Queens
Several hours later, Captain Danvi made a soft noise. “Interesting,” she murmured. “Listen:
“‘Folktales of the Valmaki region are a fascinating inversion of typical tropes concerning the Green Mothers and the Gray Lady.’”
Math raised his head and paid closer attention. Isofal was in the Valmaki region—along with the Parnassa Forest and his hometown of Sounalla.
“I don’t know. We both saw them. And that man from the logging camp—what was his name?”
“Catimus Abhigan.”
“Right. He kept ranting about ‘queens.’ What if these Forest Queen stories are based on the tree women?”
“That man is a library stack with all its books dumped out,” Danvi said amiably. “But it’s possible those folk stories share a root with the creatures we saw.”
“I think I heard stories as a child.”
“That’s right. You’re a local boy, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Captain.” He wasn’t sure whether to feel embarrassed. “One moment.” He retreated to the stacks.
When he returned, he carried more books and a large, obsolete map—the oldest he could find of the Valmaki region. It listed the library fortress as under Kaliri control, with the unfamiliar name “Deshayrs.” Most interesting was the area that centuries later would become a lumber camp.
The captain tapped the map. “Here, I believe, is where today’s events transpired. Isn’t that interesting?”
“‘Old Queens’ Hill,’” Math read. “Queens. Plural. But what you said about the Tri-Mother had me thinking…” He showed her another book: Census of the Doctrine of the Faithful.
He pointed back at the map. “If these tree women shaped stories and legends, maybe they influenced local religion too. The church used to care about that.”
Math grinned. “Listen to this entry for Gebra: Father Dariik requests help with locals. ‘They are persistent in worshipping Cadras, a regional variant of Kilsha, instead of the Tri-Mother. They must be reeducated.’” He searched again.
“Here’s a letter to the matriarch asking advice on a sect near the Parnassa Forest worshipping the sky goddess—called Cadras, not Kilsha. ”
Danvi made a face, as if Math had stepped in something unpleasant. “Yes, I see. Fascinating, but inconsequential. That has nothing to do with trees.”
“Nothing to do with trees, yes. But everything to do with their enemy: ‘The Gray Lady.’” Math read from another book: “‘In Valmaki County, near the Parnassa Forest, locals refer to Kilsha as Cadras. In this form, the goddess is “cloaked in a mantle of winter clouds” and “wearing dresses of mist,” unlike her form elsewhere in Rokasmaa.’” He tapped the book.
“I think Cadras is the Gray Lady, and the locals worshipped her—maybe because they remembered her saving them from the Green Mothers, and—” He paused. “What’s that look for?”
Danvi chewed her thumb, glancing at the books.
“This is a false trail. Interesting, but Cadras is more heretical than you realize. The church wouldn’t care about a name swap.
No. Cadras is heretical because she’s the local name for the Kaliri goddess Kideris.
” She flicked her fingers. “Or as we know her, the grim lord Kaiataris. And her worship is forbidden.”
Math slumped. “Oh.”
“Indeed.” She returned to her book. “Maybe there was a battle between these ‘Queens’ and a grim lord. It would explain why they hate us. But think before you make such suggestions. You joked about heresy earlier. This is not a joke.”
Math chewed that over.
The grim lords had been worse than slave owners—tyrants so brutal their slaves hadn’t even found freedom in death. They’d nearly wiped out humanity.
He opened his mouth, then shut it again.
“Right,” he said. “So … I’ll just go back to stories about the Green Mothers, why don’t I?”
She gave him a knowing look, pulled a key from her coat, and tossed it to him. “Get it out of your system.” She gestured down a row. “You know where the restricted books are.” At his look, she added: “Not much on Kaiataris, but plenty on the Kaliri faith.”
Math didn’t run, but it was close.
The Kaliri and Rokasmaa had fought over this border for centuries. Control of the archives meant power. The Kaliri had never forgiven Rokasmaa for taking “their archive.”
Math read what he could on Kideris. Not quite the Kaliri goddess of the sky, she ruled clouds, rain, winter, ice, masonry, and stone—all gray things. She arrived or left with the cracking of ice, the avalanche, fury, noise, and thunder.
She didn’t sound friendly.
He moved on to Kaiataris.
Danvi hadn’t lied: only three books mentioned her. Math dismissed the first—it relied on hearsay. The second, though primary, offered only a passing reference to statues in Tralos (now Bashan), depicting Kaiataris as exceptionally beautiful—or vain.
The third book was gold.
As Math read, a shiver of dread crawled through him. He scanned the pages, then returned to Danvi’s base camp.
She glanced up. “You found something.”
“I think so. It’s not … good.” He opened the book.
“‘There is little merit to these peasant tales. Kaiataris Von insists she achieved a great victory against these tree people of the Parnathi, even that she drove them into hiding, but she presents no meaningful evidence of her so-called great deeds. She claims even if her own experience is doubted, the evidence lingers in folktales and myth—’”
“Is that Lord Torum the Foul’s journal?” Danvi asked. “Even for a grim lord, his writing has a certain unmistakable bombastic stench.”
“Yes, Captain.” Math continued: “‘This is prattle. Scarcely a village lacks an idol to a mother tree. These stories of walking trees and their existential threat are primitive superstition. Worship of the Three Mothers—’”
Danvi snatched the book.
She stared at it for several moments, then slammed it shut and set it aside.
“You didn’t read that.”
“No, I don’t suppose I did.” He swallowed.
It was unsettling. If Torum was right, Kaiataris hadn’t just encountered the Forest Queens—she’d beaten them. And if Torum hadn’t believed her, it was only because these tree beings were ancient and mythical even then.
That wasn’t the worst part. The worst was the reference to the “Three Mothers.” Not far from “Tri-Mother.”
Heresy, through and through.
“I’ll tell the other captains the Queens’ existence dates to antiquity. But don’t mention Kaiataris or this book again. Understood?”
Math nodded. “Yes, Captain.”
“Good boy.”
As he stood to leave, he noticed the book of folktales Danvi had been reading. Half-buried under another, the visible page showed a blond sorceress leaning from a window, likely beckoning some poor knight to his doom. Only part of the banner could be seen: —WISDOM.
He pushed the top book aside. The revealed text read: IN SILENCE, WISDOM.
“They sure got that one wrong, didn’t they?” Math murmured.
“Pardon me?”
He flashed an apologetic smile. “The Gray Lady. There’s nothing quiet about her if you believe the Kaliri. She’s all noise.”
“I suggest you stop thinking about an evil necromancer who’s been dead for centuries.”
“Right. Yes, Captain.” Math bowed. “Thank you for letting me help, but I should really—”
He pointed toward the entrance—a gesture that could be interpreted as a plea for either food or sleep.
She waved him off. “Go ahead.” She opened her mouth, hesitated, then shook her head and returned to reading.
Math left—but didn’t return to the novitiate dorms.
He knew he should leave it alone. He shouldn’t dig in dangerous soil. He just …
He just had to solve this one last mystery.
Math ventured to a different library that housed foreign language dictionaries. He searched until he found several in the Kaliri tongue.
Kideris had no direct Kaliri meaning, but “Parnathi” was, hilariously, Kaliri for “forest.” “Parnathi” had morphed into “Parnassa,” which meant Kaiataris’s hated enemies had been active in the same forest as the slaughter earlier that day.
“Deshayrs” meant “avalanche,” and—
Wait.
The Kaliri name for Isofal meant “avalanche”?
That made no sense. Isofal wasn’t near the mountains. But he recalled how the Kaliri goddess always arrived or left with an avalanche. A translation error? Not coming or going “with deshayrs” but coming and going to Deshayrs—a base of operations near the Green Mothers she warred against.
Calling it “Avalanche” still made no sense, though. It should’ve been something like “Ice Fall,” the poetic name that preceded “Isofal.” The fortress sat atop Gorsin Falls, which used to freeze over when winters were once harsher.
A horrible thought struck.
With racing fingers, he searched for the Kaliri word for “ice fall.” They had none. They used the same word for it as for avalanche: “deshayrs.”
The Kaliri weren’t trying to retake Isofal because of the archives. They fought to recapture it because Isofal was the holy fortress of their grim lord goddess.
Pulse racing, he returned to the maze.
Or rather, he tried to return to the maze—but someone had posted a guard.
The knight seemed bored and irritated. No wonder, when everyone else was enjoying good food and company.
“Captain Qin of Riddles must not like you.” Math walked forward to the man.
The knight straightened reflexively, realized it was just Math, and then gave him a murderous glare. “Oh, it’s you.”
Math smiled.
“Orders are orders. The maze is closed to unsupervised novitiate children,” the knight muttered.
Of course it was. Captain Qin of Riddles was the one throwing a tantrum, but Math was being snidely lumped in with the “children.” The commander had let Math near the maze without Qin’s blessing, and Qin couldn’t technically keep Talu out—but Math? Math was fair game.
Unless Math had some sort of writ of authority he could present—which he didn’t—the guard at the door to the antechamber could cheerfully say he was just doing his job by not letting Math inside.
“Lucky for both of us, I didn’t want inside.”
“Huh?”
Math’s gaze wandered downward until it reached the flagstone the knight stood upon.
The maze lay at the heart of the cenobium, a giant array running underneath the fortress monastery. Only upon close examination could one discern the division between the ancient Illuminated stonework and more recent construction.
On this tile, though? It was easy. Part of the stone had broken away, obliterating its inscription, leaving behind only a single word: WISDOM.
Math had been taught it originally said “The Path to Wisdom.” It was a fitting introduction to an unsolvable maze.
“You know how it is,” Math said idly. “Sometimes when I’m feeling out of sorts, I find it helpful to walk around and appreciate the beauty of simple things.” He flashed the knight a brilliant smile before focusing on the tile.
“In Silence, Wisdom” would also fit the same space. It would fit perfectly.
Math couldn’t breathe.
The quiet of the cenobium pressed in around him, the hush of a place meant to hold sacred things only to instead shelter secrets and monsters.
This wasn’t evidence. Just scraps: a children’s tale, a broken inscription, a few quirks of language. A sneering grim lord mocking a rival for her obsession with walking trees. A heretical theory: that Cadras was Kideris was Kaiataris Von, grim lord villainess.
And the Kaliri? They believed she’d lived here—in Isofal. Or Deshayrs, as they once called it. A name they’d fought to reclaim with the zeal of true believers.
And let’s not forget the part where Kaiataris had been the sworn enemy of the Green Mothers, also known as the Tree Mothers … or Three Mothers.
Or … or possibly … Tri-Mother.
It left him sick. No. He couldn’t contemplate it, refused to believe it. Just, no. That part wasn’t true. The Tri-Mother was not some twisted reflection of an ancient group of entities that had resurrected themselves with gory, bloody abandon earlier that day. The Three Queens were just … monsters.
Grimmocks.
Math had a harder time dismissing the idea that Kaiataris Von might have used Isofal as her headquarters. It made sense. Which led to a question almost as heretical as the one about the Tri-Mother. Namely …
What if the Illuminated weren’t responsible for building Isofal? What if it had been an evil necromancer instead?
If Kaiataris was the architect, he shuddered to think what might have happened if he’d succeeded in opening the maze. What horrors she might have left behind. He could only be grateful he hadn’t figured out how to use the maze map, or he’d have …
His gaze strayed back to the carving of “wisdom.”
Damn it.
Math cursed to himself. He knew exactly how to open the thing. The grim lord had left instructions, hadn’t she?
She’d carved them in stone.
“You can’t stay,” the knight told him.
Math raised his head. He must’ve looked a fool, staring down at the floor for who knew how long.
“Don’t worry,” Math told him. “I wasn’t planning to. In fact, I’m—” He laughed. “I’m not planning to ever go back. Do you want me to send someone over with food?” He’d have offered to bring the food himself, but he didn’t think the knight would trust it wasn’t a trick.
The knight shifted his head, surprised. “That’s kind, but I already ate.”
Math nodded. “Have a good evening, then.”
He felt cold, and not from the night air. Shuddering, Math walked back to the living quarters.