by Tim Pratt
“You’re shooting at shadows,” Julen said, still squinting. Krailash and the other guards were crashing through, coming closer, and the shadow snake coiled itself, preparing to strike. With its ability to shift from place to place, it could bite everyone in the party before they had a moment to fight back. Unless Zaltys could stop it.
She drew the arrow, looking beyond the length of the shaft at the grayish-black serpent, and loosed.
The arrow left a trail of vapor in the air as it flew, and it struck the snake just below its jaw. The arrowhead shattered on impact, chips of magical ice striking the shadow serpent in the head and throat, and a web of cold and frost grew, pinning the snake to the statue. The serpent twisted wildly and flickered, becoming insubstantial in patches, but Quelamia’s magics wouldn’t permit it to phase out of solidity and escape, not without tearing its own throat out in the process.
“Now I see it,” Julen said, stepping into the clearing after Zaltys. “Nice shooting, Cousin.”
“Wait for it to die before you get too close,” she said, watching the snake writhe, body flapping like a banner in a high wind. “They’re lethal in their death throes.”
Why do you kill me, child of Zehir? the shadow snake said, fixing her with its eerie twilit eyes.
Zaltys stared. “What-did you …?”
Julen looked at her oddly. “Did I what?”
“I thought I heard …” But she hadn’t heard it, exactly. The snake’s voice had spoken in her head, the way Glory could when she pushed her thoughts into Zaltys’s mind-generally because the psion was too lazy to walk across the camp to speak to Zaltys in person.
You killed one of my friends, Zaltys thought, though it wasn’t quite true-she didn’t even know the name of the guard who’d died, and Krailash would have mentioned if it was someone she knew. But the dead guard was someone who worked for the family, which meant she had a responsibility to him.
But we are death from the darkness, the shadow snake said. Its writhing slowed, and though there was no light to fade from its eyes, the darkness in its eyes became less malevolent and more merely empty. We are poison and surprise. We are children of …
The snake died, and seemed less eerie and dangerous in death, becoming merely a giant snake with grayish-black scales. Julen was poking at the serpent with the blade of his knife, opening its jaws to look at the fangs within, and Zaltys had to bite back the urge to tell him to stop, that it wasn’t respectful to prod the dead, but of course, it was just a beast, though possibly a magical one. Had Zaltys imagined the voice in her head? The things the serpent said, they weren’t so dissimilar from the things she sometimes heard in her dreams.
Krailash appeared with his guards then. “Ah, you beat us to the kill,” he said. “I suspected you would.” He nodded to Julen. “Are you skilled with a knife, young man?”
Julen flipped the blade up into the air and caught it by the hilt in his other hand without looking. “What do you think?”
“I think juggling isn’t the same as cutting,” the dragonborn said dryly. “But if you’ve any skill as an anatomist, feel free to cut out the eyes and fangs of the beast there, and skin it too. The wizard in our caravan can use the components of a shadow beast in her rituals, I’m sure. Leave the meat, though. I wouldn’t want shadowflesh in a cookpot. No telling what sort of indigestion that might give you.”
Zaltys again resisted the urge to object. Why should cutting up a shadow serpent strike her as a desecration?
Julen sighed. “Butchery isn’t as fun as other things, but my father made me dissect all sorts of things so I’d know the best place to strike with a blade, so I’m sure I can manage this.”
“Good. Zaltys, you’ll keep him company?” And keep watch over him, was the unspoken portion, or so Zaltys assumed.
“Yes, Krai.”
“Excellent. See you both back at camp. Don’t linger-the parts will spoil if we don’t get them to Quelamia soon.”
Zaltys sat on the statue’s jutting snout and watched as Julen deftly cut into the serpent’s head, levering out its eyes. He dropped the orbs into a leather pouch and set that aside. The ice from her arrow was already melting, and the shaft fell to the ground, where Julen kicked it aside. “Don’t do that,” she said, letting some of her confusion emerge in the form of annoyance. “We don’t have an infinite supply of arrows out here.”
“Right, sorry.” Julen was intent on his work, pulling the serpent’s body free of the ice and stretching it out to its full length on the ground. “Didn’t think about it. It’s so strange, this creature doesn’t even bleed. Means I won’t need to change my shirt, at least, which is good, since I only brought three others, and you’ve reminded me that I can’t just send my valet out to get more … barbaric.” He sawed off the snake’s head-Zaltys had to look away-then crouched and sliced neatly along the center of the snake’s belly from the base of the headless stump to the cloaca. He put the knife aside, grasped the snake’s skin in both hands, and pulled with gentle, even pressure, peeling its skin back in a single piece. Once the skin was pulled almost entirely free of the flesh underneath, he used the knife to cut through the last clinging shreds of fat and muscle, and held up the shadow snake’s skin. It was a large, single sheet of snakeskin, and it fluttered oddly, seeming to absorb light and fuzzily emit darkness. “Hate to roll this up, but I don’t see how we can carry it loose. Give me a hand?”
Zaltys nodded, trying not to let her reluctance show, and helped Julen roll up the snakeskin into a bundle small enough to carry. Once he had it in his arms, and the pouch of eyes and teeth at his belt, he said, “Okay. Keep me from getting eaten by tigers, because I don’t have a free hand.”
She led him back to camp, though she could hear the guards Krailash had left behind moving on either side in tandem with them. Zaltys and Julen had never been out of sight of their protectors, probably, but Krailash had shown an unusual level of discretion, for him, by leaving them hidden. Perhaps he didn’t want to embarrass Zaltys in front of her cousin. Zaltys knew she didn’t need baby-sitters, and Krailash had assured her often that he had full faith in her ability to take care of herself in the jungle-indeed, she’d taught some his men the ways of the wild over the years-but she was a principal heir of the Serrat family; Krailash wasn’t about to take chances with her safety. It chafed, but the one time she’d used her superior skills to give his guards the slip and go roaming the jungle on her own, Krailash had been so beside himself with worry that she’d felt more guilty than pleased with herself, and since then she’d limited herself to merely complaining.
Back in camp, dusk was falling, and it was nearly time for the first evening meal shift. Zaltys led Julen to Quelamia’s wagon and knocked on the trunk.
A tiny knothole opened into a round door, and the eladrin looked out. “Yes?”
“We brought you dead animal parts,” Julen said.
“How … thoughtful.”
“Skin of a shadow snake,” Zaltys said. “And some other bits. Krailash said you could use them?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, plucking the skin and the pouch from Julen’s hands. “I’m engaged in a little project, at your mother’s behest, Zaltys. I think you’ll enjoy the results.” Without another word, she sealed up the trunk of her tree.
Zaltys and Julen exchanged shrugs. “You never got that food,” she said. “Want to come eat with me? I usually have my meal with the guardsmen.”
“You eat with the servants?” Julen frowned. “Why?”
“Would you rather talk about timetables and schedules and harvesting quotas with my mother, or about dice and fighting and war stories with the guards?”
“The latter, certainly, but-they include you in their conversation? The times I’ve been alone with servants, they barely say anything, except for my guard of the bedchamber, and that’s different.”
“We’re a bit more informal in the Travelers,” she said. “Everyone here depends on everyone else to keep them alive. It’s a dangerous busi
ness, going out in the field. If you don’t act like a little lordling, they won’t treat you like one.”
“I’ll do my best,” Julen said, and they started toward the mess tent.
Krailash met them, and held up his hand. “No,” he said. “Your mother wants you to dine with her, Quelamia, and …” he frowned. “There was someone else.”
“Glory,” Zaltys prompted, and Krailash’s expression cleared.
“Yes. Her. A table will be set up by your mother’s wagon.”
“Am I being punished for something?” Zaltys said.
“I think she just wants the family and the most loyal retainers to dine together,” Krailash said. “She wanted me there too, but I said it was better for morale if I ate with my men.” He winked at her-a gesture he’d picked up during his time among humans, though he used it rarely, being a serious person by nature-and said, “You’ll be dining in an hour or so.”
She sighed. “All right. Can I leave Julen with you for a little while?”
“Why?” Krailash said.
“I left my ice arrow in the jungle. Stupid, I know, but my cousin here distracted me. I’d like to go retrieve it.”
“I’ll detail a few guards-”
Zaltys rolled her eyes. “It’s barely ten minutes away, and that’s if I creep along slowly. The scouts didn’t find anything threatening besides the shadow snake, and it’s dead. We’re barely in the jungle yet-I think I can make it that far safely. All right?”
Krailash considered. “All right. This time. But come straight back.”
“Yes, yes.” Zaltys told Julen she’d see him at dinner, then set off toward the jungle. She took a brief side trip to snatch one of the folding shovels the laborers used to dig latrine pits, then went into the trees.
She found the clearing easily, following the marks left by her own trail-Julen hadn’t left any more sign than she had, amazingly, he was skilled at stealth-until she reached the statue’s severed head. The serpent’s body was still there, untouched as yet by predators. Zaltys began digging a hole near the statue, easily turning up spades full of the yielding, damp earth, until she had a small pit a few feet deep. She placed the shadow snake’s body in the hole, and put its eyeless head on top. Then she refilled the hole and piled some of the smaller chunks of statue rubble over the grave, disturbing countless colonies of fat, trundling beetles in the process. She kneeled for a moment by the grave, unsure why she’d felt compelled to bury it, unsure what she should say. “I’m sorry you had to die,” she said finally, and stood up, turning back toward her camp.
While she’d been intent on filling the grave, the clearing had filled with snakes. Mundane ones, not flame spitters or shadow snakes or coil constrictors, just brightly-colored jungle serpents, all lifting their heads in the air and looking at her, swaying slightly. Zaltys started to take a step back, but she sensed, somehow, that they meant her no harm. Were they capable of telling that she’d done a kindness for their larger, more shadowy relative? Or annoyed at the way she’d casually killed one of their own with an arrow earlier? Either seemed possible, though neither was likely. As she moved forward, they slithered aside, clearing a path for her, and Zaltys backed into the trees, watching the serpents as they, in turn, watched her.
Once she’d put a few trees between herself and the clearing, she turned and raced back to camp.
Chapter Six
Along table had been brought in from somewhere-or possibly constructed rapidly by the carpenters and wheelwrights who traveled with the caravan-and covered with a rich pale blue cloth. Actual glass and porcelain dishes had been set out, in place of the usual wood and stoneware, and there was even a cut-glass vase filled with fresh jungle flowers in the table’s center. Only the seating betrayed the essential roughness of the enterprise, being a motley assortment of folding stools and camp chairs. When Zaltys arrived, having changed out of her hunting leathers into something less formal than her city garb but, at least, not actually blood- and sap-stained, Alaia sat at the head of the table dressed in mist-colored robes with a jeweled diadem on her brow, with Julen at her left. He wore a black formal dining suit that Zaltys couldn’t believe he’d bothered to pack. Quelamia sat farther down the table, and wore robes that seemed woven from waterfalls and sunlight and green leaves. Glory sat slouched across from her.
“Glory,” Zaltys said, taking the empty chair at her mother’s right hand. “I didn’t know you even owned a dress!”
Glory sniffed. Her gown was equal parts shadow and spiderweb, clinging to her slim and shapely form, and her jewelry was the silver of moonlight. “I found it at the bottom of a trunk somewhere.”
“Who’s talking?” Julen looked around, frowning.
“Glory,” Alaia said sternly. “Uncloud the boy’s mind. He’s seventh in line to succeed the head of the Guardians-I daresay he has the standing to know you exist, at least for the duration of our meal.”
“Sorry. It’s habit.” Glory waved her hand in a gesture that, Zaltys knew, was entirely unnecessary, and Julen gasped.
“A tiefling! Where’d you come from?”
“Glory is our resident psion,” Alaia said, patting Julen’s knee.
“Most people stare at my horns,” Glory said, and Julen looked away, blushing. Glory preferred to go unnoticed, but Julen had quite obviously noticed the way her clinging gown showed off her bosom. Zaltys snickered, and her mother gave her a warning look.
“It’s so nice to have more family with us,” Alaia said. “I do not imagine we’ll be able to have a formal dinner every night, but I thought it would be a nice welcome for Julen, to help ease him into the reality of life in the caravan.”
“It’s walking, walking, and more walking,” Glory said. “Or, if you’re me, riding in a carriage. And then sitting, and waiting, and sitting some more, and then doing a little work at the end.”
“Some of us have work to do throughout,” Quelamia said. “But, yes, there are long stretches of simply traveling.”
“So … we’re not there yet?” Julen said. “I mean, this is the jungle, right?”
“This is the edge of the jungle,” Zaltys said. “We have to go a lot deeper to get to the terazul blossoms-under trees so dense the sun doesn’t really penetrate, among the wild things and ruins, along tracks that become so overgrown in the months between our visits that Quelamia and the road crews have to clear the paths all over again.”
“The overgrowth is something we encourage, magically,” Alaia said. “Though the jungle scarcely needs any help. But it helps hide the paths from those who would steal our trade secrets.” She gestured to a waiting servant-just a laborer pressed into service for the evening-who brought over a tureen of soup and ladled it out into the waiting green glass bowls before each person at the table.
“I don’t see why you need to traipse off into the jungles anyway,” Julen said, sniffing his soup dubiously before tasting a mouthful. “Huh. This isn’t bad.”
Zaltys took a spoonful of her own, and found it rather bland, but then, her favorite part of any caravan meal was the fresh-killed game, and that would come later. “How would we avoid coming into the jungle?” she said. “That’s where the flowers grow, and without the flowers, where would the family be? What are the Serrats without terazul?”
Julen shrugged. “Well, there are the betting parlors, and the ships-which transport more than just terazul products-and all the property we own and the rents we collect, and all the other enterprises the Traders set up.”
“All noble pursuits, and it’s certainly wise to diversify,” Alaia said, “but the backbone of our family is the terazul trade. Our profits in other endeavors rise and fall, but terazul income is dependable. Without it, we’d be … well, just merchants, instead of merchant princes. And if the founder of our family hadn’t stumbled across the flowers in his travels, and kept their location a secret for his use alone, he’d have remained a humble importer.”
“You can say ‘smuggler,’ ” Julen said. “It’s what he
was.”
Alaia sighed. “Fine. But the fact remains, our more respectable businesses were built on the back of his discovery, and terazul remains central to the family’s prosperity.”
“All right, granted,” Julen said. “So dig up a few of the flowers, roots and all, and bring them back to the city. Let’s grow the crops there. I know the climate’s different, not so terribly damp, but surely Quelamia or someone else can do something about that with magic. What else is magic for, if not making life more convenient?” He slapped at an insect that buzzed around his neck. The tall torches burning around them kept most of the bugs away, but not all. “It just seems silly, spending all this effort, employing all these hirelings, to go out to the jungle twice a year to fetch a bunch of flowers.”
“The boy’s a genius,” Glory said. “Transporting the plants. Now why didn’t anybody ever think of that before?” She snapped her fingers at a hovering servant, who jumped, having clearly forgotten Glory was there since filling her soup bowl. “More wine here,” she said, then turned back to Julen. “It’s been tried. Doesn’t work.”
“The family’s founder himself tried,” Quelamia said. She hadn’t touched her soup, or her wine, and she gazed into her water glass as if seeing faraway places in its depths-and maybe she was-eladrin were strange, and never seemed entirely in this world. “The flowers will grow when transported. They will thrive, even. There were even some growing in the gardens of the family villas, until the Guardians became concerned that visitors might notice them, discover they were terazul, and leave with the knowledge of what the flowers look like, making it possible for scouts to scour the jungle and find them. Those blossoms are all gone now, of course.” She lapsed into silence.
“So what’s the problem?” Julen said. “If we had a captive crop back home, we could protect it year-round, and destroy all the wild flowers. Then my father wouldn’t have to worry so much about keeping people from finding out where they grow.”
“The flowers will grow in other places,” Alaia said, “but they lose their special properties. They become, simply, pretty blossoms.”