“Look at all these lousy zeets,” said Graham Dokkins, as he and Senta walked between the hundreds of makeshift tents on the southwest side of the hill from the barracks.

“What are zeets?” asked Senta.

“That’s what they’re called. My Da says they’re evil, and they don’t even believe in Kafira.”

“Zurfina doesn’t believe in Kafira either. I mean, not like us. She says the Church is all bullocks.”

“Yeah, well my Da says she’s evil too.”

If Senta was offended at the idea that anyone would call Zurfina evil, she didn’t let on. She bounced ahead, her skipping steps seeming to defy gravity. In one hand she carried a stick and in the other her doll. Graham stomped after her.

“Why do you gotta carry that doll everywhere?” he asked.

“Cause I’m a girl, stupid.”

They reached the edge of the tent village. Some of the women from among the Freedonian refugees had set up a series of clotheslines and were hanging up clothes. Almost every piece was black, white, or grey.

“They don’t seem any different to me,” said Senta. “Except they talk funny.”

Suddenly several of the women who had been hanging clothes began to scream and they all began to run toward the tents. Looking up, the two children saw a steel colored streak flying downward from out of the sun. The steel dragon buzzed the tops of the women’s heads and then zipped along parallel to the clothesline and with a flick of its tail, knocked every other piece of clothing from the line into the dirt. Spreading its wings out to their full six-foot breadth, it stopped in mid-air and dropped to the ground at Senta’s feet. It opened its mouth to the sky and a small puff of smoke shot out.

“Funneee,” said the dragon.

“It’s not either funny, you potty twonk. You’re going to get everyone angry, and who’s going to get in trouble? Not you. Me, that’s who.”

Despite Senta’s declaration that the dragon’s actions were not funny, Graham was laughing heartily. The dragon hopped over to his feet and rubbed his head against the boy’s leg as if to share in his mirth. Graham, still laughing, slapped his knee. The dragon suddenly bit his hand.

“Sod it!” shouted the boy, his laughter suddenly gone.

The dragon looked up in the air, with feigned innocence.

“See, now you’ve made Graham angry too,” said Senta. Both the girl and the dragon looked at the boy, who had gone all white and sweaty.

“My Da didn’t say it, but I think dragons are evil.”

“Pet,” said the dragon, in a pleading tone.

“Yeah, all right,” Senta said, fishing a small brown bottle from the pocket of her baggy black dress. “But if you bite anyone else, I’m going to need a new bottle of this.”

She poured the draught from the bottle onto the wound on Graham’s hand. The liquid bubbled and fizzed on contact with the boy’s blood, but after a few moments nothing was left of the injury but a small scar.

Senta, Graham, and the dragon looked up to see they were completely surrounded by a crowd of people. The reptile leapt to the girl’s shoulder in one swift motion and curled up around her neck. Graham stood up next to Senta and took her hand in his. The people began to whisper amongst themselves. Finally one of the women stepped forward.

“Sorry about your clothes,” said Senta.

“Der drache is, how you say, vunterfull,” said the woman.

“Oh yeah, he’s great,” said Graham, sarcastically.

“He is bootifull. He is yours?”

“Yeah, sort of,” said Senta.

“You bet he’s hers,” said Graham. “She’s a really powerful sorceress and he’s her dragon. And they’re really scary and magical. Just look at them. And that’s her magic doll.”

He suddenly started laughing. The dragon made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a smirk.

“We’ve got to go now,” said Senta. “I’ve got to lock up my dragon and my troll here.”

“Hey!” shouted Graham, following Senta who was already hurrying through the opening in the crowd that magically parted before her. “Who you calling a troll, monkey face?”

The two children walked up to the top of the hill and parted without saying goodbye, but with the innocent expectation that they would see each other later and continue on just as they had. Senta made her way to a quiet place that she had found next to the protective wall. She plopped down in the grass and the steel dragon climbed off her shoulders. She stretched out and he curled up beside her and placed his whiskered snout on her stomach.

Senta held her doll up and looked at it. The doll had on an outfit just like hers. She called the dress she was wearing her doll dress for that very reason. The doll had the same hairstyle that she did. She could almost imagine that the doll was made especially for her. But it hadn’t been. She had seen it many times in the toy store before she had purchased it.

“I wonder what Geert’s doing now?” she mused. “He’s my cousin,” she explained to the dragon.

The shouting and gunfire brought Terrence out of the white opthalium induced state. He was sitting on the ground with his back to a massive redwood tree. It was in fact, that first tree that Iolanthe had tagged with a ribbon to save its life. It was completely dark all around him, and at first the lapping of the waves nearby was the only sound that registered with his befuddled mind. When he again heard the shouts and gunfire at the far end of the compound and he recognized them for what they were, he was actually happy. It meant that he hadn’t been awakened by someone discovering him while he was seeing.

Could you call it “seeing” if you didn’t really see anything? Terrence had used the drug from the small blue bottle several times since the arrival in Birmisia, but he had seen nothing in the other world except that endless fields of the ever-present purple flowers. Never before had he been there without meeting Pantagria. Now he searched for her and she was nowhere to be found.

Terrence picked up his helmet, which was sitting next to him, and then stood up and began trudging up the hill at a modest pace. When he saw a blood covered Zeah Korlann being escorted by two riflemen into Iolanthe’s headquarters tent, he ran the rest of the way.

“What’s going on?” he asked, as he burst into the tent. He stopped short when he saw Miss Lusk, lying on her side, bloodied, on the dirt floor. “Let’s get Father Ian in here.”

“Father Ian isn’t coming,” said Zeah shakily.

“Sister Auni, go get another acolyte to cast a cure wounds spell,” ordered Iolanthe. Then she opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a brown bottle. “Soak her bandages in this and poor the rest down her throat.”

She handed the bottle to Dr. Kelloran, who was kneeling over the red-haired woman’s prone form. The doctor did as directed and a moment later was rewarded with Miss Lusk opening her eyes. Sister Auni arrived after a few minutes with Brother Galen, who followed the exact same procedure that she had in casting a spell. Color returned to Miss Lusk’s face and she began to breathe freely.

“Who did this to you?” asked Iolanthe.

“I didn’t see them,” said Miss Lusk. It was an obvious labor to speak. “Someone was running the Result Mechanism. I went around the corner to see who it was, but…”

“There were papers coming out of the machine,” said Zeah.

“Go find those papers,” Iolanthe ordered her brother. “Maybe we can find out who was using it.”

Terrence nodded and left the tent. He picked up a gas lantern nearby and stomped down the hill toward the still chugging and clanking Result Mechanism. Just before he reached it, the machine stopped, letting out a long whistle of leftover steam. He pulled out one of his nickel-plated .45 revolvers and circled around the huge device. Standing at the controls was his brother Augie.

“What’s going on, old man?” said Augie, when he noticed Terrence.

“What are you doing here?” Terrence asked.

“You know you really shouldn’t answer a question with a question,” Augie replied. “The machine was running and nobody was here, so I shut it down.”

“You didn’t see anybody here?”

“No, and I waited around for a couple of minutes too.”

“Are there any papers coming out of the slot on the side of the machine?”

They both stepped around to the far side, where the printing slot was located, but there were no papers either sticking out of the slot or on the ground below.

“You don’t have anything to do with this, do you?” asked Terrence.

“Anything to do with what? A bloody machine making a bunch of racket?”

“The stabbing.”

“Stabbing? What stabbing?”

“Egeria Lusk has been stabbed. Right over there, by the look of the ground.”

“Kafira! And you think I had something to do with it?”

“No. But you were at three of the crime scenes, at least three, so some people are going to get the idea you could be involved.”

“What do you mean three? The murders on the ship? I thought you pegged Murty for that, and pegged him good too, I might add.”

“Yes, I did. And Murty was a bad sort; I don’t doubt it for a moment.”

“You know I wouldn’t stab a woman. What’s that all about? I was very fond of Danika.”

“Danika?”

“Miss Kilmurray.”

“Oh, Kafira. You knew her?”

“I knew her, but I didn’t do anything to hurt her. I certainly never killed her, and I didn’t kill Miss Lusk.”

“Miss Lusk is alive.”

“Well, thank heavens. Now she can tell you I didn’t stab her.”

Ssichutuu was probably not nearly as frightening as his chief. He did not for instance appear to be wearing any part of a skeleton as decoration. He also did not carry any obvious weapons, save a small stone knife with wooden handle. Nevertheless, Zeah Korlann found his new companion every bit as frightening as the tyrannosaurus that stalked the forests of the region. Ssichutuu was a little over six feet tall and looked more than a little like an upright alligator. His deep olive skin had few obvious scars or discolorations, marking him as a younger member of the fifty-strong group of visitors. He kept his dewlap for the most part tucked up against his neck. The truly unnerving thing was the fact that his yellow eyes never seemed to leave Zeah for long and they almost never blinked.

Most of the natives had left the compound to go on a hunting expedition with Master Terrence, but ten had stayed to observe the lifestyles of the newcomers. Each of these temporary visitors had two colonists to look after them. Zeah and Saba Colbshallow were both escorting this particular lizardman or lizzie around. Saba had already nicknamed the creature Sichy. The aborigine took a keen interest in almost everything that they were doing. They walked along the shore and watched the finishing touches being put on the dock’s crane, which once finished began lifting the last of the heavy cargo from the battleship. They walked up the hill, now mostly denuded of trees, which was being spread with gravel to form a roadway. At the top of the hill, they watched the construction of the barracks. Ssichutuu seemed fascinated by the smoothness of the wood used so they walked back down the hill, just south of the dock to observe the power saw slicing logs into boards.

At lunchtime, the lizardmen were brought together along with their hosts around a large table just inside the great protective wall. Two foot long log segments were turned on end to be used as chairs. This was functional enough for the colonists and even better for the natives than real chairs, which interfered with their thick tails. A kind of shish kabob, with pieces of meat, onions, and potatoes was served. The reptiles eschewed the vegetables but ate the meat happily enough. Zeah suspected that they would have preferred it raw, and maybe aged to the point of rotting.

Afterwards the humans watched as the lizardmen gave a demonstration of their method of creating stone blades from the local flint and obsidian. They used large rocks to break off long slender flakes and then used pieces of bone to chip tiny bits off of these flakes and make them even sharper. When they were done, they attached the now very sharp stone blades to handles of wood. Ssichutuu presented his completed knife to Zeah and indicated by hand signals that he should keep it as a gift. The former butler marveled at the keen edge. He didn’t think that even the steel knives brought from Greater Brechalon could match them. The real advantage of manufactured tools would be their durability.

Late in the afternoon, the hunting party returned, carrying massive amounts of dinosaur meat. Once again there was a great feast, with members of both races eating large amounts of the new world’s unusual meat. The natives seemed to have the ability to pack away gargantuan portions of food. Zeah overheard Saba remarking on this to Professor Calliere.

“I believe it to be a function of their reptilian nature,” replied the professor. “They can eat great amounts of meat at one time and then go without for perhaps weeks. I’m sure that this will be of benefit to us once they begin fulfilling their purpose as our natural servants.”

Zeah didn’t pay too much attention to the professor’s pronouncement—in truth, he seldom paid a great deal of attention to what Calliere said—but this time it was because of the presence of Egeria Lusk at Calliere’s side.   She wore a teal brocaded dinner gown with large gold buttons from the neck to below the waist, and a straw boater with a teal ribbon around it.

“You look lovely Egeria,” Zeah thought he probably sounded as though he was gushing, but he didn’t care.

“Thank you, Zeah,” she said. “I must say you look ruggedly handsome.”

Zeah looked down at himself. He had been wearing the same type of khaki safari clothing that the soldiers wore. In fact, he had requested a set of the clothing from the mercenary company supplies when he found that he would be spending the day playing tour guide to an oversized lizard. He had to admit that the color accentuated his tall, thin form. And he thought the stone knife blade worn at his belt made him look manly. He took her hand and led her away from the crowd.

“I haven’t seen much of you the past two days,” he said.

“Don’t expect to see much of me the next few days either,” she said. “The Result Mechanism is being brought ashore tomorrow and the professor will need help getting it up and running. After that I need to input the measurements from the survey.”

After watching the look on his face for a moment, she burst out laughing. “You really are medicine for the ego! If you’re going to be all that broken up about not seeing me, you might as well come by and help me with the great machine.” She said the words “great machine” in an abnormally deep voice.

Zeah perked right up.

“I might just do that,” he said, guaranteeing himself in his own mind that he would.

After dinner both women changed into khaki jungle outfits. These, though they resembled the men’s in color and sturdiness of the material, were still primarily feminine attire with long skirts cut large enough for an appropriate bustle. Iolanthe also belted on a holster with a .45 caliber revolver. Yuah had never used a firearm before and thought that if she had taken one, it would be more likely that she would discharge it into her own foot than into any threat. They didn’t need to go back topside. The external hatch on deck six opened onto the middle of the temporary staircase, which had been erected on the side of the ship. Here a launch was awaiting them, the sailors who had just come from the shore having been replaced with a fresh group of rowers. Also waiting in the boat was Wizard Suvir Kesi.

“Good afternoon, ladies.” His accented voice seemed naturally oily. “Do you mind if I accompany you today?”

“Not at all,” said Iolanthe. “In fact, this is my first trip ashore and I think Yuah would welcome the company of a magic user as much as I would. Have you been ashore already?”

“Yes,” he said. “I was with Captain Dechantagne this morning as he chased the dinosaurs off the promontory. I made a small contribution myself, and so I had to return to my cabin to replenish my spells. I am once again fully prepared now.”

The sailors pushed the launch away from the side of the ship and began rowing across the relatively calm water of the bay. Several hundred yards away, Iolanthe could see the smooth back of some enormous reptile sliding through the water as the beast cut the surface to take a breath.

“Not to worry, Miss Dechantagne,” said Kesi. “That’s not one of the big mouthed fellows. That is what Professor Calliere described to me as a plesiosaur. They have large bodies, but small heads suitable for eating only small fish.”

“I wasn’t worried,” said Iolanthe.

“I bloody was,” said Yuah.

As she said this a fish, a monstrous fish the size of a steam carriage, leapt completely out of the water and fell back with a splash thirty feet from the launch.

“On the other hand,” said Kesi. “I’m pretty sure whatever was chasing that little minnow has quite a large mouth.”

It became increasingly difficult to talk as they neared the shore because of the sound of steam engines and power saws. The boat reached the shore and two of the sailors jumped out to secure it to the land. All of the sailors were then ordered to wait as the two women and Kesi met two waiting riflemen. It felt remarkably good to walk on dry land. Dozens of men were working nearby, chopping logs into segments, pulling them to the massive power saw, and slicing them into boards. A large swath of the once beautiful forest had become a wide muddy path, and it was expanding.

“If we had arrived any later, there wouldn’t be any trees at all to save,” said Iolanthe. “Ribbon, Yuah?”

Yuah handed her a roll of inch wide red ribbon. Iolanthe started into the woods, working her way up the slope of the land and to the left of where the workmen were. The dressing maid and the wizard followed. After several dozen steps, she came to a particularly majestic redwood. It was about twelve feet in diameter, not the largest tree, but symmetrical and tall. Iolanthe handed the end of the ribbon to Yuah, and then circumnavigated the tree, letting the ribbon unroll off the spool as she went until she returned to the starting spot. Then she took the end from Yuah and tied the ribbon into a neat bow. The red band at eye level would serve as a note to the woodcutters that this tree was to be left undisturbed. The sound of the power saw continued in the background, only occasionally stopping as men adjusted the controls for the types of boards to be cut.

“That’s a nice tree,” said Kesi. “But why this one. There are plenty that are just as nice.”

“This one is going to give shade to the port office, which will be right over there,” explained Iolanthe.

“Do you have the entire city planned out in your head?”

“Of course not. I have a rough idea about the port. Of course everything can be adjusted as needs be.”

She continued up the slope followed by Yuah and Kesi, marking one tree in fifty to be saved as she went. When they reached the top of the promontory and the clearing, they could see the men working on the wall several hundred yards away. Calling the structure a wall was doing it a great disservice. It was a fortification, six feet thick, with an outer wall thirty-five feet tall and an inner wall twenty feet tall, and a walkway between them built atop the inner wall. Though they couldn’t be seen from this angle, two lines of sharpened stakes pointed outward, one at fifteen feet in height and the other at thirty. The spikes were spaced four feet apart.

“Your bother’s design is impressive,” said Kesi.

“I see now why all the trees are going to be gone,” said Yuah.

“The trees around here will be cut,” said Iolanthe. “But remember, we’re sitting on the edge of a forest a thousand miles across. There will be no shortage of lumber.”

Walking the length of the peninsula and tagging each of more than one hundred trees while doing so used the remainder of their afternoon and the remainder of their ribbon as well. Several times Iolanthe noticed Wizard Kesi speaking in low tones to Yuah. When at last she was ready to return to the ship, Iolanthe called the other two to follow her back to the shore.

“If you don’t mind ladies,” said Kesi. “I’m going to stay here and do a little bit of exploring.”

“Do be careful,” said Yuah.

“Don’t worry,” he replied. “I have no intention of becoming a meal for one of the local monstrosities.”

The two women were dutifully rowed back to the Minotaur without incident and they made their way up to the deck.

“I noticed that Suvir Kesi spoke quite a bit to you while we were over there,” said Iolanthe.

“Yes, Miss.”

“May I ask what he is plotting?”

“He was wondering if he could call on me.”

“Really? Can he?”

“I don’t know how I feel about him,” said Yuah. “Him being a foreigner, and all.”

“Yes, foreigner.” Iolanthe nodded in understanding.

It was chilly and wisps of mist hung in the air. On the distant shore, beyond the wall formed by impossibly tall redwood trees, large spruces, massive maple and bay trees, filled in between by thick huckleberry and azalea bushes and wave upon wave of rhododendron, some giant and no doubt frightening monster roared out a challenge. From its tiny animal carrier on deck, the little dragon answered.

“Gawp!”

Senta stepped onto the deck and knelt down by the box. Zurfina had dressed her in another weird outfit, this one a floor length black dress with a white collar. A black ceramic rose right in the front of her neck that made it difficult to look down at the high-heeled black sandals on her feet. Of course Zurfina had on a matching dress, and cut a striking figure standing along the railing of the forward deck with the Captain, Miss Dechantagne, the Dechantagne brothers, and other notables, all of whom were dressed in light summer clothing, as they surveyed the coastline.

“Pet!” said the dragon.

“Yep, it’s me,” said Senta. “I’m going to take you out, but you have to have your leash on.”

The dragon hissed. She opened the door of the carrier and the dragon climbed out onto the top. He turned his head and pointedly looked the other direction as she snapped the little chain onto the ring around his ankle. Once the little clip had snapped shut, Senta attached the other end of the chain to a bracelet on her right wrist.

“See there. We’re both chained by the wrist. Nobody’s the boss.”

“Gawp,” said the dragon, and then spreading its wings to balance, it climbed up her arm and onto her shoulder. It slithered down to lie across her shoulders, one hand and one foot holding onto her dress and one hand and one foot holding onto her hair. Senta stood up. The little dragon was now over four feet long from nose to tip of tail, but he was only about six inches thick across the belly and he was surprisingly light.

“What do you want to do?”

“Gawp.”

“Me too. This is sooo boring.”

The ship had been sailing parallel to the coast for the past four days and Senta was getting tired of it. What was the point of sailing all the way to Mallon, if you didn’t get out and walk around on it? Twenty days was more than enough time to explore every square inch of the largest battleship and Senta had spent more than three times that length of time on the Minotaur. Not even murders, gunfights, and drinking wine until you threw up could take away the boredom forever.

“Fina,” said the dragon.

“All right.”

Senta walked toward the front of the ship. She had gone only about halfway to where Zurfina and the others stood watching the coastline roll past, when a figure stepped out of the shadows. A freckled face and striped shirt quickly identified the shady figure.

“Hey Graham,” said Senta.

“Hi Senta. What’ya doing?”

“Nothing. He wants to go up by the grown-ups.” She indicated the dragon with her thumb.

“Can I come?”

“Sure. Just don’t get too close, ‘cause he’ll bite you.”

“I thought he was tame.”

“You can’t tame a dragon. Zurfina says you can’t tame anything that’s smarter than you are.”

“Who says he’s smarter than me?” Graham was indignant.

“Not just you, stupid. Dragons are super smart. When he gets big, he’ll be able to talk and do magic and all kinds of cool stuff.”

“Brill,” said the boy.

Senta and Graham walked forward, the boy keeping several paces behind her at all times, until they reached the group of adults. Miss Dechantage was wearing a yellow dress with lots of lace and a matching hat, tied below her chin with a lace ribbon. Her dress was almost the same color as the suit Professor Calliere was wearing. It made him look like a very large banana. Mr. Korlann was much more dignified. His grey suit was so light that it would have seemed white, had he not been standing next to Miss Lusk in her white day dress. Senta saw Miss Lusk reach over discretely and touch Mr. Korlann’s hand. Wizard Labrith was wearing a light brown suit and Wizard Kesi, for once not in colorful silks, was dressed the same. They both stood near the back of the group, all four of their eyes boring holes into the back of Zurfina’s black dress. The two Dechantagne brothers were both wearing khaki safari clothes and pith helmets. The older brother looked like he was sick. Finally Father Ian had eschewed his traditional robes for a more modern suit with a clerical collar.