The Dark and Forbidding Land

by Wesley Allison

  “Toodle pip,” said Bessemer, and then he was gone.

  Senta made her way up the stairs, past the rooms designated for Bessemer but almost never used, up to her own room. She peeled off her clothes and ran a hot bath for herself. Once she was clean and warm, she put on her warmest nightclothes and headed back down to the kitchen for something to eat. She stoked the fire in the stove and added two logs before heading for the froredor. But something stopped her.

  Sitting there on the kitchen table, just where she had left it that afternoon, was the small clear vial filled with silvery liquid. Dionoserin. A bottle just that big sold for thousands of marks. Of course it was illegal in Brechalon, but they weren’t in Brechalon anymore. Did it work? Did she grind the walnuts up enough? Did she maintain her aura? Taking two quick steps to the table, she snatched up the bottle, pulled off the cork stopper, and drank it down. What’s the worst that could happen?

  “Well, I could die,” she said aloud.

  She didn’t wait to see if she would die though. She ran up the two flights of stairs to her room, and then crept up one more flight stopping just before she reached the level. She slowly peered over the top step and into Zurfina’s room. She had a good idea what to expect. Senta had lived with the sorceress almost two years now. During that time Zurfina had entertained a number of male admirers.

  The first thing that Senta saw was Mr. Jex, standing in the middle of the room. She was happy to see that he was fully clothed. The second thing Senta saw was Zurfina, and she was not. She was posed upon her bed, her head hanging over the edge, so that she was looking at Mr. Jex and everything else upside down. Her blond hair draped down almost to the floor, hiding her little bald spot. Her crossed legs were sticking straight up in the air. Mr. Jex stared at her for a moment before turning back to a large canvas and poking at it with the paintbrush. He was standing between Senta and the painting, but she didn’t need to see it to know what it was. Zurfina was having another nude painting done of herself.

  Senta slowly climbed the last four steps and walked around Mr. Jex so that she could see the painting. He really was quite good.

  “What do you think Pet?” asked Zurfina, without moving from her pose.

  Startled, Jex turned around to look at her. He had a small paint pallet in his right hand.

  “I think it’s time for you to go,” said Senta.

  Jex looked like he was going to say something, but then stopped and setting his pallet and brush on the floor, turned and went swiftly down the stairs. Just as the sound of the front door closing echoed back up, Zurfina sat upright and in a fluid cat-like motion got up from the bed.

  “Put on some clothes, Fina.”

  The sorceress made the smallest of gestures with her right hand and suddenly she was clad in a long, silky, black dressing gown.

  “Are you ready for something to eat, Pet?”

  “Yes,” replied Senta, a sly smile creeping onto her face. “I don’t think you should magic it though. I think it would be nice if you made me supper with your own hands.”

  Zurfina walked slowly across the room and then bent down so that their noses were just inches apart.

  “It seems to me like the Drache Girl is getting a bit big for her knickers,” she said without a hint of a smile.

  “Um… my dionoserin didn’t work?”

  “It worked. Did you not see Mr. Jex scurry out of the room like a frightened buitreraptor?”

  “But you’re not going to make me supper, are you?”

  “Did you actually believe that you could dominate me with a potion? Me? ME!”

  “No supper then?”

  * * * * *

  “What are the numbers on this piece then?” asked Terrence, holding up one of the square blocks.

  “Two, twenty, ten, twenty,” replied Yuah.

  “That’s the most powerful piece in the game then.”

  “I suppose.”

  The square blocks that the lizzie nurse maid had created were spread out on the coffee table as he tried to suss out the mechanics of the native game. Yuah was sitting next to him, pretending to read the latest Brysin’s. In fact, she was paying no attention to it at all, instead watching her husband.

  “It must be Zurfina.”

  “Obviously.” She looked at the tiny image. “Even the little figure on the block is whorish. Don’t you think twenty is a little high?”

  “I didn’t make the game.” He picked up another piece. “What are the numbers on this one?”

  “Two, zero, three, six.”

  “No defense on this piece. You would have to screen it behind one of the pawns.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Its spirit power is pretty high. What is it, some kind of lizzie elder or something?”

  “I really don’t understand why you’re wasting time on this ridiculous game.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “You should be spending your time doing something constructive, that’s all. You should be writing a book.”

  “I’m not a writer.”

  “You write. I’ve seen you write. And there are many other things you could do. You could spend more time with your wife, that’s what you could do.”

  “You’re right here. I’m spending time with you right now.”

  “You’re playing with those stupid blocks.”

  “And you’re reading your magazine.”

  “Um, yes. Yes, I am.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It says that backs are coming back.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Do you think I would look good in something that showed more of my back?” she asked.

  “I think you should show whatever you want.”

  “You are horrible,” she said, her lips becoming very thin.

  “Yes, I know. Get the lizzie to pour me a sherry.”

  “What lizzie,” said Yuah, turning around and finding Cissy near the wall. “What are you doing sneaking around? Get my husband a sherry. It’s that drink over there on the hutch.”

  The lizzie quickly crossed the room to pour the drink. She returned to the sofa, a sherry glass on a silver platter. When she was standing directly before Terrence, she let out a small hiss. He held out his hand and she maneuvered the tray so that his fingertips came into contact with the glass. He took a sip.

  “That’s much better.” Then he held up the wooden block. “What is it on this one, Cissy?”

  “You wife.”

  “Ah, even so.”

  * * * * *

  “Hello Mr. Parnorsham,” called Senta as she entered the pfennig store, the bell above the door jingling as she entered.

  “Good morning Senta. Is it still morning?” He pulled out his pocket watch and peered at it through his eyeglasses. “Good afternoon. Just barely.”

  “Good just barely afternoon then.”

  “What can I do for my favorite young sorceress?”

  “I have fourteen pfennigs that are burning a hole in my pocket.”

  Senta in fact did not even have a pocket. She had found a particularly ugly dress laid out for her that morning, attributing it to Zurfina’s anger. It was like wearing a big ugly sack that ballooned from her neck to the ground.

  “Can I interest you in a soda water, and perhaps sugar candy or two?”

  “I’ll take a Billingbow’s, and I’ll think on the candy.”

  “Coming right up,” said Mr. Parnorsham, pulling a cold bottle of soda water from the icebox.

  “Give me a straw too please,” said Senta. “That’s how proper ladies drink soda water.”

  “So I understand,” he said, smiling as he handed her a straw. “And speaking of proper ladies…”

  The bell above the door rang as Egeria Lusk entered. The white blouse that she wore along with her charcoal dress and tie made her brilliant red hair stand out all the more.

  “Senta,” she called. “How lucky to run into you. I was just going to have Mr. Parnorsham deliver these invitations. I
can just give you yours.”

  “Are you the postman now, Mr. Parnorsham?” asked Senta.

  “I do what I can,” he replied over his spectacles.

  “We haven’t any proper post,” explained Miss Lusk. “So Mr. Parnorsham fills in by having the lizzies deliver them. It’s not proper for a lady to hand out invitations herself.”

  “Oh,” said Senta, taking the invitation that the woman handed to her and looking at it like it was a bomb about to go off.

  “I think this will be fine though, since you and I are such good friends,” continued Miss Lusk. “I can’t wait to show you around my home. You are free on the fifteenth, aren’t you?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Very good.” She handed the remaining envelopes to Mr. Parnorsham. “I would like these delivered as soon as practicable.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “So, who all are you inviting?”

  “Whom, dear. Whom am I inviting?”

  “Right.”

  “Just a dozen couples. It will be a simple affair. I hope you approve of the young people. I wanted to have pairs for games, so I’m inviting Graham Dokkins. I knew you would want him as your partner.”

  Senta nodded as she swigged her soda water, forgetting about her straw.

  “I’m inviting his sister, and your friend Hero and her brother, and young Mr. Finkler.”

  “It’s not just kids, is it?”

  “Oh no. In fact that’s all the young people. All the others will be quite mature, well, at least as far as years go.”

  Senta nodded again.

  “Senta?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It will be an afternoon party, so… do you have anything to wear that’s not… black?”

  Senta had been afraid for a moment that she was going to say “horribly ugly.”

  “I’ll ask Fina for something else,” she said, though she decided that she would wait several days before broaching the subject.

  * * * * *

  “Don’t get up on my account,” said Iolanthe as she entered the parlor.

  “I wasn’t getting up at all,” said Yuah.

  “Where is my brother?”

  “I believe he’s gone for a walk.”

  “You believe? You don’t know for sure?”

  “I’m reasonably sure he’s taken a walk. Why? What do you want him for?”

  “I don’t want him.”

  Yuah sighed heavily. “Isn’t it almost tea?”

  “I have instructed Mrs. Colbshallow that we shall have low tea in the parlor today.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it will just be the four of us. Mercy is at his workshop and Terrence is, according to your best guess, taking a walk.”

  “Fine,” said Yuah, setting the Brysin’s Weekly Ladies’ Journal that she had been holding but not looking at, on the coffee table. She reached up and rubbed her temples.

  “Aren’t you feeling well?” asked Iolanthe.

  “I have a headache.”

  “This will cheer you up,” said Iolanthe, handing her an envelope. “This came for you earlier today.”

  “It’s been opened.”

  “Yes, I just had to make sure that it was the same as mine. I wouldn’t want to RSVP for you for the wrong engagement.”

  “RSVP?”

  “Not to worry. It’s all taken care of.”

  “You opened my mail and you sent an RSVP for me?”

  “You don’t have to thank me.”

  “It’s my mail!”

  “Don’t raise your voice to me.”

  “It’s my mail, and it’s from my…”

  “Future mother?”

  Yuah’s chin dropped to her chest. “My head is going to explode.”

  * * * * *

  “He hasn’t even come out of his apartment since he returned from Iguanodon Heath,” said Hero. “I overheard Private Cornish say that he’s just waiting for his ship to arrive so that he can go home to the fatherland… to Freedonia I mean.”

  “I don’t think we need to bother watching Mr. Streck anymore children,” said Terrence.

  He was standing in the alley about half a mile from the Dechantagne estate with the two Hertling twins. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a pair of large silver one mark coins, giving one to each child.

  “Thank you,” said Hero. Hertzal nodded, though the man didn’t see.

  “You earned it, as you’ve earned the other. I hope you haven’t grown used to living beyond your means.”

  “Oh no, sir. All of our earnings go to our sister for the household.”

  “Well that won’t do.” He reached deep into his pocket and pulled out another pair of coins. “If I gave you another mark, you’d probably just give that to your sister as well, but here’s a quarter mark for each of you. That way you can at least buy yourselves some candy and a toy.”

  “I don’t know if that would be proper, sir,” said Hero.

  “What’s the picture on that coin?” asked Terrence, pushing both into her hand.

  She took them and handed one to her brother. “It’s an old man.”

  “Yes, that’s the King. What is on the reverse?”

  “It’s a building… a palace.”

  “That’s the Palace Eidenia in Brech. To my mind, it’s the most beautiful piece of architecture in the world, and nobody lives there.”

  “Nobody?”

  “Well, I suppose there are caretakers and the like. Well, be on your way children. Go play, or spend some of your money. And you can tell your friend, the Drache Girl, that she doesn’t need to bother with Streck either.

  “I’ll tell her,” said the girl. “She does what she wants though.”

  “Yes, I know the type.”

  Hertzal pulled on his sister’s sleeve.

  “Mine brud… my brother, wants to know if you would like us to walk home with you.”

  Terrence smiled but it was difficult to judge how sincere it might be, absent his eyes. “You see that lizzie hiding behind the tree about fifty feet behind me?”

  The twins looked and spotted the creature just about where the man said it was.

  “My wife has sent it along to make sure I don’t wander too far astray.”

  When the children had gone, he turned around and snapped his fingers, waving the lizzie over to him. When it came close, he cocked his head to the side.

  “Cissy, isn’t it? Speak damn it, I can’t hear you nod your head.”

  Cissy hissed.

  “Yes, I thought so. Sirrek is much quieter when he follows me. Were you listening in?”

  Cissy hissed again.

  “I know you lot don’t hear as well as we do.”

  “You say no whatch Sstreck.”

  “Ah, you were listening. I know Iolanthe has you watching him and she may well want you to continue. That’s her business. I don’t think he’s worth the trouble. You will keep at the assignment I’ve given you.”

  “Whatch you wife.”

  “Yes. Keep an eye on her.”

  “You fraid for wife. You fraid cause she’s Zaeri.”

  “Yes. Most of your people can’t tell us apart, let alone understand the intricacies of our politics. But I keep forgetting. You read books, don’t you? What else to you do?”

  “Read Taters. Read Drysin’s”

  “Taters? Papers? You read the papers and the magazines? I’m surprised Iolanthe hasn’t caught you. Maybe you’re sneakier than I thought.”

  “Hoonan wife, childs intortant. You kill for wife, childs.”

  “That’s right,” said Terrence quietly. “You remember that.”

  “Cissy know.”

  “Come on. Let’s go home.” He put his hand on the lizzie’s shoulder, silently indicating that she should guide him.

  It was a sunny day. The patches of snow on the ground were rapidly disappearing and the first wildflowers were popping up all along the alleyway. The first aerial scouts of what would soon be an insect army were buzzi
ng here and there, and a few early birds were taking advantage. They would swoop down, catching a bug on the wing, and then light on one of the outermost branches and puff up their feathers.

  “You may go to your quarters,” said Terrence, as they reached the gate. “I can make my way from here.”

  And he walked briskly across the yard and up the back steps without the least hesitation. One would never have known he couldn’t see if he hadn’t missed the doorknob on the first try.

  Cissy made her way around the corner of the motor shed, but stopped short when she almost ran into Shoss. He was a nondescript lizzie who had come from Chusstuss and had been hired at the Dechantagne house shortly after Cissy. She started to step around him, but he moved so that he was in her way.

  “What do you want?” hissed Cissy.

  “Where have you been?”

  “None of your business.”

  “It is my business now.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “I am not going to leave you alone. I am going to be right here, all the time. It is known that you have no people. Tserich doesn’t want you. None of the other villages will want you either. Nobody wants you. That means you have no hut elder.”

  “I do not need a village. I do not need a hut elder.”

  “I will be your hut elder. You are going to give me your copper bits.”

  “I will not.”

  “If you do not, I will cut that pretty tail of yours.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  It took Cissy a moment to realize that the words were not in the lizzie language, but rather the warbling tongue of the humans. Terrence Dechantagne stepped from behind Cissy, one hand on her shoulder. With his other hand, he reached out and touched Shoss’s snout. Shoss was only average height for a lizzie male, but that put him several inches taller than the human, and he was not hunkering down, as he and the others so often did.

  “No trodlent,” said Shoss. His Brech was not as good as many of the other lizzies on staff.

  “That’s not what it sounded like to me.”

  Shoss looked confused. It was clear that he was uncomfortable talking to a human. He still was not making himself small. He had either forgotten how to act or realizing that this particular human couldn’t see him, decided not to make the effort.