Vanity's brood hos-3

by Lisa Smedman

  Glancing up, Arvin saw the gate the Circled Serpent had opened-a circle of bubbling lava, framing a patch of clean, starry sky.

  It was no dream. He'd done it. He'd entered Smaragd.

  A shape swept by overhead. Dark wings against a purple sky.

  So had Sibyl.

  A second line of fire rushed through the forest, crisscrossing the first. A heartbeat later, Sibyl swept past. She seemed to be following it. Craning his neck, Arvin watched as she flew away with ragged wing- beats, wheeling and twisting in the sky, pursuing what must have been a twisting, convoluted path.

  "Sibyl!" the voice cried again from somewhere to his right. "Over here! Under the swords!"

  The cry was followed by a whirring, crashing sound. It sounded as though the jungle was being hacked to pieces, as well as set on fire.

  There was no time to wonder what was happening, or why. Arvin struggled to his feet and discovered he'd been lying on his backpack. He picked it up. The net was still inside, and he thanked Tymora for that. And for breaking his fall without breaking his bones. "Nine-"

  Halfway to his crystal, his hand paused as the realization finally sank home. He was in Smaragd.

  Mentally reaching for his lapis lazuli instead. he pictured Karrell's face. It came to him immediately. Her eyes were screwed shut, her mouth open and gasping. A grimace of pain etched deep lines into her cheeks and forehead. Her hair hung around her face in a disheveled mess. As he watched, she gagged and was nearly sick.

  It didn't matter. Joy surged through him, fierce as the fire that bathed him in its glowing light. Karrell was alive!

  Karrrel, he sent. It's Arvin. I'm in Smaragd. Tell me where you are.

  Karrell's eyes opened briefly. Then she screamed. And panted. Grimaced. Then spoke in a ragged voice. Ubtao's fire, she gasped. Follow…

  Of course! The fire. Slinging his pack over one shoulder, Arvin held out the feather. He rose into the air, then flew along the path the fire had burned through the forest. Wary of Sibyl spotting him, he flew within the flame. It blurred his vision and filled his ears with a roaring crackle. More than once, he came to places where the path doubled back across itself. He chose a direction at random the first three times, then realized he was lost in a maze. He paused,

  hovering in the air, uncertain which way to go. He didn't have much time. If he was to rescue Karrell and stop Sibyl from freeing Sseth, he had to move quickly, to decide quickly.

  Saffron and ginger wafted through the flame and a droning noise rose above the crackle of flame as Arvin manifested his power. Which way? he asked himself. Straight ahead, left, or right?

  He turned to the right, and an eyeblink-quick flash of a possible future flashed through his mind: him flying on and on through the jungle, until the fire finally died, then a scream, Karrell's.

  Straight ahead and he got a flash of the marilith demon, swords whirling above its head, a pair of hands cupped to its lips as it shouted. Behind it was an enormous serpent head under a netlike tangle of vines. The ground beneath Arvin's feet trembled as the serpent's mouth craned open. Its eye fixed on Arvin, somehow seeing him through the slit Arvin's power had sliced through time.

  My child, it hissed. Free me. Join me.

  Arvin hung, transfixed, on the words. The god had spoken directly to him, mind to mind. Sseth's voice entered a place, deep inside Arvin, that he had not known existed, found it empty, and filled it with an overwhelming, almost sexual desire. Arvin was yuan-ti. He was worthy, worthy of power beyond his wildest dreams, power that would grant him anything-anything-his heart desired.

  Karrell? he pleaded. Karrell can live?

  Yes! the voice hissed. Yes, yes! She will be yours, for eternity. Yours!

  "You lie," Arvin gritted.

  The vision ended. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he shook it off. Then he turned left and flew on.

  He spotted Karrell a moment later. The line of fire ended where she hunkered down on all fours

  and in rags, trembling against the pain of giving birth. Already Arvin could see the head of one of the children crowning. A few moments more, and he-or she-would be born.

  "Karrell!" he shouted, landing and enfolding her in his arms. "I'm here."

  She sagged against him, and for a moment they simply held each other.

  "Our children?" Arvin asked. "Are they-" "Soon," Karrell gasped.

  Arvin glanced up. The gate was still open but was far overhead, out of reach. He could fly up to it with the couatl feather-might even be able to do so while holding Karrell-but not while she was giving birth.

  She clutched his hand. "Arvin," she gasped. "Be… you…"

  "Hush," he told her. "We're together." He forced a smile. "I'll figure out a way to get us both out of here."

  Karrell shook her head. "Behind…"

  Belatedly realizing Karrell had been trying to warn him, Arvin turned…

  Just in time to see Sibyl reach the end of the line of fire and skid to a landing behind him.

  CHAPTER 12

  Sibyl landed awkwardly in a loose coil. Arvin could see now why she had been flying so unevenly. There was a trickle of dried blood under each of her ears. Ts'ikil's cry must have burst both of Sibyl's eardrums. As she folded her wings against her back and steadied herself against a tree with two of her four hands, Arvin scrambled for his pack. Ripping it open, he found that tendrils of musk creeper had once again grown into the leather. Cursing, he slashed these with his dagger.

  Sibyl's magical fear struck him.

  Arvin fought back, even as the fear drove

  him to his knees. Forcing his will against it

  was like trying to shoulder his way through an icy wall of water. It slammed against him, trying to shove his mind back into a

  tiny corner of itself where it screamed, cringed, and wept.

  He fought it down. Like a man staggering under a massive weight, he rose to his feet. Hands shaking, he hauled the net from the pack and lifted it to shoulder height, preparing to throw…

  Sibyl's glare intensified. So did the magical fear. Arvin felt tears pour down his face. The net sagged in his arms then slid from his hands.

  Sibyl bared her fangs in triumph. Then she turned her attention to Karrell.

  "Well, well," she hissed. "A cleric of Ubtao, in Smaragd? How stupid of you to reveal your position with that spell. I would tell you to prepare to meet your god, but there's only a hungry serpent where you're going." She laughed, then cocked her head, savoring the pain of Karrell's labor. "Go on," she taunted. "Try to run."

  Arvin stared at the net that lay at his feet, his entire body quaking. Control, he urged himself. Fight back! Reaching deep inside his muladhara, he grasped a thread of energy and yanked it up into his chest. He breathed out, heard a droning noise fill the air, and imagined a protective shield in front of him.

  Sibyl's magical fear broke upon it and was deflected to either side.

  Arvin scooped up the net and hurled it. The throw was perfect. The net opened in mid-flight and landed on Sibyl's head and shoulders.

  "Absu-"

  Sibyl was swifter. She shifted into a tiny flying snake.

  "— mo!" Arvin shouted, completing his command.

  Too late. Sibyl escaped through the large weave

  of the net. She hovered above where it lay on the

  ground. She darted sideways then reappeared in her

  humanoid form next to Arvin. She towered over him, easily three times his height.

  "You may have escaped my temple," she hissed, "but you won't escape Smaragd."

  She flicked her tail. A lightning bolt shot from it, striking Arvin square in the chest. He was hurled backward into a vine-draped tree. At a spoken word from Sibyl the vines came to life, whipping themselves around him. He managed to wrench one arm free, tearing his skin as the suckers of the vine were ripped from it, but the vine wrapped around it once more. He tried morphing into flying snake form, but the tendrils tightened instantly, holding him fast. Abandoning
that manifestation, he resumed his human form. Sibyl watched with unblinking eyes, smirking at his struggles.

  The net lay on the ground a palm's breadth from Karrell, yellow flowers blossoming from its knotwork. Its fibers began to unweave, sending pale green tendrils questing up into the air, searching for a mind to drain.

  Karrell continued with her labor, her head down and hair trailing, grunting as another contraction gripped her.

  Struggling against the vines was futile, but Arvin's mind was still free. He clawed ectoplasm out of the air and shaped it into a construct with great hooked claws and a mouth that gaped wider than a serpent's and sent it hurtling toward Sibyl in a sparkle of silver that clouded his vision.

  Sibyl met it with a shouted word in Draconic. The construct exploded into a cloud of tiny, shimmering flies that circled harmlessly around her head. With a shrug of one wing, she brushed them aside.

  Sibyl was even more powerful than Arvin had feared. Had she already become an avatar? No, there hadn't been time, but the thought gave him an idea.

  A droning filled the air around him as he tried to force his way into her mind. If he could convince her, even for an instant, that she had heard an unconditional summons from her god, she might leave. A simple splicing of her memories would be all it took. He pushed against her will, looking for the tiniest chink in her mental armor through which his own mind could slip.

  Sibyl forced him back. Then she hissed. Her tail began to glow with an unbearably bright light then whipped forward. As the tip of it slapped against Arvin's face the brightness exploded, filling his entire vision. He blinked but could see nothing but white. He was blind.

  He could no longer see Karrell, but he could hear her deep, shuddering groans. He could also hear, over Sibyl's hissing laughter, the soft pops of the flowers on his net releasing their compelling dust. Sibyl, he had seen in the instant before he was blinded, was still too far away from the net to be affected by the dust, but Karrell was close. Too close.

  "Karrell," he shouted again. "Get away from the-"

  His teeth slammed together as what must have been a second lightning bolt struck him. Muscles rigid, he fought against the blackness that threatened to swallow him. He had been foolish, he realized, to attempt to rescue Karrell alone. He should have tried harder to convince Ts'ikil to come with him. He pictured the couatl as he'd left her on the ledge, realized he should have at least told her he was entering Smaragd. Even wounded, the couatl was the one creature who might actually be a match forNo. There was one other who might be able to beat Sibyl in a head-to-head fight.

  The marilith demon. Arvin knew just which card to play to get it on his side: the fate link.

  Allowing his body to go limp-playing dead- Arvin pictured the demon in his mind. The face was easy to visualize. It had seared itself into Arvin's memory on that terrible day that Karrell had been drawn into the Abyss. Sulfur-yellow hair framing an angular face with wide lips and a V-shaped frown, the hair whipping about in an invisible current. The body, female from the waist up, but with six arms. Below the waist, a writhing serpent's tail covered in green scales that shimmered as though they had been dipped in oil.

  As Arvin made contact, he saw the marilith whirl, a hiss on its lips. Its mouth silently framed a word: "You!"

  Sibyl is about to kill Karrell, Arvin sent. Teleport to Karrell. Now!

  The demon didn't bother making a reply; its image simply vanished from Arvin's mind. A heartbeat later, he heard a whoosh of displaced air that announced its arrival. He was already busy manifesting a power. His face felt cool where ectoplasm coated it. Blurry images filtered in through the skin of his forehead and cheeks as they became sensitive to light. Two towering shapes, confronting one another.

  Suddenly he could see again.

  The marilith cuffed Sibyl away from Karrell and screeched something at it in Dra conic. Sibyl hissed angrily and snaked her tail toward Karrell. The marilith flung out all six hands, and swords appeared in them.

  Arvin smiled. Drawing air deep into his lungs, he charged his breath with psionic energy, then he blew the scents of saffron and ginger, first at the marilith, then at Sibyl, linking their fates.

  The shouting was dying down and the marilith was lowering her swords. Time to stir the pot a little. Arvin manifested a second power, insinuating

  himself inside the demon's mind. It was an ugly mind, volatile and irrational, filled with violent fantasies that centered on what it would do to the worthless dretches-the creatures that were its minions-who had clearly shirked their duties. It bubbled with loathing over the fact that Sibyl-an insignificant half-demon-possessed the one necessary quality that would al low her to become Sseth's avatar: a mortal soul. But the anger that had boiled like lava through the marilith just an instant before was already cooling. Sibyl had agreed to deal with Ubtao's worm later, after she became Sseth's avatar. Once the chains that bound the human's fate with the marilith's had been severed, the impudent cleric and her squirming, loathsome spawn could be safely crushed. The marilith, Sibyl had just promised, had nothing to fear.

  Fear, Arvin thought. He seized the emotion and braided it together with the marilith's frustration and her ideas of how minions should be treated to form a new memory: Sibyl telling the demon that it had better learn to obey her, and that the demon- worthless dretchl-had better learn that its needs were insignificant, that Sibyl was Sseth's chosen one, that she would deal with Ubtao's cleric when it suited her, and if that time had already come, and if that meant the marilith's miserable life would end, well thenA scream of utter fury ripped through the demon's mind. Ungrateful spawn! I should never have agreed toA sword slashed down. Connected. Blood sprayed as one of Sibyl's forearms was sliced open from elbow to wrist. Marilith and abomination screamed as one. The demon stared at the identical wound on its own arm. Arvin felt a shadow of the demon's pain and gasped. He clung grimly to its mind. Swift as thought, he

  added a new memory: Sibyl, grabbing the demon's arm as the sword descended and deliberately twisting it so the blade struck Karrell, instead-causing a wound to spring up magically on the marilith's arm-then Sibyl somehow being wounded in the arm herself by the sword as the demon yanked it away from her again.

  It was a crude image, one the demon would have recognized for false in an instant just by glancing down at Karrell, but its blood was up, anger frothing through its mind. Screaming, it launched itself at Sibyl, all six blades flashing.

  The demon was lightning-fast, but Sibyl moved even more swiftly. Serpent body writhing, she avoided the slashes. Twin streaks of red shot from Sibyl's eyes. They plunged into the demon's chest, punching hot red holes. Identical wounds appeared on Sibyl's chest. She reeled back, glanced down at them-then at Arvin. Her tail twitched toward him, but before she could blast him with another lightning bolt, the marilith lopped off the tip of Sibyl's tail. Sibyl screamed at it in Draconic, but the demon was in full fury and did not notice that its own tail had been severed as well.

  Sibyl, however, had learned something from the exchange. Instead of fighting back, a dark shimmer pulsed from her body: magical fear. It slowed but didn't stop the marilith's attacks. Jungle vines whipped around the demon's body. It sliced them apart and kept coming. In the distance, Arvin could hear wings flapping-another demon, summoned by the marilith to join in the fray?

  The vines holding Arvin had loosened somewhat, and he strained against them, trying to get free. Sibyl and the demon were in the way, and he couldn't see Karrell. Had she breathed in the dust and fallen victim to the musk creeper's compulsion?

  He caught a glimpse of Karrell crawling toward the net. She reached out, grasped it with both hands, drew it closer to her.

  "No!" Arvin shouted.

  Karrell staggered to her feet, drawing the net still closer to her. Tendrils reached eagerly for her head.

  Arvin tore at the vines. If those tendrils rooted in her scalp…

  Sibyl flicked her tail, smearing blood across the marilith as it slapped home,
and shouted something in Draconic. The demon was transformed. One moment, it was a massive creature with six arms and a serpent's tail; the next, an ordinary human with six swords lying at her feet-a human who gaped down at the smoking holes in her chest, the blood draining from her lacerated arm, and the abbreviated stump of her left foot… then collapsed.

  Arvin ripped free of the vines at last and raced for Karrell. "The net!" he screamed at her. "Throw it at Sibyl!"

  She did. The net sailed out of her arms-and missed its target. It landed on the now-human demon, enveloping it.

  Karrell's face went white. Then another contraction staggered her. Grunting, she sank back into a crouch.

  Sibyl whipped around, hissing, her red eyes furious. Her tail lashed forward, catching Arvin around the chest, trapping his arms against his sides. It squeezed…

  "Karrell," Arvin cried. "I-"

  The squeezing forced the air out of his lungs, preventing him from saying more. Then, abruptly, it stopped.

  Arvin tore his eyes away from Karrell and looked up at Sibyl. The abomination stared over his head, a vacant look on her face. Like a suddenly loosened cloak, her coils fell away from Arvin. He stepped out of

  them and saw, behind Sibyl, the marilith demon. Still in the human form Sibyl had transformed it into, it lay, draped by the net, its eyes empty. Strands of yellow musk creeper had rooted in its scalp and wormed their way in through its ears, nose, and mouth. They pulsed as they drained the last vestiges of its mind. Already it had been rendered an empty husk.

  Sibyl, linked to it by Arvin's psionics, had suffered the same fate. The abomination's chest still rose and fell, but her mind was a gaping ruin. She was as good as dead.

  Arvin ran past both abomination and demon and lifted Karrell in his arms. He felt tears streaming down his cheeks. "The net," he said. "I thought…"

  "Ubtao," Karrell whispered-though whether it was an explanation or a plea, Arvin couldn't tell. She groaned-deep and long-and her body shuddered.

  Arvin glanoed up at the sky. The circle of red was still open, and the wingbeats he'd heard a moment before had grown closer.