Lisa Smedman - Viper's kiss

The man on the ship's fo'c'sle would have gone unnoticed in other circumstances. Of average build and height, and with dark, shoulder- length hair drawn into a knot at the back of his neck like a sailor's tarred bun, he would have blended into any crowd. His ornaments were few: a slim chunk of clear crystal hanging on a leather thong at his neck; a bracelet of braided leather around his right wrist; and a thumbnail-sized dark blue stone, flecked with gold, that he wore on his forehead in the spot where the Learned painted their marks.

Two things, however, made him remarkable. The first was his pose. He lay facedown, his rigid arms holding his upper torso away from the wet fo'c'sle deck, his head bent back so that he appeared to be looking straight up at the spot where six sailors toiled above him, reefing the foresail. The second was the fact that he was unclothed, save for his tight-fitting breeches and a black leather glove on his left hand.

Unclothed-on a gusty, open deck in a winter far colder than was usual for the Vilhon Reach-the man seemed oblivious to the brisk wind that blew a spray so chilling that the sailors above worked with clumsy, cold-stiff fingers as they hauled up the canvas sail. He'd been there since dawn first paled the sky, unmoving, unblinking. And not shivering, even though the sun was only now just starting to shine on the gray waters of the Reach.

As the sun crested the horizon, limning the ship in a faint winter light, the man at last moved. He did not so much rise from the deck as flow up into a crouch, then into a standing position. A series of poses followed, joined one to the next like the steps of a flowing dance. The man moved as sinuously as a snake, even though he was human, without a hint of yuan-ti about him. The pupils of his dark brown eyes were round and his skin was smooth and not patterned. When he assumed the final pose, standing on one foot and staring up at the sky through hands that were slowly coming together, as if crushing something between them, the teeth that showed as he grimaced were square and white. Slowly, he lowered his foot to the deck and his arms returned to his sides. Then, his exercises complete, he reached for his shirt.

A wave caused the ship to roll. The man steadied himself by grabbing one of the rope ladders that led up to the mast. Suddenly his smile disappeared. His gaze became unfocused, as if he were staring out at something on the distant horizon. A moment later, he blinked. "The hemp in one of the ratlines is rotten," he called up to the sailors. "If you don't replace it, one of you will die."

He spoke with such certainty that the sailors above shivered. One of them began to whisper a prayer.

The man below dressed himself, pulling on his trousers, shirt, and boots, and belting on a knife so that its sheath was snug against the small of his back. Then, rubbing himself briskly and at last shivering, he strode along the rolling deck and disappeared down the hatch that led to the passengers' cabins.

Arvin leaned on the ship's rail, staring across the waters of the broad bay the ship had just entered. Ahead lay the city of Mimph. Like Hlondeth, it was a port, its harbor crowded so thickly with ships that their masts resembled the bare trees of a winter forest. But there the resemblance ended. Hlondeth had been built by serpents-it was a city of round towers, gracefully arcing viaducts, and ramps that led to rounded doorways reminiscent of the entrance to a snake's burrow. The buildings of Mimph, in contrast, were squat, blocky, and square. The city was a series of sharp angles and edges, from its square windows and doors to the jagged-looking flights of stairs that led up from the piers that lined the waterfront. Where Hlondeth's buildings were of green stone that glowed by night with the residual energies of the magic used to shape them, Mimph's structures were of plain gray granite that had been hewn by hand.

By human hands.

As the ship sailed slowly into the harbor, making its way between the dozens of ships already at anchor, the only other passenger aboard her joined Arvin at the rail. He tasted the air with a flickering, forked tongue then gave a slight sniff. "Humans," he hissed under his breath.

Arvin glanced sideways at the other passenger-a yuan-ti half-breed with a distinctive diamond pattern on the scales of his face. The yuan-ti's head was bald and more snakelike than human, and his lower torso ended in a serpent's tail. He wore an expensive looking winter cloak, trimmed with white ermine fur, that draped all but the tip of his tightly coiled tail. He hugged a stove- warmed stone to his belly; his breath, unlike Arvin's, didn't fog in the winter air. His unblinking, slit-pupil eyes stared with open distaste at the city as he sluggishly turned his head to stare at it.

"How they stink," he hissed, completing his thought.

Arvin's eyes narrowed. He smelled nothing but clean sea air, wet canvas and hemp, and the tang of freshly cut pine drifting over the water from the dockyards, where dozens of naval vessels were being constructed to counter the threat from neighboring Chondath. Arvin said nothing, even though the yuan-ti's remark was designed to goad him. He was the only human aboard this ship who was not a slave; the sailors who toiled above, calling to one another as they furled the sails, all had an S brand on their left cheek. The yuan-ti obviously couldn't resist an opportunity to remind the one free human about his place in the world.

Arvin smiled. Enjoy it while you can, he thought. Here in the Barony of Sespech, it's the humans who run things.

Foremost among those humans was Baron Thuragar Foesmasher, the man who had wrested control of Sespech away from its former baron-a Chondathan lackey-nine years ago. The barony was now fully independent, a rising star among the states that lined the Vilhon Reach. It was a place where a man with the right skills and talent could go far.

Arvin, with his psionic talents, was just such a man. And this trip was going to give him the opportunity to prove himself to no less a person than the baron himself.

Six days ago, the baron's daughter Glisena, a headstrong young woman of eighteen years, had gone missing from the palace at Ormpetarr. The baron's spellcasters had been unable to find her; their clerical magic had failed to reveal even a hint of where she might have gone. With each passing day the baron's fears had increased. There had been no ransom demand, no boastful threats from his political enemies. Glisena had just vanished.

Desperate, Baron Foesmasher had turned to his yuan-ti allies. Lady Dediana's militia, he knew, included a tracker said to be the best in all of the Vilhon Reach, a man with an extremely rare form of magic. Perhaps this "mind magic" could succeed where the other spellcasters had failed.

That tracker was Tanju, the psion who was Arvin's mentor.

Lady Dediana, however, was loath to loan Tanju to Baron Foesmasher. There was pressing business within Hlondeth for him to attend to, and he couldn't be spared. Yet a failure to respond to Baron Foesmasher's plea might fray the alliance that had recently been woven between the two states.

Tanju had proposed the solution. In recent months, he told Lady Dediana, he'd taken on an "apprentice," one with a quick mind and immense natural talent. This apprentice, he assured her, could do the job. Delighted at being presented with a solution that would swallow two birds in a single gulp, as the old expression went, Lady Dediana had readily agreed. And so, early yesterday morning, Arvin had set sail for Sespech.

If all went well, he'd never have to return to Hlondeth. Tanju had agreed that, when the job was done-assuming the baron approved-Arvin could remain in Sespech. From time to time, Tanju might contact him and ask for information on the barony, but otherwise, Arvin would be his own master.