Venom’s Taste

When Arvin began to protest, she held up a hand. “As would you be, if you hadn’t proved stronger than the rest. But there is a way for you to avenge your friend’s death. Would you like to hear what it is?”

Arvin’s eyes narrowed. He could tell when he was being manipulated. How did this woman know for certain that Naulg was dead? Like Arvin, he might have fought off the draught of plague. He might still be alive-and a captive. Arvin nodded.

“I want to know more about the Pox-things that only a human can uncover,” she continued. “I’d be willing to pay for that information, providing the human was smart and knew how not to tip his hand.”

Arvin feigned only a passing interest by crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. “How much?”

Zelia took a sip of her ale-not quite quickly enough to hide her smile. Her teeth were human-square and flat, rather than the slender, curved fangs some yuan-ti had. “Enough.”

It was Arvin’s turn to stare. “Why do you need a human?” he asked at last.

“The cultists won’t accept any other race into their ranks.”

Arvin wrinkled his nose in disgust as he realized what she was asking him to do. “You want me to join their cult? To worship that foul abomination of a goddess? Never!”

Zelia’s expression tightened. Too late, Arvin realized what he’d just said. “Abomination” was the word that humans elsewhere in the Vilhon Reach used to describe the yuan-ti who had the most snakelike characteristics. It was an insult that no human of Hlondeth ever dared use. It commonly provoked a sharp, swift-and fatal-bite in return, or a slow constriction.

Arvin swallowed nervously and half-closed his gloved hand, ready to call the dagger to it, but Zelia let the insult pass.

“To pretend to join their cult,” she said.

Arvin shook his head. “The answer is still no.”

“Is it because of your faith you refuse?” she asked.

For one unsettling moment Arvin wondered if she was referring to Ilmater, if she knew about his time in the orphanage and the endless attempts by the clerics to instill in the children under their care a sense of “eternal thankfulness for the mercy of our lord the Crying God.” Then he realized that Zelia was simply asking a general question. “I don’t worship any particular deity,” he told her. “I toss the occasional coin in Tymora’s cup for good fortune, but that’s all.”

“Then why do you refuse?”

Arvin sighed. “I’m a simple merchant. I import ropes and nets. For this job, you need an actor-or a rogue.”

Zelia’s eyes narrowed. “It’s you I want. You survived the disease the Pox infected you with. In their eyes, that makes you blessed.”

“I see.” He decided to see how badly she wanted these cultists. “I lost one thousand gold pieces last night. Would you be willing to pay that much for me to spy on them?”

Zelia gave a dismissive wave of her hand, as if the figure he’d just named were pocket change. “Certainly.”

“Five thousand?”

“Yes.”

“Ten?”

Zelia gave him a tight smile. “If you produce the desired results, yes-and if you follow orders.”

With difficulty, Arvin kept his expression neutral. As he collected his thoughts, he sipped his ale and considered her offer. Ten thousand gold pieces was a lot of coin-enough to get him out of Hlondeth and free him from the Guild’s clutches forever. But he wondered for whom Zelia was working. Someone with deep pockets, obviously-perhaps someone with access to the royal coffers. Unless she was lying about the coin, and didn’t intend to pay anything, which was more likely when you came right down to it. A classic bait and jump-offer the victim anything he asks for then give him more than he bargained for.

“Well?” Zelia asked. “Will you do it?”

Arvin shuddered, remembering the terrible pockmarks on the cultists’ skin. Was that how his mother had looked as she lay dying? He decided he couldn’t bear the foul touch of their fingers again, even if they carried no taint. Even for ten thousand gold pieces.

“No,” he answered. “Not for all the coin in the Extaminos treasury. Find someone else.” He set his ale down and started to rise from the table.

Surprisingly, Zelia didn’t protest. Instead, she took a long swallow of the ale in front of her, gulping down the egg inside it. When she was finished, she licked her lips with a tongue that was longer than the average human’s, with a slight fork at the end of it…

A blue tongue.

Arvin felt his eyes widen. He sank back into his seat. “You were the snake in the rowboat.”

“Yes.”

“You neutralized the poison?”

Zelia nodded.

“Why?”

“I wanted you alive.”

“Knowing-thanks to your ‘hunch’-that I’d return to the Coil, and I’d tell you my story,” Arvin said.

“Yes.”

Anger rose inside Arvin, flushing his face. “You used me.”

Zelia stared at him. “I saved your life.”

“The answer’s still no. I won’t join the cult.”

“Yes you will,” Zelia said slowly. “Seven days from now, you will.”

She said it with such certainty that it gave Arvin pause. “What do you mean?” he asked slowly.

“After I neutralized the poison, I planted a ‘seed’ in your mind,” Zelia said. “A seed that takes seven days to germinate. At the end of those seven days, your mind will no longer be your own. Your body will be mine-to do with as I will.” She leaned across the table and lightly stroked his temple with her fingertips then sat back, smiling.

Arvin stared at her, horrified. She was bluffing, he told himself. But it didn’t feel like a bluff. Her smile was too confident, too self-satisfied-that of a gambler who knows he holds the winning hand. And now that she’d drawn his attention to it, Arvin could feel a faint throbbing in his temple, like the beginning of a headache. Was it the “seed” spell she had cast on him, putting down roots?

“What if I agree to join the cult?” he asked. “If I do that, will you negate the spell?”

Zelia hissed softly. “You’ve changed your mind?” Her lips parted to add something more, but just then, from somewhere behind Arvin, there came a shout of dismay and the sound of chairs being scuffed hurriedly back-and the clink of chain mail.

Turning on his chair-slowly, so as not to attract attention to himself-Arvin saw a dozen men in armor descending the ramp: Hlondeth’s human militia. Each wore a helmet that was flared to resemble the hood of a cobra, with a slit-eyed visor that hid the face from the nose up. The bronze rings of their chain mail shimmered like scales as they marched into the tavern. They were armed with strangely shaped crossbows. Arvin observed how these worked a moment later, when a boy in his teens leaped from his chair and tried to run to a door that led to the tavern’s stockroom. At a gesture from their sergeant-a large man with a jutting chin and the emblem of two twined serpents embossed on the breastplate he wore-one of the militia pulled the trigger of his crossbow. A pair of lead weights linked by a fine wire exploded from the weapon, whirling around one another as they flew through the air. The wire caught the youth around his ankles, sending him crashing into a table.

The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of a mug rolling across the table and falling with a soft thud into the sawdust below. Then, as the man who had shot the crossbow strode across the room to apprehend the runaway, the sergeant spoke.

“By order of Lady Extaminos, I am commanded to find crew for a galley,” he announced. “Those who have previously served in the militia are exempt. Roll up your sleeves and account for yourselves.”

A handful of men in the tavern dutifully began to roll up their sleeves, exposing the chevrons magically branded into their left forearms by battle clerics-chevrons that recorded the four years of service required of every human male in Hlondeth. Arvin, meanwhile, glanced around the tavern, his heart pounding. A galley? Their crews had even less expectation of coming home again than the men who were sent to the Cloven Mountains to fight