by Lisa Smedman
“It was Lewinn’s idea,” Greasy Hair interrupted. “He posed as the innkeeper and brought her the ale, and—”
“How did you know she was here?” Arvin asked, glad he’d resisted the urge to drink.
“Lewinn spotted her, looking out the window. That’s how we knew you had her.” Greasy Hair paused. A too-innocent expression appeared on his face. “Listen, mind mage, the diamonds are in my pocket. Untie me, and I’ll give them to you. The diamonds for the girl, just like we agreed, and our dealings will be over. All right?”
Arvin ignored him. He stood, thinking. Doubtless it had happened just the way Greasy Hair described. But how had Glisena wound up in Karrell’s room?
It was possible—though it bordered on the miraculous—that Zelia had found a way to spirit Glisena out of the palace in the time it had taken Arvin to walk back to the inn. Could she have found a way past the wards and plucked Glisena out from under the very eyes of nine powerful clerics—ten, counting Marasa—and a watchful baron?
Possible, but hardly likely.
Unless Karrell had been the one to get Glisena out.
Karrell looked human enough; maybe she’d fooled the wards. And she had access to the palace. She might have been able to charm the clerics, to steal Glisena away and bring her here, to the room at the inn.
Whatever was going on, Arvin needed to get Glisena out of here.
Scooping the mug of ale off the table, he grabbed the rogue’s greasy hair and wrenched his head back. “Drink it,” he growled.
Greasy Hair struggled to wrench his head aside. “The diamonds aren’t really in my pocket,” he gasped. “But I can get them for you. Let me—”
Arvin poured the ale down his throat.
The man sputtered then swallowed. His eyes glazed then rolled—and he went limp.
Arvin pricked the fellow’s arm with his dagger: no response. Greasy Hair wasn’t feigning unconsciousness. Arvin spoke the command word that re-knotted the monkey’s fist and shoved it back in his pocket. Then he reached inside his shirt for the brooch the baron had given him. He pinned it to the front of the thin rogue’s shirt, where it was sure to be spotted. That would give Naneth something to puzzle over, if she came to claim Glisena and found one of the “baron’s men” dead on the floor, next to an unconscious rogue.
Arvin removed the ice dagger’s sheath from the dead rogue’s belt, slid the weapon into it, and tucked it into his boot. Then he bent down and carefully picked up Glisena.
She was lighter than he’d expected—and cooler; her body no longer radiated heat. The drug the rogues had tricked her into drinking must have dampened her fever. It also seemed to have quieted the demon. Glisena’s bulging stomach pressed up against Arvin’s; he could no longer feel the demon kicking.
Arvin crept down the stairs, Glisena in his arms. He eased open the door at the bottom and peered out into the street. The street was deserted, except for a lone figure far down the block, walking toward the inn. Something about the person made Arvin uneasy; a second glance told him he’d been right to trust his instincts. The person moved with a swaying motion that instantly told Arvin her race: yuan-ti.
Zelia.
And she was moving toward the inn. Had she spotted him?
Arvin closed the door and hurried in the only other direction available: through the inn’s common room, which had closed for the night. With Glisena in his arms, he wound his way between the tables, toward the inn’s front door. Once again he looked cautiously outside. This time the street was empty.
Arvin hurried up the street. As he ran, slipping on patches of slush, he activated the lapis lazuli and visualized the one person he’d not yet contacted with it today who might be able to help: Marasa. Her face came into focus in his mind at once: drawn, worried-looking, and pale. Her left hand was raised, evoking Helm; her lips moved in prayer. Her eyes widened as a mental image of Arvin formed in her mind’s eye.
Marasa, he thought, hailing her. I found Glisena. She’s unconscious; I’m carrying her back to the palace from the Fairwinds Inn. Send help. Hurry!
Marasa’s eyes widened in surprise. She glanced down then up at Arvin. That’s not possible, she thought. Glisena’s here. I’ve been by her side all…. Suddenly, her expression grew wary. One last thought—only half-directed at Arvin, but it came through anyway—drifted through her mind: Is this a trick? Then the sending was broken.
Arvin slowed and stared down at the woman in his arms. Glisena was still at the palace? If this wasn’t Glisena, who was it? He glanced around, spotted a sheltered doorway up the street, and stepped into it. With one hand, he undid the fastenings of his cloak, letting it fall to the ground. He spread it out with his foot then lowered the unconscious woman onto it. Then, closing his eyes so he could concentrate, he ran his fingertips across her face.
It took several moments of intense concentration for him to feel what was truly there. The face felt broader than Glisena’s, and flatter. And the hair, when he ran it through his fingers, was wavy, not straight. And the ears….
Yes. There it was. The woman’s left earlobe was pierced, the piercing filled with an earring of carved stone.
“Karrell,” Arvin said in a stunned whisper.
She’d done an amazing job of transforming her appearance. She hadn’t polymorphed herself—that would have fooled Arvin’s fingers, as well as his eyes. She must have used some sort of illusion. He touched her hair a second time and felt what he’d expected: a gritty powder. Back in Hlondeth, one of the assassins who had commissioned a magical rope from Arvin had used a similar magical powder. By sprinkling a pinch of it on his head, he could change his appearance to that of anyone he liked. He’d actually gloated about how he’d used the powder to assume the appearance of a woman’s husband then stabbed the woman in front of her own daughter. The husband had been charged with the crime—and executed in the pits with his daughter watching and cursing his name.
Arvin was glad he wasn’t working for the Guild anymore.
He stared down at Karrell, shaking his head. Whatever game she’d been playing had been a dangerous one. The rogues had interrupted it, Tymora be praised.
Arvin idly scratched his forehead. The scab was starting to itch again.
His hand froze in mid-scratch as he realized it wasn’t the wound. That tickling sensation was Naneth scrying on him.
And if she could see him, she could see Karrell. Who still looked like Glisena.
Arvin cursed his ill luck. Why had Naneth chosen this precise moment to scry on him? If she recognized the spot where he was crouching, she might appear at any moment.
He glanced wildly around. Just a short distance up the street, in the intersection, was one of the statues of Helm’s gauntlet. Maybe, if he was quick enough….
Arvin scooped Karrell up and ran toward the gauntlet. Naneth’s scrying ended when he was partway there. He scrambled up onto the dais and slapped his bare hand against the gauntlet. “Come on,” he gasped, looking around for one of the clerics who was supposed to materialize when the gauntlet’s protection was invoked. “Come on.”
He heard a faint pop behind him: air being displaced as a person teleported. He turned, expecting to see one of the Eyes.
It was Naneth, standing perhaps a hundred paces away, beside the doorway Arvin had just bolted from.
Then Zelia appeared from around a corner, holding a piece of parchment in one hand.
With a sinking heart, Arvin recognized it as the drawing Karrell had made of him. The one he’d crumpled up, thrown into the fireplace, and forgotten.
Zelia had found it.
“Arvin,” she said as she walked with slithering steps toward Arvin. “We meet again. You look unusually healthy … for a dead man.” Laughter hissed softly from her lips.
No, not laughter. That hissing meant she was manifesting a power: a psionic attack. And Arvin had no energy left in his muladhara to counter it.
He tensed, but the mental agony he was bracing against didn’t manif
est. Then he realized that the gauntlet was protecting him. Zelia couldn’t attack him. Not here.
He shifted Karrell in his arms so that her limp hand also touched the gauntlet. They were protected, for the moment, against spells. But if Naneth used a spell that wasn’t directly hostile—if she got close enough to touch Karrell and teleport away with her, for example—they’d be in trouble.
“There you are,” Zelia said to Naneth, gesturing at Arvin and Karrell. “The girl. As promised.”
Naneth thanked her with a silent nod then walked briskly toward them.
A second faint pop sounded, right next to Arvin. Relief swept through him as he saw the newcomer’s red cloak and brightly polished breastplate, emblazoned with the eye of Helm.
“The baron’s daughter!” Arvin gasped, shifting Karrell so the cleric could see her face. “She’s in danger.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Naneth break into a run. For a large woman, she moved surprisingly fast. “Detain that man!” she screamed. “He’s an agent of Chondath. He’s kidnapping the baron’s daughter.”
The cleric frowned then raised his gauntlet, turning the eye on its palm toward Arvin.
Arvin answered the question before the cleric even asked it. “I serve Lord Foesmasher,” he said. As he spoke, a tingle swept through him: the gauntlet’s truth-enforcing magic. He jerked his head at Naneth. “That woman’s a sorcerer—an enemy of Foesmasher.”
Naneth’s hands were up, her fingers weaving a spell.
“Teleport us to the palace,” Arvin shouted. “Now!”
The cleric had been summoning his weapon—a mace-shaped glow that had half-materialized in his fist. The glow vanished, and he clamped a hand on Arvin’s wrist.
As he did, Naneth completed her spell. In the area next to the dais, up suddenly became down. Arvin fell into the air, legs flailing. Karrell tumbled from his arms. The cleric was still holding onto Arvin’s wrist and was praying—a prayer Arvin recognized, though he’d heard it only once before, when the yuan-ti ambassador had been teleported away by the clerics in Mimph.
“Wait!” Arvin shouted. With his free hand, he twisted violently, trying to catch Karrell. He caught hold of her ankle as he had a dizzying glimpse of Naneth on the dais below, casting another spell while Zelia hissed furiously, manifesting a power.
Tendrils of thought wiggled their way into his mind like tiny serpents. Hissing, they slithered through his mind, tearing with their fangs at his thoughts. He felt his mind begin to fray, and with each strand that parted, his body became weaker. One leg went limp, his left arm suddenly stopped responding to his thoughts, his head lolled back on a weakened neck—and the fingers of his right hand, the one that was gripping Karrell’s ankle, grew limp as severed strings. He tried to keep hold of her, but felt his fingers slipping, slipping….
Naneth gloated up at him, reaching for Karrell with her pudgy fingers, while Zelia hissed with laughter.
“No,” Arvin gasped. With his last bit of strength, he forced his thumb and one finger to close around Karrell’s ankle—just as Zelia hit him with a massive thrust of psionic energy that smashed into his mind like a fist. Reeling, still falling upward, he caught a glimpse of her savoring his defeat with her forked tongue.
And the street vanished as the cleric teleported Arvin away.
Arvin groaned and rolled over. He ached in several places, there were sharp pains in his side and along his left arm, and his mind felt as though it were full of holes—the aftermath of Zelia’s psionic attack.
The memory jolted him fully awake.
Karrell! Had she—
He looked wildly around. He was in the same chapel in which he had spoken to Foesmasher two nights ago—inside the palace. Relief rushed through him as he spotted Karrell farther along the bench he was lying on, just beyond his feet. The effects of the magical powder had worn off; she looked like herself again. She’d been teleported back with him. She was safe.
He touched the crystal at his neck. “Nine lives,” he whispered. He glanced around, but saw they were alone in the room. Oddly, the cleric who had teleported them here had just left them. Or perhaps it was not so odd, given the events that were unfolding elsewhere in the palace. Arvin wondered if Glisena had given birth yet.
Karrell’s chin was on her chest, her body slumped with exhaustion. She seemed to be sleeping, albeit restlessly. Her fingers twitched, as if plucking at something. Then she groaned in her sleep.
Fear swept through Arvin then, chilling him like an icy wind. Was Karrell having a nightmare—one drawn from the dark pit of Zelia’s memories? Fingers trembling, he nudged her awake.
Karrell’s eyes flew open. “Arvin! You have recovered. The cleric assured me you would, but I was worried, even so. He told me that I had been drugged, that Naneth had attacked you and—”
Arvin pulled her closer to him and anxiously ran his fingers over her temples, her hair, searching for traces of ectoplasm. He found none, but that meant nothing. If she had been seeded, it had been done some time ago.
“What are you doing?” Karrell asked.
“Did you meet with Zelia?”
Karrell pulled away, a wary expression on her face. “I said nothing that would give you away. My ring prevented her from learning about you.”
“That doesn’t matter—not now,” Arvin said. He laughed bitterly. “Zelia knows I’m alive. She showed up at the inn, just as I was carrying you out. She saw me.” He winced and rubbed his aching head. “She nearly killed me.”
Karrell glanced away. She was silent for several moments. “I am sorry,” she said at last.
“‘Sorry’ isn’t going to help me now,” Arvin said. He shook his head. “What in the Abyss were you thinking?”
Karrell met his eye. “That Zelia might know where Sibyl is hiding. And I was right. She—”
“Damn it, Karrell,” Arvin exploded. “Zelia might have seeded you.”
“Yes,” Karrell said gravely. “I know. But it was a calculated risk. You found a way to root out a mind seed once before; I was confident in your ability to do it again, if need be.” Then her voice lowered. “I just wish you had an equal confidence in me.”
Arvin sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “Were you dreaming just now?”
“Yes.” She frowned. “Why?”
“Was the dream….” He searched for the right word. He had found Zelia’s memories foreign, disturbing—but perhaps Karrell wouldn’t. She was a yuan-ti, after all, and female. “Did it seem to be a memory from someone else’s life?”
“Ah. You are still worried about the mind seed. No, it was not Zelia’s dream. It was one I have been having for many months. A troubling dream, in which I am bound tightly and cannot escape.”
“Your own dream, then,” Arvin said, feeling slightly relieved.
“No, not mine. Not mine alone.”
“What do you mean?” Arvin asked sharply.
Karrell tilted her head and stared at the window. Pale winter sunlight shone through the stained glass, causing the blue-and-gold eye of Helm to glow. “I have talked to other yuan-ti. Many of us have been having troubling dreams. Dreams of someone who is embracing us who will not let go, or of being bound by ropes, or even—most strange, for a yuan-ti—of being a mouse, held tight by a serpent. No one knows what they mean. Not even Zelia.”
Arvin nodded, completely at a loss. Whatever the dreams meant, they had little to do with their immediate problem. “If you start having strange thoughts while you’re awake, tell me,” he said. “Or strange dreams—stranger than the ones you’ve just described, I mean.”
“I will,” Karrell said with a grave nod. Then she said, “Tell me what happened. How did I come to be drugged?”
Arvin told her about the two rogues who hoped to sell “Glisena” to Chondath, about finding her unconscious in the room at the inn, and about trying to carry “Glisena” back to the palace, only to be confronted by Naneth. He also told her about their narrow escape, thanks to the cle
ric.
She listened, nodding.
Arvin paused. “So what were you doing, disguised as Glisena?”
“It was Zelia’s idea,” Karrell said.
Arvin waited, arms folded across his chest. He could tell, already, that he wasn’t going to like the explanation. “Start from the beginning. Tell me all about your meeting. Don’t leave out any details.”
“I met with Zelia at the ambassador’s residence,” Karrell said. “I told her I was an agent of Yranil Suzur, ssthaar of the Jennestas—a ruler who, like Dediana Extaminos, is wary of Sibyl’s rise to power. Zelia agreed to speak with me.”
“She agreed to meet with a complete stranger?”
Karrell’s eyes lighted mischievously. “I think she found me … charming.”
Arvin’s eyebrows rose. “You charmed Zelia? I’m impressed.”
“We spoke about Sibyl—about how dangerous she is. And yes, Zelia does know where Sibyl is hiding,” Karrell continued. “As you guessed, she in Hlondeth. Sibyl has denned in an ancient temple beneath the city—a temple that was erected at the peak of the Serpentes Empire to honor the beast lord Varae, an aspect of Sseth. The temple was abandoned and forgotten long before Hlondeth was even built, but nobles of House Extaminos rediscovered it two years after Lord Shevron’s death. They briefly worshiped there, and it was abandoned again. Sibyl, together with her followers, has turned it into a fully fledged temple once more.”
“How did Zelia discover this?” Arvin asked.
Karrell gave a graceful shrug. “One of House Extaminos’s spies learned it.”
Arvin wondered if it had been another of Zelia’s mind seeds. “Zelia might have been lying to you.”
“She might have,” Karrell agreed. “But to what end? She would have been foolish to throw away the opportunity I offered—an alliance with a group that is also working against Sibyl.”
“Zelia breaks alliances as quickly as she makes them,” Arvin countered. “Still, go on. You haven’t explained why you were impersonating Glisena.”
“To lure Naneth to me,” Karrell said. “Zelia gave me the powder, and suggested I play the part of Glisena. She said she would contact Naneth and promise to deliver ‘Glisena’ to her—and ensure that Naneth teleported me to the Extaminos palace in Hlondeth. There, House Extaminos’s spellcasters would subdue Naneth. And I would use a second pinch of the powder to change my appearance to match Naneth’s. Then I would infiltrate the temple where Sibyl lairs, and—”