The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos)

Part 6 – The Keys to the Abyss

For whatsoever from one place doth fall,

is with the tide unto an other brought:

For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.

—Edmund Spenser

Her world had become a night without stars. It was sleep, but not-sleep; a boundless darkness, settled by one soul. She had been chained here for a thousand years, but now, at last, she stirred.

A golden sun seared to life within her. As the fire sloughed off her skin, she remembered the bite of the cruel sister. She could see the outlines of faces all around her, but their features were unclear.

“Ead.”

She felt sculpted from marble. Her limbs cleaved to the bed, as an effigy was bound forever to the tomb. In the dark spots in her vision, somebody was praying for her soul.

Ead, come back to us.

She knew that voice, the scent of cicely, but her lips were stone and would not part.

Ead.

New warmth fired deep in her bones, burning away the bounds that imprisoned them. The calyx that surrounded her cracked and, at last, the heat opened her throat.

“Meg,” she whispered, “I believe this is the second time I have found you nursing me.”

A choked laugh. “Then you should stop giving me cause to nurse you, silly goose.” Margret folded her into her arms. “Oh, Ead, I feared this wretched fruit might not work—” She turned to her servants. “Send word at once to Her Majesty that Lady Nurtha is awake. Doctor Bourn, too.”

“Her Majesty is in council, Lady Margret.”

“I assure you that Her Majesty will have you all gelded if this is kept from her. Go, now.”

Wretched fruit. Ead realized what Margret had said and looked over her shoulder. On the nightstand was an orange with a bite taken out of it. Drunken sweetness roiled her senses.

“Meg.” Her throat was so dry. “Meg, tell me you did not go to the Priory on my account.”

“I’m not fool enough to think I could fight my way through a house of dragonslayers.” Margret kissed the top of her head. “You might not believe in the Saint, but a higher power must have a care for you, Eadaz uq-Nāra.”

“Indeed. The higher power of Lady Margret Beck.” Ead grasped her hand. “Who brought the fruit?”

“That,” Margret said, “is a wondrous tale. And I will tell it to you as soon as you’ve had some caudle.”

“Is there anything you think that foul stuff doesn’t cure?”

“Cankers. Otherwise, no.”

It was Tallys who brought the caudle to her bed. Upon seeing Ead, she burst into tears.

“Oh, Mistress Duryan,” she sobbed. “I thought you were going to die, m’lady.”

“Not quite yet, Tallys, despite efforts to the contrary.” Ead smiled. “How lovely it is to see you again.”

Tallys curtsied several times before retreating. Margret closed the door behind her.

“Now,” Ead said to Margret, “I am drinking my caudle. Tell me everything.”

“Three more mouthfuls, if you please.”

Ead grimaced and obeyed. When she had forced it down, Margret made good on her word.

She told her how Loth had volunteered to be the Inysh ambassador in the East, and how he had gone across the Abyss to make the proposal to the Unceasing Emperor. How weeks had passed. How wyverns had burned the crops. How a Seiikinese girl had stumbled to the palace with bloody hands, carrying a golden fruit and the Inysh coronation ring, which Loth had last possessed.

“And that was not all she carried.” Margret glanced at the door. “Ead, she has the other jewel. The rising jewel.”

Ead almost dropped the cup.

“That cannot be,” she said hoarsely. “It is in the East.”

“No more.”

“Let me see it.” She tried to sit up, arms quavering with the effort. “Let me see the jewel.”

“Enough of that.” Margret wrestled her back into the pillows. “You have taken little but drops of honey for weeks.”

“Tell me exactly how she found it.”

“Would that I knew. As soon as she had handed me the fruit, she fell down with exhaustion.”

“Who knows she is here?”

“Myself, Doctor Bourn, and a few of the Knights of the Body. Tharian feared that if anyone saw an Easterner in Ascalon Palace, they would haul the poor child to the stake.”

“I understand his caution,” Ead said, “but, Meg, I must speak to her.”

“You can speak to whoever you like once I am satisfied that you will not fall on your face while doing so.”

Ead pursed her lips and drank.

“Dearest Meg,” she said, quieter, and touched her hand, “did I miss your wedding?”

“Of course not. I delayed it for you.” Margret took back the cup. “I had no idea what a tiring affair it would be. Mama wants me to wear white now. Who in the world wears white on their wedding day?”

Ead was about to remark that she would look very well in white when the door flew open—and then Sabran was in the bedchamber, dressed in crimson silk, breast heaving.

Margret stood.

“I will see to it that Doctor Bourn also received my message,” she said, with the slightest smile.

She closed the door softly behind her.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. Then Ead held out a hand, and Sabran came to the bed and embraced her, breathing as if she had run for leagues. Ead held her close.

“Damn you, Eadaz uq-Nāra.”

Ead released a breath, half sigh and half laugh. “How many times have we damned each other now?”

“Not nearly enough.”

Sabran remained by her side until a harassed-looking Tharian Lintley came to take her back to the Council Chamber. The Dukes Spiritual were poring over the letter from Loth, and her presence was required.

At noon, Margret let Aralaq into the bedchamber. He licked Ead’s face raw, told her that she should never walk into poisonous darts (“Yes, Aralaq, I wonder that I never thought of that before”), and spent the rest of the day draped across her like a fur coverlet.

Sabran had insisted that the Royal Physician examine her before she rose, but by sundown, Ead yearned to stretch her limbs. When Doctor Bourn finally came, he wisely judged that she was well enough to stand. She eased her legs from under Aralaq, who had lapsed into a doze, and dropped a kiss between his ears. His nose twitched.

Tomorrow, she would pay a visit to the stranger.

This night was for Sabran.

The highest room in the Queen Tower was taken up by an immense sunken bath. Water was drawn up from a spring and stove-heated in the Privy Kitchen so the queen might have hot baths all year round.

A slow-burning candle was the only light. The rest of the chamber was steam and shadow. Through its large windows, Ead could see the glittering stars above Ascalon.

Sabran sat on the edge of the bath in a petticoat, hair strung with pearls. Ead shed her robe and stepped into the steaming water. She savored its warmth as she poured from a jar of creamgrail, lathered it between her palms, and worked it into her hair.

She dipped her head under and washed the sweet foam away. Submerged to her shoulders, she floated to Sabran and laid her head on her lap. Cool fingers untangled her curls. The heat loosened her limbs, made her feel alive again.

“I feared you had left me for good this time,” Sabran said to her. The walls reflected her voice.

“The poison I was given comes from the fruit of the tree when it rots. It is meant to kill,” Ead said. “Nairuj must have given me a diluted measure on purpose. She spared me.”

“Not only that, but the other jewel has come to us. As if brought by the tide.” Sabran ghosted her fingers through the water. “Even you must see that as divine intervention.”

“Perhaps. I will speak to our Seiikinese guest in the morning.” Ead drifted backward and let her hair fan out across the water’s surface. “Is Loth well?”

“Apparently so. He has had yet more adventures, this time involving pirates,” Sabran said dryly, “but yes. The Unceasing Emperor has asked him to remain in the City of the Thousand Flowers. He says he is unharmed.”

No doubt Loth would be kept there until Sabran paid what she had promised. A common enough arrangement. He would manage; he had navigated far more devious courts.

“So the last stand of humanity will take place betwixt and between the two sides of the world,” Sabran murmured. “We will not last long on the Abyss. Not in wooden ships. The Lord Admiral assures me that there are ways to protect our vessels from flame, and we will have water aplenty to quench the fires, but I cannot think that these methods will buy more than minutes.” Sabran met her gaze. “Do you think the witch will come?”

It was almost a certainty.

“I wager she will try to end your life with the True Sword. The sword Galian revered will be used to end his bloodline. Their bloodline,” Ead said. “She would relish the poesy of it.”

“What a loving ancestor I have,” Sabran said calmly.

“You accept what I told you, then.” Ead studied her face. “That you have mage blood in you.”

“I have accepted many things.”

Ead saw in her eyes that it was the truth. There was a new and cold resolve about them.

It had been a year of hard realities. The walls they had built to protect their beliefs had crumbled at their feet, and Sabran had watched her faith begin to decay with them.

“I have spent my life believing that in my blood was the power to keep a monster chained. Now I must face it knowing otherwise.” Sabran closed her eyes. “I am afraid of what that day will bring. I am afraid that we will not see the first light of summer.”

Ead waded to her and framed her face between her hands.

“We have nothing to fear,” she said, with more conviction than she felt. “The Nameless One was defeated before. He can be defeated again.”

Sabran nodded. “I pray so.”

Her petticoat soaked up the water. Ead felt her every limb turn boneless as Sabran pulled her out of the bath, smiling.

Their lips came together in the darkness. Ead gathered Sabran to her, and Sabran kissed the droplets from her skin. They had been parted twice, and Ead knew, as she had always known, that they would be divided anew before long, whether by war or by fate.

She slipped her hands beneath the satin of the petticoat. When her palms found burning flesh, she drew back.

“Sabran,” she said, “you’re on fire.”

She had thought it was the heat from the bath, but Sabran was a splinter of kindling.

“It’s nothing, Ead, truly.” Sabran smoothed a thumb over her cheek. “Doctor Bourn says the inflammation will flare from time to time.”

“Then you need to rest.”

“I can hardly take to my bed at a time like this.”

“You can take to your bed or your bier. The choice is yours.”

Making a face, Sabran sat up. “Very well. But you are not to play nursemaid.” She watched Ead rise and dry herself. “You must speak with the Easterner on the morrow. Everything depends on our being able to coexist in peace.”

Ead pulled on her bedgown.

“I make no promises,” she said.

In her years of study at the South House, Tané had been taught only what were considered to be the necessary facts about the Queendom of Inys. She had learned about their monarchy and their religion of Six Virtues. She knew their capital was called Ascalon, and that they had the largest and best-armed navy in the world. Now she also knew that they lived in damp and cold, kept idols in their bedchambers, and forced their sick to drink a lumpy gruel that set her teeth on edge.

Fortunately, nobody had tried to coax it into her this morning. A servant had brought her a jug of ale, thick-cut slices of sweet bread, and a stew of brown meat. All of it had clotted in her stomach. She had only tried ale once before, when Susa had stolen a cup for her from Orisima, and she had thought it foul.

In the South House, there had been minimal furniture and sparing artwork. She had always liked that simplicity; it left her room to think. Castles were more ornate, of course, but the Inysh seemed to revel in things. In adornment. Even the curtains were dolorous. Then there was the bed, which was so laden with covers, it seemed to swallow her.

Still, it was good to be warm. After such a long journey, all she had been able to do for a day was sleep.

The Resident Ambassador to Mentendon returned when the sun was high.

“Lady Nurtha is here, honorable Tané,” she said in Seiikinese. “Should I let her in?”

At last.

“Yes.” Tané set the meal aside. “I will see her.”

When she was alone, Tané folded her hands on the covers. Eels were twisting in her stomach. She had wanted to meet Lady Nurtha on her feet, but the Inysh had put her in a lace-trimmed garment that made her look a fool. Better to maintain a semblance of dignity.

A woman soon appeared in the doorway. Her riding boots made no sound.

Tané studied the slayer. Her skin was smooth and golden-brown, and her hair, which curled like wood shavings, sat thick and dark on her shoulders. There was something of Chassar, the man who had saved her, in the lines of her jaw and brow, and Tané wondered if they were kin.

“The Resident Ambassador tells me you speak Inysh.” She had a Southern lilt. “I had no idea it was taught in Seiiki.”

“Not to everyone,” Tané said. “Only to those in training for the High Sea Guard.”

“I see.” The slayer folded her arms. “I am Eadaz uq-Nāra. You may call me Ead.”

“Tané.”

“You have no family name.”

“It was Miduchi once.”

There was a brief silence.

“I am told you made a perilous journey to the Priory to save my life. I thank you for it.” Ead went to the window seat. “I assume Lord Arteloth told you what I am.”

“A wyrm-killer.”

“Yes. And you are a wyrm-lover.”

“You would slay my dragon if she were here.”

“A few weeks ago, you would have been right. My sisters once slaughtered an Eastern wyrm that thought it shrewd to fly over Lasia.” Ead spoke without apparent remorse, and Tané wrestled with a surge of hatred. “If you will oblige me, I would like to hear how you started this journey, Tané.”

If the slayer was going to be civil, so would Tané. She told Ead how she had come to have the rising jewel, her skirmish with the pirates, and her brief and violent detour to the Priory.

It was at this point that Ead began to pace back and forth. Two small lines appeared between her eyebrows.

“So the Prioress is dead, and the Witch of Inysca has possession of the orange tree,” she said. “Let us hope that she seeks only to keep it to herself, and not to gift it to the Nameless One.”

Tané allowed her a moment. “Who is the Witch of Inysca?” she finally asked, quietly.

Ead closed her eyes.

“It is a long tale,” she said, “but if you wish, I will tell it to you. I will tell you everything that has happened to me over the last year. After your journey, you deserve the truth.”

While rain drizzled down the window, she did. Tané listened without interrupting.

She listened to Ead tell her the history of the Priory of the Orange Tree, and the letter she had found from Neporo. About the Witch of Inysca and the House of Berethnet. About the two branches of magic, and the comet and the sword Ascalon, and how the jewels fit into it all. A servant brought them hot wine while Ead talked, but by the time she was finished, both cups had turned cold, untouched.

“I understand if you find this difficult to believe,” Ead said. “It all sounds quite ridiculous.”

“No.” Tané released her breath for what felt like the first time in hours. “Well, yes, it does. But I believe you.”

She realized she was shivering. Ead flicked her fingers, and a fire sprang up in the hearth.

“Neporo had a mulberry tree,” Tané said, even as she took in this evidence of magic. “I may be her descendant. It is how I came to have the rising jewel.”

For a time, Ead seemed to digest this. “Is this mulberry tree alive?”

“No.”

Ead visibly clenched her jaw.

“Cleolind and Neporo,” she said. “One mage of the South. One of the East. It seems that history is to repeat itself.”

“I am like you, then.” Tané watched the flames dance behind a grate. “Kalyba also had a tree, and Queen Sabran is her descendant. Does that make us both sorceresses?”

“Mages,” Ead corrected, though she sounded distracted. “Having mage blood does not make you one. You must eat of the fruit to call yourself that. But it is why the tree yielded you a fruit in the first place.” She lowered herself on the window seat. “You said my sisters grounded your wyrm. It never occurred to me to ask how you reached Inys.”

“A great bird.”

Ead’s gaze snapped to her.

“Parspa,” she said. “Chassar must have sent her.”

“Yes.”

“I am surprised he trusted you. The Priory does not take kindly to wyrm-lovers.”

“You would not despise the Eastern dragons if you knew anything about them. They are nothing like the fire-breathers.” Tané stared her out. “I despise the Nameless One. His servants threw down our gods in the Great Sorrow, and I mean to throw him down in punishment for it. In any case,” she said, “you have no choice but to trust me.”

“I could kill you. Take the jewel.”

From the look in her eyes, she would do it. There was a knife in a sheath at her hip.

“And use both jewels yourself?” Tané said, undaunted. “I assume you know how.” She took her case from under the pillows and tipped the rising jewel into her palm. “I have used mine to guide a ship through a windless sea. I have used it to draw the waves onto the sand. So I know that it drains you—slowly at first, so you can bear it, like the ache from a rotten tooth. Then it turns your blood cold, and your limbs heavy, and you long only to sleep for years.” She held it out. “The burden must be shared.”

Slowly, Ead took it. With her other hand, she eased a chain from around her neck.

The waning jewel. A little moon, round and milky. The steady glow from a star was inside it, calm where its twin was always sparkling. Ead held one jewel in each palm.

“The keys to the Abyss.”

Tané felt a chill.

It seemed impossible that they had united them.

“There is a plan in place to defeat the Nameless One. I assume Loth told you.” Ead handed back the blue jewel. “You and I will use these keys to bind him forever in the deep.”

Just as Neporo had a thousand years ago, with a fellow mage beside her.

“I should warn you,” Ead said, “that we cannot kill the Nameless One without Ascalon. Someone must drive it into his heart before we use the jewels. To quench his fire. My hope is that the Witch of Inysca will bring it to us, and that we can take it from her. If not, it is possible that your Eastern wyr— dragons . . . will be able to weaken him enough for us to use the jewels without the sword. Perhaps then we can bind him for another thousand years. I mislike that option, for it means that another generation will have to take up this mantle.”

“I agree,” Tané said. “It must end here.”

“Good. We will practice with the jewels together.”

Ead reached into a pouch at her side and withdrew the golden fruit Tané had brought to Inys.

“Take a bite of this,” she said. “Siden may help you in this battle. Especially if Kalyba comes.” Tané watched her place it on the nightstand. “Do it soon. It will rot today.”

After a moment, Tané nodded.

“Binding the Nameless One may be the end of us both,” Ead said, softer. “Are you willing to take that risk?”

“To die in the service of a better world would be the highest honor.”

Ead gave her a faint smile. “I believe we understand each other. On this one thing, at least.”

To her surprise, Tané found herself smiling in return.

“Come and find me when you feel stronger,” Ead said. “There is a lake in Chesten Forest. We can learn to use the jewels. And see how long we can last without killing each other.”

With that, she took her leave. Tané slipped the rising jewel, still glinting, back into its case.

The golden fruit was glowing. She cupped it in her hands for a long time before she tasted of its flesh. Sweetness burst beneath her teeth and washed over her tongue. When she swallowed, it was hot.

The fruit fell to the floor, and she erupted into flame.

In the Great Bedchamber, the Queen of Inys burned. Doctor Bourn had watched her all day, but now Ead went to her side, against her word.

Sabran slept in the vise of her fever. Ead sat on the bed and soaked a cloth with water.

The Prioress was dead, and the Priory in the hands of the witch. The thought of the Vale of Blood filled with wyrms, brought there by a mage, was as bitter to Ead as wormwood.

At least Kalyba would not harm the orange tree. It was her only source of the siden she craved.

Ead cooled Sabran’s hot brow. She could not mourn for Mita Yedanya, but she did for her sisters, who had lost their second matriarch in as many years. With the Prioress dead, they would either flee elsewhere and elect a new leader—likely Nairuj—or submit to Kalyba so they might stay close to the tree. Whatever they chose, Ead prayed Chassar would be safe.

Sabran had fallen still by dusk. Ead was trimming the wicks on the candles when the silence broke.

“What did the Easterner say?”

Ead looked over her shoulder. Sabran was watching her.

Quietly, so no one outside the door could eavesdrop, Ead recounted her meeting with Tané. When she was finished, Sabran gazed with glassy eyes at the canopy.

“I will address my people the day after tomorrow,” she said. “To tell them about the alliance.”

“You are not well. Surely you can delay for a day or two.”

“A queen does not abandon her plans for a trifling fever.” She sighed as Ead covered her with the mantle. “I told you not to play nursemaid.”

“And I told you I was not your subject.”

Sabran muttered into her pillow.

When she had drifted back to sleep, Ead took out the waning jewel. It had sensed other magic, and latched on to it, even though its nature was the opposite of hers.

A knock had her tucking the jewel away. She opened the door and found Margret on the threshold.

“Ead.” She looked nervous. “The rulers of the South have just arrived at Summerport. What do you suppose they want?”