“A fortune-telling device,” explained Nela.
“Oh, goody,” cried Jory. “Well, then, why don’t we leave it to the machine. Your machine, Fringe Owldark, to answer your own objections. Show me what to do.”
Fringe sulkily pointed at the levers, and Jory picked three of them to touch, gently. One red. One green. One blue.
The machine trembled. Small bells rang tunefully. Fringe stiffened. She hadn’t arranged for melody. The bells were random; they rang when hit by one of the traveling capsules, sometimes in harmony, sometimes in dissonance, but there was no way to make them play a tune. “In this world of Elsewhere,” they rang. “Elsewhere’s where I go….”
The tune played on. Glittering gems moved out from the center of the device and spun at the far edges, spiraling like a tiny galaxy. One far light gleamed brighter than the rest. It shone, like a little sun. It spun, moving onto a nearer track, circled, coming closer, still closer, then fell into the bin. Abruptly the music stopped, the machine quivered and was still.
Fringe glared at her invention. It wasn’t supposed to stop until it had delivered at least three capsules.
“Now what?” asked Jory, peering into Fringe’s face.
Fringe picked the capsule out of the bin and turned it in her hand, seeking the word she had lettered upon it. It was there, but not in her handwriting. Not in her letters. Not a word she had painted at all.
“Go!” it said.
“Go!” read Asner, taking it from her.
“Go!” whispered Jory to Fringe, her eyes glinting like cut gems in the sidelong light. “Well now, isn’t that nice.”
Houmfon: capital city of the province of Derbeck, a river port half a day’s sail up the Ti’il from its confluence with the Fohm. Cobbled streets, arcades, shaded gardens, and a town square beside the Palace wall where the great iron gates are shut tight and draped with purple. In the Palace, Old Man Daddy is dying.
He has lived a long full life. He has killed all his enemies face-to-face and most of his friends from behind. He has eaten from golden plates and drunk from goblets of pearl (after his taster has tried everything first). He has had seven wives and a hundred concubines (though only one son), and now he is dying. He lies on his canopied bed in the lowest tower room, a rock-walled round beneath the treasure vaults, his breath wheezing in and out, his eyes rolling blindly beneath their shuttered lids, his hands twitching on the covers as though they needed to grab one more thing, one more time. On the curved benches around the walls sit the dozen chiefs of the chimi-hounds and the dozen high priests of the dabbo-dam. The dabbo-dam holds the manifestation of Chimi-ahm; the chimi-hounds hold the fount of power. Old Man Daddy has held both, but now they are slipping away. His breath rasps and his fingers grab at nothing.
Around the walls the chiefs and the high priests exchange significant glances. Old Man Daddy has been a much loved son of Chimi-ahm, a faithful practitioner of dabbo-dam, a generous patron of the chimi-hounds, no less in his latter days than in earlier ones. Recently Old Man has known he hadn’t much longer, recently Old Man has arranged everything. The chimi-hounds have been paid and new, powerful weapons smuggled in from a category-six province have been put in their hands. The priests have been paid and gifts made at the altars. After the funeral and the proper period of mourning, an election is to be announced. The result of that election, already paid for by Old Man Daddy, is to be foretold by dabbo-dam and assured by the hounds.
It has been arranged. If people do not agree, the hounds will put an end to dissent. Mutterers will go flying, leaking from many holes. Old people. Women. Brats. Blood everywhere. That’s what makes elections. When all the blood is washed away, Old Man Daddy’s only son, Fat Slick, will have been elected Holy-head of Derbeck. In Houmfon, the great image of Chimi-ahm will smile, confirming the work of man. Then there’ll be fireworks and barbecue and everybody singing and no doubt Chimi-ahm himself will come down to walk with the people, for Chimi-ahm (unfortunately) has been doing that frequently of late.
Chimi-ahm, in fact, has become almost as worrisome to his priests as he always has been to the populace at large. Before now, Chimi-ahm usually did what the priests thought best. Now, strangely, it seems to be the other way around.
Still, the knowing glances dart from chieftain to high priest to chieftain again, sliding across the ladder against the wall, the ladder leading up to the treasure vaults. Though Old Man Daddy named him as successor, Fat Slick is a witless wonder, a slob-lipped nothing much. His mama was a luscious though brainless High Houm often possessed by Zhulia the Whore, the female personage of Chimi-ahm. Old Man Daddy has always claimed Fat Slick was his own get (and who’d have said different), but with Old Man no longer able to say … well, maybe Fat Slick isn’t Old Man’s son at all. Maybe he’s nothing much. Who’s to say who’s been bought and what’s been paid for? Chimi-ahm whispers maybe it’s some other man’s son? Maybe the high priest’s son? Or the son of the boss chimi-hound chief? Or the boss chimi-hound chief himself, old Houdum-Bah?
Outside, in the hall, where the long tables are kept stocked with drinks and eatables and sniffables, outside are whisperers, scurriers, fetchers, and mutterers, dressed all in white with white cloths twisted around their heads, naked feet painted blue, backs of their hands painted blue, blue stripes on forehead and cheek, little people, servant people, the zur-Murrey, which means “blue boys” in the old language, the tongue most of the people still speak. The Murrey are as human as the highest of the Houm, but they are beige and small, with stiff black hair that stands up like a
