The Maze - Tor's Quest Book 2

Chapter 12

Sam wrote the puzzle down, complaining that her hand ached when she had finished.

A man has five jewels, two diamonds and three emeralds. He calls together three friends, one of whom is blind. He places a jewel in each person's pocket and orders them, one at a time, to close their eyes and show the others which jewel they have. Therefore, everyone except the blind person knows which jewels were given to the other two. He then tells them that whichever of his friends can correctly work out which jewel is in their pocket may keep it. Without discussing what each other saw, only the blind person managed to correctly identify their jewel. What was it?

Deciding the practical approach was best, Liselle looked on the ground, even under the hedge, until she found two light stones and three dark ones. Next she wrote down all of the possible combinations of jewels that could be held by the three people. Only one of these combinations would work so that the blind man could only have one type of jewel while the others could not work out what they held; they just had to figure out which.

The three of them then took the stones and began to role play. Liselle volunteered to be blind. Brin and Sam both took diamonds, leaving Liselle with an emerald. None of them could say with confidence what they held. Brin knew that Sam held a diamond and Liselle an emerald, but he could have held either. The same applied to Sam. Liselle, obviously, did not know what either of the other two held, so none of them could see how she would ever be able to know what was in her pocket.

Despite this, they persevered. Sam swapped her diamond for an emerald. This did not help her at all and, as there were three emeralds, Brin could still have held either as far as he was concerned. Liselle swapped her emerald for a diamond and this time Sam said she knew what she had. There were only two diamonds and she could see both of them so she had to hold an emerald. One combination was crossed off the list.

They had now covered every possible combination where Brin held a diamond so he swapped it for an emerald. Both he and Sam could still see one of each stone so Liselle swapped her diamond for an emerald. This did not help. Sam swapped her emerald for a diamond. Again no joy and they only had one combination left to try. Liselle swapped her emerald for a diamond and it was Brin's turn to announce what he held. This time it was he who could see both diamonds so knew he had an emerald. This, too, was crossed off the list.

Of the seven possible combinations, they were down to five and had come to a dead end. They retraced their steps, but could not reduce the number. They went through it again and again, but could not find any way for the blind man to know what jewel was in his possession.

"I have a suggestion to make," Liselle said unexpectedly.

"What's that?' Sam asked cautiously.

"There are only two possible answers. I can always guess. If I get it wrong, you two will then know the right answer and will be free to continue onward."

"No," Sam and Brin both shouted.

"You will be killed," Sam continued.

"I know," Liselle said softly. "But I no longer have anything to live for. At least I will die helping the only friends I have left."

"No," Brin insisted. "We will solve this."

The hours ticked by and the conversation turned to Liselle and how she could fix her relationship with Torrick.

"He thinks I used him and that I do not genuinely love him."

"You cannot know what he thinks," Brin pointed out.