Vanity's Brood

by Lisa Smedman

  Juz’la was no longer standing in front of him. She’d transformed into an orange-and-yellow snake and fallen to the floor. The entangling ectoplasm, loosened, lay in a heap, together with her dress. Juz’la stared out from its folds and hissed something at him in Draconic. Then she flicked her tail.

  The ice-white ray that shot from it streaked through Arvin’s shield, striking his dagger hand. Frost blossomed on the blade and his hand went numb. He tried to release the dagger but his fingers wouldn’t unbend. At least she’d used a spell that wasn’t fatal. She needed him alive as much as he did her.

  Arvin drew more ectoplasm from the Astral Plane and shaped it into a construct. Still half-formed, it lunged forward, seizing Juz’la by the neck and tail. Her eyes bulged as it squeezed. Her serpent body writhed furiously, but she couldn’t slither free.

  “Release me,” Juz’la hissed.

  Deep inside his mind, Arvin heard a groan as his mental shield intercepted whatever spell she had cast at him; it nearly buckled under the strain. With a thought, he directed the construct to clamp its hand over Juz’la’s mouth, gagging her.

  “Where is the door?” Arvin asked.

  He let the shield dissipate and transferred his energy to a different power point. Silver sparkled from his forehead as he slipped inside Juz’la’s thoughts. She put up a good fight—getting inside felt like battering down a stone wall with his forehead—but the instant he was in, he had his answer. She didn’t know where the door was, and she was, indeed, Sibyl’s minion.

  Arvin heard a hiss. The construct, neglected by Arvin for those few moments, must have allowed its grip to loosen. Juz’la spat out the words of a spell and touched it with her tail. Electricity flashed through the astral construct in jagged streaks. It exploded into a mist of ectoplasm.

  Juz’la, freed, fell to the floor.

  Arvin hurled his dagger, but the metal of the hilt guard stuck to his skin, tearing it and throwing his aim off. The dagger missed, burying itself in the heaped-up dress next to her.

  Juz’la’s tail flicked forward. A second lightning bolt crackled out of it, striking Arvin square in the chest. The smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils as every muscle in his body wrenched into a painful cramp. His heart faltered and his vision swam with jagged streaks of light. He sagged to his knees. Only by force of will was he able to prevent himself from blacking out.

  “If you kill me,” he croaked, “you’ll never get the other half.”

  He heard a hiss of laughter. “Corpses can be made to talk.”

  She was bluffing. She had to be. Otherwise she’d have killed him when they first met. Full mobility had already returned to his fingers, though they felt as though they were on fire. Beside him, he could hear the crackling of incense in the burning oil. With an effort, he lifted his head, stared at Juz’la. She was still in serpent form.

  “Tell me where it is,” she hissed, “and I’ll spare you.”

  Arvin felt a spell slither into his mind. He wanted to live. He needed to live; he was Karrell’s only hope. He heard those thoughts aloud at the same time he thought them—but in a woman’s voice. Karrell’s?

  “It’s in a cave,” he whispered. “In a bluff where the river bends. Where the flying snakes nest.”

  Equally strangely, he was calm when he said it. As if it didn’t matter at all that he had just revealed the hiding place of the one thing that would allow him to save Karrell.

  He heard a hiss of triumph. Then something stung his hand. Glancing down, he saw Juz’la’s tiny black viper and twin specks of red on the back of his left hand. He’d been bitten.

  The shock of it snapped him out of the spell Juz’la had snared him with. “No!” he roared.

  Lunging to his feet, he slammed a shoulder into the brazier. It crashed to the floor, sending a wave of flaming oil racing toward Juz’la. She screamed as it engulfed her and shifted back into her yuan-ti form, but sticky smears of melted resin remained stuck to her, burning her skin. From head to foot, her body was a mass of seared red flesh. The burning oil, spread thinly across the floor and wicking into Juz’la’s abandoned dress, illuminated her from below, throwing ghastly shadows across her face.

  Arvin summoned his dagger and it flew out of the burning dress toward him. Catching it by the point, he hurled it at Juz’la. The blade buried itself in her throat. She fell to the floor, dead. The smell of burned flesh lingered in the air.

  Arvin glanced down, found the viper, which was trying to slither away, and slammed a heel onto it. The tiny serpent died with a satisfying crunch.

  It was cold comfort, however; Arvin could feel the viper’s poison taking hold of his body. His left hand was already swelling; Karrell’s ring was a tight, painful band around his little finger. He felt dizzy and weak; his heartbeat light and fast. He leaned over and vomited; it splattered onto his boots. He stared at it, shivering.

  So this is how I die, he thought. Of a snake bite? After everything I’ve been through …

  “I’m sorry, Karrell,” he said aloud.

  “Master?”

  Arvin looked up. The half-lizard who had brought them the platter of fruit stood in one of the tunnels, staring at him, uncertain. He glanced at Juz’la, who lay face-down amid the burning oil. The scales on her head blackened and curled from the heat, peeling from her scalp like dry skin. Smoke thickened the air, making Arvin cough.

  Arvin had stopped being ill, and his stomach started to uncramp. His hand still felt like all of the demons of the Abyss were tormenting it, but his heartbeat was slowing, becoming more steady. Amazed, he shook his head.

  Maybe he would live.

  “There’s been …” he glanced at Juz’la, saw that the dagger that had taken her in the throat was hidden by the way her body had fallen.

  “An accident,” he concluded. He held up his grossly swollen hand. “Juz’la’s viper bit me. I bumped into the brazier, and it toppled. The oil spilled out, and Juz’la was burned.”

  Realizing he should feign some concern, he moved to where Juz’la lay. The sudden motion, combined with his dizziness, made him reel. He turned the motion into a less-than-graceful squat, ignoring the tiny flames that licked at his boots, and pretended to be feeling for a pulse. As he did, he slipped the dagger up his sleeve. It was a clumsy palming, but if the half-lizard noticed anything, he made no comment.

  “She’s dead,” Arvin concluded.

  He started to stand, then noticed something that lay beside the body in the flaming oil: a tiny vial that must have been secreted somewhere inside Juz’la’s dress. The dark liquid inside it bubbled from the heat, the cork that sealed the vial starting to char. Arvin picked up the vial before it burst and he blew on it, trying to cool it.

  The half-lizard puffed out his throat, clearly agitated. He shifted uneasily on bowed legs, looking as though he’d like nothing better than to scurry away. “Master,” he croaked. “What—”

  Arvin stood, fought off another wave of dizziness. He stared down at the half-lizard. “Your name’s Porvar, isn’t it?” he asked.

  The half-lizard nodded. There was fear in his eyes but also intelligence. He wasn’t as far gone as the slave who had met Arvin upon his arrival.

  Arvin smiled and manifested a charm. “I’d like to help you, Porvar.”

  The half-lizard blinked rapidly. His posture became a little less subservient.

  “The Jennestaa forced you to drink a potion, didn’t they?”

  The half-lizard’s throat puffed out in alarm.

  “A good friend of mine was forced to drink a similar potion,” Arvin said.

  Porvar looked doubtful.

  “It’s all right,” Arvin assured him. “You can trust me. I’m not yuan-ti. I’m human.”

  Porvar glanced down at Arvin’s swollen hand. The flesh around the punctures was purple. “When vipers bite, humans die.”

  “Not this human,” Arvin assured him, and it was true.

  The dizziness ebbed, leaving him more certain on his fee
t. His left hand was in agony, though. He tried to flex his fingers and nearly cried out from the pain.

  “There’s a statue,” Arvin said. “Dmetrio Extaminos brought it with him when he came to Ss’yin’tia’saminass. Take me to it, and I’ll help you escape.”

  The half-lizard laughed. “Where to? The jungle extends to the horizon.”

  “Better free in the jungle than a slave here,” Arvin countered.

  The half-lizard blinked. Once. Twice. “Why do you want the statue?”

  Arvin smiled. “I plan on smashing it.”

  The half-lizard considered this. “And the others?” he asked.

  “There’s more than one statue?” Arvin asked.

  Porvar shook his head. “The ones in the pit. The halfings who are still … whole. Will you help them, too?”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Arvin promised.

  Porvar’s lips twitched. He turned. “Come. I will show you where Juz’la moved it to.”

  The corridor was only chest-high; Arvin had to walk bent over to follow. While the half-lizard’s back was turned, he shook the dagger out of his sleeve and sheathed it and placed the vial in a pocket. Then he looped the wine-soaked cloth around his neck as an improvised sling for his swollen hand. He wished, belatedly, that he’d gotten Tanju to teach him one of the powers that stabilized and helped heal the body. Instead, he’d focused, those past six months, on powers he thought he might need in his battle with Sibyl. He hadn’t expected to live long enough to require healing.

  It soon became too dark to see, so Arvin followed Porvar with one hand on the half-lizard’s shoulder. The corridor they followed ran in sinuous curves for some distance, and Arvin was certain they were no longer under the pyramid. Every so often, they passed through another of the circular, multi-exited chambers. Most of them were filled with rubble, Arvin discovered after painfully stubbing his toe on a piece of broken stone.

  Eventually, they drew near an illuminated chamber filled with yuan-ti. Arvin let go of Porvar and assumed a sliding, more fluid gait. He filled the minds of the yuan-ti with the illusion of scales on his body and slit-pupilled eyes. He wet his lips with his tongue, adding a serpent’s forked flicker. Porvar glanced back at him, perhaps wondering why Arvin shuffled his feet, but the illusion wasn’t directed at the half-lizard’s mind. Arvin gave him an encouraging nod and gestured for him to lead on.

  Soon Arvin smelled earth and mold and saw a dim light up ahead. Porvar halted a few moments later at the entrance to an enormous circular chamber. Easily fifty paces across, it was illuminated by moonlight that shone in through a portion of the ceiling that had collapsed. The moldy smell probably came from the rotted timbers that had tumbled into the room. Vines trailed in through the hole, brushing the spot where they’d fallen. Arvin noted the leaves, shaped vaguely like human hands, and the berries that were clustered in bunches like grapes. Assassin vine.

  The chamber was crowded with pieces of weathered statuary that had, presumably, been scavenged from the ruins above. Stone snake heads with jagged, broken necks lay here and there on the floor. Some were no larger than Arvin’s own head; others were chest-high. All had once been painted in bright colors, but the paint was flaked from them like shedding skin. Empty eye sockets had probably once held gems.

  There were also a number of broken slabs of squared-off stone: stelae, covered with inscriptions in Draconic. The chamber also included a more-or-less intact statue that Arvin recognized from Zelia’s childhood memories: the World Serpent, progenitor of all the reptile races. Lizard folk, yuan-ti, nagas, and a host of other scaly folk stared up at her from below, paying the goddess homage. They stood on the bent backs of humans and other two-legged races who crouched, like slaves, in perpetual submission.

  Sounds drifted down the corridor behind them. Somewhere in the distance, a yuan-ti voice shouted. That couldn’t be good.

  “Where is the statue Prince Dmetrio brought with him from Hlondeth?” Arvin asked.

  Porvar pointed at the far side of the room. “There.”

  Arvin sighted along the pointing finger. The statue stood against the far wall. It was small, no more than knee-high, with a gray-green body and wings that were covered in gilt. Pale yellow gems glittered in its eye sockets: yellow sapphires. Its hands were raised above its head, forming the circle that symbolized birth. Sseth reborn—the perfect hiding place for the Circled Serpent.

  Arvin took a step forward but Porvan caught his arm, preventing him from entering the chamber. He nodded at the vines that trailed in through the ceiling.

  “Stranglevine,” he whispered, as if afraid his voice might awaken it.

  Arvin smiled. “I know. I’ve worked with the stuff often enough.”

  Silver sparkled from his forehead, lengthening into a long, thin rope. Quick as thought, it wound itself around the assassin vines, binding them together. The plant, sensing it was under attack, began writhing like a snake. Arvin wrapped the far end of the shimmering rope around one of the larger serpent heads, stretching the assassin vine as tight as a lyre string.

  “Wait here,” he told Porvar.

  He jogged over to the statue. A quick glance noted a slight discoloration; a sniff told Arvin that it was contact poison. He slipped off his improvised sling, wound it around his good hand, and lifted the statue with that. He didn’t feel or hear anything shifting inside the statue when he picked it up. That worried him—Juz’la might already have removed its contents, and if she’d hidden Dmetrio’s half of the Circled Serpent somewhere else, he might never find it.

  Fortunately there was an easy way to find out if there was anything inside. Raising the statue above his head, Arvin slammed it down onto the floor.

  Out of the shattered remains fell the lower half of the Circled Serpent. It glinted silver in the moonlight, the tiny scales carved onto its surface made a netlike pattern on the gleaming metal.

  Arvin closed his eyes and heaved a huge sigh of relief. He’d done it! Both halves were his. Now all he had to do was find the door.

  One thing worried him, however. Dmetrio hadn’t kept the lead-lined box the Circled Serpent had been found in, which meant that something else had been hiding it from divination magic. The gray-green glaze on the ceramic statue must have had lead in it—but Arvin had smashed the statue, so that protection was no longer in place.

  Arvin wished he still had his magical glove; vanished inside it, the Circled Serpent would probably escape detection. Without it, all Sibyl had to do was cast a location spell to find it.

  A rustling noise behind him warned him that the ectoplasm that bound the assassin vine was starting to fade. He renewed it with a fresh manifestation, tying several loops into the rope he bound it with. Then he scooped up the Circled Serpent and tucked it inside his shirt, using his sling to tie it in place. He turned and motioned Porvar forward.

  “Come on,” he said, placing a foot in the lowermost loop of his improvised ladder. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The half-lizard glanced nervously at the vine.

  Arvin nodded toward the corridor. The shouting he’d heard grew louder. “We may have been found out,” he said. “Do you really want to go back the way we came?”

  Porvar shook his head.

  “Then climb,” Arvin instructed. “Follow me.”

  The climb wasn’t an easy one for Arvin, despite his magical bracelet. He could use only one hand, and Porvar, below him, kept jostling the rope. Halfway up, Arvin’s feet slipped and he nearly fell. Feet flailing, he clung to the vine with his good hand, trying to twist himself back around. As his feet found the vine again, something tickled the small of his back—a tendril of assassin vine, worming its way up inside his shirt. Cursing, he fumbled at it with his injured hand, but the vine curled around his waist and spiraled its way up his body. Within heartbeats, it tightened around his throat. Arvin hooked his arm around the vine and tried to pull the tendril off with his good hand but couldn’t get his fingers under it. He traded arms, hooking the lef
t one around the rope, and reached for his knife. The tendril tightened.

  The vine jerked as Porvar shifted below. Arvin tried to shout at him to back off but the vine had already cut off his breath. He felt hands grasping his ankles, then his legs—what was the half-lizard trying to do, climb past him and escape? He tried to kick Porvar off, but the half-lizard gripped his legs too tightly.

  “No!” Porvar hissed.

  Arvin heard a chewing noise. Porvar grunted then wrenched his head to one side. The pressure on Arvin’s throat eased. Glancing down, Arvin saw Porvar spit out a length of tendril. The half-lizard grinned up at him.

  “You can stop kicking me now.”

  Unwinding the limp tendril from his throat, Arvin breathed his thanks.

  The rest of the climb went smoothly. Getting out of the hole was tricky, but Porvar gave Arvin a boost from below. Arvin scrambled out and secured the Circled Serpent inside his shirt again. That done, he extended his good hand to Porvar, helping him clamber out. He backed Porvar away from the hole. When the ectoplasmic bonds evaporated, the entire assassin vine would come snaking up out of it.

  They had emerged into dense jungle. The weathered remains of stone buildings loomed nearby, smothered in a thick layer of leafy vegetation. A few paces away, an enormous stone snake head stared with sightless eyes into the jungle. Trees stood like living pillars, their branches forming a dark canopy overhead.

  Off in the distance to their right, something crashed through the jungle—several things, judging by the sound of it. From the opposite direction—the center of the ruined city—came yet more shouting. One of the creatures moving through the jungle was headed their way. The ground trembled as it drew closer. Arvin heard the crack of branches and saw trees moving. As it broke through the trees, he dragged Porvar into the shadow of the serpent head. An enormous reptile like the one he’d seen earlier lumbered past, a yuan-ti perched on a saddle on its back. The yuan-ti brandished a spear in each fist, and a feathered cape fluttered out behind him.

  “The Se’sehen,” Porvar breathed. “Ss’yin’tia’saminass is under attack.”