Senta closed the door behind her and stomped the damp snow off of her overs. It was getting near dusk and the lower room of the tower was filled with shadows. Pointing at the lamp beside the chair, she brought it to life with a word. Several other lamps followed. The room, now bathed in warm light revealed its contents, including the steel dragon lying in the corner.

“Hey,” Senta called. “You’ve been asleep for two days. Wake up.”

Bessemer opened his eyes and yawned. “What?”

“You sleep too much, that’s all.”

“I am a dragon.”

Senta plopped down in the chair and kicked her overs off, followed by her shoes and her socks. Tucking her legs up under her, she wrapped her coat tightly around her.

“It’s too cold.”

The dragon rose from his spot by the stove and climbed up onto the chair. He draped his body over the chair back and wrapped his tail around her. Curling his long neck around so that he could look her in the face, he asked. “What is the matter?”

“I worked all day making those potions.” She pointed to several small vials on the kitchen table. “So when I finally get a chance to go out and play, everyone has gone home for the night. What am I supposed to do now?”

“Your lessons?”

“Oh, you’re a big help. Why don’t you do my lessons if they’re so great?”

“I do.”

Senta stuck out her tongue. Bessemer mirrored her action. She frowned at him for a moment, but then grabbed him around the neck and pulled his scaly face to hers.

“I’m sorry. I’m just bored and tired, and I’m really ready for winter to be over. It’s too damn cold. By the way, where is Zurfina? She’s supposed to tell me whether my dionoserin is any good.”

“Upstairs.”

“Where upstairs?”

“Her room.”

“Is she alone?”

“No.”

“Is Jex with her?”

The dragon nodded.

“Again?”

He nodded again. Then he climbed down from the chair and headed for the door.

“Happy hunting,” said Senta, though she herself seemed anything but happy.

“Toodle pip,” said Bessemer, and then he was gone.

Senta made her way up the stairs, past the rooms designated for Bessemer but almost never used, up to her own room. She peeled off her clothes and ran a hot bath for herself. Once she was clean and warm, she put on her warmest night clothes and headed back down to the kitchen for something to eat. She stoked the fire in the stove and added two logs before heading for the froredor. But something stopped her.

Sitting there on the kitchen table, just where she had left in that afternoon, was the small clear vial filled with silvery liquid. Dionoserin. A bottle just that big sold for thousands of marks. Of course it was illegal in Brechalon, but they weren’t in Brechalon anymore. Did it work? Did she grind the walnuts up enough? Did she maintain her aura? Taking two quick steps to the table, she snatched up the bottle, pulled off the cork stopper, and drank it down. What’s the worst that could happen?

“Well, I could die,” she said aloud.

She didn’t wait to see if she would die though. She ran up the two flights of stairs to her room, and then crept up one more flight stopping just before she reached the level. She slowly peered over the top step and into Zurfina’s room. She had a good idea what to expect. Senta had lived with the sorceress almost two years now. During that time Zurfina had entertained a number of male admirers.

The first thing that Senta saw was Mr. Jex, standing in the middle of the room. She was happy to see that he was fully clothed. The second thing Senta saw was Zurfina, and she was not. She was posed upon her bed, her head hanging over the edge, so that she was looking at Mr. Jex and everything else upside down. Her blond hair draped down almost to the floor, hiding her little bald spot. Her crossed legs were sticking straight up in the air. Mr. Jex stared at her for a moment before turning back to a large canvas and poking at it with the paint brush. He was standing between Senta and the painting, but she didn’t need to see it to know what it was. Zurfina was having another nude painting done of herself.

Senta slowly climbed the last four steps and walked around Mr. Jex so that she could see the painting. He really was quite good.

“What do you think Pet?” asked Zurfina, without moving from her pose.

Startled, Jex turned around to look at her. He had a small paint pallet in his right hand.

“I think it’s time for you to go,” said Senta.

Jex looked like he was going to say something, but then stopped and setting his pallet and brush on the floor, turned and went swiftly down the stairs. Just as the sound of the front door closing echoed back up, Zurfina sat upright and in a fluid cat-like motion got up from the bed.

“Put on some clothes, Fina.”

The sorceress made the smallest of gestures with her right hand and suddenly she was clad in a long, silky, black dressing gown.

“Are you ready for something to eat, Pet?”

“Yes,” replied Senta, a sly smile creeping onto her face. “I don’t think you should magic it though. I think it would be nice if you made me supper with your own hands.”

Zurfina walked slowly across the room and then bent down so that their noses were just inches apart.

“It seems to me like the Drache Girl is getting a bit big for her knickers,” she said without a hint of a smile.

“Um… my dionoserin didn’t work?”

“It worked. Did you not see Mr. Jex scurry out of the room like a frightened buitreraptor?”

“But you’re not going to make me supper, are you?”

“Did you actually believe that you could dominate me with a potion? Me? ME!”

“No supper then?”

Kendric was a very old lizardman. No one knew exactly how old, and that included Kendric himself. He had moved out of his home in the lizardman village of Tsuus, and had moved into a shack behind Mr. Darwin’s store. When it had become obvious that Kendric knew Birmisia better than anyone, man or lizardman, the humans had begun coming to him for his services as a guide. He had been hired by explorers, cartographers, traders, naturalists, and workmen laying the new town water lines. He was so sought after that he had taken on several young lizzie protégés. Saba found the shriveled old creature, sitting on a log and carving a piece of bone with a small flint knife.

“Good morning Kendric,” he said, placing his hand to his neck, palm out, in the lizzie respectful greeting.

The creature returned the greeting and then slowly raised himself to his feet. Stooped over at the shoulders, he was quite a bit shorter than Saba. In a few places his skin was the same light olive that it had once been all over, but now in many places it had turned black or sickly grey. Much of his face, belly, and shoulders were criss-crossed by jagged scars.

“I need a guide to take hunters to Iguanodon Heath,” said Saba, and then pausing for a moment. “Two would be better.”

The old lizzie nodded and then hissed out several words in his own language. The door of the shack popped open and a young female rushed out to take her place beside Kendric. She listened as the old fellow finished whatever he was saying and then turned and spoke to Saba in the best Brech he had heard any of the natives speak.

“You want two guides? For how long?”

“One guide will lead the hunters and their lizzies wherever they want to go in search of game. I imagine it will be about four weeks, but maybe longer. The other guide will come with me and three other soldiers. We’ll go out with the hunters and then come right back. Maybe five days. Tell him we want someone reliable.”

“Kendrikhastu understands you, but he does not speak the hoonan tongue.”

Kendric spoke again and the female once again translated.

“He says two thousand coins for hunters. He says he is friend to soldiers so only seventy five coins for you.”

Saba knew the coins that the lizzies wanted were copper pfennigs, so the total price was only twenty marks, seventy five P. It was far more than most lizzies made. The thirty laborers Shrubb was hiringd to carry the gear would make only ten P a day each. On the other hand, Harhoff would pay it and not think anything of it.

“Will you be one of the guides, Kendric?”

Kendric said something and then hissed mirthfully.

“The elder cannot do such a journey, even just five days. I guide you and another guide the hunters.”

“That’s fine. We meet at first light tomorrow outside of building six on the militia base. You know where that is?”

Cissy left the parlor, passed through the foyer, and picked up the bag of rock salt by the door before going outside. Once in the garden, she began walking up and down, spreading the salt on the cobblestone paths and the stepping stones. She looked up at the dark clouds moving in from the north. If Toss had been there, he would have been able to tell her if this was going to be the last storm of the cold season. He wasn’t there, and it was unlikely that Cissy would ever see him again.

Just then Mr. Streck walked through the front gate. Cissy was about to turn around so that she could go inside and inform Mr. Dechantagne of the Freedonain’s arrival, when she saw a bright glint shoot across the otherwise gloomy sky. The object, which it took no great intellect to recognize as the steel dragon, swooped downward. Streck had taken four steps into the yard, when the beast shot by his face so fast that he could not have seen what it was. Cissy was watching it as it sped by, and could tell not only what it was, but could see that it was carrying something wrapped in white paper, clutched tightly to its chest. The dragon was already out of sight when the Freedonian let out a blood-curdling scream. Looking back at the man, the lizzie could see cuts across his nose and both cheeks that suddenly began to bleed profusely.

She hesitated as red blood oozed from between the fingers held to his face. Saba Colbshallow suddenly appeared at the gate and rushed to the man’s assistance. He took him by the shoulder and rushed him toward the house. Cissy quickly took Streck’s other shoulder. Before they reached the steps, Streck’s legs gave out beneath him and he crumpled into half consciousness. Tisson rushed down the steps and took his legs while Saba and Cissy carried him by the arms.

Once inside, Streck was rushed to the dining room, where amid much shouting and hissing, he was laid out on the great table. Mrs. Colbshallow arrived from the kitchen and immediately ordered that clean linens and tincture of iodine be brought. Just as Clegg was arriving with the requested items, Mrs. Dechantagne Calliere stepped into the room carrying a brown bottle of healing draught. Streck’s face, upon examination was seen to have five razor thin slices, quite deep, across its width.

“Yadira, send someone to fetch Dr. Kelloran,” said the Governor as she leaned over the wounded man and carefully poured the potion onto the cuts.

“I don’t need a doctor,” said Streck.

“Be quiet. This is your face. We need to make sure that it isn’t scarred.”

Clegg was sent as directed and by the time he returned with the doctor, Streck, no longer bleeding, had been moved to the parlor.

Cissy had seen Dr. Kelloran before. She was easily recognized for her more pronounced female characteristics. She usually also, as she now did, carried her small black bag. Sitting down on the sofa next to Streck, she carefully examined his face.

“The healing draught seems to be knitting the skin together nicely, but I still want to put a stitch or two on this nose.”

“Ouch!” cried Streck, as the stitches were sewn. “Damn Birmisian birds. It flew by so fast I didn’t even see it.”

“Birmisian birds don’t fly, at least none that I’ve heard of,” said Mr. Dechantagne from the doorway. His wife was standing with him. “We have a few large flying reptiles, but I’ve never heard of one attacking a person.”

“Saba?” asked the governor.

“Sorry, I didn’t see it. I heard someone cry out and came running, but whatever it was, was gone before I got there. But your lizzie was in the yard. Maybe she saw something.”

“Cissy?” asked Mrs. Colbshallow. Cissy took a step back as all of the human eyes in the room focused on her. “Cissy, what did you see?”

“It was the little god,” she replied quietly.

“Little god?”

“She means the dragon,” said Mrs. Dechantagne. “Zurfina’s little dragon.”

“It seems, Mr. Steck,” said Governor Dechantagne Calliere, “that you have made a powerful enemy. Just what have you done to Zurfina to raise her ire?”

“I have not even seen the woman.”

“He didn’t do anything to Zurfina,” said Saba, frowning. “I’ll wager he didn’t do anything to the dragon either. But he has had at least one well-known row with Senta.”

“That child belongs in an institution,” said Streck.

No one responded. Dr. Kelloran having finished, packed up her little black bag and the others began to disperse to other parts of the house. Cissy headed for the stairs, going up to the nursery.

“What are you doing out here?” asked a voice.
Senta turned around to find Graham looking oddly at her. They were at the edge of the roadway in front of the Dechantagne mansion. Senta had spent most of the morning watching for any sign of Streck, but so far he hadn’t shown his Freedonian face.
“Nothing. What are you doing?”
“Well, I was looking for you. I thought we could go over to Hertzal’s house and have a nice low tea.” He held up a canvas bag in one hand. “I brought bread and butter.”
“Where did you get butter?” Senta’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t steal it, did you?”
“How in the name of Kafira can you ask me that?” Graham squared his shoulders and stood up as tall as he could. “When did you ever hear of Graham Dokkins stealing anything?”
“I’m sorry. Where did you get it then?”
“My Ma sent it,” he replied, not at all mollified. “We had an extra tin and she said I could share it with the Hertlings.”
“That was nice.”
“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” he said, starting down the road.
“I said I was sorry,” Senta said, stepping quickly to keep up. “I could make it up to you.”
“How would you do that?”
“I could give you a kiss…”
“That magic is making you lose your mind, that’s what,” he said, not slowing down.
“Alright then, I have a secret mission that I might let you help me with.”
“What secret mission?” he asked, glancing at her but not stopping.
“I’ll tell you, Hero, and Hertzal together.”
“Why? Did you brass them off too?”
“Say, how come you mother is sending butter over? I thought your folks didn’t like Zaeri,” said Senta, changing the subject.
“We’re not like that Freedonian wanker. We don’t call people dogs for no reason.”
“Oh, you heard about that, eh?”
“That’s right. If he’d called Hertzal a dog in front of me, I would have popped him the breadbox.” The quickest way to anger Graham was to threaten his friends. “Besides, Ma’s grown quite fond of Honor, really. They’re in the Ladies’ Auxiliary together.”
They arrived at the Hertling home in short order, but when they knocked on the door there was no answer.
“You don’t suppose they’re at shrine, do you?” wondered Graham, looking around.
“Only if they’re the only ones.” Senta pointed to neighbors working on their houses or in their yards, all of whom were Zaeri.
A moment later though, the mystery was solved. The three Hertling siblings came walking down the road from the east. Hero and Hertzal carried large baskets filled with foliage, while their older sister had something that looked like a cricket bat casually slung over her shoulder. The twins saw their friends and waved, calling out greetings. Hero ran ahead and Senta met her at the road, giving her a great hug. Though he waved to his friends, Graham’s eyes were fixed on the instrument which Honor carried. When she was close enough that he could see it clearly, he found that it was not a cricket bat at all, but a lizzie sword. The main hand to hand combat weapon of the lizardmen was a thick sword made of wood but encrusted all around the edges with flint, obsidian, or sometimes even shark’s teeth. This one had shiny black obsidian flakes that appeared razor sharp.
“Where’d you get that?” asked Graham enviously.
“It was a gift,” Honor replied. “The chief of Tserich gave one to each of the members of the Colonial Council. I imagine most of them are hanging on display somewhere, but I like to carry mine when I have to go away from the town.”