Hazzan-once again peering through the side of the chalice at the lantern-nodded. “The spell worked,” he told Gonthril. “The potion has been neutralized.”
Chorl stared at Arvin. “Why’s he still hissing, then?”
Gonthril stared at Arvin thoughtfully. “I don’t know.”
Arvin did. It was the mind seed. Zelia hadn’t been bluffing, after all.
“I still say we should get rid of him,” Chorl urged.
The rebel leader shook his head. “Arvin will stay with us, for the time being. There may be ways in which he can aid our cause. But keep a close eye on him, Chorl, and let me know if he does anything suspicious. If he takes any hostile action against us, or attempts to escape, I leave his punishment to your discretion.”
Arvin matched glares with Chorl, and for a moment actually considered summoning his dagger into his hand and plunging it into the man’s heart. But this done, the odds of Arvin being the next one to die would be very high indeed. Mortin held his sword at the ready, the wizard could blast him with magic, and the gods only knew what the rings on Gonthril’s fingers were capable of doing.
No, there were other, better ways to deal with the situation. Arvin relaxed his grimace into a smile and tried to summon up the familiar prickle of psionic energy. None came. And for good reason, he suddenly realized. He was exhausted, on the verge of collapsing on his feet. Only rarely had he been able to charm anyone under these conditions.
No matter. He could always do it later, when the odds of escape were better.
“Don’t worry,” he assured Gonthril. “I’ll behave.”
“Do I have your word you won’t try to escape?” Gonthril asked.
Arvin smiled to himself; he wasn’t bound by the ring any longer. “You have my word,” he said solemnly.
CHAPTER 10
24 Kythorn, Sunset
In his dream, Arvin moved through a crowd of laughing people who stood in a vineyard outside the city, their faces painted a ruddy orange by a bonfire that sent sparks spinning up into the night. Some stood and watched, tipping back bottles of wine, while others danced, arms linked as they moved in giddy circles around the bonfire. Several held small rectangles of wood, painted red and inscribed with a single word: “Chondath.” These they threw into the fire, together with spoiled fruits and limp, moldy vegetables. The air was filled with smoke, sparks, and the hissing noise of food being blackened by flame.
The humans called it the Rotting Dance. It was a celebration of the defeat of Chondath in the Rotting War of 902, of the rise of the city-states of the Vilhon Reach. Hlondeth had gained its independence nearly three centuries before necromantic magic laid waste to the empire’s armies on the Fields of Nun, and its people had suffered the aftermath of that battle-a plague that spread through the Vilhon Reach, afflicting those it touched with a disease that caused even the smallest of cuts to turn gangrenous. But its citizens celebrated the Rotting Dance just the same. Humans needed very little excuse for frivolity. Emotion was just one of their many weaknesses.
Arvin weaved his way through the humans, his tongue flickering in and out of his mouth as he tasted the excitement that laced the night air. Whenever he saw a man that caught his eye-one who was strong and well muscled, with lean hips and a glint in his eye that showed he was of a better stock than the average human-he worked his magic on him. “Come,” he whispered, staring intently into the man’s eyes. “Mate with me.”
One of the men Arvin selected already had a mate picked out for the evening-a human a few years older than Arvin, and prettier, by human standards. No matter. When she protested, Arvin merely stared at her. She began to tremble then, with a small shriek, dropped the man’s arm, surrendering him to Arvin, and fled into the night.
A part of Arvin’s mind, observing the dream from a distance, recoiled at the thought of propositioning men. But to his dreaming mind, the act felt as natural as his own skin. He swayed through the crowd, the five men he had chosen trailing in his wake, each of them yearning to stroke his scales, to touch his newly budding breasts, and to press themselves against his curved hips. Flicking his tongue, tasting their desire, he felt a surge of power. He might be just fourteen years old and in his first flush of sexuality, but he was in control. He owned these men, as surely as a master owns slaves.
He led the men to a secluded spot in a nearby field and, as they converged on him, unfastened the pin at his throat and let his dress fall around his ankles, shedding it like an old skin. As the men stepped forward eagerly, pressing themselves against him and tearing at their clothes, he drew a curtain of darkness around them. Then he pulled the men to the ground, where they formed a mating ball with Arvin at its center. A hard body pressed against his and was wrenched away, only to be replaced by another-and another-as the men wrestled with each other in an attempt to mate with Arvin. The smell of their sweat and of crushed grapes and torn earth filled Arvin’s nostrils as he slithered through the tangle of bodies, coiling around first one man, then another, taking each of them in turn. Acidic sweat erupted on his own body, soaking his hair and lubricating his scales-and burning the thin, sensitive skin of the humans who twined and fought and thrust against him. As ecstasy surged through Arvin again… and again… and again… he gave vent to his passion, screaming and throwing his head back then lashing forward to sink his fangs into throats and thighs and chests. One by one the men coiled around him abruptly gasped, stiffened, and fell limp as poison usurped passion.
When it was done, Arvin lay on his back on warm, sweat-soaked soil, his forked tongue savoring the taste of blood on his lips. He smiled, satisfied that there would be no one to tell his guilty secret-that he felt an unnatural attraction toward an inferior race. A heavy body lay across him; he shoved it to the side. Then he assumed snake form and slithered off into the night, leaving the tangled remains of his lovemaking cooling on the ground behind him.
Arvin’s eyes sprang open as he was wakened by the urgency in his loins. He found himself lying on a straw pallet in a dimly lit room. A pace or two away, Mortin sat with his back against the wall, eyes closed, his sword on the floor beside him. For a moment, as Arvin stared at the handsome young man, dream and waking seemed to blend. Had he really just mated with Mortin and killed him? No… Mortin was still breathing; he’d merely fallen asleep. He was a member of the Secession, not a reveler, and he was guarding Arvin-though he was doing a poor job of it.
Arvin sat up, rubbing his temples. The headache that had been plaguing him was back again, despite his sleep. Doing his best to ignore it-and the unsettling dream-he forced his mind to the here and now. He was human, he told himself-and male-not a lustful yuan-ti female, as he’d been in the dream.
A yuan-ti female with the power to work magic with a mere thought.
Zelia.
Arvin cursed softly. Had the mind seed caused him to listen in on her thoughts again in his sleep? It seemed strange that, once again, he had picked up her memories, rather than her thoughts about more pressing matters, but maybe that was the way yuan-ti minds worked. Maybe all that lazy basking in the sun prompted them to dwell on the past, rather than the current moment.
Speaking of which, what time of day was it? Arvin’s visit to the wizard had been around Sunrise. Afterward, Gonthril had given him a meal and some wine to wash it down. He’d even returned Arvin’s backpack-after a thorough inspection of its contents by Hazzan, who seemed fascinated by Arvin’s trollgut rope. Then Arvin had curled up to sleep, alone in the room except for Mortin, who had remained behind to keep a watch on him.
It must have been well into Fullday. The need Arvin felt to relieve himself told him that he’d slept a long, long time. As he yawned, a suspicion started to dawn in his mind, fueled by the grogginess he felt. He’d been drugged. Maybe that was why only Mortin had been left to watch him-Gonthril had expected Arvin to sleep much longer than he did. If it weren’t for the wild dream that had jolted him into wakefulness, Arvin might have slumbered for some time still.
As he sat on his pallet, thinking, he noticed he was swaying back and forth. Not only that, but he was wetting his lips again. His tongue felt shorter and thicker than it should have been… no, than it had been during the dream, he corrected himself. The stray thought alarmed him. The mind seed was still firmly rooted, despite the fact that Hazzan had cast a dispelling on him. Was there no way to get the gods-cursed thing out of his head?
He hissed as anger frothed inside him. Anger at the Pox for what they’d done to Naulg and their other victims. Anger at Osran Extaminos for inviting the cultists into the city. And, most especially, anger at Zelia for
