Venom in Her Veins

the hairy one was small and weak. Use the big one to kill the little one, for a start. That was elegant. The philosopher valued elegance.

This is no way to wield such a fine weapon, Krailash thought. The grell that possessed him forced him to lift the axe up over his head, which was entirely the wrong way to use such an axe-he was killing a person here, not splitting a length of wood for the fireplace. It was no surprise that a floating, tentacled brain would lack proper martial technique, but it was an additional dishonor to be used as a tool by something so incompetent. Not that his poor form would save Alaia’s life: she would be split by the axe, if not as neatly as a length of wood might have been.

The worst part was, Krailash couldn’t even close his eyes as his arms began to drive the axe down.

But his poor form provided enough warning for Alaia to react. She dived aside, and the blow fell half a foot from her, the blade of the axe ringing loudly on the hard stone floor. Krailash staggered with the swing, the weight of the axe pulling him off balance and making him fall to the floor. Alaia’s spirit companion rushed toward him, head lowered, snorting and pawing at the stone-but it didn’t attack, merely stood guard. Krailash’s body tried to stand, but the grell was a creature of many limbs and weightless flight, and seemed to have some difficulty maneuvering Krailash’s mere two arms and legs and his great weight.

Alaia, meanwhile, was scanning the cavern, and she said, “Ah ha,” quietly, looking up. Her spirit companion lifted its head too, and snorted mildly. Motes of white fire emerged from its nostrils, floating up, and a blazing light ignited near the upper reaches of the cavern. The burning grell lashed its tentacles wildly, then dropped with a heavy wet thud to the cavern floor. It writhed, and tried to crawl away, and Krailash heard a great, drawn-out screech-though he soon realized the scream was echoing only in his mind, not in his ears. He regained control of his limbs, and stood up, unsteadily, then prodded at the corpse of the burning grell with the handle of his axe. “Foul thing,” he said, spitting, as if he could spit out the flavor of the creature’s mind in his own. “Took control of me, used me the way I’d wield a sword, but less skillfully.”

“An aberration.” Alaia’s voice was thick with disgust. “Say what you will about the derro-they are horrible creatures, but they belong in this world. But things like that come from elsewhere, and their very existence poisons reality and sickens nature. They are a tumor in the body of the world, everything shamans and druids stand against. Just as cancer turns healthy flesh into sickness, so these aberrations seek to turn the natural world into a reflection of their own mad homeland.” She hugged herself. “And these caverns are full of such things, I’m sure. Would that we could burn them all.”

“We may have the chance to burn a few more,” Krailash said. “But we should keep looking for Zaltys, if we can.” He looked around. “Where is the snake?”

Alaia frowned. “It must have slithered away during the fight.”

Krailash swore. “Lost without a guide, then, if it even was a guide. Following it was something, at least, it gave us the illusion of progress. But now …”

“Don’t lose heart.” Alaia’s tone was more order than reassurance. “Zaltys is depending on us.”

He shook his head. “I’m merely assessing our situation. We-”

“Look.” Alaia pointed at the floor of the tunnel that intersected theirs up ahead. “On the ground. Is that a chalk mark?”

Krailash investigated, kneeling, and attempting to smudge the faintly glowing blue smear without success. “Magical chalk. Haven’t seen that in years-we used to mark our paths with it when we went on dungeon delves.” He glanced up and down the tunnel. “There’s another. In fact, there are marks in both directions. Did Julen have chalk like that?”

She shrugged, but when she spoke, her voice held a trace of excitement. “I don’t know, but it seems like something the Guardians might use, doesn’t it?”

“The snake may have taken us just far enough then,” Krailash said. “Which way do we go in the tunnel?”

The dire boar spirit companion went snuffling into the corridor in one direction, then came back and traveled down the other. When it returned, it stared at Alaia for a moment, and she nodded. “We go right, Krailash.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because it’s the direction that moves down.”

“A sound basis for choice,” he said.

Chapter Eighteen

No,” Zaltys said. “We want to see the slime King, and we can’t very well see him if you take out our eyes.”

The savant bared her teeth. “No one sees the king while the king is the king-only after, if we put the king on display in the Hall of Glorious Victories, if there’s anything left to display. You can pass on your so-very-important, so-very-secret message just fine with no eyes. It only hurts a moment.” While she spoke, the needle moved, weaving a glittering pattern before them.

Zaltys leveled her looted repeating crossbow at the savant’s belly. “We like our eyes. I like my eyes rather more than I like your life. Put the needle away, and let the Slime King know we’re here. We can talk to him while he hides behind a screen, or in a dark room-there are easier ways than putting our eyes out, you know.”

“Nothing easier. Poke, poke, poke, poke. And all done. Far easier than dousing torches or putting up a screen.”

“We could wear blindfolds, I suppose, like these guards do.”

The savant shook her head. “They wear cloth to cover their eyes, which have been poked out, and the cloth soaks up the oozing things that ooze out of the holes. Very basic, very traditional.” The savant seemed to take notice of her crossbow for the first time, and frowned. “They didn’t take your weapons away upstairs? Useless guards.”

Zaltys glanced at the derro by the door, but they might as well have been on another continent for all the attention they paid the exchange. “That surprised me too,” she said. “We don’t mean your Slime King any harm, but I’d think you’d worry more about assassins.”

The guards flanking the door began to chuckle, as if they shared one voice-or at least one sense of humor. “Ha,” the savant said, speaking the word rather than actually laughing. “If you lot can assassinate the Slime King, then our king deserves to be assassinated. The king can take care of himself.” She turned to the guards. “Tell the king there are visitors here, emissaries from the surface world, and that they don’t want to be blinded.”

One of the guards shrugged and knocked once on the door. A panel slid open in the door, and the guard murmured through the hole to another blindfolded face inside. Then the panel slid shut.

Zaltys wasn’t sure if she still needed to be aiming the crossbow at the savant. She still had her needle out. Julen had sauntered over a few feet and was standing in a casual-looking way, but Zaltys could tell by the way his feet were set that he was prepared to whip out his throwing knives and let loose if it appeared necessary.

The panel on the door slid open again. The guard inside murmured to a guard outside, and he took a step forward. “The Slime King will see you. And consents to be seen.”

“This is outrageous,” the savant said, froth forming at the corners of her mouth, her whole body vibrating- except for the long needle, which she held perfectly still and steady. “I’ve never been allowed to see the Slime King, and I’m the Minister of Seeing Things, I’ve never even gotten through the door, and now these humans from the surface world think they can-”

“The Slime King has spoken,” the guard said, and clouted the savant on the side of the head. The smaller derro dropped her needle and then followed it, falling to the floor. All the eyes on her robe closed too. Zaltys couldn’t tell if she was unconscious or dead. A thin trickle of blood ran from the fallen savant’s ear.

“Enter,” the guard said, and the door swung open.

Zaltys looked at Julen, who shrugged. They went through the doorway, followed by their little snake