Venom's Taste - Lisa Smedman [120]
The human-seed nodded. “That’s why I asked you to come here. I found a letter in a scroll tube the yuan-ti was carrying. It’s addressed to Karshis, from Ssarmn. It makes reference to Talona’s clerics-and to Sibyl.” He placed a scroll tube on the table and pushed it toward Zelia. “It should prove quite… enlightening.”
Zelia stared at the tube. “Read it to me.”
The human-seed showed no hesitation as he tipped the document out of the tube; perhaps her suspicions were unfounded. Unrolling the document, he began to read in a low voice. “ ‘Karshis,’ it begins, ‘Please relay, to Sibyl, a warning about the potion. If the clerics drink it and survive-and are not transformed-an unforeseen result may occur. Any psionic talents they have will be greatly enhanced. You may inadvertently produce an opponent capable of-’ ”
“Give me that,” Zelia said, thrusting out a hand. Anticipation filled her. Perhaps the letter would also contain proof that Sibyl was not the avatar she claimed to be, but mortal, like every other yuan-ti.
The human-seed passed her the letter. She avidly began to read.
The letter flared with a sudden brilliance that left her blinking and unable to see. Too late, she realized it had been a trick, after all. The letter had contained a magical glyph-one that had blinded her. She could still hear the human-seed, however, and could still pinpoint his position by his body heat. Immediately, she attacked. Wrapping mental coils around him, she flexed her mind, squeezing with crushing force-only to feel her target slip away. Suddenly his mind was gone-empty-and her coils were passing through insubstantial, vacuous emptiness. The human-seed’s mind had retreated into the distance, leaving her with nothing to grasp.
Expecting an attack in return, she threw up her own defense, raising a mental shield and interposing it between them. From behind it she lashed out with a mental whip-and hissed aloud, a vocalization that overlapped the hissing of her secondary display, as she felt it lash the human-seed’s ego. Surprisingly, he had maintained the same defense, instead of switching to a more effective one. Of course, he had only half of her powers. Gloating, Zelia drew back her mental whip to strike again.
She heard a sound that startled her: a faint tinkling, like the sound of distant bells. She recognized it in an instant as a secondary display and knew that it was coming from the human-seed across the table from her, but something was somehow wrong about it. Then she realized what it was. The tone of the sound was subtly off. It wasn’t her secondary display.
It wasn’t a human-seed who sat across the table from her, but Arvin.
She almost laughed aloud at the notion of a novice psion-a mere human-daring to attack her. Arvin, with his pathetic roster of powers, what was he trying to do, charm her? He didn’t stand a chance of-
Her arrogance was nearly her undoing. Arvin’s mind thrust into hers like a needle into flesh, forcing a link between them. Into this breach quested mental strings, seeking to knot themselves into the part of Zelia’s mind that controlled her physical body. She recognized the power he was using at once. He was hoping to dominate her, to make her his puppet. Where had he learned to manifest that power? It should have been well beyond him.
No matter. Unwittingly, he’d played right into her hands. She’d half expected her seed to go rogue-it happened with disturbing regularity when she seeded a human. And so she’d manifested a turning upon herself. The strings of mental energy suddenly doubled back on themselves and needled their way into Arvin’s mind instead.
There, they knotted.
“Stop fighting me,” Zelia commanded.
Arvin did.
Zelia tasted the air with her tongue, savoring the odor of fearful sweat that clung to Arvin. This was going to be so much fun.
29 Kythorn, Highsun
Arvin trudged along the seawall, his footsteps as reluctant as a man going to the execution pits, with Zelia a step behind him. She was still blind, but it didn’t matter. She