Venom's Taste - Lisa Smedman [102]
Summoning the hot dagger back into his hand, Arvin hurried down the corridor, slapping at the smoldering remains of his shirt. He peered quickly down the wider hallway in both directions. Behind him, the other rats scrabbled at the closed door. The wider hallway was completely dark; Arvin wished he’d thought to bring another of Drin’s darkvision potions along. From the left came the sound of voices, raised in what sounded like anxious conference-no doubt the cultists, wondering what had caused the noise. From the right came only silence. Arvin hurried in that direction, his gloved hand tracing the wall, fearing that he’d tumble down an unseen flight of stairs at any moment. Behind him, he heard a door open. Clutching his dagger-and wincing as the heated metal blistered his palm and fingers-he hurried on.
The hallway turned a corner just in time to hide Arvin from the lantern light that suddenly filled the hallway behind him. The voices of the cultists grew louder. He heard one of them direct another to check on the initiate and the creak of hinges as the heavy metal door was opened. Meanwhile, the hallway Arvin was hurrying along brightened as whoever was holding the lantern drew nearer to the bend he’d just rounded. Two choices presented themselves: a flight of stairs, leading up, and a doorway in the wall to the left. Arvin immediately sprang for the stairs-then whirled and bolted down them again at the sound of footsteps rapidly descending. Hissing with fear, he rushed to the door instead. It was locked-but the key he still had in his pocket opened it. He wrenched the door open and hurried into the dimly lit room beyond. Closing the door as quickly and quietly as he could behind him, he locked it.
“Nine lives,” he whispered, touching the place at his throat where the bead had hung.
He turned, trying to make out details of the room into which he’d blundered. The light was poor; the single oil lamp that hung against one wall had its wick trimmed so low that it cast only a dim red glow that left the corners in darkness. The air smelled bad-a mix of urine, sickness, and sweat. Arvin saw that, aside from the door behind him, the room had no exit. Worse yet, there was a body lying on the floor, next to the far wall. Another initiate-one who didn’t survive whatever disease was in the poisoned fangs? No, this “body” was stirring.
Strike swiftly! a voice inside his mind shouted.
Arvin lifted his dagger, ready to throw it, but something made him pause. The creature that rose from its slump to stare at him was horrifying. Its eyes were sunken and bloodshot, its body misshapen and gaunt, its skin a diseased-looking yellow-green with the hair falling out in clumps… except for the heavy eyebrows, which met above the nose.
“Naulg?” Arvin whispered, lowering his dagger.
The creature wet its lips with a forked tongue. “Ar… vin?” it croaked.
The voices in the hallway drew level with the door. There were two of them-a man and a woman, arguing about whether the initiate had been the one to open the door of the “chamber of ashes,” then slam it shut. “Something stirred up the ash rats,” the woman insisted. The man at last concurred.
“Search the upper chamber,” he shouted at someone down the hall.
Hearing that, Arvin prayed that Nicco wasn’t slumbering there still. He reached for his breast pocket. Perhaps the lapis lazuli would allow him to contact Nicco before-
The pocket was gone-he must have torn it away with the rest of his burning shirtfront-and so was the lapis lazuli. Arvin cursed softly as he realized the stone must be lying in the hallway where he’d killed the rat.
Another voice joined the two outside the door. “What’s happened?” It was male, and sibilant, the inflection that of a yuan-ti. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Arvin couldn’t place where he might have heard it before.
Naulg, meanwhile, shuffled across the room to Arvin, his arms wrapped tightly around his