Venom’s Taste

“To scotch the snake.”

Arvin stared at the cleric, suddenly understanding. It wasn’t the Pox the Secession were going after, but the yuan-ti who had supplied them with the potions, Osran Extaminos. And it wasn’t just any building Gonthril had been talking about infiltrating, but the palace. The man who had been objecting to this scheme had been right. A plan to kill a prince inside the royal palace was indeed suicide. A desperate gamble. Yet it was a risk, apparently, Gonthril was willing to take. He must have been hoping that Osran’s murder would cut off the source of the potion and save the city.

And he might just be right about that. Though Arvin couldn’t help but wonder if the old adage would prove true. Scotch the snake, and watch another two crawl out of the hole. “Backers,” Zelia had said. Plural.

Then there was the question of the cultists and why they had hooked up with a yuan-ti. As Gonthril had pointed out, why carry fire to a volcano? The cultists were perfectly capable of creating disease on their own, as the man who had killed himself in Arvin’s warehouse had so aptly demonstrated. Why then, would they feel the need to obtain “plague” from an outside source?

Suddenly, Arvin realized the answer. That name he’d heard one of his attackers use, just before he’d been bundled off to the sewers, wasn’t a person’s name, after all. It wasn’t “Missim” that he’d heard, but “Mussum.” The city that fell victim, nine centuries ago, to a plague so virulent that to this day it continued to claim lives.

That was what the cultists believed was in the vials. The most potent plague in all of Faerun-one that even they, in their most fervent prayers, would be hard-pressed to duplicate. They hoped to unleash it on Hlondeth, reducing it to a city of corpses. Instead they were being tricked into emptying a potion into its water system-one that would turn every human in Hlondeth into a yuan-ti, making it truly a “city of serpents.”

A city of slaves.

Realizing the cleric was standing in silence, watching him, Arvin decided to play on the man’s sympathies. “A friend of mine is in trouble,” he began. “The Pox fed him the potion that turns humans into yuan-ti. He’s the reason I was down in the sewers and”-he gestured at the sleeping Kayla-“the reason I was there to save Kayla’s life. He’s also the reason I was trying to leave, just now. I need to find him, before it’s too late.”

“A noble endeavor,” the cleric said, nodding. “But I can’t let you go. Too many other lives are at stake.”

“Please,” Arvin said, feeling the familiar prickle of psionic energy at the base of his skull. He gave the cleric his most pleading look. “I’m Naulg’s only hope.”

The cleric’s expression softened. “I…” Then he shook his head, like a man suddenly awakening from a dream. A smile quirked the corner of his lips. “A psion,” he said. “That’s quite rare.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I’m sorry, but the answer is still no. And don’t try to charm me again.”

Arvin fumed. Just who in the Nine Hells did this human think he was?

Arvin hissed then leaped forward with the speed of a striking snake, intending to sink his teeth into the man’s throat. The cleric, however, was quicker. He barked out a one-word incantation and whipped one of his scarred hands up in front of his body, palm outward. Arvin crashed face-first into a glowing wall of magical energy that rattled his teeth in their sockets.

Suddenly sobered, he staggered away, rubbing his aching jaw. The anger that had boiled in him a moment ago was gone. Mutely, he glanced at the glove on his left hand, wondering why he hadn’t tried to summon his dagger to it.

Of course. The mind seed. He had reacted as Zelia might have done.

The cleric slowly lowered his hand. With a faint crackling, the magical shield around him disappeared. “Now that you’ve come to your senses, let’s pass the time like civilized men,” he told Arvin. “Gonthril told me part of your story; I’d like to hear the rest. But here’s a warning. If you try to attack me again, you’ll spend the rest of the day as a statue.”

Arvin didn’t bother to ask whether the cleric meant that literally-whether he was threatening to turn Arvin to stone-or whether he was simply promising to reimpose the spell that had held Arvin motionless earlier. Either way, Arvin didn’t really want to find out. He spread his hands in a peace gesture.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s talk.”

CHAPTER 11

24 Kythorn, Evening

Arvin paced back and forth like an animal in a cage. He’d been trapped in this room for ages with a man he could neither charm nor fight his way past. He wanted to be out doing something. Only two days had passed since Zelia planted the mind seed, but already Arvin was starting to lose control. If he didn’t do something soon he might make another dangerous-possibly fatal-mistake. And there was a chance, it seemed, that Naulg might still be alive. But all Arvin could do was weave his way back and forth, back and forth, across the floor.

He and the cleric-Nicco, his name was-were alone in the room now. Kayla had awakened some time ago, as refreshed as if she’d never succumbed to fever at all. She’d been summoned from the room by Gonthril, presumably to join the suicidal raid on the royal palace. Arvin supposed that was the last he’d ever see of her.

Arvin had passed the time by telling Nicco his story-omitting any mention of Zelia, since the news that he was gathering information for a yuan-ti was hardly going to endear him to the rebels. Thinking of her-and the mind seed-made him wonder. Hazzan’s dispelling hadn’t broken its hold over Arvin, but perhaps clerical magic might succeed where wizardry had failed.

“I’ve been thinking about the potion,” Arvin began. “Hazzan’s dispelling doesn’t seem to have worked. I still seem to be turning into a yuan-ti. In mind, if not in body.”

Nicco nodded grimly. “You do seem to be under some sort of magical compulsion-from time to time. Right now, I’d say you were your own man. But when you attacked me earlier…”

“I’m sorry about that,” Arvin repeated. “I wasn’t… in my right mind.”

“Apology accepted.”

“You recognized me as a psion earlier,” Arvin said. “How?”

“You cast a charm spell without using either a holy symbol or hand gestures. Some wizards and sorcerers can cast spells with stilled hands or silenced lips, but the faint ringing sound I heard when you tried to charm me confirmed my guess. You’re a psion.”

Arvin’s hopes rose. “Not many people know what a psion is.”

Nicco shrugged. “I’m widely traveled.”

“Have you dispelled psionic powers before?”

“Yes… why?”

Arvin smiled. Maybe Nicco could help him. “I’ve been wondering if the potion I was forced to drink might have contained a component that was psionic, rather than sorcerous,” Arvin said. “If it did, Hazzan might have overlooked it. I was wondering if prayer might succeed where wizardry failed.”

“It might,” Nicco said slowly. “If it is the Doombringer’s will.”

“The Doombringer? Is that the name of your god?”

“In my country he is known as Assuran, Lord of the Three Thunders, but here they call him Hoar.”

“I… think I’ve heard of him,” Arvin said.

“He is the righter of wrongs,” Nicco said with a grim smile. “I heard you whisper Tymora’s name earlier. Like that goddess, Hoar is a bringer of luck-bad luck, but only to those who have called it down upon themselves by their own actions. He seals their doom-and in the process, saves those who are doomed.”

“That’s how I feel, right now,” Arvin said somberly. “Doomed.”

“Talona’s clerics did wrong you,” Nicco agreed. “The Doombringer will surely be moved to set matters right.”

Arvin let out a long, slow hiss of relief. The sooner Zelia’s mind seed was out of his head, the better.

Nicco stared at him. “Hoar’s blessings come with a price.”

Arvin gave the cleric a wry smile. “Nice of you to be up front about it. What is it?” He pictured a healthy tithe, or several tendays of fasting, self-flagellation, and prayer. The clerics who ran the orphanage had been big on flagellation.