"Glisena?" he called. "Naneth?"
As the door swung open, the stench struck him. Small and shuttered tight against the cold outside, the room reeked of snake. The walls were lined with tables; on these stood square containers made from panes of leaded glass, each with a wooden lid that had been drilled with holes. A different type of snake slithered around inside each container. One was a brown-scaled boa, coiled tight around a feebly twitching rat. Its body flexed, and the rat stopped moving. In the container next to it was a clutch of small green snakes, tangled together in a mating ball. Next to these was a flying snake from the southern lands, its body banded in light and dark green, its wings a vivid shade of turquoise. It fluttered inside its glass-walled container, hissing.
Arvin shook his head. Naneth certainly had odd taste in pets.
As he stepped into the room, a reddish-brown viper with a thick band of black at its throat reared up and spat a spray of venom onto the glass. Arvin eyed it warily, glad that the lid prevented it from getting out. The container next to it, however, was open; its lid sat on the table beside it. A saucer lay upside down inside the glass-walled cage, next to the gold-and-black-striped snake that was coiled there; this was where Naneth had been standing when Arvin contacted her with his sending.
Arvin picked up the lid and set it cautiously back in place, closing the cage. The snake inside, he saw now, was coiled on top of a clutch of eggs. Its body covered most of the small, leathery ovals, but as the snake shifted, Arvin caught a glimpse of something strange-it looked like a symbol, painted in red, on the egg that was closest to the glass. Squatting down for a closer look, Arvin saw he was right. The symbol was in Draconic. What it signified, he had no idea. He touched a hand to the glass the egg rested against, and it happened. Just as it had on the ship. For the space of several heartbeats, he stared, with naked eyes, into the future.
A pool of blood spread around someone's feet. And a finger-thin stream of red flowed away from the pool, toward a dark shape Arvin couldn't quite make out. Yet somehow he knew that it was something evil, something monstrous. The creature looked down then lifted the stream of blood from the ground with one hand-the hand of a woman-and began drawing the blood toward itself like a fisher hauling in a line.
Arvin's ears rang with an anguished scream-a woman's scream. Startled by it, he jerked his hand away. Only after his heart had pounded for several moments did he realize the sound had been part of his vision.
The snake shifted, covering its eggs once more. It looked at Arvin through the glass, tongue flickering in and out of its mouth, and gave a soft, menacing hiss.
Shaken by the premonition, Arvin stood.
Someone was going to die. Naneth?
He forced his mind back to the job at hand. Had
Naneth still been in this room when the baron kicked the door in? If so, the room might hold a clue as to where she'd gone.
For the fourth time that evening, Arvin manifested the power that made him sensitive to psychic impressions. The snakes hissed as a low droning noise filled the air. Allowing the energy that lay just behind his navel to uncoil, Arvin held out a hand and turned in a slow circle, scanning the room. Ectoplasm blossomed in his wake on the containers that held the snakes, covering their glass with a translucent sheen.
Arvin focused on the saucer Naneth had dropped. A vision flashed before his eyes-of Naneth, startled, releasing it. The image was faint and ghostly, at first, but grew in detail and solidity as Naneth listened and responded to the warning Arvin had sent. By the end of the sending, the midwife was visibly agitated. She ran from the room, into the bedroom across the landing, and returned an instant later with something tucked in the crook of one arm. Slamming the door behind herself, she quickly locked it. She shoved aside one of the glass containers, ignoring the agitated hissing of her snakes, and placed the item on the tabletop. It turned out to be a wrought-iron statuette of a rearing serpent holding a fist-sized sphere of crystal in its mouth.
Arvin felt the blood drain from his cheeks. He'd seen a crystal ball identical to it once before. It had belonged to a yuan-ti named Karshis-a yuan-ti who had served Sibyl.
Sibyl, the abomination who had killed Naulg, Arvin's oldest friend.
Painful memories swam into Arvin's mind-of Naulg, barely recognizable as human, his body hideously transformed by the potion Sibyl's minions had forced him to consume. Driven insane by his transformation, Naulg had glared at Arvin after his rescue, frothing and snapping his teeth, not recognizing his friend. And
Arvin, staring down at one of the few people to have shown him kindness without wanting something in return, had realized that there was only one thing he could do for his old friend, one final kindness.
He could still hear Naulg's final choked gasp as the cleric's prayer took effect. and the silence that followed.
Together with Nicco and the others in the Secession, Arvin had thwarted Sibyl's plan to turn the humans of Hlondeth into mindless semblances of yuan-ti. But the abomination herself was still at large. Though the Secession had been searching for her, these past six months, they'd turned up no trace of her. Arvin had bided his time, hiding from Zelia and slowly learning new psionic powers from Tanju. He'd told himself that, when Sibyl did rear up out of her hole again, he'd be ready to avenge himself on her. That was something he'd sworn to do-sworn in the presence of a cleric of Hoar, god of retribution.
The god must have been listening. Why else would he have placed another of Sibyl's followers in Arvin's path?
As if in answer, thunder grumbled somewhere outside, rattling the shutters of the windows.
Arvin swallowed and nervously touched the crystal that hung at his throat.
The vision his manifestation had conjured up was still unfolding. In it, Naneth raised a hand to her mouth and pointed her forefinger at the crystal ball. "Mistress," she said in a tight, urgent voice, one hand stroking the crystal. "Mistress, heed me."
A figure took shape within the sphere-a black serpent with the face of a woman, four humanlike arms, and enormous wings that fluttered above her shoulders. The abomination twisted to look at Naneth with eyes the color of dark red flame, her forked tongue flickering.
"Sibyl," Arvin said in an anguished whisper, speaking the name at the same time the ghostly figure of Naneth did.
"Speak," the abomination hissed.
Arvin watched, horrified.
"I have just received word, mistress," Naneth said, addressing the figure that stared at her from inside the sphere. "The baron has learned of our plan."
Sibyl's eyes narrowed. "Who told you this?"
"A man I've never met before. A spellcaster-he used magic to deliver his message."
"Describe him."
Arvin's breath caught.
"He was human. With collar-length brown hair, and…" Naneth paused, frowning. "And an oval of blue stone attached to his forehead."
"Do you have any idea who he might be?"
"None."
Arvin laughed with nervous relief. The description Naneth had just given was vague enough that it might have been anyone-aside from the lapis lazuli, which he'd be careful to keep out of sight from now on.
"What, precisely, did the spellcaster say?"
Naneth frowned. "Only this: 'He knows what you did.'" She paused. "It's a ruse, isn't it? One designed to get us to tip our hand."
"You humans are not always as stupid as you seem," Sibyl answered, her tongue flickering in and out through her smile.
From behind the closed door came the sounds of a man shouting. Then footsteps pounded up the stairs. For a moment, Arvin thought the baron had returned, but then he realized that this was part of the vision. To his eyes, the door was still closed and locked-and shuddering as the baron pounded on it and shouted at Naneth to open it.