Vanity's brood hos-3

by Lisa Smedman

  She spoke. Arvin, inside her mind, understood the words, even though they were spoken in Draconic.

  She asked if he was the one she'd been sent to fetch. He made the illusion nod.

  Meanwhile, he probed deeper. The yuan-ti's name was Hrishniss, and she was a noble of House Jennestaa. She was one of those who had greeted Dmetrio when the prince had come to her tribe nearly six months before on a highly secret mission from Hlondeth. House Extaminos was poised to turn against its former allies, and assisted by the Jennestaa and Eselemaa, it would conquer the Se'sehen in a surprise attack.

  She obviously had no idea what was going on in Hlondeth.

  Hrishniss had no psionic powers, no clerical spells, also no attack or defense forms, aside from those native to the yuan-ti race. She had come alone and knew nothing about Arvin save that she was to fetch him back to Ss'yin, the ruined city he'd spotted in the distance. Her thoughts gave Arvin the city's full name-Ss'yin'tia'saminass-a word Arvin knew he'd never have a hope of pronouncing without a serpent's forked tongue.

  Arvin's attempt to lure the Dmetrio-seed to him had failed. It looked as though Arvin would have to go to the seed instead-to place his head inside the serpent's mouth, so to speak.

  Still wary but seeing no reason why he should continue to hide, Arvin ended the illusion and allowed himself to become visible. Hrishniss blinked but otherwise didn't react. Yuan-ti didn't startle easily, and she was no exception. She hissed something at him-an invitation for him to climb onto the carpet with her.

  Arvin took a closer look at it. The "carpet" was a section of shed snakeskin with dozens of wings from the tiny flying snakes sewn into its hem. The translucent skin looked fragile, as if it would tear

  if too much weight were placed upon it. He climbed onto it-the skin gave slightly but seemed strong enough-and seated himself facing the yuan-ti. She turned her back to him and stared to the west, and the carpet moved in that direction.

  As they flew toward the ruined city, Arvin wondered what was going on. It wasn't like Zelia to delegate a task, especially one as important as retrieving someone who claimed to have half of the Circled Serpent. She didn't trust anyone but her seeds-if indeed she trusted them. Arvin worried that Hrishniss might be part of some elaborate scheme but couldn't for the life of him figure out what it might be.

  With a growing sense of unease, he rods? the carpet toward Ss'yin.

  The ruined city was even larger than Arvin expected-three times the size of Hlondeth at least. It stretched through the jungle for a vast distance. Tree-covered mounds that had once been buildings gave the jungle canopy a bumpy appearance. Here and there Arvin could see the jagged remalns of a partially collapsed arch or viaduct rising above the treetops. Circular patches of lighter-colored vegetation marked the spots where plazas had once been. In the center of some of these were the lower coils of enormous serpent sculptures.

  The setting sun filled the spaces between the ruins with ominous shadows. Dozens of yuan-ti slithered and strode those shadows.

  As the carpet descended, a depression in the ground caught Arvin's eye-it looked like the remains of an enormous cistern. The rim of it was lined with hundreds of needle-like spikes that faced inward and down. It looked as though there were people inside

  it, and as the carpet passed over the cistern, Arvin got a better look. He was stunned to see a dozen halflings in ragged clothing, huddled in a group. One was smaller than the rest, probably a child. Two of them looked up listlessly as the carpet flew overhead. The rest stared at the floor.

  Arvin once again manifested the power that would allow him to read Hrishniss's thoughts, then tapped the yuan-ti on the shoulder and pointed down. She spoke in her own language, but Arvin heard the words as they formed in her mind just before each was spoken.

  "Monkey-men," she said. "Soon to join the other slaves, once we have altered them."

  The word she'd used-"altered"-had several other meanings rolled into one. It was also the word for "improved" and "magically changed," and strangely enough, the word for "fed"-specifically, for feeding a liquid to someone.

  With a growing horror, Arvin realized what Hrishniss meant. The halflings below were going to suffer a similar fate to his friend Naulg. They would be fed a potion that would transform them into lizard creatures, just like the half-lizard Arvin had spotted in the plaza.

  Arvin swallowed down the bile rising in his throat. His best chance at doing anything for the wretches below lay in feigning indifference. He stared back at Hrishniss, his face impassive, and nodded his approval.

  They landed, as the sun was setting, in the deep shadow of a pyramid. It was shaped like a coiled serpent but was missing its head-this lay in the jungle nearby, blank eyes peering out of an overgrowth of vines. The broken neck was hollow. The serpent's mouth must have been the pyramid's original entrance.

  As Hrishniss and Arvin stepped off the carpet, one of the half-lizards scuttled out of the shadows to retrieve it-a female with dull brown hair that had fallen out on the left side of her head to be replaced by scales. She smelled as if she had not bathed in several tendays and her clothes hung in rags. There were twin punctures in her left arm-bite marks-each surrounded by a nasty looking patch of red. Her eyes had a tortured, half-mad look that reminded Arvin of the way Naulg had looked just before he died.

  Hrishniss hissed an order. The half-lizard flinched.

  Arvin balled his fists. He exhaled, long and slow, breathing out his anger. He couldn't offer the transformed halfling so much as a sympathetic glance. He turned away and followed Hrishniss up the pyramid.

  They entered the neck of the snake and descended through the pyramid's spiraling interior. For several circuits, they moved through darkness. Arvin had to listen for the sound of Hrishniss' footsteps as her feet slid along the stone. He walked with one hand brushing the wall, sliding his own feet forward to feel out any debris or sudden gaps, but he didn't encounter any. Despite the great age of the pyramid, its interior was clean and smooth.

  The spiraling corridor lightened, and a yellow light flickered up ahead. The air felt drier. Arvin could smell sweet-scented smoke. Rounding the last bend, they entered a circular room illuminated by a enormous metal brazier, filled with oil, that occupied the center of the room. Yellow flames rippled across its surface, occasionally crackling as one of the chunks of resin floating on the surface burst into flame. Shadows danced on the walls, which were pierced around the circumference of the room with

  eight circular tunnels, including the one Hrishniss and Arvin had just emerged from. Each had been carved to resemble the open mouth of a serpent, and was framed by elongated, stylized fangs that stretched from roof to floor like curved pillars.

  Inside one of those tunnels-the one directly opposite where Arvin stood-the Dmetrio-seed lounged, naked. His back was against one wall, his feet propped up on the other. His tongue flickered in and out of his mouth as he stared up at Arvin through the brazier's dancing flames. One hand made a lazy gesture.

  "Leave us," he hissed.

  Hrishniss bowed then backed out of the chamber.

  Something tickled Arvin's forehead: his lapis lazuli, warning him that someone was using detection magic. Someone was scrying him.

  There was nothing he could do about that now. Ignoring the tingling, he mentally braced himself. He stared at the Dmetrio-seed, ready for the psionic attack he was certain was coming, one thread of his awareness deep in his muladhara, touching the energy it contained. Worried that the burning oil might contain osssra, he breathed as shallowly as he could. He felt clear-headed, however. Sharp. Ready. He had defeated one of Zelia's mind seeds already, and he would match another, blow for blow, and beat it down, too-but not until he absolutely had to. For the time being, he'd play the game, pretending he didn't know it was Zelia.

  The Dmetrio-seed rose to his feet and moved toward Arvin. The body might be male, but the swaying walk was feminine, seductive. Arvin wondered if the seed realized he was doing it. Arvin kept his e
yes firmly on the Dmetrio-seed's face, deliberately not looking down at the spot in the yuan-ti's groin where his genitals were hidden.

  "Lord Extaminos," Arvin said, bowing.

  "Arvin." The answer was in a higher, softer tone than Dmetrio had used. "Zelia told me to expect you. Did you bring it?"

  "No," Arvin said. "It's hidden. When the time comes, I'll go get it."

  He felt a finger-light tickle touch his mind and heard the tinkling of Zelia's secondary display. A surge of magical energy tingled up his arm from Karrell's ring, sweeping away the seed's attempt to read Arvin's thoughts. Arvin drew energy up through his navel, into his forehead, preparing to manifest a defense against whatever the seed hurled at him next.

  The Dmetrio-seed merely smiled.

  Sweat trickled down Arvin's temples. This was unlike Zelia. He had to know what was going on. Taking a big risk, he redirected the energy that swirled around his navel and third eye into the base of his scalp instead. The Dmetrio-seed frowned slightly and turned his head, as if a distant sound had caught his attention.

  Then, amazingly, Arvin was in.

  It was Zelia's mind, all right. She stared at Arvin with tightly controlled loathing. He was a human-a member of a lesser race. An insect. Like an annoying gnat, he kept coming back to pester her over and over again. She ached to manifest a catapsi and watch his psionic energies bleed from him, then kill him. Slowly. For the moment, he was a gnat she dared not swat, not after all of the work the original Zelia had done to set things up. Of course Arvin hadn't been foolish enough to bring the other half of the Circled Serpent with him; Juz'la had said to expect that. Juz'la would worm the secret of where it was hidden out of Arvin. Yes, the seed would leave that to her.

  Arvin blinked. Who was Juz'la? Whoever she was, the Dmetrio-seed was deferring to her like a

  subordinate. Arvin was shocked to hear even a seed of Zelia admitting that someone else was more powerful and capable. It was inconceivable.

  He dug deeper and was surprised at the ease with which he read the Dmetrio-seed's thoughts. It was as if he were walking a well-worn path. The seed offered no resistance. Was he playing some sort of game-one that involved luring Arvin deeper into his mind? Arvin pushed on warily.

  In a matter of moments, he had learned where the Dmetrio-seed had hidden the lower half of the Circled Serpent. inside a ceramic statue of Sseth that had been part of the tribute he had presented to the Jennestaa upon his arrival at Ss'yin, a statue that now sat in a place of honor on one of their altars. Bound up with that information was a much more recent memory-from five nights before-of the Dmetrioseed bragging to Juz'la, over a glass of wine, how clever the hiding place was. No yuan-ti would dare smash open a statue of the god.

  Arvin frowned. Juz'la again.

  He found a picture of her in the Dmetrio-seed's memories: a dark-skinned yuan-ti woman with a bald head covered in orange and yellow snake scales that dipped down onto her forehead in a widow's peak. The image was nested am id a memory of the Dmetrioseed seducing Juz'la. Memories of that seduction drifted to the surface of the seed's thoughts: Juz'la straddling the seed, naked, her muscular body glistening with acidic sweat, an indifferent look on her face. Skirting those images-which were fuzzy and incomplete, like the memories of a drunken man- Arvin explored the connection between the two. Zelia and Juz'la were old friends. They had known each other, long ago, in the city of Skullport.

  The Dmetrio-seed had been surprised to learn that Juz'la had left Skull port, but he'd accepted Juz'la's

  explanation of needing to leave the city quickly, something about having run afoul of a slaver there. As for how Juz'la had wound up in the Black Jungles, that was simple. She had taken passage on a ship that had sailed through one of Skullport's many portals-one that led to the Lapal Sea-then made her way west. The seed thought it odd that Juz'la had wound up here in Ss'yin shortly after he did, but life was like that-people's lives entwined in the strangest of ways.

  Stranger still was the fact that Juz'la, once human, now appeared to be yuan-ti. That part, too, Juz'la had explained. She'd drunk a potion, one that had transformed her into a yuan-ti. It was something she'd always wanted. Venom is power, she'd said.

  All of this had the ring of truth-or at least, the truth as the Dmetrio-soed believed it to be. Something still didn't sit right, however. Zelia never accepted stories at face value, and one of her seeds would never look up to a human-even one who had since been transformed into a yuan-ti-with tho kind of admiration and respect, even awe, that Arvin heard echoing through the seed's thoughts.

  The Dmetrio-seed stared idly at the flaming oil- again, a most uncharacteristic behavior for one of Zelia's seeds. "Beautiful, isn't it?" he hissed. "Just like a slitherglow."

  Arvin looked around, pretending to study the chamber. "This city must be ancient," he said, stalling as he tried to think what to do next.

  "It was built centuries ago," the seed answered, "at the height of the Serpentes Empire."

  "It's very remote."

  "Yes."

  "Why did you come here?" Arvin asked. He already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear what the seed thought about Dmetrio's mission.

  "To forge an alliance," the seed answered. "House Se'sehen has turned its back on House Extaminos. We need new allies in the south."

  That much was the truth. Dmetrio-the real Dmetrio, before Zelia had seeded him-had been ordered south by Lady Dediana on a secret mission to build up the Jennestaa forces in preparation for an attack on the Se'sehen. That, it was hoped, would draw Sibyl south. If all went well, Sibyl would be killed in the resulting battle, thus removing the thorn that had festered in Hlondeth's side those past two years. With Sibyl dead, Dmetrio could claim her half of the Circled Serpent, use it to free his god, and become Sseth's avatar.

  Zelia, of course, had no intention of letting this happen, nor did she intend to let her seed become an avatar-that much was clear in the seed's thoughts. The Dmetrio-seed had been given strict orders to get the second half of the Circled Serpent from Arvin, kill him, and hand both halves over to Zelia.

  The seed, of course, had his own thoughts on that matter. The idea of becoming Sseth's avatar-of gaining powers far beyond those the original Zelia possessed-was a tempting one, but also one that gave the seed pause. Zelia was a more powerful psion and a dangerous woman to cross. Seeds who had attempted betrayal before had all met a swift death.

  Arvin pressed deeper. Had the Dmetrio-seed learned where the door was? Arvin couldn't find it anywhere in the seed's thoughts. That was disappointing, but there was still more to be learned. Whether the seed had told Zelia that Arvin had contacted him, for example.

  "Was that why the Se'sehen attacked Hlondeth?" Arvin continued. "Because of the new alliance?"

  The Dmetrio-seed blinked. He'd had no idea Hlondeth was under attack.

  "You didn't know?" Arvin continued, even though he'd already heard the answer in the Dmetrio-seed's thoughts. "Zelia didn't tell you?"

  The seed, he learned, hadn't been in touch with Zelia since receiving the message that Arvin would get in touch with him soon. The seed had wanted to alert Zelia to the fact that Arvin had just contacted him with a sending-that Arvin had the other half of the Circled Serpent-but Juz'la had advised against it. Amazingly, the seed had acquiesced.

  "When did this attack take place?" the Dmetrioseed asked.

  "Two days ago."

  The seed hissed. An attack on Hlondeth, he was thinking, might mean an attack on Ss'yin was imminent. The Jennestaa had been working hard to create an army, but they were nowhere near ready yet. After a moment, however, his agitation eased. He'd ask Juz'la for advice; she'd know what to do.

  "War makes odd bedfellows," Arvin prompted, hoping to hear more about Juz'la.

  The Dmetrio-seed didn't take the bait. His lips quirked into a smile. "That it does. The Jennestaa are wild and uncivilized-they find beauty in the power of the jungle to break apart even the largest stone. They'd like to see every city laid wa
ste and reclaimed by the jungle."

  "Even Hlondeth?"

  The Dmetrio-seed touched Arvin's arm, drew him closer. "Even Hlondeth," he breathed in Arvin's ear. "Fortunately, they'll never get that far."

  Arvin started to draw away-then stopped, as he smelled a faint but unmistakable odor. A perfume- sweet scent, overlaid with wine.

  Hassaael.

  That was what was muddying the Dmetrio-seed's thoughts and making Zelia as passive as a slurring

  drunk. Like the Talassan on Mount Ugruth, she had fallen entirely under the sway of whoever had fed her hassaael.

  Arvin could guess who that was.

  Juz'la.

  It all fit. Juz'la had run afoul of a yuan-ti slaver in Skullport, and she'd drunk a magic potion that transformed her-a potion that sounded hauntingly familiar to the one the Pox had used to transform Naulg. That potion had come from a slaver named Ssarm, a man who was also a supplier of hassaael to Sibyl's minions.

  Juz'la was one of them, a minion powerful enough to have conquered Zelia-or rather, one of Zelia's mind seeds. Zelia, Arvin was certain, didn't know that yet. She'd noticed the "dulling" of her seed's mind but had put it down to his osssra use.

  A slithering footstep drew Arvin's attention to one of the tunnels. He glanced up in time to see Juz'la step into the chamber. She held a wine glass made of delicate green crystal in her hand.

  "Ah," she hissed. "Our guest has arrived." She held the glass out to Arvin. "You must be thirsty after your journey. Here, drink."

  CHAPTER 8

  Thank you," Arvin said, taking the wine glass. He pretended not to notice the twin puncture marks on the inside of Juz'la's wrist. "I am indeed thirsty. This is the hottest place I've ever been."

  He swept the improvised turban off his head and mopped his brow with it, then pretended to stuff it into his pocket. When he removed his hand, the fabric was inside his sleeve. He transferred the glass to this hand and raised it to his lips. He was tempted to manifest a distraction but was wary of alerting Juz'la with a secondary display. If she'd associated with Zelia in the past, she'd certainly know all about psions. He'd already noted the glance she'd given the crystal that hung at his neck.