Hero is a character who is a lot of fun to write.  She remains pretty much normal– a dull brown next to Senta’s gold.  She doesn’t really have a story arc of her own, at least until book 5 (and beyond).  She’s there strictly in a supporting role.  Here she is doing just that in The Young Sorceress.

Hero had been Senta’s best friend for more than five years now.  While they had once been nearly the same height, Hero was now noticeably shorter than the young sorceress.  She was in fact, quite a bit shorter now than her own twin.  Other than height though, Hertzal and Hero looked very much alike.  They both had large expressive eyes.  They both had thick dark hair, Hero’s long and naturally curly, Hertzal’s short and razor cut above the ears.

“Senta!” squealed Hero, hopping two steps across the tiny room to give her friend a great hug.  “What are you doing here?”

Hertzal smiled happily.  He had never spoken as long as the sorceress had known him, but he had his own ways of making himself understood.

“I’m taking you all to dinner at Finkler’s.”

“We haven’t decided for sure…” started Honor.

“That’s ace,” said Hero.  “We could smell Mrs. Finkler’s stew all over the square.  Oh, here’s your thread, Honor.”

She handed her sister a small cloth bag.

“Well, I suppose I should get my shawl,” said Honor.  “You two bundle up.  It’s still warm out, but it will be quite cool when we come home.”

She cast an eye in Senta’s direction.

“This is surprisingly warm,” said the sorceress, gesturing to her own unusual clothing.

The four of them walked west down First Avenue toward the square.  The three teens carried on an animated conversation, oblivious to almost anything else.  The eldest of the group carried a kerosene lantern in one hand and a lizzie sword in one hand.  The flat weapon looked a lot like a cricket bat, but was encrusted around the edges with small, very sharp pieces of obsidian.

There was a short line at the bakery, as the eating establishment featured only seven tables, three on the inside, and four on the outside.  When Senta and her friends joined the queue though, it became much shorter.  They could hear several people whispering “the Drache Girl” as they suddenly decided to eat at either the new beanery or Café Ada.

“It seems like a lot of people are afraid of you,” said Hero to Senta, as they took one of the outdoor tables.

“Well, that’s just good sense,” Senta replied.

One person that was apparently not afraid was the waitress.

“Well, if it isn’t three of the four biggest trouble makers in town,” she said, setting down a pot of tea and four cups.  “Hello Honor.”

“Shouldn’t you be at home with your kids?” asked Senta.

Gaylene Finkler made a face.  She was the wife of restaurateur Aalwijn Finkler, not to mention sister of Senta’s boyfriend, Graham.  Though she was only seventeen, she was already the mother of two.  Her eyes looked tired as she ran a hand through her sandy hair. 

“I had to get out.  Ma is taking care of the kids.  Another five minutes in the house and I would have taken an axe to everyone in it, and that includes your boyfriend.”

“Maybe you should have a rest instead of working,” offered Honor.

“We’re short of help.  Besides, when I’m here I get a chance to waffle with my friends.”  She waved a hand to Dutty Speel at another table, and who waved back.  “So what do you want?”

“How about some lovely stew?” said Senta.

“Right.  Stew.  Fresh bread.  Relish platter.  Anything else?”

“How about four Billingbow’s?”

“Just water for me,” said Honor.

“Got it,” said Gaylene; then she was off.

“Say, is that Zurfina over there?” asked Hero.

Lovable police constable Eamon Shrubb returns in The Young Sorceress.  He makes a great side-kick for Saba Colbshallow, and is constantly needling him about his relationship with all the powerful women of the colony.  My favorite recurring line of his is “Violators call me Police Constable Shrubb.”  Here he uses it on Senta.

Senta stepped out of the store with the candy in one hand and the soda water in the other.  Turning to the right, she passed the dress shop, heading for the opening in the Emergency Wall.  She hadn’t gone too far when she practically walked into two young men.  They were both at least six feet tall and broad shouldered, and when they stood next to each other they completely blocked the entire walkway.  The young sorceress was momentarily startled.  She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had blocked her path.

“What have we here,” said one of the young men to the other.

He looked to be nearly twenty.  His hair was long and messy, but he was not bad looking otherwise.  His friend though had a nasty leer on his face that looked like it never went away—that and a red scar across his chin.  They were both well-muscled and wore the clothing of merchant seamen.  That explained a lot.

“Looks like a little bird got out of her nest.”

Senta stuck the end of the licorice into her mouth and yanked on it till a piece broke off.  The men didn’t seem to notice her nonchalance.

“Maybe she could show us what they do for fun in this God forsaken country,” continued the second man.  “Could you do that honey?  Could you show us some fun?”

Senta took another bite of licorice.

“You know it’s not even tea time, right?” she asked.  “Don’t hoodlums usually wait until nightfall before assaulting young women?  Aren’t you worried about the coppers getting after you?”

“I don’t see any coppers, do you?” asked the man.

“As a matter of fact, I do.  He’s right over there.”

The two men looked across the square and indeed a uniformed police constable was striding swiftly toward them.  He was much larger than even the sailors and he carried a heavy wooden truncheon in one hand.  The two men quickly stepped around Senta and disappeared down the alley between shops.

“Hello Eamon,” said Senta when Police Constable Shrubb stopped on the spot so recently vacated by the two hoodlums.

“Violators call me PC Shrubb.”

“What?”

“Miss Senta Bly, I have a warrant for your arrest.”

“You have a what now?”

“A warrant.  Mr. Eden Buttermore has sworn out a complaint against you for attacking him at the bakery café.”

“I didn’t do any such thing.”

“There are sworn statements from six witnesses.”

“Six, huh?”

“That’s right.  Now come along quietly lass, and I won’t have to put you in the cuffs.”

“Now Eamon, you know that if I wanted to attack someone, he’d be in no condition to swear out a complaint.”

She raised her hand and the constable stepped back, but the sorceress just took another bite of licorice.

“Well, let’s get going,” she said.  “I don’t want to spend all day at the police station.”

It was a twenty minute walk to the new police station and court house which sat alone in a forested lot just east of the train depot.  It had been built of sharp red brick almost two years before, with white stonework at the corners and above the windows and doors.  It was a square five story building.  On the arch above the door was carved in large letters “POLICE” and just below it, the police motto “punishment follows swift on guilt.”  The colony now boasted half a dozen police constables, but only one was present in the main office.  When Senta entered the front door just ahead of Eamon, the young PC jumped up, knocking his chair over.  The girl sat her empty soda bottle on the counter and smiled at him.

“Take it easy lad,” said Eamon.  “Just toss me the key.”

“Oh hey!  You’re not tossing me in the clinker!”

“Only until the Justice of the Peace can get here.”

“Um,” said the young constable.  “He’s already here.  He’s upstairs in his office.”

“Fine then.”  Eamon led the way to the elevator.

Graham Dokkins is one character who really gets a demotion in The Young Sorceress.  After showcasing him so much in book 2 and book 3, it feels kind of strange that he is in the background in book 4 so much.  There really isn’t much place for him though.  I think you really see who Graham is in the parts in which he appears.  Here he comes to the rescue of Harriet the Triceratops.

After arranging for the rental of the warehouse, Senta started back the way she had come.  The trolley was right where she had left it, but now there was some kind of kerfuffle going on.  It was difficult to see just what it was as a crowd had gathered around, but the honking cries echoing between the buildings made it clear that Harriet was unhappy.

“Hey give-over!” said Senta, pushing her way past two men.

As soon as others began noticing who she was, a path parted before her, revealing an angry triceratops struggling against the harness that attached her to the trolley.  Harriet had already turned to one side, pulling the wheels from the rails and now several men were pulling at ropes tied around her horns.  The great boney frill surrounding her head was flushed bright red.

“Hey! Knock that off, you wankers!” shouted a familiar voice from across the crowd.  “Those horns aren’t for yankin’ on.”

Senta looked to see her boyfriend Graham pushing past several new arrivals.  He was about the same age that she was, though the dungarees and heavy shirt made him look older.  He was almost a head shorter than Senta, with unkempt brown hair and a freckled face that was usually smiling, but which right now was twisted into a snarl.  He jumped forward and pulled the rope away from the hands of one of the men and moved toward the dinosaur, murmuring soothing words.  Harriet was in no mood now to be comforted though, and took a bite at him with her great beaked mouth.

“Teiius Uuthanum,” said Senta, spreading her hands toward the enraged dinosaur.

Almost immediately Harriet stopped twisting and pulling on the ropes, and two seconds later her massive head slumped as she closed her eyes.  She remained standing, but slept, even giving a single honking snore.

“Those horns aren’t for pulling on!” Graham shouted again at the men.  “They’re for display!  They’ll break off!”

He threw the rope on the ground and stomped away.  Senta hurried after him, catching up about halfway down the hill.

“Graham,” she called.

He half turned and scowled at her and then continued on.

“Hey!”

She ran after him and grasping him by the shoulder, turned him around.

“What gives?” she asked.

“Oh, you want to see me now?”

“What are you talking about?”

“We were supposed to meet last evening.  I was going to buy you dinner at the new restaurant.   I’ve been saving for weeks.  Any of this sound familiar?  Instead I ate beef in a boot by myself.”

“Beef in a boot?  You mean filet de boeuf en croute?  Seems like I should be the one who is angry.  All I had was a sandwich.”

“Hardly my fault,” said Graham.  “I had to eat mine alone with all the people in Café Ada watching me.”

“It couldn’t have been that bad.  Your brother-in-law took care of you, didn’t he?”

“More like he took pity on me, just like everyone else did for the poor tosser that got himself stood up by his girl.”

“I’m sorry, all right?  I had a thing with Zurfina.  You have to make allowances.”

“I make all kinds of allowances, but even I can only take so much.”

“I will make it up to you,” said Senta.  “We’ll go on a pic-nic together tomorrow.  You still have roast beef left over, don’t you?”

The boy nodded.

“Good.  We can eat it cold.  I’ll pack tea and biscuits and we’ll have a nice day in the park.”

“All right,” said Graham begrudgingly.  “I’ll pick you up at your house—eleven sharp.”

“I’ll be ready,” promised Senta.

Saba Colbshallow’s part in The Young Sorceress is mostly official, in that he is fulfilling his job as a Police Inspector.  He still has his moments with Senta, of course.  All that plays into the larger story going on in the series.  Here Saba and his wife have Senta to tea.

“Senta!”

The young sorceress turned to see Saba Colbshallow walking toward her, only then realizing that she was right in front of his house.  The Colbshallow home was a large, beautiful red brick house sitting back from the road in the shade of large pines and maples on a large fenced estate.  A team of lizzies was busy planting apple trees, which the young police sergeant had apparently been supervising.

“Hey Saba.”

“I was just getting ready to run your birthday gift over to you.”

“You got me a present too?”

“Loana and I got you a present.  Now we can give it to your in person.  She’s just getting ready for tea in the garden.  Come join us.”

“Who’s living in your old house then?” asked Senta.

The small A-frame house, which had been Saba’s first home and stood on the corner of the property, looked like a storage shed next to the newly finished home.  But Senta could see through the window that someone was moving about inside. 

“I’m renting it.”

“I assumed that, since I can see someone has moved in.  I suppose you can use the rent money to lavish your wife with imported fruit trees.  So just who is it that you have living here?”

“It’s Mr. Clipers, the Zaeri Imam.”

“And that’s not making your wife crazy?”

“Of course not.  She hasn’t been around many Zaeri, but now that she’s here, she’s become more cosmopolitan.  Talking of which, when I first saw you I thought you were one of the Zaeri girls on her way home.”

“Oh?  How’s that?”

“With your brown and white dress.  It’s just the sort of thing they would wear.  Anyway, come on back.  Loana will be so excited you’re here.”

Loana was in fact, not excited to see Senta there, though she covered it well.  With a quick admonition to the lizzies to keep working, Saba had led Senta to the garden behind the house.  Here a white wrought iron table had been set for tea.  Two matching chairs were in place, but Saba had quickly added a third.  He was pulling out the chair for the young sorceress just as his wife stepped out of the garden door followed by a lizzie carrying a tray of food.

“I didn’t know you had invited a guest,” said the new Mrs. Colbshallow, a smile tightly affixed to her mouth.

“I just saw her walking down the road,” explained Saba.  “Knowing how much you wanted to get together with her, I thought this was the perfect opportunity.”

“Yes indeed.”

Loana took the tray from the lizzie and sat it on the table, smoothed out her dress, and then waited for her husband to pull out a chair for her.  He did and then sat down himself.  Loana was wearing a lovely dress, pink with black brocade and a low neckline which was trimmed with a dozen large bows.  It displayed her charms nicely.  Loana was as perfect a beauty as could be found in all of Birmisia.  Her chin, her nose, her waist—each of these might have been found in an encyclopedia showing the perfect version of that body part.  Her hair was unusual, arranged in a very complex style, with each strand seemingly a different shade from very light blond to coppery red.  Her eyes were also multihued, one deep brown and the other hazel.

“I made plenty of food.  My Saba always has a healthy appetite.”  Senta thought she perhaps placed a little too much emphasis on the possessive.

“Your garden is lovely,” she said.

“Thank you.  It takes so much effort and it’s hard to keep up on a police sergeant’s salary.  Tomato?”

Sliced tomatoes were only the beginning of a lovely tea.  There was asparagus soup, turnip pasties, and a salad of mint, orange slices, and nettles.  Though not the overabundance that Loana seemed to hint at, there was enough for the three diners.

“So Senta,” said Loana.  “I understand there was some sort of disturbance at Finkler’s yesterday.”

“Oh?”

“How come I didn’t hear anything about it?” asked Saba.

“I’m sure that it was nothing that would involve the police,” continued Loana.  “Just a bit of shouting between two young women over a young man.”

“People are crazy,” said Senta.

“Yes they are,” agreed Loana.  “Some people hinted that you might know something about it, even that you might have been involved—you and a girl named Nellie something, arguing over your boyfriend?”

“Nellie Swenson.  Yeah, I met her yesterday down by the docks.  So we’re supposed to have yelled at each other or something?”

“Yes.”  Loana seemed to be losing some of her steam.

“People make up stuff about me all the time.  Mind you, if I found out Graham was spending too much time with her I might have something to say about it.  He gave me this you know.”  She held up the necklace.

“That reminds me,” said Saba, casting a glare at his wife and getting up from the table.  “Let me get your present.”

“You really shouldn’t have,” Senta told Loana.

“Oh Saba is very attached to you.  He thinks of you like a little sister.”

Saba returned carrying a small box with a bow.  Opening it, Senta found a pair of simple earrings decorated with tiny pieces of amber.

“They’re beautiful,” said Senta, pulling first one and then the other out of the box and fitting them into the holes in her earlobes.

“They weren’t expensive,” he said.

“When Saba told me you had pierced ears, I just knew we had to get them for you,” said Loana.  “I once thought of getting mine pierced, but I didn’t want to look like a tart.”

“You’re just as thoughtful and nice as everyone says,” replied the sorceress.

Spoiler Alert.

The character than made me rethink even writing this book was Yuah Korlann.  She is at her high point in Book 3, and then is revealed in her lowest in Book 5.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to write the details of that fall.  In the end though, I think that it worked out.  In this scene we find that Yuah has become a user of the same drug that so afflicted her husband.

Yuah Dechantagne peered out through the large window at the front of Mr. Parnorsham’s Pfennig Store.  Her eyes narrowed as she watched Senta talking to her brother-in-law across the street.  That witch was evil.  She had seen it with her own eyes.  Yuah’s husband Terrence had been addicted most of his adult life to White Opthalium.  The drug was not readily available in Birmisia, and for a time Yuah thought that he had managed to defeat his addiction.  Then she had followed him and had seen Senta and Zurfina supplying poor Terrence.  What kind of person would sell such a horrible substance to another?  Now Terrence was dead, but Yuah’s hatred for Zurfina and her ward was alive and well.  And what the hell was she wearing?  That dress looked as though it was made from the same thing as steam carriage tires.

“Can I help you with something, Mrs. Dechantagne?”

Yuah started, but it was only Mr. Parnorsham.

“What?”

“I was just wondering if there was anything else you needed.  I have the toiletries and notions from your list all gathered.  What else can I get for you?”

“If there’s anything else, I’ll send a lizzie for it.”  Yuah’s tone sounded harsh in her own ears, and the look on Mr. Parnorsham’s face confirmed it.

She glanced quickly out the window again and saw that Senta had left.

“Good day.”

Outside her steam carriage was waiting.  Marzell Lance, her driver, had stepped to the rear of the vehicle to add coal to the firebox.  When he saw her, he quickly wiped his hands on a handkerchief and hurried around to help her climb up into the passenger seat.

“Be a dear and get my crate.”

Marzell dashed into the store and returned with a wooden crate filled with her purchases, which he put in the back seat.  He paused briefly before climbing into the driver’s side to look at a pair of teenage girls walking by.  This made Yuah click her tongue.

“Sorry Mrs. D,” said the chastened driver as he maneuvered the car out of the square and down First Avenue toward the Dechantagne estate.

Marzell drove through the open gate of the Dechantagne-Staff property.  The huge, stately house was still one of the largest buildings in the colony, featuring a large portico supported by four two-story columns in front, a double gabled roof, and more than a dozen stone chimneys.  Every side of the house was covered with large dual-paned windows.  The young driver brought the steam carriage all the way around the left side of the home, to the shed in the rear.  Jumping down, he helped Yuah to the ground.  She walked quickly to the back door.  Her snapping fingers were the only signal for the lizzie standing by—she thought it was Garrah but wasn’t sure—to fetch the crate from the car and to bring it inside.

In the kitchen two more lizzies were cleaning but the crowd that she had expected was not there.  Just past the kitchen, Yuah almost ran into Mrs. Colbshallow.  The former cook now occupied a position in the household akin to a dear aunt.

“Shouldn’t they be preparing tea, Yadira?” she asked.

“It’s already on the table.  I was just about to summon everyone to the dining room.  How was your shopping trip?”

“Barely acceptable.”

Mrs. Colbshallow paused and peered over her glasses.  “Then I’m barely glad to hear it.”

Neither Iolanthe nor Radley were at home for tea.  Yuah had expected as much of course, since she had just seen the latter in town and seldom found the former at home during the day.  Mrs. Colbshallow was seated on one side of the table next to Iolanthe’s daughter Iolana.  Yuah, between her two children, sat opposite them.  Augie was now almost two and a half and had mastered the intricacies of family dining, though he had to sit on a stack of books to reach the table.  He looked so much like his father it made Yuah’s heart ache to look at him.

“Good afternoon Mama,” he said.  “Did you bring me a tin soldier?”

“Of course I did.  You may play with it after you eat.

“Mine?” asked Augie’s little sister Terra.

The girl was a less than a year younger than her brother.  She had a round little face framed by thick black hair and brown eyes.  She was unusually thin for a child her age.  This along with her pale skin and scratchy little voice made her mother constantly worried for her health, despite the best medical opinions which said she was completely fine.  She, like her brother, was quite advanced for her age.

“I brought you some blocks.”

The girl tipped her head back, opened her mouth, and shrieked.

“I want a soldier!”

“Girls don’t play with soldiers,” said Augie.

“I want a soldier!”

“No they don’t,” said Yuah, brushing the little girl’s hair.  “Boys play with soldiers because they grow up to be soldiers.”

 Terra shrieked again.

“What is it now?”

“I don’t want to be a block!”

“Quit crying!  You’re going to grow up to be a princess.”

“The warrior-priestesses of Ballar were soldiers,” offered Iolana from across the table.

“You be quiet,” snapped Yuah.  “I won’t have any of that nonsense in this house.  You’re five years old.  How come you talk like a college professor?  No man’s going to want to marry a know-it-all.”

Iolana slumped down in her chair.  Terra climbed out of her high-chair, still crying, and into the lap of the seventh diner, who was quietly sitting on the other side of her from Yuah.  Though many humans might not have been able to tell Cissy from the other lizzies in the Dechantagne home, she occupied a special place there.  She was slightly less than six feet in height, about average for members of her sex and species.  Her skin was smooth, without the mottling and scars of many of the reptilians.  Her face and the top of her head were a deep forest green which down her back, punctuated with darker stripes just below her shoulders.  Beneath her long powerful jaw, on her dewlap, and extending down her front, was a lighter, pale green.  Her chair had been modified so that she could sit without discomforting her long, powerful tail.  She reached out a scaly hand and picked up a cucumber sandwich, which she fed to the tiny human now curled up in her lap.  Terra was forced to stop crying to eat.

Yuah scarcely paid attention to what she ate, but not because the food wasn’t good.  Mrs. Colbshallow was known far and wide for her culinary skill, and while she no longer cooked herself, she still supervised the kitchen.  There were cucumber and cress sandwiches, chips, sliced tomatoes, a cold noodle and cheese dish, and no less than three types of fruit salad.  But Yuah cared less about food now than she ever had, and she had never cared over much about it.  She picked at her food and then got up, throwing her napkin on the table.

“Children, take a nap when Cissy tells you.  I’m going to go lie down.  I have a headache.”

“Help with your dress?” asked Cissy.

“No, I’ll get one of the lizzies.”

At the top of the stairs, Yuah found one of the new lizzie servants, a female named Narsa.  She had already been trained to help the women don and doff their clothes and now she helped Yuah remove her dress and then to unlace her corset, though once loose, Yuah left it on.  She shooed Narsa out of her bedroom and locked the door after her.  Lying down on the bed, she took three deep breaths, and then retrieved a small wooden box from beneath her mattress.  Opening the box, she pulled out one of three small indigo bottles and pulled off the stopper.  She could just detect the florid smell of the contents.  Placing a finger on the tiny open mouth, she overturned the bottle to moisten her finger with the milky white liquid inside.  Then she reached up and rubbed it directly onto her left eyeball, and then her right, quickly recapping the bottle and tossing it next to her on the bed as the room suddenly drained of color. 

Iolanthe is in the background far more in The Young Sorceress than in any other book, but she’s a presence that can’t be denied.  Here Iolanthe is visited by Senta, who is standing in for Zurfina as the colony’s magical power.

Not hungry, despite not having eaten since the previous day at noon, she grabbed the small black purse that had been her previous year’s birthday present from Zurfina, and set out.  The colonial government was constructing a new office building about halfway between Town Square and the train station.  Though only the foundation and part of one wall had been completed thus far, it was clear that it would be a massive building.  Just behind it was a small single story structure that had been designed as a carriage house, but which temporarily housed the Governor and her administration.  Once inside, Senta spotted Governor Dechantagne-Staff immediately, but was intercepted before she could reach her by the Governor’s secretary Mrs. Melody Wardlaw.

Mrs. Wardlaw, an attractive woman in her thirties had arrived in Port Dechantagne two years before as Mrs. Lanier.  She had been a widow and remained single only a few months before marrying a law clerk turned ornithologist.

“Are you here to see the Governor?”

“I can see her now,” pointed out Senta.  “She’s right over there.”

“And did you wish to speak with her?”

Senta narrowed her eyes.  She raised her finger to her lips and then slowly pointed it at Mrs. Wardlaw.  “I don’t know… I could just talk to you.”

The secretary paled.

“I’m sure she has some time for you.”

“There you are,” said Mrs. Staff when she saw the young sorceress.  “I suppose you’re given to sleeping in all day.  No doubt Zurfina has failed to provide you with the structure of which young people are so in need.”

“No doubt,” said Senta.  “What was it that you needed?”

“Come walk with me.”

Mrs. Staff led Senta out of the building and down the cement sidewalk.  A lizzie work crew was paving the road.  Back in the great city of Brech, most of the streets had been paved scores or even hundreds of years before and so cobblestone was the norm.  Here, streets were covered with a layer of red bricks, carefully pieced together.  A single human foreman leaning on a shovel quickly stood erect when he saw the Governor.

“That’s one of the things I need you for,” said Mrs. Staff.

“Punishing lazy employees?”

The Governor pursed her lips. 

“The lizzies.  As you are no doubt aware, hundreds have moved into the city limits and are occupying that land just west of the train depot.  People are already calling it…”

“Lizzietown,” interrupted Senta.  “And it’s more like thousands.  I’m surprised you allow it, considering what happened two years ago.”

“One should keep his friends close and his enemies closer.  I want you to make sure that there is nothing going on there that would threaten us.”

“All right.  What else?”

“I’m concerned that we may have agents of Freedonia in the colony again.  Zurfina has in the past performed security checks for us.  I believe we need something along that line again.”

“Any idea exactly what she did?”

“You’re the sorceress, not I.”

“Seems like pretty much the same kind of job—just a matter of which direction I’m looking.  I’ll give it my best shot.”

“Of course you will,” said the Governor.

“I’ll be on my way then.”

“One more thing.  My husband was interested in hiring someone to magically look for coal—just as your Miss Jindra did.”

“She’s not my Miss Jindra.  I barely know her.”

“As you say.  In any case, with Zurfina indisposed as you say, you seem to be the only purveyor of magic at our disposal, so you should stop and see him.”

“Zurfina isn’t already being paid for that too, is she?” asked Senta.

“No.  This would be business between you and Mr. Staff’s coal company.”

“Ace.”

Mrs. Staff said goodbye and turned back toward her temporary offices.  Senta cut through the block, still forested but now criss-crossed with pathways made by people and lizzies.  The offices of M&S Coal Company were just outside of Town Square on the south side, across the street from Mr. Darwin’s shop.  She was less than fifty feet away when she suddenly ducked behind a tree.  Coming out of the front door of M&S Coal was Mr. Radley Staff, and with him was a fifteen year old blond girl.  With the exception of her clothes, which consisted of a long, confining rubber dress that went to her ankles and matched a pair of long black gloves, she was an exact copy of Senta.

“Kafira’s fanny!  She snaked that job right out from under me!”

The sorceress Zurfina gets a bit more spotlight than usual in book 4 of the series.  In The Young Sorceress, she magically transports herself to Freedonia and helps Zaeri writer Isaak Wissinger escape  the ghetto.  We get to ask ourselves is Zurfina acting out the role of a hero, or is she just manipulating things for her own gratification.

Isaak Wissinger sprang suddenly from his cot, motivated by a particularly enthusiastic bedbug.  He was immediately sorry, as the pain in his back was exacerbated by the sudden movement.  He looked back down at the vermin filled, inch thick mattress, a few pieces of straw sticking out of a hole in the side, sitting on an ancient metal frame.  It was a sleeping place not fit for a dog.  Then he laughed ruefully.  That was exactly how he and every other Zaeri was thought of here—as dogs.

The Kingdom of Freedonia, like the rest of the civilized world was divided in two.  There were the Kafirites, who ruled the world.  And there were the Zaeri, who had long ago ruled it.  Two thousand years ago, Zur had been a great kingdom, one which along with Argrathia, Ballar, and Donnata ruled the classical world.  Then a single dynasty of kings, culminating in Magnus the Great, had conquered the rest of the known world, and made Zur civilization the dominant culture.   Zaeri, the Zur religion, with its belief in one god, had replaced the pagan religions of the civilizations that Magnus and his forebears had conquered.  Even when Magnus’s empire had splintered into many successor kingdoms, the Zaeri religion had remained dominant.

Then a generation later, a Zaeri imam named Kafira had begun teaching a strange variation of the religion in Xygia.  Kafira had taught the importance of the afterlife, an adherence to a code of conduct that would lead one to this afterlife, and a general disregard for the affairs of the world.  Her enemies had destroyed her, but in so doing they had made her a martyr.  From martyr, she rose swiftly to savior and then to godhead of a new religion, one that had spread quickly to engulf all that had been the Zur civilization.  In the following millennia, the Kafirites had converted the remaining pagans to the creed of their holy savior, thereby making it the only religion in the world of man—the only religion in the world of man save those who held onto the ancient Zaeri belief.

Now here in Freedonia it was no longer safe to be a Zaeri.  First it had become illegal for Zaeri to be doctors or lawyers, then actors or publishers.  Then laws had been passed which made it illegal for Zaeri to own businesses or property.  Finally entire neighborhoods became forbidden to Wissinger’s people and they had been pushed into ghettos, segregated from the other Freedonians.

Wissinger spent the day picking up garbage on the street.  That was his job here in the ghetto.  He had been an award winning writer when he had lived in Kasselburg, but here in Zurelendsviertel he walked the street, a silver zed pinned to his jacket, picking up refuse.  At least people didn’t treat him like a garbage man.  The other Zaeri knew him and respected him.  They asked his opinion about things.  They called him “professor” when they spoke to him.  It was not like that at all with the Freedonian soldiers who occasionally made a sweep through the ghetto.  They would as soon kick an award winning writer to the side of the road as they would a street sweeper.

Back once again in his room, he pulled his tablet and pencil from its hiding place behind a loose board and continued writing where he had left off the day before.  He could not live without writing.  He wrote down what had happened that day, what he had seen, what he had heard.  He wrote about the death of Mrs. Finaman, brought on no doubt by lack of nutrition, and he wrote about her husband’s grief at the loss of his wife and his unborn child.  He wrote about the sudden disappearance of Mr. and Mrs. Kortoon, and the speculation that they paid their way out of the ghetto.  And he wrote about the disappearance of the Macabeus family, and the speculation that something sinister had happened to them.

That night on his uncomfortable cot, Wissinger had a wonderful dream.  He dreamed that a beautiful woman was making love to him.  She licked his neck as she rubbed her naked body against his.  She whispered to him in some foreign language—he thought it was Brech.  When he managed to pull himself out of the fog of sleep, and he realized that it wasn’t a dream, that the woman was really here with him, he tried to push her off of him.

“Don’t stop now lover,” she said, a noticeably Brech accent to her Freedonian.  “I’m just starting to really enjoy myself.”

Wissinger pushed again, and slid his body out from under her, falling to the floor in the process.  She stretched out, lying on her stomach.  He stared at her open-mouthed.  Her long blond hair didn’t quite cover a fourteen inch crescent moon tattoo at the top of her back.  Another tattoo, an eight inch flaming sun sat just above her voluptuous bottom. 

“Who are you?  What are you doing here?”

“I would have thought that was obvious,” she replied in a sultry voice.  “I’m here to warn you.”

“You… uh, what?”

“I’m here to warn you.”

She rolled over and stood up, revealing six star tattoos all over her front.

“In a short while, maybe a few weeks, the food supply to the ghetto will be reduced.  It will be reduced a lot.”

“They barely give us enough to survive on as it is.  They can’t cut it back anymore.”

“They can, and they will.”  She stepped closer to him.  “They are going to try and starve the Zaeri to extinction.”

“They won’t be able to.”

“No, it’s true, in the end they won’t.  But they will try and many will die.  Even worse things will follow.  Do you know how to get out of the ghetto?”

“I can’t leave.  People need me here.”

“No they don’t.  People like you, but they don’t need you and they won’t help you when things get very bad.  You have no family and when it comes to eat or starve, you won’t have any friends either—no one will.  I ask you again; do you know how to get out of the ghetto?”

“They say a Kafirite named Kiesinger will get you out if you can pay, but I don’t have any money.  I didn’t have any before I came here.”

“Here.”

The woman handed him a small leather pouch, though he had no idea where she could have had it hidden.  He looked inside.  There was a small roll of banknotes and twenty or so gold coins.

“Brech marks?”

“Gold is gold.  I don’t know if the banknotes are worth much, but they’ve got to be better than Freedonian groschen.”

“No doubt,” said Wissinger.  “Why?  Why are you helping me?  I mean, me in particular.”

“You need to survive.  You need to leave Freedonia and make your way to Birmisia.”

“Birmisia?  That’s on the other side of the world.  How could I get there?  What would I do there?”

“Live.  As for the how, we’ll deal with that later.  Now you’ve wasted all my time talking when we could have been doing something far more satisfying.”

“You’ve only been here a few minutes.”

“Yes, but I have much to do.  Go see this man and get out of the ghetto.  I’ll find you again at a later date, hopefully in a more hospitable mood.”

“Who are you?  What are you?  Are you my guardian angel?”

The woman smiled.  “That is exactly what I am.”

Then with a wave of her hand, she disappeared with a pop.

Despite the fact that the series carries his name, Bessemer the Steel Dragon usually plays his part in the background of the story.  In The Young Sorceress, this changes quite a bit.  He not only gets to play a big part in the plot, he gets to engage in some violence.  In this bit, Senta has to wait for him while he eats.

“I don’t like sitting here with them staring at me like that,” said Senta, as she brushed her hand through her hair, blond once again. 

She was perched on a large rock twenty feet from Bessemer, who was stripping great pieces of flesh from the body of an adolescent paralititan.  Fifty feet from them, two large tyrannosaurs watched, their ugly black heads bobbing up and down as they shifted from one foot to the other.

“Piss off, you!” Bessemer shouted at them.  “This is my lunch!”

“I don’t think that’s going to do it,” said Senta.

The steel dragon turned toward the two monsters and roared, a massive gout of flame shooting more than half the distance toward them.  The dinosaurs roared back, but then turned and stalked off across the great field toward the herd of triceratops in the distance.

“I guess you showed them,” said Senta.

“It’s not the size of the dragon in the fight.  It’s the size of the fight in the dragon.”

The young sorceress thought that his philosophy must be correct, as either one of the black and red predators was easily twice as big as the dragon.  Then again, maybe it was the fire.

“You’re not frightened of them?”

“I used to be.  I suppose if one actually got a hold of me, I’d be in for it.  That’s not going to happen though.  And when I get a little bigger, there’ll be no creature on this entire continent for me to fear.”

“There’s always the other one—Hissussisthiss.”

“Yes, there’s always him,” said Bessemer.  “I wonder about him sometimes.  He must be lonely with no other dragons around.”

“Are you?  Lonely, I mean, with no other dragons around?”

“I’ve got you, don’t I?”  He took another big bite of dinosaur meat and chewed it.  “Someday I think I’ll meet other dragons.  There are bound to be some around somewhere.  Humans can’t have wiped them all out.”

“What makes you think it was humans?”

“You know it was,” he said.  “You lot are always wiping out other creatures.  Look at the stories.  Rendrik of the North, and those other barbarians—they were out slaying dragons all the time.”

“I suppose,” said the girl.

“Maybe they are all gone.  Maybe humans did kill them all off.  Maybe it is just me and that great green brute.”

Senta just shrugged.  She didn’t have any answers for herself; certainly none for the dragon.