Vanity's Brood - Lisa Smedman [45]
Arvin didn't know much about ordinary tracking, but it was clear from the drops of blood on the road which way the dog-man had gone. Uphill, toward the temple. Toward Pakal. A faint paw print in the dust marked the spot where he'd shifted back into a dog then started to run.
Arvin turned in the other direction and felt the tickle in his forehead intensify. The iron cobra was olose-very close. He'd better get moving.
He slung his backpack onto his shoulder and drew deep from his muladhara. Ectoplasm sweated out of his pores and the scents of saffron and ginger filled the air around him as he began his metamorphosis. He pressed his legs together and spread his arms, and willed his body into a tiny, slender, snakelike form. It unnerved him, a little, feeling his legs join together to form a tail-it was a little too close to what Zelia had just put him through-but he clamped down on his trepidation and forced himself to concentrate.
Arms feathered into wings, his tongue split into a fork, and his pupils became slits. He felt his body shrinking, contracting, becoming sinuous and light- boned. He flapped his arms experimentally-and found himself hovering, his tail dangling just above the road. By concentrating, he was able to rise a little farther, but it was awkward; the form was so alien to his own. It was difficult to control, difficult to find his balance.
From behind him came the scrape of metal on stone. Glancing back, he saw the iron cobra slithering up the road toward him. Red eyes gleamed in the dusk as it spotted him and gave a malevolent hiss.
Silver burst from Arvin's forehead and coalesced as a sheen of ectoplasm on the cobra's body as Arvin manifested another of his powers. The ectoplasm solidified into transluscent ropes, and he gave them a mental yank, binding the cobra up in a tight ball. It thrashed, and two of the coils of rope burst apart, spraying ectoplasm, but the rest held.
Before the entangling net he'd created evaporated, Arvin drew still more ectoplasm from the Astral Plane and gave it human form. It was difficult work, manifesting yet another power while hovering in mid-air with unfamiliar wings, but by concentrating fiercely he managed it. He was still a beginner when it came to creating astral constructs-he couldn't yet imbue them with the ability to discharge electricity or do extra damage with a chilling or fiery touch-but the constructs he created could punch and stomp. The one he manifested then did just that, pummelling the cobra with massive fists and feet. The cobra's iron body rang with each blow, and several of the metal bands that made up its body were dented. The astral construct gave it a final kick, and the iron cobra's metal head snapped back, its neck bent at a sharp angle. It clattered to the ground.
The ropes of ectoplasm faded then disappeared. Still the iron cobra didn't move. Arvin hovered just in front of it, waiting. Even given that invitation, it didn't attack, and the tickling sensation in Arvin's forehead was gone. Satisfied, he let his astral construct fade.
He climbed into the air. He rose above the treetops and began winging his way above the road to the distant temple. It lay higher up Mount Ugruth, on a bare area with burned trees to either side. Higher still, the peak of the volcano smoldered, a dim red glow that rivaled the setting sun.
Arvin flew toward it, hoping that Pakal still waited for him.
It was was middark by the time Arvin reached the temple. He spotted it by the red glow in its central courtyard. The building had been built in a square surrounding a deep fissure in the ground, one that plunged like a knife wound all the way down to Mount Ugruth's molten heart. The white marble tiles surrounding the fissure were splattered with glossy black stone: lava that had cooled and hardened. Heat hazed the air above the crack, carrying with it the smell of sulfur. The inside wall of the building surrounding