The Dark and Forbidding Land

by Wesley Allison

  “I don’t need a doctor,” said Streck.

  “Be quiet. This is your face. We need to make sure that it isn’t scarred.”

  Clegg was sent as directed and by the time he returned with the doctor, Streck, no longer bleeding, had been moved to the parlor.

  Cissy had seen Dr. Kelloran before. She was easily recognized for her more pronounced female characteristics. She usually also, as she now did, carried her small black bag. Sitting down on the sofa next to Streck, she carefully examined his face.

  “The healing draught seems to be knitting the skin together nicely, but I still want to put a stitch or two on this nose.”

  “Ouch!” cried Streck, as the stitches were sewn. “Damn Birmisian birds. It flew by so fast I didn’t even see it.”

  “Birmisian birds don’t fly, except for the microraptors and they stay away from humans,” said Mr. Dechantagne from the doorway. His wife was standing with him. “We have a few large flying reptiles, but I’ve never heard of one attacking a person.”

  “Saba?” asked the governor.

  “Sorry, I didn’t see it. I heard someone cry out and came running, but whatever it was, was gone before I got there. But your lizzie was in the yard. Maybe she saw something.”

  “Cissy?” asked Mrs. Colbshallow. Cissy took a step back as all of the human eyes in the room focused on her. “Cissy, what did you see?”

  “It was the little god,” she replied quietly.

  “Little god?”

  “She means the dragon,” said Mrs. Dechantagne. “Zurfina’s little dragon.”

  “It seems, Mr. Steck,” said Governor Dechantagne-Calliere, “that you have made a powerful enemy. Just what have you done to Zurfina to raise her ire?”

  “I have not even seen the woman.”

  “He didn’t do anything to Zurfina,” said Saba, frowning. “I’ll wager he didn’t do anything to the dragon either. But he has had at least one well-known row with Senta.”

  “That child belongs in an institution,” said Streck.

  No one responded. Dr. Kelloran having finished, packed up her little black bag and the others began to disperse to other parts of the house. Cissy headed for the stairs, going up to the nursery.

  Mrs. Dechantagne-Calliere had recently had new yellow curtains put up in the small room, and a new chest, now almost completely full of toys, sat in the corner. Cissy looked down into the crib. Iolana was still asleep, though she had managed to turn herself around sideways and had lost most of her blanket. After righting the child and covering her, Cissy sat near the toy box and began looking through its contents. There were many human dolls as well as stuffed animals, none of which the lizzie could identify. They looked nothing like the animals that roamed Birmisia. She wondered about the strange, distant land that could be the home to such creatures and to the humans.

  When the baby began to stir, Cissy realized that she had been daydreaming for quite a while. She put all the toys away and stood up beside the crib. By the time Iolana was completely awake, the lizzie had changed her diaper and dressed her in a lovely little white dress with blue trim. The human child climbed to her feet inside the crib, holding on to the side and looked up at the reptile with her aquamarine eyes.

  “Are you hungry?” asked Cissy in her native language.

  “Da, da, da.”

  “Dak, dak, dak,” the lizzie corrected.

  “Dak.”

  “Very good, child. You will be asking for food on your own very soon.”

  After running a brush though Iolana’s fine golden hair, Cissy picked her up and carried her downstairs. Most likely the governor would tell her to take Iolana to the kitchen for some porridge, but sometimes she preferred to feed her in the mammalian way. She was not in the parlor, so Cissy continued back into the study. Both the governor and her husband were there.

  “I haven’t taken Mr. Streck to see the Result Mechanism,” the professor was saying, “and as far as I know, he has no interest in it.”

  “Oh look, Iolana is up,” said the governor, stepping forward and taking the child from Cissy’s hands. “Look how big she is getting.”

  Calliere muttered something. Cissy took her position against the wall by the door.

  “Come here and say hello,” the governor directed her husband.

  “I have no interest in saying hello to your child.”

  “Mercy! She’s your child too.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. I don’t have to have a degree in mathematics to figure out that isn’t true, and as it turns out I have three.”

  The governor turned to Cissy. “Leave us.”

  Outside the door, Cissy paused for just a minute.

  “She was premature,” said Mrs. Dechantagne-Calliere. “She arrived early.”

  “Then it was fortunate for you. Had she come to term, she might have weighed two stone, and imagine how uncomfortable that would have been for you.”

  “How can you say such a horrible thing?”

  “You needn’t worry about your secret getting out,” said the professor. “It would be at least as great a dishonor for me as it would be a disgrace for you.”

  Cissy only had a vague idea what the conflict between the couple was about. In lizzie society, mothers never knew who their offspring were. Knowing who one’s father was as well was almost impossible to grasp.

  At the library door, she stopped to look inside. When she saw that there was no one there, she entered and went directly to the far wall. Though she had read scriptures once with Mrs. Dechantagne, it was hardly enough to slake her desire for the human books. In this single room was more stored knowledge than probably existed in the entirety of Suusthek. One particular volume caught her eye, not because it stood out, but because it didn’t. It had been squeezed between two large religious texts, and turned so that the writing on the spine was not readily visible. Picking it up, she read the cover information aloud.

  “Revenge by Kazia Garstone.”

  There was a small slip of paper between two pages. Pulling it out, she read the writing on it as well. Breeding Booksellers Limited. Seventh of Pentuary 1897. Terrence Dechantagne. Garstone first edition. Two hundred fifty marks!

  Cissy was puzzled. She knew most of the words on the slip of paper, but having never learned the concept of a receipt, she could not guess the purpose of the little paper. She looked at the text on the page that the receipt had been marking. She had to read through the passage three times before she recognized it for what it was. It was a description of the mating practices of humans.

  Closing the book, she took it with her out of the library and through the kitchen. Large fluffy flakes of snow were just beginning to fall as she crossed the back yard to the rear entry of the motor-shed where her sleeping quarters were located. This was not the first book that she had borrowed from the Dechantagne library. Mr. Dechantagne had let her read the preschool primer and later a mathematics book. She had taken three other books on her own, reading them late at night when the others were asleep or during her off hours in the day.

  Kheesie wasn’t in her usual spot. She must have had something else to do before retiring. Lying down on her mat, Cissy opened the book to the first page and began reading.

  It was late in the afternoon when the ceremony was over and the carriages began to arrive. There had been a crowd following all the way, thanks to the fame of Tasland Miller. The occasion rested heavily on Tasland’s shoulders—it was his task to see that all things went in proper form, and after the very best Brech traditions…

  Cissy continued reading until she suddenly realized that it was too dark to do so. The sky had grown overcast and the room was growing cold. She marked her place on page twenty-eight with the receipt and tucked the book under her sleeping mat. Then she got up to fill the stove with wood.

  * * * * *

  Yuah stared out the front window of the parlor into the garden and shivered as she watched the snow drop to the ground. She hoped this was going to be the last snowfall of
the season. It was only slightly more than a month until the official start of spring. Of course in Birmisia, snow in springtime was not entirely unknown.

  “Sirrek, throw another log or two on the fire please,” she said.

  When there was no response, she turned around to find that it was not the lizardman servant in the room with her but the Freedonian visitor.

  “How are you feeling, Mr. Streck?”

  “I am sure to be fully recovered in no time,” he replied, stepping over to stand beside her in front of the window. “And did it give you great pleasure to see me bleeding?”

  “Why, of course not! Whatever would make you think such a thing?”

  “Because you are a Zaeri.”

  “I know that you have a very low opinion of the Zaeri, Mr. Streck, but I assure you that I took no pleasure from your pain.”

  “Are you sure? Are you sure that you and that Zaeri dog of a sorceress didn’t plan the attack on me?”

  “First of all sir, Zurfina is no friend of mine. Not only that, but I do not believe she is Zaeri, despite her name.”

  “You seem so sincere,” said Streck quietly, “but I know you are all filthy liars. Look out there. Even now, Zaeri spies stalk me.”

  Yuah looked back out the window to see Hero Hertling standing casually by the front gate. Though it was not readily apparent what the ten-year-old was doing, she certainly didn’t look as though she was trying to be sneaky.

  “What’s going on here?” asked Terrence from the doorway.

  “Not a thing at all,” said Streck, and turning on his heel left the room.

  Terrence walked carefully across the room and reaching out, found Yuah’s waist. He drew her close.

  “I want that man out of my house,” she said.

  “I’ll see to it immediately. He may be here a day or two though. We can’t just throw him into one of the immigrant tents in the middle of a snowstorm.”

  “The immigrants are in them in the middle of a snowstorm.”

  “Yes, but we have a name to live up to. You have a name to live up to.”

  “Yes, I suppose.”

  “And you are the lady of the house.” He grinned.

  “Lady of the house…” she muttered.

  “Don’t tell me you’re not enjoying the fact that since you married her brother, you have become Iolanthe’s social superior.”

  “She’s still the governor and more importantly, she’s still Iolanthe. And don’t try to change the subject. As soon as there is a room available in the barracks, he’s to be moved there.”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  It wasn’t until three days later, during the height of the snowstorm though, that Mr. Streck was moved to an apartment on the militia base. Tisson and Sirrek carried his steamer trunk and other luggage through the white wonderland that the Dechantagne yards and the road beyond had become. Yuah made note of the fact that Hertzal Hertling, bundled up so much that he was all but unrecognizable, watched the move from just beyond the gate.

  Though having Mr. Streck out of the house made Yuah feel happier, and feel safer, it didn’t help her feel any warmer. The snow continued on and on without interruption, piling monstrous drifts again around the yards and the house. Even having the lizzies shovel the steps did little to help her from feeling completely cut off from the world. After a week of continual snowfall, Yuah thought that she might very well go out of her mind, if she couldn’t get out of the house.

  One morning, feeling particularly uneasy and isolated, Yuah went up to the nursery to play with Iolana. As frequently happened, she was startled to find a lizzie in the room with the child, this time more so, because the lizzie was stretched out across the floor, looking very much like an alligator swimming across a river. Sitting about two feet from the lizzie’s snout was Iolana. Both the girl and the lizzie seemed engrossed in a series of wooden block spread out between them.

  “What are you doing?” asked Yuah.

  “Game,” said the lizzie she now recognized as Cissy.

  “What game is that? You have no game board.”

  “Lizzie game.”

  Yuah bent down and picked up one of the wooden blocks. A simplified image of a lizardman holding a sword had been drawn in the middle and at each of the four corners were a series of hash marks indicating numbers. Reading the numbers clockwise starting in the top left, they read two, three, two, one.

  “What are these numbers?”

  “Strong.”

  “Oh, they tell you what this piece can do, eh?”

  She picked up two more and looked at the first. This one had the image of a tyrannosaurus and was numbered ten, nine, six, and zero.

  “He’s strong, but what’s this last number?”

  “Suuwasuu.”

  “I know that word. Power? Spirit power, yes?”

  “Sss.”

  She looked at the third block and saw it had a woman drawn on it—a human woman with a very large bustle. It was numbered two, zero, three, six.

  “This is Zurfina?”

  “No.”

  “Iolanthe?”

  “You.”

  “Me? I don’t have any of that suuwasuu.”

  Iolana, tired of looking at the pictures on the blocks, got to her feet and went kicking her way through them, scattering them around the room.

  “Iolana is too young for such games,” said Yuah, picking up the child, “advanced though she is.”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re going to go to the library and read a book. Aren’t we, niece?”

  “Dak, dak,” said Iolana.

  “Iolana is hungry,” said Cissy.

  “Well then, we’ll have to go down to the kitchen first and have a biscuit.”

  Yuah carried the baby from the room and down the stairs, leaving Cissy to pick up her game blocks and put them back in the mesh sack from which they had originally come.

  * * * * *

  After gathering the game blocks and returning them to the bag, Cissy made her way downstairs. She had not expected Iolana to understand the game. She had merely wanted to familiarize her with the blocks and their stylized images. In fact, as with so many things about humans, she was fascinated by the rapid intellectual advancement of their young. True, Iolana would have been completely defenseless against predators, while lizzie young were able to run and hide as soon as they were hatched. On the other hand, lizzie offspring remained completely wild, running around the village like pests, until they were captured by their elders and tamed, usually in their sixth or seventh year. Iolana was already mimicking the adult humans, sometimes even copying Cissy, and she had not yet reached the end of her first winter.

  Once downstairs, she passed through the foyer, dining room, and the kitchen, but stopped in the enclosed back porch. She dreaded going outside. The snow was coming down fiercely and it was no longer possible to tell where the walkway from the back door to the motor shed ran. There were however, quite a few trails around the shed through the snow. With more than a dozen lizzies working on the Dechantagne estate now, there was always someone going to or from the sleeping quarters.

  Steeling herself, she opened the back door and walked down the steps. Though all the lizzies had been told to move slowly during the cold, she was halfway across the snow-covered yard before she heard the sound of the door slamming shut. She hurried through the door in the back of the shed and into the female sleeping quarters, to find it abnormally crowded. Several lizzies were present, but they were not lying on their stomachs. They were sitting or standing. What made the room seem so crowded though, were the five humans—soldiers with rifles, standing around the door. One of them turned and spoke to her and her stomach sank as she not only saw that he was holding the Garstone book in his hand, but that he was the infamous Sergeant Clark.

  “You are Cissy, serial number 0042 BL?”

  Cissy hissed, forgetting in the moment to bob her head up and down. Two of the militiamen started, but Clark didn’t. He stared at h
er with his beady human eyes.

  “This was found under your sleeping mat.” He held out the book. “Put out your hands.”

  His words didn’t register in the lizzie’s brain. She stood staring dumbly at him. Finally he reached down and pulled her left hand upward. Another soldier clamped a large iron cuff around her wrist and locked it shut with a padlock. This other soldier then put the matching cuff, connected to the first by a heavy iron chain, around her right wrist and locked it shut too. Taking hold of the chain, Clark led Cissy out into the snow.

  “Come along quietly. Don’t give us any trouble.”

  * * * * *

  After playing with Iolana for the rest of the morning, which consisted of about five percent putting on a play with dolls as actors and about ninety five percent simply running around after the child, Yuah was completely worn out. She handed her niece over to Kheesie and ordered Sirrek to bring her a cup of tea in the parlor, even though it was only a short time until the luncheon hour. As she sat by the large window watching the huge snowflakes float down, she saw a figure dressed in black make its way across the yard, through the deepening drifts approximately where the cobblestone pathway lay.

  “Sirrek, prepare another cup of tea. We have a visitor.”

  A few minutes later, having shaken off the snow and having removed his outer layers of clothing, Zeah Korlann entered the parlor. Yuah jumped to her feet and embraced him.

  “Papa! How wonderful to see you! I feel like it’s been at least a year. But what are you doing stomping around in a blizzard?”

  “Oh, a little snow never hurt a person.” He accepted the tea and took a sip. “Mind you, I wouldn’t want to spend a night out in weather like this.”

  “What are you doing here? Government business?”

  “Well, to be honest, I do have a paper for Governor Dechantagne-Calliere to sign, but mostly I came to see you.” He looked at carefully at her. “I’ve hardly seen you since your… well, since you were muh… married.”