“What do you suppose this is supposed to be?” asked Arthur McTeague.

“I suppose it was a city a long time ago,” replied Augie Dechantagne, with an emphasis on the second word.

The two lieutenants and the full platoon of soldiers were standing on a smooth surface of stone slabs that had been fitted together.  There were steps here and there, breaking the area up into several terraces of varying heights.  In a few places there were piles of stone that might have indicated that a wall had once stood there, but there were no buildings.  On the far side of the clearing were a series of seven large stones.  Each stood about eight feet tall and they were roughly oval in shape.  At either end of the row were the remains of other similar stones that had once stood in the line, but had long ago crumbled, either from exposure to the elements or from ancient vandalism.  Though those that remained were weathered and worn, one could see that each had been carved long ago to represent a dragon.

A loud squawk announced the arrival of eight or ten creatures that burst out of the trees and ran across the ancient stones.  They were only slightly larger than the average chicken and were covered in hairy feathers, though their faces looked all too reptilian and their mouths were full of needle sharp teeth.

“Now, are those birds or dinosaurs?” asked McTeague.

Augie shrugged, but pulled out a book from his tunic.

“And what’s that?”

“That my friend is called a book.  People, not artillery officers mind, but other people, sometimes read them.”

McTeague gave him a withering look.  “What book is it, you great tosser.”

“It’s Colonel Mormont’s journal.  My brother sent it to me.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of the chap.  He was here in Birmisia a few years ago, right?”

Augie didn’t reply.  He was busy flipping through the pages.

“What does he say about those little buggers?”

“Hold on a minute.  I’m looking.”

McTeague folded his arms and waited.  Several of the men were chasing the small creatures around the edge of the clearing.

“Here it is.  Here it is.  I knew I recognized them.”  Augie held up the open page to a drawing that did indeed bear a strong resemblance to the creatures in question.

“Buitreraptors,” McTeague read.  “Why do you suppose they all have to have such strange names?

“You know how these naturalist types are.  Besides, if you just went with ‘chicken-lizard’ and ‘turkey lizard’ you’d soon run out of names.  Face it.  That’s really what they look like.”

A much louder squawk than those heard before announced to all the soldiers that something larger and more frightening than the skittish buitreraptors had arrived.  A monster burst out of the brush and ran toward the tiny creatures.  It was a bird lizard too, covered with feathers ranging from a deep turquoise on the head to a light green around the legs, but it didn’t fit Augie’s earlier nomenclature, if for no other reason than size.  Its body was as large as the biggest horse, its head bobbing back and forth about seven feet above the ground, but it’s long, feathered tail stretched straight out behind it to make it more than twenty feet long.  Though the puny wings would have made any attempt to fly laughable, the clawed fingers and the huge sickle-shaped clawed toes prevented any such jocularity.

The monster apparently had been stalking its tiny cousins through the woods, but now that it saw the human beings, it abruptly changed its targets.  Why chase after a tiny morsel when a much juicier and slower prey could be had?  It needed only to shift its weight and maintain the same stride to put it on its new trajectory.  With a leap into the air that amazed everyone watching, the beast flew more than forty feet to land on top of Private Holloway, clawing him and bending down to give him a killing bite before anyone could react.  A second later the beast was peppered with more than twenty shots fired from all over the clearing.

“Kafira damn-it!” Augie shouted.  “Color Sergeant!

“Sir.”  Color Sergeant Bourne ran toward him and came to attention.

“Set up a perimeter watch.  Make sure all the men have chambered rounds.  And prepare a burial detail.”  The Color Sergeant hurried off to his duties.  Augie turned to McTeague.  “Come on.”

The two lieutenants stepped over to the giant bird and Private Holloway.  It was only too obvious that he was beyond hope.  His head had been bitten half through, though his extremities twitched slightly.

“Nothing to be done,” said McTeague.

“Not for Holloway,” Augie agreed.

* * * * *

It was a large spider crawling across his face that woke Nils Chapman up.  It tickled his right nostril and then continued on its way down his right cheek and over his right ear.  He turned his head and watched it as it went over the edge of the mattress.  He didn’t want to get up.  He wanted to count—one thousand nine hundred seventy nine… No!  No, he wasn’t going to do that.  He felt sick to his stomach.  He had felt sick to his stomach ever since he had seen the impossible undulating movement of the wall in prisoner eighty-nine’s cell.  He hadn’t gone back to the cell since, but the uneasiness, the slowly creeping nausea did not go away.

He turned over and looked toward Karl Drury’s bunk.  The sadistic guard was not there.  On the one hand, this made Chapman happy, because he found that he was increasingly happy whenever Drury was not around.  On the other hand, if he wasn’t here and he wasn’t on duty, he was probably in eighty-nine’s cell, abusing her.  Chapman shuddered.  He had become increasingly sickened by Drury’s treatment of women in general and this one in particular, but now he felt even more ill at the thought of the cell itself, and the wall, and the strange writing, and the undulating movement… He shuddered.

He sat up and rolled out of bed.  Taney was the only other guard in the bunkroom.

“Where’s Drury?” he asked.

“The filthy bastard’s got duty at the loading dock,” came the reply.  “I wouldn’t want to be one of the boys working down there.”

“Somebody should stop him.”

“Go ahead,” said Taney, “if you want a knife between your ribs.”

Chapman didn’t want a knife between his ribs, but he didn’t know what else to do, so he went down the ancient spiral stone steps to the docks.  Six boys were unloading a skiff, but Chapman didn’t see any guards.  But as he stepped out into the open, he noticed something strange.  There was a shadow in the middle of the dock where a shadow had no right to be.  As he stepped closer, he realized it wasn’t a shadow—not in the real sense of the word.  It was a man-shaped blob of shadow, occupying the same area that a man would occupy had he been standing there, but with no mass and no substance and completely translucent.

“What is that?” he asked.

The boys stopped and looked at him.

“What is that?” he asked again.

“What is what?” asked one of the boys.

“Where’s Drury?” he asked, his voice rising.

“He’s standin’ right in front of you, you great tosser,” the boy replied, pointing at the shadowy blob.

“That’s not Drury!  I don’t know what that is!”

Turning, Chapman ran up the stairs, oblivious to the open-mouthed stares of the boys.  He ran past the bunkroom and down the corridor to the north wing.  He ran into the door of prisoner eighty-nine’s cell, banging it with his fist, as if she could open it from the inside.  Finally he rummaged through his pockets for the great key and unlocked the door, rushing inside.

Chapman screamed.  Karl Drury was hanging, naked, upside down from the ceiling.  His neck had been sliced open and his blood had been drained into the piss pot on the floor beneath him.  His gut had been sliced open and long lengths of bowel and a few internal organs hung down like ghastly wind chimes.

Chapman screamed again, as he felt the feather light touch of the woman on his shoulder.

“I needed more ink.”  Her sultry voice cut into his soul like a knife cutting through pudding.

She stepped past him and picked up the bucket of blood, tip-toeing like a ballerina to the north wall of the cell, where she dipped her fingers into the gore and began painting strange images onto the stone blocks.  As she drew, she spoke to herself.  Chapman didn’t need to hear what she was saying.  It had been bouncing around in his head since he had gotten up.

“One thousand nine hundred seventy nine days.”

“Stop it!” he shouted.  “Stop it!  Stop counting!”

The woman turned toward him and grinned fiercely.  “Not much longer now— just a few more days.  Go on back now.  Don’t want to draw suspicion.”

He crept out of the chamber like a dog that had been beaten.  He didn’t go back to the south wing though, instead climbing the stone stairs until he found an alcove with a small opening to the outside world.  Here he dropped to the ground and curled up into a ball and wept.

Chapter Six: Blood

Yuah Korlann woke so suddenly that for a moment she didn’t recognize where she was.  She was of course, in her own bed, in her own small room, in the servant’s quarters of Number 1 Avenue Dragon—in Brech… in Greater Brechalon.  She threw her legs over the side of the bed and stuck them into her house shoes.  What a queer dream that had been.

She had been walking down a road.  It had been winter.  Patches of snow lay here and there on the ground and some of the trees were bare, although there were many evergreens.  She had been bundled up in a thick fur coat, far more luxurious and expensive than anything she would ever really be able to afford.  She even had a fur muff.  The most extraordinary thing though, wasn’t where she was, but who or more precisely what, she was with.  It was an alligator, walking upright and wearing a yellow evening gown.  As they walked along, they talked about the strangest things: the state of the Kingdom, literature, and religion.

Reaching for the glass of water on her nightstand, Yuah saw the open book lying there.  She had been reading Night of the Snake by Ebrahim Detsky.  That was the problem.  She ought not to read books like that right before bed.

Getting up and throwing the housecoat over her nightdress, she shuffled out the door, down the hallway and into the servant’s hall.  It was just light enough to see and she realized it was a quarter past four when the wall clock sounded four sharp chimes.

Padding her way on into the kitchen, she thought about having a cup of tea, but that would have meant starting a fire in the oven.  Instead, she opened the door of the icebox and withdrew a glass bottle of milk—one of six, and got a glass from the cupboard.  She poured her milk, put the bottle back, and carried the glass into the servant’s hall, where she sat down at the great table.  As she drank her milk, she could hear the clock tick-tocking in the other room.  It seemed to get louder and louder.

“You’re up early.”  At the sound of the voice Yuah jumped, dribbling milk down her chin.

“Heavenly days!  What’s wrong with you?”  Both the exclamation and the question were out of her mouth before she turned around to find Terrence staring wryly at her.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Don’t look at me!  I’m practically naked!”

“You’re kidding, right?  You’ve got more clothes on than an Argrathian virgin.”  He stepped past her and made his way into the kitchen.

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” said Yuah.

“About Argrathians or about virgins?  Shouldn’t there be some cheese in the icebox?  Oh, here we go.  Now where’s the breadbox?”

“Why didn’t you just press your buzzer?”

“What?”  He poked his head back in through the doorway.

“You have a buzzer in your room next to the bed.  When you press it, whoever’s on duty, I think it’s Eunice, will bring you whatever you want.”

“When did I get one of those?”

“Your sister had it put in a few months ago.”

“How much do you suppose that cost?  Oh, here’s the bread.”

“You would think that you would know.  After all, it is your money she’s spending.”

There was a clattering of knives and plates, but Terrence said nothing else until he emerged back from the kitchen with a cheese sandwich on a plate in one hand and what was left of Yuah’s bottle of milk in the other.

“If I’m not worried about it, you shouldn’t be,” he said, sitting down.

He took a bite of sandwich and they were both quiet for a moment.

“That’s your problem, you know,” Yuah said quietly.  “You never worry about anything.”

“You’re overstepping yourself, little maid.  It’s not your job to worry about what my problem is.”  He drained the milk bottle and set it down, hard, on the table.

“Somebody has to.  You’re hiding out somewhere poisoning yourself, aren’t you?”

“Shut the hell up,” he said, getting to his feet.

“You’re not taking care of yourself and nobody else is either.  I nursed you when you were little, but who’s looking after you now?”

“And just who did you think you were, when you were nursing me?  My sister or my mother?”

Yuah flushed.

“I see,” Terrence stepped close and leaned down to look her in the face.  “You thought you were my woman.  Well, you’re not.”

Yuah felt tears flooding unbidden down her cheeks.  She wanted to scream that she wouldn’t marry an idiot like him in a million years, but all that came out was “I hate you!”

“Yeah, welcome to the club.”  He stood up and tossed the sandwich onto the table, where it fell apart and scattered.

Yuah jumped to her feet and rushed toward the doorway, pausing just long enough to yell once more at Terrence.  She wanted to tell him that he hated himself so much that he would never be able to love anyone else, but all that came out was “You can’t have me.”

“Why would I want a skinny little bint like you?” shouted Terrence after her.

Minutes before her brother had arrived in the parlor, Iolanthe had indeed been thinking over the past.  It was not the same tragedy that Terrence had been reliving though.  She knew that Terrence carried a scar from the murder of their mother, though she didn’t quite understand exactly what it was or how deep it cut.  She had her own, more recent scars—scars scarcely ten years old.

Iolanthe had continued to live in her father’s house near Shopton, long after her brothers had gone away to military school.  By her seventeenth year she had grown into a strikingly beautiful young lady.  Not one to stay in the brooding mansion, she spent her days happily riding across the countryside.  It was here that she met a young man named Jolon Bendrin.  At first, she found him attractive.  He certainly found her so.  They met several times and talked and she enjoyed his company.

Then one day, he changed.  They both attended a party at the Banner residence.  Afterwards they had walked in the garden.  Nothing seemed strange.  When he kissed her, she had let him.  But then he forced her down onto a stone bench and reached under her dress.  She only realized the danger of her situation when he put his hand over her mouth.  He raped her.  Then week after week, he did it again.  She tried to avoid him but she couldn’t.  He seemed to be everywhere.  What could she do?  She wasn’t strong enough to fight him off, and there was no male protector for her—her father was in a drunken stupor and her brothers were both away.  And who else could she tell, without disgracing herself?  When she turned eighteen, she left Mont Dechantagne, moving to Brech, and leaving her father to waste away by himself.

* * * * *

Iolanthe took another sip of iced tea and looked at her brother sitting across from her.  No, there was no point in living in the past.  One must look toward the future.  There was a great deal to do.  But there was always the possibility that Jolon Bendrin might come to Brech.  What would she do then?

Terrence had no idea what day it was.  At least he knew it was Pentuary.  Oh, yes.  He knew that.  It was starting to get hot and nobody wanted to spend their days indoors.  That was where he had spent most of the last week though—holed up in to the back part of the house “seeing.”  During that time he had very little food and almost no real sleep.  He looked at the collection of tiny bottles in the wooden case.  He had already finished one and all but finished another.  He tucked the box under the bed and left the room, carefully locking the door behind him.  The empty hallway and the stuffy air gave him a strange sense of déjà vu.

* * * * *

It had been Pentuary too when it happened, sixteen years before.  Iolanthe, Augie, Yuah, and Dorah were sitting in a circle on the floor around Master Akalos, who was making them recite the names of the books in the Modest Scriptures.  That two of them were the children of aristocrats and two were the children of servants made no difference to Master Akalos.  That three of them were Kafirites and one of them was a Zaeri did, and the tutor gained a perverse delight in drilling them on the set of scriptures that the Zaeri did not believe in.  Terrence, who was watching from beyond the door, could see the queer laughter hiding behind the man’s eyes.  Both twelve year olds, Terrence and Enoch, had finished their lessons for the day.  Enoch had hurried off to his chores in the stable, while Terrence had made himself a sandwich.

He leaned against the doorframe and took a bite.  From this location he could see both the other children at their studies through the door and the carriage sitting in front of the house through the open window.  His mother’s friend, Simon Mudgett, was visiting again.  His carriage was out front, the horses still harnessed.  He squeezed the last two or three bites together into his mouth.

“Julien, Wind, March, Magic, Raina, Egeria, Dallarians, Zaeri…” the four children recited, almost together.  Iolanthe missed Raina and went right from Magic to Egeria.  Yuah was determined to recite the loudest.  Augie was moving his mouth without actually saying anything at all.  All of them were casting envious glances at the scant breeze blowing in through the window.

Then Terrence saw a movement out of the corner of his eye.  It was his father down the hallway.  Quickly heading down the hall after him, Terrence saw the shotgun in his father’s hand.  This was a great opportunity.  Terrence liked shooting as much as any boy.  But his father was going the wrong way.  He was headed up the stairs.  Had he already been shooting?  Was he going to clean his shotgun now?

Terrence followed, now just a few feet behind his father, and as the elder Dechantagne opened the door to his wife’s bedroom, Terrence followed right on in.  Then it was as if everything was in slow motion.  Terrence’s mother was in bed, the bedclothes covering only the bottom half of her naked body.  Next to her was Simon Mudgett.

With agonizing slowness, Lucius Dechantagne raised the shotgun to his shoulder and fired.  A red spray blossomed from the bare chest of Iphigenia Dechantagne, covering the bed in blood.  A second shotgun blast hit the bed just to her left, but Mudgett was already on the floor running for the window.  The snap of the shotgun being opened was drowned out by the crash as he broke the glass from the already open pane, crashing through and falling naked and bloodied from the sloped roof to the grounds below.   Terrence’s father snapped the weapon shut again, having replaced the two shells.  He walked to the window, only to find nothing to shoot at.  He turned around to find his wife, her mouth and eyes wide open as she gurgled a few last dying breaths and his twelve year old son, his face gone white, staring at each other.  He shot his wife once more in the chest, turned and gave the boy a long look, and then turned back and shot her in the head, leaving a corpse that no longer at all resembled a living human being.

* * * * *

Terrence walked into the parlor to find it surprisingly cool.  Iolanthe was there sipping an iced beverage.  The outside of the tall glass was covered with beads of condensation.  She looked up casually, but narrowed her eyes at his appearance.

“What have you been doing?” she asked.

“What are you drinking?”

“Iced tea.”

“Really?  Is it any good?”

“Very refreshing.  Would you like one?”

He nodded, taking a nearby chair, and she waved to a servant standing in the doorway, who then hurried off after the drink.

“What have you been doing, I ask again?”

“Reminiscing.”

“I have been as well.”  She gestured to the family scrapbook on the divan next to her.

“You should burn that.”

“We can’t do that.  But you are right, dear brother.  We should stop looking to the past.  Our future begins now.”

“If you say so, Iolanthe.”