"Yes, Stormmistress," the second man said, contrite.
A hand touched his cheek, turning his face-a woman's hand, by the soft feel of the skin and the sweet- smelling, almost overpowering perfume she wore.
"I'm over here," the Stormmistress said in a silky, sensuous voice, "and I'd like to buy some wine for my fellow pilgrims. How much?"
"Five pythons a jug," Arvin answered, naming the price of the most expensive bottle of wine he'd ever seen ordered at the Mortal Coil. Judging by the fine ceramic jugs, Dar ris had stolen the stuff from a noble household, and it was probably worth that much or even more.
"Done," the woman said, not even bothering to haggle. "I'll take three." She caught Arvin's hand and pressed coins into it. He rubbed one of them. There
was a snake embossed on one side of it, and what felt like the House Extaminos crest on the other. Judging by its weight, it was gold, not copper.
The woman leaned past him to lift a jug of wine from the cart. As she did, Arvin caught a whiff of what the perfume was hiding: the musky odor of snake.
That startled him. The clergy of Talos were all human as far as he knew. Yuan-ti scorned the Raging God as one of the lesser Powers, inferior to their serpent deity. To the yuan-ti, Sseth was the only god worth worshiping.
That brought up an unpleasant possibility-that the woman who'd just purchased wine for her "followers" had some ulterior motive for being there.
A moment later, when he listened in on her thoughts-hiding his secondary display by kneeling on the ground and pretending to search for his shirt-he discovered that it was even worse than he'd thought.
She was indeed a worshiper of Sseth.
One of the clerics who served Sibyl.
CHAPTER 5
Arvin patted the ground, pretending to search for his shirt, as he probed the mind of the "Stormmistress." She was delighted to have stumbled across the wine; that would make her job all the easier. She planned to mix something into it before serving it to the Talos worshipers. A word drifted through her mind: hassaael. Arvin wasn't sure if it was the name of a potion, a poison, or the yuan-ti word for blood. All three concepts seemed to be braided into the word. She'd been given it by a yuan-ti in Skullport named Ssarm-the same man who had provided the Pox with their deadly trans- formative potion.
He probed deeper, worming his way into her memories of Sibyl. He was relieved,
somewhat, to find that her most recent meeting with the abomination was more than a tenday in the past, and that she had no knowledge of the events unfolding in Hlondeth or Arvin's role in them. The cleric-Thessania, her name was-had been on the road with the latest batch of worshipers, who had come all the way from Ormath on the Shining Plains. Her instructions had been to herd them to the temple, where they would be killed. If they didn't die that night, Sibyl would be displeased.
An image of what Thessania intended flickered through her mind, swift as a snake's darting tongue: Men and women, piled in a heap, their faces bright red and eyeballs bulging.
Arvin shuddered. The followers of the Raging God might be crazy-they had to be, to view volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, and lightning-strike wildfires as something to celebrate-but that didn't mean they deserved to die.
Once again, Sibyl was taking advantage of human gullibility. The first time, it had been the Pox then it was the pilgrims. If Arvin could stop whatever was happening, he would.
He heard another grumble of thunder, out over the Reach. A natural storm? Or the voice of Hoar, god of vengeance?
Arvin cracked a wry smile.
"Vin!" a familiar voice cried out. "I told you not to sell any wine until I got back."
Arvin turned in that direction. Daris had said nothing about the wine. He was up to something, and Arvin docided to play along for the moment.
Suddenly, Arvin could see again. Darris strode toward him, the leather sack gone. He had one hand behind his back, inside his collar, as if scratching his neck. It was an old guild trick, a way of dropping something you'd palmed into your
shirt. Probably the wand he'd just used to restore Arvin's eyesight.
Pretending to still be blind, Arvin held his hands out in front of him. Play along, he signed. Aloud, he added, "Darris? Is that you?"
Meanwhile, he studied Thessania. The surprise of his eyesight returning had broken the link with her mind, but ho'd learned what he needed already. He committed her appearance to memory as he stared "blindly" past her. She was one of those yuan-ti who could pass for human. Her pupils were round and there was no sign of a tail under her robe. Ash-gray gloves covered her hands, which were human-shaped, and the only skin showing-her face, framed by a tight-fitting black cowl-was devoid of scales. Arvin noticed, however, that she kept her teeth clenched when she spoke, giving her words a tense, clipped sound. She probably had a forked tongue.
She was dressed as a cleric of Talos, in a long- sleeved black robe that reached to her ankles. Lightning bolts were embroidered on it in gold thread, and the sleeves ended in jagged hems, braided with more thread of gold. The front of the cowl bore; the god's symboclass="underline" three lightning bolts in brown, red and blue, radiating out from a central point, representing the destructive powers of earthquake, fire, and flood. A black patch covered her left ey e-another symbol of the one-eyed god she pretended to worship. Her face, Arvin noted, was unscratched, unlike those of the real worshipers.
She held the three jugs of wine she'd purchased in the crook of one arm, a traveling pack in the other. The worshipers clamored for the wine, insisting their throats were dry from the long march up into the hills. She rebuked them sharply, telling them to quench their thirst with water instead. The wine, she said, would be served with dinner.
"Start preparing our meal," she ordered.
The worshipers crossed their arms aver their chests and bowed, then scurried away.
Barris, meanwhile, strode up to Arvin. "How much did you charge her for the wine?" he demanded.
"Five vipers a jug." Arvin held out the gold coins while staring slightly to one side of Darius.
"Five?" Darris asked, his voice rising. Pretending to scold Arvin, he waggled a forefinger at him, then brushed the front of his nose. Pretend. "I told you to charge six!" He slapped the forefinger into an open palm. Fight. Glowering, he shouted, "What did you do? Pocket the balance? Up to your old tricks again, are you?"
He grabbed Arvin by the shoulder and shook him. The gold spilled from Arvin's hand onto the ground. Arvin knew what Darris had in mind; the mock argument was an old guild trick. Arvin was supposed to shove Darris toward Thossania, who watched the two humans with a bemused look on her face. The rogue would stagger into her, grasp at her robe in an effort to keep from falling-and in the process, slip a quick hand into a pocket. A neat trick-if you were dealing with a human and not with someone who could kill with a single bite.
"You never said six," Arvin said in an even tone. "You told me five, and that's what I charged." No, he signed.
A bored look in her eyes, the yuan-ti turned away to follow the worshipers.
Darris raised his palm and jerked it forwardPush! — then slapped Arvin. Hard.
Arvin took the blow like a blind man, without ducking; the worshipers still watched the fight. He lifted his hand to his mouth, as if to wipe away the blood from his split lip. Two fingers curled like fangs, he turned the wipe into a flowing motion
while nodding in the direction of the fake cleric. She's yuan-ti.
That stopped Darris cold. "Ah," he said. Then, loudly, "I remember now. You're right; this is the five- viper wine. Sorry for the misunderstanding, Vin." He clapped an arm around Arvin's shoulder, using the gesture to whisper in Arvin's ear. "A yuan-ti Stormmistress?Are you sure?"