Arvin wished he still had his magical glove; vanished inside it, the Circled Serpent would probably escape detection. Without it, all Sibyl had to do was cast a location spell to find it.
A rustling noise behind him warned him that the ectoplasm that bound the assassin vine was starting to fade. He renewed it with a fresh manifestation,
tying several loops into the rope he bound it with. Then he scooped up the Circled Serpent and tucked it inside his shirt, using his sling to tie it in place. He turned and motioned Porvar forward.
'Come on,' he said, placing a foot in the lowermost loop of his improvised ladder. 'Let's get out of here.'
The half-lizard glanced nervously at the vine.
Arvin nodded toward the corridor. The shouting he'd heard grew louder. 'We may have been found out,' he said. 'Do you really want to go back the way we came?'
Porvar shook his head.
'Then climb,' Arvin instructed. 'Follow me.'
The climb wasn't an easy one for Arvin, despite his magical bracelet. He could use only one hand, and Porvar, below him, kept jostling the rope. Halfway up, Arvin's feet slipped and he nearly fell. Feet flailing, he clung to the vine with his good hand, trying to twist himself back around. As his feet found the vine again, something tickled the small of his back-a tendril of assassin vine, worming its way up inside his shirt. Cursing, he fumbled at it with his injured hand, but the vine curled around his waist and spiraled its way up his body. Within heartbeats, it tightened around his throat. Arvin hooked his arm around the vine and tried to pull the tendril off with his good hand but couldn't get his fingers under it. He traded arms, hooking the left one around the rope, and reached for his knife. The tendril tightened.
The vine jerked as Porvar shifted below. Arvin tried to shout at him to back off but the vine had already cut off his breath. He felt hands grasping his ankles, then his legs-what was the half-lizard trying to do, climb past him and escape? He tried to kick Porvar off, but the half-lizard gripped his legs too tightly.
'No!' Porvar hissed.
Arvin heard a chewing noise. Porvar grunted then wrenched his head to one side. The pressure on Arvin's throat eased. Glancing down, Arvin saw Porvar spit out a length of tendril. The half-lizard grinned up at him.
'You can stop kicking me now.'
Unwinding the limp tendril from his throat, Arvin breathed his thanks.
The rest of the climb went smoothly. Getting out of the hole was tricky, but Porvar gave Arvin a boost from below Arvin scrambled out and secured the Circled Serpent inside his shirt again. That done, he extended his good hand to Porvar, helping him clamber out. He backed Porvar away from the hole. When the ectoplasmic bonds evaporated, the entire assassin vine would come snaking up out of it.
They had emerged into dense jungle. The weathered remains of stone buildings loomed nearby, smothered in a thick layer of leafy vegetation. A few paces away, an enormous stone snake head stared with sightless eyes into the jungle. Trees stood like living pillars, their branches forming a dark canopy overhead.
Off in the distance to their right, something crashed through the jungle-several things, judging by the sound of it. From the opposite direction-the center of the ruined city-came yet more shouting. One of the creatures moving through the jungle was headed their way. The ground trembled as it drew closer. Arvin heard the crack of branches and saw trees moving. As it broke through the trees, he dragged Porvar into the shadow of the serpent head. An enormous reptile like the one he'd seen earlier lumbered past, a yuan-ti perched on a saddle on its back. The yuan- ti brandished a spear in each fist, and a feathered cape fluttered out behind him.
'The Se'sehen,' Porvar breathed. 'Ss'yin'tia'saminass is under attack.'
'That's good,' Arvin said. 'In the confusion, you can escape.'
Porvar gave him a level stare. 'Not without my son.'
'He's in the pit, isn't he?'
Porvar nodded.
Arvin struggled with his conscience. He'd retrieved the second half of the Circled Serpent-the only sane thing to do was shift into the form of a flying snake and get out. Now Karrell was counting on him. Arvin's own children would die if he failed to save them. Porvar was a stranger, trying to hold Arvin to a promise he couldn't afford to keep.
'Please,' Porvar begged.
His whisper was all but lost in the crashing that surrounded them. Dozens of the giant lizards were thundering through the jungle toward the center of Ss'yin'tia'saminass.
Arvin sighed. 'Which way is the pit?'
Porvar grinned, revealing a jagged set of teeth. 'This way.'
They hurried through the jungle, moving at right angles to the attack. More than once they had to stop and hide from other Se'sehen, also mounted on lizards. Eventually, the jungle opened up, and Arvin could see the cistern just ahead. He heard cries coming from inside it: the halflings. One of them was dead, impaled on the needle-like spikes. His face, level with the rim of the cistern, had turned a faint blue and was so swollen it was impossible to see his eyes.
Porvar stared, transfixed, at the corpse. 'Poison,' he croaked.
'Is your son good at climbing?' Arvin asked. The half-lizard startled, then nodded.
'Tell the halflings to bo ready to catch a rope.'
Without wasting any more words, Arvin uncoiled
the braided leather cord he'd fastened around his
waist and began to climb a nearby bee. When he was high enough to look down into the pit, he tied one end of the cord to a tree branch and tossed the other down into the cistern, shouting its command word as he did so. The trollgut rope expanded, more than doubling in length. One of the halflings caught the other end.
'Is there something you can tie it to?' Arvin shouted.
The halflings looked around then shook their heads. The floor of the cistern was rough with broken stone, but none of the chunks was large enough to serve as an anchor for the rope. Arvin was just about to break the unpleasant news that one of them would have to hold it while the others climbed out when another of the enormous lizards hurtled toward them through the jungle. It smashed through the trees mere paces away from Arvin, sending the tree he was in whipping back and forth, and skirted the cistern, the yuan-ti on its back clinging grimly to its saddle. Arvin clung equally grimly to a branch with his one good hand.
As the giant lizard thundered away, Arvin heard a cheer go up from the halflings below. Glancing down, he saw that the lizard had knocked over a tree, which had fallen into the pit. Its trunk formed a ramp up to the rim. Already the halflings were scrambling up, Porvar's son in the lead. The half-lizard moved forward to embrace him, but the boy shrank back, frightened. Then, visibly screwing up his courage, he hugged his father. Porvar looked up at Arvin, waved his thanks, then hurried away with the others into the jungle.
'Nine lives,' Arvin whispered.
He added a silent prayer that Tymora keep sending the halflings luck. To escape in the middle of a full-scale assault, they would need it.
Arvin, fortunately, would be out of there as soon as he could morph into a flying snake.
He cut the new growth from his trollgut rope and looped what remained over his shoulder. Then he started to draw energy up through his navel and into his chest. Only then did he think to touch his chest and make certain the lower half of the Circled Serpent was still there.
It wasn't. It must have fallen when the lizard brushed the tree.
A chill ran through him. His heart stopped racing a moment later, however, when he spotted it on the ground near the base of the tree. Aborting his manifestation, he scrambled down to grab it. He secured the Circled Serpent back inside his shirt and resumed his manifestation.
He tried to draw energy up through his navel, but all that came was a trickle. Only the tiniest amount of energy remained in his muladhara. He'd been spending it wantonly, neglecting to check how much remained. There wasn't enough to morph himself into a flying snake.
He'd have to walk out of Ss'yin'tia'saminass on foot.
He turned, trying to figure out which way the river was. It was somewhere to the east, but under the trees, in moonlight, it was impossible to figure out which way that might be. He decided to find a place to hole up, sleep, and replenish his muladhara.
