Zeah had often wondered at the vagaries of fate which had colluded to make him the grandfather of anyone named Augustus Dechantagne.  Having served as the head butler for the Dechantagne family for most of his life, he had known two previous individuals of that name and had known of many more.  That he might find himself connected in any way other than as a servant to any one of them would have surprised him, but now he found himself related by blood to all of them.  The first Augustus Dechantagne that Zeah had personally known had been Iolanthe’s grandfather.  He was a stuffy, heavy-set old gentleman with grey sideboards and a sour look on his face—no doubt attributable to a series of ailments from gout to cancer of the stomach.  The second Augustus Dechantagne, whose name now adorned one of several city parks, had been Iolanthe’s younger brother.  A happy and friendly young man, he had never been too far away from a pretty girl or an open bottle, and had been gifted with the good fortune to die heroically in battle while he was still young, well-thought of, and handsome.  And now here was Zeah’s own grandchild—Augustus Marek Virgil Dechantagne, a precocious boy who looked so much like his father that his mother sometimes burst into tears just looking at him.  It was odd, Zeah thought, that though he had been a servant of the other two Augustus Dechantagnes, it was this one to whom he found it most difficult to say no.

“The woods” was a strip of land along the coast east of the promontory which had been left in a more or less natural state.  Fine homes on large estates, such as the one Zeah had acquired by marrying Egeria, could be found to the west, even larger and more majestic mansions, such as the Governor’s were found to the south, and a large neighborhood of smaller homes, mostly belonging to Zaeri refugees from Freedonia stood to the east, but the woods remained a kind of nature preserve between.  And to the children’s eyes it was a mysterious forest primeval.  Zeah had taken the children on a walk through the trees many times, teaching them to identify the trees by the shape of their leaves and needles; and the birds by their call.  The woods were full of cormorants, snipes, rails, and wrens, and near the coastal edge: godwits, grebes, puffins, and pelicans.  There were also the peculiar birds which made Birmisia so strange: microraptors, caudipteryx, buitreraptors, bambiraptors, meilong, and mahakala.  There were velociraptors too, but as long as they weren’t hunting in a pack, adult humans at least were safe.

Zeah led the children along the path in a line, until they reached an area with large exposed tree roots, when he picked up and carried Terra.  Augie and Iolana followed hand in hand.  The sun filtered through the tops of the trees, creating a patchwork of sunlight across the forest floor.  They marched along until they came to the edge of the woods and to the beach just beyond.  Here Zeah set his granddaughter back down.

Unlike the coast to the west of the peninsula which was rocky, the beach here was a strip of remarkably white sand fifteen to twenty feet wide.  The children all took off their shoes so that they could feel the sand between their toes as they walked, and after a few steps, Zeah did the same.  It wasn’t long before Augie had found a shell, and then a sand dollar.  Then they were all scurrying down the beach, collecting treasures as they went.  All three children soon had their arms full, though Terra managed to drop more than she held onto.

All three children were so engrossed in their beachcombing that the rest of the world was forgotten.  It had been a long time since Zeah had been a child though, and for him the rest of the world was omnipresent.  So when a figure stepped out from among the trees a hundred yards ahead, he saw it immediately.  It was a bird, but not a skittish little beast like those they had seen along the way.  It was a deinonychus, the larger cousin of the velociraptor.  It was almost man-sized though it walked with its nose near the ground.  Even bent over, it was taller than Zeah’s waist and more than seven feet from the front of its teeth-filled mouth to the tip of its tufted tail.  It was covered in brown feathers.  Deinonychus were common, but seldom came this close to town anymore.  This one was beachcombing, and it had found what it would surely consider treasures.

“Children,” snapped Zeah, in a forceful voice he seldom used.  “To me, now!”

Iolana moved toward him without stopping to think about it.  Augie looked up at his grandfather in surprise.  Little Terra looked up, but not at Zeah.  She looked up to see the deinonychus as its head snapped to look in the direction of the man’s voice.  She let out a little squeak.  Children learned early on in Port Dechantagne the large, many-toothed birds such as the velociraptor, deinonychus, and utahraptor were not to be trifled with.

The deinonychus took only a second to recognize its prey.  It would not have attempted a grown man, unless starving.  But the young ones of any warm-blooded species were a common quarry, and two of the three youngsters seemed to have strayed beyond the protective radius of the adult.  With a quick hop to bring it up to its full speed, it ran across the sand on legs that would have looked like giant chicken legs, were it not for the awful five inch sickle claws pointing up.  The middle sized child moved toward the adult, leaving the youngest alone on the beach.  The deinonychus zeroed in on her.

It was late into the night when Senta at last entered her front door into a darkened room.  She closed the door behind her and headed toward the stairs to the upper four levels of the dwelling.  She had just put her foot on the bottom step when Zurfina spoke from a darkened corner.

“How was dinner?”

“It was fine,” said Senta, turning to face her mistress.

“Good.”  Zurfina stood up from the chair in the corner and stepped forward into the moonlight streaming in through the window.  Senta wasn’t surprised to see that she was traipsing around the house naked.  She looked appreciatively at Zurfina’s form, seemingly untouched by age.  But then apparently Zurfina wasn’t really all that old.  Senta had often imagined that she was hundreds or even thousands of years old, protected by magic from the degradation of time.  But if Bassington was right, and Zurfina had been a young adult when they had met, she couldn’t be much over forty—maybe not even forty.

“I’m not as young as he thinks,” said the elder sorceress.  “Nor as old as you think.”

“Don’t read my mind, Fina.”

“Did he put doubts into your head, Pet?”

“He put questions in my head.”

“Go on then.  Ask your questions.”

“You’re not mad that I let Smedley loose?”

“Pish-posh.  If I hadn’t expected him to get loose sooner or later, I wouldn’t have left him bound by anything as flimsy as a rope.”

“Were you in love with him?”

“Yes,” replied Zurfina matter-of-factly.

“He’s kind of ugly.”

“That’s not a question.”

“What did you see in him, then?”

“It’s generally been my observation that women will accept one of four things in a man—if he has more than one, then all the better: looks, sexual prowess, power, or wealth.”

“Which did he have?” wondered Senta.

“More than one.”

Senta paused, and then rolled her eyes.

“Don’t ask the question if you don’t want to know the answer, Pet.”

“How did you escape Schwarztogrube?”

“Don’t ask the question if you don’t want to know the answer.”

“It must have been epic magic.”

Zurfina’s face turned hard.  “It wasn’t magic.  There was no magic at all in that place.  I had to use the most mundane means at my disposal.”

“What did you have to do?”

“Things…disgusting things… with disgusting men.  Of course, what I did to the place afterwards… that was epic magic.  You would have loved it, Pet.  It was more exciting than the falling star I brought down on Suusthek; more beautiful too.”

“What was it?”

“It was wild magic.  I don’t really know what else to call it.  It almost killed me too, but it was worth it.  Someday I’m going to use that spell again.”

Senta took a deep breath.  “Don’t you worry that you might unleash magical forces that even you can’t control?”

Zurfina waved dismissively.

“I miss Bessemer,” said Senta.

“That too is not a question.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

“He’s been gone for months.”

“He’ll be home soon,” said Zurfina.

“You’re sure?”

“Of course.  I have a feeling for such things.  Now, was there anything you wanted to tell me?”