"No, Arvin said gently. "It's not Dmetrio."
He snuck a glance at the satyr. The fellow stood near the door, scowling at Arvin, pan pipes still in hand.
"Naneth sent me," Arvin announced in a louder voice.
"Where… is she?" Glisena asked weakly. "Why hasn't she come?"
Once again, Arvin said nothing.
As she finally focused on him, Glisena's eyes widened in alarm. "Your face," she whispered. "It's bloody."
That one, Arvin had an answer for. "There was a misunderstanding," he said, glancing at the satyr as he spoke. "The satyrs didn't recognize me. Now be still. I need to figure out what's wrong with you."
He went through the motions of checking Glisena as a healer would, drawing upon his memories of how the priests at the orphanage had inspected children in the sick room. He held a finger to her throat, feeling her life-pulse; peered into her eyes; and sniffed her stale-smelling breath. Then he laid the back of his hand against her forehead as if measuring the heat of her fever. "When did you last see Naneth?" he asked.
"The night I… left," Glisena said. "She brought me here."
Arvin lifted each of Glisena's hands, pressing on the fingernails as if checking their color. Her fingers were bare; she no longer had Naneth's teleportation ring. Naneth must have taken it from her to prevent Glisena from leaving the satyr camp.
Glisena looked at Arvin with worried eyes. "Is it supposed to hurt so much? Naneth said the baby would be born soon after the spell. But it's been more than… a tenday. And still it won't come. Do you think my baby is…" Her words choked off and her hands tightened on her stomach protectively. Tears puddled at the corners of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.
Arvin wiped them away. "I'll check," he told her.
He laid his hands on Glisena's distended stomach. It felt taut as a drum beneath his palms. Was the child in distress? There might be a way to find out… and to learn what the satyrs intended, as well.
"I'm going to cast a spell," Arvin told the satyr. "One that will tell me what is causing the fever."
The satyr stared suspiciously at him a moment then raised his pan pipes to his lips. "Cast your spell. But remember that the others outside will kill you, should I fall."
Arvin nodded. He sent his awareness deep into himself, awakening the power points at the base of his scalp and in his throat. Silver sparkles erupted from his third eye as the power manifested, momentarily obscuring his vision. Then the thoughts of those inside the but crowded into his mind. Glisena's were filled with anxious worry-she feared for her own life, as well as that of her child. She also clung to a desperate hope that Dmetrio would come for her. Naneth had promised to tell Dmetrio where she was. What could possibly have delayed him? Had something bad happened to him? Maybe heUnable to listen further, Arvin turned his attention to the satyr's thoughts.
The satyr-whose name turned out to be Theyron didn't believe Arvin's story. Naneth had warned him that one of the baron's men might show up and try to fetch Glisena home. The baron's man might even use Naneth's name, in an attempt to trick the satyrs and take Glisena away-just as this human had done.
But maybe this human did have healing magic, as he claimed. If he was the baron's man, he would want to heal Glisena; a dead female wasn't worth stealing. And it was important that Glisena remain alive. Naneth had promised the satyrs much wealth, in return for watching over the female for a few days. As to why Naneth had asked them to hide the baron's daughter, Theyron didn't know-and didn't care. When Naneth returned to claim the female, his clan would reap its reward.
As for the human, well, as soon as the baron's man completed the healing, Theyron would kill him. One note from the pipes, and the human would slumber. And his throat could be slit.
Unsettled by the callousness of the satyr's thoughts, Arvin disengaged from his mind; he doubted he was going to learn much more, and his manifestation would end soon. He turned his attention to the third source of thoughts within the hut: the unborn child. He focused on them, letting the thoughts of Glisena and the satyr fade to the background…
Rage. Boiling, inarticulate, all-consuming rage.
The thoughts of the child pounded into Arvin's mind like a hammer smashing against his skull. Out! snarled a voice as deep and hollow and devoid of humanity as a bottomless chasm. Release me!The thing inside the womb began kicking, fists, and feet pounding against Glisena's flesh, jolting Arvin's hand up and down. Let… me. OUT!
Shocked, Arvin jerked his hand away and ended the manifestation. He stared at Glisena in horror. Whatever was inside her wasn't human.
It wasn't yuan-ti, either.
Naneth had changed the unborn child in Glisena's womb into something… else.
The thought sickened Arvin to the point where he felt physically ill. This was even more monstrous than what Zelia had done to him. This time, the victim had been an innocent babe. But it was an innocent babe no longer.
"Something's… wrong, isn't it?" Glisena asked in a trembling voice.
Belatedly, Arvin composed his expression. "I don't know yet," he said. Then, acting on a hunch, he added, "I'll need to take a look."
Easing Glisena's hands aside, he unfastened the lacings of her dress nearest her stomach. Even without opening her dress, he could feel the heat radiating from her belly. He lifted the fabric to glance at her stomach and saw something that disturbed him: a series of crisscrossing lines. They looked like the faint whitish scratches fingernails would leave on skin. Remembering his glimpse of Naneth casting her spell on Glisena, Arvin was certain that the midwife had drawn them. That certainty solidified when he recognized the symbol the lines formed. It was the same one he'd spotted on the egg that one of Naneth's pet serpents had been sitting on.
Arvin had no idea what the symbol signified. But he was certain it wasn't good.
He refastened the lacings of Glisena's dress and took her hand. "Something is wrong," he told her. "But I'm here to help."
Theyron tapped a hoof impatiently. "Well? Can you heal her?"
Still squatting beside Glisena, holding her hand, Arvin brought his gloved hand up to scratch his head-a gesture a man would make when thinking. "The fever has held her in its grip for many days," he said. "It won't be easy to break its hold." As he spoke, the power he was manifesting filled the air with a low droning noise: its secondary display. Theyron didn't notice it, however; he had already turned to stare at the distraction Arvin had just manifested. His eyebrows pulled into an even tighter V as he frowned, trying to figure out what had just caught his attention.
With a whisper, Arvin summoned the dagger from within his glove. It appeared in his hand as he had been holding it when he'd vanished it: point between his fingers, ready to throw. His hand whipped forward. At the last instant, Theyron turned his head back and tried to blow into his pipes, but before he could exhale, the dagger buried itself in his throat.
Arvin leaped to his feet, manifesting a second power. A glowing line of silver energy shot out of his forehead, wrapped itself around the pan pipes, and yanked. The pipes flew out of Theyron's hands. Arvin caught them in his gloved hand and vanished them into his glove. He spoke the word that sent the magical dagger back to his other hand then rushed forward, plunging the weapon to the hilt in the satyr's chest. Slowly, with a faint gurgling noise, Theyron slumped to the floor, pulling free of the dagger.
Arvin felt a twinge of remorse at having taken Theyron's life but shook it off; if the playing board had been turned, the satyr would have killed him without a moment's pity. He peeked outside the flap that covered the doorway. The other satyrs stood a few paces away. Some were staring at the hut, but they didn't seem to have heard anything. Two were rummaging through his pack. When one pulled out a piece of the broken dorje, the other made a grab for it. An argument broke out. The first satyr wrenched it out of the second one's hand and bellowed a challenge. The other satyr glared back and said something. The first nodded, and placed the broken dorje back in Arvin's pack. Then, slowly, each backed away from the other. Suddenly they charged forward, horns lowered. Their foreheads slammed together with a loud crack. Each staggered back then lowered his head a second time, like duelists bowing at each other, ready to repeat the charge. As the combatants pawed the earth with their cloven feet, the other satyrs cheered in anticipation.