Viper's Kiss

by Lisa Smedman

  He stared at the ambassador’s residence from the shadow of an arched gate down the street. Several lights were on inside the building, and figures moved busily back and forth, their silhouettes passing across the draped windows. A large cargo wagon was pulled up in front of the main gate. The wagon was already half filled with boxes, rolled-up rugs, and furniture; slaves hurried back and forth from the residence, loading it.

  It looked as though Ambassador Extaminos was beating a hasty retreat from Ormpetarr. Had he heard what was happening at the palace?

  Four militiamen in cobra-hood helmets stood guard over the wagon. Arvin recognized one of them by his prominent nose. He touched the crystal at his neck, whispering a prayer of thanks to Tymora for sending him good fortune. He still had a little energy left in his muladhara, but he didn’t want to spend it on a charm unless he had to. Rillis, fortunately, responded to more mundane prods.

  Arvin fished two silver pieces out of his coin pouch then walked toward the front gate of the residence, hailing Rillis by name. “I’m looking for Karrell—the woman who was with me when I spoke with Ambassador Extaminos. Have you seen her?”

  The young militiaman shook his head.

  Relief filled Arvin. Maybe Karrell had second thoughts about talking to Zelia. Then again, maybe Rillis hadn’t been in a position to spot her. “How long have you been on watch?”

  “All night,” Rillis said with a wry look. “As usual.”

  “Always at the front gate?”

  “Mostly,” he said. He kicked at the slush. “The snow might be melting, but it’s still been a damp, chilly night,” he added with a wink.

  Arvin noticed that Rillis wasn’t shivering. He’d obviously been inside at least part of his watch, warming himself at the fire.

  Rillis stared at the wound on Arvin’s forehead. “What happened this time?” he asked. “Another naga?”

  Arvin shook his head. “Nothing so exciting as that,” he lied. “A thief tried to grab my coin pouch. He cut me.”

  Rillis nodded sympathetically. “Good thing he wasn’t aiming lower,” he said, drawing a hand across his throat.

  Arvin nodded gravely. He stepped closer and opened his hand just enough to reveal the two coins. “There’s another woman I’m also looking for. A yuan-ti who serves House Extaminos, named Zelia. She has red hair, green scales, and a blue forked tongue. Have you seen her?”

  Rillis arched an eyebrow. “One gorgeous woman isn’t enough?” He started to laugh but faltered when he saw the glower in Arvin’s eye. “The red-headed yuan-ti is here,” he said quickly. “She’s a guest of the ambassador.”

  Arvin glanced up at the residence. “Is she here now?”

  Rillis rubbed his finger and thumb together. Arvin passed him the coins.

  “Yes.”

  “Which room is she in?”

  “Second floor. At the back. The second to last suite on the right.” Rillis gave Arvin a tentative glance, his expression a mixture of greed and fear. “Do you … need me to get you inside?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Arvin answered.

  Rillis looked relieved.

  Arvin took two more coins from his pouch and passed them to Rillis. “If Karrell does show up and asks for Zelia,” he instructed, “tell her that Zelia’s not here. That she’s somewhere else.”

  Rillis grinned as he took the coins. “Consider it done. But I’m only on duty until dawn. The ambassador has finally risen from his dream sleep, and he’s in a hurry to leave; I’ll be part of the escort accompanying him to the morning riverboat.”

  “Will Zelia be going with him?” Arvin asked. “Or will she be staying on at the residence?”

  Rillis shrugged. “That’s up to the new ambassador. He’ll decide which slaves and militia—and which house guests—he wants to stay on.”

  “Thanks,” Arvin said. “You’ve been a big help.”

  He walked down the street, turned a corner, and circled around the block to the street at the rear of the ambassador’s residence. He walked the length of the building, glancing up at the residence only when the two militiamen who were standing out back weren’t watching. The last two windows of the second floor were dark, but light glowed through the next two; that must have been Zelia’s suite. The curtains on one of the windows had been drawn but not quite all the way; a slight gap remained. It was impossible, however, to see inside from this angle.

  The militiamen watched Arvin as he walked the length of the block but lost interest in him as he turned the corner. Making his way to the rear of the building that was directly behind the ambassador’s residence, he walked up a short flight of stairs to one of its doors. Pretending to be fitting a key into the lock, he glanced up and down the street. No one was watching. Then he activated the magic within his bracelet and climbed the wall.

  Arvin swung himself up onto the roof. Crawling to the far side through patches of wet snow, he stared across the street at the window that had caught his attention a moment ago. Through the gap in its curtains he spotted Zelia. She was seated in a chair that had its side to the window. She was leaning forward in hungry anticipation, her forked tongue flickering through a smile that sent shivers through him. She’d smiled at Arvin in just the same way when she gloatingly told him about the seed she’d planted in his mind. She leaned forward more, gesturing at someone who sat opposite her.

  A sudden dread filled him. Who was Zelia talking to?

  He crawled farther along the rooftop, ignoring the discomfort of the slush that had soaked through his pants and shirt. No matter what angle he viewed the window from, however, he couldn’t see the second person. Working his way back to his original position—a spot directly opposite the window—he sent his awareness into his third eye. He was taking an enormous chance by manifesting a power—if Zelia detected his psionics, he would give himself away—but he had to know if Karrell was inside.

  As the energy stored in his third eye uncoiled, a thread of silver light spun out into the night, toward the window. It penetrated the glass and touched the curtain inside, weaving its way into the fabric. Then, one tiny tug at a time, it began to pull.

  Slowly, the curtain eased back. After each tug, Arvin waited for several heartbeats, terrified that Zelia might hear the soft slide of the curtain on its rod or notice the gradually widening gap between the curtains. She didn’t.

  Finally, Arvin got a glimpse of the person she was talking to. It wasn’t Karrell.

  It was Naneth.

  Arvin blinked in surprise. He’d expected Naneth to come to Ormpetarr in an attempt to recapture Glisena, but he’d also expected her to show up at the palace. He did not expect her to be here, inside the ambassador’s home.

  He had to find out what was going on.

  With all that remained of the energy in his muladhara, he manifested one last power. Sparkles of light streamed out of the center of his forehead then curled around his head. With them came a heightened awareness. The lighted windows in the ambassador’s residence became a babble of overlapping sounds; the lights elsewhere in the city, a distant hum. Even the stars in the night sky emitted a faint, crackling hiss.

  Those, however, weren’t the sounds Arvin was interested in.

  He curled both of his hands into loose fists then held both of them up to his left eye, forming a tube. Through it, he peered at Zelia’s window with his other eye shut. The waves of noise that had been pouring into his mind were stopped down to a trickle; now he “saw” only the sounds emanating from Zelia’s room. He had to shift, slightly, to screen out the light from the hearth, which filled his mind with a sharp crackle. The fire had been well stoked; like all yuan-ti, Zelia liked her rooms at basking temperature. At last he managed to narrow his field of view to include just Zelia and Naneth. As he did, their voices sprang into focus.

  “… to be done tonight,” the midwife said.

  “Why?” Zelia asked.

  “Because Foesmasher has summoned his clerics,” Naneth said urgently. “He’s con
vinced them to do his dirty work. This time, the child will be killed.”

  Zelia arched an eyebrow. “Surely he wouldn’t slay his own grandchild?”

  Naneth snorted. “He doesn’t have the same respect for life that Lady Dediana does. To him, the child is just a serpent. I’ve heard it said that he refers to it as ‘the demon.’” She shook her head in a parody of sadness, sending a ripple through her double chin.

  Zelia lounged in her chair, her expression confident. “I’ll get the girl out.”

  “How?” Naneth asked. “Glisena’s chamber is warded against serpents.”

  Zelia smiled. “There are ways of getting around wards.”

  Naneth leaned forward, pudgy hands on her knees. “Just so long as you can do it. Remove her from the palace, and I’ll teleport her to Hlondeth.”

  “Directly to the House Extaminos compound?” Zelia asked.

  Naneth nodded. “Yes. Tell your mistress the girl will be delivered, as promised.”

  Arvin waited, tense with anticipation.

  “I’ll contact you as soon as I have her,” Zelia promised.

  “This needs to be done sooner, rather than later,” Naneth urged. “As swiftly as you can.”

  “Swift as a striking serpent,” Zelia agreed with a hiss of laughter. She leaned forward as she spoke, playing with a strand of her long red hair. It parted, revealing a finger-long chunk of crystal that hung from a silver hoop in her ear. Judging by its faint glow, it was a crystal capacitor or power stone—which was strange, since Zelia had always before scorned the use of psionic “crutches.”

  Something must have made Naneth nervous; the midwife raised a hand to her temple to wipe sweat from her forehead.

  Zelia settled back into her chair, staring at Naneth through slit eyes. Her tongue flickered out of her mouth, as if she were savoring the midwife’s discomfort.

  Naneth wiped her temple, glanced in the direction of the hearth, and moved her chair a little farther from it. Arvin gave a mental nod; he felt the same discomfort in the yuan-ti’s overheated rooms.

  “Will you be staying on in Sespech once our business is concluded?” Naneth asked.

  Zelia smiled. “Only for a few days,” she said. “Then we really must leave.”

  “Who is ‘we’?” Naneth asked.

  Zelia smiled. “You’ll find out—seven days from now.” A soft, satisfied hiss of laughter followed.

  Arvin’s eyes widened as he realized what he’d just witnessed. Naneth hadn’t been wiping sweat from her brow. She’d been wiping away a sheen of ectoplasm. Zelia had just seeded her. The earring—a power stone—must have contained a copy of the mind seed power.

  The power that Arvin thought he had stripped from her for good, six months ago.

  Arvin closed his eyes, blocking out both sight and sound. Bile rose in his throat; he swallowed it down. He could guess what must have happened. He’d relayed his warnings about Naneth being one of Sibyl’s minions to Tanju, who in turn had conveyed them to Lady Dediana. And she, in turn, had passed the information along to Zelia, her agent in Sespech. Together, no doubt, with an order: that Zelia try, once again, to plant a spy within Sibyl’s ranks.

  Thunder grumbled from a clear sky: the laughter of Hoar. Naneth had placed a demon in Glisena’s womb, and Zelia had just planted a mind seed in the midwife. The god of poetic justice was, beyond a doubt, pleased.

  Arvin shuddered.

  He watched as the two women in the room exchanged good-byes. Zelia promised to use another sending to contact Naneth the instant Glisena was out of the palace. Naneth nodded then teleported away.

  Zelia turned and stared out the window, her eyes flashing silver as she manifested a power. Fearful that she would detect him, Arvin immediately ended his power. For several terrible moments he held his breath, bracing himself for her attack. Then he saw Zelia shiver. An annoyed look on her face, she swayed to the window and yanked the curtains shut.

  Slowly, Arvin let out his breath. Then he scrambled to the far side of the building and climbed back down to the street. He hurried up the road, casting several glances behind him, but saw no signs of pursuit. Relieved, he turned his steps toward the Fairwinds Inn.

  As he walked, he pondered what he’d just seen and heard. He didn’t believe for a moment that Zelia would attempt to remove Glisena from the palace—she’d just wanted to distract Naneth while she seeded her. That seed, however, would take seven days to blossom. And long before those seven days ended, Naneth would face Sibyl’s wrath for having failed to deliver the pregnant Glisena to Hlondeth. What good would Zelia’s mind seed be then?

  He reached the inn and—after one more careful glance around—let himself in through the back door. He climbed the three flights of stairs that led to the attic room that Karrell had rented. As he reached the landing, he heard sounds of movement behind her door. Karrell had at last returned, it seemed. He prayed she’d been unsuccessful in finding Zelia. As he started to reach for the latch, he heard a wooden clatter that sounded like a chair falling over inside the room. It was immediately followed by a whispered oath, spoken by a male voice.

  Arvin summoned his dagger into his glove and flattened himself against the wall beside the door. With his free hand, he reached into his pocket for the monkey’s fist he’d used to waylay the satyr. A heartbeat later, the latch turned. The door eased open and a man started to back through it. Arvin recognized the fellow at once: the gaunt-faced rogue with the ice dagger who had waylaid him four days ago. The rogue was bent over, carrying something: an unconscious woman. A second man, still inside the room, held her feet. Even though both the room and hallway were in darkness, Arvin recognized their victim at once by her long hair and hugely pregnant belly.

  Glisena. What in the Nine Hells was she doing here?

  Arvin sprang forward, simultaneously slamming the hilt of his dagger into the temple of the rogue while hurling the monkey’s fist in through the door at the second man. The intricate knot unraveled as it flew through the air, strands of it lashing the second man’s arms against his sides. The skinny rogue, meanwhile, staggered sideways down the hall under the force of Arvin’s blow. Both men dropped their burden at once; Glisena fell to the floor with a heavy thud.

  There was no time to check if she was hurt. Arvin’s blow had stunned the rogue instead of rendering him unconscious, and the second man—a beefy-looking fellow with a wind-reddened face and greasy hair—managed, despite his bonds, to twist up the loaded crossbow that hung from his belt. Arvin heard the trigger click and leaped aside from the doorway. The bolt snagged his cloak. The first rogue recovered and rushed down the hall, thrusting with his ice dagger. Arvin parried, and the point of the weapon scratched his left forearm. A shock of cold swept through his arm from his elbow to the tip of his abbreviated little finger. His hand went numb, and he dropped his dagger.

  Greasy Hair was out of commission inside the room; the monkey’s fist had wound its strands around his legs as well, and he’d fallen to the floor. But the first rogue had recovered enough to press home his attack. He feinted with his ice dagger, driving Arvin away from the weapon he’d just dropped. Arvin backed down the short hallway until the wall was at his back then put a deliberately worried look on his face.

  The rogue lunged.

  “Redditio!” Arvin cried, and his magical dagger flew up from the floor toward his ungloved hand. He caught it as the rogue completed his lunge; the ice dagger scored a line across Arvin’s side as he twisted, tearing his shirt. Gasping from the sudden cold—it felt as though an ice-cold hand had clenched his guts—Arvin completed his twist and slammed his own weapon home. It sank to the hilt in the rogue’s back.

  The rogue went down. He fell to the floor, gurgling like a man whose lungs were filled with fever-fluid. Then he coughed a spray of blood. He wouldn’t live long.

  Arvin stood on the rogue’s wrist and plucked the ice dagger out of his hand then glanced through the doorway at the second man. The fellow had strained against his ma
gical bindings until the cords cut deep grooves into the flesh of his arms and legs, but the ensorcelled twine was holding.

  Transferring both daggers to his gloved hand, Arvin touched his side. Crumbles of frozen blood came away from the wound, causing it to bleed slightly. Like the cut on his arm, it was no more than a scratch. “Nine lives,” he whispered.

  Inside the room, on the table, was a mug of ale. Arvin was tempted to take a hefty swallow but decided against it. He didn’t want the rogues thinking his bravery needed a crutch. He glared down at the trussed man.

  “It wasn’t my idea,” the fellow whined. He jerked his head at the rogue who lay dying in the hall. “Lewinn was the one who wanted to cut you out of the deal. He said we could keep the diamonds for ourselves. I said, ‘No, Lewinn, we should deal fairly with the mind mage,’ but he wouldn’t listen. He—”

  “Shut up,” Arvin said.

  Greasy Hair did.

  The wounded rogue exhaled one last, gurgling breath then was still. Arvin grabbed his ankles and dragged him inside the room. He eased the door shut—so far, the other occupants of the inn hadn’t reacted to the sounds of the fight, and he wanted to keep it that way—then knelt beside Glisena. Her eyes were closed, but her chest rose and fell evenly. Arvin lightly patted her cheek and called her name, but she didn’t wake up.

  “What have you done to her?” Arvin asked.

  “She’s drugged,” Greasy Hair answered. His voice matched the mental voice Arvin had listened in on earlier, when the skinny rogue had forced him into the cooper’s workshop.

  Arvin frowned down at Glisena. “How did—”