Krailash stood between Alaia and the field of mushrooms, because as they were no longer magically hidden, it was only a matter of time before an overseer noticed them.
“Or will you turn on me too, as my power has?” Alaia said. “Have I shown you the true face of my avarice, and disgusted you?”
“I made an oath when I came to work with you, to serve the Serrat family, specifically the Travelers, specifically you. Dragonborn stand by their oaths. I was always disgusted by the family business-though I admit, thinking you were mere drug peddlers was better than knowing you were unwitting pawns of the Far Realm. What if those flowers are doing more than poisoning people-what if they’re poisoning reality? Part of some effort to annex our world to that plane of madness? I have heard the stories your family tries to keep quiet, about the children of addicts born dead, and deformed-”
“Children of drunkards are sometimes stillborn, or born twisted too,” Alaia said, but without much conviction.
“The children of drunks are never born with tentacles,” Krailash said levelly. “But you misunderstand me. I made oaths, and I stand by them. I will still serve you, despite everything.”
“You’re a good friend, Krailash.”
He shook his head. “A good friend would try to talk you out of this, Alaia, and convince you to kill those flowers. No. I’m a terrible friend. But I’m an exceptionally good employee. Should we look for Zaltys’s people? She might be with them.”
Alaia didn’t get up from the ground. “Zaltys doesn’t have any people, Krailash. Not human ones, anyway. She’s not a woman-she’s a yuan-ti. Her village was a cult of snake people. She just looks like a human. I don’t know why. Maybe she’s a mythical chosen one, born once every ten generations. Or maybe she’s a throwback to humanoid stock in the yuan-ti bloodline. I always wanted to believe the latter. But ever since you met that god, I’ve been afraid it’s the former.”
Krailash lowered his guard long enough to stare at her. “But … You mean Zaltys is a spy?”
“No, I mean her family are yuan-ti. She was just an infant when they were taken, and she was raised as a human-as far as she knows she is human, unless she was unlucky enough to find the yuan-ti slaves and learn otherwise. I just hope they can’t sense their own, and that they won’t recognize her as one of them.”
“But she could have been tainted by Zehir,” Krailash said, horrified by the thought. He’d taught Zaltys to fight, hunt, stalk, kill-and she was a snakeman? Had he given the weapons that might kill him to one of his enemies? “The cultists of Zehir and Sseth are subtle, Alaia, you’ve never had to fight with them, but I have-”
“Our psion Glory checked out her mind thoroughly,” Alaia snapped. “Zaltys is my daughter, and you’re sworn to defend her too. You’re so ridiculous on this subject-it’s why we wipe your mind every time you find out.”
Krailash gaped. “I-you’ve tampered with my mind?”
Alaia gave him a thin smile. “Just a little. All legal, of course. Read your contract. When you signed, you gave us permission to protect vital family secrets-and the fact that Zaltys is yuan-ti is one of them.”
Krailash wanted to swing his axe at her: at Alaia, the woman he’d worked for and joked with for three decades, the woman he would have called his closest friend, even minutes ago. He let Thunder’s Edge sag loose in his hands. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth about Zaltys? Of course it’s a shock to hear, but I’m sure in time I would have gotten used to it.”
“I didn’t want to risk that you’d forget your oath and try to kill her, Krailash. Though I depend on you, and trust you, and care for you. Zaltys is my daughter. I never wanted to hurt you-that’s why I had Glory wipe your memories-but I had to keep my daughter safe. I needed you to keep her safe, and I didn’t know if you could continue to do that, if you knew the truth about her.”
Krailash couldn’t decide whether to walk away, or attack the nearest derro overseer, or lunge at Alaia. The conflicting demands of honor, pride, dignity, and duty pulled him in different directions, and paralyzed him.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to make a decision. He heard shouting, and when he looked toward the slave pens, he saw Zaltys-looking dirty, and disheveled, but human-running his way, trailed closely by Julen.
His training had him on his feet and racing in her direction before he had a moment to think. He was a protector, and Zaltys and Julen were in need of protection, because they were being pursued by a horror his eyes could not quite comprehend.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Zaltys and Julen were all the way across the square when they heard the shout: “Stop them!” Though they probably shouldn’t have, they paused long enough to look back. At first, Julen thought some kind of forest monster was pursuing them, perhaps one of the ambulatory and minimally self-aware conglomerations of carnivorous vines that waylaid travelers in the jungle. But as the green figure stumbled down the steps, fragments of greenery tearing away and fluttering behind, he realized it was Iraska. Shouldn’t have pulled out the knife, he thought, but he’d done so automatically-you didn’t leave a perfectly good knife sticking in a dead body. You could never tell when you’d need another blade, especially a magical one.
The Slime King was bloody and her robes were frayed. The vines weren’t coming away easily; they were taking chunks of flesh and fabric with them-but she was alive, and her phantom tentacles were lashing in the air. Most of the derro in the settlement were still busy subduing the creature that had crawled out of the portal, but she’d brought two blindfolded guards with her and, worse, all the little sovereigns and some of their creations, including the quaggoth with the eyes of a beholder wavering on stalks. One of those eyes emitted a reddish light, and the facade of bones on a low building near Julen and Zaltys burst into flames.
“Zaltys, vanish, save yourself!” he shouted, but she just grabbed his hand and pulled him along after her. She’d managed to hide him in her shadow once before, but she couldn’t take him with her if she stepped through shadows to escape, and she was apparently unwilling to go without him. That was very thoughtful of her, though it was also a trifle suicidal. They dodged among the buildings as the crowd of derro and their furious Slime King pursued them, and sooner than Julen expected they’d burst out among the mushroom fields. The derro behind them were gaining, and the overseers in the field were staring at them in surprise, so Julen dropped his pack to lose the weight and make himself run faster-he had his weapons with him, and losing his food and drinking water and lockpicks didn’t rank among his current worries. He pulled his hand away from Zaltys and ran toward the field of mushrooms, shouting “Split up!” and hoping they could at least reduce the number of pursuers after each of them.
“No!” Zaltys shouted, and pointed toward the long low cages made of pale wood-the slave pens, obviously.
Dedication to family is all well and good, he thought, but I’d rather be alive than noble. But he couldn’t very well yell that sentiment, and who knew, maybe if they freed the slaves they could escape themselves in the ensuing confusion. Assuming the slaves weren’t all too cowed or drugged to bother causing any confusion.