The Lure of the Basilisk

CHAPTER EIGHT

Although Garth had no way of keeping track of time, he was sure that at least a day, and possibly as much as three days, passed before the heat subsided sufficiently for him to risk venturing back up to the head of the stairs. His food and water were exhausted, though he had been as sparing of his meager supplies as he could tolerate in his enfeebled and overheated condition. The basilisk, as an occasional glance in the mirror revealed, showed no signs of hunger or fatigue.

He had slept only twice during this period, as his slumbers were haunted by confused dreams in which he saw again the basilisk's unspeakable gaze. On both occasions he awoke trembling, unsure of anything except that he feared those baleful eyes as he had never before feared anything.

The orange glow had died down to invisibility within the first few hours, but when Garth had mounted part way up the stairs he was stopped by the unbearable heat that remained. He retreated, but ventured up again every so often, each time going a few steps further, as the wine-cellar cooled. Finally, on one such attempt he came in sight of the door-or at least where the door should be. The dull red light of the embers beyond showed him that the oaken door had burned, its iron hinges hanging limp, partially melted, from their bolts; the bolts themselves sagged. The wooden doorframe was gone, as if it had never been. The hinge-bolts protruded from bare, blackened stone.

A few attempts later, Garth was able to approach closely enough to see the black lumps of metal that dotted the uppermost steps where the spikes had fallen from the burning door. The spikes had melted into hard little puddles, still hot to the touch and halfburied in fine gray ash. The red glow beyond had waned considerably.

Despite the presence of that glow, Garth decided to risk a dash across the cellar. If Shang had seen him retreat to the crypts, which seemed unlikely, he would not expect an escape attempt so soon. Furthermore, thirst was becoming a real problem.

Looking through the burnt-out doorway, Garth saw, in the hellish light, that the wine-cellar was evenly covered to a depth of almost a foot with fine gray ash and lumps of melted glass. Looking toward the stairs to the kitchen, he saw that the iron rail had melted away and been lost in the ash below. The red glow itself came from beneath the ash, in rows that marked where wine-racks had once stood. It gave the cellar floor the appearance of an immense grill, and lit the stone walls and arched stone ceiling eerily. By staying between the glowing areas, Garth hoped to avoid serious burns. However, he realized that his boots, scorched and shredded by basilisk venom, would give little protection. He removed his scarlet cloak and tore it in half, then used each piece to wrap one of his feet. He rather regretted the necessity of such an action; the cloak had been a gift from one of his wives, and had proven useful in the past.

He considered the basilisk, and decided he had no means of protecting it; he would just have to hope that it could survive the brief roasting. He would be glowed down by its weight, at least until he had gone far enough to farce it out into the ash. From that point on it should move quickly enough. The monster had already demonstrated that, though stubborn, it was far from stupid.

When his feet were as well protected as he could manage, he nerved himself, took a deep breath, and set out.

The ash was finer than he had thought; his every step stirred up a gray cloud. The air was too hot to breathe. His feet were baking, his entire body was baking in his armor; his eyes were dry, the hot air distorted everything, and flakes of ash were blinding him. The basilisk was a two-hundred-pound drag; he could barely move it. A misstep, and his foot touched a live coal. The cloth covering flared up briefly, then died again as ash smothered the flame, though it still felt as if it were on fire.

Finally, when he knew that he could not go much further, he was at the stairs. He clambered up the first three, out of the carpet of hot ash, and leaned against the wall. It, too, was hot; he removed his hand quickly. His burnt foot was agonizing. The first thing he saw when his eyes were clear of cinders was smoke rising from the blackened cloth. A closer investigation showed that the bottom of the wrapping was still on fire, a smoldering line of sparks in an irregular and expanding circle revealing the scorched layer beneath. As quickly as he could manage, Garth untied the binding cords and stripped away the smoking rags; underneath, his boot was also black and smoldering, the sole gone completely. He tore it off, then turned to the other foot. It was better, but not much; that boot, too, had to go, tossed into the hot ash below.

His bare feet were uncomfortable on the hot stone of the steps; he moved further up the staircase. As he did, he heard a violent hissing from the far side of the cellar. Remembering at the last minute not to look, he backed down again. Apparently the basilisk had not yet been forced out of the tunnel.

For the first time since he had trapped the monster, he drew out the wooden rod that controlled the invisible barrier and placed it on the third step from the bottom, sweeping away the thin layer of ash. That freed him to move, about, while the basilisk remained confined. When he had scouted out the kitchen, he would return and retrieve the talisman.

Limping, favoring his badly scorched left foot, he climbed the stairs. The door at the top was closed.

It had not burned, however; it was lined with steel, and the heat had apparently been insufficient to melt it this far from the main blaze. It was still too hot to touch. Further, the padlock on the other side was apparently in place.

With a growl of annoyance, Garth unslung his axe; there was little room to swing on the railless steps, but he had no alternative.

It took several swings to break through the steel and the wood beyond, but in the end it was done, though the axe's edge was dulled. Once he had a small opening, it was a matter of a few seconds to shatter the rest of the door to kindling and scrap. Unfortunately, as Garth well knew, the noise would undoubtedly bring Shang.

As the last chunk of door flew from the twisted hinges, Garth observed several things simultaneously: The kitchen was flooded with morning sunlight, a bright, cheerful room much as he remembered it; his sword lay on a nearby table; several mirrors had been set up, so that anything emerging from the wine-cellar was confronted with its own image repeated perhaps a dozen times; Shang stood in an open doorway; and the wizard held a cloudy amber disk in his upraised right hand.

Acting instinctively, Garth flung his axe and dove for his sword. His wounded foot betrayed him, and he fell awkwardly to the floor, halfway beneath the table he had meant to reach, while his axe missed the wizard by several inches. Shang ducked as the axe flew by, a matter of reflex; he had been in no danger. As the weapon fell rattling to the floor, the wizard laughed.

"A poor throw, overman." He raised the disk again.

Although Garth had no idea what the thing was, it was plainly a weapon of some sort; in desperation, he drew and flung his broken dagger, momentarily forgetting its blunted tip. Luck was with him; despite its altered balance, the knife flew truly and struck the disk broadside. Had the disk been solid there would have been no result, but it was thin crystal and shattered spectacularly as the flat of the blade hit. Shang screamed as a yellow cloud of something between liquid and vapor settled seething over his hand. Garth caught the now-familiar odor of the basilisk.

Since Shang was plainly incapacitated for the moment, Garth clambered to his feet, leaning heavily on the table, and snatched up his sword; armed, he faced the wizard again.

Garth had hoped that the poison would kill the wizard, but it had not; instead, Shang clutched a blackened stump where his right hand and forearm had been. He glared at Garth, his eyes glittering. Garth guessed that glitter to be pain and hatred made manifest.

"Overman," Shang said, his voice hoarse with agony, "I had meant your death to be quick and painless, a simple transformation; but now you will die slowly."

Garth saw no point in answering a dead man; he knew that, if he were to live, Shang had to die. He made no reply, but approached the crippled and unarmed wizard with raised sword.

He never reached him. Shang made a curious gesture with his remaining hand, and the overman froze in midstride; his muscles would not respond. Despite his mental struggle, his sword began to descend, his limbs to sag; he drooped forward, then fell numbly to the flagstone floor. There was no sensation at all, no pain, no shock as he hit the stone, only the crash of his armor and the rattle of his dropped sword.

"The Cold Death is slow, overman, but it is not excessively painful. I trust that, should we chance to meet in hell, you will not hold my actions against me. Do not bother to struggle; nothing can break the spell while I live and will it. You will only hasten the end by tiring yourself."

Garth heard these words faintly, as if from a great distance. He was losing touch with the outside world, and even with his own body. The pain in his foot was gone; he could no longer feel the heat of his armor; his vision was dimming.

His sense of time faded with the rest, and he had no idea how long he lay motionless on the kitchen floor, staring at the leg of a table; he knew only that his flesh was growing colder, that he was dying. It did not hurt; Shang had been right about that. Garth would have preferred pain, however, to the gradual cessation of feeling that he was experiencing. He had a profound sense of his impotence in the face of this sorcerous death at first, but then this, too, began to fade. His physical sensations were utterly gone, leaving him adrift in total void, where his memories and emotions were also beginning to fade.

Something happened; the spell was disturbed. His sight flickered briefly back into existence, and with it the strength to turn his head. He did, and saw Shang turning away. Hearing returned, and he could make out Shang's worried muttering and a distant crashing.

Something was happening, something that had seriously distracted the enchanter.

Then something huge and black flashed through the open door behind Shang, and abruptly the wizard was gone, lost in a ferocious assault of claws and teeth and fur; his screams were swallowed in the hungry growls of the warbeast that had attacked him. Before Garth's dulled eyes, the huge wizard was torn into pieces and devoured.

Although Garth was too far gone in the depths of the Cold Death to feel any surprise, his first conscious thought was that he might have anticipated such a thing. It had clearly been days since Koros was fed.

Shang had left one loose end too many; typically care less human behavior.

Then his thoughts were interrupted by the first twinge as sensation began to return, and for several long minutes he was unaware of anything except pain. The return to life was hideously painful, infinitely more so than the slow approach to death had been. His entire body burned with a sensation akin to the stinging felt when a frostbitten member is thawed too quickly, save that it was everywhere in his flesh, and a thousand times more intense. He imagined that even his bones were aching, and whenever he thought the agony was diminishing it would suddenly return, worse than ever.

It was extremely fortunate that Shang had been so large and so plump; a smaller, more typical human would have been insufficient to satisfy the warbeast's hunger, and Garth was hardly in any condition to resist should his mount decide to devour the overman in addition to its first victim.

When at last the after-effects of the Cold Death had subsided to occasional fits of trembling and a generalized weakness and nausea, Garth opened his eyes to see Koros standing calmly a few feet away, contentedly licking the marrow from a broken thighbone. The light seemed dim. He struggled to his feet and rubbed his eyes; the light was dim. The kitchen was lit from the east, and the sun was now well past its zenith, so that the chamber was gray and shadowed. That alone told Garth how long he had lain fighting off Shang's final spell. Judging by the altered light and a glance at the shadows visible through the window, Garth decided that the experience had taken the better part of a day, at least six or seven hours.

Which, he realized, meant that the basilisk had been unattended in the burnt-out, stifling-hot cellar for half a day. He started for the shattered cellar door, then stopped, uncertain; how was he to keep Koros from petrifaction?

He looked at the immense beast, and his uncertainty grew. He was not even sure he dared to approach the animal. However, it was plain that he would have to. Cautiously, he retrieved his sword from where it lay and neared the creature. It turned from its morsel and studied him. He could read nothing in its eyes; its catlike gaze, though it held none of the hypnotic horror of the basilisk's, was equally inscrutable, less interpretable even than human emotions, though Garth assumed the warbeast to be a simple and straightforward creature in its behavior when compared with the twisted motivations of men and women.

It did not growl, which encouraged him. Not wanting to antagonize it, he sheathed his sword; the weapon would have been little use against so powerful an adversary in any case, and it was surely intelligent enough to know a weapon when it saw one.

Something in its manner changed, becoming more familiar and reassuring; it seemed less tense.

He said, "Koros…beast…" then stopped; it understood only commands, and he did not know what command to give. Finally, he arrived at the obvious. "Come here, beast."

Obediently, the monster stretched itself, a leg at a time, and trotted the pace or two necessary to bring its black-furred muzzle a few inches from Garth's face. It blinked and made a low noise in its throat that the overman knew to be an expression of satisfaction or pleasure.

Greatly reassured, Garth patted the huge head and told it, "We go." He pointed to the door through which it had entered, and Koros promptly turned and led the way. Which was, Garth told himself, just as well, since he had no idea of the best route out of the palace.

Looking monstrous and out of place, like a kitten in a doll-house, the warbeast led its master back through a series of dim rooms, tapestried and ornate chambers, until they emerged blinking into the light of the setting sun, which shone pinkly on the white marble walls and the empty marketplace. Descending the three steps to street level, Garth looked about. There were no signs of life. Silence reigned; not so much as a gust of wind could be heard. Regret brought a sigh to Garth's lips; he had hoped that Shang's death would revive the people of Mormoreth, but it had plainly failed to do so. Perhaps, since it was the basilisk's venom that had powered his magic, the spell could be broken by the slaying of the basilisk, but quite aside from the fact that he had agreed to bring it back alive, he had no idea how to go about killing the monster, nor even if it was possible at all. But then again, perhaps some magicks were permanent, deriving from external energies rather than their wielders' personal force.

It suddenly occurred to him that the wooden rod had better have a source of power other than its creator, or else he had not captured the basilisk but merely brought it up and freed it.

Turning, he ordered Koros, "Wait." He remounted the palace steps and retraced his path to the kitchen. He noticed in the entry hall, as he had not before, the ruined remains of the great golden door that Koros had battered apart in its pursuit of fresh meat; the gems had been scattered about the floor, the beaten gold torn from its frame in broad, twisted segments, the solid oaken frame clawed to splinters, as if an entire army had set out to destroy it rather than a single underfed animal. Garth imagined the fury of the warbeast's attack, and shuddered. How, he wondered, could so much raw strength belong to a single animal? And why did such an animal submit to the control of an overman it could kill with a single blow?

Such questions were worrisome and irrelevant; he forgot them, and limped back to the cellar entrance.

It was curious. The warbeast had not harmed anything in the intervening rooms; not a single chair or table was upset, not a single tapestry or ornament damaged. Yet there was the door, and in the kitchen there was Shang. Or rather, there were a few tattered scraps of his gold-embroidered robe, and a few broken bones, as well as smears and spatters of dried blood. Little more remained. A few slivers of glass and a venom-coated broken dagger marked the spot where the wizard had stood when Garth shattered his crystal device, and an upset table was evidence that Koros had not brought him down instantly, but had had a brief struggle. It was a poor end for a man who had thought himself powerful. There was not even enough for any sort of ritual interment; even Shang's skull had been shattered. The largest fragment remaining was half a jawbone.

It was, Garth supposed, rather ghastly; he had heard the term, and it seemed to apply. The scene had very little emotional impact on him, however, in its physical detail. He had been confronted with gorier events in the past, involving his own kind. Rather, it was the symbolic significance which affected him. Shang had been a man seeking power and glory who had achieved a measure of both, apparently; yet he was now just as dead as any creature that died, and just as powerless. Garth had little doubt that Shang would be forgotten in a few years.

That was the fate he had made his bargain to avoid.