The Sorceress and her Lovers Read online

  The king’s vision began to swim and color faded away. The firelight from the torches lost its warm glow and became a dull grey. Looking from one side to the other, Hsrandtuss saw that he was not the only one stuck on the beast’s back. Beside him, Khattukhus moaned pitifully, hopelessly covered with the white goo. On his other side, two lizzie bodies were stuck. Both were long dead and well on their way to complete decomposition. No wonder the creature didn’t need a great fanged mouth. It’s prey was digested outside its body.

  And then Hsrandtuss was floating away. He was flying. He was flying over a great meadow. It was divided by small streams and was covered with beautiful purple flowers. Hsrandtuss flew lower and lower, looking forward to landing among the flowers and seeing them up close.

  “Great King, you cannot give in!”

  “What?”

  “You must wake up, Great King. You must fight!”

  And suddenly, Hsrandtuss was choking on foul tasting water. He opened the eyes he hadn’t realized had been closed and saw the monster. He was in the water and someone had him around the neck and was swimming away with him.

  “Off!” he growled, pulling the arms from his neck. He turned and found Kendra in the water with him. “Time to finish this thing!”

  Spotting a spear, floating near him, he grabbed it, and with a swish of his powerful tail, he dived deep down into the vile-tasting water. It was very dim below the surface, but lizzies had much better eyesight than humans. He could see all he needed to. The bottom of the pool was littered with dozens, maybe hundreds of lizardmen skeletons. The creature was easily spotted on the surface, outlined by the flickering torchlight. Pointing the spear ahead of him, Hsrandtuss drove upward with all the power his tail thrusts could give him. The spear went all the way into the monster’s belly, leaving only a few inches sticking out of the wound. Turning, he swam back to his starting point, where Kendra still waited.

  “Spears!” he shouted, when his head broke the surface.

  The remaining warriors launched all their spears and then began hacking with their swords, while Tokkenoht launched more magic. By the time the king and his sixth wife were helped from the water, the beast was obviously dead. Attarhakhic and Chutturonoth were uninjured and Slechtiss was still on his feet, though it looked like his left arm was broken. Tissiantuss and Szizstorik floated lifelessly on the surface and Khattukhus was still mired in the horrible goo of the beast’s back.

  “Get a rope,” ordered the king.

  They managed to loop the end of the rope around the stricken warrior’s foot and to pull him to safety, but he still seemed on the verge of death.

  “This was a great victory, Mighty King,” said Attarhakhic.

  “Great are the warriors of Hiissierra,” said Hsrandtuss. He looked at Tokkenoht and Kendra. “Great are the females of Hiissierra too.”

  “Shall we take one of these disgusting legs as a trophy?” wondered Chutturonoth.

  “No. You and Attarhakhic go back to the surface now. Tell Kastla that it is safe to send down his fifty males now. Tell them to bring ropes. They will drag this vile carcass through this passage, up those stairs, to the surface. Tell them to bring stretchers for our fallen too.”

  The two warriors started back up, taking one of the two torches with them. Kendra began making a sling for Slechtiss’s arm. Hsrandtuss sat down on the cold stone. Tokkenoht kneeled beside him and placed her chin on his shoulder.

  “Kendra pulled me from where I was trapped?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How was she able to do that?”

  “She is a strong jumper.”

  “You know what I mean,” he growled.

  “I protected her from the poison with magic,” said Tokkenoht.

  “Would we have survived without the magical protections you laid upon us earlier?”

  “I do not think so, Great King.”

  Hsrandtuss hissed mirthlessly.

  “I shall remember this,” he said.

  Chapter Seven: A Friendly Word

  “I don’t think you want to move that piece there,” said Iolana, peering across the vast gaming table.

  Dozens of square wooden playing pieces were arrayed across the oak surface, only half of which faced her. The other pieces belonged to her opponent. Esther hissed softly and moved the piece back to its original spot.

  The gaming table sat along the west wall of Iolana’s bedroom, the largest bedroom in the house. Just behind Iolana’s seat was a stone fireplace, and beyond that was a writing desk with chair, and in the corner a cheval glass. Across the room from the fireplace was a beautiful canopy bed, the cover and the drapes of which matched the Thiss green area rug beneath it. Rich oak nightstands, hand-crafted here in Birmisia, matched the oak chest of drawers and the six tall bookcases. At the other end of the room, a comfortable sofa, striped green and gold, sat facing two comfy armchairs. Beside them was a hutch filled with dolls and toys and a mechanical music box, which even now was playing a Freedonian waltz.

  The lizzie placed her chin on the table and hissed again.

  “You see I’ve got you beat, don’t you?” said Iolana. “Unless you have Insane Witch Woman, there is no way you can win.”

  “Cheat,” said Esther quietly.

  “How dare you!” growled Iolana, jumping to her feet.

  “Ssiss zat techiss szessit suuwasuu dakkuk wasuu wasuu eesousztekhau.”

  “Well of course I do. Who’s going to make the pieces for the game if I don’t? Answer me that.” The human girl put her hands on her hips. “All the other players in town copy my pieces and nobody has complained that they weren’t fair, ssisthusso very much.”

  The lizzie slid her chin off the table and climbed beneath it.

  “Oh, do get up. Maybe I should let you win sometimes. Perhaps that would be good for your self-esteem, but it just sends the wrong message, doesn’t it? How would you ever know if you truly were good enough to beat me?”

  The door suddenly burst open and Iolana’s cousin Terra came shooting in. Though dressed in a frilly little outfit of burgundy and silver, the seven-year-old was barefoot and both her hands and feet were extremely grimy. Her thick brown hair was a mess. Iolana held up her hand like a traffic cop.

  “You know you’re supposed to knock before you come in that door.”

  “I only want to play with your lizzie,” said Terra’s scratchy little voice.

  “How in Kafira’s name did you get so dirty? Your mother is going to have a dinosaur when she sees you.”

  “I want to play with your lizzie,” Terra repeated. “Can I take her out to the swings?”

  Iolana tilted her head to look under the table. “Do you want to go outside with Terra?”

  Esther bobbed her head up and down.

  “Say the word.”

  “Yess.”

  “All right then,” she told her cousin, “but don’t bring her back all dirty.”

  “Come on, lizzie,” called Terra, as Esther scrambled out from under the table and followed the girl out the door.

  After carefully washing her hands in the basin on her nightstand, Iolana checked her dress in the cheval that stood in the corner. Then she retrieved a straw boater from her closet and added a small red achillobator feather that just matched her red dress. Leaving her room, she ran into her mother’s dressing maid at the top of the stairs.

  “Narsa, have one of the males go watch Terra and Esther. They’re playing out in the garden. And when they’re done, have them cleaned up, preferably before Auntie Yuah sees them.”

  “Yess.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, Iolana passed through the dining room where several servants were cleaning up after luncheon and getting the room ready for tea. In the kitchen, others were already preparing finger sandwiches. Here she found Walworth Partridge, sitting on a stool, stuffing his face with them. Walworth, a somewhat gangly youth of seventeen, was the latest of a string of young men who had worked for the Dechantagne and Staff families as d
rivers.

  “Fancy driving me to the pfennig store, Wally?”

  “That’s what they pay me for,” he said, shoving the last little sandwich into his mouth whole and hopping to his feet.

  He started for the back door and Iolana followed.

  “I lit the boiler while ago,” he said over his shoulder, his mouth still full. “Should be nice and ready.”

  The shiny red steam carriage, one of seven cars in the family’s possession, poured out black smoke from its chimney and steam from the pressure relief. As Iolana climbed into the passenger seat, Walworth made the necessary checks and adjustments to the engine before climbing into the driver’s side.

  “Which store did you want?”

  “Let’s go to the new one at Clark and Forest.”

  “By the Gazette?”

  “Um, yes. I suppose so.”

  Though traffic was sparse around her home, once they had passed Town Square the streets became crowded with steam carriages, pedestrians, and lizzies pulling rickshaws. At Clark and First, they came upon the scene of a traffic accident. Though it was hard to tell exactly what had happened, it had obviously involved a car and two or more rickshaws. There seemed to be no one seriously injured, but it took more than fifteen minutes to get past the intersection. Finally Walworth brought the vehicle to a stop at the curb in front of one of the newer business buildings.

  J.D. Kinney’s 5 and 10 Pfennig Dry Goods and Sundries occupied the largest part of the building. The remainder held Doreen’s Millinery and Friese and Son’s Imported Foods and Beverages. Separated only by an alleyway was another business building just to the left, containing Buttermore’s Photography, Mademoiselle Joliet’s Dress Shop, Tint’s Haberdashery, and McCoort & McCoort Print Shop and Publishing. Just beyond that was a third building, just as large as the first two, which was devoted entirely to the Birmisia Gazette.

  Walworth hopped down, released the steam from the boiler, and then rushed around to help Iolana to the ground.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m going to shop for a while. Why don’t you come in and get a Billingbow’s? You can put it on our account.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that in a little while. Right now I’m going to run across the street and talk to Sam Markham.”

  “All right.” Iolana walked up the steps and entered the pfennig store, causing the bell above the door to ring.

  The store was quite large, with ten long counters dividing it up into eleven aisles, surrounded on three sides by a larger U-shaped counter. The perimeter counter was made up of glass cases displaying just about anything that could be imagined. Atop them were, every six or eight feet, stacks of the latest new products from Brechalon, Mirsanna, or Freedonia. The golden-haired girl followed the counter toward the back, stopping to examine the latest tins of butter biscuits and chocolate bars.

  “Good day, Miss,” said a man behind the counter. Iolana didn’t recognize him. “What can I do for you today?”

  “Hello. I want to look around a bit, but I do need three Capital writing tablets and a dozen number two pencils.”

  “I’ll get those ready for you. Take your time.”

  “Thank you.”

  Iolana stopped on the second aisle to look at the soaps from Mirsanna, picking a bar up and holding it to her nose. It was wrapped in white paper with a green bow, but the scent of sandalwood was easily detected. The bell above the door rang as two blond girls, both older than Iolana, entered.

  “How much is this soap?” Iolana called to the proprietor.

  “Three marks twenty-five p,” he replied before turning to greet the newcomers.

  “Quite a bit for soap, don’t you think?” came a voice from the other side of the counter.

  Iolana rolled her eyes. She recognized the voice easily enough.

  “I can afford it, Sherree, as I’m sure you could,” she said looking up.

  Sherree Glieberman and her best friend and perpetual shadow Talli Archer stood on the other side of the counter. Both wore simple but pretty, white day dresses, which contrasted with the extravagant gold crosses hanging on thin gold chains around their neck. Both had heads of wavy blond hair, not quite as luxurious as Iolana’s though they were more than three years her elder. Talli was rather a plain girl with a nose a little too big for her face, but Sherree was quite pretty, or would have been had her glasses not made her eyes seem way too big. They always made Iolana feel as though she were a specimen being examined through a microscope.

  “I don’t think I could ever be that wasteful with my family’s money,” said Sherree who Iolana knew would have had a criticism ready regardless of what the eleven-year-old had said. She never missed a chance to make herself feel superior to Iolana whenever they met, and they met often. Sherree’s father and Talli’s father were both engineers working for Iolana’s father at M&S Coal Company.

  Iolana shrugged. “What are you spending it on then? You obviously came here to shop.”

  “Notions,” said Sherree, blinking her gigantic eyes.

  “We’re getting a start on our coming out dresses,” said Talli. “We’ll both be sixteen soon, you know.”

  “I’m sure it will be quite a party.”

  “Oh don’t worry,” said Sherree. “You’ll get your invitation, of course. We can’t have a party without you. That just wouldn’t do.”

  “We didn’t see you at church last week,” said Talli before Iolana could formulate a reply.

  “No, I was… I wasn’t feeling well.”

  “That’s a relief,” said Sherree. “I was afraid you might be planning to convert.”

  “No, the only time I think about converting is when we talk,” said Iolana.

  Sherree made a sour face, requiring her to push her glasses back onto her nose.

  “Come on Sherree,” said Talli. “The princess needs time to choose her soap.”

  Iolana made a slow circuit through all of the aisles, no longer really looking at anything, but just waiting for the other girls to buy their needles and thread and then go. They didn’t say goodbye as they left, though Talli did aim a half smile, half sneer in her direction as they went out the door. Returning to where the clerk stood, Iolana found a stack of tins filled with Captain Andy’s soft peppermints. She took two tins from the top.

  “Sweet tooth?” asked the man behind the counter, with a smile.

  “These are for my cousins,” she said. “Though I will take a bottle of Billingbow’s, if you have it.”

  “Right away,” he said, fetching a cold bottle from the icebox behind the counter and setting it in front of her. “One mark, four p.”

  “On account, please.”

  “Of course. Whose account?”

  “Um… my family’s… my father’s. His name is Staff, Radley Staff.”

  The clerk, who had already retrieved a small green file box from beneath the counter, flipped through the index cards within. “Yes, here we go. Staff… um… oh.” He looked up at Iolana again, examining her as if for the first time. He wrote on the card with a short pencil. “One mark four p. There we go. Can I carry your things out for you?”

  “Would you please? It’s the red car, right out front.” Taking the soda water bottle, Iolana hurried out the store, not waiting for the clerk.

  She made a quick right and entered the millinery shop next door. A bell rang here too, but there was no friendly greeting. Indeed the shop appeared deserted. Iolana walked slowly toward the back, looking at the wigs, hats, belts, and scarves as she did. She pulled open the stopper on her soda water and took a swig.

  “I know you,” said a voice right behind her, startling her so much that the flavor of sarsaparilla and wintergreen shot into her nose.

  Iolana turned quickly, putting her free hand over her mouth and nose until she was sure that her drink was leaking from neither. A girl about her own age and height stood looking at her. She had bright red hair styled into ringlets around her face and wore a white blouse and a black skirt.

 
“You’re the governor’s daughter,” said the redhead.

  “Yes. My name is Iolana. You have me at a disadvantage. You’re not Doreen, are you?”

  “No, Doreen is my mum. This is her shop. My name is Dovie Likliter.”

  “It’s nice to meet you.” Iolana stuck out her hand and Dovie shook it like a lumberjack. “Are you a new arrival?”

  “We arrived Treuary 21st. That was the first day of spring, you know.”

  “And we haven’t run into each other in almost three months?”

  “I guess not, but I’ve seen you around.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “On Marigold near Pine.”

  “Marigold? Where’s that?”

  “It’s about four miles south of the train station.”

  “Good Kafira, that’s out in the wilderness,” said Iolana. “I didn’t even know they had streets out that far.”

  “Well, it’s not really a street, is it?” said Dovie. “It’s not paved yet, but the trolley reaches the corner.”

  “So, so you work here? I haven’t been in but once, I think. I’m not really one for hats.” She looked up at the brim of the boater just inside her field of vision. “Notwithstanding the fact that I’m wearing one now.”

  The other girl giggled. “No, I’m just watching the shop while my mum is out back. I usually come up here for an hour or two a day.”

  “Well that’s nice of you.”

  “Not really,” said Dovie. “Otherwise I’d have to spend my whole day with my two little brothers and my three cousins—three boy cousins. We stay at my auntie’s house while my mum runs the shop.”

  “I understand your pain,” said Iolana, thinking of her two cousins, even now probably sneaking into her room and causing havoc. “Say, do you like table games?”