The Hive

A spire of comb wall that leans a little to the east, shot through with amber that grows thicker toward the crown. Nobody built it: the hive sweats resin, and over centuries the resin hardens into amber and the amber piles up. The hollow inside is warm to the touch.

A span of purpur slab and brick rail between two comb pillars, raised a little toward the middle. When the combs still flew, bridges like this one tied them together so the drones could cross without wings. This one has outlived its combs; the gap in the middle is new.

A single pillar of comb wall with branches of slab reaching out at three heights, each ending in a small platform cupped with wax. The drones rested here between combs and left their wax on the rails. One branch has broken off; the others still hold.

The same ring as on Earth, on a dais of the local stone and in the colors of this world: whoever set the gates out did it on every world at once. This one sleeps. It answers only one who has brought down the master of this world and lived through its trial; then lay the master's heart, the dust of the road and what this world gives into the ring, and it will join the other gates that are awake.

A pointed arch of purpur brick standing on its own, with cells cut into both piers and a threshold worn smooth. It leads from one side of the comb to the other, which is to say nowhere. The drones passed under it in a line, and the wax in the cells is from their feet.

A six-sided chamber of purpur brick, taller than any other cell, with a cocoon of wax and amber hanging under its roof. The cocoon is torn open and empty. The queen is gone, and nothing has taken her cell since; the eldest of the nurses sleeps under the cocoon and guards it as if she might return. The royal jelly is sealed in three cells of wax around her.

A lumpy dome of comb cap with an eye at the top and a torn way in at the side. Inside, cells of comb wall stand along the walls, and shulkers sit on them and under the roof, waiting for whatever comes through the hole. Nobody comes here without a shield, and few come twice.

A six-sided hall of comb wall with a floor of poured wax and cells in every wall, some sealed, some empty. The shulkers grew their wax here, layer on layer, until the south corner gave way and it ran out onto the comb. Two of them never left.

Before the Hive settled, the shulkers did not live on the columns but inside them: in the thick of the comb they gnawed four tiers of six-sided cells — stores of wax and amber, a nursery, the galleries of the wardens and, at the very bottom, the chamber of the queen. Then the Hive came to rest, the shulkers moved up to the columns and sealed the old comb with wax. Those who cannot leave stayed: drones patrol the cells, grubs chew the wax, the old nurses hang under their cocoons, and the queen sleeps in her shell until someone brings her the plate of her warden.

A six-sided shaft lined with brick, seven blocks deep, with a ledge winding down its wall. Wax from every comb around runs here along the ground, over the lip and down into the dark, and sets at the bottom in layers. The windlass over it still holds its cauldron.