in the future.
The priest flickered a tongue in greeting and gestured with a weaving motion. “This way,” he hissed.
Arvin followed him down a side corridor. The priest led him to one of the binding rooms. Inside it, on a low slab of stone, lay the body of a young man-a yuan-ti half blood. The head was that of a snake, with yellow-green scales and slit eyes, and each of the legs ended in snakelike tails, rather than feet. The body was naked. Arvin could see that a number of its bones were broken; one jagged bit of white protruded through the skin just below the shoulder. The left side of the face was crushed, caved in like a broken egg.
Two yuan-ti were working on the corpse, binding it in strips of linen. Both were male and both wore tunics that bore the Extaminos crest. They appeared human at first glance, save for slit eyes and brown scales that speckled their arms and legs. They worked quietly and efficiently-but carefully, giving the corpse the respect it was due as they wound the linen around it. When finished, the binding would be egg-shaped, a symbol of the spirit’s return to the cloaca of the World Serpent.
“Leave us,” the priest said. The two servants exited the room, bowing.
The priest slithered up to the corpse and raised himself above it. Arvin slid around to the other side of the slab. He didn’t recognize the dead man, but he knew who he was-a younger cousin of Lady Dediana. Arvin let his eyes range over the body. The corpse reminded him of prey that had been constricted then rejected as unfit to swallow.
“Keep your questions simple,” the priest said. “The dead are easily confused. And remember, you may ask only a limited number of questions. No more than five.”
Arvin nodded. The information he wanted was very specific. Five questions should do nicely.
The priest swayed above the body in a complicated pattern, tongue flickering in and out of his mouth as he hissed a prayer in Draconic. As the prayer concluded, the mouth of the corpse parted slightly, like that of a man about to speak. “Ask your questions,” the priest told Arvin.
Arvin addressed the body. “Urshas Extaminos, how did you die?”
“I fell from a great height.” Urshas’s voice was a creaking echo, his words sounding as if they were rising out of a dark, distant tomb. Broken bones grated as his smashed jaw opened and closed.
Interesting. Urshas’s body had been found late last night, lying on a road near the House Gestin compound. The tallest of the viaducts that spanned that road was only two stories above street level-and was three buildings distant from the spot where the body lay. “How did you reach that height?” Arvin asked.
“Sseth’s avatar carried me. We flew.”
The priest gave a surprised hiss. “How do you know it was Sseth’s avatar?” he asked.
Arvin’s head snapped around angrily. “
Urshas, however, was compelled to answer: “She told me so.”
“She?” Arvin said aloud-then realized his error. His inflection had turned the word into a question.
“Sibyl,” Urshas answered.
“Sibyl who?” Arvin asked.
“She has no house name,” Urshas croaked. “She is just… Sibyl.”
“Sibyl,” a different voice-one that wasn’t part of his dream-hissed from somewhere close at hand.
Roused to partial wakefulness, Arvin contemplated the dream. At the time of the memory he was reliving, the name Sibyl had meant nothing to Zelia. But it would, in the months to come. Arvin tried to cast his mind into Zelia’s more recent memories, to conjure up an image of Sibyl, but he could not. Instead he made a momentary connection with one of his own memories-of the way Sibyl’s name had popped into his head while Gonthril was questioning him. With it came a realization. It was desperately important that Zelia find out if Sibyl was involved in all of this. If she was, it would give Lady Dediana the excuse she needed to-
“Sibyl,” the voice hissed again.
Fully awake at last, Arvin opened his eyes the merest of slits. He was lying, bound hand and foot, in a different room than the one in which he’d fallen asleep. Its walls were round, not square, and were made of green stone. By the hot, humid feel of the air, the room was above ground, and it was day. The floor was covered in a plush green carpet, on which stood a low table. A yuan-ti half blood-the one from the crematorium-was seated at the table, his back to Arvin. He stared at a wrought-iron statuette of a serpent that held in its upturned mouth a large crystal sphere. Sitting next to it on the table was the lamp that illuminated the room.
“Sibyl,” the yuan-ti hissed again. “It is your servant, Karshis.”
Silently, Arvin took stock. His glove was still on his left hand, but the restraints that held him made it impossible to tell if his magical bracelet was still on his wrist. His wrists were bound together behind his back by something cold and hard; his ankles were similarly restrained. A length of what felt like a thin rod of metal connected these restraints. Glancing down, he saw that his ankles were bound by a coil of what looked like rope but felt like stone. He was hard-pressed to suppress a grin. He’d braided the cord himself from the thin, fine strands of humanlike hair that grow between a medusa’s snaky tresses. The Guild and Secession weren’t Arvin’s only customers, it would seem.
Nine lives, he thought to himself, adding a silent prayer of thanks to Tymora.
The yuan-ti’s attention was fully focused on the sphere, which was filled with what looked like a twisting filament of smoke. This slowly resolved into a solid form-a black serpent with the face of a woman, four humanlike arms and enormous wings folded against her back. As the winged serpent peered this way and that with eyes the color of dark-red flame, tasting the air with her tongue, Arvin made sure he remained utterly still, his eyes open only to slits. Then the winged serpent turned her head toward Karshis, as if she’d suddenly spotted him. Her voice, sounding far away and thin, rose from the sphere. “Speak,” she hissed.
Karshis wet his lips. “A problem has arisen,” he said. “A human spy has discovered the hiding place of the clerics. Fortunately, we captured him.”
“A human?” the black serpent asked scornfully. Her wings shifted, as if in irritation.
“He says he was sent by a yuan-ti who calls herself Zelia. She may be a
Though the word was foreign, Arvin recognized it as one of the titles used by the priests of Sseth. He suddenly realized that the entire conversation between Karshis and Sibyl was being conducted in Draconic-a language he didn’t speak. Zelia spoke it, however. And the mind seed-a familiar throbbing behind Arvin’s temples- allowed Arvin to understand it.
“Shall we abandon our plan?” Karshis asked.
The winged serpent inside the sphere fell silent for several moments. “No,” she said at last. “We will move more swiftly. Tell the clerics to abandon the crematorium-”
“It has already been done. They have scattered into the sewers.”
“-And to prepare to receive the potion tomorrow night.”
“That soon?” Karshis exclaimed. “But surely it will take more time than that to replace Osran. We haven’t-”
“You dare question your god?” the winged serpent spat, her voice low and menacing.
“Most assuredly not, oh Sibilant Death,” Karshis groveled. Both of his secondary heads hissed as he twined his arms together. “This humble member of your blessed ones simply expresses aloud the confusion and uncertainty that inhabits his own worthless skin. Forgive me.”
“Foolish one,” she hissed back. “Sseth never forgives. But your soul will be spared a descent into the Abyss- for now. There’s still work ahead. See that it is done well. The barrel will be delivered to the rotting field at Middark. When it arrives, be sure the Pox save a little of the ‘plague’ for themselves. After tomorrow night, we’ll have no further use for them.”
“What of the spy?” Karshis asked.
“Kill it.”
Arvin’s heart thudded in his chest.
“But find the
“Yes, Great Serpent,” Karshis answered, bending his flexible upper torso into a convoluted bow. “I will set our spies in motion. She will be found.”
The image inside the sphere dissolved into a coil of dark mist then was gone.
As Karshis rose from the table and lifted the sphere out of the statuette’s mouth, Arvin closed his eyes fully
