by Tim Pratt
“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.
Chapter Twenty-Three
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,” Quelamia 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 dar
k 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 firewood 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.
“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?”