The Lure of the Basilisk

CHAPTER SIX

Shang stood in the doorway for a long moment, staring into the seemingly empty darkness. Then, with a shrug, he stepped back a pace and reached to one side, his hand disappearing around the doorframe to reappear almost immediately, clutching the stub of a torch. Casually, as if he had dismissed the possibility of an ambush, the wizard strolled into the kitchen and looked about. Seeing the kettle where it lay by Garth's now-invisible boot, he crossed the room, picked it up, and placed it on the table with a slight frown. Garth stood utterly unmoving, not even daring to breathe for fear he should be detected somehow. The wizard's hand passed within a few inches of his foot, and the overman wondered what would happen should Shang touch him. Elmil had said the jewel rendered the user invisible, inaudible, and intangible; then would the wizard's hand pass through him? Would he feel it? Would it harm him?

He had no opportunity to find out, as Shang did not happen to touch him. Instead, the thaumaturge, after restoring the kettle to its place, used his bit of torch to light a hanging oil lamp, then tossed the stub into the fireplace, where it was lost amid a shower of gray ash. The lamp flared up brightly for an instant, then subsided to a smoky and malodorous glow as Shang began opening and rummaging in various cabinets; he placed a plate of cheese on the table beside the kettle, then continued, apparently searching for something. Finally, with a noise of disgust, he slammed the last cabinet and crossed to a door, the same door Garth had planned to try. In the flickering lamplight the overman noticed that a heavy padlock held the door shut. He carefully considered, as quickly as he could, what this could signify; why would one door be locked when others were not? It guarded something valuable-perhaps the crypts, where the basilisk lived?

He had no time for further thought, as Shang turned a massive key in the lock and swung the door open; if he was to get inside that door; speed was essential. He ran through the door a fraction of a second before the wizard himself stepped casually through, pulling it shut behind him.

Unfortunately, the door opened on a narrow landing at the head of a staircase. Garth lost his balance as a result of his mad dash and stumbled awkwardly halfway down the long flight before he managed to grasp to rail and halt his headlong progress. To his astonishment, he felt no bumps or bruises from his numerous impacts with both stairs and railing, nor did he make a sound; the silence was, in fact, rather eerie and horrible, as if he no longer really existed.

As the door slammed, shutting off the dim light from the kitchen, a bright little flame suddenly flashed into being; Garth saw with a curious mixture of fear and fascination that it came directly from the wizard's finger. Shang used it to light a torch that stood ready in a bracket above the landing, then extinguished it with a gesture and picked up the much brighter torch.

Looking around, Garth saw that he was more or less at the midpoint of approximately two dozen steps, hewn of some dull gray stone. On one side of the steps ran a wall of rough blocks of the same stone, while on the other there was a black iron railing to which Garth was clinging. Beyond the railing there extended a sizable wine cellar, with damp stone walls on either side and intricate, ancient stone vaulting overhead, its limits lost in the darkness beyond the torch's glow; in the portion that could be seen stood countless old and bewebbed wine-racks, some full, some empty, some in intermediate states. The light shifted, and Garth turned his gaze upward again to see Shang approaching. Not caring to risk a collision, he backed hastily down the steps, keeping a few paces ahead of the wizard until they both stood at the bottom, where Garth stepped aside and permitted Shang to move unimpeded to the nearest rack of bottles.

As he did, Garth was reprimanding himself for making another unjustified assumption; it was much more natural that Shang would seek a bit of wine to go with his cheese than that he would go prowling unarmed into the catacombs.

As if to confirm that the overman had acted hastily, Shang said loudly, "Ah! Perfect!" He drew forth a cobwebby bottle, dark liquid visible through its murky glass, then turned back toward the stairs. Garth remained where he was, attempting to plan his next move.

Although Shang's visit to the cellar had been in no way connected with the crypts, it was still perfectly possible that an entrance was to be found somewhere amid the wine-racks; since Garth was already down here it would do no harm to check. Therefore he would let the wizard leave, investigate, and then leave himself if he found nothing. It was only when he heard the padlock clicking back into place that he realized he had forgotten about it. He would either have to wait until the wizard was thirsty again or use his axe to hack open the door when it came time to depart. He felt rather foolish.

However, since there was nothing he could do about it, he would make the best of the situation and carry on with his intention of searching the cellar. Fortunately, Shang had not bothered to douse the torch, but had merely stuck it back in its bracket, still lit. Garth wondered if this meant he would be returning shortly. Presumably he would be, in order to restock the wine-cupboards in the kitchen. Therefore it would be advisable to work quickly, so as to have the torch back into its holder when Shang should return. Garth decided he could count on only as much time as it took a man to drink a rather small bottle of wine, which left no time for delay. He hurried up the steps and reached up to take the torch from its place. He closed his fingers around it and tugged. It did not move. Startled, he pulled again; again, the torch remained as motionless as the cellar wall. Garth removed his hand, then replaced it and tried again; still the wood refused to budge. Perhaps it was enchanted? It seemed rather unlikely that the wizard would bother with ensorcelling a torch in a wine cellar. Perhaps his invisible fingers were in the wrong place, and he was trying to move the bracket? But no, he distinctly felt the rough grain of the wood.

Studying his invisible hand, a horrible thought suddenly struck him: where was his sword? He felt where its hilt should be, and found nothing; his left hand still clutched the Jewel of Blindness, but his right hand had been empty since he staggered on the stairway and grabbed at the railing. He must have dropped the weapon, either in the kitchen or on the stairs; he could see no trace of it. Either it was still invisible, or it lay now on the kitchen floor as clear proof of his presence. It occurred to him that it was very well indeed that it had been the sword he had dropped, rather than the gem, which was his only means of restoring himself to visibility. To avoid any risk of losing it as well, he carefully tucked it into a pouch at his belt, a rather tricky proceeding while invisible. With both hands free, he then reached up and grasped the torch again, carefully feeling its shaft where it met the iron bracket. He could detect no latch or other impediment. He applied his full strength, which should have torn the entire bracket from its mountings; the torch did not so much as flicker. Either it was indeed enchanted, or this was some side effect of his intangible state…probably the latter. After all, could intangibles such as fear or courage lift a torch from its resting place? He descended the stairs once more and chose a bottle at random; he could not budge it, any more than he could lift the torch. Likewise, he realized, even if he found the door to the crypts, he would be unable to open it. Well, he decided, such details were best left until actually encountered. He was unsure he would be able to resume his invisibility once he broke it-assuming he could break it-and did not care to abandon his best protection against discovery until the last possible moment.

He wondered again what had become of his sword; wherever it was, it was apparently still invisible, or else Shang would have come back seeking him upon finding it on the kitchen floor. It struck him that he would have heard it fall, ordinarily; the inaudibility the spell conferred apparently affected the user as well as everyone else. In trial, he attempted to shout, and discovered he could not hear himself do so. No wonder the bandits had been so disorganized in their attack; it was a wonder they had been as well grouped as they were. The result of long practice, no doubt. Well, at least he could still feel; the intangibility apparently wasn't that complete.

It was complete enough, though. He couldn't move the torch, so he couldn't very well search the walls with it. He remembered the torch stuck in his belt and, groping, found it; that he could still handle. He drew it forth, climbed the stairs once again, and held it to the flame of the lit one. Nothing happened; no flame appeared. He started to feel for the oiled tip, and burnt his fingers in doing so. It was afire. Naturally, though, the flames were as invisible as the torch, casting invisible light.

Garth found himself wishing he knew the names of some appropriate gods to swear by; profanity seemed the only response in such a situation. Unfortunately, he did not. Like most overmen, he was an atheist, or at least an agnostic, refusing to listen to the babble of competing priesthoods without tangible evidence of the existence of the countless gods and goddesses they espoused. As a result of this widespread attitude, there were no priests of any description to be found in the Northern Waste.

He carefully stamped out the invisible flame with his invisible boot, and caught the odor of invisible smoke. He wondered if Shang would be able to smell his presence. He had no idea how well humans could smell; it would seem that such prominent noses should be fairly sensitive but, recalling the foulness of Skelleth, he decided that the appearance must be deceiving.

It seemed that the only thing to do was to search the walls as best he could in the dim light, working mostly by touch despite his inability to lift so much as a fallen leaf. He could still sense textures, though a silk drapery would give no more than a stone wall under his intangible fingers.

To his surprise, he found that in a way the darkness was comforting; he didn't expect to see his hands or feet in the dark, so their absence was much less distracting than in the light. He found his way without difficulty to the slightly damp and noticeably cool stone wall, and began cautiously feeling his way along, dodging around wine-racks when necessary, and likewise around cobwebs, which were as unbreakable as steel mesh to him now. Enough light trickled through the frames to keep him from actually colliding with anything. The miscellaneous projections he encountered were visible as patches of more complete darkness. No sort of detail could be made out, however; his explorations were of necessity tactile rather than visual.

He gradually became absorbed in his task, noticing and mentally cataloging an intriguing variety of textures in the stone and losing all sense of time. It was only when he reached a corner and decided to take a brief rest that he noticed he was now in complete darkness, even the glow of the torch lost amid the intervening wine-racks. He had systematically explored-at least a hundred feet of wall, inch by inch; it must have taken hours, he realized in astonishment, yet Shang had not returned. He had no idea of the time, but guessed that the sun must have risen.

He rose from his comfortable crouch and strode back toward the far end of the cellar where the stairs were. As he did, he saw that the torchlight was dimmer than before. Breaking into a trot, he arrived at the foot of the stairs and saw that the torch had burnt down to a stub, too short to be held. In a moment it would go out. Further, there was nothing he could do to prevent it. He wondered whether some ill had befallen Shang, or whether he had merely forgotten about fetching more wine. It made little difference. As Garth watched, the flame flickered and died to a dull red glow that slowly faded.

A slight uneasiness touched him briefly, but he shook it off. If something had happened to the wizard, he would have to break the invisibility spell in order to leave the cellar: if he could not break the spell he would be trapped indefinitely. Of course he would not die of thirst, but he thought it doubtful that an overman could live for very long on nothing but wine. It did not occur to him that he would be unable to get at the wine in his intangible state. Also, his mount still waited for him in the city outside; it would be hungry if no one fed it within the next day or so. Well, the warbeast could take care of itself; he had his own worries. He turned his attention back to the cellar walls.

It was a long time later when he finally came across what was undoubtedly a door. The stone ended, there was a wooden frame, and set in a few inches was a wooden panel studded with iron spikes such as were used to discourage trespassers from attempting to break doors in with their shoulders. It was the first trace of anything other than solid stone he had found anywhere in the walls. Investigating further, he felt what were undoubtedly hinges. Although he knew it was useless, he pushed against the opposite edge. It refused to yield. It would seem, he decided, that now was the appropriate time to try and turn himself visible once more. He reached into his belt-pouch and found the gem. Carefully, he tried to pull it out.

It caught; one of it edges had snagged in the pouch's lining.

Annoyed, he tugged at it. At first it held, then suddenly it sprang free and flew out of his grasp. Panicstricken, Garth fell on his knees and groped for it, but found only dust. Without thinking, he yanked out his flint and steel and tinder and struck a spark, forgetting that the flame and light would be invisible.

The tinder caught and flared a bright yellow in Garth's perfectly normal, visible hands. He snorted with relief as he realized that he had somehow broken the enchantment while fumbling with the gem.

Quickly, before the flickering tinder could die, he pulled out his torch and held it to the flame; the oils, sooty and no longer fresh, took several seconds to catch, but flared up at last in smoky red light.

Pocketing flint and steel with one hand while the other held the torch, Garth saw that he had used the last of his tinder; he could not afford to lose the torch, his only source of light. A glance around showed him that there were other torches, long unused and covered with dust and cobwebs, mounted high along the cellar walls. He lit the nearest one, so as to have a second flame if he lost his first, then systematically collected himself an armload of unlit brands from the other brackets and distributed them about his person. This done, he turned his attention to the door he had found.

It was a massive thing, with three heavy black hinges supporting what appeared to be braced and layered oak, fit to withstand a siege and studded with a myriad of inch-long spikes. It was held shut by a heavy latch, secured with a massive bolt lock-to which Shang undoubtedly held the key.

Reminded of the wizard and his works, he glanced around for the Jewel of Bilndness, but didn't see it. He shrugged. It had served his purpose, and he didn't care to spend the time to search for it; he wanted to get the basilisk above ground before Koros became hungry enough to go hunting. He turned his attention to the latch and lock, holding the torch as close as he could without igniting anything.

The latch was of little consequence; it could be worked from either side, apparently. The lock was the only difficulty. Nor did he have to worry about bars or locks on the other side, as Shang would be as unable pass them as he-probably. He was unsure as to whether such things could be manipulated magically. There was the possibility of a protective spell of some sort, but he would deal with that if it became necessary and not before.

The door fit its frame reasonably well, but close scrutiny revealed a narrow crack an inch or two above the lockbolt; through it Garth could see light glinting on the shiny metal of the bolt itself, proof that it had been recently worked and the rust scraped off. Putting aside the torch, he drew his dirk and found that the narrow blade fit into the opening. He forced it down until he felt it scrape on the bolt, then pried sideways, moving the bolt a fraction of an inch. He repeated this several times. Then, while holding the dagger-tip where it was, he peered into the crack. He could not be certain, but the bolt appeared to have moved perceptibly and not slid back completely. He continued; with a dozen more prying motions something snapped, and his dagger sprang free. He saw, to his disgust, that the point had broken off; however, a careful study of the crack seemed to show that the broken tip had worked its way between the lock and the frame. With the blunted end of the blade he pried once more.

There was a loud click, a sort of "thunk", and the lock was open.

Working the latch, Garth pushed on the door. It gave, slowly, with a harsh scratching sound where the tip of his dagger was wedged between the lock and the frame. He pressed harder, and it swung abruptly open, precipitating him forward into the darkness beyond.

He tumbled awkwardly down a few steps, then caught himself. He was on a narrow stair which descended further than he could see by the dim torchlight, with walls of solid stone on either side. The walls, in fact, appeared to be natural uncut stone; he could see no seams or mortar. The tunnel and stair were hewn from the living bedrock of the valley.

A breath of cool air wafted up to him from the invisible depths below. He had found the crypts of Mormoreth, he was quite certain.

Caution was called for from here on; at any moment he might encounter the basilisk. His only means of ensuring that he would not be petrified in such an encounter was the shaving mirrors he had brought, taken from the dead bandits. He found one of the two mirrors in his pack and stood it on his shoulder, holding it in place with his free hand. Then he turned his head and angled the mirror so that he could see the reflection of the descending steps in it, and twisted his helmet around on his head so that its earpiece blocked his view. As long as he looked toward the mirror be would be unable to see in front of him, except by reflection. It was an awkward and uncomfortable arrangement, but he thought it would probably do.

Thus equipped, he returned to the head of the staircase, retrieved his torch, and pushed the door to, being careful not to let it lock. He returned his broken dirk to its sheath, then turned and descended, holding the torch high and finding his way entirely by the image in the mirror.