I thought it was a stroke of genius when I created the Hertling twins, but I guess it was necessity.  When you have a story about twelve-year-olds, you can’t just have two.  You need a third so that you have a triangle.  I simply made the third child a pair of twins.

I introduced the twins in book 1, and they become major parts of the story in book 3, running around Port Dechantagne with Senta and Graham.  In book 2, I got to preview that a bit and I found myself with a chance to play with Hertzal a bit.

Usually when characters interact with the twins, they are interacting with Hero, Hertzal’s sister, because Hertzal doesn’t talk.  He hasn’t talked since witnessing his parents’ murders.  Here is Hertzal in a rare scene without his sister.

When the sandwiches had been completed, Senta delivered Zurfina’s to the appropriate location.  Then she put away the ingredients by hand and sat down at the table to enjoy hers.  She was only on her second bite when there was a knock at the door.    As she opened it, the cold air from outside blew across her bare shins and feet.  It had stopped snowing a couple of days before, but it was still cold out and the world was still covered with a thick blanket of white.  Standing outside and shivering was Hertzal Hertling.

“Hertzal!” squealed Senta, giving him a great hug.  “Where is your sister?  Didn’t she come with you?”

Hertzal remained as quiet as he always did, but shook his head.  Two years before, when he and his two sisters had escaped their former homeland of Freedonia, their parents had both been killed by soldiers.  Hertzal, who up until that time has seemed a perfectly normal boy, had lost his voice.  And there seemed to be no reason to expect its return any time soon.

“Come in and get warm.”  Senta pulled the boy into the house and closed the door after him.  “Are you hungry?”

Hertzal shrugged.

Taking this as an affirmative, Senta cut her sandwich in half and gave him the portion with no bite taken out of it.

“I’ll put on some tea.”

Hertzal took a bite of the sandwich and smiled with his blue lips closed.

Senta put the pot on the cast iron stove.

“Nothing’s wrong, is it?” she asked.

Hertzal shook his head.

“It’s only that I don’t see you very often by yourself.”

She crossed back to the stove and sat down.

“What’s Hero doing?”

He shrugged.

“Do you know where Graham is?”

He shook his head.

“So… kind of hard to have a conversation with you.”

Hertzal looked down at the table, took a bite of his sandwich and nodded sadly.

“That’s okay.  Really.  I don’t mind.” 

The kettle on the stove started to whistle, and Senta went and got it.  She transferred the water to a teapot, put loose leaves of tea into an infuser and dropped the infuser into the teapot as well.  Then she brought the pot and two cups to the table.

“You know, I bet I can be as quiet as you.”

Hertzal shook his head.

“Let’s see.  Ready, set.”  She silently mouthed the word “go.”

They finished their sandwiches and tea, looking back and forth at one another.  Afterwards Hertzal helped Senta take the plates, cups, and teapot to the sink and wash them.  Then Senta took him by the hand and led him to the bookcase next to Bessemer’s corner and pulled a wooden box from the bottom shelf.  With a flourish, she pointed to the words burned into the top of the box that spelled out “checkers.”  Hertzal smiled and they sat down to set up the board and begin the first of several games.  By mid-afternoon Hertzal had won six while Senta had won four.  He looked at her and cocked his head to the side.

“I didn’t let you win!” She slapped both hands to her mouth.  “Kafira!  You tricked me.”

Hertzal shrugged.  

“Are you going to stay for tea?”

Hertzal looked at the ceiling.

“I don’t think Zurfina will be down again today.  When she goes up to her study, she usually stays a good long while.”

He looked left, right, and then down near his feet.

“No.  Bessemer is out hunting or flying or some such.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“No, I’m not worried.  Fina says that he’s old enough to stay out of trouble.”

He raised the other eyebrow.

“No, I don’t believe it either.”

Hertzal jerked his head in the direction of the door.

“I don’t think your sister would like it if I came to your house for tea.  Honor, I mean.  I don’t think she likes me.”

He nodded.

“Well, if you’re sure.”

Nodding again, the boy got up and began putting on his coat.  Senta searched around for her own outer clothing and boots, as well as the snowshoes that Graham had given her.  When they were both suitably bundled, they headed out the door into the snow.

“So when are your moving in to your new place?”

Hertzal stared at her.

“You’re already there?  When did you move in?”

He held up two fingers.

“The day before yesterday?  You should have called me.  I could have helped you.”

He shrugged.

“Yeah.  I guess you guys didn’t really have all that much stuff to move.  It’s like me when I got here.  I didn’t have anything but my doll and the clothes that Fina gave me.”

Hetzal nodded knowingly.

“You know, I guess it’s not so hard to hold a conversation with you after all.”

Graham Dokkins is a character who has a lot of influence in the story of Senta and the Steel Dragon.  He is introduced in book 1, has a very large part in book 3, and small but important parts in books 2 and 4, and 5.  He is somebody whose presence is felt even when he’s not there, because the other characters talk about him.  One of my favorite parts in The Dark and Forbidding Land is the encounter between Graham and Senta with a couple of utahraptors.

Suddenly Graham stopped, putting his arm out to stop her as well.  Senta watched him as he slipped the strap of the rifle from his shoulder.  Only after he had pressed the butt of the stock to his shoulder did she look to see what had alarmed him.  Stalking slowly toward them, skirting the edge of the trees on the right hand side of the road were two monstrous feathered creatures.  They must have been the same two utahraptors that Aalwijn Finkler had seen.  They were magnificent creatures, cloaked in turquoise feathers that slowly turned to forest green at the end of their long tufted tails.  Those tails stuck straight out behind them, making their total length nearly twenty-five feet.  Their heads, eight feet above the ground, moved forward and back as they walked.  One of them would have been more than a match for a grown man.

Graham carefully aimed down the length of the barrel.  He squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened.  Lowering the weapon, he flipped the safety to the fire position, and then sighted again.  This time when he fired there was a satisfying crack.  The utahraptors stopped, startled for a moment, but seemed uninjured.  Graham worked the action and fired again.  This time Senta saw the bullet strike the trunk of a massive redwood about twenty feet above the ground and quite a bit behind the predators.

“It’s not sited in right,” muttered Graham, as he pulled back the bolt.

This time, as with the first shot, they were unable to determine where the missile hit.

“Um, aim at their feet and a bit to the right of them,” advised Senta.

This time the bullet hit a tree just to the right of the foremost creature.

“The next one is in your head!” called Graham as if he had intended the previous shots as warnings. 

The utahraptor did not look at all impressed.  He and his cohort were not much more than fifty feet away.  When they charged they could clear that distance in the blink of an eye.  For the moment though they were still being wary of the strange little creatures that made loud booming noises and refused to run.

“You better stand behind me,” said Graham bravely.

In The Dark and Forbidding Land, Saba Colbshallow becomes one of the major characters.  He was around a lot in The Voyage of the Minotaur.  I didn’t really realize how much until I reread it.  He’s hanging around when much of the important changes happen. In this book, he had to be a major protagonist, and his part of the book I think turned out really well.

Also, in this book I needed to introduce Eamon Shrubb.  He and Saba would become an important duo in Book 3.  They remain an important duo in Book 6 as I’m writing it now.  Here is their first meeting.

Saba Colbshallow sat on a piece of log.  It was one of many which had been provided for local lizzies to sit.  His left hand was full of small pebbles and he was tossing them with his right hand at a half rusted tin that had originally held butter biscuits.  Most of the thrown missiles missed their mark and even when one did land in the tin it didn’t improve his mood.  He had been in a bad mood for an entire week now, ever since the wedding.  Could you call that a wedding?  Five minutes in the Mayor’s office?  Yuah deserved much better than that.  She deserved much better than Master Terrence too.  Saba wanted to say that she deserved him, but he knew that he wasn’t good enough for her either.  She was an angel.  He had loved her ever since he was seven.  Then she had been a burgeoning sixteen-year-old beauty, with long dark brown hair and the most incredible eyelashes.  Of course before that, he had fancied Iolanthe, now Governor Dechantagne-Calliere.  But that was before she had changed.  Not that he blamed her; he understood.  Iolanthe was married, and now Yuah was too.  And here he was, an eighteen-year-old corporal in the militia, and didn’t even have a girl.

“Colbshallow, right?”

Saba looked up to see a big man standing a few feet from him.  Saba was six foot three and this fellow was just as tall, but with broader shoulders and a thick muscular chest.  Though the man was a few years older than Saba, he was only a private.

“That’s right.”

“I’m Shrubb, Eamon Shrubb.”

“Nice to meet you, Shrubb.”  Saba slowly stood up and stretched out a hand, which Shrubb took.

“What’s your Kafirite name, if you don’t mind my asking?” asked Shrubb.  “Um… you are a Kafirite, aren’t you?”

Saba nodded.

“I’ve never seen so many zeets before.”

“I don’t much care for that word,” said Saba, icily.  He was still thinking about Yuah and was predisposed to dislike anyone whom he thought might be aiming an insult even in her general direction.

“Quite right.  Quite right.  As I say, I’ve never met many zee… Zaeri.  I don’t have anything against them though.  I never understood that whole ‘killed Kafira’ thing anyway.  I mean, didn’t she come back from the dead?  That’s a big part of the church.  How could she have come back from the dead if nobody killed her?  All worked out for the best, as far as I can see.”

“Do you always talk this much?” asked Saba.

“No.”  Shrubb looked pensive.  “Quite uncharacteristic really.”

“Good.  My first name is Saba.  What would you say to some fish and chips?”

“I don’t generally talk to my food.”

In The Dark and Forbidding Land, Iolanthe moves from the front of the story to the back as it were.  Yuah takes her place as one of the main characters and since they live in the same household, we still see Iolanthe, only this time from her sister-in-law’s eyes.

One of the challenges for Iolanthe in this book is that Yuah marries Terrence and goes from being Iolanthe’s maid to being her social superior.  This is a scene where we see that pop out, seen this time from Cissy’s eyes.

Cissy made her way into the parlor and took a place quietly in the corner.  She was not afraid of the humans in question.  In fact, she found them fascinating.  All of the individuals described were present—Mr. and Mrs. Dechantagne, Governor Dechantagne-Calliere, Mrs. Godwin, and of course Iolana.  The lizzies had their own descriptive names for all of them; the names Kheesie had used.  Professor Calliere, whom they called “the tall one who makes no sense” was not present.  Mrs. Colbshallow, whom they simply called by the human word “lady” was in the kitchen as usual.

“I think I should have something to say about it,” Mrs. Dechantagne was saying, “because of my unique situation in this house.”

“I am well aware that you are the lady of the house now,” replied Mrs. Dechantagne-Calliere sharply.  “Are you trying to rub my nose in it?”

“No!  I don’t… that’s not the position to which I was referring.”

“My wife is alluding to the fact that she is the only Zaeri in the house,” said Mr. Dechantagne.

“Really?  I suppose I just assumed that she was going to convert.”

“Leave that alone, Iolanthe.  You know she has no desire to convert and you know that I wouldn’t have asked it of her.”

“I will leave this alone.  And she must leave that alone.  Mercy and his… solicitor are my concern, and I am more than capable of dealing with it.”

Mr. Dechantagne turned back to his wife, though of course he could not see her.  “She’s right Yuah.  You should stay out of this.  You get too worked up over it.  You’re too emotional.”

“I’m emotional?” cried Mrs. Dechantagne, jumping to her feet.  “I’m the least emotional person in this house!

She stomped her foot twice, and marched out of the room.