“Most places would agree,” said Questioner.
“She’d of been blue-bodied sure, if anyone had caught her at it.”
Questioner murmured, “I wonder who Ashes really is … “
“Jong,” interrupted someone. “Ashes is jongau.”
The voice sent a thrill through Mouche, shivering him to his feet. “Timmy,” he whispered, as though to himself. “Timmy?”
The others turned, Ornery crouching defensively, searching the darkness. The voice came as a spider-silk whisper, drifting to their ears a word or two at a time, from any direction and from none:
“Mouchidi.”
A caress, that voice, as it whispered, “She, the evil one is gone.”
And another voice. “She will never come to the Fauxi-dizalonz where Bofusdiaga waits. She will never be remade.”
Questioner turned on her massive feet, peering into the darkness. She saw only a vanishing glimpse of moving colors around a globe of wavering green, like a cloud of seagrass.
“It’s the Timmys,” cried Mouche, who had turned an instant earlier. “The dancers!” He could not mistake that movement, that slender, sylphlike form. The most graceful creatures mankind could produce could be only an awkward copy of that.
Questioner muttered to herself, “Aha. So here is our indigenous race!” Then, making her voice soft and unthreatening, she called, “Why have you come here?”
The first voice came again, fading, departing: “We were coming for Mouchidi. Corojum said go get him. Now you are coming anyhow, so we will lead you across the seas, but you must hurry.”
Questioner stood, immovable. “Why should I listen to you? You have stolen my people.”
“They are not hurt,” said a slightly different voice, sounding both impatient and surprised. “We do not hurt things as you do. Two of them are dancers! We needed dancers. Even now they skim the waters, on their way across the seas to the Fauxi-dizalonz. They go there to help us with the dance.”
The last words faded into distance. She or he or it was not waiting for them to get closer, so much was clear.
“What dance?” whispered Ornery.
“I have no idea,” Questioner replied. “Though I had no doubt dancers might be helpful.”
“Oh, Questioner, we’ll find out,” cried Mouche. “What an adventure!”
Adventure or not, he stood as one stunned by delight, incapable of movement. It had been her, its voice. The voice of divinity.
“Come,” said Questioner, shoving him gently. “I think haste may be appropriate.”
Down the road from Mantelby Mansion, the man known as Ashes sat in a carriage behind two black horses. They and their saddled stablemate, tethered to the back of the carriage, heard the sounds of approaching feet before Ashes did. They started and stamped their feet, ears erect.
“Daddy Thunder?” called a voice.
“Here,” said Ashes in his deep, dead voice. “D’jou get the ring?”
“Couldn’t get it off her damn finger,” said Bane. “Didn’t have my knife to cut the finger off. Figured you’d rather we got here on time than go off hunting for cutlery.”
“Damnation. She had that ring when I knew her under the bridges. I wanted it. A souvenir. She’s dead?”
“By now, I’d say. Good thing we saw that picture at Madame’s place. Otherwise we wouldn’ta known which machine it was.”
“You’da known. I told you the Machinist fixed it the way I told him. He fixed it so’s it couldn’t hurt our kin, not any of the sons of Thunder. He put sensors in the pads so it wouldn’t run if it was you, or me. That machine’s your friend, boy. You could’a got on it with her, it’d of killed her and set you down without a scratch. Well, that’ll pay her back for the daughter she owed me!”
“So how come she picked us? The way we smell, we figured nobody would.”
The man smiled. “She’s addicted to the smell. Not that she knows it’s a smell. I can do the same to anybody when I’ve got a little time. Once they’ve got the smell in their head, they’re gone, lost, can’t do a thing against it.”
“What’d you mean, paying her back for the daughter she owed you?”
“Arrgh. Three times I tried for a Rikajor daughter. They were said to run to girls. Rikajor refused me each time. He couldn’t refuse me Marool. Her, I bought with other coin.”