Venom in Her Veins

by Tim Pratt

  Julen snorted. “No offense, Aunt Alaia, but do you think the Traders will care that the flowers come from the Far Realm? They’ll just start saying the drugs are ‘imported from an exotic faraway land’ and charge twenty percent more per dose.”

  “We should destroy the flowers and close that portal,” Zaltys said. “The things I saw in that derro city, the cruelty, the madness—it’s all the influence of the Far Realm. And we’ve been getting rich off selling people poisonous flowers from that place. We have to stop. It’s wrong. Iraska’s gone, but how long before another Slime King rises and opens more portals? Maybe the next one will succeed in attacking Delzimmer, and if we’re still selling the flowers, we’ll be paving the way for that invasion. We have to do what’s right.”

  “Life isn’t that simple,” Alaia said. “Right and wrong, Zaltys, they’re complicated ideas, not all situations are so simple.”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “Sometimes that’s true. I know. But not this time. Julen. Go and get me the green knife, and the straightest bit of bone you can salvage from the cage.”

  He went obediently to the mound of vegetation covering the poor altered quaggoth, plucked the knife from the mess, and went in search of a suitable shaft.

  “If you do this, you ruin us,” Alaia said quietly. “You ruin the family.”

  “If I don’t, I really am that madwoman’s great-granddaughter, and I have no desire to follow in her footsteps—to be a herald for monsters from beyond the back of the stars. The family can get into some less poisonous business. They certainly have the capital to finance it.”

  “They won’t see it that way, Zaltys. We’re used to doing things a certain way, and the terazul trade is central to—”

  Zaltys turned to her, put her hands on her mother’s shoulders, leaned forward, and kissed her on each bloody cheek. “You raised me to revere family, and I do. But you also raised me to do what’s right, and to protect the natural world. What kind of daughter would I be to you if I didn’t learn those lessons?”

  She turned her back on her mother, so she wouldn’t have to see the suddenly very old-looking onetime shaman weep. She looked at her cousin. “Do you object to my plan?”

  He shrugged. “I’m seventh in line to run the Guardians, which means I may as well be thousandth in line. No real future there. And someone with my skills will never go hungry. So, sure—let’s do the right thing. But do you think this will really work?” He was attaching the end of the green knife to a long, slender shaft of a bone with a bit of leather cord. Zaltys was impressed; he’d figured out what she had in mind.

  “Someone gave you that knife. It certainly seems to hum with primal power, and primal power exists in opposition to the aberrations of the Far Realm. I’m a little bit afraid the dagger might have come from, ah—” She glanced at the yuan-ti. “A certain god who shall remain nameless. But if it works, what choice do we have?”

  “Loose at will,” he said, and handed her the improvised arrow. It was a ridiculous thing—so top-heavy with the dagger tied to the end that it would simply spin and hit the dirt, with no fletching to make it fly straight even if it could fly, and the thighbone of some underfed Underdark denizen didn’t make a suitable shaft.

  But what else were magical bows for? Krailash said he’d seen this one fire a spear once.

  Zaltys nocked it, and as soon as the arrow touched the bowstring, it stopped feeling like an improvised spear and started feeling like an arrow. She aimed, drew, and loosed, and the knife-tipped arrow sailed into the portal where the terazul vines emerged.

  Nothing happened. “Damn,” Julen said. “All right, we can at least cut the vines off from their roots in the portal. I’ll see if I can scale the cavern wall.”

  The vines trembled. The portal pulsed. Something pushed its way partly through the portal, and afterward, no one could agree on exactly what it had looked like. Zaltys thought it had the head of a fish, while Julen insisted it was more like a bird, and Alaia said it looked like the snout of a mole. Whatever it was, it had far too many eyes, and its mouth was open, and the terazul vines came from inside that mouth, as if they were its tongue—which, given the strangeness of the Far Realm, was entirely possible. The hideous snout was wrapped around with brilliant green leaves, still growing at a ferocious pace, and the creature howled as vegetation choked and bound it.

  The creature pulled its head back in, and the portal vanished, just as the larger portal had before. The cut-off ends of the terazul vines drooped where they clung to the cavern wall, and the blue flowers began to shower down, wilting and turning brown as they fell.

  “Done,” Zaltys said, and turned to the yuan-ti, who were looking at her with something she uncomfortably identified as awe. “I am Zaltys Serrat, adopted daughter of the Serrat family, natural born daughter of—”

  “It’s the girl child,” the yuan-ti who’d spoken to her earlier said. His tongue, long and forked, flickered wildly. “Zaltys, I am Scitheron. I knew you when you were a babe.” He turned to the other snakefolk. “This woman, she is the pureblood, the infant left behind when Iraska sent her people to enslave us. She’s come back! She’s come back to save us!”

  “Now maybe you can save me,” Zaltys said. “I don’t suppose any of you know the way out?”

  “No,” the yuan-ti said. “But I think that snake is trying to get your attention. Perhaps it is a messenger of our great god Zehir, who chose you as the instrument of our salvation?”

  Indeed, the pale serpent was back, coiling and uncoiling itself impatiently, and when Zaltys looked at it, it began to slither away from the fields and the settlement. “Wait,” Zaltys said. “Do any of you yuan-ti speak the language of the Underdark?”

  “Deep Speech?” Scitheron said. “I do.”

  “Tell these slaves we’ll set them free if they don’t hinder our escape.”

  “They are beasts, daughter of Zehir,” Scitheron said, “foul creatures who do not keep the true faith.”

  “Please, just tell them?”

  Reluctantly, Scitheron spoke to the kuo-toa, and bullywugs, and quaggoths, and the others, and then returned. “They are impressed by your ferocity. While some hate humans, they hate the derro who enslaved them far more, and say they would rather hurt them than you. They wonder, would it be all right if they tried to kill the rest of the derro, or do you demand that pleasure yourself?”

  “They should do whatever they think is best,” Zaltys said.

  “You know, they aren’t family,” Alaia said. “And they might turn on us. You don’t owe them freedom.”

  “No one should be a slave,” Zaltys said. “To anyone.” Julen helped her strike open the cages with clubs made of bone, and most of the slaves—the ones who weren’t drugged—emerged, some tending to their sick, others racing toward the settlement. None tried to attack Zaltys—indeed, they seemed afraid of her. But she had helped kill the Slime King. Did that make her a liberator, or was she herself the Slime King now? Ascension by assassination seemed likely to be the derro way. If so, she didn’t want the title.

  The pale serpent still writhed impatiently, so Zaltys lifted her pack—only to have one of the yuan-ti who had legs take it from her wordlessly and strap it on his back. She nodded her thanks, and the creature nodded back, its black inhuman eyes impossible to read. One of the other yuan-ti handed her a clutch of her spent arrows that he’d retrieved. Treacherous murderous evil chaotic adherents of Zehir—perhaps. But capable, it seemed, of performing acts of simple gratitude.

  “Let’s leave this place,” Zaltys said, and they followed the slithering snake on its long and winding journey back out of the Underdark, the screams of the slaves attacking the settlement receding gradually behind them.

  WHY AREN’T THE LABORERS OFF … LABORING?” GLORY said, frowning at the unruly camp as she emerged from her wagon. People were running to and fro, shouting, or standing around like old statues, or chattering excitedly in little clumps.

  “I told them not to bother,” Q
uelamia said, squatting in the dirt—she even managed to squat regally—near her own wagon. “The terazul flowers are all dead. This enterprise is over. Everyone will be going home soon.” The eladrin wizard didn’t seem particularly bothered by the turn of events, but Glory just stood there, stunned.

  “The flowers are dead? What happened?”

  Quelamia was methodically stripping bark from a small tree branch. “Order has been restored, at some cost, though the damage already done cannot be undone easily. But time will correct the worst of them, as the ones tainted by the terazul potions live out their normal spans and die. If a portal had opened in Delzimmer, and some of the old creatures from beyond had emerged into the city, those addicts who had ingested the flowers of the Far Realm may have found themselves turned instantly into zealous cultists. Or they might simply have gone mad and attacked everyone around them. Or the effects could have been stranger—perhaps the addicts would have sprouted pseudopods or developed horrible psionic powers and attendant manias. Who can say? But now all the flowers we’ve plucked this year have turned to dust, and the potions and powders for sale by the Traders may well have lost their potency as well, as the connection to their true source has been severed. The job is done, and any collaborations along the way can be safely forgotten.” Quelamia rose with her stripped-bare twig and gestured at her living wagon with it.

  The wheels fell off, and the platform holding the tree dropped a few feet to the ground. The tree settled into the earth as if it had been there forever, suddenly just a part of the landscape, smaller than the surrounding trees, but not otherwise noticeably out of place. The leaves and bark were different from the other trees in the jungle in some way Glory couldn’t immediately articulate, since her sum total knowledge of trees was limited to the fact that some shed their leaves in the autumn while others had needles.

  “Farewell, tiefling,” Quelamia said. “You have full authority over the camp, but don’t worry—it won’t be for long.”

  “Wait wait wait. You’re going?”

  Quelamia nodded. “My true mission here has been accomplished. And my ostensible mission, to serve Travelers of the Serrat family, is irrelevant, as the Travelers no longer serve any purpose. So I will go, yes.”

  “You’d better tell me what in the blasted ruins of Mulhorand is going on here.” Glory crossed her arms. “I’m tired of the cryptic I’m-a-million-year-old-feything routine. I want answers, and if you don’t give them to me, I’ll take them.”

  Quelamia cocked her head. “There’s no reason it can’t be told, though I’m not inclined to stay here and do the telling. The Serrats may be wroth about my role in this, and though they pose no threat to me, I don’t relish conflict, so I had best be going. Yes, I think it’s better if you take the answers. Reach into my mind, then. I have something to show you.” The wizard took Glory’s warm hands in her own cool ones, and opened her mind.

  Glory was used to slipping in through cracks in automatic mental defenses, but going into the eladrin’s mind was like strolling in through an open door—though she got the sense that openness would extend only to the one particular room of her mind that Quelamia wanted her to see. The room was actually the size of all outdoors, specifically the jungle, specifically at night. Dark trees crowded in from the sides, and in the center, there was a ruined plaza, and Quelamia sat cross-legged on the stones.

  This is fifteen years past, Quelamia whispered into Glory’s mind, which was quite a trick, since Glory was inside her mind.

  A figure emerged from the trees, cloaked in a garment of dust and shadows, and sat cross-legged across from Quelamia on the ground. “Eladrin,” it said, voice a whisper.

  “God,” Quelamia said, nodding as if greeting an equal. “You may call me Quelamia.”

  “You may call me the Serpent Lord, Master of Poisons and Shadows, Keeper of Secrets and Teller of—”

  “I will call you Zehir, if you don’t mind.” Quelamia was polite. “The full list of honorifics would be rather time consuming, and I should get back to camp before I’m missed.”

  Zehir laughed like a hundred serpents hissing at once. The form underneath the cloak didn’t move like a human body at all. “Fair enough. This shouldn’t take long. We have certain parallel interests. You want to stop the Slime King of the derro from opening a vast portal to the Far Realm, and to cut off the roots of the poisoned terazul trade.”

  “And you want to punish the derro for some transgression against you.”

  “The Slime King was one of my servants once. She betrayed me, and my other followers, and went over to the derro. That was some time ago, as humans reckon the years, but I’ve only just noticed in the past dozen years or so—I’m a busy god. I’d like to see the traitor’s works destroyed and my people freed.”

  Quelamia nodded. “And you believe you have an instrument in the caravan.”

  “Zaltys,” Zehir said, ending the name in a hiss. “She is only a babe now, but she will grow up, and when she does she should be the direct cause of the Slime King’s downfall. There are certain pleasing symmetries in that arrangement, which you would not appreciate. Zaltys is my chosen one. Shutting off access to the Far Realm would distress the Slime King, but, ah, reducing the amount of madness in the world is hardly my area of expertise.”

  “Fine,” Quelamia said briskly. “I can help make sure Zaltys is raised to learn martial skills, and magical and psionic ones, if she shows any aptitude. And I can offer weapons capable of combating the influence of the Far Realm—a shard of the Living Gate, a dagger imbued with the power of the Feywild, perhaps other things. I can give Zaltys the means to achieve what you ask. What will you provide?”

  “Guidance through the Underdark, where I’m able. Safe passage, where it’s possible. A push in the right direction if things go off course. There are forces in the dark that would stand against me, but I can provide certain advantages, if not overwhelming ones. And of course, I am a god. I can influence events in such a way that Zaltys will want to go into the Underdark to rescue my servants. It’s remarkable what one can achieve with dreams and visions and whispers. And the odd snake to lead someone out of the dark.”

  “I trust you will do so subtly,” Quelamia said. “If the Serrat family had known that I intended to destroy so much of their livelihood … if Alaia knew that I had planned to let Zaltys find out what she truly is …”

  “Seeing such treachery in a noble eladrin is a rare and delicious thing,” the god said, voice dark with amusement. “Are you sure you don’t want to become my worshiper? You wouldn’t be the first eladrin to pledge herself to me, though I admit, it’s been some time since the last one.”

  Quelamia turned her face away. “You repulse me. If I could do this on my own, I would, but venturing into the Underdark personally is too perilous for me.”

  Zehir waved a hand—not that it was really a hand—in dismissal. “We have a common enemy in these derro scum and their dabblings in the Far Realm. That doesn’t mean you and I have to stop being enemies.” He rose. “I think we’re done here.”

  “How will I know when the time has come for Zaltys to go into the caves?” Quelamia said.

  “Oh, you’ll see. I’d hate to spoil the surprise. Let’s just say I’ll send a suitable emissary from the Underdark.”

  Quelamia nodded. “I will trust in your ability to scheme and plot, god.”

  “As well you should. We won’t meet again—either we’ll succeed, and it won’t be necessary, or we’ll fail, and you’ll probably be dead.” The cloak fell to the ground, and scores of serpents writhed and wriggled out, streaking into the jungle.

  “Gods are so dramatic,” Quelamia observed to no one. Then she turned her head, and looked right at Glory, which should have been impossible, since Glory was only spying on a memory. “Psion,” she said softly. “I assume you’re watching this. Do tell Alaia I’m sorry, would you? I didn’t mean to trouble her family or destroy her livelihood, any more than a man who cuts down a tree for firew
ood means to deprive birds of their nests. It is merely an unintended consequence of a necessary act. Now, if you please, I need some privacy.”

  Glory opened her eyes and groaned. She was flat on her back on the ground in the shade of the tree that had, a little while ago, been Quelamia’s trailer. She sat up, rubbing the spot between her horns, and looked around for the wizard, but she was gone. Probably long gone, and gone for good.

  So all these years Quelamia had been playing a deep game of her own against some adversary in the Underdark, with Zaltys’s heritage part of her endgame. Glory shuddered. People as ancient as Quelamia could be so cold. She could have just told the Serrats the true nature of the terazul flowers, but it wouldn’t have helped. Even if the Serrats had stopped selling them, some other enterprising mortal would have stepped in to get rich. That wasn’t an issue anymore. Oh, it was nice that the natural balance had been restored and the monsters from the Far Realm held at bay, but the fact was, with the terazul trade ruined, Glory was almost certainly out of a job.

  While the chaos of the camp intensified around her, Glory went into her trailer, filled her pipe, and sat puffing thoughtfully. Mostly, she hoped Zaltys was okay. Snake person or not, the girl was all right. And maybe now that she was done being used like a piece on a game board she could become her own person at last.

  They had to stop, eventually, to rest; they were all exhausted. They found a little side corridor that seemed easy to defend, and Julen took the first watch, while Alaia and Zaltys and the yuan-ti slept. Julen tried to watch the opening and the yuan-ti too. It was exhausting, and he was glad when Zaltys stirred, said she couldn’t sleep, and took over from him, sitting with her back to a cavern wall and her bow in her lap and her eyes looking faraway at nothing.

  Julen curled up next to his aunt Alaia and slept, and dreamed, and in the dream, the god Zehir appeared to him, as a serpent with a human face. Such a vision would have terrified him in waking life, but it was a dream, and he knew it was a dream, so he took it in stride.