“I did everything I could,” said Terrence Dechantagne. “I called for a doctor and a priest. A doctor and a priest came. It was just bad luck that he died anyway.”

“As he was trying to shoot me at the time,” Radley Staff paused to bring the whiskey glass to his lips. “I consider it rather good luck.”

“Bad luck for him, I meant.”

Staff nodded.

“Sometimes bad things just happen,” said Mr. Merchant.

“Quite,” agreed Mr. Shannon.

The four men sat at a small table in the first class lounge, sipping their drinks and smoking cigars. Outside, the railings had formed a thick decoration of long, pointy icicles, and the deck was rapidly becoming obscured by a white blanket of snow. The grey day was well on its way to becoming night in spite of the fact that it was only four in the afternoon.

“Well, I do believe here comes your priest now, Dechantagne,” said Merchant.

All four men stood up as the severe looking woman approached in a black dress. Her graying hair was pulled tightly back into a long pony tail and her lips were so thin, it seemed as though the pony tail was pulling most of the skin of her face with it. Her black dress was not a robe, not quite, and as was almost all feminine attire, it was endowed with a prominent bustle, but had no brocade or lace, just a priestly collar at her neck, and a thin strip of white running from each shoulder to the floor. She had a large and ornate golden cross on a chain around her neck.

“Mother Linton,” said Dechantagne. “May I introduce Misters Staff, Merchant, and Shannon?”

Mother Linton nodded to each. “May I speak to you, Mr. Dechantagne?”

He shrugged and stepped away with the priest.

“So what do you say about this weather, Staff?” marveled Shannon. “Whenever I think of Mallon, I think of the jungle. I never expected snow.”

“I suppose there is a great deal of Mallon that’s tropical,” replied Staff, “but Birmisia is cool, dry, lots of pine trees. Even the summers are not too bad. That’s good from a business perspective, too. Nobody wants to muck around in swamps. That’s probably why Enclep isn’t better developed.”

“Good man,” said Merchant. “Always keeping business in mind.”

Dechantagne returned to the table and sat down.

“What was that all about?” asked Staff.

“It seems Mother Linton has been pegged by the Bishop of Brech as the High Priest of Birmisia.”

“And?”

“And priests are no different than anyone else. They all want something.” He waved to the waiter for another drink.

“And what does she want?”

“Oh, it’s all Mother Church this and Mother Church that.” Dechantagne picked up the cigar that he had left smoldering in the ashtray when he had stepped outside with Mother Linton, and he stubbed it out. Then he got up and walked out the door, intercepting the waiter for his drink along the way.

“So, you don’t think he’s a major player?” wondered Shannon.

“Oh, he may prove a friend to our business,” said Staff. “But make no mistake, Mrs.… his sister is the one who’s in charge.”

“Excellent. I’m glad to see you know your way around,” said Merchant. “Have you had a chance to talk to Buttermore?”

“The office man? I did. I didn’t have a chance to meet all of his staff, or the engineers. Shame they couldn’t be in first class.”

“My boy, do you know how expensive that would be?” asked Shannon. “There are ten of them, and ten more family members besides.”

“Don’t you own the ship?”

“Eat more,” said Mrs. Colbshallow. “You’re skin and bones.”

“I’m full up, Mother,” said her son.

Saba Colbshallow was full up, too. He had eaten a full breakfast this morning at the Dechantagne family home, and sat back to enjoy his morning tea. Around the large pine table sat his mother, Mrs. Dechantagne, Mrs. Godwin, little Iolana Calliere and at the head of the table Professor Merced Calliere. Mrs. Dechantagne’s baby was in the next room, being rocked in a cradle by one of the reptilian servants, and Governor Dechantagne-Calliere, who normally sat at the other end of the table from her husband, was not present at breakfast this morning.

“I’m sorry that I missed Mrs. C,” said Saba, though he wasn’t sure if that was entirely true. He had known her all his life, and had been in love with her from the time he was five and she was a striking, sixteen year old beauty, until he was seven and she was a very bossy eighteen-year-old. Then his affections had been switched to Mrs. Dechantagne, who back then had just been Yuah Korlann, and who had grown up to be a bit prettier and much nicer.

“She’s quite busy this morning,” said the professor, setting aside the book that he had been reading. “You’ll be quite busy too, I dare say. Another ship came in last night.”

“So I heard. Mirsannan freighter. Mostly cargo, but I bet there’ll be a couple of poofs out causing trouble.”

“Quite,” said the professor, saluting with his teacup. “Don’t let us keep you from your duty then, officer.”

“Right.” Saba drained his teacup and stood up, pushing in the chair as he left the table. He picked up his constabulary helmet from the small table in front of the window. It had gold braid around its base, a large gold star on the front, and a gold spike on the very top. Of course it was navy blue, just like his uniform.

“Look at my boy,” said his mother. “He looks like a right man, doesn’t he? An officer of the peace.”

“You look just dashing,” said Mrs. Dechantagne, which made Saba blush a bit. He bowed low to her, saluted everyone else, and then headed out the front door, which one of the lizardmen servants held open for him.

Saba was quite proud of his position as one of the first two constables on the police force in Port Dechantagne. In fact, he could well say that he was the first constable, since he had badge number one, and Eamon Shrubb had badge number two. Even though he was only twenty, Saba had worked hard for this position. He had signed on to the Colonial Militia when he was only sixteen, eventually becoming the youngest sergeant at any time before or since. He had served his two years with what he thought was distinction and had volunteered for an extra year. Now he was a copper. Anyone who knew Saba recognized that few deserved a spot in the new police department more than he did. Anyone who knew the royal governor knew that she would not have sponsored him for the position just because she had known him all his life.

“Good morning, constable,” called a woman in a plain brown dress with a brown shawl thrown across her shoulders and a brown bonnet on her head, pushing a wheelbarrow down the gravel road.

“Good morning to you, Mrs. Eamsham. Do you need a hand with that?”

“Heavens no. I was just taking the slop from the neighborhood out to the pigs and dinosaurs.”

“That’s a good five miles pushing that thing. You be sure and take several rest stops along the way.”

Mrs. Eamsham nodded and turned the corner heading for Town Square. Saba continued walking into the southwestern part of the town, where the homes sat on larger lots, but were not necessarily larger themselves. The leaves had long gone from the maples and the other deciduous trees, but the pines and cedars were still glorious green. A chill wind whipped here and there, but did nothing to Saba but turn his cheeks a little redder. His wool uniform was exceedingly warm.

Suddenly he heard gunfire erupting from directly in front of him. One, two shots. Then a pause. Then one, two, three, four, five, six, pause. He looked up above the trees and saw a flash of steel shoot across the sky.

“Do you have a last name?” wondered Graham.

He sat beneath a willow on a large rock ten feet from the frigid water of Battle Creek. Hamonth was almost over and the chilly winds had, for now, stopped. It was still cold enough for a steady cloud of steam to make its way up from the cups of tea, Senta had poured from the pot she carried in her picnic basket.

“You know I do,” replied Senta. “You’ve heard it a hundred times.”

“I guess I wasn’t paying attention. What is it?”

“Zurfina says that if you are famous and powerful enough, you don’t need more than one name. It’s like kings and queens, and Magnus the Great.”

“My Da says everything deserves a name, and people deserve a last name.”

“He does not.”

“Huh?”

“I bet he never said any such thing.”

Graham shrugged.

“Did he say it or not?”

“No.”

“You just said that he said it?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it,” said Senta. “You just go around saying ‘My Da says this’ and ‘My Da says that’ and he never said any such thing.”

“No!”

“No?”

“I only say that he said things that he really would say, but he just might not have.”

“I always knew you were dodgy.”

Graham shrugged again and took a sip of his tea. Then his brow twisted in thought.

“I bet you do the same thing,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re always going on about how ‘Zurfina says this’. I bet you make it up too.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Never.”

“She actually said that bit about not needing a last name?”

“Word for word.”

“Oh.” He sipped his tea again. “So do you figure you’re famous and powerful enough, then?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you famous and powerful enough that you don’t need a last name?”

“No, I guess not,” said Senta. “I don’t think I like it though. I never knew anyone else with it. It’s Bly.”

“Oh, right. It’s not that bad.”

“It’s better than Dokkins.”

“No. My Da says Dokkins is one of the finest names in Greater Brechalon.” Then he added. “And he does say that too.”

Senta stood up; balancing on the large rock, then bent down at the waist and sat her teacup where she had been sitting. She stretched her arms out to either side and balanced herself, as she stepped in her bare feet from one rock to another. She made a circuitous route back to the picnic basket and opened it up. She pulled out a warm potpie in a small ceramic bowl. She held the pie out in her left hand and a fork in her right and balanced her way across five more rocks to where the brown haired, freckled boy sat and handed both to him.

“You know you’ve got a hole in that dress?”

“Yes,” said Senta, sadly.

There was chaos on the shore. Practically every citizen of Nutooka was pressed into the confines of the harbor. Some screamed. Some cried. Some waved to get the attention of the battleship off shore. No doubt all of them would have piled into small boats and rowed out to the ship, if Captain Mould had not already had all of the local boats scuttled. Even so, some of the people on shore jumped into the water, trying to swim out to the ship. The city of Nutooka itself was almost completely empty. This was not surprising, once one looked at the size of the army advancing upon it. For more than three years, the followers of the Ape god Guma and their allies, the antiforeigner Red Sashes, had built up their strength. Now they were ready to eliminate the Brechs, whose single naval installation was, they felt, the greatest blight on their great land of Enclep.

On the bridge of the battleship H.M.S. Superb, the captain and his first officer watched the locals’ panic, while several other officers hunched over a map of the region surrounding the port. Captain Mould was the youngest captain in the Royal Navy of Greater Brechalon, and looked every inch like a man capable of rising quickly in that prestigious service. His sharp nose and neatly trimmed beard gave him the look of a predatory bird, which his black eyes did nothing to diminish. He turned on his heel and looked at the men hunched over the map.

“Where are they exactly, Wizard Than?”

One of the officers, dressed no different than any of the others save a blue bar on the sleeve of his stiffly starched white uniform, waved his hand over the map and said, “Uuthanum.” A hundred tiny red dots appeared grouped in three large bunches on the map, indicating three massive arms of the approaching army.

“Whenever you are ready, Commander,” said the Captain.

“Aye, sir.”

Commander Staff seemed almost the polar opposite of his captain in some ways. Light blond and clean-shaven, his freckled face made him look far younger than his twenty-nine years. His small nose and well-formed mouth made him almost too pretty. For all that, he seemed nothing less of a naval man of action than his superior. He leaned over the ship’s phone.

“Sixteen degrees, eight minutes. Twenty-two degrees, five minutes. Elevation, make it five thousand yards. Load high explosive.”

The entire ship shook slightly as the two massive front facing turrets, each with three twelve-inch guns, turned into position. Once they were in place, Staff leaned back over the phone.

“Lay down a pattern of fire.”

Six giant guns fired, rending the air with a sound that thunder could only envy. Huge gouts of flame and monstrous clouds of acrid smoke shot across the bay. As soon as the flame was gone and the great sound began to die away, the guns fired off again. And again. And again. Three hundred massive shells were fired into the advancing army on the far side of the city of Nutooka.

“Hold fire,” said Staff into the phone. The thundering of the cannons ceased.

“Are they getting the message, Wizard Than?” asked the Captain.

The wizard and the other officers watched the red dots across the map. They began to spread out from the three masses of their original formation into an even dispersion throughout the jungle.

“Just what we hoped for, Captain,” said the wizard.

“You know what to do, Mr. Staff.”

Once again, Staff leaned over the phone. “Raise elevation to seven thousand yards. Load anti-personnel.” Then turning back to Captain Mould. “Ready, sir.”

“At your discretion, Mr. Staff.”

“Lay down your pattern of fire.”

The six giant guns began firing again. While the first three hundred shells had just grazed the advancing forces’ front, this extended volley fell right in their midst. The raised elevation spread the falling shells throughout the army. The first wave of fire, laid down with high explosive shells that had blown up upon impact, created huge craters in the jungle battlefield and knocked down thousands of trees. This second attack was made with anti-personnel shells, which burst upon impact releasing tens of thousands of flechettes, needle-like bits of iron, which then flew in all directions, slicing through the warriors on the ground and their terror-bird mounts, like hot tacks through butter. Captain Mould and Commander Staff stepped back to lean over the officers and look at the map. The red dots, indicating the cult fighters and the Red Sash terrorists were disappearing from the paper. The red dots were fading away not in ones and twos, but in hundreds, in thousands. By the time three hundred shells had been fired, only a tiny fraction of the symbols representing the enemy remained.

“All right Mr. Staff, hold fire.”

“Hold fire,” called Staff into the ship’s phone. The great cannons became quiet.

“Mr. Rise.” The captain turned his attention to the man inside the nearby wireless room. “Signal Major Black to advance.”

Captain Mould stepped stiffly back to the other officers watching the map. A line of blue dots began sweeping across the map from the far right side. These dots represented the contingent of Royal Marines, whose job it would be to finish off the enemy and who ironically enough were dressed in their bright red coats and white pith helmets. The captain nodded in satisfaction at the outcome of the operation. With any luck, it would be a permanent blow to the forces of instability in Enclep. If not that, at least it would set them back years.

“Commander Staff, it looks as though you will be able to make your rendezvous with the S.S. Arrow.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Turning away from the street, Yuah Dechantagne made her way up the stone walkway to the family’s home. The huge, stately structure was the largest building in the colony, and had taken the better part of two years to construct. Featuring a large portico supported by four two-story columns, a double gabled roof and more than a dozen stone chimneys; every side of the house was covered with large dual-paned windows. Walking through the gardens and past the large reflecting pool, the fountain, and the sundial surrounded by white roses, she paused to hyperventilate for a moment before tackling the six steps to the portico. Standing at attention outside of the front door was a lizardman, naked except for a yellow ribbon with a gold medallion around its neck. As she approached, the creature reached back and opened the door for her.

“Thank you, Tisson,” she said, sweeping in through the doorway.

Once inside, she walked through the foyer and into the parlor, just in time to see her sister-in-law, the colonial governor, slapping her hand across the protruding snout of another lizardman. The creature wore a similar medallion and ribbon as its counterpart outside, though it was a silver medallion on a green ribbon. The reptilian was also slightly shorter and had darker green skin. Even so, it towered over the woman in the olive green herringbone dress that faced it.

“One more time and I’ll cut off your tail and send you back to that mud hut you came from,” she snarled at the lizardman. “Do you understand?”

“Yess,” hissed the reptile.

“What was that all about?” asked Yuah.

Iolanthe rolled her aquamarine eyes. “How many times have I explained? They still don’t get it. When the flower petals fall off, the flowers are replaced.”

“I think they like the flowers better when they are wilted,” replied Yuah. “It must be a lizard affectation.”

“Well, I’m not going to put up with it. Say, where have you been all morning?”

“New dress.”

“Oh yes. Very pretty.” If there was one thing Governor Iolanthe Dechantagne-Calliere could appreciate, it was a new dress. “The baby was crying a little while ago. I had Cissy feed him.”

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

Sirrik walked through the parlor and into the foyer. The two women could hear the creak of the stairs as the heavy reptilian then made his way up. Yuah set her large loaf of bread on the coffee table and sat down on a divan, recently brought by ship from Mirsanna. Iolanthe carefully sat down across from her in a sweepback Prince Tybalt chair.

“I am surprised to find you still at home,” said Yuah.

“I will be going to the office later in the day.”

“Are you going to address the new arrivals? I saw that the ship was being unloaded.”

“I will leave that to your father. He actually enjoys that sort of thing, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

The groaning of the staircase announced Sirrik’s return. Following closely on his scaly heels was a smaller lizardman, this one wearing a yellow skirt just above its tail. The ridiculous garment was only about eight inches long, hiding nothing because the reptiles had no external genitalia to hide. Nestled carefully within the smaller lizardman’s arms was a small bundle. The beast walked across the parlor and gently passed it to Yuah. She carefully pealed back the blanket revealing the tiny, pink, perfectly formed face of a baby boy. His tiny mouth was puckered and his eyes were closed. He twisted slightly in his sleep, as Yuah tickled his chin.

“Who’s mama’s big boy?” she said, in the voice people reserve for babies, pets, and anything else that can’t actually hear or respond.

It was the second day of Hamonth, the first day of winter, and a chilly breeze blew across the bay and into the bustling colony of Port Dechantagne. A ship, the S.S. Mistress of Brechbay had docked at the recently upgraded port, and a row of happy immigrants was descending down the gangplank. They stared with fascination, mixed with a small amount of fear at the dockworkers below them. Dozens of lizardmen served at the port. Sluggish now that the cooler weather had arrived, they used heavy winches to lift cargo from the deck of the ship and to deposit it on the gravel road beside the dock. Other lizardmen then scooped up the crates, boxes, and barrels with hand-trucks and ferried them to the nearby warehouses. Both groups of lizardmen were supervised by human foremen.

People all along the dock stopped and stared as Senta walked by. Hundreds of passengers leaned over the railing of the ship and others on the gangplank pointed and gaped with open mouths. Senta carried herself with a bounce that made her long blond hair sail behind her like a proud banner in the wind. She was dreadfully skinny, though the bustle beneath her yellow dress gave her a little bit of a figure. She was a child soon to become a young woman, and she was brimming with confidence. She was well known in the colony and she thought that she was quite pretty too. She had to admit though, that the people were probably not gawking at her, but at the dragon that walked along next to her. It was the size of a small pony, covered in scales the color of polished steel. Every step it took was a study in grace, and from the tip of its whiskered snout, past its folded wings, to the tip of its barbed tail, it seemed to just flow along.

“They look as though they’ve never seen a dragon before,” said the dragon. Had someone heard his voice without seeing him, they would have thought it was a young gentleman speaking. It was a rich voice, but still young.

“They probably haven’t,” replied Senta. “Dragons are pretty rare.”

“Rare and very beautiful…”

“Oh do shut up,” said the girl, and then, “There he is. Hey Graham!”

A boy about the same age as the girl and about twice as heavy even though he was almost a head shorter, ran toward them. He had on the dungarees and heavy shirt of a dockworker, and both were stained here and there, no doubt from just such a form of labor. His unkempt brown hair and freckled face made his smile seem all the more genuine.

“Hey Senta. Hey Bessemer.”

“Hello Graham,” said the dragon.

“You look a mess,” said Senta. “You did remember that we were supposed to go for lunch?”

“Sorry, I can’t go. I gotta work. I can’t leave my crew alone.” He gestured over his shoulder at the group of five lizardmen awaiting his return. Looking like a cross between an upright alligator and an iguana, with skin ranging in color from a mottled olive to a deep forest green, each of the reptilians were two feet taller than the boy. They stood waiting, scarcely moving, and giving the dragon and his companion surreptitious looks.

“I don’t care for those reptiles,” said Bessemer.

Graham snorted.

“What?”

“It cracks me up every time you say that,” Graham told the dragon. “Besides, you know they think you’re a god or something?”

“I didn’t say they didn’t have taste.”

“Come on,” said Senta. “I’ve heard this entire conversation already twenty times. If you can’t come with us, we’ll just go get lunch ourselves.”

One of the lizardmen hissed something, and then two others began replying in the local reptilian dialect.

“Up your trolley!” yelled Graham at them, and then he too began to hiss in the native tongue.

The lizardmen turned and walked back over to a pallet full of cargo, which they had evidently been in the process of carrying to the warehouse. With what seemed to be a great deal of unhappiness, but not a great deal of speed, they returned to work. One of them hissed again.

“That’s right you! You keep your pecker on!” yelled Graham. He looked at Senta and flushed slightly. “Sorry. Ma says I shouldn’t use the language from the dock around the young ladies.” He said the words ‘young ladies’ in a strained falsetto imitation of his mother. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go. I didn’t know the Mistress was going to be docking today.”