“Welcome to Schwarztogrube, Mr. Halifax,” said Sergeant Halser, saluting.

“Thank you.  No need to salute.  I’m a civilian after all.”

Mr. Halifax held out a hand and Sergeant Halser helped him out of the small boat and up onto the shaped stone dock on the lowest section of the ancient castle.  He was a short, rotund man wearing a white suit, the shirt of which was still stained with his lunch, eaten aboard the ship that had brought him.  Halifax led him up the stone stairway to the upper levels.

“Can you explain to me what happened?  The Judge Advocate General was rather vague in his description.”

“As far as anyone can tell, it was some kind of disease.  It could have been brought here by one of the guards returning from leave.  They were all killed.  Most of the prisoners.  A few of the boys.  The boys might have been less affected because of age or because they were all down near the water.  No one really knows.”

“I have no doubt it was due to mismanagement of some form or another,” opined Halifax.  “That’s why operations were taken away from the Ministry of War and were given to us.”

They reached a fork in the passageway.

“The north wing is this way, Sir.  It’s where the offices and kitchen are and most of the prisoners.”

“How many prisoners are there?”

“There are twelve surviving prisoners in the north wing; one in the south wing.”

“Only one?”

“Yes.  Prisoner eighty-nine was segregated from the others.  There’s no record of why.  Perhaps it is because she is the only woman.”

“A woman?  Here?”  Halifax frowned and licked his lips.

Halser nodded.

“Take me to her cell.”

Halser led his new superior up another set of stairs and down the stone hallway to a door with a single small, barred window.  Halifax had to stand on his tip-toes to peer through.  He could see a blond woman inside, dressed in rags, sweeping the floor of the cell with a broom.

“Open it.”

Halser unlocked the door and followed Halifax inside.  The woman immediately stopped sweeping and stood demurely with her head bowed.  The room was clean but Spartan.  Only a single window high up on the wall let in a square of sunlight.  Halifax glared accusingly at Halser.

“It was worse, when I got here, Sir.  I had the cot brought in and a chamber pot, and a broom so that she could clean the place up.”

“It’s true, Sir.  Sergeant Halser has been very kind.”

“Still, it seems poor treatment for a young lady, regardless of your crimes.  What is it you are here for?”

“I used magic without approval, Sir.  And when they tried to arrest me, I fought back.  I may have injured a wizard, Sir.”

Halifax’s expression said all too clearly that he thought the injury or death of a wizard to be a relatively minor offense.  “Well, you can’t do any magic here, so we don’t have to worry about that.  And what is your name, my dear?”

“Zurfina, Sir.”

“Zurfina.  Like the daughter of Magnus the Great?”

“Yes, Sir.”  Zurfina curtsied.

“Is there anything you need right now?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, Sir, I would appreciate a bucket of water so that I could bathe.  And if a needle and thread could be had, and some scraps of cloth so that I could make myself something to wear.”

“Sergeant Halser, see if you can find a bucket of water and some soap for the young lady, and a washrag too.  You can leave the keys with me.  I’ll lock up.”

“Yes, Sir.”

After the Sergeant had left, Halifax stepped close to the woman and reaching out, brushed the hair from her face.

“You are not unattractive.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Things are not going to be like before,” he said, pacing first toward the door and then back to her.  “There will be better food and cleaner conditions.  Maybe we could have some decent clothes brought from the mainland for you and perhaps an occasional sweet.”

“That would be most delightful, Sir.”

“When my duties allow, I could come to your cell here and visit with you.  Would you like that?  Would you be… cooperative?”

“Oh, yes sir.”

He reached out and brushed her hair back again, this time caressing her temple with his thumb.  “You do understand what I mean when I say cooperative, don’t you?”

Zurfina looked up from the floor and into his eyes.  She reached up and pulled his chubby hand from her face, moving it down to rest on her breast.

“I’m anxious to be cooperative,” she said.  “Very, very cooperative.”

The End.

“Kafira, help me!” pleaded Arthur McTeague, as he hung his face over the railing and vomited once again into the white-tipped waves of the open ocean.

“Buck up, my friend,” said Augie, slapping him on the back.  “Kafira helps those who help themselves.”

McTeague rolled over, hanging so precariously over the railing that Augie felt compelled to grab him by the collar and pull him back.  Though he had been fine for the first two days of the voyage from Birmisia, once they had hit the first bit of rough weather McTeague’s seasickness had surfaced.  He hadn’t been able to keep a meal down in almost a week.

“Curse you, Dechantagne.  How can you look so pleasant?”

“Well, I am pleasant, come to that.  You’ll be right as rain in um… well, a week or two.  A week or two in Mallontah, and then home to Brechalon.  And when we get to Mallontah, I’ll make you forget all about it.  I’ve still got that check from my sister.  Remember?  Wine, women, good food.”

At the word food, McTeague turned around again and spewed toward the ocean.

“I didn’t think you could have any more in you.”

“I should have just stayed in Birmisia.”

“You liked it there?”

“God no.  I hated it, but at least I didn’t puke my livers out there.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m coming back,” said Augie.  “You could come with me.”

“If I survive this trip, I’m never setting foot on a ship again.”

* * * * *

The inside of the divination shop was dim and smoky, but the room was rent by daylight, seemingly as bright as lightning, when Wizard Smedley Bassington swept in from the street, his rifle frock coat trailing behind him like a black cape.  In two long steps he was at the comfortable chair by the fireplace.  Sweeping the coat to one side, he sat down and placed first one black hobnail boot and then the other on the corner of the sorceress’s desk.  He crossed his arms and stared, his horn-rimmed glasses making his beady eyes seem even beadier.

“Madame de la Rosa,” he said.

The old sorceress behind the desk looked as though her skin was made of dried apples.  She was small and hunched over, even sitting there.  She raised a wrinkled hand and waved at the strikingly beautiful olive-skinned woman behind her.

“Amadea, get the wizard a cup of tea.”

Bassington waved the girl off, though his gaze carefully took in all of her curves.

“So what do you know?”  Though his eyes were still on the young woman, his question was for her mistress.

The old woman reached beneath the desk and pulled out the perfectly round pearly white orb, precisely thirteen and three fifths inches in diameter that Bassington had left in her care two days prior.  Given that Madame de la Rosa was a diviner, one could have been excused for assuming that it was a crystal ball of some type, but it wasn’t.  From its complex swirly white, silver, and grey appearance it might have seemed a pearl taken from some gigantic oyster, but it wasn’t.

“It is a dragon egg,” said Madame de la Rosa.

“Don’t waste my time.”

“Watch your mouth, Wizard,” hissed the young woman.

“Don’t mind Bassington, Amadea,” the old woman soothed.  “You may leave us.”

“What kind of dragon is it?” asked the wizard, once the girl had left.  “Gold?  Silver?  Flame?  Red?  Green?  Night?”

“It is a Mirlughth Dragon.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Mirlughth is an ancient shiny substance.  That’s all I can tell you about it.”  Madame de la Rosa pressed her fingertips together creating a steeple.  “There hasn’t been a Mirlughth Dragon seen in millennia.  This particular dragon will be very powerful and important.  He is destined to rule a vast land and be worshipped as a god.”

“Maybe we should destroy it now.”

“If you did, and I’m not sure you could, but if you did, you would be destroying an important ally of the Kingdom of Greater Brechalon.”

“Oh?  What else did you see?”

“The dragon will be raised and protected.  He has to be, you see.  He has to be raised and protected by someone powerful enough to be the surrogate parent to a dragon.  Do you know anyone like that?”

“I know who you’re talking about, but she’s in Schwarztogrube.”

“She won’t stay there.”

A look of panic briefly crossed the wizard’s face.

“Don’t worry.  She won’t get out for some time.  You have plenty of time to get out of the country.”  Her laugh was like seeds rattling inside a gourd.  “I don’t blame you.  I wouldn’t want her after me either.  But I know a magister we can trust, who will sell her the egg.  She’ll never know that either of us had anything to do with it.”

“How do you know she’ll even want a dragon?” asked Bassington.

“Come now.”

“Alright, but Zurfina’s not going to stay in Brechalon if… when she gets out.  What if she takes it to Freedonia or Mirsanna?  We certainly don’t want either of them to have a pet dragon.”

“You don’t want that,” replied the old sorceress.  “I don’t care one way or the other.  But there is an easy answer.  Do you know the name Dechantagne?”

“Vaguely.”

“The Dechantagne family is planning to build a Brech colony in Mallon or some other distant place.  A Brech colony would be the best of both worlds.  The dragon would be safe from Brechalon’s enemies and Zurfina would be safe from you and your masters.”

“How do you know that she’ll go to this new colony?”

“I’ll put a bug in her ear.  I feel certain that when she hears about it, she’ll be very interested.”

“I’ll leave it to you then,” said Bassington, getting to his feet.  “And don’t even think about playing any games.  I know where that egg is at all times, and you know what will happen to you if you cross me.”

“I couldn’t if I wanted to,” said Madame de la Rosa, her eyes looking at some distant object.  “Its future, like my own, is foreordained.”

“And keep an eye on that pretty little apprentice,” he said as he headed for the door.  “She’s already steeling from you.”

“I know.”  The old woman cackled again.  “Oh, Wizard Bassington?”

“Yes?”

“Wouldn’t you like me to answer the question that everyone else who comes to see me wants answered?”

“I’m not everyone else.”  He crinkled his forehead.  “What is it?”

“How you will die.”

“Alright.  Tell me.”

“Wouldn’t it be ironic if you, who have dealt such a blow to dragons by stealing their eggs, were to be killed by a dragon?”

“No.  It would be, um… whatever the opposite of ironic is.”

“Well, this is how you will die.  You will be killed by a dragon.”

Bassington looked thoughtful.  “Good,” he said, and left.

A large square of sunlight filled the center of the cell floor, and sprawled naked in the center of that square, was Zurfina.  She lifted her head up just enough to look around and then she slammed it back against the stone floor.  Then she lifted it up and slammed it back down again: once, twice, three times, till there was a bloody spot on the floor and a bloody contusion on her forehead.  The walls of the cell had all returned to their original stone texture.  Not even the arcane bloody scrawling remained.

Schwarztogrube really was proof against magic.  She had summoned the most ancient magic in the universe, a feat only possible because of the eclipse, and had used it to release the dead demon-gods that waited beyond the edge of sanity.  But even they had not been able to completely pierce the veil.  Even that magic was not enough.  Without the power of the eclipse, it was not enough, and the eclipse had not lasted long enough.  And it would be a long time before the next full eclipse over Schwarztogrube.

“Eight thousand four hundred thirty seven days!” Zurfina wailed.  “Kafira’s bloody twat!”

She looked up at the ceiling as if she could see the sky beyond it and dared the Zaeri-Kafirite God and his crucified daughter to strike her dead.  Could even his magic penetrate this magic-proof hell?  Prove it!

* * * * *

“Is it over?” asked Senta.

“Yup.”  Maro stood up from the pinhole camera that he had made to watch the eclipse, in actuality nothing but a small pasteboard box with a hole cut in the side.  Shining in through the tiny hole, the image of the sun had been visible on the back side, and as the moon had moved across the sun, the small white orb in the box had been covered and then uncovered.

“That was pretty ace, wasn’t it?”

“I guess so,” said Senta.  “I wish we could have watched the real thing.”

“You’d be blinded.”

“Yeah.  I’m glad you were able to make it with only eight fingers.”

Maro nodded and looked at the three remaining fingers on his right hand.

“Maybe someday you’ll be really rich and you can pay a wizard to regrow your fingers for you,” offered Senta.

“Maybe I’ll get so used to having eight fingers I won’t want my other ones back.  I bet pretty soon I’ll be able to do my eight times as good as you can do your tens.”

“What’s seven times eight?”

“Fifty six.”

“Is that right?”

“Yup.”

“Wow.”  Senta looked impressed and she was.  “What are we doing now?”

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m going to play Mirsannan cricket at the park.  You can’t go because you’re a girl.”

“Then I’m going to the toy store and buy a doll.”

“You don’t have enough money to buy a doll.”

“Uh-huh.  For pretend.”

“Yeah, alright.”

“You know when you said my mom didn’t want me?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t understand it.”

“What?”

“Well, look at me.  I’m just cute.”

* * * * *

“Eight thousand four hundred thirty seven days,” Zurfina told herself.  “I’ll be old.  Well, I’ll be older.”

The sorceress was already far older than she appeared.  Thanks to magic used long ago, her body was much younger than it should have been.  But it was aging now.  Here in this place where magic had no hold, it was aging.  In eight thousand four hundred thirty seven days, she would most surely begin to look old—not as old as her true age, but old.  Too old.  She would have no youth, just as now she had no magic.  She couldn’t wait eight thousand four hundred thirty seven days.  She had to get out.  But she couldn’t use magic.  What could she use?  What did she have?

She had her youth… for now.  She had her beauty… for now.  She had this body, this body that men wanted… for now.  She had to use what she had.

The thing on the other side of the membrane between two worlds tested it once again, and a moment later it burst through.  It was long, thick tentacle, necrotic grey and covered with suction cups.  It searched along the stone floor of the cell, tentatively at first.  Then it touched the sorceress sitting naked and chanting and suddenly it shook and thrashed throughout the chamber.

“No!” shouted Nils Chapman and he jumped in front of Zurfina.  The tentacle found him and wrapped around his waist.

“No!” he cried again, and then it yanked him so violently that the snapping of his neck was clearly audible, as it pulled him beyond the shimmering veil.

Suddenly the room was filled with a hundred tentacles, touching every inch of the cell, caressing the woman like a demonic lover.  She slowly rose to her feet, the tips of the alien appendages touching every inch of her skin.

“Uuathanum eetarri blechtore maiius uusteros vadia jonai corakathum nit.”

A black fog poured into the cell from all four walls.  It filled up the tiny chamber and sprayed through the openings in the door, creeping down the corridors of the prison and into every room and every cell, every nook and every alcove.

* * * * *

“How is it?”

“It was ace,” replied Saba.  “Now I just want the sun to come back.”

“Don’t be like that.”  Yuah stepped down the stairs from the back door and put an arm around the boy’s shoulders.  “Let me take a look.”

Saba held the square of magic glass up and Yuah pressed her eye to it, leaning back to find the sun.  “There.  The sun’s starting to move out from behind the moon.  In a few minutes everything will be just like it was before.”

“Good.”

“You shouldn’t let Miss D ruin your fun.  She’s a right bitch, you know.”

“No, she’s not.”

“She is.”

“Well, it’s not her fault.”

“What do you mean?” asked Yuah.

“Nothing.  Here.  Do you want this?”  Saba pushed the magic glass into her hands and started up the stairs into the house.

* * * * *

 Zurfina smiled as the dead grey tentacles caressed her.

“Now I will leave and now I will lay my vengeance on this stony prison and this little kingdom and this world.”  She raised her arms and began her final incantation.  “Uuthanum…”

At that moment a thin streak of light entered from the small window high up on the wall.  It was so tiny that it might have gone totally unnoticed, had it not stuck the first and largest of the grey arms moving around the cell.  But the tiny sliver of sunlight burned through the tentacle like a hot ember through a slice of bread.  The great tentacle jerked and thrashed about the room and the other appendages did too, one of them striking the woman and throwing her halfway across the floor.  More sunlight entered through the window and all of the unearthly, unholy members were yanked back through the portals that shimmered where the walls of the cell had once been.

“No!  No, I’m not finished!” screamed Zurfina.

* * * * *

Yuah stood in the courtyard, idly staring up at the eclipse, and totally unaware that she was being watched from a window on the third floor.  Terrence watched her, appraising her in a way that he didn’t bother appraising other women.  There was no doubt that she was beautiful.  She wore no makeup, had her hair pulled back into a bun wrapped by a maid’s cap, and she wore a simple servant’s dress with minimal bustle and almost no color.  And yet she was one of the most beautiful women that he had ever seen.  There was no doubt about that.  Iolanthe was thought to be a great beauty and with her flawless skin and those striking aquamarine eyes, she was something special.  Yuah’s chocolate brown eyes had a tenderness and an innocence in them though that one would never find in his sister’s, and Yuah’s features were perfect.  She could have been one of those women that the great sculptors of old used as a model.  She was just the right height and she was well-proportioned.  So what if she was a bit skinny.

Yuah was almost perfect.  But Terrence didn’t want an almost perfect woman.  He had thrown away any chance at a wife and a family and a home.  That was not going to be his future.  His future was far away, in another time and another place, on a great field of purple flowers with a woman who was frighteningly perfect.  He turned away from the window and climbed back into bed, pulling the box filled with small blue vials from beneath the pillow.