Curvis and Danivon shared expressive glances.
“What?” asked Fringe.
“Shh,” said Danivon.
When they came to the pier, sailors leapt ashore carrying lines to make fast. The riverside was piled high with straw-wrapped bundles, crates and barrels, cargoes coming and going. On the riverfront, white-clad little people scurried madly here and there, wheeling carts and barrows, carrying kegs upon their shoulders, crying their wares in surprisingly high and plangent voices, like bells. “The Murrey,” said the captain, spitting from the corner of his mouth. Among these little people walked a taller folk, dressed in brightly patterned fabrics and carrying parasols, waving fringed sleeves at one another, chatting in shrill, bird-cheep sounds. “The Houm.”
Beyond the scurry at the wharfs were the outskirts of the town, low buildings separated by cobbled streets, then higher structures as the streets rose from the unstable land of the delta and gained the more solid ground away from the river.
Danivon moved uncomfortably, overwhelmed by the stink. It seemed to come at him like a wind from the shore.
“What?” Fringe asked, seeing the pain on his face.
He shook his head gently. Any sudden movement hurt. “I don’t know. I’ve never smelled anything like it before. I wish we hadn’t had to stop here.” He remembered Boarmus’s message. Both messages. The smell of the place was the smell of Boarmus’s message. Deadly. Horrible.
Fringe remembered that same message. Though she didn’t know what it had contained, its method of delivery meant it could only have been a warning. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, seeking any sign of the people from noplace. All of them were below and evidently intended to stay there.
She spun back to the rail as a drum spoke warningly from behind the nearer buildings, TID-dit, TID-dit again, then a steady tattoo. TIDdit-’-aTUM-tum TIDdit-’-aTUM-tum. Those who came shambling behind the drums were neither the little nor the tall, neither the white-clad ones nor the bright folk with their bitsy parasols. These had long and tangled hair, bare arms scarified upon the shoulders and tattooed from there to the fingertips, and they grunted in time with the drums as they slouched forward: HA-ghn, HA-ghn, HA-ghn, scattering the Murrey as a great fish scatters a shoal of tiny ones. The fragile Houm dissolved before them.
“Not the Murrey and not the Houm,” murmured Curvis, in Fringe’s ear. “These are the chimi-hounds Ghatoun spoke of, so watch it.”
So much she might have guessed from the weapons they carried. Fringe was suddenly glad of the broad-beam heat gun on her belt and her usual weapon in her boot, either of which was considerably better than anything the chimi-hounds were carrying.
“Captain,” the hound leader drawled, making a sneer of it. “Kap-tahng.”
“Chief.”
“You got pahssen-jhairs?”
“None for Derbeck. Cargo, but no passengers.”
“I see your mah-ni-fest, Kap-tahng.”
“As you will,” said the captain, nervously eyeing the remaining hounds lounging on the pier. He led the way to his cabin, the chimi-hound swaggering after. The remaining hounds slouched insolently at the edge of the pier, staring at the women, making obscene finger talk to one another.
“Nela,” Fringe muttered. “If I were you, I’d work my way over to the cabins and go below. Bertran.”
The twins were already on their way, walking as casually as they could manage it.
Fringe, Danivon, and Curvis turned their backs on the chimi-hounds and went to the opposite railing.
Danivon muttered, “Boarmus told me to look this place over, but we’re not traveling here as Enforcers.”
“We don’t have to be Enforcers to look it over,” said Curvis lazily. “Let’s stick with our disguise and see what happens.”
The captain stuck his head out of the wheelhouse. “Showman Luze,” he called in a tight voice, “could you come in here?”
Danivon went in a hesitating strut, unable to see clearly for the pressure in his head. After a time, Fringe and Curvis were invited to join him. They found Danivon and the captain, both of them white about the lips, confronting a jovial and mad-eyed chimi-hound.
“This man says the boss chief wants us to bring the sideshow ashore,” said Danivon. His words were clear, though his eyes were unfocused. “As part of his preelection festivities.”
Fringe stared at her lap, where her hands tried relentlessly to control one another. She made them relax.
Danivon turned a vague, unseeing look on her, which she interpreted as a caution. “The boss chief has somehow learned … of the performance we gave in Shallow. He is pleased that we have arrived here in Derbeck, where he invites us to perform at the celebration of his election as leader.”
“Is small thing to ask,” cried the chimi-hound in trade language. “If people say no-can, we wonder why! Such wonder makes us fret. We are silly people when we fret. We do nasty things.” He grinned widely, showing sharpened teeth.
“When is the election?” asked Fringe in the same emotionless tone Danivon was using.
“Tomorrow,” cried the hound. “So, you see, is only small delay in your journey. You come to banquet. Tonight.”
“What banquet is that?”
“Boss chief’s banquet, that one, in warehouse at top of Moolie Street. All chimi-hound chiefs will be there. All high priests will be there. Maybeso High Lord Chimi-ahm will be there with Lady Zhulia and Chibbi the Dancer and Lord Balal!”
“Five of us can come,” said Danivon. “The two old people are not strong enough.”
“Mah-ni-fest say seven in show,” said the chimi-hound with hectic gaiety. “All come. Seven. Seven is good number.” His eyes glittered and he turned to smile at Fringe, a theropsian smile, full of teeth. The pupils of his eyes were very small. Here and there in his face small muscles jumped, like tiny creatures trapped there, individually attempting to free themselves.
“I’ll go speak to Jory,” said Fringe in her noncommittal voice.
Below, she blurted out the demand. “There’s a threat there.” She shook her head, trying to define it. “Danivon looks stunned, or drugged from what he’s smelling. I think the hound is drugged. His eyes
