Viper's Kiss - Lisa Smedman [107]
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 manifest. 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