The Place
Serpent Spire is a temple of venom and court, a place that is less a spire than a sentence, and the sentence is the spire, and the spire is the venom. The spire rises two hundred meters above the black marsh, a wall of grown bone one and a half kilometers wide, and the whole wall is the face, and the face is the day. The bone is white and green, white where the venom has not worked and green where it has, and the two colors meet in a line that is the spire's only honest border. The air is thick with the smell of the venom, a smell of cold green and old court, and the smell is the warning. The sky above is a hard blue, the color of the marsh when it is not black, and the light on the bone is thin and mean, the kind of light that does not flatter a face or a scale. It smells of cold venom and old court, a smell that gets into the scale and stays, and the one sound is the court, a soft hiss in the spire that is the spire's only word, and the word is the day. There is no landmark the way a spire has a landmark, but there is one: the Venom Gate, a low arch in the base of the spire where the court meets the venom, and the gate is the door, and the door is the sentence. What makes Serpent Spire itself is the judge: the court judges, and the judging is the venom, and the venom is the punishment, and the punishment is the end.
How They Live
The Naga keep this place in the judge, building their spires in the temple, structures of grown bone and court, their chambers cool, and a spire is grown one fang at a time, because a fang is the season and a fang is the calendar. Light comes from the venom, the green-gold shimmer of the fang, which glows faintly in the dark, and the green-gold is the color of the day. Food is the court: the venom, the fish, the tribute, and the punishment that keeps the court honest, and the honest is the meal, and the meal is the kept. Water is drawn from the marsh, two black threads at the base of the spire, which the venom-judges tend the way you tend a sentence, because the threads are the tribute and the tribute is the law. Heat comes from the court, which is to say the court does everything, and the court is the reason the spire is cool. The defense is the venom itself: a visitor who stands in the spire is already in the court's path, and the court is the alarm, and the alarm is the welcome, and the welcome is the sentence. The day is measured by the venom, because the venom is the only clock the court has, and the clock does not lie about the count. Every naga that is born must drink the venom once in the Venom Gate before the spire will call it one of its own, and the drinking is the naming, and the naming is the only thing the fang ever gives back.
People
Home of the Naga, whose spires are counted by court. Three courts are kept at last count, and the count is kept in the venom, which is to say the count is as fixed as the sentence, which is to say it does not lie. The venom-judges lead, and rank is decided by the judging, because a judge who can judge a face the court has not judged is the judge the venom trusts. Nothing that cannot keep a sentence is welcome, and the sentence is not needed, because the spire has a court, and the court has a venom, and the venom has a ledger. A surface traveler who once stood at the base of the spire, the last one to be let past the Venom Gate, called it the only temple where the air makes you be judged before you take a breath, which is the truest thing he said and the thing the venom paid the least attention to.
In Stories
The place where the venom is the only honest conversation, and the conversation is the court, and the court is the punishment, and the punishment is the end. The Forgotten have not been to the spire, but Uaellaen has read the venom once, at a distance, and the venom read him back, and the reading was the first thing he has ever paid for that he could not buy back.