29 Kythorn, Darkmorning
Zelia cast her awareness ahead to the tavern where the human-seed waited. He sat at a table near the far wall of the room, at the same table where she herself had been seated seven nights ago. As she watched, he paid for a mug of ale then tipped it back, swallowing whole the small egg it contained. That-and his loose, swaying body posture-convinced her. He had succumbed.
Her tongue flickered in anticipation. How delicious he looked.
Her lapis lazuli was affixed to his forehead. He must have used it to manifest the sending Zelia had just received. The wording of his brief message had been tantalizing. At long last she would have the proof she needed that Sibyl was moving against House Extaminos.
She walked down the ramp and into the tavern, pausing to give the half-dozen sailors who were drinking there a quick scan. Silver flashed in her eyes as her power manifested, but it revealed nothing-all of the sailors were exactly what they seemed. She crossed the room and joined the human-seed at the table. He rose and greeted her with a passionate kiss that sent a fire through her, but she pushed him away and indicated that he should resume his seat. There would be plenty of time for pleasure, once this bit of business was concluded.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
“I found myself lying in a field,” the human-seed told her. “The signs of a recent battle were all around me. There were seven bodies-six clerics of Talona and one yuan-ti.”
“Describe him.”
“He was a half blood with a human upper torso. His scales were black, banded with purple. The bands had a faint diamond pattern within them.”
Zelia nodded. The pattern was typical of the yuan-ti of the Serpent Hills. Interesting.
“There was no sign of whoever attacked the clerics. They must have hauled their dead and wounded away. I must have been fighting on the side of the clerics, since I was left for dead.”
“The attackers were probably the humans who killed Osran,” Zelia mused.
The human-seed stared at her. “Osran is dead?”
Zelia smiled. “A lot has happened in the past seven days.” She stared at the human-seed, noting its strong resemblance to the one human who had escaped after Osran was assassinated-Gonthril, the rebel leader. The faction he led was little more than an annoyance, but perhaps it could be manipulated into providing a distraction, should Lady Dediana choose to move against Sibyl. All that would be required would be to replace Gonthril with the human-seed.
Or perhaps, she mused, to seed Gonthril himself.
The barman approached with a mug of ale. Zelia glared at him, sending him scurrying away, then turned to the human-seed. “You said you found proof that Sibyl is backing the Pox?”
The human-seed nodded. “That’s why I asked you to come here. I found a letter in a scroll tube the yuan-ti was carrying. It’s addressed to Karshis, from Ssarmn. It makes reference to Talona’s clerics-and to Sibyl.” He placed a scroll tube on the table and pushed it toward Zelia. “It should prove quite… enlightening.”
Zelia stared at the tube. “Read it to me.”
The human-seed showed no hesitation as he tipped the document out of the tube; perhaps her suspicions were unfounded. Unrolling the document, he began to read in a low voice. “ ‘Karshis,’ it begins, ‘Please relay, to Sibyl, a warning about the potion. If the clerics drink it and survive-and are not transformed-an unforeseen result may occur. Any psionic talents they have will be greatly enhanced. You may inadvertently produce an opponent capable of-’ ”
“Give me that,” Zelia said, thrusting out a hand. Anticipation filled her. Perhaps the letter would also contain proof that Sibyl was not the avatar she claimed to be, but mortal, like every other yuan-ti.
The human-seed passed her the letter. She avidly began to read.
The letter flared with a sudden brilliance that left her blinking and unable to see. Too late, she realized it had been a trick, after all. The letter had contained a magical glyph-one that had blinded her. She could still hear the human-seed, however, and could still pinpoint his position by his body heat. Immediately, she attacked. Wrapping mental coils around him, she flexed her mind, squeezing with crushing force-only to feel her target slip away. Suddenly his mind was gone-empty-and her coils were passing through insubstantial, vacuous emptiness. The human-seed’s mind had retreated into the distance, leaving her with nothing to grasp.
Expecting an attack in return, she threw up her own defense, raising a mental shield and interposing it between them. From behind it she lashed out with a mental whip-and hissed aloud, a vocalization that overlapped the hissing of her secondary display, as she felt it lash the human-seed’s ego. Surprisingly, he had maintained the same defense, instead of switching to a more effective one. Of course, he had only half of her powers. Gloating, Zelia drew back her mental whip to strike again.
She heard a sound that startled her: a faint tinkling, like the sound of distant bells. She recognized it in an instant as a secondary display and knew that it was coming from the human-seed across the table from her, but something was somehow
It wasn’t a human-seed who sat across the table from her, but Arvin.
She almost laughed aloud at the notion of a novice psion-a mere
Her arrogance was nearly her undoing. Arvin’s mind thrust into hers like a needle into flesh, forcing a link between them. Into this breach quested mental strings, seeking to knot themselves into the part of Zelia’s mind that controlled her physical body. She recognized the power he was using at once. He was hoping to dominate her, to make her his puppet. Where had he learned to manifest that power? It should have been well beyond him.
No matter. Unwittingly, he’d played right into her hands. She’d half expected her seed to go rogue-it happened with disturbing regularity when she seeded a human. And so she’d manifested a turning upon herself. The strings of mental energy suddenly doubled back on themselves and needled their way into Arvin’s mind instead.
There, they knotted.
“Stop fighting me,” Zelia commanded.
Arvin did.
Zelia tasted the air with her tongue, savoring the odor of fearful sweat that clung to Arvin. This was going to be so much fun.
29 Kythorn, Highsun
Arvin trudged along the seawall, his footsteps as reluctant as a man going to the execution pits, with Zelia a step behind him. She was still blind, but it didn’t matter. She had manifested a power that allowed her to “see” without eyes. She was taking a great delight in humiliating him; back at the Coil she’d forced him to order a second ale, and a third, and crack the eggs they contained over his head, much to the uproarious delight of sailors at a nearby table. The yolk was still in his hair and growing crustier by the moment in the Highsun heat. Then, when they began walking along the seawall, she’d forced him to deliberately bump into a burly sailor who had flattened Arvin’s nose when Arvin “refused” to apologize. Arvin’s nose was still stinging from the punch and blood was dribbling down his lips and dripping off his chin. But none of the people they passed-even those who spared Arvin a sympathetic look-dared to question what was going on. They took one look at Zelia, lowered their eyes, and hurried past.
Arvin had tried to fight the domination Zelia had turned back on him, but to no avail. She controlled his body completely. All he could look forward to, once she was done playing with him, was a swift death-preferably a bite to the neck, like she’d given her tutor.
Arvin had been stupid to think he could defeat her, even with Nicco’s help. The glyph the cleric had provided hadn’t even slowed Zelia down. So much for the “nine lives” Arvin’s mother had promised. The power stone was still in his pocket-Zelia had been too confident in her domination to bother searching him-but the two powers that remained weren’t going to be any help. He wished the teleportation power he’d used to kill Karshis were still available. He could have used it when they first embraced in the tavern.
In the end, Arvin thought, he’d gone in a circle. Despite all of his efforts, he’d only succeeded in replacing one
