Vanity's Brood

by Lisa Smedman

  Arvin glanced warily around. “Here? Right now? What if Sibyl—”

  “She is not that close. Speak quickly; there is still time.”

  Reluctantly, Arvin eased the ring off his finger. It felt like a part of Karrell—a part of him now. Speaking in a quick whisper, Arvin told the dwarf how he’d met Karrell, how they’d decided to join forces to fight Sibyl, and about how one of Sibyl’s minions—the marilith—had yanked Karrell into the Abyss when it had been banished.

  “It was my fault,” he concluded. “I manifested the power that did it.”

  “Did what?” the dwarf asked.

  Throughout Arvin’s explanation, the red glow surrounding the dwarf faded. The hand that gripped Arvin’s was normal again, without claws.

  Arvin frowned. “I linked Karrell’s fate with the demon’s—but you should have been able to tell that from listening to my thoughts.”

  The dwarf shook his head. “My god has not granted me that ability.”

  “But—”

  The dwarf nodded at Karrell’s ring. “You were willing to remove it. I knew you were telling the truth.”

  “Then you believe me when I say that I came here with the same goal as you.” Arvin shifted the backpack away from his injured hip. It was still bleeding. He took off his shirt, wadded it into a ball, and pressed it against the wound. He only needed to stay alive long enough to throw his net. “Lead the way.”

  The dwarf nodded at the blood that soaked Arvin’s shirt. “First, there is something you need.” He held out broad hands, as if in question.

  Arvin nodded—then winced as the dwarf pinched the wound in his leg shut with his fingers. For several heartbeats, the pain was intense, but Arvin gritted his teeth against it. When the dwarf finished whispering, Arvin looked down at his hip and saw a threadlike vine, dotted with tiny leaves, holding the two edges of the cut together. The vine had a scent that reminded Arvin of a healing potion he’d once drunk. He flexed his leg. The muscle in his hip felt whole, and the pain was gone.

  “Thank you, ah …”

  The dwarf bowed, then supplied his name. “Pakal. Of the K’aaxlaat, as you guessed.”

  “I’m Arvin, of … no particular affiliation. My motive for wanting to kill Sibyl is strictly personal: to avenge Karrell.”

  “Thard Harr grant that your wish is fulfilled, some day.”

  “Today will be just fine,” Arvin said. “Just lead me to Sibyl.”

  Pakal pointed back the way they had come. “Sibyl went in the opposite direction. She took the right passage when the tunnel first forked.”

  Arvin blinked. “You’re not here to kill Sibyl? But I thought—” Then he guessed why the dwarf had disguised himself and come to the temple: for the same reason Karrell had come north to Hlondeth. “You’re looking for the Circled Serpent.”

  Pakal nodded, and Arvin wondered if Pakal knew that Sibyl only had half of it.

  “You can tell where it is?” Arvin asked.

  “Yes.” Pakal raised his hand and extended the first two fingers in a V shape. “With these.” He pointed in the direction he’d been going. “The Circled Serpent lies in that direction.”

  “Is that so?” Arvin mused under his breath.

  He remembered what Karrell had told him—that her search for the half of the Circled Serpent that Dmetrio had retained had been thwarted by something as simple as a lead-lined box. Surely Sibyl would have used a similar protection. Pakal had extremely powerful magic—he’d demonstrated that by getting past the wards Sibyl used to protect her lair—but even so …

  “Doesn’t this seem a little too easy?” Arvin asked. “We’re deep in Sibyl’s lair, yet there’s been no sign of her minions.”

  “Any that might have pursued were squished like worms.”

  “That doesn’t explain the lack of guards in these corridors,” Arvin said. “It’s almost as if Sibyl wants the Circled Serpent to be found. The easiest way to catch a mouse, they say, is to set out bait.”

  The dwarf grinned. “I am one mouse the serpent’s coils cannot catch.”

  Arvin started to protest further then realized that if he was right—if Sibyl appeared in person to spring her trap—he’d get a second chance to snare her with his net, and Pakal seemed pretty confident of his own escape. The dwarf might have been deluding himself, but it was his decision. He’d been warned.

  “You’ve got a way out, then,” Arvin said. “Good.”

  Pakal stared up at him. “Don’t you?”

  Arvin shrugged. “That doesn’t matter. Killing Sibyl does. Now that Karrell’s …”

  Arvin’s eyes stung. He blinked.

  “You loved her,” Pakal said.

  “Very much,” Arvin agreed. Then he squared his shoulders. “I’m coming with you,” he told the dwarf. “I’ve learned a few tricks from the guild. If there are traps guarding the Circled Serpent, I may be able to disarm them.”

  Pakal smiled. “Did you think I would come so ill prepared? I, too, can neutralize traps, but come. We have wasted enough time.”

  The dwarf led Arvin deeper into Sibyl’s inner sanctum. The passage forked three more times, and each time, the dwarf paused to determine their direction and disarm another protective glyph. The corridors they followed continued to be empty, heightening Arvin’s suspicions that it was a trap. At last the tunnel turned a corner and dead-ended in a massive stone, carved in the shape of a snarling, bestial face, that filled the corridor like a plug.

  “It’s here,” Pakal said, “behind this door.”

  “How do we open it?” Arvin asked.

  “With a spell, but first….”

  Whispering a prayer, Pakal moved his hands over the face, his palms not quite touching the stone. The mouth began to glow a dull red. For a terrible moment, Arvin thought the dwarf had activated a magical trap, but Pakal merely nodded.

  “Trapped, as I suspected,” he said. He stepped back and whispered a prayer, raking the air with curved fingers. Then his shoulders slumped. “The magic is too strong,” he said as the glow faded. “I can not dispel it.” He turned to Arvin. “I can still open the door, but without knowing what the trap does, it will be risky.”

  “I might be able to help,” Arvin said.

  Turning his palm in the direction of the massive stone face, he tapped the energy that swirled around his navel, drawing it up into his throat. A low droning filled the air and a thin sheen of ectoplasm glistened on the stone face as his power manifested. A psychic echo of the past flowed into his mind: a vision of a yuan-ti in old-fashioned clothing, carrying a lantern, who approached the face and cast a spell. The mouth yawned open, giving a brief glimpse of a chamber beyond, and the yuan-ti bent to slither through. As he entered, rubbery black tentacles erupted from the mouth, filling it like a nest of snakes. They lashed out at the intruder, wrapping around his arms, legs, and neck. Then they yanked, each in a different direction. The yuan-ti was literally torn to pieces; his limbs and head wrenched from his body with wet tearing noises. The tentacles released what remained of him and retreated. Then the mouth slammed shut.

  Arvin shuddered as the vision ended.

  “I know how the trap works,” he told Pakal. “The doorway is the mouth. The trap is inside.” He described what he’d just seen. “I have a rope that might be able to entangle those tentacles long enough for us to get through.”

  Pakal shook his head. “I have a better idea. Even tentacles cannot grasp the wind.” He glanced up at Arvin. “With your permission, I will turn your body to air. When the mouth opens, float through it. I will make you solid again once we are safely inside.”

  Arvin hesitated. “What about my pack?” he asked. “And the things inside it?”

  “They will become air also,” Pakal assured him, “and will return to solid form after.”

  “All right,” Arvin said. “Do it.”

  The dwarf uttered a prayer, moving his hands in a fluttering pattern. He started at Arvin’s feet and moved up his body, standing on ti
ptoe to finish. Arvin felt a prickling numbness spread upward as Pakal cast the spell. Looking down, he saw his feet, legs, hips, and hands dissolve into individual motes of matter, then disappear. His body did not fall to the floor but remained standing upright. His heart lurched, however, as his arms and torso became fully gaseous. He felt a moment of panic as he realized he could no longer feel his heart beating. His breathing, too, had halted. Then his head became insubstantial as well. He floated, a detached awareness inside a swirl of air, somehow still able to see and hear but unable to feel. The only time he had ever come close to such a sensation was when he was deep in meditation—so deep, he feared he would lose his sense of self.

  Beside him, Pakal cast another spell. He raised a fist and rapped once, smartly, on the stone face, then stepped quickly back. As the mouth groaned open, he rendered himself gaseous as well.

  Follow me, a voice whispered.

  Arvin felt the air next to him shift. It flowed toward the gaping mouth, leaving a swirling void where Pakal had been a moment ago. Arvin strained to follow it, but his legs wouldn’t move—and he remembered he no longer had legs. Fighting down his fear, he concentrated on where he wanted to go—through the mouth—and felt himself drift in that direction.

  Pakal hovered next to him, a swirl of coherency that Arvin could sense but not touch. They entered the mouth one after the other. As they did, the trap sprang to life. Tentacles uncoiled violently and lashed out at them, thrashing through the space that Arvin and Pakal occupied. Arvin instinctively recoiled as one of the tentacles whipped around his face, but the tentacle passed right through his gaseous form. His thoughts spun crazily as the gas that was his head swirled in its wake, then became coherent again. He concentrated on his objective—the chamber beyond—and drifted in that direction.

  Once inside, his body solidified the same way that it had become gaseous: from the feet up. Blood rushed through his veins, sending a fierce tingle through his body from feet to head. He gasped and fought to keep his balance. As soon as the dizziness cleared, he reached over his shoulder to touch his pack. It was still there, the net inside it still weighing it down. Arvin heaved a sigh of relief.

  The chamber was circular, its walls carved in the by-now familiar scale pattern. Against one wall lay the skeleton of an enormous snake, coiled in a neat loop where it had died.

  “More bones,” Arvin muttered.

  He nudged the tail of the long-dead guardian with his foot, but the skeleton didn’t react.

  A simple wooden box sat on the floor; its hinged lid didn’t appear to have a lock. Pakal materialized beside it—his feet, legs, torso, then head coalescing from air—then squatted to study the box. He pointed forked fingers at it, whispered something under his breath, and said, “The Circled Serpent is inside.”

  He reached for the lid.

  “Careful,” Arvin warned. “It’s certain to be trapped.”

  “I sense no traps,” Pakal said. He lifted the lid.

  Arvin winced, but nothing happened.

  The box was lined with black velvet. Inside was a silver tube twice the thickness of Arvin’s thumb, bent in a half-circle. At one end of the half circle was a snake’s head, its fanged mouth open wide and its eyes set with gems. The other end was tapered slightly; that would be where the other half of the Circled Serpent would join with it. Arvin held his breath, waiting for something to happen—for the mouth-door to close, for an alarm to sound, even for the snake skeleton to suddenly rear up and attack. Nothing did.

  Pakal looked up at Arvin, a concerned expression on his face. “Only half? We thought that Sibyl had both pieces.”

  “Perhaps she does,” Arvin said, thinking of Dmetrio’s disappearance. “Perhaps that’s why she decided that leaving this half in an easy-to-find location would be worth the risk; whoever found it would be tempted to waste time searching for the other half. Sibyl knows there’s a spy in her lair; this is obviously part of a trap to catch that spy.” He shrugged the backpack off his shoulders and began unfastening the straps that held it shut. He nodded at the door; the writhing tentacles that had filled the mouth were gone, but the mouth was still open. “Odd, don’t you think, that the door hasn’t shut yet.”

  Pakal tapped the half-circle of silver with a fingernail, making the metal ring faintly—probably making sure it was real and not an illusion—then closed the lid. He picked up the box and rose to his feet. “The other half of the Circled Serpent—”

  “Will still be inside its lead-lined box, where your magic can’t locate it,” Arvin said. He rose to his feet as well, holding his pack, ready to toss the net inside it at the door the moment Sibyl came through it. A musky floral smell rose from its fibres. “Go,” he told Pakal, “while you still can. You’ve got half of the Circled Serpent; be content with that.”

  “You are not—?”

  “No,” Arvin said. “I’m staying. Sibyl’s bound to arrive soon.”

  Pakal nodded and said, “May Thard Harr guide your—”

  The dwarf grunted and staggered forward, crashing into Arvin. The box tumbled from his hands as he fell, spilling Sibyl’s half of the Circled Serpent onto the floor. Arvin heard a rattling noise: the sound of bones moving swiftly across the floor.

  He swore and leaped backward. The skeleton—animated after all—reared up with its mouth open, ready to strike again. It had already bitten Pakal, and the back of the dwarf’s left arm leaked blood. Empty eye sockets stared at Arvin across the dwarf’s rigid body. Then the serpent began to sway.

  Arvin dropped his pack and flung his hands outward toward the skeleton. Silver sparkles danced in the air between them as long strands of glistening ectoplasm shot from Arvin’s fingers, coiling themselves about the undead snake. They looped through the ribs, and with a twist of his fingers Arvin knotted them there. Another yank pulled the cords of ectoplasm tight, cinching together the coils of the skeleton’s body. Its head and neck, however, continued to sway.

  A fog crept into Arvin’s mind. He stared at the snake across Pakal’s body, unconcerned about whether the dwarf was alive or dead. He felt dazed, thick-headed, as if he’d drunk too much wine. He could feel his body moving in time with the serpent’s swaying motion.

  The skeleton opened its mouth wide to bring curved fangs into play. Head and neck still swaying, it hunched toward Arvin, awkwardly dragging its ectoplasm-bound body behind it.

  Arvin meant to take a step back but took a step forward instead. His foot struck something that skidded across the floor with a metallic rasp. Glancing down, he saw it was the upper half of the Circled Serpent.

  The interruption gave him a heartbeat’s respite from the skeleton’s mesmerizing motion. Arvin sank into one of the poses Tanju had taught him, raising his left arm as if to fend off a blow. He imagined himself in the Shield form, whirling to protect himself on all sides. As he did, energy exploded outward from the power point in his throat in a loud drone. It formed a protective barrier around him—one that helped him fend off the effects of the skeleton’s swaying dance. His mind cleared.

  Knowing that most of his psionic powers would be useless—the skeleton had no mind to attack—Arvin yanked the stone rope out of his backpack. Whipping it through the air, he shouted its command word. The rope stiffened into a pole of stone. It struck the skeleton just below the head, shattering the uppermost vertebrae. The head clattered to the floor, followed by the rest of the bones. Whirling a loop of the stone rope up and over his head, Arvin brought it crashing down into the serpent’s skull. Bone exploded across the floor as the head shattered. The stone rope smashed as it struck the floor, and pieces skittered across the room.

  Panting, Arvin looked down at what remained of the creature. Already the ectoplasm that bound it was evaporating. The skeleton, however, did not move. It appeared to be dead. Arvin touched the crystal that hung at his throat.

  “Nine lives,” he croaked.

  He crouched beside Pakal and pressed fingers against the dwarf’s neck. Pakal’s blood-pul
se beat faintly beneath his leathery skin. His eyes were open and staring, his breathing shallow. The skeleton’s bite had paralyzed him.

  Arvin stared at his pack, wondering what to do next. Sibyl still hadn’t come to investigate. What was keeping her?

  Arvin heard a noise on the other side of the door; it sounded like the scuff of leather on stone or the slither of scales. Scooping up his backpack, he flattened himself against one wall. His heart pounded as he heard a woman’s voice whispering an oath in the language of the yuan-ti. Certain it was Sibyl, he tried to yank the net from his pack. It wouldn’t come free. He yanked harder, but it still wouldn’t budge. He cursed silently as he realized what had happened: the yellow musk creeper vines he’d woven the net from had rooted in the soft leather.

  Arvin yanked his dagger from its sheath, determined to cut the net free. As he drew it, he heard a furious thrashing sound from inside the mouth-door as the tentacles inside it were activated. Realizing it wasn’t Sibyl but someone else coming through the door—or trying to—Arvin reversed his dagger, holding it by the blade, ready to throw. Whoever the intruder was, he was likely to be dangerous. Arvin reached deep into his muladhara, preparing to tap its energy.

  Something stepped through the doorway—something that looked like the silhouette of a woman. In the blink of an eye, it expanded, becoming three-dimensional. The woman was a heavyset human with a double chin and brown hair with a streak of gray at one temple. Arvin’s mouth dropped open as he recognized her. Naneth—the sorceress who had summoned the demon that had killed Karrell.

  Or rather, he amended as he saw the sway in her body as she found her feet again and stared down at Pakal, a mind seed. The mind in that body was no longer Naneth’s. It was Zelia’s.

  Arvin manifested the power that would cloud her mind, hiding him from her, and not a moment too soon. The wary Naneth-seed looked around the room then chuckled as her eyes fell upon the upper half of the Circled Serpent, lying next to Pakal’s body. She bent to pick it up.

  Knowing he was unlikely to surprise her with psionics—his secondary display would give her the instant’s warning she needed to retaliate in kind—Arvin resorted to cruder methods. While she was distracted, he hurled his dagger. It struck home, burying itself between her shoulders. The blade would have killed someone with less fat padding her body, but the Naneth-seed merely grunted with pain.