One of the two girls arrived with plates of strudel, but only came close enough to set them on the table when the magic had abated.
“You are her, are you not? You are the Drache Girl?”
“I am,” confirmed Senta. “And now you’re going to regale me with a story of how your young lover was a soldier who had never done anything to anyone, but was sent to an early grave by my demon mother?”
The girl needed no reminder of the story. Nobody did. Five years ago, during the war between Brechalon and Freedonia, Senta’s mother, Zurfina the Magnificent, had cast a spell. Senta believed the intent of the spell was to eliminate the attacking warriors at Iquanodon Heath just outside of Port Dechantagne in Birmisia—though guessing Zurfina’s intentions were always hit and miss propositions. In any case, Zurfina’s spell had not only removed the soldiers from Iguanodon Heath. It had blinked out of existence every man in a uniform of the Freedonian Empire anywhere in the world: millions of men who all simply vanished. As did Zurfina herself, never to be seen again.
“Lover?”
“Mannfreund.”
“Nein,” said the girl. “I had no… lover. Mein vater was a postmaster, und mein older bruder—he was a polizist. Mein baby bruder—he collected tickets on the trolley. They are all gone now.”
“Bad luck,” said Senta, rubbing an index finger over her lower lip.
“Ja, luck.” The waitress turned and rejoined her sister.
“Let’s go,” said the sorceress. “I don’t want dessert.”
“As you wish,” said Baxter. He tossed a wad of Freedonian banknotes on the table before getting up and stepping around to pull out Senta’s chair. He followed her as she stepped quickly through the restaurant to the front door. She didn’t look back, but he did. The two blondes were still watching them, and he was back to not being sure which of the two Brechs they were watching.
Though his legs were longer and he wasn’t encumbered by a bustle dress or corset, Baxter still had a hard time keeping up with Senta as she strode quickly down the street.
“You shouldn’t let that upset you,” he said as he fell into step beside her.
“I’m not upset. I’m full.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“If I got upset every time such a situation presented itself, I’d be upset all the time.”
Suddenly gunshots rang out in the night—three shots in quick succession. Two small craters appeared in the building stonework next to Baxter’s head, sending tiny rock chips flying. The third projectile hit a window two feet higher up on the same building. The glass cracked but didn’t shatter.
“I see him!” said Baxter, spotting a figure running away into the night. He produced a .45 caliber revolver from his pocket, and started off at a run after the retreating figure. “I’ll get him!”
“Don’t bother!” called Senta after him. “It’s not worth it!”
He didn’t respond and disappeared around the corner, leaving her standing by herself in the halo of lamplight. She sighed and turned to examine the bullet holes.
“Three times then,” she said. “Three times I’ve been shot at.”
A noise behind her drew Senta’s attention. Beneath the flickering light of the next streetlamp were two children. They looked to be a boy and a girl of about eight or nine. The girl was wearing a brown dress and a bonnet, while the boy had on a great coat and a cap. They reminded Senta a little of her friends Hero and Hertzal, as they had been when she first met them. They too were from Freedonia. As she watched, the two ran into the mouth of a nearby alley.
Retracing her steps to the opening of the alley, the sorceress looked in. It was completely dark beyond the lamplight. She listened. She couldn’t hear the children. She couldn’t hear much of anything really. She heard voices in the distance and a steam engine, but neither of them was from the direction of the gaping darkness before her. With no real thought behind her actions, she stepped into the alley. Twenty or so feet into the darkness, she heard a small splash as she stepped into a puddle.
“Uuthanum.” A small sphere of cool blue light appeared floating before her. The ugly, moldy brick walls of the buildings on either side of her were illuminated, as were the ugly faces of eight men surrounding her. They were dressed as some kind of laborers, maybe dock workers, she thought. Most of them carried clubs. One, a vicious looking fellow with a big scar across his nose was carrying a piece of heavy chain.
“Oh my,” said Senta. “You are an ugly one, aren’t you?”
“Your bodyguard is gone,” said the man, revealing a Brech accent.
“That’s so cute, that you think he’s my bodyguard. So you’re not from around here. Let me guess. Somebody hired you—to what… kill me, rape me?”
“Why limit ourselves to just one,” he grinned.
“Oh I do like a man with ambition,” she said. “Uuthanum regnum.”
All of the men were suddenly stricken. Several bent over in pain and several others simply dropped to the ground. One screamed out. Others began to cry. Scarnose dropped to his knees and gripped himself around his waist. Senta bent down and looked at him.
“Where did those children go, anyway?”
The man let loose a hideous moan. Senta noticed an open but dark doorway at the back of the alley. A shriek brought her attention back to the writhing figure before her.
“If this had happened five years ago, I would have felt sorry for the pain you’re experiencing now.” She ran the palm of her hand across his dirty cheek. “Then again, five years from now, I might wipe out your whole family in retribution. Perhaps you should count yourself lucky. Well, maybe lucky isn’t the right word. Uuthanum.”
Black strands spread from Senta’s hand through Scarnose’s skin. As a new round of screams burst from his mouth, the sorceress stood up and walked past him toward the doorway, leaving the man clawing at his own skin as whole chunks of it blackened and sloughed off.
Up two steps, she entered the doorway. The shining ball of light, which had remained where it had been created, quickly followed her when she snapped her fingers. Beyond a long hallway, was a vast room filled with bodies. Many women and a few men were lying all about the marble-tiled floor. There had to be more than a hundred of them. Some had their heads propped up by pillows, but just as many lay without any attention to comfort. A low moan escaped from the far corner. Here and there a body twitched. Senta moved carefully through the spaces between the bodies. Hearing the clink of glass as her foot kicked something, she looked down to see a tiny, empty indigo vial go skittering away.
“Well well,” she thought aloud. “Somebody is getting rich.”
Suddenly hands gripped her ankle. Kicking her leg loose, she looked down into the milky eyes of a middle-aged woman.
“She wants you,” the woman hissed.
“Who wants me?”
“She wants you.”
“She can go to hell,” said Senta.
The sorceress made her way through the maze of drug-addled bodies to a door that led out onto the street. White opthalium, the see spice, was becoming more and more common. It sapped the will of those who became addicted to it. Senta had seen similar dens back in Brech, though none so large. Made from rare enchanted lotus blossoms and blue fungus from the distant island land of Enclep, and whipped together with relatively potent magic, the drug provided a doorway to a shared fantasy for those who rubbed it upon their eyes. The price for these visions was lethargy, depression, and finally the loss of the will to live.
Senta stopped outside the door and stared back into the room. She was still there, lost in thought, when Baxter came jogging up to her.
“I’m sorry. He got away.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Senta. “Are you sure it was a he?”
Her companion thought for a moment. “No, I suppose not.”
“Let’s get home.”
Baxter put his arm around her shoulders and led her back to the hotel. Senta was lost in silent thought as they passed through the lobby and rode up in the elevator. Once back in the suite, she went directly to her boudoir and began removing her dress and complicated undergarments. She had just slipped into a filmy nightgown made of Mirsannan silk, when Baxter entered, still dressed, carrying a smiling baby.
“Look at what I found,” he said, spinning the child around him. “Come look at her new trick.”
He set the baby on the bed on her stomach and stood back. The little girl, her bright eyes now wide and mouth smiling, pushed herself up onto her hands and knees.
“Ta da!” he said, with a laugh.
Senta looked from child to the man without recognition.
“She’s up on her knees,” he explained. “Soon she’ll be crawling and then there’ll be no keeping up with her.”
“Ah.” The sorceress sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the baby, looking into her face. “I suppose I should be impressed.”
“I sent the women home,” said Baxter, walking into the other room.
The sorceress followed, the baby on her hip. “Senta will need to eat again.”
“Miss Lorvann left us with a bottle.” He took off his coat, hanging it up; then began unfastening the cuffs of his shirt. “You didn’t think that giving your child your name would be confusing?”
“Men do it all the time,” said Senta. “Besides, who do you propose I name her after?”
“Your mother?”
“No, that wouldn’t do. I doubt anyone will name their child Zurfina ever again.”
“Her father then?”
“Is that a hint that you would like me to tell you who he is?”
“I don’t care who he is.” Baxter peeled off his pants, and hung them up.
Senta placed her daughter down in the center of Baxter’s bed and attempted to play peek-a-boo with her, using a pillow to cover her own face, but the girl rolled over, rising to her hands and knees, and began rocking back and forth. Putting the pillow back in place, the sorceress slid up so that she could lie back upon it.
“Besides, bastards don’t get their fathers’ names.”
“Is that a hint?” asked Baxter, stepping out of the closet in his robe.
“A hint at what?”
“A hint that you would like me to marry you and give your child my name.”
“Don’t be stupid. I wouldn’t marry you in any case. You’re probably far too good for the likes of me, and I am most definitely too good for the likes of you.”
Baxter lay down on the other side of the bed, so that little Senta was between the two of them. With a flourish, he produced his cufflink box, shaking it so that it rattled loudly. The baby’s eyes went right to it. She opened them wide in astonishment as her mouth gaped, leaving a long strand of saliva dripping down onto the bed cover. They played with the rattling little box until the child’s eyes began to droop, then her mother scooped her up and sang to her until she was asleep. Baxter stepped into the nursery and returned carrying the cradle, which he sat near the foot of the bed. Once little Senta was placed in it, he turned down the room lights and rejoined Senta the elder in his bed.

Chapter One: Bangdorf

The sun was low in the sky over Bangdorf, igniting gold fire on the spires of the Kaiserlicher Palast and the tall, thin, single tower of the Kirche Unserer Heiligen Mutter. The red and white roofs of the many other buildings were less striking but no less beautiful. Senta Bly pulled a wayward blond curl back behind her ear as she stared out the large window on the twelfth floor of the Kanalgeschäfts Hotel, as she often did at this time of day. She had been in Bangdorf for a fortnight after six months of touring much of Sumir. She thought Bangdorf was the most beautiful city that she had ever seen. Smaller than Brech and much newer, it was laid out with wide streets and broad, lush parks. If it had been anywhere else in the world, she could have seen herself staying there.
She swiftly turned and walked down the hallway to the door of the Imperial suite and opening it, stepped inside. The large parlor was empty, so she continued on into the master bedroom. Reclining on the bed, wearing nothing but his slacks and a white undershirt, was her companion Kieran Baxter. Retrieving a lit cigarette from the ashtray on the nightstand, he took a long drag and blew out a thick stream of smoke.
“Dress shopping again?” he asked.
“Yes.” She spun around. “Does this dress make my bottom look big?”
“Huge.”
“Good. This is the latest thing in lady’s undergarments. It’s called a table-top bustle.”
“I can see why.” He took a last puff from the cigarette, before mashing it into the ashtray. “I could lay out a seven course meal on your ass.”
“Don’t say ‘ass’,” Senta hissed. “It’s uncouth.”
Baxter shrugged, then spun his legs off the bed and sat up. He cared little for ladies’ fashions. Senta on the other hand, spent a great deal of time shopping. This particular dress, newly in from Mirsanna, had a high collar in front, though it was cut low in the back. Gold, trimmed with black brocade, it had puffs of black lace at the wrists.
“Are we going out tonight?” asked Baxter.
“Of course. We only have four more days.”
“I’d better get dressed then, hadn’t I?”
A sudden loud “gawp” could be heard through the side door. Senta quickly crossed the room and opened the door to reveal a large closet. Curled up into a neat circle, just inside the door, was a dragon. No bigger than a medium sized dog, the beast was covered with coral tinted metallic scales. Its long thin snout was resting on its forearms. Its long whip-like tail, tipped with a spade-shaped barb, was wrapped around its body.
“Poor baby,” said Senta, leaning down and reaching out a hand to the little coral dragon. “Did the bad man lock you up in the closet all day?”
A thin forked tongue quickly licked the woman’s fingers, and then suddenly the mouth full of needle sharp teeth bit down upon the fleshy part of her hand.
“Ouch! You horrible little twonk!”
“You shouldn’t say ‘twonk’,” said Baxter dryly. “It’s uncouth. And that’s why she’s been locked up all day.”
“She hasn’t been out in forever,” said Senta, pausing to lick the blood off her hand. “She has so much pent up energy.”
“Indeed.”
“Come along, Pet,” she said, scooping up the dragon into her arms.
The little beast allowed itself to be cuddled for just a moment before slithering up her sleeve and taking a spot on her shoulder. The sorceress crossed the room and opened the doors to the balcony.
“Go on,” said Senta. “Fly, but be back by morning.”
The little dragon shot into the sky with so much force, it sent her staggering backwards several steps. Once inside again, she shut the doors. Baxter was now in the closet putting on a newly starched white shirt. Senta walked up behind him and snaked her arms around his waist.
“You do look handsome when you get dressed up.”
“Thank you.” He unfastened his pants and tucked in the shirt tail. “I worry about letting her out. We’ve already had two shooting attempts. It seems careless to chance a third.”
“Yes, but both of those times they were trying to shoot me,” Senta pointed out. “I doubt anyone will even notice her and I don’t think a bullet would permanently harm her anyway. I’m much more concerned about her growth. By this age, Bessemer was nearly the size of a pony.”
“Maybe the females are just smaller, or maybe her kind of dragon doesn’t grow as big.”
“Maybe, maybe. That’s why I’ve decided to spend tomorrow at the library.”
“I thought we were taking the river cruise tomorrow.” He turned around so that she could tie the bowtie he had just wrapped around his neck.
“You can still go.”
“By myself?”
“I doubt you’ll suffer from a lack of female companionship.”
“You wouldn’t mind?” he asked. “If I were to take the cruise with a lovely Freedonian girl?”
“As long as I don’t see you, you’ll both probably survive,” said Senta. “Just remember, the women here are desperate for you lot.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“It’s not mine,” said Senta. “Everybody seems to forget that. I had nothing to do with that bit. Now put your jacket on and let’s go.”
“Don’t you want to see the baby?” he asked.
“Yes, of course.”
Baxter put on his jacket as he crossed room, stepped out into the parlor, and opened the nursery door. Senta followed.
“Bringen sie das kind ins wohnzimmer, bitte fraulein.”
Two women stepped out into the parlor. Both were quite young. The first was a dark-haired beauty with flashing eyes, dressed in a simple black and brown dress. The other, who carried a sleeping baby wrapped in pink blankets, was blond and blue-eyed, with a colorful floral-patterned dress.
“She looks just precious when she’s asleep, doesn’t she?” said Senta, as she took the child from the other blonde.
“She is precious,” said Baxter. “You should spend more time with her.”
“She’s being well cared for by Miss Lorvann and Miss Müller. And I spend much more time with her than my mother ever spent with me at this age, I can tell you that.”
“She ist a gute child,” said the brunette.
“And how is your baby, Miss Lorvann?”
“He ist einen big boy soon,” she replied.
“Of course he is. That’s why you were able to take on my little pet. I counted myself very lucky to find a wet nurse here in Bangdorf. She is sucking?”
Miss Lorvann blushed to be part of such a conversation in front of a man, but Baxter was already heading back to the bedroom to get his shoes.
“Ja, she eat gute.”
“And you are happy with her progress, Miss Müller.”
The blonde stared uncomprehendingly.
“Das baby ist gut?”
“Ja, Ja,” the young woman assured. “Sie weint kaum überhaupt.”
Senta looked at the cherubic face just visible within the swirl of blankets. A tiny curl of blond hair swept down just above the closed eyes. A cute little button nose was just set off by the tiny pursed lips. She handed the child back to the nurse.
“We will be back before nine,” she said. “Vor neun.”
Baxter returned, wearing highly polished shoes, as the two young women retreated to the nursery. The former navy officer cut quite a figure when he was dressed. Offering Senta his arm, he led her from the suite, down the hallway to the elevator. The operator opened the door for them and then threw the switch, sending the tiny conveyance downward.
“So what is the venue for this evening?” asked Baxter.
“Just dinner.”
“No opera? No ballet?”
“I’m tired of all that, honestly,” said Senta. “How many times can you enjoy chubby Freedonian women acting out fairy tales? The concierge gave me directions to a little place that’s supposed to be famous among the locals.”
“Did you order a car?”
“No, it’s close enough that we can walk.”
They strolled along the wide avenue, around the block, to a small building that looked like it could have come right out of one of the fairy tales to which the sorceress had been alluding. It was a small, two-story affair with heavy shutters open on either side of the windows and an ornately carved oak door. Baxter pulled open the portal and they entered to find a cozy interior, lit primarily by flickering candles. Seven or eight patrons, all but one of them women, sat at small square tables, being served by a pair of buxom blondes in light cotton blouses and green, heavy wool skirts. Senta chose a table in the corner and waited until Baxter pulled out her chair. Once they were both seated, one of the blondes appeared beside them.
“Gute nacht.”
“Was ist… um, besonderes?” Senta tripped over the unfamiliar Freedonian term.
“You are Brechs, Ja?” asked the waitress. “I can speak Brech very gute.”
“Excellent,” said the sorceress. “What do you recommend for dinner tonight?”
“We have a gute dinner. I bring you cheeses and then chicken soup. It is very gute, everyone says. Then I bring you roast beef or the fish, you choose. And potatoes Kasselburg, sour kraut, and fresh baked bread. Of course for dessert, you have strudel.”
“That sounds perfect,” said Baxter. “Roast beef for me, and a beer.”
“Yes, the same,” said Senta, and then when the waitress had gone, “Imagine serving cheese before the meal.”
“They do have some very good cheeses though. In fact, all the food here is good. I think I’ve gained five pounds since we’ve been here.”
“Ten,” said Senta. “You really are becoming hideous. But don’t worry. That’s just how I want you—fat enough that other women will find you unattractive, but not so fat that I’ll find you disgusting.”
The waitress returned and sat down a platter containing at least a dozen small wheels of cheese, which Baxter now stared at as though it was a platter of poisonous snakes. Senta smiled to herself and carved off a piece of one of the creamier varieties and brought it to her mouth. Neither of them finished their meals hungry. After large hunks of roast beef covered in thick brown gravy and creamy seasoned potatoes, they both felt satisfied and sedate.
Baxter picked up the tall glass of dark beer and sipped it.
“They’re watching you, you know,” he said.
Turning slightly, Senta could see the two blondes peering out from the kitchen.
“No, they’re not. They’re watching you, and with you being so ugly and all. I told you they were desperate.”
“How can you tell?”
“Watch.”
Senta raised her arm out straight in front of her over the table, palm down. Flipping her hand over, a flame sprang up in her palm. Within two or three seconds, the flame had coalesced into a humanoid figure, eight or nine inches tall, which immediately began pirouetting and spinning in a miniature ballet, all without leaving Senta’s hand. Baxter wasn’t paying the little dancing flame any attention. He had seen the trick before. He was watching the waitresses, who looked so much alike he decided that they must actually be twins. They started at the appearance of magic and their gazes shifted just enough for him to realized that they had previously been in fact, looking at him.
“Maybe you could take one of them on the river cruise with you.”
“Maybe both of them,” he replied. “It seems a shame to break up a set.”