Venom's Taste - Lisa Smedman [12]
The yuan-ti gave a faint hiss that might have been laughter. “No. Tell your friend not to worry. The plague that left the pockmarks was long gone from her body. From all parts of her body.”
She said it with such certainty, Arvin believed her. Relief washed through him. Knowing that he’d been touched by people who themselves had been touched by plague had filled him with dread. He wasn’t old enough to have witnessed the last plague that swept through the Vilhon Reach; the “dragonscale plague” had been eradicated thirty years before he was born. Like most people, though, he feared to even speak of it. The disease, thought to be magical in origin, had caused the skin of those it touched to flake off in huge chunks, like scales, leaving bloody, weeping holes.
Shuddering, he ordered an ale from the serving girl who approached their table; then he turned back to the yuan-ti. “You seem to know quite a lot about disease.”
“In recent months I’ve made a study of it.”
Arvin’s eyes narrowed. “Is that so?” A suspicion was starting to form in his mind-that it was the “doxy” this woman had been looking for last night, or one of her pockmarked companions.
“Did you follow us after we left the tavern?” Arvin asked bluntly. He waited tensely for her answer; perhaps she could describe the place where the pockmarked people had entered the sewer system. If he knew that, he might be able to find the chamber where-
“There was no need. I had a… hunch that I’d see you again this morning and hear your story.” Her eyes bored into his. “Tell me what happened last night after you and your friend left the Mortal Coil.”
Arvin stared at her, appalled by her indifference. She’d sat and watched as Naulg was led away by a dangerous, diseased woman-and done nothing. At the very least she might have warned Arvin not to follow them. Instead she’d let events unfold, content to question the survivors afterward.
“Some ‘study of disease,’ ” Arvin muttered under his breath. Then, meeting the yuan-ti’s unblinking eyes, he asked, “Who are you?”
“Zelia.”
Arvin supposed that must be her name.
“Who do you work for?”
Zelia gave a hiss of laughter. “Myself.”
Arvin stared at her, frowning. When it was clear she wasn’t going to add anything more, he made a quick decision. He had little to lose by telling her his story-and everything to gain. Perhaps she might pick out some clue in his tale that would help him find Naulg. She seemed to know more-much more-than she was letting on, but then, yuan-ti tended to give that impression.
Omitting any mention of his transaction with Naulg, Arvin reiterated the events that had taken place a short time ago: his fight with the doxy and her accomplice, finding himself in the sewage chamber, being force-fed the poison, the terrible anguish it had produced, and escaping in the rowboat. He watched Zelia closely as he told his tale, but her expression didn’t change. She listened most attentively as he described the chamber where the force-feeding had taken place, stopping him more than once to ask for more detail, including full descriptions of the people who had abducted him. She made him describe each person’s appearance and exactly what had been said. Arvin concluded with a description of the statue. “The wood was rotted, but it was definitely a statue of a woman. The hands were raised, as if reaching-”
“Talona.”
“Is that a name?” Arvin asked. He’d never heard it before.
“Lady of Poison, Mistress of Disease, Mother of Death,” Zelia intoned.
Arvin shuddered. “Yes. That’s what they called her.”
“Goddess of sickness and disease,” Zelia continued, “a lesser-known goddess, not commonly worshiped in the Vilhon Reach. Her followers only recently surfaced in Hlondeth.”
“Last night was a sacrifice, then,” Arvin said.
“Yes. It is how they appease their goddess. They appeal to Talona to take another life, so she will continue to spare their own.”
“That’s why they fed us the