Venom’s Taste

“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…

Arvin frowned as he stared at the distant, flitting specks of flying snakes. It was odd that Nicco had chosen that location to teleport them to when they had fled from the Plaza of Justice. Why teleport into an area frequented by yuan-ti nobles? Arvin would have thought the cleric would have teleported them somewhere that, to Nicco, represented safety.

Maybe, Arvin mused, he had. What was it Kayla had said about Gonthril’s choice of hiding places for the Secession? The rebel leader liked to use spots Lady Dediana would least suspect-a private garden of the Extaminos family, for example.

And perhaps, also, the Nesting Tower that housed many of the royal family’s flying snakes.

Arvin nodded; it made sense. Gonthril had been so certain he and his fellow rebels would be able to slip into the royal palace undetected. What was it he’d told them? Closing his eyes, Arvin tried to recall the words he’d overheard, just before Nicco’s glyph had frozen him in place. “One sip of this,” Gonthril had said, and something about the royal family mistaking the rebels for “his little pets, out for a Middark soar.”

Arvin realized what he’d been talking about-a potion of polymorphing that would turn the rebels into flying snakes. And not just any flying snakes, but ones that Osran Extaminos would recognize: his pets. In order to polymorph that precisely, the drinker of the potion had to have seen the creature he wanted to polymorph into firsthand. That much Arvin knew from his conversations with Drin.

The rebels were using the Nesting Tower as one of the Secession’s hiding places. Arvin was certain of it.

Tymora willing, they would be there.

And Nicco would be with them.

28 Kythorn, Highsun

Arvin stood at the base of the Nesting Tower, resisting the urge to pinch his nose against the smell of snake feces. The slave who tended the flying serpents was mucking out the holes, sluicing them out with water. It ran in stained torrents down the sides of the tower into drains in the courtyard below-which was unoccupied at the moment, due to the filthy spray. The flying snakes, meanwhile, wheeled in elegant circles overhead, their wings flashing green, red, and gold in the sun.

Stepping warily to avoid a rain of murky, stinking water, Arvin waved at the slave who was floating above. He was an older man with a shaved head, clad only in sandals and a filthy pair of trousers. His skin was as brown as a cobra.

“Slave!” Arvin shouted through cupped hands. “Descend. At once!”

The slave glanced down, hesitated, and hung the bucket he’d been holding on a hook on his belt. Slowly he began his descent. He halted several paces above Arvin and eyed him suspiciously-and for good reason. Flying snakes were expensive pets and there had been attempts to steal them in the past. For this reason, the outer walls of the tower had been bespelled with a magical grease to discourage climbing; it glistened in the sunlight. With a magical rope-like the one Chorl had used to help Arvin and Kayla climb down into the garden-Arvin might have bypassed the greased wall under cover of darkness. But he didn’t have another climbing rope, and it was broad daylight. The only way up was via whatever magical item the slave was using to levitate.

“Yes?” the slave asked.

Arvin stood with hands on hips, swaying impatiently. Deliberately, he let his tongue flicker in and out of his