Iolana stopped shoveling, and placing the tip of her shovel on the seam of the metal floor, she used it to prop herself up.  Her blond hair was plastered to her head and her clothes were soaked through with perspiration.  It was at least 130 degrees in the engine room, closer near the open furnace door, and she had been shoveling coal for what seemed like forever.

“Keep shovelin’,” said her companion, as he threw another scoop into the furnace, the flame reflecting on the smooth sheen of his sweaty, shirtless body.

She imagined that it would feel so good to shed the khaki uniform blouse.  It would certainly give the crew of the crawler a shock.  She really wanted to do it.  But she just couldn’t.

“I’m all talk,” she said to herself.

“No time to talk. Just shovel.”

“How’s it going, men?” called Tiber Stephenson’s voice from the engine room hatch.  “Nice and warm in here, eh?”

“You’ve proven your point, Tiber,” said Iolana, staggering as she scooped more coal.

“That’s Lieutenant to the likes o’ you!” shouted the shirtless soldier.

“I’m not having you shovel coal to prove a point, My Lady,” said Tiber.  “I’m having you shovel coal because that’s what makes this vehicle go.” He looked at the shirtless soldier. “How long till shift end, Swaim?”

“About forty more minutes, Sir.”

“Good.  When your relief comes, bring our little stowaway up to the officers’ quarters.”

“Right you are, Sir.”

Though she managed to finish out her shift in the engine room and then march along behind Swaim to the front of the vehicle, when he left her just inside the door to the officers’ quarters, Iolana’s vision began to swim and she collapsed.  If Tiber hadn’t been there, she would have fallen to the sheet metal floor.  Instead, he caught her and carried her over to an empty bunk, laying her down.  Then he opened a vent and cool, moist air from outside blew gently across her face.

“You look a little warm, My Lady.”

“Bugger yourself,” she said.

“Now that language is certainly not very ladylike.”

“I’m not a lady.  I’m a grunt who works in the engine room.”

“Well, relax grunt, and when you’re ready, I’ll get you something to eat.”

Iolana was asleep before he finished his sentence.  She didn’t know how long she slept, but when she woke, the sheet metal floor and everything that touched it was still throbbing with the energy of the steam engine. The buzzing of the saws still echoed through the metal walls.  She slowly sat up; her arms and back crying out in anguish.  She didn’t think she had ever done so much physical labor in her whole life.  When she stood up, her legs, if anything, hurt even worse than her upper body.  She moved like an old lady across the room and out the door.  She turned and walked up the sloping passage toward the front of the crawler, her hand against the wall.  She hadn’t gone very far when she saw Tiber walking toward her.

“I was just coming to check on you,” he said.

“How long was I asleep?”

“About fourteen hours. I was starting to get worried.”

“You mean I slept through our stopping for the night?” she asked.

“No.  We haven’t stopped and we won’t.  We have a crew of twenty-two officers and men so that we can run twenty-four hours a day.”

“What about the relief column that’s with us?  The men can’t march all night.”

“Oh, they’re not traveling with us.  They merely left at the same time.  I imagine they’re forty miles ahead of us by now.”  He took her by the shoulders, turned her around, and marched her back to the officer’s quarters.  “They stop for the night, but then they move much faster than we do.  We’ve only gone about forty-five miles from the city’s edge.”

“Forty-five miles?” wondered Iolana.  “Then, when you found me, we couldn’t have been more than a long walk from town. You could easily have turned back, or even made me walk back myself.”

“You didn’t want to go back, did you?”

“No, of course I didn’t. Though now I’m wondering about your motivation.”

“Please, My Lady,” said Tiber.  “I’m a gentleman, one little kiss notwithstanding.  Now sit down. I have something for you to eat.”

Iolana took a seat in one of the two metal chairs that faced a small metal table between the two bunks. The young lieutenant hefted a canvas rucksack from cubby and dropped it heavily on the table.

“Well, you have a choice: beef stew, corned beef, or pork and beans.  Take my advice and skip the stew.  Heated up, it’s barely edible.  You’re eating your food cold, and in such a case, it’s plain disgusting.”

“Pork and beans, please.”

“Here you go.”  He handed her the tin can.  While she peeled off the key and began opening the can, he continued.  “You also have a block of cheese and a box of crackers.  You might want to skip the crackers.  You can crack a tooth if you don’t soak them in water or tea.”

Iolana dug into the beans with a flat wooden spoon, also included in the kit.  She recognized that the pork was nothing but a square bit of fat, but she was so hungry that it tasted wonderful.  While she ate, Tiber poured water from a canteen into a folding cup and used the edge of his knife to grate off bits from a block of condensed tea into it.  Then he unfolded a small packet of sugar and poured it in.

“Here you go.”

The city-state of Xiatooq was unlike anything that Senta had ever seen, and under the light of the full moon, it seemed truly to be of another world.  It was, she imagined, unlike anything that any human being had ever laid eyes upon.  It’s great walls, built of copper colored stone, and standing a hundred feet or more tall, faced the empty plain that surrounded the city on its northern side, while its other southern side climbed up the slope of a great mountain, higher and higher, built upon terraces carved into the rock.  The buildings were designed with a completely different esthetic than any other lizzie city.  There were no huge square palaces like there were in Tsahloose, and there were no great pyramids like those that had decorated mighty Suusthek.  Xiatooq was filled with round structures, large and small, that tapered near the top so that they resembled giant hornets’ nests. That they were dotted with windows out of which lizzie heads appeared and disappeared, did nothing to diminish their resemblance to insect hives.  The higher one looked up the slope of the mountain, the grander these structures were, and the view was all the more impressive because this was not just any mountain.  This was a massive volcano with an open caldera at the top, out of which belched a constant stream of black smoke and white steam.  Occasionally, blobs of red lava were tossed up into the air, lighting up the night.

“General,” the sorceress commanded.  “Prepare your troops for attack.  This will be the largest battle ever fought on this continent.”

Arrayed out on either side of her was a vast army.  Thousands of lizzie warriors with spears and atlatls, hundreds of lizzie cavalry, riding in howdahs on the backs of great sauraposeidons, and lizzie siege weapons pulled by teams of triceratops.  That none of these soldiers or their animals were born of nature was unimportant. They had been conjured by magic and to an enemy, they seemed as real as any flesh and blood.

The lizzie general, who was so much shadow stuff gathered together, waved his hand and the siege weapons rolled forward, screened by the infantry.  The cavalry moved to the flanks.

At that moment, three huge double gates in the wall opened and another army moved out.  In front of each unit, teams of twelve lizzies carried great braziers filled with flame.  There were no siege engines or cavalry, but there were thousands of lizzies brightly painted with feathers and carrying spears and atlatls.  Then there was something that Senta had never seen before. Wave after wave of lizzie warriors marched out the gate, armed not with throwing spears, but with pikes, twelve feet long, with huge metal tips.  And these lizzies were wearing armor.

Senta stood up on the great beast she was riding and held out her hand.  A large pair of binoculars materialized within her grasp, and she brought them to her eyes.  She was no metallurgist, but the armor and the tips of the pikes both appeared to be iron.  All the reptilians that she or other humans had come into contact with up until this point had been limited to copper-smelting technology.

Wave after wave of soldiers came out and formed into giant square units, until they were as large and impressive looking as Senta’s own army.  Then one more group of lizzies exited the center gate and took positions directly across the plain from the sorceress.  She raised the binoculars once again.  A group of a hundred lizzies, wearing armor like the other warriors, but with skin painted white and wearing white capes completely encircled another group, this one wearing no armor but with black painted bodies. Senta looked carefully at the latter group.  They were very far away and dark, but she could swear that they had their eyes stitched closed.

The Sisterhood of Pain—her book had revealed a passage about them, she thought by mistake.  But there were no mistakes.  The Sisterhood of Pain was made up of two parts.  There were the white sisters: a group of female warriors who cut out their own tongues, and then there were the dark sisters: magic wielders who gouged out their own eyes, but gained supernatural perception, in addition to the powerful spells. But they had lived a thousand years ago, and they had been human.  But they worshipped a dragon, and all lizzies did that, so it wasn’t much of a leap.

Tossing the binoculars aside, Senta conjured a magical megaphone and brought it to her mouth.  “I call upon the people and leaders of Xiatooq to return my dragon, or to face prompt and utter destruction!  There will be no deviation!  There is no alternative!  I will brook no delay!”

There was a moment of silence.  Then she heard it—chanting.  The dark sisters were too far away for her to hear, but she could hear them nevertheless. She could hear their magic.

Senta looked to her far right.  The cavalry at the far end of her army began to evaporate.  The smoky forms of their dinosaur mounts puffed away on the breeze. She looked in the other direction to see the same thing happening at the far left.  Faster and faster her army disappeared, the infantry and then the great siege weapons, and at last the giant beast upon which Senta stood.  As it vanished in a cloud of smoke, the sorceress fell down through it, collapsing in a heap on the dried mud of the ground.

She could hear hissing from far side of the field.  She was sure it was the lizzie version of laughter.  She jumped to her feet.

“You chant your seven syllables to dispel my army and you think you’ve won?” she yelled.  Then she screamed at the top of her lungs.  “You think I need an army?  I will bring down the sky on you!”

She grabbed a glamour floating around her head, the stored energy of a spell cast weeks earlier—energy that was released when she crushed the gem-like object.  Then she plucked another from the air and crushed it as well, and then another.  They were spells to increase the power and intensity of other spells.  As she released the magic from the red glamours and the blue, the hissing slowly died away.  As she released the energy from the green glamours and the clear ones, she felt fear coming from the blind lizzies who could sense the power.   And as their fear increased, it radiated out to the warriors who stood around them.

“Here you go, little one,” said Tokkenoht, setting a handful of forest slugs down on a rock beside the human.

“I can’t.  I know I should, but I just can’t.  If I eat them, I’ll vomit, and then I will lose all the water I drank back at the stream.  You eat them.”

The priestess scooped them back up and tossed them into her mouth.

It had been two days since the small human had helped her escape from the soft-skin warriors. Tokkenoht had managed to find enough food to keep her strength up.  Forest slugs were considered a delicacy among her people.  The human, however, had eaten nothing.  Tokkenoht was beginning to worry about her.

“I’ll eat today,” said Stahwasuwasu Zrant.  “Mark my words, I’ll bring down something I can cook today.”

“I don’t mean to criticize, little one,” said Tokkenoht.  “After all, you arranged my escape, and then managed to remove my chains with that hair wire…”

“Hair pin,” corrected the human, using the soft-skin word.  “My hut elders were correct.  You really cannot do without them.”

“Yes, you have shown great cunning for a having seen so few summers.”  She bobbed her head in annoyance.  “How many summers have you seen, anyway?  Six or seven?”

Tokkenoht hissed when the human let out her strange warbling laugh.  It was such a strange sound; it was unnerving.

“I have actually seen thirteen summers, though that’s not really what you’re asking.  The fourteenth anniversary of my birth was a short time ago.”

“Fourteen,” mused Tokkenoht. “I would not have guessed it, though I have been told that the soft-skins age much slower than we do. Wait.  You mean you were born in winter?”

“Oh yes, my people routinely defy all the laws of nature.”

“Perhaps humans are much more dangerous than we thought.”

“If you are only now figuring that out, then perhaps I have been giving your race too much credit,” said the human.

Tokkenoht grunted in recognition of the insult and perhaps of an unsettling truth as well.

“As I was saying, I don’t mean to criticize, but those spears are too small to throw, even with an atlatl.”

The human female had crafted three small spears with tiny spear points and had trimmed the back ends of them with pieces of a feather she had found on the ground.

“Oh, these are not spears. I have tried throwing spears with an atlatl, but I’ve never been very good at it, and I certainly don’t have time to become good now.  I need a weapon I already know how to use.”

“But you have your thunder weapon.”

“Yes, I do.  I also only have ten more um… uses for it.  I shouldn’t have wasted four scaring the males when one would have sufficed.”  The human peered around into the forest.  “I can use these to bring down something to eat and save the thunder weapon for defense. I don’t intend to end up in the belly of a feathered runner, like poor Warden.”

“This Wharden was a member of your hut?” asked Tokkenoht.

“No, he was just a friend.”

“I am sorry.  I recently lost someone.”

“A member of your hut?”

“Yes, and more.  She was the wife of my husband.”

“The wife of… fascinating! I had no idea that your people were um… that the males married more than one female.”

“Only the most powerful kings.”

“Then… you’re Hsrandtuss’s wife?”

Tokkenoht hissed the affirmative.

“Then it’s doubly important to get you back safely to your city.”

The human stood up and taking a knife from her belt, used it to cut a long segment of a branch from a willow tree.  She carefully trimmed it.

“The warrior Azkhantice is your friend?” said Tokkenoht, after a few minutes of silence.  “You hugged him.”

Stahwasuwasu Zrant stopped carving.  Her face flushed in a way that the lizzie had been unaware was possible.

“Um, yes, Ascan is a friend too.  We should get going.  I can work on this while we travel.”

They started off again through the forest, walking in the direction of the morning sun.  Tokkenoht took the lead and Stahwasuwasu Zrant followed, working her willow switch as she walked.

“What is your human name, Stahwasuwasu Zrant?” asked the priestess.

“It’s Iolana.”

“How strange.  It sounds like a bird call.”

“I suppose,” she allowed. “What is Hsrandtuss like?”

“He is a good king. He is very strong and very brave. He is also wise.”

“Wise enough to get thunder weapons.”

“Yes, we bought them from the human traders from the other human city state—the one called Natine.”

“The Mirsannans?” wondered Iolana.  “Not too much of a surprise, I suppose.  I understand they’re setting up trading bases in the far east.  You might even be better off with them on your side. They’re not looking to export as many settlers I imagine, since Mirsanna is so much larger than Brechalon in terms of land area.”

“You seem to know much about the politics of your people,” said Tokkenoht.

“Oh, no, not really.  Everyone knows those things.”

Kieran Baxter turned the knob and pushed the heavy door open.  His pistol led the way as he stepped into the Result Mechanism warehouse. Bright light streamed in through the windows along the ceiling, the puddles here and there attested to the previous night’s rain.  It took only a moment to see the body lying halfway across the room.  With one more quick look around to make sure there was nobody else there, he stepped across the cement floor and knelt down beside it.

“Sweet Kafira,” he muttered when he saw Peter’s dead eyes staring upward.

It was only too obvious that the wizard was dead, but Baxter felt for a pulse anyway.  Then he closed the young man’s eyes.  Carefully examining the body, he found a bullet’s entrance wound in the chest.  He scanned the floor for a shell casing, but didn’t see one.  Then he noticed Peter’s hand.  The young wizard had drawn a shape on the floor using his own blood.  Baxter tilted his head one way and then the other, but he couldn’t make out what it was supposed to be.  With his index finger, he traced the design.  Suddenly smoke exploded from the spot on the floor. Jumping back, Baxter watched as the column of smoke rose up and coalesced into a shadowy form of Peter Bassington.  Then the shadowy form spoke.

“I’m glad it’s you, Baxter. I don’t have much time.  It was Pantagria.  Bell freed her.  She has Philo Mostow, maybe others, helping her.  They’re going to St. Ulixes.  I don’t know how I know, but I do.  You’ve got to stop her.  Tell Senta…”

Whatever magic was holding the smoke in Peter Bassington’s form ended, and it became regular smoke and floated up, dissipating into the air.

“Kafira damn it.”

* * * * *

The door opened and the face of Chief Inspector Saba Colbshallow peered out.  He looked first at Baxter and then at the child he carried, and his face lost some of its color.

“What do you want?”

“I need a few words,” replied Baxter, “and a favor.”

“And why would I do you a favor?”

“I didn’t say it was for me.”

“Who is it, Daddy?” The face of a six-year-old, with large eyes, one brown and one hazel, and a cute button nose, all framed by a veritable forest of multihued curls peered around the chief inspector.

“It’s just a gentleman and his… little girl.”

“Can she come inside and play?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Perhaps that would be best,” said Baxter, setting Sen down.

“For just a few minutes then,” said Colbshallow through thin lips.  “Take her inside, DeeDee.”

The six-year-old stepped around her father and took the three-year-old by the hand and led her inside. Neither looked back.

“I was sorry to hear about your little boy,” said Baxter.

“Just say what you wanted to say.”

“Senta’s brother is dead… murdered.  His body is in the Result Mechanism warehouse.”

“Why aren’t you at the police station?”

“The killers have already fled the city.  They’re on the train to Mallontah.”

“We can send a telegram to the police in St. Ulixes.”

“It wouldn’t help,” said Baxter.  “It’s a magic um… situation.  I’ve got to go deal with it.”

“Why you?”

“Because I’m here.”

“I’ll get my gun and go with you.”

“No,” said Baxter.  “I need you to take care of little Senta.”

“Why me?” asked Colbshallow.

“You know why.  You’re the only one who’ll protect her like I would.”

“I’d give my life for her,” said Colbshallow.  “But I can’t have her here.  My wife will see her next to Dee Dee and see how much they look alike.”

“Maybe she won’t notice,” said Baxter.  “All children look alike.”

“Not to women, you ass.”

“You have to do this. I may not come back.  I need to know she’ll be okay.”

Colbshallow sighed. “All right.  You have my word she’ll be safe here.  But I can’t let you go alone.”

“You can’t?”  Baxter arched a brow.

“I’ve seen you in action. You’re handy with a firearm, I’ll give you that, but if you’re going up against magic you need somebody with you. You need somebody to cover your back.”

“No wizards.  I can’t trust them with this.”

“You shouldn’t trust them with anything,” said Colbshallow.  “I’ve got a man for you.”

“All right,” said Baxter.  “Have him meet me at the train station.  The train leaves at 4:40PM.”

Peter Bassington didn’t even notice that it was dark until it became impossible to read the book in front of him.  He looked up at the clock on the wall and felt his neck complain.  He had been bent over the books for almost five hours, and now his head was swimming with almost maddening thoughts.  He glanced back at the text he had just finished.

She floated down from the sky, her huge, feathered wings outstretched.  They were twelve feet from tip to tip and as white as the clouds, as white as newly fallen snow, as white as faith and hope.  The rest of her body was smooth and supple and sublime and beautiful and naked.  Her tiny feet came gently to rest in the soil beside the bizarre purple flowers, each of which looked up at her with a large eyeball in the center.  Her face was beauty incarnate and her body was bliss.  Long blond hair cascaded down her shoulders, impossibly thick, almost to her waist.  Her eyes were spaced wide above her prominent cheekbones and small but perfectly formed nose. Her full lips smiled crookedly exposing straight teeth as white as her wings.

It was here, in this endless field of loathsome purple flowers, where she waited for them.  And they came.  They came to her.  They retreated here from the world, when they rubbed the See Spice into their eyes. And here she took care of them; took away all their cares, took away all their fears, took away all their pain. She also took away their love, and their desire, and their sense of self.  She left them the empty husks of what they had been and would never more be. They called her angel, and they willingly gave themselves to her, and she feasted on their insides like they were her own personal drinking gourds.  But she wanted something more. She wanted to leave the endless nothingness of that place and come to the real world, where she would feast on the marrow of all that is good and pure and true.

The passage didn’t mention a name, but Peter knew to whom it was referring.  Her name was Pantagria.  She was an angel or demon that those addicted to white opthalium saw when they used their drug.  He had heard her name uttered once or twice by addicts on the street or in opthalium dens. But most of what he knew came from Senta.  Two and a half years earlier, while they were journeying to Birmisia from Brechalon, an addict, one of Pantagria’s minions here in the real world, had thrown white opthalium into Senta’s eyes.  This transported her to that other world, where Pantagria had begged her to use her art to bring the angel to the real world.  Senta had managed to escape.

The whole story had sounded like a fairy tale and Senta wasn’t above a bit of self-aggrandizement on occasion, so Peter hadn’t been too sure of the authenticity of every detail, but here it seemed to be verified in black and white—in a book written almost two hundred years earlier by a man named Viner.  And there were other mentions of Pantagria going back a thousand years.  Then there was the note scrawled in the margins of the Viner text “Nom 2:3-4”.

Peter pulled himself to his feet and walked from the dining room, through the parlor, and down the hallway to the library.  It was so dark in the room, he had to feel around for the gas light sconce on the wall. Pulling a match from his pocket and striking it, he turned the knob, and the hissing gas burst into bright yellow flame, illuminating one side of the room, and throwing shadows of chairs and tables on the other.  The young wizard retrieved a pristine copy of the Holy Scriptures from the bookcase and flipped it open.

“Bother,” he said. There were three books of Nom: The Writings of Nom, The Letter of Nom, and The Children of Nom.”

Looking at The Writings of Nom, chapter 2, verse 3, he found“I have need of you,” so saith the Lord.  “I have need that you will sacrifice of yourself.”  Not particularly inspiring or helpful.  He turned to The Letter of Nom, chapter 2, verse 3.  One thing I ask of the Lord only, and I hope with all my heart that he will grant my prayer: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. Finally he turned to The Children of Nom and as he read, he felt ice filling his belly.

2. The Lord came unto the feathered one and the Lord said, “From whence comest thou?” And the beast answered the Lord, and said, “You know from whence I come. From going to and fro within my prison among the seeing weeds.”
3. And the Lord said, “And there you must stay lest man should weep and all our works should turn to dust.”

Bloody hell.  That was the Grand Scriptures too.  They were, what?  Three thousand years old?  It was too big—too much to think about.  He turned out the light and felt his way back to the parlor.  Then he climbed the stairs and slipped into his bedroom. Peeling off his clothes, he dropped down onto his bed and passed into a fitful sleep.

The next morning, Peter, as usual, found Baxter and Sen at the table having breakfast.  The girl had a toast soldier in one hand and her wooden dinosaur in the other.  The man was sipping a cup of tea while reading from a small paperback book.

“What are you reading?”

“Attack of the Zombie Women,”Baxter replied, turning the book to display a luridly illustrated cover picture, then he pointed at the occasional table against the wall.  “I put your books all over there.  I left them open to your pages.”

“Thank you.  Did you read any of them?”

“No.  What would you like for breakfast.  Cook has some kippers.”

“All right.  Do we have any potatoes?”

“Potatoes yes, tomatoes no.”  Baxter turned toward the kitchen and called, “Kippers and fried potatoes for Mr. Bassington!”

Tokkenoht sighed and looked at the warriors around her.  She could see it in their eyes.  They were all thinking the same thing: a female had no business in a scouting party. Of course none of them had said it to Hsrandtuss.  The worst thing about it was that Tokkenoht agreed with them.  She no more wanted to be wandering around the forest with a hundred warriors than they wanted her with them.  Of course she hadn’t said anything to the king either.

“We are ready, Your Eminence,” said Szerl, the veteran warrior that was her second in command.

Tokkenoht nodded in agreement, but also in recognition.  There was more in the eyes of the warriors than just the unusualness of having a female with them.  There was anger at having a female in command.  Hsrandtuss was clear though.  With Straatin having been killed in the attempted coup, and with Slechtiss out of favor, having lost the king’s trust, Tusskiqu was needed in the city to command the mainline troops.  That meant that there was no trusted battle commander to scout the area for any humans trying to sneak into the territory.

“I need you to do this, Tokkenoht,” he had said.  “You and Sirris must be my eyes and ears.”

There was only one acceptable answer: “Yes, Great King.”

“We will cross the river and follow the other side,” she told Szerl.

It had been an entire month since the four human prisoners had escaped and weeks since the rest of the soft-skins had been driven out of Yessonarah’s territory.  In recent days though, nearly a dozen humans had been captured sneaking back in.  The lure of gold was simply too strong for them to resist.

The river was called Scizzinik, and was neither very wide nor very deep, except during the rainy season. It marked the official edge of the territory of Yessonarah.  Once the party reached the bank, a quick determination was made than none of the fifty-foot-long Birmisian crocodiles was present.  Neither were there any of the giant salamanders that often inhabited the still pools and shallows.  Satisfied, the lizardmen, strong swimmers that they were, quickly crossed the waterway.

“Four teams, spread out following a ninety degree arc.  The rest of us will make for the round hill to the northwest,” said Tokkenoht.  “That is where we will rendezvous.  We’ll set up camp there tonight.”

The four groups of ten warriors each set off in a pattern designed to cover all the land on the other side of the river that faced the human lands.  Meanwhile the other sixty marched toward the hill.  It was about five miles from their crossing space, so they arrived in short order and began setting up a semi-permanent base of operations. They had just cleared a large circle, setting up a crude fence of dead brush, when one of the four search teams returned.

“Why are you back so soon?” asked the priestess.  “Did you see humans?”

“Yes,” said the warrior in charge, rolling his eyes around, “but not the ones we were looking for.”

“How many were there? Describe them.”

“There were at least two hundred.  They were painted alike, and they all carried thunder weapons.”

“A war party?” questioned Tokkenoht.  “How were they painted?”

“Their feathers… or whatever the humans have…”

“Cloth.”  Tokkenoht used the human word.  “What about it?”

“It was a sort of pale green color.  Every one of them had the same color on, and they all wore hard hats.”

“All right.  Take five of your men and head for Yessonarah immediately.  The Great King will want to know about this.”

“What will you do, Your Eminence?”

“We will be watching the humans, to see what they are doing.  As soon as we know and the other teams check in, we will follow.  Szerl, your opinion?”

“You are right,” he said grudgingly.  “We must wait for the other patrols.  In the meantime, have the men bury their rations and anything else we don’t need. That way we can move faster.”

“Yes,” she said. “Give the order.”

By the time the others had returned, the warriors had cached their food and extra equipment, leaving each with only his sword, three small spears and his atlatl throwing stick. Tokkenoht questioned each of the returning groups.  One had seen the humans.

“They are moving along the south side of the river in the general direction of our territory,” the team leader told her.  “They are not in attack formation.  They walk in a column, about two miles to the southwest.  We need to be careful.  They are observant, not like the other humans we’ve seen.”

“Did they see you?”

“No, we watched them from far away and from a screened position among the trees.”

“Good,” she said. “Let’s be on our way.”

The large party retraced their footsteps down the hill and to the river.  They had barely crossed to the other side when the air suddenly echoed with the sounds of thunder weapons.  Several warriors fell bleeding to the ground.  Szerl grabbed Tokkenoht and dragged her to the ground as well.

“Where are they?”  She shouted to be heard over what sounded like a thunderstorm from hell.

“Over there!”  Szerl pointed to their left.  “Although how they got there, I have no idea.”

“Spears!” he shouted.

Warriors jumped up and launched spears with their atlatls, but most were immediately cut down.

“We have to stay down!” hissed Tokkenoht.

There was a knock.

“Come in,” said Lady Iolana.

The door opened and her father peered inside.  He paused for a second, seeing her still in bed, but then he closed the door behind him and stepped across the room to take a seat in the comfy chair by the fireplace.

“It’s unusual for you to be in bed at this hour,” he said.  “Not ill, are you?”

“No.  I’m just being indolent.”

“Well, you are entitled, I suppose.  It’s not everyday you turn fourteen.”

“No, it isn’t, but it seems like my birthday comes quicker every year.”

“Wait until you’re my age,” he said.  “They fly at you like freight trains.  We missed you at breakfast.”

“Esther brought me breakfast in bed.  But I’m about ready to get up and about now.”

“What are your plans today?”

Iolana pulled the book, heretofore unnoticed from her side, and placed a silver bookmark between its pages before setting it on the nightstand.

“We are having our little get-together tonight, and I have a date for tea with Dovie.  I thought I would visit some friends this morning.”

Mr. Staff stood up and walked over to the bedside.  He picked up the book as if he was reading the cover, though he didn’t really look at it.

“You’re a very busy young lady,” he said.  “I suppose you soon won’t have any time for me at all.”

“Don’t be silly, Father. We’re going hunting three days hence. We have to get that therizinosaurusthat you’ve been after.  Besides, we’ll see each other tonight.”

“Of course,” he said with a smile.  Setting the book back down, he turned and walked to the door.  He paused to look back over his shoulder.  “You have a present waiting for you downstairs.”

“I can’t wait,” she said with a smile.

As soon as Mr. Staff left, Esther entered.  She was wearing a cheerful blue sundress.

“Have you decided what you want to wear?” she asked.

“I don’t want to clash with you,” said Iolana.  “Perhaps my teal skirt, with a white blouse.  Do I have a teal tie?”

“Yes, but you don’t have a matching hat.”

“Find a bit of teal lace and put it around my white boater.  I’m sure Auntie Yuah has some if I don’t.”

Thirty minutes later, properly attired, Iolana and Esther descended the stairs.  As usual for that time of day, Kayden was manning the front door. He opened it and ushered them outside. Sitting right in front of the portico was a new Sawyer and Sons model 12b steam carriage with a large red bow attached to its shiny sky blue bonnet.

“Golly!” exclaimed Iolana.

“Do you like it?” asked her father’s voice from behind her.

“It’s beautiful! Thank you so much!”

“An important young lady like yourself needs to be able to get around reliably.”

“Is there room for it in the motor shed?” wondered Iolana.

“Yes,” replied her father. “I’ve sold the Model 5, and I’m going to sell the cabriolet as well.  Now that you have this, no one will drive it.”

“What about me?” asked a scratchy little voice from behind them.

“You’re a few years away from driving,” said Mr. Staff, stepping aside to reveal Terra in a white walking dress and a daisy-covered white hat.  “I promise though, that when you’re old enough to drive, I’ll buy you your own car as well.”

“You don’t mind if I come along with you, do you?” the ten-year-old asked her cousin.

“Of course not,” said Iolana, hurrying over to the driver’s side of the vehicle.

She quickly climbed aboard, while Terra took the front passenger’s seat and Esther climbed into the back.

“This is lovely,” said the lizzie.

“I know.”  Iolana gripped the steering wheel and peered through the windscreen.  “I wonder how fast she’ll go?”

“She won’t go at all with a cold boiler,” said Mr. Staff with a laugh.  “Let me light it for you.”

He stepped around to the rear of the car and applied a match to the tinder beneath the coal.  Then he stepped around to Iolana’s side.

“It has plenty of water in it and coal too, so just as soon as it’s hot, you can go.  Just keep to a manageable speed.”  With that advice, he took the bow off the bonnet and then walked back up the steps and into the house.

Iolana looked at the array of controls at her feet.  Rather than the three simple pedals in the cabriolet, there were five: forward and reverse accelerators, forward and reverse decelerators, and the clutch. Then there were the hand controls: the brake and the gearshift.  She ran her fingertips around the steering wheel, and smiled.

“I think I’ll name you Tsisia,” she said.

“Oh, that’s a good name,” said Terra.  “The lizzie word for of the sky.”

“Are you ready?” Iolana looked first at Esther and then Terra.  Both nodded.

With what seemed like a practiced hand, she pressed down on the brake lever.  Then she threw the gearshift forward while pressing her feet down on the clutch and the forward decelerator.  As she slowly let out the clutch, she transferred her right foot from the forward decelerator to the forward accelerator.  The blue steam carriage rolled forward.

“I don’t think you have enough steam,” said Terra.

“Don’t worry,” replied Iolana.  “It’s picking up.”

“Ack!” said Senta, blowing water out of her nose.

Szim rose to the surface of the little pool that was the lizzie bathtub and circled around her like an alligator.

“No fair!  How am I supposed to keep up without a tail?”

Senta was not a strong swimmer even by human standards, having had little opportunity to swim, growing up first in a large city with few clean waterways, and then in a primordial land in which every body of water held frightful predators.

The lizzie submerged briefly and then shot out of the water so quickly that she was able to land feet first on the stone edging.  She reached down a clawed hand, and pulled the human female from the water.

“Frogs swim very well, and they have no tail.”

“Do I look like a frog to you?”

The lizzie tilted her head, looking at the human with one eye.

“Oh very funny.”

“Come, I will paint you,” said Szim.

A table in the corner of the room served as a sort of vanity for reptilians, and was stocked with pigments that the lizzies used to decorate their bodies.  Two days earlier, Szim had convinced Senta to let her paint her body, and since then she had spent her time naked but for a bit of red, black, and yellow body paint.  After all, she reasoned, there were no other humans within a hundred miles, and the lizzies could hardly tell the difference.  There was no one to be scandalized and no one to accuse her of going native.  Though Szim had tried several designs, she had at last settled on outlining or emphasizing the sigils already imprinted on the sorceress’s body.  Senta had fourteen sigils, sort of magical tattoos, adorning her body.  Up and down her front were twelve two-inch stars, while on her back were two images of Bessemer, one with open wings that covered both shoulder blades, and one of the young dragon curled up and sleeping in the small of her back.  They were the result of creation and summoning magic.

“Okay, my turn,” said Senta, when Szim was done.

She used the same cups of paint to draw designs on the lizzie—red stars surrounded by yellow up and down her back and a large yellow happy face on her belly.

“It is too much,” said Szim. “I’m not important enough to have so much paint.”

“Nonsense.  You’re the close personal friend of the most powerful sorceress in the world.”  She stopped and looked around.

“What?” wondered the lizzie.

“Just checking to see if someone was going to pop up to contradict me.  Oh well.  Come on. Let’s go down and eat.”

Szarine had finished setting the table and the food looked delicious.  At Senta’s direction, the cuisine had improved greatly over the past week or so.  Now boiled eggs and poached fish sat beside fruit salad and a mashed tuber that was almost a potato.  The lizzie cook joined them at the table and the three of them began passing the dishes and filling their plates.

“What do you want to do today?” asked Szim.  “I don’t think there is anything to show you in the entire complex that you haven’t already seen.  Maybe we could climb the mountain.”

“Hmm.  Or maybe we could hunt down Khastla and torture him until he calls that stupid dragon home.”

Both the lizzies rolled their eyes in shock.

“You mustn’t say such things!” said Szim.  “The god cannot be summoned!”

“Don’t I know it, or he would be here already.”

“Khastla says the god is asleep in Tsahloose,” said Szarine.

“I’ve been waiting here an entire fortnight.”

“Hissussisthiss used to sleep for months,” said Szim.

“Bessemer’s not as big or old as Hissussisthiss was,” said Senta.  “It hasn’t been that long since I used to dress him up in my doll’s clothes.”

“You still have your little goddess,” Szim pointed out.

“Yes, I do.”  Senta frowned.  “You know, I think it’s been four days since I saw her.  She’s never been away from me for more than two before. I should scry her and see what trouble she’s into.”

“After that, we can go mountain climbing,” said Szim.

When she had finished eating, Senta left the two lizzies, and climbed the stairs to the bedchamber. Along the way, she stopped and picked up a washbowl from the bathroom and filled it with water.  Once upstairs, she placed the bowl and the floor and sat down cross-legged in front of it.  The magical art of scrying, observing something or someone from across time and space, wasn’t something that Senta specialized in, but it was simple enough, as divination magic went.

“Uuthanum,” she said, but nothing happened.

“Uuthanum,” she said again.

The water remained transparent and completely unremarkable.

“Uuthanum eetarri.” She touched her finger to the water, and still nothing.

“Kafira’s tits!” Senta growled.  It had been a long time since anything had foiled her magic.

Getting her handbag, she reached into it and pulled out a piece of chalk.  On the solid stone floor, she drew a large circle and inside of that, a pentagram.  Then she drew arcane symbols all around its circumference.  Placing the bowl of water in the center of the circle, she sat down next to it once again.

“Sembor uuthanum edios nit eetarri!”  This time the water turned white like milk.  Suddenly red bubbled up from the center.  Some powerful magic was preventing her from magically seeing anything at all.  She grabbed the edge of the bowl and flipped it out of the circle, spilling contents that were once again just plain ordinary water, across the floor.

The lizzies carried the large cogs, springs, and sprockets out of the building and stacked them in the back of the task lorry.  The copper and steel parts all looked so normal, like the pieces of a very large clock. But Wizard Peter Bassington could feel the magic radiating off of them like heat from a fireplace.  They were parts of the great machine built many years before by Professor Merced Calliere—the Result Mechanism.  A huge steam-powered machine designed to add, subtract, multiply, and divide large numbers very quickly, the Result Mechanism plotted out water and sewer lines, created projectile trajectory charts, predicted the movement of the planets, and determined the optimum paths for the city’s trolley lines.  It could in fact, compute any series of numbers for any purpose, including creating magic spells.  Wizardry was at its heart, nothing but mathematics.

Anyone who could master advanced mathematics could become a wizard, memorizing the abstract formulas for the eldritch forces that were bent to one’s will.  Wizards set these formulas in their brains like a housewife set a rattrap. Then with a single gesture and word, they released the magic.  Once that was done, they had to reset the mathematical formula again.  Sorcerers on the other hand, did magic without arithmetic. They could detect the magic in the world around them and tap into it naturally.  No one could learn to be a sorcerer.  You were either born one or you weren’t.  For that reason, there might be thousands of wizards in the Kingdom of Greater Brechalon, but fewer than a handful of sorcerers.

Several wizards had used the result mechanism to formulate spells.  As a result, magical energy was drawn to the building housing the great computer.  For years, the machine stewed in the magic soup, until it became dangerous—perhaps even sentient.  Senta had put it to sleep and now Peter was disassembling it and melting down the individual parts.

“All right!  That’s enough for this load!” he called to the lizzies.

The one who could understand Brech signaled to the others and they climbed into the rear of the task lorry with the machine parts.  Peter locked the solid oak door of the building with a large padlock.

“You must have just about all of it by now.”

Peter turned to see the pasty, emaciated form of Wizard Bell, in his seemingly oversized blue police uniform, complete with hexagram.

“Good day, Wizard Bell.”

“Wizard Bassington.”

“I seem to run into you fairly often on this side of town.”

“Police constable,” he said, pointing at his uniform.

“I didn’t realize that police wizards walked a tour.”

Bell shrugged.

“Yes,” said Peter.  “I think one more load, and it will be all taken care of.  Sorry to see it go?”

“No, of course not. Can’t have dangerous magical artifacts falling into the wrong hands.  What is your sister planning to do with the building?”

“I don’t know.  I suppose she’ll have to work that out with the governor.”

“Right,” said Bell, giving a thin-lipped smile.  “Well, I’ll be on my way.”

He turned and strolled north.  Peter looked around for a moment and then spotted one of Szoristru’s lizzies. Peter was still paying them to watch the police wizard, though they had yet to find anything worthwhile. Climbing into the lorry’s cab, he nodded to the driver, who in turn, started the engine.

It took over an hour to drive across town to the foundry.  The large metal-casting factory, a massive building at the southern edge of the city, had only been completed the previous summer.  It wouldn’t come into full production mode until spring was well on, and the iron ore that was being mined by the lizzies arrived by train from the mountains.  For that reason, it had been relatively easy to rent the facility.  Most of what had been the Result Mechanism was stacked just inside the main entrance—now just so many bars of copper and steel.

By the time the lizzies finished unloading the lorry, the sun was sinking toward the western horizon. Mr. Flint, the foundry manager, stepped over to where Peter was supervising.

“We can stoke up the furnace and get started on these now, but we’ll run into evening overtime.”

“Perhaps it’s for the best if we wait until tomorrow,” said the young wizard.  “I have an engagement this evening, and I really should go home and get cleaned up.”

Mr. Flint nodded, and hurried off to see to the closing of the factory for the night.

“Lance, can you give me a lift home?” Peter asked the driver, who nodded to the affirmative.

“More work tomorrow, same place,” he told the lizzies, peeling off a five mark note for each, double for the interpreter.”

Then he climbed back into the lorry cab and the vehicle zoomed up the street.

“Home in time for dinner,” said Baxter, when he passed through the parlor.  “That’s something new.”

“Just stopped by to clean up and change clothes.  I’ve got a date with Abby tonight.”

“I like that girl. Shame she had to end up with you.”

“I feel the same way about you and Senta… and Senta,” said Peter.  “Where is my niece, anyway?”

“I’m hiding under the table, Uncle Peter!”  Though hiding, she was clearly visible once one knew where to look.”

“Why are you hiding under the table?”

“We’re playing Hide and Go Seek!  Don’t tell Daddy where I am!”

“And if I don’t, how will he every find you?”

“Hurry up and get ready for your date,” said Baxter, “before that poor foolish girl figures out what she’s gotten herself into.  I hope you’re taking her someplace nice.”

Tokkenoht walked wearily toward the hearth room, intent on nothing more than plopping down on her sleeping mat and letting blessed sleep take her.  She stopped short when Szakhandu, who was standing beside the doorway, held up her hand.

“What is it?”

“Don’t go in yet. Hsrandtuss is mating with Ssu.”

“Again?”

“Yes.”  She shrugged.  “The king wants to mate… he needs to, and neither of us is ready. Kendra doesn’t want to and so that leaves Ssu.  I wish I was ready.”

“Why is that, do you suppose?” muttered Tokkenoht.

“Why what?  Why do I want to mate?  Or why doesn’t Kendra?”

“No.  Why are you and I not ready?  This isn’t our first season.”

“I have an opinion,” said Szakhandu.

Tokkenoht motioned for her to continue.

“I think it is stress.”

“What is stressing us? We have plenty to eat and drink.”

“Mental stress.  You are high priestess and I am chief diplomat. I don’t know about you, but this whole mess with the humans is worrying my tail.”

“You’re not on about that again, are you?” growled Hsrandtuss, his bulk suddenly filling the doorway.  “I’ve sent a message to the human city.  Either they can pay a ransom, or I will mark humans’ tails and banish them.  We should hear back from them by the next bright face.”

“Great King,” said Szakhandu.  “I hesitate to point it out, but the soft-skins have no tails for you to mark.”

“Well figure out a place for me to mark them!” he hissed, pushing past them.  “Do I have to do everything myself?”

“The humans mark thieves here,” said Tokkenoht, pointing to the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. Then she stepped through the doorway and collapsed on her mat, asleep in seconds.

The high priestess jerked awake when someone grabbed hold of her.  She thought she was being attacked for a moment, but when she opened her eyes, it was only Szakhandu.

“What?  Why are you waking me?”

“You have slept late. It is past the morning meal.”

“So?”

“The prisoners want to speak to you.”

“What prisoners?” wondered Tokkenoht.

“The human prisoners—the soft-skins.”

“Why do they want to talk to me?” she wondered.  “How do they even know me?”

“They want to talk to the high priestess,” said Szakhandu.  “You are the high priestess, aren’t you?”

“All right, all right. Paint me, and then have Kendra meet me at their cell.”

“She is already there,” said Szakhandu, pulling her toward the paint.

A few minutes later, with the smallest amount of paint acceptable, but wearing her feathered cape, Tokkenoht allowed her fellow royal wife to lead her down to the holding cells. Two large males guarded the door, but opened it for the two of them.  Inside, they found another guard and Kendra, along with the four human prisoners.  They looked well enough and had been allowed to clean themselves daily, but the hair on their faces had grown, making them seem much more animal-like.

“Good morning, wife of my husband,” said Tokkenoht to Kendra.  “Are you gravid with eggs yet?”

“I think I might be. I have no appetite.”

“Yes, that is a sure sign.” She looked at the prisoners. “Now, what is it that they want?”

Kendra turned and spoke the lyrical language of the humans.  To the lizzies, it sounded like the calls of small birds.  The humans answered, sometimes talking over one another. They talked far longer than the priestess had expected, until Kendra finally raised her hand for them to stop.

“These two are eggs from the same female.”  She pointed to two of the humans.  “They have the same name—Tardut, that’s as close as I can pronounce it anyway.  This one’s name is Neiers, and that one is Grissinski.  He is the one that has much to say to you.  He says that our god will not like him being imprisoned.  He says that Yessonar will punish us if he is not released.”

“Tell him it is I who speak for the god here and not him.  Tell them all that we have sent word about them to the human city.  We will know their answer in another ten days or so.”

Kendra spoke the human tongue again and Grissinski answered, loudly, waving his arms.

“He threatens great destruction.”

Tokkenoht reached past Kendra and shoved the human.  He crashed into the wall and slid down to the floor.  She had heard that some of the humans were fierce warriors, but this was not one of them, she decided.

“Ask the other three if there is anything they need.”

“They say they need more food,” Kendra translated.  “They say we feed them only half of what they need.”

“That is probably true,” said Tokkenoht.  “They are warm-blooded and so their bodies need more fuel.  Tell them we will have more food brought.”

The high priestess turned and waited for the cell door to be opened.  Once it was, she stepped out, followed by the other females. The guard stepped out as well, shutting the cell door behind him.  The three queens made their way up the hallway.