“Kafira Kristos,” hissed Saba Colbshallow.  “You could have knocked me over with a feather when they told me that building belonged to you.”

“Who else would it belong to?” asked Governor Iolanthe Dechantagne Staff.  “Why do you care anyway?”

Unlike other recent meetings, which had taken place in her bedroom, the two of them stared at each other over the vast oak expanse of Iolanthe’s desk, in the office of the Colonial Governor.  It was a room designed to impress and intimidate.  The ceiling was more than twenty feet high and the entire south wall was made up of large windows that looked out over the now expansive city. The opposite wall was filled with two large world maps.  One featured Brechalon, the rest of Sumir, and the western hemisphere, while the other featured Birmisia, the entirety of Mallon, and the east.  She leaned back in the leather-clad chair and pressed her fingertips together.  His chair was within arms reach of the globe, so large that it took two people to turn it on its axis.

“I’m not talking about the building,” he said with a sigh.  “I don’t give a crap about the building.”

“What is it that you think you give a crap about then?”

“It’s that Kafira-damned machine!”  He looked at her as if she were suddenly stupid or insane.  “That thing is dangerous!  You know that it is!  Senta’s brother died seeing the original was disposed of.”

“That’s the story, anyway.” She pursed her lips.  “All we really know is that Senta destroyed a good portion of Mallontah.”

“Even if you don’t believe it, that thing has been trouble going all the way back to the beginning—to Suvir Kesi.”

“It may be, and I’m not saying that it’s true, but maybe, that particular machine became tainted with evil magic.  If that’s the case, it doesn’t matter now.  It’s gone.  These machines are new.  They have not been infected in that way.  They are ready to be used as the designer originally intended.”

“For what?”

“For civic planning, for engineering, for education.”

“I guess I mean for whom?”

“For me.”  She stood up and leaned over the desk.  “They’re mine.  They’re my machines.  They’re nobody else’s.  They are of no concern to you.”

“Anything that concerns you is of concern to me,” he said.

She stared at him, uncomprehending.

“Whatever concerns you concerns me.  Whatever this relationship is that we have…”

She laughed.  “Is that what this is about?  You’re jealous?  My husband invented the Result Mechanism and that’s somehow a threat to your manhood?”

“I don’t think you know what you’re saying,” said Saba.  “Perhaps we should discuss this later.”

“Upset that another man got to the holy land before you?  Other men have.  Better men.”

Saba took a deep breath and slowly let it out.  He stood slowly up.

“So this is how it ends.”

“Nothing ends until I say it does,” said Iolanthe.

“You just did.”  He turned and started the long walk to the door. The trip across the deep red carpet seemed like a journey of a fortnight, like a journey that would never end. He expected at any moment to be stopped with a word or to be called back, but he wasn’t.  He put his hand on the knob, turned it, and a second later was in the outer office, next to Mrs. Wardlaw’s desk.

And he knew at that moment that he would never be with Iolanthe again—never be in her bed again.  He had loved her as long as he could remember. In fact, his earliest memory was of loving her.  But he would never have her again.  He would never touch her and feel her purr into his neck.  He would never taste her lips again.

“This is what it feels like,” he said.  “This is what it feels like to be cast out of heaven.”

“What’s that, Chief?” asked Mrs. Wardlaw from behind a file folder.

“Good day, Mrs. Wardlaw.”

“I want to get away. I want to fly awa-a-a-y. Yeah, yeah, yeah,” sang Stella, to herself. Not that anyone could have heard her. Stella O’Clare, better known to the world as All American Girl, was soaring through the skies over central Pennsylvania. Just below, she could see tiny little cars driving east and west on I-80. She loved flying. If it was for nothing but the fact that the cars looked like tiny little toys, she still would have loved flying. She was keeping an optimal altitude for looking at things on the ground—right around five thousand feet. Airline jets were well above her and birds, as it was not migration season, were well below her. The only thing she had to watch out for was the occasional small aircraft. She had passed one going in the same general direction that she was. She’d waved and the family inside; a man, a woman, and three children had all waved back. They probably didn’t know who she was. She had left her boots, gloves, and the rest of her star-spangled costume at home, wearing instead her little black dress and a sexy pair of black pumps.

It was almost nine when she landed in Manhattan, setting down on west 47^th street: a short block from Ditko’s. Ten or twelve pedestrians whipped out their cell phones and snapped pictures of her. They might not be too sure who she was without her costume either, but they knew she was a super. Spying a hot-dog vender twenty feet away reminded Stella that flying always made her hungry. In fact, she was famished. She skipped over to the mustachioed vendor.

“Eight dogs, no onions,” she ordered. “Just mustard, relish, dill pickles, cucumbers, chili peppers, and celery salt.”

“I don’t got celery salt or cucumbers,” replied the man. “This ain’t Chicago, you know. Twenty-four dollars.”

Stella reached between her cleavage and pulled a wad of bills out of the little hidden pocket inside and just below the dress’s plunging neckline. She handed the man two twenties.

“Oh, and give me an extra large papaya juice.”

The man handed her back fourteen dollars, one of which she tossed into a large tip jar on top of the cart. Then she started down the street with a paper cup of papaya juice in one hand and a pyramid of hot dogs balanced in the other. By the time she reached Ditko’s, she had finished the entire meal and tossed the trash into a bin.

Half a dozen spotlights were shooting up into the sky in front of Ditko’s, the hottest superhero nightclub on the east coast. Dozens of paparazzi were out front shooting pictures of everything they could, which wasn’t much. It was way too early for anyone who was really anyone to show up. Stella cut across the street and then back the other direction to do a little shopping. It wouldn’t do to be one of those who arrived before eleven. When she did finally return to walk across the red carpet, past the throngs of rubber-neckers and photographers, she had purchased a very nice necklace and a dozen pairs of shoes, all of which she had ordered shipped home.

The bouncer at the door was nearly seven feet tall and five feet wide, and he looked like he was made of muscles and more muscles, with a few muscles thrown in. Stella could have crushed him with one finger and the look that passed across his face told her that he knew that too.

“Good evening, All American Girl,” he said, as he pulled the rope aside and let her pass. Casting a quick look over her left shoulder at the line of people waiting to get in, Stella could make out half a dozen C and D grade supers mixed in with the normals.

The throbbing music and flashing strobes made stepping into Ditko’s like stepping onto a spaceship. Stella threaded her way between those people who were trying to dance, those people who just wanted to be near the people who were trying to dance, and those people who were trying to hump the people who were trying to dance. It was tough going, and then some idiot stomped on her foot. And he was wearing his costume. Wearing his costume to a club. Lame, lame, lame. Stella grabbed him by the chin and pulled him close, squeezing his cheeks between her fingers.

“Stay off my foot, Maxipad.”

“That’s Maximan,” he said indignantly.

“Whatever.” She tossed him aside, not stopping to watch him crash through a table, and then she continued to the bar.

“What will it be?” asked the bartender when she got there.

“A Manhattan—and don’t overdo the vermouth.”

“Regular or super?”

“Me or the drink?” she asked.

“Either, um both.”

“Super.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

Stella looked the bartender over as he set about preparing her drink. He was a good-looking guy, no doubt about it, but she had always considered it too much trouble dating a normal. It might start out fine, but as soon as things moved into the bedroom… Who wanted to stay in control all the time? Clench your thighs together or thrust at the wrong moment and somebody was in the hospital, or worse. Of course supers always used the line “I don’t want my enemies to find you.” It wasn’t really true though. It just sounded better than “I might accidentally fracture your pelvis or break off your penis during foreplay.” Skyman had managed a relationship with Doris Drake for forty years, but that was the exception. Even so, they had never had a child, so who was to say just how intimate they were.

“Here you go,” said the good-looking bartender, setting a martini glass the size of a small sink on the bar. It had a dozen cherries and a whole orange at the bottom.

“Thanks,” said Stella, daintily picking it up and taking a drink.

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I was writing a new post the other day and I noticed an ad at the bottom of the page.  It was an ad proposing to offer investment advice for people formerly investing in Bitcoin.  I somehow doubt that many people visiting my page have such a vast amount of extraneous wealth that they need this information.  I don’t.

In any case, I just want to state that I have no control over what ads appear on this page, and I don’t endorse any ads appearing here or products in those ads.  I could pay more (to WordPress) for my site and remove ads, and I will as soon as my own ad budget permits.

Until then, just letting you know.

Hundreds of miles to the southeast of Port Dechantagne, the lizzie city of Yessonarah stretched across the sloping side of the great hill the lizzies had named Zsahnoon. Less than three years old, the city already housed more than 100,000 reptilians, and more were arriving every week. At the city’s northern edge, it touched the shore of Lake Tsinnook, created when the River Ssukhas was dammed. On the east, the city was protected by a great stone wall running from the edge of the hill to the lake, but there was only a wooden wall on the west side, and it had several large gaps in it. Amid a sea of square wooden houses were two dozen stone foundations that would someday hold important public buildings, but as yet only two such buildings existed. The first, the great palace of the king was in use, though it was only about two thirds completed. The other was the first great temple to the lizardmen’s god Yessonar.

High Priestess Tokkenoht stood at the top of the stepped pyramid, 130 feet above the city streets. The pyramid’s design was different from temples in any other Birmisian city, as so many things about Yessonarah were different. Each of the nine levels, representing the nine ages of the universe, was covered in smooth white limestone. The staircase running up the pyramid’s front, from the base to the top, was marble trimmed with red brick fired in a kiln, a process learned from the soft-skins. Behind her, the square vault was dark grey marble, with a copper frieze and a doorway trimmed in copper. And on either side of that doorway was a sculpture of the god, carved of stone but covered in silver. The top of the vault was of course flat, to give the god a place to sit when he came to visit.

The temple’s dedication was still three days a way, but everything was coming along. With a quick glance at the acolytes stationed at the vault, Tokkenoht descended the great staircase. A hundred or more lizzies, mostly new arrivals to the city, stopped what they were doing to watch her. She was quite a spectacle. Her smooth green skin was painted azure blue, with zigzag designs of bright yellow down her belly. She wore a cape made of feathers of all colors of the rainbow, from crimson achillobator feathers near her tail, to bright blue utahraptor feathers poking up to form a collar behind her head.

When she reached the street, the crowd parted for her, some of them bowing low. She hissed pleasantly to them and then climbed into her sedan chair, an enclosed seat carried litter-like by the four large males, their bodies painted white, who waited beside it. It was a not a long journey to the palace, but the streets were busy, so by the time they arrived, the sun was already dropping toward the western horizon. When the bearers sat her chair down, Tokkenoht dismissed them for the day and walked quickly up the steps to the residence.

“Welcome home, High Priestess,” said Sirris, waiting at the top. She had no paint or feathers, but wore a large gold necklace, with a Yessonar pendant.

“Thank you, wife of my husband. Were you waiting to speak with me?”

“No. I just stepped out here. I am on my way to check with Ssu and see that all the preparations are complete.”

“I will go with you,” said Tokkenoht. “I want to see the… what was that soft-skin word that Kendra used?”

“Children.”

“Yes. I want to see the children.”

Together, they walked through an ornately carved archway and into the royal gardens. The gardens were not particularly impressive at the moment, as the winter plants were past their prime. It wouldn’t be long till they were pulled out and replaced with spring flowers. But the colorful birds in the aviaries still sang and the fountains still sprayed their jets of water.

Just past the gardens were five plots of carefully prepared soil, and just beyond them, a huge cage. Built like the aviaries, the cage was a half dome made of mesh wire over a wooden frame. Unlike the aviaries though, which were twenty feet in diameter, this great cage was one hundred feet across. Inside was a carefully created environment, replicating the forests that stretched out hundreds of miles in every direction.

Ssu sat on a stone bench, watching the inhabitants of the cage. Tokkenoht and Sirris stopped beside her and looked. Scampering around inside the enclosure were some one hundred little lizzie offspring. Half of them were over a year old and already starting to walk upright. The other half, not yet yearlings, were still on all fours, scarcely thirty inches long.

“How are they?” asked the high priestess.

“They are good,” said Ssu, flushing her dewlap in pleasure.

“Oh, that one is mine!” shouted Tokkenoht, spying a blue band on one of the little hind legs.

Yes, things in Yessonarah were very different. Everywhere else in the world, female lizzies laid their eggs in communal nests in the forest. An old female was usually assigned to watch over the nest until hatching, but after the hatching, the offspring ran wild until they were captured and civilized into a lizzie household, or they were eaten. But here, in Yessonarah, the females were keeping track of their eggs and their offspring. What had started two years before as an experiment among the wives of the king, had spread. Now every house in the city was preparing its own nest for the coming spawning, and its each house had its own egg keeper. In two more years, the first lizzies ever to know their parents would be old enough to join society. This was the reason that so many lizardmen were flocking to Yessonarah, especially females.

After the servants had stripped off her paint, and she had bathed, Tokkenoht walked into the hearth room and lay down on her mat, in the way of her kind, on her belly, arms down at her sides, and with her nose pointed toward the central fireplace. She had almost dozed off when Szakhandu lay down beside her.

It’s been three years since the Kingdom of Greater Brechalon, with the help of Zurfina the Magnificent, defeated their hereditary enemies, the Freedonians. The world has changed. Port Dechantagne, once a distant outpost of civilization, has grown to be a large city, the center of prosperous Birmisia Colony. Steam-powered carriages share the streets with triceratops-pulled trolleys, fine ladies in their most fashionable bustle dresses lead their lizardmen servants through the shopping districts, and an endless stream of immigrants pours into the region.

The young ladies of the colony are busy with fashion, coming out parties, and securing partners among the smaller male population. Eleven-year-old Iolana Staff, daughter of the colonial governor, has more important things on her mind—the mysterious machine known as the Result Mechanism, and her relationship to the machine’s creator.

Meanwhile, sorceress Senta Bly returns from the continent with a new male companion, an illegitimate daughter, and a long lost brother. Hated and feared for her magic, she must face wizards, assassins, and an old enemy from another reality.

The Sorceress and her Lovers continues the story of Senta and the Steel Dragon, taking up where The Two Dragons left off. It is a story of magic and power, fear and revenge, and love.

The Sorceress and her Lovers, Book 6 in the saga o Senta and the Steel Dragon, is available wherever fine ebooks are sold for $2.99.