Dus - Lure Of The Basilisk Part 6

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, pa.s.sed 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 h.e.l.lish light, that the wine-cellar was evenly covered to a depth of almost a foot with fine gray ash and lumps of melted gla.s.s. 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 sc.r.a.p. 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 hisupraised 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 h.e.l.l, 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 cras.h.i.+ng.

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 a.s.sault of claws and teeth and fur; his screams were swallowed in the hungry growls of thewarbeast 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 diminis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sumed 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 rea.s.suring; 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 rea.s.sured, 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, thewarbeast 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 gla.s.s 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.

CHAPTER NINE.

Pausing at the cellar doorway, Garth reached in his pack for his mirror. He didn't find it; instead he cut a thumb on a razor-sharp shard of gla.s.s. The mirror had been shattered by one of the falls he had taken that morning.

Turning back to the kitchen, he once again observed the array of mirrors Shang had set up; they were, as yet, an unexplained mystery. Perhaps they had been somehow intended as a defense against the basilisk. That seemed unreasonable to Garth; surely, if he could tolerate the reflection of themonster's gaze, such a reflection couldn't bother the basilisk itself. Still, Shang must have had something in mind.

Therefore, Garth collected the mirrors and stacked them face down in a corner, taking the smallest to replace his own shattered gla.s.s. This done, he made his way cautiously down the cellar stairs, keeping his eyes fixed on the mirror. He wished that the iron railing were still there; he was decidedly unsteady on his scorched bare feet.

The vast chamber was still unbearably hot, but the red glow had died.

Garth found himself in gloom alleviated only by the dim gray light that trickled in through the broken doorway. He had to grope to find the talisman.

His hand fell upon it at last, and he picked it up, moving back up a step or two, further from the hot ashes that still covered the bottom treads.

The basilisk hissed in annoyance; it was still alive and still confined.

Garth breathed a sigh of relief. He considered leaving the creature where it was while he devised a cover for its magical enclosure, but decided that it would be better to remove it from the heat. He had not seen it, and its hissing sounded as healthy as ever, but he doubted it could be happy where it was.

Thus decided, he began hauling the resisting talisman up the steps, struggling to keep his footing. His progress was slow, and he found it necessary to drop his mirror so that his hands were free to use in steadying himself. He closed his eyes and inched upward, dropping to his hands and knees as his tortured soles protested.

The basilisk hissed again, more loudly; in fact, it kept up a steady racket for several minutes, until he was clambering out into the kitchen once more, when it abruptly ceased. He feared that the creature had succ.u.mbed, but dared not look back to see. Instead he proceeded on through the open door to the next room, and was immensely relieved when the resistance on the wooden rod suddenly vanished, indicating that the basilisk was again moving under its own power. Once he had that confirmation of its survival, he put down the talisman and shut the door, so that he would not accidentally meet the monster's gaze.

Now he needed something to cover the invisible cage with, or at the very least to rig an opaque barrier of some sort to keep between the warbeast and the basilisk. A large piece of fabric, or several such pieces sewn together, would be perfect. He looked at the tapestries that hung on every wall, but rejected them; they were heavy, and would add too much weight to Koros'

burden. A better supply of fabric was available.

He found his way to the entry hall again, and out into the square. The sun had set, and the long shadows were blending into the gathering twilight.

Koros was waiting, obediently. It growled slightly upon seeing its master emerge. Garth heard the sound and recognized it as a growl of hunger rather than greeting; already it had digested much of its most recent victim, and had yet to make up fully for its prolonged fast. It was, Garth decided, warning him.

He approached it, patted its muzzle, and stroked its triangular, catlike ears. It made no sound, but merely flattened its ears back against its broad skull. It was not in a mood properly to appreciate such gestures. Garth removed his hand and told it, "Hunt."

Immediately it p.r.i.c.ked up its ears again, turned, and trotted away down the avenue that led to the city gate. It would be a long time before it returned, Garth was certain; there was no game to be found in Mormoreth Valley. It would have to find its way to the mountains, track and kill sufficient wildlife to satisfy its vast appet.i.te, then return. Such an enterprise would give him more than enough time to sew a covering from the canopies and curtains of the market's abandoned merchants' stalls.

It was, he discovered, very pleasant to sit and rest, to get off his mistreated feet. He reposed briefly on the palace steps, watching the crimson sunset fade from the western sky, as he considered what he needed. He was unsure of the exact dimensions of the enclosure, most particularly of itsheight; it seemed to extend for perhaps twenty feet, and could be a.s.sumed to be a hemisphere. Its center was at least ten feet high, as he recalled from the occasion in the Annamar Pa.s.s when he had been the one enclosed. He would a.s.sume that such was its size. If it were less, the extra fabric could drag, or be trimmed away; if it were more, additional cloth could be sewn on. It would take several of the canopies, most of which were less than ten feet across.

He would need needle and thread, of course, but those could doubtless be found in the chambers formerly occupied by the palace women.

The journey back to Skelleth would need provisions, as well; the thought reminded him that he was ravenously hungry. It had been so long since he last ate that he had grown used to the aching in his belly and come to ignore it-particularly since he had been kept busy by other concerns.

One of which had led him to leave the basilisk in the kitchen. A nuisance, that. Still, upon consideration, he decided that food was his first priority. There was no longer any need for haste.

It proved, upon mirrored investigation, that the basilisk was asleep in a corner. Garth did not disturb it by moving the barrier, but crept in as quietly as he could and ransacked those cabinets not cut off by the invisible enclosure. The selection was somewhat limited, since the wall made perhaps a fourth of the cupboards inaccessible, but the overman found several shelves of wine, a large quant.i.ty of salted beef sewn in linen to prevent insects from contaminating it, several baskets of reasonably fresh fruit, and other viands sufficient to provide him with a feast such as he had rarely enjoyed. He lost track of time shortly after he had moved his booty into the next room, shut the kitchen door, and lit several candles. He was aware at one point that he had drunk more wine than was wise, and at another that he was extraordinarily sleepy, but most of the evening was simply a blur. He awoke the next day wrapped comfortably in a thick woolen tapestry depicting several nude women dancing about a fountain, with a pain in his belly, a dry throat, and vague memories of unpleasant dreams full of evil, reptilian eyes. The sun was pouring through the courtyard windows, and a glance at the angle told him that it was almost noon. The candles he had lit had all burned down to puddles of congealed wax.

He started to rise, then abruptly changed his mind; the burns on his feet had developed into an oozing, peeling ma.s.s of blisters.

Ruefully considering this, it struck him how little life resembled the tales told of past heroes. In the stories, when a quest had attained its goal and those opposing the hero had been slain, the story was at an end. There was never any mention made of difficulties in getting the object of the quest back home.

Wincing, he managed to struggle to his feet. A nearby table held the remains of the preceding night's banquet, and he sc.r.a.ped together a satisfactory breakfast from the leftovers. After he had eaten, the ache in his belly was less, though still there-undoubtedly the result of gorging himself after a fast, stretching the stomach unmercifully. Half a bottle of some unfamiliar golden wine removed the dryness from his throat. He began to feel somewhat better, despite the mess his feet were in. His head seemed remarkably clear now that he was no longer suffering from exhaustion and the peripheral vapors of the basilisk. He rather dreaded the necessity of opening the kitchen door eventually; the atmosphere in there must be quite unhealthy by now.

Fortunately; it could still be put off. He had not yet made a cover for the invisible cage, and that would take a good bit of time. Reluctantly he rose from his breakfast and, tottering on his blisters, set out in search of a needle and thread strong enough for his purpose.

After an hour's search he located a needle and supply of heavy thread in a back storeroom, apparently intended for the repair of saddles; it seemed perfect. He limped back across the courtyard and out into the market, blinking in the noon sun, and began collecting fallen canopies.

Koros returned from its hunt when the shadows were of a length equalwith their sources, the hour of midafternoon. Garth had sewn together a dozen large pieces of fabric into a gaily patterned circle a little over thirty feet across, and was debating with himself as to whether it would be sufficient.

Koros' return. decided him; he would risk it, and maybe get a start on his journey to Skelleth.

He wondered what the warbeast had found to eat. It seemed well fed, though there was little or none of the usual blood on its mouth. It didn't matter, of course, as long as the animal was satisfied.

It would be necessary to get Koros out of sight of the market temporarily while the cover was put on the cage. Garth had already decided that it would be impractical to try and cover the enclosure while it was still in the palace, where it would become entangled at every doorway. The barrier seemed to accommodate its width to doorways, but the cover, being ordinary cloth, would not be so cooperative.

He led the warbeast to a convenient alley and instructed it to wait.

Then it was a matter of mere minutes to fetch the basilisk out and drape the covering over the enclosure. It fit admirably; the cage proved to be about twenty feet in diameter and ten feet high, as he had guessed, so that the skirts of the cover were easily made to touch ground on all sides but did not drag more than a few inches. They did tend to flap somewhat in the breeze, so Garth took the time to lash the chains he had carried in his pack throughout the entire adventure in place at the bottom edges, gratified to be getting some use from them after having gone to the trouble of dragging them about for so long. The added weight acted to keep the cover exactly in place. Standing back a few paces, Garth admired his handiwork; the basilisk could not be seen, and Koros was safe-and so was he. He could look around without worrying about mirrors and such. All there was to be seen was a large hemispherical tent. The basilisk apparently didn't much like its new habitat; it was hissing angrily in protest. He ignored its complaints. He had only agreed to bring it back alive, not to bring it back happy and contented.

It was a matter of minutes to summon Koros, tuck the wooden talisman securely into the warbeast's harness, and mount, removing at long last the weight on his feet. He had become so used to walking on them that the lessening of that pain resulted in a burst of euphoria, as if he were pleasantly drunk. He felt like singing; unfortunately, he knew no songs, and doubted he could carry a tune if he did. Overmen were notoriously unmusical.

Instead he chanted, reciting an elaborately bloodthirsty historical saga that he had learned as a child. As Koros strode through the streets of Mormoreth toward the ruined city gate, Garth lost himself in chanting the tale of one of his own ancestors who had single-handedly held a city in the long-ago Racial Wars between men and overmen, the wars that had driven the outnumbered overmen into the Northern Waste.

He had done it, he told himself between stanzas; he had captured the basilisk, and was now riding comfortably with his quarry dragging behind him, its tentlike covering apparently moving of its own power as it followed Koros without any visible attachment. He was safe from the wizard Shang; though he had not truly defeated him, nonetheless the wizard was dead and no longer a threat. He was well fed, his wounds were minor and healing. Life seemed very pleasant.

This happy mood could not last; it was ruined when he reached the city gates and realized that the basilisk's carefully prepared enclosure would not fit through them. Garth broke off his chant in annoyance. It proved necessary to lead Koros well away along the curvature of the city walls, then to drag the cloth covering off and out the gate, then to move the enclosure out and rea.s.semble the whole affair. After the brief respite, the pain in his feet was worse than ever; he limped badly as he struggled with the recalcitrant basilisk and its uncooperative cage. When he was again mounted and moving, he turned sidesaddle and did what he could to clean and bandage the ruined soles, which were now oozing blood and pus in equal and copious amounts. The sun was well down the western sky, and the shadows did nothing to aid him. In all,when he at last turned his face forward once more, he had little inclination to resume his chant. Instead he began to wonder blackly what the Forgotten King could want with a basilisk.