Venom's Taste - Lisa Smedman [29]
“Hello, Shev,” Arvin said in a hearty voice, greeting the fellow with what was a common name among the yuan-ti of Hlondeth. “So good to see you! The thousandweight of rope you ordered has just come in with the shipment from shivis.”
As Arvin spoke the glove’s command word, the dagger appeared in his hand. He jabbed the point of the weapon into the man’s side and let the rope looped over his forearm slide down to hide it. “Let’s go to the warehouse,” Arvin continued in his falsely hearty voice. “I’ll show it to you.”
The cultist startled then flinched in realization that Arvin meant business. He allowed himself to be marched down the street, toward the warehouse door. Not until he’d stepped inside did he suddenly spring away. Arvin, however, had been expecting something similar. He had, accordingly, steered the cultist slightly to the left as he marched him through the door. As the man jumped, he barked out a command word. A coil of what appeared to be ordinary hemp rope lashed out toward the cultist, spiraling around him like a constricting snake. Confined in its coils, the cultist toppled like a felled tree and landed in a patch of sunlight that slanted in from one of the barred windows above. He immediately opened his mouth to cry out for help; in response Arvin threw his dagger at the man. The blade sliced open the cultist’s ear and thudded into the wooden flooring behind him; at a whispered command, it flew back to Arvin’s hand again.
“Be silent,” Arvin growled as he closed the door behind him. “And I might let you live.”
The cultist did a credible job of imitating a yuan-ti. “Release me,” he spat arrogantly, glaring as he blinked away the blood that was trickling into his right eye. “And I might let you live.”
Arvin chuckled. “I know what you are,” he told the man. “You might as well drop your disguise. I can see-and smell-Talona’s foul touch all over you.”
The cultist hissed in anger, still trying to convince Arvin that he was really a yuan-ti then gave up. The magical disguise in which he’d cloaked himself dissipated, revealing a young man whose mouth was so disfigured by scars that his lips would not close. A faded gray-green robe with frayed cuffs and a torn neck covered all but his hands and feet, which were covered in pockmarks. Arvin made a mental note not to touch the magical rope that entangled the fellow; perhaps even to burn it, despite the expense that had gone into its manufacture. He bent over a burlap sack and carefully wiped the cultist’s blood from his dagger.
The cultist strained against the rope for a moment but only succeeded in causing it to constrict further. He glared up at Arvin. “What do you want?” he said in a slurred voice.
“I’ll ask the questions,” Arvin countered. “For starters, why were you watching me?”
“Watching you?” The cultist seemed genuinely puzzled. He tried to purse his disfigured lips together, but they formed an uneven, ragged line. Staring down at the fellow, Arvin suddenly felt sorry for him. This man had been handsome, once, but those lips would never again know the soft caress of a woman’s kiss.
Surprisingly, the cultist laughed. “You pity me?” he slurred. “Don’t. I sought the embrace of the goddess.”
Arvin felt a chill run through him. “You did that to yourself deliberately?” he asked. He’d given little thought to the motivations of the Pox. He’d assumed they were driven to worship Talona after illness claimed them in the hope that she would free them from their afflictions. He’d never dreamed that anyone would afflict himself with plague on purpose. Yet that was what this fellow seemed to be saying.
He thought of the liquid they’d forced him to drink. “The liquid in the metal flasks,” he said, thinking out loud as he stared at the terrible pockmarks on the cultist’s skin. “Is this what it’s supposed to do to people? Make