The Serpents of Kthyb Seven by Maura Yzmore

The traveler took off his hat and revealed a gleaming, copper-colored face of a young hybrid. He carried a leather satchel in the top left hand, while his bottom palms rested on his waist, each atop an empty holster.

“Welcome home, Master Xyay,” said the security bot to the traveler. “The scan shows you carry no weapons, but I must inspect your haul before I let you in.”

Xyay handed over the satchel.

“Master Xyay, what is this?”

“Exactly what Rzay sent me out to get.”

The robot returned the satchel unopened. Xyay nodded toward the beat-up shuttle from which he had emerged moments earlier. “OK to leave it here? I won’t be long.”

“Of course.”

Xyay put his hat back on and walked into the desert settlement known as Kthyb Seven.

After the humans had arrived on the desert planet they named Dhahab — gold, the color of all they could see — they built cities over old trade centers. Native Dhahabi, four-armed humanoids with golden skin and shapeshifting abilities, were displaced and now mostly lived in places like Kthyb Seven.

The settlement comprised several hundred tents. Xyay walked the alleyways where golden-skinned children laughed and played, kicking up the sand that sparkled in the light of Dhahab’s binary stars. The children stopped when they saw Xyay. Dhahabi-human hybrids, like himself, were still fairly rare. They were taller than native Dhahabi, copper-skinned, had two or four arms, and often possessed the shapeshifting ability.

Xyay pulled open a curtain and entered the largest tent in Kthyb Seven.

Rzay sat behind the screens in the back. Half a dozen of his Dhahabi henchmen monitored the screens in the front, a small firearm within each one’s grasp. In his youth, Rzay fought for the rights of natives and hybrids, but was now more interested in peddling rimal, Dhahab’s potent hallucinogen popular among humans. The screens tracked local farmers who raised althaeban, snakelike creatures whose venom was the basis for rimal.

“Good to see you back, Nephew.” Rzay, a large hybrid with a disquieting voice, stood up from behind the screens, pushing himself up with all four arms. “I was beginning to suspect you’d failed.”

“Good to see you, too, Uncle.”

Xyay held out the satchel. Rzay approached slowly, then snatched the offering.

“I trust you will keep your promise,” said Xyay.

“Oh? And what would that be?”

“You said, if I did this job, you’d let me and my mother leave.”

Everyone in the room held their breath.

Rzay leaned into Xyay’s face. “Let’s first see if everything’s here.”

“Good.” Xyay swallowed hard. “While you inspect the contents, I’ll go see my mother.”

He went through a bead curtain into the next room, where a copper-skinned woman napped in a hover chair. She looked ill.

“Mom?”

The woman jolted awake.

“Mom, it’s me. Xyay.” He put a hand on her shoulder.

She pulled away. “Don’t touch me!”

“Mom, please,” Xyay said softly. “I am here to take you to the city, where they can help you.”

“Get away from me! I’m not going anywhere!”

“Mom,” Xyay whispered and placed both his right hands over his heart. “I need you to trust me.”

The woman quieted, looked him deep in the eye, and nodded.

“We have to leave, now,” said Xyay, as he and his mother emerged.

“What’s the hurry?” said Rzay.

“She’s in worse shape than when I left.”

“My sister’s always been loopy. Old age just made it worse.”

“I know a place where they’ll take care of her. We have to go.”

“And what if you can’t?”

Rzay’s men stood up, weapons at the ready.

Xyay took a deep breath. “I know what you say goes, Uncle. And you said that, if I brought what I’d promised, you’d let Mom and me leave.”

Rzay was quiet.

“Is anything missing, Uncle?”

Rzay moved aside and revealed the contents of the satchel, now placed atop a desk.

One severed head of a young male hybrid.

One glass container with three sapphire-blue althaeban, wriggling.

“The traitor’s head and your designer althaeban,” said Xyay.

Rzay opened the glass container, took out a snake, and brought it to his face. His expression softened.

“All right.” He smiled. “My babies are back and I am feeling charitable.” He waved Xyay and his mother out of the tent. “Go! And good riddance.”

#

“You’re not Xyay,” said the woman when the shuttle took off.

“No, I’m not,” said the man.

“Who are you then?”

Xyay’s face shifted to the one on the severed head. The woman gasped.

“But, if you’re the traitor…whose head was that?”

“Xyay’s.”

The woman’s eyes filled with tears; she turned away.

The man who wasn’t Xyay placed his two right hands on her trembling back, trying to comfort her.

“Your son was very brave. The whole plan was his idea. He made me swear I would take care of you. When he found me, he said he’d be dead soon, that he’d gotten hooked on rimal…”

“Rimal doesn’t affect Dhahabi,” Xyay’s mother interrupted. “Only humans.”

“Some hybrids are really susceptible,” said the man. “Your son was. I suspect you are, too.”

The woman wiped away tears.

“Why did you steal Rzay’s blue althaeban?” she asked. “You’re the one who created them.”

“To sell. The rimal derived from them is extremely potent. It gets a great price in the city. I wasn’t going to live in the settlement forever.”

“My son is dead.”

“He was already dying. But, thanks to him, you have a chance.”

“My brother will figure it out. He’ll come after us.”

“No, he won’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I remembered Rzay liked to play with his special althaeban,” said the man. “Highly concentrated rimal from their venom kills humans and hybrids within hours. I slathered his althaeban in it before I brought them back.”

Xyay’s mother looked awhile at the man who wasn’t Xyay.

“Well,” she said as she turned toward the side window, “I’ve always wanted to live in the city.”

—

Maura Yzmore is a scientist and writer based in the American Midwest. Her flash fiction can be found in The Arcanist, Kanstellation, Bending Genres, and elsewhere. Website: https://maurayzmore.com/ Twitter: @MauraYzmore