'Looks like we've got the place to ourselves,' he observed.
'Not for long,' Darris said as he climbed down from the cart. 'We passed a gaggle of doomsayers on the way up here. They wanted me to stop and sell them wine, but I told them they'd have to wait until they reached the quarry.' He looped the reins of the
horse around a tree branch and lifted the leather sack down from the driver's seat. It must have been heavy; he staggered slightly as he stepped back from the cart. 'I wanted a chance to dispose of this first.'
The cart had pulled up under the aqueduct that ran alongside the road. Mist drifted down from above, a welcome respite from the heat. Arvin turned his face toward it and closed his eyes, savoring the spray.
'Go ahead,' he told Darris. 'I won't look.'
'That's right,' Darris said, his tone changing. 'You won't.'
Arvin opened his eyes and saw Darris point the wand at him.
'Danis! Don't-'
A thin line of black crackled out of the tip of the wand and struck Arvin in the face.
He was blind.
'Stay where you are,' Darris said. 'I'll be right back.'
'Darris, wait!' Arvin shouted. 'I won't…' His voice trailed off as he realized the futility of pleading. Guild members didn't trust each other at the best of times, and they certainly didn't trust those who had 'robbed' from the guild-as Arvin's amputated finger announced for all the world to see-which was ironic, because Darris was doing exactly the same thing: betraying the guild by denying them their share of his loot.
Arvin sighed. He'd just have to wait it out and pray that the wand's effects weren't permanent.
He heard the horse whickering, the splatter of water dripping from the aqueduct above, and the distant grumble of thunder as storm clouds built over the Vilhon Reach. Somewhere in that direction, the rulership of Hlondeth was being contested. Serpent
versus serpent-a battle that needn't concern him. He said a prayer for the few people he actually cared about in that city, though there weren't many. Tanju was away for the summer, off on another mission for House Extaminos, and so would be safe. Gonthril and his followers had gone to ground, and Arvin hadn't seen the rebel leader in a year. Nicco had wandered off about four months past, summoned by his perpetually angry god on another mission of vengeance, but Drin, the potion seller, was still in town. So was little Kollim, eight years old and chafing under his mother's heavy hand. Tymora grant both of them luck.
The nap in the back of the cart had been uncomfortable, but it had refreshed him somewhat. He felt strong enough to perform his meditations. Arvin felt his way down from the cart, placed his pack on the ground next to him, then stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside. He lay down on his belly on the road, then levered his upper torso into an arch by extending his arms. Stretched out in the bhujang asana, his neck craned back and sightless eyes staring up into the sky, he pulled his awareness deep inside himself. It was even easier without sight to distract him, or it would have been, had he been certain that his eyesight would return. His mind was crowded with worries. There was no guarantee that Pakal would wait for him at the temple. The dwarf had abandoned Arvin once already, and there was also the iron cobra to worry about.
Arvin took a deep breath and pushed these thoughts from his mind with the exhalation. 'Control,' he breathed.
It was Zelia's expression, but it served. In order to get through what lay ahead, he'd need nerves as steady as hers. He breathed in through one nostril, out through his mouth, in through the other nostril,
out through his mouth, slow and deep, savoring the smell of sap from the pine trees nearby, restorlng his muladhara with each long, extended breath.
When it was full, he rose gracefully to his feet and began the five poses of defense and five poses of attack that Tanju had taught him, alternating one with the other. He raised his hands and tilted his face back, then swept his hands through the air in front of his face, as if scrubbing his mind clean. Then he brought both hands to his forehead and thrust them forward, feet braced like a man shoving against a boulder, picturing his thrust shattering the rock that was an opponent's mind. He spun in a circle with hands extended and one leg parallel to the ground, forming an imagined barrier with both palms and the sole of his foot, then whipped his arms forward, one after another, imagining himself lashing an enemy's confidence to shreds and so on, through each of the ten poses, one flowing gracefully into the next.
When he was done, sweat covered his body. By sound, he found his way to one of the trickles that fell from the aqueduct above and caught the water in cupped hands. As he drank, he listened for Darris. The thief should have been back by then. Arvin hoped nothing had happened to him- especially if that wand was required to restore his eyesight. Already he could feel the air cooling slightly as evening approached.
The sound of footsteps caught his attention. 'Darris?' Arvin called.
More footsteps. Voices. Men and women, weary. Then a cry: 'Smoke! The Stormlord speaks!'
The cry was followed by a rush of excited shouts and the sound of people-several dozen of them, by the sound of it-thudding to their knees. Arvin knew, from his experiences the previous summer,
what they would be doing: tearing at their clothes and faces. His guess was confirmed by the sound of ripping cloth.
Above the commotion, he heard someone speak. 'Wine!' the voice cried. 'The wine merchant stopped here, just as he promised.'
Arvin heard the people moving toward him. His nose crinkled as he caught the smell of hot, unwashed bodies and fresh blood.
'How much for a jug?' a woman's voice asked.
Arvin heard the clink of a coin pouch. He turned his head, trying to figure out where she was, and heard a male voice whisper: 'He's blind.'
Then a second man added, in a smirking whisper, 'Pay him in coppers; he won't know the difference.'
Arvin nudged his pack with one foot, making sure it was still there.
'Silence,' the woman's voice hissed. 'I will buy the wine, and you will drink only as much of it as I serve you. We must reach the temple tonight.'
'Yes, Stormmistress,' the second man said, contrite.
A hand touched his cheek, turning his face-a woman's hand, by the soft feel of the skin and the sweet- smelling, almost overpowering perfume she wore.
'I'm over here,' the Stormmistress said in a silky, sensuous voice, 'and I'd like to buy some wine for my fellow pilgrims. How much?'
'Five pythons a jug,' Arvin answered, naming the price of the most expensive bottle of wine he'd ever seen ordered at the Mortal Coil. Judging by the fine ceramic jugs, Dar ris had stolen the stuff from a noble household, and it was probably worth that much or even more.
'Done,' the woman said, not even bothering to haggle. 'I'll take three.' She caught Arvin's hand and pressed coins into it. He rubbed one of them. There
was a snake embossed on one side of it, and what felt like the House Extaminos crest on the other. Judging by its weight, it was gold, not copper.
The woman leaned past him to lift a jug of wine from the cart. As she did, Arvin caught a whiff of what the perfume was hiding: the musky odor of snake.
That startled him. The clergy of Talos were all human as far as he knew. Yuan-ti scorned the Raging God as one of the lesser Powers, inferior to their serpent deity. To the yuan-ti, Sseth was the only god worth worshiping.
That brought up an unpleasant possibility-that the woman who'd just purchased wine for her 'followers' had some ulterior motive for being there.
A moment later, when he listened in on her thoughts-hiding his secondary display by kneeling on the ground and pretending to search for his shirt-he discovered that it was even worse than he'd thought.
She was indeed a worshiper of Sseth.
One of the clerics who served Sibyl.
CHAPTER 5
