Gonthril nodded then gestured for Arvin to take off the ring.
Arvin did and passed it back to Gonthril. The rebel leader slipped it back on the chain and hung it around his neck.
"What's the Seccession's part in your plan?" the rebel leader asked. "What do you need us to do?"
"Not the Seccession," Arvin said. "You. I need someone who can pass as me without having to resort to magical disguises. I'll be playing the part of one of Zelia's spies-a spy that has 'captured' Arvin. It will be dangerous and unpleasant, but if Zelia reacts as I expeot her to-and believe me, I know her well-it will give me the chance to take her completely by surprise."
"I see," Gonthril said. For several moments, there was silence. Gonthril glanced at one of his rebels. The man gave a slight shrug then nodded.
Arvin waited for the rebel leader's reply.
"I'll need to know more details, of course," Gonthril said, "but so far, you've got my interest."
Arvin heaved a mental sigh of relief. He hesitated then decided to broach the question that had been nagging at him for some time. "Before we get into the details, there's one thing I neglected to ask the last time we met," he said, his voice low enough that Gonthril's people wouldn't hear it.
"Go on," Gonthril said.
Arvin waved a hand between them. "We look enough alike to be brothers," he whispered. "Is there any chance that we might be?"
Gonthril gave a tight smile. "My mother had a very strong spirit. When I was growing up, I often heard her tell my father she wouldn't be bound to any one man. We may-you and I-very well have been fathered by the same man."
"Did your mother ever mention a bard named Salim?"
"No."
"Then your father-"
"The only man who earned the right to be called `father' was the man who raised me," Gonthril said in a stern voice. His expression was grim. For a moment, Arvin was worried he'd offended Gonthril.
"That man is dead," Gonthril continued, "as is my mother. They died in the so-called 'Plaza of Justice' the year I turned thirteen, executed for a crime they did not commit, but that didn't matter. They were human, and "insolent to their betters.' Even as they were led to their deaths, they refused to go quietly and shouted insults at the yuan-ti who had condemned them." His eyes grew fierce. "I decided to carry on that tradition of defiance. That same year, I joined the Secession."
Arvin listened quietly, surprised by how much he and Gonthril had in common. Each of them had
been forced to make his way in the world alone. Their lives, however, had taken very different paths.
Gonthril shrugged. "You don't need to convince me that we're related," he said. "I'm helping you for the good of Hlondeth-for the benefit of humans everywhere-not because of some blood tie we may or may not share."
Arvin nodded, his face neutral, but his heart was beating quickly. Was the man across the table from him really his brother? Arvin's mother had believed that Arvin was the only child Salim had ever fathered-but what if the bard had been lying to her-or simply hadn't realized that a previous liaison had produced a child?
It would be ironic indeed if the leader of a group dedicated to returning Hlondeth to human hands turned out to be part yuan-ti.
Gonthril had already moved on; he leaned across the table in a conspiratorial hunch. "Now tell me your plan. In detail."
CHAPTER 13
Arvin walked toward Zelia's tower, herding his captive ahead of him. Gonthril had a blindfold over his eyes and his hands were bound behind his back. His feet were hobbled, so he staggered when Arvin shoved him forward. The bonds looked and felt tight but were special knots that could be loosened in an instant by tugging the right strand. The rebel leader played his part to perfection, never once complaining about Arvin's rough handling.
When they reached the door, Arvin waited. Tension knotted his stomach. The seed Pakal had killed in Karrell's village had told him of the tower's defences-about the strip of copper hidden within the doorframe that would manifest a catapsi on any psionicist
who entered and the invisible mage mark designed to take care of non-psionic intruders. The seed had also told him how to get past them. A pressure plate high above had to be pushed with a far hand manifestation as one stepped through the door. It had alerted Arvin to the dangers that lay within. Even so, Arvin had to steel himself as he knocked then waited for the door to open. The bottle he held in his left hand was slippery with sweat.
Control, he told himself. Then he smiled. He was thinking like Zelia-which was just what he wanted.
Arvin's crystal hung around Gonthril's neck and Karrell's ring was on one of the fingers of Gonthril's right hand. A glove on his left hand hid the fact that his little finger was whole. The disguise wouldn't stand up to scrutiny, but if all went well, Zelia wouldn't get a chance to make a close inspection.
As the door swung open, Arvin grabbed Gonthril by the hair and forced him to his knees.
He had been expecting some minion to answer his knock, and was surprised to find Zelia herself staring out at him. Then he realized that it was probably one of her duplicates.
It looked like Zelia, though, down to the last pore. Long red hair glowed in the light of the setting sun, and her green eyes matched the color of the scales that freckled her cheeks and hands. She wore a yellow dress of watered silk that plunged low between her breasts and left her arms bare. The scales that covered her body were a deep sea green. She glanced briefly at Arvin, then at the captive. Her eyes flashed silver as she manifested a power. Then she frowned.
"It's the ring," Arvin told her, "but let him think what he likes-he's powerless. I drained him with a catapsi."
His voice sounded strange in his ears. It matched the form he'd metamorphosed into: Dmetrio. He'd spent extra care in shaping his body, down to the last detail. The hair that framed his high forehead was thinner and darker than his own, and his scales were the exact shade Dmetrio's were. His body was leaner, his groin a smooth surface with his genitals tucked inside a flap of skin. His posture and movements were fully those of a yuan-ti. He swayed, rather than standing square on his two stub feet, and kept his lips parted, tasting the air with his tongue.
A hissing filled the air, though Zelia's lips remained closed. "You're right," she said a moment later. "His aura is empty."
"If it wasn't, the door frame would have drained him," Arvin chuckled.
Abruptly, she looked up at Arvin. He was ready for her. As her eyes flashed silver a second time, he pulled energy into his throat and imagined his hands sweeping through the air in front of his face, washing his thoughts clean. At the same time he concentrated, simultaneously manifesting the power that allowed him to shape sound. The droning of his secondary display became a sharp hissing noise-the sound the Dmetrio-seed would have made, had it been the one manifesting the empty-mind defense.
Zelia tsk-tsked, shaking her head.
Arvin shrugged, adding a feminine sway to the gesture. "What did you expect?" he said. "None of us like to reveal all of our playing pieces at once, do we?" He glanced past Zelia into the tower. "Where is she?"
The duplicate didn't bother to pretend she didn't know who he was talking about. "In the study."
She opened the door wider, an invitation for Arvin to step inside. He did, taking care to deactivate the traps in the door as he passed through it. Zelia hung
back, waiting for him to prove that he knew where he was going, which he didn't. Her body language, however, spoke volumes to someone trained by the guild. The slight turn of her hips plus her deliberately averted eyes pointed him in the right direction. Shoving Gonthril ahead of him, Arvin crossed the entryway and made for a door on the right. The handle was trapped with a venomed needle, so Arvin pushed the secret button as he turned it, preventing the needle from springing.