The Price of Magic

by Wesley Allison

  Tiber left and Iolana used the spartan but serviceable toilet. The young lieutenant returned with the stated items, as well as a bar of soap.

  “I’ll stand guard outside and make sure you’re not disturbed.”

  As soon as he was outside, Iolana peeled off her uniform and gave herself a sponge bath. She was a little ashamed of how dirty the water was when she was done. Still, she used the dirty water, as well as the soap to wash her hair. When she finished, it was tangled and unmanageable, but at least it was clean. She pulled it back and tied it with a bit of string. Finally she climbed back into her uniform, disgusted at how dirty it felt, and mortified that she could smell her own body odor on it. Unused to wearing any clothing for more than eight hours, putting the dirty uniform back on made her skin crawl.

  “All right, My Lady,” said Tiber, when she opened the door. “It’s time for your next duty assignment, and time to let Lieutenant Ackle here saw some wood.”

  “Sorry,” she murmured to the young man standing behind Tiber.

  As Lieutenant Ackle slipped into the officers’ quarters, Iolana followed Lieutenant Stephenson forward and then up a series of three ladders to the top level. Here was a small compartment, barely large enough for a single person. A padded seat faced a small glass window with a slit, through which a machinegun protruded, angled to aim at the ground in front. From here, one could see the great saw blades spinning below, cutting down small trees as the crawler made its way through the forest.

  “This is the forward observer station,” explained Tiber. “If you spot anything, you can use this tube to call down to the driver. He’s just below you. I trust you know how to shoot a Victory .303 machinegun.”

  “You know I do,” she replied.

  “All right. I’ll leave you to it. You’ll be relieved in eight hours. I’ll have someone bring you some water and a bite to eat in four.”

  “What if I have… what if I need the loo?”

  “There’s a bucket over here for just that situation,” he said with a grin.

  Iolana quickly turned and climbed into the seat, feeling her cheeks burning, and hoping that he didn’t see it.

  She sat and watched the landscape in front of her as the crawler moved slowly forward. It turned left or right to avoid the largest trees, but anything with a trunk narrower than two feet was sliced through by the great saw blades. She saw dozens of different Birmisian species as they fled for their lives from the otherworldly monster bearing down upon them. She realized that she had lost all sense of time since she had been in the great metal machine. Judging by the sun, it was still early morning and, she supposed, the third day of their journey.

  Iolana jumped when a crewmember tapped her on the shoulder, and handed her a canteen and a small wrapped package. She was surprised that four hours had passed already. She drank down half the water before she could stop herself, but set the rest aside and opened the paper wrapping a small rectangular package. It contained a large bar of chocolate. Though waxy and not very sweet, it was filled with nuts and dried fruit and satisfied her hunger. She drank the rest of the water, and much to her embarrassment, had to make use of the bucket behind her.

  The next several hours were much like the first four until they cut through a cluster of small trees and crawled out onto the edge of a clearing several hundred yards across. The two saw blades on the crawler’s front stopped their spinning. Just seconds later, at the far end of the field, an iguanodon with a uniformed rider on its back, burst from the trees.

  “Iguanodon rider!” Iolana shouted into the communication tube.

  The machine came to a stop. Iolana climbed out of her chair and down the ladders to the main deck, where she found Tiber walking toward the back. The main hatch, the one through which she had secretly boarded the craft was near the tail, and dropped open to form a six step gangway to the ground. Tiber pulled the release, opening the hatch, and then marched out. Iolana followed him and two more crewmen exited after her. The rider stopped a good twenty yards or so away, apparently unable to coax his beast any closer to the gigantic steel contraption.

  “Hey Chavasse!” called Tiber, walking toward the rider, who was climbing down from his dinosaur. “What’s the news?”

  “It’s bad,” replied Chavasse, when they were close enough to talk. “The lizzies have counter attacked. They moved en mass straight from the east, and while we were preparing for their attack, a second, smaller group hit us from the south. And they had rifles.”

  “What?” cried one of the other soldiers.

  “You heard me. But worse than that, they knew how to use them. If it hadn’t been for Major Upham organizing a fighting retreat, we would have all been wiped out.”

  “Colonel Netley?”

  “Dead.”

  “How many other casualties?” wondered Tiber.

  “Three hundred dead or missing. Hundreds more wounded.”

  “Where’s the regiment now?”

  “What’s left of it is moving back this way. They’re moving slowly though, and there’s a real chance they could be overrun. I passed the relief column. They’re going to continue on and try to meet up with them. That might help, but they’re still three days apart at least.”

  “All right,” said Tiber. “We’ve got telegraph contact with Port Dechantagne. We’ll relay the message. You can turn and go back.”

  “Um, no.” Chavasse had a haunted look in his eyes. “Uh, I’d better keep on… to make sure the message gets through.”

  Tiber stared at the man for a minute.

  “Okay. Carry on then.”

  He turned and hurried back to the crawler. The two crewmen and Iolana followed.

  “Kinney, you heard everything,” said Tiber. “Run up and relay it all to Stout and tell him to get it over the wire as soon as possible.”

  Iolana grabbed his arm.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Do? We’re going to continue on. It’s even more important to have communication with the front now. Besides, this vehicle is impervious to spears or rifle fire. If any lizzies dare to attack us, we’ll mow them down.”

  Iolana finished her shift as forward observer and then had another meager meal, this time of corned beef, before lying down on Lieutenant Ackle’s empty bunk. As she lay there, she worried. She wasn’t so much worried about herself. She imagined that Tiber’s evaluation of the crawler’s security was accurate. The only reason that it had been captured from the Freedonians was that Zurfina had magically disappeared the soldiers inside. She was more concerned with the fate of all the militiamen still afield. Three hundred young men dead! It was too much to contemplate. And it was all because of hubris—the hubris of Mayor Luebking and all the other humans who thought they were so superior to the native people because of their warm blood and their technology. Why couldn’t they see that both races needed to live together in peace?

  When she next got up, Tiber assigned Iolana duty on one of the waist machineguns. It pointed out the right side of the crawler. Although she had no trouble up to this point, sitting at the mid point of the vehicle, with its exaggerated up and down motion as it crawled, made her sick. She was almost happy to take another turn in the engine room. By the time she sat once again high up in the forward observer post, Iolana had completely given up trying to keep track of time. She thought that it must be her eighth day in the crawler, but it could have been her seventh, or even her tenth. They were once again moving slowly though the forest, turning slightly to avoid the largest trees and sawing through the smaller ones. She was just looking forward to her mid-shift snack of water and chocolate bar, when she was shocked into alertness.

  Emerging from a thick area of undergrowth was a man and a lizzie. They were running right toward the crawler and two seconds later, it was clear why they were running. A pair of large utahraptors was hot on their heels. The beautiful blue and turquoise feathered creatures were almost twenty feet long from the tip of their ferocious mouths to the tuft of greenish
feathers on the tips of their tails. The man fired a pistol over his shoulder, which, though he hadn’t hit them, was probably the only thing keeping the beasts wary enough that they hadn’t already taken him and his lizzie companion down. Utahraptors were incredibly fast.

  Iolana grabbed the grip of the Victory .303 machinegun with her left hand and pulled back the lever with her right. Though she had practiced with one a few times, she wasn’t too sure of her aim. She wanted to make sure she didn’t hit those she intended on rescuing. A quick burst went well over utahraptor’s heads. She fired a second burst a little lower. She missed this time too, but the sound had alerted the beasts to the man-made monster just ahead of them. They stopped short, and turning, ran off into the forest.

  “Soldier on foot!” she shouted into the speaking tube, and then she climbed out of her seat and shot down the ladders.

  By the time she reached the lowest level, the crawler was already stopped, and the two lieutenants had already disembarked. She climbed down the gangway and stepped up beside them, just as the militiaman and the lizzie approached. She saw now that the reptilian was chained, a prisoner. That made sense, considering. Then she recognized the militiaman.

  “Ascan?”

  “Lana? What the deuce are you doing out here?”

  “Lana?” wondered Tiber. “That’s Lady Iolana to you, Sergeant.”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Iolana, rushing forward to give Ascan a hug. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course, now that I’m not going to be a bird’s meal.”

  “Report,” Tiber commanded.

  “I’m taking this prisoner back to Port Dechantagne,” said Ascan stepping forward and leaving Iolana standing beside the lizzie. “He’s some kind of important witch-doctor.”

  Iolana stared at the lizzie. “You’re not a witch-doctor. You’re a female.”

  “We should just shoot it now,” said Lieutenant Ackle.

  “I’ve got my orders,” said Ascan.

  “You haven’t heard what’s happened. The bloody lizardmen have counter attacked. Hundreds of us dead or missing. We’re going to need every man at the front, not babysitting captives.”

  “Now hold on a minute,” said Tiber. “We don’t want to go setting a bad example. If we start killing prisoners, what’s to say the lizzies won’t do the same thing?”

  “Who’s going to know? We just shoot it and climb back in and go. Once we get to the front, the crawler will turn the tide of battle and then we can set the terms, not them.”

  “Idiots,” said Iolana under her breath. She turned to the lizzie and spoke her language. “You want to live, don’t you?”

  The lizzie hissed to the affirmative.

  “I say shoot it,” said Ackles.

  “Absolutely not,” said Ascan.

  “Lieutenant Stephenson,” said Ackles. “You’re the senior officer here. It’s up to you to decide.”

  “Nobody’s deciding anything!” shouted Iolana.

  The three soldiers turned to see her pointing her pistol at them.

  “Listen girl…” started Ackles, but his sentence was cut off when she fired four rounds just over his head. The three men dropped to the ground.

  “Run,” hissed Iolana, and she and the lizzie took off straight toward the thickest brush.

  “Yolie! Come back!” shouted Tiber.

  “Who the hell is Yolie?” she heard Ascan ask.

  “Idiots,” she muttered.

  They ran several hundred yards through the thick brush, and then Iolana stopped and pointed. “Come on, this way. We’ll circle behind the crawler and then go north for a mile. They won’t be able to track us in the path that it’s left, and besides, they would never expect us to go that way. Then we’ll cut east to get you back home.”

  “That is wise,” said the lizzie. “I am Tokkenoht, High Priestess of Yessonarah.”

  “My name is… Stahwasuwasu Zrant.”

  “That is a beautiful name, but an odd one for a warrior.”

  “I’m not a warrior. I’m a female—an adolescent female.” Iolana giggled to herself. The lizzie word for adolescent was the same as their word for wild.

  Chapter Eighteen: Fallen Angel

  Kieran Baxter turned the knob and pushed the heavy door open. His pistol led the way as he stepped into the Result Mechanism warehouse. Bright light streamed in through the windows along the ceiling, the puddles here and there attested to the previous night’s rain. It took only a moment to see the body lying halfway across the room. With one more quick look around to make sure there was nobody else there, he stepped across the cement floor and knelt down beside it.

  “Sweet Kafira,” he muttered when he saw Peter’s dead eyes staring upward.

  It was only too obvious that the wizard was dead, but Baxter felt for a pulse anyway. Then he closed the young man’s eyes. Carefully examining the body, he found a bullet’s entrance wound in the chest. He scanned the floor for a shell casing, but didn’t see one. Then he noticed Peter’s hand. The young wizard had drawn a shape on the floor using his own blood. Baxter tilted his head one way and then the other, but he couldn’t make out what it was supposed to be. With his index finger, he traced the design. Suddenly smoke exploded from the spot on the floor. Jumping back, Baxter watched as the column of smoke rose up and coalesced into a shadowy form of Peter Bassington. Then the shadowy form spoke.

  “I’m glad it’s you, Baxter. I don’t have much time. It was Pantagria. Bell freed her. She has Philo Mostow, maybe others, helping her. They’re going to St. Ulixes. I don’t know how I know, but I do. You’ve got to stop her. Tell Senta…”

  Whatever magic was holding the smoke in Peter Bassington’s form ended, and it became regular smoke and floated up, dissipating into the air.

  “Kafira damn it.”

  * * * * *

  The door opened and the face of Chief Inspector Saba Colbshallow peered out. He looked first at Baxter and then at the child he carried, and his face lost some of its color.

  “What do you want?”

  “I need a few words,” replied Baxter, “and a favor.”

  “And why would I do you a favor?”

  “I didn’t say it was for me.”

  “Who is it, Daddy?” The face of a six-year-old, with large eyes, one brown and one hazel, and a cute button nose, all framed by a veritable forest of multihued curls peered around the chief inspector.

  “It’s just a gentleman and his… little girl.”

  “Can she come inside and play?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Perhaps that would be best,” said Baxter, setting Sen down.

  “For just a few minutes then,” said Colbshallow through thin lips. “Take her inside, DeeDee.”

  The six-year-old stepped around her father and took the three-year-old by the hand and led her inside. Neither looked back.

  “I was sorry to hear about your little boy,” said Baxter.

  “Just say what you wanted to say.”

  “Senta’s brother is dead… murdered. His body is in the Result Mechanism warehouse.”

  “Why aren’t you at the police station?”

  “The killers have already fled the city. They’re on the train to Mallontah.”

  “We can send a telegram to the police in St. Ulixes.”

  “It wouldn’t help,” said Baxter. “It’s a magic um… situation. I’ve got to go deal with it.”

  “Why you?”

  “Because I’m here.”

  “I’ll get my gun and go with you.”

  “No,” said Baxter. “I need you to take care of little Senta.”

  “Why me?” asked Colbshallow.

  “You know why. You’re the only one who’ll protect her like I would.”

  “I’d give my life for her,” said Colbshallow. “But I can’t have her here. My wife will see her next to Dee Dee and see how much they look alike.”

  “Maybe she won’t notice,” said Baxter. “All children look alike.”r />
  “Not to women, you ass.”

  “You have to do this. I may not come back. I need to know she’ll be okay.”

  Colbshallow sighed. “All right. You have my word she’ll be safe here. But I can’t let you go alone.”

  “You can’t?” Baxter arched a brow.

  “I’ve seen you in action. You’re handy with a firearm, I’ll give you that, but if you’re going up against magic you need somebody with you. You need somebody to cover your back.”

  “No wizards. I can’t trust them with this.”

  “You shouldn’t trust them with anything,” said Colbshallow. “I’ve got a man for you.”

  “All right,” said Baxter. “Have him meet me at the train station. The train leaves at 4:40PM.”

  * * * * *

  Baxter was at the train station at 4:20, carrying a small carpetbag in one hand and a rifle case in the other. His new companion was waiting. He was a big man, six foot four and heavy set, and very little of it looked to be fat. He wore a blue reefer jacket, that though it bore no insignia, was clearly police issue.

  “Hello Shrubb?”

  “Hello.”

  “You know, this isn’t a police operation.”

  “I understand,” said Shrubb, just as the locomotive let out a huge cloud of steam. “Shall we get aboard?”

  Baxter purchased a first class cabin and the two men carried their things aboard, quickly locating the correct door. Once inside, Baxter tossed his things on the top bed and looked at Shrubb.

  “Do you have a weapon?”

  Shrubb pulled out a .45 caliber pistol that was the same model Baxter had in his coat pocket.

  “Am I going to have to shoot anyone?”

  “Somebody is definitely going to get killed. Hopefully, it won’t be us. What do you know about Pantagria?”

  “Too much,” said Shrubb. “I read Captain Dechantagne’s memoirs. He described her pretty thoroughly. She seems all right at first, but she’s really evil.”