Venom in Her Veins (forgotten realms)

by Tim Pratt

  “There are cities down here, supposedly, but a lot deeper than this,” Julen said doubtfully. “The Underdark isn’t mapped-some say it can’t be mapped, that tunnels are constantly collapsing and new tunnels being formed by purple worms and umber hulks and intelligent creatures excavating passages. But there are three, sort of, regions. The Upperdark is the part of the Underdark you can reach from the surface world, or from mineshafts and basements. And while there are monsters there, the drow and derro and other people-if you can call them people-who live down here don’t like to settle so close to the surface. They come up sometimes to escape danger, or to, ah, forage.”

  “Or take slaves,” Zaltys said.

  “Yes. But their settlements are in the Middledark. Below that is the Lowerdark, and the books I read didn’t say much about that, apart from the fact that it’s deep, and big, and full of terrible things. As for derro cities, I’m sure they have settlements, but I’m not sure about cities.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They’re mad. Rainer said so, and the books agree. Can an insane race build cities? Keep a city alive? It seems impossible.”

  “Mad, huh? Then they won’t put up an organized defense, although they must have organized a little if they do slave raids. What else do you know about them, since we’ll be fighting them soon, like as not?”

  “I wasn’t researching them in particular,” Julen admitted. “But, let’s see … Some say they’re the offspring of men and dwarves. Others say they’re a race of their own that became terribly degenerate and offended the gods, only to be cast down into the Underdark for their transgressions-whatever those were. Some of them worship aberrations. Things that came here from some other place. You’ve heard of the Far Realm?”

  “Some plane or another, right?” Zaltys had never paid much attention to the tutors when they started going on about the other planes of existence. Why should she care about anything like that, when her tutors knew less about the interior of the jungle than Zaltys did herself? If they were so ignorant of their world, how could they know anything about worlds entirely distant?

  “Ye-es.” Julen sounded doubtful. “I guess so. But it’s a realm of monsters beyond ordinary monsters, creatures that claw and tear at reality itself. I’m not sure what that means, but it sounds bad. Sometimes creatures from that world make it to this world, and terrible things happen. Supposedly the Underdark is more full of such creatures than most, and even though the derro are despised by all the other intelligent races down here-drow, duergar, everyone-they sometimes ally themselves with creatures from the Far Realm. Like aboleths. Such aberrations tend to live way down deep, though-or else we’d see their influence on the surface world more.”

  “You think we’ll have to go that deep?” Zaltys hadn’t really thought that far ahead. She’d thought, if Rainer made it back to the surface, the slaves couldn’t be that far away, but Julen said the old guard had wandered for years in the darkness, so who could say? “I can track anything,” she said, peering at the tunnel as they walked onward and-increasingly-downward. “But there’s just nothing to track. I don’t think anyone’s come through here in years. There’s no sign of-”

  “Life,” Julen said weakly.

  They’d reached the end of the tunnel, and discovered another room, that one a hub of sorts with mineshafts branching off in half-a-dozen different directions. A small wooden table sat in the center of the room, scattered with bits of bone and shards of metal beside a neatly coiled black whip. They entered cautiously, looking around. “Someone has been here, much more recently,” she said, noting a few wooden bowls crusted with old-but not ancient-food.

  “The mines,” Julen said. “I don’t know who built them, if they’re a remnant of one of the old jungle empires or something built by dwarves or duergar, but the derro are using them as shortcuts to the surface. The mineshaft that opens close to the terazul fields was sealed with rubble, so they stopped using it, but these tunnels must lead to other places, all over the jungle. I bet Rainer made his way up here, and went down one of these. They could go for miles, but they must reach the air and light eventually.”

  “So how do the derro get here?” She looked around the cavern, and found, under a pile of old rags, the edge of a metal trapdoor. Zaltys stared at it, thinking of the trapdoor over the anathema’s pit, until Julen noticed her.

  “Guess that’s our door to the deep. Or the middle, anyway. We might be able to track the slavers this way, don’t you think? Surely a big crowd of derro crashing through leaves traces you can follow?”

  “We’ll see.” Zaltys lifted open the heavy trapdoor with a shriek of hinges that echoed hugely in the enclosed space. A wooden ladder extended down into the depths.

  “Me first,” Julen said cheerfully, and began descending, swallowed in moments by the dark, which seemed almost as thick and substantial as syrup. Zaltys went after him, pausing briefly, then grasped the ring on the underside of the trapdoor and closed it after her. Better to leave no trace of their passage if they could avoid it, as there might be derro about. Allowing themselves to be captured might be the fastest way to find out where the slaves were held, but it would almost certainly inhibit their ability to free the other slaves once they arrived.

  The ladder went down for a long time, and the sunrod was awkward to hold while climbing, and only illuminated the walls of a narrow shaft, so Zaltys finally said, “Look out below, I’m going to drop the light.”

  Julen grunted his assent, and Zaltys twisted around on the ladder and tossed the sunrod past him. They both looked down as the light moved, revealing that they were barely halfway down the ladder, and illuminating branching side tunnels dotting the shaft. They gave Zaltys a shudder. Anything could be inside them. The sunrod finally clattered to the stones below, its magical light undimmed by impact, but it didn’t reveal much: enclosed space, and, presumably, tunnels leading away. Still, it provided a glow for them to move toward, and that was something. Zaltys was already starting to think of light as a precious resource. The sunrod would burn for only another four or five hours, and she only had three more in her pack-she hadn’t imagined that she would need more than a day’s worth of light, but that had been based on the notion that it was just some small local system of caverns and tunnels. After what Julen had told her, and what she’d observed for herself so far, she suspected the Underdark was far vaster than she could comprehend.

  And dangerous too. But the jungle was dangerous, and Zaltys thrived there. What terrors could the dark hold to rival the vine horrors and monstrous spiders and immense serpents and lunatic apes she’d fought and bested in the world above?

  They reached the bottom of the ladder, Julen waiting impatiently for her to come after him. He picked up the sunrod and stepped forward, Zaltys following, down a short corridor that dead-ended at a low-ceilinged, rounded corridor that seemed more burrowed than hewn and stretched off in both directions. “Which way?”

  Zaltys kneeled, examining the rock in both directions, finally saying, “This way seems more traveled. Do you see the scuffmarks of-”

  “That’s fine, I don’t need to know the dugeoneering theory behind it,” Julen said. “I have faith in you.” He went down the right-hand corridor, still holding the light, and Zaltys followed. They both ducked their heads, because even though the roof of the tunnel was taller than they were, it wasn’t much taller, and there was a sense of immense pressure and weight all around them. The weight of the whole world above.

  “You know,” Julen said, “this is a lot less terrible than I expected. The accounts I read talked about grell and carrion crawlers and gelatinous cubes and rust monsters inhabiting the Upperdark, but I guess the derro have scared away everything but themselves. Maybe this won’t be so-”

  And then he yelped and disappeared through a hole in the floor. Zaltys gasped as the light he held vanished with him, dropping to her knees and feeling her way forward with her hands until she found the edge of the pit and the shreds of black
cloth that had been used to conceal it. A trap, doubtless meant for exactly the sort of interlopers they were. She peered down into the hole, which was about ten feet deep. Julen groaned, sitting up and rubbing his head, the dropped sunrod casting harsh shadows across him.

  “Hold on, I’ll lower a rope,” she said, but while she turned her face away to dig in her pack, Julen cried out.

  She looked back down the hole, and saw a small, lithe figure dressed in black kneeling on Julen’s back. The creature, no bigger than a child, had wild hair sticking up in filthy tufts, and giggled to itself in an incessant, almost monotonous way. Julen arched his back, wriggled like an eel, and struck out with a knife, filling one of the monster’s eyes with a steel blade. He wrenched the knife free and started to stand up, but then something buzzed through the air. Zaltys could see a short dart sticking out of Julen’s neck, and he put his hand to the wound before swaying and falling back against the rocks. Some kind of poison, or if he was lucky, just a tranquilizer to knock him unconscious.

  Zaltys almost leaped down, but three more of the creatures surged into the hole and began binding Julen’s limbs with metal chains. If they hit her with a dart too, they’d both be doomed-better to wait for an opportunity to free him. She started to move back, and her boot scraped on the stone. The creatures at the bottom of the pit froze and whipped their heads back, staring straight up.

  The things were nightmares, like parodies of humans: skin a blue-tinged gray, eyes far too large for the small faces and lacking either pupil or iris, giving them a look of blindness-but Zaltys knew they could see all too well, and must almost certainly be able to see in the dark. She had to hope the brightness of the sunrod at the bottom of the pit diminished their vision, or else they would surely see her.

  But she could hide in shadows now. She let herself fade into the dimness, using the shadow snake’s power of concealment, and after a moment the derro giggled again and turned their attention back to Julen. One of them grasped the chains binding Julen’s wrists and dragged his unconscious body out of sight. Zaltys would wait a few moments, then drop down and follow them from concealment, choosing the moment to step through a shadow and attack them.

  The tunnel floor shuddered, and the pit filled with rubble, smothering the light from the abandoned sunrod and blocking her access. Rocks had obviously been stacked and braced, and when the derro left, they’d removed the braces, collapsing the pit. They might be insane giggling monsters, but they were smart enough to cover their tracks in case Julen did have companions. She cursed, and thought furiously. Saving Julen was the first priority, obviously. But if she could track him and his captors, the derro might lead her to the place where slaves were kept. Still, what if she were captured herself? She wouldn’t be able to bear it if Julen died or suffered-worse than he’d already suffered-because of her. For his sake, she would be willing to ask Krailash for help, but if she returned the surface, she might lose track of him forever.

  The ring. She looked down at her hand, and the gently pulsing crystalline ring there. She thought, as hard as she could, to Krailash: Julen has been captured by derro in the tunnels beneath my family’s false grave. The ring’s light pulsed brighter, and then went dim. That was the last message she’d be able to send for a day or so. She’d have to hope it was received, and that Krailash could send help.

  She couldn’t quite bring herself to hope that she wouldn’t need help. Not realistically.

  Zaltys probed her way on hands and knees along the dark tunnel until her hand encountered another cloth-covered pit trap. Using her hunting knife, she slit the cloth open. Once she’d made a hole, she took a climbing spike from her pack and worked it into a crack in the floor. She tied a rope around the spike, dropped it into the hole, then lowered herself carefully into the pit. Even fully extended, her fingertips clinging to the edge of the pit, she couldn’t feel the bottom-which made sense. The other had been easily ten feet deep. She grasped the rope and lowered herself, inch by inch, into the total darkness below (not so different from the total darkness above), hoping there would be no spikes or other hazards waiting for her. She planted her feet on solid ground and listened. There was giggling, faintly, off to her left. With a jerk on the rope she freed the climbing spike and bundled both into her pack, then felt her way along the tunnel that led out of the pit, following the sound of insane laughter.

  She could already understand how madness could be a consequence of spending time down there.

  Chapter Ten

  When Zaltys’s voice, raw with panic, burst into his brain, Krailash stumbled in the sword form he was practicing, dropped his training weapon, and raced for Alaia’s wagon. Glory stepped out of her front door in front of him, and as usual upon seeing her, Krailash remembered her existence. “You heard it too?” he said.

  “I did.” She rubbed the spot between her horns. “If she saw Julen taken, that means she’s-”

  “Yes.” He rushed for his leader’s wagon, pounding on the door. “You must let us in, Alaia! This is urgent!”

  “Enter,” came a soft, sad voice from beyond the door.

  Krailash pushed his way in and saw Alaia, the tough, unflappable head of the Travelers, sitting on her divan with a look of utter despair on her face, tears rolling down her cheeks, holding a letter in her hands. Before Krailash could speak, she said, in a dull monotone, “Zaltys found out. I don’t know how. Perhaps she talked to Rainer, before he left camp? But she found out her people weren’t killed. That they were taken as slaves. Her letter … It says she can never forgive me for the lies I’ve told. How can I make her understand, I only wanted to protect her, to keep her from grief.”

  “Did the letter say where she’s gone?” Krailash asked urgently.

  Alaia nodded. “She’s going on a long circle patrol, to look for more terazul, she says. We shouldn’t expect her back for a few days. Should I send someone to find her? My spirit boar? Or should I just send a message? Or-”

  “My friend,” Krailash said gently. “Zaltys, she did not tell you the truth. She went with young Julen to the ruined temple. They found access to the tunnels below. I think she must have some idea of freeing her people, but Julen …”

  “She sent her thoughts, using the ring I gave her,” Glory said, shouldering her way into the wagon. “Julen has been taken by derro. Zaltys called out for help. But I doubt she has the sense to come back to the surface and wait for that help.”

  Alaia stood up, the look of loss and sadness on her face suddenly gone. A boar of mist coalesced around her feet and streaked out of the wagon, presumably into the jungle. “Get Quelamia!” she shouted. “Glory, fetch her now, call her with your mind.”

  “I am here,” Quelamia said, climbing the steps with her usual stately grace. “How may I serve?”

  “You and Glory will go with me into the tunnels-” she began, but Krailash put his hand on her shoulder.

  “You cannot go,” he said. “There is you, and your heir Zaltys, and as your head of security, I can’t let both of you go into the dark. You are the Travelers. Without you, the enterprise will founder. The family-”

  “To hell with the family! She is my family. I’m going, Krailash, and nothing you say can stop me.” She turned to the wizard and the psion. “You two will accompany me.”

  “I regret that I cannot venture into the Underdark.” Quelamia bowed low, and her voice held real contrition, but it held steel too. Krailash gaped at her.

  “What is the meaning of this treachery?” There was even more steel in Alaia’s voice.

  “No treachery. I would do no good there. If I went into those tunnels, we would soon be faced by dangers far greater than a clan of mad derro. As you know, I hail from the Feywild, but you may not realize that the Underdark has a counterpart in the Feywild too. We call it the Feydark, and it is home to many creatures, chief among them the fomorians, monstrous giants who … Well, they have sworn to kill me, for reasons that have no bearing on this situation. But if I venture into the darkness
, given my natural affinity for the Feywild, they will sense my closeness, and open a portal from their realm to this one, and attempt to kill me. I would be fully engaged in fighting them and preserving my own life, and thus, of no use to your search for Zaltys.”

  “Similar problem,” Glory said, raising one hand. “I’m the strongest psion for miles, and there are things in the Underdark-mind flayers mainly, but there are others-who are attracted to psionic energy, and want nothing more than to eat a brain like mine. If I go into the Underdark, I’d bring a whole new world of problems down on us.”

  “So you’re saying you’re too powerful to help,” Alaia said bitterly.

  Quelamia and Glory exchanged a look. The tiefling shrugged, and the eladrin nodded.

  “I’ll go, of course,” Krailash said, a trifle wearily. “The wizard and the devil kin can make sure the caravan doesn’t fall apart in our absence. We couldn’t all go, anyway. Someone has to keep order here.”

  “Fine,” Alaia said. “Gather your men. We leave immediately.” She stormed out of the wagon.

  “Such are the consequences of lies,” Quelamia said.

  “We had to tell Zaltys her parents were dead,” Krailash said. “You can’t raise a child to believe that family is the single most important thing in the world, and then tell her that some of her family is still alive in servitude to monsters beneath the earth. We didn’t tell her because we were afraid this very thing would happen.”

  “Oh, right,” Glory said. “I forgot that was all you knew.”

  He frowned. “What are you saying?”

  “Glory,” Quelamia said warningly.

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ll just wipe his mind in a few minutes,” Glory said. “The real reason we lied to Zaltys is because we didn’t want her to find out what she really is. You still think she’s a little human girl, but once we got her back to the city and examined her when she was a newborn, we figured it out pretty quick. I had to erase some memories that day, I’ll tell you. Those scales she had on her back as a baby, remember? She had those because she’s a yuan-ti.”