I plunged in after him. I didn’t see what choice I had.
I was an inexperienced tracker, but Abdo hadn’t been trying to hide. I found a few more footprints and some bent foliage, but after an hour I was guessing, walking forward on faith alone. He had to be ahead; he had no reason to hare off randomly. That conviction carried me a long way, up until I stepped onto a patch of moss and found myself sunk up to my thighs in a black lake.
My boots were rapidly filling up. I scrabbled through the weeds and hauled myself onto the muddy bank, leaving an enormous hole in the frogbit and algae veiling the water’s face, the greenery I’d mistaken for moss. Looking at it now, the lake was obvious; only water was that flat. I’d grown tired and unobservant.
It was also obvious, as I scanned the water, that Abdo hadn’t fallen into it. There were no Abdo-sized holes in the smooth green surface. He’d have gone around … if he’d come this way at all. I emptied my boots, shaking them ferociously in my frustration.
The chorus of autumn frogs, which I had barely been aware of, stopped peeping. The whole world seemed to hold its breath. Something was near, but it wasn’t Abdo.
The green surface of the lake roiled as dark water churned beneath it.
I scrambled away from the edge just as a scaly, featureless thing broke the surface, a tarnished sliver slug wreathed in slick waterweeds.
A short, strangled laugh bleated out of me. “Pandowdy, I presume.”
Seraphina, the creature rumbled back in a voice like distant thunder. My frantic heart nearly stopped.
“How do you know my name?” I asked hoarsely.
The same way you know me. I have seen you, a patch of darkness against the colors of the world, he said. I felt his voice through the soles of my feet and up my spine, as if the very earth had muttered, and yet I had a feeling it was also in my head. You keep yourself to yourself. I do not judge you. Sometimes it’s the only way.
I couldn’t be the only one he was aware of. “What about Abdo?” I asked. “Has he come past?”
He was looking for me. He’s here, said the earth, vibrating meaning through my feet.
I glanced around. Abdo was certainly not here, but then the creature seemed to have no eyes. He saw mind-fire—or the lack of it—but how? With his mind? Maybe it was hard to judge distances.
“You aren’t … St. Pandowdy from the Age of Saints?” I asked, still looking around in case Abdo stepped out from behind a shrub.
Am I not? The ground pulsed rhythmically. Was he laughing? Some have called me Saint. My mother called me All Ugly. I have lain here for centuries.
A breeze rustled the yellowing witch hazel leaves above me and chilled me through my wet clothes. This creature was truly ancient; it was difficult to fathom. I managed to say, “I need your help.”
I don’t think so, he rumbled.
“Pandowdy!” I cried, for he seemed about to submerge. “A lot of people and dragons are going to die. Jannoula wants—”
I know what Jannoula wants, he said, lolling in the water. But how do you think I can help, Seraphina? Shall I come to your city and kill her?
I didn’t see how he could do that—he seemed to have no limbs—but he was a living Saint from the Age of Saints. That had to be worth something.
He was answering his own question: Humans, dragons, Saints. Geologic eras. They come and go. I am done with killing. Time does the job for me.
“I don’t need a killer,” I said, thinking quickly. “But maybe an ally, a voice of authority. Someone to convince the armies to stand down until Jannoula can be …”
I see, he growled. You’ve come for the peacemaking Saint, not the murderous monster. Alas, that works no better: I never asked to be a Saint. I was never good at it. Do you really suppose anyone would believe I—all gruff and muddy—was anything special? That they’d listen?
“I don’t know what else to try,” I said, my voice heavy with frustration. “I can’t seem to release my powers, and I can’t stop Jannoula alone.”
The breeze carried a tang of smoke from the Queenswood. The monster bobbed in his pond like some moldy tortoise. You’re right, he said at last, you can’t do it alone, which is why it’s peculiar that you take such pains to be alone. Your fortress is cleverly constructed, but you have outgrown it. When I grow too large, I shed my skin. This is why I have lived so long, Seraphina. I’m still growing.
“So you’re not going to help,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.
I already have, he said. You seem not to have noticed.
A pearlescent gray was growing in the sky behind the mountains. Another day of fighting would soon begin. I tried one last tack despairingly: “St. Yirtrudis is my psalter Saint. I’ve read her testament; I know what you were to each other. If ever you loved her, I beg you in her name—”
He thrashed in the water, emitting a rumble so low it was not a sound but an earthquake. The ground bucked, yanking my feet from under me, and I landed hard on my hip in the mud.
I told you, he roared, I am no Saint!
“You’re a monster, retired from killing,” I said waspishly. “I know.”
You do not know. You cannot begin to know, he thundered. His voice seemed to echo off the very mountains, and yet I was sure it sounded only in my head. When you have lain in mud for six hundred years, perhaps you can claim something resembling knowledge.
I pushed myself back to standing, my breath hard and ragged. I had nothing else to say to the creature. My impious father might have shrugged and knowingly asked when the Saints ever lifted a finger for anybody.
This one wouldn’t even consent to be a monster.
I had to find a way to be monster enough for both of us.