by Tim Pratt
“Haven’t you noticed an affinity with snakes? If you’re with the Serrat family’s Travelers-which is hilarious for reasons I’ll explain once I have you settled in here-then you spend a lot of time in the jungle. Have you ever been bitten by a snake? Of course not. Because they recognize you …” she gave another hideous smile, “as family. And if you had been bitten, you wouldn’t have suffered any ill effects. The yuan-ti are bringers of poison. We are seldom poisoned. Do snakes, perhaps, follow you around? Look, there’s one now, it followed you in from upstairs, didn’t it?”
Zaltys looked at the pale serpent, which was apparently sleeping not far from Iraska’s desk. “It can’t be,” she said softly. “I can’t be. Yuan-ti are monsters. They do evil. I’m not evil.”
Iraska clucked her tongue. “You’re looking at it all wrong. Yuan-ti are the superior race, beset on all sides by implacable enemies who refuse to embrace the true faith-including heretics of our own race who embrace the doddering, outdated god Sseth instead of the vigorous Zehir. Our serpentine relatives don’t commit acts of evil-they commit acts of necessity. Is it evil to step on a scorpion before it stings you? Is it evil to swat a fly because it annoys you? You’re with the Travelers. That means you cut a swath of fire and sharpened iron through the jungle on a regular basis, displacing native creatures, destroying native fauna, all for your own purposes-is that evil? Of course not. It’s just self-interest. And the Serrat family? Ha. They spread poison on a scale most yuan-ti can only dream of, and what’s more, the people they poison willingly pay for the privilege!”
“Don’t talk about my family that way. You don’t know anything about them!”
Iraska’s eyes glittered in the torchlight. “I wouldn’t say that. I knew your great-grandfather, a bit. From your adopted family, I mean. He was a thug and a thief and a smuggler. Not a bad sort, for a human.”
“He was brave and resourceful, and he built a business from nothing.”
“He was reckless, which isn’t the same as brave. And resourceful, I’ll grant you that, but it was really just one resource: terazul. The first employees in that business he built were paid in terazul powder. Or should I say ‘enslaved.’ The man had a magistrate addicted to the stuff, and certain key officials, and even a few lesser members of the four great families of Delzimmer, who fed him the information he needed to succeed in business and politics. Because in Delzimmer, business is politics.
“I was a spy in Delzimmer, you see, for the yuan-ti in this part of the jungle. The wealthy merchants of Delzimmer thought I was a highborn lady from across the jungle-jumped-up shopkeepers always crave the attention of real royals, you see, and my coloration, which you share, was considered quite exotic. Things were going well for me too-indeed, I was the mistress of a high-placed merchant, and since his wife was dying of a slow wasting disease, courtesy of my deftness with poisons, I was poised to become a power myself in time. Unfortunately, your great-grandfather decided to engage in a little covert assassination to seize some of my lover’s business interests at a reduced price, and once my patron was dead, his sick wife no longer tolerated my existence. I was suddenly homeless, and most decidedly unwelcome. I’d gone from beloved courtesan to cast-off trollop-so turns the wheel of fortune. I crawled back to the jungle in disgrace. So yes, Zaltys-I know your family. If we’re comparing evil for evil, it’s hard to say whether the yuan-ti or the Serrat would win.”
Zaltys wasn’t crying, but it was a near thing. She was still holding the crossbow, but she wasn’t aiming it at anything anymore. She kneeled down by Julen and began stroking his hair. He was breathing, slowly and steadily. That was a comfort, at least. “I’m human. I feel human. You’re trying to trick me. That’s your nature too. Yuan-ti are treacherous liars and-”
Iraska waved her hand and reclined in her desk chair. “Don’t be silly. I don’t consider myself a yuan-ti anymore. Oh, I am, by birth, like you, but just as you’ve been adopted into the Serrat family-a family of liars, I might add, who’ve obviously conspired heroically to keep your true origins from you, but that’s neither here nor there-just as you’ve become a human by association, I’ve more or less become a derro. Although,” she leaned forward, and stage-whispered, “I just consider them a means to an end. You see, when I returned from Delzimmer, carrying with me nothing but the clothes on my back and a few jewels that proved to be simply worthless shiny rocks in the jungle, I was horrified by what I saw. My sect was ailing when I left, and the hope was that my influence in Delzimmer could turn things around, bring us new human cultists and more resources, but even if I’d succeeded, we were beyond help. The anathema are precious to the god Zehir, and they’re formidable creatures, but they’re also prone to getting out of control. Ours had finally gone mad and killed almost everyone. Whether anyone could have stopped it was a moot point. The anathema are the most holy ones, chosen by our god, and so no one dared raise a hand against it. The old monster finally crawled into a hole and fell asleep, sated after eating half the tribe, and some enterprising low priest had a great heavy stone lid put on top of the hole, so the anathema could be revered from a safe distance, with sacrifices thrice daily. Pathetic. We were a mighty cult once, a power growing in the jungle, ready to burst out and spread our worldview with treachery and knives, but no more. I’d lived among humans long enough to gain a taste for the finer things, and the yuan-ti seemed hopelessly provincial, not to mention religiously obsessed. And why? Why revere a god who doesn’t pay attention to you, who gives life to a great sentient conglomeration of snakes and then lets it eat you for no reason? Mind you, I wasn’t the favorite daughter of the tribe, either, partly because I spoke my mind, mostly because I’m an ape-face. That’s what they call people like us-at least, once we fail the cult, and no longer rate any respect. ‘Ape-face.’ Lovely, isn’t it?”
Iraska yawned. “I don’t usually talk this much. The derro don’t go in for long conversations, at least, not coherent ones. Anyway, to draw a line from there to here, I went out walking in the jungle, got abducted by derro, and figured I’d suffer certain death. But then it turned out I’d learned some useful skills in Delzimmer after all. Politics, mostly. How to pour honey in a man’s ear and make him do your bidding.”
Zaltys frowned. Listening to Iraska’s story at least spared her from agonizing over her own nature, and despite herself, she was interested. “You’re the Slime King, I see it myself, but how can you advance by politics and”-disgusting thought-“seduction among insane people like the derro?”
“The derro are mad, but it’s an almost artificial madness, the curse of some god or another who grew angry at their transgressions millennia ago. All derro are mad, and though the exact manifestations vary, they’re all mad in exactly the same way. And when everyone in a culture is insane in exactly the same way, do you know what we call that? We call that a cultural norm. We call that sanity. All derro are megalomaniacal with delusions of grandeur, and paranoid with persecution fantasies. Those are wonderful qualities for a skilled manipulator to work with. It was easy to whisper my way out of the slave pens, turning guard upon guard, getting the ear of the king-it was an actual derro at the time, imagine that-sowing dissent and treachery among the factions, eventually organizing my own ascent to the top. Or the bottom, I suppose, if you’d like to get technical.”
“Queen of a tribe of homicidal lunatics,” Zaltys said. “You must be so proud.”
Iraska shrugged. “Are you proud to be heir to an empire devoted to giving addicts the drugs they use to kill themselves? Don’t misunderstand-I think you should be proud. Any accomplishment of great scale is worthy of pride, Great-granddaughter. Besides, the derro are just a stepping stone. I realized when I came back from Delzimmer that the yuan-ti aren’t the most powerful creatures in the universe. Far from it. They’re provincial little snakes, to use a human pejorative. Which is why I enslaved your village-my village-our village, and dragged them down here. Because I wanted them to know how pitiful and worthless they are, how unca
ring their god Zehir is. I put them in the slave pens by the mushroom fields, where I’ll put your cousin too. If I made them soldiers, they’d all die in some skirmish or another, and why should I want our relatives to have the release of death?”
“So you’re as delusional as the derro, then,” Zaltys said. “You believe they’re superior, and you’ve made yourself one of them.”
“Oh, please. The derro believe they’re masters of the universe, prevented from ascending to their true level of greatness only by the treachery of their million insidious enemies. But that’s nonsense. Derro are degenerate scum. But Zaltys, there are forces in this universe that deserve adoration, beings so powerful their might surpasses mortal understanding. Not the little aberrations that crawl and float here in the Underdark, the beholders and the grell and the like, and not even aboleths, though the aboleths come closer than most. I’m talking about creatures that were ancient when the gods weren’t yet conceived of. Things so old and powerful they don’t even have names, or need them. Entities that don’t even notice our kind, except perhaps for a moment’s fleeting sensation of pressure as they crush us beneath their vast and crawling bodies. On the far edges of the sky, there are sentient galaxies that watch us with hungry eyes made of suns. Things the size of our entire world, the continents of their bodies studded with malevolent eyes. Gigantic serpents made not of flesh and blood but the substance of stars, capable of poisoning reality itself with their venom. Conglomerations of singing tentacles and lashing pseudopods that can entangle the substance of time and space itself. These beings live far, far away from here, but they’d like to come closer. They’d like to be let into this world. And they can give power beyond imagining to the one who opens the door. That’s why I took over the derro, because the savants here devoted their lives to opening those doors, and I needed to learn how. So I did, and now all the other derro who knew how to create these portals are dead, and I’m very close to perfecting my technique.”
Iraska lifted her hands, and a blue and green ball of heatless flame coalesced in the air above the pool of water. “Those beings of power live in a place called the Far Realm,” she said, her voice distant and dreamy. “And I am their herald.”
Since her great-grandmother was busy staring up at a portal to a plane of infinite, unimaginable horror, Zaltys took the opportunity to shoot the old woman in the neck with a crossbow bolt.
Chapter Twenty-One
Despite the lousy construction of the Derro crossbows, the bolt flew true and straight, and should have pierced Iraska’s windpipe, hitting her with enough force to knock her out of her chair. Zaltys had already dropped her crossbow and reached for her bow so she could take out the guards by the door when she realized her great-grand-whatever wasn’t dying like she was supposed to.
Instead, a shadowy shape formed around Iraska, a sort of silhouette of lashing tentacles, and one of those tentacles seized the crossbow bolt from the air and snapped it in half. When the tentacles receded, the silhouette vanishing, Iraska began to laugh. “Did you like that? There’s a creature called the balhannoth that lurks in the tunnels, a blind stalker and ambusher, with lashing tentacles and a mouth big enough to swallow a derro whole. An aberration, of course, that slithered over from the Far Realm.” She touched the necklace at her throat, and Zaltys noticed that her bracelets matched, they were bone, wound with dark strips of leather. “This jewelry is made from the body of a balhannoth and imbued with certain enchantments, and grants me some measure of the dead monster’s abilities. Not just tentacles, but invisibility, and teleportation-not so different from the powers your little dead-snake skin gives you, though more potent, of course. You need shadows to disappear into.” She raised her hands, and the torches in the room flared into greater light, banishing all shadows from the room and making Zaltys turn her face away from the brilliance. “I have no such limitations. Let’s not fight, Zaltys. I know I’ve given you a lot to think about. You’re confused and distraught, so I forgive your little attempted murder. It would be a shame to make you into a slave when you could be so much more useful to me in other ways. Will you listen to my proposal?”
Zaltys nodded, but kept her arrow nocked on the string, though she didn’t draw. The bow was magical, its arrows capable of avoiding obstacles to strike what the bow’s wielder tried to hit. Would it be able to thread its way through those phantom tentacles? If she tried that and failed, would Iraska simply kill her?
“I propose,” Iraska said, “that you return to the surface with those few humans I still have in my slave pens. I use them as front-line troops when we fight with other races down here, so there aren’t many alive, but I think I have a few lying around the armory. Take them with you. Say they’re your family, your fellow villagers-the humans will believe it, and they’ll revere you for coming to save them. Be triumphant. Otherwise, go about your business. Rise in power, as I did when I was your age. Marry a powerful man-someone in the Guardians would be best, though not young Julen, he’s seen too much here to be allowed to run around free. Ascend to supreme leadership of the Serrat family-I’ll help if there are any obstacles in your way. And when the time comes, I will ask a favor of you. Nothing too difficult. Just opening a few doors in the city, to let me and some of my derro savants in, under cover of night, of course. Certain entities of the Far Realm are impressed by sacrifices, you know. We will open a portal, and let a few choice creatures through. I have the power to open huge portals already, though I’ve kept it a secret from the other derro-they’re not models of patience and plotting, I’m afraid, unlike the yuan-ti. When the stars are right, with your help, the people of Delzimmer will die, but they’re only human, mostly, with a scattering of dwarves and elves and other races of no particular consequence. Nothing a yuan-ti like you should concern yourself with. What do you say?”
“You’re insane,” Zaltys said. “I’d never betray my people that way.”
“Betrayal is in your blood, dear,” Iraska said. “And I think you will, because your return to the surface won’t be a complete triumph; your cousin Julen will be lost down here. I promise I’ll take good care of him, though, as long as you behave. If family is so important to you, I’m sure you’ll obey me while I hold the power of life and death over your kin. Rather stupid of you to tell me the easiest way to control you, Zaltys. But I’ll teach you subtlety yet.”
Something flashed by Zaltys, streaking toward Iraska’s body. Her spectral balhannoth tentacles appeared, reaching for the missile-but Iraska screamed as green vines erupted, wrapping up the tentacles. She flickered, briefly invisible, but a vegetable eruption dragged her back to the place where she’d been standing. Suddenly the guards by the door charged over, but the growing mass of green caught them too, and pulled them down, covering them in leaves so thoroughly they vanished from sight. Where Iraska’s desk had been, there was only a mound of greenery, with the hilt of a knife sticking out from the top.
“Huh,” Julen said, limping over, climbing up the side of the green mass, and plucking the dagger from the mound before climbing back down. “So that’s what this knife does. Pretty impressive magic.”
Zaltys stared at him. “Julen. You were poisoned.”
He rolled his eyes. “Cousin, I’m a Guardian. We specialize in poison, both adminstering it and surviving it. My father poisons my oatmeal in the mornings just to give me extra practice, and I’ve been taking tiny doses of various toxins to build up immunity since I was four years old. When I felt myself wavering, I realized she’d put something in my drink, and I took one of the emergency pills my father packed for me, for those occasions when one can’t avoid being poisoned. Tastes like charcoal, though I gather there’s magic in it too. Then I just played dead until I saw an opportune moment. I thought maybe this knife, being magical, might slip through her tentacles, but I didn’t expect this.” He prodded the mound of leaves with his foot. “Now I wonder even more who gave the dagger to me.”
“So you were awake,” Zaltys said. “You heard eve
rything.” Her hope of somehow escaping and keeping the secret of her true nature drained away.
He shrugged. “So you’re yuan-ti. Great-uncle Gustavus is a lycanthrope, and-this is a Guardians secret-our head of overseas enforcement is an adopted half-orc, though he looks like a very tall and ugly human. You’re family, Zaltys. That’s what matters.”
She shook her head. “If that was all that mattered, why would mother have lied to me about what I am? And Krailash hates yuan-ti-she must have lied to him too, otherwise I think he’d have killed me out in the jungle years ago.”
Julen chewed his lip in thought. “Yuan-ti don’t seem like very nice people, but as far as that goes, we Serrats aren’t always very nice people, either. You were raised as one of us. You don’t worship the yuan-ti snake god, you don’t poison people, you aren’t-” he grinned “-especially subtle. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a Serrat. And your secret is safe with me.”
It was true. Zaltys didn’t worship Zehir, but knowing she was yuan-ti put her dreams and visions in a new context. She had no interest in Zehir, but what if that god of poisons and darkness was interested in her?
“Do you think we should flee while we still can? Before something unspeakable squeezes itself out of that portal up there?”
Zaltys nodded. “Yes. But I need to go to the mushroom fields and free the slaves. Even if my villagers are snake people and cultists of Zehir, they’re still my people, and they deserve better than this.”
“All right,” Julen said, shrugging into his pack, but keeping the green-wrapped knife in his hand. “I’ve come with you this far, and I won’t turn my back on you just because your relatives turned out to be a little unsavory. I assumed they’d be uncouth jungle savages with dirt in their hair anyway. The fact that they’re fork-tongued, uncouth jungle savages who don’t have any hair at all shouldn’t change things substantially. I just hope they don’t try to kill us.” He inclined his head to the mound of vegetation, which was starting to go brown and die around the edges already, perhaps because Julen had removed the magical knife. “Do you think anyone will notice your auntie is out of commission?”