Lisa Smedman: Viper's Kiss

Footsteps sounded in the hallway—more than one person, and running this time—and a woman’s voice was shouting orders: Marasa?

Arvin looked wildly around the chapel. He was weaponless, and the monkey’s fist—the last of his ensorcelled items—was lying on the floor in tatters. If he let go of the gauntlet, he’d be cut down before he took a single step. But Marasa was at last on her way. He and Karrell only needed to survive for a few moments more.

“Helm,” he croaked. “Help us now. Do something.”

The skies outside lightened. Dusk-red sunlight slanted in through the chapel’s stained-glass windows, turning the blue eyes at their centers an eerie purple. The light beamed in, limning the image of Helm’s eye on the chapel floor.

With a hiss, the demon thrust its sword at the nearest window, smashing a hole through the eye. Glass exploded outward. The skies outside darkened again as the sun continued its descent.

As a loose pane of glass fell from the broken window to shatter on the floor, Arvin realized there was a weapon he could use, after all. He reached out with his mind, sending a thread-thin line of glowing silver toward the broken window. With it, he seized one of the panes of glass and threw it at the demon’s face. The demon batted it away with a sword, smashing it into bright blue shards, but Arvin hurled another pane of glass at it, and another, keeping up the distraction.

Four of the baron’s soldiers—three men and a woman—charged into the chapel, swords in hand. The woman shouted a command, and Arvin’s heart sank as he realized it hadn’t been Marasa’s voice he’d heard, after all. The soldiers leaped forward, engaging the demon.

The demon, however, needed only four swords to meet their attack. One of the men went down even before he’d managed to close with it, his throat slashed. With its fifth sword, the demon continued to knock away the panes of glass Arvin hurled at it. That left one more sword. This one it thrust at Karrell; it thunked into the wooden floor beside her head as she desperately twisted aside.

Karrell’s face was purple now and her movements were jerky. The demon—still fighting the soldiers with three of its arms—yanked the sword free and flexed its tail, dragging Karrell across the floor.

The female soldier pressed the demon, shouting Helm’s name. The demon thrust a sword through her stomach, spitting her, then flicked her limp body away. One of the two remaining soldiers turned to run; with a flash of steel, the demon lopped off his head. The other grimly continued to attack but met the same end.

Its opponents dead, the demon glanced down at Karrell, tongue flickering through its hissing smile.

Karrell’s fear-filled eyes sought Arvin’s. He could see that she realized she was about to die. Her lips tried to form a word, but there was no breath left in her body.

Arvin ended his manifestation; the pane of glass he’d been about to throw fell to the floor and shattered. Reaching deep inside himself, he manifested a different power—one whose secondary display filled the air with the scents of saffron and ginger. Then, for a heartbeat, he hesitated. He didn’t want to make the same mistake he’d made with Tanglemane. If the demon died….

It was a gamble he had to take. Spells and steel hadn’t defeated the demon; he doubted anything would. And if he didn’t manifest his power, Karrell would die.

Guiding the energies with his mind, he coiled one loop around the demon, another around Karrell. Then he tied them together and yanked the knot tight.

“Demon!” he shouted. “I’ve just bound your fate to the yuan-ti woman. Kill her, and you’ll die!”

It was a desperate lie. Karrell’s death would mean little to the demon. She might cause it a slight wound, but no more.

Ignoring Arvin, the demon slashed at Karrell with its sword. This time, Karrell’s reaction was slower; the sword sliced a line down her cheek as she wrenched her head aside. The demon grunted—then hissed and touched its own cheek with the back of a hand. The hand came away slick with green blood.

The demon turned to face Arvin and tried to speak, but no words came from its mouth. It seemed to be having trouble breathing. It frowned down at Karrell, who lay gasping on the floor, then uncoiled its tail from her. Then it stared, its eyes slit with malevolence, at Arvin. “Unbind me, sorcerer,” it commanded.

Relief washed through Arvin. He glanced at Karrell.

Her lips formed silent words: “Thank you.”

Arvin gave her a grim smile. Just a few moments more, and Marasa would surely appear and banish the demon. He stared back at it through the whirling blades that still surrounded the dais. “No,” he told the demon. “You will remain bound.”

The demon flicked a hand, and the blades disappeared. It cocked its head to the side and considered Arvin. “Mortal,” it hissed. “Surely you can be persuaded.” Its hand opened, revealing a glitter of gems. The demon tipped its hand, letting them spill from its palm onto the floor. “The yuan-ti means nothing to me; she may go. Unbind me from her, and these are yours.”

Arvin smiled grimly. “A rogue tried to entice me with a similar offer a few days ago,” he said. “He’s dead now.”

The demon clenched its fist—causing the swords to reappear—and pointed one of them at Arvin. “Unbind me!” it roared.

Arvin gripped the gauntlet with sweaty hands. “No.”

“We seem to have reached an impasse,” the demon hissed.

Outside the chapel, just beyond the spot where one of the soldier’s bodies lay, Arvin saw a flash of silver: light, glinting off a polished breastplate. Marasa stepped into view in the doorway, her lips moving as she whispered a spell, her left hand—clad in a silver gauntlet whose palm was set with an enormous, glittering sapphire—extended toward the demon.

“Yes,” Arvin answered. “It seems we have.” He shrugged, a gesture that removed his hands for no more than a fraction of a heartbeat from the gauntlet. It had the desired effect; the demon lashed out with a sword, but before the blade connected, Arvin’s hands were back on the gauntlet.

The demon glared at him, oblivious to Karrell, who had risen to her hands and knees and was crawling away, her wounded hand leaving a smear of blood on the floor, and to Marasa, who was casting her spell. Marasa swept her hand down toward the demon, the sapphire in her gauntlet glinting. “By Helm’s all-seeing might, I order you, demon, back to the place from whence you came!” she shouted.

The demon rose from the floor, roaring, slashing wildly with its swords. A rent appeared in the air next to it; an angry boil that burst open, emitting a sulfurous stench. Dark shapes writhed inside the tear in the fabric of the planes, howling and thrashing. The demon tumbled toward them.

Karrell fell onto her side—had she slipped on her own blood? As she rose again, blood from her wounded hand streamed toward the hole in a thin red ribbon—a ribbon the demon grabbed in one clawed hand.

Arvin reeled, realizing he’d seen this once before: in the vision at Naneth’s home.

Still roaring, the demon disappeared through the gap between the planes. Karrell was yanked after it, screaming.

The gap closed.

For a heartbeat, Arvin stood rooted to the spot, Karrell’s scream echoing in his mind. Then he hurled himself across the chapel toward the spot where she’d disappeared. “Karrell!” he cried desperately. Tears streaming down his face, he clutched at empty air. He sagged to the ground and beat his fists against the floor. A fate link wasn’t supposed to work that way; it transferred pain, wounds, even fatal injury from one individual to the next, but that was all.

What had gone wrong?