This was the range that animals other than man could hear; he wasn't about to give up this plan until he'd passed the sounds that bats used.
And from the look on Elspeth's face, she wasn't going to give in until she had produced rocks the size of small ponies.
Neither of them had to go that far, although whether it was Darkwind's dissonant howls or Elspeth's stones that finally tipped the balance~, he couldn't tell. The basilisk had been snapping and shifting uncomfortably for some time when he changed the tone again, and the basilisk came pouring out of her lair, burbling with anger and frustration.
She stood there for a moment, wavering between the discomfort of the lair, and the exposure of the outdoors. If she dove back in again, they might never get her out.
Before Darkwind could say anything, Elspeth solved the problem for him. He sensed her grabbing the underlying web of earth-energies at the mouth of the half-dug lair and yanking.
The lair collapsed in on itself, leaving the basilisk nowhere to go.
The monster rumbled deep in her chest, and turned, heading downstream and away from them, into the darkness. "That will do for a few furlongs, but then we're going to have to turn her out of this stream when it forks," Snowstar said, as the basilisk plodded out of the range of his torch and Darkwind's mage-light.
"Don't worry, I think we can deal with it," he said, breaking into a trot along the graveled streamside, sending his mage-light winging on ahead until it illuminated the unlovely rump of the basilisk. She was moving at a pretty fair pace; he'd had no idea they could move that fast.
In fact-was he going to be able to keep up with her?
Elspeth supplied his answer, as she and the Companion trotted up alongside and she offered him a hand up. "Gwena can carry two for a while," she said. He took her at her word and got himself up behind her. "Are you going to use that sound of yours to drive that thing?" she asked once he was settled and Gwena was bounding after the tail of the monster.
"Yes," he said-shortly, as it was difficult to speak when bouncing along on the rump of a trotting mount. "That-was-the-idea-"
"I have another idea," Elspeth said by Mindspeech. "It's a reptile, which means it can probably sense heat very well. Let's create a ball of warmth about her size, and lure her along with it. Keep it a couple of lengths ahead of her until she's where we want her, then dissipate it. What do you think?" He switched to Mindspeech as well. "That is an excellent idea. This is going to be great news when we get back to the Vale," he told her, and smiled at the glow of well-earned self-congratulation that met his words.
"You've helped uncover something entirely new, and very useful to us. The other forms of driving these monsters have all been much riskier. You are going to make your Clansibs quite happy with this news." For that matter, she was making him quite happy. The basilisk responded to guidance-by-noise and the heat lure beautifully. They were going to be returning to the Vale much sooner than he had thought.
Much sooner, and flushed with success. Not a bad combination.
Not a bad combination at all.
Everyone wanted to hear about the basilisk drive. This was the first time that a basilisk had been moved with fewer than a dozen people and with no injuries. Small wonder that the Vale had been astir when they returned, and that the mages had all wanted to hear the story in detail.
It seemed that if he and Elspeth hadn't used unorthodox tactics because there had only been two of them, they would never have budged the thing. And if Snowstar hadn't been so inexperienced in the ways of basilisks, he'd never have called for just a pair of mages.
"You weren't lucky," Iceshadow finally said. "Snowstar was relatively lucky because he got you. But you two-you were quite clever. Or am I being overly optimistic?" Darkwind laughed tiredly, and drank another full beaker of cold waterthe aftereffect of all that basilisk stench was incredible dehydration.
He and Elspeth together had drained a small lake, it seemed, and they were still thirsty.
"No, we were bright enough that if we hadn't been able to budge the old girl with methods that wouldn't enrage her, we would have called for help," he assured the Adept. "I pledge you that. I don't trust anything that can entrance you to the point that you let yourself be swallowed whole." When the others finally left them in peace, Darkwind realized that he was much too keyed up to sleep, at least not without a long soak in hot water to relax him.
He stood up abruptly, catching Elspeth by surprise; she jumped when he moved and looked up at him with round eyes.
"I need a bath and a soak," he said, "And the pool under your ekele is the nearest two-layered one I know of. Would it disturb you if I used it?
"Would it disturb you if I joined you?" she asked.
At first, he thought she was making some kind of an overture, but a moment of reflection told him that she couldn't possibly be doing anything of the sort. She was just as tired as he was-even if she wasn't bruised from riding for furlongs on the sharp and protruding hipbones of her Companion. Even if the two of them had been ready to tear one another's clothes off in a fit of unbridled lust, neither of them would have had the energy to do so. No, she was just being polite.
But at least she wasn't as shy as she had been. And she was still an attractive woman. There might be some hope after all.
"It surely won't disturb me," he told her, and offered her a polite hand to help her rise. "In fact, I doubt very much if it would disturb me to share a pool with-" He stopped himself before he said "with that basilisk"; realizing at the last moment that the comment could be construed as saying that he did not find her attractive. Which was not the case, at all.
"-half the Clan," he concluded. "All I want is to get this stink off and soak my muscles until I can sleep."
"Good plan," she said, and smiled. "I'll make you a bargain. If you find some of that fruit drink, I'll get soap, robes and towels from my treehouse."
"I'll take that," he said instantly. Elspeth disappeared into the greenery while he sought one of the storage areas, and dug out a tiny keg of a peculiar, mineral-rich drink Elspeth had gotten very fond of. Normally he didn't care much for the stuff, but when he was as parched and exhausted as he was now, he downed it with the same enthusiasm as she did.
Keg under one arm and a pair of turned wooden mugs in the other hand, he retraced his path and followed in Elspeth's wake. When he arrived at the pool, he found that she had been as good at keeping her word as he. There was strongly herb-scented soap beside the lower of the two heated pools, and towels and robes hanging nearby on a couple of branches, with one small mage-light over each pool providing just enough light to see by.
Elspeth was already in the upper soaking pool. He left the keg and mugs beside it as she waved at him indolently from the steam, then he stripped and plunged straight into the lower pool.
It took three full soapings before the last of the stench was gone and he felt clean again. By then he was more than ready for a mug and a long, soothing soak.
"I think I took all my skin off," Elspeth complained languidly from her end of the pool as he slipped across the barrier between the pools and into the hotter water of the second. "I scrubbed and scrubbed every time I thought I was clean, I could still smell that thing."
"Worse than skunk or polecat," he agreed. She seemed very relaxed for the first time since he had met her. "Did you see how much Iceshadow liked that idea of yours, moving the basilisk with noise?"