Venom in Her Veins

Chapter Sixteen

"Yes, all right,” Zaltyssaid. “I know it’s probably not technically morning, but we woke up, and we had breakfast, so we might as well call it morning.”

“I think it must be closer to midafternoon,” Julen said, peering up at the ceiling of the tunnel as if he might see the sun if he squinted hard enough. “I know it doesn’t matter, but I’ve got a pretty good body clock, and-”

Zaltys suddenly pressed her body against him, flattening him against the tunnel wall. She was a bit taller than he was, so her neck was pressed right against his face, and the scent of her, even sweaty and streaked with cavern dust, was intoxicating and somehow exotic. Her body was pushed against his, and though he couldn’t really feel anything-she was in snakeskin armor, after all, with padding under that, and clothes under that-the proximity made it easier to imagine feeling her body against his more vividly than had ever been possible before.

Mustn’t kiss her neck, he thought. For one thing, she would slap him, or be quietly horrified, or be amused, and any of those outcomes was worse than the consequences of inaction.

Plus, he knew they were probably quite close to dying at the moment, since the only reason she’d flatten him against the wall with her own body was to hide him in her shadowy aura, and the only reason to do that was to avoid being seen by something horrible, probably a monstrous enemy armed with weapons that had far more barbs than necessity dictated. He did his best to peer over her shoulder, noting that although he could see just fine through the cloak’s shadow of concealment, the world was drained of color and rendered in the stark blacks and smudged grays of a charcoal drawing. He could see the derro coming down the tunnel well enough-shock of white hair, enormous white eyes, armed with … a fishing pole?

Admittedly, it appeared that the pole was fashioned from the thighbones of humanoids and baited with a chunk of bleeding organ meat. But still, it was just a fishing pole. He went past them, muttering to himself in Deep Speech, and once he followed a curve and disappeared out of sight, Zaltys slid her body away from his, and color-what color there was down there, where the only light came from clumps of glowing crystal-returned to the world.

“If people are just wandering around going on fishing trips, we must be close to their settlement,” Zaltys said, voice in a low whisper.

“Can you imagine fishing in the pools down here? Or eating what you caught?” Julen mimed gagging.

“I’ve only had trail rations two meals in a row, and already raw cave fish don’t sound bad to me,” Zaltys said. “We’ll have to go carefully now.” She uncased her bow and strung it in a few quick, practiced movements that Julen couldn’t entirely follow-she bent at the waist, hooked one end of the bow on the outside of her ankle, trapped that end with her other foot, bent the whole bow practically inside-out with her hands, and somehow slipped the string over the top end. The result was a relatively compact bow with graceful and sinuous curves his eye couldn’t entirely follow. That was probably because it was a magical bow imbued with mystic geometries, though he was willing to admit it might simply be his ignorance regarding the tools of archery.

“Why don’t you leave it strung all the time? More useful that way.”

She shook her head. “Ruins it. Leave a bow strung, and it starts to hold that bent shape, and doesn’t try to stretch back the way it used to be anymore. You lose all the tension that makes the string tight, and without that tension, there’s no power in the draw, no strength behind the bowshot. Eventually the whole bow would go as slack as an out-of-tune harp, and you’d just have a bent stick with a bit of string tied to it, not a deadly weapon.”

“Yes, all right, but that’s a magic bow, right? I mean, it’s probably immune to normal sorts of stresses.”

Zaltys looked at him with a combination of exasperation and patience he’d grown accustomed to in the days she’d spent trying to teach him the ways of the jungle. “You may be right. But if it were your magical bow, would you risk ruining it? Besides, if you don’t have time to string your bow before the enemy’s upon you, the bow is no good to you anyway. It’s a weapon to use at a distance. If the enemy’s close by, you’re better off with a knife-or even a pointy stick.”

“So what’s the plan, exactly? Pick off all the derro we see with arrows and throwing knives? You’ve got, what, eight or nine arrows? I’ve got a lot of knives, but probably not one for every derro. I suppose we could throw rocks.”

She grimaced. “A frontal assault doesn’t seem like a good idea, no. I guess I imagined there’d be a big sort of cage, maybe made of bamboo, with my family locked in it, and I’d just go untie a bit of rope and open the door and we’d sneak out before anyone noticed us. Maybe there’d be a guard or two to subdue first. Do you suppose it’s going to be like that?”

He shrugged. “Can’t say. As I told you, there were a few things about the derro in the books I read-they’re mad, sunlight causes them excruciating pain, they’re hated by everyone but aberrations, and they’re obsessed with some place called the Far Realm-but they didn’t discuss how or where slaves were kept, and Rainer didn’t like to talk about it. One thing I learned in the Guardians is, however complicated you expect something to be, prepare for it to be at least twice as complicated. Maybe it won’t be, but in that case, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. It’s better to be overprepared.”

“Ha. We’ve got a magic bow, a few arrows, some crossbows made so badly they might tear themselves apart just from the strain of firing, a green knife, and a lovely crystal decanter of clean water. Maybe we can trade that for the slaves.”

“We’ve got our wits too,” Julen pointed out. “And we’re sane, which must be worth something. I wonder if a diplomatic option is possible-the derro mentioned someone called the Slime King, which means there must be some ultimate authority we could conceivably appeal to. I mean, we do come from a ridiculously rich and powerful family, Zaltys. Perhaps we can buy your family out of here? Assuming the sovereign of the derro is less lunatic than his subjects, anyway. The Guardians exist to do the jobs diplomacy can’t, so I don’t mind skulking around, but we haven’t even tried diplomacy.”

Zaltys made a face; Julen was astonished to see she was still pretty anyway. “The thought of negotiating with slave-taking murderers doesn’t really appeal to me, but let’s keep it in mind if the other approach fails. We can always claim to be emissaries from the land above. Are you ready? I don’t know what we’ll see when we go around the next curve.”

Julen spread his hands. “Some new wonder, no doubt. Perhaps a pit full of offal, or a stalactite shaped like a humorous body part. Lead on. I’m ready.”

Holding her bow at the ready, moving in a low crouch, Zaltys continued down the tunnel, Julen at her heels.

They got their first look at the derro settlement together.

The tunnel ended in the largest natural cavern they’d yet encountered, so huge the ceiling was impossible to discern, and might have passed for the sky on a cloudy moonless night. There was light, in the form of wagon-wheel-sized spheres of bluish green vapor that acted as miniature floating suns, bobbing in the air at irregular intervals. Before them stretched a vast field of fungus, clearly some sort of farm, and creatures of various races labored among the mushrooms, filling baskets with food-Julen recognized kuo-toa, and gray-skinned humanoids that might have been duergar, and bearlike things with matted fur that he assumed were quaggoths. There were a few figures of unrecognizable species, dressed in voluminous rags-could they be humans? Maybe even Zaltys’s family? A pair of derro roamed lazily among the mushrooms, lashing out with barbed black whips, and the slaves flinched and moaned when the overseers came near, picking mushrooms more quickly.

Beyond the fields, Julen could just make out the silhouette of low buildings, which surprised him-he’d imagined the derro living in warrens of caves, since they didn’t strike him as builders. As they crept along the side of the cavern, skirting the mushroom fields and making their way gradually to the settlement proper, Julen was able to discern more details. The buildings were squat and squarish, made of stone and heavy timbers, exceedingly functional. Julen suspected they’d been built by dwarves-or the dark dwarfkin called duergar-for mining operations, perhaps, and later taken over by derro.

Since then, though, the derro had made improvements. The structures were embellished with lean-tos and more elaborate additions made of cloth and salvaged wood, and many of the roofs boasted spindly towers of splintering wood and, perhaps, bone, with platforms on top, though none were currently inhabited. Every roof sported at least one long, slender spike, and most had several, all draped with garlands made of small bones and topped with skulls: human, derro, duergar, kuo-toa, and others that were unrecognizable. Derro hurried in and out of the buildings, occasionally pausing to speak or attempt to stab one another, some weeping, others giggling, some in scholarly robes carrying armloads of scrolls, and one with an enormous floppy bright green hat that seemed as out of place as an ornamental goldfish in a chamberpot.

“Nice place they have here,” Julen said. “I must hire their decorator for our summer estate.” Zaltys shushed him, and made a run from the edge of the cavern to a refuse-pile on the outskirts of the cluster of buildings. The heap seemed to consist mainly of broken bits of armor and shattered swords and other odd lengths of ruined metal, which made sense when Julen realized the building nearest the pile was a smithy, sparks of orange light just visible through the open doorway and the clang of a hammer on metal ringing out.

Zaltys peered around the edge of the heap, and Julen did his best to look too without exposing himself too much. There were derro passing by near enough that he could have hit one with a throwing knife. Entirely too close for comfort, and no sign of a bamboo cage full of slaves with their bags all packed, just awaiting rescue. A search of the buildings would prove difficult. In a normal city, Julen would have waited until dark, and then crept around for some discreet housebreaking reconnaissance, but who knew when the derro slept? What if they stayed awake in shifts? In eternal darkness, “nocturnal” and “diurnal” cease to be useful descriptive terms.

Beyond the smithy, there was a sort of central courtyard, with an enormous glowing blue-green sphere bobbing in the center. Behind that loomed a building almost as large as the biggest counting house in Delzimmer, with broad stone steps leading up to the towering, square-edged, rather boring-looking pillars in front. Several of the more scholarly-looking derro were bustling up and down the steps, though they weren’t that much different from their leather-clad brethren; while Julen watched, one derro in a patched midnight blue robe crept up on another one that was reading a scroll, stabbed the reader in the kidneys, snatched up the scroll, and scampered away into the huge building. None of the other derro passing by paid the least bit of attention to the casual murder and theft.

“Do you think the slave pens are on the other side of the mushroom field?” Zaltys whispered.

Julen shrugged. “Makes as much sense as anything else. I doubt they’re in that palace or university or bathhouse or whatever that building is.”

“Probably where the Slime King lives,” Zaltys said. “So keep it in mind if we need to try that diplomatic option. If we circle around the settlement and come back to the fields on the other side-”

Suddenly the sphere of blue-green light in the central courtyard began to twist and writhe, tentacles of eye-wrenching color lashing out as the whole thing roiled. A high-pitched whine filled the air, and all the derro passing by stopped and stared at the light. Julen exchanged a glance with Zaltys. “What-” he began, but then went silent.

Something emerged from the ball of light. The creature was larger than the portal through which it arrived-Julen’s eyes watered trying to make sense of that fact-and the thing was rather spherical itself, with small eyes bobbing on long stalklike appendages, most of its face taken up by a single, much larger, eye above a vast mouth full of long and pointed teeth. A crowd of derro converged on it from all sides, and two or three fell as shimmering rays beamed from some of the creature’s eyestalks-one derro burst into flames, and one disintegrated like he was made of dust, while a third froze in place like a living statue. There were too many derro from too many directions though, and they threw opaque nets-essentially oversized black blankets, though presumably made of something stronger than ordinary cloth-over the creature, blinding it, and began dragging it down to the ground by the simple force of two-score arms pulling. Once it was down, they bundled the creature up like a sack of old clothes, then beat the sack with clubs until it stopped moving. A few of the derro tied off the ends of the nets and began dragging it up the stairs into the building Julen had begun thinking of as the Collegium, because it reminded him of the university in Delzimmer.

“What just happened?” Julen said.

Zaltys stared at him. “You’re the expert. Tell me what we saw.”

Julen shook his head. “I think that, that floating eye thing, was a beholder.”

Zaltys took in a hiss of air through clenched teeth. “Even I’ve heard of those. Eye-tyrants. Supposed to be some of the most fearsome monsters in the world, and these derro brought it down like it was a routine occurrence.”

“Maybe it is,” Julen said, looking around the cavern with growing horror. “It came out of that bobbing ball of light. What if it’s not just a magical lamp? Derro can see quite well in the dark, and most of their slaves can too, so what would they want with lights in their town? What if the light is sort of a side effect-”

“They’re portals,” Zaltys said, which rather spoiled Julen’s plans for a grand reveal of that speculation, but he nodded.

“Not wide-open portals, I’d guess, or we’d see more traffic streaming through them, but at least places where portals sometimes open. But portals to where?”

“The Far Realm,” said a voice behind them.

Stupid, not to set a guard, Julen thought. But if it’s just one of them, maybe we can …

He and Zaltys turned. There was just one derro standing before them, smiling-it was an incongruous expression on such a hideous face-and wearing a robe covered in what appeared to be living, blinking eyes of various hues. Zaltys thought the derro was female, though she didn’t look noticeably different from the males-a trifle shorter, perhaps, but mostly the difference was in the higher pitch of the voice. The derro woman wasn’t even armed, unless the obviously magical robe counted as a weapon. But there were another dozen derro arrayed a dozen steps behind her, holding their wicked little hand crossbows, some of them muttering to themselves, others bouncing on the balls of their feet, and one scratching his chin with the barbed point of the bolt in his loaded weapon. They looked the sort to shoot on a whim and not bother to ask any questions later.

“Our spells aren’t perfect yet,” the smiling derro said. “We’ve managed to create pockets of potential in which semistable portals to the Far Realm sometimes form, and many of us have developed the ability to open what might best be termed windows to the Far Realm, through which the mind-altering wonders of that place may be glimpsed-it’s instructive for our study, and useful as a weapon, since such glimpses of the Far Realm tend to drive the uninitiated mad, at least temporarily. Long enough to club them over the head and chop off their arms and legs, anyway. Would you like to see? No? Very well. Then if you don’t think we should drive you mad and experiment on you, what should we do with you instead? Armed invaders don’t often make it this close to our settlement, and I’m curious why you’ve come.”

Julen was fairly certain that was a trick question, so he was glad when Zaltys spoke up, because it meant he didn’t have to. “We are emissaries from the surface, with a proposal for the Slime King.”

The derro in the back began to murmur among themselves, the points of their crossbows wavering but not entirely moving aside-shifted enough that their shots would probably maim rather than kill, which was small comfort.

The smiling derro took no notice. “I am a savant of the People, sometimes called the Slime Clan by the lesser races, and I am in personal service to the Slime King. You may give me any message to pass on. I’m sure by the time I have an answer for you you’ll still be alive, though possibly not in exactly the same body you started out in.”

“The message is to be delivered personally,” Zaltys said firmly. “Or we’ll simply leave, and your king won’t ever know what we have to offer.”

“Leave? No, no, that’s not likely.”

“Wait here, Julen, while I show them what we can do,” Zaltys said, and faded from sight like a shadow disappearing in the sun.

Wait here, Julen thought. Like I have any choice. It was a bold bluff, no mistaking. He was sure his admiration for his cousin’s bravery would be a great comfort to him if he died.

Zaltys reappeared a moment later on top of one of the spindly towers nearby, bow drawn, arrow unmistakably pointed at the savant, who’d finally stopped smiling. “This is a good sniper position,” Zaltys said. “If you had any sense, you’d have bowmen of your own posted here.”

“Yes, fine,” the savant said. “You can make yourself very nearly invisible in dim light. We’re all very impressed. But didn’t you notice my robe is covered with eyes? I can see invisible things, girl, which might hamper your escape.”

“Oh,” Zaltys said, nonplussed but quickly recovering. “Not if I put an arrow through your eye, it wouldn’t.”

“A point,” the savant said. “Now come down from there. Don’t make me open a portal and drive you mad. Playing with your food is slightly less fun if the food’s too mentally distressed to realize it’s being eaten. I’ll take you to the Slime King. There may even be a reward in it for me, like getting to watch you be consumed by something with more eyes than tentacles and more tentacles than teeth. Asking to meet with the Slime King is like a fish asking to be hooked and gutted and worn like a hat.”

“You wear gutted fish like hats?” Julen asked.

“Only on Fish Day,” the savant said impatiently. “Now come down from there, archer.”

Zaltys faded from sight again, and reappeared beside Julen. Most of the guards wandered off when it became apparent there would be no immediate killing, but a couple of others trailed along as the savant led them toward the Collegium-including one with glowing green smears in his beard.

“I know you,” Julen said.

“Me too,” Zaltys said. “I tied you up and left you by a waterfall. No hard feelings?”

The derro grunted and said something in a strange language. The other guard said, “He’s taken a vow of incomprehensibility. He speaks Deep Speech to those who speak Common, Dwarvish to those who speak Elvish, like that.”

“But he spoke to me in my own language earlier,” Zaltys said.

The guard shook his head. “Impossible. Must have been someone else. We derro are nothing if not rigorously consistent.”

“So what did he say just now?” Julen asked.

The derro shrugged. “I respect his vow, so I choose not to understand him.”

“Oh.” Julen thought for a moment. “What’s Fish Day?”

“No idea,” the derro said. “Never heard of it. Savants are all lunatics if you ask me. So. Be honest. Are you the agents of Zhentarim here to kill the Slime King and allow me to ascend to the throne?”

“No,” Zaltys said carefully. “That’s not us.”

“Ah well. They’ll be along soon enough I’m sure. My sister’s skull, I keep it in my sleep-hole, it told me my time of glory is nearly here, and I just need to bide my time, so that’s me, here I am, I’m biding.”

Bug-eater said something and laughed.

“Truer words were never spoken,” the other derro said, and wandered off just as they reached the broad stone steps. The derro who’d been murdered in front of the Collegium earlier was completely naked, his clothes all stolen, and another derro in a filthy white apron crouched by his head and methodically shaved off his hair with a rust-speckled straight razor.

The inmates are running the asylum, Julen thought.

“The Slime King is quite deep in the chambers below,” the savant said, pausing between two massive pillars. “I can’t be responsible if you’re killed by anything along the way. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me your message?”

Zaltys shook her head.

The savant sighed. “Fine, then. Let’s go.”

Bug-eater said something that sounded as if it were meant to be reassuring, but followed up by pointing his crossbow at them meaningfully, so Zaltys and Julen went after the savant. “Welcome to the center of derro innovation and magical science,” she said. “Mind your step. Some of the puddles down here will melt your feet off and feast on the slurry left behind.”

Julen glanced down, instinctively looking for such deadly puddles, and noticed the pale snake was still with them, slithering along unnoticed in their wake. Definitely something strange going on there, but compared to the mysteries and oddities he’d encountered in recent days, it barely rated a mention.