Serpents and Stairways

Chapter III - Part 5

With coffees finished, the words of politeness, sympathy and formality—said, Herr Laplace asked Dinah's permission and lit a cigar after a swift snip. Judging by the sound, this gentleman was one of those who wore cigar scissors right on the chain of their pocket watch.

"Well, a dragon. Well. Did you spot any details during the attack?"

"I have some trouble with spotting details, sir chief secretary. But, if anything, I think we'd do just fine at an identity lineup."

Herr Laplace responded with a good-natured chuckle, although someone else would have immediately shuttered into apologies, as if into shards of a trolls' mirror. At last, someone appreciated her sense of humor. For most gentlemen around Dinah, blind people were either found near churches, with outreached hands, or on the, crackling with edification, pages of Hugo (Oh Destructor, that Dea is such a goody-two-shoes, it's sickening); and fundamentally neither was how she wanted to be seen. Some became overprotective, others underestimated or made fun of her, believing she wouldn't notice—all of which began even before her left eye also started to lose focus.

If only Dinah could, she'd make everyone treat her as if she had no blindness at all. If someone wished to mock her: her religion and education were right there, right? But the choice was limited and not hers to make, so Dinah was fine with her affliction being, at the very least, ignored.

"Well, miss Gremin, let's talk business," Herr Laplace said, shifting toward her, "I've prepared for you several diapositives to illustrate the situation, so to say, because I didn't know about your—"

He knew it all.

"It's alright, Servantes will take a look." Dinah jumped in without giving the chief secretary a chance to disappoint her.

A monochrome young man, who had served them coffee, brought the stereoscope into the room so immediately, as if for the last couple of minutes he had been standing by the door, waiting to be allowed in. It was a tall bog-wood box with two oculars and levers to assist with focusing—so massive that, set against the pixie-sized coffee pot and cups, it looked almost indecent. Dinah had one in her childhood.

"As you are aware, dragon attacks don't usually call for the attention of people in your area of expertise." Herr Laplace relaxed a couple of buttons on his vest.

"A job for zoologists?"

"Dragonologists, to be precise. Studying their morphology, physiology and geographical distribution..."

Dinah, for whom morphology was exclusively a class on classification of words and word classes, nodded with a straight face.

"Most of the surviving present-day specimens are ringed and their whereabouts are perfectly determined," Herr Laplace continued, "in that regard, all Kingdoms of the Old Light work together, well, even if not kingdoms anymore. If one of the creatures leaves its nest or if it turns out that we've missed one, the process isn't that original either. Animals leave dung and remnants of cattle, on which they predominantly feed, pardon the details..."

"It's alright."

"In any case, that's how we usually discover a specimen. If it's not aggressive, then a group of zoologists accompany it to a preservation; otherwise a dragonslayer joins the endeavor. It begs to be mentioned that dragons rarely attack people—exception being herdsmen trying to drive the creature away from their flock, and even so—the last registered case goes back to..." He crunched through his notes, "well, yes, early last century—1814, Northern Empire, Caucasian mountains. The animal was scared off by the war, as you might have perhaps guessed. Gunpowder, canons, an unregistered nest... hadn't it thinned out Napoleon's army, well, who knows how all of this'd look these days. But that's rather an exception from the rule. As all carnivores, they attack when they feel a threat to their lives or their nests. Usually."