Song for the Basilisk
Song for the Basilisk is a 1998 fantasy novel by Patricia A. McKillip. It was a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award finalist in 1999.
The story follows Caladrius, nicknamed Rook, the sole survivor of a village massacre. He has lived with the bards of Luly and, although he loves and has a son, cannot forget the past. He learns his true name: Griffin Tormalyne, from the noble House of Griffin, which was crushed by Arioso Pellior, the tyrant who leads the city of Berylon and the Basilisk.
In Berylon, Caladrius enters Pellior’s house as a music teacher for Pellior’s daughter Damiet, who is not musical. As Griffin tutors Damiet for an upcoming opera, the city’s musicians plot and scheme. Griffin fights back with his instruments, a picochet (a single-stringed peasant instrument) and a small bone pipe, and he challenges the Basilisk to seek his revenge. But the revenge is not simple.
Arioso Pellior is wounded but not dead. He names his other daughter, Luna, a powerful magician who has been his apprentice, as his heir. Luna, tired of the tyranny, declares that thirty-seven years of torturing Tourmalyne House are enough. Hearing this, Pellior dies of anger. Luna then begins to help Caladrius restore Tormalyne House.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:49 (CET).