Vanity's brood

CHAPTER 7

Arvin descended toward the limestone bluff he'd spotted from the air. It was one of the few landmarks in the vast sea of dark green, rising above the jungle canopy at a spot where the river made a U-shaped bend. There were a number of small caves in the bluff, any of which would make an ideal hiding place, assuming the caves weren't inhabited.

Dozens of flying snakes swooped in and out of the caves like swallows; they probably nested inside. Arvin joined them. He paused above the bluff, listening, but heard only the rush of the river in the canyon below and birds calling to one another in the jungle. Somewhere in the distance, a larger creature roared, and Arvin could see the treetops shake as something big moved between them.

He was doubly glad just then that he'd chosen not to make his way through the jungle on foot.

He chose a cave that was apart from the others, about halfway up the bluff, and sent his awareness drifting into it. Ectoplasm shimmered in the cave mouth as he probed for thoughts. The only ones he detected were those of the flying snakes, including some that appeared to be coiled up, sleeping, deep within the cave. Otherwise, the cave was empty.

He fluttered inside. The off-white walls had a wrinkled appearance. Here and there, a mounded stalagmite rose from the floor like a sagging column of dough. They were, however-as Arvin discovered a moment later when he accidentally brushed a wing- tip against one-as hard as any other stone.

He glanced around, looking for a place to hide the Circled Serpent. There were no obvious choices, no convenient cracks into which the box could be wedged. Then a flying snake flew past him, toward the rear of the cave, and disappeared behind a natural column of stone that stood close to the rear wall. It didn't return. Curious, Arvin flew in that direction. Behind the column, he discovered a passage that had been sealed with clay bricks. Two of the bricks had fallen, leaving a small hole. The passage beyond the wall led up at an angle from the cave, worming its way deeper into the bluff.

It looked like the perfect hiding place. He flew into the gloomy passage, deciding that he would go only as far as the sunlight penetrated. After a short distance, the tunnel opened up into a second cavern. He gasped, barely remembering to flap his wings. For several terrible moments he thought he was staring down at Sibyl.

The abomination nearly filled the cavern, its serpent body a tight coil on the smooth floor. Its wedge-shaped head rested, eyes closed, on arms that

were folded beneath it like a pillow. Its scales were black and shiny as obsidian, like Sibyl's, but it had no wings. It was dead, and the body had shrunk like a drumhead around the skeleton; every rib stood out in sharp relief.

There was no odor of rot. The air was only slightly less hot and humid than the steaming jungle below. Surely a body would decompose quickly, yet-Arvin sniffed-the only smell was that of herbs or perhaps flowers, a sweet, pleasant scent.

The cavern it lay in wasn't natural. Its walls were perfectly circular and smooth, with an equally smooth ceiling and floor, a tomb.

As Arvin's eyes adjusted to the gloom, he made out more details. Several of the yuan-ti's scales had nut-sized gems ombedded in them. Though Arvin couldn't make out their colors, he was certain, given their size, that they were extremely valuable. Any one of them would probably feed, clothe, and house him for a year.

The flying snake he'd followed into the tomb flitted around the chamber. After several circuits of the tomb it fluttered past Arvin, back the way it had come.

Arvin landed on the floor and morphed back into human form, braced and wary. He waited several moments. If the tomb had any magical protections, they so far hadn't activated. He shrugged off his pack and unfastened its flaps, then pulled out the box that held the upper half of the Circled Serpent. After a moment's thought, he realized that the best place to hide it would be inside the corpse. Wary of touching the dead abomination-especially after facing the skeletal serpent in Sibyl's lair-he used a psionic hand to pry open its mouth. It was a struggle-the shriveled sinews of the jaw were tough as old leather-but slowly the mouth creaked open.

A second sparkle of silver briefly illuminated the gloomy cavern as he used his psionics to lift the box into the air. He nudged it inside the mouth, cushioning it between the forks of the rotted tongue. Then he pushed the jaw shut. Fang clicked against fang like the closing of a lock.

He put on his pack and started to turn away. Then he turned back to the abomination again, unable to resist temptation. Drawing his dagger, he pried the largest gem from the body-one with a unique, star- shaped cut that would double its value-and caught it in his free hand when it fell. He stood, waiting. Nothing happened. Breathing a sigh of relief, he slipped the gem into his pocket and walked back to the tunnel that was the tomb's only exit. Steadying himself on the wall with one hand, he prepared to morph into a flying snake.

A soft hiss, just ahead of him, made him jerk hls hand back.

A snake poked its head out of the wall near the spot where his hand had just been, out of solid stone. Then it was gone.

A second hiss, soft as the first, came from the ceiling just above his head. Arvin ducked a s a swift- moving ripple of shadow flashed past his face. He caught a glimpse of curved fangs. Then that serpent, like the first, disappeared.

He glanced around, his heart beating rapidly, trying to see where the serpents had gone. There was a faint smudge on the wall where the first serpent had appeared-a wavy line that might have been a ripple in the limestone or a shadow cast by one of the columns at the far end of the tunnel. From somewhere deep inside the stone came an eerie hissing.

The tomb was protected, after all-by shadow asps.

Arvin had once had a close brush with one such creature of the Plane of Shadow many years past.

A wizard the guild had paired him up with had the bright idea of making a "robe of shadows" from the shed skin of one of the magical serpents. The experiment, however, had fatal results. When Arvin had arrived at the wizard's workshop, he'd been met not with a living wizard, but the shadow creature the man had become. The shadow asp had escaped its bindings and bitten the poor wretch.

Arvin decided that one gem, no matter how valuable, wasn't worth dying for.

As a shadowy head emerged once more from the wall, Arvin yanked the gem from his pocket and rolled it across the chamber, back to the abomination. It worked; the shadow asp slithered after it. As it did, Arvin morphed into a flying snake. Wings flapping as rapidly as his heart beat, he streaked down the tunnel. A shadow asp emerged from a wall to watch as he dived through the hole into the first cavern, but it did not attack.

Back in sunlight again, safe from the shadow asps, Arvin morphed once more into human form. He touched his abbreviated little finger, thankful for his time in the guild. If he hadn't seen what had happened to the wizard, he never would have recognized the shadow asps.

The upper half of the Circled Serpent was safely concealed, but one more thing was required to ensure that it stayed hidden. Arvin took off his backpack and pulled out a few items he thought might come in handy in the next little while, including his trollgut rope, then placed the pack behind a stalagmite near the cave mouth-an easy hiding place to find. Pulling out a few items more, he arranged them around the pack to make it look as though someone had rifled through its contents.

His shirt was torn. He stripped it off and changed into the spare shirt he'd been carrying in his pack.

He used his dagger to cut a length of fabric from the old shirt and wound it around his head like a loosely wrapped turban; it would keep the worst of the sun off. He cut the remainder of the fabric into long, thin strips.

Those he braided into a thin cord. At several points along its length, he worked intricate knots into the braid. When he was done, he dropped the cord next to the pack.

Then he manifested a psionic power-one he'd never used on himself before to the best of his knowledge. It was odd, hearing his own secondary display. The tinkling noise sounded just like the tiny silver bells, shaped like hollow snake teeth, that had decorated the hem of one of his mother's dresses. It was odder still, feeling the power take hold of his own mind and reshape it. Sharp as a dagger, it sliced away neat chunks of memory, excising everything from his finding of the tunnel to his narrow escape from the shadow asps. He left in the memory of himself hiding the pack behind the stalagmite but removed the part where he'd knotted the cord. He felt the remaining memories braid themselves together again andArvin stood near the mouth of the cave, staring at the spot where he'd just hidden his pack. It wasn't possible to see the pack from the entrance, but still he wondered if he'd chosen the best hiding place. He glanced at the back of the cave, wondering if there might be a better spot there, but no, that cave was one of dozens in the bluff and was one of the less accessible. The chances of someone stumbling across Arvin's pack were slim.

He morphed back into a flying snake; the transformation was even easier than it had been before. He launched himself into the air and flew upriver again, toward the spot where he'd agreed to meet Pakal.

When he reached it, the dwarf wasn't there.

Perhaps Pakal was trying to find him. Arvin flew back downriver to the spot where he'd climbed the cliff. Worried that Pakal might have fallen victim to the carnivorous plant, Arvin circled above that spot. The plant had torn apart the knots he'd tied in its vines, but its bud-mouths were open. It didn't look as though it had swallowed anything lately, at least nothing dwarf-sized. Pakal, being native to the jungle, would surely know how to avoid the danger it posed.

He flew back along the other side of the river, back to the spot where he'd last seen Pakal, and continued on upriver, searching its banks, but saw no sign of the dwarf or of anyone who might be Ts'ikil.

Worried, Arvin hovered above the canyon. He wouldn't be able to sustain his metamorphosis much longer. He needed to find a safe place to land and somewhere he could spend the night, since he wouldn't be able to use a sending to contact Pakal again until the next day. The lapis lazuli only allowed him to contact a particular person once each day.

A short distance from the river was a place that looked suitable: a roughly circular clearing in the jungle. He flew toward it and saw that it was the plaza of what must have been a small city. A dozen low hills encircled the plaza: ruined buildings the jungle had long since grown over. Each structure was topped with an enormous serpent head carved from stone. It looked as if some ancient foe had decapitated a nest of serpents then set each of their heads upon a leafy green cushion. Their sightless stone eyes stared at the plaza like brooding serpents plotting their revenge.

Arvin landed on top of one of the heads, whose upper surface was as wide as a feast table. It afforded an excellent view of the plaza. The open area was paved with enormous red flagstones; bushes had

thrust their way between them at several points, giving the stones the appearance of flotsam on a heaving sea. He morphed back into human form and stood. The sun beat down from above, and the weathered stone was uncomfortably hot, even through his boots. His feet were sweltering, but he didn't dare take the boots off. The jungle was full of strange insects, bristling with spines and pincers.

He wished, belatedly, that he'd filled his water skin from the river. It felt as though the heat had wrung every drop of moisture from his pores. Sunlight glinted off water that had collected in a murky green puddle in a hollow in one of the flagstones, and he decided to climb down and see if it was drinkable.

As he looked for the best way down, a movement at the edge of the jungle caught his eye. Something-or someone-was moving toward the plaza. At first, Arvin took it to be a human child or perhaps, given its short-limbed, heavy build and childlike face, a halfling. Its naked body, however, was covered in patches of what looked like green scales and it had a tail, not long and serpentine, like that of a yuanti, but thick and stubby, like a lizard's, and entirely covered in green scales. It moved with a bow-legged gait. When the half-man, half-lizard turned, Arvin could see that he held a crude spear.

Slowly, wary of any sudden movement that might catch the half-lizard's eye, Arvin settled into a crouch on the stone head then slid down beside it, out of sight. He watched, trying to decide whether to venture closer. The half-lizard was probably native to the jungle. He might know where Pakal was-might even know where Dmetrio was. If Arvin could get close enough, he could read the strange creature's thoughts.

The half-lizard walked more or less upright, but as he approached the water, he dropped to all fours and scuttled. He scooped up water with a cupped

hand then drank, his eyes ranging warily across the plaza. Then, as if sensing Arvin's eyes upon him, the half-lizard looked up, startled. A bright orange flap of skin shot out just under his chin, expanding into a half circle like a fan, as his head bobbed up and down several times in rapid succession.

Something moved through the jungle toward the plaza, something big-something that sent birds screeching out of the trees in flocks as it shouldered the trees aside like a man moving through a field of corn. It had to be as large as a dragon.

The monster smashed its way into the plaza a heartbeat later, knocking over a tree that slammed down onto the flagstones. It was an enormous reptile, its head level with the treetops. It stood on its hind legs, tiny forelegs scrabbling at the air, as if still tearing jungle vines out of the way. Slowly, it tilted its head from side to side. One eye fixed on the half- lizard. The giant reptile threw back its head and roared. Its mouth was filled with rows of teeth that looked easily as long as Arvin's dagger.

The half-lizard grabbed his spear and fled into the jungle. The gigantic reptile charged after him, its clawed feet gouging flagstones out of the plaza with each step. It smashed into the jungle and disappeared from sight. Only after it was gone did Arvin realize that there had been what looked like a saddle on its back.

He watched the rippllng wake it left in the jungle, thankful that he'd chosen somewhere elevated to land. His eyes ranged over the jungle. Dmetrio was out there somewhere-but where?

Something occurred to Arvin then, that perhaps he didn't need Pakal to tell him where Dmetrio was. Maybe a sending to Dmetrio would work, since Arvin was on the Chultan Peninsula himself. It was certainly worth a try.

He activated the lapis lazuli and pictured Dmetrio in his mind. The yuan-ti noble's features were easy enough to remember: high forehead, dark, swept- back hair, narrow nose, slit-pupil eyes, and flickering forked tongue. The connection wouldn't come, no matter how vehemently Arvin mentally whispered Dmetrio's name.

Dmetrio had either shielded himself-or he was dead.

Then Arvin realized there was a third possibility: that Dmetrio was dead in a manner of speaking, dead at Zelia's hands.

Zelia claimed to serve House Extaminos, but the mind seed she'd planted in Arvin had given him an intimate knowledge of where her loyalties truly lay. She thought of herself not as a subject of Lady Dediana but as working for herself, and she craved power. If the opportunity presented itself for her to become Sseth's avatar, she would have seized it.

The Naneth-seed had been Zelia's ticket into Sibyl's lair. With Naneth in place, there was a good possibility of both halves of the Circled Serpent falling into Zelia's hands if she could also control Dmetrio. Seeding the son of Hlondeth's ruler would have been a dangerous move for Zelia to make, but the fact that Dmetrio was headed south, where few knew him, made it slightly less risky. A seeded Dmetrio would explain why none of Arvin's sendings to the prince those past few months had been successful.

Still holding the image of Dmetrio's face in his mind, Arvin shifted his thoughts slightly. He imagined an identical body that housed a mind that went by a different name.

Zelia.

Immediately, his mental image of Dmetrio animated. The mind seed was lounging, his predominantly human body bent backward in an approximation of

a coiled serpent. He was holding a languid conversation with someone Arvin couldn't see, but he broke that off immediately as the sending manifested. Slit-pupil eyes stared at Arvin for a long, appraising moment. Then the Dmetrio-seed's tongue flickered out of an anticipatory smile. Its mouth hissed a silent word: "Arvin."

Arvin took a deep breath. Dmetrio, he began, 'Lelia sent me. I have the upper half of the serpent. Tell me where you are, and I'll bring it to you.

The Dmetrio-seed smiled. A heartbeat later, Arvin felt a familiar tingling in his forehead. Stay where you are, the seed answered. The jungle is dangerous. I'll come to you.

"I'll bet you will," Arvin muttered as the sending ended. It had been just the response he'd hoped for. He had no doubt that the Dmetrio-seed had just scryed him. The stone head would be a familiar landmark, and the seed would be there soon.

He glanced again at the water the strange creature had drunk from then decided not to chance it. Quenching his thirst would wait. He needed to get ready.

— 0–0 0 0 0

It was early evening, and still the Dmetrio-seed hadn't shown up. Arvin wondered if he'd guessed wrong. Maybe he wasn't in Chult, but some other, even more distant place. He'd finished his meditations long ago and sat, hidden in the foliage a few paces distant from the stone head, but still there was no sign of the seed.

Finally, low in the sky to the west, Arvin spotted something. At first he took it to be a soaring bird, but the movement and proportions were all wrong. It was, instead, a person seated on a carpet.

He was reminded of the magioal carpets of Calimshan. He'd once been hired to repair one-though it had turned out to have a more deadly purpose than flying. As the person on the carpet drew closer, Arvin rendered himself invisible and created an illusionary image of himself sitting cross-legged on the stone head. Ectoplasm shimmered on the stone then swiftly evaporated in the heat. He toyed with the ring on his finger-he was counting on it to hide his thoughts from any probe the seed might do of the general area around the stone head-and watched as the flying carpet approached. As soon as it was close enough for its passenger to manifest a power against him, Arvin threw up a psionic shield.

On the carpet sat a yuan-ti, not Dmetrio, but a female. She was dressed as the Se'sehen had been, in a cape-hers made of overlapping "scales" of turquoise feathers-and a clinging, gauzy tunic that ended just below her waist, where her snake tail began. Both her skin and her scales were a dark brown. A band of gold encircled her left wrist, and a round plug of jade as wide as Arvin's thumb pierced the skin between her lower lip and chin. Instead of hair, a ruff of scales framed her face.

Wary that she might be yet another of Zelia's seeds- or the Dmetrio-seed itself, cloaked in illusion-Arvin probed her mind as soon as she was within range. To his surprise, he encountered no resistance. If she saw the silver that sparkled out of thin air when he manifested the power, she gave no sign.

She studied the illusion, mentally comparing it to the description Hlondeth's prince had given her. She was surprised by how human Arvin looked. Dmetrio had led her to believe the person she'd been sent to fetch was a halfblood.

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 eyes 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 waste 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."