The horrible red head turned toward them.  Lady Iolana Staff felt a thrill of fear as the great yellow eyes met her own.  It was by far the closest she’d ever been to a tyrannosaurus.  The great black body pivoted toward them and took a single step in their direction. She could hear it sucking air through its fist-sized nostrils even at a hundred yards away.

“You mustn’t be frightened,” said her father’s voice at her shoulder.  “You must never be frightened.”

“I can be frightened, can’t I?” wondered Benny Markham.

“Quiet,” said Mr. Staff. “Everyone take careful aim. Remember what we talked about. You want the spot right between those useless little arms.  I shall be very cross if anyone shoots it in the head and ruins the trophy.

Iolana raised her rifle to her shoulder just as the monster took a second step toward the group of humans and lizzies.  In her peripheral vision, she could see Benny, Walter, and Augie doing the same thing. Although just outside the range of her eyes, she knew that Ascan was as well.

“Not yet,” said Mr. Staff. “Let’s see if she’ll get a little closer.”

It seemed as if the creature simply went from standing still one moment, to running at them with the speed of a locomotive.  Opening its great jaws, it unleashed the most horrible roar that could be imagined. All four of the others began firing, but even with the tyrannosaurus bearing down upon them, Iolana could feel her father’s eyes watching her rather than the beast.  She fired ten perfectly centered rounds in eight seconds, before calmly dropping the clip from the bottom of the rifle and slapping in another. The second clip proved entirely unnecessary, as the monster dropped to the ground, her massive blood-red head still fifteen feet away.

Iolana flipped on the safety and slung the rifle to her shoulder before turning to Mr. Staff, who stood smiling at her, his own firearm still cradled, unused, in his arm.

“Well done,” he said.

“Sweet Kafira, full of grace, thanks for our protection,” whispered Walter Charmley.

“No offense to your beliefs,” said Benny, “but I’d like to thank whoever invented the repeating rifle.”

“Oliver Winston-Davies,” said Iolana, stepping away from the others and toward the tyrannosaurus.  “In 1855.  Thankfully ours are rather improved over his model.”

“Be careful Iolana,” called Ascan Tice.  “Make sure it’s dead before you get too close.”

“She’s dead,” replied Iolana, reaching down and placing her palm against the blood red skin just behind the creature’s still open yellow eye.

The monstrous hind leg kicked into the air.  Several of the others jumped, and Benny let out a squeak.

“It’s nothing but her reflexes,” said Iolana.  “You were the queen of your world, weren’t you?”

She then turned and sat on the creature’s neck.  “Let’s have a photograph, then.  Are you ready, Mr. Buttermore?”  She placed the butt of her rifle on the dinosaur’s jaw, holding it upright beside her. She lifted her chin and smiled with only a little bit of a smirk.

Edin Buttermore was indeed setting up the hatbox-sized camera on its tripod.

“Almost ready for you, My Lady.  Let’s adjust the focal length.  Here we go. Now hold still… There we have it. That will make a spectacular print.”

“I’m surprised you were willing to carry all that equipment out here into the wilderness,” said Benny.

“These are some of the first good dinosaur pictures,” said Buttermore.  “I could get famous from these.  Besides, I thought it would be a good idea to be out of town until the Drache Girl left.”

“It’s not your fault that her picture just appeared in all of those books,” Benny replied.  “She knows that.  Senta’s quite reasonable.  Not that I’m saying I wouldn’t have chosen to get out of town, had I been in your position.”

“I knew that photo would be trouble years ago when I took it.  I didn’t even want to.  But how do you say no to Zurfina?”

“A naked Zurfina, at that,” added Ascan.

“Yes, well, even Senta couldn’t say no to her.  As I recall, she didn’t want to sit for the picture, and it turns out, I suppose, she had good reason.”

Iolana stepped away from the dead tyrannosaurus as the lizzies hurried forward and began hacking at the neck.

“Careful there!” yelled Staff.  “Cut down a little lower!”

“All in all, I think it’s been a very satisfactory day,” said Augie.

“That it has, Lord Dechantagne,” said Benny.

“The proper address is ‘My Lord’,” said Augie.

“We don’t bother with all of that,” said Staff.

“No, we don’t need to bother with all that,” said Augie.

“The next man who calls me Sir Radley may wind up with my boot stuck up his keister,” continued Staff.

Both Benny and Ascan glanced at Iolana to see if she would blush at her father’s colorful language, but she just grinned.

“Well, the lizzies seem to have everything in order now.  Shall we head on home, Iolana?”

“Yes, Father.”

When Senta woke the next morning, she assumed it was very early, as there was hardly any light coming in, even though all the curtains were open.  Then she heard the distant rumble of thunder and looked at the clock. It was almost eleven.  She stretched decadently across her bed.  That bed had cost as much as the average working man made in a year, and was the only one she’d even been in, at least since she’d been fully grown, in which her feet didn’t hang over the bottom.  As her hand stretched across, she felt the other side—the empty side.

She really didn’t expect Baxter to be there.  He almost never was by the time she got up.  But when he was there, he was a horrible, insatiable monster.  She smiled slyly at the memory of last night, and yesterday afternoon, as she rolled over.

On the far side of the room, Aggie, the lizzie dressing maid, was carrying hangers full of dresses to the closet.

“Bring me my foundations,” she said.

The lizzie started and hissed.

“I’ll wear that green walking dress.  Yes, the one with the white underdress.”

Aggie bobbed her head up and down to indicate she understood.  The lizzies were surprisingly good at helping human women get dressed.  Senta had been to a number of lizzie villages and two of the great lizzie city-states, and she knew how they festooned themselves with paint, feathers, and beads.  She supposed it really wasn’t all that different than dressing in gingham, lace, and make-up.

“Paint,” she said to herself.

Mistaking her meaning, Aggie rushed over to the vanity, where on rare occasions, Senta applied rouge, eye shadow, and lip color.

“No, not now.  After.”

When Senta stepped off the bottom of the staircase, she found her lover and her child in the parlor. The former was reading the paper and the latter was pushing herself along on a two-foot-tall, three-foot-long wooden iguanodon. Each of the creature’s four feet was attached to a pair of small wheels.  A miniature saddle was fixed into the creature’s back, making it just high enough that little Senta could reach the ground with her tiptoes and propel it.

“What’s this then?”

“Brilliant, isn’t it? Mr. Dokkins made it.  I thought it was a wonderful idea, since the real ones proved too scary.”

“Lift your feet a moment, Pet.”  The little girl did so.  “Uuthanum tachthna.  Now just think where you want to go, and you’ll get there without having to push.”

Within moments, Sen was zooming around the room, nowhere near the speed of a baby iguanodon, but much faster than she would have been able to on her own power.  Senta dropped down into a plush chair and draped her left arm and her head over the chair arm.

“Come and give kisses,”she ordered.

Sen raced by, crashing into the coffee table, backed up a bit, and turned to kiss her mother on the cheek.  Then she was back to zooming around the room.

“I take it the morning post has arrived,”said the sorceress.

Baxter lifted the paper he was reading in reply.

She walked to the foyer and retrieved the stack of letters from the small silver plate on the table by the door.  Flipping through them, she found among several bills, a letter addressed to her from Dr. Agon Bessemer.  She smiled, as she picked up the silver opener and cut through the envelope.  Back in the parlor, she plopped back into the overstuffed chair and read through the message.

“I have a letter from Bessemer,”she said.

“I saw that,”Baxter replied without looking up.

“He’s invited us to spend some time at his fortress.  We will be leaving in four days time.”

“We who?”

“Why, all of us.”

“Traveling overland through unexplored wilderness, presumably on foot, through wild lizzie territory, with vicious dinosaurs all around?”

“I’ve made the journey before. We’ll be perfectly safe.”

“It’s not safe for a child. Even if we all arrive in one piece, that fortress is no place for her either—surrounded by lizzies, without another human face.”

“Nonsense, we’ll be there.”

“For that matter, I don’t think it’s a safe place for Zoey.”

Senta let out an exasperated sigh.  “They worship dragons as gods!”

“You told me how they treated Bessemer before.  Even now, not all of the lizzies have accepted him.  But he’s big enough to take care of himself.”

“We will discuss it after dinner,”said Senta, standing up.  “Now I have business elsewhere.”

“Good morning, all,” said Peter Bassington walking jauntily into the dining room.

“Hi, Uncle,” said Sen from her seat atop a pile of mail order catalogs.

“Good morning, Peter,” said Baxter, watching him sit down and then pushing a platter of white pudding toward him.  “You seem in good spirits.”

“Why wouldn’t I be in good spirits?  Why wouldn’t anybody?  We’re here in Birmisia, the weather is warming up, there’s plenty to eat, and no one to tell us what to do.  Isn’t that right, sister?”

Senta didn’t answer. She was staring off into space.

“Sister?”

“What?”  She blinked and looked around, her eyes finally settling on him.  “Oh, do you still live here?”

“Don’t mind her,” said Baxter.  “She’s got her mind on important things and can’t be bothered with us mortals.”

“Well, I’m a journeyman wizard now.  I passed my test.  Maybe I could help you with whatever you have going on, sister.”

“That’s half-sister,” said Senta.  She rose out of her chair as if gravity didn’t exist for her and stepped around the table, pausing just long enough to bend over and bite Baxter on the ear, before leaving through the kitchen door.

“I think she’s getting meaner,” said Peter, frowning and reaching for the toast.

“Get Mr. Bassington some eggs.”  Baxter snapped his fingers at one of the lizzie servants.  “Like I said, don’t mind her.  She’s got something on her mind and forgets the ordinary things—like the fact that we have feelings.”

“Well I shan’t mind her. Life is too good to go around worrying about things.”

“So, what are you doing on this thoroughly wonderful day then?” asked Baxter.

“Oh, I’m going to fiddle around for a couple of hours, and then I have a lunch date.”

“Oh?  And where are you taking Miss Bassett?”

“It’s not with Abigail. I’m taking out Lucetta Hartley.”

“I don’t think I know that family.”

“They’re just here from Brechalon—Langsington.”

“Well, you certainly seem to be a popular fellow,” said Baxter.

“I know.”  The young man grinned.  “None of them ever noticed me back in Brech, but here I’m that popular.”

“I’m sure you can attribute some of that to the fact that your sister is letting you spend her money as freely as you can.”

“Yeah.  Do you think she’d let me buy a steam carriage? That’s really the only reason I’m not completely irresistible.”

“I know for a fact that Senta will have nothing to do with a steam carriage,” said Baxter.  “She doesn’t like them.  And part of your resistibility has to do with your being a dunderhead.”

“Hey!  She said I could buy what I wanted.  Besides, I don’t see you with any of your own money. How much did that fine suit set you back?”

“You watch your mouth if you don’t want it smacked,” said Baxter.

Peter raised a finger, threateningly.  Baxter gave him a withering look.

“I wasn’t referring to your spending habits,” he said, “but to your jumping from one young lady to another. You’re going to burn all your bridges. You know they all talk to each other, don’t you?”

“There are plenty of fish in the sea,” grumbled Peter, bothered less by the criticism than by the fact that Baxter didn’t seem to be afraid of his magic.

“That may be, but a good fisherman doesn’t poison the water.”  Baxter wiped his mouth with his napkin and tossed it onto his plate. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Sen and I are off to ride a dinosaur this morning.”

“You can’t take a baby on a dinosaur.”

“I’m not a baby,” said the little girl.  “I’m three.”

“You see there,” said the man, standing up and scooping the girl up into his arms.  “Come along, my darling.  Let’s get my riding clothes on.”

Peter watched him leave and then turned his attention to his breakfast, just as the lizzie brought out two basted eggs on a plate.

“You should listen to him,” said a sultry female voice.  “I would imagine he’s been with many women.”

Peter looked around, not seeing anyone at first, and then the coral dragon rose up from the other side of the table, taking Senta’s vacated seat.  She reached out her scaly arm and picked up each of the remaining platters one at a time, dumping their contents onto Senta’s barely touched plate.

“What do you know about it, Zoey?” asked Peter.

“Hardly anything, which is only slightly less than you.”

“Hardy har, har.”

Peter took two more bites of his breakfast then called for a lizzie to bring him a cup of tea, which he carried out into the garden.  Sitting in a wrought iron chair, he sipped the drink as steam rose up and tickled his nose.

“You could catch a chill out here without your coat on.”

“I might be able to catch some peace and quiet.  If only.”

“Nobody wants the dragon around.”  The smooth metallic body curled around him until the spiky, whiskered face was right in front of his.  “I could get a complex.”

“I apologize,” said Peter, with a sigh.  “I was in such a good mood when I came down the stairs, and then… well, I get reminded that I’m just me.”

“What’s wrong with being you?” asked Zoey.

Hundreds of miles to the southeast of Port Dechantagne, the lizzie city of Yessonarah stretched across the sloping side of the great hill the lizzies had named Zsahnoon.  Less than three years old, the city already housed more than 100,000 reptilians, and more were arriving every week.  At the city’s northern edge, it touched the shore of Lake Tsinnook, created when the River Ssukhas was dammed.  On the east, the city was protected by a great stone wall running from the edge of the hill to the lake, but there was only a wooden wall on the west side, and it had several large gaps in it.  Amid a sea of square wooden houses were two dozen stone foundations that would someday hold important public buildings, but as yet only two such buildings existed.  The first, the great palace of the king was in use, though it was only about two thirds completed.  The other was the first great temple to the lizardmen’s god Yessonar.

High Priestess Tokkenoht stood at the top of the stepped pyramid, 130 feet above the city streets. The pyramid’s design was different from temples in any other Birmisian city, as so many things about Yessonarah were different.  Each of the nine levels, representing the nine ages of the universe, was covered in smooth white limestone.  The staircase running up the pyramid’s front, from the base to the top, was marble trimmed with red brick fired in a kiln, a process learned from the soft-skins.  Behind her, the square vault was dark grey marble, with a copper frieze and a doorway trimmed in copper.  And on either side of that doorway was a sculpture of the god, carved of stone but covered in silver.  The top of the vault was of course flat, to give the god a place to sit when he came to visit.

The temple’s dedication was still three days a way, but everything was coming along.  With a quick glance at the acolytes stationed at the vault, Tokkenoht descended the great staircase.  A hundred or more lizzies, mostly new arrivals to the city, stopped what they were doing to watch her.  She was quite a spectacle.  Her smooth green skin was painted azure blue, with zigzag designs of bright yellow down her belly.  She wore a cape made of feathers of all colors of the rainbow, from crimson achillobator feathers near her tail, to bright blue utahraptor feathers poking up to form a collar behind her head.

When she reached the street, the crowd parted for her, some of them bowing low.  She hissed pleasantly to them and then climbed into her sedan chair, an enclosed seat carried litter-like by the four large males, their bodies painted white, who waited beside it.  It was a not a long journey to the palace, but the streets were busy, so by the time they arrived, the sun was already dropping toward the western horizon. When the bearers sat her chair down, Tokkenoht dismissed them for the day and walked quickly up the steps to the residence.

“Welcome home, High Priestess,” said Sirris, waiting at the top.  She had no paint or feathers, but wore a large gold necklace, with a Yessonar pendant.

“Thank you, wife of my husband.  Were you waiting to speak with me?”

“No.  I just stepped out here.  I am on my way to check with Ssu and see that all the preparations are complete.”

“I will go with you,” said Tokkenoht.  “I want to see the…  what was that soft-skin word that Kendra used?”

“Children.”

“Yes.  I want to see the children.”

Together, they walked through an ornately carved archway and into the royal gardens.  The gardens were not particularly impressive at the moment, as the winter plants were past their prime.  It wouldn’t be long till they were pulled out and replaced with spring flowers.  But the colorful birds in the aviaries still sang and the fountains still sprayed their jets of water.

Just past the gardens were five plots of carefully prepared soil, and just beyond them, a huge cage. Built like the aviaries, the cage was a half dome made of mesh wire over a wooden frame.  Unlike the aviaries though, which were twenty feet in diameter, this great cage was one hundred feet across.  Inside was a carefully created environment, replicating the forests that stretched out hundreds of miles in every direction.

Ssu sat on a stone bench, watching the inhabitants of the cage.  Tokkenoht and Sirris stopped beside her and looked.  Scampering around inside the enclosure were some one hundred little lizzie offspring.  Half of them were over a year old and already starting to walk upright.  The other half, not yet yearlings, were still on all fours, scarcely thirty inches long.

“How are they?” asked the high priestess.

“They are good,” said Ssu, flushing her dewlap in pleasure.

“Oh, that one is mine!” shouted Tokkenoht, spying a blue band on one of the little hind legs.

Yes, things in Yessonarah were very different.  Everywhere else in the world, female lizzies laid their eggs in communal nests in the forest.  An old female was usually assigned to watch over the nest until hatching, but after the hatching, the offspring ran wild until they were captured and civilized into a lizzie household, or they were eaten.  But here, in Yessonarah, the females were keeping track of their eggs and their offspring.  What had started two years before as an experiment among the wives of the king, had spread.  Now every house in the city was preparing its own nest for the coming spawning, and its each house had its own egg keeper.  In two more years, the first lizzies ever to know their parents would be old enough to join society.  This was the reason that so many lizardmen were flocking to Yessonarah, especially females.

Almost two weeks had gone by and Iolana’s mother was still angry with the sorceress.  She sat at the head of the great table while she and the other three women of the house had their tea.  With a cup in one hand and a report in the other, she clicked her tongue. Carefully folding the paper, she handed it to Kayden, the lizzie majordomo, who carried it into the other room. Iolana caught the eye of Zandy, another lizzie, nodding to indicate that he should follow.  She wanted to see just what was going on between her mother and Senta.

“Garrah, please bring out that new chutney,” she called, more to distract away from Zandy than anything else.

The four women couldn’t have been more different.  It was less than two months until Iolana’s fourteenth birthday, but she seemed older. She had always been precocious and now her body was catching up with her mind.  With her great waves of golden curls, she was a striking girl.  Her ten year old cousin Terra, on the other hand, seemed pale, thin, and sickly though all the best doctors assured that she was perfectly healthy.  Her light brown hair, curled each morning, was limp by tea.  Iolana’s mother was still a beautiful woman, but stress had taken some toll.  Her Auntie Yuah though was one of the great beauties of the colony, with thick dark brown hair and large brown eyes.

“When does Augie get home?” asked Terra in her scratchy little voice.

“The train is scheduled for a 2:00 PM arrival tomorrow, as I’ve told you at least five times,” said Iolanthe.

“She’s excited to see her brother, is all,” said Auntie Yuah.  “I can’t wait to see him either—my precious boy.  It seems like he’s been gone a year.”

“I really miss him too,” said Iolana, sincerely.  “And Father, of course.”

“Yes, it will be good to have them home,” said Iolanthe.

“We’ll need them to run off all the boys,” said Auntie Yuah, leaning forward.  “A hundred suitors at the age of thirteen.  Whoever heard of such a thing?”

“They’re not suitors,” said Iolana with a frown.  “It’s just the New Year’s tradition.  And there weren’t a hundred.  There were eighty-two.”

“That’s more than any other eligible girl, I’ll bet,” said Terra.

“I wouldn’t know.  I haven’t compared notes with anyone else. And I’m noteligible.”

“Not yet,” said Iolanthe. “But it’s good to start observing them now.  Weeding out the weak, as it were.  How many of the eighty-two were acceptable matches?”

“None of them,” said Iolana. “None of them are acceptable matches. I’m not looking for an acceptable match. I’m not looking for anyone at all.”

“Well you will have to marry someday,” said her mother.

“No, I won’t.”

“You don’t have a choice anymore.  Your father went to a great deal of trouble to provide for your future.  He had to have Parliament pass a law, so that his new titles pass through you to your sons, rather than to his third cousin as his closest male heir.  He had to get the blessing of the King.”

“This isn’t the dark ages!” shouted Iolana, jumping to her feet.  “I don’t give two figs for the King, the Parliament, or the Barony of Saxe-Lagerport-Drille.  I won’t be traded around like a prize cow!”  She stomped toward the doorway.  “Forget the Kafira-damned chutney!” she shouted at the hapless lizzie coming from the kitchen.

At the top of the stairs, Iolana almost ran headlong into another lizzie.  This one, unlike every other reptilian in the house, or the whole city for that matter, was wearing a yellow sundress, a hole cut in the back for her tail to stick out.

“Why weren’t you at tea?” demanded the girl.

“I’m sstill full from lunch,” said the lizzie in almost flawless Brech.

“Hardly an excuse. Without you there, they all gang up on me.”

“Ssorry.”

“Oh Esther, I’m not angry with you.”  She leaned forward and hugged the lizzie.  “You can’t imagine how much I’m looking forward to Father being home.”

“Yes.”

“I’m just so sick of this house.  I need to get out.  I need to do something.”

“Croquet?”

“No.”

“Archery?”

“Yes,” said Iolana. “That’s perfect.  Have Garrah get out the bows and set up the targets.”

“Shall I get Lady Terra?” asked Esther.

“Lady Terra.”  Iolana rolled her eyes.  “Yes, we all have titles now.  Do go invite Lady Terra to join us.  Oh, and find out from Zandy where Kayden put those papers of my mother’s. I want you to read them and tell me what they say.”

“Anything else?”

“Don’t get cheeky.”

“No, Lady Iolana,” said Esther, turning and making her way down the stairs.

Though far younger than Iolana, Esther was about an inch taller.  The lizardmen grew much faster than human beings.  The girl had adopted the lizzie when the latter was little larger than a hat box, determined to civilize her, and to all appearances, she had been more than successful.  Esther was Iolana’s companion and helper, participating in almost all of the girl’s activities and having her own room in the house just down the hallway from Iolana’s.

Light streamed from every window out into the dark night.  A group of caudipteryx skirted the edge of the shadows, snapping up insects drawn to the light, and leaving little three-toed tracks in the snow.  In the distance, a train whistle sounded, setting several triceratopses to honking.  Inside the thirty-room mansion of the Drache Girl, every gas lamp was lit and fires burned in all of the fireplaces.  Recorded music played, but not loudly enough to drown out the happy conversation and laughter of the party guests.  It was still an hour away, but everyone was excited to see the premier of the New Year.  The gentlemen were dressed in black tie and tails.  The ladies in their finest evening wear, the current fashion exposing as much of the shoulders and back as possible while their bottoms already enlarged by magnificent bustles, were exaggerated even more so by huge bows or cascades of lace.

“Another beer?” asked Kieran Baxter, waving to a lizzie servant, who was even then weaving through the crowd in his direction with a silver tray loaded with frosty bottles. The lizzies were members of the cold-blooded reptilian native race of Birmisia Colony, on the Continent of Mallon, where the city of Port Dechantagne was located.  Ranging in color from light olive to deep forest green, they gave the appearance of an alligator crossed with an iguana, if either had been able to walk around on their hind legs.  Thick tails followed behind them, the tips a few inches off the floor.

“I say, Baxter,” said Gyula Kearn, looking around.  “I was just telling Vishmornan here that I feel like an old man in this crowd.”

Kearn was an unprepossessing and slightly chubby man in his mid thirties, with thinning blond hair, but easily recognizable for missing his right arm below the elbow.  His companion, Tait Vishmornan, was at least ten years older, and looked older still.  Tall and gaunt, his still thick hair had long ago gone completely grey, and only the warm glow of the gaslights gave his pasty pallor any hint of health. Baxter on the other hand, about the same age as Kearn, was tall, lean, and well muscled.  His red hair and boyish good looks made him a popular subject of discussion among the ladies of the town.  He looked around the room.

“We do seem to be the oldest ones here.”  He grabbed two bottles from the tray carried past by the servant and handed them to the two men.  “At least you have two young and beautiful wives.”

Both men smiled and looked across the room at their wives.  Bertice Vishmornan was probably the oldest woman at the party, though fifteen years younger than her husband.  Her long blond hair wound up into a bun, she sat on the sofa listening intently to something that Honor McCoort had to say.  Honor, a dark-haired beauty despite the scar running down the side of her face, clad in a simple brown dress, gestured with her left hand as she talked.  Her husband Geert McCoort, sat next to her, holding onto her right hand like a child holding on to a balloon, as if she might, at any moment, float away.  Behind the sofa, Melis Kearn was surrounded by a group of other young women, but there was no mistaking her.  In addition to her dark skin and thick mass of black hair, she wore a gauzy Mirsannan gown of blue and gold, and had a thick, gold ring piercing her nose.

“Carry on, gentlemen,” said Baxter, continuing on his circuit through the room.     In the far corner, he found three young couples.  Didrika Goose, Tiber Stephenson, Questa Hardt, Philo Mostow, Talli Archer, and Samuel Croffut all seemed to be talking at the same time.  It was hard to tell, but the subject seemed to be steam carriages. That made sense, since they were all, at fifteen and sixteen years of age, ready to start driving.  Tiber Stephenson and Samuel Croffut were strapping young men, and both frequently were found on the rugby field.  Philo Mostow was tall and thin.  Talli Archer was a pretty blond girl with a large gold cross on a chain around her neck.  Stopping next to them, Baxter waited for their conversation to pause.

“Did you get something to eat?” he asked them.

“Those little meat pies were delicious,” said Questa, her dark skin giving away her Mirsannan heritage, though her clothing and accent were all Brech.  “I’m stuffed full now, though.”

“There’s plenty more of everything.  Try the little meatballs.  You look like you could still eat, Croffut.”

Young Croffut gave a half nod-half shrug.

“I’ll send around more Billingbow’s, too.”

“Yes, I wouldn’t mind a drink,” said Didrika, a thin, blond young woman with a strong family resemblance to the hostess.

Baxter snapped his fingers in the air and waved to the lizzie who was now serving Billingbow’s Sarsaparilla and Wintergreen Soda Water to the Colbshallows, the Shrubbs, and the Hertlings.

“Is Birmisia still all that you thought it would be?” asked Saba Colbshallow, quickly grabbing another bottle from the tray as the lizzie turned to leave.  He was a tall handsome man with a slight bend in his nose.

“I could never have believed my life would be so wonderful,” replied Leoni Hertling.  “Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to leave Freedonia. It’s harder for girls there now than it was before the war.  So when they offered passage to the new land in exchange for six months of service, I jumped at it.  But never did I imagine that I would meet such a wonderful man as my Hertzel.”

She wrapped her hands around her husbands arm and squeezed as he smiled happily.  Both, like most ethnic Zaeri, had jet-black hair.  His was shaved close around his ears, while hers, still very thick, was bobbed just above the collar.

“As fine a man as any woman could want,” said Eamon Shrubb, raising his bottle in salute. Though just as tall as Saba, he was much more heavy set, giving one the impression of a stone wall.

Hsrandtuss watched the workers maneuver the two-ton square of stone up the hill.  A few pushed while many others pulled with ropes wrapped around the block, and still others moved the logs used as rollers from the back to the front as needed.  He flushed his dewlap in satisfaction. Things were looking good.  The dam had been completed and the lake was filling up. Those workers freed from labor on the dam were now building walls—either the stone wall fortifying the hill or the wooden wall surrounding the entire town site.  The bottom floor of the palace was under construction and there was even a single room with a ceiling in place.

“You are pleased, my husband?”

The king turned to look at Szakhandu, who ran her hand over the scar on his back.  She had long since been allowed back into his hut and his good graces.

“It is good,” he said.

“Have you thought any more about Kendra’s plan?”

He narrowed his eyes.  “What plan?”

“Her idea to raise her offspring from the time they hatch.”

“I was afraid that was the plan you were talking about.  Have you been discussing it with her?”

“We all have.”

“All of you?”

“Yes.”

“And have you come to a consensus?”

“Sirris, Tokkenoht, and I like Kendra’s ideas.  Sszaxxanna is against them.  Ssu hasn’t expressed an opinion.”

“Ssu has no opinion,” said Hsrandtuss, “because Ssu has no thought in her head.  That is why she is my favorite wife.”

“Ssu is not your favorite,” said Szakhandu.  “Tokkenoht is.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Lately, she has held most of your confidences.”

“She has proven herself both valuable and reliable.  That doesn’t mean she is my favorite.  However the fact she, as well as you and Sirris, agrees with Kendra settles it for me.  We will build a private nesting area for you to use.  One of you will be the royal egg keeper and will watch over all of your nests.”

“This is well done, my husband.”

“It is an experiment,” he said.  “We will try it for a season, but we don’t need to spread it around.  I’m not sure how other people will take it. Talk with the others and decide who might make a good egg keeper.  I’ll make the final decision after hearing your advice.”

At that moment a young male came running to the king.  He stopped and quickly placed his hand in front of his dewlap, palm out, in a sign of respect.

“Great King,” he said.  “Great Yessonar has been spotted in the sky.

He pointed off just above the distant horizon.

“Excellent!” boomed Hsrandtuss.  “Tell Straatin to prepare a place for him, with something comfortable for the god to sit upon.  And tell Chutturonoth to form an honor guard to accompany me.”  He turned to Szakhandu.  “Get all the wives.  They must come too.”

A short time later, the king marched out from the partially constructed city, leading his six wives and a dozen warriors, all painted in their finest form.  He could see Yessonar circling above the other side of the plain.  He was mildly surprised that the dragon hadn’t simply landed by Yessonarah, but he wasn’t bothered too much about it.  After all, a god could do whatever he wanted.

It wasn’t long before it became obvious what the dragon was doing.  He was circling over a herd of sauroposeidon. The huge herbivores ranged in size from those only recently having reached adulthood and weighing not much over ten tons, to the old matriarch who was more than 150 feet long and weighed well over 60 tons.  They skirted the edge of the pine forest.  The dragon picked the one that he wanted and with a quick flip upward to gain speed, turned, and shot toward the ground like a missile.  Hsrandtuss and the other lizzies were almost lifted from their feet by the force of the great reptile hitting his prey, a forty ton adult female.  The sauroposeidon scattered before regrouping and hurrying away in a group.

By the time the lizardmen reached the site of the attack, the dragon had consumed a good portion of the dinosaur.  He gave them a quick glance, but continued eating, raking off giant pieces of meat with his great clawed hands.  The other reptilians stayed well away, outside the range of the constantly whipping barbed tail, but Hsrandtuss marched forward until he was actually standing in the dragon’s shadow.

“Great Yessonar,” he said.  “I would gladly have had a fire made and cooked this for you.  I know you like your meat the way the soft-skins serve it. Truth be told, I eat it that way myself sometimes.”

“Takes too long,” said the dragon, his mouth full.  “You wouldn’t believe how hungry I get flying.”

“It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?”

“What?” wondered Yessonar.

“I have noticed that pound for pound, a soft skin will eat two or three times as much as I do.  For some reason, their bodies need a great deal of energy.  I would imagine you eat two or three times as much as they do, pound for pound I mean.  And here you are, as big as two tyrannosauruses.  How many of these do you have to eat in a day?”

“Two or three, depending on how active I am.”  He took another bite, blood dripping over the shiny steel scales of his chin.  “You are a funny fellow, Hsrandtuss.  You have a very inquisitive nature and you are always looking for ideas.  You remind me of a human in that way.  That’s why they need so much food, you know.  It’s their brains.  That and the hot blood.  They are always thinking.”

“They think too much,” replied the king.  “Who wants to think all the time?  Clearly it is the quality of the thinking and not the quantity that’s important.”

Hsrandtuss could feel the dragon’s laughter vibrating in his bones.

“Your city is coming along.”