Eventually they came to a chapel in which clerics coiled in reverent prayer before a statue, carved from gold- veined black marble, of a winged serpent with four arms and enormous rubies for eyes.
A statue of Sibyl.
One of the clerics turned to watch Arvin and the scribe as they passed-then hurried out of the chapel to clap a hand on Arvin's shoulder-his burned shoulder. With an effort, Arvin prevented himself from wincing. A sheen of acidic sweat broke out on his face.
'Where are you going?' the cleric hissed.
The cobra hood that surrounded his otherwise human looking face flared as he spoke. A forked red tongue flickered out of his mouth, tasting the air next to Arvin's cheek.
Arvin knew that his morphed body would smell as yuan-ti as the real thing, yet he was hard-pressed to damp down the unease he felt. The yuan-ti was a
cleric, a serphidian of Sseth, and a powerful one, judging by the elaborate cape he wore. The scales sewn onto the garment had been fashioned of fingernail- thin slivers of precious gems, which glittered in the lanternlight that filled the corridor. The cleric would know dozens of spells, perhaps one powerful enough to strip Arvin of his disguise.
'We are going to the altar room,' the scribe answered. 'This one dreamed of the Circled Serpent. I am taking him to the mistress.'
'The Se'sehen are arriving,' the cleric said. 'The mistress is busy welcoming them.' He turned to Arvin. 'Your dream can wait.'
'That's true,' Arvin said, shrugging his backpack off his shoulders, 'but this can't.'
As he spoke, he manifested a power that would allow him to falsify one of the cleric's senses-in this case, the sense of sight. The cleric was a difficult subject. Arvin had to force his way into the man's mind with a mental shove that he worried might give him away. The cleric shook his head, as if trying to clear his ears of an annoying ringing.
As Arvin opened his pack, allowing the cleric to inspect its contents, he shaped what the other man saw. The pack actually held a net Arvin had spent the past three months weaving from yellow musk creeper vines-a net ensorcelled with the ability to entangle its victim upon a spoken command-but what the cleric 'saw' as he opened the pack was something entirely different:
A gleaming half-circle of silver.
Half of the Circled Serpent.
Arvin closed the pack and withdrew from the man's mind. When he looked up, the high serphidian had an eager look on his face.
Arvin could guess what the man was thinking- that he, rather than a lowly scribe, should be the one
to deliver the Circled Serpent half to Sibyl. He was probably also weighing his chances of overpowering Arvin and taking the backpack from him. The cleric glanced at the distinctive ridges above Arvin's eyes then looked away, obviously deciding not to take on an opponent whose venom was more potent than his own.
'Who are you?' he demanded.
'Sithis,' Arvin answered, giving a common yuanti name-one that was much more pronounceable with a forked tongue. 'I'm one of Ssarmn's men,' he added.
He waited, tense, wondering if his ploy would work. Ssarmn was the slaver from Skullport who had supplied Sibyl with the potion that would have turned the humans of Hlondeth into her slaves, had Arvin not thwarted her plan. That had been a year ago, but with luck-Arvin resisted the urge to touch the crystal at his neck-Ssarmn was still involved in Sibyl's operation.
'Ah,' the high serphidian hissed. He waved the scribe away. 'You may leave,' he ordered. 'Return to the dreaming chamber.'
'But-'
The protest died on her lips at the look the high serphidian gave her. Cowed, she turned back the way she had come, but not without taking a good, long. quizzical look at Arvin's burned shoulder, revealed since he'd removed his pack. Arvin tried to manifest the power that would erase that glimpse from her memory, but before he could she had slithered out of range.
Motioning for Arvin to follow, the cleric led Arvin to a corridor that curved downward. The inside wall of the spiraling ramp was punctuated with vertical slits, and through these Arvin heard a sound like the hissing of waves on a beach. Glancing through
one of the slits, he caught sight of a circular room, far below, bathed in lanternlight. Its floor was covered in thousands of snakes of every size and color imaginable. They slithered in a steady flow around a raised dais of glossy black obsidian.
Several times during their descent toward that room, Arvin heard a popping noise over the hissing of the snakes. He saw what was causing the sound when they reached the bottom of the ramplike corridor. One moment, the dais was bare; the next, a yuan-ti materialized on it. The dais must have been a portal, linked with some distant place.
The yuan-ti who had appeared on the portal was dressed in a white loincloth, high laced sandals, and a cape made from the pelt-complete with head-of a jungle cat whose golden fur was spotted with black. A necklace of heavy gold beads hung against his scaled chest, and on his head was perched an elaborate headdress decorated with circles of jade.
Arvin winced at the irony. The noble was from the Se'sehen tribe-Karrell's tribe-the people she'd come north in an effort to save.
Even though they were allies of Sibyl.
A cobra rose from the slithering mass and obediently presented its flared hood for use as a stepping stone. The noble stepped onto it. Other cobras did the same. Moving from one head to the next, the yuanti crossed the tangle of serpents that surrounded the dais, making his way toward a doorway whose frame was the gaping mouth of the beast lord's face. Tho cleric, meanwhile, led Arvin around the edge of the room-the snakes parted to clear a path for them-toward the same exit.
'Remain silent,' he hissed. 'I will announce you.'
Arvin followed, tense with the knowledge that he was so close to his goal. Acidic-smelling sweat
trickled down his temple, and he brushed it away. Ahead-down the curved corridor that connected the portal room to the one beyond-he could hear murmuring voices. Not one but dozens of Se'sehen must have come through the portal. In the chamber ahead, Arvin could see a large cluster of similarly garbed nobles. Moving among them were gem-caped high serphidians like the one Arvin followed, as well as a handful of yuan-ti in finery common to the Vilhon Reach: nobles from Hlondeth.
One of the high clerics, a woman, had hair that consisted of dozens of tiny, intertwined serpents. He knew her by reputation-everyone who lived in Hlondeth did-but had never expected to meet her face to face. She was Medusanna of House Mhairdaul, elder serpent of the Cathedral of Emerald Scales, high cleric of Hlondeth's most prominent temple, a yuan-ti abomination who was rumored to be able to petrify with a mere glance.
As the cleric led Arvin into the chamber, Medusanna turned to stare at them. She had been talking in the language of the Se'sehen with one of the nobles. Arvin's heart lurched as he heard a word he recognized-one that Karrell had taught him. Kiich pan. Beautiful. Swallowing his emotion, Arvin met Medusanna's eyes with a steady look and silently prayed that his disguise would hold-and that the rumors were wrong.
It did, and they were.
Instead of resuming her conversation, Medusanna continued to stare at Arvin as the cleric led him deeper into the gathering.
The chamber in which the Se'sehen and clerics had assembled had a ceiling whose stonework was set with a profusion of metal blades that hung, point down, giving the appearance of fangs. All were rusted and some had fallen out like rotten teeth,
leaving holes behind. The walls to the right and left were carved with depictions of the beast lord in his various animal forms, each with a serpent draped around its shoulders and whispering in his ear. Between them were arched corridors that led off into darkness, five on either wall.
At the far end of the room stood a broad stone altar, carved to resemble a serpent coiled upon a clutch of eggs and flanked by two stone pillars-the twin tails of the serpent. Between these swirled a cloud of darkness that even Arvin's potion-enhanced vision didn't quite penetrate. Just in front of the altar, a rusted iron serpent statue
