Lisa Smedman - Vanity's brood

Despite the couatl's frail condition, there was a twinkle in her eye. I thought I spoke plainly, but I see that you haven't understood, she said. Once again: there is yuan-ti blood in your veins.

She stared at his injured hand. "This?" Arvin asked, raising it. "Are you trying to say that the viper that bit me-Juz'la's pet-was a yuan-ti?"

The couatl sighed aloud. Don't you wonder why its venom didn't kill you?

"I got lucky," Arvin said, touching the crystal at his throat. "Tymora be thanked."

The viper was one of the most deadly in the Black Jungle. You have a slrong resistance to snake venom.

"So?" Arvin was starting to get irritated by Ts'ikil's persistence.

Such a strong natural resistance is typically found only in those humans who are part yuan-ti.

"My mother was human!" Arvin said, his temper making his words louder than he'd intended.

And your father?

Arvin balled his fists. His father had been a bard named Salim. Arvin's mother had described him as a gifted singer whose voice could still a tavern full of boisterous drunks to rapt silence. That was where Arvin's mother had met Salim: in a tavern in Hlondeth, one she'd stopped at in the course of her wanderings. He wasn't a psion like her, or even an adventurer, but she fell deeply in love with him. They remained together only for a handful of ten- days, but in that time they conceived a child. Then, one night, a vision had come to Arvin's mother in a dream: Salim, drowning, dragging Arvin's mother down with him.

Salim had been planning a voyage to Reth to sing at the gladiatorial games. It was an important commission-one not to be refused if he wanted other business to follow. He had already asked Arvin's mother to accompany him. He refused to believe that her dream was a premonition, but he had not known her long enough to know the extent of her powers. She had already made her dislike of gladiatorial games

known, so Salim thought she was simply refusing to accompany him. He boarded a ship bound for Reth and drowned along with everyone else on board, just as she had foretold, when it sank in the stormy waters of the Vilhon Reach. Had Arvin's mother gone with him, she too would have drowned, and Arvin-still in her womb-would never have been born.

That was the extent of what Arvin's mother had told him about his father. She had described Salim as tall and agile, with dark brown hair and eyes, just like Arvin's. She'd never mentioned scales, slit pupils, or any other hint that there might have been yuan-ti in his blood.

Arvin didn't believe that his mother would have lied to him, but what if she herself hadn't known Salim wasn't fully human? What if Arvin really did have a trace of yuan-ti in his ancestry?

Impossible, he told himself. He had been inspected by Gonthril, leader of the rebels of Hlondeth, and pronounced wholly human. Humans with yuan-ti ancestry always had a hint of serpent about them, like the scales that freckled Karrell's breasts. If Arvin's father had been part yuan-ti, surely his mother would have noticed something.

Then again, perhaps she had. Maybe it hadn't mattered to her enough to mention it.

Why does the idea of having a yuan-ti heritage frighten you?

"It doesn't," Arvin snapped, "and get out of my head."

He felt the couatl's awareness slide away.

The intense heat of the jungle had made Arvin sticky with sweat. He stalked over to the lip of the ledge, kneeled, and pulled off what remained of his shirt. He splashed river water on his face and chest. It cooled him but didn't help him to feel any cleaner. He dunked the top of his head into the water, letting

it soak his hair, then flipped his hair back. It still didn't help.

He didn't wanl to be part yuan-ti-he'd only recently gotten used to the idea that his children would be part serpent. He'd learned, by falling in love with Karrell, that not all yuan-ti were cruel and cold, but growing up in Hlondeth had taught him to be wary of the race. Yuan-ti were the masters, and humans were slaves and servants. Inferiors. Yet humans, despite being downtrodden, had a fierce pride. They knew they were better than yuan-ti. Less arrogant, less vicious, on the whole. Yuan-ti rarely laughed or cried and certainly never caroused or howled with grief. They were incapable of the depths of joy and sorrow that humans felt. They were emotionally detached.

Just as Arvin himself was.

The realization hit him like an ice-cold blast of wind. He sat, utterly motionless, water dripping onto his shoulders from his wet hair. Aside from the feelings Karrell stirred in him, when was the last time he'd been utterly passionate about something? He could count the number of true friends he'd had in his life on one hand. If he was brutally honest, they narrowed down to just one: Naulg, who had defended him at the orphanage when they were both just boys. After Arvin had escaped from the Pox, he'd set about trying to rescue Naulg and had eventually succeeded-but just a little too late to save his friend's life. If Arvin had been a little more zealous in his efforts, a little more passionate about his friend's welfare, might Naulg have survived? Was a lack of strong emotion the reason why Arvin had been so reluctant to take up the worship of Hoar, god of vengeance, as the cleric Nicco had urged?

Was Arvin, indeed, as cold-blooded and dispassionate as any full-blooded yuan-ti?

No, he told himself sternly. He wasn't. There was Karrell. He loved her. The need to rescue her burned in him, not just to rescue her, but to save the children he'd fathered. They mattered to him.

The fact remained that he was part yuan-ti. He couldn't deny it any longer, even to himself. It explained so much: why it felt so natural to morph into a flying snake, why his psionics were so powerful. Yuan-ti had a number of inborn magical abilities that mimicked psionic powers. Their ability to charm humans, for example. That was one of the first powers Arvin had learned. It had just come naturally to him.

Because he had yuan-ti blood.

He squared his shoulders. So what, he told himself. It doesn't change anything. I'm still the person I've always been. I just understand myself a little better now.

He turned, saw Ts'ikil watching him. "Were you listening to my thoughts?"

No.

"Thank you." He stood. "Tell me about the Circled Serpent. If I'm going after the Dmetrio-seed, I'll need to know as much about it as he does."

It is ancient-it was made at the height of the Mhairshaulk Empire. It was one of several keys, the rest of which have been lost in the intervening millennia. The sarrukh, creators of the yuan-ti and other reptilian races, erected a series of gates to other planes of existence. The keys could be used to open any of them.

"How?"

Ts'ikil ignored the question. You think you can survive in Smaragd.

"Karrell has for six months, pregnant and alone." Not alone. Karrell is one of the k'aaxlaat. Ubtao watches over her.

"Even in Smaragd?"

Even there. Ts'ikil's eyes bored into Arvin's. You, on the other hand, have yet to choose a god.

Arvin touched the crystal at his throat. "I worship Tymora."

When it suits you.

"That's as much as most mortals can say."

That is true, but the fact remains: you are not a cleric. You will have no protection in Smaragd.

It took Arvin a moment to realize what Ts'ikil had just said. Hope surged through him. "You… you're going to let me do it, aren't you? Enter Smaragd." He tilted his head. "What changed your mind?"

I have not changed my mind. The Circled Serpent must be destroyed. A key that can release Dendar-that can bring about the destruction of this world-can not be permitted to remain in existence. She lifted her unbroken wing. Feathers hung from it in tatters. I am injured; my part in this has diminished.