"Too late," Arvin muttered as he pushed past the slave. "I'm already in."
The air in the basking room was thick with smoke that smelled like a combination of mint tea, singed moss, and burning sap. It hit Arvin's nostrils like a slap across the face, leaving them watering. As he breathed in the smoke, the room swayed and his legs began to tremble. He staggered, catching himself on one of the pillars that held up the domed ceiling. He clung to it, shaking his head, fighting the waves of dizziness.
A low chuckle helped him focus. Still clutching at the pillar, he turned toward the sound.
Dmetrio Extaminos lay in a shallow pool in the floor a few paces away. His naked, scaled body was coiled under him; it gleamed from the oil that filled the pool. His upper torso rose from it, bending back like a snake's. He looked up at Arvin with a languid expression, slit eyes wide and staring, his dark hair slicked back from his high forehead. A forked tongue flickered out of his mouth, tasting the smoke-filled air.
"Ah," he said. "The rope merchant's agent. Are you really here… or just part of my dream?"
Smoke drifted slowly from the half dozen lidded pots that surrounded the pool, drawing Arvin's eye. He watched, fascinated, as amber-colored tendrils twisted toward the ceiling. Only when he heard the slither of Dmetrio shifting position was he able to wrench his eyes away from the smoke. He shook his head violently, trying to concentrate. The smoke, he thought. He should have listened to the servant's warning. He tried to manifest the power that would allow him to overhear Dmetrio's thoughts, but his own thoughts were too sluggish; they drifted like the smoke. A glint of silver sparked in his vision then was gone.
"Ambassador Extaminos," he said thickly, his words slurred. "Glisena is in danger. Her child-"
"What child?"
"The one you fathered," Arvin continued. "The midwife, she…" He paused, blinking slowly. What was it he'd wanted to ask?
"Glisena is pregnant?" Dmetrio asked. A slow hiss of laughter escaped from his lips.
Arvin tried to shake a finger at him and nearly fell over. "She's also missing," he said when he'd righted himself. "She's been kidnapped."
"So?" Dmetrio curled into a new position in the oil, his scales leaving glistening streaks on the tiled edges of the pool.
"Do you know where she is?"
Dmetrio slowly arched his neck, stretching it. Oil trickled down one cheek. "No. I don't. Nor do I care."
"She's with child. Your child," Arvin protested. "She might die."
"Human women die in childbirth all the time," Dmetrio said. "Bearing live young is messy. Laying eggs is a much more efficient way of doing things." He rolled over in the oil, coating his scales with it. "Glisena has grown tiresome. I'll be glad to be away from here."
Arvin let go of the pillar. He meant to take a step toward Dmetrio, but he reeled sideways. "But the child," he said. "You must care about…" His mind wandered. It was getting more difficult to concentrate by the moment. His thoughts were like bugs, caught in sap and struggling to get free. The smoke… His gaze drifted up to the ceiling again. He wrenched his mind back.
"But the child," Arvin repeated. "Won't you take it… with you?"
Dmetrio let out a loud hiss of laughter. "Why would I want to do that?"
"Because it's your child. You can't just abandon-"
Dmetrio waved a hand. Someone seized Arvin's arms from behind-two someones, wearing armor and helmets flared like cobra hoods. "Rillis?" Arvin asked, peering at them through the smoke.
Neither was the guard Arvin had bribed for information the day before. They dragged him backward out of the basking room. A servant-the one who'd
been carrying the jar of oil-closed and relocked the door behind them. Arvin found himself being dragged through the reception hall, down a corridor, out a door, and down a snow-covered ramp. His heels skidded through the snow, leaving two drag marks. He stared at them, fascinated. They were like the trails left by snakes. If he moved his feet from side to side, they slithered…
A gate creaked open and the militiamen lifted him up. Then he was floating through the air. No, not floating… he'd been thrown, tossed out by the militiamen. He landed on his back in the snowy street. As people drifted past him, shrinking back from the spot where he lay, he stared, intrigued, at the snowflakes falling out of the sky. He watched them while the snow soaked through his cloak, trousers, and shirt. They started off so small and got so big. Like that one… it was huge.
No, that wasn't a snowflake. It was a woman's face, looking down at him. She had dark eyes, wide cheekbones, and black, wavy hair that reached toward him like snakes.
Heart pounding, Arvin tried to crawl backward through the snow, to escape the snakes. Then he spotted the frog hiding behind them. The notion of a frog sitting on a woman's earlobe seemed so silly, somehow, that he had to laugh. It came out like a croak.
"Vin?" the woman asked. "Are you all right?"
Arvin stared dreamily up at Karrell for several moments, tracing the curve of her lips with his eyes. He tried to raise a hand to touch them, but his arm flopped into the snow above his head. He needed to tell her something that he'd breathed in something called osssra-but his lips wouldn't form the word. "Sssraaa," he slurred.
Karrell bent down and lifted his arm from the snow. "Vin," she said, her voice low and serious. "You need help. Please try to stand."
His arm drifted up around her shoulder, and his legs were scrabbling under him, messing up the snow. Yanked along the street by Karrell, he stumbled after her, staring at the pattern his feet made, oblivious to the people staring at them. There were so many footsteps… and not a one of them from a satyr's cloven hoof.
Why that mattered, he couldn't say.
Arvin sat up, rubbing his head. His mind was his own again, but his head ached, and he felt shaky; it was difficult to coordinate his movements. He took it slow, swinging first one leg, then the other, off the side of the bed. When he stood, his legs trembled. He was naked, save for his breeches and the braided leather bracelet around his right wrist. And-he touched the crystal that hung at his throat-the now-depleted power stone his mother had given him, all those years ago.
He was in a small, simply furnished room with a door and one window. Through the shutters he could see that the snow had at last stopped falling; the street was three stories below. It was dark and a horn was sounding elsewhere in the city, signaling the evening prayer. He must have been unconscious for some time.
The room's furnishings included a bed, a narrow wardrobe by the fire, and a wooden table and chair. He was relieved to see his belt hanging on the back of the chair, his dagger still in its sheath. His magical glove lay on the table, next to a drawing of his sleeping face, rendered in charcoal on parchment. It was an amazingly good likeness; Karrell must have drawn it. A fire burned in the grate; his damp clothes and cloak hung, steaming slightly, on the fire screen in front of it. Noise wafted up from somewhere below-the overlapping sounds of voices, a stringed instrument, and the clatter of crockery. With it came the smell of food, a mouthwatering blend of stew and baking bread. Arvin's stomach growled.
He walked toward the fire-slowly, so he wouldn't stumble-and searched the pocket of his shirt. Inside the false seam was a familiar bulge: the lapis lazuli. Pulling it out, he affixed it to his forehead and tried to concentrate on Tanju, but the psion's face kept slipping out of focus. Realizing he was simply too tired to manifest a sending, Arvin removed the lapis lazuli and tucked it back inside his pocket. He'd contact Tanju later. All he really had to report, anyway, was that Dmetrio wasn't involved in Glisena's disappearance.
As he was making his way back to the bed, the door opened. Karrell came in, carrying a platter on which stood a bowl of stew, some bread, and a mug of ale. She set the platter down on the table then took Arvin's arm, guiding him toward the table. "You're still unwell," she said. "You should rest."