His left hand still throbbed where the viper had punctured it, his right shoulder was crusted with dried blood from Pakal's attack, and his chest felt bruised from the crushing the yuan-ti who had swept him into the tree had given him.
The deepest ache, however, was inside him. For a few brief moments, he had held the key to Karrell's prison in his hands, then it was gone again.
He took a deep breath and pushed the melancholy thought firmly aside. He reminded himself that it could have been worse. It could have been Sibyl who had claimed the Circled Serpent. At least Arvin knew how the Dmetrio-seed's mind worked. There was a chance that the seed would dutifully carry the Circled Serpent back to Zelia in Hlondeth-but only a slim chance. More than likely, the seed had decided to betray Zelia-all Arvin needed to do was find the door. If Arvin could find a way to locate the Dmetrio-seed before the seed learned where the door was, then perhaps…
The whuff-whuff-whuffof wings startled him out
of his reverie. A shadow-large and serpent-shapedpassed across the mouth of the cave. A flying serpent, landing at the base of the bluff. Was it Ts'ikil returning? Or Sibyl?
Arvin scrambled across the cavern toward his pack. Plunging a hand inside, he seized the musk creeper net. He used his dagger to slash the rootlets that had grown into the pack, at the same time manifesting the power that would render him invisible. Then, cautious, he crept to the mouth of the cave.
CHAPTER 10
The marilith lowered its face to Karrell's and glared into her eyes.
"Naughty mortal," it scolded. "Don't you dare run away again."
Karrell, her legs held by a twist of the demon's tail, met the marilith's eye with a defiant look.
"Or what?" she countered. "You'll kill me? Go ahead."
The demon hissed. Its tail tightened. As it did, Karrell whispered Ubtao's name under her breath and brushed a hand against the marilith's mottled green scales. The wound-ing spell took effect, sending a jolt of pain through
through the marilith's body. The demon gasped and its coils loosened again.
Karrell felt the ground beneath her feet
grow soggy. The foul smell of rot drifted up from the ground-the jungle reacting to her spell. She distracted the demon by speaking again.
"By killing me, you'll only kill yourself," she reminded it.
The demon's eyes narrowed.
"Let go of me," Karrell demanded. She nodded down at her belly. "You know I can't run."
The demon tilted its head, considering. One of its six hands toyed with a strand of sulfur-yellow hair. A half- dozen dretches surrounded it. One of them scratched at its belly, setting the blubber there to jiggling.
"Mistress," it croaked. "Should we kill it?" Drool dribbled from its mouth as it gave a fang-toothed smile.
"Silence, idiot!"
A sword appeared in the marilith's hand. Without even looking at the dretch, it slashed backward, neatly slicing through its neck. The head landed in a tangle of ferns, surprised eyes staring blankly up at the sky as the body crumpled, its neck fountaining red. The other dretches sniffed the splatters, then dropped to all fours and began lapping up the flowing blood with their tongues.
The marilith ignored them. It gestured with the point of its sword at Karrel l's distended belly. "Soon your young will emerge," it observed.
Karrell eyed the sword point and readied another prayer. If the sword pricked her, she'd need to inflict yet another jab of pain to convince the demon that the fate link still held.
"I'll need a healer to tend me," she told the marilith, "someone who can take away the pain and staunch my blood if too much of it flows, someone who can keep me alive if the birth doesn't go well." She gestured at the circle of slashed and trampled vegetation where the marilith's swords had whirled. "Open another
gate; send me home. The odds of survival-for both of us-will be much greater then."
"No."
"If I die-"
"Then your soul will wind up on the Fuguo Plain, even without a gate," the demon said, "where, instead of being claimed by Ubtao and taken to the Outlands, it will be consumed by Dendar." The marilith smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. "As I'm sure you noticed, the Night Serpent has developed a taste for the faithful."
Karrell blanched at that but managed to keep her voice steady. "All the more reason to keep me alive," she argued, "since your soul will also be consumed."
"All the more reason to keep you close," the marilith answered.
Karrell gestured at the dretches. They had peeled back the skin of the dead one's neck and fought over the right to suck the spinal cord.
"You sent them in to herd the faithful into Dendar's mouth," Karrell said. "Why?"
The demon gloated. "You haven't figured that out?" it tsk-tsked. "You're not as clever as I thought, half- blood. Perhaps there's too much human in you."
"Then pity me. Tell me why you want Dendar to grow so big. Is it so sho'll be stuck inside her cave?"
The demon frowned. "What purpose would that serve?"
"It would prevent the Night Serpent from escaping when Sibyl opens the door to her lair."
"Why should we care if Dendar escapes?" "Because…" Karrell was at a loss.
The marilith was right. Why indeed? For all the demons cared, the entire world beyond the Abyss- and all of the souls it contained-could disappear.
"Why should Sibyl want to open that door?" the marilith continued. "Hmm?"
"To reach Smaragd," she said. She waved her hand in a circle. "Through your gate."
The marilith gave a throaty laugh. "You truly are as stupid as you seem, mortal. Nothing living can enter the Fugue Plane."
Karrell knew that, of course, just as she knew that Sibyl was very much alive-and as mortal as she was. If she could keep the marilith talking, perhaps she could learn what was really going on.
"Sibyl could enter it by dying," she said.
The marilith sighed. "Who would claim her soul?" Karrell deliberately blinked. "Why… Sseth, of course."
The marilith started to say something, then bent until its lips brushed Karrell's ear. "You look tired. Rest. Sleep." It gave Karrell a wicked smile. "Dream."
KarrelI flinched away from the demon's touch. The marilith's last comment had been an odd one. Since being dragged into Smaragd, Karrell had slept fitfully, one ear always open for the sounds of the marilith and its dretches. Her dreams had been troubled. With Dendar feeding on the souls of the faithful, any dreams Karrel I had were certain to be full-blown nightmares, perhaps more than her mind could stand. Why would the demon want Karrell to do something that might harm her-and thus it?
With a suddenness that left her dizzy, Karrell realized what was happening. Sseth communioated with his worshipers through whispers and dreams, and Sseth was bound. The dreams he was sending had turned into a writhing nest of nightmares. That was why Karrell-why all of the yuan-ti-had been having such troubling dreams for the past several months, dreams that disturbed their sleep enough to cause them to wake up, hissing in alarm. Dreams of being bound, of feeling trapped, of being prey rather than predator, dreams that were terrifying in their
imagery but not quite substantial enough or clear enough to convey whatever message Sseth was so urgently trying to send.
If Dendar gorged herself on the faithful-if she stopped eating nightmares-those dreams would come through, not in a trickle, as they had for the past several months, but in a terrible, mind- drowning rush.
Sibyl wasn't planning to enter Smaragd through Dendar's cave. Dendar was only the solution to her immediate problem. There had to be another entrance to Smaragd, one that Sseth knew-one that he was trying to send to his faithful through dreams that had become nightmares.
Whatever that route was, the Circled Serpent was the key. Of that Karrell was certain. She closed her eyes, praying that key didn't fall into the wrong hands.