Kingfisher(59)

“Sorry, sirs,” the driver announced upon consultation with his dash. “Both lanes are blocked up ahead for nearly a mile. They don’t know how long before the road is cleared.” He paused, listening again. “They’re—ah—they’re advising people to turn around, catch another road back in town that runs through the hills around the—ah, the—ah—problem.”

He sounded oddly shaken. Leith asked, “What exactly is the problem?”

“Seems to be a mythological beast in the middle of the road, sir.”

Val ducked instantly over his cell phone, working rapidly. Leith closed his eyes briefly, opened them, and said grimly, “Which beast?”

“Ah—they’re not sure, sir. The fire department managed to get some trucks through from the next town before traffic got too tangled. They tried to chase it away with hoses and sirens. The beast is sitting on top of one of the trucks. They’ve sent a photo to the Royal Herald in Severluna.”

“I’ve got it,” Val said briefly, and held it up.

Pierce broke their mystified silence. “It looks like a snake with a rooster’s head.”

“Basilisk,” Val murmured, entranced by the vision, the enormous, upright coils balanced between the fire-truck ladders; the fiery cockscomb fanning the fowl’s head above its huge, open beak; the visible eye, round, golden, with a mad red flame in its center. “Isn’t there something weird about the basilisk’s eye? Oh, here it is, in the Royal Herald’s description. Its look can kill.” He paused; his brows went up. “So can its breath.”

“I doubt that your mother is planning to kill anyone,” Leith protested. “Except maybe me.”

“I’ve been eyeballing the situation, sir,” the driver said over the intercom. “I’m fairly certain I can get the limo turned around soon. There’s a wide bit in the road ahead, and we’re creeping closer to it as more cars ahead are turning for the detour.”

“It’s probably just another illusion,” Pierce guessed. “It won’t hurt anyone, and it can’t get hurt.”

“No,” Leith said abruptly. Val looked at him, his eyes narrowed.

“No, which, sir?” the driver asked.

“No, don’t turn. Stay in line.” He reached across Pierce, opened the door, and stepped out. “And you stay here,” he told his sons.

“But—” Val began.

“You told me to talk to her.”

“But what if it’s not her? I mean, not her making?” Pierce argued. “I might be wrong about that.”

“It hasn’t done anything more dangerous than commandeer a fire truck. Besides, what are the odds that two mythological beasts appear along the same road within half an hour of each other, and they’re not from the same source?”

“What if it’s not sorcery?” Val asked simply, balancing halfway out the door behind Leith. “Do you know how to kill a basilisk?”

“Look it up,” Leith said shortly. “Call me and let me know how if I get into trouble.”

“I think you should—”

“I think this is my fight and not yours.” He pushed against the limo door until Val yielded, shifted back, and Leith closed it. “My fault, my affair, and my basilisk. Find your own mythological beast.”

They waited until he had glanced back once, several cars ahead of them, before they followed him.

Val slipped an assortment of chains, sticks, and metal balls into various hidden pockets, along with the small, deadly Wyvern’s Eye. Pierce, blankly considering his own arsenal, pulled the kitchen knife out of his pack. Val showed him one of the sheaths sewn into his jacket lining. The driver stuck his fist out the window as they passed, and raised his thumb.

“Good luck, sirs. Be careful.”

They did not have to walk far before they saw the beast.

Its body, uncoiled, would have been longer than two or three fire trucks. Its head, with its blazing frill of cockscomb and the great wheels of its eyes, was raised, alert, over the front end of the truck, peering out of one eye, then the other, at the people milling around it with weapons, news cameras, cell phones. Leith, walking toward it on the opposite side of the road, was half-hidden by the idling vehicles. The fire truck the beast had landed on was angled across the road, stopping traffic in both directions. Its former occupants had abandoned it hastily, judging from the wide-open doors. A man spoke into a bullhorn, trying to persuade people back into their cars. They ignored him; so did the beast.

“I wonder if it knows—” Val started, then answered himself. “Of course it knows we’re here if it’s our mother’s making. That’s why it appeared.”

“It’s another message for us,” Pierce said tightly. “She knows we didn’t listen to the dragon. Maybe I should call her.”

“A basilisk with a phone?”

“She’s probably at home in Desolation Point, watching us in water, or in the mist, or in a pot of chicken soup or something. I had no idea she could make anything like this. I had no idea—” He paused, added heavily, “I’m glad I didn’t know. It wouldn’t have been so easy to think of leaving her.”

“Maybe she didn’t know either,” Val suggested. “Maybe she was never this angry before.” He sounded unusually somber. Pierce glanced at him, and he added, “I haven’t seen her since I was a child. I’ve been with my father most of my life. She doesn’t have a reason to think that I care about her. That I even remember her. You, at least, she knows she loves.”