Arvin removed the ice dagger’s sheath from the dead rogue’s belt, slid the weapon into it, and tucked it into his boot. Then he bent down and carefully picked up Glisena.
She was lighter than he’d expected—and cooler; her body no longer radiated heat. The drug the rogues had tricked her into drinking must have dampened her fever. It also seemed to have quieted the demon. Glisena’s bulging stomach pressed up against Arvin’s; he could no longer feel the demon kicking.
Arvin crept down the stairs, Glisena in his arms. He eased open the door at the bottom and peered out into the street. The street was deserted, except for a lone figure far down the block, walking toward the inn. Something about the person made Arvin uneasy; a second glance told him he’d been right to trust his instincts. The person moved with a swaying motion that instantly told Arvin her race: yuan-ti.
Zelia.
And she was moving toward the inn. Had she spotted him?
Arvin closed the door and hurried in the only other direction available: through the inn’s common room, which had closed for the night. With Glisena in his arms, he wound his way between the tables, toward the inn’s front door. Once again he looked cautiously outside. This time the street was empty.
Arvin hurried up the street. As he ran, slipping on patches of slush, he activated the lapis lazuli and visualized the one person he’d not yet contacted with it today who might be able to help: Marasa. Her face came into focus in his mind at once: drawn, worried-looking, and pale. Her left hand was raised, evoking Helm; her lips moved in prayer. Her eyes widened as a mental image of Arvin formed in her mind’s eye.
Marasa, he thought, hailing her. I found Glisena. She’s unconscious; I’m carrying her back to the palace from the Fairwinds Inn. Send help. Hurry!
Marasa’s eyes widened in surprise. She glanced down then up at Arvin. That’s not possible, she thought. Glisena’s here. I’ve been by her side all…. Suddenly, her expression grew wary. One last thought—only half-directed at Arvin, but it came through anyway—drifted through her mind: Is this a trick? Then the sending was broken.
Arvin slowed and stared down at the woman in his arms. Glisena was still at the palace? If this wasn’t Glisena, who was it? He glanced around, spotted a sheltered doorway up the street, and stepped into it. With one hand, he undid the fastenings of his cloak, letting it fall to the ground. He spread it out with his foot then lowered the unconscious woman onto it. Then, closing his eyes so he could concentrate, he ran his fingertips across her face.
It took several moments of intense concentration for him to feel what was truly there. The face felt broader than Glisena’s, and flatter. And the hair, when he ran it through his fingers, was wavy, not straight. And the ears….
Yes. There it was. The woman’s left earlobe was pierced, the piercing filled with an earring of carved stone.
“Karrell,” Arvin said in a stunned whisper.
She’d done an amazing job of transforming her appearance. She hadn’t polymorphed herself—that would have fooled Arvin’s fingers, as well as his eyes. She must have used some sort of illusion. He touched her hair a second time and felt what he’d expected: a gritty powder. Back in Hlondeth, one of the assassins who had commissioned a magical rope from Arvin had used a similar magical powder. By sprinkling a pinch of it on his head, he could change his appearance to that of anyone he liked. He’d actually gloated about how he’d used the powder to assume the appearance of a woman’s husband then stabbed the woman in front of her own daughter. The husband had been charged with the crime—and executed in the pits with his daughter watching and cursing his name.
Arvin was glad he wasn’t working for the Guild anymore.
He stared down at Karrell, shaking his head. Whatever game she’d been playing had been a dangerous one. The rogues had interrupted it, Tymora be praised.
Arvin idly scratched his forehead. The scab was starting to itch again.
His hand froze in mid-scratch as he realized it wasn’t the wound. That tickling sensation was Naneth scrying on him.
And if she could see him, she could see Karrell. Who still looked like Glisena.
Arvin cursed his ill luck. Why had Naneth chosen this precise moment to scry on him? If she recognized the spot where he was crouching, she might appear at any moment.
He glanced wildly around. Just a short distance up the street, in the intersection, was one of the statues of Helm’s gauntlet. Maybe, if he was quick enough….
Arvin scooped Karrell up and ran toward the gauntlet. Naneth’s scrying ended when he was partway there. He scrambled up onto the dais and slapped his bare hand against the gauntlet. “Come on,” he gasped, looking around for one of the clerics who was supposed to materialize when the gauntlet’s protection was invoked. “Come on.”
He heard a faint pop behind him: air being displaced as a person teleported. He turned, expecting to see one of the Eyes.
It was Naneth, standing perhaps a hundred paces away, beside the doorway Arvin had just bolted from.
Then Zelia appeared from around a corner, holding a piece of parchment in one hand.
With a sinking heart, Arvin recognized it as the drawing Karrell had made of him. The one he’d crumpled up, thrown into the fireplace, and forgotten.
Zelia had found it.
“Arvin,” she said as she walked with slithering steps toward Arvin. “We meet again. You look unusually healthy… for a dead man.” Laughter hissed softly from her lips.
No, not laughter. That hissing meant she was manifesting a power: a psionic attack. And Arvin had no energy left in his muladhara to counter it.
He tensed, but the mental agony he was bracing against didn’t manifest. Then he realized that the gauntlet was protecting him. Zelia couldn’t attack him. Not here.
He shifted Karrell in his arms so that her limp hand also touched the gauntlet. They were protected, for the moment, against spells. But if Naneth used a spell that wasn’t directly hostile—if she got close enough to touch Karrell and teleport away with her, for example—they’d be in trouble.
“There you are,” Zelia said to Naneth, gesturing at Arvin and Karrell. “The girl. As promised.”
Naneth thanked her with a silent nod then walked briskly toward them.
A second faint pop sounded, right next to Arvin. Relief swept through him as he saw the newcomer’s red cloak and brightly polished breastplate, emblazoned with the eye of Helm.
“The baron’s daughter!” Arvin gasped, shifting Karrell so the cleric could see her face. “She’s in danger.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Naneth break into a run. For a large woman, she moved surprisingly fast. “Detain that man!” she screamed. “He’s an agent of Chondath. He’s kidnapping the baron’s daughter.”
The cleric frowned then raised his gauntlet, turning the eye on its palm toward Arvin.
Arvin answered the question before the cleric even asked it. “I serve Lord Foesmasher,” he said. As he spoke, a tingle swept through him: the gauntlet’s truth-enforcing magic. He jerked his head at Naneth. “That woman’s a sorcerer—an enemy of Foesmasher.”
Naneth’s hands were up, her fingers weaving a spell.
“Teleport us to the palace,” Arvin shouted. “Now!” The cleric had been summoning his weapon—a mace-shaped glow that had half-materialized in his fist. The glow vanished, and he clamped a hand on Arvin’s wrist.
As he did, Naneth completed her spell. In the area next to the dais, up suddenly became down. Arvin fell into the air, legs flailing. Karrell tumbled from his arms. The cleric was still holding onto Arvin’s wrist and was praying—a prayer Arvin recognized, though he’d heard it only once before, when the yuan-ti ambassador had been teleported away by the clerics in Mimph.