“Your spell, also, has ended,” Karrell said. Then she smiled. “Yet somehow, I still find you… intriguing.” She hesitated then began unlacing the front of her dress.
As Arvin unlaced his breeches, removing them, his eyes were drawn to her breasts. Her scales, he saw, were small and fine, and a delicate shade of reddish-brown that nearly matched her skin, giving it a flushed appearance. He was, he realized, about to find out if the stories about yuan-ti women were true.
When she let her dress fall to the bed and moved toward him, encircling him in one graceful motion, he decided they might be, after all.
9
“Where have you been?” the baron growled. “My daughter is ill—she may be dying—and instead of finding her, you—”
Arvin bowed. “I apologize, Baron Foesmasher. I was poisoned.”
The baron blinked. “Poisoned?”
“The ambassador kept me waiting all day. I decided to confront him in his basking chamber. I didn’t realize it was filled with poisonous smoke. I only recovered from its effects a short time ago.”
That wasn’t strictly true, of course. His interlude with Karrell had followed. It had been brief—both of them felt the urgency of what was now a shared goal. But time had been lost; it was now nearly the middle of the night.
The room in which they stood—a chapel with one of the enormous, silver gauntlets of Helm standing on a dais near one wall—was lit by a single lantern. The baron had been standing in prayer, his left hand raised and head bowed, when Arvin was ushered in. Karrell had been detained outside the room by the soldiers who served as palace guards. She stood at the end of the hallway, waiting.
Baron Foesmasher glanced at her. “Who is the woman?”
“Another tracker,” Arvin said. “She’s going to help in the search for your daughter.”
The baron’s eyes narrowed. “You have told her Glisena is missing?”
“Yes,” Arvin acknowledged.
“What else have you told her?”
Arvin met the baron’s eye. “Only that Glisena has run away,” he said. “And that she is most likely hiding in the Chondalwood, among the satyrs. And that her flight from the palace was aided by minions of Sibyl, who hope to exploit your daughter for their own, ill purposes.”
“By the sound of her accent, she’s from Chult,” Foesmasher said. “Is she yuan-ti?”
Arvin met the baron’s eye. “Yes.”
The baron grunted and turned back to Arvin. “You promised to be discreet. And now I find you’ve told a complete stranger. Another serpent.”
“If you want me to find your daughter, Lord Foesmasher, you’ll have to trust my judgment,” Arvin told him. “I trust Karrell. It was a stroke of Tymora’s fortune that she turned up here, in Sespech. Karrell knows a great deal about Sibyl; the abomination has had her people under her thrall for some time. Karrell was already investigating what Sibyl’s minions are up to in Sespech. She would have learned, eventually, of your daughter’s disappearance. By including her now, we gain some valuable assistance.”
The baron glowered. “You assured me your mind magic would locate Glisena.”
“It’s already narrowed the search,” Arvin countered. “We’ve learned she’s in the Chondalwood.”
“That tells us very little,” the baron said. “The Chondalwood is enormous. It’s nearly as wide as Sespech is long. Were I to send an entire garrison into it to search for Glisena, they could wander for a tenday and never meet a soul, let alone find a band of reclusive satyrs. And ordering in a garrison is something I can’t do. Lord Wianar has laid claim to the Chondalwood; he hopes to cut off the supply of wood I need to build my navy. Sending troops into it would only give him the excuse he needs to invade.” His eyes bored into Arvin’s. “One man, however, would slip into the Chondalwood unnoticed. But that brings us back to the central problem—we don’t know where to look.”
Arvin thought a moment. “How close is the nearest edge of the Chondalwood to Ormpetarr?”
“Nearly two days’ ride to the north, just across the river from Fort Arran.”
“The satyrs seemed quite worried about Glisena’s health,” Arvin said. “They wouldn’t have come to Ormpetarr to fetch Naneth unless their camp was a reasonable distance from the city.”
“Naneth gave a teleportation ring to Glisena,” the baron pointed out. “She may have also given one to the satyr.”
“If she had,” Arvin countered, “surely he would have used it to flee Ormpetarr, instead of trying to scale the walls.”
“Indeed,” the baron said, nodding in agreement. “But even if you are correct in your guess about what part of the forest the satyr came from, how do you propose to find his camp?” He nodded at Karrell. “And why do you need her help? Is your mind magic not up to the search?”
“It is,” Arvin assured him. “But it won’t be able to cover enough ground in the limited time we have left before Glisena… becomes more unwell. Karrell knows a spell that can help find the camp quickly. One that gives her the ability to communicate with animals.”
The baron frowned. “Asking questions of a handful of animals in one tiny corner of the forest will accomplish nothing.” He shook his head. “And I thought you were an expert tracker.”
“We won’t ask just any animals,” Arvin countered. “We’ll ask wolves. They’re swift runners, capable of traveling a distance as far as that between Ormpetarr and Mimph in a single day. Their territories span even greater distances than that. And their sense of smell is keen enough to pick out the scent of a human from an entire camp of satyrs. If anyone can locate the satyr camp Glisena is staying in, it’s wolves.”
The baron nodded, grudgingly impressed.
“The only problem,” Arvin continued, “will be in getting to the Chondalwood quickly enough.”
The baron picked up his helmet, which had been sitting on the floor next to him. “You’ll be in the Chondalwood tonight,” he said, pulling it on. The purple plume bobbed as he spoke. “Naneth isn’t the only one with a teleportation device:’
“Can yours teleport two people at once?” Arvin asked.
“It can,” the baron answered. “But that brings up an important question.” He gestured at Karrell. “If it’s her spell that will find my daughter, what further use are you?”
Arvin had anticipated that question. “In order for Karrell to use her spell, the wolves need to be close enough for her to speak with them,” he said.
“Any hunter can find a wolf,” the baron countered. “I’m not just going to find wolves,” Arvin said. “I’m going to call them to me. With this.” He pulled the lapis lazuli from his pocket and displayed it on his palm. “This is what I used to send you the message about the satyr. With it, I can contact anyone. Human… or wolf. It has magic that only a psion can use.”
Though he spoke with confidence, Arvin wasn’t actually certain what he was proposing would work. He could definitely send a message that would catch a wolf’s attention—the whine of an injured pup, for example—but a sending wasn’t like a shout; it sounded inside the recipient’s head. Arvin might be able to say “come here,” but only by putting the sending to the test would he find out if he could convey where “here” was. But it was worth a try.
“The stone will also allow me to report to you—‘at once’—the moment we find Glisena,” Arvin added, deliberately using one of the baron’s favorite phrases.
The baron nodded, satisfied. “You’re a man who uses his head,” he said. “I like that.” He reached into a pouch that hung from his belt and pulled from it a shield-shaped brooch. It was made of polished steel and no larger than a coin, with Helm’s blue eye on the front of it. Foesmasher handed it to Arvin.
“Pin this somewhere it won’t be seen,” he instructed.