The trail that they blazed soon led them to a vast desert area.“I don’t think we should cross this land, we’d better go another route…” The beast said in a lite whisper. “No way…!” Nicolai snapped. “Don’t you know that the shortest path between me and my goal is a straight line…” The boy said.
Nicolai stood on the acid-steaming sands. He winced in the stinging wind as he tucked the ends of his makeshift turban into his collar. Without another word, Nicolai with the beast who’s visible only to Nicolai and the girl which seems to be invisible to everyone else got to their feet, and the strange trio visually minus two, marched off into the wasteland.
After only a few hours on his feet, Nicolai believed not only that the desert was killing him but that it was doing so actively and aggressively, because it somehow hated him and wanted him dead.
The late afternoon sun was not even visible through the hazy ceiling of clouds, But it punished Nicolai with every step he took. Hot, salty sweat ran into his eyes, which were almost swollen shut. The native cloth he had hung limp across his face and the back of his neck, soaked through and crusted with windblown sand. When its corners brushed against his skin, they seared as if they’d been steeped in bleach. The cloth kept most of the larger sand particles away from his breathing passages, but it didn’t protect him from the stinging pain as grit blew across his body. Even through his clothes, Nicolai felt he was being skinned alive one layer at a time.
They had nothing to eat or drink, and his stomach was starting to cramp from hunger. Not that Nicolai could taste anything anyway — his mouth and throat were coated with dust. As awful as that was, it was actually preferable to breathing the volcanic fumes and stale, hot air that clung to the surface of the sand like a fog bank.
Feverish, his mind began to wonder. He had been solitary in his so called “home” for most of his life, yet here in this company he felt more alone than ever. Except for the beast, who so far had been patient and communicative.
The “girl”, for her part, was still invisible to his eyes. “She must be really weak against sunlight…” Nicolai thought. And sun heat this strong would instantly disintegrate her if she would ever decide to reveal herself.“But could such a thing be possible…?” he murmured. Nicolai strained to hear her over the wind but was rewarded only with barely audible breathing sounds of the beast.
“Stop here,” the beast said. “You’re about to black out…” The beast place its massive hands on Nicolai 's shoulders and eased him seat-first onto the ground.
“There used to be a spring.” The beast’s breath danced across his ear, tickling slightly, but the voice sounded miles away. “I don’t know why I thought it would still be here.” The beast sighed.
Nicolai fought to open his eyes. The wind eased up, and he heard something moving about. Unable to see what the beast is doing, Nicolai simply stopped trying. His eyes fluttered as they closed, and he felt himself falling.
He never landed. Nicolai 's languorous descent continued long after his face should have hit the sand. Dreaming or dying, he thought, and either is better than another moment in this damnable desert.
“Nicolai!” Now a female’s tone was aimed at him. He no longer cared. He would simply continue to fall, to drop out of this world and into the next.
Cold, small hands took hold of his shoulders and shook him until his teeth rattled. The veil that had descended over his eyes did not lift, but he felt the cold more refreshing than ever.
“Hang on,” the voice said. “Rest. Stay with us another hour or two. Once the sun starts to set, the heat and the wind will die off.” “We can look for water then…” The beast’s voice suddenly interrupted.
“Water,” Nicolai agreed. He would say anything to get those freezing hands to release him, to drift once more. This place hated him. This desert was killing him. You win, he thought. Nicolai yields to the Almighty Desert. Just let me leave here and never come back.
Nicolai 's wish was partially granted when the icy cold fingers disappeared from his shoulders, and he heard running footsteps in the sand. His moment had passed, however. The “girl” had shaken him out of his lethargy enough to trap him painfully between half-consciousness and complete oblivion.
“A few more hours,” The female voice said. They could look for water when the heat leveled off. Until then…what? Were he to sit here and bake in the evening sun…?
A tiny mote of irritation began to grow in Nicolai 's mind. He went out to exact revenge. He summoned the darkness, who was really annoying and speaks gibberish when not needed then falls silent when necessary. He met the “girl”, who was suppose to be far more important than him, the source of his power, but is weak against sunlight before accompanying him out into the desert to die. If they are so great, how come they don’t just transport him out of here and arrive at his destination in an instant. He was tired of putting his life in those two’s hands only to be shocked at how carelessly they carried it.
And yet…the beast said that there was something special about him, and the “girl” probably thinks the same. These two, who perhaps lived on a grand scale and shared the same purpose, came to him, appeared before him. Could show such vulnerability after speaking mightily about himself? Could he fail their expectations of him as utterly as prioritizing himself over vengeance…?
Nicolai struggled to hold himself upright. The irritation within him grew, expanding from a tiny speck to a towering monument. He could not let this happen. He could become a disappointment to her. He would not allow himself to be mere luggage in her presence…
Nicolai coughed, sucked in sand, and coughed again. He forced his eyes to open and shut twice more. He reached out and dug his hand deep into the sand, ignoring the searing sensation that enveloped his fingers. He sank his other hand into the ground and pulled, clawing his way onto his knees. Fresh beads of sweat popped from his forehead, and he paused to catch his breath, his lips mere inches from the surface of the sand.
As he gathered his strength to stand again, Nicolai heard a subtle hissing. It was hard to pinpoint the sound, but it seemed to be rising from the ground directly beneath his face.
Sleep now, a serpentine whisper said. Rest.
A pungent odor rose to his nostrils, and Nicolai 's vision fogged. The voice and the scent seemed reptilian to him, cold-blooded and razor-scaled. He had been beset by serpents too often of late. Snakes, dragons, and lizards were common in the swamps he called home, but he did not anticipate that they were the norm in this blasted place.
Sleep now. Rest.
This new sinister, soothing voice did seem to come from one of his companions. The voice not weaken Nicolai 's resolve or his concentration but sharpened it. He had a deep-seated dread of telepathic communications, for in the fens where he grew up a disembodied voice was more dangerous than an arrow in flight.
Nicolai opened his eyes. His vision cleared. He was still crouched on all fours, his chin almost touching the ground. Before him, a small, scaled creature rose up from the sand, no longer than Nicolai 's hand. A proud crest of fibrous scales crowned the tiny monster’s head, a vivid cockscomb that he recognized all too well.
Nicolai shut his eyes immediately before they met the basilisk’s. The creatures were deadly, even at this size. The slightest touch, the briefest glance would mean the end of him. He pitched himself backward, preferring to break his own clumsy neck rather than harden into stone or dissolve into rot where he stood. He was lucky in that he was able to roll away from the creature, turning a backward somersault and kicking up a spray of stinging sand.
“Nicolai?” The beast called. He waved it away and threw himself back again, completing another backward somersault as he shouted, “Stay back! Basilisk!”
“Nicolai!” The beast’s voice was still distant. But now it was to his left and in front of him rather than behind to his right. His heart pounding, Nicolai forgot about about exhaustion and thirst for the first time in over a day, and he saw the landscape as clearly as if he’d just woken from an afternoon nap. The beast and the “girl” were now in front of him, But he saw a shadowy figure swiftly closing in behind them.
“Get away,” he said. He jump up. “Don’t even look. There’s a basilisk in the sand. It tried to hypnotize me.”
But the approaching figure was not even interested in the basilisk. Nicolai was shocked to see a rugged figure of a man, what’s more surprising is that the man was approaching the basilisk from its front while clearly staring it straight in the eyes.
“Do not worry, I won’t die this simply,” the man said. Without turning from his view, the man whipped out a long weapon that’s similar to a long wooden rod or stick. Nicolai held perfectly still and watched the basilisk from the corner of his eye as the stranger held his weapon up high about to strike.
Still fixed on the basilisk, the man pricked up his ears, paused, and lash out his weapon like a whip. Nicolai saw a puff of sand and heard a short, pained hiss. The stranger instantly jerked his rod like weapon back to his side, casting two tiny scaled legs and a bleeding cockscomb high into the sky.
“That was impressive,” The beast said, but as soon as he did his attention drifted off to Nicolai.
“I tumbled.” Nicolai shrugged at the “girl” helplessly. “How come you were able to survive the basilisk’s gaze…?” He asked the man.
The stranger smiled, his brilliant white teeth gleaming. “Because I can not die,” he said. “A deadly basilisk is nothing more than mere to me…” He shook his long weapon that is now revealed as a wooden fishing rod.
“So,” the man said, his eyes bright. “What are you doing way over here in the middle of this desert…?”
Nicolai started to answer, to tell the stranger that where he was headed and that he needs some water, but his was parched from shouting so much earlier and his having a hard time speaking. “Water,” he whispered. Momentarily forgotten, the exhaustion and fatigue came back fivefold, and Nicolai 's knees almost buckled.
“Water?” The man said. “A spring is nearby, that’s where I’m headed when came across you guys.” When Nicolai heard this, a thought stroked his mind like lightning. “He’s able to see them?!” He uttered. “Its only a short walk, if you can still walk, that is…” The man continued without paying any attention to Nicolai 's sudden expression.
As they neared the spring. Nicolai looks almost to fall to his knees, but in actuality, the oily darkness was the one that was keeping him on his feet. “W-who are you? And what a-are you doing h-here…?” Nicolai asks in a weakening voice.
The man hesitated. Then muttered something inaudible. Finally, the man replied, though less willingly, and Nicolai only recognized the words “…going fishing…”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Some time later, a second basilisk came across the remains of its kin, which the man had killed. Familial relations were not warm among these miserable little beast, and it was more than happy to devour the edible remains of its distant relative.
The ground sizzled under the tiny lizard’s claws. It knew it had to keep moving or the sand beneath its feet would liquefy. It skittered across the surface of the dunes, leaving strange scratches in the sand. As it approached the ragged cockscomb and a bit of tail, it lashed at the morsels with its spiky tongue.
The basilisk went rigid as its appendage brushed against its intended meal. A thin veneer of frost raced up its tongue and flowed over the length of its entire body, encasing the monster in a sheathe of frozen dust.
The last thing the basilisk heard was a breathy, almost giddy voice that seemed to vibrate up from the scavenged remains.
Almost, the voice said. But not enough. No worries, though, eh? We’ll try again…won’t we, my little friends? We’ll have to try again. We’ll have to try again soon…
