by Tim Pratt
“Hello, ape,” Zehir said. “Did you enjoy your visit to the caverns?”
“No,” Julen said. “I can’t say I did.” Suddenly Julen was in a clearing skinning something—as he’d skinned the shadow snake once—though he couldn’t quite tell what he was skinning. He had the vague sense that he was somehow skinning himself.
“Are you happy with the outcome, at least, little Guardian?”
“My family’s fortunes have been cut in half,” Julen said. “My friend Krailash is dead. Zaltys is … I can’t imagine what she’s going through right now.”
“True,” the man said. “But the derro who transgressed against my people have been punished for their affront. Better still, the traitorous Iraska has been sent to a realm of madness and death. It is strange, ape—I love treachery, but I despise traitors, at least when I’m the one being betrayed. At least I have amused myself for a while, and sowed discord among your family. Do you think they’ll welcome you back, when they find out your part in reducing the family fortunes? The venom you humans generate yourselves, the emotional toxins, are more potent than anything found in the fangs of my serpents.” He paused. “The eladrin wizard got what she wanted too, of course, which is a shame, but you can’t have everything.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Julen said. He was almost done skinning himself. Every breeze was like a jolt of electricity. Perhaps I’m molting, he thought. Like a snake shedding its skin before starting a new life.
“I know,” Zehir—for it was suddenly obvious to Julen this must be Zehir—said. “I know you don’t. It’s pointless coming here. I should talk to Zaltys, but I don’t think she’d be very receptive. But I can’t help gloating and spitting poison at someone, even if they’re just nasty words. It’s my nature.”
Julen woke up. The rest of the group stirred, and soon they followed the snake again, up steeply ascending tunnels. Julen fell into step near the front, with Zaltys, and said, “How are you, Cousin?”
“Confused,” she said. “One of the yuan-ti, the one called Scitheron? He crept up to me last night while everyone else was asleep and said he was glad they hadn’t sacrified me to the anathema like they’d planned. I guess they were going to feed me to a monster, when I was just a baby, because I looked too much like a human. He said my survival was destined, and that I’d proven the nature of that destiny by saving them. He told me he knew I would come to serve Zehir, and said I should use the power and influence of the Serrat family to cultivate human cultists in Delzimmer, with an eye toward taking over the city. She said I should make a list of enemies we could later sacrifice to the god, and started going on about slow poisons.” She shook her head. “I told him I’d think about it just to get him to go away. It’s pretty much exactly what Iraska wanted me to do.” She paused. “And it’s pretty much what the Serrats have been trying for decades—to take over the whole city, I mean.”
Julen thought for a moment. “Seems to me there’s a difference, though,” he said at last. “The Serrats believe in family. They found you in the jungle and took you in. They never would have fed you to a monster. When children are born simpleminded or sick in this family, we take care of them, make them as comfortable as we can, we don’t kill them. Maybe the Serrats are unscrupulous—all right, I’m a Guardian, I know we’re unscrupulous—but those yuan-ti are evil. And it’s not because serpentfolk are born that way, not because they’re rotten from the start. You’re proof enough of that. They choose evil. What the Slime King said, about ‘your nature’ … I don’t believe it. Nature’s not everything. You may have venom in your veins, Zaltys, but that doesn’t make you a snake.”
“But these yuan-ti are my family too,” she said. “They’re my blood.”
“Am I your family?” Julen said. “Is Alaia? We’re not your blood. We never thought we were, we knew from the start you weren’t a Serrat by birth. But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re family. And when a Serrat proves to be unreliable or treacherous, we give them a purse and send them out to make their own way, we don’t sacrifice them to some evil god or enslave them. Blood might give you the color of your hair or your eyes or the length of your stride, you might inherit good teeth or strong arms or quick wits, but family is something you make, at least as much as it’s something you’re born into. And you’ve made yourself something good. Something better than the serpentfolk have chosen to be. Something better than most of the Serrats, I have to say.”
Zaltys put her hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good friend, Julen.”
Ah, we’re friends then—that old twist of the knife, he thought, loving her more than ever, snake or not.
“And a good cousin. Thank you for coming down here with me. Even though it didn’t work out like I expected.”
“I’m not sure life ever does,” he said.
They emerged, blinking, into the afternoon sunlight, not from the ruins where they’d descended, but not terribly far from the caravan, either. The yuan-ti prepared to return to their old home ruins, with Scitheron pausing by Zaltys and asking if she’d return to say good-bye before she left. She promised she would—no reason to antagonize them—then accompanied Julen and Alaia back to the caravan.
Everything there was being packed up for the return trip home, under Glory’s supervision. “Welcome back,” she said, obviously noting Krailash’s absence, but choosing not to comment on it. “I guess you won?”
Alaia laughed bitterly. “In a way. I’ve never seen a win bring such ruin. Where’s Quelamia?”
Glory sighed. “Ah. Long gone. I guess I should tell you a story. Come on, let’s eat some real food and I’ll tell you what I know, which isn’t much.”
Afterward, Zaltys went to her mother’s wagon, and sat down across from her. Alaia looked blankly around at her totems, which had become so many useless knickknacks. “What will you do?” Zaltys said. “When you return to the city?”
Alaia shook her head. “There’s nothing for me there. I’d be cut off financially, probably, for coming back empty handed. If the rest of the family find out my part in the end of the terazul trade, they won’t be happy. Besides, I’m head of the Travelers, and there’s no reason to Travel anymore. I don’t think business was the right path for me, truly. If I’m no longer a trade princess, I’d better go about learning to become a shaman again. I’m going to stay here in the jungle, and try to regain the connection to the primal world I lost. That I gave up.” She glanced at Zaltys. “Your … other family. They say they have some interesting shamanic traditions they could share with me, relating to the World Serpent.”
“You shouldn’t trust them,” Zaltys said. “They worship a god of lies and betrayal, and they’re always plotting, believe me.”
“Trust them? Zaltys, darling, I was a ranking member of the Serrat family. I know more about lies and betrayal and plotting than a bunch of snake cultists ever could.” She put her hand on Zaltys’s knee, but didn’t look her in the eye. “I’m sorry I kept that secret from you. I wanted you to have an ordinary life—or, rather, an extraordinarily good life. I thought knowing your true origins would cause you pain. But do you remember at your initiation, when I said you should speak to me, later, to learn a family secret? I was going to tell you the secret of your family, and your true nature. Please believe that.”
“I do. I was happier before I knew,” Zaltys admitted. “And when I was a child, it made sense to keep it from me. But I’m grown up now. It’s time I knew the truth. I just have to figure out what to do with that truth.”
“Will you go back to Delzimmer? I could send a letter, and make sure the disgrace falls squarely on me, leaving you blameless.”
But Zaltys was shaking her head. “I never felt entirely at home there anyway. The Travelers were always a breed apart. And knowing how much I really don’t belong there now … Besides, it’s possible Zehir will keep trying to use me. I’d rather not give him the chance. I think … I think I’ll travel. See what’s across the gulf, or to the
north. Delzimmer is near the bottom edge of every map I’ve ever seen—there must be so much more out there.”
“The world is a large and dangerous place,” Alaia said. “Wherever you go, my daughter, my darling daughter, please, be safe.”
Zaltys tapped the psychic ring on her finger. “I’ll send you messages and let you know how I’m doing. All right?”
Alaia kissed her cheek. “Loot the camp for any supplies you need,” she said. “Otherwise the Traders will just auction everything off to make up the income lost on this expedition.”
Zaltys tried to slip away unnoticed, but Glory and Julen were both waiting on the edge of camp, holding packs—though Glory didn’t look happy about it.
“You don’t have to do this,” Zaltys said. “You still have a place in the world, but I … I don’t. I don’t belong with the yuan-ti, and I don’t belong with the humans. I’m not sure where I belong, but I need to find my own way. I—”
Julen said, “Quiet, Cousin. Of course I’m coming with you. Sure, I’m seventh in line to run the Guardians, and that’s a wonderful job, but they’re planning on making me an underground operative—literally underground, dealing with dwarves and such. I’ve spent enough time in the Underdark to decide that’s not the career path for me. I don’t even want to go into a basement for a while. Besides, I’ve found life with you a lot more interesting. And with Glory along we’ll never have to worry about whether we can afford to stay at an inn or not.”
“Life of adventure, here I come,” Glory said sourly. “I’m not promising to wander the earth with you forever, but I think things are going to get ugly in Delzimmer—hundreds of terazul addicts denied their life’s only purpose? No fun, and I’d rather not be there when they start rioting in the streets. Even if I make sure they can’t see me, I might get trampled accidentally. So I’ll stick with you until I find a better situation. Okay?”
“The two of you,” she said. They were rather spoiling her plan to walk off nobly into the woods alone to find herself and seek her fortune, but she had to admit—she’d enjoy the company, and it was easier to stay alive in the jungle and beyond if you had someone to keep watch while you were sleeping. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Julen said. “We already know. That’s the whole point of being family.”
“Speak for yourself,” Glory said. “We’re not family. I’m just going along with you so I don’t have to dig my own holes to crap in.”
Zaltys asked them to wait for her near the severed head of the idol where they’d skinned the shadow snake while she said her good-byes to the yuan-ti. Scitheron begged her to reconsider—he offered to make her low priest, which was apparently a kind of high priest—and she politely declined. “Listen,” she said. “There’s a pit, with a stone grate over it … Can you tell me about it?”
“The pit of the anathema,” Scitheron said. His tongue flickered wildly. “We haven’t been there yet. We weren’t sure if the anathema still lived.”
“It was alive a few days ago,” Zaltys said. “It spoke to me.”
“Are you sure you won’t become our low priest?” Scitheron said again. “The anathema is a sort of king, and a sort of representative of our god. But it went mad, long ago, and slew most of our people. We kept the anathema locked away, and fed it sacrifices to placate it. It is a great power, to be honored and respected, but it is also very dangerous.”
“It speaks to your god, though, right?”
Scitheron nodded. “You wish to commune with Zehir?” He sounded so excited, like the more devout aunts in the Traders did whenever she showed the slightest interest in Waukeen, the god worshiped by most of the Serrat family.
“I have a message for him,” Zaltys said carefully.
Scitheron showed her to the pit, though Zaltys remembered the way. “Don’t open the trapdoor,” he warned. “Speak through the grate. It can hear you, though it may not answer.” He bid her good luck and slithered away.
Zaltys kneeled by the edge of the pit. “Anathema,” she said.
“Daughter of serpents,” the thing in the pit whispered. “You have returned. Did you save our people?”
“I did,” Zaltys said.
“Then I will be fed soon. Good. Would you like to be my first meal? Being eaten by the anathema is a great honor.”
“No. But I have a message for Zehir.”
“Speak, then. The god hears what I hear.”
Zaltys spoke at some length. She’d learned most of the fouler words from the guardsmen in the caravan, and she ended with a rather forceful and graphic suggestion that she sincerely hoped Zehir would follow.
The anathema chuckled. “I am not sure that act is physically possible,” the anathema said, “even for a god as mutable in shape as Zehir. But your anger will delight him, Zaltys. You are truly his daughter.”
Zaltys spat into the pit, and the anathema laughed as she walked away.
Julen, Glory, and Zaltys set off into the jungle, carrying rations and water and potions and everything else useful they could find in the camp. Julen had a map of the lands north of Delzimmer, and at the upper edge was a place marked Tymanther, where Krailash supposedly had family. Zaltys thought it would be nice to let them know he’d died heroically saving the world, or at least a small portion of it.
“There’s no sense of scale on this map, though,” Glory said, turning the sheet of parchment over and peering at it upside down. “I have no idea how long the journey might take us. A few tendays to reach Delzimmer—though it might be best if we swing wide around the city, lest your relatives get their hands on you and lock you up in a tower somewhere. After that, though, there are just leagues and leagues to cover. And there’s no telling what we’ll run into along the way.”
“I know,” Julen said. “Back home, I’d be taking Advanced Poisons class right now, and then spending two hours practicing my knife work, and then reading classics. But now, I have no idea what’s going to happen next. It’s amazingly liberating.”
Glory looked at Zaltys and shook her head. “Humans,” she said. “They’re impossible.”
“Yes,” Zaltys agreed. “But what can we do? He’s family.” They set off into the green vastness of the jungle.
As they passed under the low-hanging branches, a pale green serpent slithered behind them in Zaltys’s shadow.
She pretended not to notice.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Sincere thanks to my editor Fleetwood Robbins for giving me the chance to write an adventure set in a world I love; my agent Ginger Clark for helping make it happen; my wife Heather Shaw for giving me time and space to write; Jenn Reese and Chris East for letting me hole up in their guest room for a week as I pushed through to finish the first draft; David Moles for his excellent criticism and suggestions; and my old D&D-playing friends from high school: Millard Arnold IV, Bobby McArthur, and Matt Lane.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tim Pratt began playing AD&D with friends in high school, and soon ended up running a vast campaign that liberally borrowed from various D&D settings, comics, and science fiction. In recent years he’s sublimated his urge to run games into writing fiction, though writing fiction is a lot lonelier. He’s won a Hugo Award for his fiction writing, and been a finalist for World Fantasy, Stoker, Sturgeon, Mythopoeic, and Nebula Awards. He also publishes an urban fantasy series as T.A. Pratt. Visit his website at timpratt.org.
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