Jory nodded agreement. “Houdum-Bah knew you three were Council Enforcers. It was no fleeting or drunken foolishness that moved him to summon the show to his banquet. He had planned it for some time. He was told you were coming by someone who knew, perhaps by someone who knew you were coming here even before you left Tolerance. When you arrived in Derbeck, you were to be ‘invited’ to a dabbo-dam where you would be given to Chimi-ahm. Chimi-ahm was to eat you, us, his voracity being the signal for war.”
Said Cafferty: “The death of Old Man Daddy and the election of a successor are merely coincidental. Even while Old Man Daddy was alive, it was Houdum-Bah who held the power. If Great Dragon had not interrupted Houdum-Bah’s gesture of contempt, Chimi-ahm would have eaten you tonight, and his hounds would have been across the western border into Beanfields by morning.”
“He meant to kill all of us?” Nela breathed.
Jory snorted. “Something meant to kill at least some of us. Something wanted us dead. Possibly only you three Enforcers, but then again, perhaps whatever moves Chimi-ahm would have tried to make a meal of all seven of us. Seven is a good number, as the chimi-hound said who came to fetch us. We did not ask him a good number for what.” She wiped her mouth angrily.
“And you knew all this when you let us go in there?” demanded Fringe.
Jory shook her head in frustration. “I knew they planned an attack, yes, but who would fear an attack when there were three Enforcers along, all trained to a fine edge and with arms enough to destroy the province? Then, too, there was Great Dragon with us. I considered us safe enough.”
“I had a warning,” said Danivon in perplexity. “I had a secret warning from Boarmus. But he said ghosts.”
“Ghosts?” asked Jory, tilting her head to one side as she considered. “Ghosts of whom?”
He shook his head, “He didn’t say.” He turned to Cafferty and Latibor. “How did you find out what they were going to do? How did you know?”
“You yourself knew,” Cafferty said to him. “Come now, think. Even without a warning, you must have known. You must have smelled it. You must have been smelling danger.”
He shook his head at her, unwilling to admit she was right. “My nose doesn’t give me all the details you claim to know,” he said angrily.
These two did not fit his own ideas of who his parents had been. He had thought Princes, perhaps, from some enlightened province. Or respected scientists from some category-eight or-nine place. Not these weary people, draggled by years and sorrow, staring at him with tired yet voracious eyes.
“Your nose coupled to some very professional spying would have given you all sorts of detail,” snorted Jory. “Cafferty and Latibor have spent most of their lives going about among the provinces of Panubi, seeing one thing and another, charting the changes that have been going on in Elsewhere! They’ve planted their little ears to hear the councils of high priests. They’ve listened to the words of chief chimi-hounds in their secret meetings. They’ve known what was planned. And when they came aboard, they told Asner and me.”
“But why were they spying in Derbeck in the first place?” Danivon cried in a voice as much outraged as curious. “What business was it of theirs! Of yours! None of you are Enforcers!”
“Our business here is as valid as your business here, Danivon Luze,” snapped Jory. “You are not the only cock strutting this particular dunghill. Why argue matters of jurisdiction? Here are two folk who haven’t seen you since you were a toddling child! They might like to talk to you and see if you are worth the trouble they took!”
Almost unwillingly, Danivon followed Cafferty and Latibor to the opposite rail, apart from the others, in no more hurry to believe he was their son than they seemingly were to convince him of that fact. The two of them regarded him warily, nostrils flared, backs stiff, like two dogs who have found their only child has turned out to be a cat.
Jory leaned toward Fringe and stroked her cheek. “Put the weapon away, Enforcer. Danivon won’t bother you.”
“What about him?” demanded Fringe, glaring at Curvis.
“Nor him. Neither of them. Not now. Curvis may report you both later, but he hasn’t yet decided to do that.” She looked up at the giant, her eyes squinted half shut, as though trying to see into his heart.
He flushed and turned away angrily. His duty as an Enforcer had been compromised, and he was considerably annoyed. “No,” he said. “Not … I don’t know. Should I? Should I report them? Danivon’s … well, it wasn’t his fault he got saved. And Fringe can’t be blamed much, being only a woman.”
“Only!” shrieked Fringe, taking up her weapon once more.
“Shush, shush,” said Asner. “Danivon’s an illegal escapee from Molock who, so we’re told, has asked forbidden questions, and Fringe, woman or not, has interfered in the affairs of a province. Both of them have sinned against diversity and are already dead, in accordance with the laws of Council Supervisory. Isn’t that so? Of course, Curvis, you are suspect too, for having been in their company.”
Curvis bit his lip and turned away. Fringe put the weapon back on her belt and sank onto the deck beside the unconscious girl.
“What was Chimi-ahm?” asked Bertran, taking Jory by the arm. He thought from the looks of her she needed to lie down and be given hot cups of something restorative. What he could see of her face in the dim light from the wheelhouse was haggard and skull-like, her cheeks shadowed and her eyes strained. Bertran and Nela led her to a low chest and sat her upon it, remarking conversationally, “I saw him, or it. I thought he was real.”
“I thought so too,” Jory agreed, settling herself with a sigh of weariness. “Which surprised me considerably. I
