The Price of Magic Read online

  “You may be surprised,” said Talli. “After all, your son will become the Baron of Saxe-Lagerport-Drille. And you must have a huge dowry.”

  “You really don’t think my skin is too dark?” Questa asked.

  Baxter stepped away from Ascan and the girls and crossed to the other side of the room, glancing at the large clock on the mantle above the fireplace. It was only about fifteen minutes until midnight. He stopped next to Marzell Lance.

  “Have you seen the lady of the house?”

  Marzell’s eyes suddenly widened as his back stiffened.

  “She’s right behind me, isn’t she?”

  “Indeed I am,” said a sultry voice, as a long, white arm snaked around Baxter’s neck and a tongue licked his ear.

  Turning on his heel, Baxter looked into the steely grey eyes of his lover, the sorceress Senta Bly—the Drache Girl. Her six-foot height put them almost at the same level. Her willowy form was hidden not at all by her burgundy evening gown, and her short blond hair was not covered by a hat. She kissed him, passionately.

  “Where have you been?” he asked, leaning his head back, but making no move to disengage himself from her embrace.

  “Preparing for the evening’s finale.” She turned and when she spoke, her words seemed to magically resonate to every corner of the house, which is probably just what had happened.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, friends old and new, please make your way to the garden.”

  Men and women filed from all over the house and through the dining room, the lizzies who had been working there, now making themselves scarce. There was something of a bottleneck at the stained glass doors, but soon everyone was outside in the garden. Those who exited first were just deciding that perhaps they should have stopped for their coats, when a huge explosion blasted across the sky. This was followed by dozens of others—bright daisy heads of gold and silver. Then there were more magical fireworks, these designed to look like real flowers—red tulips, yellow daffodils, and roses of every color. Then there were ships and dinosaurs and cannons. Just when it was becoming impossible to ignore the temperature, a blast of twenty-five explosions filled the sky, ending with one great blast that revealed the red, white, and blue Accord Banner of the United Kingdom of Greater Brechalon and Freedonia.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Senta’s voice once again seemed to come from everywhere. “We hope you’ve enjoyed the first of what will no doubt become an annual tradition. The lizzies have your hats and coats at the door, as well as a portion of this evening’s party food that was left over. Rickshaws are waiting for those who did not arrive in their own cars. Thank you all and have a healthy and prosperous New Year.”

  As Baxter helped herd everyone back through the kitchen doors, he looked up at the gable. The dragon was no longer there. Once the guests had all gone, he and Senta had a glass of wine before bed, and he really didn’t remember anything after that.

  In the morning, he stretched and rolled onto his side.

  “You really do look delicious first thing in the morning,” said a sultry voice.

  He opened his eyes to find the dragon lying on the bed next to him, her whiskered snout inches from his nose.

  “Kafira’s twat!” he growled, jumping out of bed.

  “Now I know what they mean when they say ‘cussing like a sailor’.”

  “What the blazes are you doing in here? You have your own room.”

  “That’s not very hospitable. The mistress has gone out, and I thought to myself, ‘what a lovely opportunity for her pet dragon to bond with her pet man.’”

  “Where’s Sen?”

  “She’s having her breakfast. I could order for you. Let me guess—two eggs, basted, bacon, and crumpets with butter and honey.”

  “Leave over the crumpets,” said Baxter, looking at his reflection in the cheval glass. “I’m getting fat.”

  “You’re very handsome, but I’ll deliver your order.”

  The dragon moved off the bed and out of the room so quickly and silently that she appeared like a ribbon of fabric on the wind. Baxter washed his face and sharpened his straight razor on the strop. Mixing a bit of shaving powder with water in his cup, he brushed the resulting suds across his face. A glint of coral metallic in the corner of his eye signaled the return of the dragon. She was draped once again over the length of the bed, this time with her head at the foot.

  “What now?”

  “I just love watching you.”

  “It’s quite nerve-wracking,” said Baxter, scraping the blade up from his collarbone to his chin. “I imagine that if I cut myself you’ll pounce on me and tear me to pieces.”

  “Don’t be silly. I would never intentionally harm you. Not that I haven’t had the odd daydream or two where I ate your flesh or drank your blood.”

  “Good to know,” said Baxter as he finished the left side of his face. “Maybe you should spend some time with your own kind.”

  “There aren’t any of my own kind.”

  “There is a least one.”

  “We don’t get on. All he wants to do is talk about literature or what his lizzies are doing. Honestly, who cares what those cold-blooded things are up to?”

  “Perhaps a hobby then?”

  “I thought you were my hobby.”

  The man finished shaving and wiped the stray traces of foam from his face, just as a thirty-eight inch tall, blond bundle of energy shot into the room and straight at him.

  “Daddy!”

  “There’s my girl,” said Baxter, scooping her up and tossing her into the air, catching her as she dropped. “Did you eat all of your breakfast?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, now let me get dressed so I can eat mine.” He held her out and looked at her. “You should get dressed too. Why don’t you wear that cute lilac dress we bought the other day? Go tell your nurse.” He bent down and swatted her on the bottom, sending her on her way. Without a word, the dragon followed the little girl out of the room.

  Once he was dressed and downstairs, Baxter was surprised to find the elder Senta seated at the dining table, her leg draped over the chair arm of her seat, as she nibbled a piece of bacon.

  “The dragon said you were out,” he said.

  “I was. Now I’m back in again.”

  “So you are.” He began slicing his eggs. “Happy New Year.”

  “Thank you. What are your plans for today?”

  “I don’t know—the usual, I suspect. Probably take a walk downtown, have lunch at the café, do some shopping, buy a lolly, come home.”

  “I take it you’ll be taking our little pet with you?”

  “Are you talking about your daughter or the dragon?” he asked. “I’m never quite sure.”

  “The dragon has a name.”

  “So does your daughter,” he snapped. “And yes, Sen will be going with me. I thought the bit about the lolly gave it away.”

  “Oh dear. Mummy and Daddy are fighting again,” said the dragon, as it whisked into the room and curled up in a corner.

  “Nonsense,” said Senta. “Nobody fights with me. I’m a very powerful something something.”

  “And what will you be doing, oh great one?” asked Baxter.

  “I think… sorcery, yes, that’s it.”

  The man turned his attention back to his eggs, and was just finishing breakfast when the little girl ran into the room, now decked out in a cute little lilac dress, covered with white bows, and held out into a bell shape by several petticoats.

  “Don’t you look just precious,” said her mother. “Come and give kisses.”

  The girl hurried to her mother’s side and kissed the offered cheek. Then she zipped around the table and jumped onto the pile of dragon in the corner.

  “Be careful, Sen,” said Baxter. “Zoey has some sharp edges.”

  “See, you do know her name,” said the sorceress. “If it’s not too much trouble, and I know that it isn’t, I would like you to deliver a letter for me.”

 
“Don’t we have the post for that?”

  She stood up and moved almost as gracefully as had the dragon. Bending down over him, one hand stroked his cheek while the other ran up his inner thigh, causing him to jump.

  “You know you can’t always manipulate me with sex.”

  “Of course I can,” she said breathily, and bit his ear.

  An hour later, Baxter walked down the carefully cultivated sidewalk along First Avenue, his left hand holding onto Sen’s left ankle as she rode on his shoulders. They had taken the triceratops-powered trolley into the old part of town, stepping off at Town Square, and walked the rest of the way. Stately mansions lined the south side of the street here. On the north side were a few smaller homes and a small stretch of forested land. It was unseasonably warm, and the snow had retreated into the shadows of the great pine trees. Even though he wore only a light coat, Baxter was comfortable enough.

  He spotted Loana Colbshallow walking on the opposite side of the street, pushing a baby stroller. Her bustled figure looked even more bell-shaped than did Sen’s. She was wearing a boater on her multihued hair that matched her pink coat. He carefully looked both ways before crossing over. The traffic was light here, but steam carriages shot by a few times every minute, and occasionally an iguanodon, saddled with one to four riders, would stride by.

  “Good day, Mrs. Colbshallow.”

  “Oh, hello Mr. Baxter. Virgil and I are just enjoying a stroll.”

  Baxter looked down at the tiny baby, carefully wrapped in blankets with only a pinched little face peering out.

  “Awe, cute,” said Sen.

  “You seem to be both doing well,” said the man. “What is he now—two months?”

  “Two months next week. It’s been a struggle, more for me than for him, but we’re managing.”

  “Well, have a splendid day.”

  He hurried back across the street, turning into the walk up to the Dechantagne Staff estate. There was a small crowd of young men milling around the front door, and when the lizzie majordomo let him in, Baxter found a similar group in the foyer. He recognized several from the previous night’s party, including Philo Mostow and Tiber Stephenson, as well as others he had seen around town.

  The object of all the attention was Lady Iolana, who was greeting each of the young men, accepting their calling cards, and directing them to tea and biscuits. If the look on her face was any indication, she wasn’t enjoying it.

  “Lady Iolana,” said Baxter with a nod.

  “You’re not here to leave your card too, are you?” she asked him.

  “I’m just here to delver a letter to your mother,” he replied, lifting Sen down and setting her on the floor. She wrapped her arms around his knees.

  “Tacktotott eestutut,” Iolana told a lizzie servant, who hurried away. “You may wait in the library, if you like.”

  Baxter, having been in the palatial home numerous times, knew where the library was located. He made his way to the room and had just helped Sen up into a large plush chair when Colonial Governor Iolanthe Staff entered. She was an attractive woman, a few strands of grey just appearing in her auburn hair. She smiled pleasantly, watching him with the same unusual aquamarine eyes that no doubt made her daughter so popular with the young men.

  “Good day, Mr. Baxter.”

  “Good day, Governor. I’ve been asked to deliver this to you.”

  He handed her the envelope. She retrieved a silver letter opener from a nearby desk and sliced through the paper. Unfolding the letter, she read through the contents, her mouth becoming thinner and her eyes larger as she did so.

  “How dare she! She demands… she demands… of me? Not even Zurfina was this impertinent. Do you know what she wants?”

  “I neither know nor care,” he said.

  “You delivered the message.”

  “Yes, well, apparently I’m the delivery boy.”

  “Then you deliver this message. If she wants to make demands of me, she can bloody well do it in person! Have you got that?”

  “I have your message and I will deliver it.”

  The governor turned and stormed out of the room. Baxter looked at Sen, who sat with her eyes wide and her lower lip trembling. Stepping over to her, he scooped her up into a hug.

  “Well, that was thoroughly unpleasant. I think we deserve more than a lolly, don’t you? I think we deserve ice cream.”

  “Yes,” said Sen, quietly. “Chocolate ice cream.”

  Chapter Two: The Famous Writer

  Almost two weeks had gone by and Iolana’s mother was still angry with the sorceress. She sat at the head of the great table while she and the other three women of the house had their tea. With a cup in one hand and a report in the other, she clicked her tongue. Carefully folding the paper, she handed it to Kayden, the lizzie majordomo, who carried it into the other room. Iolana caught the eye of Zandy, another lizzie, nodding to indicate that he should follow. She wanted to see just what was going on between her mother and Senta.

  “Garrah, please bring out that new chutney,” she called, more to distract away from Zandy than anything else.

  The four women couldn’t have been more different. It was less than two months until Iolana’s fourteenth birthday, but she seemed older. She had always been precocious and now her body was catching up with her mind. With her great waves of golden curls, she was a striking girl. Her ten year old cousin Terra, on the other hand, seemed pale, thin, and sickly though all the best doctors assured that she was perfectly healthy. Her light brown hair, curled each morning, was limp by tea. Iolana’s mother was still a beautiful woman, but stress had taken some toll. Her Auntie Yuah though was one of the great beauties of the colony, with thick dark brown hair and large brown eyes.

  “When does Augie get home?” asked Terra in her scratchy little voice.

  “The train is scheduled for a 2:00 PM arrival tomorrow, as I’ve told you at least five times,” said Iolanthe.

  “She’s excited to see her brother, is all,” said Auntie Yuah. “I can’t wait to see him either—my precious boy. It seems like he’s been gone a year.”

  “I really miss him too,” said Iolana, sincerely. “And Father, of course.”

  “Yes, it will be good to have them home,” said Iolanthe.

  “We’ll need them to run off all the boys,” said Auntie Yuah, leaning forward. “A hundred suitors at the age of thirteen. Whoever heard of such a thing?”

  “They’re not suitors,” said Iolana with a frown. “It’s just the New Year’s tradition. And there weren’t a hundred. There were eighty-two.”

  “That’s more than any other eligible girl, I’ll bet,” said Terra.

  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t compared notes with anyone else. And I’m not eligible.”

  “Not yet,” said Iolanthe. “But it’s good to start observing them now. Weeding out the weak, as it were. How many of the eighty-two were acceptable matches?”

  “None of them,” said Iolana. “None of them are acceptable matches. I’m not looking for an acceptable match. I’m not looking for anyone at all.”

  “Well you will have to marry someday,” said her mother.

  “No, I won’t.”

  “You don’t have a choice anymore. Your father went to a great deal of trouble to provide for your future. He had to have Parliament pass a law, so that his new titles pass through you to your sons, rather than to his third cousin as his closest male heir. He had to get the blessing of the King.”

  “This isn’t the dark ages!” shouted Iolana, jumping to her feet. “I don’t give two figs for the King, the Parliament, or the Barony of Saxe-Lagerport-Drille. I won’t be traded around like a prize cow!” She stomped toward the doorway. “Forget the Kafira-damned chutney!” she shouted at the hapless lizzie coming from the kitchen.

  At the top of the stairs, Iolana almost ran headlong into another lizzie. This one, unlike every other reptilian in the house, or the whole city for that matter, was wearing a yellow sundress, a hole cu
t in the back for her tail to stick out.

  “Why weren’t you at tea?” demanded the girl.

  “I’m sstill full from lunch,” said the lizzie in almost flawless Brech.

  “Hardly an excuse. Without you there, they all gang up on me.”

  “Ssorry.”

  “Oh Esther, I’m not angry with you.” She leaned forward and hugged the lizzie. “You can’t imagine how much I’m looking forward to Father being home.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m just so sick of this house. I need to get out. I need to do something.”

  “Croquet?”

  “No.”

  “Archery?”

  “Yes,” said Iolana. “That’s perfect. Have Garrah get out the bows and set up the targets.”

  “Shall I get Lady Terra?” asked Esther.

  “Lady Terra.” Iolana rolled her eyes. “Yes, we all have titles now. Do go invite Lady Terra to join us. Oh, and find out from Zandy where Kayden put those papers of my mother’s. I want you to read them and tell me what they say.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Don’t get cheeky.”

  “No, Lady Iolana,” said Esther, turning and making her way down the stairs.

  Though far younger than Iolana, Esther was about an inch taller. The lizardmen grew much faster than human beings. The girl had adopted the lizzie when the latter was little larger than a hat box, determined to civilize her, and to all appearances, she had been more than successful. Esther was Iolana’s companion and helper, participating in almost all of the girl’s activities and having her own room in the house just down the hallway from Iolana’s.

  The back garden of the Dechantagne Staff home faced the back of a newer home’s garden, separated only by an alleyway. The girls were forced to set up their archery stations on the west side of the house, between the gazebo and the vegetable garden, as there was still an open field beyond in case an arrow should go astray. Two of the targets were placed at the official distance of 70 yards, while Terra’s was only half that distance. Even so, the ten-year-old was short on her first three tries.