Sideshow

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “But they don’t have the answer.”

  “Lazy,” it again with a horrible gulp. “No concentration. Thinking of other things than their duty to us! We will take some of them and put them somewhere and then we will make them answer!”

  “Who?” whispered one. “Who will we take?”

  “Those ones,” it gulped with vengeful satisfaction. “Who asked questions about us. Those ones on Panubi!”

  FOUR

  10

  In Du-you, Curvis seized up Jory and Asner, one under each arm, and led the members of the sideshow, abandoning all their paraphernalia, in headlong flight down to the riverside. Behind them dragons rampaged through the city, appearing and disappearing while Houm and Murrey fled wildly before them. When the first dragons reached the riverfront, the chimi-hounds guarding the booms ran howling, a dereliction immediately taken advantage of by the captain of the Dove. Four stocky deckmen skimmed a small boat off to the nearest boom tower, the booms were raised, and the Dove was poled down the channel to the river. Once there, the strongest oarsmen thrust at the sweeps to move the Dove quickly into open water as the little boat came scuttling to catch up. The sails were raised and the Dove dug its bow into the River Fohm once more.

  On the deck, in the midst of all this frantic activity, Fringe crouched over the recumbent and unconscious body of Alouez, a weapon in each hand, daring either Danivon or Curvis to come near her. She would not let them touch the girl, and she would not give them a reason for her action. How could she give them a reason? How say she recognized that lost expression, knew that same feeling of agonized helplessness. How say she was moved by it as by an instinctive frenzy of self-preservation. She could no more abandon the child than she could have abandoned herself, but she could not say why. She did not understand why.

  “You can’t fight us both off,” Curvis threatened. “Give her to me. I’ll take the little boat and get her back to shore while there’s still time.”

  “You and what other six Enforcers,” snarled Fringe.

  “Leave Fringe alone,” Jory told the two men. “Leave her!”

  Danivon cursed at length.

  “Leave her alone,” said Jory again. “She is only doing for this child what someone did for you.”

  “Don’t talk silly, old woman. Do you expect me to believe …” he snarled.

  “Yes,” she said, beckoning toward the shadows of the deckhouse where the two castaways stood. “I expect you to believe this is Latibor Luze, who fathered you; this is Cafferty Luze, who bore you. They were in Molock when you were born, and still there when you were chosen for the temple. They saved your life, then Zasper Ertigon saved you again, risking everything for you.” She shook her head at him warningly, then turned to Fringe. “Do I have that name right?”

  “Yes, Zasper Ertigon,” Fringe confirmed in an exhausted voice. “And I have broken my promise to him, never to tell.” Her eyes filled with guilty tears, but they did not blink as she glared at the two men.

  Danivon stared unbelievingly at the two castaways and threw up his hands. “This is all crazy! I don’t have time for this! We were sent after dragons, and we’ve found the dragons! That’s what we should be concentrating on!”

  “These aren’t the dragons you were looking for,” said Jory in a firm voice. “Believe me.”

  “Why should I believe you?” he yelled.

  Latibor took something from around his neck and handed it to him. “Will this convince you?” he murmured, staring into the younger man’s face.

  He took the thing reluctantly, bending down to peer at it. Curvis struck a light.

  “My medallion,” said Danivon, grabbing for his neck. He found his own hanging where it always hung.

  “Not yours,” said Cafferty softly. “Latibor’s. Jory has given these medallions to all the people she’s chosen. She calls them a conceit, but they serve to identify us to one another.”

  “What is this design?” demanded Danivon.

  “It is a depiction of Great Dragon ridden by the prophetess,” said Jory in a peevish voice. “Cafferty’s right. It’s a conceit. I was a prophetess once.”

  Cafferty said, “I’ve always regarded it as a promise that if we are in dire distress Great Dragon will come to our aid as he did tonight. I put my medallion around your neck before we put you in the ship that carried you to safety from Molock.”

  “Great Dragon, Great Dragon,” Nela cried, “what is it? Where did it come from? Where did they all come from?”

  “Great Dragon is a friend of mine,” Jory soothed. “The lesser dragons you saw are his great-great-grandchildren. They have the power to be seen or not, as they choose, and until tonight they did not choose. They are no danger to you, to any of you, and they are not the dragons you’re looking for. The dragons you’re looking for were seen over the wall from Thrasis, and they are something else entirely.”

  “Has he been here, on this ship?” demanded the captain. “This big one?”

  “Sometimes on this ship,” she replied.

  “We’ve been riding low,” he said sulkily. “I wondered why. A monstrous heavy beast, this beast of yours. And where is it now?”

  “He is heavy, yes. He goes on growing all his life, and my friend has had a long life. However, it is no beast, certainly no beast of mine. You can tell where he is now from the consternation along the Ti’il. I would say he and his descendants are leading the people a merry chase, to their discomfiture though likely to no lasting harm. Though he is prideful, he is also a most tolerant and peaceable creature.”

  “Why?” cried Danivon, his Enforcer’s pride outraged. “Why did he show up now? We weren’t in danger just then!”

  Asner snorted, shaking his head at Danivon, and Danivon flushed, conscious of having sounded ridiculous. He was accustomed to thinking of danger only as it applied to himself or other Enforcers, but of course there had been danger: danger to the girl child, danger and death to the people of Derbeck, danger to Jory and Asner and the twins. The danger to themselves he had believed he could handle, or escape, for he had not smelled his own death as a creeping cold thing with a stench he knew well. He fell silent, staring at the toes of his boots in order not to look at any of them.

  Jory broke the silence by waving a bony finger at them all. “Listen, and I will tell you what Latibor and Cafferty found out in Derbeck: Houdum-Bah, fed much rancid broth of resentment by the priests of Chimi-ahm, brewed plans for rebellion against Council Supervisory, deciding that his first act against them should be one of unmistakable contempt and defiance. Such gestures occur from time to time on Elsewhere, as you must know. Why else have Enforcers, save to keep such as Houdum-Bah in check?”

  Danivon turned toward her, suddenly attentive.

  “Houdum-Bah aspires to conquer Beanfields, and then Shallow,” offered Latibor. “The priests told him this is possible, that Council Supervisory is weak and vacillating and will do nothing.”

  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 h
ave 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 had expected an attack, but not from that quarter! I had not expected their devil god to be real!”

  “What did you expect?” asked Nela, settling with Bertran beside her.

  “Customarily the Derbeckians summon their gods through fasting and chanting, through exhaustion and suggestion and clouds of hallucinogenic smoke blown from their altars. At least, so they have done until now, and the priests profited mightily from it. When did those priests find something to flesh out their dabbo-dam?”

  “It’s probably the same thing that infected them with ideas of conquest,” said Asner thoughtfully.

  “No doubt. No doubt at all. Something inimical and evil,” agreed Jory. “And whatever it is, it isn’t only in Derbeck but extends all across Elsewhere. Latibor and Cafferty have searched for it. Asner and I have gone back and forth, trying to find evidence of it. Great Dragon is concerned about it. Until tonight we’d seen only the tracks of the beast—pain, torture, violence, the worst that man is capable of, multiplied—but we had not seen the beast itself! And even tonight it wore a mask!”

  “The possesseds,” said Fringe. “Before we started on this journey, Danivon said we might encounter possesseds!”

  The two old people gazed at her with undisguised amazement. “Possesseds?” asked Jory. “What do you mean, possesseds?”

  “Something possessed by the Hobbs Land Gods,” Curvis said firmly. “Something no longer human.”

  Jory and Asner exchanged glances. Asner started to speak and Jory shushed him. “How very interesting,” she said.

  Fringe said, “It would be a tragedy if they were here, for only here have we retained …” She caught her breath and looked at the girl lying beside her on the deck.

  “Diversity.” Curvis finished her statement in an angry tone. “Which Fringe does not so much value now as she did this afternoon.”

  “This girl is a different matter,” Fringe muttered. “You don’t know….” She fell silent, confused.

  Bertran looked at the sky and drawled, “Fringe was about to say this situation is different from all other situations. While we were growing up, Nela and I learned that our own situations are always different from all other situations, and regardless of the laws or customs, only we ourselves can be trusted to make proper decisions about them.”

  “Other people, however, must follow the rules,” added Nela, her lips twisting into a wry smile. “For other people are, without exception, less moral, less well informed, and less ethically motivated than we.”

  “Shut up,” muttered Fringe. “Damn it. I’m not a fool! I’m aware of the hypocrisy. You of all people ought to understand why I took her!”

  “We do understand,” said Nela, suddenly contrite. She bit her lip and cast a sidelong look at Bertran.

  “That’s what she’s saying,” he said to Fringe. “She’s trying … we’re trying to apologize for our earlier … lack of understanding. We’re saying we don’t blame you for … whatever you feel you have to do.”

  “You blame me if I don’t do,” said Fringe in a weary voice. “If I do do, Curvis blames me. And Danivon.”

  Jory nodded. “That’s true, but then, Curvis and Danivon foresee trouble. They’d be fools if they didn’t. If they don’t take action against you, they become accomplices, because word of your action will get back to Tolerance, if it hasn’t already.”

  Fringe
was simply too tired to answer. She could not explain to herself what she’d done or why she’d done it. She longed for Zasper. He’d done the same thing she had. He could advise her. Or maybe he couldn’t! No one had seen Zasper break the law. Zasper had done it secretly, and he’d kept it quiet. How could Fringe keep this quiet? Everyone knew what she’d done. And they’d heard Zasper’s name used too. She’d allowed that to be blurted about. She dropped her head, feeling terror all at once, for Zasper, for herself. What had she done!

  It was too much! She should be able to live without all these feelings, these guilts and urges and fallings short! She should be able to be what she so longed to be, clean and pure and hard, like the blade she carried, fitted for the job it had to do, without all these mawkish sorrows, without all these painful sentiments. She was sick of feelings!

  A cool old hand stroked her forehead. “Put the child over there on that pile of sail,” said Jory. “Lie down beside her and hold her, Fringe. She needs caring arms about her, and it is not yet the end of this world.”

  Too weary to argue, Fringe did as she was bid. It might not be the end of the world, and yet it felt monstrously like it.

  Those left behind stood wordlessly against the rail.

  “It’s time I went below,” said Curvis in a tone of haughty annoyance. “I must consider what to do.”

  “Don’t go. Wait,” said Jory.

  He peered at her through the darkness. “For what, old woman?”

  “I get hunches,” she said, staring into the darkness.

  “You’re having one now?”

  “Something like.”

  He waited for some moments, then prompted her, “Hunches about what?”

  “You wouldn’t question there was something dreadful there in Derbeck?” she asked. “Something that knew we were coming? Something aimed at us?”

  “I wouldn’t question that, no. And so?”

  “And so, now we’ve left, I don’t think whatever it was will stay behind in Derbeck,” she said. “Not now that it has us located. I think we may expect some additional … outrage.”