Vanity's Brood - Lisa Smedman [93]
Only one thing was clear: he needed to find out where the door was. One way to do that would be to sleep, dream, and hope that one of his nightmares might contain a message from Sseth. He was so worked up by his conversation with Ts'ikil, however, he was pacing. Sleep would be almost impossible. He thought of the dog-man and his ability to render others unconscious and halted abruptly.
"Can you do that?" he asked Ts'ikil. "Put me to sleep with magic?"
The couatl gave him a sad smile. I could, but your sleep would be deep and dreamless.
Arvin paused. "I just realized something. If the Dmetrio-seed uses osssra-"
Ts'ikil looked grim. He will entera dream state more swiftly, and his dreams will be clearer than yours.
"I don't suppose you're carrying any osssra. by any chance?" Arvin asked.
The couatl shook her head. I came unprepared. Unlike you, I am not a psion.
That made Arvin pause. Ts'ikil had used the right word-most people called him a "mind merge"-but had made the usual incorrect assumption. Not all psions could see the future. Arvin could catch glimpses, in a limited fashion. From Tanju, he had learned how to choose the better of two possible courses of action-to gain a psionic inkling of the immediate future, events no more than a heartbeat or two distant.
Ts'ikil had reminded him of one thing, however- his meditations. By using them, he could still h is mind and force it into a state between waking and sleep. He could listen to his dreams, perhaps even seek out the ones Sseth was sending.
"You know," he said aloud. "That just might work."
Without explaining-the couatl could continue to read his mind, if she wanted to know what he was doing-Arvin lay down on his stomach on the ledge. Its stone was rough, so hot it felt as though it would burn right through the fabric of his trousers, but he paid it no heed. He was used to meditating in worse conditions, and had long since learned to block such trivial discomforts from his mind. He assumed the bhujang asana, arching his upper torso and head back like a rearing cobra. In a small corner of his mind, he smiled. No wonder he'd preferred that asana to the cross-legged position his mother used for meditation. He, unlike her, had serpent blood flowing in his veins.
And he was about to find out if it was enough to hear what Sseth had to say.
Arvin went deep. Deeper than his usual meditations, deeper even than he'd gone while under Tanju's instruction a year before in the abandoned quarry. He viewed his mind as he'd seen it then, as an intricately knotted net of memories and thoughts. But he viewed the strands as if through a magnifying lens. He could see not only the cords that were braided into each rope, but the individual thought fibers that made up each cord. A handful were a pale yellow-tan, mottled with irregular spots of black: hair-thin serpents with unblinking eyes and flickering tongues. Though he was reminded of the tendrils that Zelia's mind seed had insinuated, the sight of those serpents didn't stir up any unpleasant emotions. They were the legacy of his father's yuan-ti blood. Judging by the triangular shape of the head, Salim's ancestors had been pythons in their serpent form.
Bulges pulsed along the bodies of the hair-thin snakes like mice passing through a serpent's gullet: individual thoughts flowing through Arvin's mind. With deep, even breaths, he slowed them, putting his mind ever more at peace. He was distantly aware of his body sinking into a state much like sleep. His breathing and heartbeat slowed, and despite the fierce jungle heat, his body cooled slightly. His arms, however, remained rigid, supporting the asana.
Dreamlike images began to crowd into the darkness behind his closed eyelids. Fragments of memory floated by. Karrell's face and her voice, the word in her language for