She blinked several times to clear the dirt out of her eyes. Reaching up to feel her face, she found a rash of small scrapes, cuts, and contusions right down the center, from her hairline to the middle of her nose. Several small pebbles were still stuck in her skin and a trickle of blood smeared her fingers. She started to say something else and realized that she had dirt in her mouth. She summoned her saliva and did her best to wash the dirt off of her teeth and tongue, spitting it out onto the ground.
Graham had stopped thirty or forty steps beyond where she had fallen and had quickly run back. He offered her his hand, which she took, and he pulled her to her feet.
“I think that was the biggest tumble I’ve ever seen, at least by a girl,” he said. “Here.”
He squinted his eyes and leaned in close, carefully plucking out several small pieces of gravel that were still stuck in her forehead. Senta quickly leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
“What was that for?” he asked, blood rushing to his face.
“For being a gentleman.”
“Yeah, all right.” His face scrunched up as if he was furiously trying to figure out what else a gentleman would do. With sudden realization, he reached into his back pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and handed it to her.
“Thanks.” Senta took the folded cloth and carefully wiped off the dirt and blood.
“Let me see if your shoe is broken,” said Graham, kneeling down in front of her. He gentle took hold of her ankle as he examined her footwear.
“Don’t take liberties.”
“I’m not!” He stood back up. “You’re shoe’s fine, but your dress is pretty beat up.”
“Yes. I’m glad it’s not one of mine.”
“Not yours? Maybe we should go see Dr. Kelloran.”
“I’m fine. I just need to wash up.”
“You want to go back home?”
“No. I’ll use the WC at the train station. I don’t want to run anymore though.”
“Okay.” As they continued on their way, Senta continued to find results of her disaster—small scrapes on the palms of her hands, and small pains almost everywhere else.
When they reached the train station, she found the WC and went inside. She put the stopper in the sink and filled it full of cold water, then washed her hands and face. She did her best to brush all the dust off her dress and to straighten her bustle, which was slightly askew. With a sigh, she waved her hand across the front of her dress.
“Uuthanum,” she said.
All of the more obvious tears were instantly mended. She repeated the process, this time aiming at her head. Her hair swirled around for a moment, coming to rest slightly restyled with square fringe that covered up most of the injury on her face.
When Senta stepped back outside, she was surprised at the crowd of people forming along the raised platform of the station. A single low blow of the whistle startled her as the chug of the locomotive approached, reducing its speed as it came. Finally she spotted Graham standing near the gap and walked over to stand next to him. He glanced over at her, then back at the approaching train. Then he turned and gaped at her.
“Wow, magic.”
The passing engine engulfed them in a cloud of steam. When the train came to a halt, Senta and Graham were standing by the coal tender. The engine, now to their left was a shiny new red one, and behind the coal tender, to their right, it pulled six equally new passenger coaches and several freight cars behind them. Almost immediately people began spilling out either end of each of the coaches. The people who were already on the platform rushed to meet friends and family exiting the train, though there were many more stepping off with no one to meet them.
“Welcome to Birmisia!” shouted Senta on a sudden whim.
Graham grinned. “Yeah. Welcome to Port Dechantagne!”
Quite a few of the people from the train laughed at the precocious behavior, but the locals only smiled politely. The Drache Girl might not mind being laughed at under the circumstances. But why chance it, really? As if summoned by their concerns, the steel dragon shot across the sky. Somehow picking out his young friends among the throng, he did a back flip and dived over the station. His voice faded in and out as he passed over their heads.
“…guys, you’ll never guess what’s going on at the…”
“Come on.” Senta pulled Graham by his hand down the station steps and out onto the road as the dragon passed again.
“…all these fancy ornaments and weapons….”
“Come down so we can understand you!”
Bessemer circled again and landed with a whomp that made the ground shake. He stretched out his neck and placed his massive head beside Senta’s.
“Kisses,” he said, kissing the air on first one side of her then the other. “Mwa. Mwa.”
“So what did you see?” asked Graham, clearly excited by the mention of ornaments and weapons.
“I was flying over that lizard village—the western one.”
“Chusstuss,” offered Graham.
“Yes. That’s the one. Well apparently they have visitors from the other city-state. They have all kinds of cool ornaments and hats.”
“What city-state?”
“The one that’s due south.”
“How far south?” wondered Senta. “And how do you know about it?”
“About three hundred miles and I flew there.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Who said you could fly all that way?”
“Nobody said I couldn’t.”
“You can’t go flying all over Birmisia. There’s another dragon around here somewhere—one big enough to eat you in one bite.”
“So Mr. Korlann says,” said Bessemer, rolling his steel-colored eyes. “Personally, I think he was drunk, or maybe knocked senseless by a concussion.”
“Anyways,” interrupted Graham. “What about the lizzies?”
“That’s it. They had some visitors from down south.”
“What were they doing? What were they talking about?”
“I didn’t get close enough to hear. You know I think they’re creepy.”
“You got close enough to see.”
“I didn’t have to get close for that.”
“He’s got dragon eyes,” said Senta. “He can see a licorice strip on the ground from half a mile up.”
“Great,” said Graham. “Dragon eyes but no dragon ears.”
“I’ve got dragon ears. I just don’t like to listen to their hissy noises.” Bessemer let out a defensive snort of steam from one nostril.
A loud murmur brought the attention of all three to the crowd numbering in the hundreds that had gathered around them in a wide circle. It must have included every single person who had arrived on the train, including the railroad crew, as well as many of the locals who hadn’t yet seen their fill of dragon.
“Okay, see you,” said the steel dragon. Shooting into the air in one swift movement, he was out of sight. Senta and Graham looked at all the people, half of whom were staring up into the sky and half of whom were staring at them.
“Welcome to Birmisia!” shouted Senta.
Not a single person laughed.
The next morning Graham was back to work at the docks. The entire area was a flurry of activity as the Sabrina was loaded for its departure the next morning. Senta, clad in a new bright red dress, sat on a barrel, shaded by her matching bright red parasol and watched as the teams of lizzies led by her boyfriend or by other human foremen loaded great pallets full of freight and lifted them up with a crane from the ship’s deck. She could feel the magic nearby even before she saw the figure approaching her from the side. Reaching up to one of the immaterial jewels orbiting her head, she flicked it with her forefinger toward the tall dark man now beside her.
“That’s not fair,” said Wizard Bassington, stopping two paces away.
“Oh yes it is,” replied Senta. “Turn about is always fair play. You dispelled my protection last time. I’m just returning the favor
.”
“But my protective spells were so much more intricate and well thought-out than your little shield spell was.”
Senta shrugged.
“You’ve learned something more since last time we met,” he said, pointing at the space just above Senta’s head.
“You can see them?”
“When I cast a spell to detect magic, as I did a couple of minutes ago.”
“How long have you been watching me?”
“A while.”
“That’s kind of creepy. I’m just a little girl.”
It was Bassington’s turn to shrug. Senta gave him a glare.
“Are you going to attack me or are we going to play three questions again?”
“I’d hate to have another duel. There are too many people watching here. And I’m leaving town tomorrow.”
The girl squinted. “You’re leaving on the Sabrina?”
The wizard smiled and nodded, confirming both that he was leaving and indicating that she had chosen the one true statement of the three.
“I hope you don’t expect me to miss you when you’re gone.”
“Of course you’ll miss me. Who else is there around here who’s like you?”
“I’m nothing like you. I’m a sorceress. You’re a wizard.”
“I think you’ll learn that the art is all the same—wizard, sorceress, or old lizardman witch-doctor.”
“Well I’m sure you’d defeat me, but my dragon is flying in, and my boyfriend is watching you.”
Bassington’s eyes shot up into the sky.
“Nope. Wrong.” Senta discretely pointed across the dock to where Graham stood watching them, a crowbar in his right hand.
“A little boy with a stick is rather anticlimactic after the dragon.”
“You won’t think so after he hits you in the goolies with it.”
“Perhaps I’d better leave you alone then,” said Bassington. “I have to see the governor before I go. But in case I don’t see you again: cheerio. Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be back. It will be interesting to see what other new tricks you have learned. And events are coming that will bring Birmisia and Sumir much closer.”
“Yeah, well toodle pip then.”
The wizard in his long black rifle frock coat turned and walked away up Seventh and One Half Avenue. Senta stood up and smoothed out her dress, then waved to Graham, who tossed aside his crowbar and went back to work. Twirling her parasol above her head, Senta headed north toward Augustus P. Dechantagne Park.
Chapter Twenty: What Happened That Morning Just Before Seven
It was damp and cold. A thick blanket of fog rolled slowly through Port Dechantagne, between the trees and houses, obscuring the creatures, large and small, that moved through the mist. It left decorations of condensation upon everything it touched. Police Constable Saba Colbshallow pulled out his gold pocket watch and flipped it open. The time read 6:53. He put the watch away and then stuffed both hands into the pockets of his reefer jacket. He stepped through the remains of the burned out house of Mrs. Yembrick, careful not to step on an exposed nail or a jagged timber.
“I thought I saw you over here.” Eamon Shrub stood at the edge of the building foundation. His uniform exactly matched Saba’s, from the helmet on his head, to the shin-high boots on his feet.
“What are you doing dressed for duty already?” wondered Saba. “You don’t come on till nine.”
“Dot was tossing and turning all night, so I got up early. Figured I might as well get ready. Talking of which, didn’t your shift end last night at nine?”
“You know how it is.”
Saba walked across the blackened foundation and Eamon walked around it. They met on the far side of what was left of the structure and shook hands.
“I can’t stop thinking about what’s going on with the lizzies,” said Saba. “I’m sure that something is up.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. I caught one in town using false documentation and I’m sure he wasn’t the only one. If they’re sharing their bracelets, then it’s possible we have many more of them in town than there should be. Then there’s whatever they’ve been getting from the ships in port. They’ve hauled away loads of crates from two ships that I know of and there may well have been more.”
“It’s probably someone trying to smuggle trade goods past the tax collector, and using lizzies for hired labor. Kind of like what the professor was doing, only in reverse.”
“Maybe. Even if that’s all it is though, it’s still quite a smuggling operation.”
“So what’s that got to do with Mrs. Yembrick?”
“Both times I trailed the lizzies carrying crates; they passed by this general direction. Then I took a look back through the log books and found that Mrs. Yembrick reported seeing lizzies in her window on three separate occasions.”
“That does seem a bit fishy in light of the fire,” offered Eamon.
“Exactly. So since I had no luck following our cold-blooded friends, I thought I would poke around here.”
“All right. I’ll poke with you.”
The two began making a sweep across the yard, carefully examining the ground for anything unusual. After only a few minutes, Saba noticed a pile of debris that seemed oddly placed. Several timbers had apparently fallen a good distance from the fire, and were sitting on five or six boards and a piece of canvas, none of which had been touched by the flames. The young constable began tossing the wood aside. By the time he had finished, Eamon had joined him to help pull the dirty canvas over.
“Did you remember Mrs. Yembrick having a root cellar?” asked Saba, looking down at the door on the ground.
“Can’t say as I did,” replied Eamon.
He bent down at one end of the door and Saba the other. They both lifted the portal open, revealing a set of stone steps leading down into the darkness. Saba, who was closest to the top step, started down. His fellow constable followed him into the darkness. There were exactly ten steps down to a large room with a dirt floor. Though shrouded in shadows, there was just enough dim morning light leaking in for them to see that all four walls were lined with stacks of long thin wooden crates.
With a single stride, Saba reached the stack of crates almost as tall as himself along the left hand side of the room. He lifted the lid of the topmost. Though it had once been nailed shut, the lid was now just sitting on the wooden box. Inside, there was nothing but a handful of straw packing. He kicked the bottom of the stack and could tell from the movement of the boxes that all were empty.
“Look over here,” said Eamon, who had moved to the back of the room.
He was pointing to one of the crates at the bottom of the stack against the wall farthest from the doorway. It had black printing painted across the wood. Saba had to kneel down in the darkness to read the writing. “.30 caliber Hecken 98”
“Oh sweet Kafira. Rifles.”
Suddenly what little light there was filtering into the room from the doorway was extinguished. Saba stood up and turned. He was shoulder to shoulder with Eamon. Directly across from them, silhouetted in the subdued illumination was a figure. From the shape, it was obvious that it was a lizardman, a large one. But only when his arms brought something up to his face did it become obvious he was holding a rifle. A .30 caliber Hecken 98 Freedonian service rifle, Saba realized.
The reptile fired, filling the room with a bright flash and a thunderous noise. Saba felt something wet splash across his face and for a tenth of a second he thought that he was shot. Then Eamon collapsed to the ground. With a shout, Saba launched himself across the room. The lizardman shot again but missed.
As their two bodies crashed together, they both landed on the set of steps, the human atop the reptile. The creature smashed the rifle butt into Saba’s side, knocking him against the earthen wall of the stairwell. Saba punched back, hitting it in its yellow eye. The lizardman repeated its maneuver, and this time Saba thought he heard one of his own ribs crack. He grab
bed hold of the rifle and yanked. It came loose from the creature’s grasp and went sliding across the dirt floor, stopping when it hit Eamon’s prone form. The lizardman raked his clawed hand across Saba’s body, ripping through both reefer jacket and uniform shirt. Saba pushed himself to his feet and began kicking the reptile again and again with the toe of his heavy boots.
The lizardman reached up and grabbed Saba’s boot with both clawed hands, then twisted, while kicking his other leg out from under him. Falling down onto his stomach, Saba’s chin smacked against the floor. His helmet popped off and rolled away. Before he could think, the creature had jumped on his back and grasping him by the hair, slammed his face again into the dirt. Saba’s nose exploded against the ground and blood began to run freely over his mouth and chin. Rolling left and throwing his elbow, the constable knocked the beast off balance and rolled onto his own back. But the lizardman was on him in an instant, biting his forearm and scratching wildly at him. He could feel both the cone-shaped teeth and the wicked claws piercing his clothes and his skin.
Reaching around the top of the lizardman’s head, Saba grabbed its jaw. Pulling with every ounce of his strength, he tried to pry the mouth off of his left arm, but the reptilian was far stronger than he was. So he reached down and pulled his truncheon from his belt. Stabbing with it as though it was a knife, he pounded at the creature’s head again and again. With satisfaction, he felt the club sink into the lizardman’s eye, blinding it on one side. The aborigine released its vise-like jaw, and rolled over, its heavy tail smacking Saba across the side, sending him rolling into a stack of empty crates, which crashed down on him.
The lizardman staggered and stepped for the exit, but Saba was on his feet again and dived on its back. The beast fell forward and both of them cracked their heads against the corner where the room met the stairwell, taking a chunk out of the wall. They fell to the ground side by side. The reptilian clawed at Saba, who still holding the club, jabbed it down repeatedly at the cold-blooded face. Suddenly one of the heavy, scaled feet kicked out, hitting Saba in the crotch, the claws digging in. Saba thrust upwards, driving the end of his truncheon into the lizardman’s windpipe. The creature gasped for breath.
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