Shadow Scale

by Rachel Hartman

  He stretched them wider.

  Maybe they weren’t so vestigial after all.

  His pursuers stopped to stare at the silvery wings, membranous like a dragon’s. Ingar took a running jump toward the wall of the library, flapping his wings as elegantly and effectively as a frightened chicken. Still, he gained enough elevation to scramble up the side of the building, grab the edge of the roof, and haul himself over.

  Once on the roof, he stood huffing and puffing with his hands on his knees. Whatever else was true, he was still a fat old bookhound.

  Camba kicked off her sandals and strode purposefully toward the high library wall. She studied the surface for handholds and then, agile as a cat, climbed up after him.

  She was remarkably strong, and it crossed my mind that she might be an ityasaari herself. But I had never seen Camba in visions; she did not exist in my garden of grotesques. Did I not see them all?

  Camba reached Ingar and then, heedless of her honeycombed hair, threw him over her shoulder like a sack of sand and climbed back down with him. Ingar flopped around, shouting, but Camba hauled him back to the litter, as unconcerned as if this were her job every day.

  As soon as we were all three crammed inside, the litter lurched into motion. Some thoughtful person had retrieved Ingar’s shirt. He pulled it over his head, whining, “My lady warned me about Paulos Pende. He’s dangerous.”

  “Paulos Pende is the kindest being who ever lived,” said Camba lightly, straightening her skirts and smoothing her hair. “I am dangerous. I don’t like to do it, but I can break your arms like pastry. Recollect that before you trying anything unwise.”

  Ingar, wide-eyed, nodded minutely. I wondered what kind of priest employed a ferocious woman who could break your arms. The same kind who mysteriously knew I was looking for him, apparently. It had been my plan to see him today, but I can’t pretend I felt no apprehension as our overloaded conveyance jostled and joggled downhill.

  Camba, on the other hand, retrieved a little scroll from behind the seat cushion and read silently, not bothered about us in the least.

  The swaying litter, too reminiscent of a ship for my tastes, stopped at last, and we emerged, blinking and stretching, in the bustling Zokalaa. At its west end stood the temple of Lakhis of Autumn, grim goddess of relentless necessity, and to the east was a much more popular temple, gauging by the worshipers climbing up and down the steps: the temple of Chakhon of the Spring, the merry god of chance in his fertility aspect.

  Camba turned toward the temple of Chakhon, steering Ingar up the marble steps through a descending crowd of young women. We crossed a columned peristyle and passed through a doorway into darkness, where I was hit by a heavy fog of incense and by thick, scratchy cords that dangled all around us, like a forest of vines. As we brushed them, the cords rang bells high in the ceiling, producing a clanging cacophony. It alarmed me initially, but then I grinned at the unexpectedness of it. This god of chance and I had a similar sense of humor. I held out my arms as I passed through, causing more bells to ring. “That’s impious,” whispered Camba, elbowing me. “Go toward the light.”

  Big braziers flamed somewhere ahead. We emerged from the thicket of ropes into an airy space like a cathedral nave. Before us towered a statue of a beautiful blindfolded man sitting cross-legged, his open hands upturned upon his knees; worshipers lingered back near the ropes, approaching the altar whenever the god moved them.

  Camba didn’t wait for the prompting of the god, or else felt it at once. She knelt, fanned fragrant smoke from one of the braziers over her face, then rose and bowed.

  “Listen, ridiculous foreigners,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed upon Great Chakhon, “we will enter the holy precinct. I thought it unwise to bring you inside, but Pende is old and does not like to travel. Follow my lead in all things. Touch nothing. Avoid eye contact with the priestesses. Can I rely on you?”

  The prospect of offending everyone was a bit intimidating, but I nodded. Ingar perked up a bit and said, “I’ve read about your holy precincts. I know that—”

  “Whatever you have read is insufficient and incomplete,” said Camba curtly.

  She led us through a hidden door behind the statue of Chakhon, into an anteroom where we removed our shoes, then to a trickling fountain where we were to cleanse our hands, feet, and thoughts. I did not like to pull my sleeves up, but there was no way around it. Camba eyed my silver scales sidelong but made no comment. The purification of thoughts was achieved symbolically by taking water into the mouth and forcibly ejecting it through the nose. We inept Southlanders couldn’t do this without precipitating a fit of coughing. Camba rolled her eyes, but finally proclaimed us clean enough.

  As we moved from the anteroom to the cloister, a white-robed initiate presented us with a basket containing the Loaf of Chance. Ingar tried to take a slice, since it was on offer, but Camba slapped his hand away. Apparently this was not for us. Camba herself took as little as possible and seemed to be picking stones out of her mouth surreptitiously. She stowed them in a little pouch at her waist.

  The Sisters of Chance walked the cloister with their eyes closed, pausing as their god commanded and opening their eyes with slow portentousness. We looked away as Camba had instructed us; Ingar whispered to me that if you met a priestess’s eyes, you would sever her connection with her god. Camba overheard and muttered, “Incomplete.”

  We arrived at Pende’s sparsely furnished cell, but he wasn’t there. Camba asked a passing novice, who directed us deeper into the precinct. We emerged from the cloister into a walled garden full of lumpy topiaries, overgrown from their original shapes into looming, bulbous things.

  Or were they supposed to look like that? Maybe they were the topiaries of chance.

  Upon a stone bench sat an extremely old man draped in priestly white. He squinted at us myopically, one hand upon a red sack-like wattle at his throat.

  I recognized him immediately. In my mind’s garden, I called him Pelican Man, and he sat on a bench, gazing at the stars. He’d always struck me as gentle and wise.

  Camba knelt before him on the mossy lawn and indicated that we should do the same. When we had properly humbled ourselves, Pende spoke. His voice was gravelly; he wore false teeth of ivory that clacked when he spoke and made him hard to understand.

  Camba translated Pende’s words: “You shall not find the rest of our ityasaari, Seraphina Dombegh. I have told them to stay away from you. I warn you: I have mind gifts, too. I will defend my people. I am as formidable a foe as you have ever faced.”

  My face went hot. I had imagined conversations with gentle, mystical Pelican Man; none of them started like this. I swallowed hard. “There seems to be some misunderstanding,” I said. “You and your fellow ityasaari have nothing to fear from me.”

  “Liar!” cried the old man. Wispy white hair stood up all over his head like pale fire. “The mind invader, Jannoula, told Brasidas to expect her agent, the one she sent to collect us. Don’t feign surprise. Brasidas told me all after I unhooked Jannoula from his mind.”

  He knew something of Jannoula’s purpose; then he also knew something of mine, but not quite enough. “I realize our goals may look the same from a distance,” I said, trying to sound reassuring, “but I’m not working with Jannoula.”

  Pende grunted dismissively and looked away. Camba, on the other hand, watched me intently. “Jannoula invaded my mind against my will when I was a child,” I said. “She has changed the minds and hearts of people I love, and moved them around like marionettes. I know what she can do, and she is no friend of mine.”

  Beside me, Ingar stared incredulously, openmouthed. Apparently he hadn’t known how I felt about Jannoula; I could not meet his eye.

  I found my words again. “She is no longer in my mind. I got rid of her.”

  Camba exchanged a glance with Pende, her fine brows arched skeptically. “It is not possible to unhook her yourself,” she said. “You need the help of another.”

  “I didn’t un
hook her,” I began, just as it occurred to me that I had hooked the others, including Pende, to myself via their avatars. Would he judge me harshly for that? I continued hastily: “I tricked her into leaving me and blocked her return.”

  Camba conferred quietly with the priest, then said to me, “May Paulos Pende place his hands upon your head? He can see something of your future, and something of your past, but he must touch you to do it.”

  I hesitated, but saw no other way to convince him to trust me. I waddled forward on my knees. Pende reached with palsied hands, his finger joints burled with arthritis. He placed the heel of his left hand on my forehead and the fingers of his right upon the nape of my neck. His deep brown eyes met mine.

  It felt like a bird in my skull, fluttering its wings against the bony confinement. Pende’s eyes widened in surprise, but he knit his grizzled brows determinedly, concentrating. I felt a more agitated bird this time. It pecked at the inside of my head, right between my eyes. I flinched.

  Paulos Pende withdrew his hands and cocked his head to one side. “How strange. I can enter the tiny atrium where you keep pieces of other ityasaari—including myself.” He glared sternly. “But I can go no further. The doors to the greater house are locked, and one door was most mysterious. I could not see where it led.”

  “Even I can’t pass that door,” I said, believing I knew which he meant. “That’s how I shut Jannoula out.”

  He shook his head, faint admiration in his eyes. “I saw no trace of her. You are not her creature. And you have power, or you once did.”

  I gaped at him, heat blooming inexplicably in my chest. “I … I did?”

  The lines beside his mouth deepened. “You still do, but you’ve bound it all up. You can’t use it unless you release it and yourself. I can’t see your soul-light at all, that’s how entirely closed you are.”

  “Do you mean the wall I built around the garden?” I said, trying to understand. “My mind kept reaching out uncontrollably; I had no choice.”

  “Oh, there is always a choice,” he said, his false teeth clacking. He straightened them with his tongue. “This piece of myself you are holding: you took it against my will. I require you to let it go.”

  “I can do that,” I said hastily. Unfastening Gianni Patto had seemed to produce no ill effects besides my garden shrinking a little. I reached inside, focused on getting to the garden quickly, and unbuttoned Paulos Pende from the fabric of my mind. I bent double, letting the damp moss tickle my forehead, and waited out the wave of anguish. It hurt no less for being expected. When I could finally bear to uncurl again, Pende was watching me curiously.

  “That hurt you,” said Pende, sounding surprised. “What are we to you?”

  “For years you were my only friends,” I said. But it was more than that, I was beginning to suspect. These pieces of others had become pieces of myself.

  Camba heard and translated. Pende’s dark eyes softened a little, and for a moment he almost smiled, but then he turned his hawkish gaze on Ingar and said, “It’s your turn now, little man.”

  Ingar squirmed and shook his pale head vehemently.

  Pende spoke to Camba, gesturing at the air around Ingar’s head; my Porphyrian wasn’t strong enough to make out all of it, but I understood Camba’s reply: “I see two colors, but which is which?”

  Camba could see mind-fire. Abdo had said that ityasaari could learn to see it with practice—Camba had to be a half-dragon. Was Pende teaching her to manipulate it? And if she was ityasaari, why had I never seen her? Had I bound up my mind—as Pende claimed—before finding all of them?

  “Paulos Pende needs to touch your head, Batwing,” said Camba flatly, rising and looming over him with folded arms, ready to resume the role of enforcer.

  “His name is Ingar,” I said, suddenly sorry for him. “What will you do to him?”

  “We can’t leave Jannoula in your head, Ingar,” said Paulos Pende, speaking slowly, as to a child. Camba copied his inflection in her translation; neither of them realized Ingar didn’t need it. “The more ityasaari Jannoula catches, the more powerful she grows. I must unhook you and deprive her of your strength.”

  Ingar, on his knees, tried to back away. Camba planted herself behind him.

  “You don’t understand,” Ingar whispered shakily, his spectacles slightly askew. “I was lost and she found me. I was monstrous and she cared for me. I am nothing without her, and I will die if you remove her. I don’t know how to live in this world.”

  Camba’s brown eyes filled with an unexpected sympathy. “It only seems that way,” she said, bending over Ingar protectively, like a tree.

  Ingar bowed his head, muttering as if in prayer, slapping at his temples. Camba’s voice sharpened again: “Don’t summon her to you. Pende can’t unhook her if she’s fully present.”

  Camba wrenched Ingar’s arms behind him and hauled him toward the bench. Ingar wailed; Camba whispered in his ear, which didn’t seem to help. Paulos Pende grasped Ingar by the forehead and nape; the old priest’s lips pressed together with effort and his hands slid right, as if he were straining to twist off the top of Ingar’s bald scalp. Pende mimed lifting a heavy crown off Ingar’s head and triumphantly held it high.

  From the way Camba watched, I deduced that there was something to see between Pende’s hands, some mind-fire perhaps. Then Pende brought his hands together with a thunderous crack, far louder than any mere handclap. The sound echoed off the garden walls and left my ears ringing.

  Ingar collapsed against Camba, who did not let him fall. Ingar’s face was slack and vacant; his eyes rolled behind his spectacles.

  “You’re free, friend,” said Camba, setting him upright. Ingar fell back inertly. Camba determinedly propped Ingar up again. Ingar balanced better this time, but Camba’s strong hands hovered behind him just in case.

  Pende stroked his red wattle and closed his eyes. His face had gone gray, and he swayed in his seat, as if the effort of unhooking Jannoula had exhausted him. I didn’t like to pester him when he was tired, but a much dearer friend than Ingar was struggling far harder with Jannoula: “Camba, would you tell him Abdo has also been seized? I want to bring him, but he’s anxious about facing Pende again.”

  “We should wait to discuss that,” said Camba, glancing apprehensively at Pende.

  Pende’s sunken eyes had popped open at the sound of Abdo’s name. He began to speak, quietly at first, then with growing vehemence. His Porphyrian was opaque to me, but his tone grew transparently angry. Was this about Abdo?

  Camba left Ingar’s side and sat at the old priest’s feet. She touched his feet and spoke in low tones, but Pende would not let himself be calmed. His complaint reached a climax; his eyes reeled and spittle flecked his lips. Finally, he turned his baleful gaze on me and shouted in heavily accented Goreddi, “And you! You want to take the rest from me. I do not permit this.”

  I recoiled as if struck. He’d grown angry so quickly. What had I done?

  Camba rose to her feet, cutting short a new tirade, I suspected; she bowed deferentially, and the old priest lightly touched the crown of her towering hair. I wasn’t sure what to do, if I should bow or say something, but Camba hauled Ingar to his feet and held out a strong arm to usher me away. “Don’t speak,” she whispered. “Follow me.” I did as she asked, but kept my eyes on Pende as long as I could. He did not meet my gaze but closed his eyes and folded his limbs as if settling in to meditate.

  “I should have warned you not to talk to him after the unhooking,” muttered Camba as we made our way back through the priestesses’ cloister. “He’s two hundred years old; he can’t keep his temper when he’s tired, and Abdo is the sorest of subjects.”

  “What did Abdo—” I began, but Camba cut me off with a hiss and a finger on her lips. I followed her gaze toward one of the veiled priestesses. Could that be Abdo’s priestess mother? I watched her pass, but the god did not open her eyes.

  Camba, bearing Ingar on one arm, pulled me with her free hand. �
�He broke Pende’s heart,” she whispered. “Abdo was to be the priest’s successor. Now Pende has no one.”

  “He has you,” I hazarded, hoping I’d interpreted their relationship correctly.

  She flashed a mournful look from under her lashes. We’d reached the anteroom, where our shoes waited; Camba slipped on her sandals and helped Ingar with his scuffed ankle boots before answering: “With luck, I can be a stopgap until the god grants us another, mightier mind. Which he may or may not do. Such is the nature of Chance, may he strike us softly.”

  I followed Camba through the dim, smoky sanctuary, occupied with my own thoughts. Pende clearly didn’t want me to take the other ityasaari south. How much power did he have to enforce his wishes? If he said the word, would the ityasaari agree? Even if they didn’t agree, were they bound to obey?

  Camba had seemed deferential and protective, yet acutely aware of Pende’s limitations as an irascible old man whose strength was failing. Besides, the ityasaari could return to Porphyry after assisting Goredd. Maybe I’d once hoped we’d all be together forever, but that seemed naive and foolish now.

  I assumed Pende himself wouldn’t come, that I’d found my second Od Fredricka, though with considerably more power to resist Jannoula’s moving him by force.

  We emerged onto the temple steps, facing a glorious sunset across the Zokalaa. The thinning crowds, rushing home to dinner, cast long shadows against the gold-glazed paving stones.

  Camba had bent her long neck down to Ingar’s level and was muttering in his ear. “Do you feel the breeze on your face?” I heard her say. “That’s yours, and worth feeling. Look at those orange clouds. All the trials of a day may be endured if you know there’s such a sky at the end of it. Some days I told my heart to wait, just wait, because the sunset would teach me again that my pain was nothing compared with the eternal, circling sky.”

  It was a dazzling sky, I had to admit, with clouds layered like wisps of pink and purple silk. Behind us, the blue deepened to black; the stars awakened.