Near the back right corner of the little cottage’s yard, about halfway between the house and the nearest trees, was a large barrel in which trash was burned once or twice a week. Though the refuse did not include foodstuffs, it did sometimes contain newsprint that had once wrapped a purchase from the butcher or the fishmonger. It was these smells that sometimes drew animals from the forest to the yard, as it did on this particular day. The animals in question were three velociraptors. They were two and a half feet tall and five feet from the tip of their many-toothed snouts to the ends of their tails. Hairy feathers covered their bodies—yellow near their small arms and green everywhere else, but for a black band around their necks and a black tuft at the ends of their tails. Easily mistaken for a more benign bird from a distance, those familiar with them were wary because of the teeth and clawed hands, but mostly because of their feet, each of which had a three-inch claw curving upward, used to disembowel prey.
One of the velociraptors jumped up onto the edge of the barrel and looked down inside, trying to discover something edible. Before it could learn whether any such thing existed, it was knocked off by another, which then let out a squawk and promptly fell inside. All three began a horrendous cacophony of shrieks and cries, even after the most adventurous of the three had found his way back out and onto the ground. Suddenly the side door of the house burst open and a woman ran out swinging a broom and shouting her own shrieks and cries.
“Get out of here, you horrid beasts!” She made every effort to swat them, but the velociraptors easily evaded her and went running back into the woods.
“I’ve told you before not to do that!” shouted a tall red-haired man, running around the side of the house.
“They’ll make a mess,” she replied.
“Better they make a mess than they injure you, or worse.” He stopped in front of her, looked down into her bright blue eyes, and then kissed her on the lips. “I don’t want to lose you.”
She smiled, and reached up to run her fingers along the line of his square jaw.
“How did I ever get so lucky, Mr. Baxter?”
“I’m sure most would say that I’m the lucky one, Mrs. Baxter.”
“Come inside. I have been slaving all day to have your luncheon ready.”
She took him by the hand and led him into the house. Just inside was the small dining room. Painted yellow with green trim, it was as cozy as one would have expected, having seen the outside of the home. All of the furniture was new and of the highest quality, manufactured locally in Birmisia. There was a flatware hutch, displaying behind the glass doors, a collection of beautiful porcelain dishes, a small table with two chairs, and an occasional table upon which sat two framed pictures.
She pulled out a chair and waved for him to sit.
“Your seat, Monsieur.”
He sat and pulled her into his lap.
“If you’re playing at being a Mirsannan, shouldn’t you be dressed like one?” he asked. “Their women usually wear these gauzy gowns that one can practically see right through.”
“You, sir, are very naughty.”
He admired her very Brech appearance. She wore a pretty white pinstriped day dress, trimmed with white lace and bows. She wasn’t wearing the matching hat and her collar-length dark brown hair was parted on the side and combed over with only a few curls in the back.
She slapped him on the shoulder, and then reached to remove a knitted cozy covering his plate. The plate was filled with mashed peas, several slices of tomatoes and a very large helping of meat pie.
“Cottage pie?” he asked.
“I’m calling it Charmley pie.”
“Dinosaur meat then?”
“Yes, well, there are no Charmleys in it. I forget what kind of dinosaur Mr. Pickens, the butcher, said that it was. All I know is that it came from Mr. Charmley’s dinosaur ranch.”
“Judging by the size of this, I’m to feed you from my plate.”
“No,” she replied, pointing across the table. “I have my own, right over there.”
“What if I don’t want to let you go?”
“Then you won’t have time for lunch. You have to be back to the office in thirty-five minutes.”
“All right then,” he said, but didn’t release her. “I’m serious. Don’t go chasing velociraptors. They’re dangerous. You may see two or three, but that just means there are five or six you don’t see, and they’ll catch you off guard. More than a few people have found that out the hard way.”
“You’re so sweet to bother worrying about me.”
“I worry about both of you.” He rubbed her still flat belly.
Finally released, she danced around the table and sat across from him. Lifting the cozy from her plate revealed contents identical to his. She waited for him to start eating and then took several dainty bites.
“Would you like the paper while you eat?”
“Anything interesting in it?
“Just more about dangerous wizards prowling the colony.”
“No.”
“Apropos to nothing really,” she said, “we have received a dinner invitation from the Colbshallows.”
She watched his shoulders stiffen for several seconds and then relax.
“Perhaps that is not such a good idea,” he said mechanically.
“And perhaps it is. I hear from Mrs. Colbshallow that your little girl is not adjusting to her new situation…”
“She’s not my little girl.”
“You don’t believe that and neither do I. No man fights in court to keep a child he doesn’t believe is his. Besides, yours or not, you love her, and she very much wants… or needs to see you.”
He sat looking at his plate for several long minutes. Finally, she got up and walked back around the table, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and kissing him just below the ear.
“If I had been able to, I would have welcomed her into our home. But that was not to be. Still, we can make the best of things. Mr. Colbshallow is allowing you to have some small part in little Senta’s life. I know that it will rip your heart out every time you have to say goodbye to her, but you must do it for her sake.”
He took her wrist and pulled her back into his lap. Squeezing her tightly, he pressed his face into her neck.
“Bryony, you’re the most wonderful woman I’ve ever known.”
“Your beard is tickling me!” she giggled, and then when he pulled away. “That can’t be true. I know I’m wonderful, but being such a man of the world, you must have known so many women. What about… her?”
“No question about it,” he said. “It’s not even close. Not remotely so. Not even in the same galaxy.”
Once again, she climbed from his lap and returned to her side of the table.
“I’ll RSVP Mrs. Colbshallow for next week. Now eat your lunch. You need to keep up your strength. And I’m making you something very special for your evening sup.”
“As you say,” he said, taking a bite.
Bryony waved to him from the front porch, as Baxter climbed into his Sawyer and Sons model 6 steam carriage. He had purchased it used, and though it had a few dings in its bumpers, its green bonnet was as bright and shiny as new. Releasing the brake, he shifted into gear and pressed down on the forward accelerator. He returned her wave and the kiss that she blew toward him, and then he was off down the street, turning the left onto Victory.
It was a forty minute drive to reach the shipyard, which sat on the west side of the peninsula, a thick finger of land that stretched out to the north of the city. It would have been twenty minutes without the traffic. Baxter parked his car next to the yard offices and walked briskly inside.
“Welcome back, Mr. Baxter,” said Miss Patchett, smiling.
His secretary was a fetching young thing, petit, with a pleasant face, blue eyes, and long blond hair. But Baxter didn’t find blonds as attractive as he once had.
Stepping through the doorway to his office, he closed the door behind him and took his
place at his desk. Looking around through the glass walls, he could see every employee on the floor, and more importantly perhaps, they could see him. He opened the file on the S.S. Lady of Cordwell. It contained information on the ship—at 44,060 tons displacement and a length of 787 feet, she was a big girl—as well as her last maintenance notes and the bill of lading for her current voyage, both telegraphed from Brech City.
When he looked up, he saw Gaspar, one of the clerks, talking to a tall woman in an expensive grey walking dress. For years, when he had seen a woman of that height and with such a slender build, he suffered a violent reaction, thinking it was Senta, returned from wherever she had gone. But he had decided some time ago, that she wasn’t coming back. Besides, while Senta might have worn her hair in a long and complex style, she would have never allowed such an obviously artificial salmon-pink color. As he stared, they both turned in his direction, Gaspar pointing and the woman smiling and starting toward him. She had a long strait nose, full lips, and a somewhat pointy chin. Her brows were thick, like those of Mirsannan women, rather than Brech women who kept theirs thin and high. Darkened round spectacles with gold wire frames obscured her eyes.
Baxter rose and stepped around the desk, opening the door to greet her.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Baxter.”
“Good afternoon, Miss…”
“Hexacorallia.”
“My goodness. What an unusual name. What is that? Xygian? Argrathian?”
“It’s Old Zurian.”
“I’ve never heard it before, not that I’m all that familiar with Zaeri family names.”
“I’m not Zaeri.”
“All right. Won’t you come in and sit down?”
She walked smoothly into the office and took the chair facing the desk. Baxter hurried around to the other side and took his seat.
“What can I do for you, Miss Hexacorallia?”
“You don’t recognize me?”
He was suddenly wary. “Should I?”
“I should think so. After all, you’ve known me since I was small enough to fit into a hatbox.”
“I don’t see how that is poss…” He blinked. “Zoey?”
“There we go. I shouldn’t have made it so hard for you. You were never very smart. Handsome and scrumptious, yes, but smart, no.”
“Well you can hardly expect…” He stopped and stared at her for a full minute. “You really are much better at looking like a human than Bessemer is. You’re … well, I had no clue you weren’t a real woman. You’re stunning.”
“Yes, I am, aren’t I?” She ran a hand over the salmon pink curls falling around her long, graceful neck. “I really am so much better than he is at everything. As a matter of fact, I’m certain that I am the very best dragon in the entire world.”
“I suppose I can take your word for that, since I only know two, but there can’t really be all that many running around.”
“Or flying around.”
“Yes, even so.” He frowned. “It’s been more than a year since I last saw you—almost two I think. Where have you been? What have you been doing?”
“I’ve been in the south. One might say I have been studying.”
“One might? And what might one say you had been studying?”
“How to be a dragon, I suppose.”
“You were a dragon when you left. Now it seems you have learned how to be a human.”
She shrugged. “Your circumstances have changed.”
“How do you mean?” he asked.
“For one thing, you have a job. That’s most odd. You were perfectly happy to accept Senta’s largess when she was here. Why not when she isn’t? Someone should be using some of that vast wealth. She certainly isn’t.”
“It’s not mine,” he said. “I want no part of it. And I don’t need it.”
“No, you don’t. You have a job, here in the shipyard. That was a surprise, yes, but nothing like what I found out about your living conditions.”
“I’m married,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “I’m very happy now.”
“I’m so happy for you. I want to meet her—this wife of yours. You must let me take the two of you out to dinner tonight.”
“Um, not tonight. Bryony has something already planned.”
“Then invite me, if you think she won’t mind.”
“Of course. Where are you staying, I’ll come around and pick you up after I get off work.”
“No need,” she gave him a lazy, toothy smile. “I’ll meet you at home.”
She rose and he automatically followed suit.
“I’ll see myself out, Kieran.”
“As you wish, Zoey,” said Baxter, but he followed her out as far as Miss Patchett’s desk. He picked up a piece of notepaper and her pen. Dipping it in the well, he scratched out a quick missive, and retrieved a 25-pfennig piece from his pocket. “Find a lizzie to run this to my house, please,” he said, handing his secretary the coin and the note.
Baxter found it impossible to work the rest of the day. He absentmindedly spread out the documents regarding the S.S. Lady of Cordwell, but he didn’t look at them. When he noticed that the clock on the wall had just passed 5:00 PM, he was filled with a very odd mixture of anticipation and dread.
Leaving through the front door, he walked to his car and climbed in. He had no sooner placed his hands on the steering wheel than a blast of super-cooled air hit him on his left side. Frost formed on his left arm and the skin of his left hand turned blue. He wasn’t sure, but it felt like the skin on his face was in the same state. Looking across the passenger side, he saw a man walking toward him—a tall fellow with a dark beard, wearing an old black jacket and a top hat with a silver pentagram pin in it. Baxter didn’t recognize him at first, but then came the recollection that this was the same tosspot that had been bothering Lady Terra a few weeks before. He had been hit by a wizard’s cold spell.
“Uuthanum beithbechnoth!” snarled the wizard pointing at him.
Having lived in the company of a sorceress for several years, Baxter remembered the words that heralded a spell of magical darts. He dived out of the vehicle onto the ground, but not before one of them hit him square in the back. It felt like being stabbed with a hot fireplace poker. One other magical dart shot over him. Two? Two magical darts? Not much of a wizard.
The not-much-of-a-wizard laughed heartily on the other side of the car. Baxter sat up, wincing in pain. Sticking one hand up, he felt behind the driver’s seat. His hand met the stock of a shotgun. He pulled it down to him and quickly flicked it open. It was loaded with two shells. Sadly they were only filled with birdshot, kept handy for dealing with pests like the velociraptors. He had a pistol, but there was no way to reach it in the glove compartment.
Lying down on the pavement, he looked beneath the vehicle. The only part of the wizard visible were his feet, ankles, and shins. Pointing the shotgun under the car with one hand, he pulled the rear of the two triggers. Fire and smoke shot from the barrel, filling the space between the bottom of the car and the ground, but after a few seconds he could see the man laying on the ground and hear him crying loudly.
Getting up slowly, he made his way around the steam carriage, stopping to wipe a smudge off the Sawyer and Sons seal. The wizard was trying to crawl away, leaving a sparse trail of blood drops. A few dozen dockworkers and probably twice that many lizzies were staring from some distance away. Reaching the wizard’s side, Baxter rolled him over with his foot. The man on the ground opened his mouth, whether to cast a spell, cry, or beg, was unclear, but Baxter stopped any of those possibilities by stuffing the shotgun barrels in his mouth.
“I do believe it’s the great and powerful some-such.” He stopped, hearing a hissing sound, and turned to see his left rear tire quickly deflating. “Now that makes me angry. A new tire is ten marks, five p.”
The wizard let out a whimper.
“The real pity is, that this weapon only has two shots, and quite frankly, shooting you through your head would be a
n enormous waste of ammunition.” He pulled the barrels from the man’s mouth and wiped them on his black jacket. Then he pointed the weapon toward the wizard’s crotch. “I suppose a better choice would be to ensure that you didn’t accost any more young ladies.” A wet stain quickly spread across the front of the wizard’s black pants.
“Cendrick!” Baxter called to a lizzie that he recognized. “Go fetch me a rickshaw, please.”
The lizzie nodded and hurried away. Baxter walked back to the car, tossed the shotgun in the back seat and retrieved the pistol from among several pairs of driving gloves and two handkerchiefs. The wizard was right where he had left him.
“Let me say this once,” he said, leaning over. “If I ever see you again, walking along the street, in a shop, hell, eating in a restaurant with a young and obviously undiscriminating lady, I’m going to kill you. I don’t mean that I’m going to scare you. I don’t mean that I’m going to wound you. I mean that I’m going to blow the brains right out of your head. And you won’t be the first wizard that has met that fate at my hands. Do you understand?”
The wizard whimpered.
“I said, do you understand.”
The wizard nodded.
“Good. Then this is goodbye.”
The lizzie-pulled rickshaw was waiting. Baxter gave the lizardman two marks and said “Doctor.” Twenty minutes later, he was sitting on an examination table with his shirt off.
“A little salve on your ear and your left hand should be sufficient,” said Dr. Abram, a rather gangly man with a somewhat misshapen head. “Now this burn on your back is somewhat more worrying. Lie on your stomach and I’ll pour some healing draught onto it.”
Baxter did as directed and felt the liquid sizzle as it did its magic. When he sat up, the doctor gave him a second draught to drink.
“This should heal you up by tomorrow. Do you want some laudanum for the pain?”
A Plague of Wizards Page 5