CHRYSALIS

by Walter Erickson

  He reached Level 2 and paused, taking stock. The door to the medusa's apartments was before him. In total darkness he stood on his hind legs and placed his front paws on the door, feeling for the door hardware. He touched hinges, which meant the door opened out, toward him. Nothing is ever easy, he thought wryly. He found the operating hardware and gripped it with his teeth. Praying the door wasn’t locked, he pulled the lever handle down. The door opened and he slipped inside.

  Fully oriented, he knew exactly where he was. Medusa’s private quarters, in the rear of the apartment. In the profound darkness came a wisp of stench, of something putrid and unclean. He padded silently across the floor, following the wisp of fetid air through an opening and into another room. The stench was stronger, and he paused, listening, alert for sound. Through the darkness came a far off hum, faintly heard, as of wordless and tuneless singing. Above the humming trilled the warbling of a tiny bird. Ears perked, nose quivering and eyes trying to pierce the impenetrable dark, he resumed his stalk, every muscle at full tension, head low to the ground, fangs bared and ready.

  One paw at a time, stiff legged, body trembling with intensity, Juan Marie stepped slowly and quietly into a room flaring with a bright and penetrating brilliant green glow. On the floor, in front of a standing medusa, his arms around her naked waist, his face pressed against her breasts, the emerald glow centered on his glistening chest, knelt a naked Tal Avenger.

  As Juan Marie watched, horrified, medusa sang to the snakes, a tuneless song, a caressing song. Her hands moved sensuously over Tal Avenger, stroking him, arousing him. The snakes writhed, singing softly to medusa, slipping and sliding over one another, mouths open, tongues darting and hissing, eyes glowing in the emerald light. Growing, lengthening, they formed their tent, covering the head of Tal Avenger, pressing him tightly to her. Above the horrifying scene, swooping and soaring, chirping and warbling, Khalid screamed his excitement.

  The stench was overpowering, a nauseous combination of rotting meat and hellish corruption, far worse than the rotting stench of Gaeton Thon. Involuntarily, Juan Marie growled, a low, menacing threat.

  “I believe Juan is here, Khalid,” medusa said softly.

  The sound of her voice came rasping to Juan Marie’s ears. He stopped, frozen, one paw in mid-air. He growled again, but she did not look his way, for she and Tal Avenger were pressed together under the writhing shoulder length canopy of snakes.

  “Come in, Juan,” she laughed, and the snakes looked his way and hissed angrily. “I’ve been expecting you. The emerald has been much excited. See how it glows, see how alive it is! I have taught it well, this lovely green emerald, and it in turn has served me well.”

  He didn’t answer, but remained fixed, eyes fastened on the scene before him. He slowly lowered his stiffly extended paw and gathered himself for the spring, a spring that would take him to her neck, through the snakes, where his sharp fangs would sever the life from her.

  “Your friend has found ecstasy, Juan, as did you before him. Have you forgotten so soon the intensity of our love?” Her voice lowered, but still she didn’t look his way, did not disturb the growing canopy of twisting snakes, now below their waists, and beginning their inward weave, binding the lovers together. “Listen to him!” she whispered hoarsely, “listen to Tal Avenger!”

  The snakes stopped their singing and in the sudden stillness there came a whimpering sob, a low moan, of ecstasy or of anguish it was hard to tell.

  “Listen to him!” she whispered fiercely, and the hoarse-voiced sobs of Tal Avenger filled the room.

  “My love, my love,” he whimpered, his voice an agonized croak, crying into the swollen breasts of the medusa. “Oh, my love, my love!” and the medusa soothed, “Yes, yes, my handsome one.”

  The snakes resumed their singing, and medusa slowly lowered herself to the floor. They knelt, face to face, and the snakes completed their writhing canopy, enclosing the lovers in a slithering cocoon. The emerald glow faded and died as the living tent of snakes enveloped them in womb-like warmth.

  Poised to spring, Juan Marie remained immobile, for the scene and medusa's voice had stayed him, had mesmerized him, and for a moment the nauseous smell seemed once again the remembered muskiness of passion and sensuality. He recovered quickly, however, and his muscles tensed for the spring, but before he could take a step he heard a cough from the darkness. From under the snakes came the high-pealed sound of medusa's laugh. She rose from her embrace and turned to face the hound, the snakes coming free of Tal Avenger with great sucking sounds, as of boots being forcefully pulled from clinging, viscous muck. Tal Avenger groaned and collapsed onto the floor.

  In the brilliant glow of the now unmasked emerald, the medusa stood before the hound, a leap away, the snakes still elongated, covering her completely from head to toe, hiding her from view. The snakes writhed and twisted, tongues flicking, staring at the hound with green reflective eyes, hissing their displeasure.

  “You were expected, Juan,” she laughed, her voice sounding oddly distant under the canopy of snakes, “and so I have invited someone to meet you. You know Director Kosh, I am sure.”

  Another cough came from the darkness, dry and menacing. Into the emerald glow glided a huge black panther, yellow eyes wide and unblinking, mouth open and fangs bared. From his neck hung a bright and shining ruby, glowing deeply in the dark, a glowing coal of malice and strength. He looked at the hound and stopped, twitching his tail, waiting for the hound to move.

  “Of course the Director looked much different then,” she sighed, and the snakes giggled, writhing in amusement. “So handsome he was, almost as handsome as you, dear Juan, nearly as handsome as sweet Khalid.” At his name, the canary bobbed and weaved his way across the room to circle above the panther's head, warbling and chirping merrily.

  “So you see, Juan,” she said sternly, “it’s certain death if you so much as move. How amusing that a former lover now protects me from a former lover once removed.” She took a step toward the hound, and the snakes parted, scrambling over one another, hissing their annoyance.

  “Go!” she commanded, “leave us! You’re fools, all of you! Do you think the emerald was for you, you foolish man? Look at you. Look at him, and him. They too believed the stone was a gift from medusa, a gift of power, and they are, but the power is mine! The Director believes he rules the world because of the power of the ruby, but he rules because of the power of medusa! No, my lovely Juan, the emerald, the topaz, the ruby, the sapphire, they are to serve me, medusa, they bring you to me when I call, they comfort you when I wish you to be comforted, and they afflict you when I wish you to be afflicted.” She took another step toward the hound and the panther coughed again.

  “Yes, afflicted,” she said softly, and ominously, “Khalid, Juan, and now Sariot. And others before you, others before them. And others after, as well, for the sapphire will bring Tal Avenger to me until I tire of his love, and he will join the zodiac, the little circle of medusa's animals.”

  She laughed and took another step. With a savage snarl the hound sprang, knocking her down, mauling her, slashing teeth ripping and tearing. In an instant the panther was upon him. Sharp claws dug into him, wicked fangs ripped at his throat.

  Juan Marie rolled over, throwing the panther onto the floor. He slashed at the panther's throat as they rolled, drawing quick and satisfying blood, but they don't say quick as a cat for nothing, and the panther was on his feet before the hound completed his roll. The panther swung at the hound with a hammer-like paw and knocked him across the room and into a wall.

  “Bo!” the Avenger cried, helpless to intervene. “Bo!”

  The hound tried bravely to get up but the panther was upon him. Juan Marie screamed as razor sharp claws raked his belly open. Another savage hammer blow to the head put the hound down, crumpled him to the floor. Juan Marie gave one final, defiant growl and lay still.

  The canary flew wildly about, screaming, chirping madly. The panther stood over the hound and touc
hed him gently with a paw, his head cocked to the side as if playing with him, the panther's bright red ruby reflecting in the hound's unblinking eyes.

  A sound caught the panther’s attention. Badly hurt, whimpering in pain, the medusa struggled to get up. Somewhere inside him flooded a raging torrent of hate, and whatever remained of the warrior Sariot Kosh snarled and leaped upon the snakes, biting through them to get to his tormentor. His slashing fangs and tearing razor claws ripped the snakes from the shrieking mass of pulpy creature, and the sickening smell of putrid snake rose from the carnage. So intent was the panther on the creature underneath he didn’t even try to avoid the poisonous fangs. He was bitten many times before the last of the snakes was dead.

  She lay exposed, her flabby whiteness showing redly in the ruby's glow. The pain caused her color to change from white to rose to pink to white again, the colors rippling up and down her shapeless body, now looking more like a monstrous, misshapen cuttlefish than a woman. She struggled to regain her feet, but the panther knocked her down with a last, powerful blow. He couldn’t finish her, for the hound had done good work. The panther’s lifeblood ebbed slowly but steadily from his fang torn throat. He rocked unsteadily, the fast acting snake poison setting in. Eyes closed, trembling violently, he took one last step toward the hated thing and collapsed amid the dismembered snakes.

  Tal Avenger got to his knees, hunched over, gasping for breath. He cursed himself, cursed his weakness, cursed medusa. Unable to get to Bo, unable to do anything, he cried to heaven for forgiveness.

  Medusa moved haltingly across the floor. The last blow by the panther had laid her open, and her hands could not contain the seeping yellow slime that oozed through her fingers. She held her belly closed with one hand, and began to crawl and slide toward the back of the apartment. If she could get to the stair and to the lakebed, and into the healing water, she’d be all right, she would survive, as she’d survived other catastrophes in other times.

  The canary circled above the Avenger's head, screaming, imploring him.

  “I can't move, little fella,” he gasped, but with a fierce grunt of effort he struggled to his feet and was instantly nauseous, as the intolerable stench assailed him. He heaved uncontrollably, the smell of vomit adding little to the stench of the medusa and her snakes. The canary circled his head, beating his face with his wings, trying to get his attention.

  At the edge of his vision, Tal Avenger saw something white and shapeless crawling across the room, but before he could move it disappeared into the darkness. He guessed it was medusa, but he had more important matters to attend to. He staggered across the room and knelt beside the still form of the hound. A look was enough to tell him Old Bo was dead. Nearby, in a pool of thickening blood, lay the body of the panther, its mouth drawn back into the horrible grimace of death by poison.

  The canary circled wildly, screaming all the while, darting out of the room into the blackness and back in again to circle the Avenger's head.

  “What is it?” Tal Avenger cried crossly.

  Khalid chirped madly and flew away again, hovering at a doorway.

  “All right,” he said wearily. “I know she’s there.”

  Stomach crawling with the memory of their lovemaking, Tal Avenger followed the slimy trail into the back of the apartment, the emerald lighting the way, the canary flying on ahead, chirping something urgent but unintelligible. When he came to the open stair door he stepped out onto the landing. She was nowhere to be seen. The canary darted down the stair and back again, circling his head and darting down again. He followed the bird, and at the bottom of the stair saw a closed metal door. When he held the emerald up to the thick glass viewing port he saw the space behind the door was filled with water. He understood immediately. The medusa had closed the door and opened another door to the lake, flooding the chamber. “She got away, Khalid,” he apologized.

  Retracing his steps, he found the elevator that connected to Kosh's study, and dragged the hound and the panther through the apartment, not quite knowing why, but knowing he didn’t want to leave them in that hellish place. He loaded them into the elevator and returned to the scene of the battle, bare feet stepping gingerly in the slime and the guts and the blood carpeting the floor. He retrieved his clothes, not pausing to put them on, eager to get out of the stink.

  He returned to the elevator and he and Khalid and the bodies descended one floor to Kosh's study, dark and deserted, the slate floor cool and damp to his bare feet. Just enough moonlight came from the lightwells to see by, and he paused to put on his pants, smiling in grim amusement as he realized he no longer needed the dinner jacket. He hadn’t brought his shoes, and in his haste he’d neglected to pick up his shirt. But it didn't matter. Shirtless and shoeless, Tal Avenger went about his grim task.

  He’d been unable to prevent Bo's gallant death, but he didn’t want to leave him alone in the dark, and so he dragged him into Kosh's living room. The emerald and the sapphire still lived, still shone brightly on the chain around his neck, the light bright enough to see the sofa on which he had so recently sat with Ellysia Kosh. The fishwall was dark, the fish gone, or at any rate unseen.

  He placed Bo by the fishwall and returned to the study for the panther. Kosh's ruby still lived, still glowed its deep red hue, even though Kosh was dead, and he guessed it meant the medusa was still alive, for she had said the power of the stones resided in her and not in their wearers. He took the ruby from the panther's neck and put it in his pocket, intending to give it to Ellysia. He was not unhappy about the Director's death, but his courageous attack on medusa had shown him there’s more than one facet to any man. He looked at the still panther and thought the Director was lucky, at least he didn't end up a cockatoo, as his wife had feared. Ending one's life as a panther was an accomplishment not easily dismissed.

  “Goodbye Kosh, you vicious and terrible old bastard,” he said with some affection. “I'm glad you're gone, but somehow we always seem to miss our enemies.” He dragged the panther into the living room and laid him next to Bo.

  “Let's light this thing up, Khalid.” He found the switch that turned on the lakebed floodlights and the bottom of the lake became day. Frightened fish scattered at the sudden light. Amid the sparse lakebed vegetation lay a small pile of bones that Tal Avenger recognized as being in the location of the late Gaeton Thon.

  “Not much else we can do here, Khalid,” he said, “let's go roust out Mrs. Kosh and tell her her old man is dead. Two to one she doesn't blink an eye.” The canary buzzed him again and settled on Old Bo, chirping his tiny heart out.

  Ellysia Kosh stood in the doorway, in the semi-darkness beyond the glow of the lakebed lights, a gun in her hand, and she was not noticeably afraid.

  “So it's you, is it?” she said, glancing at the dog and the panther against the fishwall. “My God, what’s that stink?”

  “It's me, I'm afraid. There's quite a mess up in Dorothea's room, but she got away. She's hurt, but she got away. She's in the lake.”

  “In the lake? I don't understand.”

  “Neither do I. Incidentally, your husband's dead. That's him over there, the panther.”

  “So the medusa got him,” she said unemotionally. “They never listen to their wives, do they, Mr. Pure? What happened?”

  “The hound came after Dorothea, the hound apparently being someone named Juan, a former lover. She changed your husband into a panther and set him on the hound. After he killed the hound he tried to kill Dorothea.”

  “Yes, he would have. He was very brave, my husband was. And what were you doing there, Mr. Pure?”

  “Don't ask, it's too disgusting.”

  “My God!” she exclaimed suddenly, “what’s that?”

  Past the fishwall floated a large, white, shapeless mass, illumined by the lakebed lights.

  “Good God,” he whispered. “It’s the medusa.”

  She bore little resemblance to a woman, other than a general shape and size, and looked remarkably like a feebly s
wimming giant squid. Her face was rudimentary, or perhaps it was the play of the light and the optical effect of moving water, for her eyes, nose and mouth seemed to be not fully formed, as if their formation had been arrested by some undetected error in the plans. Her head, if it was a head, had no hair, but the mangled and bitten off bodies of hundreds of tiny snakes waved in the swirling current.

  She drifted slowly by the fishwall, her body pulsating feebly, settling slowly to the bottom, oozing a substance heavier than the water, though it was clearly not blood. A stubby, misshapen hand gripped a gaping slit in the stomach, and her short, tentacle-like legs made pushing motions from time to time, as if trying to move away from the light and into the dark water.

  Her eyes opened as she drifted past, and she seemed to recognize the creatures in the room staring out in horror, for she turned, trying to change course away from the glass. One of her legs touched the glass, making a small thump, and with a final twist in the current she settled onto the lakebed. She tried to get up, but did not succeed.

  A small fish darted in to bite at the open wound, tearing a small piece off the soft abdomen. Another small fish joined it, and another, and the medusa kicked feebly, the motion releasing a cloud of slime into the water. A pike came slashing in, tearing a huge piece from one of the suckered legs and a school of shad arrived, joining the voracious pike, driving the smaller fish away. The fish attacked savagely, a fierce, roiling feeding frenzy. The medusa jumped in the water as they hit, the clear lake water becoming cloudy with viscera and slime and floating particles of flesh. Minutes later it was all over, and as the water cleared and the sand and silt and slime and particles settled to the lakebed, the only thing to be seen was a small pile of cartilage, scattered over the bottom, shining in the lakebed floodlights.