Though winter was well on its way out in Birmisia, it was still cold enough at night—cold enough to bundle up tight, cold enough to blow steam in the air with your breath, and cold enough that the lizzies moved with their characteristically slow gate. Police Constable Saba Colbshallow watched them from behind the corner of a warehouse building across the street from the dock. He didn’t know why they were working in the middle of the night, but he hadn’t spotted them taking from the ship any of the curious long crates that he had seen on previous occasions. He watched for more than thirty minutes as the reptilians moved freight.

Finally deciding that the activity represented nothing nefarious, Saba stretched his sore back, pulled a sulfur match from his pocket, and lit the oil lantern sitting on a barrel next to him. Then taking the lantern with him, he made his way across the street. There were half a dozen lizzies loading wooden crates onto a pallet that was attached to the crane to be loaded aboard the ship. As he approached, several of the lizardmen eyed him. Half of them were taller than his six foot three, but all of them hunkered down to look shorter than they actually were. It was a demonstration of submissiveness that the constable had grown used to over the years. Coming to a stop beside the workers, he crossed his hands over his chest.

“Working awfully late, gentlemen.”

One of the lizardmen hissed. Even though Saba was not fluent in the aboriginal language, he could tell it was a non-verbal expression of anger or annoyance.

“Identification.”

The two closest lizardmen held out their arms. They each wore a wooden and twine identity bracelet. Saba held up the lantern and read the engraved information on each of the tags. “Finn: Serial Number 22211 BL”, and “Ishee: Serial Number 22214 BI”.

“All right. The rest of you too.”

“Does there seem to be some problem, PC?”

Saba looked up to see the tall, silhouetted form of a man walking toward him from the direction of the ship. When he reached the circle of lantern light he was revealed as Professor Merced Calliere.

“Good evening, Professor. Just checking identifications.”

“I would appreciate some haste then. These fellows have work to do.”

“So they’re working for you? I noticed these two don’t seem to have night passes, and my guess is that the others don’t either.”

“Yes, well I needed help on what you might call an ad-hoc basis. It’s very important business—government business. So I would prefer it if you not delay them any longer.”

“Then I had best let them get back to work,” said Saba. “As soon as I check the rest of their identification.”

“This ship is leaving first thing in the morning.” Professor Calliere hissed from between clenched teeth.

“I am aware of that, Professor,” said Saba, then to the other lizardmen. “Stick your arms out.”

The two reptilians that he had already checked stepped aside, and the remaining four held out their arms to show their identification bracelets. Calliere folded his arms and scowled. Saba read them off one by one.

“Maddy: Serial Number 19705 BL. Sassine: Serial Number 18234 BI. Guster: Serial Number 10100 BI. Swoosy: Serial Number 11995 BI. Oh, I know you, don’t I?”

Saba looked up at the last of the lizardmen. It was a hulking brute, at least six foot five, though it was doing its best to seem shorter. Its skin was deep forest green with large mottled patches of grey here and there. It looked nothing like the lightly colored, rather short female that the constable had seen saved by Graham Dokkins from the new arrivals.

“Hold on,” said the constable, grabbing the wrist with the bracelet.

With a hiss that bordered on a roar, the lizardman leapt forward, grabbing Saba’s helmet in its clawed right hand as its momentum carried both of them backwards. As he fell, Saba felt the alligator-like mouth clamp shut on his right shoulder. The gravel of the street flew as the man and the reptilian landed. The latter flipped completely over and onto his back. Saba jumped to his feet, his hand suddenly holding his truncheon even though he didn’t consciously grab it. With a speed belying its supposed cold blood, the lizardman rolled onto his stomach, and without even getting up, launched himself into Saba. They both fell into the pallet of crates, one of which splintered, spilling its contents onto the ground. Saba swung his truncheon, but couldn’t tell if it connected. The next moment, his opponent was gone.

Senta strolled down the white gravel street toward her home, singing the latest song to arrive from Brech.   The wax cylinder had come by ship exactly one month before, and it was already almost worn smooth by constant playing on the music box in Parnorsham’s store.

I’ll pay you a pfennig for your dreams,

Dreaming’s not as easy as it seems,

Images of her, are keeping me awake,

And so I’ll have to pay a pfennig for your dreams.

When Senta sang it, she replaced “images of her” with “images of him”. She thought that it made more sense for a girl to be kept awake with images of a boy than the other way around. If it had been her choice, she would have chosen a girl to sing the song, rather than the somewhat effeminate-voiced man on the recording.

“Not a very catchy tune.”

Senta turned to see a man emerging from behind a tree along the east side of the road. It was the same tall, dark man that she had seen arriving on the Majestic. His long, black rifle frock coat had made him blend into the background of the woods in the shadows of the late afternoon. She didn’t need to guess that he was a wizard. She could see the magic aura amorphously floating around him. She wondered if he could see hers.

“I’ve been waiting quite a while for you, sorceress.” He smiled broadly, his thin-lipped mouth seeming abnormally wide across his heavy jaw line.

“I’m not a sorceress. I’m just a little girl and you should leave me alone.”

“Ah, I know that game.” He pulled the horn-rimmed spectacles from his upturned nose and wiped first his eyes and then the lenses with a handkerchief, replacing the glasses on his face and the handkerchief in his pocket. “You make three statements. One is true and the other two are lies. Then I have to guess which is true. Right?   Then I will have to say, you are a little girl.”

Senta crossed her arms and rocked back onto the heels of her shoes.

“My turn,” said the wizard. “My name is Smedley Bassington. I was born in Natine, Mirsanna. I know nothing about magic.”

“That’s too easy,” said Senta. “Smedley.”

“You should say Mr. Bassington. After all, I am your elder. One mustn’t be rude.”

“Okay, this one is harder,” replied Senta. “I’m going to have to say, number two, you are my elder.”

Bassington took a step forward, and then another.

“Uuthanum,” said Senta, waving her hand.

“Uuthanum,” said Bassington, waving his hand in an almost identical motion.

It might have seemed as though the two were exchanging some kind of secret greeting. In actuality, Senta had cast an invisible protective barrier between them. Bassington had dispelled the magic, destroying the barrier.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, the chosen apprentice of the most powerful sorceress in the world. That is, after I found out Zurfina was here. I had no idea where she had gotten to. Here I was, checking out that idiot and his machine, and instead I find the two of you.”

“I think that’s too many statements,” said Senta.

He stopped in the middle of the road about five feet away from her. A little wisp of wind whipped his short graying hair.

“Did she leave you here alone to take care of yourself? That’s just what she does, you know? She’s totally unreliable.”

“Are you allowed to use questions?” asked Senta, thinking to herself that this wizard did indeed seem to have her guardian pegged.

“Let’s not play that game,” said Bassington. “Let’s play something a little better suited to our unique abilities.”

He held out his hand, waist high, palm down and said. “Maiius Uuthanum nejor.”

Red smoke rose up from the ground just below his hand. It swirled and coalesced into a shape. The shape became a wolf. Its red eyes seemed to glow and the hair on its back and shoulders stood up as it bared its dripping fangs and snarled at Senta. She held out her own hand, palm pointed down.

“Maiius Uuthanum,” she said.

Green smoke rose from the ground below her hand, swirling around in a little cloud, finally billowing away to reveal a velociraptor with bright green and red feathers.

“A bird?” said Bassington, derisively.

There were ten members of the party that gathered in front of the office of M&S Coal, Radley Staff included. It was, he thought, small enough to be able to move quickly through the forest, and large enough to be safe from marauding dinosaurs. There were the Kanes, who were dressed alike in khaki shirt and pants, with pith helmets and frock coats. Femke Kane was attractive even without make-up and with her male hairstyle, but standing next to her husband Ivo, the two looked like a pair of peculiar twins. Beeman Glieberman had also traded his sharp suit in for khaki explorer garb with a heavy jacket, but Aakesh Mouliets wore a great coat of ferret skins over his traditional Mirsannan clothing. Miss Jindra had exchanged her very feminine gowns for black leather pants and knee high boots, but was covered with a butterfly cape coat, the lavish black hood of which made her beautiful features look dark and mysterious. Three lizardmen had been hired to carry equipment. Staff had made sure that he had learned their names—Cheebie, Sanjo, and Mimsie. Then there was the local boy that had been hired as a translator, the brother of the young waitress from the bakery café.

The boy was looking down the street. Staff followed his gaze and saw Senta standing on the corner looking back. She stood out in a beautiful new lavender dress the way the first spring flower stands out in the snow. The boy turned his back.

“Have a fight with your girlfriend?” wondered Staff.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” said the boy angrily.

“All right. Are the lizzies ready to go?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, then turned to the three reptilians and spat out a series of hisses.

The creatures each picked up a pack that would have bowed over a strong man, and tossed them onto their shoulders. The human members picked up their belongings and everyone started down the street. Each of the men had backpacks, though they were tiny compared to the burdens of the lizardmen. Staff and Kane each carried a rifle, and all of the humans except Graham and Miss Jindra had pistols on their belts. They made their way through town and past the train station, then continued due south.

There was very little snow on the ground now. Though the days had not grown much warmer than those of a month previous, the skies had been clear for weeks, and the great drifts had slowly dissolved into splotchy patches of white among the trees. Staff turned up the collar of his reefer jacket and pulled his gloves from his pocket. As he put them on, he slowed until Miss Jindra came beside him.

“Fifty miles?”

“Approximately,” she answered.

“That’s a long way.”

“I imagine you will have to build a railway line,” she said. “I also imagine that you could purchase the unused ties and rails left over from the track recently completed from Mallontah. I am surprised you have not already done so.”

“I have,” said Staff. “I meant it was a long way for you to walk.”

“I will manage.”

“I hear you are staying with Zurfina.”

“Zurfina the Magnificent,” corrected Miss Jindra.

“I was surprised, after seeing her remove you from the ship.”

“She’s not only very powerful, but she’s very wise. She can teach me a great deal.”

Staff couldn’t put his finger on it exactly, but there was something slightly off about Miss Jindra. Her speech and her expressions were not quite the same as the young sorceress he had met on the S.S. Arrow. He slowed and let her go ahead. When he did so, he was joined by Femke Kane.

“Your friend seems nice,” she said.

“She’s more of an acquaintance really.”

“Do you have many women acquaintances, Mr. Staff?”

“That does indeed seem to be my curse.”

“Perhaps you should get yourself one or two close friends,” she said. “Then acquaintances would become less important.”

Police Constable Saba Colbshallow and Police Constable Eamon Shrubb led the three men down Seventh and One Half Avenue toward the docks. Though they had stopped short of getting the service revolvers out of the gun case, both policemen carried their truncheons on open display. For their part, the three men looked nervously in every direction. Several times, one of them shrieked when he saw a little blond girl walk by.

“Kafira,” said Eamon. “Buck up, man. She’s not even the right little girl.”

“Keep walking,” said Saba.

Saba had come in first thing that morning to find Eamon slumped over asleep at his typewriter. That was not particularly significant in and of itself, but when he found out that the last thing the other constable remembered was a visit by a certain young sorceress, things looked more ominous. Lon Fonstan in cell one was asleep, and upon waking at first, claimed not to have seen anyone at all.

“Maybe we can have a little magic tell us what you’re not remembering?” Saba had said.

“Oh yeah?” Fonstan sneered. “Who you going to get to do that?”

“Maybe Zurfina.”

“I don’t think so,” had said Fonstan.

“I’ll bet Mother Linton could do it.”

Fonstan had chewed on the possibility for a moment.

“Well, Senta came in to say hello. She was only here for a minute. Gave me her best. Said goodnight. End of story.”

“And you didn’t see or hear anything unusual in the cell next door?”

“I was busy reading the book you gave me,” said Fonstan, holding up Pilgrimage into Danger. “I quite like the part where they have to fight off the adulterous women.”

“It’s supposed to be metaphorical,” Saba had suggested.

“Well, I didn’t see or hear nothing.”

Saba suspected that his double negative hid the truth in plain sight.

As for the three men in cell number two, they all had seemed in perfectly good health, with the exception that all three had soiled their pants sometime during the night. The stories they had told of the demon child who had visited them with plagues, while fantastic, were not dismissed by the police constables. All three were adamant about booking passage on the S.S. Majestic as soon as it came into port, an idea both PCs thought had merit with or without sorcery. The men had demanded protection on their way to the ship.

The formation reached the dock area, where a fourth man met them. He had been present for the first run-in with the lizzies, which the constables had managed to stop, but apparently was at home when the second incident involving the slapping of the lad had occurred. He had arrived in Birmisia with his three friends and had decided that if they were leaving, he would leave as well.

“Oh blooming heck!” said one of the men in custody, scrambling at once to hide behind his fellows. “There she is.”

Sitting on a wooden crate not fifty feet away, wearing a multihued blue dress, was a twelve-year-old blond girl. She had her hands crossed in front of her chest and her feet crossed at the ankles. She definitely had her eye on the four men.

“You’re the law!” squealed one of the men. “You’ve got to protect us!”

“Eamon, take them and see that they are able to purchase steerage class passage back to Brech,” said Saba. “I’ll see about our little friend.

He walked across to stand in front of where Senta sat.

“You know you could be charged with assault, aggravated assault, assault on a police constable, interfering with a police investigation, and illegal entry into a secure facility. I imagine I could find several more charges if I opened up the Corpus Juris.”

“I doubt you’d be able to hold me.”

“Don’t get too cocky. Mayor Korlann and his daughter may be very fond of you…”

“That’s not what I mean,” said Senta. “I doubt your jail would be able to hold me. And if by some chance it did hold me, how long do you think Zurfina would allow it?”

“Zurfina has to follow the law, just like everyone else.”

“That’s why you were at our house about to experience life as a marsupial or a toad. But you’re about the only one in Birmisia with bullocks like that. Zurfina exterminated what… a hundred thousand lizzies? Nobody has come to call her on that.”

Saba Colbshallow rapped his knuckles on the front door of the five-story structure, again, louder than he had before, but there was just as little response as there had been the first time.

“Police constable!” he called. He waited a bit longer, and was just about to leave when he heard a distinctly sultry voice from inside.

“Who is it?”

“Police constable,” he said again.

The door opened and Zurfina stood in the doorway, her strange little leather dress displaying a good portion of her breasts with their star tattoos as well as her long legs.   Her thigh high boots had such high heels that she could almost look Saba in the eye.

“Yes? What is it?” she said, with the air of someone who had just been interrupted in the middle of something vitally important.

“May I come in?” he asked.

With an exaggerated sigh, the sorceress turned her back and walked into the house, leaving the door wide open. Saba followed her in and looked around the large room that formed the lower level of the structure. It was, he thought, a surprisingly mundane looking combination of kitchen, parlor, and dining room. The place was tidy and organized, none of the furnishings looking particularly worn or new, expensive or poor. Zurfina waved her hand and the door slammed shut behind him, causing him to jump a little.

“Well?”

Saba swallowed. He had known Zurfina for four years now, and found her just as wondrous, mysterious, and fascinating as he had when he was sixteen. He had of course grown up to be a police constable, but she had grown to be a legend. She was an attractive woman: not as beautiful as Mrs. Dechantagne of course, not as charming as Mrs. Dechantagne-Calliere was at least capable of being, and nowhere near as adorable as Miss Lusk. Neither did she have the curvaceous figure of Dr. Kelloran. But as writer Geert Resnick wrote in his novel The Pale Sun, “the painting that most draws one to it, is not the most beautiful, but the one hanging to the wall by the most tenuous thread.” Zurfina held the same appeal as a fast horse, an unstable bomb, or a canoe in a river filled with crocodiles. And there was power. Power was always appealing.

Zurfina sensed his hesitation and moved to stand very close to him.

“Now, little Saba,” she said, with exaggerated slowness. “What brings you to see Zurfina the Magnificent?”

Saba had perfected his stare: a piercing look that let those he was interviewing know that he would brook no nonsense. He gave the sorceress one of these stares, but it didn’t seem to work as well as it was supposed to. She stepped a little closer and he suddenly realized he could smell her breath. It was minty.

“Little Saba.” Her charcoaled grey eyes seemed to be looking at something just below the surface of his face.

He swallowed.

“Police Constable Colbshallow,” he corrected.

She leaned forward so that the tip of her nose was only an inch from his.

“Little Saba,” she repeated. “There’s something you’ve been dying to tell me.”

“No there isn’t.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I’m here about a Miss Amadea Jindra.”

Zurfina leaned back and scrunched up her nose. “Now what business is that of yours?”

He retrieved the notepad from his coat pocket and flipped it open. Turning so that he had better light to read by, he took the opportunity step away from the sorceress.

“It was reported that you kidnapped, um… acquired Miss Jindra from the deck of the S.S. Arrow four days ago, and no one has seen her since.”

“I say again, what business is it of yours?” Zurfina spoke distinctly, chopping each word as if came out of her mouth. The temperature of the room dropped several degrees.

“You cannot simply snatch people off the street…” His voice trailed off as he noticed the sorceress’s eyes flashing.

Zurfina folded her arms across her chest and raised one eyebrow. At that moment the door swung open and Senta walked in. Her bright pink dress peaked out from beneath a heavy white overcoat, with a fur trimmed hood. She was carrying a large bed pillow under each arm. She kicked the door shut with the heel of her shoe, and walked over to stand next to the sorceress. She looked first at Zurfina and then at Saba.

“Okay,” said Senta. “What’s going on?”

“Little Saba was just telling me what I can and cannot do.”

Yuah Dechantagne reached the intersection of Bainbridge Clark Street and Seventh and One Half Avenue and looked up at the S.S. Arrow resting at the dock across the street. She stopped, unsure whether she should charge across the street and up the gangplank or wait where she was. Wiping the cold from her cheeks, she found them wet with tears.

“Good, you’re here,” said a voice beside her, and she turned to find Senta sitting on a crate only a few feet to her left.

“Senta, what a lovely dress.”

“Thanks. You too. He hasn’t come off the ship yet.”

“Come off…oh. Do you think I should…?”

“He’s coming down in a minute.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

Yuah stood for several minutes looking at the ship. Was Senta right about his coming ashore soon? She wondered what would happen when he did. Then she saw him—tall, dressed in a black suit with a heavy frock coat and a black coachman hat. He carried a large suitcase in either hand as he descended the gangplank, at a slight angle to fit the luggage between the railings.

Before she even knew it, Yuah was moving toward him. He looked up and saw her for the first time, just as she launched herself the last few feet toward him. She held on around his shoulders, her feet completely off the ground, and buried her face in his neck. Tears began streaming again from her eyes. She felt his body shift as he dropped his luggage and put his arms around her tentatively.

“I didn’t know anyone would be here,” he said.

She tried to say something. She wasn’t sure what it was. It might have been “why didn’t you write to let me know you were coming”, or it might have been “I would always be here to meet you”, but all that came out of her mouth was a sob. He pulled her away by the shoulders and looked at her.

“It’s all right,” said Terrence. “I’m here. Everything’s fine.”

“I didn’t think you were coming back,” said Yuah.

“Where else would I go,” he said, which was not quite the reply she either expected or wanted, just then. “Where’s the baby?”

“He’s at home. I was going with Iolanthe to her office, and I heard… Your eyes are different.”

“Yes.”

“They’re still blue, but they’re different. They’re darker.”

“Yes. Sometimes it’s like looking at a stranger in the mirror. Is that Senta?”

“Oh, yes.”

Terrence took his wife’s hand and together they stepped across the street to where the girl sat, leaving his two suitcases where he had dropped them. Senta stood up to meet them, smoothing out her heavy blue velvet dress, covered in decorative tassels, braids, and gold buttons.

“Hello,” she said.

Terrence pulled the girl to him, hugging her with none of the hesitation that he had shown with his own wife. Yuah looked at his face and saw that his eyes were closed. He rested his chin on the top of the blue velvet hat, knocking it slightly askew. After a moment, he released Senta and stepped back to look at her.

“You look all grown up,” he said.

She beamed.

“Where’s your boyfriend?”

Senta pointed down the street to a group of lizardmen pulling luggage from a great pile and putting the individual pieces onto small carts. A pre-teen boy with brown hair was supervising them. He glanced in their direction and nodded his head, though he didn’t wave at them.

“He looks a little shifty,” said Terrence. “I’m not sure he’s good enough for you.”

“Oh, I know he’s not,” replied Senta. “But what are you going to do? Anyway, I’m off. I’ve got to see what’s up at home.”

Stepping out of the S.S. Arrow’s mid-deck hatch and onto the gangplank, Radley Staff looked around at the peninsula on which Port Dechantagne was built. He was amazed at the growth of the little colony. When he had left, a little more than three years ago, it was nothing but a few barracks buildings in a clearing in the woods. Now it was a real town. From where he stood, he could see hundreds of buildings, warehouses, apartment blocks, businesses, and the rooftops of more building off between the redwoods. A large, dark cloud hung amid the white clouds, formed by hundreds of fireplaces and stoves. The smell of wood smoke overcame the smell of the seashore. He stopped for a moment and enjoyed the scene. Someone behind him cleared her throat. He turned around to find Miss Jindra, in a shimmering white and teal day dress with waves of white ruffles down the front. She wore a matching teal hat with a lace veil and carried a parasol, though she seemed unlikely to need one.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

“That’s quite all right, Mr. Staff. I’m surprised you haven’t debarked yet.”

“I waited to avoid the rush.”

“I’m afraid I was expecting more,” she said, looking with a raised brow at the nearby buildings.

He followed her gaze.

“Really? I was thinking just the opposite.”

He turned back around to face her and started. Miss Jindra was just where she had been, but a second woman stood directly behind her—a woman who hadn’t been there only a second before. Though her hairstyle was different, Staff remembered the charcoal circled grey eyes and the wry smile. He had thought he remembered her scandalous dress too, but what she had on now went beyond the bounds of decency. Black leather covered only the lower half of her breasts, leaving her two star tattoos clearly visible. The dress reached down only to the top of her thighs. Two thick straps attached to a tight leather collar, which seemed to be holding the whole thing up. Forget fitting a corset beneath this ensemble. One would have been hard pressed to fit a piece of lace in there.

“Well, Lieutenant Staff, I do declare,” said Zurfina in her unforgettable sultry voice.

“That’s Mr. Staff,” he corrected.

Miss Jindra spun around, getting a piece of her voluminous dress caught on a spur of the railing. There was a loud ripping sound as a four-inch tear was opened in the beautiful teal cloth.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” said Zurfina, placing a hand on each of Miss Jindra’s shoulders. Looking around the olive-skinned woman’s head, she said in a loud whisper. “Too long a dress. Bound to happen sooner or later.”

“What exactly do you want, Zurfina?” asked Staff. “I’m flattered, but surprised that you came to meet me.”

“Oh you are a pretty boy, but it’s your friend I’m here for.”

“Miss Jindra?”

Miss Jindra started to speak. “I don’t…”

“Don’t spoil the moment,” said Zurfina, placing a finger on the woman’s mouth.

“Perhaps I could bring her around to your home later,” said Staff.

Zurfina flashed him a smile that was only slightly more than a smirk. Then suddenly she was gone. Miss Jindra, her voluminous white and teal dress with matching teal hat and her parasol, were gone too. There was nothing to indicate that anyone had ever stood on the gangplank behind him, except for a single teal colored thread, clinging to a spur in the railing.

For a moment, Staff thought about finding Miss Jindra and rescuing her. On the other hand, she had never expressed a need or a desire for his protection. He didn’t really know her all that well. She was only a dinner companion, assigned by the ship’s purser at that. And it was not as if he had any knowledge of how to deal with a sorceress or knew Zurfina’s address. So he shrugged and continued down the gangplank, across the dock, and into the street beyond.