Ten Transformations
by Cobalt Jade (cobaltjade@aol.com)
Number Two: Tomb Baiter
This tale, my dear Aurena (said the basilisk) is no fancy, for it
happened to a good friend of mine.
Roderrin was a merchant; I knew him in his younger days, when he was
still learning his trade. He was a nomad then, always in search of the
next profit. He also, let's say, had a weakness for the ladies; many times
he was chased from one world to another by an irate husband or lover.
After a particularly disastrous affair (involving a princess, her maid,
the maid's horseman lover, an enchanted phallus, and the princess's father,
an evil sorcerer-king) Roderrin found himself fleeing yet again, losing all
he had in the process: his cargoes, his reputation as a trader, and almost
his life. He fled across more than a dozen worlds, each increasingly
remote, until he came to Voorloren, a dying planet far from the usual
extraplanular routes. Cities once clustered on its surface dense as flies
on rotted meat; now they lay bone-dry and scattered, marooned by the basins
of dry seas, or on wind-scoured plains once lush and fertile. Its great
civilizations had long fallen, its people degenerated. Even the sun had
been sapped of its vitality; it hung huge and in the cracked bowl of
the heavens, a bloated bloody orange filled with poison; the talk among the
natives was that one day it would sputter out like a spent lamp, and they
would have to spend the rest of their days stumbling about in the darkness.
Here was where he hoped he might rest and recoup his personal and
professional losses. He had a few pieces of gold left so he procured a
room in an inn and went henceforth down to its tavern.
The place was full of the dust of better days, its clientele even more
so: bitter men, hard-eyed strumpets, rogues, refugees, rakes, all come for
the same reasons he had: exile or escape. Others looked fresher, their
clothing unsullied by the blowing grit that plagued this world. Faces
hopeful, they sat hunched over maps, backs and waists bristling with
weaponry, as tired barmaids circling round them, attending to their
murmuring; professional adventurers, Roderrin guessed, knowing the type.
Scattered among them were natives who moved with the oily ease of snakes,
measuring the visitors with mercenary eyes.
Roderrin ordered a drink. The liquor, like the world, was unfathomably
old, tasting of the dry resins of mummies.
One of the natives soon approached his table. She was young, dressed in
tight leather trousers and a halter that accentuated her trim midriff.
Pretty, she, but in an unusual way: her cheekbones high and sharp, her lips
shapely, but small. In her halter she carried a pair of firm, ripe,
smooth-skinned breasts, the female treasures conniving to burst free from
the leather that constrained them. A hint of a nipple was seen, a tawny
blush the covered with a quick adjustment from her hand. "Excuse me.
Are you new here?"
Her voice was musical, neither high nor low. He decided to ignore her
physical charms, admirable though they were, until he knew more of the
local customs of this place. "Yes," he said simply, waiting for another
cue.
She took in the bedraggled condition of his tunic and cloak. "From the
portal?"
"The portal," he said. Magical conduits existed on every world, but
only magicians, or those with expensive magical keys, had the power to use
them.
"Ah," she said. "You've come for the tombs."
He arched his brow at her. "I have?"
She smiled, indulgent, but opportunity gleamed in her eye. "You really
are new here... let me explain. Centuries ago, when my ancestors ruled
this world, they used a particularly wasteful form of magic that drained
the planet's life essence, and their sun's. Being magicians, they moved on
to exploit another world, leaving tombs of their predecessors behind. They
built them to last, as their cities were not." She leaned forward so the
strings of amulets and ancient beads she wore swung over her breasts.
"These tombs contain many riches..."
"How is that you are still here?" he asked.
"When the bulk of the population moved on, they left their undesirables
behind," she explained. "For centuries we have eked out a living here,
acting as guides and scouts for the adventurers who visit this world and
loot the booty of the dead."
"Tough luck on your forebears," he said.
"Yes," she said, smiling in a not-nice way. "Isn't it."
"Since you surely kept some of this treasure for yourself," he said,
"why have you not leave this dead-end world for a better place?"
"Because I would lose my livelihood, and what I like to do best.
Besides, this is my world, and my home. I will stay here until the sun
sputters out, and then, I suppose, I will sputter out too." She put her
hand on his arm, the slight touch a promise of more intimate ones.
"Besides, it is not so bad..."
Roderrin was tempted, but he had sworn off female flesh since the
vigorous exercises the princess and her maid had put him through, which had
left him quite sated, not to mention sore. "I'm afraid I have no use for a
guide," he said. "I'm a merchant by trade."
"Ah," she said. "That explains your vehicle..."
He'd stolen the magical air-car in Yfakka, piloting it at full speed
through the portal to escape his pursuers. He was surprised she was that
observant.
"Perhaps we can be partners," she suggested. "I've long sought a trader
to act as my agent. Strange and rare items come out of the tombs... I
find many of them myself. I know they could fetch a high place on other
worlds. "
Roderrin considered. It was not such a bad idea. "Why don't you show
me what you've found. My name is Roderrin, by the way."
"And I'm Naraseena," she said. "Come. I'll show to you to my home."
They left the inn like two lovers. Naraseena shrouded herself carefully
against the dust, and suggested that he do the same: the blowing clouds hid
even the sun, casting the abandoned bazaar in a dull glow. They turned
down one street, then another. Many houses were abandoned, and many more
nearly so, but a surprising number were lit from inside, showing ample
evidence of habitation. This world was dying, but it was not dead yet.
Life hung on here, and hope. Or perhaps stubbornness. He even heard the
cries of children.
Finally, Naraseena's modest cottage. Inside she lit the lamps. It was
not as poor as it looked from the outside. She'd decorated it well with
imported goods... carpets, carved furniture... but other items had come
from Voorloren itself: ritual objects, ancient weapons, masks, fetishes,
vessels. "These are all from the tombs," she said, sweeping her hand. "A
small sampling of what we might sell. My clients usually take the more
valuable items, though."
"What is that?" he said, noting a bulky item behind a drape.
"A statue." She pulled off the covering. Roderrin caught his breath.
The statue was female, exquisitely lovely. "I found it in one of the
tombs. I find many of them, actually, but am unable to bring them back.
You need a cart or other contrivance for that."
An idealization of the deceased, he guessed, as the sandstone nude had
the smooth musculature of youth. She stood caught in the act of turning, a
pensive look on her face, fresh as if carved yesterday. He'd have no
trouble selling it, that was sure. It would probably fetch a far higher
place than the other antiquities. "Are such treasures commonplace in these
tombs?"
"That, and more," Naraseena said. She said that the dust had buried
whole cities of the dead, with concourses, arenas, slave markets, parks:
the ancient Voorlorens believing that every sentient being, no matter how
humble, deserved a resting place for his or her remains. They were a
materialistic civilization, so they stocked these tombs well with items for
the afterlife. They were a cautious people as well, and untrustful. Many
tombs were guarded by magical traps.
"You can get around these traps?" Roderrin asked.
"Yes," she said. "With my body, my mind, and my specialized tools."
"What about your clients?" he asked.
"Some are not as lucky as I," she admitted. "It's a professional
hazard... fatalities are unavoidable, in my line of work."
"You bring the bodies back, of course."
He had surprised her. Her eyes widened, her mouth stumbled on a word;
then her poise sprang back, as a ready reply came to her lips. "Of course.
If I can... do you think I am uncivilized?"
"No," he said, but something about her tone troubled him. He would have
to ask around in the inn, later, to see exactly how trustworthy she was.
In the meantime, he might dally. "Have you a lover, Naraseena? Some
jealous husband?"
"No, and no," Naraseena smiled, pouring him yellow wine from a silver
carafe. "Though it gets boring here, I'll admit. Come. Let's drink to
seal our new partnership." He accepted with grace, sensing the direction
this was going in. Not long after they retreated to the privacy of
Naraseena's curtained bed, which received a good pounding before the night
was over.
The next morning they worked out their agreement. Roderrin would take
the salvaged booty to Alumannes, a prosperous world two portals over, to
sell in the market towns there. In ten days he would return to Voorloren
and Naraseena would have more loot for him, the cycle continuing
indefinitely.
"I have only two suggestions," Naraseena said. "First, you must cover
the goods in your vehicle, let no one from the town see what you are taking
away. Secondly, tell no one you are working with me."
He understood the first -- thieves abounded even on dying worlds like
this -- but not the second. "Why?"
"The other guides are envious," she said. "There are deep rivalries
among us; no one likes a competitor who is more successful than they. If
they knew I had an agent, they would try to kill me, or at the least ruin
me."
Her fears sounded valid enough. He assured her he would not betray
their partnership. Happy at the deal he had struck, he activated his
mage-key and piloted the air car through the portal. In a few hours he
reached the warm sweet air of Alumannes.
The ancient goods sold quickly. He rented a room in the marketplace to
do future business in and enjoyed his earnings; soon it was time to return
to Voorloren. He supposed he could have never returned, the profit he'd
made healthy enough to live as a fugitive for a while. But the bitter dust and easy gold of Voorloren had ensnared him; he was curious to see
what other objects Naraseena might have for him, and what secrets they
might be holding. So he returned, on the exact day and time he said he
would.
Naraseena gave him a passionate welcome and showed him her latest
treasures. "There are more statues, too," she said breathlessly. "They're
still in the tomb where I found them, six hours' ride from here in the
Kuzmari Dunes... can we use your vehicle to retrieve them? We use yippas
here, but they can't carry heavy items such as statues."
"Of course, " he said, and after a round of vigorous lovemaking they
were on their way to the outback. Drifts of dust unfurled below them,
alternately hiding and revealing petrified forests; they passed alkali
lakebeds crusted with salt, and jagged cliffs and dry canyons with nary a
drop of water, or sign of life. It seemed impossible that a great
civilization had ever existed here, or that people lived here now. But
Naraseena did, and she guided him like the native she was until they
reached a five-sided crumbling pyramid half-hidden in the sand. The
entrance had been freshly excavated and inside were the marks of at least
three pairs of boots in the dust. Naraseena led him through the twists and
turns, warning him of expertly traps at every other step, until they
came to a chamber tiled in pale stone with a skylight far above. The ruddy
sun sent down a beam of light on two figures, of solid granite this time...
heroic males in contorted positions, arms outstretched as if fighting
invisible enemies. They looked at once amazed and terrified. Again
Roderrin was impressed with the realism of the work.
"A fortuitous discovery on your part," he remarked on the way back.
"What of your clients? Did they take their shares and leave satisfied?"
"Oh, they were very well satisfied," she said, her eyes wandering to the
semi-erect organs of the naked statues. If she had made a joke, he didn't
get it.
He covered his precious load from prying eyes and returned to Alumannes.
Again the statues and other items sold quickly. The profit was more than
twice what he'd made on the previous trip. Yes, this was a very lucrative
line of work indeed. Again he waited ten days, and returned.
Thrice more the cycle repeated itself. The looted goods varied...
sometimes fine, sometimes damaged, sometimes valuable, sometimes
incidental... but the statues were always the same. He guessed that style
of sculpture had once been standardized around the planet, for they all
looked carved by the same talented hand... the nudes uniformly hard-bodied
and youthful, of various contorted positions that bespoke surprise or
bursts of athletic activity... even sexual enjoyment, in one or two cases.
Oddly enough only Naraseena seemed able to find them. The other guides
returned with bizarre winged reptiles, demons, friezes of plantlife,
satyrs... but no people. She told Roderrin she had secret knowledge of
such locations she kept from the others, and exhorted him to do the same.
His stays at the inn in town were brief. Following Naraseena's warning,
he did not socialize with her in public. He did not want to put suspicion
on her. But he did hear certain things of her, six months after their
enterprise had begun.
"I wonder how many of them will return this time." the innkeeper said as
Naraseena cased another adventuring party not three tables away.
Roderrin was engrossed in a meal of stringy local fowl and did not
understand the comment. "Who?"
"Those newcomers Naraseena is talking to. Her clients are prone to
accidental deaths. Last month, it was a cave-in, she said. No bodies to
retrieve. Before that, it was an attack by sand demons... no witnesses.
If you ask me --" he lowered his voice, "She's bumping her clients off, and
keeping their loot for herself."
Roderrin's freshly masticated meal froze in his throat. Naraseena had
always told him that her clients had left intact, their arms full of booty.
"Surely she can't have killed everyone?" he said. "If that is true, she
wouldn't be able to get clients at all. Her reputation would precede her."
"True," the innkeeper said, conceding. "Old Horslips, he got off well,
with a handsome hoard. And the Starcomb sisters, they've been back to
Voorloren several times. Nothing's ever happened to them. Real bitches,
though. Witches, too, going by their looks." He shuddered, rubbing his
glass. "Ah, forget I said anything.
Roderrin simpered politely, but a doubt had been seeded in his mind. He
made up his mind to quiz Naraseena about it, and did, the next time they
were alone. "What happened to your last two clients?"
She looked surprised. "How did you...?"
"I heard talk," he shrugged. "They were killed, their bodies lost."
"Are you insinuating that I killed them?" she said angrily. He nodded,
weakly. She snorted. "For your information, my accident rate is no more
and no less than any of the other guide's. And if you doubt me, ask anyone
in the inn. They'll vouch for my competence."
He went off in a huff, and did; but the freebooter and witchlike
sisters only had praise for Naraseena's services. The other guides, though
less enthusiastic, said that they, too, had seen clients of Naraseena's
return alive. They conceded her fatalities were high, but that was because
her clients insisted on traveling to the more dangerous unexplored tombs.
Roderrin ordered a glass of strong rotgut, confusion playing at his
mind. There would be no sweet solace with Naraseena tonight. He had
questioned her professionalism; she might abandon him for another hungry
merchant with a convenient means of transport. He was as good as gone,
both from her life and from her bed.
As he brooded with his head in his arms he saw her enter the inn. She
had with her yet another new client, a woman with distinctly pointed
ears... elven ears, in the language of some races. They sat together at
one of the tables and began to talk. The elven adventurer leaned forward
eagerly, absorbing what Naraseena was saying; Naraseena in turn brought out
a kidskin map and unfolded it, pointing. Coins glinted from the elve's
drawstring purse as a deal was struck. Naraseena placed her hand over the
elf's, her eyes shining, and brushed the elf's fair white hair back from
her face.
Roderrin watched them like a jealous he-cat, only his eyes visible above
the sleeve of his tunic. He'd long known Naraseena used her physical
charms to call attention to herself, and her services... many times her
tightly bound, bouncing breasts, so near yet so far, had sent him into
paroxysms of agony as she displayed them for another. He was not a
possessive man, he and she had never demanded exclusivity of each other...
yet she had never dared proposition clients like this, when she knew he was
watching.
Roderrin dropped his head. He was drunk, and jealous; it was probably
nothing. He left the next day feeling sorry for himself, sorry he'd
accused Naraseena, to keep his end of the bargain in Alumannes.
He returned ten days later, richer as always. The gossip at the inn
(which he now paid mind to listen to) was that Naraseena had led three
parties in the time he'd been away, two of which had been successful, the
other not. The fatality was the elven woman. "She fell into a trap," the
innkeeper said, shaking his head. "A pit opened beneath her. She was gone
before Naraseena could save her."
"Oh," Roderrin said. He returned to Naraseena's cottage.
She greeted him with a kiss as if nothing was wrong; indeed, she'd
forgotten their argument had ever taken place at all. "Look at what I have
for you!" she said, sweeping her hand at the booty. "There's another
statue too, an amazing find, really..."
He took her to the tomb. It was a cone-shaped marble structure,
suspiciously empty as all her favorite tombs were; again, there was the
lifelike statue in the center of the floor, a slim female with her
legs braced apart, her arms up as if to fend off an impending doom. Her
mouth was open in alarm, her long hair whipped back to reveal one of her
ears.
"You are right," he said. "She is a find."
Naraseena grinned at him and went to prepare the winches.
Roderrin studied the statue's face. It looked familiar... where could
he have seen her before? He inspected the features more closely, noticing
that the carving of the exposed ear was subpar, not up to the standard of
the rest of the work. A series of tiny chisel marks was visible around its
edge.... as if something had been carved off, and recently. The marks
were fresh.
Then it came to him. The elven girl! The client he had seen Naraseena
entertaining in the inn. She was here, standing before him, an alabaster
statue with a scream frozen on her pretty face, her most distinctive
identifying mark removed.
Naraseena had done this. And all those other statues, the ones so odd
in their minutely detailed bodies, had been her clients also... clients
lost on one pretext or other, and become her booty. Booty he'd sold in the
marketplaces of Alumannes.
He felt nauseous, but said nothing, hoisting the statue into his air car
and covering it with canvas. He might have words with Naraseena later, or
not. But first he had to find proof.
He took the goods to Alumannes as normal. This time, instead of selling
the statue, he showed it to a wizard of his acquaintance.
Erist was a very fellow, and not a good wizard, but he knew enough
to tell an enchantment from a cantrip, and a victim of magical foul play
from one deceased by normal means. He stared at the naked elf long and
hard, examining her stony flesh with callused, spell-worn hands. "Live
stone," was all he said. "Looks like she was transformed, and not four
days ago... where did you get this? Was she some gorgon's victim?"
"No," Roderrin said. "She was transformed some other way, a magical
device, perhaps."
Erist frowned, his eyes traveling over the statue again. "It does seem
to have that signature... if true, only the same device could untransform
her. Or a spell from a wizard mightier than I."
"Can you keep her until you meet such a person? " Roderrin said,
feeling partially responsible for the elf's fate.
Erist nodded, reassuring him he would take good care of her. Roderrin
returned to Voorloren. He had the premonition it would be for the last
time.
He was five days early for his meeting with Naraseena; the perfect time
to spy on her unawares. He disguised himself and snuck off through the
streets, coming at last to her hut. He peered in through the shutters. He
was surprised to see three burly sitting before the fire drinking beer
in a familiar way. They were armored, their weapons piled in a corner.
Barbarians from Fangaurd, he guessed, and brothers by their likeness and
the casual way they joked. Too casual... he recalled their banter from
the times he'd spent in whorehouses with others of their ilk, all of them
waiting for service from the madam.
A horrible feeling crept over him. He crept around the corner to peek
in the next window. There, pumping away on the bed, was the fourth member
of the barbarian party, his pelvis wedged between Naraseena's ecstatic
thighs. Glorious cries warbled from her throat as she clutched his back,
which bore love-marks from her fingernails. The condition of the bed
indicated she had performed a similar sex act at least twice before this
one.
So that was how she gained the trust of her clients... and how she
lured them to the trap that turned to them stone. And how, most likely,
she'd gotten them to disrobe for it.
His heart felt sick. He and she had never talked of undying love, but
when betrayal happens, it hurts, especially at that magnitude. Four
straw-haired, dirty-nailed barbarians, four!
He returned to the inn, asking questions.
The next morning he followed the party as they went out, his air car
riding low to the dunes at a safe distance. Fortunately by then it was
colored the same reddish-orange color as the dust. He wasn't too surprised
to see Naraseena head for a tomb complex they'd visited before; she'd found
many of her finest statues there. Or claimed to have found them...
He trailed the party as they entered, keeping many paces behind.
Stealth was second nature to him from his long years of extramarital
affairs. Nether she, nor anyone else in her absurdly armored party,
suspected. He heard their footsteps echo through the halls, her voice ring
dramatically as she warned them of the deadly and elaborate traps. She
made them press themselves against the sides of the galleries, keep to the
middle of floors, count every third tile they passed. Roderrin walked
freely. He knew no such traps existed.
Finally she had them up, giving dire warnings of giant scorpions
and the like. Each went down a separate hall, as did she. Roderrin
followed her until she came to a small skylit chamber. She glanced around,
then took a small object like a crystalline pine cone from the pouch at her
belt. It was a container of some sort. Businesslike, she sprinkled its
contents in a ring on the floor, enclosing an area some three paces round.
The powder glittered like diamonds as it descended, blending into the tiles
so it was scarcely visible.
Roderrin knew little of magic, but if Naraseena was setting an enchanted
trap the tombs were most likely the source of it. It must have been the
find of a lifetime to stumble across the small scrap of sorcery she had...
a vial of dust that turned its victims to stone. Who had made it, and for
what, he couldn't begin to guess. But she had found it, and figured out
its use, and put it to work... creating life-sized works of art that her
clients were never interested in, but she, with a partner's vehicle and
connections, was. It had been the perfect operation. And her perfect
doom.
When the circle was complete she nodded, mentally fixing its position to
herself, and went off to fetch the first of her victims.
Carefully Roderrin approached the ring of pale dust. He put on his
gloves. Holding his breath, he scooped it up into his palm. When he
remained mobile, his flesh its normal tan color, he stood. Closing his
fist, he followed the route Naraseena had taken.
He found her as she marched grimly marched from room, seeking a victim,
or victims, for the noose she had set. She was dangerous, he knew. She
always carried knives, often involving them in love-play in bed; if
startled, she could react badly. But he had the upper hand. "Naraseena!"
he called.
She whirled at sound of his voice, spooked; then registered his presence
at the far side of the hall. "Roderrin?" She was alarmed, but suspected
nothing. She even seemed relieved a little. "What are you..."
"No time," he said, shaking his head. "I came here to warn you. We
must leave here... immediately."
As he hoped she glanced worriedly behind her, and followed. She did not
know what he knew, only her own guilty complicity; he kept far ahead of
her, so she wouldn't ask questions. "Run! Hurry!" he called. She chased
him through chamber after chamber, retreating further and further into the
maze... very far from the cleanly picked halls she'd abandoned her clients
in. This was true explorer's territory, cobwebbed, collapsed, not the
pretty stage she'd chosen for her tricks. The columns arched like snakes,
the niches yodeled; the painted figures on the walls danced in the
torchlight, their hands and feet whirling. Down steps and through funerary
galleries they went, violating the dust of ages, which rose around them
stinking of decay. Skulls and bone made an appearance, the slightest touch
or kick dissolving them to powder. Impotent ghosts pressed forth from
their crypts, mewling at the violation, but Roderrin ran on, coming at last
to the final tomb, a square abandoned crypt with a frieze of fossilized
dancing on the wall.
He let her catch up to him. Angry, she caught him by the shoulder.
"What the hell are you..."
"This, Naraseena!" He opened the palm of his gloved hand and blew the
dust in her face.
She shrieked as she registered her plot had gone terribly wrong, and
tumbled backward into the wall. To his amazement the sandstone parted like
liquid to receive her, the pool vertical rather horizontal. She opened her
mouth to shout for help, but liquid rock poured inside, gagging her.
Indeed, the whole wall was <i>alive,</i> a pulsing, viscous thing that
tendriled around her, flowing like mud over her body and limbs; with
horror he saw it suck her in completely. She bobbed under the surface of
the wall for a second, then clawed her way back to the air, now coated
completely in the liquid rock. Her motions slowed as her prison hardened.
Her blind eyes turned toward him, mouth opening as if to plead for rescue.
The rock seized up with a final shudder, sealing her half in, half-out
of the sandstone wall.
The chamber was silent. The dancing had a new addition to their
ranks, a wailing figure in discordantly modern dress, limbs akimbo as if
trying to escape.
Roderrin shone his torch away, leaving his lover, and the frieze, to the
greedy darkness of the tomb.
He returned to the upper levels. The barbarian brothers, alarmed by the
abandonment, demanded explanations. He didn't tell them how narrowly
they'd escaped being statuary. He said only that Naraseena had run into an
emergency and sent him to give them a lift back to town. No gratitude came
from their ranks, but then, he hadn't expected any.
So ended the career of Naraseena the Tomb Baiter. Roderrin thought
about leaving her there, to decorate, with irony, the place where she had
ensnared so many others; there she would wait until the sun of her world
went out for good, plunging both the tomb and the planet into irrecoverable
darkness. But that was too poetic a fate, and a waste of a fine sculpture.
So he chipped out her section of wall one night and took her back with him
to Alumannes, where he had a long and successful career. But he never sold
her. She decorated his living room for many years, and later, mine. I
wonder if she is still there, in the palace where I spent my youth. A most
fitting decoration for a of my interests, when I was still
innocent, and free...
______________________________________________________________________
The basilisk let out a sigh like steam from a kettle, coiling about her
loosely as if seeking solace.
*What is that matter?* Aurena asked. She spoke not out of compassion
but fear; fear that the creature would, in its melancholy, decide its games
were no longer enjoyable, and break her to pieces the same way it had
broken the other statues. *
*It's nothing,* the creature replied. *I feel old, is all. My friend
is long dead. So is everyone I knew.* It sighed again. *Only I am still
alive.*
Aurena didn't want to encourage the creature's depression, yet she had
to keep it talking, and interested in her, if she hoped to escape. *How
old are you?*
*I am...* the basilisk began, then halted, its tail swishing in an
irritated way. *Very old. Do you know the valley where I dwell was in the
mountains once? Over millennia, the river wore it away. As I slept here,
tired of the tedium of previous life. There is only so much killing a
basilisk can do.*
Aurena didn't know what to say to that. To agree might provoke it, to
deny it, anger. *Perhaps I can cheer you,* she said, a stab in the dark.
The creature opened one of its yellow eyes; she saw her stony
face reflected in its surface. The pupil contracted to a slit. *How can
you do that?* it said in a sarcastic way. *Turn yourself back to flesh, so
I can enjoy petrifying you again?* It seemed to have forgotten about its
goal of tormenting her with its stories.
*You are not the only one who knows stories,* she said. *I know some
myself.*
*Really,* the basilisk aid, half mocking, half interested. *Are they in
theme with my interests?*
*One is,* Aurena ventured, thinking back to the tales of her youth.
*Would you like to hear it?*
*Yes,* the creature hissed. Its tongue flicked over her lips. *But if
I don't find it amusing, my sweet Aurena, your head will soon be separate
from your body, and batted across the floor by my tail.*
This work is copyrighted 2001 by Cobalt Jade (Cobaltjade@aol.com). This
work may be be freely distributed over electronic media provided no fee is
charged for its use. Charging a fee for this story, or publishing without
author credit or this notice violates my copyright.
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