Lisa Smedman - Venom’s Taste

The cultist did a credible job of imitating a yuan-ti. “Release me,” he spat arrogantly, glaring as he blinked away the blood that was trickling into his right eye. “And I might let you live.”

Arvin chuckled. “I know what you are,” he told the man. “You might as well drop your disguise. I can see-and smell-Talona’s foul touch all over you.”

The cultist hissed in anger, still trying to convince Arvin that he was really a yuan-ti then gave up. The magical disguise in which he’d cloaked himself dissipated, revealing a young man whose mouth was so disfigured by scars that his lips would not close. A faded gray-green robe with frayed cuffs and a torn neck covered all but his hands and feet, which were covered in pockmarks. Arvin made a mental note not to touch the magical rope that entangled the fellow; perhaps even to burn it, despite the expense that had gone into its manufacture. He bent over a burlap sack and carefully wiped the cultist’s blood from his dagger.

The cultist strained against the rope for a moment but only succeeded in causing it to constrict further. He glared up at Arvin. “What do you want?” he said in a slurred voice.

“I’ll ask the questions,” Arvin countered. “For starters, why were you watching me?”

“Watching you?” The cultist seemed genuinely puzzled. He tried to purse his disfigured lips together, but they formed an uneven, ragged line. Staring down at the fellow, Arvin suddenly felt sorry for him. This man had been handsome, once, but those lips would never again know the soft caress of a woman’s kiss.

Surprisingly, the cultist laughed. “You pity me?” he slurred. “Don’t. I sought the embrace of the goddess.”

Arvin felt a chill run through him. “You did that to yourself deliberately?” he asked. He’d given little thought to the motivations of the Pox. He’d assumed they were driven to worship Talona after illness claimed them in the hope that she would free them from their afflictions. He’d never dreamed that anyone would afflict himself with plague on purpose. Yet that was what this fellow seemed to be saying.

He thought of the liquid they’d forced him to drink. “The liquid in the metal flasks,” he said, thinking out loud as he stared at the terrible pockmarks on the cultist’s skin. “Is this what it’s supposed to do to people? Make their skin… like that?” He resisted the urge to touch his own skin to make sure it was still smooth.

The cultist started to speak then gave another of his phlegmy coughs. He glanced around as if about to spit. Without intending to, Arvin backed up a pace.

The cultist gave him a penetrating look. “You’ve seen something, haven’t you? Something you shouldn’t have.” He paused for a moment, and his expression turned smug. “It doesn’t matter. Cry all the warnings you like-it won’t help you. Talona will soon purge this city, sweeping it clean for the faithful. We will rise from the ashes to claim it.”

Arvin shivered, suddenly realizing what the Pox must be up to. Last night’s ritual hadn’t been an isolated sacrifice. Thinking back to the rash of disappearances that had taken place in recent tendays around the waterfront, Arvin realized that he and Naulg weren’t the first to be subjected to the Pox’s vile ministrations. Nor would they be the last. The Pox meant to spread plague throughout the entire city.

But if that was their goal, why hadn’t their victims been turned out into the streets, where they would spread their contagion to others? Perhaps, Arvin thought, because they had all died. But if they had, why weren’t the cultists dumping their bodies in the streets instead?

Maybe the cultists were saving them up, intending to scatter them throughout the city like seeds when they had enough of them.

As Arvin stood, these dark thoughts tumbling through his mind, he became dimly aware of noises from the street outside-the chatter of voices, the rumble-squeak of carts, the voices of women returning from the fountain.

The public fountain, one of dozens from which Hlondeth’s citizens drew their daily drinking water.

The one the cultist had been watching when Arvin spotted him.

Arvin suddenly realized the answer. If the Pox wanted to spread contagion, what better way to do it than by tainting the city’s water supply? All they had to do was carry to each fountain a little of whatever was in the flasks and tip it into the fountain under the pretense of filling their vessels. But would this work-or would the volume of water in the fountain dilute the plague, rendering it ineffective? How much did a person have to ingest for it to kill?

Perhaps that was what the Pox were trying to find out.

As Arvin stared down at the cultist, his expression hardened. If the Pox had their way, forty-five thousand people would die-perhaps more, if plague spread beyond Hlondeth into the rest of the Vilhon Reach. The gods had just placed what might be the key to preventing these people’s deaths in Arvin’s hands. All he had to do was find out where the Pox were and report that to Zelia. She would take care of the rest.

“Where are the other cultists?” he asked. “Where do you meet?”

The man gave a phlegmy laugh. “In the Ninth Hell.”

Arvin hefted his dagger, wondering if pain would prompt the truth. Probably not. Anyone who deliberately disfigured himself like this had little consideration for his own flesh.

The cultist’s disfigured mouth twisted into a lopsided grimace. “Go ahead,” he countered. “Cut me again with your fancy dagger. Perhaps a little of the blood will spray on you, this time, and you’ll know Talona’s embrace. Throw!”

As the cultist mocked him, Arvin’s mind exploded with rage. He whipped up his dagger and nearly threw it, only stopping himself at the last moment. His temper suddenly cooled, and he realized what the cultist had just attempted. He’d cast a spell on Arvin, compelling him to throw his dagger. Only by force of will had Arvin been able to avoid fulfilling the cultist’s wish to be silenced.

Slowly he lowered the dagger. That had been a narrow escape, but it reminded him of something. Perhaps there was another way, other than threats, to get the man to talk-by charming him.

Arvin had felt the first sputters of this power-which, until his conversation with Zelia a short time ago, he hadn’t admitted was psionic-back when he was a boy. Back when his mother was still alive. She’d discovered him cutting one of her maps into parchment animals and had raised her hand to strike him. Frightened, he’d summoned up a false smile and pleaded in the most winsome voice a five-year-old could summon-and had felt the strange sensation prickle across the base of his scalp for the first time. His mother’s expression had suddenly softened, and she’d lowered her hand. Then she’d blinked and shaken her head. She’d tousled Arvin’s hair and told him he’d very nearly charmed himself out of a punishment-that he showed “great promise.” Then she’d taken his favorite wooden soldier and tossed it into the fireplace, to teach him how bad it felt when another person damaged something that was yours.

He hadn’t been able to manifest that power again until he reached puberty. He’d charmed people in the years since then, but his talent was unreliable. Sometimes it worked… sometimes it didn’t. But that time with his mother, it had arisen spontaneously.

Why?

Suddenly, Arvin realized the answer. Strong emotion. Like a rising tide, it had forced his psionic talent to bubble to the surface.

Standing over his captive, Arvin tried to summon up an emotion equally as strong as the one he’d felt that day. Then, he’d been motivated by fear; this time, he let frustration carry him almost to the edge. He embraced the emotion and combined its rawness with the urge to get the man to talk to him. Why couldn’t he get the cultist to speak? The fellow was his friend. He should trust Arvin. The prickling began at the base of his scalp, encouraging him.