by Tim Pratt
The crowd shouted affirmation, and Quelamia nodded to those assembled, nodded rather more curtly to Glory, and descended the platform again, going about her business.
“Okay then,” Glory said. “As I was saying, if you have any concerns, you can come to me, otherwise just go about your jobs. You all know what to do.”
Before she could come down off the platform, people began shouting at her. The cooks complained that the hunting parties weren’t bringing back enough fresh meat. The hunters complained that half the barrels of arrows brought from the city were junk, shafts made of green wood and fletched with duck feathers, which was apparently an outrage. The interim guard captain, appointed by Krailash, had some question about guard rotations, which Glory couldn’t even begin to comprehend. The laborers wanted to know if they should go back to the same terazul vines they’d been harvesting yesterday, or move over to a more promising patch on the other side of some particular ruins, with the caveat that if they were supposed to go there, they’d need more guards, not to mention some men to go in and clear out some kind of poisonous bush first. The scouts wanted to know if they should take men to destroy a troop of guardian apes they’d noticed, though they were about half a mile outside the official perimeter, just in case the apes came over to make trouble later. The guard who’d worried she was here to seduce them all wanted to know why he hadn’t seen her around camp before and let her know he had a flask of some fine liquor if she was looking to unwind. And, and, and …
Glory began to rub her temples as a headache started to throb. How did Alaia deal with this? There didn’t seem to be people pounding on her door all the time. Probably Krailash handled a lot of it, and many of these people probably took care of their own damn problems rather than bother the supreme boss, but as far as they were concerned Glory was just a hireling like them, not Family, and thus, not untouchable.
Eventually Glory got them to form an orderly line and ask their questions one at a time, and then she just looked inside their minds to see what they thought the best decision would be, and then simply agreed with those, for the most part-she’d learned long ago that at least half the people who ask questions really just want confirmation that their inclinations are the right way to go.
The guard who wanted to share his liquor was told to come to her wagon after sunset, because even if he was an idiot and a bigot, he had lovely biceps, and she could always make him forget he’d even talked to her afterward. Mind-controlling someone into wanting physical intimacy was a monstrous crime, but wiping the mind of an attractive moron after some consensual fun was just sensible relationship management. Her power had spared her a lot of bad consequences from ill-advised one-night frolics. Shame it wasn’t sparing her from her first horrible foray into leadership.
“It’s hard bossing people around when you don’t want them to know you exist,” Glory complained, dropping into a chair in Alaia’s trailer. The eladrin wizard Quelamia was there, apparently staring at nothing, which probably meant she was doing very important mental work. Glory had never peeked into Quelamia’s mind-wizards were touchy about their secrets, and the fey were hard to read anyway, and okay, Glory had tried once, and Quelamia had some formidable psychic barriers-but she wondered, sometimes, what it was like inside that cool and aloof head. Green and tranquil, quite unlike Glory’s own fiery red and char black thoughts? “Feel free to, you know, jump in and tell people what to do out there in camp any time. I’m not cut out for managing people. At least, not that way. Making people do stuff is one thing. Telling them to do things is a whole different proposition. I don’t like it.”
“Do you believe in evil?” Quelamia said. She didn’t look at Glory, but the psion decided to assume the question was meant for her.
She pointed to her horns. “I’m a tiefling. I’ve got evil in my ancestry. Of course I believe in it. Is this about Zaltys again?”
“But many call their enemies evil,” Quelamia said, “even if they are not so different from themselves. Some would call the Serrats evil. The effects of terazul are often terrible, and without the family’s trade, that poison would be far less widespread. And how many evil creatures consider themselves evil? There are some, certainly-degenerate races and dark gods and undead wizards and ancient dragons that revel in cruelty, but I’m sure many of them don’t actually consider themselves evil so much as superior. More important than anyone else, and willing to do terrible things to further their own interests, no more concerned about the deaths they’d cause than Krailash worries about stepping on ants. Some of those creatures are simply mad. Is madness the same as evil? Are the evil, by definition, also mad? Even when they seem cold, calculating, and sane?”
“Believing you’re more important-more real-than everyone else,” Glory said. “And acting on that belief. That’s a pretty good working definition of evil.”
“Then most thinking creatures are evil, at least sometimes.” Quelamia finally looked at her. “Most beings are selfish. True altruism is the province of rare holy ones.”
“Or the mad,” Glory offered. “There’s a thin line between holy and crazy just like there’s a thin line between evil and crazy.”
“Another question, then. A simpler one: Is it evil to commit evil acts in pursuit of good? Betrayal, murder, lies-are these still crimes if they’re done for a just cause, and if that cause is won?”
“Pretty much every king in the world would say no. Sometimes you have to commit horrors to prevent worse horrors. Every war that’s ever been called a just war operated on those terms.” Glory yawned. Working for a living was exhausting, and she definitely counted managing as working. “Why the philosophical musings?”
“Perhaps the only real evil is that of aberrations,” Quelamia said. “Outsiders from other realms-the Far Realm-creatures that don’t belong here, creatures who poison reality itself by their very nature. Entities which are toxic to nature and rationality and beauty and loyalty and love. Is that possible? That every other thing we call evil is simply a matter of degree, an issue of point of view? But then even aberrations may not be evil inherently-in their own world, they may be perfectly right and proper. It is only the context of their wrongness that makes us call them evil. Can I truly believe that?”
“You lost me,” Glory said. “My moral system is pretty much at the level of: murder, bad. Giving poor people bread, good. And do what you have to do in order to survive, because dead people don’t have the luxury of torturing themselves about whether they’re good or evil.”
“You’re right,” Quelamia said. “There’s something to be said for pragmatism.” She touched Glory’s shoulder, hand as light as a dried leaf. “We do what we must. What more can be expected of us?”
“So, is this about Zaltys? You think we should have gone into the Underdark with Alaia and Krailash? Because I have to admit, I do feel guilty about that, but I think I’d feel even more guilty about letting my brain get eaten by a mind flayer.”
“I made the right choice,” the eladrin said, rising. “I believe that. I must. And you must make peace with yourself about your own choices.” She swept out of the room like a queen taking leave of her court, and Glory had never been more tempted to try to knock down Quelamia’s mental barriers and read her thoughts.
She was a little bit afraid of what she might find out if she dared.
Chapter Nineteen
I can’t believe you convinced me to ride down a waterfall,” Alaia said, wringing icy water from her long hair, drops pattering the corpses of kuo-toa. “And I can’t believe you were right.”
“Going down the waterfall was the obvious path forward,” Krailash said. “There were clear signs that a body had been dragged down the tunnel, and no sign of it being dragged back out again, so where else could it have gone? I can’t be completely certain Zaltys was here.” He rose from his examination of the dead fish creatures. “But these were definitely killed by arrows-not crossbow bolts, but arrows-and the only archer I know of down here is Zaltys. These
broken lengths of chain on the ground are from the shackles the derro use on their slaves. I think Zaltys managed to catch up with the derro who took Julen, and saved him. I think these were his chains.”
“Where do the kuo-toa come in?” Alaia said.
Krailash shrugged, the padding under his armor squelching. “Probably just a hunting party that swam through underwater tunnels and came upon Zaltys at the wrong time.” He went to the edge of the still pool and peered down. He’d very nearly drowned, coming down the waterfall in plate armor, with his massive axe in his hands. The weight of arms and armor had dragged him to the bottom of the pool, and he’d had to use all his strength to climb up the rough side of the pool, underwater, and haul himself onto the dry cavern floor. He was lucky he hadn’t had to unhook his armor and leave it rusting at the bottom of the pool, if it had been a little deeper, he would have. Meanwhile, Alaia’s magic robe hadn’t even gotten wet, water sliding off it like rain from a duck’s feathers.
The water was dark, but still, and his eyesight was very good. “There’s the corpse of a derro down there,” he said. “And what looks like a burned-out sunrod. But no Julen, and no Zaltys. Which means I’m right, and they’ve continued on their journey.”
“So let’s follow in their footsteps.”
Krailash shook his head. “I have to take off my armor and try to squeeze some of the water out of the padding underneath-the weight is impossible. I’ve never wished for fire breath before, but it would be useful-some heat to dry these things out would be wonderful.”
“Perhaps I can work something out,” Alaia said.
Krailash nodded and began unbuckling his armor, letting the weight drop and groaning with the pleasure of being unencumbered. Plate armor wasn’t pleasant to wear for extended periods of time, and he was well aware that he didn’t smell as good as he might-in that respect, the dunk in icy water had done him some good. Alaia was watching him, and he grinned. “Avert your eyes, woman. Have you no modesty?”
“I’m not attracted to lizards,” she said dryly. “Your virtue is safe with me.”
When he’d stripped off his padded armor, he did his best to drape the pieces over jutting rocks to dry as Alaia instructed. She took a carved totem from her pack and began to chant in a melodic singsong, and gradually a breeze began to flow through the room, gradually increasing to a fairly steady wind that reminded Krailash poignantly of how much he missed the world above, where the movement of the air was so common he could take it completely for granted. After a while, Alaia stopped chanting, and the breeze dropped. Krailash checked his padding and grunted. “Very nearly dry. Nicely done. You should hire yourself out to propel sailboats.”
She snorted. “I’ll have you know I can summon those same winds to make even a hulking thing like you leap about in combat as deftly as a carnival acrobat. Using it to dry clothes is a bit like using your battleaxe to dice an onion, but we work with what we have. Now get dressed. I’d become half-convinced Zaltys was dead, and hoped only to die in avenging her, but now you’ve given me hope that she might be alive after all.”
“Indeed,” Krailash said, reluctantly putting his heavy second skin back on. “Of course, as a professional soldier, I expect failure, death, and tragedy, but I begin to think another outcome is possible. Perhaps this will even end happily. We might be able to rescue whatever remnants of Zaltys’s people remain enslaved and get them back to the surface. The derro are dangerous, but they won’t expect us to strike in their home settlement, and their madness makes them vulnerable to superior tactics.”
Alaia frowned, as if thinking intensely. “If we find any humans among the slaves,” she said finally, “or for that matter dwarves, or dragonborn, or even elves, improbable as that seems in this region, then we should certainly do our best to rescue them. But don’t expect too much. Life in the Underdark as slaves to the derro … I don’t expect there are many survivors from Zaltys’s family.”
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 wa
s 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.
