by Lisa Smedman
Naulg’s voice rose to a thin childlike wail. “It hurts. Help me, Ar … vin. Please?”
Arvin winced. Naulg’s plea reminded him of how he’d felt during those long months in the orphanage before he’d finally found a friend: lost and alone—and frightened. He pressed a hand against the rogue’s lips. “Quiet, Naulg,” he whispered. “I’m going to get you out of here, but you have to be—”
The clicking of the lock’s bolt was Arvin’s only warning. He whirled as the door opened, whipping up his dagger. As the patch-haired cultist leaned in through the door with an oil lamp, flooding the room with light, Arvin hurled his dagger. The weapon whistled through the air and buried itself in the cultist’s throat. The cultist fell, gurgling and clutching at his bloody neck, his lamp shattering on the floor. Arvin spoke the dagger’s command word and his dagger flew back to his hand. He caught it easily, despite Naulg tugging on his sleeve.
“Why?” Naulg wailed. “Why did they—”
Arvin shook him off. “Not now!” From the hallway came the female cultist’s voice, raised in rapid prayer. Arvin sprang toward the doorway, trying to line up a throw at her, but the yuan-ti whose voice Arvin had heard a moment ago stepped into the doorway, blocking it. He was a half blood with a human body and head, but with a snake growing out of each shoulder where his arms should have been. The lamp wick—still burning, feeding off the puddle of spilled oil—threw shadows that obscured the yuan-ti’s face, but Arvin could see his snake arms clearly. They were banded with red, white, and black. The snake heads that were his hands were hissing, their fangs dripping venom. If either of them succeeded in striking Arvin, he’d be lucky to feel the sting of the puncture; a banded snake’s venom was that swift.
Arvin took a quick step back. The yuan-ti followed him, his head weaving back and forth, his snake arms thrashing and hissing. Arvin wet his lips. Hitting a vital spot with his dagger was going to be difficult.
“Ar … vin!” Naulg wailed.
Arvin elbowed the rogue aside.
In that instant, the yuan-ti attacked—not with his venomous hands but with magic. A wave of fear as chilling as ice water crashed into Arvin’s mind and sent shivers through his entire body. Gasping, Arvin staggered backward. Irrational fear gripped him, made him fling away his dagger, turn his back to the yuan-ti and scrabble at the wall like a rat. The yuan-ti was too powerful; Arvin would never defeat it. Crumpling to his knees, he began to sob.
A small portion of his mind, however, remembered the pouch he’d stuffed into his pocket—the one that held the assassin vine he’d sold to Naulg—and realized that this could be a weapon. But the main part of Arvin’s mind was consumed with the magical fear that engulfed him as water does a drowning man.
Hissing, slit eyes gleaming, the yuan-ti walked slowly and deliberately toward him.
The fear increased, making it difficult even to sob. Arvin was going to die—he knew it. He … could … never—
Control. The word echoed faintly in Arvin’s mind: a thin, distant cry. Then again, louder this time, a shout that throbbed through his mind, pounding like a fist against the fear. Control! Master the fear. Move!
Arvin screamed then—a scream of defiance, rather than fear. He yanked the pouch out of his pocket, ripped it open, and hurled the twine at the yuan-ti. The yuan-ti tried to slap the writhing twine aside, but it immediately wrapped itself around his wrist and swarmed up his arm. A heartbeat later it had coiled around his throat. The yuan-ti staggered backward, his snake hands trying to get a grip on the twine around his neck but only succeeding in tearing slashes in his throat with their fangs.
The fear that had nearly paralyzed Arvin fell away from him like an unpinned cloak.
Arvin scooped up his dagger and leaped to his feet. “Naulg!” he shouted, shoving the rogue toward the door. “Let’s go!”
The yuan-ti had at last managed to grab the twine with one of his snake-headed hands and was pulling it away from his throat. He glanced wildly at Naulg then gestured at Arvin with his free arm.
“Kill him!” he cried.
Before Arvin could react, Naulg spun and leaped on him. Together, they tumbled to the floor. Naulg was weaker than Arvin, and slower, and Arvin had a dagger in his hand—but he was loath to use it, even though Naulg’s eyes gleamed with crazed rage. Arvin vanished it into his glove instead. Seizing the opportunity, Naulg grabbed Arvin by the neck. Arvin was able to wrench one of Naulg’s hands free, but the rogue continued to cling to Arvin. He snapped with his teeth at Arvin’s shoulder, his neck, his arm. Only by writhing violently was Arvin able to avoid Naulg’s furious attacks. Locked together, they rolled back and forth across the floor.
Out of the corner of his eye, Arvin saw the yuan-ti at last succeed in tearing the twine from his neck.
That brief glance was Arvin’s undoing. Naulg reared up, lifting Arvin with him, then slammed Arvin’s head into the floor.
Bright points of light danced before Arvin’s eyes. They cleared just in time for him to see Naulg swoop down, mouth open wide. Arvin felt Naulg’s teeth stab into his shoulder—and a hot numbness flashed through him.
Poison.
Naulg’s spittle had turned poisonous, just as the old sailor’s had.
Arvin tried to draw air into his lungs, but could not. His body was rigid; he was dying. His mind, however, was whirling. He was stupid to have tried to rescue Naulg. He should have listened to the mind seed’s warning and killed the rogue the instant he saw him. Instead, the faint hope of aiding an old friend had been his undoing.
Arvin let out a final, hissing sigh. The room, the snake-armed yuan-ti, and Naulg all spun around him as he spiraled down into darkness.
CHAPTER 17
29 Kythorn, Darkmorning
Arvin heard a soft hissing and felt breath stir the hair near his left ear. Someone was bending over him, touching his cheek with something as soft as a feather. It tickled against beard stubble then was gone.
He opened his eyes and saw he was lying on the cold stone floor of the chamber in which he’d discovered Naulg. The transformed rogue was nowhere to be seen, but the yuan-ti was still there. The half blood was kneeling beside Arvin, one of his snake hands hovering just above Arvin’s face. Its flickering tongue was what had brushed against Arvin’s cheek a moment ago. Arvin wet his lips nervously. The eyes of the banded serpent were small, slit—and held just as much intelligence as the half blood’s human eyes. Those serpent hands—like the yuan-ti’s voice—seemed vaguely familiar to Arvin, yet he knew he’d never met this yuan-ti before. He decided that the sense of familiarity must have come from one of Zelia’s memories.
The yuan-ti’s face was illuminated by what was left of the lamp the patch-haired cultist had dropped. The wick was still burning, fueling itself from the patch of spilled oil. Arvin could feel the oil seeping into his hair. Instinctively he turned his head away from it and felt a sharp pain in his shoulder—the one Naulg had bitten. The venom in his spittle had come close to killing Arvin.
He stared up at the yuan-ti. “You neutralized the poison, didn’t you?” He didn’t bother to ask why; that much was obvious as soon as the yuan-ti spoke.
“Did you come here alone or with others?” it hissed.
“I—” Arvin let his words trail off, pretending to be mesmerized by the venom beading at the tips of the snake-hand’s fangs and the head’s slight swaying motion. All the while, he was thinking furiously. The yuan-ti must have heard Arvin and Naulg use each other’s names and realized Arvin had been making a rescue attempt. If Arvin could convince the yuan-ti he was on his own, it might protect Nicco—but he’d doom himself. He needed to convince the yuan-ti that it was more than a rescue mission, that there was vital information only he could provide.
Which, fortunately, there was.
“Rescuing my friend was only one of my goals in coming here,” Arvin answered. “I also wanted to learn more about the Pox. I was ordered to spy on them by a yuan-ti who goes by the name of Zelia.” As he dropp
ed the name, he searched the yuan-ti’s eyes for a sign of recognition.
The yuan-ti’s expression remained unchanged. “Describe her,” it ordered.
“She looks human, but with green scales. There’s nothing else, really, to distinguish her.”
“Her scales had no pattern?”
Arvin shrugged. “Not that I noticed. They were just … green.”
The yuan-ti considered this. Fortunately, it didn’t ask about Zelia’s one distinguishing feature—her hair. Hair color and length was something the scaly folk generally took no notice of; all human hair looked alike, to them. Even so, Arvin wasn’t going to volunteer the information that Zelia was a redhead. Nor was he going to reveal that she was a psion. She’d be all too easy to track down if he did, and Arvin would become … superfluous. But he could whet the yuan-ti’s appetite a little.
“I think Zelia works for House Extaminos,” Arvin continued.
A sharp hiss from the yuan-ti told him he’d struck a nerve.
“Though that’s just a guess on my part,” Arvin continued quickly. “Zelia only engaged my services a few days ago. And she did it in a fashion that hardly endeared me to her. She placed a … geas upon me. If I don’t return with the information she wants in two days’ time, I’ll die.”
“She’s a cleric?”
Arvin nodded.
“Of Sseth?”
“I suppose,” Arvin demurred. As he answered, a part of his mind was focused deep within himself, drawing energy up his spine and coiling it at the base of his skull. When he felt the familiar prickle in his scalp, he narrowed his eyes in what he hoped was a suitably sly expression. “If you remove the geas, I’ll help you kill Zelia or capture her, whichever you prefer. Do we have a deal?”
The yuan-ti cocked his head as if listening to something then gave a thin-lipped smile. Arvin’s hopes rose. His charm must have worked. Then he realized the yuan-ti had heard footsteps in the hall. Arvin heard a rustling in the doorway and turned his head. Slowly—he didn’t want to give the snake-hand an excuse to bite him.
The female cultist who had fled earlier entered the room. She held a flask in one hand. It was metal, and shaped like the rattle of a snake. She started to remove the cork that sealed it then glanced at the yuan-ti, as if seeking his permission.
Arvin wet his lips nervously. “The Pox have already made me drink from one of those flasks,” he told the yuan-ti. “The potion didn’t work on me. As you can see, I wasn’t transformed into a—”
“Silence!” the yuan-ti hissed.
The cultist lowered the flask, a puzzled expression on her face. Seeing it, Arvin realized that the Pox still believed the flasks to contain poison or plague—and he had just come within a word of destroying that fiction. Had he just proved himself too dangerous to be allowed to live? He wet his lips nervously. His dagger was still inside his glove. There was a chance—a very slim chance—that he could kill the yuan-ti before the snake-hand sank its venomous teeth into Arvin’s throat.
The yuan-ti nodded at Arvin. “This man is dangerous,” he hissed. “Why don’t you let me feed him the plague, instead?” He held up his free hand, the jaws of its snake-head open, imploring.
The cultist hesitated. “It should be a cleric who….” Then her eyes softened, and she held out the flask.
Quicker than the blink of an eye, the yuan-ti’s free hand shot out. The cultist gasped as fangs sank into her hand then she immediately stiffened. Unable to breathe, she purpled. Then she toppled sideways, crashing onto the floor like a felled free.
The yuan-ti picked up the flask with one of its snake hands then turned its unblinking stare on Arvin. “You must be tired—why don’t you sleep?” it hissed. “I have no reason to harm you. I need you. Sleep.”
Arvin felt his eyelids begin to close. He mounted the only defense he could think of—the Empty Mind Tanju had taught him—pouring his awareness out in a flood. But it was no use. The suggestion felt as though it came from deep within; it wasn’t something that grasped the mind from without. What the yuan-ti was saying just seemed so reasonable. Arvin was safe enough; the yuan-ti wasn’t finished with him yet. And Arvin was exhausted, after all….
His heavy eyelids closed as the last shred of his resistance fluttered away like a snake’s discarded skin.
27 Kythorn, Fullday
In his dream, Arvin slithered across the floor of the cathedral between its forest of columns, each of which was carved into the form of two vipers twining around each other, one with its head up, the other with its head down. The columns supported an enormous domed ceiling of translucent green stone through which sunlight slanted, bathing everything in a cool light reminiscent of a shaded jungle. Water from the fountain that topped the cathedral dripped through holes in the roof, pattering onto the floor like rain.
Just ahead was one of the Stations of the Serpent—an enormous bronze statue of the god in winged serpent form, his body banded with glittering emeralds and his mouth open wide to reveal curved fangs of solid gold. The base of the statue was wreathed in writhing jets of orange-red fire, symbolic of Sseth’s descent into the Peaks of Flame.
One day, Sseth would rise from them again.
A dozen other yuan-ti were weaving in prayer before the station, mesmerized from by the slit eyes of Sseth. Arvin slithered closer, welcoming the warmth of the oil-fueled fire on his scales. Twisting himself into a coil, he raised his upper body and swayed before the statue then opened his mouth wide in a silent hiss. Feeling a drop of venom bead at the tip of each of his fangs, he lashed forward in a mock strike, spitting the venom forward onto the tray that stood just in front of the statue. The venom landed on the fire-warmed bronze and immediately sizzled as it boiled away.
Hearing the hiss of scales against stone behind him, Arvin turned and saw the priest he had come here to meet. The priest’s serpent form was long and slender and narrow-nosed, with black and white and red stripes running the length of his body. The part of Arvin’s mind that was his own—the part that was observing the dream from a distance, like a spectator watching a dance and unable to resist swaying in time with the music—recognized the priest as the one heno Zelia—would eventually reduce to a broken-minded heap. But that memory was months in the future.
The priest flickered a tongue in greeting and gestured with a weaving motion. “This way,” he hissed.
Arvin followed him down a side corridor. The priest led him to one of the binding rooms. Inside it, on a low slab of stone, lay the body of a young man—a yuan-ti half blood. The head was that of a snake, with yellow-green scales and slit eyes, and each of the legs ended in snakelike tails, rather than feet. The body was naked. Arvin could see that a number of its bones were broken; one jagged bit of white protruded through the skin just below the shoulder. The left side of the face was crushed, caved in like a broken egg.
Two yuan-ti were working on the corpse, binding it in strips of linen. Both were male and both wore tunics that bore the Extaminos crest. They appeared human at first glance, save for slit eyes and brown scales that speckled their arms and legs. They worked quietly and efficiently—but carefully, giving the corpse the respect it was due as they wound the linen around it. When finished, the binding would be egg-shaped, a symbol of the spirit’s return to the cloaca of the World Serpent.
“Leave us,” the priest said. The two servants exited the room, bowing.
The priest slithered up to the corpse and raised himself above it. Arvin slid around to the other side of the slab. He didn’t recognize the dead man, but he knew who he was—a younger cousin of Lady Dediana. Arvin let his eyes range over the body. The corpse reminded him of prey that had been constricted then rejected as unfit to swallow.
“Keep your questions simple,” the priest said. “The dead are easily confused. And remember, you may ask only a limited number of questions. No more than five.”
Arvin nodded. The information he wanted was very specific. Five questions should do nicely.
The pri
est swayed above the body in a complicated pattern, tongue flickering in and out of his mouth as he hissed a prayer in Draconic. As the prayer concluded, the mouth of the corpse parted slightly, like that of a man about to speak. “Ask your questions,” the priest told Arvin.
Arvin addressed the body. “Urshas Extaminos, how did you die?”
“I fell from a great height.” Urshas’s voice was a creaking echo, his words sounding as if they were rising out of a dark, distant tomb. Broken bones grated as his smashed jaw opened and closed.
Interesting. Urshas’s body had been found late last night, lying on a road near the House Gestin compound. The tallest of the viaducts that spanned that road was only two stories above street level—and was three buildings distant from the spot where the body lay. “How did you reach that height?” Arvin asked.
“Sseth’s avatar carried me. We flew.”
The priest gave a surprised hiss. “How do you know it was Sseth’s avatar?” he asked.
Arvin’s head snapped around angrily, “I am asking the questions.”
Urshas, however, was compelled to answer: “She told me so.”
“She?” Arvin said aloud—then realized his error. His inflection had turned the word into a question. “Sibyl,” Urshas answered.
“Sibyl who?” Arvin asked.
“She has no house name,” Urshas croaked. “She is just … Sibyl.”
“Sibyl,” a different voice—one that wasn’t part of his dream—hissed from somewhere close at hand.
Roused to partial wakefulness, Arvin contemplated the dream. At the time of the memory he was reliving, the name Sibyl had meant nothing to Zelia. But it would, in the months to come. Arvin tried to cast his mind into Zelia’s more recent memories, to conjure up an image of Sibyl, but he could not. Instead he made a momentary connection with one of his own memories—of the way Sibyl’s name had popped into his head while Gonthril was questioning him. With it came a realization. It was desperately important that Zelia find out if Sibyl was involved in all of this. If she was, it would give Lady Dediana the excuse she needed to—