Category Archives: Characters

The Drache Girl – Amadea Jindra and the Marchonds

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Though Amadea Jindra makes a small appearance in Book 0: Brechalon, her only real part of the story is here in The Drache Girl.  If however, I ever get around to writing a sequel series, she will play a part in it.

The Marchonds are just a couple that happen to fall into the story at the right point.  Both make an impression in Radley Staff’s life.

The waiter brought steaming bowls of chicken soup and a large plate with thickly sliced dark bread and thinly sliced gingerbread.  As soon as they were finished with their soup, the bowls were taken away and large bowls of salad in light vinaigrette and topped with orange slices were distributed.  The three had almost finished with the salads when a fourth diner arrived.  It was the raven haired woman who had been playing the piano in the lounge.  Both Marchond and Staff stood as she was seated.

“Miss Jindra,” said Marchond.  “I was afraid we weren’t going to see you this evening.  Allow me to introduce Mr. Staff.”

“Call me Amadea,” said Miss Jindra.

“Miss Jindra is a sorceress of some renown,” said Mrs. Marchond, smiling at the reaction she received, as the young man’s face went unaccountably blank.

Rare prime rib was served for supper with baked potato and Staff gave over talking to tuck in.  He hadn’t had a meal this fine in years.  He certainly never managed prime rib in the officer’s mess.  Dessert was trifle, and also ranked highly among all the food that Staff had eaten in some time.  It reminded him though of his days spent ferrying a group of colonists across the ocean on the battleship H.M.S. Minotaur, and of the nights he spent dining with a strangely commanding woman with almost hypnotic aquamarine eyes.  His mind wandered from there to the evenings spent strolling along a distant shore and a few stolen moments of frantic lovemaking.

With dinner over, he excused himself and walked outside.  He leaned over the railing and watched as a pod of ichthyosaurs raced along beside the ship.  They were so much like the porpoises of home waters, except for the vertical tails.  After a few moments, he felt a warm body next to him and turned to see Miss Jindra in her deep purple dress.

“Mr. Staff,” she said.

“Miss Jindra.”

“I gathered earlier that you had a rather poor opinion of practitioners of the art.”

He shrugged.

“Have you known many?”

“I’ve known a few—a few sorceresses and quite a few wizards.  You run across a lot of wizards in the service.”

“And you don’t like them?”

He shrugged again.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.  I guess I find them to be self-important.”

“Is it self-important magic wielders who bother you?  Or self-important women?”

He shrugged again.

“Birmisia is not the place to go if you don’t like powerful women.”

“Don’t I know it?”

“Is it magic you are afraid of, Mr. Staff?  You know there is a sorceress in Birmisia who may be the most powerful in the world.  She is said to have destroyed an entire city with a single spell.”

“That’s probably exaggerated,” said Staff.  “She didn’t do anything particularly amazing when I knew her.”

“You know her?”

“Knew her.”

“So you really are not afraid of magic.”

“I’m not afraid of magic.  I’m also not afraid of a steam train.  That doesn’t mean I would stand in front of one.”  He tried to change the subject.  “You have an interesting accent, Miss Jindra.”

“My father was a Brech, but my mother was from Argrathia.”

The Drache Girl – Radley Staff

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Radley Staff is a minor character in the series, but in this one book, takes the part of a major character.  While I really like him, it is only in this part of the story that he really needs to stand out.

One month later, as the winter wind whipped through his blond hair, Radley Staff climbed up the long rope ladder to the deck of the cruise ship S.S. Arrow.  The launch which had carried him from the Superb turned, and the stout seamen rowed it back across the choppy sea.  At the top of the ladder, he climbed through the opening in the railing and stepped onto the deck.  The purser was there to greet him.

“Welcome aboard.  Glad to have you with us, Commander Staff.”

“It’s just Mr. Staff now.”

“Yes, of course.  The captain has asked me to inform you that even though we only have a second class cabin available for you, you will have access to all the first class amenities.”

“That’s very nice.  Thank you.”

The purser smile broadly.  “The cabin boy will show you the way.”

“Thank you.”

The cabin boy, a lad of about ten years, lifted Staff’s duffle bag to his shoulder, and headed across the damp deck toward an open hatch.  Unlike the hatches on the battleship, this one resembled the door of a building.  Staff followed the youth inside and then down three narrow sets of stairs, up a long narrow corridor and finally through another door into a small room.  At six feet wide and sixteen feet long, the second class cabin was actually larger than the first officer’s quarters on Superb.  The boy sat the duffle bag next to the bed, and Staff handed him a silver ten pfennig piece.  Saluting, the boy left, closing the door after him.

Staff sat down on the edge of the bed.  Pulling the duffle bag strings open, he reached in and pulled out the pieces of his wardrobe, setting them on the bed beside him.  He had made his way about halfway to the bottom, when he reached his shaving kit.  Sitting atop of it was the letter.  He looked at it for a moment, and then unfolded it.  The fold lines were so pressed into the paper now that they seemed the most permanent part of it.  The ink was faded, but still legible.

 

Dear Lieutenant Staff,

I wanted to let you know that I will be marrying soon.  Please do not write and please do not return.  I wish things could have been different.  Good-bye.

Sincerely,

Iolanthe.

 

He must have read it forty five thousand times, but he read it again anyway.  Thirty five words.  Not a lot of wasted ones.  Not a lot of wasted emotion, either.  He folded the letter back up and placed it along with his shaving kit, on the small vanity next to the bed.  Taking out the last of his clothes, he put his socks in the single drawer, left the rest of his clothing sitting on the bed, and taking his extra pair of shoes, he stood up and stepped out the door of the cabin.  He placed his shoes in the hallway by the door and walked up the hallway toward the ships bow.

He had passed five or six cabins when one of the doors opened and a cabin boy stepped out.  Staff wasn’t sure if it was the same boy who had escorted him to his own cabin.  The boy looked up.

“I need my clothes pressed,” said Staff.

“Yes, Sir.  Cabin?”

“213.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And which way is the first class lounge?”

“Straight ahead, Sir.  Up the first staircase on your right.  Royal deck.  Third one up.”

“Thanks.”

Staff followed the boy’s directions and found the first class lounge with no problem.  Though he wore a new suit that he had purchased in Nutooka, he felt decidedly underdressed.  The dozen people in the spacious room already wore their evening clothes though it was only sixteen hundred hours.  Four PM, he mentally corrected himself.  A beautiful raven haired woman, in an iridescent purple taffeta ball gown with beaded and sequined trim sat at the piano, playing a wistful tune.

The Drache Girl – Honor Hertling

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I often congratulate myself on my minor characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  I flatter myself that some of them are very creative and interesting.  One of my favorites is Honor Hertling.

Honor Hertling was dressed in the same sturdy brown and white clothing as her neighbors.  Her sleeves and the front of her dress were stained with dirt, and she wore a beat up pair of men’s work gloves.  Twenty years old, with large, sad eyes, a small nose, and raven hair, she was not classically beautiful, and not just because of the ugly scar that ran across her left cheek to her chin.  She was cute though, in an indefinable way.  Yuah reached out to take her gloved hand.

“Oh, sorry,” said Miss Hertling.  She pulled her hand away and removed the glove, then grasped Yuah’s hand firmly.  “What a lovely dress.”

“You like it?  A little bird told me that you might not approve.”  Yuah was suddenly aware that she was using one of Iolanthe’s expressions.

“Mein sister and her friend.”  Miss Hertling’s accent suddenly became thicker.  “I am thinking that the Drache girl likes to stir up trouble.  Would you like to come in for some tea?”

“Thank you.”

Tossing her gloves onto a potting bench near the garden, the young woman opened the door.  Yuah parked the blue baby carriage in the yard and lifting little Augie out, followed into the house.  The structure was very small and consisted of three rooms.  The front room, only about eight by twelve feet, served as parlor, dining room, and kitchen, as well as any number of other functions for which the Dechantagne household would have had individual rooms.  From the cast iron stove at one end of the room to the shelf filled with canned goods at the other, the room was impeccably clean.  A single bookcase contained a dozen volumes and was home to two small porcelain vases holding cut flowers.  Bright light shown in through the lace curtained windows.  Augie began to fuss as Yuah stepped inside.

“He’s probably hungry again,” she said.

“If you would like to nurse him now, you may sit in the rocking chair, while I make our tea.”

Yuah set the swaddled baby on the chair as she went about the fairly arduous task of freeing her breasts from the many layers of her clothing.   Though two of her three undergarments had been fashioned with breast-feeding in mind, the gorgeous teal dress had not.  By the time Augie was able to begin suckling, he was red-faced from crying and his mother was nearing exhaustion.  Yuah pulled the suddenly quiet baby close to her body, now bare from the waist up, and reached with a free hand to accept the cup of steaming tea.  Miss Hertling turned the lock on the door, which consisted of a small piece of wood with a single nail holding it to the doorjamb. 

 “I wouldn’t want Hertzal walking in on you,” she explained.  “I think he might faint.”

The Drache Girl – The Dechantagne House

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In addition to Iolanthe and Yuah, several others live in the Dechantagne household (not including the servants).

Mrs. Colbshallow continues to live with the Dechantagnes.  Mrs. C is perhaps the most often encountered household memeber.  She has her bit in all six of the books.  By this point, she’s pretty much running the house and her son lives right across the street.

Iolana, Iolanthe’s daughter is a toddler in this book and while she appears, she doesn’t have too big a part to play.  The same is true of Yuah’s son Augie, who is a tiny baby.  Both have a much bigger parts in books 4 & 5.

At that moment a little girl, almost three, in a bright floral dress ran into the room.  Her blond hair seemed thin around her chubby, round face, but was supplemented with a large red bow on the top of her head.  Bouncing along on her chubby little legs, she was not quite in control of her body, and bumped right into the stuffed arm of Iolanthe’s chair.  She was up again quickly, though she left the item she had been carrying, a doll with a dress exactly like hers, lying on the hardwood floor.

“Auntie Yuah,” said the toddler, running to the woman with the baby.  “I want to give Augie a kiss.”

“Alright, but carefully.  He’s asleep and we don’t want to wake him.”

With the exaggerated movements that are so endearing in the very tiniest human beings, the little girl reached up on her tip-toes and puckered up her lips, stretching them out as far as they could go, and kissed the baby, held out by its mother, with a smacking sound.  She then rolled back on her heels, almost losing her balance and falling back onto the coffee table.

“Very sweet,” said Yuah.  “Now go see Mummy.”

“Don’t you dare jump on me,” said Iolanthe, as the child trundled around the table toward her.  “Your dress is filthy.  What have you been doing?”

“Making mud pies.”

“Making mud pies,” muttered the governor.  “Sirrek!”

The mottled yellow and brown lizardman returned.

“Who is supposed to be watching Iolana?”

“Kheesie,” hissed Sirrek.

“Remind her that the child is supposed to stay clean.  If she can’t do her job, I’m sure that there are others who can.  And have her draw Iolana a bath.”  Iolanthe turned to Yuah.  “If there is one thing you can count on the lizards to get right, it’s bathing.”

Yuah gave a half nod-half shrug of acknowledgement; though the vast majority of her attention was still on the sweet, perfect, angelic, little face of Augustus Marek Virgil Dechantagne.  At two months old, he was still so tiny and so helpless that without trying, he activated that part of her that seemed to want to do everything for him and to give him everything.  And he looked so much like his father.  She held and cuddled him for half an hour, scarcely noticing that everyone else eventually left the room.  Finally she was rewarded with his dark blue eyes opening.  As he looked back at her, she felt the pull of her milk, and carried the baby upstairs and into the nursery to feed him.

The Drache Girl – The Lizzies

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The lizzie characters don’t have much of a part in The Drache Girl, with the exception of Cissy.  This is because I wrote it before I wrote The Dark and Forbidding Land, and I didn’t yet realize how much I wanted them there.  Still, Cissy has a bit of a juicy part.

The reptilian hands pulled her back down the short end of the hall just in front of her bedroom.  Then they turned her around so that she faced the lizzie to whom they belonged.  It was Cissy.  Yuah had learned to recognize her, even without the ridiculous yellow skirt which she wore even now.  Cissy yanked open the door of the laundry shoot and pointed.

“In,” she said.

Yuah stuck Augie into the shaft, and still holding on to him, dived in after, head first.  Cissy lifted Yuah’s legs and gave her a push and she slid down two stories to land in the pile of unwashed clothing in the basement.  She rolled to her feet, quickly checking to see that Augie was unharmed.  She carried him across the room to the steps leading up and out into the side yard.  Poking her head out and looking both left and right, she didn’t see any of the cold-blooded intruders.

She ran quickly across the yard and out the front gate, just as more gunfire and a scream erupted from inside the Dechantagne home.  Yuah turned and looked at the front door as a single Lizzie, carrying a rifle, stepped out into the misty air.  It saw her, and with a look of evil determination started after her.  She ran, heedless of the sharp gravel on her bare feet.  She ran for the closest nearby house—Saba Colbshallow’s small home.

The reptilian hands pulled her back down the short end of the hall just in front of her bedroom.  Then they turned her around so that she faced the lizzie to whom they belonged.  It was Cissy.  Yuah had learned to recognize her, even without the ridiculous yellow skirt which she wore even now.  Cissy yanked open the door of the laundry shoot and pointed.

“In,” she said.

Yuah stuck Augie into the shaft, and still holding on to him, dived in after, head first.  Cissy lifted Yuah’s legs and gave her a push and she slid down two stories to land in the pile of unwashed clothing in the basement.  She rolled to her feet, quickly checking to see that Augie was unharmed.  She carried him across the room to the steps leading up and out into the side yard.  Poking her head out and looking both left and right, she didn’t see any of the cold-blooded intruders.

She ran quickly across the yard and out the front gate, just as more gunfire and a scream erupted from inside the Dechantagne home.  Yuah turned and looked at the front door as a single Lizzie, carrying a rifle, stepped out into the misty air.  It saw her, and with a look of evil determination started after her.  She ran, heedless of the sharp gravel on her bare feet.  She ran for the closest nearby house—Saba Colbshallow’s small home.

The Dark and Forbidding Land – And the Rest

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There are a few other characters who appear in The Dark and Forbidding Land.

Professor Calliere: Calliere is Iolanthe’s husband and plays a bigger part in books 1 and 3, but he does play his part here as well.

Lon Fonstan: Lon is one of those guys who appears on maybe a page in each of the books, but he’s there and he has some fun interactions with others, especially Senta.  He really shines in book 3.

Mr. Brockton: Brockton is a wizard who appears in books 2 and 4.  He works in the War Ministry with Wizard Bassington, but isn’t nearly as powerful.

Miss Gertz: Miss Gertz is the mayor’s secretary.

Mrs. Godwin: An old household servant of the Dechantagnes, Mrs. Godwin lives in the family house.

Paxton Brown: Brown makes his appearance in The Dark and Forbidding Land, but doesn’t really become an important character until book 5.

The Drache Girl – Iolanthe Dechantagne Calliere

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Iolanthe is one of my favorite characters and one of the most important in the series.  She’s so fun to write because she’s such a bitch.  She plays an important part in The Drache Girl, even though she is not one of the four main characters in this part of the story.

A second later, around the corner stepped Iolanthe Dechantagne and Yuah Korlann.  Iolanthe Calliere and Yuah Dechantagne, Staff mentally corrected himself.  Iolanthe was wearing a green velvet dress with at least seven ornately ruffled layers, and a white lace collar with a black bow.  Yuah wore a gold dress with a broad band of blue at the knees and a waterfall of lace draping from the shoulders and down over the bustle.  Both women wore hats covered in flowers that matched each of their dresses and carried matching muffs.  The two women saw Staff at the same moment and both stopped dead in their tracks.

“Radley,” gasped Iolanthe.

Then the three of them stood silently gaping at each other.  At last Yuah stepped forward.

“Mr. Staff, how lovely to see you again,” she said, removing one hand from her muff and offering it to him.

“Mrs. Dechantagne, you look more lovely that I remember.”

“Oh, pish-posh.  I’m getting to be an old lady.”

“That madam is sacrilege.”

She smiled.

Iolanthe still stood where she was.  Her face had gone from the pale of alabaster to the pale of ash.  Her mouth was agape, and she looked as though she was unable to breathe.  Staff stepped forward, taking her right wrist in his hands, pulling her hand from her muff and enfolding it in his own.

“Mrs.… It’s very nice to see you again.”

“Commander Staff,” said Iolanthe, at last, taking an audible breath.  “I didn’t realize you were in the country.”

“I had always planned to return.”

Iolanthe bit her lip.

“I’m here on business,” he said, releasing her hand and turning back to Yuah.  “I just spoke to your father and he was very helpful in offering me advice on how to get everything off the ground now that I’m here.”

“He does excel at giving advice,” conceded Yuah.  “What business will you be running.”

“Coal.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, I have some very wealthy backers and a complete staff ready to go to work.  I will need the royal governor’s office for all the permits and tax papers and what not, but I’m sure you may offer me some insight into the governor’s state of mind.”

“I… Oh, I….permits…”  Iolanthe swayed just for a moment.  Yuah took her by the shoulder and held her upright.

“I’m sure that my sister-in-law will be able to offer you all the assistance that you need.  What do you require first?”

“Your father has pointed me in the direction of an office building with apartments, though I may need somewhere to live until I secure it.”

“Well, that’s easily settled,” said Yuah.  “You simply must come and stay at the Dechantagne home.”

Iolanthe moved with what seemed like hesitation toward the front steps of the temporary city hall and sat down on the wooden planks so hard that it appeared she might fall back.

The Dark and Forbidding Land – Streck

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In The Dark and Forbidding Land, I had to create a number of new characters that I new would not appear later on.  Streck was probably the most important and interesting of these.

“Hey!”  Half a dozen men were running in their direction from the east.  By the time they reached the two children, Graham had thrown his gun over his shoulder and pulled a very long turquoise feather from the utahraptor’s tail, which he handed to Senta.  The men stopped next to the fallen creature.  Among them were Sergeant Clark and a couple of armed militiamen, as well as Mr. Darwin and Mr. Fonstan.

“Look Clark,” said Mr. Fonstan.  “These children killed the utahraptor that you and your men couldn’t even find.”

Clark shot him an evil look.

“If you don’t have any use for the carcass,” said Mr. Darwin to Graham.  “I’ll gladly give you two marks for it.”

While the man and boy were negotiating, with Mr. Fonstan looking on, Clark and his two men followed the trail of the second creature into the trees, leaving Senta standing near the sixth man in the group.  He was a stranger, a young man wearing a black greatcoat over a charcoal suit.  His blond hair was cut short beneath a furry cap.  He examined the girl with steely eyes.

“So who would you be?” he asked, his voice thick with a Freedonian accent.

“She would be the Drache Girl,” said Fonstan, turning around.

“Ja?  This little bit?”  He was looking neither at Fonstan nor Senta, but was scanning the edge of the trees.

“That’s right,” said Senta saucily.  “What’s that?”

She pointed to a small, round black and red pin on the lapel of his coat.  It was something like a cross, with each of the four legs broken off at right angles.  The man sneered.

“You Brech call it a gammadion, but its proper name is fylfot.”

“Yeah?  What’s it for?”

“It is the symbol of the Die Wahre Kunst von Zauberei,” he said, turning his attention back to her.

“Um… painting with wizards?”

“The true art.  Wizardry.  Ignorant girl!”

“Watch your mouth buddy!”  Graham was at Senta’s side.  “I’ll give you what for!”

“Come on children.”  Mr. Fonstan, stepping around the Freedonain, took the children by their shoulders and guided them past him.  “Let’s not bother Mr. Streck anymore.”

Streck went back to looking around, while Mr. Fonstan led the children down the road toward town square.  Graham kept turning to look over his shoulder at Streck.  When he started to slow a bit, Mr. Fonstan pulled him along.

“Don’t go looking for trouble, lad,” he said.  “I don’t like the look of that one and it ain’t just because he’s foreigner.”

The Drache Girl: Iolanthe Dechantagne

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When I originally plotted out the story of Senta and the Steel Dragon, Iolanthe was one of the primary characters.  However when I started writing The Drache Girl (the working title was The Sorceress’s Apprentice), for some reason I used Yuah instead.  Because of this Iolanthe fell into the background a bit in The Dark and Forbidding Land and The Young Sorceress.  She returns to prominence in The Two Dragons though.

Turning away from the street, Yuah Dechantagne made her way up the stone walkway to the family’s home.  The huge, stately structure was the largest building in the colony, and had taken the better part of two years to construct.  Featuring a large portico supported by four two story columns, a double gabled roof and more than a dozen stone chimneys, every side of the house was covered with large dual-paned windows.  Walking through the gardens and past the large reflecting pool, the fountain, and the sundial surrounded by white roses, she paused to hyperventilate for a moment before tackling the six steps to the portico.  Standing at attention outside of the front door was a lizardman, naked except for a yellow ribbon with a gold medallion around its neck.  As she approached, the creature reached back and opened the door for her.
“Thank you, Tisson,” she said, sweeping in through the doorway.
Once inside, she walked through the foyer and into the parlor, just in time to see her sister-in-law, the Colonial Governor, slapping her hand across the protruding snout of another lizardman.  The creature wore a similar medallion and ribbon as its counterpart outside, though it was a silver medallion on a green ribbon.  The reptilian was also slightly shorter and had darker green skin.  Even so, it towered over the woman that faced it in the olive green herringbone dress.
“One more time and I’ll cut off your tail and send you back to that mud hut you came from,” she snarled at the lizardman.  “Do you understand?”
“Yess,” hissed the reptile.
“What was that all about?” asked Yuah.
Iolanthe rolled her aquamarine eyes.  “How many times have I explained?  They still don’t get it.  When the flower petals fall off, the flowers are replaced.”
“I think they like the flowers better when they are wilted,” replied Yuah.  “It must be a lizard affectation.”
“Well, I’m not going to put up with it.  Say, where have you been all morning?”
“New dress.”
“Oh yes.  Very pretty.”  If there was one thing Governor Iolanthe Dechantagne Calliere could appreciate, it was a new dress.  “The baby was crying a little while ago.  I had Cissy feed him.”

“Sirrik!” called Yuah.  Another lizardman, mottled yellow with brown stripes, stepped into the parlor from the doorway which led to the library.  “Go have Cissy bring down the baby.”

The Dark and Forbidding Land – Saba Colbshallow

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Throughout the series, it certainly seems that Saba Colbshallow gets around.  He’s had his hands in just about everything.  I have chapters entitled PC Colbshallow and Inspector Colbshallow, and this one– Saba the Spy.

The S. S. Windemere didn’t arrive until Festuary eighth.  It had been waylaid in the Mulliens with a damaged boiler.  Still, Saba Colbshallow had been at the docks to meet it and one passenger in particular.  Mr. Brockton didn’t look like a secret agent, not that Saba knew what a secret agent looked like.  He was a short, slight man in his mid-forties with a brown handlebar mustache and thinning hair beneath a brown bowler hat.  He looked over Saba for a moment then shook hands.
“Governor Dechantagne Calliere asked me to meet you and see that you have a place to stay,” said Saba.
“Very good,” said Brockton in a thin nasal voice.  “She indicated in her correspondence that she would send a representative that had her complete trust.”
Saba tried not to let his surprise show.
“I’ve got you an apartment on the militia base.”
“Won’t that be suspicious?”
“Probably less than rooming anywhere else, unless you want to spend the next week in a tent,” said Saba.  “Those are basically the two options for new arrivals.  We don’t have a hotel or rooming house yet, though there are a few people who let rooms.  The apartments and rental houses have quite a long waiting list.”
“The militia base it is then,” said Brockton with a thin smile.
Saba led the way up the hill from the dock yards.
“I’m going to need a day to get my land legs back,” said Brockton.  “Why don’t we plan on meeting tomorrow and I’ll go over what the Governor needs to know with you then.”
Saba nodded.  “Fine.  I’ll have some supper sent over if you like?”
“Good.”
The following afternoon just before tea, Saba met Brockton outside the building that had been designed to eventually be part of the base’s barracks but which, since its construction, had been divided into ten small apartments. 
“The best place to eat is back at the dock yard,” he said.
Brockton raised an eyebrow.
“They have food carts.”
Making their way down the hill, they took their place in the queue for sausages.  Then they sat down on a bench at the northern edge of the gravel yard and ate the thick sausages, which were served on a stick.
“Not much in the way of dining in Birmisia, eh?” said Brockton, then waved off Saba’s reply.  “I expected as much really.  I ate so much on the voyage that I probably gained ten pounds anyway.  This is fine, and so were the fish and chips you sent up last evening.”
“Good.  So what is the information you want me to relay to Governor Dechantagne Calliere?”
“She is aware, though you might not be, that I am with His Majesty’s Secret Service.  We have people working around the world, but right now our focus is in Freedonia.”
“Aren’t we at peace?”
“Ostensibly.  But a great many things can happen.  And I don’t mean war, at least I don’t mean just war.”
“What else?” asked Saba.
“ Klaus II fancies himself a wizard and he’s immersed himself in the wahre kunst von zauberei.  As a result, the wizards of the Reine Zauberei have replaced most of the non-wizards in key positions in the Freedonian government.”
“Don’t we have quite a few wizards of our own?” asked Saba.  “Yourself for instance?”
Brockton smiled a thin smile. 

“Well spotted young Corporal.  I’m a first level journeyman from Académie Argei.  But you have to understand, these Reine Zauberei are not just wizards.  They have their own peculiar ideas.”