Viper's Kiss

by Lisa Smedman

  The satyr nodded.

  “Perhaps I could help. When my first child was born, I assisted the midwife. I know some healing spells—I used them to help my wife.” He paused, pretending to think of something. “Of course, my wife is human….”

  Might he help? the satyr wondered. He may have a spell that will banish fever from humanfolk.

  Arvin felt his heart quicken. The satyr was talking about Glisena. He was certain of it.

  The satyr considered, for the briefest of moments, accepting Arvin’s offer—then decided against it. “The midwife would be more suited,” he said. “Do you know where she might be?”

  “I wish I did,” Arvin answered truthfully. He paused. “If I do see Naneth, where should I send her? Where is the woman who needs help?”

  A brief thought flickered through the satyr’s mind—a mental picture of a hut made from a mud-plastered lattice of woven branches, its bark-slab roof draped with brambles. It stood at the base of a tree in a snow-dappled forest.

  “Is your forest far from here?” Arvin prompted.

  “Why ask you this?” the satyr asked suspiciously.

  “That is, I’m assuming you live in a forest,” Arvin added hurriedly, realizing he’d almost given himself away. “For all I know you have a house here in Ormpetarr. If your woman was ill with a fever, you would naturally seek out the closest midwife who could—”

  The satyr’s eyes narrowed. I never told him the female had a fever.

  Arvin had only the briefest flicker of a warning before the satyr leaped forward and up—just enough to let Arvin twist aside as horns slammed into his forehead. Hot sparks of pain exploded across Arvin’s vision as he was knocked backward. Stunned, barely conscious, he dimly heard the satyr running away. He rolled over onto his stomach and pressed his face into the snow. The cold revived him a little, took away some of the sting. But when he sat up, the alley spun dizzily around him. By the time he was able to stagger to his feet, the satyr was long gone. Arvin stood, one hand against a wall, the other holding his pounding head. For the second time in a single evening, he’d seriously misjudged someone.

  The monkey’s fist lay in the snow near his feet. He picked it up, brushed it clean, and shoved it back into his pocket. His finger brushed against a small, hard object: the lapis lazuli, tucked safely inside a hidden seam. He considered using it to ask Tanju for advice, but he knew what the psion would say. He’d tell Arvin to use the dorje to track the satyr—and Arvin would be forced to admit that the magical item had broken. Hearing this, Tanju might insist on coming to Sespech and conducting the search for the baron’s daughter himself. And Arvin would be out of a job.

  There was, however, still a chance that the situation could be salvaged. If the satyr could be found and questioned, Arvin might yet learn where Glisena was.

  Touching the stone to his forehead, he formed a mental image of Baron Foesmasher. It took only a moment for the baron to become solid in his mind’s eye; he was leaning over a table, barking orders and gesturing at something that was spread out on the table before him. He started as Arvin interrupted whatever it was he’d just been saying.

  The sending allowed Arvin only a few words. He chose them carefully. “A satyr knows where Glisena is. He just fled from Naneth’s house. He’s wearing a green hooded cloak. We need to find him.”

  The baron regained his composure instantly. “Return to the palace,” he ordered. “At once.”

  Arvin nodded his acknowledgement then tucked the lapis lazuli back in his pocket. Now that he knew that Sibyl’s minions were involved, he felt a newfound resolution. He would find Glisena. He wouldn’t allow Sibyl to claim another victim.

  Rubbing his aching forehead—a lump was already starting to rise over his right eye—he turned and trudged back to the palace.

  CHAPTER 8

  Arvin lay on the floor of the practice hall with his arms extended and upper torso bent back like that of a rearing snake. His palms, hips, and feet pressed against the floor as he craned his neck back to stare with unfocused eyes at the ceiling. He wore only his breeches, despite the chill in the hall. Snow fell outside the narrow leaded-glass windows that reached from floor to ceiling, muffling the sounds from the city.

  His breathing was slow and deep, his mind focused entirely on his meditations. With each breath in through his nose, he drew in strength, courage, and confidence. With each breath out through his mouth, he blew away weakness, uncertainty, and doubt.

  Picturing his mind as a net, he sent his consciousness down the strand that twined around his spine and located the muladhara that lay at the base of it. When he was ready, he activated his power points one by one, following this line. The “third eye” in his forehead emitted a flash of silver sparkles; a vibration deep in his throat filled the hall with a low droning noise; the base of his scalp prickled, causing the hair on the back of his neck to rise; his chest filled with crackling energy, which he exhaled in a breath scented with ginger and saffron; and a spiral of energy uncoiled from his navel, dewing the floor around him with a fine sheen of ectoplasm.

  The energies coiled around his muladhara. The spiral grew tighter and stronger as Arvin wove strand after mental strand into it, replenishing it.

  Arvin let out one last slow exhalation, ending his meditation. But he wasn’t finished yet. Rising gracefully to his feet, he completed his morning routine, flowing through the motions that Tanju had taught him. The five combat and five defensive modes each had a pose associated with them, designed to focus the mind of the novice. Arvin had learned how to manifest just seven of them, but he ran through all ten poses, flowing from one to the next in what looked like one long, continuous motion.

  When he was done, he yawned. He’d had very little sleep this past night; upon his return to the palace, Foesmasher had demanded a full report of what had transpired with the satyr. Arvin had been forced to admit that he could lift private thoughts from the minds of those around him, but the baron hadn’t seemed alarmed by this revelation. Instead he’d been overjoyed to at last have some indication as to where his daughter had gone.

  “So that’s where she is,” he said, “the Chondalwood.” One heavy hand clapped Arvin’s shoulder. “Well done. Now we just need to find that satyr and learn where his camp is.” He paused. “You said the satyr was worried about Glisena’s health. What was it, exactly, that he said?”

  Arvin met the baron’s eye. “That she was ill. He was worried she would lose her child.”

  “There is no child,” the baron said with a catch in his voice. “Naneth saw to that, may Helm forgive me. You said that the satyr didn’t actually use Glisena’s name?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then it must have been someone else who needed the midwife’s ministrations. Some other girl. Glisena is no longer with child.”

  “Yes, she is, Lord Foesmasher,” Arvin said quietly. “Naneth didn’t do as you ordered. She tricked you.” Choosing his words carefully, he summed up what the visions had shown him—both in Glisena’s chamber and at Naneth’s house. He omitted any mention of the warning he’d given the midwife.

  “When you charged into Naneth’s home, she must have realized you’d learned of her treachery,” Arvin concluded. “She teleported away.”

  “Gods willing, she’ll have gone to wherever Glisena is,” the baron said. His forehead puckered with worry. “I shudder to think of my daughter alone in the forest, giving birth in some dirt-floored shack with only satyrs to aid her. At least some good has come of my actions: I sped the midwife on her way.”

  “That … would not be a good thing,” Arvin said.

  “What do you mean?” the baron asked sharply.

  Arvin took a deep breath then gave the baron the bad news. Naneth wasn’t just a midwife. She served one of Lady Dediana’s enemies—Sibyl. The yuan-ti abomination must be hoping to use Glisena’s child as a playing piece in her bid for Hlondeth’s throne. Once she had the child in hand….

  The baron’s eyes wide
ned. “After the child has been born, Glisena is no longer of any value to them,” he said in a strained voice. “She will be … disposed of.”

  “There may still be hope,” Arvin said. “The satyr said the child hadn’t been born yet. Until Glisena gives birth, Naneth won’t harm her. Sibyl wants this baby. And once the baby is born, they will need Glisena to nurse the child.” He paused. “Have your clerics found any trace of Naneth yet?”

  The baron shook his head. “She has shielded herself, it seems, with the same magic that is preventing us from finding my daughter.” He sighed. “It all hinges, now, on finding the satyr.”

  That was when things had become awkward. Foesmasher had demanded that Arvin use his psionics to find the satyr, and Arvin had been forced to do some quick talking. He’d drained his energies, he told the baron. He needed to sleep, then to meditate, before he could manifest any more powers. Like a wizard consulting his spellbook, or a cleric praying to her god, he needed to restore his magic.

  Grudgingly, the baron had agreed to the delay. Marasa and her clerics would search for the satyr while Arvin rested.

  If only the dorje Tanju had given Arvin hadn’t broken, finding the satyr would have been an easy matter, Arvin thought. Without it, he would be forced to rely on his own, limited, powers. The only one he had that might be of use was one that gave him an inkling of whether a given course of action was good or bad. By manifesting it, he might get a sense of whether it would be better to search this section of the city or that one for the satyr. But the inklings weren’t always accurate, and the power could be manifested only so many times. And now it was morning, and his meditations were over—and the baron would expect him to perform a miracle.

  Hunger grumbled in his stomach, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten yet. He should get dressed and find some food. He lifted his belt from the rack that held wooden practice swords and buckled it around his waist, adjusting it so his dagger was snug at the small of his back. His trousers and shirt were draped over one of the battered wooden posts that served as man-sized targets; his boots lay on the floor nearby. He dressed then crossed the room to a table on which stood a bowl of cold water. He splashed some of it onto his hair, combing it away from his eyes with his fingers. He flexed his left hand—his abbreviated little finger always ached in cold weather—then pulled on his magical glove. Then, just to see if he could do it, he drew his dagger, closed his eyes, and suddenly spun and threw the weapon, relying on memory to guide his aim. He heard a thunk and a creaking noise and opened his eyes. The arm of the quintain was rotating slowly, the dagger stuck fast in the center of the small wooden shield that hung from one end of it. Arvin smiled.

  Applause echoed from above. Glancing up, Arvin saw the baron standing on the spectator’s gallery that ran along one side of the practice hall. He had entered it silently, his footsteps muffled by the gallery’s thick carpet. Arvin wondered how long he’d been standing there. The baron had changed into fresh clothes, but his eyes were pouchy; he hadn’t slept. A sword was at his hip, and he was wearing his helmet. Its purple plume swayed as he descended the stairs to the floor of the practice room.

  “The satyr has been found,” Foesmasher announced.

  “Excellent!” Arvin exclaimed, relieved. “If we ask the right questions, his thoughts will tell us where….” Belatedly, he noticed that the baron’s lips were pressed together in a grim line. “What’s wrong?”

  “When I received your warning last night, I ordered the city’s gates sealed,” Foesmasher said. “The Eyes began a block-by-block search of Ormpetarr; their spells flushed the satyr out a short time ago. He scaled the city wall. One of my soldiers gave chase along the battlements. The satyr slipped and fell to his death.”

  “That’s terrible news,” Arvin said.

  “Yes. The soldier responsible has been punished.”

  Hearing the grim tone in Foesmasher’s voice, Arvin cringed, thankful he hadn’t been the one to cause the satyr’s death. He didn’t want to ask what had been done to the soldier; his imagination already painted a vivid enough picture.

  The baron walked over to the quintain and pulled Arvin’s dagger from it. “You’ve rested and replenished your magic.” It was a statement rather than a question.

  Arvin gave what he hoped was a confident-looking nod.

  “What will you do next?”

  Arvin was wondering that, himself. Even with the dorje intact, he might not have been able to locate Glisena. Whatever was preventing her from being located by wizardry and clerical magic might very well block psionics, as well. There was one person, however, who wasn’t shielded by magic.

  “I’m going to pay a visit to Ambassador Extaminos,” Arvin told the baron.

  Foesmasher frowned. “To what end?”

  “It’s possible that Sibyl plans to use the child as a means to force Dmetrio to do her bidding,” Arvin explained. “Demands may already have been made—and if they have, and it’s Naneth who’s making them, Dmetrio may be our way of finding her. And through her, Glisena.”

  “Excellent,” the baron said. “Let’s go there at once. If he doesn’t tell us what we want to know—”

  “That might not be such a good idea, Lord Foesmasher,” Arvin said in a careful voice. “Your presence might … agitate the ambassador. And an agitated mind will be harder for my psionics to penetrate. The best chance we have of learning more is if I meet with the ambassador alone.”

  The baron toyed with Arvin’s dagger, considering this. “Was it mind magic that allowed you to find the target with your eyes closed,” he asked, testing the dagger’s balance, “or the magic of this dagger?”

  “Neither,” Arvin said, surprised by the change of subject. “I’ve worked as a net weaver and rope maker since the age of six. It makes for nimble fingers—you learn to be quick with a knife. Target practice does the rest.”

  The baron handed him the dagger. “Helm grant that the questions you put to Ambassador Extaminos also find their mark.”

  Arvin paced impatiently in the reception hall, angry at having been kept waiting an entire morning. Dmetrio’s house slaves had provided him with wine and food—roasted red beetles the size of his fist, precracked and drizzled with herbed butter—but Arvin waved away the yuan-ti delicacy. He’d already blunted the worst of his hunger at the palace and was too restless to eat. He ignored the smooth stone platform the slaves urged him to recline on and instead paced back and forth across the tiled floor, staring at the locked door of the basking room. At last it opened and a slave, bent nearly double under the weight of the jug of oil he carried, stepped through. Arvin strode toward the door.

  “Wait!” the slave cried through the scarf that covered his mouth. “There’s osssra inside. You mustn’t go in there!”

  “Too late,” Arvin muttered as he pushed past the slave. “I’m already in.”

  The air in the basking room was thick with smoke that smelled like a combination of mint tea, singed moss, and burning sap. It hit Arvin’s nostrils like a slap across the face, leaving them watering. As he breathed in the smoke, the room swayed and his legs began to tremble. He staggered, catching himself on one of the pillars that held up the domed ceiling. He clung to it, shaking his head, fighting the waves of dizziness.

  A low chuckle helped him focus. Still clutching at the pillar, he turned toward the sound.

  Dmetrio Extaminos lay in a shallow pool in the floor a few paces away. His naked, scaled body was coiled under him; it gleamed from the oil that filled the pool. His upper torso rose from it, bending back like a snake’s. He looked up at Arvin with a languid expression, slit eyes wide and staring, his dark hair slicked back from his high forehead. A forked tongue flickered out of his mouth, tasting the smoke-filled air.

  “Ah,” he said. “The rope merchant’s agent. Are you really here … or just part of my dream?”

  Smoke drifted slowly from the half dozen lidded pots that surrounded the pool, drawing Arvin’s eye. He watched, fascinated, as amber-colo
red tendrils twisted toward the ceiling. Only when he heard the slither of Dmetrio shifting position was he able to wrench his eyes away from the smoke. He shook his head violently, trying to concentrate. The smoke, he thought. He should have listened to the servant’s warning. He tried to manifest the power that would allow him to overhear Dmetrio’s thoughts, but his own thoughts were too sluggish; they drifted like the smoke. A glint of silver sparked in his vision then was gone.

  “Ambassador Extaminos,” he said thickly, his words slurred. “Glisena is in danger. Her child—”

  “What child?”

  “The one you fathered,” Arvin continued. “The midwife, she….” He paused, blinking slowly. What was it he’d wanted to ask?

  “Glisena is pregnant?” Dmetrio asked. A slow hiss of laughter escaped from his lips.

  Arvin tried to shake a finger at him and nearly fell over. “She’s also missing,” he said when he’d righted himself. “She’s been kidnapped.”

  “So?” Dmetrio curled into a new position in the oil, his scales leaving glistening streaks on the tiled edges of the pool.

  “Do you know where she is?”

  Dmetrio slowly arched his neck, stretching it. Oil trickled down one cheek. “No. I don’t. Nor do I care.”

  “She’s with child. Your child,” Arvin protested. “She might die.”

  “Human women die in childbirth all the time,” Dmetrio said. “Bearing live young is messy. Laying eggs is a much more efficient way of doing things.” He rolled over in the oil, coating his scales with it. “Glisena has grown tiresome. I’ll be glad to be away from here.”

  Arvin let go of the pillar. He meant to take a step toward Dmetrio, but he reeled sideways. “But the child,” he said. “You must care about….” His mind wandered. It was getting more difficult to concentrate by the moment. His thoughts were like bugs, caught in sap and struggling to get free. The smoke…. His gaze drifted up to the ceiling again. He wrenched his mind back.