Tim Pratt - Venom in Her Veins

Alaia sighed. “I’m so pleased to hear our enterprise causes no moral qualms for the member of our party who routinely erases the memories of other sentient creatures. That’s most comforting. Of course I know the arguments against terazul. They’re not wholly without merit. But the terazul trade gives us wealth, and in turn, we employ countless citizens of Delzimmer and the cities of our trading partners. We pay fair wages, do good civic works, and offer countless advantages to our community. One might argue that the roots of our business are a trifle poisonous, but the fruits, at least, are sweet.”

“I don’t think right and wrong really enter into it,” Zaltys said slowly. “What matters is family. You support your family, and they support you. That’s the foundation of all our success. You live for your family, and serve for your family, and die for your family.”

“Without that, we’re nothing,” Julen said, raising his glass of watered wine to Zaltys. “The wizard doesn’t understand. She’s not family. A family retainer, yes, and I’m sure a valuable adviser, but …”

“Yes,” Alaia said. “It’s different, when you’re part of the family.” She reached out and took the hands of her daughter and her nephew.

“If you’re all going to start hugging each other,” Glory said, “I’d like to be excused.”

Julen chose to sleep out with Zaltys in the middle of camp, under the stars, where, as he said, “I can at least dream about the hope of a breeze.” After they laid out their bedrolls and stretched out, it wasn’t long before Julen said, “How can you sleep with all that racket?”

Zaltys frowned. The hammering of the carpenters had stopped, the shouting and clang of the guards practicing their weapons was over, and the camp was as quiet as it ever got. “What do you mean?”

“The birds, the growls, the hoots, the bugs-this jungle is louder than the streets of Delzimmer during the Midsummer Festival!”

Now that he mentioned it, Zaltys could discern those sounds he mentioned-the howls of monkeys, the buzzing music of bugs, the deep croak of a million frogs singing, the occasional growl of a predator and squeal of dying prey, all mingling into the wall of noise that was The Jungle. “I like it,” she said. “I find it peaceful. Restful. The truth is, I have trouble sleeping back home in the city without it.”

Julen groaned. “It’s true what they say. The Travelers are mad. I won’t be able to sleep a moment because of all this din.”

Ten minutes later, listening to her cousin snore on the other side of their campfire, Zaltys stared up at the pinpoint stars and hoped no dreams would come. They weren’t in the jungle yet, after all, not really, and sometimes the dreams didn’t come until she was deeper into the wild. But when she finally succumbed to sleep, she did dream, though it was more real than the dreams she had in the city, more akin to the visions terazul users were said to experience: visions beyond reality, revealing a deeper strata of the true universe.

Zaltys walked through the stone plaza of a ruined city, the old structures lit by flickering torches. Fragments of torn clothing and smears of blood were the only signs of some recent violence, and her ranger’s eye revealed to her what had happened: a group, taken by surprise by overwhelming force, and dragged away.

She’d had this dream before, and knew how it would go, but she was powerless to stop its progress. She left the plaza, walking along a rutted path through the trees, until she finally reached a curious circular bit of stonework set in the ground. There were fist-sized holes in the stone at regular intervals, and a closed trapdoor in the center, and Zaltys knew it was the lid of a pit, or dungeon.

As always, Zaltys lifted the trapdoor, and looked down.

What she saw in the pit varied, though it was never pleasant. Sometimes she saw a writhing mass of snakes somehow forming a vaguely humanoid shape, with hissing hands reaching up to grasp her. Sometimes she saw a man with the hood of a cobra, dressed in a flowing black robe, with fingers that ended not in nails or even claws but in fangs dripping venom. Sometimes she saw a naked baby, crying out in the darkness at the bottom of a deep chasm.

This time, she saw the shadow serpent, and it wafted up toward the trapdoor like smoke on an updraft, its body coiling and spiraling as it came. We are family , the serpent whispered in her mind. And nothing is more important than family . The serpent opened its vast jaws, tongue flickering out to touch her face, and-

Zaltys jerked awake. The night was cool, though not cold-it was never cold so close to the jungle, which was nice, actually. No matter how many blankets she piled on herself during Delzimmer winters, she could never get warm, and so she spent months at a time feeling sluggish and torpid. Only time next to a roaring fire helped restore her during city winters. Her mother said she was more susceptible to cold than most because her people came from the jungle.

She rolled over, and found herself face-to-face with a snake. Its eyes gazed into hers, and its tongue flickered, not quite touching her, before it slithered off into the night.

It took a long time for Zaltys to sleep again, but when she did, there were no dreams.

“Wake up, lazyhead.” Zaltys nudged Julen in the ribs with her foot. He groaned and turned over, trying to pull his bedroll over his head. “Come on, unless you want a cart to crush you.”

He sat up, blinking, and looked around at the bustle of camp. Tents had been struck and carts loaded before dawn’s light fully overtook the sky, animals hitched and ready to start pulling, scouts sent in advance and behind and out to the sides to make sure no spies from rival families were trying to track the caravan’s progress. There were a few spies every year. They were invariably captured, given false memories by Glory to send their employers in the wrong direction, and set free to return home to sow disinformation.

Julen stared at her for a long moment. Then said: “Breakfast.”

“Ha. If you want breakfast, you have to get up with the rest of the camp. We’re moving out now. I’ll show you which dangling fruit is safe to eat on the way.”

He groaned and stood up, running a hand through his hair, which didn’t improve its disarray. “Where are we going?”

“Onward into the jungle, Cousin.”

“This is the jungle.” He pointed in the direction of some trees, as if illustrating his point.

“This is the edge of the jungle, the end of the rocky soil. Today we go into the jungle proper.”

“Fine. Where do I sit?”

Zaltys shook her head. “Mother says I’m to show you how things work here. That means you’re coming with me and some of the scouts to make sure there are no nasty surprises waiting for us up ahead.”

He stretched his arms overhead and worked the kinks out of his neck. “I don’t suppose I have a choice.”

“I suppose you could defy mother, one of the three heads of the family,” Zaltys said thoughtfully. “It would be interesting to see what the consequences would be.”

“Show me to my horse,” he said.

Zaltys laughed. “Go into the jungle ahead of the caravan on horseback? It would be interesting to see the consequences of that too, except a dead horse isn’t all that interesting.” She smacked him on the back. “I hope you brought your good boots. We go on foot, ahead of the trailbreakers, to make sure there’s nothing unpleasant waiting for them.”

“Like more shadow snakes?”

Zaltys tried not to let her face betray any emotion. “Those are very rare,” she said. “But there are other things. Giant insects and spiders. Jungle cats. Carnivorous plants. Farther to the south-deeper than we ever go-there are supposed to be yuan-ti, but I’ve never met any. They say there used to be a small tribe of them near our route once, but they’ve been gone for ages.”