If the Gods came, she would not be herself in any form, but a slave shape, a used being, a kind of puppet on invisible strings, without even the wits to resent it,
He laid a hand on hers. “Ah, now, don’t faint.”
She breathed deeply, noticing it was his hand that trembled. “How melodramatic!” she managed to say. “A good scare tale, hoicked up for the occasion. Did you dangle it there to see whether I’d scream and fall on the floor?”
He smiled again, a smile that went no farther than his lips. “You didn’t, so you passed. It is remotely possible the Gods could have come here. When something happens nobody can explain, we always suspect the Gods.” Boarmus hadn’t said that, of course, but it was true, nonetheless. True enough that Danivon occasionally woke up shaking from nightmares about it. He too had been taught to fear the Gods, and something long ago in his childhood reinforced that fear. Something he could not even remember, though abandonment might have been part of it.
“Something inexplicable has happened, has it?” she asked.
“Dragons,” he said laconically. “Very strange mysterious dragons. Council Supervisory has been appealed to concerning these dragons. So, Council Supervisory in the person of the Provost says, ‘Danivon, my lad, get up a team and go find out. No hurry. Take your time, but find out if there’s really dragons there, or maybe some other thing that looks like dragons.’ One wonders what the ‘some other thing’ might be, of course.”
Fringe took a deep breath and kept herself still. She had been an Enforcer for a dozen years now. She was of middling-young age, attractive still, but no longer girlish. Still, Danivon’s words were causing an inappropriately girlish reaction—that shivery, half-hysterical negation that comes when one is barely pubescent, that tantrum tumult of the mind, which screams denial at an unhearing world, before one has learned resignation in the face of unavoidable realities. She breathed quietly and reminded herself of who she was, an Enforcer in good standing. A person worthy of respect. She would not panic at the thought of the Gods, or dragons, or Danivon Luze, or any other damned thing.
Consider dragons. What did honor require an Enforcer to do about dragons? What did her own self-image insist upon? What did her oath demand? And, come to that, what was she more frightened of? The Gods in the guise of dragons coming to Elsewhere, or herself going off with Danivon Luze? She felt the heat of him from where she sat, and she badly wanted advice.
“What are you thinking?” Danivon asked her curiously.
“Of a man called Zasper,” she replied soberly.
Curvis and Danivon exchanged glances.
Well, so, she thought. It had been Zasper who’d mentioned her name!
The little animal put his nose in Curvis’s ear and whispered to him. Curvis gave it a square cracker that it took in tiny paws and began to nibble at, turning it around and around, making a perfect circle of it, holding the circle off and admiring it before taking another series of tiny bites around the circumference.
“What is that?” she asked, wanting the subject changed. The little creature had pale violet fur and a long tail with a fluffy tassel at the end. Its habit seemed to be to drape the tassel over its eyes, half hiding them.
“A pocket munk,” said Curvis.
“Not from here?”
“From the forests along the Roga coast.” He prodded his pocket, and another of the little animals peered sleepily forth. “Amusements,” Curvis said. “And friends. They hear people talking, then they come and repeat what they hear. Or one hears in one place, the other repeats it somewhere else. Most useful at times.”
Fringe took a deep breath and settled herself. “Tell me whatever it is you came to say,” she demanded.
“Do you know where Panubi is?”
“Near the equator, somewhere south of the Curward Islands.”
“What do you know about it?”
“It’s a continent, a place.”
“I mean, do you know what kind of place?”
“Hell, Danivon! A partially settled place with a lot of provinces around the edge and empty territory in the middle. Full of weirds and odds, it’s said, though it’s never really been explored. So I was told at Academy. One of Elsewhere’s little mysteries. Is that where your dragons are?”
“Indeed. So it’s said.”
“Send a mechanical, an automatic. Why risk people?”
“Devices have been tried. They don’t come back with anything useful. Of course, neither have people….”
Fringe took a deep breath. “No need to impress me, man. Or frighten me, if that’s what you’re attempting.”
“Listen to her,” said Danivon to Curvis, miming wide-eyed admiration. “Very well, Enforcer. You’re being offered a chance to join an exploration company.”
“How much?”
“Would you consider fame? Honor? How about glory?”
She grinned her bloodletting grin and fingered the fatal-hands dangles below her Enforcer badge. “Piss on that, Danivon. Only dead Enforcers get paid in glory.”
The two men exchanged a significant glance. “Here’s the deal. Appointment as Council Enforcer, twice standard rate, weapons allowance, all expenses, and a lifetime annuity.”
She took another deep breath. Of course, employers didn’t offer a lifetime annuity unless the odds were long against there being any substantial lifetime in which to collect. But appointment as Council Enforcer was likely bait! Then she could have a Universal Pass of her own!
“Who else is going?” she asked.
He looked uncomfortable as he replied, “A couple people.”
“Who?”
“Some strange people. What difference does it make?”
She shrugged. He shrugged a mocking reply and got up to get another drink.
“He
