Venom’s Taste hos-1

by Lisa Smedman

  Hissing in alarm, Zelia spun around-but too late. The monkey’s fist shot through the air toward her, striking her temple with a loud thud. Eyelids fluttering, Zelia tried to turn back toward Arvin but only managed a half-turn before sagging at the knees-then suddenly collapsing.

  Arvin, still treading water, was as surprised as Zelia by the result. Had he really felled a powerful psion with so simple a manifestation as a Far Hand? Quickly, he scrambled up the seawall. He stood, dripping, over Zelia, hardly daring to believe his eyes. Her chest still rose and fell, but she was definitely unconscious. Already a large red welt was swelling at one side of her forehead.

  Arvin flicked his sodden hair back out of his eyes and shook his head. “You shouldn’t have taught me that power,” he told her. Then, seeing the curious onlookers who were starting to collect-including a militiaman who was striding briskly up the seawall-he knelt beside Zelia and pretended to pat her cheek, as if trying to revive her.

  The militiaman shoved his way through the spectators and glared down at Arvin through the slit-eyed visor of his cobra-hooded helmet, his crossbow leveled at Arvin’s chest. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

  Arvin glanced up at the militiaman. “Thieves,” he said quickly. “They shoved me off the seawall and knocked my mistress unconscious. They stole her coin pouch.” He felt the familiar tingle of energy at the base of his scalp.

  The militiaman cocked his head, as if listening to a distant sound, succumbing to the charm. But Zelia was beginning to stir. Arvin prayed she wasn’t going to regain consciousness just yet.

  “I’m a healer,” Arvin continued. “I just have to lay hands on my mistress, and she’ll be all right. We don’t need your help. Why don’t you try to catch the thieves, instead? There was a bald man and a little guy.” He pointed. “They went that way.”

  The militiaman nodded and jogged away. Arvin, meanwhile, flourished his hands then laid them on Zelia’s forehead. He linked with his power stone. Seizing one of the two remaining “stars” in its sky, he delved deep into Zelia’s mind. It was as he’d visualized it when he’d first explored the mind seed under Tanju’s guidance-a twisted nest of snakes. Her powers lay within this writhing mass. They looked, to Arvin, like a cluster of glowing eggs, some large, some small. He hefted them one by one, getting a sense of what each one was. The largest proved to be the one he was looking for. Lifting it from the nest, he crushed it.

  Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard a faint cry. Ignoring it, he linked with his power stone once more and manifested its final power, the one that would allow him to tailor memories. Reaching out with mental fingers, he began rearranging the snakelike strands of thought, braiding them into lines of his choosing.

  Zelia’s eyes fluttered open. Someone was touching her temple-Arvin! He had just manifested a psionic power on her, had reached deep into her mind and removed something that had taken her nearly a year to learn-the mind seed power. He was still rummaging around inside her head, manifesting a second power on her. Immediately, before he could throw up a defense, she attacked. A loud hissing filled the air as she manifested a power. An instant later it was joined by a sharp exhalation as the air was forced from Arvin’s lungs.

  Wisely, the other humans fled.

  Arvin attempted a gasp, but was unable to inhale; Zelia’s power had squeezed his lungs shut. She rose to her feet as he crumpled to his knees and watched, smiling, as his face turned first red, then purple. His eyes were wide, pleading-she would have loved to have heard him beg for his life, but the crisis of breath he was experiencing prevented that. Instead, she leaned forward and let her lips brush his ear as she whispered into it.

  “Which was worse,” she asked. “The mind seed… or this?”

  It took all of her self-control to resist sinking her teeth into his throat. Instead, she stepped back and watched him fall to the seawall. He twitched for a time, mouth opening and closing like a landed fish. Eventually, he lay still.

  Zelia placed a foot against his back and shoved. Arvin’s body flopped over and fell, landing with a splash where it belonged.

  In the sewage.

  As Zelia slowly regained consciousness, Arvin strode away down the road at a brisk pace, away from the harbor, pleased with the false memory he’d just planted. As he walked, he pulled the power stone from his pocket. Its powers spent, it had stopped glowing.

  He tossed it into the air and caught it again then thrust it back into his pocket. “Nine lives,” he chuckled.

  29 Kythorn, Evening

  Arvin paced back and forth across the room, unwilling to look at his friend. Naulg lay on the floor, writhing and gnashing his teeth, trying to strain his hands out of the twine that bound them. The twine-the same one Karshis had used to bind Arvin-was solid stone; Naulg didn’t have a hope of slipping it. Even so, he’d continued to struggle long after his wrists were chafed and bloody.

  Arvin turned to Nicco. “Isn’t there anything we can do for him? There must be some way to reverse the effects of the potion, some healing prayer you could try.”

  Nicco’s earring tinkled as he shook his head. “I’ve tried everything. Your friend is beyond help. Hoar grant that, one day, you’ll find a way to avenge him. There is only one thing, now, to be done.”

  Arvin forced himself to stop pacing, to turn and look at Naulg. The rogue was barely recognizable. His body was emaciated and his skin was a yellowish green, like that of a plague victim. The last of his hair had fallen out and his distinctive eyebrows were gone. His eyes-which only days ago had still held a spark of sanity-were the eyes of a madman. Sensing that Arvin was looking at him, Naulg bared his teeth in an angry hiss. Venom dripped from his incisors.

  Arvin squatted on the floor beside him. “Naulg,” he said, touching the rogue’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. If only I’d been less concerned with saving myself…”

  Swift as a snake, Naulg twisted his body and snapped at Arvin’s hand. Arvin jerked it away just in time to avoid the bite. Rising to his feet, he stared down at the creature Naulg had become. Once, this had been a friend. Now, it was nothing but a monster-a dangerous one.

  Why, then, were Arvin’s eyes stinging?

  “Do it,” he croaked, turning away.

  Nicco nodded. Quickly-perhaps wanting to complete the act before Arvin changed his mind-he chanted a prayer. Arvin heard a rustle of clothing as Nicco bent over Naulg and touched him. There was a choked gasp-then silence.

  A tear trickled down Arvin’s cheek. He felt Nicco’s hand gently touch his shoulder.

  “Will you avenge him?” the cleric asked.

  Arvin shrugged the hand from his shoulder and angrily wiped the tear from his cheek. “There’s no one left to take vengeance on,” he said. “The Pox will have consumed the holy water by now; I doubt if any of them are still alive. Osran, too, is dead.”

  “You’re forgetting Sibyl.”

  Arvin turned to face Nicco. “We know nothing about her,” he said. “Where she is, who she is…What if she’s an avatar, as she claims?”

  Nicco’s eyes blazed with grim determination. “Even avatars may be defeated,” he said. He placed a hand on Arvin’s shoulder. “You’ve proved your worth to Gonthril. And Chorl-may Hoar weigh his soul well-is no longer here to oppose you. It’s time for you to take a stand, to join us. Throw in your lot with the Secession.” His eyes softened as he smiled. “It wouldn’t be the first time a member of the Guild had secretly joined our ranks.”

  Arvin sighed. The offer was tempting. The Secession just might be his way out of the Guild. But old habits died hard.

  “I’m sorry,” he told Nicco. “I prefer to work alone. And I need time to hone my talent.”

  Nicco nodded, dropping his hand. “Hoar be with you, then.” He turned and left.

  Arvin stared at the door for a long time after it closed. Then he turned to the body of his friend. At least he could give Naulg a proper cremation-something the rogue wouldn’t have had if he’d died back in the sewers
-or if he’d starved to death in the locked room of the crematorium, where the Pox had left him. Arvin spoke the command word and the stone binding Naulg’s wrists turned back into twine. Arvin knelt and gently unwound it from Naulg’s wrists.

  Slowly coiling it, he paused. Maybe, he decided, Nicco was right.

  “I’ll make Sibyl pay for what she did to you, Naulg,” Arvin promised. “If the gods grant me the chance, I’ll avenge you.”

  Somewhere out over the Vilhon Reach, thunder rumbled.

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