Arvin nodded.
"What's in her bag?" Darris breathed.
"Poison," Arvin whispered back. "She plans to mix it into the wine."
"I see," Darris said. He gave the worshipers a long, appraising look. "They look skinny as slaves," he said, using an old guild expression for someone with nothing worth stealing. Then he shrugged. "No sense hanging around, if you ask me. If the doomsayer really is yuan-ti, she'll demand first pickings."
Arvin, disgusted, realized that Darris thought he was suggesting they stay behind to loot the bodies once the poison had done its work.
"That's not what I meant," he said. "We've got to stop her from poisoning them."
Darris removed his arm from Arvin's shoulder and stepped back. "What she does is none of my business," he said. He watched the yuan-ti as she walked with swaying steps to the spot where the worshipers piled branches for a cooking fire. "What makes it yours?"
"Those people will die," Arvin answered.
"So?" Darris asked. "Sooner or later, one of the floods or fires they keep praying for will kill them, anyway." He tapped his temple. Crazy.
Arvin scooped up his pack and glanced at the worshipers out of the corner of his eye. One was a boy not yet in his teens who was being ordered about by an older, gray-haired man-probably his grandfather,
given the resemblance between the two. Like the rest of them, the boy had ripped his shirt and gouged scratches in his face. He kept touching his cheeks however and wincing, giving his grandfather rueful looks.
"That one's just a boy," Arvin whispered. "He deserves a chance to grow up, to make his own decisions about which god to worship."
Darris listened, eyebrows raised. Then he nodded, as if enlightenment had suddenly come to him. He lowered his voice once more.
"You won't find my stash."
Arvin sighed. "I don't plan on looking for it."
The rogue chuckled. "Strangely enough, I believe you." He picked up the five coins and shoved them in a pocket, then clambered up into the cart. "People will be leaving the city-and they'll be thirsty. I'll have the rest of this wine sold in no time. Give me a hand, and I'll split the profits." He lifted the reins. "Last chance. Coming?"
Arvin shook his head. Thessania had disappeared inside one of the huts; she was probably lacing the wine with poison even as they spoke. Arvin was tempted to tell Darris what he thought of him but knew his words wouldn't change anything. The half-elf was a typical rogue; all he cared about was himself.
Darris released the wagon's brake, then paused. "If the doomsayer really is yuan-ti, you'd better watch yourself."
"I've dealt with them before."
Darris grinned. "I'll bet you have, and… thanks for the warning." He touched a thumb to his temple, then closed his other fist around it. I'll remember you.
He flicked the reins. The cart rumbled off down the hill, back in the direction of Hlondeth.
Arvin could feel, once more, the faint tickle in his forehead that warned him that magic was being used
to search for him. The iron serpent must have been drawing nearer. He'd wasted too much time already.
But before he left, there was something he needed to do.
He sent his awareness deep into his muladhara. You don't see me, he mentally told the Talos worshipers. I'm invisible.
They continued going about their evening tasks, pulling food from their packs, tending the cooking fire and gathering water from the aqueduct in worn- looking iron pots. One or two turned to watch the cart as it left. As they did Arvin slipped an image into each of their minds of himself, seated next to Darris. Meanwhile, he picked his way carefully over the uneven ground toward the but the yuan-ti had disappeared into.
She had hung a cloth over the entrance of the hut, preventing him from simply looking inside. The but itself proved to be of better construction than the rest. Arvin couldn't find any gaps between the stones to peer through. That didn't matter, however. Retreating to a spot where the trees screened him from sight-he didn't need to be close to manifest the power he had in mind-he allowed himself to become visible again and imagined the interior of the hut. Psionic energy spiraled into the power points in his throat and forehead and a low droning filled the air around him as silver sparkled out of his "third eye." He sent his awareness drifting with it in the direction of the hut.
Slowly, its interior came into focus.
Thessania was pouring one of the jugs of wine into a wooden bowl. The other two jugs lay empty on the ground beside her. She must have been certain none of the worshipers would disturb her; she'd pushed her cowl back, revealing a hairless scalp covered in vivid orange and yellow scales. She had no ears, just
holes in the side of her head. She had also removed her gloves; the scales covered her hands and fingers as well.
She set the empty jug down and rummaged inside her travel bag, then pulled out a glass vial containing an ink-black liquid. Unstoppering it, she poured a drop onto her finger, then stroked it along her wrist like a woman applying perfume. After repeating the application on her other wrist, she poured a few drops of the liquid into the wine. That done, she raised first one wrist to her mouth then the other.
At first, Arvin thought she was sniffing her perfume. Then he saw a drop of blood fall into the wine and realized she'd bitten herself. Thessania squeezed each wrist, milking herself of blood. As it dribbled into the bowl, the wine turned a vivid green. Thessania bent low, sniffing it, and licked her wrists clean. Then she spat into whatever the wine had become.
She pushed the stopper back into the vial-very little of the black liquid had been used-then pulled on her gloves. As she adjusted her cowl, Arvin skimmed quickly through the thoughts of the worshipers, searching for those who already had doubts about the stormmistress. From these he gloaned their names and a handful of recent experiences he hoped might be useful. By the time Thessania emerged from the hut, holding the bowl of wine, Arvin was ready. He stepped out of the forest and thew a mental shield between himself and the yuan-ti-who immediately turnod in his direction as soon as she heard the droning of his secondary display.
"Worshipers of Talos," Arvin shouted. "You have been deceived."
Thessania bared her teeth in what would have been a hiss, had she not checked herself in time. She sent a wave of magical fear rushing toward Arvin, but his psionic shield deflected it.
"Thessania is no stormmistress," Arvin continued.
Thessania's charm spell hit him next. "Poor man," she said. "The sun has addled your wits. You don't know me; we've never met before. You have mistaken my voice for that of someone else. Come and drink wine with us."
Arvin's mental shield held. He needed to speak quickly. Once Tessalia realized her charm had failed, she would start tossing clerical spells at him.
"I may be blind," Arvin said, "blind as Talos's left eye, but by the god's magic I can still see." Silver sparkles-bright as the stars reputed to whirl in the empty space behind the Storm Lord's eyepatcherupted from Arvin's forehead as he sent a thread of his awareness inside the hut. He pointed at one of the men, a tall fellow with bright red hair. "You wonder, Menzin, what Thessania was doing in the hut."
Arvin wrapped the invisible thread around the vial and lifted it into the air. With a yank, he pulled it out of the hut.
"She was adding poison to your wine."
Thessania whirled and spotted the vial. Bright green wine slopped over tho edge of the bowl, staining her glove. Arvin sent the vial crashing against the wall of the hut, shattering it. Poison dribbled down the stonework like black blood.
The worshipers stared at it. Menzin muttered something to the man next to him.
"Ridiculous!" Thessania said. "Smell it-that's my perfume."