Tim Pratt - Venom in Her Veins

“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.”