Venom in Her Veins

by Tim Pratt

  Something in her tone troubled Krailash. Was she jealous of Zaltys’s devotion to a family she’d never met? Troubled by her daughter’s willingness to flee the family she’d grown up with to save a family she didn’t even know? Alaia had taught Zaltys that nothing mattered more than family. She was just doing what she believed, all the way through herself, was right. Krailash wasn’t sure she was wrong, either. You had to be devoted to something, or else, what was life for?

  “Let’s go and find out, then,” he said, buckling on the last of his armor.

  The water of the pool began to froth—it almost looked like it was boiling—and a large group of kuo-toa rose to the surface, clambering over the edge of the pool, armed with harpoons, eerily silent except for the sound of water dripping from their shiny, scaled bodies. More of them began to rise to the surface, too many for Krailash to count.

  Krailash groaned and lifted his great axe, weary at the thought of another pointless battle with a race he didn’t even have a quarrel with.

  “Enough!” Alaia shouted. “I don’t have time for this!” She chanted, and the kuo-toa slowed down, frozen in place.

  Krailash was also unable to move—or, rather, he could move, but he was moving very slowly, the flow of time itself rendered the consistency of cold syrup. Some figure, or force, seemed to enter the cavern, sidling around the edges of the space, something made of cold and spines and shadow and ice wind and emptiness.

  “Kill one of them,” Alaia said, her voice cold, her eyes black, icy vapor rising from the totem of carved bone she held in her hands. “Open a door for death, Krailash. Let death in.”

  Time slammed back into motion, and Krailash swung Thunder’s Edge at the nearest kuo-toa, nearly severing its neckless fish head from its body. The kuo-toa nearest it screamed and fell back as if he’d struck them as well. Dark spots opened in their scaly skin, as if their flesh were rotting from within, and death moved outward in a circular wave from the point of Krailash’s single strike, fish people falling and gasping, spontaneous wounds gaping in scaled flesh, as the ring of death widened. Weapons fell from slimy hands, and the kuo-toa farthest back fled from the dark magic, diving back into the water and swimming away. Something seemed to flit among the kuo-toa, a figure of shadowy presence composed of hollow spaces and rot and loss.

  When the last of the kuo-toa were dead or fled, the presence receded.

  Alaia dropped the totem from her hands. Her eyes remained black for a moment, only gradually clearing.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” Krailash said, awed. “It was like … contagious death.”

  “The death spirit,” Alaia said, her voice hoarse, her hands trembling. “A powerful summoning. I wasn’t sure I could bring it, or control it once I did. It’s a dangerous thing to call upon, because it is both patient and insatiable. But well suited to this place. The primal forces in the Underdark are merciless, Krailash. And angry. Something down here is wrong. Unnatural. Not just the grell, or other aberrations. Something more profound, a deeper wound, a more profound threat. The natural world is twisted, and the source is not far from here.”

  “Some say the derro were a great race once,” Krailash said. “That they had cities, and an empire, and lived above ground, but they dabbled with unnatural things, and brought about their own downfall. Perhaps they continue such works here in the depths?”

  “Almost certainly.” Alaia sounded nearly like herself again after a drink from her canteen. She looked bleakly at the dead creatures surrounding them. “There’s a story shamans know, about the World Serpent. They say the derro opened portals to the Far Realm, a plane of madness, when the world was young. Their actions risked destroying the integrity of reality itself, and so the World Serpent, the great primal force that encircles the world, made itself manifest and dragged the cities of the derro underground, consigning them to live in the depths of the Underdark, among things almost as horrible as themselves.”

  “So the World Serpent is an enemy of the derro?” Krailash said. “Then perhaps the thing I thought was a god was an emissary of—”

  “No.” Alaia shook her head. “Ouroboros the World Serpent is an ancient primal spirit. It shifts its coils and the earth shakes—it doesn’t appear in a cloak and make jokes and threats and send little snakes to lead us places. That’s the sort of thing gods do, you’re right. But serpents are complicated, Krailash. They can be ancient, wise creatures. Or they can be poisonous, unexpected death in the night. Some shamans revere the World Serpent, but there are darker forces that assume the form of snakes.”

  “You mean the serpent god Zehir?” Krailash said. “But Zehir is a god of the yuan-ti, and a few mad human cultists—what would it care about Zaltys? Why would it help us find her? Why would an evil god want to make trouble for the derro, an evil race?”

  Alaia opened her mouth, then closed it, and shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t care to find out.”

  “But—” Krailash said.

  “Please. Let’s just go, and bring Zaltys and Julen out of this place, and hope we’re never troubled by gods or unnatural things again.” She stormed off toward the cavern’s only obvious exit, kicking the arm of a dead kuo-toa out of her path, and Krailash had to hurry to keep up.

  “You’re from my village?” Zaltys said, staring at Iraska’s teeth. Her fangs. Had the derro experimented on her too? Given her the bite of a serpent, the way the derro savant she saw earlier had given himself a tentacle for an arm?

  “I am. Well, I grew up there. I lived far away for most of my adult life.” The Slime King had stopped smiling, which was reassuring, and walked over to a low cabinet and lined up three carved wooden cups. She lifted a ceramic jug—looked like Delzimmer manufacture in the classic style, blue glazed, with a handle meant to look like a frozen stream of flowing water—and filled the cups, offering them to Zaltys and Julen.

  “I don’t suppose she’d bother poisoning us,” Julen said, as if to himself, “when she has armed guards standing by.”

  Iraska sipped from the cup. “Actually, once upon a time, I preferred poison over more obvious approaches to murder. I was a devotee of a certain god with a fondness for venoms and toxins and treachery. But these days, I have other allegiances. I’d like to propose a toast.” She raised her cup. “To family reunited.”

  Zaltys and Julen raised their cups and murmured something vaguely affirmative. The water was icy cold, almost as pure and delicious as the water that poured from Julen’s magical crystal bottle.

  Iraska strolled over to the edge of the pool, her back turned to them. Julen leaned in close to Zaltys and whispered fiercely, “Did you see her teeth? Do you think the derro did that to her? Do you think she wanted them to?”

  “I don’t know,” Zaltys said. “I don’t understand this at all.”

  “Don’t worry,” Iraska said, gazing at the still water at her feet. “I don’t dip my drinking water out of the pool. It’s from a private spring, very clean. This water … Well, I can’t confirm that aboleths shit as other creatures do, but if so, this pool must assuredly be filled with it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Zaltys said, putting her cup down. “I’m not very good at talking in circles and implying things and letting silences speak louder than words. My mother—ah, my adopted mother—says it’s a good thing I’m not part of the Traders, or I’d be demoted to swineherd, because only pigs are as tactless as I am. So I’m just going to say, I don’t understand what’s happening here. I came to save my people from slavers—and now I find out they’re your people too, but you’re the king of the slavers.”

  Iraska turned. She had moved farther from the torches, and the light reflecting off the pool of water cast her in additional flickering shadows, making her look older and younger by turns. “Did you really? Come on a mission of mercy and salvation. Whatever possessed you to do that?” There was genuine interest in her voice, but also amusement, and—Zaltys was almost sure—something like contempt. She didn’t know how to respond.<
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  Julen cleared his throat. “The people that adopted Zaltys … We Serrats hold family sacred. We grow up knowing that nothing’s more important than standing by your kin. We have our feuds, and our rivalries, and I have aunts and uncles who haven’t spoken to each other in years over slights no one can even remember, but those uncles would kill or die to defend those aunts from outside threats, and vice versa. We have a saying in the Guardians: Trust nothing, save for family.” He shrugged. “Zaltys just … carried the idea a bit farther than most of us do. If family is all-important, and some of her family is trapped underground, then she had to go and save them.”

  “Extraordinary,” Iraska said. “I mean that.”

  “But if you’re the leader of the derro,” Zaltys said, “then it doesn’t make sense that my village was taken as slaves by the derro, because it’s your village too. Or were you not leader then? Were you taken by the derro as well, and somehow became leader later? Does that mean my family is all right? Do they live down here with you?”

  “As a theory,” Iraska said, “it has much to recommend it, not least of all the prospect of a bona fide happy ending. Alas, the virtues of your premise do not extend to accuracy.”

  “Do you mean they all died,” Zaltys said, “or—”

  Iraska held up her hand for silence. “Let me explain the best way I know how. It may be a trifle roundabout. I ask you to bear with me. Have you ever heard the parable of the turtle and the serpent?”

  “I don’t think so,” Zaltys said.

  “That’s a shame. I shudder to think what you learned from the apes who raised you. Creatures who huddle together for warmth, suck milk from one another’s bodies …” She turned her head and spat. “This is a story everyone in your real family learned when they were children. A useful story. One day a turtle came down to a river, planning to swim across and go about his turtleish business. Now it so happened that a snake was sunning itself by the riverbank, and it too, wanted to get across the river, but it didn’t know how to swim. Because it was not a water snake, but instead the sort of snake that twines itself around tree branches. So it said to the turtle, ‘You and I are much the same—indeed, we’re practically cousins. Both reptiles, both cold-blooded. Why, if I had a shell and arms and legs, you and I would be almost indistinguishable in poor light. Could you do me a favor, out of family courtesy, and give me a ride across the river?’

  “The turtle considered running away, for it knew snakes of this sort were lethal, but it was slow, and the snake was fast, and it was afraid if it ran it would be caught, so it said, ‘I am a kindly creature, and disposed to help others, but your reputation is fearsome. How do I know that, if I let you coil upon my shell, you won’t strike me dead as I’m swimming?’

  “ ‘Simple self-preservation,’ the serpent replied. ‘If I kill you while you’re swimming, we’ll both die, you by biting, me by drowning.’

  “ ‘Fair enough,’ the turtle said. ‘But what if you kill me when I get you to the other side?’

  “ ‘I’m not without gratitude,’ the snake replied. ‘I would owe you a kindness in return for your help. And anyway, your blood is cold, and I don’t eat reptiles for preference, and why would I kill you, except to eat you?’

  “In truth the turtle was not greatly reassured, but the serpent seemed sincere, and running wasn’t an option, so the turtle agreed, and the snake coiled up on his shell, which was almost as good as sunning on a rock, really. The turtle plunged into the water and began its slow swim across the river. When they reached the other side, the turtle said, ‘Well, here we are.’ And then the snake rather lazily bent down, nuzzled the exposed bit of the turtle’s neck, and bit down with its fangs, pumping poison into the little reptile. The paralysis set in almost immediately, and the turtle went still as the snake slithered off its shell. Just before it died, the turtle cried out, ‘Why? Why bite me? I helped you!’ And the snake just replied, ‘I had no choice. I can’t help my nature.’ ” Iraska beamed at them like a schoolteacher imparting wisdom to her brightest students.

  “I have heard that one,” Julen said, looking down into the contents of his cup. “But it was a frog and a spider in the version I was told. And the spider bit the frog halfway across the river, and they both died. I’m not sure I understand the point of it, the way you told it.”

  Iraska ignored him, looking at Zaltys. “But I find myself wondering—what if the snake had been raised among turtles? Dressed in a shell made of wood, perhaps, with false legs glued on, so it could pass for a turtle? So it could come to believe it was a turtle? Would its nature be changed by its upbringing, or would its true poisonous essence make itself known on the first river crossing? Would it just thank the stupid useless weak turtle and let it go on its way?”

  “I don’t feel well,” Julen said, swaying, one hand touching his forehead.

  “I should hope not,” Iraska said. “The poison in the water should be having some effect by now. It doesn’t actually kill you—it brings on a sort of half-death in which you’ll be very susceptible to suggestion, which makes it perfect for mushroom-gathering slaves. Not so good for soldiers. We can’t even use drugged slaves as forlorn hopes—that’s what you call soldiers sacrificed to break through an enemy’s defense—because they move too slowly. Useful stuff, and so much crueler, and thus more satisfying, than simple death.”

  “You poisoned him?” Zaltys said, as Julen groaned and sank to the floor, pitching over onto the stones. “But—why would you do that?”

  “It’s my nature,” Iraska said, and showed her terrible fangs.

  THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THOSE LIGHTS,” ALAIA murmured, gazing at the floating clouds of blue-green haze. “They’re unnatural. Just looking at them makes my teeth ache. I think they’re points of access to the Far Realm.” She shuddered. “Birth canals for aberrations. What are these creatures doing down here?”

  “Foul derro magic,” Krailash said. “The sooner we can find Zaltys and Julen and get away from the creatures, the happier I’ll be. I thought yuan-ti were the most vile creatures in this jungle or below it, but the derro are changing my mind. We might petition the Guardians to send a substantial force to wipe out these creatures. I think we can convincingly argue they’re a threat to the caravan.”

  Alaia nodded. “True, though the losses would be significant … We can always hire mercenaries. The other heads of the family would curse the expense, but I don’t see how I can let this go on. Whatever else I may be, I am still a shaman, and the Far Realm poisons everything. If I tell them the derro experiments could harm the terazul blossoms, they’ll come around. Let’s focus on the current situation, though.”

  “We should avoid the main settlement,” Krailash whispered, peeking out from the inadequate concealment of a rock not far from the fungus fields and their plodding laborers. “I doubt they’d keep slaves there anyway—too smelly. More likely they’d keep them close to the place where they need to work, this mushroom forest.”

  “Fair enough,” Alaia said. “But there’s the small matter of whip-wielding derro patrolling those fields, and for all we know, the slaves might call out for guards if they see us. Engaging in a fight this close to the heart of the derro city—if you can call that conglomeration of bone-covered mining buildings a city—seems unwise.”

  “True. I don’t suppose you can create some concealment for us?”

  Alaia sighed. “I couldn’t have hired a sneaking shadowy cutthroat for my head of security like the Guardians wanted, oh, no, I had to get a great unsubtle dragonborn clanking about in plate armor.”

  Krailash grinned. If the stakes hadn’t been so high, he would have been enjoying himself. It was almost like adventuring again, and his blood sang with the thrill of old times restored. “I pick shifty cutthroats out of my teeth, though, so you made the right choice. Shall I just try to keep my clanking to a minimum, or do you know any tricks that can help us?”

  Alaia chanted softly, and Krailash heard the words “spirit,” “moon
,” and “shadow” in an old tongue, a moment before a curtain of glimmering lights and mist appeared, settling over them like dew upon morning flowers, and then vanishing from sight. “We are concealed,” Alaia whispered, “though only from sight, so try to keep quiet.”

  Krailash nodded, and they crept closer to the mushroom fields. The blobby rows of fungus smelled strongly of old wet socks and intestinal distress; at least they didn’t have to worry about any of the especially sensitive slaves smelling their intrusion. Krailash paused, and pointed toward a low structure on the far side of the field. They had to go the long way, because cutting through the mushroom field would leave a swath of destruction that would certainly be noticed, and the slowness of their progress was maddening. They paused while a derro dressed in black leather and holding a cruelly-knotted whip stopped to help up a quaggoth who’d collapsed with exhaustion not three feet away from Krailash and Alaia. The derro murmured solicitously, helped the reeking, hairy beast man—which was easily two feet taller than the derro overseer—to its feet, gave it a long drink of water from his own canteen, and patted the quaggoth on the back. The slave bent down to pick up its gathering basket, and while its back was turned, the derro overseer drew a wickedly curved knife as long as its own forearm and jammed it into the quaggoth’s back, where the kidneys would be on a human. Krailash winced as the quaggoth roared, reared back, and then fell among the mushrooms. The derro overseer nudged the body with his foot, then strode off across the field shouting orders.

  Krailash and Alaia continued, finally drawing close enough to see the holding pens clearly.

  “Are those made of wood?” Alaia whispered. “Where would they get so much wood down here?”

  Krailash shook his head. “Bone. They’re made of bone.” The slave pens were vast, long, low cages of lashed-together bones bulit up against one wall of the huge cavern. The cages were apparently divided into compartments by race, presumably to keep the more inimical varieties of slaves from killing one another. The kuo-toa compartment was backed against a dirty waterfall, so a cascade of water flowed through, and a few of the fish people huddled under the spray in a desultory way. As they watched, a pair of quaggoth slaves dragged the body of their recently-murdered comrade to the compartment of their race, and hurled the dead body in through the doors. The quaggoth inside fell upon the corpse and began tearing it apart for food. Alaia gagged at the smell, and Krailash didn’t blame her. Weren’t the quaggoths supposed to be natural shamans, with a connection to the primal world of the caverns? If so, seeing them brought so low and forced into servitude to creatures who venerated aberrations must be especially painful for Alaia.