The Dechantagne dining room table looked extremely empty this morning. Mrs. Godwin was in her usual spot, as was Mrs. Colbshallow.  Professor Calliere was there and his solicitor Mr. Streck was still visiting.  Yuah sat to the right of her husband.  But there were four empty chairs.  Saba Colbshallow had not stopped by for breakfast with his mother for several days and the empty spot so often filled with an ad-hoc dining guest was unoccupied.  Little Iolana was sleeping in and so was not in her highchair.  But it was Iolanthe’s absence which made the table seem much emptier than it would if anyone else happened to be gone.  It was quite a boring meal, aside from Mr. Streck spilling his tea in his lap.  Yuah was picking at her eggs, sausages, and white pudding not because of her sister-in-law’s absence, but because of the unpleasant cramping she felt in her abdomen.

After the family had finished breakfast and everyone got up from the table, Yuah took Terrence’s arm.

“Where did you want to go?” she asked.

“Blind man or no, I can find my way around my own house.”

“I’m sure you can.  I was just trying to be helpful.”  She let go of his arm.  “I suppose you are going to the parlor to just sit.”

“I don’t know.  What are you going to do?”

“I thought I would go upstairs and lie down for a bit.”

“Do you want company?” he asked, smiling suggestively.

“No I don’t, you horrible, insatiable man.”

“You didn’t want me just sitting around in the parlor.”

“I’m going upstairs to lie down because I have a headache,” said Yuah.

“I don’t think I’m any more insatiable than any other man.”

“If that is true,” she said, leaving him at the bottom of the stairs, “then your whole race is horrible.”

At the top of the stairs, Yuah turned left.  It was a short walk past the balcony on the left side and Mrs. Colbshallow’s room and the nursery on the right.  Her own room was at the end of the hallway.  She thought of it as her own room despite the fact that Terrence shared it with her.  Neither was inclined to follow the custom among the upper class of having separate bedrooms for husband and wife.  She was already looking at wallpaper and other furnishings, though she had to do so from catalogs brought all the way from Brechalon.  She knew she wanted pink with lots of lace and she knew that her brass bed would have curtains around it that matched the curtains on the window. At this moment though the bed was a simple wooden frame holding up a single very simple mattress and the only curtains on the windows were a pair of old sheets that she had cut and hemmed.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and tossed herself back upon it, her arms stretched out above her head.  The ceiling above her was smooth white plaster, just like the bare walls.  She felt another tug in her abdomen.  It was the thirteenth of Festuary.  She had been married for twenty-three days.  She and Terrence had already been together as man and wife at least fifteen times.  Yuah was sure that was more than most people did it in their entire lifetime.  Why wasn’t she pregnant already?  Who could she ask about it?  She could ask Mrs. C or Mrs. G, but then she would have to look at them every day after having asked them.  Mrs. Bratihn might be a good person to talk to about it.  She’d been married twice and had several children. Or maybe Mrs. Leubking.

The baby started to cry in the next room, and Yuah pulled herself up and walked in to check on her.  She turned the corner in the nursery and jumped as she saw the reptilian creature leaning over the crib.  But the tiny yellow fringe of a skirt told her that it was one of the nanny lizzies.

“You there.  What are you doing?  Which one are you?”

The lizzies didn’t seem to startle the way the humans so often did, but even so the creature turned around quickly.  As soon as it did, she could tell by the coloring that it was the one called Kheesie.  The creature rolled its eyes around in a way that Yuah was beginning to recognize as fear, or at least nervousness.  Stepping quickly past Kheesie, Yuah looked down into the crib.  Iolana was red-faced with anger at having her diaper changed, but was otherwise unhurt.

“I’ll take it from here,” she said.

Cleaning the baby’s bottom with the washrag, she tossed it and the old diaper into the ceramic chamber pot under the crib, which she then handed to the lizzie. She powdered Iolana and then pinned on a new diaper.  Picking up the still crying child, she pressed her to her shoulder and turned around to find the lizardman still there.

“Are you going to stand there looking stupid all day, or are you going to take that out and empty it?”

Kheesie stared blankly.

“Take it out!” and as the creature hurried out of the room, she called after her, “And clean it properly.”

She patted Iolana on the back and bounced her up and down.

“It’s so hard to find good help.”  Then she burst out laughing at herself.  How quickly she was turning into Iolanthe.  My, what a horrible thought.

She pulled the baby away from her shoulder and looked into her face. Iolana was giving her a puzzled look in return.

“Don’t look at me like that.  You know Auntie Yuah.  I’m your favorite.”

Iolana blew a spit bubble.

“Look at you, you are so advanced.  Already walking and now you’re going to talk to Auntie Yuah, aren’t you?”

The child made a valiant effort at speaking by saying “boo-uh.”

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 dockyards.

“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 dockyard,” 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.”

“Their magic is different?”

“No, as a matter of fact their magic is almost identical to my own.  It is their belief system that is different. They believe that the Freedonians are the master race and that they are destined to rule the world.”

“Isn’t that sort of jingoism pretty common?” asked Saba.  “After all, patriotism is a great thing, as long as the fellow who has it is from the same country that you are.  I know quite a few Brechs who think that if you’re not Brech, you’re nothing.”

“Do they want to kill everyone else in the world?”

“Um, no.”

“There you see the difference.  These Reine Zauberei believe that everyone else must serve the Freedonians or be eliminated.  Completely.”

“But that’s just insane.”

“Yes it is.”

“And it’s not possible.”

“There you may be mistaken.  They’ve already started their plan.  The first victims are the Zaeri.”

“I know they’ve been treating the Zaeri badly—forcing them out of their homes and such.  The Zaeri have been treated horribly for centuries though—in Brech and Mirsanna too, not just in Freedonia.”

“There is more to it than that.  In fact the Freedonians have stopped chasing the Zaeri out of the country and are now rounding them up and putting them in forced labor camps.  And there are rumors of other camps—camps where the Zaeri and others are being murdered by the hundreds.”

“That can’t be true,” said Saba.

“We don’t know for sure whether it is or not.” Brockton took the last bite of his sausage and tossed the stick at the dustbin next to the bench.

“You think I’m an idiot?” demanded Senta.

“I didn’t say anything of the kind,” replied Zurfina calmly.

“I know a fylfot when I see one!”

“Don’t be so defensive, Pet.  I didn’t say I didn’t believe you.  I merely pointed out that I have been all over this town in the past few weeks and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of this wizard of yours.”

“Well I saw him.  I’ve been keeping tabs on him since he got here and I even talked to him.”

“I don’t doubt you,” said Zurfina, in a remarkably soothing voice, “but the level of residual magic around town is no more than I would expect from you and your everyday antics.”

“Are you sure you didn’t miss some?”

“Now who’s being insulting?”  The sorceress’s voice suddenly flared louder.  “If I didn’t detect it, it wasn’t there.”

“Hmph!” said Senta, and crossing her arms, turned to face the door.

Zurfina sighed.  “Children are so difficult.  Is it any wonder that I never wanted one of my own?”

“Maybe you should just get rid of me like everybody else does,” said Senta quietly.

Zurfina crossed from the kitchen to the other side of the stairs and put an arm around Senta’s shoulders.

“You’re far too interesting for me to get rid of now.  Look, this wizard of yours is obviously far too insignificant for me to concern myself with.  You’ll have to take care of him.”

“Me?  I’m just a little kid.”

“You know something?” said Zurfina, taking her arm from around Senta and grasping her by the shoulders.  “Nobody believes that—least of all me.  There’s not a journeyman wizard this side of Xygia who can do what you can do with magic.”

“Really?”

“Would I lie to you?”

“Of course you would.”

“Well…” Zurfina shrugged.  “Keep an eye on your wizard, and if he turns out to be a threat to us, neutralize him.”

“What if you’re wrong and he magics the crap out of me?” wondered Senta.

“Then I’ll know better with my next apprentice,” replied Zurfina.  “Do you want a sandwich?”

“Yes.”

Zurfina waved her finger in the air and, as the contents of the froredor began to fly out to the table and assemble themselves into sandwiches, she started up the stairs.

“Bring my meal up to the top floor.  Leave it on the step outside the door.  Don’t come in.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” said Senta, watching mayonnaise being spread across a freshly cut piece of bread.

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

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

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

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

Hertzel shrugged.

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

“I’ll put on some tea.”

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

Senta put the pot on the cast iron stove.

“Nothing’s wrong, is it?” she asked.

Hertzel shook his head.

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

She crossed back to the stove and sat down.

“What’s Hero doing?”

He shrugged.

“Do you know where Graham is?”

He shook his head.

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

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

“That’s okay.  Really. I don’t mind.”

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

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

Cissy was getting quite used to her new role.  The work she did, while not physically demanding, was at least varied enough to keep her attention.  She enjoyed watching the humans and learning about their strange activities.  She enjoyed earning many copper bits and spending some of them to buy things.  She liked the human houses, especially now with four feet of snow on the ground outside and more coming down all the time.  Unused rooms in the big house could become as drafty as the huts in lizzie villages, but there were so many fireplaces constantly burning that it was easy to find a place to warm up.  And her own place, in the room she now shared with four other females, in the back of the motorshed, was kept toasty warm in the evening.

“Pay attention Cissy,” said Mrs. Dechantagne.

Cissy was lacing up the back of the strange undergarment that squeezed the human woman’s waist.  Cissy now knew Mrs. Dechantagne’s name, and indeed the names of the other members of the household, though the intricacies of their familial connections still baffled her.  Nor could she pronounce most of the names, but fortunately speech on her part was seldom needed.  She liked Mrs. Dechantagne almost as much as she liked Mrs. Colbshallow.  Neither woman hit the lizzies and Mrs. Dechantagne didn’t yell at them overmuch.  While Mrs. Colbshallow did on occasion raise her voice, she alone among the humans had learned the lizzie language, and offered affection toward the lizzies.

Cissy found herself starting to think in Brech, rather than her native language.  She had learned so many words for things that there were no words for among the lizzies. She had stopped thinking of her race as “the people” and now just thought of them as lizzies, and more often than not, when she thought of herself, the name Cissy came to mind rather than Ssissiatok.

She pulled the corset strings tightly through they eyelets and pulled down on them, locking them into position, so that she could then tie them into a knot.  Once that was done, Mrs. Dechantagne turned around to examine her work in the cheval glass.

“Yes, that’s fine.  Now help me into the dress.”

Cissy was fascinated by the ornate dresses that the human females wore, and this dress was no exception.  It was the color of an angry sunset and was made of enough material to have clothed a dozen men and women.  Covered with coral roses and pink bows, it had to be carefully held so that Mrs. Dechantagne could step into it.  Then it was fastened up the back with more than forty tiny buttons, which Cissy could barely manipulate even with a buttonhook in her clawed fingers.  There was no way that the woman could have put it on by herself and there was no way that she would be able to get out of it either. Of course Cissy had her own skirt, but it was just a wide piece of material wrapped around her above the tail, a mere homage to the dresses worn by the human women of the house.

Once Mrs. Dechantagne was in her dress, Cissy had to kneel down to put the woman’s shoes on her feet, using the same buttonhook to slip the twenty-four buttons on each shoe into their correct spot.  Before she could stand up she heard a shrieking sound from the doorway to the right.  She turned to see elderly Mrs. Godwin leaning against the doorframe with her hand on her breast.

“Are you alright Mrs. Godwin?” asked Mrs. Dechantagne.

“I thought for a moment you were being attacked… by an alligator.”

“Did you forget your glasses again, Mrs. G?”

“Of course I didn’t.   I have them… oh…”  Mrs. Godwin felt her face, and not finding any glasses there, turned and wandered off down the hallway.

“You do rather look like an alligator,” said the young woman, looking down at Cissy.

“Alligator?”

“Yes.  Well, I’ve never seen one in real life.  Just in books.  Um, they say you have crocodiles that are very similar.  Do you know crocodiles?”

Cissy shook her head.

“Oh well.  Get up off the floor.  I’m done with you for now.  Go down and see what Mrs. Colbshallow has for you.”

Leaving the bedroom and walking down the staircase, Cissy looked into the kitchen to find Mrs. Colbshallow supervising the lunch preparations. Shoss and Clegg were washing and cutting vegetables while Sill was arranging a few snow flowers in a vase. Kheesie stepped into the room just behind Cissy.

“Did you finish helping Mrs. Dechantagne get dressed?” asked Mrs. Colbshallow.

“Yes sss…” Cissy hissed mirthfully.  Though she had understood everything the woman had said, not many would have, since about every other word was in the lizzie language.  She had in fact not said “Mrs. Dechantagne”, but had used the term the lizzies in the house had for her, which roughly translated to “the thin white and brown one”.

“And you Kheesie?  Is Iolana down for her nap?”

“Yes,” said Kheesie, then turning to Cissy, hissed under her breath. “Finally.  It simply refuses to sleep.”

“She,” corrected Cissy.

“Very good,” said Mrs. Colbshallow.  “You two are free for now.  Staff lunch is in two hours time.  Come see me afterwards.”

The lizzies were used to eating just once each day, but Mrs. Colbshallow insisted that they sit down to dine three times, each immediately after the three biggest meals of the humans.  Cissy made her way out the back door and across the snow-covered yard to her room in the back of the motor shed.  Kheesie followed.  Once they were inside, they both stretched out on their sleeping mats, lying flat on their stomachs, their noses pointed toward one another.

“I saw Tattasserott walking by on the road in front of the big house,” said Kheesie.

“What was he doing?” wondered Cissy.  “Has he got a job here now?”

“You know he doesn’t have a job.  He’s Ssterrost’s kinsman.”

Senta looked through the glass of the small clear bottle at the milky green liquid inside.  She swirled it around.  It was just thick enough that the potion coated the inside of the glass.

“So if I drink this, I’ll be beautiful?” she wondered.

“I would be most surprised,” said Zurfina the Magnificent, who was lying naked across the divan.  “You haven’t done it properly.  It’s supposed to be a lovely forest green—not a putrid olive.”

“I used all the right ingredients and I put them in, in the right order.”

“But you didn’t maintain the necessary aura.”

“Aura? Kafira’s fanny!  I didn’t need to worry about the aura when I was making happiness potion.”

“Trained lizzies could mix blessudine.  It’s the easiest potion to make.  Hermosatin is twice as difficult, amorazine more difficult than that, and dionoserin more difficult still.”

“Alright,” huffed Senta.  “In exactly which part did I let my aura drop?”

“The rose petals.”

“Well, I can’t do it again.  I don’t have any more rose petals.  Why do you need rose petals anyway?  I can understand cucumbers.  Cucumbers are vegetables and vegetables are supposed to be good for you.  I’ve never heard roses were good for you.  I don’t even think you’re supposed to eat them.”

“Do you want to be a sorceress or a chemist?” said Zurfina, sitting up.  “Do you think this is a science experiment?  Cucumber is essential, but not because it’s good for you.  It represents a man.”

“A man?”

“A specific part of a man anyway.”

“His todger?” asked Senta, incredulously.

“Yes, of course. And the rose petals represent the woman.”

“Her fanny? His todger and her fanny?  And I’m supposed to drink this?”

“Relax,” said Zurfina, rising to her feet.  “It’s not like it has the real bits in it.  They are just representatives.  That’s what magic is about.  Dionoserin doesn’t have walnuts because they have any real connection to your brain. They just sort of look like a brain when you take them out of their shell.”

“I’ve had enough for today.”

“Yes, so have I,” said Zurfina, heading for the staircase.  “Your ineptitude has completely worn me out.  I’m going to take my beauty sleep.  You should read your primer.  You’ve been neglecting your studies.”

“What will happen if I drink this?” asked Senta, holding up the small bottle.

“It might be interesting to find out,” said her mistress, stopping on the first step to watch. “Go ahead and drink it.”

The girl tilted the bottle to her lips and swallowed the contents down.  She licked her lips and waited, but nothing seemed to happen.

“It tastes alright,” she said.

“That’s the spearmint.”

“What does it represent?”

“It doesn’t represent anything,” said Zurfina, ascending the stairs.  “It just makes it taste good.”

Senta followed Zurfina up the stairs, but stopped at her own room as the sorceress continued on.  Going to the bookcase, she pulled out primer number six.  She plopped herself onto her bed and began reading about the classification of animals.  The people who had put the book together had obviously never been to Birmisia.  They had the animals of the world divided into nice neat categories— invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The deinonychus and velociraptors that wandered around the edges of Port Dechantagne had feathers, so they must be birds.  Yet they seemed to have much more in common with the iguanodons that had moved south into the forest.  They were reptiles, weren’t they?  Senta decided to think more on the topic at a later time.  She was running around in her unders and right now she was starting to feel the cold creep in around her.  She went to the cast iron stove and tossed a few more logs in.  The firebox on this floor was almost empty and it was her job to keep it full.  One of these days Zurfina would teach her a spell for filling the firebox, or at least for carrying big piles of wood easily up the stairs.

She went to the window and peered out.  The sun was going down and it was all grey and white amid the trees.  The wind whistled on the other side of the thin pane of glass.  Five days earlier the storm had rolled in from the north and it hadn’t let up since. She hadn’t been outside in that whole time and no one had come to visit her either.  Senta resolved to go visiting on the morrow regardless of the weather.  She opened the primer again, but ten minutes passed without her reading another word.

She heard the front door a level below open and slam shut.  It never occurred to her that someone would enter who had no business being there.  This was Zurfina the Magnificent’s home and such an action would have been more than reckless– it would have been suicidal.  She turned her head toward the stairway and watched until the graceful form of the steel dragon danced over the top step.

“Pet,” said Bessemer.

“Come here and warm me up,” Senta commanded.

The dragon’s long, lithe body crossed the room in two quick steps and hopped onto the bed with her.  A moment later his body was on top of hers, his neck was wrapped around hers, with his head resting on her chest, and his long tail was wrapped around her right leg. His scaly skin felt hard and smooth, but he was exceptionally warm.  It was like having a big scaly hot water bottle.

“Did you find something to eat?” asked Senta.

“Yes.”

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

“Colbshallow, right?”

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

“That’s right.”

“I’m Shrubb, Eamon Shrubb.”

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

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

Saba nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t generally talk to my food.”

“Come on.”

Saba led the way across the dirty patches of snow that still covered the militia grounds, stepping over the low fencing, and out into the gravel street. Then they started down the hill on Seventh and One Half Avenue toward the docks.  The street was lined on either side with workshops and warehouses. Most of the workshops had open fronts and one could peer in as one passed to watch men working at lathes, saws, and other pieces of equipment.  Most of the warehouses on the other hand had their massive doors closed, as there was no ship in the port at the moment.

“So, you’re a new arrival, are you?” asked Saba.

“That’s right.  Arrived two weeks ago on the Jaquesville.”

“Family?”

“No.  Left home when I was just a lad.  I was working on the docks in the city and heard about opportunity.”

At the bottom of the hill the road ended at the broad expanse of the dockyard. Though there was little work to be done here, there were several gangs of lizzie dock workers who were being trained by their human foremen so that they would be ready for the arrival of the next big transport.  Saba kept up with the ship schedules from boredom as much as anything else, so he knew the next arrival was supposed to be the S.S. Windermere on or about the twenty-ninth.

“So, you’ve been here since the beginning?” asked Shrubb.

“That’s right.”

“I was told you were the one to ask about things.”

“Who told you that?” wondered Saba.

“Willy Cornish.”

“Oh, well.  As long as you don’t ask him about anything, you’ll be fine.”

In the center of the dockyard, two food carts had been set up and several patrons were queued up to purchase their lunches.  Mrs. Gopling sold some very nice smoky sausages from her stand and Mr. Kordeshack sold fish and chips from his.  Just this week, the Finkler boy had begun setting up his own cart to sell tea and biscuits, but he had not as yet arrived this morning.  When the ships came in, these three carts would be joined by another: Mr. Darwin selling locally made leather products.  Saba and his new companion stepped into the fish and chips queue and waited their turn.

“What will you have?” asked Mr. Kordeshack, a man of middle years with thin hair but bushy side whiskers.

“How about cod?” replied Shrubb.

“Um… we haven’t any.”

“How about a lovely haddock?”

Mr. Kordeshack shrugged.  “Only Birmisian fish.”

“What do you have today?” asked Saba.

Yuah Korlann turned away from the street and made her way up the stone walkway, through the large snow covered yard of the Dechantagne estate.  In a way it seemed odd that she wasn’t living there. She had lived in one Dechantagne house or another all her life.  She had grown up with the three Dechantagnes of this generation, gone to school with them, worked for them.  She paused to hyperventilate for a moment before starting up the steps to the portico. She had a white fur coat over a new pale pink dress and a new, extra tight corset beneath that.  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 suddenly moved.  She flinched, but it was only reaching back to open the door for her.

“Um, thank you,” she said, stepping hesitantly through the doorway.

Inside was a maze of boxes and furniture heaped up against the walls. She navigated through them and into the parlor, surprised to find it clear of any such obstructions.  A large comfortable sofa and several stuffed chairs had been set up around a small table.  There was even a hutch against the wall with a full bottle of sherry and several glasses upon a silver tray.  A fire was burning in the fireplace.  There was no drapery in place yet, but two large trees outside kept the light from being too harsh.  Above the mantle was the only picture hanging in the room—a portrait of General Augustus Q. Dechantagne, the younger brother of Iolanthe’s and Terrence’s grandfather. “Good morning Yuah.”

Yuah turned to find Terrence standing in the doorway.  He looked good.  He had gained a bit of weight, though he was still too thin.  He was neatly groomed and dressed in a black suit. His bandaged eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark spectacles.  With his left hand, he held onto the doorframe.  Terrence had been captured, tortured, and blinded in the lizzie city of Suusthek, along with Corporal Bratihn.  Ordinarily a magic user of Zurfina’s skill could have restored their sight, but they had been cursed by a lizzie witch doctor and there was no priest in the colony powerful enough to remove the curse.

“How did you know it was me?”

“The smell.  With all those potions and lotions you use, it had to be either you or a group of a dozen other women.  And since I didn’t hear any chattering, I decided it couldn’t be the latter.”

“Very astute.  I was just admiring the portrait.”

“Great Uncle Augie, is it?”

“Yes.  Isn’t he the one that… um…”

“Lost his manhood to a musket ball.  Yes.  I think Iolanthe is trying to send me a message, but I don’t know what it is.”

“I’m not certain I would want to know.”

Terrence made his way to the hutch, stepping confidently but following along the wall with his left hand.

“Brandy?”

“It’s way too early for me to drink,” replied Yuah.

“Fortunately, it’s not too early for me.”  He poured himself a glass, his finger dipping over the lip of the glass so that he could tell when to stop pouring, and took a sip.  “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I was hoping I could get you to take me somewhere.  You really should get out.”

“Get out?  I’ve just gotten in here.”

“You know what I mean.  You’ve been cooped up inside, first in the apartment and now here, since the first snow fall.”

“Where do you propose that I take you?  Birmisia isn’t exactly known for its lively social spots and it’s too bloody cold to do anything out of doors.”

“Well, we could take a stroll to Mr. Parnorsham’s Pfennig Store.”

“More lotions?”

“Notions actually,” Yuah replied pertly.  “I need a bit of thread and a needle.”

“Of course you realize that you passed Mr. Parnorsham’s on the way over here.”

“Of course.”

He took another sip of his brandy, and then set the glass down next to the others. “I’ll have to get my greatcoat.”

While Yuah waited, she pulled a hand from her fur muff and primped her hair. Within five minutes Terrence had returned, dressed for cold weather.  Yuah took him by the hand and led him through the mazes of boxes and furniture to the front door.  The lizzie opened it just before they got there.

“What do you think about all these lizzies your sister is hiring,” she said as they made their way across the front yard.

“I prefer not to think of them at all.”

“Hmm.”

They reached the center of the road and began walking west toward the Town Square. The road was slightly slippery from the snow, which had over the past few nights turned into ice.  There were no vehicles in Port Dechantagne, unless a wheelbarrow could be considered a vehicle, so the roads were often left to the vagaries of the weather.  Yuah tucked her hands in around Terrence’s arm as though he was guiding her rather than the other way around.

“I went to the execution the other day,” she said.

“Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know why I did it, but it was awful.  There was so much blood, and that poor creature with her tail cut off.”

“What possessed you to go?” Terrence asked again.  “I don’t understand why you would want to see that.”

“I didn’t want to see it!  I don’t know why I went.  I just wish that I hadn’t.”

“That’s one thing I don’t miss seeing.”

“Well, I can’t see how anyone or anything could have deserved that,” said Yuah.  “Having the skin scourged off your back for a few marks?”

Ssissiatok shuffled down the road and through the gate in the great wooden wall. On either side, groups of soft-skins watched her and the other people.  The people walked slowly as they always did in the cold.  This was not to say they could only walk slowly in the cold, but Ssterrost had reminded all of them coming from Tserich how they were to act. They were to act slow and they were to act simple and they were not to show the newcomers anything they weren’t expecting.  Most of the people in this group were from Tserich, but there were a few others. Ssissiatok recognized the tribal symbol of Tuustutu on the shoulder of one very tall male in the back of the group.

Ssissiatok herself was slightly less than six feet in height, about average for members of her sex and species.  She was young and didn’t have the mottled skin and scars of most of her elders.  Her face and the top of her head were a deep forest green, which ran 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 most attractive feature, her long powerful tail, followed her just a few inches above the ground.

The line of people filed through the wall and between the large square huts of the soft-skins.  Though she had heard elders telling stories of the great cities of Suusthek, Tsotollah, and Tsahloose, this softskin village was the largest community that Ssissiatok had ever seen.  More and more of the soft-skins lined the road to gawk and to jabber with their little mouths, as the people reached the bigger buildings that were “the base.” Ssissiatok knew “base” and many other human words.

The line stopped and a softskin ahead was shouting.  “You lizzies move on up here.”

Ssissiatok and the other people moved forward into a group.

“You will step up to the table and give the soldier your name and information. Then you will be given your identification and you will wait on the seats over there until the employers come to select you.”

Ssissiatok fell in line behind Tissonisuk, an older male she knew from the village.  Unlike most of the others, Tissonisuk was not hunkering down to make himself look smaller for the soft-skins.  He was standing up at his full six foot seven height.  The line moved forward until Tissonisuk reached the table with the softskin seated behind it.

“Name?  Oh, hey. I know you, don’t I?  Tisson.  Right?”

Tissonisuk bobbed his head up and down in the way that the soft-skins did.

“Come to sign on permanent, eh?  Good for you.  Hold out your hand.  Keep this identification bracelet on at all times.”

Tissonisuk, now just Tisson, stepped away from the table.  Ssissiatok stepped forward.

“Hey now.  You’re a short one, aren’t you?  Are you a girl?”

Ssissiatok didn’t know this word.

“Female?”

Ssissiatok hissed in the affirmative, but the softskin didn’t understand, and lowered his hand to the weapon on his belt.

“Fee nail.  Fee nail,” said Ssissiatok quickly.

“That’s better.  And you can talk too.  A little feisty.  Don’t worry. We’ll work that out of you in no time. Hold your hand out.”

Ssissiatok did as directed and the softskin tied an identification bracelet around her wrist.  She looked at the strange symbols on it.

“Want to know what it says?  That’s your number now—295.  And it says you can talk, so you can’t fool us.  Don’t even try.  What’s your name Little Miss Lizzie?”

“Ssissiatok.”

“Cissy.  Perfect.”

“Ssissiatok.”

“You’re Cissy now, got it?  And I’ve got just the place for you.  Go stand over with that lot there.”

The softskin pointed to where Tissonisuk sat.  Ssissiatok walked over to them.  She recognized Hekheesiatu, another female just older than she, but from a house with slightly less status.  The third person she didn’t recognize.  He was an average looking male with mottled yellow skin and brown stripes on his back.

“Tissonisuk,” she said, raising the back of her hand to her dewlap.

“No,” he replied in the human language.  “Not Tissonisuk.  Tisson. Only the hoonan name.  Kheesie,” he said, pointing at Hekheesiatu, and then pointing at the person Ssissiatok didn’t know, he said, “Sirruk.”

“The soft-skins are still angry,” he said, dropping back into the language of the people.  “They are still angry because Ssithtsutsu attacked them.  They already destroyed Suusthek and killed many, many people, but they might kill more.  We are here because they need us, but don’t think they are not dangerous.”

“They are so small and soft,” said Ssissiatok, now just Cissy.

“You see that one over there?”  Tisson indicated a softskin leaning against one of the big buildings.  He was watching the other humans and the people. “That one is called Clark.  He is smaller than you are and he is soft in their way, but he is one of their strongest warriors.  He killed hundreds of the people.  I tell you these humans are like the blue frog that lives in the tallest trees.  You could easily crush it with your foot, but one touch would kill you.”

Cissy nodded.

Now another softskin was talking to the one that Tisson had pointed out as Clark. Both were looking in the direction of Cissy and the others.

“What is it?” asked Cissy.

“She is a female,” said Tisson, standing up.  “The females have very wide bottoms.  And you can see she is older because the tuft of hair on her head is grey.”

The snow was falling from the sky in great clumpy bunches.  They dropped like feathers through the still, cold air to form great piles on the ground.  The snow had been coming down steadily for four hours.  The huckleberry and azalea bushes were covered over with a thick blanket.  The little walkway of stepping-stones that led to the road and the road itself were just memories, covered by billowy white.  Spruces and maples dipped their bare branches forlornly and even the mighty redwoods struggled under the weight of the gathering snow.  But the snow didn’t care.  It continued on, relentlessly smothering the world.  It completely surrounded the strange five-story home nestled in the Birmisian woods.  Not too far away a tremendous roar echoed through the trees.

“Monster,” said the steel dragon, peeking out the door from between Graham Dokkin’s legs.

“Tyrannosaurus,” corrected Senta Bly.  “I guess he doesn’t like the snow too much.”

“Well who does?” wondered Graham, looking down at the dragon.  “And get your head away from there.  That’s all I need, to have my goolies bit.”

“He hasn’t bitten anyone in almost a year,” countered Senta.  “Has he Hero?”

Hero Hertling didn’t answer.  At the mention of goolies, she had covered her face with both hands, though one could still spot the spreading blush around its edges.  She and her brother Hertzel, along with Graham, were spending the day at Senta’s house.  They had been delivered just before the snow started by Graham’s Da to the five-story structure set well away from the rest of Port Dechantagne.  Although Senta and her guardian, Zurfina the Magnificent, had been living here for almost a year, it had taken quite a while to convince Graham’s parents and Hero and Hertzel’s older sister to let them spend the day there. This was the first time that all three had visited together.

“Why don’t you close the door?” said Hero from between her fingers.  “Who knows what might run out of the forest and into here.”

Her brother, who never said anything, nodded.

“Alright then.  Move over dragon.”  Graham scooted the steel beastie with his boot while shutting the door.

“Call him by his name,” said Senta.

“Bessemer,” said the dragon, and then made his way to the far wall to curl up on a single large pillow next to the cast iron stove.

Though more than eight feet from tip of whiskered snout to the barbed tip of his tail, Bessemer was not much taller at the shoulder than a medium sized dog. Scales the color of polished steel covered him from his nose all the way to the clawed tips of his fingers.  Even his eyes were steel colored, so much so that it was difficult to see just where he was looking.  So lithe and agile was he when he moved, it was rather like watching a river flow across the room.

“Bessemer,” said Graham, still looking at the dragon.  “It just doesn’t fit.  I’d have gone with Whiskers or Peetie.”

“Zurfina says that dragons are born knowing their own names,” said Senta. “It’s just another sign that they are so much smarter than people.”

“Fina,” said the dragon.

“When is Zurfina getting home,” wondered Hero, at last uncovering her face. “I can’t believe she left you all alone out here in the wilderness.”

“This isn’t the wilderness.  This is our house.”

“You know what I mean.”

“It’s not any farther away from the wall than your new house is.”

“No, but there are other houses around ours.”

Hero and Hertzel lived in a small but sturdy house that was part of a new neighborhood on the east side of the growing colony.  Though their house had been the first one built in that area, there were now more than a dozen similar structures, all occupied by ethnic Zaeri, who had fled persecution in Freedonia.

“Zurfina is very busy lately,” explained Senta.  “With no wizards in the colony, she has to do all the magic stuff herself—at least until I get good enough to help out.  Besides I’m used to taking care of myself.”

“It’s on account of her being a orphan,” offered Graham.

The three other children all stared mutely at him.

“What?” he asked, having forgotten that of the four, he was the only one who was not an orphan.

Graham, who although he had recently hit a growth spurt was still decidedly chunky, had brown hair, freckles, and very large teeth.  He was dressed in a long-sleeved flannel shirt and dungarees rolled up around the leather boots that had once been his father’s. Graham always wore his dungarees rolled up at the ankles, as his mother was in the habit of buying them to fit him sometime in the distant future.  Still the fact that all his clothes, save the boots, were new, spoke to the Dokkins family’s growing prosperity.  Hero and Hertzel, who were twins, both with thick dark hair, though Hertzel kept his cut short around the ears, and beautiful dark eyes, wore neat and well-maintained, but obviously home-sewn clothes.  Following the Freedonian Zaeri custom, which eschewed color, Hertzel wore a white shirt with brown trousers while his sister wore a brown dress with a white linen overdress.

“Hungry,” said Bessemer from the corner.

“Yes, it’s about time for tea,” agreed Senta.