Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(57)

Rodya, in an oiled cloak and broad hat rimmed with dangling droplets, was a ceaseless font of drippy cheer. “In Samsam we hev two seasons: rain and snow. Is better along the coast. One week sunshine every summer!”

If he tells one more joke about rain, I’m going to drown myself in it, said Abdo, slumping in the saddle. I wasn’t enjoying the weather, but it seemed to affect him even more. All it would take, surely, is to look up with my mouth open—

How do you say “He talks too much” in Porphyrian? I asked hastily, trying to distract Abdo from his misery. I hazarded a guess, no doubt butchering the pronunciation.

Abdo gave me the expected fish-eye, but for an unexpected reason: Wrong gender. You use cosmic neuter for a stranger.

I glanced at Rodya; he leaned to one side and spat on the ground. He’s not a stranger anymore. If ever anyone embodied naive masculine, surely Rodya—

You use cosmic neuter for a stranger, Abdo insisted. And he’s a stranger until you’ve asked, “How may I pronoun you?”

But you told me cosmic neuter was the gender of gods and eggplant, I protested, unsure why I was arguing with a native speaker about his own language.

People may choose it, said Abdo. But it’s polite for strangers. You may be almost sure he’s not an eggplant, but he might still be some agent of the gods.

Abdo enjoyed correcting my grammar, but distraction only went so far, and I began to wonder whether the rain was really the problem. For hours each day he stared into the gray and rubbed the dark, knotty scar on his wrist. He didn’t eat properly—not that I blamed him. The Samsamese are overly fond of cabbage and lumpy gravy. I berated myself for letting him come; after the first week, I was convinced he was unwell. When I asked him, he just shrugged listlessly.

I was keeping scrupulous track of the days. St. Siucre’s Day, St. Munn’s, and Scaladora, our day for remembering fallen knights, all passed with abundant drizzle and little fanfare. St. Abaster’s Day dawned sunny, which seemed portentous, and soon after breakfast we crested a hill and got our first look at the Samsamese highlands. They rose abruptly out of the plain ahead, an imposing green tableland speckled with sturdy sheep and scrubby yellow gorse. The rain, over centuries, had battered the plateau and carved great grooves in its face; outcroppings of rock jutted forth like exposed bones. The clouds above loomed darker; gray streaks of rain trailed beneath them like an old woman’s hair.

Hanse pointed to the southern end of the formation. “Fnark is beyond those bluffs,” he said in Samsamese. “We should arrive the day after tomorrow.”

Rodya needlessly translated this into Goreddi for me. I replied, “We’re late.”

“Oh, is not a worry,” said Rodya, waving off my irritation. “The earls do not meet for only one day. Most of the earls might not even be there yet. Nobody comes on time.”

I clamped my mouth shut, knowing that railing at him wasn’t going to get us there any faster, but I surely wanted to. I tried to catch Abdo’s eye, to share my pique with him at least, but he stared into the middle distance at nothing.



Fnark, two days later, was larger than I’d imagined, large enough to have streets and visible industry—a pottery and warehouses along the river. The houses abutted each other, end to end, sharing roof tiles; church spires punctured the sky. We crossed the river on an arched stone bridge and passed the market square, where intrepid merchants clustered together under the thatched shelter like cattle under a pasture tree.

In this climate, I supposed, if you wouldn’t shop in the rain, you didn’t shop at all.

Along the river road north, toward the rising tablelands, stood a walled complex resembling a Ninysh-style palasho. As we passed its iron gates, I saw that it was a shrine—and no small roadside shrine, but an enormous complex. Within its walls was everything a pilgrim could want: dormitories, souvenir stalls, chapels, and eateries. Rain fell on empty tables outside.

The place looked abandoned; I felt my irritation rising again. “You said the earls would be here all week,” I said quietly to Rodya.

He shrugged. “They must be inside. We Samsamese are hardy, but thet don’t mean we stand around in the rain.”

Or maybe the earls had already gone home. If the meeting was of no fixed length, surely it sometimes ran short. I gritted my teeth and followed Hanse up the cobbled road toward the hulking church at the top of the hill.

We tied our horses and entered. The great church was empty but for a cluster of bedraggled pilgrims at the front, led in song by a priest. I knew the tune, a drinking song in Goredd, but it had very different lyrics here:

O faithless ignoramus, denier of Heaven

Sitting smugly upon a disbelieving bottom

O blatant person who disregards the scriptures

Standing confidently in a puddle of sin

There shall be smiting with lightning

And blood-soaked retribution

And heads kicked about like footballs

And much worse upon your wretched person

When Golden Abaster returns with judgment for you

And salvation in the form of flowers for the rest of us



Rodya was humming along; Hanse gravely removed his hat and placed it over his heart. Abdo leaned against a smooth pillar and closed his eyes.

The priest was surely the person to ask about whether we’d missed the earls. While he finished the service and administered St. Abaster’s blessing to the crowd, I drifted around the church. After Ninys, where the churches had been frothing with architectural froufrou, this plain church came almost as a shock. The Samsamese called their own doctrine austere, but I hadn’t realized doctrine could be reflected in decor. There were no statues, no pictures, no ornaments of any kind, only stone inscriptions in severe square lettering.