Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(115)

One of his comrades pointed to a speck on the screen above the mountains. We watched it differentiate into two specks, which resolved into flying dragons. As they drew closer, the viewing angle changed, keeping the pair in sight even as they landed below the eye, on a ledge that stuck out of the mountain like a rocky lip.

I knew who they would be, but still shivered to recognize them: Eskar and Ardmagar Comonot.

A pair of enormous doors opened, sliding silently back into the mountain. A small battalion of quigutl rushed out and swarmed over the pair of them. “Sniffers,” Mitha explained to Brisi and me. “To identify them with thertainty.” The quigs scuttled back indoors, and soon five Censors emerged, surrounding Eskar and Comonot, who ducked their heads and submitted to bites on the neck.

The largest of the Censors spoke, his voice ringing hollowly from the little speaker by the lens. “Eskar, daughter of Askann, agent emerita first class, and Comonot, the ex-Ardmagar,” he cried, circling them. “A peculiar pair to land on our doorstep. What brings you here, Agent Emerita?”

Eskar saluted the sky. “All in ard, Agent. I was recalled to active duty by the Censor Magister.”

“You have the paperwork for that?”

“This assignment came under the floor.” Eskar extended a wing toward Comonot. “I was uniquely positioned to capture the ex-Ardmagar.”

All around me, the watching quigs quivered with excitement, whispering Eskar’s name to each other. “Oh, but she is deliciously deviouth!” said one.

Only Mitha flattened his head spines in disagreement. “Not devious enough.”

The head agent screamed, “You seem not to realize that we have a recent file on you, Emerita. You have been consorting with deviants in Porphyry.”

Eskar did not flinch; she arced her neck scornfully. “Your agents broke the law, entering Porphyry without the Assembly’s permission,” she said.

Around me the younger quigutl clapped their mouths open and shut enthusiastically. Mitha flared his nostrils and smacked the most exuberant on their heads.

The senior agent arced his neck in turn. “It is also against the law to fraternize with exiles. And by ‘fraternize,’ I mean—”

“He knew where to find the ex-Ardmagar,” Eskar interrupted. Comonot, still low to the ground, eyed her with interest; apparently her relationship with my uncle had not been explained to the general. “But of course, your agents captured Orma before he would tell me. You set me back in my investigation. I could have you fined.”

They mirrored each other, arched necks and flared wings. The juxtaposition of that aggressive pose with talk of fining gave me a certain cognitive dissonance. “I was told to bring the ex-Ardmagar to the nearest Censorial facility,” snarled Eskar. “I was told we were expected, and you would process my prisoner at once. This questioning is out of order.”

“I outrank you. I have the right.” The Censor’s words came out mumbled; he was working up a flame, intending to give Eskar a hot foot at the very least. Around me, quigs squirmed anxiously. Mitha made a rumbling sound in his throat to calm them.

Never taking her eyes off the ranking agent, Eskar fiddled with a chain at her wrist as if it were a thnik. “I’ve signaled the Board,” she screeched.

“Good. They’ll send an auditor, who will affirm my right.”

“No,” said Eskar, almost sweetly for a dragon. “They’re sending an ard.”

At precisely that moment, a hundred dragons rose above the mountains behind Eskar, flying in dual wedge formations, and a loud rumbling echoed deep within the Censors’ mountain, as if the earth had indigestion.

That was our signal. Mitha and his comrades swarmed the generator. I glued my gaze upon the scene in the lens, knowing it was about to disappear. For a frozen instant I saw a tableau: the four sub-agents rushing back into the lab; the head agent reaching for his neck, where his thnik should have been but wasn’t; Comonot springing up, jaws wide to strike at him; and Eskar looking straight up into the electronic eye.

The picture flickered off and the lights went out. Brisi shrieked like a child.



Eskar’s instructions—as per Mitha—were for the quigs to stay put, fighting only if the fighting came to them, but no sooner was the generator down than they swarmed out the door, looking for trouble. “Tho much for discipline,” said Mitha, although he didn’t seem particularly surprised. “Seraphina, it occurred to me that even if Orma had been here and his recordth deliberately erased, surely the Censorth would not have gone to the trouble to excise every doctor who dealt with him. One of the doctorth might know where Orma went next. I expect the medical staff will all be avoiding a firefight. We might be able to corner one in the operating theater. Would you like to try?”

I could not imagine how a quigutl, a human, and a … Brisi were going to corner a full-sized dragon, but surely doctors could be reasoned with, and might answer our questions. It was better than sitting here uselessly. I said, “Lead on, friend.”

Mitha scampered out of the room and up the service corridor. I grabbed Brisi’s elbow and dragged her along; she had a strange expression on her face, as if she were listening hard. All around us, draconic screams reverberated through the living rock. Brisi quivered—though with excitement or fear, I couldn’t tell.

Mitha darted up a dark side corridor, so narrow my elbows brushed the walls, and pulled a lever to open a thick stone door. We were immediately blown back by terrible heat, blinded by a cascade of fire in front of us. I choked, barely able to breathe, as if the dragon fire had burned the life-giving air. Mitha pushed me back, crying, “Wrong way! I didn’t think they’d be fighting in this corridor yet.”