No, there had to be another way to find the Pox, something Arvin hadn’t thought of yet. If only Tymora would smile upon Arvin and cause him to cross paths with another of the cultists, he might be able to learn where they were hiding. He wouldn’t make the same mistake as last time. This time he’d follow the cultist rather than try to question him. Asking questions had only caused him to lose his warehouse. Someone was sure to have noticed the stench of the corpse by now and called in the clerics to…
Arvin slowed, suddenly realizing something. He’d questioned the cultist, but he hadn’t searched him. There hadn’t been time. For all Arvin knew, there might have been something on the body that would lead Arvin straight to the cultists. And thanks to Zelia, Arvin had a tool he could use to search the body from a safe distance.
Arvin hurried to his warehouse. It didn’t take him long to get there-the streets were emptying of people as Middark approached. He passed the public fountain and turned into the intersection his warehouse fronted. He saw that the front door was still shut-and unmarked. He bypassed it, holding his breath as soon as he caught the rotten odor coming from behind the door, and made for one of the barred windows, instead. Leaping up, he grabbed the bars, supporting himself, and peered in. The corpse-or rather, what was left of it-was still tangled in the magical rope. It lay on the floor just inside the door. The cultist’s tunic was disheveled, but Arvin could see that it had at least one pocket.
He concentrated, drawing psionic energy up into his “third eye.” He sent it out and saw a streak of silver light flash toward the corpse. As soon as it touched the pocket Arvin gave it a mental yank and heard the fabric tear. Three items spilled out: a leather sling, a lumpy-looking pouch that probably contained sling stones-and a key.
Immediately, Arvin coiled his mental energy around the key. He yanked, and the key lifted in the air and sailed toward the window. Springing back from the wall, Arvin landed on the street below, pulling the key out between the bars. It landed with a dull clink on the cobblestones at his feet.
Arvin stared at it, his heart racing. This was no ordinary key, intended to fit the door of an inn or warehouse. It was made from a peculiar reddish metal, was as long as Arvin’s index finger, and had teeth that were an odd shape. They were jagged and triangular, instead of square. It probably opened a lock that was equally unusual. Possibly the door to whatever building the Pox had chosen for their hiding place.
Arvin carefully picked it up-with his gloved hand-and spoke the glove’s command word, sending the key into extra-dimensional space. Then he set out for the artisan’s section of the city. That was where Lorin, the Guild member he’d purchased his belt buckle from, had his workshop. Lorin was a master locksmith; if anyone knew what lock this key fit into, he would.
24 Kythorn, Middark
Arvin banged at the shutters of the Lorin’s workshop. After a few moments they opened. Lorin’s apprentice-a slender boy in his teens with mouse-brown hair as fuzzy as frayed rope-stared out at Arvin, yawning.
“Is Lorin here?” Arvin asked. Silently, his fingers added,
The apprentice shook his head. “He’s out on business.” He stressed the last word, adding a wink to it, then yawned again.
“When will he be back?” Arvin asked, irritation rising in him.
“I dunno. Maybe tomorrow morning. Maybe the next day.”
Arvin hissed in frustration. Tymora wasn’t with him tonight, it seemed. Should he wait-or try to find another locksmith? The trouble was, Lorin was the only one he knew for certain was Guild. “Fetch him,” he demanded. “At once or I’ll-”
Only at the last moment did Arvin realize what was happening. It was the mind seed again, intruding upon his thoughts, stirring up his emotions like a nest of spitting vipers. With an effort, Arvin forced himself to calm down. “Sorry,” he apologized, rubbing his temple. “But it’s important. Can I leave something here for Lorin?”
“What?” the apprentice asked.
“A key-one I’d like him to identify, if he can. I’ll pay well for whatever information he can provide.” To back up his words, he passed the apprentice a gold piece.
The apprentice suddenly wasn’t sleepy any more. He pocketed the gold piece and held out a hand. “Leave the key with me.”
Arvin shook his head. “You mustn’t touch it,” he cautioned. “It came from the pocket of a dead man-a man who died of plague.”
The apprentice’s face paled. He drew back from the window, and for a moment Arvin worried that he’d slam the shutter in Arvin’s face. But after a moment’s fumbling inside the workshop, he reappeared. “Plague,” he said with a shudder. “No wonder you’re so edgy.” He held out a ceramic jar, which he uncorked. “Put the key in this.”
“Good idea.” Arvin summoned the key into his gloved hand and dropped it inside the jar, which the apprentice hurriedly corked.
“Tell Lorin I need the information as soon as possible,” Arvin instructed. “It’s urgent. The life of a Guild member is at stake.”
The apprentice nodded, his eyes serious. “I’ll tell Lorin about it as soon as he gets back,” he promised.
“Thanks.” Turning away from the window, Arvin set off down the street, seething with barely subdued frustration at the delay. It was unacceptable, intolerable…
He’d walked some distance before he realized that he was hissing-and that worried him. The mind seed’s hold was intensifying. Arvin was thinking more and more like a yuan-ti-reacting like one, too. His dreams, crowded with Zelia’s memories, were no longer his own. Even in his waking moments it was difficult to hold on to
Arvin wet his lips nervously then grimaced as he realized what he’d just done. At least he was still noticing the odd mannerisms.
He wandered the streets with no clear destination in mind. What he really needed was someone to talk to- someone in whom to confide. He had dozens of associates among the Guild, but that was all they were-customers and contacts. Naulg was the only one Arvin could call a friend. There weren’t any women to whom Arvin could turn. Wary of ever getting too close to anyone, he’d never formed a permanent bond with a member of the opposite sex. He’d rarely slept with the same woman twice, let alone become a lover and confidant to one.
Yet he needed help-that much was clear.
Nothing, it seemed, could dislodge the mind seed. Wizardry had failed, prayers had failed, and there was no known potion that would work against it. Then his footsteps slowed as he realized there was one form of magic he’d not yet tried.
Psionics.
From childhood, he dimly remembered his mother once mentioning that psionic powers could be “negated.” Presumably, this was a process akin to a wizard or cleric dispelling a spell. If Arvin could find a psion-one who was willing to help him and who was powerful enough to counter the mind seed-perhaps he could free himself from it. But where was he going to find a psion? In his twenty-six years in Hlondeth, Arvin had only met one, other than his mother. Zelia. Was there really no one else, or had Arvin just not recognized the subtle signs?
The secondary displays, for example. Zelia and Nicco had both recognized Arvin as a psion by the ringing sound they’d heard when Arvin had manifested his charms. Zelia had attributed the secondary display to the fact that Arvin was untrained, implying that more powerful psions didn’t produce any such telltale traces. But what if she’d been lying? On several occasions, Arvin had noticed her eyes flashing silver as they “reflected” the light-even when the light was behind her. Was that a secondary display, too?
As Arvin thought about it, he realized there was someone else who had produced something that might have been a secondary display when working his “magic”-Tanju, the militia tracker. When Tanju had tried to view the inside of the enormous pot Arvin had fallen into, Arvin had heard a low humming similar to the drone that Arvin’s distract power produced. He’d assumed Tanju had been humming to himself, but the noise might have, in fact, been an involuntary secondary display. And there was the bundle of crystals Tanju had been carrying…
With a start, Arvin realized he knew what they were: a “crystal capacitor,” a device for storing psionic energy. The capacitor was charged using a complex series of
