Vanity's Brood

by Lisa Smedman

  Arvin stood rigid, stunned. “You’re … making this up,” he said. “It’s a trick.” He thought back to the little he had learned of the serpent god’s lore from the dreams he’d had after Zelia seeded him. “Sseth left the realm of mortals by flying into a volcano,” he told her, “one of the Peaks of Flame in Chult. Your own memories of the Cathedral of Emerald Scales told me that much.”

  Zelia hissed with laughter. “You believed them?” she taunted. Then the mocking smile fell away from her lips. “That’s the official version,” she said, “the one the clergy teach the laity. The clerics themselves know that Sseth left his plane of existence through a door, not an erupting volcano. The trouble is, nobody remembers where that door is, save that it is somewhere on the Chultan Peninsula. Over the centuries, the legends became intertwined. Some—Sibyl, for example—mistakenly conclude that Sseth entered Dendar’s lair and somehow slipped from the Fugue Plain into Smaragd, though this is a ridiculous notion.” She paused to shake her head, as if disappointed in Sibyl. Then her eyes glittered. “Using the Circled Serpent, you can open a door to Smaragd and rescue Karrell.”

  “There’s just one problem,” Arvin said. “I only know where half of the Circled Serpent is—with Pakal—and I don’t know where he is.”

  “You’ll find him,” Zelia said.

  “Maybe,” Arvin countered, “but then what?”

  “Dmetrio Extaminos still has the second half.”

  “I don’t know where he is, either.”

  “I do,” Zelia said. “His mind has been dulled lately by too much osssra, but he’s still perfectly capable.” She pointed at the scar on Arvin’s forehead. “When you retrieve the first half from the dwarf, use my stone to contact me. I’ll tell you where Dmetrio is—and where the door to Smaragd is. Together, you and Dmetrio can open it.”

  Arvin hesitated. He knew he couldn’t trust Zelia, but what if the Circled Serpent would allow him to rescue Karrell? It was the only shard of hope he’d found. He clung to it, even though it cut deeply.

  He met Zelia’s eye. “You know I’ll try to take Dmetrio’s half of the Circled Serpent and open the door myself.”

  “Yes,” Zelia answered, a gleam in her eye.

  “Then why trust me?”

  “I don’t,” she hissed, “but if you don’t do exactly as I say, I’ll tell the marilith that its fate is no longer linked with Karrell’s. When the demon catches her—and it will—Karrell will die … and so will your children.”

  Arvin felt the blood drain from his face. He should have expected as much. Zelia always made sure she had something to threaten him with—and Karrell herself had handed Zelia just the weapon she needed.

  “I’ll need Karrell’s ring back,” he said at last.

  Zelia tossed it to him—an offhanded gesture, as if the ring meant nothing to her. Arvin caught it and squeezed it tight in his hand. He stared at Zelia.

  “What’s in it for you?”

  “The eternal gratitude of Lady Dediana Extaminos,” she answered, “when it is her son—not Sibyl—who enters Smaragd, frees Sseth, and reaps the rewards of service to a god.”

  Arvin let out a long, slow breath. Dmetrio also wanted to become Sseth’s avatar? For a year, Arvin had struggled against one arrogant yuan-ti who wanted to become a god, and Zelia was proposing that he join forces with another—with a man who had callously used then abandoned a woman who had been pregnant with his child, a man who had the backing of Arvin’s most feared enemy.

  Arvin rubbed his temples. It was a dangerous game he was about to play. In order to rescue Karrell—and not release an evil god in the process—he would need to find a way to defeat Zelia.

  “Well?” she asked.

  He closed his eyes and shuddered. Zelia still controlled his destiny, as certainly as if she’d seeded him. She liked watching him squirm.

  “I’ll do it,” he whispered, “for Karrell and our children.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Arvin winced as the fleshmender turned his hand over, studying his lacerated fingers.

  “Strange wound,” she said.

  Arvin merely nodded. “Can you heal it?”

  The cleric was a young, blonde-haired woman who might have been pretty save for the deep lines in her forehead, the price to be paid for taking on the suffering of others. She returned his nod.

  “The Crying God feels your pain, my son,” she intoned.

  Dressed in ash-gray tunic, trousers, and matching gray skullcap, she had Ilmater’s symbol—a pair of bound hands—pinned over her heart.

  Arvin remembered that symbol well from his childhood. The severed hands—he always thought of them that way—and the other symbols of martyrdom had decorated the orphanage. Ilmater’s martyred clerics were painted in vivid glory, spotted with plague sores, being torn apart by wolves, or covered in open, weeping wounds. All had their faces turned toward Shurrock, a savage domain of broken hills, torrential rains, howling winds, and wild beasts. Ilmater’s dwelling place—the domain where his faithful would reap their reward of eternal suffering.

  Arvin could have gone to a guild healer, but that would have meant answering unwanted questions. The guild frowned upon members taking on “outside work.” But in the Chapel of Healing that catered to the humans of Hlondeth, the only demand made was a coin or two—whatever the petitioner could afford—in the wooden donation box.

  Darkmorning had almost ended, and outside the chapel, the streets were quiet. Only Arvin sought healing. Come sunrise, however, the chapel’s stone benches would be filled with petitioners.

  The cleric murmured a prayer—one that Arvin could recite from memory, even though healing prayers had been used infrequently at the orphanage; the clerics believed that suffering built character in children. The wounds on his fingers slowly closed. She touched his mouth and ears, and the sting of each wound faded. When she was finished, she held his left hand in hers and touched his abbreviated little finger.

  “This,” she said, lifting his hand slightly, “is too old a wound for me to heal. It requires a Pain-bearer’s touch.”

  “That’s all right,” Arvin said. He had no desire to meet any of the senior clerics. The only reason he’d come to the chapel was that it was run by the order’s most junior clerics—men and women who weren’t old enough to dredge up unpleasant memories. “I’m used to it,” he told her.

  He didn’t bother to explain what the guild would do to him if they found he’d removed their mark. One day, perhaps, when he was finally clear of Hlondeth, he might seek out a cleric who could regenerate his finger, but….

  She released his hand. “You have the face of someone who has seen much suffering. Ilmater bless you and help you to bear your load.”

  Arvin stood. He was grateful for Ilmater’s healing, but that was as far as it went. The last thing he needed was another god meddling in his life.

  As he dropped coins in the donation box, a disheveled woman rushed through the door, an infant lying limp in her arms.

  “She’s been bitten!” the woman shrieked. “There was a snake! A snake in her swaddling basket! She started to cry—it woke me—and I saw she had its tail in her fist. It bit her. Please, oh please, can you save her?”

  The cleric turned her attention to the baby, touching its tiny hand and intoning a spell. Arvin watched a moment—the mother was panting from her run, and it was probably already too late for the poison to be neutralized—then he slipped out the door. He really didn’t want to see the outcome. As he walked away from the chapel, he heard the cleric murmur condolences and the mother break into loud sobs. At least, he thought grimly, the woman had known the joy of holding her child in her arms, if only for a short time.

  He wondered if Karrell would live to do the same.

  As he walked the narrow, curving street, awash in the faint green glow from the buildings on either side, he struggled with his conscience. Karrell would be wary of his forced alliance with Zelia—she’d made the same mistake herself, six months bef
ore, with near-disastrous results. She would certainly condemn any plan that ran the risk of both halves of the Circled Serpent falling into the hands of one of Sseth’s devotees. Arvin ached to speak to Karrell again, but the sending he’d attempted after leaving Zelia’s rooftop garden had failed, just like the rest of them.

  He still couldn’t quite believe that Zelia had let him go. She’d tossed a blanket at him when he requested something to hide his nakedness—he’d since retrieved a change of clothes and tossed the blanket on a garbage heap—then escorted him out of her garden and down the ramp to the street. He’d followed her warily, expecting her to seed him, but she hadn’t. Perhaps she thought recovering Pakal’s half of the Circled Serpent would take more than seven days.

  He paused beside one of the city’s public fountains and scooped up a drink of water in his hands. A line of scar tissue ran down the finger the cleric had just healed, wavy as a snake. He wiped his fingers dry on his trousers. Zelia had drained his muladhara, but he still had his lapis lazuli. If he was going to steal the Circled Serpent from Pakal, he’d better get on with it.

  He closed his eyes, concentrating on the dwarf’s face. The scar tissue on his forehead tingled as the lapis lazuli activated, and Pakal’s image solidified in his mind. The dwarf was awake, sweat trickling down his face as he walked through the darkness. Arvin couldn’t see Pakal’s surroundings—a sending only showed the person contacted—but it looked as though the dwarf was trudging up a steep incline.

  Choosing his words carefully, Arvin spoke directly to Pakal’s mind. He’d already decided to tell the truth—part of it, anyway. Karrell’s alive, he said, in trouble. She told me to find Ts’ikil. Where are you? I need your help. Use few words; this spell is brief.

  Pakal halted, his eyes wide. He stared straight ahead for a moment—he would be seeing, in his mind’s eye, a faint image of Arvin’s face. Delight, then caution played across the dwarf’s face. At last his expression settled into a look of contrition, and he spoke. Though the words were into the dwarf’s own language, Arvin understood them as they flowed into his mind. I will take you to Ts’ikil. Meet me at the temple on Mount Ugruth. I will wait there. He paused, then added, I am sorry I fled, but duty—

  Pakal’s image vanished as the sending ended. Arvin frowned, wondering why Pakal would be heading for another god’s temple, especially one dedicated to Talos, god of destruction. Arvin wouldn’t be able to ask him, however, until the next night. The lapis lazuli would only allow him to contact any given individual once per day. He stared over the city, toward Mount Ugruth. A smudge of black smoke wafted from the volcanic peak up into the gradually brightening sky.

  Arvin realized he was exhausted. He’d been awake for a day and a night, but he was too keyed up to sleep. He had to get moving to rescue Karrell.

  As he turned away from the fountain, something brushed against his foot. He glanced down and nearly jumped as he saw a slender orange snake with large, bulging eyes slither out of a crack at the base of the fountain. The snake met his gaze and hissed a warning. Slowly, Arvin backed away from the fountain. Whether it was a natural snake or a yuan-ti in serpent form, he didn’t want to make any sudden moves, not with its fangs bared and ready to strike.

  The snake turned away and slithered up the street. With dawn approaching and the shadows lifting from the street, Arvin saw dozens of snakes emerge from cracks between buildings and holes in the ground. They slithered uphill, toward the section of Hlondeth where the nobles lived. Several of the snakes had scale patterns he’d never seen before: checkered beige-and-black with a circle of white crowning the head; jet black with a creamy pink belly; and cream-and-black bands with large red dots on each cream band. He was reminded of the legend of how Lord Shevron had summoned snakes to defeat the kobolds that crept through Hlondeth’s sewers in the Year of Tatters to attack the city, except that these snakes slithered up from the sewers, not down into them. They were headed for the palace, rather than emerging from it.

  Something was up—and Arvin was certain Sibyl was behind it. A fragment of her welcoming speech to the Se’sehen in the altar room came back to him then, her promises that those loyal to her would soon reap their reward … in Hlondeth. The oddly patterned snakes must have been yuan-ti from the south—the Se’sehen, breaking their longstanding alliance with Hlondeth. With that realization, a rush of anger filled him. One of those serpents must have been responsible for the death of the infant in the chapel.

  A door opened to Arvin’s left, and he waved back the sleepy-looking girl who emerged with a water jug.

  “Bar your door!” Arvin shouted at the her. “The city is under attack.”

  Startled, the girl fled back into her home.

  Arvin activated his lapis lazuli a second time. He paused, wondering who to send his warning to. He had never spoken with Hlondeth’s ruler face to face, but he had seen her from a distance. He could visualize Lady Dediana well enough to contact her, but she wouldn’t know who he was and might not heed his warning. Instead, with great reluctance, he visualized Zelia.

  She was sleeping, but her eyes sprang open at Arvin’s mental shout: Zelia—wake up! Sibyl and the Se’sehen are attacking the city. They’re moving toward the palace in serpent form, even as I speak.

  Zelia didn’t even bother to reply. She merely nodded then with a brusque mental push, broke off the sending. Arvin shrugged; it was exactly what he’d expected. He’d acted instinctively in sending the warning. Hlondeth had been his home for too many years for him to ignore a threat to it, especially one that came from Sibyl. But did it really matter, to the humans who lived there which faction of serpents ruled them?

  A gong sounded from somewhere up the hill, followed by another, farther in the distance. A bright flash of yellow seared the air above the section where the nobles lived, followed a heartbeat later by a thunderous boom. There were cries close by—humans, no doubt startled to find so many serpents slithering along the streets. Hlondeth’s yuan-ti traditionally kept to the viaducts that arched overhead.

  Arvin could hear shouted questions as people asked what was going on in the nobles’ section, where a pillar of vivid green flame had just whooshed down out of a clear sky. Some cried that Mount Ugruth was erupting, while others, feeling the rumbling tremors under their feet, shouted back that no, it was an earthquake.

  Arvin’s part in this battle over—he’d passed on his message, and it was up to Zelia to relay it. He ran for the nearest city gate. People spilled out of doorways on either side as he ran past, some frightened, some clutching children or valuables to their chests, all looking confused. A half-elf holding his unlaced trousers up with one hand glanced sharply at Arvin as if he’d recognized him, then flicked his free hand to get Arvin’s attention and gave a quick gesture in the silent speech: What’s happening?

  War, Arvin signed back as he ran past.

  The guild member broke into a grin and grabbed an empty leather sack that had been hanging just inside the door. Then he ran toward the sound of the fighting.

  Arvin turned into a wider street with shops on either side. Though none were yet open for business, the shuttered windows on their upper stories had been flung wide. People leaned out of them and called to each other across the street. Several shouted down at him, asking what was happening. Arvin ignored them; he needed his breath for running. He felt a tickle under the scar on his forehead. Zelia, looking in on him psionically? He slowed to a trot, expecting her to manifest some communication with him, but nothing happened. The tickling sensation continued. Someone, he realized, was scrying him.

  An unpleasant possibility occurred to him. If Sibyl’s crystal ball had survived the collapse of the altar room, it might be the abomination observing him. She’d gotten a good look at both Arvin and Pakal just before they’d teleported away with her half of the Circled Serpent; she’d be able to home in on him.

  Fortunately, Arvin still had the net he’d created to kill her inside the backpack that bounced up and down agains
t his shoulders.

  He started to run into a circular plaza with streets radiating from it in five directions. At its center was a wrought-iron streetlight in the form of a rearing cobra. Something about it caught his eye, and he skidded to a stop. The streetlight was smaller than usual and of brightly burnished metal, rather than a dull black. It didn’t have a glowing white stone in its mouth—and it was swaying.

  As the metal snake turned and fastened glowing red eyes on Arvin, the sensation in his forehead intensified. This creature—whatever it was—had been using divination magic to search for him.

  One of Sibyl’s creatures!

  With a scrape of metal on stone, the iron cobra slithered toward Arvin.

  Unable to manifest his psionics due to his depleted muladhara and certain his dagger would be useless, Arvin turned and ran. Behind him, the scraping sound quickened. The iron cobra hissed like hot steam escaping from a boiling kettle. Panting, Arvin turned down a narrow alley, only to find that it dead-ended against the city wall. He leaped, activating the magic of his bracelet as he hurtled through the air. He slammed into the wall, knocking the air from his lungs, but his fingers and toes found a grip. The iron cobra lunged, and Arvin heard a clang as it struck the wall just below his foot. Venom splattered onto his boot. He scrambled up the wall, praying that the metal serpent wasn’t capable of following.

  It wasn’t. As Arvin climbed, it remained coiled at the base of the wall, hissing softly, bathed in a faint green light from the glowing stones. It flared its hood and watched with ember-red eyes as Arvin climbed to the top of the wall and hauled himself onto the battlements. Then it turned and slithered back up the alley.

  Arvin stood, panting, hands on knees. “Nine lives,” he whispered, touching the crystal at his neck.

  From inside the city came distant screams and more explosions. A militia member ran toward him along the wall, sword in hand. The soldier’s flared helmet and scale armor reminded Arvin of the serpent he’d narrowly escaped.