Venom's Taste

by Lisa Smedman

  “Sibyl,” the voice hissed again.

  Fully awake at last, Arvin opened his eyes the merest of slits. He was lying, bound hand and foot, in a different room than the one in which he’d fallen asleep. Its walls were round, not square, and were made of green stone. By the hot, humid feel of the air, the room was above ground, and it was day. The floor was covered in a plush green carpet, on which stood a low table. A yuan-ti half blood—the one from the crematorium—was seated at the table, his back to Arvin. He stared at a wrought-iron statuette of a serpent that held in its upturned mouth a large crystal sphere. Sitting next to it on the table was the lamp that illuminated the room.

  “Sibyl,” the yuan-ti hissed again. “It is your servant, Karshis.”

  Silently, Arvin took stock. His glove was still on his left hand, but the restraints that held him made it impossible to tell if his magical bracelet was still on his wrist. His wrists were bound together behind his back by something cold and hard; his ankles were similarly restrained. A length of what felt like a thin rod of metal connected these restraints. Glancing down, he saw that his ankles were bound by a coil of what looked like rope but felt like stone. He was hard-pressed to suppress a grin. He’d braided the cord himself from the thin, fine strands of humanlike hair that grow between a medusa’s snaky tresses. The Guild and Secession weren’t Arvin’s only customers, it would seem.

  Nine lives, he thought to himself, adding a silent prayer of thanks to Tymora.

  The yuan-ti’s attention was fully focused on the sphere, which was filled with what looked like a twisting filament of smoke. This slowly resolved into a solid form—a black serpent with the face of a woman, four humanlike arms and enormous wings folded against her back. As the winged serpent peered this way and that with eyes the color of dark-red flame, tasting the air with her tongue, Arvin made sure he remained utterly still, his eyes open only to slits. Then the winged serpent turned her head toward Karshis, as if she’d suddenly spotted him. Her voice, sounding far away and thin, rose from the sphere. “Speak,” she hissed.

  Karshis wet his lips. “A problem has arisen,” he said. “A human spy has discovered the hiding place of the clerics. Fortunately, we captured him.”

  “A human?” the black serpent asked scornfully. Her wings shifted, as if in irritation.

  “He says he was sent by a yuan-ti who calls herself Zelia. She may be a serphidian of House Extaminos.”

  Though the word was foreign, Arvin recognized it as one of the titles used by the priests of Sseth. He suddenly realized that the entire conversation between Karshis and Sibyl was being conducted in Draconic—a language he didn’t speak. Zelia spoke it, however. And the mind seed—a familiar throbbing behind Arvin’s temples—allowed Arvin to understand it.

  “Shall we abandon our plan?” Karshis asked.

  The winged serpent inside the sphere fell silent for several moments. “No,” she said at last. “We will move more swiftly. Tell the clerics to abandon the crematorium—”

  “It has already been done. They have scattered into the sewers.”

  “—And to prepare to receive the potion tomorrow night.”

  “That soon?” Karshis exclaimed. “But surely it will take more time than that to replace Osran. We haven’t—”

  “You dare question your god?” the winged serpent spat, her voice low and menacing.

  “Most assuredly not, oh Sibilant Death,” Karshis groveled. Both of his secondary heads hissed as he twined his arms together. “This humble member of your blessed ones simply expresses aloud the confusion and uncertainty that inhabits his own worthless skin. Forgive me.”

  “Foolish one,” she hissed back. “Sseth never forgives. But your soul will be spared a descent into the Abyss—for now. There’s still work ahead. See that it is done well. The barrel will be delivered to the rotting field at Middark. When it arrives, be sure the Pox save a little of the ‘plague’ for themselves. After tomorrow night, we’ll have no further use for them.”

  “What of the spy?” Karshis asked.

  “Kill it.”

  Arvin’s heart thudded in his chest.

  “But find the serphidian first,” Sibyl continued. “If she has disappeared into some hole, use the human as bait to lure her out again.”

  “Yes, Great Serpent,” Karshis answered, bending his flexible upper torso into a convoluted bow. “I will set our spies in motion. She will be found.”

  The image inside the sphere dissolved into a coil of dark mist then was gone.

  As Karshis rose from the table and lifted the sphere out of the statuette’s mouth, Arvin closed his eyes fully and made sure his breathing was even, slow, and deep. Soft footsteps approached. Karshis prodded him in the ribs with a foot then continued across the room. Arvin heard a key rattle in a lock, the groan of hinges as a door opened and closed, and a click as the door was locked again.

  He waited for several moments then opened his eyes. He spoke a command word and the stone coils that bound his wrists and ankles turned back into braided hair and fell to the carpet. Arvin sat up, quickly coiled it, and stuffed it into a pocket.

  Tymora willing, he would get out of here—wherever here was.

  Crossing to the door, Arvin inspected it carefully. He didn’t want to fall victim to another glyph like the one Nicco had used. This door, however, appeared unmarked. Reaching for his belt buckle, Arvin bent down and fitted its pick into the keyhole. One pin clicked into place, a second—

  The door suddenly smashed into his face, sending him crashing to the floor. Blinking away the pain of a bloodied nose, Arvin realized Karshis had returned. The yuan-ti was trying to force the partially open door, which was blocked by Arvin’s body.

  One of Karshis’s arms snaked in through the opening, its snake-hand trying to sink its fangs into Arvin. He flung himself to the side, barely avoiding the bite. “Shivis!” he cried, summoning his dagger to his glove. He leaped to his feet in the same instant that Karshis lunged into the room. As the yuan-ti’s snake-hand lashed forward a second time, Arvin met it with his dagger, slicing cleanly through the snake-hand’s neck. The head dangled from a thread of flesh, its eyes glazing as blood pumped from the wound.

  Karshis staggered back, hissing with pain, and grabbed at the door with his other snake-hand to steady himself. Seizing his chance, Arvin leaped forward and slammed the door shut, crushing the second snake-hand between the door and its frame. All that remained was the yuan-ti’s main head—which, unfortunately, also had venomous fangs.

  The yuan-ti writhed in pain then rallied. Suddenly, the room was plunged into darkness. Unable to see anything, surrounded by a darkness through which not even the faintest pinprick of light penetrated, Arvin backed up warily, his dagger at the ready. He could still hear the yuan-ti’s labored breathing; Karshis was standing somewhere just ahead of him. Could the yuan-ti see in the dark? Would he use it as a screen for a retreat—or an attack? Taking aim by ear, Arvin readied his dagger for a throw.

  Karshis slammed into Arvin, knocking him sprawling, facefirst, onto the carpet. Arvin slashed wildly with his dagger—only to feel a snake-arm coil around his wrist, trapping it. A second snake-arm coiled around Arvin’s other wrist, but this snake-arm was slippery with blood. Arvin wrenched one hand free and scrambled to his feet. He tried to leap away, but Karshis’s grip on his other arm was too strong. Held fast, like an unwilling dance partner, all Arvin could do was flail in a circle around Karshis, blindly dodging the yuan-ti’s attempts to bite him. Venom sprayed him each time the yuan-ti lunged and missed.

  The dagger was still in Arvin’s gloved hand, but that was the arm Karshis held. Despite the wounds Arvin had inflicted upon him, Karshis was still swift and strong; even if Arvin was somehow able to wrench his arm free, a dagger might not be enough to stop the yuan-ti.

  The power stone, however, might.

  If it didn’t knock Arvin flat with brain burn.

  Swiftly—between one desperate dodge and the next—Arvin cast his mind in
to the crystal. Linking with it took only a fraction of a heartbeat; finding the power he wanted among the five glittering gem-stars that remained took only an instant more. Arvin felt its energies flow into his third eye, as before, and also into a spot on his spine directly behind his navel. Silver motes of light danced in his vision—and this time coalesced into a line of bright silver light that lanced out at Karshis through the magical darkness. In that same instant, Arvin felt Karshis’s dry, scaly skin suddenly become slippery and wet with ectoplasm and knew that, this time, his manifestation had been a success. Strangely, though, he was unable to lock his mind on the spot to which he wanted to teleport Karshis. His mind remained unfocused, blank, scattered.

  Karshis’s body suddenly flexed, bringing his venomous fangs within a hair of Arvin’s throat. Then it exploded. One moment Karshis was lunging at Arvin—the next, a fine spray of mist erupted from him, soaking Arvin, his clothes, and the carpet around him. What remained of the yuan-ti fell to the floor with a thump.

  Hissing with relief, Arvin dragged the body out of the pool of darkness and stared at Karshis’s corpse. Its flesh was dotted with thousands of tiny tunnels from which blood was starting to seep; it seemed as if miniscule portions of the yuan-ti had been teleported in all directions. Arvin shook his head in disgust and spat until the bloody, scale-flecked mist was gone from his lips. He wiped his face with a trembling arm then reached into his pocket and pulled out the power stone. The second teleport power had seemed so benign—had he used it improperly? Somehow, he didn’t think so. He hadn’t suffered brain burn, this time. He hissed in relief, glad he hadn’t tried to use it to teleport Naulg.

  Out of long habit, he raised a hand to his throat to touch his bead then remembered it wasn’t there. “Nine lives,” he whispered, shoving the stone back into his pocket.

  Then he picked up his dagger and rose to his feet. The door was unlocked and open—and the hallway it opened onto was silent. No one, it seemed, had heard the sounds of the fight.

  Arvin whispered a prayer of thanks to Tymora. He’d really have to fill her cup this time. But there was much he had to do, first. He had to rescue Naulg … and find Nicco.

  But not necessarily in that order.

  CHAPTER 18

  28 Kythorn, Morning

  In his dream, Arvin stared at the wemic who stood before him, flexing his muscles. The creature was magnificent, his body that of a lion and covered in lustrous golden fur, his upper torso that of a human. The wemic’s face was a blend of both: human in overall appearance, but framed by a mane of coal-black hair and with pupils that were vertical slits. His long tail swished back and forth behind him, fanning the grass that stretched in an unbroken plain to the distant mountains.

  “How does it feel,” Arvin asked, his forked tongue flickering in and out of his mouth as he spoke, “to occupy that body?”

  In answer, the wemic threw back his head and roared then flexed his forepaws, rending the earth with his claws. “Powerful,” he replied, throwing a low growl into the word.

  “And your psionics?” Arvin asked.

  The wemic squatted, placing his human hands on the ground, then slowly bent his human torso backward. He held the pose for a time then balanced awkwardly on his front paws and raised his hindquarters into the air, tail lashing wildly as he sought to maintain the asana. He went through the entire series of asanas—slowly and clumsily, making up in brute strength what he lacked in balance and flexibility—and was panting by the time he had finished.

  “I’ve lost some of the powers you had when you created me,” the wemic answered at last. “The more powerful ones are gone.”

  Arvin gave a soft hiss of satisfaction. “Keep that in mind,” he told the wemic. “And remember what happened to the seed who tried to defy me with what she retained.”

  The wemic, which shared the memory of the first seed—the dwarf whose mind Arvin had squeezed into a pulp by a psychic crush—nodded slowly.

  “Events have progressed swiftly over the past seven days,” Arvin told the wemic. “Garrnau has been padding about, insisting that she be the delegate to the Three Cities. She felt that you have been too … preoccupied over the past few days to present the Ten-Paw tribe’s case clearly. She will need to be dealt with. And there has been a communication from Lady Dediana. She thought it might be amusing if you were to be caught in the act of devouring one of Lord Quwen’s horses—especially if it was the racing stallion she sent him two days ago, as a truce offering.”

  The wemic threw back his head and gave a roaring laugh. It was followed, incongruously enough, with a satisfied hiss. “All of Ormath will spring for their saddles and swords,” he said. “To protect their precious herds from—”

  “Yes,” Arvin said. “And Hlondeth will have one less bothersome neighbor.”

  The wemic leveled a stare at Arvin. “And what of me … afterward?”

  Arvin smiled. “Cast your memory back to the elf-seed in Xorhun, and the lizardman-seed in Surkh. Did I abandon them?”

  The wemic shook his head. “No.” A guarded look crept into his eyes. “As of seven days ago, you had not.”

  Arvin laid a palm against the wemic’s broad chest and let his fingers slide seductively through the downy chest hair. “In fact,” Arvin murmured, his flickering tongue tasting the lionlike musk that hung heavy in the air, “in the case of the elf-seed, I continue to visit—frequently.”

  The wemic mirrored Arvin’s lascivious smile. He wrapped muscular arms around Arvin, drawing him to his chest. Arvin felt claw tips poke with delicious pain into his back as the wemic lowered his head to kiss him. Surrounded by the wemic’s mane and musky scent, Arvin met the kiss with a hunger of his own—

  Suddenly, Arvin was awake—and gasping for air. He didn’t know which was more disturbing, the image of Zelia twining herself about a creature that was half lion—or the thought of her making love to herself. A part of him, however, insisted on lingering on the memory. Zelia was a beautiful woman, after all….

  Shaking his head, Arvin pushed the thought from his mind. Control, he told himself.

  Rising from his bed, he crossed the rented room and splashed lukewarm water on his face from a ceramic bowl that stood on a low table. Sunlight streamed in through the shutters on the room’s only window; it was going to be another hot, humid day.

  If he didn’t find Nicco, it might also be his last.

  Suddenly furious, he hurled the bowl across the room. It hit the far wall and shattered, leaving a spray of water on the wall. He manifested his dagger into his glove and stared at it. Maybe he should just end it, he told himself. Death was one way to prevent Zelia from claiming him, from winning. One quick stab and it would all be over….

  No. He was thinking like her again. It was doing him no good to rage. What he had to do was stay calm, try to find a way out of this mess. There was still time—though not much. He rubbed his temples and squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the anger aside. Then he disappeared the dagger back into his glove.

  He sank into a cross-legged position on the floor and slowed his breathing then ran through the series of mental exercises Tanju had taught him. When he had finished, he assumed the bhujanga asana. It came even easier to him than it had before; his body seemed to adopt the pose of its own accord. As he held the asana, muscles straining, he cast his mind back over the events of the evening before.

  After escaping from Karshis, he’d hurried back to the crematorium to search for Nicco and Naulg. He no longer had the key—Karshis must have taken it from him—but by fumbling at the blank stone wall, he’d found the door and its keyhole by feel and managed to pick the lock. He’d crept in, half expecting to find the Pox inside, but the room had been empty. So, too, was the platform where Nicco had fallen into magical slumber. Arvin had tossed a loop of rope onto the platform and pulled it back again and again, hoping that, by some miracle, Nicco might still be lying there, invisible. But the cleric was gone. Whether the cultists had found him or he had simply woken
up and teleported away, Arvin had no idea.

  Arvin had searched the room again—thoroughly—but the results were the same as before. The only way into the crematorium proper, it seemed, was through the platform. Without the key, Arvin was only going to wind up in magical slumber, as Nicco had. If Arvin was going to get in, he’d need Nicco’s help.

  Slipping out of the building again, Arvin had once more turned, reluctantly, to his Guild contacts. He put out the word that he was looking for a man of Nicco’s description—or a man matching Gonthril’s description, or even Chorl’s. Someone, somewhere, had to have seen one of them. But without coin to pry open their lips, the Guild members weren’t saying anything. “No,” was the usual reply, “haven’t seen anyone like that.”

  At last, exhausted, Arvin had rented a room above a tavern near the waterfront. The bed still stank of the tarred hair of the sailor who’d occupied it last, and the room was stiflingly hot, despite the window. Arvin had lain awake long into Darkmorning, listening to the sounds of laughter and ribald singing from the tavern below. He’d tossed and turned, hissing with frustration at having come so close to salvation—only to lose Nicco. If only he knew where the rebels had holed up after abandoning the chambers under the garden….

  Ending the asana, Arvin rose to his feet and rubbed his forehead. The ache of the mind seed had grown worse, and was now a constant throbbing behind his eyes that filled the front of his head from temple to temple. Frustrated, he banged his hand against the shutters, sending them flying open. No wonder the room was so hot; the window faced north, away from the breeze that blew off the harbor.

  Arvin stared up at the city. Though his room occupied the fifth floor of the tower, its window was barely level with the foundations of the buildings farther up the hill, those of the yuan-ti section of the city. Only by craning his neck could Arvin see the snake-shaped fountain that topped the cathedral dome, or the spires of the palace, or the Nesting Tower….