Viper's Kiss

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