“Come on,” said Senta again.
She stood up on her feet and ran over to the barracks door. She could hear Miss Dechantagne and the officer inside talking, but she couldn’t make out what was being said. The barracks was built on a wooden frame that raised it up above the ground by just over a foot. Three steps led from the ground to the door, though the distance involved really only required two. Senta looked around just as the officer had, then crawled under the edge of the barracks. The steel dragon followed.
It was shady under the building, but plenty of light still came in from all four sides. The grass that had been on the ground before the building was constructed was still there, having not had time enough to die from a shortage of direct light. Senta crawled on her belly toward the center of the room above her. Every so often, she stopped to determine if she had reached the optimum listening location. When she had about reached the center of the room, she judged that she had done so.
“How many bloody buttons are on this dress?” the officer asked.
“Patience Radley,” said Miss Dechantagne. “The reward is worth the effort.”
Senta looked at the dragon and shrugged.
There was the sound of shuffling feet for several more minutes. Just as Senta had decided that there would be nothing more of interest to hear, the officer spoke again.
“My God, you’re dishy,” he said.
“Oh, shut up,” said Miss Dechantagne.
Senta heard the sounds of bodies landing on bedsprings, and then of loud breathing and soft moans, and then more bedsprings and the sounds of a bed frame sliding about on the wooden floor. Senta looked at the dragon, her eyes wide open and her mouth making a very large ‘O’. The dragon looked back, nonplussed.
“They’re bonking,” she whispered loudly.
The dragon looked slightly more interested. Senta rolled over on her back and listened. She had heard the neighbors bonking on many occasions when she lived with her Granny. It always seemed to take about a minute and a half. But the two in the room above her seemed as if they would never stop. Maybe they weren’t doing it right. After a while the dragon slithered out from beneath the barracks, and with a shrug, Senta followed.
The steel dragon didn’t wait for her, but took flight and headed for one of the tall trees near the bay. Zurfina had not insisted on him wearing his leash for days now, and if Zurfina wasn’t going to insist on it, Senta wasn’t going to enforce it. He always seemed to return to her after a while, so the girl no longer worried about him permanently leaving. He was probably just going to take a nap on a branch anyway. Sleeping was his favorite pastime.
As if thinking about her summoned her, Zurfina appeared next to Senta. She was wearing the same red and black leather pants and corset outfit that she had been wearing when Senta had first met her. She had done something new with her hair though. It was swirled around her head and formed into a cone with a pointy top. It had to have been magic. There was no other way to make it stay like that.
“The boy went up to his tree,” said Senta, pointing in the direction the dragon had flown.
Zurfina waved her hand impatiently.
“That’s not important now. You have to learn your next magic spell.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
“Repeat after me, ‘Sembor Uuthanum’.”
“Sembor Uuthanum.”
“Good. Practice that.” Zurfina walked away in the direction of the bay.
Senta watched her, and she noticed that a good many other people did as well. She half wondered at the sorceress’s sudden appearance and insistence on her memorization of the spell, as she turned the sounds of the magic words over in her mind. She was beginning to come to the conclusion that Zurfina cared about what she cared about when she cared about it and there wasn’t much chance of sussing out why that was the case.
Picking up a handful of gravel from the walkway, Senta walked slowly between the wooden barracks, every so often throwing one of the tiny rocks against the outside wall of one of the structures and every so often, repeating aloud. “Sembor Uuthanum.” She turned the corner and saw a tall, straight figure exiting a door. She ran forward.
“Hey Mr. Korlann,” she said. “How is Miss Lusk?”
“Feeling better. I’m sure she would enjoy a visit from you. Would you like to go in?” He opened the door that he had just come out of and stepped to the side allowing Senta to enter.
The room inside was well lit, unlike most of the barracks. Though the twenty-five by two hundred foot buildings had been built with a series of small single pane windows, this twenty-five by twenty foot apartment had clearly been modified with an extravagant curtained window that was as tall as Senta and just as wide. The walls, though they were the same bare wood as similar apartments, had been graced with five or six paintings and two small round tables sat to either side of the bed and were covered with vases filled with flowers. Though the flowers were all local and therefore wild varieties, they were nonetheless beautiful. Miss Lusk was sitting up in her bed, a mountain of pillows supporting her.
“Senta. What a wonderful surprise,” she said.
Senta, who had been somewhat worried that Miss Lusk would be pale and would seem frail, bounced over to the bedside, and hopped onto the edge of the bed next to the vibrant and rosy-cheeked redhead. “Hello.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Learning magic and stuff.”
“And keeping an eye on Miss Dechantagne?”
“Guess what she was doing?”
“I don’t want to know.” Miss Lusk held up a hand.
“Can I see where you got stabbed?”
Miss Lusk pursed her lips. “Maybe later.”
“It’s too bad you missed the wedding.”
“Yes, I’m quite sad about that. Not for myself, but for Mr. Korlann. It seems that it requires some type of unusual festive event to break him out of the stiff form that he so often hides in. I was hoping to get him to loosen up a bit.”
“Were you hoping to get rumpy-pumpy with him?”
“Senta! Young ladies should not talk in that course manner. Mr. Korlann and I observe the strictest social customs and mores in our relationship. There will be no rumpy-pumpy for quite some time, though I do have to admit that the term tickles me.”
“Well you shouldn’t have to wait long. You don’t look bad at all.”
“Thank you, Senta. I suppose that really is a tribute to the value of the Church. If Sister Auni and Brother Galen had not been here then neither would I.”
“Do you think it was the ghost of Mr. Murty that stabbed you?” Senta jumped back down off the bed.
“I don’t…”
“Maybe he came back out of the sea as a zombie.” Senta put her arms out straight and began to shuffle around the room in a circle. “Oooh, I’m zombie Mr. Murty.”
“Senta don’t!” cried Miss Lusk. “That’s most disturbing, not to mention disrespectful of the dead.”
“I thought you didn’t like Mr. Murty.”
“I didn’t. Still the man is dead. We must maintain some sense of decorum.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Besides, I doubt a living Maalik Murty would have been able to swim here from the middle of the ocean where he was dumped, and I’m doubly sure that a dead one wouldn’t.”
“When do you get to get out of bed?”
“Oh, I’ll be up and around in a few days. We’ll have tea.”
“Brilliant. Well, I’m going to go now.”
“Where are you headed?”
“I think I’m going to go eat lunch. I used to almost never eat lunch. Now I eat it all the time. I bet I’m going to get really fat.”
“I doubt it,” smiled Miss Lusk. “Just stay out of trouble.”
“I will,” called out Senta, as she skipped out the door.
Though more and more of the original colonists were sharing private repasts wi
th their loved ones, the colony was still serving communal meals. The events had grown even larger than before with the addition of the Freedonian Zaeri. Senta stepped into the queue. The two men in front of her were chattering away in Freedonian, which was enough like Brech for her to pick out a word or two, but she still didn’t understand the gist of the conversation.
“Sembor Uuthanum,” she said, and touched one of the men on his elbow with the tip of her index finger.
“The battleship was going to have sailed already,” said the man she touched. “But it is staying on until the Acorn leaves.”
Senta looked up at the man and watched his mouth move. It didn’t move with the words she was hearing. He was still speaking Freedonian, but she was hearing it in Brech. The other man said something and it remained just as incomprehensible as the first man had been before she cast her spell.
Senta tugged on the first man’s sleeve. He looked down at her.
“The queue is moving,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand you,” she heard, though his lips said something else.
She pointed ahead. He nodded in comprehension and moved forward. When Senta arrived at the front of the line, she was disappointed to find that the meal was black pudding and beans, again. She had no sooner taken her plate, piled with food, than she felt a familiar weight plop onto her shoulder.
“Pudding,” said the steel dragon, as he settled down around her neck.
“Yes. Great for you.”
Finding the closest out of the way spot, Senta sat cross-legged. The dragon slithered down and rolled onto its back with all four legs in the air. The girl dropped one piece of the pudding after another into its open mouth.
“Did you get into trouble while you were out?”
“No,” said the dragon.
“Did you take a nap in the tree?”
“No.”
“Did…you knock down any more clothes?”
“No.”
“Did…you fly over to the baby dinosaurs?”
“No.”
“Did… you want another pudding?”
“No.”
“Hah!”
“Gawp,” said the dragon, and a little cloud of smoke came out of one of his nostrils.
“I’m just kidding. Here.” She dropped another piece into his waiting jaws. “Do you want the rest of my beans?” she asked when the pudding was all gone.
“No,” said the dragon, carefully.
Dumping the leftovers on the ground in a spot with some taller than average grass, Senta took her plate back to the service area. The dragon, rather than hopping back on her shoulder, followed along on the ground, heeling like a dog. He followed her back to the barracks apartment that she shared with Zurfina. The sorceress was still out. When she plopped down on her bed, he curled up around her knees, and soon both were fast asleep.
When Senta woke up, Zurfina was lying on the bed next to her. The sorceress was still wearing her corset outfit, but it apparently didn’t inhibit her breathing. Lying on her back with her mouth open, she took long, deep, snoring breaths. When she exhaled, she made a sad little sighing sound.
While Senta, and apparently Zurfina, had slept, the steel dragon had shifted his location from the little girl’s legs to the woman’s. His body was curled around the sorceress’s knees and his chin rested on her thigh. When Senta sat up, he rolled his eyes to look up at her without moving.
“I’m going to go find Graham,” she said. “Do you want to go?”
“No,” the dragon whispered.
“Okay.”
As there always was, another outfit was positioned at the end of the bed. It was something of a puzzle to Senta that Zurfina seldom paid much attention to her, but she apparently had an infinite amount of time to pay attention to her potential wardrobe. If she was not particularly fond of the clothing that the sorceress had chosen for her, she could at least be glad that none of them were as bizarre as the clothing that Zurfina had chosen for herself. This particular dress was almost normal. It was black and shin length, which only a little girl could get away with, and had white lace around the collar and the cuffs. It was fairly loose all around, but the bottom portion puffed out wide due to the expansive crinoline petticoats. Lace booties and black leather shoes, slip-ons, no laces, completed the ensemble.
When she had changed into the new clothing, Senta stepped out the door and almost ran right into Graham.
“Hey,” he said. “I was just going to get you.”
“What’s up?”
“Some of those lizzy blokes are back.”
“Yeah?”
“Yup. There’s six or seven of them and they’re eating over on the east side of the hill. The Dechantagne’s are going to meet with them.”
“How do you know?”
“I was listening by the tent,” he said, as if he was stating the obvious. “You should see the lousy zeets staring. I know none of them has seen a lizardman before.”
“I don’t think we should call them ‘lousy zeets’,” said Senta.
“That’s what…”
“I know that’s what your Da calls them,” she continued. “But look. I mean they’ve been washing clothes and bathing since they got here. I don’t see how they can be any lousier than anyone else around here. I bet your hair could use some kerosene and a comb.”
“I don’t have any lice,” said Graham, indignantly. “My Ma checked me and Gaylene yesterday.”
“Well, you see what I mean.”
“All right, but can we still call them zeets?”
“It’s okay for now,” said Senta, in her most official sounding voice. “But I’m going to ask Mr. Korlann, and if he says it’s a bad word, then I’m not using it.”
“Fine… Fine….”
“So what are we doing?” wondered Senta. “Are we going to go watch the lizardmen? Or are we going to watch the Dechantagnes?”
“Let’s get our place close to the lizards. That way, when the others join them, we’ll already be there waiting.”
Senta nodded and the two started off down the east side of the hill. The lizardmen were seated in a circle, with pieces of log serving as chairs, along with seven or eight humans—officers and noncommissioned officers of the colony’s military contingent. Around the group, fifty or sixty colonists had arranged themselves on the ground, ready to watch their military leaders interact with the strange, cold-blooded locals. The two children found a spot between the adults about ten feet below the reptiles and their hosts. They had just settled down when the two Dechantagne brothers arrived.
Augie Dechantagne placed his hand on the front of his neck, palm out, in a sign that was a greeting among the lizardmen. Several of the lizardmen returned the gesture. Immediately the largest of the visitors began his hissing language. Augie nodded in understanding and turned to his brother.
“His name is Thisstick, at least as close as I can pronounce. He gives us the usual greeting from his great chief and sends his best wishes blah blah blah.”
Captain Dechantagne said something back to his brother, but even though every single person in the entire area was staying as quiet as possible, he was speaking so low that neither Senta nor Graham could hear more than a murmur.
“This is bollocks,” whispered Graham. “I can’t hear the Captain, and I can’t understand the lizard guy.”
“Wait here,” said Senta. She crawled forward like a commando, between the seated colonists, and right up the long tail of the closest lizardman.
“Sembor Uuthanum,” she said, touching the tail with her forefinger. The tail twitched, but the lizardman didn’t turn around. Senta crawled back to her spot with Graham.
“What was that all about?” he wondered.
“Magic.”
“Oh, all right then.”
The first reptilian spoke again. Anyone could tell that it was more than a formal pronouncement or a greeting. It was long and required hand gestures. But no one could understand what the beast
was saying—no one other than Senta, and possibly Augie Dechantagne. It was Dechantagne who translated aloud.
“He says that we are to bring our forces to a rendezvous spot, seven to eight days march from here. Once there, the Chief will meet us.”
Senta turned to Graham and said. “That’s not exactly what that lizard guy said.”
“What did he say?”
“He said ‘the Chief will see you’, not ‘meet you’.”
“So what difference does that make?”
“I don’t know.”
“Once our enemy is defeated,” Augie continued the translation. “We will get all that we want.”
“He said ‘you will get all you deserve’, not ‘all you want’.”
“Well, this is boring,” said Graham. “It’s almost supper. Let’s get something to eat.”
“I’m still full from lunch.”
“I didn’t get lunch.”
“All right,” said Senta. “It’s getting too crowded around here anyway.”
The two children walked away from the meeting between the military leaders and the reptilians. The crowd had grown from an already large group to a veritable multitude as the colonists tried to catch a glimpse of the inhuman locals. Most of the colonists who had arrived on the H.M.S. Minotaur had seen them before, but the novelty had not worn off. The new arrivals from the S.S. Acorn had never seen the like and were abuzz with excitement. So many people were observing the meeting in fact that Senta and Graham found almost nobody in the queue for dinner.
“Yes!” shouted Graham. “Toad in the hole! Still not going to eat?”
“I don’t like toad in the hole anymore. It makes me dicky.”
“Too bad for you,” said the boy, accepting a huge plate of food.
They sat down in the grass. Graham wasted no time transferring the food from the plate to his stomach. Senta positioned herself so that she could watch the sunset and not have to see her friend shoveling sausages and pudding into his face. The sun sank beneath the shore across the bay, silhouetting the two ships floating side by side just before it disappeared.
The Voyage of the Minotaur Page 26
