The Dark and Forbidding Land

by Wesley Allison

  “What word is that?”

  “Froffett.”

  Looking down at the page, Yuah saw her finger was pointing at “prophet”.

  “How about this one?”

  “Death.”

  It was a moment before the human woman realized that she was standing there with her mouth wide open. She quickly closed it.

  “How did you learn to read?”

  Cissy walked to the corner of the room and pulled a thin volume from the bookcase, bringing it back and handing it to the mistress of the house. It was a preschool primer, little more than an illustrated alphabet really.

  “I can see how this might get you started, but there’s nothing about God and the prophets or death in here. Who is teaching you to read?”

  Cissy stood as though made of stone.

  “Who is it?”

  Still the lizzie said nothing.

  “Damn it, tell me who, right now.”

  “He say not to tell.”

  “Who? Who said not to tell?”

  “He say not to tell,” she repeated.

  “What’s going on here?” came a voice from the doorway.

  Yuah turned to see her husband, his head cocked to one side as though listening, holding on to the doorframe with his right hand. “Um, nothing.”

  “Leave us,” said Terrence, stepping into the room. Though he didn’t specify to whom he was speaking, all knew he meant the lizzie. “Is this what you’ve learned from Iolanthe? To torture the help?”

  “I don’t know if I trust these reptiles. Some of them are putting on airs.”

  “Do tell.” He reached out carefully with his hand and, finding her shoulder, pulled her close. “Soon they’ll be wanting to marry into the family.”

  She slapped him across the face and immediately felt sorry, but he just laughed. He pulled her to the same chair that she had previously been in by herself and sat down, drawing her down onto his lap. He pulled her face down to his and kissed her on the lips, his hands roaming around her body.

  “Do you know what my favorite part of your body is?”

  “Stop it. You’re a horrible man.”

  “Yes, I know. But I mean right here.” He rubbed her upper arm. “I can feel your skin right there under the material of the dress. There aren’t a dozen layers of underclothing between us.”

  For some reason, his words made her feel warm in her chest and she bent down and returned his kiss.

  “Maybe you’re not so terribly horrible.” She put her head down upon his shoulder and they sat quietly in that position until the luncheon bell was rung. Yuah stood up and made to pull Terrence to his feet, but he stayed seated.

  “Go on and eat,” he said. “You need to put on some weight.”

  “Talking of which,” she replied. “You are way too thin yourself. Come along with me.”

  He shook his head. “Food doesn’t taste as good now that I can’t see it. Go ahead. I’m not hungry. I’ll eat at tea time.”

  Yuah made her way to the table and found that she, Mrs. Godwin, and Mrs. Colbshallow were the only diners.

  “Is the professor not joining us?”

  “He and his foreigner are off to his workshop,” said Mrs. Godwin. “And it’s just as well if you ask me. I don’t like these foreigners.”

  “Well, we’re all foreigners here, really.”

  “Nonsense,” replied Mrs. Godwin. “I was born right here in Shopton.”

  Yuah looked at Mrs. Colbshallow, who gave her a knowing nod in return. She put her hand on the older woman’s and said. “Now Macy, you know very well that we live in Birmisia now.”

  “Know it? Of course I know it. I came on the very first ship, you know.”

  Yuah found that she wasn’t particularly hungry. She still felt full from breakfast, but she managed a few triangle sections of cheese sandwich and a few slices of winter squash. She joined in the conversation with the other ladies of the house, but afterwards couldn’t remember what the topic had been. With her meal finished, she piled several of the remaining sandwiches on a plate and took them to the library for Terrence, only to find that he wasn’t there. She turned around and again almost ran into Cissy.

  “Do you know where my husband has got to?”

  The reptilian shook her head.

  “Take this to the kitchen.” She handed over the plate. “Wait. I want to take a walk. You will come with me. Take that to the kitchen and then meet me by the front door.”

  Cissy went to the kitchen while Yuah went to the coat closet and gathered her coat and muff. They met again just inside the front door, which Tisson opened, and the two walked outside. It was a relatively warm day, though not so much as made a coat uncomfortable. The sun was bright and the snow was starting to melt.

  “Come, we’ll walk this way,” said Yuah. “Be sure to keep your eyes open for those damned birds.”

  The woman led the way around the side of the house and through the still dead-looking garden. At the far side of the backyard was a gate which opened into an alleyway that made up the middle of the block between the Dechantagne house and the empty lots behind it that would someday host large stately homes. Turning right, Yuah walked through the alleyway. It was not covered with gravel as were the surrounding streets, but was mostly covered with dead grass and a few patches of dirty snow, with a meandering footpath roughly in the middle. At the end of the block, she turned west down Acorn Street. Glancing quickly behind her, she saw that Cissy was following at a distance of three paces. She stopped and pointed to a spot on the ground just to her left. The reptilian quickly moved to the spot by her side.

  “You will stay close by me to help discourage velociraptors.”

  “Yes.”

  Yuah took a step and then another, but did not return to the quick stride she had been taking earlier. She lazily strolled from step to step. From the corner of her eye, she could see Cissy’s great greenish bulk beside her.

  “So,” she said slowly, and then burst out. “Who has been teaching you to read?”

  “Hy you hant to know?”

  “Don’t you sass me!” Yuah turned quickly to look into the round yellow eyes. “You are my servant. You live in my house. Answer me, damn it!”

  “He say not tell,” said the lizzie, very quietly.

  Yuah just stared into the yellow eyes.

  “Your Terrence.”

  Yuah stared, her mouth falling open again.

  “You liar,” she said quietly. “How dare you lie right to my face like that?”

  “Cissy not lie. Terrence teach to read. He say not tell.”

  “Why would he do that? He hates you lot. He hates all of you.”

  Cissy shrugged. “Cissy look at…” She made an opening book hand gesture. “Cissy try to read. Terrence find her. He give testasstilas chogghua tostisthiss…”

  “Stop, stop. I don’t understand. I know a few lizzie words, but… testarosa?”

  “Testasstilas… He… teach.”

  “Why?”

  Cissy shrugged again.

  “Why teach a lizzie who can’t even say ‘book.’ You can’t say ‘book’ can you?”

  “Took.”

  “You see?”

  “I say ‘took,” said the lizzie, suddenly straitening up. “I say took. I read took. I read Holy Scritures.”

  Cissy seemed to have grown twice her original size and Yuah shrank back, glancing down at the long claws on each hand. The reptilian followed her gaze and then returned it back to the woman’s eyes. She leaned backwards away from Yuah, but didn’t return to her hunkered down smallness.

  “I do not know why Terrence teach reading,” Cissy said, carefully enunciating each word. “Terrence haff own reason. He not do anyone say. He do he say. No else.”

  “Yes, well that is certainly true. He does what he wants and to the devil with what anyone thinks. He always did, even before his mother died. But still, I can’t imagine… He didn’t give you the scriptures to study, did he? I think he’s secretly
an atheist, though he denies it.”

  “No. I see ladies reading Scritchers. I read.”

  “Surely you can’t find any real interest in them. They are stories of people and places long ago in the human world. What are they to you?”

  “It is the whord of God.”

  “Yes, but not your God—not the lizzies’ God.”

  “I think hoonan God is God,” said Cissy. “Lizzie gods not create lizzies. How hoonans here? How lizzies here? How trees here? How anything here?”

  Yuah stood thinking for just a moment.

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong,” she said at last. “I don’t know enough to say one way or another. I wish we had an Imam that we could go ask, or even a Kafirite Priest for that matter.”

  “I not see you read Scritchers. I see you read other tooks.”

  “I should be reading them. Maybe that’s why I’m not… maybe that’s why some things aren’t turning out the way that I want them to. I read them a great deal when I was young. I had to. I had to be able to recite the names of the Scriptures by rote.”

  Cissy tilted her head to one side, clearly unable to follow all the words the woman was saying.

  “I had to learn them,” said Yuah.

  “You know all Scritchers?”

  “Oh yes, I can name them all. Listen carefully.” She took a deep breath, and in very quick succession she listed. “Creation, Odyssey, Discovery, Old Prophets, Stars, Laws, Kings, Writings of Nom, Letter of Nom, Middle Prophets…” She stopped. “See? And that’s only the beginning. You know I can name the Kafirite part of the scriptures too. Master Akalos made sure I could recite them. He was our tutor. Well, he was the Dechantagne tutor really.”

  “More Scritchers?”

  “Yes, well you see, the ones I just listed are the first part of the Grand Scriptures. They along with the Magnificent Law make up the Zaeri Holy Book. The Kafirites have thrown out the Magnificent Law, but they have another whole set of scriptures that they call the Modest Scriptures. So their book has the Grand Scriptures and these Modest Scriptures, which if you ask me have very little modesty in them.”

  “You teach Cissy Scritchers?” asked the lizzie.

  “No. I don’t think so,” replied Yuah, shaking her head. “I am not Terrence. I most assuredly do care what other people think of me—I suppose I shouldn’t, now that I’m a Dechantagne, but I do. And teaching a lizzie? I just don’t know what people would make of that.”

  The lizzie stared at her for a long moment. Finally she said. “Follow.”

  Yuah found herself suddenly struggling to keep up with the reptilian who usually, like all members of her race in the colony, moved like cold molasses. She was also conscious of the fact that she was following in Cissy’s footsteps, therefore in the inferior position. They walked briskly to the point at which the street ended and the wild forest began. Cissy continued, but Yuah stopped.

  “Follow,” said Cissy, turning around.

  Yuah looked around, though whether for help or to make sure that no one saw her, even she didn’t know. She then stepped off the gravel road and followed Cissy into the low bushes between the redwood trees. The brush tugged at the bottom of her dress and the melting snow soaked the hem. They walked and walked. The air seemed to become darker and thicker with each step away from the realm of humanity and into the hidden reaches of the primeval forest.

  “How far are we going?” asked Yuah.

  “Not far.”

  It was far though. At least Yuah thought it was far. They walked more than two miles in the shade of the gigantic redwoods and large maples before they came to a clearing. About one hundred yards across, the clearing seemed to be nothing special at first, but as Yuah followed Cissy out of the trees, she noticed that the ground had changed. Looking down to where to where her dress hem dragged along, she could see between the small patches of snow and the creeping roots that she was standing on a smooth surface of stone slabs that had been fitted together. She scanned the area and could see steps here and there, breaking the clearing up into several areas of varying height. In a few places there were piles of stone that might have indicated that a wall had once stood there, but there were no buildings. A loud squawk startled Yuah and she jumped over to where the lizzie stood, but it was only a small group of eight or nine buitreraptors skirting the edge of the trees.

  “Look,” said Cissy.

  On the other side of the clearing from where they had entered were a series of seven large stones. Each stood about eight feet tall and they were roughly oval in shape. At either end of the row were the remains of other similar stones that had once stood in the line, but had long ago crumbled, either from exposure to the elements or from ancient vandalism. Though the remaining stones were weathered and worn, Yuah could see as she stepped up to them that they had been carefully carved and must have once been very detailed. At first she couldn’t quite tell what they had been intended to represent, but after examining them for a minute or two she could just make out the features of a dragon. Each stone was slightly different as though each was portraiture of a unique individual.

  “These lizzie gods,” said Cissy.

  “They’re dragons. You worship dragons?”

  “Lizzies haff dragon gods.” The reptilian pointed first to the statue directly in front of her and then to the right. “This is Setemenothiss. That is Hissussisthiss. I not know the others.”

  “Do you think dragons are gods?” asked Yuah.

  “Dragons are gods. They not like God in Scritchers. Dragons not create whorld. Not create Cissy. Not create Yuah.”

  “Well then they can’t really be gods can they?”

  “You see this city?” asked Cissy.

  Yuah looked around. “I see the ruins of what might have been a city, I suppose, countless generations ago—hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago.”

  Cissy pointed at the dragon stone on the right. “Hissussisthiss—he old then. He is still here.”

  “He can’t still be alive.”

  “Your wise elder; he see Hissussisthiss.”

  “Wise elder?”

  “Zeah Korlann.”

  “Yes, my father said that he was rescued, or was it captured, by a dragon. But he was out of his head at the time, wasn’t he? It didn’t really happen. Did it?”

  “He is still here.” The words had barely left Cissy’s large alligator mouth when her clawed hand shot out and grabbed Yuah by the shoulder, dragging her to the ancient stones on the ground and pulling her behind the stone image of Setemenothiss.

  “What…”

  Cissy hissed her to silence, and then pointed around the stone. Standing in the middle of the clearing, scarcely fifty feet away was a monstrous tyrannosaurus. Even bent over at the hip so that the massive, blood red, scarred head was balanced by the long tail, it was sixteen feet tall. Its body was so black that it looked as though the horrendous face was floating atop a shadow. Its ridiculous little forelegs were barely visible. Slowly turning around and sniffing loudly, the great beast took a step forward. Yuah was sure that her heart would leap out of her throat. She wanted to get up and run, but Cissy’s body pressed her to the ground. The tyrannosaurus took another step and another sniff, and then made a peculiar coughing grunt. Suddenly it wheeled around and stalked quickly and surprisingly quietly back into the woods.

  Cissy stood up and pulled Yuah to her feet. She put a clawed finger over the woman’s mouth, indicating that she should remain quiet. Yuah stood as still as the lifeless stone dragons. After a few moments Cissy spoke.

  “It is gone.”

  “I want to go home now,” said Yuah, holding onto the lizzie’s shoulder to keep her balance as her head swam.

  Cissy bobbed her head up and down in a human nod. The woman looked at her for a long moment, taking several deep breaths.

  “We will read Scriptures together one night each week. Nobody can say anything about me reading the scriptures, can they? If you happen to be there reading along with me, it’
s not my fault. I didn’t teach you to read. And if you are going to read, what better thing to read than the Scriptures? After all, Iolanthe could find you reading Kazia Garstone and faint dead away.”

  Chapter Ten: The Drache Girl

  “What are you doing out here?” asked a voice.

  Senta turned around to find Graham looking oddly at her. They were at the edge of the roadway in front of the Dechantagne mansion. Senta had spent most of the morning watching for any sign of Streck, but so far he hadn’t shown his Freedonian face.

  “Nothing. What are you doing?”

  “Well, I was looking for you. I thought we could go over to Hertzal’s house and have a nice low tea.” He held up a canvas bag in one hand. “I brought bread and butter.”

  “Where did you get butter?” Senta’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t steal it, did you?”

  “How in the name of Kafira can you ask me that?” Graham squared his shoulders and stood up as tall as he could. “When did you ever hear of Graham Dokkins stealing anything?”

  “I’m sorry. Where did you get it then?”

  “My Ma sent it,” he replied, not at all mollified. “We had an extra tin and she said I could share it with the Hertlings.”

  “That was nice.”

  “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” he said, starting down the road.

  “I said I was sorry,” Senta said, stepping quickly to keep up. “I could make it up to you.”

  “How would you do that?”

  “I could give you a kiss…”

  “That magic is making you lose your mind, that’s what,” he said, not slowing down.

  “Alright then, I have a secret mission that I might let you help me with.”

  “What secret mission?” he asked, glancing at her but not stopping.

  “I’ll tell you, Hero, and Hertzal together.”

  “Why? Did you brass them off too?”

  “Say, how come you mother is sending butter over? I thought your folks didn’t like Zaeri,” said Senta, changing the subject.

  “We’re not like that Freedonian wanker. We don’t call people dogs for no reason.”

  “Oh, you heard about that, eh?”