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The following day, Staff went to visit Iolanthe. He was aware that it might not be seemly, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t seen a glimpse of her in five days, eight hours. He hadn’t held her and kissed her in sixteen days, five hours. And he hadn’t made love to her in eighteen days, three hours. His plan to arrive when most members of the household were not up and about went awry when he forgot that it was the Zaeri Sabbath. As he was walking up the steps, the lizardman major-domo opened the front door and out stepped Yuah Dechantagne and another beautiful dark-haired woman.
“Good morning Mr. Staff,” said Yuah. “May I introduce my friend Honor Hertling?”
“Good morning ladies,” he replied.
“Don’t mind us. We’re on our way to Shrine.”
The two women went down the stairs and around the house, while Staff stepped in the open door and waited in the parlor as Iolanthe was informed by the servant of his arrival. When she entered the room she stole his breath away. She wore a pink dress, decorated all down the front with metallic brocade in the design of stems and leaves and inset with pearls where the blossoms would be. The collar was high in back, plunging down in front, revealing her long, thin neck to its best advantage. Her auburn hair had been carefully curled, long in the back and short curls falling across her forehead. The look was completed by a pink top hat with a gauzy veil which covered her face, but did not hide those remarkable aquamarine eyes.
“Going out?”
“I was,” she said. “I didn’t know when I was going to see you.”
“I didn’t know when I should come.”
“Anytime.”
Iolanthe held out her elbow and Staff took two steps forward to take it. The elbow wasn’t enough though and his left hand reached up to caress the side of her cheek. Her eyes opened wider, but she offered no protest. His hand followed up the line of her jaw.
“My God, you’ve pierced your ear.”
“Yes, both of them. I got the idea when we were in Enclep. All the women there have pierced ears.”
“They also carve magic runes into their breasts and rub ashes into the open wounds to make them stand out.”
“Well, maybe I’ll try that next week. You will note that I’m not the only one in town with my ears pierced. If both Senta and I do something, it’s sure to become the next big thing.”
“I’m surprised you are comparing yourself to Zurfina’s girl.”
“I am not comparing us. Still, there is no denying that the child is popular. Shall we take a walk around the yard?”
Staff led her by the elbow through the front door, held open for them by the same lizardman. Down the front steps, they turned left and followed the winding cobblestone pathway between the trees, rock gardens, and empty flower beds.
“This yard should finally look the way that I want it to this spring. I’ve spent a great many marks to get it ready.”
“You’ve spent a great many marks overall. I understand you’ve been paying for ships full of Zaeri refugees to escape Freedonia and come here to live. If you keep it up, you may lose your reputation as a heartless and manipulative bitch.”
“Oh, I doubt that will happen. Let’s sit down in the gazebo.
The small white gazebo on the west side of the yard had a two person porch swing suspended from lengths of small steel chain. Staff held the swing steady to allow Iolanthe to sit down, a purely chivalrous act since the chains were hung so that the swing moved only a few inches either way in any case. He then sat down beside her.
“I didn’t want the children playing on this swing, so I had it strung like this,” Iolanthe explained. “They have their own swing and a slide out back.”
“Are they safe for the children to play on?”
Iolanthe’s neck stiffened and she slowly turned to look searchingly at his face. She found what she was looking for.
“How long have you known?”
“That Iolana was mine? Since the first moment I saw her. She looks just like a picture I have of my sister, before she died. Except for the eyes.”
“Yes, she has my eyes.”
“She’s beautiful.”
I used to love this show back in the eighties– when they didn’t pretend you were really going to try these exercises. In fact, the warning at the beginning told you not to. Just sit back with a cool beverage and watch. Bess Motta, the one with the hair and the smallest leotard, you may recognized from the original Terminator. She played Sarah Conner’s room-mate.
I’m really working hard to finish His Robot Wife. I’m almost done with chapter six. I was originally hoping for a February 3rd release, but it ain’t gonna happen. I’m shooting for March 3rd now. I’ll need at least three weeks and a half-dozen volunteers to revise and edit. If this works out, I can still get five books out this year, which is my goal.
March 3: His Robot Wife
July 3: Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 4: The Young Sorceress
August 3: Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 5: The Two Dragons
October3: Women of Power
December 3: The Jungle Girl
Why the 3rd? The official birthday of City of Amathar Press is February 3, 2007. February 3rd was chosen to honor my brother– that was his birthday.
If you scroll down this page and look at the right-most column, you will see that The Dark and Forbidding Land (Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 2) is now available in Trade Paperback for $13.99. On a related note: my son just finished it and pronounced it the best in the series so far.
“Can you drive me now, Marzell?” Yuah asked the boy.
It might have been difficult to find humans in Birmisia who were willing to work as servants, but it was surprisingly simple to find young men willing to serve as drivers for one of only two steam carriages on the continent. Terrence had given out that the position was open and had faced an avalanche of applicants. He had narrowed the selection down to three boys, and had let Yuah choose her favorite. She had chosen one of the Zaeri boys from Freedonia. Marzell Lance was a serious young man of sixteen, with a shock of perpetually mussed black hair and brown eyes. He always seemed to be hungry. Though he had proven he could not only drive, but maintain the steam carriage, that was not why he had been chosen. He, like so many coming from Freedonia, had arrived alone. His sister, the only member of his family with him, had died on the ship.
Marzell jumped up and held open the outside door. Yuah walked through and he followed. The steam carriage was parked near one of the sheds. It looked as pristine as it had when it had arrived on the ship from Greater Brechalon. The minor damage caused by Yuah’s accidental diversion into a snow bank had been repaired, and from the rich black leather of the seats to the shining copper bonnet, it was clean and polished.
“I’ll have to fire up the boiler, Ma’am,” said Marzell.
“I know. That’s fine.”
Marzell held out a helping hand for Yuah, as she stepped up into the passenger seat. As she sat with folded hands in her lap, he stepped around to the back to light the boiler. He shoveled in several more scoops of coal for good measure as well. Then popping back around to the driver’s side, he climbed in.
“If I had known you were planning to go out, Ma’am, I would have fired it up earlier.”
“I know. It’s alright.”
“Where did you want to go, Ma’am?”
“Please stop saying ‘Ma’am’. I feel old enough as it is.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Where did you want to go, Ma… Mrs. Dechantagne.”
“Take me to Miss Hertling’s home, please.”
Shifting the vehicle into gear, Marzell stepped on the forward accelerator, but with a still relatively cool engine, the steam carriage rolled forward very slowly. It seemed as though it took at least five minutes to reach the gate, which was no more than fifty feet away. Once the young man had gotten out and opened the gate though, steam had built up enough that they were able to start down the road at a respectable speed. It was less than ten minutes later that Yuah was knocking on Honor’s door.
The front door of the small cottage opened and Honor stepped outside. She immediately pulled Yuah to her and enfolded her in her arms. Tears welled up in Yuah’s eyes, but she bit her lip and fought them back. By the time her friend let go of her, she had screwed her face back into order.
“Come in.”
“Just a minute. I didn’t know if you were here. I have to tell Marzell that I’ll be staying a few minutes.”
“Tell him you’ll be a couple of hours and that he should come back,” said Honor. “Don’t argue. Just do it.”
Yuah did as she was told, and as Marzell took off with a whoosh in the steam carriage, she stepped inside the Hertling house and closed the door behind her. Honor was stirring the contents of a large crockery bowl with a big wooden spoon. Her typical brown and black dress was covered by a white apron, now stained with a brown smear.
“I made Hertzal a cake last week, so now I’m making one for Hero.”
“Chocolate?”
“Yes. Cocoa isn’t as dear now that the ships are stopping at Enclep again.”
She tilted the bowl over and began scraping the contents with the spoon out into a cast iron pan. Then she carried the pan over to the stove, opened the oven door, and stuck her free hand inside. Judging that the coals were right, she slid the pan inside and shut the door.
“Come sit down,” said Honor. “We have half an hour before it’s done baking.”
She sat down on the rather worn couch that was the center piece of combination living room and kitchen. She patted the seat next to her, indicating where Yuah should sit. Yuah did so, sitting stiffly, her back several inches away from the couch’s back.
“You weren’t ready to attend shrine last Sabbath?” asked Honor.
“The dress wasn’t ready.”
“You don’t need the dress. You have plenty of clothes.”
“I have some old servant clothes. All of my new clothes, from the past year and a half, are way too ostentatious.”
“That’s one way to describe it. You could probably wear one of my dresses. Although I arrived on continent with a single shrine dress, I now have three.”
“You bought not one but two dresses?”
“Of course not. I made them.”
Everyone should have virus protection on their computer. I have been using Norton 360 for about three years. One of the things I like about it is the Internet protection and storing passwords. I don’t have to remember 500 passwords because Norton does it for me– or it did. I upgraded from 3.0 to 4.0 and my passwords disappeared. I called Tech support and they logged into my computer and uninstalled and reinstalled it about five times and worked for about three hours. Then the tech-support guy called a supervisor and he did the same thing for about another hour before telling me my passwords were gone and there was no backup. Once I had disconnected from Norton, I tried to fix it myself. IT TOOK ME 3 MINUTES. I was able to find the backup without even looking. It was on the pull down menu. Case closed. Problem solved.
Thanks to Warren for showing me this. It’s funny because it’s exactly like real life.
“Christmas wont be Christmas without any corpses.” The dear sweet March sisters are back and Marmee has told them to be good little women. Good little vampire women that is. That’s right: Meg Jo Beth and Amy have grown up since you last read their tale and now they have (much) longer lives and (much) more ravenous appetites. Marmee has taught them well and so they live by an unprecedented moral code of abstinence . . . from human blood. Meg Jo Beth and Amy must learn to get along with one another help make society a better place and avoid the vampire hunters who pose a constant threat to their existence. Plus Laurie is dying to become a part of the March family at any cost. Some things never change. This horrifying-and hilarious-retelling of a timeless American classic will leave readers craving the bloodthirsty drama on each and every page.
Though winter was well on its way out in Birmisia, it was still cold enough at night—cold enough to bundle up tight, cold enough to blow steam in the air with your breath, and cold enough that the Lizzies moved with their characteristically slow gate. Police Constable Saba Colbshallow watched them from behind the corner of a warehouse building across the street from the dock. He didn’t know why they were working in the middle of the night, but he hadn’t spotted them taking from the ship any of the curious long crates which he had seen on previous occasions. He watched for more than thirty minutes as the reptilians moved freight.
Finally deciding that the activity represented nothing nefarious, Saba stretched his sore back, pulled a sulfur match from his pocket, and lit the oil lantern sitting on a barrel next to him. Then taking the lantern with him, he made his way across the street. There were half a dozen Lizzies loading wooden crates onto a pallet that was attached to the crane to be loaded aboard the ship. As he approached, several of the lizardmen eyed him. Half of them were taller than his six foot three, but all of them hunkered down to look shorter than they actually were. It was a demonstration of submissiveness that the constable had grown used to over the years. Coming to a stop beside the workers, he crossed his hands over his chest.
“Working awfully late, gentlemen.”
One of the lizardmen hissed. Even though Saba was not fluent in the aboriginal language, he could tell it was a non-verbal expression of anger or annoyance.
“Identification.”
The two closest lizardmen held out their arms. They each wore a wooden and twine identity bracelet. Saba held up the lantern and read the engraved information on each of the tags. “Finn: Serial Number 22211 BL”, and “Ishee: Serial Number 22214 BI”.
“Alright. The rest of you too.”
“Does there seem to be some problem, PC?”
Saba looked up to see the tall silhouetted form of a man walking toward him from the direction of the ship. When he reached the circle of lantern light he was revealed as Professor Merced Calliere.
“Good evening, Professor. Just checking identifications.”
“I would appreciate some haste then. These fellows have work to do.”
“So they’re working for you? I noticed these two don’t seem to have night passes, and my guess is that the others don’t either.”
“Yes, well I needed help on what you might call an ad-hoc basis. It’s very important business—government business. So I would prefer it if you not delay them any longer.”
“Then I had best let them get back to work,” said Saba. “As soon as I check the rest of their identification.”
“This ship is leaving first thing in the morning.” Professor Calliere hissed from between clenched teeth.
“I am aware of that, Professor,” said Saba, then to the other lizardmen. “Stick your arms out.”
The two reptilians who he had already checked stepped aside, and the remaining four held out their arms to show their identification bracelets. Calliere folded his arms and scowled. Saba read them off one by one.
“Maddy: Serial Number 19705 BL. Sassine: Serial Number 18234 BI. Guster: Serial Number 10100 BI. Swoosy: Serial Number 11995 BI. Oh, I know you, don’t I?”
Saba looked up at the last of the lizardmen. It was a hulking brute, at least six foot five, though it was doing its best to seem shorter. Its skin was deep forest green with large mottled patches of grey here and there. It looked nothing like the lightly colored, rather short female that the constable had seen saved by Graham Dokkins from the new arrivals.
“Hold on,” said the constable, grabbing the wrist with the bracelet.
With a hiss which bordered on a roar, the lizardman leapt forward, grabbing Saba’s helmet in its clawed right hand as its momentum carried both of them backwards. As he fell, Saba felt the alligator-like mouth clamp shut on his right shoulder. The gravel of the street flew as the man and the reptilian landed. The latter flipped completely over and onto his back. Saba jumped to his feet, his hand suddenly holding his truncheon even though he didn’t consciously grab it. With a speed belying its supposed cold-blood, the lizardman rolled onto his stomach, and without even getting up, launched himself into Saba. They both fell into the pallet of crates, one of which splintered, spilling its contents onto the ground. Saba swung his truncheon, but couldn’t tell if it connected. The next moment, his opponent was gone.
Jumping to his feet, the constable saw his attacker disappearing into the darkness, running south. All of the other lizardmen were either running or were already gone. Saba reached into his reefer jacket to feel his shoulder and pulled out a hand with several streaks of blood upon it. His pulse was pounding in his ears. Professor Calliere stood with his mouth open. The ground was strewn with papers.
Saba reached down and picked up a fist full of the papers. They were white, eight and a half by eleven inch papers, covered on one side with long strings of numbers. He kicked the damaged crate and it busted open completely, spilling out more of the number filled sheets.
“Papers? Just papers?”
Calliere looked unhappily at the ground.
“What the hell are these?”
“Just… just some calculations.”
“Are all these crates filled with these calculations?”
Calliere bit his lip.
“Professor, you’re going to need to come with me.”
Calliere’s eyes shifted but then he nodded.
City of Amathar 