Smedley Bassington is a character that developed as I was writing Senta and the Steel Dragon.  I had a place for a wizard in book 3, and so he filled that spot.  I liked him when I wrote it and so I expanded his role in book 5 and expanded his back story which I added to book 0.  He is still definitely among the ranks of the minor characters in the series, but a particularly important one.  I already posted part of Senta’s duel with Bassington on my post about Bessemer.  Here is his arrival in Birmisia, as witnessed by Saba Colbshallow.

Saba strolled back across Bainbridge Clark Street, just in time to see the professor walking back to his vehicle from the ship’s loading area, along with a stranger.  The man was tall with a dark complexion.  His slightly graying hair was cut fairly short and parted in the middle, while his squinty eyes peered out from behind horn-rimmed spectacles.  His nose was turned up just enough that one could look directly into his nostrils.  His wide thin-lipped mouth and a heavy lantern jaw made him seem toad-like.  About five foot ten, he wore a black pinstriped suit and over it, a long black rifle frock coat that reached to his knees.

Saba could feel the stranger’s eyes upon him for just a moment, as the man evaluated him.  Then the stranger seemed to freeze in place.  His head turned quickly to the right, and Saba looked to his left to follow the man’s gaze.  They made three points of a triangle—Saba, the man in black, and the twelve-year-old sorceress’s apprentice.  Senta and the stranger stared at each other for at least ten seconds, though to Saba, it seemed like much longer.  Then the girl got up from her crate and skipped south.  She turned to look back twice, as if she was worried about being followed.

The man in black watched her, giving no more notice to Saba or anyone else in the street, and then he climbed into the passenger seat of the steam carriage.  Professor Calliere hopped into the driver’s seat and was soon off, honking to warn dockworkers both human and reptilian to get out of his way, driving north in the direction of his workshop.

Yuah and Honor are just so perfect together, it’s only natural that they become friends.  I had originally planned to write them getting to know each other in The Voyage of the Minotaur, but I didn’t get it worked into the story, so I did it in The Drache Girl.  Of course later, I wished I hadn’t because I could have worked it into The Dark and Forbidding Land. In any case, they do become friends.  Here is the beginning of that relationship.

“Mrs. Dechantagne, how lovely to see you.”

Honor Hertling was dressed in the same sturdy brown and white clothing as her neighbors.  Her sleeves and the front of her dress were stained with dirt, and she wore a beat up pair of men’s work gloves.  Twenty years old, with large, sad eyes, a small nose, and raven hair, she was not classically beautiful, and not just because of the ugly scar that ran across her left cheek to her chin.  She was cute though, in an indefinable way.  Yuah reached out to take her gloved hand.

“Oh, sorry,” said Miss Hertling.  She pulled her hand away and removed the glove, then grasped Yuah’s hand firmly.  “What a lovely dress.”

“You like it?  A little bird told me that you might not approve.”  Yuah was suddenly aware that she was using one of Iolanthe’s expressions.

“Mein sister and her friend.”  Miss Hertling’s accent suddenly became thicker.  “I am thinking that the Drache girl likes to stir up trouble.  Would you like to come in for some tea?”

“Thank you.”

Tossing her gloves onto a potting bench near the garden, the young woman opened the door.  Yuah parked the blue baby carriage in the yard and lifting little Augie out, followed into the house.  The structure was very small and consisted of three rooms.  The front room, only about eight by twelve feet, served as parlor, dining room, and kitchen, as well as any number of other functions for which the Dechantagne household would have had individual rooms.  From the cast iron stove at one end of the room to the shelf filled with canned goods at the other, the room was impeccably clean.  A single bookcase contained a dozen volumes and was home to two small porcelain vases holding cut flowers.  Bright light shown in through the lace curtained windows.  Augie began to fuss as Yuah stepped inside.

“He’s probably hungry again,” she said.

“If you would like to nurse him now, you may sit in the rocking chair, while I make our tea.”

Yuah set the swaddled baby on the chair as she went about the fairly arduous task of freeing her breasts from the many layers of her clothing.   Though two of her three undergarments had been fashioned with breast-feeding in mind, the gorgeous teal dress had not.  By the time Augie was able to begin suckling, he was red-faced from crying and his mother was nearing exhaustion.  Yuah pulled the suddenly quiet baby close to her body, now bare from the waist up, and reached with a free hand to accept the cup of steaming tea.  Miss Hertling turned the lock on the door, which consisted of a small piece of wood with a single nail holding it to the doorjamb. 

“I wouldn’t want Hertzal walking in on you,” she explained.  “I think he might faint.”

“Isn’t he working at the dock?”

“Yes, but sometimes he comes home for lunch.”

“Thank you again for your hospitality.  I suppose I would have had to walk all the way back home, or find a spot beside a tree.”

“That probably wouldn’t have been a good idea.  I’ve seen velociraptors eating out of people’s garbage twice this week.  I doubt that one or two would chase down a full-grown person, but they always seem to multiply.  I hate to think of one of them getting after a baby.”

Yuah pulled Augie even closer.  “I hope you have notified the police.”

“I have.  The militia too.  They keep chasing the beasts off and they keep coming back.”

Yuah turned Augie around to give him the other breast.  He cried for just a moment as she shifted his position, and then happily went back to feeding.  She brushed his thin brown hair back away from his face. 

“I don’t want you to think that I disapprove of you or your clothes,” said Miss Hertling, pulling one of the dining chairs forward to face the rocking chair, and sitting down in it.  “I just think that it is very important to preserve our traditions.”

“There is nothing in the scripture or the Magnificent Law that prohibits the wearing of colorful clothing.”

“Yes, I know.  But my sister and I come from Freedonia.  You must understand that in Freedonia, the Zaeri face extinction.”

“You don’t really mean that do you?  Extinction, as in death?”

“Murder is being committed and sometimes it’s sanctioned by the government.  Those Zaeri who stay are being discriminated against and forced to move to specially designated areas.  Laws are being passed that limit Zaeri rights and create special Zaeri taxes.  Those Zaeri who do leave, find themselves unable to return.  Things are only going to get worse, too.  King Klaus II has publicly called the Zaeri an unclean race.”

“That’s abhorrent.”

“Yes, but that’s the way it is.  My parents were killed and my brother, sister, and I were chased out of our home.  But they couldn’t destroy what we are.  We are still Zaeri and we are still alive.  I think it’s important that we remember who we are.  We should maintain our traditions.”

“I suppose I can understand your feelings about it,” said Yuah.

“Things must be strange for you though,” mused Miss Hertling.  “I hadn’t really thought of it before.  You are one of only a handful of Zaeri from Greater Brechalon.  You must feel as different from us, from the Freedonians, as you do from the Kafirite Brechs.”

The Twins Hero and Hertzal Hertling are such solid parts of Senta and the Steel Dragon that I was surprised when I went back over The Drache Girl to find out they’re not in it as much as I thought.  They have some very key scenes, especially Hero, but don’t appear nearly as much as they do in book 2.

This is a pretty key scene in the book, and revolves around Senta and Graham, but as usual Hero and Hertzal are there to round out the cast.

When the four had finished their tea, Senta set four silver ten-pfennigs on the table and they left the bakery café.  No other patrons had come in while they had been there, and the seven diners who had been seated when they arrived were still seated.  The town square still looked completely abandoned.

“I’d like to go over to Mrs. Bratihn’s,” said Senta.

“Oh, come on,” pleaded Graham.  “I want to go to the dinosaur pen.”

“Why don’t you two go ahead, and we’ll join you,” suggested Senta.

“I really don’t want to go to Mrs. Bratihn’s,” said Hero quietly, looking down at her own black coat and brown dress.

“Why not?”

“I just don’t.  Can’t we go to the dinosaur pen with the boys?”

“Go ahead with them,” said Senta.  “I’ll stop at Mrs. Bratihn’s and be along in a few minutes.”

Hero nodded, and hurried off to catch up with Graham and her brother, who were already several paces away.  Senta turned and crossed the town square to the Dress Shop.  Mrs. Bratihn called out from the back when the bell rang over the door and a moment later came out to the front.

“Good afternoon, Senta,” she said.  “Why aren’t you at the train station dedication?”

“It was boring.  You?”

“Well,” she laughed.  “I guess I find that sort of thing boring too.  Lawrence is there, and he can tell me what happened tonight at dinner.  So what can I do for you?”

“I need another new dress.”

“That’s the third one in a month.  At this rate you’re going to be a better customer for me than Mrs. Dechantagne.”

“I’m going to buy lots of dresses,” said Senta.  “I want a whole closet full.”

“That’s wonderful, dear.  What did you have in mind?”

“Anything that’s not black.”

“I had a bolt of lavender silk come in on the Arrow.  I was thinking of making something stylish to put in the window—something with some darker purple velvet.”

“Miss Jindra has a purple dress that is really nice.  You can see her shoulder blades.”

“Yes, all the women want to show off their shoulder blades now,” said Mrs. Bratihn.  “It’s very daring.  We could make one like that for you.”

Senta reached around to feel her back.  She wondered how her shoulder blades would look.  Stuffing her hand into her pocket, she pulled out a wad of bank notes and peeled off enough to pay for the dress.  She had not even come close to spending her first month’s stipend, and now she already had another.

“Do you need to measure me again?” she asked.

“No dear.  I doubt that your measurements have changed appreciably since last week.  I do want you to look at some dress styles though, so we can be on the right track.”

Mrs. Bratihn went into the back of the shop and returned with her huge dress stylebook.  They sat looking through the pages and picking out things that they thought ought to be added to a dress, as well as things they thought ought never to be added to a dress.  Senta was aided in this by a very distinctive idea of what she wanted.  The more it looked like the dresses worn by Mrs. Government and Mrs. Dechantagne, the better the dress was as far as she was concerned, and the less it looked like those ladies’ dresses, the less she liked it.  Within ten minutes, the two had hashed out enough details for Mrs. Bratihn to get started.

Waving goodbye to the dressmaker, Senta stepped out into the cold and made her way across town square and through the great gate.  She turned west down Second Avenue though a section of some of the first houses built in the colony.  Though they were less than four years old, they seemed primitive compared to the more recent construction.  Most were tiny, one room cottages.  There were few people about here too, though Senta saw a man shoveling snow, and a woman shaking out a rug on her front step.  When she got to the corner of Bainbridge Clark Street, Senta turned right and began skipping down the hill.

She was nearing the docks when she saw four lizardmen walking away from the area.  The speed at which they were moving could very well have been called running, so slow was the normal speed of reptilians during the winter.  Then she heard shouting ahead, and she stopped to listen, but before she could discern the nature of the disruption the voices stopped.  She continued on her way, but no longer skipping.  When she reached the shipyard, everything seemed quiet. 

She stepped around the corner of an equipment storage shed that stood on the left hand side of the street and she saw her three friends.  Graham was sitting on the cold ground, his legs sticking straight out in front of him and his chin resting on his chest.  Hero and Hertzel were standing next to him.  Senta lifted up the front of her skirts and ran the last fifty feet to stand beside the three.  Tears streamed silently down both sides of Graham’s face, which was deep red.  A purple welt was beginning to form around his left eye.

“What happened?”

Hero and Hertzel both looked at her, but neither spoke.

“What happened?” she asked again.

“Nothing,” said Graham.  He slowly got to his feet.  “Nothing happened.”

“Those lizzies didn’t attack you?”

Hertzel shook his head, but Graham just stomped off to stand with his back to them, a dozen feet away.

“If it wasn’t the lizzies, then what happened?” Senta asked, this time looking directly at Hero.

“There were…” she paused and looked at Graham’s back, but he didn’t move.  “There were three men.  They had some of the lizzies kind of pushed into this spot.  They were threatening them.  Oh, maybe they were just teasing them, but…”

“But what?”

“They said they were going to cut their tails off.”

“Wankers,” said Senta.

“Yes, well, Graham jumped in and told them to ‘sod off’.  Then one of them…”

“One of them what?” said Senta, her voice taking a menacing tone.

“One of them hit him.”  Hero’s eyes welled up.

“Which way did they go?” growled Senta.

Hero did nothing but look stricken, but Hertzel immediately pointed toward Seventh and One Half Avenue, and the apartments just beyond.

“I’m going to rip their hearts out.”

“No,” said Graham.

“Don’t worry.  I’m going to…”

“No, you’re not,” said Graham, louder than before. 

He stomped back over to where the other three stood.  Fresh tears streamed down his face and a little trail of snot flowed from his right nostril.  It made a bubble when he breathed.

“All right, I won’t kill them,” said Senta.  “I’ll just teach them a lesson.”

“You’re not going to do anything!” shouted Graham, pointing at her, his finger so close to her face that it made her start.  “I don’t need you to stick up for me!”

“I just…”

“I don’t need anyone to fight for me!  Especially not a girl!”

He walked several steps away.

“And you’re not my girlfriend!” he shouted and broke into a full run, not stopping as he ran south and out of sight around some buildings.

The three friends stood looking at the place where Graham had disappeared.  Then, as if some magical spell had been broken, people began to appear on the street.  First a few could be seen at the top of the hill, coming down Bainbridge Clark Street.  A moment later half a dozen more people walked down Seventh and One Half Avenue.  Within ten minutes, the streets of Port Dechantagne were as busy as they ever were.  Hero came and put her arms around Senta’s shoulders.  Neither of the girls seemed to know what to say, and of course, Hertzel never said anything. 

“What’s going on here?”

Police Constable Eamon Shrubb had walked up next to them without them even noticing.  He looked down at the two girls and the boy, and his brow furrowed with concern.

“What’s going on here?” he said again, but this time in a softer voice.

Senta sighed.

“Tell him what happened,” she told Hero, and she began walking back up the hill the way she had come.

I mentioned a while ago that I based Eamon and Dot Shrubb on a young couple that I briefly knew.  What I didn’t mention was that neither was in my original outline.  I included Eamon’s name in a throwaway line about Saba Colbshallow having badge #1 and Eamon having badge #2 of the Port Dechantagne police department.  Once I had included him, his wife and their relationship, and the relationship between them and Saba just fell together.  Eamon has a pretty big part in The Drache Girl, both in his own right and as a sounding board for Saba.  Dot has a fairly important bit too.  In this scene we meet Dot for the first time and learn a bit about their relationship.

He arrived back at the police station office to find Dot Shrubb in a pretty pink dress that highlighted her copper-colored hair.  She was a thin, but pretty girl, of seventeen who had arrived in Port Dechantagne a year ago, without any family, and had stolen the heart of Eamon Shrubb the first time he laid eyes upon her.

“Saba,” she said, in the nasal voice of someone who had been deaf all her life.

“Looking for Eamon?” he asked, keeping his face toward her, so that she could read his lips.

She nodded.

“You two were fighting again.”

She punched the palm of her left hand with her right fist.

“What about?”

She hesitated for a moment, and then made a rocking baby motion with her arms folded.

“You’re expecting?”

“Huh?”

“Baby.  You’re going to have a baby?”

She nodded, smiling.

“Then why were you fighting?  Doesn’t he want a baby?”

“Name,” she said.

“Kafira,” Saba muttered.

At that moment, Eamon opened the office door.  He paused about halfway inside, looking at his wife the way a munitions expert looks at a bomb that didn’t go off as intended.  She looked at the floor.  After a moment, the constable stepped inside.

“You nesh berk,” said Saba.  Eamon looked at him in surprise.  “You take your wife home and see to her.  I may not have two and a half months experience being married, but even I know you don’t fight with a woman who’s expecting.”

“She wanted to name the baby Yadira.”

“What’s wrong with that?” demanded Saba.

“Come on!  That’s the worst name in the world.”

“My mother’s name,” said Dot.

“That happens to be my mother’s name, too,” said Saba.

“Oh, yeah.  I forgot about that,” said Eamon.

“It’s not like Eamon’s a brilliant name.”

“I don’t want to name it Eamon either.  If it’s a boy I want to name it Darsham, and if it’s a girl I want to name it Daria.”

“Darsham Shrubb?  Why don’t you just name it ‘kick my ass on the way to school’ and have done with it.”

Eamon ballooned his cheeks out and rolled his eyes back to think for a moment.  “It doesn’t sound that good when you put it all together, does it?”

“Here’s my advice, Mr. I’ve-been-married-two-and-a-half-months.  Take the rest of the day off and take your wife home.  Make her a cup of tea and rub her feet.  Then let her decide what to name the baby.  You can go get a kitten from Mrs. Gyffington, and name it Darsham, or Daria, or whatever the bloody hell you want to name it.”

“That’s right,” said Dot, taking Eamon by the arm.  Then she said, “Rub my feet,” leading Saba to believe that she had missed most of what he had said.

“You don’t mind if I take the afternoon?” asked Eamon.  He turned his head slightly, so that his lips were not visible to his wife.  “If I rub her feet, she’ll be all rumpy-pumpy.”

“Go!”

The two left the office, arm in arm.  As soon as they were gone, Saba stepped back through the supply room and into cell number one.  Setting his helmet beside the cot, he lay down and took a nap.

A lot of people tell me that Graham is their favorite character in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  He is pretty cool.  He falls into that place in the story that best friends usually do, though in this case he’s a boyfriend (or not-boyfriend, depending on which book it is).  Graham first appears in book 1, and has a small part in that story.  He has a relatively small part in books 4 and 5, but in books 2 and 3, he really gets the spotlight.  Some of my favorite parts are quiet moments when Graham and Senta get to just enjoy each other’s company.  This is one such scene from The Drache Girl.

“Do you have a last name?” wondered Graham.

He sat beneath a willow on a large rock ten feet from the frigid water of Battle Creek.  Hamonth was almost over and the chilly winds had, for now, stopped.  It was still cold enough for a steady cloud of steam to make its way up from the cups of tea, Senta had poured from the pot she carried in her picnic basket.

“You know I do,” replied Senta.  “You’ve heard it a hundred times.”

“I guess I wasn’t paying attention.  What is it?”

“Zurfina says that if you are famous and powerful enough, you don’t need more than one name.  It’s like kings and queens, and Magnus the Great.”

“My Da says everything deserves a name, and people deserve a last name.”

“He does not.”

“Huh?”

“I bet he never said any such thing.”

Graham shrugged.

“Did he say it or not?”

“No.”

“You just said that he said it?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it,” said Senta.  “You just go around saying ‘My Da says this’ and ‘My Da says that’ and he never said any such thing.”

“No!”

“No?”

“I only say that he said things that he really would say, but he just might not have.”

“I always knew you were dodgy.”

Graham shrugged again and took a sip of his tea.  Then his brow twisted in thought.

“I bet you do the same thing,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re always going on about how ‘Zurfina says this’.  I bet you make it up too.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Never.”

“She actually said that bit about not needing a last name?”

“Word for word.”

“Oh.”  He sipped his tea again.  “So do you figure you’re famous and powerful enough, then?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you famous and powerful enough that you don’t need a last name?”

“No, I guess not,” said Senta.  “I don’t think I like it though.  I never knew anyone else with it.  It’s Bly.”

“Oh, right.  It’s not that bad.”

“It’s better than Dokkins.”

“No.  My Da says Dokkins is one of the finest names in Greater Brechalon.” Then he added.  “And he does say that too.”

Senta stood up; balancing on the large rock, then bent down at the waist and sat her teacup where she had been sitting.  She stretched her arms out to either side and balanced herself, as she stepped in her bare feet from one rock to another.  She made a circuitous route back to the picnic basket and opened it up.  She pulled out a warm potpie in a small ceramic bowl.  She held the pie out in her left hand and a fork in her right and balanced her way across five more rocks to where the brown haired, freckled boy sat and handed both to him.

“You know you’ve got a hole in that dress?”

“Yes,” said Senta, sadly.

She looked down at the yellow dress.  Though the upper portion was shapeless and tube-like, matching her still shapeless body, the bodice was brilliantly decorated with yellow brocade and beadwork.  The skirt portion draped out appropriately, especially in the back, where with the aid of a bustle, it spread back almost three feet.  Unfortunately all around the hem, it was worn from trailing along the ground, and a small hole had been burned into the material about five inches to the right of Senta’s right knee, when she had been warming herself by a wood stove.

She made her way back to the picnic basket and took out her own potpie, and then stepped back over to her rock.  Holding her potpie in one hand and picking up her teacup in the other, she crossed her legs and sat down, allowing her dress to cover the rock, so that she seemed to either be hovering above the ground or to be standing but very short.

“This is pretty good,” said Graham, indicating the potpie.  “What’s in it?”

“Pork and stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” he demanded.

“Nothing weird.  Potatoes and beets and carrots.”

“Okay.”

They had been having a lot of picnic lunches lately, though the weather would soon be too cold.  Graham had held to his promise to take her to lunch the other day, but one trip to Mrs. Finkler’s was about the limit of his budget.  Senta liked making things for Graham, anyway.  They spent almost all their free time together, especially when, like now, there were no ships in port.  Something was beginning to be different though.  Graham was just, well he was just Graham.  The only time he seemed to notice that Senta was a girl, was when he was pointing out that she had a hole in her dress.  She thought that he must notice Hero was a girl, with her dark eyes and her long, long, long dark hair.  Senta ran a hand through her own hair.  It had grown long, but it wasn’t wavy and it wasn’t thick.  It was thin and pale looking.  And she had a hole in her dress. 

Senta decided right then and there that she would go to Mrs. Bratihn’s and get a new dress.  It would be a beautiful, colorful dress that would make her look like a woman.  Then she would find out if Mrs. Bratihn had an old copy of Brysin’s Weekly Ladies’ Journal, so that she could look through it and find a new hairstyle.  It would be something with waves or curls, something beautiful enough that all the boys would notice—even Graham.  Maybe she would find a hairstyle mysterious enough that Zurfina would want to copy it.  She was sure that she could magic her hair into the new style, she magiced it clean all the time.

“More tea?” she asked Graham.

Saba Colbshallow is an extremely important character to the story of Senta and the Steel Dragon.  I didn’t recognize his importance when I started writing.  More than any other character, he grew into the plot.  In book 0 and book 1, he is just a boy in the household of the Dechantagnes.  In book 2, he is a corporal in the militia.  Here in book 3, as we’ve already seen in the excerpt about Senta, he is a police constable.  Here, he’s chasing some up-to-no-good lizzies into the woods and almost becomes a victim of utahraptor attack.

Stepping lightly back down the gazebo steps, Saba continued on his rounds through the town.  As the only half illuminated, but nonetheless bright moon rose above the mountains in the distance he reached the dockside, where the S.S. Majestic was still moored.  Just as he had on that other night three weeks earlier, Saba saw a dozen lizardmen moving quietly through the darkness moving coffin sized crates from beside the ship.

Saba immediately dropped to the ground and crept to the closest building.  He was not going to lose them this time in the darkness.  He already knew which way they were going.  As quietly as he could, he moved away from the dock and passed down Eighth Avenue.  Then cutting south, he jogged through the apartment buildings and the small houses just beyond them.  Running now, he made his way west again, reaching the door in the Emergency Wall through which the reptiles would soon be passing.  He let himself through and locked it again, then hid behind some bushes thirty feet away.  He tucked his face inside his reefer jacket, trying to slow his breath without freezing his lungs.

He didn’t have long to wait.  In what seemed like complete silence, the door opened once again and lizardman after lizardman passed through, each pair carrying one of the long crates between them.  There were twelve aborigines in all carrying six crates.  The last two through stopped, sat down the box, closing and relocking the door.  Then they joined their comrades moving between the trees.  They walked southwest, through the less densely packed portion of the colony, and Saba stealthily followed them.  They passed right through the yard and right next to the burned out remains of Mrs. Yembrick’s home.

“Bastards,” said Saba, to himself.

The last two lizardmen stopped and looked around.  Saba quickly ducked behind one tree.  He suddenly wished he had a service revolver with him.  After a moment, he peered back around the tree.  The reptilians had evidently decided that they were unobserved and had continued on their way.  Saba had to move quickly so they wouldn’t get too far ahead of him.  He stayed far enough back though that they wouldn’t be able to hear the sounds of his footsteps.  At least he hoped they wouldn’t.  It was well known that a lizzie’s hearing was slightly less acute than that of a human being. 

The lizzies moved very quickly through the forest, far more quickly than Saba would have believed possible.  In fact, he had to strain to keep up.  He was determined not to be left behind though.  They left the town, continuing on in the same general direction, roughly parallel by the constable’s estimation to the railroad line.  Saba continued to follow for miles, realizing vaguely in the back of his mind that this was the furthest away from town he had ever ventured by himself and essentially unarmed.

Morning had to be approaching though there was still no light on the horizon.  The half moon had almost completed its arc across the sky and was about to once again hide itself, when Saba heard something behind him.  He stepped behind a large pine tree, so that the lizardmen wouldn’t see him.  Then he turned to look behind him.

“Kafira,” he said in a whisper that was nevertheless far louder than he had intended.

While he had been following the lizardmen, he had in turn been followed himself.  The massive form of a utahraptor could be seen moving through the trees, sniffing the air, and tilting its head from one side to the other to listen.  Unlike its cousin the velociraptor, the utahraptor was a large and frightening predator, with a mouth that could take off a human head.  Nowhere near as large as the tyrannosauruses that had once hunted the area of the peninsula, it was big enough.  Seven feet tall and twenty-five feet long, it was covered in bristle-like feathers ranging from turquoise around the head to bright green at the tail.  It was impossible to appreciate their beauty at night, and it was impossible to appreciate their beauty when the beast was hunting you in any case.

Immediately reaching for a tree branch, Saba hauled himself up and climbed as quickly as he could.  The utahraptor reached the tree only seconds after he had reached a safe height.  Whether the beast rightly belonged to the bird or dinosaur family didn’t matter much to the constable.  That it could eat him; that’s what mattered.  It reached up its three-foot-long head to snap at him with frightening, serrated teeth.  It was only just below his feet.  Had it managed to get hold of him, it would have been able to finish him off in four or five bites.

The monster didn’t bellow or squawk; it merely licked its lips and looked longingly at him.  Saba climbed a bit higher.  He looked to the southwest for the aborigines he had been following, but they were gone.  The utahraptor waited at the base of the tree until well into the next morning, and only left when a herd of small, graceful parksosaurus caught its attention.  Climbing down, Saba retraced his steps back to town, happy to be alive but angry that once again he had lost the trail of the lizardmen.  They were up to something but he didn’t know what.  If he wasn’t going to be able to follow them wherever they were going, perhaps an investigation of where they had been would be illuminating.

When I first began thinking of Senta and the Steel Dragon, I pictured Egeria Lusk as being based on Ada Lovelace, the programmer of Babage’s steam powered computer (which was the basis for the Result Mechanism).  When I got to writing though, I instead based her mostly on my Aunt Mary (in personality, not in looks), to whom I dedicated The Drache Girl.

Spoiler Alert

She has appears to a greater or lesser degree in all the books (though only mentioned in book 0).  Here she meets with Yuah and Honor Hertling, discussing Professor Calliere and Zeah.  This is a great time to feature her because I’m just about to write her into The Sorceress and her Lovers.

“My God!” said Yuah, as she stepped into the house.  “Look at this place.”

Yuah had been in Egeria’s house before, but that was some time ago, and since then her father’s fiancé had substantially redecorated.  The front door opened into a foyer, with a large arched walkway into the parlor.  Both rooms were exquisitely decorated with hand-carved wooden moldings, golden drapes, and beaded chandeliers.  Of course, those had been in place before.  Now birch and cherry wood chairs and marble-topped accent tables were spaced around the parlor, which was dominated by a beautiful grand piano, the open lid of which was graced with a painting of angels in the clouds.  On the wall above the piano was an eight foot tall painting of the same angels in different poses.  Vases full of cut flowers, white and yellow predominating, were everywhere.

“You didn’t have all this when I was last here.” wondered Yuah.

“No, I’ve purchased most of this from Mirsanna over the past two years,” replied Egeria.  “I’ve done quite well here, writing programs for the Result Mechanism, along with a bit of free-lance inventing.  Unfortunately it makes me suspect, in light of the accusations against Mercy.”

“You don’t think he’s guilty?” wondered Honor.

“Yes.  I do.  I don’t think he would have killed himself if he weren’t.”

“So you’ve heard.”

“I think everyone in the colony has heard.  It would be big news, even if he wasn’t married to Iolanthe.”

Egeria leaned her head to one side, arched her brow, and said to Yuah.  “I’m not a traitor.  I had nothing to do with the programs Mercy created for the Freedonians.”

“I didn’t think you were,” said Yuah.

“I just thought it needed to be said.  Please come in and sit down.”

Yuah and Honor sat down on the parlor couch, which was as comfortable as it was beautiful.  Egeria sat in a matching chair.  A lizardman wearing a simple white apron with lacy edges carried in a tray with an antique teapot, three antique cups, and three small matching plates carefully stacked with butter biscuits.  It sat down the tray and poured the tea.

“Thank you, Chunny,” said Egeria.

“You were expecting us?” asked Yuah.

“I thought that Honor would be by this morning.  You my dear are a surprise—a pleasant one.”

“Well thank you for having us,” said Honor.

“It is definitely my pleasure.  I don’t have very many visitors.”

“Really?”  Yuah was surprised.  “You’re one of the best known and best liked people in town.”

“That’s kind of you to say.  Of course I would expect nothing less of someone who is practically my daughter.”

Yuah reflexively rolled her eyes.  “You’re only a biscuit older than I am.”

“Yes, but I am engaged to your father.”

“Have you decided upon a wedding date?” interrupted Honor.

“Not yet.”  Egeria’s face betrayed nothing, as she poured the tea and then handed a teacup to each of her guests.

“Is that because you have chosen not to set a date, or because Yuah’s father hasn’t?”

“I am ready at any time,” said Egeria.  “But I’m putting no pressure on Zeah.  He needs to be ready too.  As you know, we had a previous date set, but it wasn’t right for him.”

“Why is he hesitant?”

Egeria’s laughter was light.

“He has always been hesitant.”

“Why do you think he hesitates?”

Egeria looked thoughtful, but didn’t say anything.

“Is it because you are a Kafirite?” continued Honor.

“He knew I was a Kafirite when we met.  Anyone would.”

“How is that?” asked Honor, stopping her teacup only inches from her lips.

“Because of my name.”

Honor looked on blankly.

“Egeria was the name of one of Kafira Kristos’s apostles,” said Yuah.  “One of the more important ones.”

“Yes, she along with Fantin the Elder was very important in spreading the gospel of Kafira across Sumir.”

“I’m surprised that you are so well versed in Kafirite theology,” said Honor to Yuah.

“I did grow up in a Kafirite household,” Yuah replied.

When all is said and done, the character who has the most interesting and varied story arc in Senta and the Steel Dragon is Yuah.  She starts out at the bottom, rises to the very top, and then topples down far lower than she started.  Book 3, The Drache Girl really is the pivotal point for her progression.  In addition, Yuah is just one of my favorites ( I guess I say that about all of them).  Here she brings a newly healed Terrence home to see his house and his son for the first time.

After a few minute’s walk, they could see the massive façade of the Dechantagne house peaking through the trees.  Yuah stopped and pointed to it.

“Does it look like you thought it would?”

“Yes, I suppose it does.  It looks warm.  Everything here looks better than I thought it would.”

“What did you expect it to look like?”

“I don’t know.  Savage, I guess.  Not civilized.”  He looked down at her.  “That’s a nice dress.”

“Thank you.”

“It looks expensive.”

“Oh, it is.  We can hardly afford it.”

“That’s not what I meant.  I’ve never seen you in an expensive dress or a fancy dress.

“You haven’t seen me at all since before our wedding day.  The last time you saw me I was your servant, not your wife.”

“You look exactly the same as I remember you though.  Except you’re not flat-chested anymore.”

She slapped him on the arm, and they shared the first laugh together in a long time.  It might be, she reflected, the first laugh that they had ever shared together.  It lasted only a moment though, because his new blue eyes suddenly went cold.  Yuah turned to see what he was looking at.  Two lizardmen crossed the street at the intersection just in front of their home.  They were carrying a large steamer trunk.

“They’re everywhere here,” he said.

“There aren’t any more of them than there were nine months ago, when you left.”

“I didn’t have to look at them then.”

Yuah took Terrence’s hand and led him the last fifty yards to their home.  The gardens were covered with snow now, the reflecting pool frozen over, and the fountain empty of water.  They reached the bottom of the steps and Yuah squealed as Terrence suddenly scooped her up and carried her to the top of the steps.  Once there however, he stopped and unsmilingly set her back down as the door was opened for them by a particularly large lizardman with a yellow ribbon sporting a gold medallion around his neck.

“You remember Tisson,” said Yuah.

Terrence nodded briskly, and then stepped inside.  She followed.  In the parlor Mrs. Godwin was sitting in the rocking chair with Augie in her arms.  She slowly rocked back and forth and hummed.  With a smile, she lifted up the baby for Yuah to take.  Yuah cradled the child in her arms, gazing with love down into his chubby pink face.

“Here he is,” she said, turning to present her son to her husband.

“He looks like you.”

“Don’t be daft,” she replied.  “He’s your bleeding doppelganger.”

“Yes, I guess he is.  Poor lad.”

Holding the baby with one hand, Yuah took Terrence by the other and led him upstairs to the nursery.  She sat him in the rocking chair and placed Augie in his lap.  She pulled the small folding rocker from the corner and sat next to him.  They rocked back in forth in silence for more than an hour.  When Augie woke up, she nursed him, and when he was full and satisfied, she handed him back to his father, and he looked up with fascination at the strange man holding him. 

Yuah had finished getting her dress back on, and Terrence was holding Augie, when Iolanthe walked into the room, practically filling it with her green dress and her presence.