Sitting on the desk, looking at him, was the doll. He knew it was the same doll he had found in the vacant lot, even though it looked different. Its face was freshly coated with paint. And its clothes were different. It was wearing the same strange outfit that the woman had worn—the little leather skirt and the red and black leather corset.
He snatched up the doll and looked at it. It had been her! It had been her and he had chased her away! He slid from his chair onto the floor and curled up under his desk with the doll. It had been her, and he had lost her again! Suddenly he started weeping uncontrollably.
* * * * *
Bryony Baxter walked smartly down the black and white walkway that ran much of the length of Marigold Avenue. It was almost a hundred yards from the trolley stop to her destination, so she was already feeling quite overheated when she stopped a door down from Edeline’s Eatery to check herself in the reflection of a store window.
She looked quite nice, she thought. Her burgundy day dress was a bit dark for summer walking, but she found it so tiring, having to divide her daywear between walking and sitting apparel. The cascades of black lace that dripped from her bodice to her heels matched her black boater. She compared the hat with her black parasol and black lace gloves.
“Oh, I look like I’m going to a funeral,” she said.
Then she noticed a strange image in the glass beside her reflection. It was a very lifelike figure displaying the most bizarre undergarments, draped in far more black than she was. If she was surprised to see such unmentionables displayed right out in the open, Bryony was more surprised when she saw the figure move, and more shocked still, when she turned to find that the image wasn’t something inside the store, but a woman standing right next to her on the sidewalk.
“Well hello,” said the strange apparition. “If it isn’t Bryony Byenthal.”
“In point of fact, it is Bryony Baxter. No need to wonder who you are, I suppose”
“No. No need. Everyone knows. I’m Senta the Magnificent.”
“I have to tell you, Miss Bly,” said Bryony, “that most people I’ve spoken to thought you were dead and gone, though there were a few perceptive individuals who knew that could not be the case.”
“And what did you think?”
“I confess I belonged to the former group.”
Senta stepped next to her and draped her arm over the shorter woman’s shoulders, pulling her close.
“What will we see if we look deep inside you, Bryony Byenthal? Only two names? That’s disappointing.”
“Only two names,” replied the brunette. “Bryony Baxter.”
The world around them seemed to drift away, leaving them alone in their own little bubble universe.
“You’re quite striking,” said Bryony. “I can see why men fall all over themselves. I like to think I’m pretty. My eyes are on the large side, and I’m very fond of the shade of blue that they’ve been blessed with. But look at you—that wild blond hair, those classical features, and those grey eyes that look right into one’s soul.”
“I’m looking into your soul right now, Bryony.”
“I’m afraid there’s not much to see, is there, Miss Bly? St. Admeta Orphanage, Madame Kissington’s Preparatory School for Underprivileged Girls, two years in the Women’s Public Axillary Army Corps. No torture, maiming, or mutilations. Not a murder in sight, I’m afraid.”
“But there is more, isn’t there?” whispered Senta, with a vulpine smile. “There would have to be. Let’s look deep inside and see what you’re greatest fear is.”
“I would prefer you not,” said Bryony.
“I’ll bet you would.” Senta’s smile turned into a frown, as she let go of the other woman and moved back toward the curb.
“Did you see it?” asked Bryony stepping forward.
Senta instinctively stepped back.
“You did, didn’t you?”
Senta didn’t answer. Her lips curled like they had tasted something sour.
“Come by my house for luncheon tomorrow,” said Bryony. “I’ll make sure that Kieran isn’t going to come home to eat. I have a story to tell you. I’ll expect you at eleven.”
Senta nodded.
“And please dress appropriately,” said Bryony. “I mean, like a lady. It’s a quiet neighborhood.”
With that, Mrs. Baxter continued on her way. The sorceress followed a dozen steps behind as she entered Edeline’s Eatery, walked to the back of the restaurant, and took a seat opposite a woman in an expensive grey walking dress. Bryony’s companion had a long and complex arrangement of salmon-pink hair. As Senta watched, the other woman turned and looked at her through gold-framed spectacles with darkened lenses.
* * * * *
The next morning at precisely 10:57 AM, Senta simply appeared on the cobblestone walkway outside the small yellow cottage on Ghiosa Way. No one saw her pop into existence, as no one was watching. Had anyone seen her, as she made her way between the large ferns that lined the front steps, nobody would have thought anything about it. She perfectly fit the surroundings, her long blond hair carefully coiffed beneath a black and white boater, and her body carefully encased in corset, bustle, and black and white walking dress, the front panel of which featured the white embroidered imagery of a dragon in flight, on a black background.
When she reached the top step, the front door opened and Bryony Baxter stepped out with a pleasant smile.
“What perfect timing,” she said. “Please do come in, Miss Bly. Or may I call you Senta?”
Senta gave her a curt nod and squeezed past her into the small but carefully arranged parlor. She waited as the hostess closed the door and turned around.
“Tea is ready. Shall we go ahead and sit down?”
The dining room was really just an extension of the parlor and that extended on into a kitchen beyond. All of the furniture in the rooms were new and represented the best of Birmisia’s local manufacturing. The dining table was laid out with fine silver flatware and beautiful porcelain dishes. Bryony waved to one seat, which Senta took, and then she took the other. Removing the cozy from the teapot, she poured two cups and handed one across to the sorceress.
“Cream?”
“What are you doing with my dragon?” demanded Senta, suddenly.
“Your dragon? Zoey, do you mean?”
“Who the hell else would I mean?”
“Well, I don’t know, I’m sure. You are the Drache Girl, after all. One might suppose you to have any number of dragons flying around.” The brunette smiled. “To be honest, I don’t think of her as a dragon. I’ve only seen her as such on two occasions. I suppose I just think of her as a person who can change into a dragon. We have become good friends though. I invited her to tea with us, but she declined. She’s afraid of you, of course.”
“Good sense,” muttered Senta.
Bryony began passing out the food. She had scones and vegetable sausages, a nettle salad, and sliced tomatoes.
“I didn’t know if there were some things you wouldn’t eat.”
“Food’s not important,” said Senta. “You said you had a story for me.”
“Why yes I do.” Bryony began as she continued to distribute the items of the meal. “It begins four years ago. I wasn’t here, but I know the story. I’m probably the only one that does, or at least the only one that appreciates it.”
“Go on.”
“It begins with your disappearance. I gather it wasn’t a shock to anyone that you should just disappear one day. But after you had been gone several days, Kieran began to suspect foul play—that something had happened to you. He began searching. Of course, he didn’t find much of anything. There were some strange men seen in town and he developed an unlikely theory that you had somehow been kidnapped. At that point he began hiring people to track you down, spending a great deal of your money, or at least the money that he could get at.
“No one else believed that any such thing could have happened to the most powerful sorceress in the world
. Popular opinion was split. Half the people just thought that you had left to end up Kafira-knows-where. The other half believed that Kieran had killed you, in your sleep when you were most vulnerable maybe, and that he had perhaps buried you in the garden.”
“Ridiculous,” said Senta.
“Of course it was, but with him spending more and more of your money on what seemed to many like a silly and fruitless search, soon more or less everyone came to believe that it was true. He decided then that he had to go find you himself. And it was at that point that Police Chief Colbshallow filed for custody of little Senta.”
“He had no call.”
“He is the child’s father, isn’t he?” asked Bryony. “In any case, enough people knew that Kieran wasn’t. As a guardian with no paperwork, nor any real connection to the child, he had no standing in court to fight to keep her, but he did anyway. And he lost. Sen went to live with the Colbshallows and Kieran left Birmisia in search of you. I don’t know everywhere he went, but he was gone for well over a year. When he returned, he was a shadow of himself. He had suffered a sort of break down.”
“And you were here to put him back together.”
“No, I wasn’t. I don’t know that I would have been able. You have to understand. He was completely destroyed. He thought that he had failed you. The poor sweet man was sent to the psychological hospital in Mallontah.”
Senta’s mouth opened in shock.
“Oh, it’s not a place of horrors, like the old mad houses. They were good to him. They helped him. It was they that put him together, as you say. But that is where we met. He was already well on the way to recovery when I first saw him. I was volunteering. I used to read to him. I read him The Adventures of the S.S. Flying Fish. It was the only thing that I could find to read to a man. At first, he never responded, but eventually he commented about something in the book. Something wasn’t right with the description. Then we began talking and I found out how he knew, that he had been a naval officer. Finally, he told me his whole story. I couldn’t help it, falling in love with him. After all, he is an almost perfect man.”
“Yes, he is,” said Senta. “And he’s mine. I want him back.”
“You can’t have him,” said Bryony. “We’re married, before God and Kafira. You are nothing more than a memory to him. I know it’s impossible, but it would really be better if he never finds out you’ve returned.”
“He’s found out already,” smiled Senta. “He didn’t say anything?”
Byrony frowned. “That’s why he was so distracted last night. I don’t think you know just what you might do to him—how he might react. I have to ask you though. Why did you leave? Why did you come back?”
“What if I told you that I just felt like being away for a while? What if I told you that it was nothing but a whim?”
“I wouldn’t believe it,” said Mrs. Baxter. “Kieran loved you and he couldn’t love anyone who would do something so horrible, to just up and leave her daughter and the man who loved her so much.”
Senta picked up a scone and scooped strawberry jam onto it.
“I’m going to put my life back together. You may believe me or not, but I have had to kill more than a few people to allow me to do just that. From where I sit now, you are the one remaining impediment to my happiness.”
“So why haven’t you done something to me? What is it you do anyway? Turn people into toads and squash them? Burn them alive? Poison them with an apple?”
“In the past, I enjoyed transforming them into conchoraptors, but lately I’ve been reducing them to a pile of dust. It’s not really as satisfying, but it is easier to deal with afterwards.”
“Then why haven’t you?” asked Bryony.
Senta took a big bite of her scone and chewed slowly.
“The other day, you said you were looking into my soul,” continued Bryony. “Can you really do that?”
“Yes.”
“What did you see then?”
“Your greatest fear,” said Senta. “You know what it is.”
“No, not really. Is it something horrible?”
“You’re greatest fear is seeing Kieran hurt.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Bryony smiled. “He is everything to me, and I am everything that he needs. He will always come first with me—always. Can you say the same?”
Chapter Fifteen: The Battle of Dhu-oooastu
Hsrandtuss nodded knowingly as he surveyed the forest for miles around from the top of the hill his people had named Dhu-oooastu. He pointed first to the south and nodded to Tusskiqu. The great lizzie hissed in reply. Then Hsrandtuss pointed to the southeast and nodded to Slechtiss. Slechtiss placed his hand to his throat and then hurried off. A dozen brightly painted lizzies hurried after him. Others went with Tusskiqu. Still more were hurrying this way and that.
“I can’t tell what’s going on?” said the single tiny human amid the army of lizzies.
Hsrandtuss reached down and picked Terra Dechantagne up, setting her on his shoulder. Then he pointed high up into the clouds. The girl could make out little among the great fluffy masses at first. Then she saw something sapphire blue zipping across the sky at amazing speed.
“Is that it?”
“Yes,” replied the King. “That is Xecheon’s new god.”
“My eyes must be playing tricks. It doesn’t look any larger than me.”
“It is bigger than you, but not so big that I couldn’t still put it on my shoulder instead of a skinny soft-skin.” Then he gurgled loudly.
“What?”
“We’re very nearly the same size,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be glorious to engage in hand-to-hand combat with a god?”
“It wouldn’t be a very long combat,” she said. “Dragon armor is essentially indestructible. They have teeth that can bit through steel, frighteningly sharp claws, and a barbed tail. They breathe fire and usually have some other breath weapon. They are extremely intelligent and are capable of magic.”
“Why did I bring you along with me?” wondered Hsrandtuss. “Was it just to depress me?”
“I will be quite honest, Great King. I have no idea why I’m here.”
“You are here to learn how to be a great warrior. Now, pay attention. The dragon is observing us for the enemy, so I have been very careful to let her see exactly where my forces are going. Tusskiqu is taking a force of four thousand to intercept their left column of war machines. Can you see their smoke?”
He pointed and the girl could make out about a dozen columns of black smoke rising above the trees in the distance.
“Slechtiss is taking a thousand riflemen and three thousand warriors to intercept the other war machines. Of course, that leaves our headquarters here completely unprotected.”
“But you have more than eight thousand warriors, Great King,” Terra pointed out.
“Yes indeed. But you see, the dragon has told their general, my old friend Tokkenttot, that I have left the bulk of my forces in Yessonarah to defend against their fearsome human machines.”
“Why would she think that?”
“It probably has something to do with the thirty thousand females painted like warriors who are even now patrolling the walls.”
“As I just pointed out, Great King,” said Terra. “Dragons are very smart. In addition, they are famed for their eyesight. They can see things that would be invisible to anyone else. They can see in complete darkness. They can see the difference in temperatures. How is this dragon going to be fooled?”
“You are only about six years old, so I am going to forgive your ignorance.”
“I am fifteen.”
“I still forgive you,” said the king. “You and Child of the Sunrise are the two smartest humans I have ever met. Perhaps you are remarkable specimens, or perhaps I have had very bad luck in the soft-skins that I have happened upon. But you are very young, and sometimes intelligence does not substitute for experience. The dragon may very well notice something different among the warriors on our walls
, but will she know why that difference is important? I don’t think so, and neither does Yessonar. Oh yes, little one. Do not forget that we have our own dragon.
“So where are the rest of our warriors?” whispered Terra. “I mean the real ones.”
“Ah, here is the next lesson. A great warrior plans where his battle will take place. That is how I killed so many of your people.” He paused to look for her reaction. She just shrugged. “We have carefully arranged for the war machines to ride over a series of underground caves that run in a long chain from just south of here to the west. I’ve had 20,000 males working the last 72 hours straight to weaken some of the stone supporting the cave ceilings. When the machines go over them, a few, relatively small charges will drop them down into the earth, along with all the warriors on foot that travel with them.”
“And when is this going to happen?” asked Terra.
Hsrandtuss pulled a gold pocket watch from a small pouch on his belt. Flipping open the cover, he examined it. “Assuming Tokkenttot is as foolish as I expect him to be, our counter attack will occur when the little hand is on the two stacked stones and the large hand is on the claw.”
“Eight-fifteen,” translated Terra. “In about thirty minutes.”
“Yes,” said Hsrandtuss, pulling her from his shoulder and dropping her onto a folding chair. He sat down on an identical one, and waved his hand. “Just enough time for breakfast.”
A male brought a plate full of kippers and sat it in the girl’s lap.
“Your favorite,” said the king, as another male gave him two large raw eggs and a small cooked bird. “Eat up. The battlefield usually makes one vomit their first time and it is better to have something on your stomach.”
“But we’re miles from…” Terra’s voice drifted off.
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