That night on his uncomfortable cot, Wissinger had a wonderful dream. He dreamed that a beautiful woman was making love to him. She licked his neck as she rubbed her naked body against his. She whispered to him in some foreign language—he thought it was Brech. When he managed to pull himself out of the fog of sleep, and he realized that it wasn’t a dream, that the woman was really here with him, he tried to push her off of him.
“Don’t stop now lover,” she said, a noticeably Brech accent to her Freedonian. “I’m just starting to really enjoy myself.”
Wissinger pushed again, and slid his body out from under her, falling to the floor in the process. She stretched out, lying on her stomach. He stared at her open-mouthed. Her long blond hair didn’t quite cover a fourteen-inch crescent moon tattoo at the top of her back. Another tattoo, an eight-inch flaming sun sat just above her voluptuous bottom.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I would have thought that was obvious,” she replied in a sultry voice. “I’m here to warn you.”
“You… uh, what?”
“I’m here to warn you.”
She rolled over and stood up, revealing six star tattoos all over her front.
“In a short while, maybe a few weeks, the food supply to the ghetto will be reduced. It will be reduced a lot.”
“They barely give us enough to survive on as it is. They can’t cut it back anymore.”
“They can, and they will.” She stepped closer to him. “They are going to try and starve the Zaeri to extinction.”
“They won’t be able to.”
“No, it’s true, in the end they won’t. But they will try and many will die. Even worse things will follow. Do you know how to get out of the ghetto?”
“I can’t leave. People need me here.”
“No they don’t. People like you, but they don’t need you and they won’t help you when things get very bad. You have no family and when it comes to eat or starve, you won’t have any friends either—no one will. I ask you again; do you know how to get out of the ghetto?”
“They say a Kafirite named Kiesinger will get you out if you can pay, but I don’t have any money. I didn’t have any before I came here.”
“Here.”
The woman handed him a small leather pouch, though he had no idea where she could have had it hidden. He looked inside. There was a small roll of banknotes and twenty or so gold coins.
“Brech marks?”
“Gold is gold. I don’t know if the banknotes are worth much, but they’ve got to be better than Freedonian groschen.”
“No doubt,” said Wissinger. “Why? Why are you helping me? I mean, me in particular.”
“You need to survive. You need to leave Freedonia and make your way to Birmisia.”
“Birmisia? That’s on the other side of the world. How could I get there? What would I do there?”
“Live. As for the how, we’ll deal with that later. Now you’ve wasted all my time talking when we could have been doing something far more satisfying.”
“You’ve only been here a few minutes.”
“Yes, but I have much to do. Go see this man and get out of the ghetto. I’ll find you again at a later date, hopefully, in a more hospitable mood.”
“Who are you? What are you? Are you my guardian angel?”
The woman smiled. “That is exactly what I am.”
Then with a wave of her hand, she disappeared with a pop.
* * * * *
The Present
Senta was waiting at the side of the road in front of her home when Graham arrived the next day at eleven. She was dressed in her latest acquisition—a sunny yellow dress with a low back that showed off her shoulder blades. Graham didn’t own a steam carriage, so she expected him to arrive on foot. He surprised her by instead showing up in the back of a rickshaw, reclining in comfort as a large lizzie pulled him along. There were two seats on the vehicle balanced above two spoked wheels and the lizzie pulled it with two long poles which stuck out the front.
“What’s this then?” she asked.
“Pretty ace, isn’t it? Mrs. Government had them brought over from Sumir. The lizzies can buy them and set up their own business pulling us softskins around.”
Senta picked up the picnic basket from beside her foot and stuffed it behind the rickshaw seat next to the similar basket that Graham had brought with him. Then she climbed up and sat down next to him.
“Do you think this lizzie can pull us both?”
“You hardly weigh anything at all. Besides, Canron here could pull four or five of these things tied together.”
He turned to the reptilian and gave directions in the lizzie language, which many humans, perhaps unkindly referred to as “spit-n-gag.” After a quick reply in the same tongue, Canron turned the vehicle around and took off toward the center of town.
Augustus P. Dechantagne Park sat far out on the peninsula beyond the dockyards. It had been designed by Governor Iolanthe Dechantagne-Staff and had been named for her youngest brother who had died in a battle with lizzies from the city-state of Suusthek. It featured a gazebo, a walking path, and a statue of the aforementioned Augustus P. Dechantagne. It also had a lovely copse of trees under which picnickers would gather during the summer. As it was early spring however, Senta and Graham both preferred a spot in the open under the warming rays of the sun, and it was here that they headed, though they had not conferred aloud on the subject. After unloading and dismissing the lizzie rickshaw, Graham spread a blanket out and they sat down to assemble roast beef sandwiches.
Roast beef in and of itself was something of a novelty, since it was only recently that cattle had arrived in Birmisia Colony. Pork had been available for some time and many people, Graham and Senta included, had grown used to dinosaur meat as well. This roast beef was tender and delicious, not surprising as it had come from Café Ada, which in addition to being the newest and most talked about eating establishment in Port Dechantagne, had a Mirsannan chef named Pierre Something.
As they ate their sandwiches, Graham looked around. They were not the only people in the park. Several children were playing an ad-hoc game of football. Five or six other couples and at least one family were seated on their own blankets enjoying their own noonday meals. A young couple, four of five years older than Graham and Senta, sat on a park bench and kissed when they thought no one else was looking.
“We could be doing that,” said Graham.
“Oh, so now you want a kiss. What happened to ‘she’s not my girlfriend’?”
“I haven’t said that in a long time—years maybe. Everybody knows you’re my girlfriend.”
“Everybody who?” wondered Senta.
“Everybody everybody.”
“Well I don’t just give kisses away. I need a sign of devotion.”
“What kind of a sign?”
“Something that lets everyone know that I’m your girlfriend.”
“And what would that be?”
“You’ll figure something out.”
Leaning back on her hands, she turned her face up toward the warmth of the sun.
* * * * *
Senta watched from her bedroom window as the other blond girl climbed into the rickshaw with Graham and as they started, pulled by the lizzie, on their way toward town. She finished drying her hair, tossing the towel onto the floor. Then she went to the dresser and pulled out her unders and pulled them on. Finally she looked at the black leather dress that had still sat at the foot of the bed from the day before.
“I suppose I should look like a sorceress today,” she said, looking down at her doll, which was dutifully dragging the towels to the wicker hamper. It let go of them for a moment and shrugged, then went back to its duties.
Sliding the dress over her head, Senta thought that there really wasn’t enough of it there to qualify for the name. Though at the neck it went right up to her chin, it barely came down below her hips at the bottom. Looking back at the bed, she found
a pair of tight leather leggings that matched the dress. Though she might have looked bizarre, at least she wasn’t going to be running around naked. She pulled on a pair of black stockings and using a buttonhook, fastened on her shoes. Women’s shoes were usually hidden by long dresses but most were stylish and attractive in case a man should catch a glimpse of one. Senta’s were high heeled, made of black leather, and had tiny little flowers along the eyes.
Not hungry, despite not having eaten since the previous day at noon, she grabbed the small black purse that had been her previous year’s birthday present from Zurfina, and set out. The colonial government was constructing a new office building about halfway between Town Square and the train station. Though only the foundation and part of one wall had been completed thus far, it was clear that it would be a massive building. Just behind it was a small single story structure that had been designed as a carriage house, but which temporarily housed the Governor and her administration. Once inside, Senta spotted Governor Dechantagne-Staff immediately, but was intercepted before she could reach her by the Governor’s secretary Mrs. Melody Wardlaw.
Mrs. Wardlaw, an attractive woman in her thirties had arrived in Port Dechantagne two years before as Mrs. Lanier. She had been a widow and remained single only a few months before marrying a law clerk turned ornithologist.
“Are you here to see the Governor?”
“I can see her now,” pointed out Senta. “She’s right over there.”
“And did you wish to speak with her?”
Senta narrowed her eyes. She raised her finger to her lips and then slowly pointed it at Mrs. Wardlaw. “I don’t know… I could just talk to you.”
The secretary paled.
“I’m sure she has some time for you.”
“There you are,” said Mrs. Staff when she saw the young sorceress. “I suppose you’re given to sleeping in all day. No doubt Zurfina has failed to provide you with the structure of which young people are so in need.”
“No doubt,” said Senta. “What was it that you needed?”
“Come walk with me.”
Mrs. Staff led Senta out of the building and down the cement sidewalk. A lizzie work crew was paving the road. Back in the great city of Brech, most of the streets had been paved scores or even hundreds of years before and so cobblestone was the norm. Here, streets were covered with a layer of red bricks, carefully pieced together. A single human foreman leaning on a shovel quickly stood erect when he saw the Governor.
“That’s one of the things I need you for,” said Mrs. Staff.
“Punishing lazy employees?”
The Governor pursed her lips.
“The lizzies. As you are no doubt aware, hundreds have moved into the city limits and are occupying that land just west of the train depot. People are already calling it…”
“Lizzietown,” interrupted Senta. “And it’s more like thousands. I’m surprised you allow it, considering what happened two years ago.”
“One should keep his friends close and his enemies closer. I want you to make sure that there is nothing going on there that would threaten us.”
“All right. What else?”
“I’m concerned that we may have agents of Freedonia in the colony again. Zurfina has in the past performed security checks for us. I believe we need something along that line again.”
“Any idea exactly what she did?”
“You’re the sorceress, not I.”
“Seems like pretty much the same kind of job—just a matter of which direction I’m looking. I’ll give it my best shot.”
“Of course you will,” said the Governor.
“I’ll be on my way then.”
“One more thing. My husband was interested in hiring someone to magically look for coal—just as your Miss Jindra did.”
“She’s not my Miss Jindra. I barely know her.”
“As you say. In any case, with Zurfina indisposed as you say, you seem to be the only purveyor of magic at our disposal, so you should stop and see him.”
“Zurfina isn’t already being paid for that too, is she?” asked Senta.
“No. This would be business between you and Mr. Staff’s coal company.”
“Ace.”
Mrs. Staff said goodbye and turned back toward her temporary offices. Senta cut through the block, still forested but now criss-crossed with pathways made by people and lizzies. The offices of M&S Coal Company were just outside of Town Square on the south side, across the street from Mr. Darwin’s shop. She was less than fifty feet away when she suddenly ducked behind a tree. Coming out of the front door of M&S Coal was Mr. Radley Staff, and with him was a fifteen year old blond girl. With the exception of her clothes, which consisted of a long, confining rubber dress that went to her ankles and matched a pair of long black gloves, she was an exact copy of Senta.
“Kafira’s fanny! She snaked that job right out from under me!”
* * * * *
Yuah Dechantagne peered out through the large window at the front of Mr. Parnorsham’s Pfennig Store. Her eyes narrowed as she watched Senta talking to her brother-in-law across the street. That witch was evil. She had seen it with her own eyes. Yuah’s husband Terrence had been addicted most of his adult life to White Opthalium. The drug was not readily available in Birmisia, and for a time Yuah thought that he had managed to defeat his addiction. Then she had followed him and had seen Senta and Zurfina supplying poor Terrence. What kind of person would sell such a horrible substance to another? Now Terrence was dead, but Yuah’s hatred for Zurfina and her ward was alive and well. And what the hell was she wearing? That dress looked as though it was made from the same thing as steam carriage tires.
“Can I help you with something, Mrs. Dechantagne?”
Yuah started, but it was only Mr. Parnorsham.
“What?”
“I was just wondering if there was anything else you needed. I have the toiletries and notions from your list all gathered. What else can I get for you?”
“If there’s anything else, I’ll send a lizzie for it.” Yuah’s tone sounded harsh in her own ears, and the look on Mr. Parnorsham’s face confirmed it.
She glanced quickly out the window again and saw that Senta had left.
“Good day.”
Outside her steam carriage was waiting. Marzell Lance, her driver, had stepped to the rear of the vehicle to add coal to the firebox. When he saw her, he quickly wiped his hands on a handkerchief and hurried around to help her climb up into the passenger seat.
“Be a dear and get my crate.”
Marzell dashed into the store and returned with a wooden crate filled with her purchases, which he put in the back seat. He paused briefly before climbing into the driver’s side to look at a pair of teenage girls walking by. This made Yuah click her tongue.
“Sorry Mrs. D,” said the chastened driver as he maneuvered the car out of the square and down First Avenue toward the Dechantagne estate.
Marzell drove through the open gate of the Dechantagne-Staff property. The huge, stately house was still one of the largest buildings in the colony, featuring a large portico supported by four two-story columns in front, a double gabled roof, and more than a dozen stone chimneys. Every side of the house was covered with large dual-paned windows. The young driver brought the steam carriage all the way around the left side of the home, to the shed in the rear. Jumping down, he helped Yuah to the ground. She walked quickly to the back door. Her snapping fingers were the only signal for the lizzie standing by—she thought it was Garrah but wasn’t sure—to fetch the crate from the car and to bring it inside.
In the kitchen two more lizzies were cleaning, but the crowd that she had expected was not there. Just past the kitchen, Yuah almost ran into Mrs. Colbshallow. The former cook now occupied a position in the household akin to a dear aunt.
“Shouldn’t they be preparing tea, Yadira?” she asked.
“It’s already on the table. I was just about to summon everyone to the dining room. How was
your shopping trip?”
“Barely acceptable.”
Mrs. Colbshallow paused and peered over her glasses. “Then I’m barely glad to hear it.”
Neither Iolanthe nor Radley were at home for tea. Yuah had expected as much of course, since she had just seen the latter in town and seldom found the former at home during the day. Mrs. Colbshallow was seated on one side of the table next to Iolanthe’s daughter Iolana. Yuah, between her two children, sat opposite them. Augie was now almost two and a half and had mastered the intricacies of family dining, though he had to sit on a stack of books to reach the table. He looked so much like his father it made Yuah’s heart ache to look at him.
“Good afternoon Mama,” he said. “Did you bring me a tin soldier?”
“Of course I did. You may play with it after you eat.
“Mine?” asked Augie’s little sister Terra.
The girl was a less than a year younger than her brother. She had a round little face framed by thick black hair and brown eyes. She was unusually thin for a child her age. This along with her pale skin and scratchy little voice made her mother constantly worried for her health, despite the best medical opinions, which said she was completely fine. She, like her brother, was quite advanced for her age.
“I brought you some blocks.”
The girl tipped her head back, opened her mouth, and shrieked.
“I want a soldier!”
“Girls don’t play with soldiers,” said Augie.
“I want a soldier!”
“No they don’t,” said Yuah, brushing the little girl’s hair. “Boys play with soldiers because they grow up to be soldiers.”
The Young Sorceress Page 3