Song for the Basilisk

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  “Who?”

  “Master Caladrius. The man cataloging the Tormalyne collection.”

  “He followed you?”

  “No. He told me I was being followed.” Nicol looked at him silently, his brows rising over his bright hawk’s stare.

  He asked, succinctly, the question that had plagued Justin all the way from Tormalyne Palace, “Who is this librarian?”

  “I don’t know. He told me to cross the street. I looked back when I had, and saw the thin man again, but I still didn’t realize I had seen him before. He has that kind of face and bearing. Nothing your eyes want to stop at, nothing in particular to remember. The librarian was standing still, watching him, too. And then a pair of birds—ravens—flew down from the trees and started pecking at the bony man’s head. The librarian looked at me and I left. That’s the last I saw of either of them.”

  “How did—” Nicol stopped, started again. “How did he know? If you didn’t?”

  “I don’t—”

  “I want to know who he is.”

  “I’m not following him,” Justin said. “I think he talks to birds.”

  Nicol ignored this. “He works for Pellior House.”

  “He works in Pellior Palace,” Justin corrected him. “With the Tormalyne collection. He told me he was learning the history of Tormalyne House through its music.”

  Nicol paced a step or two, wheeled. “Don’t trust him.”

  Justin sighed. “Of course not.”

  “They may have been working together.”

  “Which one of them do you suppose talked the birds out of the trees?”

  “But find a reason to see him again. Let him talk to you. Ask him why he thought you were followed. Ask him anything. Was he born here?”

  “He came from the provinces.”

  “How long has he lived in Berylon? Exactly when did he come here?”

  “How should I—” He stopped, staring with rapt interest at a scene playing itself out on the music stand. “That night he asked Giulia for her picochet—”

  “What?”

  “In the Griffin’s Egg. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen the Basilisk’s guards in there. Not just the night watch, the House guard. They were looking for someone while he played. It was that night—”

  “What night?” Nicol demanded.

  His eyes moved from the music stand to his cousin’s face. “The night the trapper was killed on the Tormalyne Bridge. I think he is the missing witness. No wonder they can’t find him. He’s in Pellior Palace, under their noses. And he changes shape every time you look at him.”

  “Well, what shape is he now?” Nicol asked bewilderedly.

  “Nothing I’ve ever come across. Not even the Basilisk can see him.”

  “You see him,” Nicol said tersely. “He lets you. Be careful. He may be very dangerous.”

  Justin felt the black, still gaze again, across the city’s noisy twilight. “To someone,” he guessed soberly, and the librarian changed shape yet again in his head, to a farmer from the provinces, who played the picochet and talked to birds. He shrugged, baffled. “Or maybe not.”

  “Just be careful,” Nicol said again, and passed out of Justin’s evening without, Justin noticed surprisedly, leaving him annoyed. He even added, before he left, “You did well.”

  We must be about to die, Justin thought, and took himself and his pipe to the Griffin’s Egg, where, to his relief, he saw no one made of kindling bending a raven-scarred head over his supper.

  Eleven

  Caladrius, carrying the history of Tormalyne House under his arm, crossed the cobblestones between tavern and school in an ocher haze of late-afternoon light and heard, like an echo of the city high in the sky, the bustle and gabble of birds arriving from the north. As he glanced up, someone shook a banner out of a high window in the school. A basilisk unfurled, black on red, in a silken cascade that did not quite touch the marble griffin crouched beside the door. Another banner drifted down on the other side of the door. A third, gold as wheat and covered with apples, fell to frame the top of the door. ARIOSO PELLIOR, it said in gold thread across red apples; beyond that it did not comment.

  He recognized it little by little: the change of seasons in a city of stone. Light from the setting sun drew shadows of a different slant along the street. The light itself, warm and limpid, had loosened its burning grip on the city; its fiery brilliance had softened to harvest golds. In palace gardens, leaves turned the color of light. In the Tormalyne garden, ivy fanning across the marble walls had begun to flame.

  Around Luly, the sea would turn pale green beneath gray cloud; the winds would already smell of the snow beyond the hinterlands. He felt a moment’s helpless longing for the singing of the restless autumn seas, for the simplicity of fire, water, stone. In Berylon, the words had changed to mean complex things. On Luly he held stone, he held his hand to fire; waking and dreaming, he heard water. In Berylon, such words had lost their innocence; even fire belonged to the Basilisk.

  He stepped between the griffins snarling at the basilisks and opened the doors. He was stopped at the threshold by a painted cloud carried down the hall, followed by a swath of sky filled with turtledoves. He could hear singing behind a broad pair of doors. A voice interrupted it, shouting in pain and despair; the singer noisily burst into tears. He heard Giulia’s voice, alternately chiding and soothing. The doors opened, the cloud passed through. A dark-haired man strode out, nearly fell into the sky. He disappeared behind a slammed door. The singer began again.

  Giulia came out, said to the dove-bearers, “They don’t have eyes. You forgot to give them eyes.”

  The painters studied them. “Love is blind?” one suggested helpfully.

  “Love may be,” Giulia said, her phrases suddenly terse. “But the Basilisk is not. Give them eyes.”

  The doves retreated down the hall, the painters wondering audibly if a basilisk’s look could kill what had no eyes. An intriguing question, Caladrius thought. Giulia’s eyes fell on him and smiled.

  “I came to return this,” Caladrius said. “And to ask a question. If you can spare a moment.”

  The surprise on her face turned suddenly to calculation. “You were among the bards. You learned to sing.”

  “Not well,” he lied hastily. “And very long ago.”

  “A pity. Perhaps,” she added thoughtfully, “Hollis. I need more voices in the chorus. Did he find you? He asked about you.”

  “He found me, yes.”

  “Did you see which door slammed?”

  He nodded to it. She took the book from him, and paused to listen to the love aria coming out of the closed doors, a simple melody that expressed inexpressible longing. “It’s pretty,” Caladrius said.

  “Yes, it is. You can’t tell by listening to it that the composer has no patience and no tact and no sense whatsoever.”

  “No.”

  She gripped the book like a weapon and headed briskly for the door in question. “What did you want to ask me?”

  “Where the music will be performed. And if it is a public occasion.”

  “It’s traditionally performed in the Hall of Mirrors in Pellior Palace. It’s much bigger than the music room. It’s attended by the prince and his family and guests from the three Houses, the magisters, various officials of the city, and whatever students are invited. Ask Veris Legere’s permission to come. I’m sure Damiet will expect you.”

  “Why?” he asked absently. Her steps slowed. She regarded him silently a moment, her eyes as cool and unreadable as a hinterland mist.

  “Damiet is in love with you,” she said finally. “Why do you think she’s learning the picochet?”

  He considered the question blankly. Then he dismissed it, unable to equate love and Damiet. “I’m old enough to be her father. And out of the provinces. You must be mistaken.”

  “Perhaps. But, Master Caladrius, I would advise you to tread very carefully around the Basilisk’s daughter. She may be without thoughts, but she
is not without feelings.”

  He shook his head, his mouth tightening. Whatever vague feelings Damiet might have, he thought, would not survive the song he would play for her father. He said only, “It won’t last. Whatever you see. I haven’t noticed—”

  “Yes, I know,” Giulia said. “It’s a thing men don’t notice unless they’re interested.” She felt his glance and met his eyes, smiling again, wryly. “The subject makes me provincial.”

  “Because it goes to the heart of the matter,” he said simply. “The place where you learned to feel. I will be careful with Damiet. But I can’t believe it is important.”

  “Believe it,” she said soberly. She paused in front of the door behind which the composer had flung himself. “Did you know each other?” she asked. “You and Hollis? He said you might.”

  He hesitated, not knowing what else Hollis might have told her. He said only, “Yes. We’ve met.”

  “I thought so. You look alike sometimes. Not your faces, but your expressions. Something left from Luly, maybe.” She studied him a moment, silently, curiously, perhaps hearing things he wanted to say, but could not. Her eyes dropped finally; she remembered the book in her hand. “Did this help?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “Perhaps it will help Hexel.” She hoisted it in the air abruptly and opened the door.

  Daily, the city transformed itself to suit the season. Walking to and from Pellior Palace, Caladrius saw stone softened and colored by banners, ribbons, pennants, bright scallops of cloth draped across the weather-stained faces of buildings. Wreaths of corn husks hung on doors; baskets of jesters’ faces painted on guards rattling with last year’s seed appeared on street corners, sold for luck, and to distract the basilisk’s eye. The streets grew even more crowded with visitors from river towns and farming villages, who came to build stalls and sell their wares. Itinerant musicians lay their caps beside every tavern door; stall makers’ hammers beat time to their ballads. Puppeteers threw up flimsy stages for the children; they enacted protracted battles between the Houses and other scenes from Berylon’s history. Caladrius, leaving Pellior Palace one evening, was frozen mid-stride by a puppet with a raven’s face pleading for its life while a red satin fire shook in the background and a crowing basilisk scythed its way methodically through a hapless army of griffins. Barefoot country children watched solemnly; some wore basilisk masks made of feathers and paper. They clapped when the basilisk slew the raven, promising peace at last to the convulsed city. Caladrius, turning away, was stunned again by a figure burning in the street. Something flew out of the flames. The crowd around it cheered and scattered, trying to catch it. It fell at Caladrius’s feet. A phoenix, he realized, staring numbly. The phoenix of Marcasia House, made of metal and paint, built to spring out of the fire as the straw phoenix burned. He should have caught it, he was told; bad luck to let the phoenix fall to earth. He turned quickly, blindly, found his way to the only quiet place in the city: the ruined gardens of Tormalyne Palace.

  But even that peace was marred by the seamed, unblinking face of Brio Hood, turning in slow, tortoise fashion to see who else walked the empty side of the street in festival time. He stood in front of the iron railing, as if he searched for the ravens that had tormented him. His eyes took in Caladrius, returned to study the railing. He reached out, touched a bar, and Caladrius, slowing, felt a sudden claw of pain behind his eyes.

  Brio spoke, with some half-forgotten urge to exchange words with the man who had helped him. “It moves.” He looked at Caladrius, and back at the bar. He touched it again, slid it an inch to one side. “Someone dug a groove for it.” He looked at Caladrius silently, inviting comment. Caladrius shrugged slightly.

  “For what?”

  “Yes,” Brio murmured. “For what?” He gazed, entranced, at the leaf-covered groove. “Someone goes in there.”

  “It’s empty. Why would anyone bother?”

  “Someone goes there in secret.” He turned his back to the railing then, and leaned on a firmer bar, passing idle time with the music librarian while his eyes flicked at every passing face.

  “It’s old,” Caladrius suggested. “It was made a long time ago.” Brio did not bother taking up the question.

  “It’s secret,” he repeated. “The prince doesn’t like secrets. Except his own.” His face changed then, as if the prince were watching him; thought flowed out of it, left a shadow man, so frugal he gave away nothing even of himself. He did smooth a hand over his scant hair, where a jagged furrow was healing. “The birds left me when you came,” he commented equivocally. “You always pass this way.”

  “I like trees,” Caladrius said. “It’s what I’m used to.”

  “Being a northerner.”

  “I’m not used to crowds, yet. Or the noise. It’s worse, now.”

  “It’s the prince’s festival. His day to remember.” His eyes touched Caladrius’s face, slid away. He straightened. “I noticed this when the ravens came at me. How the bar gave when I fell against it. I didn’t remember it then, only that something happened that shouldn’t have. Besides the ravens, I mean. Something was out of place. I came back to look for it.”

  “You weren’t afraid of the ravens?”

  Expression glided across his face; he blinked once. “They’re dead now,” he said. He turned without another word, made his unremarkable way down the street toward Pellior Palace. Caladrius, motionless, watched him out of ravens’ eyes until, past the Tormalyne gardens, the crowds swelled toward Brio and swallowed him.

  Caladrius returned after midnight. The warm streets were still noisy; the night watch, its attention turned to drunken brawls, flaring tempers, burning phoenixes, had no time to patrol the haunted stillness around Tormalyne Palace. Brio would also return at night, Caladrius guessed. Dark held secrets, and the answers to secrets. He had found the loose bar. He would find the path: the broken stalk, the overturned stone, the place where weeds had stopped growing. He would make his careful, skilled way to the window with the bars bent apart. He would wait, knobbed and silent as a root underground, night after night, while the moon waxed and waned, until he heard a sound in the empty palace. A footstep. A whisper.

  The children of the House would fare no better than the ravens in the trees.

  Caladrius would leave something among the barrels in the old wine cellar: a word on the wall, a charred torch, a torn piece of cloth, to let them know that they had been discovered. He had no idea how often they gathered, but if they came later that night, they would all be warned. He dared not leave a warning at the window, or beside the rail for Brio to see. In the morning, he would send some crude message to the red-haired man Nicol, whom he had seen in his magister’s robe at the music school, to stop the gatherings. He had thought of finding Justin, but Justin, playing at the Griffin’s Egg, could do little that night, except demand some answers from Caladrius. Descending noiselessly from the barred window, he realized that Justin would not have been where Caladrius expected to find him. They had come before him; he sensed them instantly, as if their thoughts had left a trail.

  He stood, trying to still his breathing, listening to the silence which held, like overtones, ripples of movement, warmth, spoken or unspoken words. He heard, very faintly, a sound that might have been a rat disturbing stagnant water, that might have been a word. Chilled, he moved quickly, found the wall, and followed it, to get them out before Brio gave them like a birthday present to the Prince of Berylon.

  He saw them through the marble archway, sitting quietly as they had before, dimly lit among the empty racks and barrels. This time only Nicol spoke; the others listened intently. Caladrius, on the shore of the dark, about to step into light, suddenly found himself unable to move. Something had formed near him, clinging like shadow to the wall on the other side of the arch. Caladrius, his skin constricting, turned his head slowly.

  He met Brio’s eyes.

  Something struck him, flung him back into the shadows against the wall. Des
perately he shook away the raven’s wing of dark pressing against his eyes. He tried to cry out; no words came. He felt blood slide through his hair, down his neck. He swayed suddenly, tried to keep his balance, wondering why he could not speak, why he could only watch while Brio made adjustments to the small thing in his hand. What it was Caladrius did not recognize, except as dangerous. It looked like a palm-sized crossbow with a tiny quarrel. Brio turned it at Nicol.

  “This one is deadly,” he breathed. “Poisoned. Yours will only keep you dazed and quiet. The prince makes them. Don’t make a sound. I never miss what I must kill.”

  He reached out with his free hand, the quarrel tip never wavering, as if his bones worked independently of one another. He caught Caladrius with unexpected strength, pulled him so close that Caladrius could feel the metal and wood of weapons he hid in his clothes. A blade slid out between his fingers, angled upward beneath Caladrius’s jaw. “If you do anything to warn them, I will kill you. And then them. All of them. Listen to them…”

  “During the opera,” Nicol was saying. “Giulia Dulcet still needs singers in the chorus. Get yourselves into it. Do anything that will get you in to see the performance. I’ll give those of you who aren’t invited magisters’ robes. Come late and stay in the back so that the real magisters won’t see you. You will arm yourselves beforehand at Evena’s uncle’s yard. He’ll be away at the festival. Anyone left outside will stay close to the palace gates, to overcome the guards if they are summoned, and open the gates to the people.”

  “Northerner,” Brio whispered. “Farmer. You were the man on the Tormalyne Bridge, who set fire to the trapper’s wagon.” Caladrius tried to speak; his throat closed, trapping words. The blade moved abruptly, stung. “You’re still alive because I don’t know what you are. Your hands don’t have years of earth worked into them. You don’t speak of fields and crops, you speak of music. You read it. You play it. I think you came down from Luly when it burned. You’re still alive because I don’t know why you are in the prince’s house.” Caladrius, feeling a raven claw behind one eye, lurched suddenly; the relentless grip pushed him back, held him still. “Don’t move. I know better than to kill you before he sees you. You set those ravens at me. I don’t know how, but I know why. And then you pretended to help me. There’s a power in you like his. He doesn’t use birds; he would if he knew how. But he would know it might be possible. You will tell him how, before you die.” He turned the tiny crossbow away from Nicol; it loomed at Caladrius until he shut his eyes. He felt the poisoned tip against one eyelid. “It takes nothing to set this off. A breath. A hair falling across it. Walk. Slowly. Slowly. Don’t do anything to startle me. Don’t try to open your eyes. If the point scratches, you’ll die. It will take longer, though. Walk.”