“I’m too tired. I want to go home.”
“We can’t go home just yet, but if you’re too tired then Chessy can carry you.”
Teska returned and hissed out an entire paragraph before remembering that Mr. Staff only understood one work in ten. The man looked to his daughter who translated.
“There are two therizinosaurs about a hundred yards ahead. They’re feeding on a tree that they like—I haven’t heard this particular tree’s name before. I suppose it doesn’t matter. We’ll need to move east a couple of hundred yards and then cut southwest so that we can come up on them from downwind. Teska thinks we can do it. Apparently their hearing and eyesight isn’t the best.”
“Excellent,” said her father. “Everyone stay together and keep your wits about you.”
The group trooped through the trees, following the circuitous route the lizzie guide had recommended. Finally Mr. Staff stopped and turned to look at the children. He waved them forward with one hand while placing a finger over his mouth with the other.
About forty yards ahead of them were the two largest feathered creatures that any of the humans present had ever seen. Half again as large as the iguanodons that had carried them, these beasts had long thin necks and small heads and very bird-like faces. Their tales were somewhat shorter, and though their overall body shape was similar to the paralatitans that roamed Iguanodon Heath, they stood on their hind legs. Their bodies were covered with feathers, one a sky blue with a darker blue tail, and the other with darker blue over its entire body. The most remarkable features of the therizinosaurs though were their forearms, each of which sported three claws, each three feet long.
One of the lizzies quickly placed a mat down on the ground and another set up the rifle, which featured a bipod at the end of the barrel. Mr. Staff picked up Terra and carefully arranged her on the mat, so that her shoulder was just behind the rifle stock. He got down next to her, his own body lying on the dark brown earth.
“Now Terra, this is no different than shooting targets. I want you to aim at the dark blue one; I think he’s the male. Aim right below his shoulder.”
The little girl closed one eye and squinted with the other.
“Leave your eyes open. Put your hand up here, so your finger can reach the trigger. There you go. Are you ready?”
The rifle’s report was his answer. The loud crack reverberated through the trees. Staff looked up toward the animals. The male, if he was correct about their gender, looked toward them and stretched out his clawed hands menacingly. His lighter colored companion was rushing away into the trees.
“Did anyone see where that hit?” he asked.
“High and to the right, about four feet,” said Iolana.
He turned back to the girl on the ground. “Try again, Terra. Aim a little lower and to the left.” He worked the action for her.
The rifle jolted the girl as the report rang out again.
“Ouch!”
Looking up again, Staff saw the light blue beast was nowhere to be seen and the other was now following its companion. It bent down close to the ground and was surprisingly fast.
“Did we hit it?” he asked Teska.
The lizzie shook his head from side to side.
“Can we follow it and catch it?”
The lizzie looked at the children and then shook his head again.
“Oh well,” said Staff climbing to his feet. “I’m sure there will be other days.” He bent down and lifted Terra up in his arms. “How’s your shoulder?”
“I think it’s broken.”
“I doubt that. Augie? I’ll bet we could find a few deinonychus. What do you say?”
“Aw! I should have been the one to shoot at those big blue ones! I can shoot deinonychus from the back porch!”
“As I said, lad. There will be other days.”
By the time the group returned to where they had left the Charmleys, they had shot a dozen deinonychus and a couple of velociraptors. At Augie’s request, the lizzies had harvested the sickle-shaped talon on the second toe of each hind foot of all the beasts. This terrible claw was over three inches long on the larger of the two species. Churron, one of the lizzies, promised the boy that he would clean them once they reached home.
The Charmleys had a snack of tea and chocolate biscuits ready for them. Though still full from breakfast, they ate a little and then remounted Sunny and Kiwi for the trip back to the dinosaur ranch. Once there, the Staff party dismounted and carried their gear around to the cars, while the twins took their dinosaurs back to the pen.
In addition to the two steam carriages that the Dechantagnes and Staffs had arrived in, a green car sat in front of the house. Sitting behind the steering wheel was a young man Iolana didn’t recognize, but the back seat was filled with Sherree Glieberman and Talli Archer. As soon as they saw her, they made to get up. The driver hurried down and then lifted them one after another to the ground.
“Well, Iolana,” cooed Sherree with feigned pleasure. “It’s so lovely to see you.”
“Yes, it’s lovely to see you,” said Talli.
“I’m just as happy to see you as are you are to see me,” said Iolana. “Who’s your date?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Sherree. “That’s Tanner. He’s our driver. He’s Zaeri, you know.”
“And you let him drive you?”
“Oh, he’s a very good driver,” she said, missing or unfazed by the sarcasm. “Walter is taking me to tea at Café Etta.”
“Don’t you think you’re too young to date? You’re only fifteen and Walter’s a grown man.”
“He’s almost twenty. When I’m sixteen, he’ll turn twenty-one at that will be perfect. We’ll get married and be the handsomest couple in Birmisia.”
“I guess you’ll have to divorce Talli first.”
“There’s my beautiful tea dates,” said a voice behind them.
Iolana turned to see the two Charmleys approaching.
“We’re ready to go, Walter,” said Sherree, blinking her enormous eyes.
“You’ll have to tell him,” said the twin she addressed, pointing to his brother. “I’m Warden.”
“You could go to tea with us,” Talli told him.
“Sorry. We’ve got chores around this place and I’m the one who has to do them today. Besides, I’m saving myself for a certain eleven-year-old.” He winked at Iolana, and then turned and started back toward his house.
Iolana saw that the others were all loaded, so she said a quick goodbye to Walter, though the two girls could have taken it as directed to them, and then climbed into the car next to her father.
“Are you done talking to your friends,” he asked. “We could have waited.”
“We already waited an hour,” said Augie from the back seat.
“Thank you for your patience,” said Iolana. “I’m done here, but if it’s not too much trouble, I would like to stop by Marigold Street on the way home. I’d like to invite Dovie over to lunch tomorrow.”
Dovie arrived at the Dechantagne Staff estate just after 11:00 the following morning. Iolana had found her not at home when she had stopped, but had jotted down a quick invitation, and then had sent a car for her at the appointed time. Quickly ushering the girl up to her bedroom, Iolana made sure that they were alone, with the exception of Esther, and locked the door. Then she told her all about her experience with the Result Mechanism two days earlier.
“You’re saying it’s growing? Growing and moving?” Dovie’s eyes were like saucers.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Well, it grew a head anyway.”
“You’ve got to tell somebody.”
“Who am I going to tell? My mother? I don’t think so. My father? I don’t think he would know what to do. If only I could tell Senta…”
“Which Senta? I know about a hundred of them.”
“The Drache Girl.”
“Oh. Well, you could tell one of the wizards from the police department.”
“I don’t kn
ow any of them and I wouldn’t trust a wizard anyway. I need someone who knows magic that I can trust and there isn’t anybody… except maybe…”
Dovie just looked at her, waiting.
“I do know somebody I could talk to,” said Iolana. “It will take me a while to get a message to him. In the meantime, we need to make sure that nobody goes in the professor’s workshop.”
A knock at the door summoned them to luncheon. Downstairs, they found the dining room once again full. In addition to Iolana, her father, Auntie Yuah, Augie, Terra, and Dovie, there was Auntie Yuah’s friend Honor McCoort, Mrs. Colbshallow and her granddaughter DeeDee. Iolana’s mother wasn’t present but Walworth had taken her spot. Iolana’s father was evidently rewarding him for waiting all yesterday morning with the cars while they hunted.
As they sat down, Augie was regaling his mother and their guests with the story of the previous day’s adventure, playing up in Iolana’s opinion, his own prowess with the rifle. But other conversation and the food soon took her mind off of it. As usual, there was food aplenty. In addition to sandwiches and salads, and of course great mounds of golden chips, there was delicious steamed fish that had come that morning from the fish market.
They were almost ready to begin dessert, when one of the lizzies handed Mr. Staff a small folded paper. As he looked at it, his face darkened.
“What is it?” Iolana asked.
“Not at the table.”
Thirty minutes later, Dovie in tow, Iolana found her father in the parlor. She looked at him, waiting. Mrs. Colbshallow, Yuah, and Honor stopped their conversation and watched. The younger children had all gone to play in the garden.
“Bad news, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Staff. “Warden Charmley is dead.”
Iolana felt the food in her stomach turn to stone.
“What happened?” asked Mrs. McCoort.
“He took one of his newer dinosaurs out yesterday and apparently it threw him. Maybe it wasn’t ready to be ridden. He may have broken his leg. In any case, he was quite a ways from home. His brother didn’t find him until late last night. By then a couple of utahraptors had taken him.”
Auntie Yuah gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
“How horrible,” said Mrs. Colbshallow.
The room began to spin, and Iolana’s legs slipped out from under her as she dropped to the floor, smacking her head on the coffee table.
Chapter Thirteen: Zoantheria
Baxter leaned out as far as he could, looking at the beast swimming in the ocean two hundred feet below him. Though a modern naval vessel, or for that matter the dirigible in which he now found himself would have dwarfed the marine reptile, it was still quite a monster. It had to be at least thirty feet long and it shot along the surface of the ocean like a dolphin. It blew up water from its blowhole like one too.
“How soon before we reach Mallontah?” asked Senta, snaking her arm over his shoulder.
“Just after dinner this evening. It will still be light out. I understand it doesn’t get dark until after 9:00 this time of year.”
“That’s fine.”
“Where’s the baby?”
“She’s asleep.”
“I don’t like to leave her in the cabin alone.” He turned and started toward the promenade door.
“She’s fine. She has her babysitter.”
“And I don’t feel comfortable leaving her with that beast either.”
“It’s hard to believe you’re not her father.” The words caused him to stop in his tracks.
“I’m very fond of her,” he said, turning.
“Oh, I know you are,” said the sorceress, sliding toward him. “I think it’s very nice. You’re a very good man, you know.”
“What’s your point?”
“Oh, I don’t think I have one.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and licked from his chin to his nose.
He pulled her arms from around him and left the promenade, hurrying down the hallway to their cabin. Opening the door, he found the baby asleep in the middle of the bed. Perched on the corner of the bedstead was the coral dragon.
“Good baby,” it said.
Hurrying over to the bedside, Baxter quickly examined the sleeping child. Nothing seemed amiss. He tucked her blanket around her and scowled at the little reptile.
“You see? Nothing to worry about.”
He turned around to find the sorceress stepping out of the dress that was now in a pile around her feet. She was still clad in her undergarments, though she wore fewer than most Brech women.
“You really are a horrible woman, you know.”
“I have my moments,” she smiled.
They spent most of the next hour making love, after which Senta curled up on the bed next to her daughter and went to sleep. Baxter lit a cigarette and sat down in a chair, less comfortable than it looked, against the wall. His eyes went from the woman to the child to the dragon, though he wasn’t conscious of any particular thoughts about them. Just after he finished the cigarette, baby Senta fussed in her sleep. He stepped over to the bed and picked her up, taking her back to the chair and holding her against his chest. She stopped fussing and went back to sleep. He smelled the baby’s blond hair. She needed a bath.
His attention was drawn back to the dragon as it slithered down from the bedpost to the mattress. Its little forked tongue played across the sorceress short hair for just a moment and then it bit her on the ear.
“Ow! Kafira! You bloody twat!” She backhanded the little dragon across the snout with her right hand, while cupping her ear with the left. A thin trickle of blood dripped between her fingers.
“You horrible, vicious…” She rolled off the bed and bent down in front of the cheval glass to examine herself. “Sweet Kafira Kristos, look at my ear! It’s full of holes!”
“Shh,” soothed Baxter as the baby, disturbed by the noise wriggled. He kept his voice low as he spoke to her mother. “Maybe you could just put earrings in the holes.”
“I don’t have that many earrings,” growled the sorceress. “My ear looks like a Mirsannan cheese.”
“Get your healing draught,” said Baxter, getting up and setting the baby in the chair.
When Senta had retrieved the brown bottle from her luggage in the other room, he had her bend her head over while he poured the clear liquid over the wounds. It fizzed a bit and then ran clear. When he wiped the remains away with a handkerchief, her ear was as cute and unblemished as it had been before.
“You!” said Senta, looking at the dragon, which withered under her gaze.
“Mirsannan cheese,” it said.
“Get in your carrier!” She pointed to the still open connecting door.
The coral reptile flew off the bed and through the door, opened the animal carrier door itself and climbed inside, shutting the door behind it.
“I told you I didn’t trust that creature,” said Baxter.
Senta waved a hand dismissively. “It’s just one of those things when you’re dealing with dragons. Bessemer must have bitten me a hundred times when I was a kid.”
“You’ll still have that attitude when it eats your baby, will you?”
“She couldn’t eat all of her. Still, I suppose it’s better if we don’t leave them alone together… for now.”
“Goo.” They turned to see the baby, awake and sitting up in the chair, watching them with her large grey eyes.
“At least the dragon can speak,” said the sorceress.
“You said the dragon’s four years old. Senta’s only nine months,” said Baxter. “Besides, she can speak. She just said ‘goo’.”
“Good Kafira,” said Peter, when the three of them sat down to tea at his table in the dining room. “If this voyage goes on much longer I’m going to go out of my mind. I’m so incredibly bored.”
“You were at sea longer than this when you came to Birmisia before,” said Senta.
“Yes, but I had the other guys with me. We played games and practiced our magic… chased
a few girls… all right, we talked about chasing a few girls. All I’ve done this trip is eat and sit in my stateroom.”
“I’m sorry we’ve been neglecting you,” she said.
“It’s all right. I understand you want to be alone and all.”
“Still, we could have included you in something,” said Baxter. “You could have trained the dragon for instance.”
“Or the baby,” said Senta. “Of course you’ve been studying your books, haven’t you?”
“I’ve read them all twice. I probably know more about magical theory than Master Hollingberry.”
“We’ll be landing in a few hours,” said Baxter. “Hopefully there will be vacancies at one of the hotels.”
The waiter arrived with bowls of alligator pear soup and cress sandwiches. Peter dived into his soup and Senta took a dainty bite of a sandwich. Baxter waited until a tray of chutney was set down, which he used to anoint his sandwich. In the meantime he gave baby Senta a few bites of his soup before letting her have her bottle.
“How long are we staying in St. Ulixes? We should be able to see all the sites in a few days, shouldn’t we?”
“Kafira,” said the sorceress. “There’s nothing to see but mud and those disgusting trogs. I shan’t want to spend more than a single night.”
“After we get our rooms then,” said Peter, “I could go to the train station and get our tickets.”
Baxter nodded.
While they finished their meal, Peter recounted the story of the last time he was in Mallontah years before. Wizard Bassington and the other war ministry wizards had a very comfortable set up in what appeared to be just another mud hut from the outside. Senta remembered having been in the same building, but she didn’t mention it.
“Why don’t you come and get the animal carrier,” Baxter suggested to Peter. “You can take the creepy little thing to your room with you—have a nice chat.”
“I thought you were just kidding about that,” said Senta.
“I absolutely was not kidding.”
When they entered their room, they saw the dragon sitting atop the animal carrier. It quickly ducked back inside and closed the door. Baxter picked it up by its handle and gave it to the apprentice wizard.
The Sorceress and her Lovers Page 16