by Lisa Smedman
Suddenly, Arvin could see again. Darris strode toward him, the leather sack gone. He had one hand behind his back, inside his collar, as if scratching his neck. It was an old guild trick, a way of dropping something you’d palmed into your shirt. Probably the wand he’d just used to restore Arvin’s eyesight.
Pretending to still be blind, Arvin held his hands out in front of him. Play along, he signed. Aloud, he added, “Darris? Is that you?”
Meanwhile, he studied Thessania. The surprise of his eyesight returning had broken the link with her mind, but he’d learned what he needed already. He committed her appearance to memory as he stared “blindly” past her. She was one of those yuan-ti who could pass for human. Her pupils were round and there was no sign of a tail under her robe. Ash-gray gloves covered her hands, which were human-shaped, and the only skin showing—her face, framed by a tight-fitting black cowl—was devoid of scales. Arvin noticed, however, that she kept her teeth clenched when she spoke, giving her words a tense, clipped sound. She probably had a forked tongue.
She was dressed as a cleric of Talos, in a long-sleeved black robe that reached to her ankles. Lightning bolts were embroidered on it in gold thread, and the sleeves ended in jagged hems, braided with more thread of gold. The front of the cowl bore the god’s symbol: three lightning bolts in brown, red and blue, radiating out from a central point, representing the destructive powers of earthquake, fire, and flood. A black patch covered her left eye—another symbol of the one-eyed god she pretended to worship. Her face, Arvin noted, was unscratched, unlike those of the real worshipers.
She held the three jugs of wine she’d purchased in the crook of one arm, a traveling pack in the other. The worshipers clamored for the wine, insisting their throats were dry from the long march up into the hills. She rebuked them sharply, telling them to quench their thirst with water instead. The wine, she said, would be served with dinner.
“Start preparing our meal,” she ordered.
The worshipers crossed their arms over their chests and bowed, then scurried away.
Darris, meanwhile, strode up to Arvin. “How much did you charge her for the wine?” he demanded.
“Five vipers a jug.” Arvin held out the gold coins while staring slightly to one side of Darius.
“Five?” Darris asked, his voice rising. Pretending to scold Arvin, he waggled a forefinger at him, then brushed the front of his nose. Pretend. “I told you to charge six!” He slapped the forefinger into an open palm. Fight. Glowering, he shouted, “What did you do? Pocket the balance? Up to your old tricks again, are you?”
He grabbed Arvin by the shoulder and shook him. The gold spilled from Arvin’s hand onto the ground. Arvin knew what Darris had in mind; the mock argument was an old guild trick. Arvin was supposed to shove Darris toward Thessania, who watched the two humans with a bemused look on her face. The rogue would stagger into her, grasp at her robe in an effort to keep from falling—and in the process, slip a quick hand into a pocket. A neat trick—if you were dealing with a human and not with someone who could kill with a single bite.
“You never said six,” Arvin said in an even tone. “You told me five, and that’s what I charged.” No, he signed.
A bored look in her eyes, the yuan-ti turned away to follow the worshipers.
Darris raised his palm and jerked it forward—Push!—then slapped Arvin. Hard.
Arvin took the blow like a blind man, without ducking; the worshipers still watched the fight. He lifted his hand to his mouth, as if to wipe away the blood from his split lip. Two fingers curled like fangs, he turned the wipe into a flowing motion while nodding in the direction of the fake cleric. She’s yuan-ti.
That stopped Darris cold. “Ah,” he said. Then, loudly, “I remember now. You’re right; this is the five-viper wine. Sorry for the misunderstanding, Vin.” He clapped an arm around Arvin’s shoulder, using the gesture to whisper in Arvin’s ear. “A yuan-ti Stormmistress? Are you sure?”
Arvin nodded.
“What’s in her bag?” Darris breathed.
“Poison,” Arvin whispered back. “She plans to mix it into the wine.”
“I see,” Darris said. He gave the worshipers a long, appraising look. “They look skinny as slaves,” he said, using an old guild expression for someone with nothing worth stealing. Then he shrugged. “No sense hanging around, if you ask me. If the doomsayer really is yuan-ti, she’ll demand first pickings.”
Arvin, disgusted, realized that Darris thought he was suggesting they stay behind to loot the bodies once the poison had done its work.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “We’ve got to stop her from poisoning them.”
Darris removed his arm from Arvin’s shoulder and stepped back. “What she does is none of my business,” he said. He watched the yuan-ti as she walked with swaying steps to the spot where the worshipers piled branches for a cooking fire. “What makes it yours?”
“Those people will die,” Arvin answered.
“So?” Darris asked. “Sooner or later, one of the floods or fires they keep praying for will kill them, anyway.” He tapped his temple. Crazy.
Arvin scooped up his pack and glanced at the worshipers out of the corner of his eye. One was a boy not yet in his teens who was being ordered about by an older, gray-haired man—probably his grandfather, given the resemblance between the two. Like the rest of them, the boy had ripped his shirt and gouged scratches in his face. He kept touching his cheeks however and wincing, giving his grandfather rueful looks.
“That one’s just a boy,” Arvin whispered. “He deserves a chance to grow up, to make his own decisions about which god to worship.”
Darris listened, eyebrows raised. Then he nodded, as if enlightenment had suddenly come to him. He lowered his voice once more.
“You won’t find my stash.”
Arvin sighed. “I don’t plan on looking for it.”
The rogue chuckled. “Strangely enough, I believe you.” He picked up the five coins and shoved them in a pocket, then clambered up into the cart. “People will be leaving the city—and they’ll be thirsty. I’ll have the rest of this wine sold in no time. Give me a hand, and I’ll split the profits.” He lifted the reins. “Last chance. Coming?”
Arvin shook his head. Thessania had disappeared inside one of the huts; she was probably lacing the wine with poison even as they spoke. Arvin was tempted to tell Darris what he thought of him but knew his words wouldn’t change anything. The half-elf was a typical rogue; all he cared about was himself.
Darris released the wagon’s brake, then paused. “If the doomsayer really is yuan-ti, you’d better watch yourself.”
“I’ve dealt with them before.”
Darris grinned. “I’ll bet you have, and … thanks for the warning.” He touched a thumb to his temple, then closed his other fist around it. I’ll remember you.
He flicked the reins. The cart rumbled off down the hill, back in the direction of Hlondeth.
Arvin could feel, once more, the faint tickle in his forehead that warned him that magic was being used to search for him. The iron serpent must have been drawing nearer. He’d wasted too much time already.
But before he left, there was something he needed to do.
He sent his awareness deep into his muladhara. You don’t see me, he mentally told the Talos worshipers. I’m invisible.
They continued going about their evening tasks, pulling food from their packs, tending the cooking fire and gathering water from the aqueduct in worn-looking iron pots. One or two turned to watch the cart as it left. As they did Arvin slipped an image into each of their minds of himself, seated next to Darris. Meanwhile, he picked his way carefully over the uneven ground toward the hut the yuan-ti had disappeared into.
She had hung a cloth over the entrance of the hut, preventing him from simply looking inside. The hut itself proved to be of better construction than the rest. Arvin couldn’t find any gaps between the stones to peer through. That didn’t matter, how
ever. Retreating to a spot where the trees screened him from sight—he didn’t need to be close to manifest the power he had in mind—he allowed himself to become visible again and imagined the interior of the hut. Psionic energy spiraled into the power points in his throat and forehead and a low droning filled the air around him as silver sparkled out of his “third eye.” He sent his awareness drifting with it in the direction of the hut.
Slowly, its interior came into focus.
Thessania was pouring one of the jugs of wine into a wooden bowl. The other two jugs lay empty on the ground beside her. She must have been certain none of the worshipers would disturb her; she’d pushed her cowl back, revealing a hairless scalp covered in vivid orange and yellow scales. She had no ears, just holes in the side of her head. She had also removed her gloves; the scales covered her hands and fingers as well.
She set the empty jug down and rummaged inside her travel bag, then pulled out a glass vial containing an ink-black liquid. Unstoppering it, she poured a drop onto her finger, then stroked it along her wrist like a woman applying perfume. After repeating the application on her other wrist, she poured a few drops of the liquid into the wine. That done, she raised first one wrist to her mouth then the other.
At first, Arvin thought she was sniffing her perfume. Then he saw a drop of blood fall into the wine and realized she’d bitten herself. Thessania squeezed each wrist, milking herself of blood. As it dribbled into the bowl, the wine turned a vivid green. Thessania bent low, sniffing it, and licked her wrists clean. Then she spat into whatever the wine had become.
She pushed the stopper back into the vial—very little of the black liquid had been used—then pulled on her gloves. As she adjusted her cowl, Arvin skimmed quickly through the thoughts of the worshipers, searching for those who already had doubts about the stormmistress. From these he gleaned their names and a handful of recent experiences he hoped might be useful. By the time Thessania emerged from the hut, holding the bowl of wine, Arvin was ready. He stepped out of the forest and thew a mental shield between himself and the yuan-ti—who immediately turned in his direction as soon as she heard the droning of his secondary display.
“Worshipers of Talos,” Arvin shouted. “You have been deceived.”
Thessania bared her teeth in what would have been a hiss, had she not checked herself in time. She sent a wave of magical fear rushing toward Arvin, but his psionic shield deflected it.
“Thessania is no stormmistress,” Arvin continued.
Thessania’s charm spell hit him next. “Poor man,” she said. “The sun has addled your wits. You don’t know me; we’ve never met before. You have mistaken my voice for that of someone else. Come and drink wine with us.”
Arvin’s mental shield held. He needed to speak quickly. Once Tessalia realized her charm had failed, she would start tossing clerical spells at him.
“I may be blind,” Arvin said, “blind as Talos’s left eye, but by the god’s magic I can still see.” Silver sparkles—bright as the stars reputed to whirl in the empty space behind the Storm Lord’s eyepatch—erupted from Arvin’s forehead as he sent a thread of his awareness inside the hut. He pointed at one of the men, a tall fellow with bright red hair. “You wonder, Menzin, what Thessania was doing in the hut.”
Arvin wrapped the invisible thread around the vial and lifted it into the air. With a yank, he pulled it out of the hut.
“She was adding poison to your wine.”
Thessania whirled and spotted the vial. Bright green wine slopped over the edge of the bowl, staining her glove. Arvin sent the vial crashing against the wall of the hut, shattering it. Poison dribbled down the stonework like black blood.
The worshipers stared at it. Menzin muttered something to the man next to him.
“Ridiculous!” Thessania said. “Smell it—that’s my perfume.”
They did, and turned, glowering, toward Arvin.
Thessania pointed a slender finger at him. “This man has been sent by the Prince of Lies to stir up mistrust and strife among us. Don’t listen to him.”
“Cyric didn’t send me,” Arvin said, naming the god he’d frequently been warned about by the priests at the orphanage. He wove the name of Ilmater’s chief ally into the lie: “Tyr did. The god of justice has allied himself with Talos to expose Thessania’s trickery.”
“The Raging God stands alone,” said Thessania. “He allies with no one.”
“Save for Auril, Malar, and Umberlee,” Arvin said, hurling back the deity names he’d plucked from one of the worshiper’s thoughts. “Though Malar would turn on the other Gods of Fury if he could—would send one of his beast minions sneaking like a serpent into Talos’s tower to slay the Storm Lord, if he dared.”
“Deceit!” Thessania cried. “More lies!”
She spat, and the glob of poisonous spittle hurtled through the air toward Arvin.
He imposed a psionic hand in front of it just before it struck, and smiled as it splattered on the leaves behind him. Thessania had moved precisely the playing piece he’d hoped she would.
He addressed one of the female worshipers—a thin woman who stared at him with narrowed eyes. “You’ve been wondering, Yivril, why your stormmistress didn’t smite the blasphemer in Ormath with a lightning bolt.”
The worshiper’s eyes widened.
“Odd, isn’t it, that she’s not hurling one at me now,” Arvin continued. “Instead she’s spitting at me … like a snake.”
With that, he used his manifestation to yank back Thessania’s cowl.
Some of the worshipers gasped; others gaped in open-mouthed silence.
“It’s an illusion,” Thessania cried, yanking at her cowl. “Pay it no heed!”
Several of the worshipers began babbling at once.
“So that’s why she refused to—”
“I thought it was strange that—”
“We’ve been tricked!” Menzin shouted, lunging at Thessania and knocking the bowl from her hands. “She’s a yuan-ti!”
Spitting with fury, Thessania bit him.
Menzin collapsed, gasping, his lips already blue. The other worshipers, however, were not easily cowed. A handful were driven back by Thessania’s magical fear, but the rest mobbed her. Arvin caught a glimpse of Thessania shifting to snake form in an attempt to get away, but then Yivril rushed forward, a chunk of broken stone in her hand. She smashed it down on Thessania’s clothes. Even from where he stood, Arvin could hear the crunch of bones breaking.
Satisfied, he slipped away into the woods. As he did, he touched the crystal at his throat. “Nine lives,” he breathed, thankful that none of the gods he’d falsely invoked had seen fit to take notice of the fact.
He circled through the woods, putting some distance between himself and the quarry before returning to the road. The tickling in his forehead grew stronger; the iron cobra was getting closer. Though Arvin was still tired—it hadn’t been a very restful sleep, being jostled about in the cart—he needed to get moving again. Talos’s temple was still a day’s journey distant, and he doubted the cobra needed to rest or sleep.
Fortunately, his meditations had replenished his muladhara. If the iron cobra did catch up to him, he’d have mind magic to fight back with. He doubted the thing had a mind to affect, and it was probably immune to ordinary weapons, but there were one or two manifestations he might use to at least slow it down a little.
A branch rustled in the forest. Arvin whirled, then saw it was just a small bird that had flown from a tree. The tickling in his forehead was starting to get to him. He needed to get moving, to cover a lot more ground than his human legs were capable of. He decided to use his psionics to morph his body into something speedier, perhaps into a giant like the one he’d met the previous winter, or …
Watching the bird climb into the evening sky, he had an inspiration. He would morph into something with wings. A flying snake, perhaps—he’d seen enough of them in Hlondeth. He made sure his backpack was snug against his shoulders, then began d
rawing energy up from his navel and into his chest. He held his arms out, imagining they were wings.
Something sharp touched Arvin’s throat—a curved sword blade—as a hand grabbed his hair from behind. A high-pitched male voice panted into his ear. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?” Arvin gasped, his heart pounding. “Listen, friend,” he said, attempting a charm. “I don’t know what—”
“None of that!”
The blade pressed against his throat, opening a hair-thin cut. Arvin didn’t dare swallow. The charm obviously hadn’t worked, so it was time for something less subtle. Raising his open hands in mock surrender, he imaged a third hand grasping his dagger. As the energy built he felt it begin to slide out of its sheath.
“Please, don’t kill me,” he pleaded, feigning fear.
At the same time he jostled the person behind him to cover the movement of the dagger. He guided it behind his attacker and turned it so the point was toward the man’s back. Then he nudged it forward, manifesting a voice behind the man the instant he felt the dagger point poke flesh.
“Release him,” it said, “or die.”
The scimitar was gone from Arvin’s throat as his attacker whirled to meet the illusionary threat. Arvin flung himself forward, wincing at the pain in his scalp as his hair was yanked out of the man’s fist. As he tumbled away, he caught a brief glimpse of his attacker: a small, skinny humanoid with a doglike head, wearing a starched white kilt. The dog-man swung his scimitar through the space where an invisible dagger wielder would be. Still directing his dagger with his mind, Arvin slashed at the stranger’s sword arm, opening a deep wound. The dog-man emitted a high-pitched yip and slashed once more through empty air, then backstepped to a spot where he could see both Arvin and the dagger.
It also gave Arvin a better look at him. The fellow stood only as tall as Arvin’s shoulder and had a humanlike body but with thick golden fur on his neck, shoulders, and arms. Atop his lean body was a doglike head with a slender muzzle and large, upright ears. Those ears looked familiar—the fellow had the same face as the dog that had startled him near Saint Aganna’s shrine. The dog-man must have been a lycanthrope of some sort, of a species that Arvin had never seen or even heard of before.