Arvin recognized the bitter odor of the liquid. He grimaced, remembering how it had been forced down his throat. As it trickled into the chalice, it was as clear as water, but as it filled the vessel, it changed color, becoming an inky black.
“Ah,” the wizard said as he peered down at it. “Poison.” He squatted, peering through the chalice toward the lantern, then nodded. “And a strong one, too. The light is almost entirely blocked.”
“What about plague?” Arvin asked nervously. “Is there any plague in-”
“Shhh!” The wizard held up a hand, silencing him. His eyes, however, never left the chalice. The color of the liquid inside it was changing, turning from black to a murky red. In a few moments, it was as bright as freshly spilled blood. The wizard peered through the side of the chalice, his eyebrows raised.
Gonthril leaned forward. “Well, Hazzan?”
The wizard straightened. “The liquid contains no plague,” he answered. He stared thoughtfully down at the chalice. “This is a potion… one that contains poison. The poison must be a component.”
Arvin hissed in relief. No plague. That was good news-one less thing to worry about. Meanwhile, his head continued its dull throbbing. He resisted the urge to rub his forehead.
“Can you identify the potion?” Gonthril asked the wizard.
“We shall see,” Hazzan answered. He picked up the pouch, untied it, and tipped its contents into his palm. A handful of pearls spilled out. He chose one and placed it inside the ceramic vessel then put the rest back into the pouch. With smooth strokes of the pestle, he ground the pearl he’d chosen into a fine powder. Into this he poured wine. He stirred the mixture with the feather, using its shaft like a stick. Then he laid the feather down and picked up the mortar. He raised it to his lips and drank.
When he lowered it, his pupils were so large they seemed to have swallowed the irises whole. Staring at a spot somewhere over Arvin’s head, Hazzan located the chalice by feel. He gripped it with one hand and dipped the tip of his overly long fingernail into the liquid. Then he began to chant in the same melodious, lilting language he’d used before. When the chant was finished, he stood for several moments, his lips pursed in thought.
Abruptly, his pupils returned to normal. He raised his fingernail from the liquid and snipped the end of it off with the scissors, letting the clipping fall into the potion.
Gonthril leaned forward, an anxious expression on his face. Mortin mirrored his leader’s pose, barely breathing as he waited for Hazzan to speak. Chorl, meanwhile, kept his eyes on Arvin.
“It’s a transformative potion,” the wizard said at last. “With a hint of compulsive enchantment about it. But predominantly transformative.”
“A potion of polymorphing?” Gonthril asked.
Hazzan shook his head. “Nothing so general. Its properties are highly focused. The potion is designed to transform the imbiber into a specific creature, though I can’t identify which. But I can tell you this. Whoever drank this potion would be dead long before the transformation occurred. One of its components is a highly toxic venom.” He looked up from the chalice to stare at Gonthril. “Yuan-ti venom.”
Gonthril pointed at Arvin. “This man drank an identical potion-and lived.”
Hazzan turned to Arvin. “Are you a cleric?”
“No,” Arvin answered. “I’m not.”
“Did a cleric lay healing hands on you?”
Arvin wet his lips. He was glad he wasn’t wearing Gonthril’s truth ring anymore-though perhaps he could have avoided giving the game away, since Zelia was a psion, rather than a cleric. “No.”
“Are you wearing any device that would neutralize poison?”
Arvin thought of Kayla-of the periapt she wore around her neck. He touched the cat’s-eye bead that hung at his throat for reassurance.
Hazzan noticed the gesture immediately. “The bead is magical?”
Arvin shrugged.
Hazzan cast a quick spell and pointed a finger at the bead. Then he shook his head. “It’s ordinary clay. A worthless trinket.” He lowered his hand. “It is possible that the potion you were forced to drink was different from the rest. Perhaps it lacked the venom.”
“The flask was identical to this one,” Arvin said. “The potion smelled like this one, too. And it certainly felt like I’d been poisoned. The pain was excruciating. It felt as though I’d swallowed broken glass.”
“Yet your body fought off the venom,” Hazzan mused. “Interesting.” He turned to Gonthril. “He could be yuan-ti. They’re naturally resistant to their own venom.”
“I knew it,” Chorl growled. He shifted his staff.
Arvin hissed in alarm.
“Chorl, wait,” Gonthril said. He placed a hand on Chorl’s staff. “It’s possible, sometimes, for humans to survive yuan-ti venom. And to all appearances, this man is human-despite his strange mannerisms.”
Chorl glared at Arvin. “So what? He’s still a danger to us. He knows where we-”
“He’s an innocent caught up in all of this,” Gonthril countered. “The ring confirmed his story.”
Chorl’s eyes narrowed. “Why does he hiss like that, then, and lick his lips? He even moves like a yuan-ti.”
Arvin glared at the man. Chorl’s constant hectoring was starting to annoy him. “I am human,” he spat back. “As human as you.”
Chorl’s lip curled. “I doubt it.”
Hazzan suddenly snapped his fingers. “The potion,” he exclaimed. “So that’s what it does-it transforms humans into yuan-ti.”
Arvin felt his eyes widen. “No,” he whispered. He started to wet his lips nervously then realized what he was doing and gulped back his tongue. Then a thought occurred to him. Maybe Zelia had been bluffing. Maybe there was no mind seed. She might have guessed what the potion did, realized it would work this transformation on Arvin, and tried to claim credit for it. If it was the potion that was causing the hissing and the lip licking, what would be next? Would Arvin’s spittle suddenly turn poisonous, like that of the old sailor he’d found dying in the tunnel?
Realizing he was starting to panic, he forced himself to calm down. Would it really be so bad to turn into a yuan-ti? They were the rulers and nobles of Hlondeth; Arvin would certainly move up the social ladder if he became one. And in addition to their venom-handy, in a close-quarters fight-yuan-ti could assume serpent form at will. And they had magical abilities. They could enshroud themselves in darkness, use their unblinking stares to terrify others into fleeing, and compel others to do their bidding-a more powerful version of the simple charm that Arvin liked to use. They could entrance both animals and plants, causing the former to lose themselves in a swaying trance and the latter to tangle themselves about creatures or objects. And, as Zelia had demonstrated, they could neutralize poison with a simple laying-on of hands.
That thought led him to a realization. If the potion was intended to turn humans into yuan-ti, it would be useless if everyone who drank it died from the venom it contained. Which they didn’t. The old sailor had survived. Had Naulg?
Maybe.
And if Naulg was still alive and slowly transforming into a yuan-ti, would he wind up embracing Talona’s faith, as the old sailor had? Or… had the sailor really become a convert? Thinking back to the old man’s final words, Arvin concluded that was not the case. The sailor had invoked Silvanus’s name as he lay dying-hardly something someone who had embraced Talona would do. No, the old man had probably been magically compelled by the cultist-for some time, probably, since the cultist no longer felt the need to keep him bound hand and foot.