“Time to wake up and get to work,” said the young sorceress. “I need more eyes. That blond girl is supposed to take care of Graham, and what is she doing? She’s assaulting people in bakeries and frightening clerks. The other one is supposed to spend time with Hero, but she’s too busy stealing the only job that pays away from me. Work is supposed to be mine. Kafira only knows what the third one is doing while she’s supposed to see to my dragon. That’s why I need you and your little friends. I’m sending each of you off to watch one of those blond girls and report back to me.”
Leaving the jar where it was, she fetched another just like it and then a third, and sat down with them in the center of the mystic circle. She unfastened one jar after the other until all three were open, and then watched as the grotesque little things slowly climbed out. They coughed the sickly yellow liquid from their lungs and then stretched out their little leathery wings.
“I’m calling you Bikindi,” she said poking one of them with her index finger. “And you are Ulixes. And you are Dante. Now off you go.”
The little monsters flitted their wings, spattering the floor with liquid, and then shot into the air. Senta waved a hand and a shuttered window flew open just long enough for them to pass through.
Chapter Six: The Real Senta
15 Months Earlier:
Isaak Wissinger walked through the cobblestone streets of Magdafeld. He tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, but that was relatively hard to do on this particular morning because very few others were on the streets. Magdafeld sat high atop a hill in the center of a long flat plain, so even though it was spring, a chilly wind whipped about. He tucked his head down and pulled up the collar of “borrowed” trench coat. When the sounds of a chugging steam carriage approached from behind, Wissinger tensed. He watched carefully as it passed, trying not to seem as if he was watching carefully. The vehicle had an enclosed cab behind the driver, though it was easy enough to see that there was a man and a woman inside. The vehicle shot past him, but came quickly to a stop half a block away. Then it slowly backed up. Wissinger looked for a side street down which to escape, but there wasn’t one.
The car finally came to a stop next to him. He tried to continue walking.
“You there!” called a voice as a man climbed out of the car.
To his horror, Wissinger saw that the man wore the uniform of a Freedonian Army colonel.
“Halt.”
With a sigh, Wissinger turned around, affixing as convincing a smile as he could possibly manage.
“Yes? Good morning.”
“Where can I find a strudel shop around here?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Wissinger. “I live on the other side of town. If you’re over there, Volker’s Bakery is the best.”
“What are you doing on this side of town then?”
“I’m visiting my cousin. She’s sick and I have to help with the kinders.”
“You have papers?” asked the Colonel.
“Of course.” Wissinger pulled out his forged papers. He had paid well for them, but didn’t really know just how good they were.
“Fritsie! Come on!” said a woman, who then poked her head out the car window. She was a gorgeous blonde in a red dress that left her shoulders bare. “I’m hungry!”
The officer looked back at her and grinned.
“Be on your way,” he told Wissinger, and then climbed back into the car and the woman’s embrace.
The writer hurried the rest of the way down the street, turning right at the first intersection he came to. This particular avenue provided a magnificent view of the surrounding countryside as it wound its way down the hill to the river dock and the adjacent train station. Even Wissinger, who was much more interested in watching for potential pursuers than sightseeing was suitably impressed. It brought a smile to him and a lightness to his step.
Any burgeoning happiness was squelched however when he reached the railroad crossing. Three Freedonian soldiers, an officer and two enlisted men carrying rifles, were checking papers of those who would cross the tracks either to reach the train station or the dock beyond. There was no way around and Wissinger needed to get on the ferryboat to go down the river. He took his place in line behind a woman in a green scarf. When he got within a dozen steps of the checkpoint, his stomach suddenly jumped up into his throat. The officer checking papers wore a four-legged fylfot on his lapel, with a matching symbol on a red armband. He was no mere soldier. He was a wizard of the Reine Zauberei.
“Papers,” said the wizard with a sigh, to the woman in the green scarf.
The woman handed the wizard her papers. He didn’t open them to read or examine them, but simply ran his hand over the outside cover. The papers glowed a sickly yellow for a moment.
“Where are you going, Mrs. Kraus?” he asked her.
“I’m taking the ferry to Rivenholz.”
“Your business in Rivenholz?” The wizard could not have seemed more bored.
“I’m having tea with my sister. I have tea with my sister every month. It’s still all right to have tea with one’s sister, is it not?”
The exchange was interrupted by the sounds of men shouting from the train a hundred feet up the track. Everyone at the checkpoint turned to see a man fall from one of the train’s doors and land flat on his back on the gravel below. There were more shouts, though what was being shouted was completely unintelligible. The wizard turned to the two soldiers.
“Go see what it is.”
The two riflemen dutifully trotted toward the parked train. A loud whistle rent the air, and the train on the other side of the station slowly started moving. It was headed toward Kasselburg and Bangdorf, the opposite direction that the ferry, and the other train, would be traveling.
“Say hello to your cousin, Mrs. Kraus,” said the wizard.
“My sister,” answered the woman, taking her papers and heading on her way.
Wissinger stepped forward and handed over his papers before being asked. As he had done before, the wizard placed his hand over them, causing them to glow sickly yellow.
“Your name?”
“Von Horst, Wilhelm Von Horst.”
“Ah, ritter?”
“My great-grandfather, on my mother’s side.”
In Freedonia a ritter was a knight, a rank which entitled a man and his descendants to add “von” to his surname, though the actual knighthood didn’t pass on through the family tree. Wissinger had reasoned that no one using forged papers would be so bold as to use the honorific and hence less suspicion would be thrown upon him. Looking at the wizard though, he now began to rethink that theory.
“And your name, Wizard?”
“Wizard Von Grieg.”
Von Grieg was just shorter than Wissinger, though much more heavily built. He wore his black hair cut short with long, close-cropped sideburns.
“And where are you off to today, Von Horst?”
“I have business in Tideburg.”
“So you are taking the train?”
“No. I’m taking the ferry. I’m not in a hurry.”
“I’ve never met a business man who wasn’t in a hurry.” Von Grieg handed him his papers. “Have a pleasant day, Mr. Wissinger.”
“Who?” asked the writer, but he knew it was no use.
He threw his papers as hard as he could into the wizards face and when the man ducked, he kicked him, knocking him down. Then he turned and ran. He heard the wizard speaking in Zurian. He dived and rolled across the ground just as half a dozen magical bolts shot over his head. Back on his feet, he turned and ran toward the train, the last car of which was just moving past the station platform. Wissinger ran up the steps to the platform and dived, just catching hold of the train car’s railing. He heard rifle fire behind him, but didn’t look back. He opened the door and entered the rear of the train, sat down in the rearmost seat, and closed his eyes.
It was ironic. In order to perform magic, the wizards had to speak the ancient language of the Za
eri, the same language he spoke in shrine. And yet, because Wissinger was an ethnic Zaeri, they wanted him locked away in a ghetto, or worse. It was at that moment that Wissinger decided he hated irony.
* * * * *
The Present
As the warmth of the sun woke him to his fifth day on the island, Baxter felt a new sense of vigor. He had worked hard the past two days. A dozen hammers, twenty boxes of nails, four hatchets, two axes, twenty coils of braided rope, and the remains of an empty wooden crate seemed meager enough possessions, but it still took him an entire day to tote them piece by piece to the clearing. He had worked hard that day and had eaten very little, though thankfully he now had a plentiful fresh water supply.
The next day he had spent finding food. Eating the slimy remains of small crabs had sustained him during his first two days, but they were less than appetizing when eaten raw. Scouring the jungle had provided a great pile of coconuts and several different varieties of bright purple fruit. Some were tastier than others, but they all seemed edible. During the day he spied several species of large birds, all of which seemed unable to fly. He tried chasing two of them, but they were swifter through the jungle undergrowth than he was. He did however discover one of their nests, and within it two speckled eggs larger than his fist. He ate both of them raw, but determined to make a pot of some kind so that in the future he could boil or fry them.
The little lake in the middle of the jungle, perhaps one hundred yards long and almost as wide, was so clear that it was difficult to judge just how deep it was. Swimming within the crystal water were numerous fish and a few large turtles. It had formed in some kind of crater, probably volcanic, though the cool water indicated that there was no thermal activity below it at the time. There was a lip that ran around the edge, several feet above the water that would make it impossible to climb out of, with only a single exception. At the end closest to the ancient ruins, a set of stairs carved into the rock, descended down into the water.
The ruins were obviously man-made and resembled the remaining parts of old world Sumir, especially Donnata, rather than the reptilian constructions of Birmisia. A forty by sixty foot platform was raised some ten feet above the forest floor, reached on all sides by a dozen stone steps. Upon this platform were six thirty foot tall pillars and the bases and broken pieces of forty-two more. There were also hundreds of pieces of broken stone that must have once come from a roof. Huge vines and tree roots were growing across the base and up the pillars, partially obscuring it. There was no mistaking that it was once a temple. The broken stonework was uniform enough, that Baxter reasoned it could be pieced together to form at least the walls of a shelter, though it would be a great deal of work.
Getting up from his sleeping place on the temple platform, he descended the stairs to the ground and then stepped down into the cool waters of the pool. Washing himself and his clothes without taking them off, he was in the water long enough that he started shivering. Climbing back out, he found a warm sunny spot in which to rest as he dried off. He wanted to explore the rest of the island, or at least the part of it on which he found himself. There had once been people here. Perhaps there still were. Primitives no doubt, but were they friendly or not? Before he could embark upon that task however, he had to set up enough food for at least a couple of days.
Baxter started by collecting more coconuts and more of the fruits that he found most tasty. The large and plentiful fish in the lake captivated him. But how to catch them? He had rope and toyed with the idea of somehow making a net, but set the idea aside as too time consuming. He could make a spear though. Almost all of the shoreline was easily accessible and he could launch spears from above the water. Cutting down a sapling tree, he trimmed it and then sharpened its tip using his hatchet. Using it to spear a fish was more difficult than making it. He followed the schools of fish along from the lip of the lake and threw his spear again and again. He didn’t hit anything and on the fifth throw, the spear drifted away from the edge of the water and he was unable to get it. He quickly went back to work crafting another spear.
Rather than risking his second spear, Baxter determined to find an easier spot to fish. He started through the jungle in the opposite direction from where he had found the lake, following a similar but different small stream through the forest. Several hundred feet from the lake, the stream widened to eight or ten feet and became less than four inches deep. Here Baxter found not fish, but crustaceans. Crawfish with red shells that were nearly as big as most lobsters, swam through the shallow waters. There were also fresh water mussels, but he left them until he had a pot to boil them in. The crawfish retreated to holes in the bank, but when he stuck his hand in one of the holes, the little beast clamped onto his finger and he was able to pull it right out.
It took him almost an hour to start a fire, but once he did Baxter was able to cook his crawfish in the coals. That night he feasted for the first time since his arrival, reveling in the taste of fresh fruit, crawfish, and toasted coconut.
Then next day, he put aside more food than he could consume in a day, and even managed to spear two fish. He also recovered the lost spear, which had floated to the southern edge of the lake. On the day after that, his seventh on the island, using his shirt as a satchel to carry his food supplies, he started off in the direction of the crawfish shallows, but determined to explore as much of the island as possible. He had a hatchet tucked into his belt and carried an axe in hand.
* * * * *
“Why are you here?”
On a large flat rock in the middle of an endless field of purple flowers, the two women faced each other. They were both beautiful and they both stood naked beneath the warming rays of the noonday sun. One was thin and pale, with dark hair and large expressive brown eyes. The other was muscular, toned, and tan, her long blond hair cascaded down her shoulders, impossibly thick, almost to her waist; with wings that stretched twelve feet from tip to tip, covered in feathers as white as the clouds.
“Why are you here?” Pantagria repeated.
“I’m here because I’m ‘seeing’.”
“Then that brings us to an entirely different question. Why are you seeing?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t want Pantagruel.”
Yuah shivered at the memory. “Who would want that monster?”
“He is what many women want. He is who they come to see when they use the ‘see spice’.”
“How could anyone want that monster?”
“He is what your mind makes him. In fact, he is a perfect reflection of what your mind makes him. You see a monster. Another woman sees a prince—a perfect prince. But you didn’t come seeking perfection, did you? You don’t even want perfection. If you wanted perfection, you would have never wanted our Terrence, would you?”
“Don’t speak of him!” Yuah’s hand became a claw with which she threatened to lash out. “Don’t you dare say his name!”
“I loved Terrence,” Pantagria hissed, her eyes taking an evil gleam. “Forty thousand dressing maids with all their quantity of love could not equal my sum!”
“I am not a dressing maid. I am Mrs. Terrence Lucius Virgil Dechantagne! And you… You’re nothing! Nothing! You’re not even real!” Yuah burst into a fit of tears.
Pantagria laughed in her face.
“You little fool. He didn’t love you any more than he loved me.”
“You’re evil!” wailed Yuah. “Why did you have to have him? Why did you have to ruin him? Why did you have to steal him away from me?”
“I didn’t go looking for him. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. He came to me. He came to me just the way you have.” Pantagria slowly circled the other woman. “He came to me because he wanted something perfect. It’s why all men come to me. And it’s why women come to Pantagruel. But not you.” She stopped in front of Yuah. “You don’t want either of us. You don’t want something perfect.”
Yuah dropped her hands to her sides and sobbed uncontrollably.
<
br /> “So, what do you want?”
“I don’t want… anything.”
“Then you have picked a particularly horrible way to commit suicide.”
Yuah’s shoulders shook.
“Stop your crying,” ordered Pantagria. “Stop it!”
Grasping Yuah’s hair, Pantagria pulled her head up and slapped her across the face.
“Wake up. Yuah wake up.” Mrs. Colbshallow slapped Yuah gently across the cheek again.
Yuah struggled to lift her head and look around. She was lying in the empty bathtub. Her limbs were numb.
“I knew this tub was a bad idea,” said Mrs. Colbshallow. “Cissy! Get in here and bring a blanket!
The reptilian arrived with a blanket, and wrapping it around Yuah, carried the woman upstairs to her bedroom. Placing her on her bed, and throwing a quilt over her, Cissy crossed the room to the fireplace and struck a match, lighting the tinder that had already been arranged amid the kindling and fuel. By the time she had turned around, Mrs. Colbshallow was handing Yuah a cup of steaming tea.
“What are you doing lying in the tub?” she asked. “That room is too cold and you have a perfectly good bed right here.”
Yuah didn’t reply. She simply sipped the tea, her eyes closed.
* * * * *
“I don’t think I understand,” said Hero.
“There’s nothing to understand,” said Senta. “I showed you that spell two years ago. You remember? I split myself into four and danced around you, and you said you were scared or some such.”
“Of course, I remember. But this is different though, isn’t it?”
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