by Lisa Smedman
There was one way for Arvin to find out. He drew energy up through his navel, into his chest, and exhaled slowly. The scents of saffron and ginger filled the air, and ectoplasm shimmered briefly on the walls of the cavern before evaporating in the jungle heat. The cavern blurred, shifted slightly …
Arvin stared down at a ghostly reflection of himself. The dog-man stood over him, his mouth open in a grin, tongue lolling as he panted with silent laughter. He rolled Arvin over and tore open his shirt. The box fell out. Panting harder, the dog-man picked it up.
A second source of powerful emotion drew Arvin’s eyes to the entrance of the cave. The dog-man’s back was turned, so he didn’t see the snakeskin carpet that drifted to a halt at the cavern’s mouth, its fringe of tiny wings fluttering. A serpent that had been coiled on it slithered into the cavern.
The dog-man, at last alerted to danger, whirled. He visibly relaxed—then his body tensed up again. As if turned by an invisible hand, his head was wrenched to the side. He stared at the wall for a heartbeat or two, then exploded into a run toward it. As he reached the wall, he flung himself forward, smashing his forehead into the rounded top of a stalagmite in a spray of blood. Then his body crumpled into a heap beside the stalagmite.
The serpent regarded him for a moment with unblinking eyes. Then it shifted into yuan-ti form. It was, as Arvin had half suspected, the Dmetrio-seed. The seed strode forward, lifted the box the dog-man had dropped, examined it briefly, then opened it. Seeing both halves of the Circled Serpent, he hissed in delight. Triumph shone in his slitted eyes.
The seed gestured and the flying carpet floated into the cavern. He placed the box on it. Then he bent to examine Arvin and Pakal. He lifted the dwarf’s leg and flicked his tongue over a patch of black that spread outward from the twin puncture marks left by one of the shadow snake’s bites. Hissing softly, he dropped the leg. He turned to Arvin and lifted Arvin’s hand. Unblinking eyes stared down at the bite marks on the back of it—punctures surrounded by a dark bruise. The Dmetrio-seed looked disappointed—he probably assumed Arvin was dead and was rueing not having killed Arvin himself—and let Arvin’s hand fall. Then he stepped onto the carpet. He shifted into serpent form and coiled tightly around the box. With a flutter of wings, the carpet lifted from the ground and flew out of the cavern.
The last impression Arvin’s manifestation gave him was the Dmetrio-seed’s triumphant hiss. Then the vision ended.
Arvin stood for several moments, staring at the body of the dog-man. The Dmetrio-seed had acted with the decisive brutality Arvin had come to expect from Zelia; the seed had seemed fully aware, powerful and in control. The death of Juz’la must have broken the lethargy he had been languishing under. Arvin shuddered as he contemplated what the dog-man had been forced to do. He had seen Zelia dominate someone before—he’d experienced her psionic compulsions first-hand—but had never dreamed they could be so strong. His tutor, Tanju, had hinted that there were powers that could compel a person to take his own life, but this was the first time Arvin had seen them in action, and Dmetrio was merely one of Zelia’s seeds. Arvin would be doubly wary from then on of any version of Zelia.
Especially the one that had both halves of the Circled Serpent.
Arvin rubbed his forehead, realizing that the tickling he’d felt in his forehead as he descended toward the cave must have been the Dmetrio-seed using his psionics to view Arvin at a distance. Arvin had shown the seed exactly where the cave was.
His left hand still throbbed where the viper had punctured it, his right shoulder was crusted with dried blood from Pakal’s attack, and his chest felt bruised from the crushing the yuan-ti who had swept him into the tree had given him.
The deepest ache, however, was inside him. For a few brief moments, he had held the key to Karrell’s prison in his hands, then it was gone again.
He took a deep breath and pushed the melancholy thought firmly aside. He reminded himself that it could have been worse. It could have been Sibyl who had claimed the Circled Serpent. At least Arvin knew how the Dmetrio-seed’s mind worked. There was a chance that the seed would dutifully carry the Circled Serpent back to Zelia in Hlondeth—but only a slim chance. More than likely, the seed had decided to betray Zelia—all Arvin needed to do was find the door. If Arvin could find a way to locate the Dmetrio-seed before the seed learned where the door was, then perhaps …
The whuff-whuff-whuff of wings startled him out of his reverie. A shadow—large and serpent-shaped—passed across the mouth of the cave. A flying serpent, landing at the base of the bluff. Was it Ts’ikil returning? Or Sibyl?
Arvin scrambled across the cavern toward his pack. Plunging a hand inside, he seized the musk creeper net. He used his dagger to slash the rootlets that had grown into the pack, at the same time manifesting the power that would render him invisible. Then, cautious, he crept to the mouth of the cave.
CHAPTER 10
The marilith lowered its face to Karrell’s and glared into her eyes.
“Naughty mortal,” it scolded. “Don’t you dare run away again.”
Karrell, her legs held by a twist of the demon’s tail, met the marilith’s eye with a defiant look.
“Or what?” she countered. “You’ll kill me? Go ahead.”
The demon hissed. Its tail tightened. As it did, Karrell whispered Ubtao’s name under her breath and brushed a hand against the marilith’s mottled green scales. The wounding spell took effect, sending a jolt of pain through the marilith’s body. The demon gasped and its coils loosened again.
Karrell felt the ground beneath her feet grow soggy. The foul smell of rot drifted up from the ground—the jungle reacting to her spell. She distracted the demon by speaking again.
“By killing me, you’ll only kill yourself,” she reminded it.
The demon’s eyes narrowed.
“Let go of me,” Karrell demanded. She nodded down at her belly. “You know I can’t run.”
The demon tilted its head, considering. One of its six hands toyed with a strand of sulfur-yellow hair. A half-dozen dretches surrounded it. One of them scratched at its belly, setting the blubber there to jiggling.
“Mistress,” it croaked. “Should we kill it?” Drool dribbled from its mouth as it gave a fang-toothed smile.
“Silence, idiot!”
A sword appeared in the marilith’s hand. Without even looking at the dretch, it slashed backward, neatly slicing through its neck. The head landed in a tangle of ferns, surprised eyes staring blankly up at the sky as the body crumpled, its neck fountaining red. The other dretches sniffed the splatters, then dropped to all fours and began lapping up the flowing blood with their tongues.
The marilith ignored them. It gestured with the point of its sword at Karrell’s distended belly. “Soon your young will emerge,” it observed.
Karrell eyed the sword point and readied another prayer. If the sword pricked her, she’d need to inflict yet another jab of pain to convince the demon that the fate link still held.
“I’ll need a healer to tend me,” she told the marilith, “someone who can take away the pain and staunch my blood if too much of it flows, someone who can keep me alive if the birth doesn’t go well.” She gestured at the circle of slashed and trampled vegetation where the marilith’s swords had whirled. “Open another gate; send me home. The odds of survival—for both of us—will be much greater then.”
“No.”
“If I die—”
“Then your soul will wind up on the Fugue Plain, even without a gate,” the demon said, “where, instead of being claimed by Ubtao and taken to the Outlands, it will be consumed by Dendar.” The marilith smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. “As I’m sure you noticed, the Night Serpent has developed a taste for the faithful.”
Karrell blanched at that but managed to keep her voice steady. “All the more reason to keep me alive,” she argued, “since your soul will also be consumed.”
“All the more reason to keep you close,” the marilith answered.<
br />
Karrell gestured at the dretches. They had peeled back the skin of the dead one’s neck and fought over the right to suck the spinal cord.
“You sent them in to herd the faithful into Dendar’s mouth,” Karrell said. “Why?”
The demon gloated. “You haven’t figured that out?” it tsk-tsked. “You’re not as clever as I thought, halfblood. Perhaps there’s too much human in you.”
“Then pity me. Tell me why you want Dendar to grow so big. Is it so she’ll be stuck inside her cave?”
The demon frowned. “What purpose would that serve?”
“It would prevent the Night Serpent from escaping when Sibyl opens the door to her lair.”
“Why should we care if Dendar escapes?”
“Because …” Karrell was at a loss.
The marilith was right. Why indeed? For all the demons cared, the entire world beyond the Abyss—and all of the souls it contained—could disappear.
“Why should Sibyl want to open that door?” the marilith continued. “Hmm?”
“To reach Smaragd,” she said. She waved her hand in a circle. “Through your gate.”
The marilith gave a throaty laugh. “You truly are as stupid as you seem, mortal. Nothing living can enter the Fugue Plane.”
Karrell knew that, of course, just as she knew that Sibyl was very much alive—and as mortal as she was. If she could keep the marilith talking, perhaps she could learn what was really going on.
“Sibyl could enter it by dying,” she said.
The marilith sighed. “Who would claim her soul?”
Karrell deliberately blinked. “Why … Sseth, of course.”
The marilith started to say something, then bent until its lips brushed Karrell’s ear. “You look tired. Rest. Sleep.” It gave Karrell a wicked smile. “Dream.”
Karrell flinched away from the demon’s touch. The marilith’s last comment had been an odd one. Since being dragged into Smaragd, Karrell had slept fitfully, one ear always open for the sounds of the marilith and its dretches. Her dreams had been troubled. With Dendar feeding on the souls of the faithful, any dreams Karrell had were certain to be full-blown nightmares, perhaps more than her mind could stand. Why would the demon want Karrell to do something that might harm her—and thus it?
With a suddenness that left her dizzy, Karrell realized what was happening. Sseth communicated with his worshipers through whispers and dreams, and Sseth was bound. The dreams he was sending had turned into a writhing nest of nightmares. That was why Karrell—why all of the yuan-ti—had been having such troubling dreams for the past several months, dreams that disturbed their sleep enough to cause them to wake up, hissing in alarm. Dreams of being bound, of feeling trapped, of being prey rather than predator, dreams that were terrifying in their imagery but not quite substantial enough or clear enough to convey whatever message Sseth was so urgently trying to send.
If Dendar gorged herself on the faithful—if she stopped eating nightmares—those dreams would come through, not in a trickle, as they had for the past several months, but in a terrible, mind-drowning rush.
Sibyl wasn’t planning to enter Smaragd through Dendar’s cave. Dendar was only the solution to her immediate problem. There had to be another entrance to Smaragd, one that Sseth knew—one that he was trying to send to his faithful through dreams that had become nightmares.
Whatever that route was, the Circled Serpent was the key. Of that Karrell was certain. She closed her eyes, praying that key didn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Something stroked her hair—the marilith’s claw-tipped fingers. “A copper for your thoughts,” it hissed.
Karrell pressed her lips grimly shut. Inside her belly, her children kicked. They could feel her tension, her anxiety. Forcing herself to remain calm, she placed a hand on her stomach.
The demon stared thoughtfully at it. “Is it your time?” it asked. “Has it begun?”
One of the dretches rose from its feast and sniffed Karrell, its blood-smeared nostrils twitching. Karrell smacked its hand away.
“Not yet,” she told the demon, meeting its eye.
It was a lie. Karrell’s water had just broken; she could feel its warmth trickling down her legs. Her stomach cramped—a hint of the contractions that would follow.
She smiled up at the demon, hiding her fear behind a mask. “Don’t worry,” she told the marilith. “When my labor does begin, you’ll feel it.”
As she spoke, she sent out a silent plea. Arvin, she thought, if you’re listening, come quickly. I’m running out of time.
Arvin eased his head out of the cave and stared down. He’d had the net ready to throw, but lowered it again. It wasn’t Sibyl who had returned to the cave, but Ts’ikil.
The couatl sat coiled on a ledge beside the river at the bottom of the bluff, her head drooping with exhaustion. Her body was badly burned in several places. Scorched feathers stood stiffly out from seared red flesh. Sibyl’s black cloud had left oozing brown patches elsewhere along the couatl’s length. Her remaining feathers had lost their rainbow luster and her wings were tattered. She held one wing at an awkward angle, as if it were broken.
Arvin opened his mouth to call out to her then hesitated. Maybe he should just sneak away while his invisibility lasted, strike out on his own and try to find the Dmetrio-seed. Unfortunately, even though Arvin had learned his psionics from Hlondeth’s best tracker, he didn’t have any powers that would allow him to hunt the seed down. He’d concentrated, instead, on learning powers that would help him infiltrate Sibyl’s lair.
For what must have been the hundredth time, Arvin wished he hadn’t broken the dorje Tanju had given him the winter before. It would have pointed, like a lodestone, directly at the Dmetrio-seed. What Arvin needed was a power that could do the same thing or—he glanced at Pakal’s still form—a spell. Pakal had been able to track down the upper half of the Circled Serpent back in Sibyl’s lair. Perhaps he could do the same with the seed.
The trouble was, he’d probably continue to insist on destroying the artifact.
Ts’ikil, on the other hand, had at least seemed sympathetic to Karrell’s plight. Perhaps she might yet be persuaded.
Arvin negated his invisibility. “Ts’ikil!” he called. “Up here!”
It took several more shouts before the couatl raised her head. Either the cascade of the river below was drowning out Arvin’s voice, or she was as far gone as Pakal was.
Arvin! Her voice was faint, weak. What has happened?
“Pakal is badly wounded,” Arvin shouted. “Dmetrio has taken the Circled Serpent. He has both halves.”
Arvin knew he was taking a huge gamble. If Ts’ikil had magic that could locate the Dmetrio-seed, she might go after him and leave Arvin behind, assuming she could still fly.
He felt Ts’ikil’s mind slide deep into his awareness. Her mental intrusion was a mere tickle—far gentler than the pummeling Zelia had given him in her rooftop garden as she rifled through his thoughts. Memories flickered past in reverse order: the psychic impressions Arvin had picked up from the cavern, his encounter with the dog-man, Pakal’s battle with the shadow asps.
“He looks bad,” Arvin told her. He spoke in a normal voice, certain she was still listening in on his thoughts. “He’s … alive, but his skin’s turning black. Can you help him?”
I will try. Can you lower him to me?
“Yes.”
That said, he uncoiled his trollgut rope. He repositioned Pakal’s belt across his chest, just under the arms, and made sure it was securely buckled. He attached his rope to it, passing a loop under each of the dwarf’s legs to turn it into a sling. He carried Pakal to the mouth of the cave, eased him over the edge, and stood holding the end of the trollgut rope. “Augesto,” he commanded. It lengthened, slowly lowering Pakal to the ledge below.
When the rope went slack, Arvin tossed the other end of it down. He stowed the magical net back inside his pack and slipped the pack on, then activated his bracelet. By the time he
climbed down to the ledge, Ts’ikil was bending over Pakal, touching his wounds with a wingtip. She hissed softly as her feathers brushed across the puncture marks. In full daylight, Arvin got a better look at the blackness that surrounded each of the wounds. He’d assumed it to be bruising, but it was something much worse. The darkened areas on Pakal’s legs seemed somehow insubstantial—shadows that clung to him, even in the full glare of direct sunlight. As Ts’ikil’s wingtip touched them, it sank into nothingness.
“That’s not good, is it?” Arvin said. Despite the wound in his shoulder, he bore the dwarf no ill will. Pakal had only been doing what he felt he must—just as Arvin had been.
For several moments, Ts’ikil said nothing. The river surged past them, a pace or two away, sounding like one long, constant sigh. From somewhere in the distant jungle came a faint scream: a monkey’s cry. The stone of the ledge felt hot, even through the soles of Arvin’s boots. He wondered if they shouldn’t be moving Pakal into the shade.
No, Ts’ikil said. Sunlight will hasten the cure. She gave Pakal’s wounds one last touch, trilled aloud—a melody as beautiful and haunting as that of a songbird—then sank back into a loose coil. There. I have done all I can.
“When will he regain consciousness?” Arvin asked.
A day. Perhaps two.
Arvin frowned. “That’s too long. We need him to find Dmetrio now.” He glanced up at Ts’ikil. “Can you—”
No. Pakal and Karrell were my eyes.
“Aren’t there others you can call upon?”
None close by.
Arvin closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. “So that’s it, then. The Dmetrio-seed has gotten away.”
We will find him.
“How? You said—”
He will go to the door.
“Yes—but there’s just one problem,” Arvin said. “We don’t know where the door is.” He paused. “Do we?”
No mortal does.
Her choice of words gave him a surge of hope. “What about the gods?” he asked. “Can they tell us where it is?”
We have petitioned both Ubtao and Thard Harr. They do not know its location.