Lawrence Watt-Evans: The Lure of the Basilisk

Since there were no further doors between him and the outside that could stand up to more than a few quick blows of his axe, he decided there was no reason to keep his two-man escort any longer. With a motion he indicated that they could go. The first promptly ran for the stairs; Saram started to depart at a more leisurely pace.

"Wait!" Garth called, remembering something. Saram stopped, but did not look back. Although, from where he was, the monster was around a corner and therefore invisible, he was not taking chances.

"Where is the cover for the enclosure?" Garth demanded.

Saram shrugged. "Don't know."

"Find it. You were there when the basilisk was delivered. You must have seen what became of it."

"It was dragged off toward the other stairs."

"Find it and bring it here."

Obviously none too pleased, Saram shrugged again, then nodded. He strolled off for the stairs again. Garth choked back an order to hurry; such a command would do no good when the man was out, of sight. Besides, he was already beginning to regret opening his mouth at all. Though the vapors in the wardroom were not concentrated enough really to bother him, they seemed to have put a foul taste on his tongue that he would have greatly preferred to do without. He wondered whether the monster's trail would do any harm to his bare feet; it seemed unlikely, since it had only passed along this route once. In any case, he felt nothing but the ordinary cool stone against his soles.

Having sent Saram off, Garth now had to wait where he was, for fear of petrifying the guard on his return, should he move any further; this meant he had nothing to do but contemplate his surroundings and avoid looking behind himself.

There being little else in the room worthy of study, he found himself inspecting the remains of the unfortunate youth used to test the basilisk's legendary power. He was interested to notice the expression, which meant little to him, but was plainly not the look of abject terror he would have expected. He had seen human panic on Arner's face when that youth, somewhat older and a good bit healthier than the current specimen, awaited his execution, and the aspect of the alleged thief bore no resemblance to that distorted countenance. Instead, Garth decided, there was something resolved about it; the mouth was shut, even compressed, so that those hideous oversize human lips scarcely showed; the jaw was set and the eyes open, but not unnaturally wide. The overman found himself wondering what peculiar combination of emotions could produce such a look on the face of one facing certain death. No, not certain death; he had been told that he might die, or that he might go free. It suddenly struck Garth that the young thief had been inordinately brave to take such a risk. Theft was not a capital crime in Skelleth, he was sure. He did not know what the customary penalty was, but to gamble one's life, one's very existence, on an unknown chance for freedom, with no chance to defend oneself…

He shuddered slightly. It was not a thing he would care to do in such a situation. Though he thought highly of himself, Garth admitted that he probably would not have such courage. Perhaps the humans placed a higher value on freedom than overmen did, or a lower value on survival. The latter was certainly possible from what little he had seen of human society. Perhaps their beliefs in supernatural powers, gods and the like, had something to do with it; he had heard that most believed in some sort of existence after death, where the essence, the personality of the individual-they had a special word for it, the soul-lived on, in some other world. The idea seemed very nebulous and unlikely to Garth, but such a concept would undoubtedly account for the disregard for life some humans seemed to display-such as the dead thief he was studying.

But then, the boy had been very thin. Garth imagined he could make out the bones in his arms and legs, and ribs made visible ridges in his ragged tunic. Perhaps he had gone mad from hunger, like an unfed warbeast, and taken the first opportunity to leave his cell, despite the possible consequences. That did not explain what Garth was now fairly certain was the determined expression on the stone face, though; a starving warbeast appeared to be angry, enraged rather than determined.

Overmen, he knew, did not go mad from hunger-he had seen too many of his people starve to death in bad winters to doubt that-but perhaps humans did. He was musing on the Baron's apparent insanity, wondering if it were diet-related, when Saram called from the foot of the stairs. The villagers seemed to take their lord's insanity for granted. Such afflictions were plainly far more common among humans than among overmen.

It did not occur to Garth that his own behavior, leaving his home and family for an idiot quest after fame, might well be considered mad by his fellow overmen.

Turning his attention from such theoretical musings back to immediate concerns, he saw that Saram stood well down the corridor, facing the opposite direction and clutching a huge bundle of dirty cloth.

"Bring it here!" Garth called.

"Get it yourself," Saram retorted, dropping his burden to the floor with a rattle of chains.

Garth glanced down at the wooden rod at his belt, then pulled it out and placed it carefully on the floor; he didn't care to haul the basilisk out into the passageway yet. Leaving the rod there, he strode down the corridor to where Saram stood, one foot on the bundle.

"It was in the armory," the guardsman said as Garth drew near. The overman suddenly realized that the man held a sword, not his ruined shortsword but a long, thin rapier that glinted where it caught the torchlight. Sometime during his wait, Garth had sheathed his own blade, and his hand now fell instinctively to its hilt.

"Oh?" Garth tried to sound noncommittal as he stopped a few paces from Saram's back. He had no idea what the soldier had in mind. Surely he could not plan to tackle an overman single-handed!

"It's a long trip to the armory."

Suddenly remembering Sarams earlier actions, Garth thought he understood part of the man's behavior, though the sword remained a mystery. He said "Oh" again, and pulled out a gold coin. An open palm appeared to accept it, apparently in response to the clink of metal when Garth reached into his purse. The overman put the coin on the palm, and both promptly disappeared. So did the sword, which was sheathed in the same flurry of motion.

"Anything else I can get you?" Saram still kept his back to the overman.

"No."

Saram shrugged, and strolled back up the stairs, leaving the cover where it lay on the floor. Garth watched him go, more than a little confused by the man's behavior. Had the sword been entirely to keep him from snatching up the cover without paying? It began to appear that all the humans he met were insane; the Forgotten King demanding delivery of a basilisk while swearing not to use it in the only way Garth could imagine, the Baron collapsing into a near catatonic depression as he watched, the boy-thief risking his life for freedom, Saram's irrational behavior…it was all more than Garth could understand.

Finally, shrugging, he turned and walked back to the wardroom, being careful not to look toward the basilisk. He untangled the cover as best he could in the limited space, then lifted it up to shield his eyes as he proceeded back into the dungeon. There was no room to drape it properly around the enclosure, so he made do with hanging it across the leading edge. There was barely room above the barrier to squeeze through enough chain and cloth to keep the battered shroud in place. Once that was done, it was a matter of a few minutes to drag the whole mess to the stairs and to start up them. There was some difficulty in getting the leading edge of the cover up the steps, and Garth found it necessary to feel his way back down, eyes closed, to untangle things three times.