dizziness, made him reel. He turned the motion into a less-than-graceful squat, ignoring the tiny flames that licked at his boots, and pretended to be feeling for a pulse. As he did, he slipped the dagger
up his sleeve. It was a clumsy palming, but if the half- lizard noticed anything, he made no comment. 'She's dead,' Arvin concluded.
He started to stand, then noticed something that lay beside the body in the flaming oil: a tiny vial that must have been secreted somewhere inside Juz'la's dress. The dark liquid inside it bubbled from the heat, the cork that sealed the vial starting to char. Arvin picked up the vial before it burst and he blew on it, trying to cool it.
The half-lizard puffed out his throat, clearly agitated. He shifted uneasily on bowed legs, looking as though he'd like nothing better than to scurry away. 'Master,' he croaked. 'What-'
Arvin stood, fought off another wave of dizziness. He stared down at the half-lizard. 'Your name's Porvar, isn't it?' he asked.
The half-lizard nodded. There was fear in his eyes but also intelligence. He wasn't as far gone as the slave who had met Arvin upon his arrival.
Arvin smiled and manifested a charm. 'I'd like to help you, Porvar.'
The half-lizard blinked rapidly. His posture became a little less subservient.
'The Jennestaa forced you to drink a potion, didn't they?'
The half-lizard's throat puffed out in alarm.
'A good friend of mine was forced to drink a similar potion,' Arvin said.
Porvar looked doubtful.
'It's all right,' Arvin assured him. 'You can trust me. I'm not yuan-ti. I'm human.'
Porvar glanced down at Arvin's swollen hand. The flesh around the punctures was purple. 'When vipers bite, humans die.'
'Not this human,' Arvin assured him, and it was true.
The dizziness ebbed, leaving him more certain on his feet. His left hand was in agony, though. He tried to flex his fingers and nearly cried out from the pain.
'There's a statue,' Arvin said. 'Dmetrio Extaminos brought it with him when he came to Ss'yin'tia'saminass. Take me to it, and I'll help you escape.'
The half-lizard laughed. 'Where to? The jungle extends to the horizon.'
'Better free in the jungle than a slave here,' Arvin countered.
The half-lizard blinked. Once. Twice. 'Why do you want the statue?'
Arvin smiled. 'I plan on smashing it.'
The half-lizard considered this. 'And the others?' he asked.
'There's more than one statue?' Arvin asked.
Porvar shook his head. 'The ones in the pit. The halfings who are still… whole. Will you help them, too?'
'I'll do what I can,' Arvin promised.
Porvar's lips twitched. He turned. 'Come. I will show you where Juz'la moved it to.'
The corridor was only chest-high; Arvin had to walk bent over to follow. While the half-lizard's back was turned, he shook the dagger out of his sleeve and sheathed it and placed the vial in a pocket. Then he looped the wine-soaked cloth around his neck as an improvised sling for his swollen hand. He wished, belatedly, that he'd gotten Tanju to teach him one of the powers that stabilized and helped heal the body. Instead, he'd focused, those past six months, on powers he thought he might need in his battle
with Sybyl. He hadn't expected to live long enough to require healing.
to require healing.
It soon became too dark to see, so Arvin followed Porvar with one hand on the half-lizard's shoulder.
The corridor they followed ran in sinuous curves for some distance, and Arvin was certain they were no longer under the pyramid. Every so often, they passed through another of the circular, multi-exited chambers. Most of them were filled with rubble, Arvin discovered after painfully stubbing his toe on a piece of broken stone.
Eventually, they drew near an illuminated chamber filled with yuan-ti. Arvin let go of Porvar and assumed a sliding, more fluid gait. He filled the minds of the yuan-ti with the illusion of scales on his body and slit-pupilled eyes. He wet his lips with his tongue, adding a serpent's forked flicker. Porvar glanced back at him, perhaps wondering why Arvin shuffled his feet, but the illusion wasn't directed at the half-lizard's mind. Arvin gave him an encouraging nod and gestured for him to lead on.
Soon Arvin smelled earth and mold and saw a dim light up ahead. Porvar halted a few moments later at the entrance to an enormous circular chamber. Easily fifty paces across, it was illuminated by moonlight that shone in through a portion of the ceiling that had collapsed. The moldy smell probably came from the rotted timbers that had tumbled into the room. Vines trailed in through the hole, brushing the spot where they'd fallen. Arvin noted the leaves, shaped vaguely like human hands, and the berries that were clustered in bunches like grapes. Assassin vine.
The chamber was crowded with pieces of weathered statuary that had, presumably, been scavenged from the ruins above. Stone snake heads with jagged, broken necks lay here and there on the floor. Some were no larger than Arvin's own head; others were chest-high. All had once been painted in bright colors, but the paint was flaked from them like shedding skin. Empty eye sockets had probably once held gems.
There were also a number of broken slabs of squared-off stone: stelae, covered with inscriptions in Draconic. The chamber also included a more-orless intact statue that Arvin recognized from Zelia's childhood memories: the World Serpent, progenitor of all the reptile races. Lizard folk, yuan-ti, nagas, and a host of other scaly folk stared up at her from below, paying the goddess homage. They stood on the bent backs of humans and other two-legged races who crouched, like slaves, in perpetual submission.
Sounds drifted down the corridor behind them. Somewhere in the distance, a yuan-ti voice shouted. That couldn't be good.
'Whero is the statue Prince Dmetrio brought with him from Hlondeth?' Arvin asked.
Porvar pointed at the far side of the room. 'There.'
Arvin sighted along the pointing finger. The statue stood against the far wall. It was small, no more than knee-high, with a gray-green body and wings that were covered in gilt. Pale yellow gems glittered in its eye sockets: yellow sapphires. Its hands were raised above its head, forming the circle that symbolized birth. Sseth reborn-the perfect hiding place for the Circled Serpent.
Arvin took a step forward but Porvan caught his arm, preventing him from entering the chamber. He nodded at the vines that trailed in through the ceiling.
'Stranglevine,' he whispered, as if afraid his voice might awaken it.
Arvin smiled. 'I know. I've worked with the stuff often enough.'
Silver sparkled from his forehead, lengthening into a long, thin rope. Quick as thought, it wound itself around the assassin vines, binding them together. The plant, sensing it was under attack, began writhing like a snake. Arvin wrapped the far
end of the shimmering rope around one of the larger serpent heads, stretching the assassin vine as tight as a lyre string.
'Wait here,' he told Porvar.
He jogged over to the statue. A quick glance noted a slight discoloration; a sniff told Arvin that it was contact poison. He slipped off his improvised sling, wound it around his good hand, and lifted the statue with that. He didn't feel or hear anything shifting inside the statue when he picked it up. That worried him-Juz'la might already have removed its contents, and if she'd hidden Dmetrio's half of the Circled Serpent somewhere else, he might never find it.
Fortunately there was an easy way to find out if there was anything inside. Raising the statue above his head, Arvin slammed it down onto the floor.
Out of the shattered remains fell the lower half of the Circled Serpent. It glinted silver in the moonlight, the tiny scales carved onto its surface made a netlike pattern on the gleaming metal.
Arvin closed his eyes and heaved a huge sigh of relief. He'd done it! Both halves were his. Now all he had to do was find the door.
One thing worried him, however. Dmetrio hadn't kept the lead-lined box the Circled Serpent had been found in, which meant that something else had been hiding it from divination magic. The gray-green glaze on the ceramic statue must have had lead in it-but Arvin had smashed the statue, so that protection was no longer in place.
