Venom in Her Veins

filled the center of the temple.

At first, Krailash assumed the ten-foot-wide hole was part of some dark ceremonial function of the yuan-ti temple, who were said to keep pits of snakes and to hold their venerated monsters underground to receive sacrifices, but a moment of study showed him the chasm in the floor was actually evidence of some catastrophe. The edges were cracked and ragged, stones heaved up and statuary toppled on the edges, with only impenetrable darkness within. Was it a sinkhole, or …?

No. There was a single bright drop of blood on the edge of the pit. The prisoners had been led here and taken down into the dark. Perhaps not yuan-ti slavers at all, then, but something worse: some subterranean dwellers from the Underdark, the vast system of caverns, tunnels, lightless seas, underground rivers, and hidden cities that legend said formed a savage world beneath the world. Yuan-ti certainly weren’t the only creatures with fangs in their mouths. Krailash shivered. Despite his reptilian appearance, he was as warm-blooded as any human, and the thought of innocents dragged into those lightless depths by savage drow, or brutish kuo-toa, or fouler races he’d never heard of, chilled his blood and troubled his heart.

Well. He wouldn’t be going down there. But he could do something about this particular doorway to the depths-

He heard something from outside, a dull thud that could have been a falling stone from the ruins, or something more ominous. “Rainer!” he shouted, and then looked uneasily at the hole in the floor, wondering if his voice would call attention to whatever lived within. The other guard didn’t answer, and Krailash hurried for the entryway, emerging into the light to find Rainer gone, his sword on the ground. A faint shout gave him a direction to follow, and he ran deeper around the side of the temple where he found another crack in the earth, this one smaller, but opening on the same black depths.

Rainer’s helmet rested, upside-down, on the edge of the pit.

Whatever had stolen the child’s village away had stolen Rainer too. And it was Krailash’s fault for coming alone, and not bringing sufficient support. He considered leaping into the dark, roaring and swinging his axe, but Rainer had been a capable fighter too, and that hadn’t helped him. The enemy could be using poison, traps, ambush, anything. Rainer’s loss was a blow, but the safety of the caravan was paramount. With a last look around- the jungle could hide almost anything-Krailash set off for the caravan at a run. He needed help to neutralize this threat.

Loath as he was to admit it, he needed magic. Magic could accomplish in moments what it would take twenty men with shovels and picks a tenday to do.

Chapter Three

Krailash stopped by the harvesting operation to assuage his worry that the whole party had been kidnapped by dwellers from the Underdark, but everything there was business as usual, the workers carefully plucking petals from the terrible, beautiful flowers and putting them away in baskets. “Where are Rainer and Marley?” one of the guards asked, but Krailash ignored him, barked orders to pull the harvesting detail back to the caravan, and led the way. The trip to the camp didn’t take long, but to Krailash, it felt like the march of a thousand miles through hostile territory in wartime. When they reached the camp, he finally allowed himself a deep exhalation of relief. The perimeter was marked with wooden posts topped by faintly-pulsing purple and red crystals that their wizard, Quelamia, assured him would keep the mindless jungle beasts away, and his sentries were on the lookout for other dangers. Krailash hurried past the paddock where the oxen were contentedly munching their feed and producing copious quantities of manure-fortunately upwind of the camp proper-and hailed his guardsmen. “Tell Alaia I need a moment of her time,” Krailash said, and a messenger dashed away.

The war-wagons were arrayed in the camp’s outer ring, with bowmen on guard in each, and four of Quelamia’s apprentices spread out, each armed with a rod enchanted to throw fireballs or spit lightning or spawn freezing winds. Inside the defensive ring were the tents of the soldiers, and inside that, those of the laborers and the cook wagons. At the very center stood three wagons that were, essentially, houses on wheels. The smallest was Krailash’s, an unassuming wooden box on wheels with arrowslit windows; the armor reinforcements didn’t show.

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.”