Lisa Smedman - Viper's Kiss

Marasa listened carefully to Arvin’s report then shook her head. “The fact that Haskar’s rogues want to offer Glisena to Chondath means nothing,” she said. “Lord Wianar might have kidnapped her without the rogues’ knowing it.”

“The fact remains,” the baron interrupted, “that there have been no demands. Chondath is silent.” He turned to Arvin. “You’ve done a good morning’s work, but now comes the true test. Can you find my daughter?”

Arvin took a deep breath. “Of course, Lord Foesmasher,” he said in a confident voice. “But I need to know just a little more about what happened on the night of her disappearance. Did you entertain any guests that evening?”

The baron’s eyes bored into Arvin’s. “If you mean to ask if Ambassador Extaminos was here, the answer is no. Nor were any other guests present. It was a… quiet evening. Just Glisena and myself.”

“And the harpist,” Marasa noted. “She may have been a—”

“The harpist is a regular guest of this household and well trusted,” the baron growled, “as are the servants who attended us that evening.”

Arvin knew little of royal households, but he’d spent two months in the home of the wealthy uncle who had cared for Arvin briefly after his mother had died. There had been a constant flutter of servants around his uncle—servants to help him dress and undress, to carry his parcels, to turn down his bed and place a draught of fortified wine on his bed table each night. In summer a servant stood over his bed while he slept, waving a fan to keep him cool. Arvin’s uncle had little privacy—a princess of a royal household would have even less.

“Have you questioned Glisena’s servants?” Arvin asked. “The ones who attended her bedchamber that night?”

“No servants attended her on the evening she disappeared,” Foesmasher said. “Glisena’s head pained her. She said she could not bear even the slightest noise and dismissed them from her chamber.”

“Her head pained her?” Arvin echoed. A wild notion occurred to him—that Zelia might have planted a mind seed in the baron’s daughter. Arvin had stripped that power from Zelia six months ago, but she may have regained it since. That would explain what she was doing in Sespech—she may have been stopping at Riverboat Landing on her way back from Ormpetarr, rather than on her way to the city. It would also explain Glisena’s sudden disappearance.

Then again, he reminded himself, it might be a simple elopement he was dealing with, after all. No need to jump to conclusions… yet. “Was this the first time your daughter complained of a headache?” he asked.

Foesmasher shook his head. “Glisena had been feeling unwell for several days.”

“How many days?” Arvin asked sharply. A mind seed took time to blossom. If her headache had begun seven days before her disappearance…

“Several days,” Foesmasher repeated. He gave an exasperated sigh. “What does it matter? Her illness had nothing to do with her disappearance.”

“Glisena had been unwell for nearly a month,” Marasa told Arvin. She turned to the baron, “You should have summoned me.”

“Her illness was minor,” Foesmasher said. There was a testy edge to his voice. It sounded, to Arvin, that the baron and his advisor had gone through this argument at least once before. “It was a slight upset of the stomach. Nothing that required magical healing.”

“A stomach upset?” Arvin asked, confused. “I thought you said she had a headache.”

Neither the baron nor Marasa was listening to him. Marasa bristled at Foesmasher. “A simple laying on of hands would have saved Glisena much discomfort.”

“The headache was an excuse to dismiss the servants!” the baron growled. “Glisena ran away.”

Marasa glared right back at him. “How can you be so sure? Wianar’s agents may have infiltrated the palace and kidnapped her. Whether the headache was feigned or not, if you’d summoned me that night—”

“That’s enough, High Watcher Ferrentio!” Foesmasher shouted. He looked away, refusing to meet the cleric’s eye. He glared at the far wall, visibly composing himself.

Marasa gently touched his hand. “You and Glisena were arguing again, weren’t you?”

Foesmasher sighed. “Yes.”

Arvin’s eyebrows rose. A “quiet evening,” the baron had said. Given the baron’s propensity for shouting, it had probably been anything but. No wonder Glisena had fled to her chamber. “So the headache had only come on that evening?” he asked.

The baron turned to Arvin, a suspicious look in his eye. “Why are you so interested in my daughter’s health?”

Arvin paused, considering whether to tell the baron about Zelia. Foesmasher was a powerful man, with an army at his disposal. That army included clerics of Helm—clerics who had proven themselves capable of dealing with the yuan-ti. They could arrest Zelia and throw her in prison. On the other hand, Zelia’s presence in Sespech might be mere coincidence; she might not be searching for Arvin, after all. If she was hauled before the baron for questioning and was able to probe his thoughts, she’d be alerted to the fact that Arvin was alive, and in Sespech. If she later escaped….

Arvin decided it was worth the risk. Perhaps Zelia would resist capture, and the clerics would kill her. The thought made Arvin smile.

“There is a power that psions can manifest,” he told the baron, “one that plants a seed in the victim’s mind that germinates slowly, over several days. During that time, the victim suffers head pains and experiences brief flashes of memory—the memories of the psion who planted the seed. On the seventh day….” He paused, revisiting the dread he’d felt at slowly losing control of his mind. For six days and nights, Zelia’s mind seed had warped his thoughts and slithered into his dreams, turning them into nightmares. Under its influence, Arvin had lashed out at people who tried to help him, had even killed an innocent man. Only on the seventh day, when he’d been within heartbeats of having his own consciousness utterly extinguished, had the mind seed at last been purged.

“On the seventh day?” the baron prompted.

Arvin chose his words carefully; he was about to impart what might be very bad news, indeed. “On that day,” he said slowly, “the victim’s own mind is destroyed, and replaced it with a copy of the psion’s mind, instead.”

Marasa’s face paled. “Helm grant it is not so,” she whispered.

The baron leaned forward, his eyes intent on Arvin. “You know someone who can cast this spell,” he said. “Someone here, in Sespech.”

Arvin met his eye. “Yes.”

“Name him.”

“It’s her, not him,” Arvin answered. “Her name is Zelia. I spotted her three days ago, at Riverboat Landing. She’s a yuan-ti.”

Arvin expected the baron to immediately demand a description, but Foesmasher seemed disinterested. Beside him, Marasa looked visibly relieved.

“Aren’t you going to arrest Zelia?” Arvin asked. “If she planted a mind seed in your daughter—”

“She couldn’t have,” the baron said. “Glisena has had no contact with yuan-ti for… some time.”

“How can you be so sure?” Arvin asked. “Yuan-ti can assume serpent form. Zelia could have slithered into the palace undetected and—”

Marasa interrupted him. “Tell him, Thuragar,” she said, giving the baron a hard look.

Baron Foesmasher sighed. “You will, no doubt, have heard that I disapproved of Ambassador Extaminos’s courtship of my daughter?” he said.

Arvin nodded.

“A little over a month ago, I forbade my daughter from seeing Ambassador Extaminos again. I took precautions against him… contacting her. It is no longer possible for a yuan-ti to enter certain sections of the palace. The hallways, doors, and windows—every possible entrance to those parts of the palace that Glisena would have any cause to enter—have been warded to prevent serpents from entering. All serpents. Even yuan-ti in human form.”