Cissy is one of the characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  She is easily the most important non-human character.  Her part in the original story arc of Senta and the Steel Dragon was relatively small.  She appeared in book 3 and then her story culminated in book 5.  When I went back and added what became books 0, 2, and 4, her story became much bigger and I think richer.

Here Cissy runs into Saba Colbshallow while both are shopping at the pfennig store.

The bell above the door clanged once again, this time as a lizardman entered. It was carrying a large hatbox tied with a red silk bow. There were quite a few variations from individual to individual among the reptilians. This aborigine had a face of deep forest green that continued down and was punctuated with darker strips just below the shoulder. Saba immediately recognized by the shorter stature, just under six feet, and the lighter belly coloring, a pale green, that this was a female. Only a few seconds later he recognized who the lizardman was.

“Hello Cissy.”

“Hello Sada,” she replied.

“What do you need, lizzie?” asked Delks in a rather snotty tone.

“Dillingdow’s,”

“Huh?”

“She wants Billingbow’s,” translated Saba. “A six pack?”

Cissy nodded.

Delks raised an eyebrow, and then walked to the back of the store once again, returning with yet another wooden carrier containing six bottles of the popular soda water.

“I didn’t know you lot drank this,” he said. “That will be three marks.”

“That should be one mark thirty two P,” said Saba.

“I can charge whatever I want.”

Cissy set three one mark notes on the counter and picked up the six-pack in her clawed fist. She headed back out the front door, pausing just long enough on her way out to hiss “Asshole.”

“If you’re going to start skinning the natives,” said Saba to the proprietor. “You might not want to start with the governor’s own lizzie.”

Walking outside, Saba found Cissy tilting one of the bottles into her long, many-toothed mouth.

“I like to let mine cool down in the ice box.”

“I know. I see you drink. Cold drink not good to lizzies. I get thirsty. I like Dillingdow’s.”

“Did you pick that up for Mrs. Dechantagne?” he asked, indicating the hatbox.

“No. This is Cissy’s hat. You like to see it?”

He nodded. She carefully untied the red silk ribbon and opened the box, withdrawing a broad-brimmed lady’s hat, made of plaid material, decorated with artificial blue and pink roses and a large green feather. Carefully balancing it on her head, Cissy tied it below her chin with a thick strand of blue lace.

“It looks very nice on you,” said Saba.

“I wear it to shrine, like all the fine ladies.”

“You go to shrine regularly?”

“Yes. I Zaeri now. You Kafirite?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Kafira die for hoonan souls. I think not for lizzie souls.”

Saba nodded thoughtfully, and then turned to set his two six-packs into the passenger seat of the steam carriage. He didn’t know much about the lizzie religion, or if there was one now that he thought about it. It was not surprising that Mother Linton was not interested in converting the locals to Kafira, but it seemed like someone would want to. He wanted to ask Cissy who had told her about the Zaeri faith, but when he turned back around, she was already gone.

Ivo and Femke Kane are two characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  They first appear in book 3: The Drache Girl.  They are a husband and wife pair of engineers that come to Birmisia to work for the coal company.  Although there are hints in book 3, we don’t really learn all that much about them until The Two Dragons, in which we learn they have an unusual relationship.

Senta, who had taken a bath upon her return from the great plaza earlier in the day, took another. The rectangular tub was just over seven feet long and five feet wide, which by human standards made it quite spacious. Its depth however was what made it remarkable. Though she was an even six feet tall, Senta could not touch the bottom even on her tip-toes, without dunking her head. Four square stone spouts provided a continuous flow of water into the tub, which spilled over the top and ran down to a drain cut with four long grooves from a one foot square piece of stone.

After the bath, Senta returned to her room dressed in her large fluffy housecoat. She sat down on her sleeping mat and thought about opening Matter and the Elements once more, but just couldn’t face it. Instead she reached into her bag and pulled out a well-worn copy of Intruder by Anarosa Freedman. It was a relatively easy matter to find the racy parts, as the corners of the pages had become dog-eared with rereading.

“Well, what are we priming ourselves up for?” asked Mrs. Kane, when she entered a few minutes later.

“Just reading a bit.”

“So I see. You’ve had an exciting day.” Mrs. Kane sat down cross-legged next to Senta. “You know I’ve always thought that you were a remarkable young woman,” she said, placing her hand on Senta’s shoulder.

“Thanks…”

“I’ve thought that you might be someone I would like to get to know better.”

“Okay…”

“My husband and I have an agreement. He’s free to pursue other women, as am I.”

“As you are what?”

“Free to pursue other women.”

Senta stared uncomprehending for a moment. Then recognition kicked her in the side of the head just above the ear.

“Eww!”

“Now don’t be that way,” said Mrs. Kane. “The love between two women can be a beautiful thing.”

“I’ve got all the loving women that I need,” said Senta. “What’s more, I have a loving man.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, dear. You don’t really need one of those.”

“There we must agree to disagree.” Senta lifted the woman’s hand from her shoulder and set it aside.

“Pity,” said Mrs. Kane, moving to her own sleeping mat. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“Yes, I’m sure I could navigate thirty-three inches if needed.”

Senta put away her lamp, though it had not yet grown dark enough in the room to need it, and her book, and curled up under her blanket. It had been an eventful day and despite feeling vaguely more nervous about Mrs. Kane’s proximity than she had before, she was soon asleep.

Loana Hewison Colbshallow is a character in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  She has a fairly memorable part in The Drache Girl, when she meets her future husband as he saves her from velociraptors.  In The Two Dragons, the two have been married for a while and her husband realizes that sometimes beauty is only skin deep.  It might be worth noting that Loana is my wife’s least favorite character.

“What the hell?” Saba demanded of his wife.

“It’s about time they pay their fair share, if you ask me.”

“They paid for dinner the last time.”

“Dot cooked dinner last time, and it was nowhere near as nice as this.”

He gaped at her.

“The dinners we provide are always nicer than the ones they provide. And we should get out and socialize with some different people anyway. We’re very popular. Everyone wants to have us. We shouldn’t be monopolized. Reenie Ghent has been after me for weeks for us to go out with her and her husband.”

Saba dropped fifteen marks on top of those left by Eamon, and then he escorted his wife out of the café and down the cobblestone walk to the edge of the road where his steam carriage was parked. The sun had finally dropped out of sight, lending a monochrome cast to the city street that he didn’t think showed off the bright blue of the car’s bonnet well. Helping Loana into the passenger seat, he walked around back to shovel coal into the firebox. He looked up in the sky to watch a large flying reptile, harassed by seven or eight small birds. With a sigh, he shut the relief cock and stepping to the left side of the vehicle, climbed into the driver’s seat. Saba waited ten minutes for the steam to come up before pulling away from the curb. It was only a fifteen-minute drive home, but it was an altogether silent twenty-five minutes.

The Colbshallow home was a large, beautiful, red brick house sitting back from the road in the shade of large pines and maples, along with some recently planted apple trees, on a large fenced estate. The small A-frame house, which had been Saba’s first home, on the corner of the property, was currently being rented by the Zaeri Imam Francis Clipers. Pulling into the parkway, Saba brought the steam carriage to a halt in front of the portico. The lizzie doorman hopped down the steps to help Loana down.

“Leopold Ghent is a wanker,” he called after her, breaking the silence.

“He’s railroad agent,” said his wife in a tone that was usually reserved for sweet nothings. “And Reenie is adorable.”

She swept up the four steps and as the lizzie held the door for her, she disappeared inside. Saba pulled the car around to the far side of the house and parked. He hopped out, opened the steam cock, and poured a bucket of water over the coals. The loud hiss startled three bambiraptors who had been feeding in the yard, unbothered by the normal chug of the vehicle.

Saba climbed the five cement steps that led to the side door and entered the kitchen. Not having to serve dinner this evening, the lizzie cook had been given the night off and the kitchen was pleasantly cool. Opening the froredor, he retrieved a soda water and pulled out the cork stopper with his left hand, his wife having successfully trained him not to do so with his teeth. He took a swig, then snorted and almost gagged. Lifting the bottle to look at the printing, he read. “Major Gortner’s ginger and mint flavor barley pop?” He opened the froredor again and looked inside finding five more of the imposters and not a single bottle of original Billingbow’s sarsaparilla and wintergreen soda water.

“Bugger all!” he slammed the door shut, rocking the magical freezing box back and forth and toppling a small, pink pot filled with red flowers to the floor where it shattered.

The next morning, Saba got up before his wife awakened. He dressed quickly in his grey suit and left through the kitchen. He didn’t stop for breakfast, just grabbed a crumpet from a pile that the cook was assembling. She hissed at him, but handed him a cup of tea. He folded the crumpet in half and stuffed it into his mouth, then set the steaming cup on the passenger seat as he lit the furnace and filled the boiler from the water jug by the side door. By the time the steam was up, he had finished with his tea, and left the empty cup on the step.

Edin Buttermore was a character I created for The Drache Girl.  I always had in mind that he would be a big part of the plot at some point.  While he has a few memorable scenes in The Young Sorceress, he doesn’t really have that much to do until The Two Dragons.  Here he explores the dragon fortress with Senta and Staff.

In the daylight it was plain that Brown had been bitten on the face by a spider, but he seemed to have no other wounds. Ivo Kane produced a tiny clear bottle of detoxicant, pouring it down the man’s throat, while his wife taped a plaster over the injury. They had between them already seen to Mr. Vever’s pains. His left arm was splinted and his right hand was bandaged.

“Here comes Staff,” said Werthimer, pointing to the back of the fortress courtyard.

Staff was indeed coming, followed by Buttermore, Wissinger, and Manring. When they reached the eight party members, the former naval officer looked at Bratihn questioningly. Later, Senta couldn’t remember exactly what Bratihn had said, but he seemed to sum up every detail of their adventures in remarkably few words. Croffut added one or two details. Staff nodded as if he had expected nothing less.

“And how did it go with you?” asked Kane.

“We made it to the top of the tower,” said Staff. “No problem, though we had to chase off a few pterosaurs.”

“It was a magnificent view,” said Buttermore. “I think I captured it.”

“It took us a while to set up Mr. Buttermore’s camera equipment,” said Wissinger. “Not that I’m criticizing.”

“We found treasure too,” said Buttermore.

“Really? Treasure?” Mr. Vever climbed unsteadily to his feet, accidentally kicking Brown in the head as he did so.

Staff set his rucksack down and opened it, withdrawing what appeared to be a very ornate necklace. It was made of copper and the metal was so green with corrosion that it had almost dissolved away. Clearly visible though were a number of large red gems.

“By Kafira, those are rubies,” said Ivo Kane.

“I think that copper is a loss,” said Vever. “But I could set those gems in gold settings and they would be fit for Prince Tybalt himself.”

“My plan is that when we return to Port Dechantagne you should do just that, Mr. Vever,” said Staff. “I count fifteen rubies. Maybe matching rings for all of us? I think we’ve earned it. And I imagine a set of earrings for the governor.”

Dot Shrubb is one of my favorite minor characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  I’m always looking for something to differentiate characters and Dot is separated from the others in the story because of her deafness.  As I have mentioned before, the idea for her came from the wife of a work friend I had years ago.  She too was deaf and had red hair.

Mrs. Loana Colbshallow was without a doubt the most beautiful woman in the café. Her multihued hair was swept back beneath a broad-brimmed, bright red hat with white flowers that matched her bright red dress. The plunging neckline showed a bit more skin than was current fashion, but neither her husband nor any other man in the establishment seemed to object. Directly across from Mrs. Colbshallow in a quite fetching sky blue gown, Mrs. Dot Shrubb clearly was bothered both by the lack of cloth which covered her dinner partner’s breasts and by the amount of breast which threatened to jump out at her. All through dinner she had stared at the prodigious amount of cleavage and scrunched her nose. Her husband seated to her right had been oblivious to this, and fortunately for him, seemed oblivious to the cleavage as well.

“I’ll say this,” he said. “If we had dined on this meal in Brech City, we would have had to pay a pretty pfennig for it.”

“I think we may very well pay a pretty pfennig tonight,” replied Saba. “Dining out is one of the few things that isn’t dirt cheap in Birmisia.”

“I hear the new café, Bonny Nurraty, is only half the price, because they employ a lizzie wait staff.”

“It’s Bonne Nourriture,” said Saba. “I also hear the food’s not half as good, though I’m sure that has nothing to do with the lizzies.”

“Unless my mother-in-law decides to open her own restaurant,” said Loana. “I don’t see anyone taking the fine dining crown away from Aalwijn Finkler.”

“And you can be bloody positive he won’t ever have a lizzie wait staff either,” added Eamon. “Actually it’s nice to have a place to come where there aren’t any.”

“What do you think about it, Dot?” asked Saba.

Dot just shrugged.

“Dot’s getting to be a lizzie-lover,” said Eamon, stroking his wife’s long coppery hair.

“You like her too,” said Dot, in the nasal voice that was the result of her deafness.

“Well, our lizzie is all right. She dotes on the boys—takes them for walks and plays her little block game with them.”

“That’s just it, isn’t it,” said Loana. “Everyone seems to like their own lizzie. They just don’t trust the rest of them. I have several to take care of things and one that comes in twice a week to clean and have never had any problem with any of them.”

“How are the boys, anyway?” said Saba, intentionally changing the subject.

“They’re fine. Young Saba showed me this week that he can do addition, and little Al isn’t far behind.”

“Alasdair,” corrected Dot, punching her husband on his meaty shoulder.

“And how is Darsham?”

“Wonderful. He follows Saba and Alasdair everywhere they go. Best dog I’ve ever seen.”

“You know he was going to name one of the boys Darsham,” Saba told his wife.

“That’s right,” said Eamon. “But I was overruled on account of my wife fancying your husband.”

Dot hit him again. “You named Saba. I named Alasdair.”

Amoz Croffut and Woodrow Manring are two characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  Their main appearance is in The Two Dragons, though I foreshadowed them in the earlier books here and there.  I really like when a character that fulfills part of the plot is someone the reader has seen or heard from before.  Amoz and Woodrow make the journey to the lizzie city along with Senta and the others, facing adventure and adversity along the way.

Staff picked his way through the large feathered bodies to where the man lay.  A quick examination revealed however that he was unharmed.  He had apparently fainted from sheer terror.  The only one injured was Manring, who had dived out of the way of the vicious claws, but not quite quickly enough, and had sustained a horrible gash across his forearm.  Staff quickly drew a healing draught from his pack and poured half of the contents of the small brown bottle onto the cut and had Manring drink the remaining potion.  Within seconds the bleeding had stopped and the injury had already begun to heal.

“Thank heavens for magic,” said Mr. Vever.

“Yes,” agreed Staff, then turning to look at Senta.  “I assume that was your magical lightning?”

The girl nodded.

“These are beautiful,” said Femke Kane, holding up a long black tail feather.  “Perhaps we should take some to present to the lizzies in Tsahloose.”

“All right,” replied Staff.  “We earned them I suppose.”

“I think we should take some of this meat for our lunch,” offered Werthimer.  “Have you ever seen a drumstick like this?  What are these anyway?”

“They are called achillobators,” said Wissinger.  “Colonel Mormont described them in his journal when he scouted this region.  Considering what he wrote, we got off lightly.  He said they were relentless once they had chosen a target.  Looking at them, I think they make the point that dinosaurs and Mallonian birds are all from the same group of animals.”

“Maybe dinosaurs and all birds belong in the same group,” said Senta.

“Perhaps you should leave that type of speculation to trained naturalists.”  Staff hadn’t realized until this point that Brown had recovered consciousness.  Though the sorceress seemed to ignore his condescending tone, it made no friends among the others, whose imperiled lives she had so recently saved.

“Look out!  That one’s still alive!” cried Croffut.

Brown let out a girlish squeal, sending most of the other party members into fits of laughter.  The beast in question had indeed been moving, but only because Werthimer was struggling to remove its leg.  A few minutes later he had finished butchering the animal, removing a large portion of breast meat as well as a drumstick and the party, now with Brown scowling angrily, moved on down the hillside.

When Staff judged that they had gone far enough that they would not be bothered by scavengers drawn to the dead achillobators, he ordered a stop for their luncheon.  The group managed to quickly put together a large pile of wood for a fire, which Senta ignited with no more than a glance.  Manring, whose wound had by now completely healed, pulled out a bag of seasoning and began preparing the meat.

“He was company cook in the Guard,” explained Werthimer. 

Staff nodded.  He wasn’t really paying attention.  He was watching Senta unpack her bag.  He had seen it a dozen times now but he still found it fascinating.  Unlike every other member of the party who carried heavy haversacks, she carried a small purse-like bag no more that eleven inches square, yet she pulled the most remarkable amount of equipment from it.  Now as he watched, she pulled out a camp chair that even folded up was two feet long.  She set up the chair, sat down, and crossed her legs.  With a dull thud, the pyramid of backpacks that had been hovering behind her all the while, crashed to the ground.

Staff turned around to find his face only inches from the brim of Femke Kane’s pith helmet.  Though she eschewed feminine convention from the lack of foundation garments right on up to her unshaped brows, she was still a handsome woman.  At five foot eleven, she scarcely had to look up to meet Staff’s hazel eyes with her sparkling baby blues.

“She’s quite something, isn’t she?” she said.

“Mmm,” he murmured noncommittally.  He was thinking of how unlike the girl that had come to Birmisia all those years before, Senta now seemed, and how much she seemed like the sorceress with whom the girl had come. 

It wasn’t long before the smell of roasted meat filled the air.  Whether Manring was a great cook or the meat of the achillobator was naturally succulent, Staff didn’t know, but there was no question that it was excellent.  Along with mixed fruit from tins, it was a fine repast.  After eating, they rested for an hour before continuing on their journey.