Shadow Scale (64 page)

The city blocked my view of the armies on the ground, but I saw endless sky battles as I crossed the swamp toward Abdo’s shrine. Dragons swooped and circled, flamed and grappled, trying to drop their enemies out of the sky or bite off their heads. Through a blaze of autumn leaves, I saw dragons skim along the city wall, setting soldiers and war engines on fire, only to be slammed by St. Abaster’s Trap.

I kept moving, staying under foliage. Around midday, I flopped down upon a mossy hillock under a willow and let myself rest. The percussive thud of scaly bodies hitting the swampland woke me again and again; only the dampness of their landing place prevented their setting the wetland on fire. Smoke curled above the Queenswood, which was drier. In the late afternoon, I awoke when the fighting changed timbre. I squinted at the bright sky. Above me, five young dragons had taken on a much larger specimen.

With a net. The Porphyrian five were alive and biting.

Only when darkness fell did the cries abate and the dragons regroup at their own camps. I wondered how the human armies had fared, how many dead they would gather, a bitter harvest off the plains.

Crossing the wetland at night was perilous business. I mentally thanked Alberdt for the sturdy boots, because I was often up to my knees in muck. My white gown, though I hoisted it up,
grew sodden around the hem. I finally called a halt on higher ground and dug through my bag for something drier to wear. I changed into a tunic and trousers and launched myself at the swamp once more.

The northern road ran upon a levee. I scrambled up the embankment eagerly when I found it, glad the going would be easier now. I was almost there. The moon rose, coating my path with silver. I saw the tumbledown shrine at last, and my heart swelled.

I reached the lean-to, sweating despite the chill. I paused near the odd statue, the human figure without features or hands, like a gingerbread man. Its decorative apron fluttered in the breeze. My eyes adjusted to the darkness, but I couldn’t make out anyone in the shadows. “Abdo?” I asked the inky blackness behind the statue, but there was no answer. I knelt, not believing my eyes, and felt around for him. I found his plate and cup, both empty, but no Abdo.

He’d been here just last night. Where could he have gone? Had he finally freed himself of Jannoula and could now move without fear of drawing her attention? That was glorious news, if so, but unfortunate for me. I’d lost my last ally, and I had unfastened him from my mind. How was I to find him?

The irretrievable aloneness settled upon me again.

I don’t know how long I stared at the darkness, or what deep well of stubbornness I drew from to get myself back on my feet, but eventually I wiped my eyes and dusted myself off. The moon had shifted and now shone through a hole in the roof, illuminating the statue’s bald crown. I remembered the odd inscription and knelt, looking for it again.

Saint who lies submerged … the monster …
 I went cold. I hadn’t known the fate of St. Pandowdy when I’d read that inscription before. What other Saint had been buried alive? Who else had been described as monstrous? Had he been buried in this very swamp, the one I’d been trudging through all day?

My Pandowdy—the giant slug from my garden—lived in a swamp. I’d dismissed the name as a coincidence.

I brushed lichen off the bottom of the inscription, trying to make out the name to be sure. I traced the
P
with my finger, and the
A
, all the way to
Y
. There could no longer be any doubt.

Was there some connection between St. Pandowdy and the scaly swamp slug of my visions? They couldn’t be the same being. Yirtrudis’s beloved had not been so grotesquely inhuman. But … could he have survived being buried? Might he have changed over time?
I emerge
made me think of a cocoon; what if I’d been seeing some kind of chrysalis?

It was a mad idea. He’d be seven hundred years old.

But if Pandowdy was nearby, in whatever form—worm or cocoon, monster or ancient Saint—was there any chance he could help? Maybe Abdo had glimpsed his mind-fire out there in the swamp and gone looking for him.

Maybe I could follow. I was at a dead end otherwise.

Abdo must have left signs. I hoped I hadn’t spoiled them
already by barging in here. I retraced my steps, examining the moonlit road, but saw no tracks. I picked through the tall grass behind the shrine, discerning nothing. The mud had been churned up, but a wild pig might have done that. I was about to give up when my gaze drifted across a fetid pool and I saw them: footprints on the far bank. There were only two, but they were indisputably human and exactly the right size.

They pointed straight into the heart of the fen.

I plunged in after him. I didn’t see what choice I had.

I was an inexperienced tracker, but Abdo hadn’t been trying to hide. I found a few more footprints and some bent foliage, but after an hour I was guessing, walking forward on faith alone. He had to be ahead; he had no reason to hare off randomly. That conviction carried me a long way, up until I stepped onto a patch of moss and found myself sunk up to my thighs in a black lake.

My boots were rapidly filling up. I scrabbled through the weeds and hauled myself onto the muddy bank, leaving an enormous hole in the frogbit and algae veiling the water’s face, the greenery I’d mistaken for moss. Looking at it now, the lake was obvious; only water was that flat. I’d grown tired and unobservant.

It was also obvious, as I scanned the water, that Abdo hadn’t fallen into it. There were no Abdo-sized holes in the smooth green surface. He’d have gone around … if he’d come this way
at all. I emptied my boots, shaking them ferociously in my frustration.

The chorus of autumn frogs, which I had barely been aware of, stopped peeping. The whole world seemed to hold its breath. Something was near, but it wasn’t Abdo.

The green surface of the lake roiled as dark water churned beneath it.

I scrambled away from the edge just as a scaly, featureless thing broke the surface, a tarnished sliver slug wreathed in slick waterweeds.

A short, strangled laugh bleated out of me. “Pandowdy, I presume.”

Seraphina
, the creature rumbled back in a voice like distant thunder. My frantic heart nearly stopped.

“How do you know my name?” I asked hoarsely.

The same way you know me. I have seen you, a patch of darkness against the colors of the world
, he said. I felt his voice through the soles of my feet and up my spine, as if the very earth had muttered, and yet I had a feeling it was also in my head.
You keep yourself to yourself. I do not judge you. Sometimes it’s the only way
.

I couldn’t be the only one he was aware of. “What about Abdo?” I asked. “Has he come past?”

He was looking for me. He’s here
, said the earth, vibrating meaning through my feet.

I glanced around. Abdo was certainly not here, but then the creature seemed to have no eyes. He saw mind-fire—or the lack of it—but how? With his mind? Maybe it was hard to judge distances.

“You aren’t … St. Pandowdy from the Age of Saints?” I asked, still looking around in case Abdo stepped out from behind a shrub.

Am I not?
The ground pulsed rhythmically. Was he laughing?
Some have called me Saint. My mother called me All Ugly. I have lain here for centuries
.

A breeze rustled the yellowing witch hazel leaves above me and chilled me through my wet clothes. This creature was truly ancient; it was difficult to fathom. I managed to say, “I need your help.”

I don’t think so
, he rumbled.

“Pandowdy!” I cried, for he seemed about to submerge. “A lot of people and dragons are going to die. Jannoula wants—”

I know what Jannoula wants
, he said, lolling in the water.
But how do you think I can help, Seraphina? Shall I come to your city and kill her?

I didn’t see how he could do that—he seemed to have no limbs—but he was a living Saint from the Age of Saints. That had to be worth something.

He was answering his own question:
Humans, dragons, Saints. Geologic eras. They come and go. I am done with killing. Time does the job for me
.

“I don’t need a killer,” I said, thinking quickly. “But maybe an ally, a voice of authority. Someone to convince the armies to stand down until Jannoula can be …”

I see
, he growled.
You’ve come for the peacemaking Saint, not the murderous monster. Alas, that works no better: I never asked to be a
Saint. I was never good at it. Do you really suppose anyone would believe I—all gruff and muddy—was anything special? That they’d listen?

“I don’t know what else to try,” I said, my voice heavy with frustration. “I can’t seem to release my powers, and I can’t stop Jannoula alone.”

The breeze carried a tang of smoke from the Queenswood. The monster bobbed in his pond like some moldy tortoise.
You’re right
, he said at last,
you can’t do it alone, which is why it’s peculiar that you take such pains to be alone. Your fortress is cleverly constructed, but you have outgrown it. When I grow too large, I shed my skin. This is why I have lived so long, Seraphina. I’m still growing
.

“So you’re not going to help,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.

I already have
, he said.
You seem not to have noticed
.

A pearlescent gray was growing in the sky behind the mountains. Another day of fighting would soon begin. I tried one last tack despairingly: “St. Yirtrudis is my psalter Saint. I’ve read her testament; I know what you were to each other. If ever you loved her, I beg you in her name—”

He thrashed in the water, emitting a rumble so low it was not a sound but an earthquake. The ground bucked, yanking my feet from under me, and I landed hard on my hip in the mud.

I told you
, he roared,
I am no Saint!

“You’re a monster, retired from killing,” I said waspishly. “I know.”

You do not know. You cannot begin to know
, he thundered. His
voice seemed to echo off the very mountains, and yet I was sure it sounded only in my head.
When you have lain in mud for six hundred years, perhaps you can claim something resembling knowledge
.

I pushed myself back to standing, my breath hard and ragged. I had nothing else to say to the creature. My impious father might have shrugged and knowingly asked when the Saints ever lifted a finger for anybody.

This one wouldn’t even consent to be a monster.

I had to find a way to be monster enough for both of us.

I walked away from him, despairing and out of ideas. I’d lost Abdo’s trail, the armies would be awake and at each other’s throats again soon, and I was wet and miserable. The last was the only one I could do anything about at the moment. I found a fallen log to sit on and opened the satchel Alberdt had sent with me to see if he’d thought to pack dry stockings.

He hadn’t. Instead, I found a little parcel wrapped in cloth, the birthday present Kiggs had handed me what seemed like an age ago. It must have fallen out of the sleeve of my white gown when I’d changed clothes.

It was my birthday, I realized with a start. I unwrapped the gift with trembling fingers. He’d said the thought would have to count, but at first I couldn’t tell what he’d been thinking. The prince had given me a gilt-framed round mirror the size of my palm. What was I to do with this? Check my teeth for spinach?

The frame had words engraved in it. The moon was sinking
behind the western hills, stealing my light away, but I finally discerned
Seraphina
along the top, and
I see you
along the bottom.

I see you
.

I laughed and then I wept. I could barely see myself in this tiny mirror, my mind-fire was shut off from the rest of the world, and Jannoula had taken everything I hoped for and twisted it to her own purposes. It was all wrong, all backward, and I couldn’t even see my way clear of it to …