The floor was a great crater, and at the center a sphere glowed coolly blue, a now familiar color. Nothing gave a sense of scale; the ball might have been as big as a house.
No serpent. She hesitated at the lip of the bowl, then took a tentative step.
“Teth!” cried a stone at her feet. She’d almost trodden upon Pathka, who’d been perfectly still but was now dancing around her, his earlier irritation apparently dispelled.
“This is Anathuthia’s nest!” he cried. “That’s her egg. Isn’t it astonishing?”
It was. Tess tried to say so, but Pathka was bounding so comically that she had to put all her effort toward not laughing. Laughing was excruciating. She lowered herself gingerly and Pathka rubbed against her. “She laid it before my eyes. This must be her ancient birthplace.”
“Where is she now?” Tess whispered, glancing around. Was it dangerous to invade a serpent’s nest? Maternal instinct could make even placid creatures fierce.
“She left.” Pathka’s gravelly voice reverberated; apparently he didn’t share her worry. “Maybe looking for sustenance. Laying eggs is work.”
Tess could hardly take her eyes off the egg. Its light seemed to swirl and sing, like the surface of a river.
“It’s her blood that makes it glow,” said Pathka, anticipating Tess’s question. “It will probably fade as it dries.”
They watched in silence. “Pathka,” Tess said at last, “I’m afraid…I need to go—”
“Wait until she comes back,” said Pathka. “Look Anathuthia in the eye, and then tell me you have any desire to be anywhere else.”
Tess shifted, wincing. “You don’t understand. I fell down here…underprepared. Water’s almost gone. I want to…not die of thirst.”
“Oh, is that all?” said Pathka, perking up. “Wait here. I’ll find a spur to the surface.”
The egg’s glow had nearly faded by the time Pathka returned. Kindly, he’d made Tess a torch. “I’ve found a way up that doesn’t involve crawling across the ceiling,” he said. “Follow.”
He led her to a tunnel that seemed artificial, to Tess’s surprise; chiseled steps curled upward in a spiral. “Maybe this was once a mine,” Pathka speculated. “The chamber might have held useful minerals. Saltpeter? Is that used in St. Ogdo’s fire?”
Tess didn’t know her knightly lore and wasn’t sure. She mounted the stairs alone.
She emerged, jelly-legged after a long climb, into a decorated grotto. Above the arched doorway was carved in an archaic script: PAU-HENOA’S GATE.
Tess knew that name: it was the pagans’ trickster god, who’d gone under the earth to fetch the sun. Maybe this was where the world had given birth to daylight.
Or maybe those pagans had glimpsed a World Serpent’s egg.
The inscription notwithstanding, the grotto had been converted into a shrine to St. Prue—Santi Prudia, in Ninysh—complete with altar, bas-reliefs of her life story, and dried flowers on the floor. A hand-painted sign forbade anyone but the abbot and priors to descend the stairs, which were dark and slippery and led to a meditation chamber containing absolutely no treasure of any kind. Tess wondered whether that last protestation made people want to check and see. There were contrarians in this world, and she should know.
Apparently there were also monks who knew about Anathuthia. This was much more surprising.
Outside loomed their massive monastery, surrounded by a wall. Tess made out an orchard on the other side, and more outbuildings than she could be bothered to count. The bell for whatever monks did at twilight began to ring, and she heard pattering feet and snatches of song. She skirted the compound toward the setting sun until she reached the gates and saw that the monastery, like the shrine, was dedicated to Santi Prudia. These monks would be historians and archivists, but if she was hungry, they surely wouldn’t turn her away.
The earth grumbled again. Tess steadied herself, gritting her teeth against the pain in her side, and then knocked at the bronze-bossed monastery doors.
A panel in the door slid to one side, and a pair of long-lashed hazel eyes peered at Tess through a grating. “You knocked?” said a nasal tenor. “Or was that the earth?”
Tess affected a pious mien. “Bless you, Brother, I was passing by…and I was—”
“Terrified by earthquakes? Wise man. Go back where you came from.” The panel snapped sharply shut.
Tess, irritated, knocked again. The panel opened ominously slowly, no eyes visible now, only the darkness at the heart of the gatehouse. When Tess drew nearer to squint into the gloom, the monk popped up and startled her. “Go away. I won’t be nice a third time.”
“You haven’t been nice once!” She had to catch her breath. “Is this how your order treats…hungry and indigent? Your fellow churchmen? I’m a…seminarian.”
The eyes blinked, and she heard a mumble that might have been “Damn it.” The door swung open and there stood a scrawny, slouching monk, maybe five or six years her senior, in a blue cassock. His sharp nose might’ve looked decisive if the rest of his face hadn’t looked so resigned; it was the lone dissenter, and a little depressed about it. “Come in, then. And for the record: you don’t look like a seminarian. You look like a wiseacre.” He stepped aside to let Tess in. “I’m Frai Moldi—for when you report me to the abbot. What do you call yourself, Brother?”
“Jacomo,” said Tess. She extended her hand, and Frai Moldi scowled. Only then did she notice that his right sleeve was empty, tied in a knot to keep it out of his way. “I beg your pardon,” she said, quickly offering her left instead. He took her up on the offer, never quite losing his skeptical expression. She grimaced; her left arm connected directly to her aching ribs.
All she wanted was some food and water, but Frai Moldi wouldn’t hear of handing her a loaf and letting her continue on her way—no, no, he couldn’t treat a seminarian so shabbily (except the ones from St. Abaster’s; those fellows could hang). He had to offer her a bed, at least. Tess protested—Pathka would surely worry if she was gone all night—but it became quickly clear that there would be no food forthcoming unless she let Frai Moldi show her the dormitories first. She followed him into the depths of the monastery, to a narrow cell.
“We have all the fine monastic amenities: narrow cot, paneless window, unpadded kneeler,” he said, pointing them out. “We’re not big self-flagellators here, but I can get you a knotted rope if you need one.”
Tess chuckled, painfully; Frai Moldi shot her a sharp look. “Sorry,” she said, her face reddening. “I assumed you were joking.”
“I suppose I was,” he said dismally. “I’m not used to anyone finding it funny.”
They made a brief stop at the well so Tess could wash up—her face and hands were filthy, and there was grit in her hair—and then Frai Moldi led her to the refectory, a vast hall where the monks held communal meals. The bell, half an hour ago, had been for supper, but no one was eating yet. The abbot, seated at the top of the room with the priors and the most senior monks, was still holding forth on the Disquisitions of Santi Prudia.
“?‘We build history every day, anew,’ saith Santi Prudia, but what does it mean?” the abbot was saying as they entered. Frai Moldi picked his way between long monk-filled benches, leading Tess toward the far end of the room. The only empty seats were behind the novices, who refused to shift and let Moldi sit ahead of them. A silent struggle ensued, which Moldi lost. He flipped a rude gesture at his uppity juniors, taking care that the head table couldn’t see, and then grudgingly sat at the end with Tess.
One of the novices, eyes bulging in outrage, raised his hand for attention.
“Knowledge is nothing,” said the abbot, ignoring the hand. An iron-haired, crease-faced senior monk, sighing heavily, rose and came toward the back of the hall; the sermon continued, unstoppable: “Interpretation gives knowledge value, but it must evolve as new knowledge emerges.”