Vanity's Brood - Lisa Smedman [85]
There was one way for Arvin to find out. He drew energy up through his navel, into his chest, and exhaled slowly. The scents of saffron and ginger filled the air, and ectoplasm shimmered briefly on the walls of the cavern before evaporating in the jungle heat. The cavern blurred, shifted slightly…
Arvin stared down at a ghostly reflection of himself. The dog-man stood over him, his mouth open in a grin, tongue lolling as he panted with silent laughter. He rolled Arvin over and tore open his shirt. The box fell out. Panting harder, the dog- man picked it up.
A second source of powerful emotion drew Arvin's eyes to the entrance of the cave. The dog-man's back was turned, so he didn't see the snakeskin carpet that drifted to a halt at the cavern's mouth, its fringe of tiny wings fluttering. A serpent that had been coiled on it slithered into the cavern.
The dog-man, at last alerted to danger, whirled. He visibly relaxed-then his body tensed up again. As if turned by an invisible hand, his head was wrenched to the side. He stared at the wall for a heartbeat or two, then exploded into a run toward it. As he reached the wall, he flung himself forward, smashing his forehead into the rounded top of a stalagmite in a spray of blood. Then his body crumpled into a heap beside the stalagmite.
The serpent regarded him for a moment with unblinking eyes. Then it shifted into yuan-ti form. It was, as Arvin had half suspected, the Dmetrio-seed. The seed strode forward, lifted the box the dog-man had dropped, examined it briefly, then opened it. Seeing both halves of the Circled Serpent, he hissed in delight. Triumph shone in his slitted eyes.
The seed gestured and the flying carpet floated into the cavern. He placed the box on it. Then he bent to examine Arvin and Pakal. He lifted the dwarf's leg and flicked his tongue over a patch of black that spread outward from the twin puncture marks left by one of the shadow snake's bites. Hissing softly, he dropped the leg. He turned to Arvin and lifted Arvin's hand. Unblinking eyes stared down at the bite marks on the back of it-punctures surrounded by a dark bruise. The Dmetrio-seed looked disappointed-he probably assumed Arvin was dead and was rueing not having killed Arvin himself-and let Arvin's hand fall. Then he stepped onto the carpet. He shifted into serpent form and coiled tightly around the box. With a flutter of wings, the carpet lifted from the ground and flew out of the cavern.
The last impression Arvin's manifestation gave him was the Dmetrio-seed's triumphant hiss. Then the vision ended.
Arvin stood for several moments, staring at the body of the dog-man. The Dmetrio-seed had acted with the decisive brutality Arvin had come to expect from Zelia; the seed had seemed fully aware, powerful and in control. The death of Juz'la must have broken the lethargy he had been languishing under. Arvin shuddered as he contemplated what the dog-man had been forced to do. He had seen Zelia dominate someone before-he'd experienced her psionic compulsions first-hand-but had never dreamed they could be so strong. His tutor, Tanju, had hinted that there were powers that could compel a person to take his own life, but this was the first time Arvin had seen them in action, and Dmetrio was merely one of Zelia's seeds. Arvin would be doubly wary from then on of any version of Zelia.
Especially the one that had both halves of the
Circled Serpent.
Arvin rubbed his forehead, realizing that the tickling he'd felt in his forehead as he descended toward the cave must have been the Dmetrio-seed using his psionics to view Arvin at a distance. Arvin had shown the seed exactly where the cave was.
His left hand still throbbed where the viper had punctured it, his right shoulder was crusted with dried blood from Pakal's attack, and his chest felt bruised from the crushing the yuan-ti who had swept him into the tree had given him.
The deepest ache, however, was inside him. For a few brief