rechiseled. The cloth must have been hung to prevent dust and stone chips from littering the street below.
Arvin ran a hand over the rough, half-finished carving. The arch was a snake in the process of shedding its skin. Then Kayla ducked behind the cloth with him. She winked at him, one hand on a bar of the scaffolding. They were obviously about to climb it. “Ironic, isn’t it?” she whispered. “That scaly bitch is looking all over for the man who’s treading on her tail, and he’s hiding under her belly all the while. It’s one of Gonthril’s favorite tricks-hiding in the places she’d least suspect.”
Arvin grinned back at her, pretending that he knew what Kayla was talking about. As he followed her up the scaffolding, however, he started to get an inkling. The higher they climbed, the more he could see of the surrounding area through gaps in the cloth draping. He found himself looking down on one of the private gardens of the Extaminos family, now closed for renovations. Its age-pitted walls dated back more than eight centuries, to the time of Lord Shevron, the man who had beaten back the kobold hordes that had besieged the city in 527. This act had ensured House Extaminos’s standing for centuries to come. Indeed, for the past three centuries, all of Hlondeth’s rulers had been members of House Extaminos, right up to Lady Dediana, the city’s current ruler…
Who, like most of her predecessors, was yuan-ti.
Arvin understood who the “rebels” were. He’d heard rumors of a group of men and women who wanted to restore the city to human rule. They wanted to turn back the centuries to a time before Lord Shevron had made his pact with the scaly folk. They might as well try to turn the sun back on its course in the sky or cause lava to flow
Kayla reached the top of the scaffolding and clambered into one of the gaping serpent mouths that fronted the arch. She turned to help Arvin inside. When he climbed in after her, he was surprised to see that the arch was hollow-to help reduce the weight of so much stone, he supposed. He crawled along behind her through its corridorlike interior, hissing with pain each time he banged a knee against the uneven floor. More than once, his backpack caught on the rough stone ceiling and had to be yanked free. His darkvision was gone; the potion had worn off during the walk here. The only light came from the gaping serpent mouth behind them and a similar opening up ahead. He followed Kayla-who seemed quite familiar with the route-as she led the way through along the darkened passage.
When they reached the second serpent mouth, Kayla stopped. Arvin peered past her and saw they were directly over the private garden, which was illuminated only by moonlight. Its walls, like the monumental arch, were surrounded by scaffolding-part of the massive restoration project that had been undertaken by Dmetrio Extaminos, eldest prince of the royal family, in recent months. Rumor had it Dmetrio had already spent more than a million gold pieces on the project, which seemed destined to tear apart and remortar every building in the old section of the city, stone by stone.
Kayla leaned out of the mouth of the stone serpent head and whistled a tune. A moment later, an answering whistle came from below. The end of a rope rose into view outside the serpent’s mouth. Recognizing it, Arvin cracked a wry smile. He’d woven it from sylph hair, a little more than two years ago.
At least one of his customers, it seemed, hadn’t been Guild. Or if they were Guild, they were also working the other side of the coin.
Kayla motioned for Arvin to grab the rope. Instead, he took a cautious glance down. Only one person stood in the garden below-the man who held the other end of the rope. The fellow looked harmless enough, with a balding head and ale belly, but appearances could be deceiving. For all Arvin knew, the staff the man had propped against a bush next to him could be a magical weapon of some sort. Getting past him would be the first challenge on the way to meeting Gonthril. Arvin would need a backup, if he were unable to charm the fellow.
“Sorry,” Arvin told Kayla with an apologetic smile. “Heights make me nervous.” As he spoke, he slipped a hand behind his back and grasped the hilt of his dagger. At a whisper, the dagger disappeared into his glove.
“Go on,” Kayla urged. “It isn’t far.”
Arvin winced, still pretending to be nervous, then grasped the rope. He swung out onto it and clambered down. Kayla followed.
As soon as they were both on the ground, the balding man ordered the rope down. As it looped itself neatly over his outstretched arm, he frowned at Arvin and picked up his staff. “Who’s this, Kayla? And where’s Urus?”
Kayla’s lip began to tremble again. “Dead,” she said in a quavering voice. “I’d be dead, too, Chorl, if Arvin hadn’t come along when he did.”
“I’ve come to speak to Gonthril,” Arvin said. The familiar prickle at the base of his scalp began, and he smiled. “I’m not with the Secession, but I have similar interests-and some information I’m sure Gonthril will want to hear.” Seeing a skeptical narrowing of the balding man’s eyes, he quickly added, “Information about Talona’s clerics-and what they’re up to. Kayla managed to get her hands on a flask that one of them was carrying.”
The man’s eyebrows rose. “Did she?” He glanced at Kayla, who nodded eagerly. “Well done. Well, come on, then.”
Arvin let out a soft hiss of relief. His charm had worked. Or had it? As he followed Kayla through the garden, he noticed that Chorl fell into step behind him. The balding man was keeping a close watch on Arvin-closer than Arvin liked.
The garden was laid out in a formal pattern. A path, bordered by flowering shrubs, spiraled in from the main gate to the center of the garden. Bordering this path were slabs of volcanic stone, their many niches providing shelter for the tiny serpents that called the garden home. At the center of the garden was a gazebo, its glass-paned roof reminiscent of the Solarium. The gazebo’s wrought-iron supports, like the light standards in the street, took the form of rearing serpents, except that the globes in their mouths hadn’t glowed in centuries. Its floor was a mosaic, made from age-dulled tiles. It was covered with what Arvin at first took to be sticks. As he drew closer, though, he saw that they were tiny, finger-thin snakes, curled around one another in sleep. The snakes obscured part of the mosaic, but Arvin could still make out the crest of House Extaminos: a mason’s chisel and a ship, separated by a wavy red line.
Chorl stepped forward and used the end of his staff to flick away the tiny snakes. He was needlessly rough with them, injuring several with his harsh jabs, and Arvin found his anger rising. He balled his fists at his sides, forcing himself to hold his emotions in check as the tiny snakes were flung aside.
Chorl stepped up onto the spot the snakes had just been evicted from and pulled from his pocket a hollow metal tube. Squatting, he rapped it once against the tiled floor. The rod emitted a bright
Kayla stepped to the edge of the hole. “I always enjoy this part,” she told Arvin. She sat on the lip of the hole then pushed off, disappearing into it. The sound of her wet clothes sliding on stone faded quickly.
Chorl nudged Arvin forward with the end of his staff. “Down you go,” he ordered. Arvin hissed at the man and angrily knocked the staff aside. Who did this fellow think he was, to order him about?
Chorl was swifter than Arvin had thought. He whipped the staff around, smacking it into Arvin’s head. A burst of magical energy flared from the tip of the staff, exploding through Arvin’s mind like a thunderclap and leaving him reeling. Eyes rolled up in his head, unable to see, Arvin felt the staff smack against his legs, knocking them out from under him. He tumbled forward, landing in a heap on the tiled floor.
Arvin’s backpack was yanked from his shoulders. He felt the end of the staff force its way under his chest, levering him over onto his back. He tried to speak the command that would make the dagger appear in his glove, but his lips wouldn’t form the word. The staff thrust inside the collar of Arvin’s shirt and shoved, sending him sliding toward the hole. He found himself at an angle, head and shoulders lower than his hips and legs.
Chorl leaned over him. “You may have charmed Kayla, you scaly bastard, but it didn’t work on me.” Another shove and Arvin was sliding headlong down a ramp.
Up above, he heard Chorl’s shout-“Snake in the hole!”-and the sound of stone sliding on stone as the trapdoor slid shut.
He hurtled along headfirst through darkness, unable to stop his slide down what turned out to be a spiraling tunnel with walls and floor of smooth stone. At the bottom was a small, brick-walled room, illuminated by a lantern that hung from the ceiling; Arvin skidded to a halt on its floor. The room’s only exit, other than the tunnel he’d just slid out of, was blocked by a wrought-iron gate that had just clanged shut. Still lying on his back, Arvin craned his neck to peer through it and saw Kayla being hurried away down a corridor by two men. She glanced back at Arvin, her face twisted with confusion, as they hustled her around a corner.
Arvin sat up, gingerly feeling the back of his head. A lump was rising there. It burned with the fierce, hot
