Yuah turned to Marzell. “Do you know where Eamon Shrubb lives?”
“Yes, Ma'am.”
“Let’s go.”
The boy drove out of the square and east on First Avenue.
“Why do you want to go to the Shrubbs?” asked Marzell.
“Both PCs are unaccounted for. I know that PC Colbshallow is not at home. Maybe PC Shrubb is. And if he’s not, his wife should be.”
Marzell cut left and right down gravel streets that crisscrossed the sparsely settled western portion of town, avoiding those roads that were, as yet, dead ends. Finally he pulled to a stop in front of the Shrubb home. Yuah climbed down, and carrying Augie, she crossed the yard.
* * * * *
Saba Colbshallow opened his eyes.
“I didn’t know if I was going to get into heaven,” he said to the angel that looked remarkably like Yuah Dechantagne. He closed his eyes again.
When he woke a second time, Saba could feel the sun on his face. He was lying in a bed in the little makeshift hospital. Late afternoon light was streaming through one of the two windows directly down onto him. He looked around. All eight of the beds were full. Aalwijn Finkler was sitting up in bed talking with Gaylene Dokkins, who was seated beside him. Mrs. Bratihn was sitting up in bed knitting.
“Mother?” said Saba, spying Mrs. Colbshallow in the bed to his right.
“I’m fine dear. I’m glad to see you’re feeling better. Brother Galen said you had two broken ribs and I don’t think your nose will ever be the same.”
“What happened?”
“It was an attack by Chusstuss. Quite a few people were killed. I would have been too, if poor Kheesie hadn’t given her life to save me.”
“Eamon,” said Saba, looking quickly around.
“Here,” said Dot’s nasal voice. She was seated next to the bed to Saba’s left. Lying there, looking back at him was his fellow constable. Eamon had a bandage around his neck and his face was very pale, but he was awake. He weakly moved his lips, but no sound came out.
“He says thank you for getting him home,” said Dot.
“How do you know?”
“I can read lips.”
“You should have seen me, Saba,” said Mr. Parnorsham, lying in the bed directly across from Eamon. “I shot it out in the Town Square with a dozen rifle-carrying lizardmen. Greatest moment of my life!”
“How many did you get before they got you?”
“I know I got two or three… but they didn’t get me.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well, in the commotion Mrs. Bratihn’s window was shot out. I stepped on a piece of glass and it slid out from under me. I broke my damn leg.”
“That’s a tough break, Mr. P. Who else is in here?” He strained to see who was in the last two beds. He could see the face of a woman at the end of the room opposite him, but he couldn’t recognize her. A curtain had been pulled around the bed on his side of the room.
“That’s Mother Linton there,” said Mr. Parnorsham. “I can hardly recognize her myself without her black robes and she used to come into my Pfennig store almost every day…”
“Governor Dechantagne-Calliere is behind the curtain, dear,” interrupted his mother.
“Is she all right?”
“She was badly injured, but they say she will live.”
“I’ve got to get out of here,” he said, struggling to get up. “This town can’t do without a police constable.”
“You lie still,” said his angel, stepping into the infirmary. Mrs. Dechantagne, in a beautiful teal dress that Saba remembered having seen her in at least once before, glided across the room and sat down beside him.
“My father has the militia filling in for you, though I would be willing to bet that Sergeant Croffut will be happy to see you back soon doing your own paperwork.” She chatted with Saba and his mother for fifteen minutes or more, and then walked to the far end of the room to sit a while with her sister-in-law. On her way out, she said good-bye, and then explained. “I’ve got to get back to Augie.”
“It was so nice of her to come and see us here after all she’s been through,” said Mrs. Colbshallow.
“Been through?”
“Oh yes. You don’t know about Captain Dechantagne.”
His mother, with the help of Mr. Parnorsham filled him in on all the events of the morning—the massacre at the Dechantagne home, the gunfight in the Town Square, the attack on the Drache girl and her dragon, and the burning down of Mr. Korlann’s house.
“That’s not all,” said a new voice at the door. “The lizzies also destroyed some of the rails west of the train station. Until they get that fixed, the trains are going to have to unload seven or eight miles away.”
Miss Loana Hewison, her multi-hued hair coifed into a complex design and wearing a radiantly white dress, sashayed to the seat recently vacated by Mrs. Dechantagne. She held up a basket in her hand.
“I’ve brought you muffins,” she said, looking around. “I think there are enough for you to share with everyone, if you want to.”
“Oh my dear, you are beautiful,” said Mrs. Colbshallow, and then to Saba. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about her?”
“I haven’t had a chance to, Mother.”
“You know you couldn’t find a more stable prospect than my son. He’s a pillar of our community.”
“Don’t I know it,” said Miss Hewison. “And he’s so cute too.”
Miss Hewison visited with Saba and his mother for quite a long time. She visited the next day as well, though by this second occasion, Mrs. Colbshallow, along with Aalwijn Finkler and Mr. Parnorsham were already gone, having been sent home late the day before. Saba was more free to relax and enjoy his beautiful visitor. The following day, when he was released, Saba had not one but three beautiful women ready to help him home—Miss Hewison, Mrs. Dechantagne, and Dot Shrubb all arrived to escort him back to his house. They all piled into the steam carriage, Mrs. Dechantagne driving and Saba riding shotgun. Nor would any of them leave his home until he was comfortably seated on his couch with a bottle of Billingbow’s soda water in his hand.
* * * * *
In the week that followed the attack on Port Dechantagne, Radley Staff put together a report on its causes. He determined that all of the attackers were from the lizzie village of Chusstuss. The leaders of that village had hoped that by assassinating the prominent members of the human colony, they would create enough of a power vacuum that they would have a chance to expand their own control. They hoped to make Chusstuss into the local power that Suusthek had once been.
Eight days after the attack, Staff and Sergeant Croffut led five hundred armed men, the one hundred eighty trained militia and more than three hundred volunteers, many of them former militiamen, against the village of Chusstuss. The aborigines were quickly subdued. Fourteen humans were killed in the action and sixty-eight lizzies, including the village witch-doctor. Afterwards a trial was held to determine who among the village leaders had been most responsible for death, injury, and loss of property that had resulted. Forty-eight lizzies were executed by firing squad, but Staff ordered that no other villagers be harmed.
The funerals began the following week, having been postponed until the soldiers returned. Mr. and Mrs. Rutan’s was first, though it was attended by only a few. Staff gave the eulogy. Macy Godwin’s funeral was only slightly larger, though those who knew her well mourned her passing tremendously. Iolanthe, still lying in the infirmary had dictated a statement to be read, but hers were only a few of the kind words spoken on the former maid’s behalf. It seemed as though the entire colony turned out for Dr. Kelloran’s funeral. She and Macy Godwin and Mr. and Mrs. Rutan were all buried in the cemetery, north of the militia base.
At Iolanthe’s insistence, Terrence’s funeral waited an additional week. This so that she could attend. Though she had to return immediately after to the infirmary, she did speak eloquently of her brother’s courage and vision. In the eulogy given fr
om a seated position, she thanked Staff and the men of the militia for bringing to justice “those behind the infamous carnage,” and officially renamed the militia to the Colonial Guards. Not just Iolanthe’s speech, but the entire event had an overtly military theme, culminating with a nineteen-gun salute. Throughout the funeral, Yuah sat, covered in her black veil, quietly weeping. Cissy, cradling young Augie, sat next to her—the only lizzie at any of the funerals. Terrence was buried not in the cemetery, but in the park named for his brother, beneath the tree under which he had spent so many days writing.
Eamon Shrubb was finally released from the infirmary a week after Terrence’s funeral. He immediately went back to work at the Police Station, though Saba required him to stay in the office and only allowed him to do paperwork. His voice had not yet returned, and no one seemed sure whether it ever would. Two additional police constables were added to the force to ensure a visible police presence around the town.
Iolanthe was the last to leave the infirmary, and then it was only to transfer her to her bed at home, where she stayed for almost two months. The discovery that she had been pregnant when she was shot and that she had lost the baby was a heavy blow. Following quickly on this information was the news from Mother Linton that Iolanthe’s injuries would probably preclude her from ever having another child. This, like her brothers’ deaths, Iolanthe bore with a stiff upper lip. Ten days after arriving home, while still confined to bed, she and Radley Staff were married in a private ceremony attended by less than a dozen close friends.
Zeah Korlann and Egeria Lusk announced that their wedding would be held at the height of summer, but by Septuary it had been quietly postponed once again. No one seemed to know the reason why. Their seemingly interminable engagement continued.
* * * * *
Yuah sat on her bed with an open trunk at her feet. She folded the last of Terrence’s shirts and placed them in the trunk on top of the folded trousers. She had already packed away his army uniform and medals, his favorite guns, his reading glasses, and his favorite books. Though she had looked for his personal journals, she had been unable to find them. She had found a small blue bottle in the ammunition compartment of his pistol belt. She had dashed it against the wall. Now she found another, rolled up in an old pair of socks. It seemed much older, some of the white liquid within crystallized at the bottom.
She started to throw this bottle too against the wall, but stayed her hand. She pulled the cork, blackened with age, out of the bottle. It crumbled in her fingers. She poured a bit of the remaining milky liquid onto the tip of her finger and watched the oily swirls that formed on the surface of the drop.
* * * * *
Octuary was an interesting month in Birmisia. It was two thirds of the way through summer and many fruits and vegetables were appearing. It was hot in the morning, but the afternoons were almost always blessed with cool rain showers. Large herds of iguanodon, along with the ankylosaurus that followed them, had moved back to the coast earlier in the summer and frequently strayed into the western part of town munching on the new pine growth.
Hero sat on the kitchen counter with her legs dangling over the side, watching as Senta cooked a pan of sausages over the wood stove. The sizzling links filled the lower room of the tower with the pleasant smell of warm fat and spices.
“Something smells good and I’m famished,” said Zurfina, stepping down the stairs from the upper levels.
“Fina!” shouted Senta, racing to the sorceress and grabbing her around the middle.
“What’s this all about?”
“You’ve been gone over five months and I’ve missed you. Bessemer has missed you too.”
“Where is our boy?” wondered Zurfina, looking around.
“He’s out somewhere. He hasn’t spent much time here the last couple of weeks.”
“That’s to be expected.”
“It is?”
“Yes, he’s getting too big to live in a house.” She sat down at the table. “We’re going to have to do something about that. Let me have something to eat and tell me if anything interesting has happened in Birmisia while I’ve been gone.”
Hero, who had jumped down and crossed the room to take Senta’s place at the stove, finished cooking the sausages and then cracked several large, colorful eggs into the same pan and fried them. She served the sausages and eggs with large muffins, which Senta had purchased at Finkler’s bakery earlier that morning. In the meantime, Senta sat down across from Zurfina.
“Loads happened while you were gone.”
“Tell me everything you remember,” said Zurfina, sticking a sausage with her fork.
Senta described the attack on Port Dechantagne and the deaths of Captain Dechantagne and Dr. Kelloran and the others. She told the sorceress about the retribution laid upon Chusstuss and all of the funerals.
“What about Governor Dechantagne-Calliere?”
“There is no Governor Dechantagne-Calliere anymore. A lizardman shot her right through the middle. It took her months to get better. She was still in her sick bed when she got married.”
“Married? She’s already married.”
“Her first husband killed himself.”
“Interesting.”
“Yes. Now she’s Governor Mrs. Dechantagne-Staff.”
“That’s quite a bit of news,” said Zurfina biting down on a piece of egg.
“That’s not all either. Both our police constables were almost killed by a lizardman when they stumbled on the weapons cache.”
“The lizzies were having rifles smuggled in from Freedonia,” offered Hero.
“I see. Anything else.”
“Oh, yeah. Miss Jindra took some of your money and almost died of the curse you left on it. Then she left town and hasn’t been seen since.”
Zurfina snorted into her breakfast.
“What?”
“That curse was so old and weak that an apprentice wizard could have dispelled it. It should never have affected a journeyman sorceress like Amadea.”
“Well, I guess it did.”
“So that’s it? No other news?”
“Like what?”
“Like those glamours I see circling you?”
“Oh. I learned how to make them when I… when I opened one of your cabinets.”
“Yes,” said Zurfina, her eyes lighting up. “And in the other cabinets?”
“Um. There were some gross things in jars.”
“Yes, quasits. What did you command them to do?”
“I didn’t let them out.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
“What about the other cabinets?”
“I couldn’t open most of them.”
“Couldn’t open…”
“Was I supposed to break into them?”
“Of course you were supposed to break into them,” the sorceress growled. “You were supposed to ‘discover’ the secrets and make the transition from apprentice to journeyman.”
“Oh.” Tears welled up in Senta’s eyes. “I did fight that wizard.”
“What wizard?”
“Oh yeah. I forgot that part of the story. Professor Calliere was caught selling magical secrets to the Freedonians. He committed suicide, but a government wizard was here to investigate. He attacked me right out front here, but I chased him off with Bessemer’s help.”
“Who was this government wizard?”
“His name was Smedley…”
“Bassington,” completed Zurfina. “What did he say about me?”
“He said he was surprised to find you here, but he was very excited about it because they didn’t know where you were.”
“Well that’s just great!” said the sorceress, slamming down her fork on her plate, shoving her chair away from the table, and stomping upstairs. At the top of the steps she let out an angry scream.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Zurfina angry like that before,” said Senta, and looked over at Hero to see the dark haired girl physically
shaking. “Let’s get out of here. We can eat later.”
Hero nodded and the two escaped out the front door. Senta didn’t see Zurfina for two days, but when she did, the sorceress seemed to be back in her usual humor. She said nothing more about her outburst or about Wizard Smedley Bassington, and Senta certainly wasn’t going to bring it up.
The End
About the Author
Wesley Allison is a teacher and author and lives in Henderson, Nevada with his wife Victoria, his daughter Becky, and his son John. For more information about the author and upcoming books, visit wesleyallison.com.
Books by Wesley Allison
Look for them wherever fine ebooks are sold. Select titles are also available in traditional paper formats at the City of Amathar Blog and by special order from your favorite bookseller.
Princess of Amathar
Transported to the artificial world of Ecos, Earth man Alexander Ashton struggles to understand the society of his new friends the Amatharians. As he does so, he finds himself falling in love with their princess and being thrust into a millennium-long war with their mortal foes the reptilian Zoasians. Princess of Amathar is a sword-swinging novel of high adventure.
His Robot Girlfriend
Mike Smith's life was crap, living all alone, years after his wife had died and his children had grown up and moved away. Then he saw the commercial for the Daffodil. Far more than other robots, the Daffodil could become anything and everything he wanted it to be. Mike's life is about to change.
His Robot Wife
In His Robot Wife, the novella-length sequel to His Robot Girlfriend, it is the year 2037 and Mike has been married to his robot wife, Patience, for five years. Troubles are on the horizon though. Prop 22 promises to annul marriages between humans and robots. And Patience hasn’t quite been herself. Is there something wrong, or does she just need a software upgrade?
The Drache Girl Page 33
