Venom’s Taste

CHAPTER 13

25 Kythorn, Sunset

Arvin trudged onward, weary and footsore after a full day of walking in the hot sun along the road that wound its way into the foothills north of Hlondeth. Built centuries ago when the aqueduct was constructed, the road was little more than a track, its flagstones all but lost among the weeds. The aqueduct itself was still sound; Arvin could hear water gurgling through the enormous stone troughs overhead. Here and there water spurted out through a crack where two of the troughs joined, providing a cooling shower for the travelers trudging below.

Arvin had expected to be the only one on the road; summer was a grueling time to be undertaking a climb into the mountains north of the city. He was surprised by the number of people who were heading in the same direction that he was. They turned out to be devotees of Talos the Destroyer, on their way to Mount Ugruth to view the most recent venting of the volcano. Every so often-whenever they caught sight of the plume of smoke rising from the peak of the mountain-the pilgrims would fall to their knees, tear their shirts, and claw at the earth until their fingers bled. A few even went so far as to claw at their faces, opening bloody wounds they displayed proudly to one another, bragging that this would speed the flow of lava down the mountain’s sides and the destruction of all in its path.

Arvin, reminded of the excesses of the priests who had run the orphanage, kept well away from these fanatics. What point was there in worshiping a god who offered only death and destruction as rewards for faithful service? Surely that was madness.

Yet it was madness that offered the perfect cover. As he drew nearer to the top of the first pass, Arvin stepped into the trees, out of sight from the road. When he emerged again, his shirt hung in tatters, his trouser knees were dirty and his hair and face were streaked with blood from a cut he’d opened on one finger. Raising his hands to the distant volcano, he continued up the road.

Up ahead on the left was a blocky cliff that had been cut into the forested hillside-one of the quarries that had provided the stone used to build the aqueduct. Chunks of partially squared stone littered the ground; travelers in years gone by had used these to create rough, unmortared shelters. Their crude walls were roofed with tree branches, hacked from the nearby forest. Many of the shelters had fallen to pieces, but at least two or three were currently in use, judging by the thin wavers of smoke that rose from them into the summer sky.

Arvin entered the old quarry and began going from one shelter to the next, mumbling nonsense about death and ashes under his breath. But every shelter that he looked inside held only pilgrims. They beamed at Arvin, waving him inside, then shrugged as he turned and stumbled away.

After peering inside the last of the shelters, Arvin slowed. Had Tanju already gone? The tracker had promised to wait until Evening, but perhaps Sunset had marked the end of his patience.

Arvin turned and stared back in the direction from which he’d come. Hlondeth lay far below, a dark spot at the edge of the vast expanse of blue that was the Vilhon Reach. Far away across the water, Arvin could just make out the opposite shore, where the Barony of Sespech lay. Clouds were gathering above the Reach, indicating that the muggy heat would soon break.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of a sleeve, Arvin wet his lips. He certainly could use a drink of water. Then again, he was equally drawn by the heat he could feel rising from the sun-warmed stone on which he stood. Exhausted after a full day of walking, he yearned to curl up on it and soak up the last few rays of the setting sun. Perhaps if he drowsed, the headache that had been plaguing him would finally ebb. Tilting his face up to the sun, he closed his eyes and stretched…

He heard a faint tinkling, like the sound of chimes being stirred by the wind. An instant later pain lanced through his skull, staggering him. Gasping, he clutched his head. The pain was unbearable; it pierced his skull from temple to temple. He heard the familiar thunk of a crossbow shot. Something wrapped itself around his ankles, lashing them together. In that same instant, a second mental agony was added to the first. This time it slammed into the spot between his eyes and out through the base of his skull. Arvin would have screamed, but found himself unable to force a sound out through his gritted teeth. Opening his eyes seemed equally impossible, as was anything other than toppling over onto his side. A third bolt of agony pierced the crown of his head as he fell. This one seemed to explode within his mind, sparking out in all directions like a shattered coal and burning everything in its path. As it sizzled inside his skull, Arvin felt his mind dulling. Coherent thought was a struggle, and yet somehow a part of what remained of his consciousness-the part that held the mind seed-recognized the attack for what it was. A series of crippling mental thrusts.

Tanju was still at the quarry, after all.

He… dares… attack… me? thought the part of Arvin’s mind that had been seeded.

Then he crumpled to the ground.

25 Kythorn, Evening

Arvin came to his senses suddenly, sputtering from the cold water that had just been dashed on his face. Blinking it out of his eyes, he saw that he was inside one of the crude shelters in the old quarry. Moonlight shone in through the loose lacing of branches that constituted the roof, revealing a shadowed form sitting cross-legged on the opposite side of the shelter: Tanju. The tracker stared silently at Arvin, his hands raised above his head and palms pressed together, his hairless chest visible through rips in his shirt. His eyes were filled with shifting points of colored light; it was as if hundreds of tiny candle flames of differing hues were flickering in their depths.

Standing next to Tanju was a young man with pale, close-cropped hair who held a dripping leather bucket in one hand. His shirt was also torn like those of the pilgrims; through the rents in his sleeve Arvin could see three chevrons on his left forearm. That, and the peculiarly rigged crossbow that hung from his belt, marked him as a militiaman. Arvin’s backpack lay near his feet.

Arvin tried to rise but found that he was unable to move. Cool, wet tendrils of what looked like white mist encased his body from head to foot, leaving only his eyes and nose uncovered. They shifted back and forth across his body like drifting clouds, but though they left a damp film on Arvin’s hair and skin, he was unable to slip out of them. When he strained against them, they held firm, as solid as any rope. The knowledge of what they were came to him out of one of Zelia’s memories. They were strands of ectoplasm, drawn from the astral plane by force of will and twined around the victim with a quick twist of thought. The resulting “ectoplasmic cocoon” was almost impossible to escape. If cut, the strands would just regenerate.

Much like a length of trollgut, Arvin thought, his mind still groggy.

The flickering points of light disappeared from Tanju’s eyes. He lowered his hands. “This isn’t Gonthril,” he told the other man. “His aura is wrong. Very wrong.”

The militiaman frowned. “He looks like Gonthril.”

“Gonthril wouldn’t have allowed himself to be captured like this.”

Arvin tried to speak, but the strands of ectoplasm pressed against his lips and held his jaw firmly shut. All he could manage was a muffled exhalation that sounded like a hiss.

Tanju waved a hand in front of Arvin’s face, as if fanning a candle flame, and the strands shifted away from Arvin’s mouth. “Who are you?” he asked.

Arvin wet his lips nervously. “My name’s Arvin,” he said. “I’m a rope maker from Hlondeth. Unfortunately, I look like this Gonthril fellow you’re searching for. You mistook me for him in the Mortal Coil two mornings ago.”

“That was you?” Tanju asked.

“Yes.”

“Why did you flee?”

Arvin tried to gesture with his head, but could not. “Take a look at my left forearm,” he suggested. “The militia were rounding up men for a galley. The thought of four years of pulling an oar didn’t appeal to me.”

“I see,” Tanju said. He didn’t bother to inspect Arvin’s arm. “How do you know Gonthril’s name?”

“I overheard one of the militia mention it when I was hiding in the pottery factory,” Arvin said. “ ‘There’s a ten thousand gold piece bounty coming to the man who captures Gonthril,’ he said. I figured that was the name of the person you were looking for.”

“Why did you claim to be him?” Tanju asked.

“I didn’t think you’d agree to meet with me otherwise.” Arvin was uncomfortable inside the cocoon of ectoplasm. The slippery feel of the strands reminded him of the unpleasant cling of sewer muck. His clothes and hair were growing damper by the moment. At least the ectoplasm was odorless, the gods be thanked for small mercies.

The militiaman standing beside Tanju snorted as he placed the bucket back on the ground. “It’s a trick, Tanju,” he said. “The stormlord is trying to stall us-and we fell for it. We’ve already lost an entire day.”

Tanju gave the militiaman a sharp look, as if the other man had just said something he shouldn’t have. “Our quarry knows nothing about the rebels, least of all what their leader looks like.”

“What if we were wrong?” the militiaman suggested. “Maybe the rogues were, in fact, rebels and the theft nothing more than a plot to draw you out of the city.”

“The theft was real enough,” Tanju said grimly. “And they weren’t rebels. I know that much already.”

The militiaman frowned. “But how does this man fit in?”

“I don’t,” Arvin interrupted, exasperated by their endless speculations about rogues and rebels and stormlords-whoever they were. “I’m here because I need Tanju’s help. I need him to negate a psionic power that’s been manifested on me.”

Tanju tilted his head. “Why should I do this for you?”

“I can pay,” Arvin continued. “Look in my backpack and you’ll find a magical rope. It’s yours, if you’ll help.”

The militiaman began to pick up Arvin’s backpack, but Tanju held up a hand, cautioning him. Then Tanju waved his hand over the backpack and a faintly sweet smell filled the air. The scent was a little like the burnsticks Arvin’s mother had burned when she was meditating-flower-sweet, with sharp undertones of resin.

Tanju lowered his hand. “You can open it now,” he told the militiaman.

The militiaman undid the buckles on the backpack and tipped it open. Arvin’s clothes, extra pair of boots, blanket, and food spilled out, together with a neat coil of rope. Tanju stared at them, his eyes sparkling with multicolored fire a second time.

“It’s braided from trollgut,” Arvin explained. “I made it myself. A command word causes it to expand. The extra fifty paces worth of rope will eventually rot away, but it can be grown back over and over again. The rope is quite valuable; you can sell it for three thousand gold pieces or more to the right buyer.” He paused then, when the tingle arose at the base of his scalp, used his most persuasive voice. “Will you do it? Will you use your psionics to negate the power that’s been manifested on me? If you do, I’ll tell you the command word; the rope is useless without it.”

Tanju fingered the rope, squeezing its rubbery strands between his fingers. He cocked his head as if listening to a distant sound-the secondary display of the charm Arvin was manifesting. When he turned back toward Arvin, he was smiling. Arvin peered at the psion, uncertain whether his charm had worked on the man or not. “Well, friend?” he ventured. “Will you help me?”

“I need to know what power has been manifested,” Tanju said.

Arvin wet his lips. “A mind seed.”

Tanju’s eyes widened. He placed his hands on his knees then nodded. “That explains the aura.”

“What aura?”

“The one that surrounds you. It was a strange mix. Dominated by yang-male energy-but streaked with yin. Mostly good but tainted with evil. It contained elements of both power and weakness, human and reptile. I assumed you were trying to alter your own aura… and not quite succeeding. But I see now that it must be the mind seed.”

“Can you negate it?” Arvin asked.

“Excise it, you mean,” Tanju said. He shook his head. “You really are a novice, aren’t you? Despite the fact that you used a sending to contact me, you didn’t mount even the simplest of defenses against my mind thrusts.”

Arvin glanced down at the ectoplasm that held him. “If I’m so harmless, how about releasing me?”

Tanju considered Arvin for a moment, as if weighing the danger he posed. He took a deep breath then blew it out like a man extinguishing a lamp. The tendrils of ectoplasm vanished.

Arvin sat up, working the kinks out of his muscles. He ignored the militiaman, who had scooped up his crossbow and was aiming it at him. Pretending to stretch, he saw with satisfaction that his glove was still on his left hand, his braided leather bracelet still on his right wrist. So far, so good. The slick wetness the tendrils had left disappeared rapidly in the warm night air. Within the space of a few heartbeats, Arvin’s hair and clothes were dry. He turned to Tanju. “I know the name of the power, but not much about it. Tell me what a mind seed is.”

“It’s a psionic power that can be manifested only by the most powerful telepaths,” Tanju answered. “It inserts a sliver of the psion’s mental and spiritual essence in the mind of another-a seed. As it germinates, it slowly replaces the victim’s own mind with that of the psion who manifested the seed. When it at last blooms, the victim is no longer himself, but an exact duplicate of the psion. In mind, but not in body. His thoughts, his emotions, his dreams-”

“I get the point,” Arvin said, shuddering. He massaged his temples, which were throbbing again. “How do I get rid of it?”

“Your head aches?” Tanju asked. “That’s to be expected. It’s the seed, setting in roots. The pain will get worse each day, as the roots expand and-”

“Gods curse you!” Arvin shouted, shaking his fist at Tanju. This human was toying with him, being coy. Gloating as he withheld the very thing Arvin most needed. “I haven’t got much time. Don’t just sit there-excise it, you stupid, insolent-”

The click-whiz of a weighted wire from the crossbow cut off the rest of Arvin’s shout. One of the paired lead weights slammed into his cheek, making him gasp with pain as the other yanked the wire tight, pinning his wrist against his neck. Almost unable to breathe with the wire around his throat, Arvin felt the amulet his mother had given him pressing into his throat. “Nine lives,” he whispered to himself-a plea, this time. He raised his free hand, palm out, in a gesture of surrender. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “That wasn’t me. I didn’t mean to-”

“I could see that,” Tanju said, rising to a kneeling position. He carefully began to unwind the wire from Arvin’s neck and wrist. He spoke over his shoulder to the militiaman. “That was unnecessary. Please wait outside.”

The militiaman grumbled but did as he was told, flipping aside the blanket that served as the shelter’s door and stalking out into the night. Tanju, meanwhile, coiled the weighted wire into a tight ball and placed it in a pocket. He must have realized it would make an ideal garrote.

“Who planted the mind seed?” Tanju asked.

Arvin hesitated. “Why do you want to know?”

“I’m curious,” Tanju answered. “Judging by your mannerisms-and your aura-it was a yuan-ti. I didn’t know that any of them were trained in psionics.”

Arvin stared at Tanju; the tracker’s curiosity seemed to be genuine. Arvin decided that he might as well answer. “Her name’s Zelia.”

Tanju’s expression didn’t change. Either he didn’t know Zelia-or he was a master at hiding his emotions.

“Will you help me?” Arvin asked.

“To excise a mind seed, one must know how to perform psychic chirurgery,” Tanju said. “Unfortunately, that is a power I have yet to acquire.” He paused. “You asked if I could negate it. There is a chance-a very slim one, mind you-that a negation might work. I’ll attempt it now, if only for my own peace of mind while we speak further. Sit quietly, and look into my eyes.”

Arvin did as instructed. Tanju stared intently at him, his eyes once more glinting with sparks of multicolored light. An unusual secondary display, a part of Arvin’s mind noted-the part that had access to Zelia’s memories. Tanju must have trained in the East…

The motes of color suddenly erupted out of Tanju’s eyes like sparks leaping from a fire. They shot into the spot between Arvin’s eyes, penetrating his third eye and spinning there for a brief instant, then rushed through the rest of his body, leaving swirls of tingles at the base of his scalp, his throat, his chest, and his naval. The tingling coiled for a moment around the base of his spine then erupted out through his arms and legs, leaving his fingers and toes numb.

“Did it work?” Arvin asked, flexing his fingers.

“Try to think of a question that you don’t know the answer to-something only Zelia would be able to answer,” Tanju suggested.

Arvin stared at the rough walls of the shelter. Zelia seemed to know a lot about gems and stones. Presumably, she would know what type of stone had gone into the making of these rough walls. It was a reddish color, the same as the stone used in the oldest buildings in Hlondeth…

Marble. Rosy marble, a crystalline rock capable of taking a high polish. Useful in the creation of power stones that conveyed the power to dream travel.

Arvin hissed in alarm. “It didn’t work,” he told Tanju in a tense voice.

Tanju sighed. “I didn’t think it would. The mind seed is too powerful a manifestation. I can’t uproot it.” He gestured at Arvin’s backpack. “You can keep your rope.”

Arvin felt panic rise in his chest. “Is there nothing else you can try?”

Tanju shook his head.

“The mind seed was planted around Middark on the twenty-second of Kythorn,” Arvin said, wetting his lips. “If it blooms after seven days, that means I’ve only got four days left-until Middark of the twenty-ninth.”

“Possibly.”

Arvin caught his breath. “What do you mean?”

“It could bloom sooner than Middark,” Tanju said. “Any time on the twenty-ninth, in fact.”

“But Zelia said it would take seven days to-”

“A mind seed is not like an hourglass,” Tanju said. “It doesn’t keep precise time. The seven-day period is somewhat… arbitrary.”

Arvin swallowed nervously. “So I’ve really only got three days,” he muttered. He shook his head. “Will I… be myself until then?”

“As much as you are now,” Tanju said. “Not that this is much comfort to you, I’m sure.”

“When will I be able to start manifesting the powers that Zelia knows?”

Tanju shook his head. “You won’t. Not until it’s her mind, not yours, in your body. If it worked any other way, the victim would be able to use the psion’s talents against him.”

“Is there nothing that can be done to stop it?” Arvin moaned.

“Nothing. Unless…”

Arvin tensed. “Unless what?”

Tanju shrugged. “There is a prayer that I once saw a cleric use to cure a woman who had been driven insane by a wizard’s spell. He called it a ‘restorative blessing.’ I asked him if it was a divine form of psychic chirurgery. He had never heard the term before, but his answer confirmed that the prayer was indeed similar. He said a restorative blessing could cure all forms of insanity, confusion, and similar mental ailments-that it could dispel the effects of any spell that affected the mind, whether the source of the spell was clerical magic or wizardry. Presumably, that included psionic powers, as well. If you could find a cleric with such a spell, perhaps he could-”

“I don’t know any clerics,” Arvin said in exasperation. “At least, I don’t know any that would-” Here he paused. Nicco. Did Nicco know such a prayer? He’d known what a psion was. Perhaps he knew more about “mind magic” than he’d let on. But if Nicco did know the restorative prayer, would he agree to use it?

Thinking of Nicco put Arvin in mind of the promise he’d made to the cleric: to attempt vengeance upon Zelia. If Arvin actually succeeded-if he was somehow able to defeat Zelia-perhaps she could be forced to remove the mind seed. The only trouble was she was a powerful psion, and he, a mere novice.

But a master was sitting just across the room from him.

Zelia had taught Arvin, in a single evening, to uncoil the energy in his muladhara and reach out with it to snatch his glove from the air. Perhaps there was something that Tanju could teach him, too. Some power that would help him confront Zelia-or at the very least, to defend himself against whatever else she might throw at him.

“That ‘mind thrust’ you used on me when I first arrived,” Arvin said. “Could you teach it to me?”

“I’m surprised you don’t know it already,” Tanju said. “The five attack forms-and their defenses-are among the first things a psion learns. What lamasery did you train at?”

“I didn’t,” Arvin said. “My mother was going to send me to the one she trained at-the Shou-zin Lamasery in Kara Tur. Unfortunately, she didn’t live long enough to-”

Tanju’s eyebrows lifted. “Your mother trained at Shou-zin?”

Arvin paused. “You’ve heard of it?”

Tanju chuckled. “I spent six years there.”

Arvin’s mouth dropped open. “Did you know my mother? Her name was Sassan. She was a seer.”

Tanju shook his head. “She must have trained there after my time.” He paused. “How old were you when she died?”

“Six,” Arvin said, dropping his gaze to the floor. He didn’t want to discuss the orphanage, or what had followed.

Tanju seemed to sense that. “And those who cared for you after her death never thought to send you to a lamasery,” he said. He pressed his palms together and touched his fingertips to his forehead then lowered his hands again. “Yet you know how to manifest a charm.”

Alvin’s cheeks flushed. “It didn’t work, did it?”

Tanju shook his head.

“Did it anger you?”

“No.”

Arvin glanced up eagerly. “Will you teach me the attacks and defenses?” As he spoke, he stifled a yawn. The long walk had left him weary and exhausted; he was barely able to keep his eyes open.

“Tonight?” Tanju chuckled. “It’s late-and I’m as tired as you are. And I have an… assignment I need to attend to. Perhaps in a tenday, when I return to Hlondeth.”

Arvin hissed in frustration. “I haven’t got that much time. The mind seed-”

“Ah, yes,” Tanju said, his expression serious again, “the mind seed.”

“I’ll pay you,” Arvin said. “The trollgut rope is yours, regardless of whether I learn anything or not.”

Tanju stared at the rope. “For what you ask, it is hardly enough. The secrets of Shou-zin are living treasures and do not come cheaply.”

“I know how to make other magical ropes. If you wanted one that could-”

“Your ropes are of less interest to me than your eyes,” Tanju said. “You’re Guild, aren’t you?”

Arvin hesitated. “What if I am?”

“I may need a pair of eyes within that organization, some day,” Tanju said. “If I agree to help you, can I call upon you for a favor in the future?”

Arvin paused. If he agreed, Tanju would be yet another person to whom he’d be beholden. Then again, in four days’ time the promise might not matter, anyway. At last he nodded. “Agreed.”

Tanju smiled. “Then in honor of your mother-may the gods send peace to her soul-I’ll teach you what little I can. But not until tomorrow morning, when you’re rested and your mind is clear.”

“In the morning? But-”

Tanju folded his arms across his chest.

Grudgingly, Arvin nodded. He’d hoped to begin his walk back to the city at dawn’s light. But Naulg had survived this long. An additional morning probably wouldn’t make much difference. “All right. In the morning, then.”

Tanju turned toward the doorway.

“Where are you going?” Arvin asked.

“To join my companion,” Tanju answered. He paused, his palm against the blanket that was the shelter’s doorway. “I’m reluctant to sleep in here with you. The mind seed…” He shrugged.

Arvin hissed in frustration, but held his temper.

“Sleep well,” Tanju said. He stepped out into the night, letting the blanket fall shut behind him.