Shadow Scale

by Rachel Hartman

  “Your people,” cried Lalo, “need you to shrink back down!”

  “No, these are all our people!” screamed Brisi, stretching her wings and testing to see if they had firmed up enough.

  The five juvenile dragons bounded forward, scattering the crowd before them. Their wings beat clumsily; it took a few tries before they’d launched themselves into the air. They bobbed and tumbled, bumping into each other like bumblebees, one almost snagging a wing on the roof of Lakhis’s temple. Even a few minutes’ practice improved matters, however, and soon they were circling the harbor together, wheeling around the lighthouse, gaining speed.

  Lalo stared after them openmouthed. Members of the Assembly poured out of the Vasilikon and streamed around him, running into the plaza, some waving their arms as if that could stop events from unfolding.

  The hatchlings veered, swooped, and began setting the Samsamese ships on fire.

  Not one of the twenty-five Samsamese ships escaped the flames. The four younger dragons then flew to the top of the Sisters, the double-peaked mountain that loomed over the city to the north, where I had once seen Camba hurling crates. They retained their natural forms, but whether they were threatening the city or defending it was not clear.

  Only Brisi returned to the square, fluttering her wings like a clumsy hummingbird and managing to land without crushing anyone. The crowd had dwindled, but the members of the Assembly lingered in the pronaia of the Vasilikon, anger spelled as clearly as horror on their faces. Brisi did not shrink down but arched her neck and spread her wings, striking a pose before the Agogoi, as if that might impress them.

  “Hatchling,” called an authoritative voice in Mootya. “What have you done?”

  Approaching us from the east, Ardmagar Comonot strode across the Zokalaa with an air of utter calm. He extended one hand toward Brisi, as if she were a spooked horse, and reiterated in Porphyrian for the crowd: “What have you done?”

  “I burned!” cried Brisi, flapping her wings.

  “But you don’t burn now,” said Comonot solemnly, understanding her statement differently than I had. “What does your reason tell you, hatchling?”

  Brisi closed her nictitating eyelid, a veil across her confusion. “I—I don’t feel it now.”

  “Quite correct. We all require that you shrink yourself down,” said the Ardmagar. “And that your collaborators do likewise.”

  The young dragon did not answer, but collapsed in on herself, wings and horns and fangs telescoping inward until she had condensed into human form again. Comonot handed her her clothing, and she dressed quickly, shamefacedly, muttering, “I thought …”

  “You felt,” Comonot corrected her gently. “Very strongly, it seems.”

  She was feeling again, clearly; she trembled all over and could barely tie her robe. “The others were following me, Ardmagar. Let their blame be ascribed to me.”

  “That is not mine to grant,” said Comonot. “The Assembly must try your crimes.”

  “The Assembly will require no deliberation on this point,” said Speaker Melaye. She strode out of the crowd of Agogoi, her silken draperies billowing around her, and ascended to the top of the Vasilikon steps like an avenging ghost. “You’ve effectively started a war with Samsam. An act of war against the interests of the state is treason, and treason is our only capital crime.”

  “You can’t execute her. She’s a child!” cried a hoarse voice from across the Zokalaa, and we turned to see Ikat running toward us, straight from Pende’s bedside. Saar Lalo helped clear her a path through the crowd. Ikat reached the steps of the Vasilikon and took the errant Brisi in her arms, scolding her. “I should have bitten you,” she muttered. “I still might!”

  Comonot stared in bafflement at this display of maternal anger and affection.

  Speaker Melaye shook her shaved head. “This ‘child’ is almost sixty years old.”

  “I know it seems strange to you,” said Ikat, stroking Brisi’s hair as Brisi wept into her shoulder. “It’s just as strange to me that she loves this city. Destroying the Samsamese may have been treason, but she did it for you.”

  “I accept my punishment!” cried Brisi, pushing her mother away. “I would rather die than go to the Tanamoot, or live with my cold, terrible dragon mind all the time.”

  Speaker Melaye grimaced, an unexpected spark of pity in her eyes. “Colibris, daughter of Ikat, you and your collaborators are banished from Porphyry, effective immediately. Go where you will; let us never look on you again.” She turned her back on the saarantrai; the other Agogoi followed her indoors.

  Brisi collapsed in tears, but Comonot was beside her in an instant, along with Ikat and Lalo, helping her to her feet, directing her steps back toward Metasaari. Comonot spotted me watching and called out, “Sunset can’t come soon enough.”

  I waved acknowledgment and hurried to the harborside for my things.

  At Naia’s, I was surprised to find Abdo sitting on the couch, eating a dark red plum and reading. He closed the book and jumped up to greet me, looking so happy that my heart contracted painfully. “You seem more yourself,” I said, my voice unsteady.

  He smiled ruefully. I have a feeling Jannoula will be occupied with Paulos Pende for a while. Surely he’ll give her a good fight.

  “What were you reading?” I asked.

  Abdo shrugged his narrow shoulders and shoved the last of the plum into his mouth. An old book on meditation. Understanding Emptiness, by Mollox. Haven’t opened it in years. Something Pende said got me thinking. I don’t know. I don’t want to get your hopes up.

  “Making your mind water,” I said, remembering. “What does that mean?”

  He shrugged again and spit the plum pit into his hand. So you’re leaving?

  I sighed. “Forgive me if I can’t tell you much.”

  No, I understand. It’s just … He began blinking rapidly, and then I found that my eyes, too, were stinging. Abdo wrapped his skinny arms around my middle. His head came up to my breastbone; I bent down and kissed his hair knots.

  “I’m going to find a way to help you all against Jannoula,” I said quietly.

  He let me go and grinned impishly. Not if I find it first.

  It felt like a thousand years since I’d seen his smile. That pure, shining distillate of happiness cut me to the heart.

  My clothes didn’t fit in my bag. I left my Porphyrian acquisitions with Naia, to send to Goredd, and changed back into a doublet and riding breeches. They were too warm for a Porphyrian afternoon, but I’d heard it was cold in the sky.

  Abdo’s family descended at dinnertime; I received seventy-two goodbye kisses. My cheeks and eyes were shining as I climbed the hill to Metasaari.

  The dragon neighborhood buzzed with activity. The exiles had spent the week preparing and were ready for imminent departure. The Assembly, as promised, had supplied them, but perishable goods had been put off until the last moment. The roads were clogged with carts.

  Humans arrived, too, the accumulated neighbors, co-workers, and friends of many years bearing barley bread, blankets, and tokens of memory and appreciation. Humans and saarantrai kissed each other’s cheeks and promised to stay in touch.

  I sighed wistfully. Would we ever see the day in Goredd?

  As the sun dropped below the horizon, saarantrai began moving to the open space of Metasaari’s public garden, transforming a few at a time until half a dozen magnificent dragons shaded the square, wings splayed to speed drying. The plaza could not easily hold more than that; transforming two hundred was going to take hours. Saarantrai secured bundles of supplies for these dragons to carry in their claws. The dragons’ erstwhile neighbors lingered in the shadows, gaping at the display of horns and fangs.

  The first of the dragons took off, massive wings laboring, blasting us with a hot sulfuric wind. He launched himself toward the ocean, the ground falling away from him, the air currents rising to catch him. We held our breath, awed; the Porphyrians began to applaud and cheer.

  C
omonot appeared out of nowhere and clapped me on the back. “Have you ever flown, Seraphina?”

  “Only in maternal memories,” I said.

  “Ardmagar!” screamed a voice from across the square. Eskar, lean and fangy in her natural shape, arched her neck, and screeched again, “I wish to carry Seraphina!”

  “Your carriage awaits, maidy,” said the Ardmagar, taking my bag and shouldering it. “I’ll make sure this comes with us.” Behind him, another dragon took off.

  I ran across the square, choking on the sulfurous stench as more saarantrai transformed. There were five in the sky now, dark against the deepening orange of evening, like a flock of bats. Eskar reared on her hind legs as I approached. My heart hammered in terror as she held out her forefeet, opening and closing her talons. I realized that she intended to grip me around the middle. I glanced regretfully at her spiky spine, wishing she were more horse-like in her anatomy, but I stepped forward nonetheless and let her grab me.

  Her talons felt steely sharp even through the layers I’d worn in anticipation of the cold sky. I could already tell which of my ribs and axial joints would chafe. Eskar had to sprint a short distance to take off from the ground. My teeth rattled in my head as she ran, but then, with a last jarring jolt, our motion smoothed. I blinked at the retreating ground.

  Fascination won out over fear; I kept my eyes open. Perhaps the diminishing city, its rooftops gently lit by the rising moon, seemed so unreal that my mind did not believe my eyes.

  No, it did seem real. It felt like an enormous weight falling away from me. My eyes watered in the freezing wind.

  Eskar circled toward the Sisters. I glimpsed the ancient fortress wall off which Camba had hurled glassware so long ago. From this height, the double mountain clearly stood apart from the coastal ranges. The river Omiga ran straight at its back and split in two around it. I glimpsed the terrifying falls of the western fork as we wheeled around, but Eskar followed the eastern fork up its palisaded gorge and over a series of smaller cataracts called the Stairs.

  All around us other dragons flew, flapping shadows blowing brimstone wind.

  We passed the curtain of the coastal ranges into the long, broad valley of the Omiga River. By the fork of the river squatted a town, Anaporphi, where the Porphyrians held their quarterly games. Its tracks and arenas were just visible in the moonlight.

  We flew up the valley until midnight or so, and then landed beside a lonely stretch of river. The dragons, arriving a few at a time over several hours, shrank into their saarantrai and set up camp. We squeezed in together, five to a tent; some saar had calculated this to be the most efficient tenting ratio. Between the unaccustomed closeness, the snoring, and the aches Eskar’s claws had given me, I didn’t fall asleep until almost dawn. Saar Lalo shook me awake an hour later so they could dismantle the tent.

  I trudged to the river to wash my scales; mist played on its face, and a grebe cried from somewhere in the reeds. The cold water dribbled down my waistband, wrenching me fully awake at last. I picked my way back to the group; they were almost ready to go, shouldering packs and tents that they’d carried up the falls in their talons.

  The group had decided to walk up the valley to the next set of falls. I was glad that Eskar wouldn’t have to grab me again until all my chafes had healed. Nevertheless, once I’d retrieved my bag and caught up to her, I had to ask, “Is this really the best way to travel up the valley? It’s a lot slower than flying.”

  Eskar arched one eyebrow. “The Futile Council voted that we should walk.”

  “And Comonot went along with it?” I asked.

  “Grudgingly,” she said. “Many were refusing to come unless he let them vote. These are not the saarantrai we’re used to; they’re acculturated Porphyrians at some level. They care what Porphyrians think of them. And they did have a point about walking up the valley: we eat more in our natural shape, and the only game to support us here is Porphyrian livestock.”

  “And you didn’t want to simply take it?” I said, teasing her.

  She blinked at me uncomprehendingly. “I absolutely did, but I lost the vote.”

  The valley was a trough of verdant pastureland with mountains elbowing up rudely on either side. As we traveled, the pasture gave way to barley fields, then terraces of tea and vegetables as the valley narrowed. The cloudless sky seemed further away with each passing day, though we gained elevation. My heart was weightless for the first time in months. I thought about nothing but the road before me and the blue vault above.

  On the eighth day out, the dragons turned aside from the Omiga, took their natural shapes, and flew up the thousand-foot falls of a tributary river, the Meconi, a wild straggler straight from the heart of the Tanamoot. It would be leading them home.

  Eskar carried me in her talons again, but this time I wrapped myself in a blanket, padding against her unyielding claws. “Comfortable enough?” Eskar roared solicitously.

  “It’s sweet of you to care!” I shouted back. She snorted sulfur in my face.

  The landscape above the falls was utterly different from what we’d seen below. The mountains looked raw, unfinished; the trees grew sparse and spindly. This was my first glimpse of the Tanamoot, my mother’s homeland, rocky, cold, and wild.

  The exiles maintained their natural shapes except for the five hatchlings, who shrank themselves back down to human form. I picked my way over to Brisi through the prickly brush and said, “Are you staying human-sized to keep me company?”

  Brisi wrinkled her nose as if she thought I smelled. “We haven’t had as much practice with camouflage as our elders. They think we’re a liability.”

  I glanced around at the two hundred massive creatures, baggage strapped to their forearms, snorting and flapping and screaming. “How can they possibly camouflage all this?” I asked, shaking my head.

  She blew a lock of hair out of her eyes. “In the mountains, the only thing dragons have to fear is each other. Believe me, they know how to hide.” She walked pointedly away, clearly not wishing to talk to me.

  The group set off on foot, to my astonishment. One would think that two hundred walking dragons would leave an enormous, easily discernible trail, but they were in their native shape now. Brisi was right: they knew how to hide in the mountains. They stepped on rocks to avoid leaving footprints in the sandy riverbank, flapping their wings to obscure what prints they did leave, and they moved with surprising stealth.

  We kept to the bottom of the narrow valley, where the path was easier. Spruce forests grew a stone’s throw to either side. The mountains had patches of snow on their southern faces even in high summer. The Meconi River was bitingly cold; its breath chilled the air above into wisps of mist. As we climbed, the valley widened and the Meconi subdivided into a dozen tiny streams, braiding itself among soft little islands. The trees grew shorter and thinner, as if the forest were balding. It was a land of sticks and lichen and enormous mosquitoes. The twiggy spruces cast only thin lines of shade, and the contrasting glare was headache-inducing.

  The beauty of the place moved me; I loved how clean the air felt in my lungs, how far I was from everything I had ever known. People I’d hurt, people I’d failed, people who thought me a monster. Here there was no monster greater than the ragged mountains.

  On the third day into dragon territory, one of our scouts gave a chirping whistle; they’d spotted a patrol in the sky. The exiles immediately folded their wings over themselves, mottled their skin, and turned into very convincing boulders.

  I thought I might crawl under Eskar’s wing to hide, but Brisi grabbed my arm and dragged me into a brambly bush. “In camouflage, we direct our body heat downward,” she whispered angrily in my ear. “A dragon in the sky would see it otherwise. You’d bake to death under Eskar’s wing.”

  “Thank you, then,” I said, shaken. “I’m glad you know these things.”

  Her mouth sagged despondently. “You’d think they’d trust me to do it properly.”

  I could think of a
reason or two the others might not trust her fully right now. She surely knew, too; she had the look of one who was beating herself up inside.

  After dark, the exiles would spar with each other. Few were in fighting shape; fewer had ever been skilled enough to bring down anything more devious than an aurochs. Comonot did not seem worried. He demonstrated techniques, gave critiques, and repeated time and again, “Your minds are your surest weapons. Fight like a Porphyrian fisherman. Fight like a merchant. They’ll never know what hit them.”

  After two weeks of walking by day and fighting by night, one evening all the adult dragons reduced themselves to human form. Lalo noticed me staring and said, “We’ve reached the fork of the Meconi, which means we’re near Lab Four. We need to refine our next move, but two hundred dragons make for a very loud conversation.”

  I followed him and the other saarantrai into a narrow side valley, almost a crevasse between abutting mountains. Comonot waited at the head of it, stern Eskar beside him; the rest of the saarantrai crouched or sat on the gravelly ground. Lalo pulled me along with him, picking our way through the crowd, until we were almost at the front.

  “I need volunteers to accompany Eskar to Lab Four,” said the Ardmagar, cutting to the heart of the matter. “She used to work there; she believes the lab’s quigutl will help our cause, but we can’t risk sending everyone until she has made contact. Once we’re sure of internal support, we divide our force in two. The strongest fighters storm the front gate, while the rest sneak through an escape tunnel at the back of the mountain—”

  Someone raised a hand. The Ardmagar blinked irritably, then said, “Yes?”

  “You seem to have made this entire plan without us,” said the saar, a thickset old man. “We were promised a vote on—”

  “Not on this,” said the Ardmagar. A disaffected grumbling arose. Some saarantrai stood as if to walk away, but Comonot bellowed: “Stop. Sit down and listen to me.”