Tim Pratt: Venom in Her Veins

Beside it, like a tropical bird perched next to a drab sparrow, rested Quelamia’s wagon, more a sculpture than a dwelling, made of living wood from the Feywild. Where Krailash’s quarters were all squares and angles, Quelamia’s looked more or less like a live tree somehow growing impossibly on a wheeled platform, complete with leafy branches that sometimes bore strange fruit. No ox ever pulled her cart: it moved under its own powers, immense wheels rolling smoothly over even uneven terrain, branches swaying. Trust a wizard to make a home in such a strange whimsy.

The final wheeled home was even more impressive, in its way, since it had been made by wealth, not magic. The wagon had the look of a cozy cottage, made of rare kopak wood-strong, flexible, and the color of sunlight streaming through jasmine honey-joined seamlessly and shaped by a master craftsman, with decorative carvings around the door and roofline. The windows were made of real glass, and there was even a working fireplace and chimney, as if anyone needed heat in the jungle. The front door swung wide when Krailash approached, and Alaia herself stood in the doorway, holding the now-sleeping infant child in her arms. Her hair was long and black, and though Krailash was no judge of human beauty, he’d heard it said Alaia was attractive, in a severe and aloof way. Certainly her blue eyes seemed to hold humor and strength in careful balance: she was seldom angry, never acted in haste, and nothing could sway her from her course once she’d chosen it.

Those were exceptionally good character traits for a merchant princess of the Serrat family. Krailash had never thought of his employer as motherly , but she held the child as comfortably as if it were her own. “Come in,” she said, standing aside, and Krailash entered her home.

The interior might have been a room from a lavish country estate, but if one looked closely, one could see the small efficiencies and precautions: tables that folded up into the wall to stay out of the way, furniture fixed in place on the floor, shelves and cupboards that could be secured to prevent the contents spilling on bumpy roads, magical lights instead of candles-because magical lights couldn’t fall over and catch the carriage on fire. A few of the lady’s small carved totems stood on shelves, looking merely decorative to the untrained eye, but allowing Alaia easier access to her vast shamanic powers if the caravan were ever directly threatened.

Alaia shut the door behind them and sat in her customary armchair, gesturing for Krailash to sit on the ironwood bench-the one utilitarian piece of furniture in the place, simple and strong, kept just for him.

“Tell me about this,” she said, looking down at the infant.

So Krailash told her: the child’s cry, the sounds of violence, the ruined temple, the opening to the Underdark, the disappearance of Rainer. She took it all in silently, then said, “Do you think we’re in danger?”

Krailash nodded. “Of course I do. Thinking we’re in danger is my job . But we are … rather formidable. My guards, combined with Quelamia’s magic, make us a difficult target. But they seized one of my men, and we have to assume they’ll interrogate him and find out the details of our defenses. I don’t know what they’ll do with that information, though. Attack us, or leave well enough alone? The problem is, the enemy is unknown, in kind and in motivation. Are they slavers? Devotees of some mad god? Are they drow? Duergar? The Underdark is vast, home to countless races, and I don’t know enough about the place to separate the stories I’ve heard from truth. I have to assume the danger is real. That we could be attacked, and overwhelmed, and all of us dragged into the dark.”

“What do you propose?” Alaia said. “This is the best place for the terazul harvest. The secondary and tertiary sites are less fruitful, and not really far enough away to make a difference anyway. I’m loath to leave, and what-never come back?”

“That’s precisely what I advise.”

“And if I reject that advice?” A small smile touched her lips. “As you know I’m inclined to do?”

“An overwhelming show of force,” Krailash said. “To shut off this particular passageway to the surface, and show them we’re not to be trifled with.”

“Mmm,” Alaia said. “You’ll want Quelamia.”

“I will.”

“She gave up being a war wizard before I was born. She won’t like it.”

Krailash shrugged. The question of liking, or not liking, a particular chore seemed irrelevant to him. Duty was duty. One did what was necessary. “She has the power, though. She doesn’t often need to use it, but she can.”

“Oh, yes. The family pays her for what she can do, as much as we pay her for what she actually does . All right. Tell her I’ve agreed.”

Krailash stood, then hesitated. He nodded at the child. “What will you do with …” He almost said “it,” but Alaia had an unusual look of tenderness in her gaze as she looked at the infant, so he said “… her?”

“Ah, that’s the question, isn’t it? You know, there are factions in the family that want to see me married off and bearing children, before I get too old. Of course, some of them mutter that I’m too old already. But this little one … Well, it sounds like all her people are dead or, at least, lost. We have some obligation to care for her. Assuming she’s healthy and otherwise sound, I thought I might adopt her.”

Krailash nodded slowly. That wasn’t unheard of in Alaia’s family, and usually happened a few times every generation. The family was the business, and among the Serrats of Delzimmer, marriages were made carefully, for maximum tactical and financial advantage, but over the generations they had occasionally adopted orphans and foundlings, on the theory that such outside additions kept the bloodline fresh. There was no particular risk in the practice. If the adoptees proved profligate or unreliable or otherwise unsuitable to business, it was no matter-they were shunted into some irrelevant side-channel of the family’s sprawling enterprises and given an allowance sufficient to keep them occupied. No one became fully vested in the family, given voting power or a percentage of the family profits, until they’d reached at least their late teens and proven themselves responsible and worthy, or proven themselves suitable only for irrelevant work or, in extreme cases, exile from the family. “I see. Would you want to train her in the business side of things, or the more, ah, practical aspects?”

“Will you be forced to teach her to swing a sword, you mean?” Alaia smiled. “She’s not dragonborn, Krailash, we humans don’t develop that quickly-we’ve got years to see where her aptitudes lie, if anywhere at all. That’s all assuming she survives. I worry about this. I think it’s a rash? What do you think?” She unwrapped the blanket carefully, and beckoned Krailash. He had no particular desire to closely examine the skin diseases of a human child, but he did as she bid him, squinting at the tiny creature, who sighed as Alaia turned her over.

There was a patch of greenish flesh in the small of the child’s back, vaguely diamond-shaped. It might have been a birthmark, except it was raised, and rough to the touch. “It looks like …”

“Scales,” Alaia said. “Just like scales. Isn’t that odd? I’ve heard of all manner of jungle diseases, but never one that turned flesh scaly . There’s a terrible disease, where people are born with thick, scaly flesh, almost crocodilian, but other birth defects always come along with it-facial deformities and the like. This child appears perfectly ordinary and healthy otherwise, except … it’s the oddest thing … she doesn’t appear to have a navel. Her belly’s all smooth. Isn’t that strange?”