words on the borders right where the sentences on the inside start, they line up perfectly! Here’s the breakdown:

King of Swords - HE FIGHTS FOR SOVEREIGNTY. Start on the left side, just after the path.

Knight of Wands - HE SEARCHES DISTANT LANDS. Start on the left side, just after the path.

Page of Wands - HE GUIDES YOU TO MANY PATHS. Start at the top, just after the path.

Knight of Pentacles - HE CARRIES SEEDS TO REDEEM. Start in the upper-left corner.

Page of Swords - HE GUARDS THE PASS BY NIGHT. Start on the right side, just after the path.

Queen of Swords - SHE STRIKES WITH DUE HASTE. Start on the left side, just after the path.

King of Pentacles - HE CONQUERS ALL WITH MONEY. Start at the top, just after the path.

Queen of Wands - SHE COMFORTS WITH THREATS. Start on the left side, just after the path.

Page of Cups - HE DASHES FOR THE LOST FISH. Start on the left side, just after the path.

Knight of Cups - HE WATCHES THE SHORE ALONE. Start on the right side, just after the path.

King of Wands - HE BATTLES THOSE WHO WASTE. Start at the bottom, just after the path.

Knight of Swords - HE ATTACKS WITHOUT A DOUBT. Start at the top, just after the path.

King of Cups - HE HOLDS THE POWER OF LIGHT. Start on the left side, just after the path.

Queen of Pentacles - SHE TAKES ALL AND GIVES NONE - Start in the upper-left corner.

Page of Pentacles - HE GAZES IN HOPES OF WEALTH - Start in the upper-left corner.

Queen of Cups - SHE CONCEALS HER CONTEMPT - Start on the left side, just after the path.

The Final Puzzle

No directions for this one- just the Moon’s cryptic clue:

“With the map assembled and the words aligned, from midnight, proceed clockwise amidst those who are outside and heed only those that might steal.”

Proceeding clockwise from midnight is straightforward- start at twelve o’clock on the map (King of Swords) and read the letters from the double-bordered boxes clockwise “amidst those who are outside.” Outside how, though? The most obvious answer is the outside border of the map, but that doesn’t feel right... that would mean the four pieces in the center are never used. The outside of the PATH is more likely. Let’s do this just for the first four pieces:

W O A N I D S B E W E A R E T T I H R H N E S B E L A D E

Gibberish, unfortunately. We must be missing something. Hmmm... what else did the Moon say? “heed only those that might steal.” What could that mean? Pace and ponder, ponder and pace.... Wait a minute, take another look at those letters on the inside of the map pieces:

W O A N I D S B E W E A R E T T I H R H N E S B E L A D E - highlighted boxes
E I T S O E S E E S I T A T E U I S Y O U T O A Y S E E S - map letters

Hmm... “heed only those that might steal” .... steal... STEAL... S T E A L?

W A N D S B E W A R E T H E B L A D E - highlighted boxes
E T S E S E E S T A T E S T A S E E S - map letters

WANDS BEWARE THE BLADE

Eureka!

Continue this all the way around the map and the final answer reveals itself:

WANDS BEWARE THE BLADE
SWORDS BEWARE THE COIN
PENTACLES BEWARE THE CHALICE
CUPS BEWARE THE STAFF

A foreboding message. With the treasures still missing and The Fool AWOL, will this fragile peace last? Will the Kingdoms fall again to war? Will old rivalries reawaken? We’ll find out in 2004.