"One of them wasn't your thumb, was it?"
"No. It was the end two."
Senta nodded. Then she climbed up into the bed beside her cousin and wrapped her long skinny arms around him.
"I bet it hurts."
"Yup." He snuggled closer and leaned his head on her shoulder.
"Maybe you won't have to work at the print shop anymore now," Senta offered.
"The print shop is ace. It's my fault I stuck my fingers in the press. I hope they don't give the job away?"
Anything else Maro had to say was lost, as he was finally carried away by drug induced slumber.
* * * * *
Running Miss Dechantagne's errands around the city was not something that Zeah Korlann minded. It was his chance to get out of the house and get some fresh air. It was his chance to be away from the ever-present expectations of others. It was his chance to be anonymous. Today he was headed to the millinery shop for his mistress and then to the employment office for the house.
Just down the street from the house was the trolley stop. The massive brown mare, which pulled the trolley, turned one large brown eye toward him as he passed her and stepped up onto the running board and then into the car. As he dug a pfennig out of his pocket to drop in the glass money container, the driver looked at him and gave him a friendly nod. He took a seat near the middle of the carriage and folded his hands in his lap as he waited for the horse to start on its way. There were only four other people on the trolley-two older women that Zeah vaguely recognized as servants from a house down the street, a young soldier with red hair, and an odd looking man in a brown bowler with a long nose and thick whiskers.
Zeah's attention was immediately drawn to the newspaper being read by the soldier. The young man was reading page two, leaving the headline staring the butler in the face. The two inch high block letters proclaimed "Dragon Over Brechalon."
"I didn't think there were any dragons left in the world," Zeah said to himself. "At least not in Sumir."
"There are a few," said the odd looking man.
"They say it's old Voindrazius," said the soldier, peering over his paper. "They used to see him all the time in Freedonia? in the old days. A hundred years or so ago."
"It's not Voindrazius," said the odd looking man. "It says very clearly that the dragon seen over Brechalon had metallic scales-some said golden scales. Voindrazius was a red dragon."
Zeah didn't see how the man could have read the soldier's paper from his seat, and he didn't have his own. He must have read it earlier in the day.
"I hope it doesn't cause any damage," said Zeah.
"I'm sure it won't. Dragons once ruled this continent, but those few who are left just want to be left alone. You're Zaeri, are you not?"
Zeah shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Yes."
"Then you should know from the scriptures-The Old Prophets chapter twenty-six, verse three."
"Fear neither dragon nor storm," quoted Zeah. "Well, I still fear storms too."
"How about eclipses?"
"Eclipses?"
"Yes, there's an eclipse the fourth of next month."
"No, I guess I'm fine with eclipses."
When Zeah stepped off the trolley, he found himself on Avenue Peacock. Like Avenue Phoenix, both sides of the street were lined with stores. But unlike Avenue Phoenix, here none of the stores looked like stores. There were no large windows showing off the wares that each establishment sold. They looked more like banks or discreet gentlemen's clubs. That made sense, because like those places, these stores were for people with a great deal of money. The stores were labeled, but they were labeled with small letters just to the right of the doorways, rather than large signs above them. Zeah headed for one of the closer buildings, one marked Admeta March, milliner.
There was no bell above the door, like any store that Zeah would have shopped in. Inside, it didn't look like a store at all. There was a couch and there were several chairs, a coffee table and two end tables with lamps-all made of very dark wood and a material of the most horrendous shade of pink. Zeah had been here before and knew just what to do. He sat down. After a few minutes, a thin pinch-faced woman wearing a dress the same horrendous shade of pink came in through a closed door of the same very dark wood.
"May I help you?"
"I'm here to pick up a hat for Miss Dechantagne."
The woman nodded and left. Zeah sat back down and waited for what seemed an inordinate amount of time to get a hat, but at last she returned. She had a box, a hatbox naturally, but it had not yet been tied shut with the usual bow.
"Would you care to see it?" the woman asked, opening the lid.
"Um, no." Zeah turned and stared at the horrendous pink wallpaper.
The woman shrugged and went back out through the door. Zeah had never looked at any article of clothing that he had picked up for Miss Dechantagne, and he wasn't about to start looking now. It wasn't that there would be any impropriety. It was simply that, as Zeah's luck ran, there would be something wrong with the hat. Not having much in the way of fashion sense of course, Zeah would have no idea that there was anything wrong, and even if he did, he wouldn't know what that something was. When Miss Dechantagne found the flaw in the apparel, she would ask Zeah if he knew anything about it, and he wouldn't be able to say that there was no way that he could know anything about it because he had never seen the article in question before. He had seen it. All in all, it was better if he didn't.
Taking another trolley, one that had many passengers though none of them soldiers and none of them odd looking men in brown bowlers, Zeah arrived at Avenue Boar near the banking district. The Prescott Agency was here, occupying the same columned, white building that they had occupied for more than fifty years. It was the job of the Prescott Agency to place top quality servants in the wealthiest and most important of Greater Brechalon's homes. Zeah was at least as well versed in the protocol here as he was in the millinery shop. He walked up to the second floor to Mrs. Villers' desk and told her what he needed.
"I'm afraid that won't be possible," said Mrs. Villers.
"Wha? what?"
"I'm afraid that won't be possible."
"Wha?why not? You don't have anyone to place?"
"Oh, no. It's not that. We have people to place, but you want someone with experience."
"Yes."
"Well, how can I put this? None of the experienced people want to work for her. They've all heard the stories."
"The stories are, um? well, not exaggerated exactly? but still."
"I understand," said Mrs. Villers. "You are the head butler and I would be shocked if you spoke ill of your house. I certainly wouldn't want you to. But you see my dilemma. I have several very promising looking newcomers."
"Um." Zeah stopped and examined the ceiling for a moment. "Yes. Send them around."
He looked back at Mrs. Villers.
"Mr. Korlann?"
"Yes?"
"Was there anything else?"
"Um? no." Zeah turned and headed for the stairs that led him down to the first floor and out onto Avenue Boar. All in all, he thought it might have been better if there had been a flaw in the hat.
Chapter Four: Memories
Nils Chapman looked through the small window in the armored door at Prisoner 89. The warden was once again away from the island and Chapman was happy to note that Karl Drury was gone as well. Chapman had spent the previous weeks trying to find out anything he could about the lone occupant of Schwarztogrube's north wing. He didn't know why, but he felt compelled to find out all he could about her. The prison didn't have any open records and asking the warden would have invited dismissal, so he had quizzed the other guards and the south wing prisoners. From the former, he hadn't gotten much-only that she was an extremely dangerous, extremely powerful magic-user. From one of the latter though he had gotten a name-Zurfina.
"Zurfina," he called out. "Is that your n
ame? Is that who you are?"
Slowly, very slowly, the head came up until he could see the two grey eyes peering from between the strands of dirty, blond hair, like the eyes of a tiger looking out of the jungle-filled with hatred.
"Are you Zurfina?"
Slowly the fire in the eyes died, and they turned glassy. Then the head dropped back down. Though he called to her several more times, Prisoner 89 gave no more indication that she heard or understood. Eventually he gave up and made his way back to the south wing, so he didn't hear the words that came from the cracked lips.
"One thousand nine hundred sixty-eight days. One thousand nine hundred sixty-eight days. One thousand nine ?"
* * * * *
One thousand nine hundred sixty-eight days before, Zurfina the Magnificent had been moving through the throngs of people in Marcourt Station. She was not dressed as the other women in the station, or anywhere else in the United Kingdom of Greater Brechalon. High-heeled leather boots and leather pants matched the spiked leather collar around her neck and the fingerless black leather gloves on her hands. The black leather corset, worn as a shirt, left her white shoulders bare as it did the two-inch star tattoo above each breast. No one noticed the bizarrely clad figure though. Zurfina was a master of obfuscation. To everyone else at the station, she seemed nothing but a nondescript brunette in a brown dress with an appropriately large bustle. To almost everyone else.
Zurfina had her ticket on the B511 out of Brech to Flander on the southern coast, where she had already arranged to meet a boat that would take her to a ship bound for Mirsanna. There was no way that she could stay in Brechalon any longer. The government had refused to accept her independence. They would have her join the military or they would see her destroyed. They had already sent a dozen wizards and two sorcerers against her. But Zurfina was the greatest practitioner of sorcery in the Kingdom and was more than a match for any wizard.
A man in a brown suit stepped out from behind a pillar. To the other people in the station, he seemed nothing out of the ordinary, but to Zurfina he glowed bright yellow and was surrounded by a sparkling halo. She didn't wait for him to cast a spell. She pointed her hand toward him and spat out an incantation.
"Intior uuthanum err."
Immediately the man doubled over, wracked with uncontrollable cackling laughter. But before Zurfina could smile appreciatively, she was thrown from her feet as the world around her exploded in flames. She had been hit in the back by a fireball, and only the fact that she had previously shielded herself prevented her from becoming a human candle, as four or five innocent bystanders around her now did. Rolling to her feet and turning around, she found that she faced not one, but four wizards. The one who had evidently cast the fireball was preparing another spell, while the other three were casting their own. Her shield protected her from the lightning bolt, and the attempt to charm her, but one of the four magic missiles hit her, burning her shoulder as though it had been dipped in lava.
"Uuthanum uastus corakathum paj-prestus uuthanum." Zurfina ducked into a side alcove as one of the wizards turned to stone and her own shield was replenished. Several more magical bolts struck the stone wall across from her, creating small burnt holes. Peering quickly around the corner, she saw the four wizards just where she left them, the three trying to use their petrified comrade as cover. Looking in the other direction, she saw that the wizard cursed with laughter had recovered and he had been joined by two more.
Seven wizards-well, six. That was a lot of magical firepower. But then Zurfina looked across the station platform. Directly opposite her was the open door of a train; not the B511, but a train bound for somewhere else. If she could reach it, she could get away. She glanced quickly around the corner again. The smell of burnt bodies mixed with thick black smoke in the air, but though there was plenty of the former, there was not enough of the latter for Zurfina's taste.
"Uuthanum," she said, and a thick fog began to fill the station platform.
"Maiius uuthanum nejor paj." The three wizards to her right suddenly faced a dog the size of a draft horse, snarling and foaming at the mouth, and they felt their spells were better aimed at it than any blond sorceress.
Turning to her left, Zurfina cast another spell. "Uuthanum uastus carakathum nit."
The cement that formed the other end of the platform turned to mud. The petrified wizard, deprived of his secure foundation toppled over onto one of his comrades, crushing him, while the other two struggled to pull themselves from the muck. Zurfina shot out of the alcove and ran toward the train. She had almost made it, when Wizard Bassington stepped into the open doorway in front of her.
She stopped right there in the open, unbalanced, unsure now whether to run left or right or back the way that she had come. She felt uncomfortably like an animal caught on the road in the headlamps of an oncoming steam carriage. Bassington didn't move. He stared at her with his beady eyes. His eyes went wide though when Zurfina reached up to snatch something out of the air. Normal, non-magical people couldn't see them, but he could-the glamours that orbited her head were spells cast earlier, awaiting the moment when she needed them.
She crushed the glamour and pointed her hand at the spot where Bassington stood, just as he dived away. The entryway where the wizard had been, and the passenger coaches on either side of him exploded, lifting much of the train up off the track as metal and wood shrapnel and human body parts flew in every direction. The flash knocked Zurfina herself back onto the cement and sent her sliding across the pavement and into the far wall. Before she could get up, she was hit with a dozen bolts of magical fire, some but not all of them deflected by her magic shield. It was a spell of weakening, followed by one of sleep though that finally dropped her head unconscious to the ground. The last thing she saw was Bassington's hobnail boots walking toward her. That was one thousand nine hundred sixty-eight days ago.
* * * * *
Two thousand twenty-one days ago, Zurfina ducked into her lodgings on Prince Tybalt Boulevard. She had a second-degree burn on her thigh and blood ran down her arm from a bullet wound just above her elbow. She bolted the door then staggered across the room to the dresser. Opening the top drawer, she pulled out a brown bottle of healing draught and splashed a generous amount onto, first the bullet hole, and then the burn. Finally she took a large swig. She turned quickly, raising her hand as the door opened. But she lowered her arm again when Smedley Bassington entered.
"I locked the door," she said, taking another swig from the brown bottle.
"Are you alright?"
"A fat lot you care, you bloody bastard."
"It's not my fault," he almost whined. "I told you what would happen. It's not too late. Go with me to the Ministry of War. One word and it will be over. Everything can go back to the way it was."
"Not the way it was," she spat. "I wasn't the Ministry's lapdog before. That was you."
"Zurfina?"
"Uuthanum," she threw a quick gesture in his direction, which turned into a knife in the air.
"Uuthanum," he said, sending the knife in an arc around the room and back at her. In midair it turned into badminton shuttlecock.
"Uuthanum," she sent it back to him again, now transformed into a squirming serpent.
"Uuthanum." As it sailed at her again, the snake became a rose.
Zurfina snatched it from the air and winced as the long pointed thorns bit her hand. "Son of a bitch!"
"You can't get away," said Bassington.
"No?" Zurfina gestured and was gone, leaving the wizard alone in the room.
That was two thousand twenty-one days ago.
* * * * *
Two thousand nine hundred and seven days ago, Zurfina reclined across the park bench and took a deep breath, savoring the smell of the white rose that Smedley held to her nose. She shifted slightly, nestling her head more comfortably in his lap. A light breeze was whipping around her as she looked up into the sky.
She could see clouds floating by at a surprisingly quick pace.
"You haven't given me an answer," said Smedley.
"An answer to what?"
"An answer to the most important question in my life."
"And what might that question be?"
"Infuriating woman," Smedley snapped. "You know what question. You haven't yet told me whether you'll marry me. In antediluvian times, I'd simply have hit you over the head with a club and pulled you by the hair back to my cave."
"Yes, well." Zurfina's charcoal-lined, grey eyes slowly rose to meet his. "Then I would wait until you were asleep and slice your throat with my stone knife."
A slight shiver ran through Smedley's body that made her smile, but he didn't look away.
"So?"
"So what?" she purred.
"Will you marry me?"
"I believe I will have you. Yes."
"Thank you," he beamed. "You've made me the happiest man in Brech."
"Not yet, but soon." she replied, reaching under her head and stroking the crotch of his trousers. "After all, just because I must wait to have you, doesn't mean that you must wait to have me."
"What a tart."
That was two thousand nine hundred and seven days ago.
* * * * *
"One thousand nine hundred sixty-eight days. One thousand nine hundred sixty-eight days." Zurfina pressed her face against the cold stone of the cell. "Bloody bastard."
* * * * *
Terrence had no idea what day it was. At least he knew it was Pentuary. Oh, yes. He knew that. It was starting to get hot and nobody wanted to spend their days indoors. That was where he had spent most of the last week though-holed up in to the back part of the house "seeing." During that time he'd had very little food and almost no real sleep. He looked at the collection of tiny bottles in the wooden case. He had already finished one and all but finished another. He tucked the box under the bed and left the room, carefully locking the door behind him. The empty hallway and the stuffy air gave him a strange sense of d?j? vu.
* * * * *
It had been Pentuary too when it happened, sixteen years before. Iolanthe, Augie, Yuah, and Dorah were sitting in a circle on the floor around Master Akalos, who was making them recite the names of the books in the Modest Scriptures. That two of them were the children of aristocrats and two were the children of servants made no difference to Master Akalos. That three of them were Kafirites and one of them was a Zaeri did, and the tutor gained a perverse delight in drilling them on the set of scriptures that the Zaeri did not believe in. Terrence, who was watching from beyond the door, could see the queer laughter hiding behind the man's eyes. Both twelve-year-olds, Terrence and Enoch, had finished their lessons for the day. Enoch had hurried off to his chores in the stable, while Terrence had made himself a sandwich.