“Hand me the bone,” said Mister Fitz, who seemed calm enough, though this was little indication of the seriousness of the situation. Mister Fitz was always calm.
“What is it?” whispered Sir Hereward, moving very slowly to pull the soporific bone out of his trousers. He moved slowly because he was deeply concerned that a sudden movement might hasten the transition from slobbering noises to crunching ones, with his hand or arm featuring as the source of the crunching.
“A basilisk,” said Mister Fitz. “It’s licking my glove right now.”
“A basilisk!” hissed Sir Hereward, instinctively screwing his eyes tight at the very mention of the petrifying beast. “Will the bone work on a basilisk?”
“We shall see,” replied Mister Fitz. Hereward felt the puppet take the bone and a second later the slobbering noise increased, followed by the hideous crunching sounds he had feared. Almost immediately they then ceased and were punctuated by a very loud thud, a strong vibration through the floor, and the cessation of the munching and crunching.
“Remind me to amend my treatise on soporific bones,” said Mister Fitz. “I thought there was a slim chance it would prove efficacious, as Plontarl’s Index states there was dog in the original hybrid made by Kexil-Ungard when it created the first basilisks. A gaze-hound, perhaps, though there is clearly a preponderance of reptile in the creature—”
“Is there?” asked Sir Hereward, with no small degree of sarcasm apparent in his voice. “Given I can’t see a thing, I must trust to your opinion. Could we perhaps continue? With a little light?”
“Indeed,” replied Mister Fitz.
The puppet did not resort to an esoteric needle for something as simple as shedding a little light. Instead Sir Hereward noticed two faint blue sparks appear, as if a copperized wick had been lit. Slowly they grew brighter as Fitz increased the luminosity of his eyes, an old trick of his that had more than once proven to be of great value, most famously when the hasty reading of a map at midnight had resulted in Hereward’s leading a rear guard to safety, rather than certain defeat and a lingering death, since the enemy in question were devotees of Pozalk-Nimphenes, a god whose concept of prisoners of war was indistinguishable from that of food, so anyone captured was invariably fed into its insatiable but toothless maw, expiring days later in the god’s otherworldly stomach or whatever organ processed things so devoured.
Fitz did not make his eyes shine very brightly, so Hereward squinted as he poked his head out of the hearth and looked around the hall. The basilisk was a dark shape on the floor just beyond the bronze firedogs. As far as he could tell from its silhouette, it looked entirely like an ugly lizard, which is what he had always thought they were, albeit ones with the power to mesmerize their prey into statuelike stillness.
“Why would there be a basilisk here?” asked Sir Hereward as he slowly looked around the room. “Unless there is some trap to set lights going, it would be entirely wasted in the dark.”
“I do not think it is an intentional inhabitant of the house,” said Mister Fitz.
“There is something else near the door to the countinghouse,” said Hereward. He could make out a silhouette that at first he had thought some very large piece of furniture, but it was moving slightly, suggesting breathing. “The door behind it is ajar. Can you see what it is?”
The puppet edged out next to him, holding Hereward’s knee for a moment as he leaned around the marmorealized foot of a moklek, the shorn and domesticated cousins of the wild mammoth. This hollowed-out foot served to hold several pokers and other useful fireplace implements, including a six-tined toasting fork.
“Yes … I can,” said Mister Fitz. “Curious.”
“What is it, if you don’t mind?”
“A pygmy moklek. An albino, I should think. Which is surprising, but also presents us with an opportunity.”
“A basilisk and an albino pygmy moklek were most definitely not part of the plan,” said Sir Hereward. “Nor do I consider the presence of said creatures to be an ‘opportunity.’ That moklek is lying in front of the door. Does it have tusks?”
“Short tusks jeweled at the tips,” confirmed Mister Fitz. “It is asleep.”
“Even a moklek can lose its temper, and even short tusks can disembowel,” said Sir Hereward. “The jewels might even help. The question is, how did it get here?”
“The ‘why’ may also be relevant,” suggested Mister Fitz, his tone educational. He had never really given up his early role as Sir Hereward’s nurse and tutor.
“Lord Arveg, whose house lies adjacent to the perimeter wall here, has a private menagerie …” mused Sir Hereward, after a moment’s thought. “If breaches were made in the west wall of his house, and then the eastern wall of this … but there has been no explosion, no petard blast …”
“Stone may be dissolved by sorcery,” said Mister Fitz. “Animals transported energistically through solid matter. Sound may be dulled, or sent elsewhere, via a number of magical instruments.”
“Someone else is after the ivories,” concluded Sir Hereward. He drew his dagger, turning it so the light from Fitz’s eyes did not reflect from the bright steel blade. “Presumably a sorcerer.”
“Or someone equipped with sorcerous apparatus,” agreed Mister Fitz. He reached inside his sooty robe and withdrew an energistic needle from some hidden interior pocket, holding it tightly inside his gloved fist so that its shocking light could not escape, nor the energies within curdle Sir Hereward’s mind or vision. “They might also have a different aim in mind, apart from the ivories. Montaul has many riches, and many enemies. In any case, it is doubly unfortunate, for use of sorcery may … wake something in one of the ivories. They tremble on the verge of immanence at the best of times. We had best hurry.”
Sir Hereward nodded, stepped out of the fireplace, and began to walk cautiously towards the door out to the countinghouse, his bare feet silent on the flagstones. Mister Fitz rustled at his side, the light of his eyes like a hooded lantern in a mine, illuminating the way just enough for safe movement while creating shadows at every side that hinted at terrible things.
“Are you sure the moklek is asleep?” whispered Hereward as they drew closer.
“No, I think it is merely resting,” said Mister Fitz. “Don’t tread on its tail.”
As they ascended the four steps to the door to the countinghouse, skirting the pygmy moklek, it suddenly stood up, turned about very daintily on the spot, and made a plaintive whuffling noise with its trunk.
Sir Hereward stopped in midstep and tightened his grip on his dagger. It was fine Trevizond steel, and very sharp, but whether he could punch it through the weak spot in a moklek’s head above and between its eyes was very much a moot question. Particularly if it had to be done while trying not to be disemboweled.
“There, there,” said Mister Fitz, reaching out to stroke the trunk that came questing out to them. “All will be well.”
“Are you talking to me or the moklek?” whispered Sir Hereward.
“Both,” said Mister Fitz. “It is a youngster, and scared. There, there. All will be well. Say hello to the moklek, Hereward.”
“Hello,” said Sir Hereward. He reached out gingerly with his left hand and joined Mister Fitz in gently stroking the moklek’s trunk.
“You had better come with us,” said Mister Fitz. “Follow along.”
The moklek made a soft trumpeting noise and took a step forward. Sir Hereward hastily jumped up a step and bent down to whisper in Mister Fitz’s ear.