Treacherous Witch

"The goldentree is the source of all magic. It's a transcendent construct that manifests in the silvertrees, the priesthood, and sorcery itself."

Interview with Queen Shikra III, as told to Master Anwen

She met the scholar in the garden. Valerie had expected to be taken to a library or study, but instead the guard escorted her to one of the greenhouses where an old man pottered about in the vegetable patch. Her first impression of him was of an old, wide-brimmed hat.

Then he looked up, and his face cracked into a wide, crinkly smile. "Lady Valerie! Yes? Good morning! What a delight it is—no, an honour—to meet you."

He shook her hand vigorously, and she couldn't help smiling back. Patches of white hair poked out beneath his hat. He was wearing a waistcoat and tails like those favoured by the Drakonian lords, but the velvet cloak was distinctly battered and trailing with dirt.

"Come by the shed," he invited her, and she obliged. The bemused gardener shot both of them a look when the scholar instructed his manservant to pull up folding chairs for the pair of them. The old man's bones creaked as he sat down and sighed. "Many apologies, my lady, for dragging you over to the tomato vines, but I have an ongoing experiment that couldn't wait."

She sat down beside him, folding her hands in her lap. "Experiment?"

He waved a hand. "Yes, I'm monitoring the temperature and consistency of the soil and conducting a biosurvey inside and outside the greenhouse. The greenhouse is hotter, you see, so I intend to investigate how and whether that affects the lifecycle and population growth of the green-backed beetle."

"The... green-backed beetle?"

"A rare species found only in the southern climes of Maskamere. There's a wonderful population right here, and the gardener keeps squashing them, can you believe! I've instructed him to stop that at once so I can monitor the population undisturbed."

"Don't they eat the vegetables?"

"Well, yes, but they must be undisturbed for my work."

"Lord Avon said you were an expert in magic, not beetles," she said, trying not to smile.

"Yes! I'm an expert in both. Beetles were my first love, from my days roaming the fields at home as a boy. There are endless varieties. I myself have documented over thirty new species. My search led me to Maskamere, where I came across a silvertree for the first time. It was only a sapling—natural born, they thought, almost unheard of, but it was extraordinary. Then I learned about the connection between the silvertrees and the priestesses, and, well, I've been here ever since." He paused, pushing his glasses up his nose, then seemed to remember something. "I'm Master Anwen. Did I say that?"

"No—it's a pleasure to meet you, Master Anwen." She was very curious now. He was Drakonian, but he didn't speak like any of the other Drakonians she had met. "How long have you lived in Maskamere?"

"Oh, over thirty years. The beetles are a hobby. I've devoted my life to the study of sorcery, its history, its natural mechanisms. I firmly believe it should belong to a branch of the biological sciences."

"You're a natural philosopher?"

He nodded. "I'm writing a book which will be the definitive guide to the natural origins of sorcery for all who may be interested in Drakon. It includes firsthand accounts from local practitioners as well as my own observations, deductions and theories."

"What about the books written by the priestesses? Have you read those too?"

At this, Anwen gave her a pained look. "As a man, I was never allowed into a convent. Can you believe it! I've scoured the library here, and there's very little of interest on the topic, even before the purge."

"So... you're saying that you've ignored over a thousand years of teaching and learning to write your own book even though you've never practised magic yourself?"

He looked taken aback. "Dear me, that's an unflattering way to put it. No, it isn't through lack of trying. Most priestesses refused to talk to me, but over the years I've conducted dozens of interviews with petty sorcerers of all kinds and gathered a great deal of information."

"What kind of information?" she asked at once. Here, at last, they might be getting somewhere.

"Well, that was the problem." He waved his hands. "It was all contradictory. A complete mess. I realised later that some of my interviewees were frauds or lying, but I had no idea who was genuine and who wasn't. I almost gave up on my book. Then I met her."

"Met who?"

"Queen Shikra."

A shiver ran up her spine. He'd met the queen. Valerie sat up straight. At this point she wanted to know everything, whether or not it would help her.

"What was she like?"

"Wonderful. Terrifying. I've never seen anyone do what she could do. I remember one spring we had terrible thunderstorms in Jairah. The western quarter was flooded, then one of the temples was struck by lightning and caught fire. The queen was away, I forget why, some royal visit or other, but she came riding back the very next night, and I'll never forget what I saw."

Valerie was enraptured, drinking in every word. The old man was misty-eyed as he recounted his tale.

"She raised her hands and the rain stopped. The heavens cleared. She had a crown on her head, and she was holding a golden sceptre. Well, she pointed that staff at a building that had collapsed on the temple and blasted it to smithereens. Then she rebuilt the temple out of the ruins, raised it up good as new."

"She built the temple?"

"Not only that," Anwen answered gravely, "but every single place damaged by the flooding, she rebuilt in one night. Then she walked around and tended to the injured."

She tried to imagine what it must have been like. This solitary figure, the queen in her silks and crown, wielding the power of the sceptre. The clouds parting. Sunlight touching the bricks and mortar of the city as it was miraculously repaired. The people grateful, eager for a glimpse of the queen as she walked among them to heal their wounds.

"Every year, the royal family would travel the country to bless the harvest," she said softly. "I wish I'd seen it for myself."

The queen had visited her village once, when she was a small child. She didn't remember it.

"Yes," said Anwen, "and have you noticed that since the queen's death, the crops have failed? Two poor years in a row, and I'd never seen a bad year before. If we didn't import food from Drakon, half the country would be suffering a famine. We've had heavy snow in the west, flooding in the south. Queen Shikra didn't just save the capital from disaster. She was central to the entire ecosystem."

"You think all of that happened because the queen is gone?"

The scholar shrugged. "We can only speculate. But my prediction is that it will get worse."

"Then how do we fix it? I thought that if we restored the silvertrees..."

Then magic would return. She'd visited a town in one of these dead zones once, a part of Maskamere that was bereft of magic. Her cloak of warming had turned into a cloak of shivering, and she'd gotten blisters on her feet from pushing a cart up a muddy hill. She'd suffered with that all day before they got back home. Koel had not been sympathetic.

"Never again," she'd vowed to Markus, who had laughed at her. Iora hadn't said much either. Perhaps they thought her spoiled for complaining, but it only made her mad all over again that the Drakonians had so callously destroyed something that improved people's lives.

"Hmm?" said Anwen, and she blinked.

"Sorry. I was wondering if the magic would fade here too."

"That I don't know," said Anwen. "Some believe a silvertree still lives in or near Jairah, hidden from mortal eyes, and that is why sorcery is still possible. Others say it is the queen's influence that lingers, at least for a time. I suspect the former, but we've found no evidence that such a tree exists."

She thought of the door in the temple, the secret chamber that Avon was so desperate to break into. But a tree couldn't grow underground. Then there were the other magical items in the palace...

"Are there other sorcerers here? I mean, in the palace?"

He frowned. "In the palace? No, not that I know of. You are the first to be invited at Lord Avon's request, and you are fortunate that he takes a more favourable view of magic. The previous Chancellor didn't want to hear a word, let me tell you."

"So it must be the queen's magic."

It was the only logical conclusion. Caius had claimed that the queen's spells would survive longer than most. Why would some rogue sorcerer choose to live undetected in the palace and use their powers only to heat bathtubs and record music? These were spells from the time before, a time of peace. The fact that she had encountered most of them in the royal quarters was further evidence that they were the queen's work.

Anwen peered at her curiously. "What do you mean?"

"Lord Avon wants me to break a seal that Queen Shikra made," she said, feeling that she could trust him. "It's in the temple in the palace. Do you know where it leads?"

"The palace temple?" He looked surprised. "Well, I can't be sure, but I do have a strong suspicion. You know the legend of the golden fruit?"

She nodded. "It's the most famous story in Maska's Testimonium."

The story of how over a thousand years ago, Maska had journeyed across the sea. To the east, all the way to the place where the sun rose, there was a mountain. On top of that mountain stood the goldentree. As tall as the highest tower, its leaves and branches shone pure gold, radiating light. Only one of its branches hung low enough for Maska to reach. From it, she had plucked a glimmering, golden fruit...

"The golden fruit is an elixir," said Anwen, his eyes shining. "Maska drank from the fruit and received the gift of eternal youth."

"She brought the fruit back to Maskamere," said Valerie, "and planted its seeds around Jairah. That's how the first silvertrees were grown."

"Nonsense, of course," said Anwen. "Pure myth. But there is some truth to it. In my thirty years in Jairah, Queen Shikra never aged a day. She was radiant with youth until the very end. There have always been rumours about the magical treasures hidden in the palace..."

"You think the elixir is one of them? That's what's behind the door?"

"Perhaps. A chamber that only the royal family can enter, protected for over a thousand years..."

This was what Avon was after? An elixir of eternal youth, a gift from the goldentree—and the prospect of immortality... Her stomach knotted.

"Does Lord Avon know?"

"I've shared my theory, of course. I..." The old man was slowly catching on. "He didn't tell you?"

"No."

He'd lied to her. Claimed he didn't know. But if Avon believed Anwen, if he took the theory seriously... He hoped to drink the elixir himself. And if he did that, if he lived for a hundred years or more, the Drakonian boot would stamp a permanent imprint into the heart and soul of Maskamere. They'd already destroyed the silvertrees. Now he wanted to steal Maska's own gift.

She couldn't let it happen. She couldn't open that door.

Bakra would know. He had to know whether Anwen's theory was fact or fiction. It was more important than ever for Valerie to get back to him.

"Forgive me," said Anwen, looking troubled for the first time. "Perhaps I've talked too much. I understood from Lord Avon that you have a spell to perform, a task that I am to do all I can to assist you with. The seal, yes? Why don't we talk about that?"

He asked her to describe in detail everything she knew about the seal: what it looked like, how it felt, what she could sense about it and anything else she could think of. While she talked, he scrawled notes in a battered little notebook. He made an exclamation when she told him that only a woman could break the seal, but offered nothing further other than furious scribbles.

When she ran out of things to say, he snapped the notebook shut and tipped back his hat with a sigh. "Fascinating. I haven't a clue, honestly, but I've heard of magical locks and the like being placed on all kinds of things—doors, books, cabinets... I'll consult my notes and come back to you. Shall we meet again tomorrow?"

Valerie was hoping they wouldn't have to meet again tomorrow, because she would finish that rose tonight and make her escape. But she nodded politely and bid him farewell.