Vanity's Brood - Lisa Smedman [8]
"Your dreams?" she hissed-softly, as if not wanting to break the tenuous thread that connected dreaming and wakefulness.
Arvin wet his lips-a gesture that sent his long forked tongue flicking out toward her, sending a drop of spittle onto the parchment she held. Her upper lip twitched, baring the tips of her fangs-a gesture that often preceded a bite.
Arvin started to flinch, then remembered that he was supposed to be a yuan-ti. No, he was yuanti, at least for the duration of his metamorphosis. Drawing himself up imperiously-yuan-ti never apologized, even to another yuan-ti-he bared the tips of his own fangs. He and the scribe locked eyes for a moment-and the scribe was the first to look away. As she did, Arvin manifested the power that would allow him to listen in on her thoughts. She swayed slightly, tipping her head as if listening to a distant sound, and her thoughts tumbled into Arvin's mind.
She was annoyed at him-how dare he threaten her! The mistress had given her a sacred task to fulfill, and she would not let a petty annoyance get in the way. Later, perhaps, she might exact her revenge, but for now, the important thing was to record whatever dreams the osssra had induced.
Arvin decided to get that part over with, then ask where Sibyl was.
"In my dream, I was in a jungle," he told the scribe.
She dipped her quill in the pot of ink that sat on the bench beside her and started scribbling. The script was narrow and flowing, a series of lines that looked like elaborately looped scratch marks, punctuated by blots of ink. Draconic.
Wary that his own nightmare might reveal some hidden human quality, Arvin repeated a dream Karrell had related to him just before she was killed: of being a mouse, struggling within the grip of a serpent. His voice cracked a little on the final words. He remembered how vulnerable Karrell had looked as she lay on the bench in Helm's chapel, her expression pinched and her fingers twitching as she fought, in her dream, to free herself. Seeing that, he'd been worried that Zelia had seeded her-that Zelia had used her psionics to plant, deep within Karrell's mind, a tiny seed of psionic energy that would eventually grow, choking out Karrell's own consciousness like a weed and replacing it with a copy of Zelia.
That hadn't been the case. The dream Karrell had been having was just a simple nightmare, rather than a dream-taste of Zelia's thoughts.
The real nightmare had come later, when Karrell was yanked into the Abyss by a marilith.
Arvin's awareness was still hooked deep inside the scribe's mind. She was disappointed by what he'd told her; it offered nothing new.
"That wasn't very helpful, was it?" Arvin asked.
"No," she agreed, blowing on the parchment to dry the ink. "It wasn't." Certainly not worth bothering Mistress Sibyl with, her thoughts silently added, especially in the middle of the welcoming ceremony.
Arvin's heart quickened. The scribe knew where Sibyl was. He needed to convince her that he must be conveyed to her mistress at once, but how?
He thought quickly. Slumber-and dream-were important parts of Sseth's worshlp. In midwinter, a select few of the serpent god's priests underwent the Sagacious Slumber, a month-long hibernation during which they communed with their god, gaining new spells, but that didn't seem to be what was going on here. It sounded as thought Sibyl was looking for something in the dreams of her worshipers.
Arvin had an idea what it might be: a clue to the whereabouts of the Circled Serpent, an artifact Dmetrio Extaminos had found during his restoration of the Scaled Tower one year ago. Sibyl's minions had managed to get their hands on half of the Circled Serpent, but the other half was still in Dmetrio's possession. He'd