Wrenching his thoughts off that path, he shifted his awareness to the next power, which had the brightest glow of any of them. It was also an offensive power, designed for use against other psions. By manifesting it, Arvin could strip a single power from another psion’s mind. Permanently.
The fifth power would allow Arvin to produce, from one or both hands, sweat even more acidic than a yuan-ti’s. It was a useful weapon-and one that would have the element of complete surprise.
The sixth and final power was an odd one: it would allow him to plant a false memory in someone’s mind-but that “memory” could be only a few moments long. What good was that, he wondered. Surely, in order to be convincing, the false memory would have to span a period of days, or even tendays.
It was a strange mix of powers to have chosen. Arvin shrugged, wondering what his mother had been thinking. Perhaps she had been shown, in one of her visions, what Arvin would one day find useful. The teleport power, for example, was just what he needed at the moment. He’d use it to teleport to a spot beside the platform where Nicco lay then use the cleric’s sash to drag Nicco from the platform. He hoped Nicco would then wake up, and Arvin wouldn’t have to face the cultists alone.
Visualizing the chamber above, Arvin grasped the mote of light with his mind. He felt its energy rush into the third eye at the center of his forehead, filling his vision with bright sparkles of silver light. It started to paint the scene he held in his mind, limning it in silver, making it more solid and real-
Then the motes of silver light came rushing back at Arvin, slamming into his mind. Pain exploded throughout his head then arced through the rest of his body, at last erupting out of his fingers and feet. The part of Arvin’s mind still capable of coherent thought noted the power crystal slipping from numbed fingers, his legs buckling. Arvin’s mind felt hot and ready to burst, like a melon left too long in the sun.
Brain burn.
Slowly, he sat up and shook his head then stared at the power stone that lay, glowing, in the ashes. He felt weak, shaky. He wasn’t going to try that again any time soon.
Picking up the stone, he thrust it into his trouser pocket. Then he stood and contemplated his options. There was only one way out toward the chanting voices.
Moving quietly, he crept down the hallway. It was arrow-straight, with a ceiling that was square, instead of curved-built by humans, rather than yuan-ti. It led to a heavy metal door with a palm-sized sliding panel, set at about eye level. The panel was open. Through it came a flickering red light-and the chanting.
After first making sure he was still invisible, Arvin tiptoed up to the door and peeked through the opening. In the room beyond the door were nearly two dozen people-men and women, judging by the blend of voices, though most had faces so heavily pockmarked it was difficult to recognize which were which. All wore the same shapeless, grayish green robes-and all stank of old, sour sweat. They stood in a loose circle around the wooden statue of Talona that stood, buried to its ankles, in the ashes and crumbled bone that covered the floor. Kneeling next to the statue was a naked man with unblemished skin, save for the chevrons on his arm. His arms were outstretched as if he were about to embrace the pitted stump of wood. For a moment, Arvin thought he must be captive-then he discarded this idea. The man was chanting along with the rest.
Glancing up, Arvin saw a dozen fist-sized balls of flame hovering just below the ceiling, next to the walls. They must have been magical, since there were no visible torches or lamps supplying them with fuel. They burned with a dull, red light, as if close to being extinguished. Something was climbing the wall directly beneath one of them-a rat with ash-gray fur and glowing orange eyes. It paused just below one ball of flame and thrust its head inside it. Withdrawing its head a moment later, it scurried down the wall and disappeared into the ash that covered the floor.
Arvin dropped his gaze back down to the cultists. They blocked his view of the far wall, but by leaning to the left and right, he was able to see the side walls. The one to the right had a door. Like the one he was peering through, it was made of thick metal, with a small panel in it at eye level. The inner surface of the door was blackened, as if by fire.
It seemed to be the only way out.
It would be suicide, however, to make a move at this point-even invisible, Arvin couldn’t hope to sneak past the cultists. The instant he opened the door, they’d be alerted to the presence of an intruder. All he could do was wait and hope that they would finish their ritual and exit through the second door.
One of the cultists stepped into the center of the circle. He was a large man with hair that grew only in patches. Arvin hissed in anger as he recognized him as the cultist who had forced him to drink the poisoned potion. As the man reached for a pouch on his belt and began untying its fastenings, Arvin held his breath, expecting to see one of the potion flasks. Instead the fellow pulled out two miniature silver daggers, each about the length of a finger and nearly black with tarnish. The tiny weapons were a type of dagger known to rogues as a “snaketooth.” Their hollow stiletto blades usually held poison.
Was this some new kind of sacrifice? As the patch-haired cultist raised the daggers above his head-one in either fist-over the kneeling man, Arvin tensed.
The chanting stopped. The patch-haired man’s arms swept down-but instead of stabbing the kneeling man, he presented the daggers to him, hilt first.
“Embrace Talona,” the patch-haired cultist droned. “Endure her. Prove yourself worthy of the all-consuming love of the Mother of Death.”
The kneeling man reached up and took the daggers. “Lady of Poison, Mistress of Disease, take me, torment me, teach me.” Then he stabbed the tiny daggers into his flesh. Once, twice, three times… over and over again, he jabbed them into his arms, chest, thighs-even into his face-leaving his body riddled with a series of tiny punctures. Meanwhile, the cultists surrounding him chanted.
“Take him… torment him… teach him. Embrace him… enfold him… endure him.”
The man continued to stab himself, though with each thrust of the daggers, he was visibly weakening. Rivulets of blood ran down his chest, arms, and face, dripping onto his wounded thighs. Even as Arvin watched, the punctures puckered and turned a sickly yellow-green. Soon the blood that ran down his body was streaked with pus. At last the man dropped the daggers and fell forward into the ash. He clutched weakly at the image of Talona for a moment then his hand fell away, leaving a smear of blood on the pitted wood.
Sickened, Arvin looked away. The kneeling man had been healthy, handsome-but after this ritual, assuming he survived it, the fellow would be as disfigured as the rest of the misguided souls who served the goddess of plague. He was ruined in body, as he must have been in mind.
Arvin was glad that he’d refused Zelia’s demand that he pose as an initiate. This would have been the result. This was why Zelia had sown the mind seed-no sane man would ever willingly go through the initiation rite Arvin had just witnessed. To infiltrate the Pox, what was needed was not just a human, but a human whose mind was not his own-a mere shell of a man, controlled by a yuan-ti who was as ruthless as she was determined. Or she could have used a man whose life was measured in days, desperate for a reprieve.
Rusted hinges squealed, breaking Arvin’s train of thought. Peering into the room, he saw that the door in the wall to the right-which was indeed the only other exit from the room-was open. The cultists filed out through it. None so much as glanced at the man who lay trembling in the ashes beside the statue of Talona. As the last of them left, the door squealed again and grated shut.