Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(110)

I glanced at Eskar; she nodded minutely. Somehow this was part of the plan.

Thmatha returned about an hour later, evidenced by the quigs shifting their attention. He and another quigutl were ushered up to the front, and the new arrival—who I presumed was Mitha—saluted Eskar the way a saarantras would have, gesturing toward the sky. Eskar saluted back. A murmur went up; as a rule, dragons did not salute quigutl. Mitha said to Eskar, “You brought us a novelty. You were alwayth generous that way.”

“It took me a long time to return!” cried Eskar. “This is meager recompense.”

Mitha gave a strange double shrug with his two sets of shoulders and said, “No matter. We’re ready. We’ve been ready for yearth. I hope this isn’t all the firepower you brought with you.”





I stared at Eskar, silhouetted in the feeble light: the shadow of her horns and spiky protuberances, her folded wings. She looked suddenly alien to me, full of secrets. She had not merely quit the Censors. She had not come here to see whether she could persuade the quigs to help. She’d already organized them; she’d been planning this for a long time.

There was more to her than I had guessed. For the first time it occurred to me that she was quite well suited to my uncle.

She conferred with Mitha, agreeing on what he should do and when. He replied, “All will be as you athk. We’ve cunningly rewired the lab, so we need only—”

“I trust your diligence!” she screamed, apparently not caring for the details. “You have two days. These hatchlings, Seraphina and Brisi, are to assist you in your sabotage.”

“Exthellent,” said Mitha, swiveling his conical chameleon’s eyes to look at us. “I shall keep them as thafe as my own eggth.”

Eskar signaled to Lalo, who began to climb back out of the tunnel. She made as if to follow him, hesitated, and turned back to me. “Three things, Seraphina,” she said, snorting acrid smoke in my face. “One: find Orma. Two: stop his excision, if possible. Three: secure yourself someplace safe during the fighting.”


She turned around so rapidly the tip of her tail hit me. Mitha kept me from falling backward into the sludge, but then he kept hold of my arm and took a sniff at my wrist.

“Well, call me a thalamander: you’re half human. How odd. Come on, then.” He started toward a tunnel on the right-hand wall, then paused and eyed Brisi, whose wings drooped forlornly. “Shrink down, hatchling,” said Mitha. “These tunnelth are too thmall for you.”

Brisi blinked at him dumbly, as if the smell had paralyzed her. I touched her scaly shoulder with my hand. “Into your saarantras,” I said in Porphyrian, supposing she found the quigutl accent difficult.

She shrank down, but she’d brought no clothing. Eskar hadn’t warned her, maybe because Eskar would have gone naked without a second thought. I pulled a linen shirt, doublet, and breeches out of my bag, led her into the less mucky corridor, and helped her change. She found the buckles and laces of Goreddi clothing quite alarming. Mitha waited, flicking his tongue flame on and off.

When Brisi was finally dressed, Mitha rose on his hind legs and walked at my side, one of his hands touching my elbow lightly for balance. We followed the corridor to a chamber, excavated into the living rock, where quigs processed the dragon leavings. Translucent orbs set into the ceiling provided an eerie, unflickering light. “Methane and solid fuelth,” said Mitha, gesturing toward pipes and tanks, gauges and kilns. “The labs run on dung. Helpth keep the facility hidden if there isn’t a cess-valley nearby.”

The passage narrowed again, multiple pipelines running along the wall. The flameless lanterns glowed upon the ceiling at intervals. At a nexus sat a curious conveyance, like a six-legged headless pony, wide as a bed, consisting mostly of gears and sputtering. It reminded me of Blanche’s mechanical spiders, without the creepiness.

At the thought of Blanche, I felt a pang. Except for my dream of Abdo, I’d barely thought of the other ityasaari in weeks. I had shied away from my shriveled garden. It was too distressing. Soon I would find Orma and we’d work out how to free my powers, and how to free the others from Jannoula.

Assuming Orma still knew me. I shoved that fear aside.

The mechanical pony had no seats as such; quigutl don’t sit like humans do. Mitha instructed us to lie on top of it on our bellies. I climbed aboard gingerly, grasping two leather loops to keep from sliding off. Brisi, beside me, gripped my arm with fingers like talons. Mitha clung to the contraption’s backside, behind the rattling engine, and reached around the side to pull a lever. The headless pony clanked along, snorting steam from its bum, faster than we could walk, through passages too tight for dragons. The dim, steady ceiling lights whizzed past. I tried not to think about falling off and being trampled.

After half an hour, we reached a vaulted bay where several of these conveyances were moored, hissing and humming. Mitha helped me down; my knees were trembling.

“Lab Four,” he said. “Under its own mountain. This is Quigutl Level Five, but any tunnel too thmall for a dragon is thafe. I will find you a nest. Are you hungry?”

I shook my head. Brisi gaped at him; seeing him in full light had shocked her anew. I put a hand on her shoulder, which seemed to snap her out of it. “I’m sorry,” she said in Porphyrian, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’ve heard of quigs from my mother, but we don’t have them in Porphyry. They’re so … ugly.”