the air-louder than the crackling of the cooling lava-as the Circled Serpent spun in mid-air. Arvin backed away, one hand raised to shield his face. Faster and faster the Circled Serpent spun, the head following the tail, until it was a blur of silver in the air. Then it disappeared.
The volcano gave a shuddering rumble. Then all was quiet. Arvin lowered his arm and looked down, and saw that what had been crusted lava a moment ago was cold, solid stone. A breeze blew across the peak of the volcano, cooling the sweat on Arvin's face.
He glanced at Ts'ikil. 'That's it?' he asked. He had expected something more.
The couatl smiled, then nodded. It is done. 'Then let's go. I want to see my children.'
Arvin leaned back against the wall of the hut, his infant son cradled in his arms. The boy was quiet, but earlier he had been competing with his sister in a crying contest. The twins were small- the combined effects of sharing the same womb and the lean nourishment Karrell had found in Smaragd-but they seemed strong enough, and they had powerful lungs.
The boy had brown eyes, like Arvin, a fuzz of brown hair, and a pattern on his smooth skin that might one day become scales. The girl had Karrell's high cheekbones, darker hair, and a slightly forked tongue. Both had human arms and legs, but what was most important was that both had survived.
So had Karrell, though the labor had been hard on her. She lay in a hammock, nursing their daughter.
Arvin watched as two women of the Chex'en clan fussed over the new mother, fanning her and offering sips of cool water. They looked like Karrell-close enough in appearance to have been her mother and sister, though Karrell had said they were only the clan midwife and her apprentice, both distant cousins. Each of them had Karrell's long black hair and dusky skin.
It had been some time since Arvin had slept, even though three days had passed since Ts'ikil had spirited them out of Smaragd. The birthing had taken the remainder of that first night, and the days and nights since then had slipped past in a blur. Arvin hovered somewhere between dozing and wakefulness. The heat of the jungle didn't help, nor did the fact that he kept slipping, in his drowsy state, into the minds of his son and daughter. The link with them came so easily it was like breathing. One moment his thoughts were his own-the next, his mind was overflowing with simple sensation: the sweet slide of milk down his throat, the gentle touch of a warm body against his, the blur of his mother's or father's face as they stared down at him with adoration.
It was easy to let his mind drift. The worst was over. Sibyl and the marilith were as good as dead, their minds empty shells. Sseth was securely contained within his domain, bound and brooding. Pakal had recovered from his shadow wounds and gone back to his people, and Ts'ikil had also fully healed.
Yet…
The younger woman came to Arvin and said something to him in her own language, then gently lifted his son from his arms. It was time for Karrell to feed him. Arvin reluctantly relinquished his son. He had been enjoying the feel of the infant's soft breathing against his bare chest. He stood and straightened the loincloth one of the Tabaxi men had given him,
then crossed the but to Karrell's hammock. As he brushed his lips against her forehead, she gave him an exhausted smile.
'We did it,' she whispered. 'We stopped Sibyl. It's over now.'
'Yes,' he said.
Yet…
He needed to think, to shake the lethargy from his mind. He stroked his daughter's head, and his son's, then squeezed Karrell's hand.
'I'll be outside,' he told her.
The but was circular, made of saplings that had been bound together. The roof was a rough dome covered with broad leaves, laid in a pattern like shingles. It was one of perhaps a dozen huts occupying an oval clearing that had been hacked from the jungle. At one end of the clearing stood a pitted chunk of black volcanic stone, studded with 'thunder lizard' olaws-an altar sacred to both Ubtao and Thard Harr. One of the wild dwarves who also made their home in that part of the jungle was prostrated in front of it, his hands extended toward the stone, fingers curled like claws. The clan's meeting house was at the opposite end of the clearing. In the distance behind it, smoke rose from the trees. That was where the rest of the clan was, clearing new land for crops. Arvin could just hear the faint thudding of their axes. Lulled by the sound, Arvin stood, staring at the jungle.
A woman's shrill cry from inside the but jerked him out of his half-doze. He raced inside, nearly colliding with the midwife. She shouted something at him in her own language, pointed at her assistant, who knelt on the ground next to Karrell. The assistant lifted one of the twins-their son-and blew air into his open mouth in short, rapid puffs. Arvin's entire body went cold at the sight.
'What's wrong?' he cried.
Karrell didn't answer. Her lips were moving rapidly as she bent over their daughter. She gave Arvin a quick, terrified glance as she whispered a prayer. Arvin clenched his fists. Something had gone wrong. Both twins had stopped breathing, but Karrell's magic would save their children. It had to.
Then Karrell exhaled, as sharply and violently as if she had vomited the air from her lungs. She clutched at her chest and struggled to inhale.
'What's wrong?' Arvin shouted.
Karrell shook her head. She tried to speak, but couldn't. She made a frantic gesture at their daughter. The girl's lips were starting to turn blue. Arvin scooped the girl up, only to have her wrenched from his hands by the midwife. The elderly woman began blowing air into the infant's lungs.
Karrell swayed, still trying to gasp air into her lungs. Her eyelids fluttered.
Magic. It had to be, but why?
No, not magic. A memory hovered dimly at the back of Arvin's mind. Of himself gloating as he manifested that very same power.
No, not himself.
Zelia.
A droning hum filled the air as Arvin manifested a power. Silver sparkled from his eyes; a thread of it led out the door. He raced after it across the clearing. It led where he'd half expected it to: to the dwarf who stood, a smirk on his face, next to the holy stone.
One of Zelia's seeds.
Arvin hurled a manifestation at the dwarf-seed as he ran. Droning filled the air around him as he tried to batter his way through the seed's defenses, to crush his opponent's mind to dust, but the seed was ready. His mind slithered away from Arvin, leaving him grasping emptiness. Then the seed attacked. A fist of mental energy punched its way through Arvin's defenses then
coiled around his mind. Too late, Arvin tried to throw up a shield against it. He could feel strands of energy moving this way and that inside his mind, weaving a net that held him fast. There was a quick, sharp tug- and the net closed, trapping his consciousness inside. Arvin could feel himself standing, was aware of his chest rapidly rising and falling, of his heart pounding in his ears-but the will that normally controlled his actions was tightly confined. He could imagine himself manifesting a power, but his muladhara seemed far away. His mind couldn't reach out to it from behind the net that had trapped it. Made stupid by a lack of sleep and the urgency of stopping the attack on Karrell and the children, he'd done just what the seed wanted-rushed blindly into psionic combat.
The dwarf-seed smiled, as if reading his thoughts. For all Arvin knew, it was.
'Arvin,' the seed said in a husky voice that was unsettlingly similar to Pakal's, except for its smirking tone. 'How obliging of you to run right into my coils.'
Arvin tried to talk. All he could manage was a low moan. He felt drool trickle from the edge of his mouth.
The seed smiled. 'Where is Dmetrio? Where is the Circled Serpent?' Silver flashed from his eyes as he spoke.
Arvin tried to resist the awareness that slid deep into his mind but couldn't. In another moment, the seed would learn that Dmetrio was dead and the Circled Serpent destroyed. The worst of it was that Arvin knew exactly how the seed would react-with rage at the fact that Zelia's plans had been thwarted-and with gleeful satisfaction at having caused Arvin the greatest anguish possible by killing the children and Karrell.
Then it would kill him.
If Arvin could have closed his eyes, he would have. He didn't want to see the dwarf-seed gloating.
