by C. E. Martin
Kenslir was confused as pain wracked his body and he began to transform. His own ability to withstand any fey or psionic energy should be keeping this from happening. He had been able to resist the curse for years with no ill effects. Why was it happening now?
Kenslir heard the skittering of the basilisk’s claws on the tile of the Fountain Chamber floor. It was charging him.
Despite the intense pain of the slow transformation, Kenslir climbed to his feet. He could feel the claws that had grown from his fingertips, the matted fur now covering his body.
The basilisk was almost on him.
Kenslir dodged to the right as the beast closed. He dove down on its back and dug his clawed hands in. His claws punctured the creature’s thick scales and it bellowed in pain.
The basilisk spun in place, snapping at Kenslir. It chomped down on his left leg, its dozens of tiny, sharp teeth slicing into the meat of his thigh.
Kenslir raked his claws along the basilisk’s back. Scales flew off in several directions and the lizard’s blood sprayed out from deep wounds. Kenslir realized he was growling. Like a dog- or rather, a wolf.
The basilisk twisted its body in a crocodilian-like death roll. Kenslir was thrown off.
He rolled to his feet, crouched low, ready to spring.
The basilisk was turned sideways to him now. Its head swung around and its eyes flashed bright yellow.
The green glow around Kenslir intensified. He felt his muscles, his whole body stiffen, but he did not turn to stone.
He sprang forward.
The basilisk was ready. Where its petrifying glare had failed to freeze Kenslir in his tracks, its tail did not fail it. The creature lashed out with the whip-like appendage, catching Kenslir across the chest. The impact drew blood and hurled Kenslir backwards.
He felt himself flying through the air- then he splashed down into cool water. He had fallen into the Fountain.
The water around Kenslir churned and boiled, illuminated by his bright green glow. He felt himself sinking to the bottom of the deep pool. He also realized the pain in his body, brought on by the incomplete transformation into the werewolf, had stopped.
Kenslir’s feet touched down on the soft silt at the bottom of the Fountain. He pushed off, noticing that the green glow surrounding his body was even more intense now- almost as bright as daylight, obscuring his vision.
Kenslir swam upwards the thirty feet to the surface. But instead of splashing out of the water, he slowed his ascent at the last minute, treading water just below the surface.
The chamber was illuminated only by the faint glow of the emergency lights and Kenslir’s own green aura. He realized that despite the bright glow coming from his body, his eyes couldn’t see as well as they had moments before.
He slowly eased his head above the water and looked around.
The basilisk had gone back to eating its victim. When it finished it would move on to Maria.
Kenslir grabbed at the edge of the Fountain pool. As he pulled himself clear, the glow from his body faded out. He noticed his claws were gone, as well as the thick werewolf fur. The Fountain of Youth had healed him of the werewolf's curse. He felt stronger now as well. Invigorated.
He looked down at his arms and legs. They were bulging with muscles- the muscles of the werewolf. He wasn’t completely cured. Where before he had been lean and muscular, now his body was covered in thick, corded muscles that seemed impossibly large- as though they were going to split his skin.
He glanced down at his leg- basilisk’s bite on his left thigh was gone. Even the scar on his right forearm, left there by the werewolf years ago, was gone. The stiffness in his limbs from the basilisk’s glare was gone as well.
The Fountain had healed a lifetime of injuries and aging and partially reversed the werewolf transformation. Which meant he only had a few hours to live.
Kenslir decided to try again. He charged forward and leapt at the basilisk. He landed squarely on its back.
The beast thrashed and tried to snap its head back to bite Kenslir. He grabbed at its snout.
The basilisk closed its mouth, severing the ring and pinky fingers on Kenslir’s left hand just past the first knuckle. He jerked the hand back, his wedding ring clattering onto the floor, but held his grip with his right hand. Ignoring the pain of his missing fingers, he looped his left arm under the basilisk’s chin even as he clamped his legs around its middle.
The lizard roared as Kenslir squeezed with all his might. Then he pulled back on the creature’s head.
Muscles strained in the lizard’s neck, but it was no match for the strength of the werewolf now in Kenslir’s arms. Tendons stretched and snapped. Vertebrae cracked. With one last vicious pull, Kenslir broke the creature’s neck.
The life seemed to go out of the basilisk. It went limp under Kenslir, its spine broken. Its sides heaved as it struggled to breathe.
Kenslir stepped off, backing away from the creature. He couldn’t believe he had done it.
He looked down at his left hand. It felt strange.
Where just moments before he had the bloody stumps of four fingers, there now were fully formed, gray, stone appendages. As he watched, the stone fingers lightened in color, turning flesh tone once more. He had regrown his fingers.
Kenslir moved to his wife, frozen in stone, laying on the ground. When he stood beside her, he was confused that she didn’t turn back to flesh. The accident that had petrified Maria Guerrero just over a year ago had finally taken its hold. No longer could Kenslir cancel out the petrification with his own fey-cancelling presence.
He knelt beside his stone wife and gently held her hand. A green glow, barely visible, emanated from where their hands touched. The stone of Maria’s hand softened, turning slowly to flesh once more.
Kenslir recoiled, releasing his wife’s hand. The glow winked out and her hand petrified again.
His power wasn’t gone, it had been reduced.
Where he had formerly been able to merely stand within fifteen, sometimes twenty feet of Maria and keep her flesh and blood, now his power was reduced to touch. And as much as he loved his new wife, Kenslir immediately recognized the problem with that. It simply wouldn’t be possible for them to remain in physical contact at all times. Especially now that he’d been in the Fountain. It would soon take back what it had given him. And more. Not only was he doomed, Maria was as well.
Kenslir stood and turned back to the basilisk. He was angry.
He reached down and grabbed the paralyzed animal by its snout. Holding it with one hand, he used his other to gouge out first one, then the other of the beast’s eyes.
Kenslir laid the eyes on the floor beside Maria and sat down beside her. If he was going to be turned to dust at midnight by the Fountain’s cruel curse, at least he would die by his wife’s side.
***
A clock on the wall at the far side of the room showed the time. A minute to midnight. Soon, the curse of the Fountain would take hold.
Mark Kenslir briefly considered laying down and getting comfortable. But turning to dust wouldn’t be something that any body posture could change. He looked away from the clock, his gaze settling on his petrified wife’s face.
The past year had definitely been strange. The career military officer never imagined that being assigned to Miami would have resulted in finding a wife. He had complained a great deal when his bodyguard assignment was explained to him. He should be in the field, countering the many supernatural threats to national security- not sitting around, keeping a scientist from turning to stone.
But Dr. Guerrero had been so close to solving the petrification mechanism before the accident that petrified her. Her research could have led to an entirely new breed of super soldier. Living stone soldiers, impervious to pain, the weather or pretty much any conventional weapon. And Mark Kenslir was the only person who could help with that research- his presence nullifying the basilisk's stare and returning Guerrero to flesh and blood.
For a yea
r he had watched her work- had even assisted here and there when he could. They had grown very close during that time. Close enough they married. And now it was over and he would be dust while Maria remained frozen in stone.
Kenslir turned and glanced over at the clock. Surprisingly, it was one minute past midnight.
He looked down at his hands. They appeared just as they had before. Unblemished. He wasn’t turning to dust- which was odd. The Fountain’s curse had been thoroughly documented and tested. If you went in, you got a temporary gain. That was taken back precisely at midnight.
The Captain stood slowly. He felt healthy. Healthier than he should. The strength and vitality of the werewolf were still with him. The Fountain’s curse was being held at bay.
He looked over to where he’d left the basilisk’s body. It too was still intact. Kenslir had killed the animal, so there was no life for the Fountain to reclaim. He’d cheated the Fountain. Twice.
The Captain looked around and found a piece of glass on the floor. He picked it up and carefully cut a slit on the back of a forearm. His blood leaked out of the cut, then stopped flowing. It clung to his skin, then soaked back in, absorbed as though his flesh was a sponge. The cut, tinged a gray, stone-like color, swelled shut, sealing itself. The gray discoloration faded and his arm was once more whole, with no sign of the incision he had made.
Kenslir was not merely as strong as the werewolf who’s blood was mingled with his own. He was now somehow able to heal any injury- a link to the Fountain? Or the werewolf’s curse?
The Captain looked back at the clock. Twelve more hours remained before search teams would be allowed into the chamber to search the debris and put together what had happened- at least if protocol was followed. That was a long time to wait. He wondered if there were any pants in the storage locker big enough to fit him. His own clothes had been burnt off in the explosion. He was like a newly-born, fully grown man. A man who might not be able to die.
Kenslir looked over at his petrified wife. Maria had speculated there might be a way to reverse the petrification caused by the basilisk. The lizard could do so itself. But as yet, Maria hadn’t figured it out. Maybe someone else could. Maybe not now, but sometime in the future. Kenslir would wait patiently. In his new body he could wait for a very long time.
***
Three weeks later, Captain Mark Kenslir found himself in free fall, at twenty thousand feet. He felt a little claustrophobic in the oxygen mask and flight helmet he wore, surrounded by a night sky. Below him, the dark jungle spread out for miles and miles in every direction- featureless at this altitude.
He looked over at the altimeter on his left wrist, watching the glowing hands slowly wind down as gravity pulled him toward the earth. He noticed the green glow of the altimeter was very similar to his own green glow when it manifested.
The cold air whipped around his body, and he wished he’d put something on over his black and green tigerstripe uniform. Even his feet were getting cold inside his black leather jump boots. Only his gloved hands and his head were warm.
When he finally reached the right altitude, Kenslir breathed a silent prayer and pulled his ripcord. He wasn’t convinced this new method of air insertion the Air Force had come up with was the best way to do things. He’d been trained to jump off static lines from transports at altitudes far less than the one he’d just started from.
The parachute snapped open, cracking in the wind, the only sound he could hear. He grabbed his riser lines and steered himself around, parallel with a fast-approaching mountain. Squinting in the darkness, he got his bearings, comparing the dark features of the landscape with a map he’d memorized earlier. Then he set course for the lowest part of the jungle- where either a road or a river cut through the landscape. He hoped it was the latter.
Luck was on his side and his boots splashed down in muddy brown water, followed by the rest of him and finally his parachute. Beneath the surface of the tributary, he released the catches holding him to his parachute and swam toward shore. He was just able to snag a line for the ‘chute before the current carried it away.
Parachute line in one hand, he pulled his oxygen mask and helmet off with the other and listened. The jungle was quiet. He couldn’t even hear the engines of the Air America transport that had dropped him. He set his helmet onto the muddy bank of the river and quickly reeled in his parachute, rolling it into a large wad he carried under one arm.
Scooping up his helmet, he ducked into the tree line, moving into the dense Laotian jungle for a good thirty feet before stopping. Kneeling buy a tree, he pulled a large Bowie Knife from a sheath strapped to his chest and began digging.
It was slow going, but eventually he had a hole large enough for the helmet, mask, oxygen bottle and the parachute. He slipped out of his parachute harness and added it and his wrist altimeter to the hole as well, then carefully buried his gear.
He replaced the altimeter on his wrist with a compass, and got his bearings. He checked over his gear, ensuring all his pouches and pockets were still sealed. In the darkness of the jungle, his green and black tiger stripes seemed to work very well- concealing him in the shadows and vegetation.
From a pocket in his shirt, he pulled out a small tube of black grease paint and added diagonal lines on his face and hands. For the first time in weeks, he felt comfortable. He was back in the field, out of the damned laboratories the Army had been testing him in. And he had a mission.
He hadn’t been in this jungle before, but it didn’t seem all that alien. In fact, it felt more familiar than his new body did. He still wasn’t a hundred percent used to his new strength, his new, heavier frame. Nor his new senses- the jungle was filled with smells he was sure he never would have noticed before. The doctors had explained that the Fountain had regenerated all the damage and natural decay of his senses. His eyes, ears, nose- all the taste buds in his mouth even were brand new. As though they had never been subjected to the world before. Every taste and smell he experienced was a new one to his body.
And they would stay that way. Forever.
His new body would never age. It would never change. It would just keep regenerating- returning to the state it was in now. Which made him wish he’d eaten breakfast the day he died. Going through eternity on an empty stomach was surely going to try his patience.
He pulled loose the suppressed submachinegun strapped to his chest, readied the .45 caliber grease gun and headed deeper into the jungle.
***
He had traveled through the night, never tiring. The oppressive heat of the jungle hadn’t bothered him. If nothing else the humidity made him feel stronger- the moisture in the air soaking into his body to keep it fresh. It was like a sort of ongoing micro-regeneration.
He almost laughed at the absurdity of it. He'd always hated the jungles- desert missions were the best. Even with the regenerative feeling of the jungle around him, he longed for the dry heat of the American Southwest. Or at least the dry forests of his home state.
He moved steadily but cautiously through the jungle, marveling at the power of his new body. In the past, when he'd moved through jungles it had been a tiring, sweaty business that didn’t allow one to cover much ground. But here in Laos, even with its uneven terrain and thick vegetation, he was making very good time.
By late morning, he reached his destination- a particular patch of jungle high on the slope of a large hill overlooking a valley-like area deep in the jungle. A valley home to a number of artificial structures- man-made buildings that seemed very out of place despite their camouflaged roofs.
A ghost in the thick foliage, Kenslir used a small, telescoping monocular to observe the base, noting the position of trucks that had driven in. They had come from the single rough-hewn trail carved through the jungle on the opposite side of the valley from his position. The side closest to Vietnam.
The remote supply base was surprisingly large up close. Its warehouse-like buildings were no doubt filled with supplies the North Vietnamese Army
was stockpiling for further operations south of here. Operations in support of both the Pathet Lao as they tried to overthrow the Royal Laotian government and the Viet Cong working to destabilize neighboring South Vietnam.
But as large as the base was, it didn’t appear to be heavily manned. Kenslir counted only a handful of men- mostly guards walking the perimeter and a few working inside, unloading two trucks.
Kenslir frowned. Such a small base of operations shouldn’t have been a problem for the team sent to investigate it over a week ago. But then, if the base was anything normal, the astral scouts in Florida would have been able to penetrate its confines. Something hid the base from those operating on the etheric plane- better even than the camouflage and surrounding mountains that hid it from aerial reconnaissance. Scouting the site had required boots on the ground. And now those boots were missing.
Kenslir checked his watch. It would be mid-day soon. The last possible time the NVA would expect an attack. That would be when he would enter the compound and find out what happened to the team sent to investigate it.
He began moving down the slope of the hill, failing to notice a faint green glow that flashed around him- drowned out by the bright sun shining down through the thick jungle canopy.
***
He had circled clockwise around the base, moving down the mountainous slope he had started on. Crossing through the thick growth, he planned to circle to the west, and cross into the camp through the most inhospitable terrain adjoining it.
What he hadn’t counted on was a patrol.
A very agitated patrol of NVA- scouring the jungle in a wide line, chattering excitedly back and forth to each other. They were looking for something- for someone. Kenslir knew it had to be him.
There were twenty men- spread out in a line, maybe ten feet apart from shoulder to shoulder. They were circling the base, counter-clockwise, beating the brush and undergrowth with long sticks in one hand, shoulder-slung AK-47s in the other.
