“Why did they bring that child,” Fringe whispered furiously. “She’s too young.”
“They were told to bring her, I would imagine,” said Jory. “I would say that Houdum-Bah ordered her brought.”
“Why?” she blurted.
“For himself, of course.”
Fringe risked a glance sidewise at the altar and saw the boss chief’s eyes fixed on the girl no less hungrily than those of the god looming above. No woman could work as an Enforcer in Enarae without learning to recognize that rapist’s look. “She’s a child,” Fringe cried, horrified and sickened, “only a child!”
“It is said that Zhulia the Whore prefers to pour herself into children,” said Asner in an expressionless voice. “So Cafferty has told us. Though perhaps it is the male worshipers of Lady Zhulia who prefer the children.”
“Look,” whispered Jory.
The tri-une monster in the smoke was splitting. Its three foreheads protruded like the prows of boats, pushing outward, pulling the faces behind them. Eyes followed foreheads, then noses, mouths, jaws as the head came apart into three, each of the three heads striking outward like the head of a serpent, coiled necks following, lashing away from the body, drawing shoulders behind them, then arms, torsos, legs, recoiling then, becoming three beings where there had been only one:
One wide-hipped with a torrent of smoky hair, a wristlet of skulls, breasts like great melons. One mighty thewed, armored, armed, his maleness carried before him like a spear. One slender, flexible, long-legged, narrow-faced, sexless lips bent upward from a sharp-toothed smile. He. She. It.
“Zhulia the Whore, Lord Balal, Chibbi the Dancer,” muttered Jory, nodding her head as though confirmed in some private apprehension. “All present and accounted for. Plus some of the minor gods. Look at the hounds.”
The hounds twitched and shivered, throwing up their furred arms, opening hands that were now clawed, mouths that were now fanged. Hounds indeed, slavering and staring about themselves with red eyes.
Chibbi the Dancer spun on its toes, arms extended, those arms becoming the spokes of a wheel, the spokes becoming arrows of light that flew out among the twitching Houm, penetrating them. They went on dancing, howling as bones cracked, bodies fell, limbs flailed uselessly. Splintered bones protruded from bloody flesh as the Houm convulsed themselves into wreckage.
The mighty male form of Lord Balal turned toward Houdum-Bah, moved ponderously toward him where he stood below the platform. Houdum-Bah stripped off his garments and awaited the god, arms wide, eyes half-closed.
And before them on the floor the little girl shivered as the female form leaned down, touched her, poured into her like water into a hole. The child seemed to swell. Her clothes ripped away from burgeoning breasts, from wide, luxurious hips, from a vulva thatched with thick, shining hair.
Fringe blinked rapidly, shaking her head, snarling. There was no Lady Zhulia. There was only an eleven-year-old girl standing there. Slight. Breastless. Her little ribs heaving as she panted and tried to cover herself when her clothes were ripped away by one of the priests. A little girl, shivering, her eyes wide and lost.
“No,” said Fringe.
“It’s their culture,” said Danivon firmly, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “This is what they do.”
“No,” said Fringe again. “Jory, no. He’ll hurt her. She’s only a child. He’ll rape her. He’ll kill her.”
“This is what they do,” repeated Danivon desperately. “Diversity, Enforcer!”
“No,” she said again. “Jory, do something.”
Jory stared around herself, her face a mask in which surprise and fury were equally mingled. “What makes you think I can do anything, Fringe Owldark?”
“You can. Somebody must.”
Jory laughed angrily. “Then you do something!”
Without thought, Fringe sprang forward, her weapon leaping into her hand. She seized the girl by the shoulder and drew her away from Houdum-Balal, thrusting the child behind her, threatening Houdum-Balal with her weapon.
He roared with rage, and all the hounds echoed the roar as they came toward her.
She brushed them with heat, enough to stop ordinary men, but they were too hot with rage to feel it. She thumbed the control and tried again, sending them reeling back, all but Houdum-Balal, who came on, arms outstretched, mouth wide in rage, seemingly untouched by the heat.
Fringe backed up, suddenly aware she had no support. Danivon and Curvis were not helping her, were, in fact, reaching out to take the child away from her, to return it….
Jory laughed.
The laugh fled into the smoke and the drums and returned louder. It went out against the walls and returned, louder. It rattled in the corners and returned, louder yet, growing like summer thunder, booming, cracking. The drums fell silent, and the chanting.
“Great Dragon Comes,” snarled Jory into the laughter, each word reverberating and growing, each separate, each connected, the whole larger than its constituent words, the phrase bouncing off the walls until it overrode all other sound. “Great Dragon Comes!”
And Great Dragon came, Great Dragon was there, taller than Chimi-ahm, more powerful, one huge paw on the edge of the altar, his fanged maw no more than an arm’s length from Houdum-Balal’s surprised face.
“No,” whispered the dragon in a voice of hushed thunder. “No Chimi-ahm. No Zhulia the Whore. No Chibbi the Dancer. No Lord Balal. None of them. Dabbo-dam is done, boss chief. Dabbo-dam is done!”
Fringe thought she heard the words, believed she heard the words, but they had no sound to them. No timbre she could identify. Almost as though she heard them through some other part than her ears.
Great Dragon was turning, tail flailing, claws reaching, snatching at the priests, tossing them, eating their torches, swallowing their smoke, shredding the images of the gods, sending them screaming out into the night
