Betimes, a hen lays an egg without a yolk. These “cock’s eggs,” so named because many believe a cock laid them rather than a hen, never hatch under normal circum- stances — but sometimes, in places where Creation’s fabric wears thin and the Wyld seeps through, a cock’s egg hatches. It’s not a chick that crawls out of the bro- ken shell, but a winged lizard with a rooster’s head and a long, serpentine tail. Blessed with deadly sight, its first victim is usually its mother, followed by the remainder of her flock. Hunting is never difficult for the cockatrice, and it has little to fear from predators; even if they slip by its gaze, they perish at its touch. A cockatrice never learns fear, not even of humans, who die just as easily under even a juvenile cockatrice’s gaze. A single cock- atrice can wipe out entire villages, so mortals in the Threshold smash cock’s eggs when they find them just in case, to keep disaster at bay.
