1
A foul scent was in the air. Taul breathed it in and grimaced. The impossible had happened.
He squinted and pulled his hood down over his eyes. The canopy of dense foliage cast baleful shadows on the orchard’s floor as summer’s light pierced it like menacing spears. Black gnarled branches wrestled above him, and slick roots writhed on either side of the path. Clusters of pale green buds hung from ebony branches like grapes on a vine. In a week they’d change, taking on the familiar pear shape and darkening to black violet. He heaved as he trudged through the boggy undergrowth. Pungent dampness filled his lungs and nausea seized his gut. He paused and sank deeper. Leaves rustled overhead as an easterly wind raced through the canopy. He sighed with relief and caught his breath again.
In his youth he’d run through here, feral, barefoot, balancing on the twisting roots, his gray Mornae skin exposed to the elements, hands brushing the trunks, silver-white hair long and wild and full of goddess-light. Zeldra, a nine-thousand-year-old pear orchard, had been the center of his world. He’d made his trials in its dark womb.
He smoothed the silver-gray tuft on his chin. It was proper to abandon the need to look young; he needed to look respectable to fit in with his peers. He cut his hair short like a shopkeeper, silver-gray with white underneath. Tenders usually kept their hair long if it held goddess-light, the surest sign of the goddess’s continued favor. His grandfather used to tell him that the goddess’s white hand granted the surest badge of favor, not human hands, no matter how great they were. Of course, his grandfather had also swayed piously under a statue of the goddess and their house thought him mad. Taul rubbed his fingers together, recalling the power coursing through those ancient trees. The day he’d cut his hair, the goddess-light had faded from the long strands, and he’d wept in private.
None would confuse him with a tender now. Instead, he was the prime consort of Lor’Toshtolin, a house with a rich history, a house that crafted the sorcery of this valley, an ancient house linked to the third Ilor’Hosmyr matron. And he was born of Lor’Nevtar, a respected long-time vassal.
It had been fifty—no, sixty years—since he’d last been so close to the heart of the orchard. Those had been happy times, when he prepared to make his guild oath as a master tender.
Then he’d met Ryldia, the young matron of Lor’Toshtolin.
Balniss, his elder brother, had been her intended consort in return for an uncle who consorted into Lor’Nevtar four hundred years ago. During their courtship, Taul had become fascinated with her. When Balniss announced his decision to become a diviner, Ryldia asked Taul to be her consort. Smitten with her, he’d left the orchard for Halkamas, Ilor’Hosmyr’s city in the crater, and assumed the duties of a prime consort of her house of forty members. His only concern became to see it endure with Ryldia at its head. Had he remained in the valley, had he followed the path allotted him by the goddess, he would be a master tender by now, and perhaps could have prevented what now ailed the orchard.
He scanned the trunks, searching for his steward. The air thickened again, and the putrid scent assaulted his nostrils. He scowled at his muddy boots and soggy trousers, the hem of his fine wool cloak weighed down with damp and sludge. He stopped, thighs burning, hand to his chest, his ribs expanding and contracting like he’d just run a race. His old master had taught him that the valley air held the promise of life, but now it was oppressing him. He’d been away too long, accustomed now to the crater’s rarefied, dry air.
“Here!” a voice cried from the orchard’s depths.
Zaknil, the estate’s steward, peered out from behind a trunk twice a man’s width.
“This is where I found it, sir,” he said.
He was a hundred paces into the deepest part of the orchard, a sea of black trunks, roots, branches, and limbs with only the slimmest shafts of light to distinguish them from each other.
“Coming,” Taul said, waving.
He couldn’t deny the smell, but he’d also not come prepared to resolve a serious problem. A mound of concerns awaited him in the crater: papers to sign, contracts to seal, crates to examine, an endless list of administrative tasks. He clambered over and around the trees, gloved hands and booted feet sliding on the slick limbs and exposed roots. Nausea flooded him again as he bent over at Zaknil’s side to catch his breath and brush the muck off his pants. It was hopeless.
“See there,” Zaknil said, pointing to a writhing pit of tender roots and pitch soil. “Will you go in, sir?” he asked.
Taul cleared his throat, removed his cloak, and set it down at the pit’s edge. Zaknil helped him down into the darkness. He pressed gloved fingers to the roots and dread filled him.
“It’s a rot,” he said calmly.
Zaknil grunted and said, “Not like anything we’ve seen, sir. Heavy with water. We dug down and the soil and rock beneath are chilled.”
Taul grimaced.
“Not enough warmth,” Zaknil added.
“Yes, I understand,” Taul said, holding back his irritation. He was thrice trialed and needed no explanation.
He yanked off his gloves and tossed them to Zaknil. The musk of ancient growth filled his lungs. Zaknil crouched down at the pit’s edge and stared wide-eyed, expecting a magical display. Whether Taul could practice the art after so many years was doubtful, but either way, Zaknil wouldn’t see a thing. Only those with the gift would know if Taul was a true tender.
Taul closed his eyes, grasped two large roots, and sought the orchard’s sorcery. Blood thrummed in his ears. His heart lurched, eager to find his own power once again. He wrung the roots, prying off the outer layer, rubbing away to the root’s soft flesh. He needed to remain calm in front of Zaknil. The man was only a vassal. If Zeldra failed, gossip from men like Zaknil would flood the valley and the crater. Then Lor’Toshtolin would fail. Everything depended on this one orchard.
He inhaled deeply and held the heavy air in his lungs. At first, he only sensed a tingle, then a lightness worked its way through him until the orchard cradled him. A strange but familiar pressure cupped the back of his skull, neck, and spine. This was the sorcery of living things, and it made this place alive with power like the magnificent monuments constructed by the earth sorcerers of old. His fingers dug into the roots’ soft core. It had been too long, and tears welled in his eyes. He choked them down. Only the goddess should witness his joy.
A breeze wafted the scent of blossoms through the undergrowth and down into the pit. Already, the younger trees were in their third blooming. He knew it without knowing how. The orchard told him. There was more, though. Stored within it was the story of the people who had worked and continued to work its growth.
Young trees grew wild for three to six decades, and the young men, the apprentices, grew with them, tending them every day, mingling their thoughts, their blood, with them. Their impressions of desire and need and want seized Taul. Their aspirations bled into the sap of the orchard like blood. Like his own.
“Sir?” Zaknil blurted. “Are you unwell?”
Taul opened his eyes. How easily this reverie carried away his concerns! How easily he lost himself here! The sadness of returning to the crater surprised him. He patted the roots, running two fingers along each, sending power coursing through them. With this constant care, for years upon years, the trees would transform, thickening and producing fruit unlike any in the world.
Zaknil reached down and helped Taul climb out of the well of roots.
“What do you make of it, sir?” Zaknil asked.
Taul shook his head and wiped his hands in vain. The dark earth clung to him and seeped into his skin. Zaknil watched his every move as if Taul would make a pronouncement like a shaman or even the Voice herself. Zaknil was not a guilded tender, and his presence was an offense to the countless sacrifices Taul’s ancestors had made to the grove. He came from a crater house and their members worked in Lor’Toshtolin’s enterprises. Yet, like so many of this age, they had few of the strengths that had made the Mornae great. In the past, tenders would have slain a man like Zaknil, cutting him down before he could sully the heart of the orchard with his presence. Taul’s hands balled up, pressed against his sides. It was proximity to powerful sorcery that drove such feelings and flooded his mind with dark thoughts. His eyes closed to slits, fighting the urge to lash out at Zaknil. It was a good thing he’d only worn a small defensive blade tucked beneath his surcoat.
Black flames, invisible to all but true Mornae, crept over the jagged bark and leaves. The Dark was alluring, but chaos rippled on its surface.
“I don’t know,” Taul said loudly, hooking his thumbs in his cloth belt and gazing about at the expanse of black trunks.
It wasn’t Zaknil’s fault. If anyone was to blame, it was him and his kind who’d abandoned the valley for the crater.
“Has any other steward mentioned the problem?” he asked.
Zaknil shrugged and handed Taul his gloves and cloak.
No, of course, no one mentioned it. Who would say such a thing openly? To admit that Zeldra, one of three remaining founding orchards in the east valley, had an inexplicable rot, could mean economic doom for Taul’s house. Lor’Toshtolin held one of four contracts to deliver the best pears to Ilor’Hosmyr, Third High House. Ilor’Hosmyr, in turn, held the only contract in all Vaidolin to provide pear wine to Ilor’Vakayne. There were other crops, other avenues to make silver, but this was the most prestigious. Only from these pears could Ilor’Vakayne make its prized brandy, a powerful sorcery of its own.
“There is another bad pit over there,” Zaknil said, stepping carefully on the crests of thick roots like they were ocean waves.
