Venom's Taste - Lisa Smedman [14]
“To pretend to join their cult,” she said.
Arvin shook his head. “The answer is still no.”
“Is it because of your faith you refuse?” she asked.
For one unsettling moment Arvin wondered if she was referring to Ilmater, if she knew about his time in the orphanage and the endless attempts by the clerics to instill in the children under their care a sense of “eternal thankfulness for the mercy of our lord the Crying God.” Then he realized that Zelia was simply asking a general question. “I don’t worship any particular deity,” he told her. “I toss the occasional coin in Tymora’s cup for good fortune, but that’s all.”
“Then why do you refuse?”
Arvin sighed. “I’m a simple merchant. I import ropes and nets. For this job, you need an actor-or a rogue.”
Zelia’s eyes narrowed. “It’s you I want. You survived the disease the Pox infected you with. In their eyes, that makes you blessed.”
“I see.” He decided to see how badly she wanted these cultists. “I lost one thousand gold pieces last night. Would you be willing to pay that much for me to spy on them?”
Zelia gave a dismissive wave of her hand, as if the figure he’d just named were pocket change. “Certainly.”
“Five thousand?”
“Yes.”
“Ten?”
Zelia gave him a tight smile. “If you produce the desired results, yes-and if you follow orders.”
With difficulty, Arvin kept his expression neutral. As he collected his thoughts, he sipped his ale and considered her offer. Ten thousand gold pieces was a lot of coin-enough to get him out of Hlondeth and free him from the Guild’s clutches forever. But he wondered for whom Zelia was working. Someone with deep pockets, obviously-perhaps someone with access to the royal coffers. Unless she was lying about the coin, and didn’t intend to pay anything, which was more likely when you came right down to it. A classic bait and jump-offer the victim anything he asks for then give him more than he bargained for.
“Well?” Zelia asked. “Will you do it?”
Arvin shuddered, remembering the terrible pockmarks on the cultists’ skin. Was that how his mother had looked as she lay dying? He decided he couldn’t bear the foul touch of their fingers again, even if they carried no taint. Even for ten thousand gold pieces.
“No,” he answered. “Not for all the coin in the Extaminos treasury. Find someone else.” He set his ale down and started to rise from the table.
Surprisingly, Zelia didn’t protest. Instead, she took a long swallow of the ale in front of her, gulping down the egg inside it. When she was finished, she licked her lips with a tongue that was longer than the average human’s, with a slight fork at the end of it…
A blue tongue.
Arvin felt his eyes widen. He sank back into his seat. “You were the snake in the rowboat.”
“Yes.”
“You neutralized the poison?”
Zelia nodded.
“Why?”
“I wanted you alive.”
“Knowing-thanks to your ‘hunch’-that I’d return to the Coil, and I’d tell you my story,” Arvin said.
“Yes.”
Anger rose inside Arvin, flushing his face. “You used me.”
Zelia stared at him. “I saved your life.”
“The answer’s still no. I won’t join the cult.”
“Yes you will,” Zelia said slowly. “Seven days from now, you will.”
She said it with such certainty that it gave Arvin pause. “What do you mean?” he asked slowly.
“After I neutralized the poison, I planted a ‘seed’ in your mind,” Zelia said. “A seed that takes seven days to germinate. At the end of those seven days, your mind will no longer be your own. Your body will be mine-to do with as I will.” She leaned across the table and lightly stroked his temple with her fingertips then sat back, smiling.
Arvin stared at her, horrified. She was bluffing, he told himself. But it didn’t feel like a bluff. Her smile was too confident, too self-satisfied-that of a gambler who knows he holds the winning hand. And now that she’d drawn his attention to it, Arvin could feel a faint throbbing in his temple, like the beginning of a headache. Was it the “seed” spell she had cast on him, putting down roots?
“What if I agree to join the cult?” he asked. “If I do that, will