Shadow Scale: A Companion to Seraphina(58)

I read a few. Under this plate lie the mortal remains of St. Abaster, who will return in glory and … Ugh. More smiting. I didn’t care to be this near St. Abaster, even dead. Thus said St. Abaster: “Tolerate not the infidel, the unchaste woman, the permissive man, the dragon and his hideous spawn …” I didn’t read to the end of that one, but counted fifty-three intolerables in all.

There was one plaque I did read to the end, however, because it was short and the names—easily translated—caught my eye. The blessed are not exempt from judgment. St. Abaster righteously smote: St. Masha, St. Daan, St. Tarkus, St. Pandowdy, St. Yirtrudis.

St. Yirtrudis, my heretical psalter Saint, struck me first, but they weren’t all heretics in this list. St. Masha and St. Daan were known and commonly invoked in Goredd; they’d been lovers, two men, martyred by other Saints, but they’d retained their blessed status. St. Tarkus and St. Pandowdy, on the other hand, I had never heard of—although I’d named my most monstrous grotesque, the one I’d decided not to look for, Pandowdy.

Pandowdy was also a pudding my Ninysh stepmother made. An ugly, mushy, steamed monstrosity, all suet and raisins. Those raisins, slimy and swollen with brandy, had inspired me to name the monster after the dessert. How odd to think of a Saint with the same name.

Yirtrudis, though. Her inclusion here was strange to me. I knew so little about her that any new detail was interesting. I’d never heard Goreddis claim that St. Abaster had smote her, but then, we weren’t as into smiting as our neighbors, it seemed.

The last of the pilgrims received her portion of charcoal, another curious practice—these Samsamese were mysterious to me, for all that we prayed to the same Saints. Then the priest finally turned to us, his faint brows raised in mild surprise. Rodya and Hanse both knelt for and received his blessing. I held back, my arms folded.

“I had understood the Erlmyt would be held here,” I said in Goreddi, letting Rodya translate into Samsamese.

The priest grunted. “Not this year.”

I’d expected to hear You just missed them, although I’d fervently hoped for They’re here, but you didn’t look in the right place. I did not know what to make of this news at all. I blurted out, “Why not?”

He scowled deeply. “Do you want a blessing or not?”

Rodya leaped to his feet and actually drew his sword. In a church. I goggled at him.

“Answer her question,” he drawled. “She represents the Gorshya Queen.”

“I don’t care if she represents Heaven itself,” said the priest. “I have nothing to tell, except that half our yearly tithe comes from the Erlmyt, and we were given no notice and no explanation.”

My heart sank. Now how would I find the Librarian? Lars had suggested it could take months to scour the highlands, but we were due in Porphyry by midsummer. I couldn’t justify taking that much time to look for one man when there were seven ityasaari more easily found in Porphyry. We gathered Abdo, who had curled up in a ball at the base of the column, resting his head upon his folded arms, and stepped back out into the rain.



We stayed the night at the shrine’s dormitories, which were strictly separated by sex. Abdo was clearly unwell. I argued with the monks, insisting that he was a child and I was his guardian and had to stay close and take care of him. After much grumbling, the monks finally conceded, allowing us both to stay in the infirmary. We were the only ones there, or I’d have complained a great deal more.

Abdo flopped onto a cot with his clothes on, like a Goreddi would have. He didn’t change into his sleep tunic or wrap his sleep scarf around his head, like he normally did. I sat on the next cot, elbows on my knees, and watched him, worrying. His breathing evened out, and I thought he was asleep.

I closed my eyes, weary in my very soul.

I had never particularly felt like the Saints watched over me, but St. Abaster did seem to be dogging my footsteps on this journey, to my dismay. I was no great hand at scripture—I avoided most of it—but I knew every line written about my kind, thanks to the pamphlet Orma had made me. “Half human, all malevolence” was one of Abaster’s best. Or: “If a woman hath lain with the beast, beat her with a mallet until she miscarries or dies. Let it be both, lest her horrifying issue live to claw its way out, or the woman live to conceive evil again.”

“Darling old St. Abaster,” I muttered into my hands. “I love you, too.”

He smote people for that kind of sarcasm, said a voice in my head. It wasn’t Abdo’s voice, although I could feel, distinctly, that it came from Abdo’s avatar in my garden.

I looked up. Abdo’s eyes were open; his mouth quirked into a sly, familiar smile.

I gripped the edge of my cot, wrestling visceral horror. “Abdo said he’d escaped you,” I said, working to keep my voice steady.

Of course I let him think that, said Jannoula, making Abdo sit up. She stuck his scaly tongue in and out of his mouth. Feh. He really can’t talk. I thought he was exaggerating.

“He hasn’t been completely unaware of you,” I said, suddenly making sense of his ongoing preoccupation. He had been struggling with her.

Struggling alone. Why hadn’t he told me?

His mind is entirely different, she said. He has such facility with mind-fire. More than the others. She flexed his fingers and toes experimentally, frowning at the fingers that wouldn’t bend. A mighty mind trapped in a small, inadequate body.