Venom’s Taste hos-1

by Lisa Smedman

  26 Kythorn, Evening

  Arvin and Nicco stood together in the alley the cleric had teleported them to, talking in low voices. A few paces away, the alley opened onto the courtyard of the Nesting Tower, an enormous pillar honeycombed with niches in which flying serpents made their nests. Every now and then, their dark shapes flitted across the moonlit sky toward the faintly glowing tower.

  “Zelia’s not my master,” Arvin explained to Nicco. “I met her for the first time four nights ago. She negated the poison the Pox made me drink and tried to hire me to spy on them. She needed a human who would pretend to join their cult-someone who had survived one of their sacrifices. When I refused, she told me I was going to wind up working for her, like it or not. She’d planted a mind seed in my head.”

  Nicco’s eyebrows rose.

  “It’s a psionic power,” Arvin said. “In seven days, it-”

  “I know what a mind seed is,” Nicco answered.

  Hope surged through Arvin. “Do you know the restorative prayer that will get rid of it?”

  Instead of answering, Nicco stared into the distance. “Whether you meant to betray them or not, four members of the Secession are dead: Kiffen, Thrond, Nyls… and Kayla.”

  “Kayla?” Seeing the ache in Nicco’s eyes, Arvin dropped his voice to a sympathetic murmur. “But she was so young…”

  “She died swiftly-and bravely. Her father would have been proud of her. Ironically, by now he will have turned into the very thing he fought against-one of the foul creatures who condemned his daughter to die-a yuan-ti.”

  “Kayla’s father was among those handed over to Osran Extaminos by the Pox?” Arvin asked.

  Nicco nodded sadly. “Kayla hoped to save him. In that endeavor, she failed. But she did succeed in exacting Hoar’s retribution for what was done to her father. It was she who dispatched Osran with her knife.”

  “Osran’s dead, then?” Arvin asked.

  “Gonthril saw him die.”

  Arvin wet his lips nervously as Nicco continued his story. Zelia had surprised the assassins as they were preparing to leave Osran’s chambers. Only Gonthril, thanks to one of his magical rings, had been able to escape. Hearing this, Arvin realized that Zelia had arrived too late to question Osran. She wouldn’t have been able to learn if additional yuan-ti were involved with the cultists. Without this information, she wasn’t going to remove the mind seed from Arvin’s head any time soon…

  If she had ever planned to at all.

  Nicco stared at Arvin, his face dimly illuminated by the glow from the wall beside him. “You said you knew where Talona’s clerics were hiding.”

  Arvin reached into his pocket with his left hand, at the same time whispering his glove’s command word, and felt the key appear between his fingers. “Not only do I know what building they’re in,” he told Nicco, pulling his hand from his pocket. “I have a key that will get us inside.” He held it up where Nicco could see it. “So what do you say? Is a chance at vengeance against the Pox worth a restorative prayer?” He held his breath, waiting for Nicco’s answer.

  Nicco stood in silence for several moments before answering. “It is…”

  Arvin let out a hiss of relief. Nicco was going to save him, after all.

  “… if that key leads where you say it does,” Nicco concluded. “Shall we find out?”

  “Now?”

  Nicco scowled. “Have you given up on rescuing your friend?”

  Arvin shook his head. “Not at all. I just thought that maybe you could say the restorative prayer first.”

  Nicco shook his head. “After,” he said firmly.

  Arvin hissed in frustration, but managed to hold his temper. At least the solution to his problem was in sight. He and Nicco would sneak into the crematorium, make certain the Pox were indeed there, and sneak out again. Then Nicco would remove the mind seed and Arvin could go on his way, leaving it up to the Secession to deal with the cultists.

  Arvin reached for the bead at his throat for reassurance. “Nine-,” He stopped abruptly as his fingertips brushed the bead. The clay he’d used to repair the crack was crumbling, falling out. The bead felt as if it was ready to break in two. Was it an omen that he’d used up the last of its luck?

  He didn’t want to think about that just then. Not when every moment that passed brought him closer to his doom. The throbbing ache of the mind seed was slowly, inexorably spreading throughout his head. The sooner they explored the crematorium, the better.

  “Let’s go,” he told Nicco.

  CHAPTER 16

  26 Kythorn, Middark

  Arvin and Nicco stood in a doorway across the street from the crematorium, staring at what appeared to be a blank stone wall. Earlier, Nicco had whispered a prayer, one that allowed him to see through the illusion that had been placed on the building. He’d assured Arvin that there was, indeed, a door-one with a lock. But instead of trying the key in it right away, Nicco had insisted upon waiting. And so they had stood, and waited, and watched, hoping to see one of the cultists enter or leave the building.

  None had.

  Nor had anyone walked down the street. And no wonder-all of the buildings in the area, including the one behind Arvin and Nicco, bore a faded yellow hand on their doors.

  Arvin was getting impatient. The throbbing in his head wasn’t helping. “This is useless,” he griped. “We’ve got the key; let’s use it.”

  Nicco nodded. “It looks as though we’ll have to. But first, a precaution.”

  The cleric began a soft chant. When it ended, he vanished from sight. The only way Arvin could tell that Nicco was still standing beside him was by the sound of his breathing and the rustle of Nicco’s kilt as the cleric shifted position.

  “Your turn,” Nicco said. “Ready?”

  When Arvin nodded, Nicco repeated his prayer. Arvin felt a light touch on his shoulder-and suddenly couldn’t see his body. It was an odd sensation. Being unable to see his own feet made Arvin feel as if he were floating in the air. He touched a hand to his chest, reassuring himself he was still corporeal.

  “Is the key in your hand?” Nicco asked.

  Arvin held it up. “Right here.”

  Instead of taking it, Nicco grasped Arvin’s arm and steered him across the street. When they reached the crematorium, Nicco guided the jagged-toothed key up to what, to Arvin, appeared to be solid stone, and Arvin felt the key enter a keyhole. Nicco let go of his arm. The cleric was obviously wary about whatever traps might protect the door. Wetting his lips, Arvin turned the key in the lock and heard a faint click. With a hiss of relief-the poisoned needle he’d half-expected to emerge from the lock mechanism hadn’t-he eased the door open. Then, pocketing the key, he whispered the command that materialized the dagger from his glove.

  “You first, this time,” he told Nicco. He waited until he had felt Nicco brush past him then closed the door behind them.

  They stood in a round, empty room as large as the building itself. At its center was a circular platform, about ankle high. Around its circumference were dozens of tiny, finger-sized flames that filled the room with a flickering light. They burned with a faint hissing noise and seemed to be jetting out of holes in the platform.

  Arvin hadn’t known what to expect a crematorium to look like, but this certainly wasn’t it.

  Beside him, Nicco murmured the prayer that would allow him to see things as they truly were.

  “Is there a way out of this room?” Arvin breathed.

  The tinkling of Nicco’s earring told Arvin the cleric was shaking his head. “My prayer would have revealed any hidden doors. It found none,” he whispered. “I’m going to search the platform.”

  “Be careful,” Arvin warned. “It might teleport you to the Plane of Fire.”

  “That would require a teleportation circle-something only a wizard can create,” Nicco answered, his voice moving toward the platform. “We clerics must rely upon phase doors, which merely open an ethereal passage through stone.”

 
Arvin saw the flames flicker as the cleric walked around the platform. “Are you certain the cultists use this place?” Nicco asked.

  Arvin was starting to wonder the same thing. He fingered the key in his pocket. Then his eye fell on something-a small leather pouch that lay on the other side of the platform. He strode over to it and picked it up, and felt something inside it twitch. He raised the now-invisible pouch to his nose and caught a faint leafy smell he recognized at once-assassin vine.

  “Nicco,” he whispered. “The Pox were here-or at least, they kept their victims here. I’ve just found my friend’s pouch.”

  There was no reply.

  “Nicco?”

  Worried that the cleric might have stepped onto the platform and been teleported away, Arvin tucked the pouch in a pocket and crossed the room. He stood beside the platform, listening, and heard what sounded like snoring over the hiss of the flames. It seemed to be coming from the center of the platform.

  Wary of the flames, Arvin leaned across the platform. His hand brushed against tassels-one end of Nicco’s sash. The cleric must have fallen victim to a spell that sent him into a magical slumber. Arvin grabbed the sash and tried to pull Nicco toward him, but when he yanked, the sash suddenly came free, sending him stumbling backward. Dropping it, Arvin made a circuit of the platform. He leaned over it as much as he dared, but his questing hands encountered only air. He could hear Nicco snoring but couldn’t reach him. The platform was simply too wide. Nicco must be lying directly at its center.

  Arvin paused, thinking. Whatever laid Nicco low hadn’t taken effect immediately. Maybe if Arvin didn’t venture too close to the center of the platform, he’d be safe. He couldn’t just let the cleric lie there. If he did, Nicco might never wake up.

  Arvin stepped up onto the platform.

  As soon as he did, he felt a rush of vertigo. It was as if someone had grabbed hold of his trousers at the hip and yanked, sending him tumbling forward. Too late, he realized what had happened. The key in his trouser pocket must have triggered something-one of the phase doors that Nicco had spoken about. Like an anchor chained to Arvin, the key pulled him down into a patch of blurry, queasy nothingness.

  Arvin landed facedown on a hard stone floor, knocking the air from his lungs. He felt a throbbing in his lip and tasted blood; his lip was split. Hissing with pain, he sat up and looked around and found that he was in utter darkness. He wet his lips and found them coated with a damp, gritty substance that tasted of ashes.

  The remains of the cremated dead.

  He spat several times, not stopping until his mouth was clean. Then he rose to his feet. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear a faint chanting-the voices of the cultists, raised in prayer to their loathsome god. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw, in the direction the chanting was coming from, a patch of faint reddish light, rectangular in shape-a hallway. As he stared at it, something small scurried across the floor nearby, making him hiss in alarm.

  It’s just a rat, he admonished himself angrily, embarrassed at having startled. Where’s your self-control?

  He raised a hand and found that the ceiling was just overhead. Its stonework felt solid. He tried prodding it with the key, but nothing happened. Whatever doorway Arvin had just passed through appeared to work only in one direction.

  Somewhere above, Nicco lay in magical slumber. The cleric might as well have been in another city, for all the good he was going to be.

  Arvin worked his way around the room, feeling the walls. He didn’t find any other exits; there was only one way out.

  Toward the chanting voices.

  He shuddered at the thought of facing the cultists alone and raised a hand to touch the bead at his throat. “Nine-”

  The bead wasn’t there.

  Hissing in alarm, Arvin dropped to his knees and scuffed around in the ash. Dust rose to his nostrils and he choked back a sneeze. Then he spotted something near the middle of the room-a faint blue glow. Brushing the ash away from it, he saw that it was coming from his bead. It was no longer smooth and round; fully half of the clay had crumbled away and something was protruding out of it-a slim length of crystal that glowed with a faint blue light.

  A power stone.

  Suddenly, his mother’s last goodbye made sense. “Don’t lose this bead,” she’d told him as she tied the thong around his neck. “I made it myself. I had intended to give it to you when you’re older but…” She paused, eyes glistening, then stood. “One day, that bead may grant you nine lives, just like a cat. Remember that-and keep it safe. Don’t ever take it off.”

  “Nine lives,” Arvin repeated in an anguished whisper as he stared at the power stone. “And you gave them to me. Why didn’t you use them to save yourself instead?” He knew the answer, of course. That his mother must have foreseen her death in the dream she had the night before-and, contrary to her assurances, believed it to be inevitable.

  A tear trickled, unheeded, down Arvin’s cheek.

  Grasping what remained of the bead in both hands, he crumbled it apart. The crystal came away clean, unmarred by its years inside the bead. Holding it between his thumb and finger, he peered into its depths. The faint blue light inside it was the color of the summer sky and seemed equally as limitless. His mother had created this power stone. Somewhere, deep inside it, was a tiny piece of her soul. It whispered to Arvin in a voice just at the edge of hearing, as if calling his name. Allowing his mind to fall into the cool blue depths of the stone, he tried to answer.

  Mother?

  There was no reply-just a soft sighing, as impossible to grasp as the wind.

  Staring at the power stone, Arvin drifted in that vast expanse of blue, no longer aware of his physical surroundings. What was it that Tanju had said? In order to hail a power stone, one had to know the proper name to use. If a stranger had created the stone, Arvin might guess for a thousand years and never come up with the right name. But it wasn’t just anyone who had crafted this power stone. It was Arvin’s mother.

  This time, he used his mother’s name: Sassan?

  Still nothing, just an empty sighing.

  Arvin drifted, trying to think what his mother might have named the stone. It would almost certainly be a name Arvin was familiar with-one his mother knew he would eventually guess. She wouldn’t have given him the power stone if there were no hope of him ever using it.

  He tried again, using the name of the lamasery: Shou-zin?

  Nothing.

  He thought back, again, to his mother’s final words to him, wondering if they might have held a clue. But she hadn’t said anything, really, after the cryptic message about the bead granting “nine lives.” She’d simply given him one of her brief, formal hugs then turned to go, stopping only to shoo the cat away from the door so she could open it.

  Suddenly Arvin realized the answer.

  Cinders? Arvin tried, using the childish name he’d given the stray cat that had taken up residence with them, despite his mother’s protests.

  Who hails me?

  The voice that answered sounded female-and slightly feline. It was braided together from several different voices, each with a different timbre and pitch. Though they all spoke at once, Arvin knew instantly how many they were-six. The maximum number of powers a power stone could hold.

  Arvin hails you, he answered. Show yourselves.

  Six twinkling stars suddenly appeared in the pale blue sky. They hung like ripe gems just waiting to be plucked, each burning with a light either bright or faint according to the amount of energy that fueled it. Arvin brushed his mental fingers against the closest of these stars-a medium-bright mote of light-drinking in the knowledge of the power it contained. By manifesting this power, he would be able to teleport, just as Nicco did, to any destination he could clearly visualize-the chamber above, for example.

  Laughing, he touched another of the motes of light, its glow approximately equal to the first. This second power also conveyed the ability to teleport but was intended for use on an
other person or creature, rather than on the manifester himself. Strange, Arvin thought, that his mother had included a power that would only affect others. The ability to teleport someone else wasn’t exactly a life-saving power. Giving a mental shrug, he moved on to the next.

  He touched another of the gemlike stars and discovered it to be a power that would allow him to dominate another person, forcing him to do whatever he bid. He gave a mental hiss of satisfaction-then realized that was the mind seed, reacting to the extremes to which this power could be put. Even so, a part of him savored the idea of using it on Zelia. With it, he could force her to obey his-

  Wrenching his thoughts off that path, he shifted his awareness to the next power, which had the brightest glow of any of them. It was also an offensive power, designed for use against other psions. By manifesting it, Arvin could strip a single power from another psion’s mind. Permanently.

  The fifth power would allow Arvin to produce, from one or both hands, sweat even more acidic than a yuan-ti’s. It was a useful weapon-and one that would have the element of complete surprise.

  The sixth and final power was an odd one: it would allow him to plant a false memory in someone’s mind-but that “memory” could be only a few moments long. What good was that, he wondered. Surely, in order to be convincing, the false memory would have to span a period of days, or even tendays.

  It was a strange mix of powers to have chosen. Arvin shrugged, wondering what his mother had been thinking. Perhaps she had been shown, in one of her visions, what Arvin would one day find useful. The teleport power, for example, was just what he needed at the moment. He’d use it to teleport to a spot beside the platform where Nicco lay then use the cleric’s sash to drag Nicco from the platform. He hoped Nicco would then wake up, and Arvin wouldn’t have to face the cultists alone.

  Visualizing the chamber above, Arvin grasped the mote of light with his mind. He felt its energy rush into the third eye at the center of his forehead, filling his vision with bright sparkles of silver light. It started to paint the scene he held in his mind, limning it in silver, making it more solid and real-