Venom in Her Veins

by Tim Pratt

  “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.”

  “She means they can’t be made into potions that give you superficially revelatory but actually nonsensical visions,” Glory said. “Or dried and ground up into powder that lets you stay awake for three days straight without losing your ability to concentrate intensely—though you might lose a few teeth and get nosebleeds if you sniff too much of it.” She glugged the last of her wine and gestured for more.

  “Oh,” Julen said. “Huh. Anybody know why the flowers only work when they grow wild? I thought plants were plants.”

  “As far as we can tell, it’s magical,” Quelamia said. “Something about the soil in the deep jungle is imbued with magic, perhaps as a result of the great cataclysm that tore the land asunder and created the Gulf of Luiren. The roots of the terazul vines tap into some reservoir of magic, and give the flowers their useful, if morally questionable, qualities.”

  “Morally questionable?” Alaia said, rather sharply. And Zaltys thought, Here we go. “No one forces anyone to use terazul potions or powders, Quelamia. Our vendors advise customers of the potency of the potions, and let them know the products are best used in moderation.”

  “Terazul flowers are addictive,” Quelamia said. “It is difficult for addicts to practice moderation.”

  “Terazul is no more addictive than sweet wine or the vile crumbleweed that Glory smokes in her pipe every day. Some people are weak, and will become dependent on anything,” Alaia said. “The family can’t be responsible for every choice our customers make.”

  “Too true,” Quelamia said. “We are, all of us, only responsible for our own actions and our own lives.” She rose. “If you’ll excuse me, Alaia, and Zaltys, and Julen, and Glory. I have much work ahead of me.”

  “Oh, don’t go,” Alaia said, calming down. “I didn’t mean to get us started on that old argument. You’re always welcome at my table.”

  “I know,” Quelamia said. “And you should know I take no offense. Eternity is long, and all these concerns are trivial when considered in light of deep time. But, speaking of smaller timescales, if you’d like me to finish that … special project … by the date you requested, I had best return to my work.”

  “Ah, of course. Well, please
yourself.”

  Quelamia drifted away, and when she was gone, Glory belched. “It’s easy to be self-righteous when you’ve been around for 200 years. Thinks she knows better than everybody. I’ve got no problem with the moral—what would you call it—component of our business.”

  Alaia sighed. “I’m so pleased to hear our enterprise causes no moral qualms for the member of our party who routinely erases the memories of other sentient creatures. That’s most comforting. Of course I know the arguments against terazul. They’re not wholly without merit. But the terazul trade gives us wealth, and in turn, we employ countless citizens of Delzimmer and the cities of our trading partners. We pay fair wages, do good civic works, and offer countless advantages to our community. One might argue that the roots of our business are a trifle poisonous, but the fruits, at least, are sweet.”

  “I don’t think right and wrong really enter into it,” Zaltys said slowly. “What matters is family. You support your family, and they support you. That’s the foundation of all our success. You live for your family, and serve for your family, and die for your family.”

  “Without that, we’re nothing,” Julen said, raising his glass of watered wine to Zaltys. “The wizard doesn’t understand. She’s not family. A family retainer, yes, and I’m sure a valuable adviser, but …”

  “Yes,” Alaia said. “It’s different, when you’re part of the family.” She reached out and took the hands of her daughter and her nephew.

  “If you’re all going to start hugging each other,” Glory said, “I’d like to be excused.”

  Julen chose to sleep out with Zaltys in the middle of camp, under the stars, where, as he said, “I can at least dream about the hope of a breeze.” After they laid out their bedrolls and stretched out, it wasn’t long before Julen said, “How can you sleep with all that racket?”

  Zaltys frowned. The hammering of the carpenters had stopped, the shouting and clang of the guards practicing their weapons was over, and the camp was as quiet as it ever got. “What do you mean?”

  “The birds, the growls, the hoots, the bugs—this jungle is louder than the streets of Delzimmer during the Midsummer Festival!”

  Now that he mentioned it, Zaltys could discern those sounds he mentioned—the howls of monkeys, the buzzing music of bugs, the deep croak of a million frogs singing, the occasional growl of a predator and squeal of dying prey, all mingling into the wall of noise that was The Jungle. “I like it,” she said. “I find it peaceful. Restful. The truth is, I have trouble sleeping back home in the city without it.”

  Julen groaned. “It’s true what they say. The Travelers are mad. I won’t be able to sleep a moment because of all this din.”

  Ten minutes later, listening to her cousin snore on the other side of their campfire, Zaltys stared up at the pinpoint stars and hoped no dreams would come. They weren’t in the jungle yet, after all, not really, and sometimes the dreams didn’t come until she was deeper into the wild. But when she finally succumbed to sleep, she did dream, though it was more real than the dreams she had in the city, more akin to the visions terazul users were said to experience: visions beyond reality, revealing a deeper strata of the true universe.

  Zaltys walked through the stone plaza of a ruined city, the old structures lit by flickering torches. Fragments of torn clothing and smears of blood were the only signs of some recent violence, and her ranger’s eye revealed to her what had happened: a group, taken by surprise by overwhelming force, and dragged away.

  She’d had this dream before, and knew how it would go, but she was powerless to stop its progress. She left the plaza, walking along a rutted path through the trees, until she finally reached a curious circular bit of stonework set in the ground. There were fist-sized holes in the stone at regular intervals, and a closed trapdoor in the center, and Zaltys knew it was the lid of a pit, or dungeon.

  As always, Zaltys lifted the trapdoor, and looked down.

  What she saw in the pit varied, though it was never pleasant. Sometimes she saw a writhing mass of snakes somehow forming a vaguely humanoid shape, with hissing hands reaching up to grasp her. Sometimes she saw a man with the hood of a cobra, dressed in a flowing black robe, with fingers that ended not in nails or even claws but in fangs dripping venom. Sometimes she saw a naked baby, crying out in the darkness at the bottom of a deep chasm.

  This time, she saw the shadow serpent, and it wafted up toward the trapdoor like smoke on an updraft, its body coiling and spiraling as it came. We are family, the serpent whispered in her mind. And nothing is more important than family. The serpent opened its vast jaws, tongue flickering out to touch her face, and—

  Zaltys jerked awake. The night was cool, though not cold—it was never cold so close to the jungle, which was nice, actually. No matter how many blankets she piled on herself during Delzimmer winters, she could never get warm, and so she spent months at a time feeling sluggish and torpid. Only time next to a roaring fire helped restore her during city winters. Her mother said she was more susceptible to cold than most because her people came from the jungle.

  She rolled over, and found herself face-to-face with a snake. Its eyes gazed into hers, and its tongue flickered, not quite touching her, before it slithered off into the night.

  It took a long time for Zaltys to sleep again, but when she did, there were no dreams.

  “Wake up, lazyhead.” Zaltys nudged Julen in the ribs with her foot. He groaned and turned over, trying to pull his bedroll over his head. “Come on, unless you want a cart to crush you.”

  He sat up, blinking, and looked around at the bustle of camp. Tents had been struck and carts loaded before dawn’s light fully overtook the sky, animals hitched and ready to start pulling, scouts sent in advance and behind and out to the sides to make sure no spies from rival families were trying to track the caravan’s progress. There were a few spies every year. They were invariably captured, given false memories by Glory to send their employers in the wrong direction, and set free to return home to sow disinformation.

  Julen stared at her for a long moment. Then said: “Breakfast.”

  “Ha. If you want breakfast, you have to get up with the rest of the camp. We’re moving out now. I’ll show you which dangling fruit is safe to eat on the way.”

  He groaned and stood up, running a hand through his hair, which didn’t improve its disarray. “Where are we going?”

  “Onward into the jungle, Cousin.”

  “This is the jungle.” He pointed in the direction of some trees, as if illustrating his point.

  “This is the edge of the jungle, the end of the rocky soil. Today we go into the jungle proper.”

  “Fine. Where do I sit?”

  Zaltys shook her head. “Mother says I’m to show you how things work here. That means you’re coming with me and some of the scouts to make sure there are no nasty surprises waiting for us up ahead.”

  He stretched his arms overhead and worked the kinks out of his neck. “I don’t suppose I have a choice.”

  “I suppose you could defy mother, one of the three heads of the family,” Zaltys said thoughtfully. “It would be interesting to see what the consequences would be.”

  “Show me to my horse,” he said.

  Zaltys laughed. “Go into the jungle ahead of the caravan on horseback? It would be interesting to see the consequences of that too, except a dead horse isn’t all that interesting.” She smacked him on the back. “I hope you brought your good boots. We go on foot, ahead of the trailbreakers, to make sure there’s nothing unpleasant waiting for them.”

  “Like more shadow snakes?”

  Zaltys tried not to let her face betray any emotion. “Those are very rare,” she said. “But there are other things. Giant insects and spiders. Jungle cats. Carnivorous plants. Farther to the south—deeper than we ever go—there are supposed to be yuan-ti, but I’ve never met any. They say there used to be a small tribe of them near our route once, but they’ve been gone for ages.”

  “No p
eople?” Julen said. “None of your, ah, original family?”

  Zaltys shrugged. “There are tribes of halflings, but I’m a bit tall to pass for one of those.” She grinned. “Quelamia thinks my people were either a very small, unknown tribe, or maybe just refugees who fled the upheavals and ended up living in the jungle for a while. They didn’t last long, I guess. Certainly they didn’t leave much of a mark.”

  “Who, or what, do you think …?” He looked away.

  “Killed my family?” She kept her voice light. “Hard to say. Could be any number of things. Krailash found me crying among the trees, the only one left alive, so I don’t know who killed the others. I don’t guess it matters. Dead is dead.”

  “Huh,” Julen said.

  Zaltys knew she was somewhat notorious in the family, so it was understandable that he was curious about her origins. At least he’d become more polite—when they’d been young children playing together he’d once stared at her intently and blurted out, “Why come you’re so brown?” Adoptees weren’t unheard of, and were even considered to strengthen the family by bringing in fresh blood—for one thing, they could marry their cousins without a greater-than-usual risk of bearing idiot children—but hers was certainly the most unusual adoption in recent memory. The only other truly colorful adoptee still living was her great-uncle Gustavus, a lycanthrope that the Guardians had adopted in hopes of using him to frighten rivals; everyone was surprised when he showed an aptitude for bookkeeping instead, and they’d sent him to the Traders in exchange for a pair of sociopathic twins boys with no affinity for retail who’d later perished in a trade war with the Longspear cartel in Chavyondat. “Sorry,” Julen said. “I don’t mean to stir up bad memories, or …”

  “I was an infant when they found me, Cousin. I don’t have any memories from that time. As far as memories go, I’ve been in the family as long as you have, and I’ve never known another life. I’m curious about my people, of course, but … they’re all gone. I’m just lucky I have a new family to call my own.”