The Young Sorceress

by Wesley Allison

  “Hail mighty Yesse… nnar!” he said, stopping midway through the dragon’s name to hiccup.

  The dragon waved him off, having eyes only for the young soft skin. He spoke to her in the hoonan language.

  “Sszaxxanna, blast it! Where in name of Setemenothiss are you?”

  “Here,” she called, sliding up next to him.

  “What is he saying?”

  The dragon had continued to talk to the sleeping priestess.

  “He says ‘wake up’ and ‘time to go to hoonan city-state’.”

  “You can’t leave yet,” said Hsrandtuss. “We will have an even bigger feast for you tonight.”

  The dragon’s tone changed to an urgent, beseeching sound.

  “He says ‘get up, please’ and he calls her ‘favorite domestic animal’,” Sszaxxanna translated.

  Hsrandtuss paused for a moment in thought. Well, not what he expected, but it made a certain amount of sense, considering the place on the food chain of dragons and soft skins. He stepped up beside the dragon’s massive head.

  “Is there something wrong?”

  The dragon’s face hovered above prone hoonan, its long forked tale running over her from head to feet.

  “Yes, there is something wrong!” boomed the dragon, waking the last of the sleeping lizzies. “I can smell something foul.”

  His tongue flicked around her head again.

  “There’s a sickening smell around her ear. I think she’s been stung or bitten by something.” His great head swung toward Hsrandtuss. “Is there some kind of creature that attacks the ears of mammals?”

  The king thought hard. There were plenty of mammals around—small ones like opossums and weasels, but he didn’t know much about them, especially not what kind of parasites fed on them.

  “It was Hkhanu!” shouted Sszaxxanna. “He came in the night and poured poison in the youngling’s ear. I wasn’t sure that I truly saw it, because I was half asleep, but now I remember.”

  “What?” wondered the king.

  “Ssu! Come here!” Sszaxxanna called another female over to her, a small one, only recently caught and civilized. “You saw the witch doctor too, didn’t you? You saw him pour poison into the poor soft skin’s ear.”

  The young female nodded emphatically.

  “I can’t believe it,” said Hsrandtuss.

  Sszaxxanna grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him a shake.

  “The guilty must be punished,” she said.

  “Yes. Yes. The guilty must be punished.” He raised his voice and shouted. “Warriors, to me! Warriors, attend your king!”

  Within seconds a group more than twenty large males surrounded him.

  “To the temple! Bring everyone inside down to the fire pit! Justice must be seen to! Do it now!”

  The warriors, bolstered by even more of their ranks who had arrived as the king was talking, moved up the path to the top of the hill, and into the great and ancient stone temple.

  “What can we do?” wailed the dragon. “Is there a medicine for her?”

  “We will force the perpetrator to tell us,” said Sszaxxanna.

  “Yes, of course,” said the king. “In the meantime Sszaxxanna, get the healing women to have a look at the human and see if there is anything they can do.”

  With a nod, the female left, pulling young Ssu along with her. She returned several minutes later with two old females who began to prod and probe the soft skin’s ear. The dragon sat back, wringing his hands like an egg keeper in cold weather. The women were still examining their patient, when the warriors returned dragging along Hkhanu’s six acolytes and four females. Hkhanu himself was with them too, but apparently none of the warriors was brave enough to actually lay hands upon the old witch doctor.

  “You are in trouble now, Hkhanu,” said Hsrandtuss. “You must answer for your crimes.”

  “How dare you send your warriors into the temple!” The old lizzie was so angry he was literally spitting. “How dare you treat me like a common zsrant!”

  “What did you do to her?” roared the dragon, and with a single bound, he landed amid the warriors and priests and snatched up Hkhanu in his scaly hand. “What did you poison her with?”

  For a second, old Hkhanu looked frightened, then he looked confused, but then he puffed himself up. “You are a false god,” he said.

  Something shot through the witch doctor’s chest so quickly that it was as if he had been struck by lightning. It was the barb on the dragon’s whip-like tail. Lifting up his tail, the body still impaled upon it, the great steel beast slashed twice with the claws of his left hand, and Hkhanu fell to the ground in a dozen pieces.

  “Line them up!” called Hsrandtuss, taking a spear from a nearby warrior. “Line up these so-called wise elders.”

  The prisoners from the temple were put in a line and pushed down onto their knees.

  “What did Hkhanu do to the soft skin priestess?” he asked the first acolyte.

  “I don’t know anything about…” The answer was cut short as the king drove his spear down into the captive’s chest.

  He received a similar answer from the second in line, and gave him just as quick a death as the first. The third in line, clearly seeing where this was going, started talking before the king had even come close to him.

  “He did it! Hkhanu poisoned the hoonan. He used a secret poison. No one knows the cure.”

  Hsrandtuss turned toward the dragon. “Great Yessennar, I place my people completely at your command. We will do anything to help your little one. But I do not know what that could be.”

  “Take her to the human city-state,” said Sszaxxanna. “The soft skins have powerful magic. Maybe they can help her.”

  “Yes, I’ll do that,” said the dragon, taking the girl’s limp body gingerly in his hands. “My thanks, Mighty King.”

  Hsrandtuss watched as the dragon shot into the sky faster than anything he could imagine. Then with one wave of his wings, he zoomed northward. Hsrandtuss truly hoped the young soft skin would recover. He didn’t know if Hkhanu had anything to do with her mysterious illness or not. It all worked out well though. He would have no difficulties with the temple. He would in fact, rededicate it to Yessennar and choose a new priest, one that would cause him no trouble. He glanced sidelong at Sszaxxanna. She was a wily one. She smiled back at him. Yes, he might well have found a new matriarch.

  “Come, get the other females,” he said to her. “I need oil rubbed on my back.”

  “Yes, Mighty King.”

  Mighty King. Hsrandtuss definitely liked the sound of that.

  * * * * *

  “What did we find out?” asked Governor Dechantagne-Staff from behind her desk.

  Even her temporary office was the largest such room that Senta had ever been in, and though it was only partially furnished, it already gave off the feeling of majesty that it was intended to evoke. Large maps covered one entire wall. The Young Sorceress sat in one of two chairs opposite the governor, and the governor’s husband, Radley Staff, sat in the other.

  “General Staff?” the Governor asked her husband.

  Staff shifted uncomfortably when addressed as general, a title he considered illegitimate, as it had only come to him through his familial relations. It was clear he would have preferred his naval rank Commander, or better yet, Mister.

  “We didn’t find as much as I would have liked,” he said. “Still, there was enough to indicate that some of our lizzies are in contact with Freedonians.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything at all,” said the governor. “Two thirds of our citizens come from Freedonia. I would imagine that all kinds of Freedonian goods might come to the lizzies from them.”

  “Not with the symbol of the Reine Zauberei,” said Staff.

  “Those lizzies were part of a spy ring, and they were planning on doing worse,” said Senta.

  “Possibly,” said Iolanthe. “I would have preferred to gather a bit of evidence before burning Lizzietown to the ground ho
wever.”

  “That witch doctor was the one who tortured and blinded your brother. I should get a medal for killing him.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t believe you,” replied Iolanthe. “Still, we have only your word of that fact.”

  “You wanted to know what they were up to,” snapped the young sorceress, jumping to her feet. “Now you know. I’m going home to catch some rest.”

  “Burning down those shacks is probably all for the best,” said Staff, after she had left. “Cleaning it all out will prevent disease from taking hold, and it’s not a bad idea to let the lizzies know just what we’re capable of.”

  “It wasn’t us though,” replied Iolanthe. “It was her. I never thought I’d say this, but I hope Zurfina returns from wherever she’s gone, and I hope she does so soon.”

  Senta walked to Town Square before turning and heading west toward home. It didn’t escape her notice that all the lizzies on the street quickly disappeared as soon as they saw her. More than a few of the humans did as well. She had just reached the front of the tower when a loud whomp heralded the arrival of the steel dragon.

  “Hello baby,” she said. “Who is that?”

  “It’s you, or at least it’s a part of you,” said Bessemer. “She’s been poisoned. She’s dying.”

  “Bring her over to the doorway then.”

  The dragon followed Senta to the front door and fitting himself halfway in, set the unconscious girl in the comfy chair. He stood, his body outside the portal and his head inside, as Senta stared down at the face looking so much like her own.

  “She looks terrible.”

  “You have to do something,” said Bessemer. “She’s part of you, you know. If you let her die, then you’ll never be whole again yourself.”

  “So you know about me using the mirror image spell? When did you figure it out?”

  “I knew it the first time I saw her,” said the dragon. “I saw it then and I can see it now. Neither of you are quite… you. You’re transparent, sort of, and it’s getting worse.”

  “Dragon eyes,” mused Senta. “Well, if she’s going to make it, you’d better rush out and find Sister Auni. Maybe she has something to cure poison, because I don’t.”

  Bessemer was gone before she could turn around.

  “Poor thing,” said Senta, looking down at her unconscious mirror image. “You look hot. Do you have a fever?”

  She pressed her palm against the girl’s face, and everything went black.

  Chapter Ten: The Two Sentas

  Two Months Earlier:

  Isaak Wissinger leaned over the ship’s railing and stared down into the dark blue water. He wasn’t the only one. Dozens of other passengers on the S.S. Waif des Vaterlands were lined up to watch as half a dozen giant turtles, each larger than a kitchen table swam along apparently oblivious to the steel vessel chugging past them. They were large, but not nearly as amazing as the writer had expected, having heard for years legends of the monsters to be found in Mallon.

  After leaving his employment with Herr Fuhrmann, Wissinger had taken the train from Butzbach to Friedaport, where he had worked on the docks until he had enough accumulated wealth to book passage, steerage class, to Mallontah. This had taken him several months, but at last he had set sail. Now, he had been on the ship for forty-five days. His daily meals consisted of porridge in the morning, a piece dried tack for lunch, and for supper a soup made of beans and rancid pork. It was infinitely better that his diet in the ghetto had been.

  “Herr Holdern?”

  It took Wissinger a moment to remember that he was Herr Holdern.

  “Yes?”

  He turned to find a greasy looking little man standing behind him. He didn’t recall seeing him before, and after a month and a half at sea, that was remarkable in and of itself.

  “Do I know you?”

  “I do not think so, but I know some Holderns. Do you come from Boxstein?”

  “No,” replied Wissinger.

  “Do you have relatives there perhaps?”

  “Not that I know of. You know how it is. People move all around and lose touch. You meet someone with the same last name and they may or may not be related. My people come from Bad Syke, but who knows?”

  “What is it you did in Bad Syke?”

  “Oh, I’m not from Bad Syke. I still have cousins living there, I think. I grew up in Wahlstedt.”

  “And what did you do there then?”

  “Teamster.”

  “A teamster?” said the greasy fellow. “I took you for a scholar.”

  “I doubt you get calluses like this reading books,” said Wissinger, holding up his palms. “Why, I try to stay as far away from schools and books as possible.”

  “I see.”

  “But it is pleasant to meet you, Mister…”

  “Spinne. Adolf Spinne.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Herr Spinne. Maybe we can talk again before we make port.”

  “Perhaps,” said Spinne with an oily smile.

  Wissinger turned and made his way through the portal and down several sets of stairs to his berth. His was one of twenty-five bunks stacked five high in the relatively small cabin. Most of his roommates slept at night, so he tried to spend as much time as possible outside at night, instead taking in a long morning and afternoon nap. He climbed into his bed, second from the top and pulled the sleeping curtains closed around him. He could hear the sounds of a woman moaning in passion close by. She was in the same room, but in one of the other bunk stacks. This wasn’t all that unusual. People grabbed what comfort and satisfaction they could, and there were very few places to find any real privacy on a ship as crammed as this one.

  “Sweet music isn’t it?” said a husky voice near his head.

  Before he could respond, the curtain surrounding him was pulled aside to reveal Zurfina’s face, framed in a shock of blond hair. She climbed up into the bed on top of him. There was no room to lie side by side even had that been her intention. He was surprised though not unhappy to find that she was completely naked, and let out a deep sigh as she rubbed herself up and down his entire length.

  “Missed me?”

  “Yes indeed.”

  She kissed him deeply, letting her tongue explore every part of his mouth.

  “Have you been true to me?” she asked as she kissed his neck and reached down to unfasten his pants.

  “Yes,” he said, then sighed again as she freed him from his trousers. “Um, have you been true to me?”

  She stopped and looked guiltily up at him, then shrugged.

  “When you get to Birmisia, if you want, I’ll be true to you then,” she said, “for a while.”

  “Oh, Lord help me, at this moment I really don’t care.”

  There was almost no room for him to maneuver, so he simply lay back and let her do all the work. It was a work for which she once again proved her skill, though she was somewhat louder than the woman who had been in the nearby bunk. Wissinger didn’t realize it at the time, but he was none too discrete himself. Afterwards he fell asleep with her still wrapped around him, and when he woke she gave him a repeat performance.

  “The day after tomorrow you dock in Mallontah,” she said when they were done.

  “That’s good.”

  “Yes, but you still have a problem.”

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “It’s that Spinne fellow you just spoke to. He’s a Zaeri-catcher.”

  “I don’t think he suspects me.”

  “But you’re not sure, are you?” Zurfina licked his lips. “I have to admit, I admire how good a liar you’ve become. I wouldn’t have expected it.”

  “It’s a writer’s skill,” he replied. “What do you think I should do?”

  “Just make it to Birmisia the best you can.” She kissed him deeply. “I have to leave and you won’t see me again until after you leave Mallontah.”

  She slid off of him and out of the bed. Wissinger pulled back the curtain to look at her one
last time before she left, but she had already gone.

  * * * * *

  Senta opened her eyes and groaned as the room spun around.

  “I’m going to honk up,” she said.

  “You already did, several times.”

  Senta looked up into the face of her duplicate. She looked left and right to find herself lying across the comfy chair.

  “Where’s the other one? The sick one?”

  “I’m guessing you absorbed her, poison and all.”

  “I’m not going to die, am I?”

  “Of course not,” said the doppelganger, taking a seat across from her. “Sister Auni has already been here and given you something. I imagine the poison was diluted when you doubled up with the other one as well. You scared the livers out of Hero though. I had to send her home. Bessemer is worried too.”

  “I feel terrible. Are you sure I’m not going to die?”

  “Relatively. We aren’t going to be able to continue though, you know. We’re growing… I don’t know, weaker, I guess.”

  “I figured that out from what Bessemer said,” Senta replied. “Are you ready to disappear?”

  “Are you still on about that? You still think you’re the real Senta? Think about it. Don’t you have all the memories the other one made on her trip with Bessemer? I know I’ve got all the crazy one’s memories of eating a lot of rich food and of plotting to kill Graham. None of us are the real Senta. We’re all pieces and we need to get ourselves put together as soon as possible.”

  “All right, fine,” agreed Senta. “But we can’t do it now. I’m sick as a dog and if we join together we’ll both be sick… or one of us will be… or whatever. Let me rest while you take care of our business. When I feel well enough, we can get together and scry out Smedley’s boy.”

  “All right, it’s a deal. Do you feel up to walking up the stairs?”

  “Not really.”

  “Uuthanum Izesic,” said the other Senta with a wave of her hand. “Climb on.”

  Senta scooted herself from the chair and onto an invisible platform hovering right next to it. Her double started up the stairs and the floating platform followed her, carrying Senta upstairs. At the top of the second flight, it lifted her to the side of her bed, where she slid onto the comfortable mattress and covered herself with blankets.