The Stranger

  The night’s warm velvety haze seemed to gather us into its comforting arms. Soon, Lady Tanita had almost calmed down. A person simply cannot suffer longer than she can suffer. When strength is exhausted, our attention turns to other things, whether we wish it to or not; and that is a great boon.

  “Everyone’s always afraid of you, Sir Max, but I feel so peaceful in your presence.” Lady Tanita’s even embarrassed me with her compliments. “People gossip and say that Sir Venerable Head found you in the other world. Is that true?” she asked suddenly.

  “Almost in the other world,” I confessed, trying to squirm out of this one. “On the border of the County Vook and the Barren Lands.”

  “Too bad,” my companion sighed. “If it had been true, you would have been able to tell me how Karry was doing.”

  Mr. Kovareka was a lucky man, I thought. Even if he were really dead, he had been wrapped in love and concern when he was alive, that much was certain.

  “Don’t jump to conclusions yet, Lady Tanita,” I said, trying to console her. “Maybe nothing irreparable has happened.”

  “It has!” she whispered. “It was not just an ordinary piece of meat, Sir Max. It was a piece of meat in the shape of a human being. And it was wearing Karry’s pajamas!”

  Lady Tanita began sobbing again, but no tears fell from her eyes. She continued to talk, the only way she knew to relieve her pain.

  “We were tired and went to bed very early. There were no customers. There are no customers anywhere tonight. Then I suddenly woke up. You know, Sir Max, I always wake up when Karry is in pain, or even when he’s thirsty. We’ve lived together a long time, now—I suppose that’s why. We married very young. Our parents objected, but they just didn’t understand. So I woke up absolutely certain that something was amiss with Karry. Then I saw that horrible piece of meat wearing his pajamas. There was even something resembling a face. Here we are, Sir Max. I don’t want to go up to the bedroom, though.”

  “I’ll go upstairs alone. And you know what I suggest? If I were you, I’d find the company of my friends, or a relative, just in case worse comes to worst. Get them out of bed and tell them your sorrows. They’ll give you all kinds of potions, and finally you’ll grow tired of simple consolations and fall sound asleep. It may seem unbearable, but . . . it’s a way to keep from losing your mind. I’ll send you a call when I need to question you, but it will most likely not be before morning.”

  “I’ll go over to Shattraya’s. She’s Karry’s youngest sister. Lady Shattraya Kovareka is her full name. She’s a good girl, and I’ll have to comfort her. And that’s better than . . . You’re a very kind person, Sir Max. Only a person who truly knows what pain is could give me such advice. Thank you.”

  “Shall I accompany you?” I called into the darkness.

  “Shattraya lives just on the next street over!” The faint voice of Lady Tanita melted away in the dull orange mist of the streetlights.

  I went into the house through the relatively small living room. Of course, a large part of the house was occupied by the Tipsy Bottle, a cozy little restaurant whose atmosphere was completely incongruous with its silly name. I had been there once during the fall, I seemed to remember. I recalled that I had even chatted with the proprietor, a short, stocky man with an exceptionally thick crop of chestnut hair. At that time I wasn’t yet wearing the Mantle of Death, and I wasn’t constantly being bombarded with polite, strained smiles and terrified looks.

  I went upstairs. If only Lady Tanita had known that, without her, I was as scared as a child whose parents risk leaving him alone for the first time to go to the movies! But there was nothing I could do about it.

  I threw open the door to the bedroom with a heavy heart. My nose was greeted by a smell of tasty food so unexpected that I froze in my tracks. Then I groped around for the light switch. A warm orange light filled the room. Here in Echo, special glowing mushrooms are often used for lighting streets and interiors. They multiply eagerly in special vessels like lampshades. The trick is that the mushrooms begin to shine when something irritates them. The light switch sets brushes in motion that gently but insistently tickle the mushrooms caps. They react instantaneously.

  The orange hue of the angry mushrooms doesn’t appeal to everyone. Many esthetes prefer candles, or spheres with glowing blue gas. Sir Juffin Hully is partial to the latter. I got used to blue light when I lived with him, and I acquired the same kind of spheres for my own living quarters. But now the orange illumination also seemed sweet to me; the people who lived here thought so, too, apparently.

  Thus, the mushrooms worked themselves into a temper, and I was able to glance around.

  Something was lying in the middle of the fluffy carpet among the scattered blankets. That something was indeed dressed in garb resembling pajamas—a roomy skaba made of soft fabric. I had never taught myself to use this unappealing garment. To romp around in a skaba and looxi, that was one thing. But to sleep in a shapeless parachute of a thing that looked like your grandmother’s nightgown—excuse me! That was asking too much. And in a good bed, one must sleep in one’s birthday suit—a time-tested rule.

  The mysterious “something” clearly belonged to the opposing camp, since it was wearing pajamas. Its resemblance to a human being seemed to stop there, however. In front of me was a real piece of meat, well-cooked and appetizing. It gave off a dizzying, tantalizing, and vaguely familiar aroma.

  I inched closer. This was very trying on the nerves. I almost got sick, despite the wonderful aroma. The meat really did have the wretched face of a human being. The remains of its features were encircled by a halo of chestnut curls that even I recognized as belonging to Karwen, though I had only once laid eyes on him. Lady Tanita was right. There were no grounds for hoping otherwise.

  “Sinning Magicians,” I exclaimed aloud. “Now what am I supposed to do!”

  I went down to the living room, entered the dark restaurant, and poured myself a full glass of the contents of the first bottle I grabbed. I couldn’t make out the name of the drink in the darkness, but the taste wasn’t too bad. Then I stuffed my pipe with tobacco. The taste of the local tobacco didn’t matter at all—under the circumstances, it was better than nothing.

  I sat alone at the bar in the light cast by the dim orange nimbus of the streetlight, sipping the anonymous drink, and smoked. This simple ritual was enough to restore some semblance of order to my thoughts. I realized there was no need to bother Melifaro, and especially not Sir Juffin. Let them catch up on their sleep. I’m not such a moron that I can’t handle these routine matters. It’s my job, after all.

  Having resolved my moral deliberations, I went back to the bedroom. The tantalizing smell again seemed familiar to me. Where could I have smelled it before? Not in the Glutton Bunba, that’s for sure. The smell in the Glutton is unique: sharper and spicier. Certainly not in the Sated Skeleton, which delivered my breakfast every morning. And not . . . it remained just out of reach. It didn’t smell like my grandmother’s kitchen. Although . . . I finally went completely astray, as so often happens when you try to fish out a single kernel in the rice pudding of your memories.

  Abandoning this olfactory wild-goose chase, I dug into my pockets for the dagger. The gauge mounted on the handle showed evidence of magic of the second degree. This was not only officially permitted, but also absolutely logical, since I was in the presence of the remains of a restaurant proprietor. And who is more adept at practicing permissible Black Magic than a chef? This modest degree of conjuration, in my humble opinion, was nowhere near potent enough to transform a human being into something like what I saw before me. Fine, we’d deal with that question later. Now I had to remove the body to the House by the Bridge, I reasoned, because that was the proper procedure. Further, I couldn’t bear thinking of that abomination in the marital bower. Sooner or later the sweet Lady Tanita would return. What an incompetent figure I’d cut if she had to see that gruesome piece of meat again!

  It wasn’t that I felt sorry
for this woman, nor could what I experienced have been called pity. It was just that everything that had happened to her seemed to be happening to me, as well. Lady Tanita’s sorrows washed over me like the sound of a television blaring in the next room. It wasn’t inside me, but I couldn’t escape it. In short, I experienced in the flesh the literal meaning of “empathy.”

  There is nothing simpler than carrying out the impossible. You just have to imagine what you must do, and turn your mind off completely. When you come to your senses, everything is already behind you.

  I swear by the World that when I was wrapping the piece of meat in the blanket, I felt not a shred of emotion. I didn’t feel anything later, either, when I was enacting my favorite trick, as a result of which the disgusting mummy fit between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand. And while I was walking through the empty city to the House by the Bridge, my feelings were dormant, as though some part of myself, tender and vulnerable, had been put into cold storage until better times.

  When I reached the Ministry, I wondered where I should unload my burden. Perhaps in the small, dark chamber, thoroughly insulated from the rest of the world, where material evidence was stored? Or in one of the chilly, spacious basement rooms that served as the morgue and were nearly always empty? I was so perplexed about this dilemma that I decided to consult Kurush.

  “If you’re sure that this was once a person, it can only be a corpse,” said the wise bird.

  I felt relieved. Here was some degree of certainty, in any case.

  Only after the aromatic corpse was on the stone floor did I allow myself to become a bundle of nerves again.

  I went to wash my hands. I washed them for a full half hour, scraping away at the skin with my fingernails.

  After this ritual purification on my upper extremities, I felt better and went back to the office.

  “An auspicious End of the Year, eh?” I said, winking at Kurush. “A visit from a beautiful damsel and a mountain of food.”

  “Are you serious, Max?” asked the buriwok cautiously. “I don’t think you can eat that. In fact, people are constantly eating all kinds of junk they shouldn’t.”

  “Of course I’m joking,” I said, petting the bird’s soft feathers. “Do you know whether there’s any good kamra left over around here, Kurush? The kind I didn’t make, that is?”

  “In Melifaro’s office there’s most likely a whole jug of it,” the buriwok replied. “I saw them bring it in, and I know the master of the office left a few minutes later. They also had pastries with them, so who knows.”

  “Great.”

  I catapulted headlong into the office of my “daylight half.” On the table I found a jug of kamra and several pastries. The fellow had been so eager to return to his home, now emptied of relatives, that he didn’t bother to finish the treats, though at his habitual rate of consumption they should have been gone in seconds flat, so Kurush and I were in luck. We were unlikely to reach the ever-hospitable Madame Zizinda with a call. Any other time or season, sure, but not the Last Night of the Year.

  Toward morning, I managed not only to drink all the kamra and help Kurush clean the sticky cream off his beak, I did more: I drew up a plan of action. I was ready to accept the challenge, in the spirit of Melamori and her gambling fever. It was the first time in my professional life that I had been on a case from the word go. With all my heart I wanted to see it through to the end, and to do everything properly. Naturally, there could be no thought of dealing with it all on my own. That wasn’t necessary. But I felt that when Juffin arrived, I simply had to greet him, not only with the news of the sordid case, but also with an aim to solving it.

  Juffin, it seemed, had sensed something was up, arriving much earlier than he was expected.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” the chief announced gloomily, sitting down in his chair. “Everything all right with you, Max?”

  “With me, yes. But as for a certain sweet lady—no, I wouldn’t say so. This wondrous night has left a widow in its wake.”

  Then I reported to Juffin what had happened, down to the last detail.

  “Hm, is that why I jumped out of bed this morning like I had been stung? What I want to know is whether Zizinda has opened her lair already, or whether she’s still in the land of nod. Never mind, she won’t refuse to stir her stumps for such an old customer. Now I’ll just take a glance at your ‘piece of meat,’ and it’s off to breakfast. Let’s go, Sir Max.”

  After a visit to the morgue, we went out to the Glutton. Just where was the logic in our actions, I wondered. Madame Zizinda greeted us at the door. Evidently, her intuition was in fine working order, too.

  “Juffin, I’ve had some time to think,” I mumbled, turning red and staring at my plate. “Actually, I have a plan.”

  “What’s wrong with you, Max?” the chief raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Where is your ever-ready supply of self-confidence?”

  “Well, you see, when I was mulling it over I felt so smart and clever; but now . . . Of course, you’ll have your own plan of action. And mine is no match for it, I’m sure.”

  “Nonsense,” said Juffin and patted me on the back. “So what if I have? And what makes you think I have one at all? Come on, then. Out with it.”

  “This is what I think. It’s all very strange, of course. I don’t know whether this is unprecedented—maybe during the Epoch of Orders . . . In short, I would submit a request to the Main Archive. Let Lookfi question all the buriwoks. If there was a precedent, it could help us. Then we have to find out more about Mr. Karwen Kovareka. Maybe he got mixed up with some Mutinous Magicians, stumbled on a secret of the Order, for instance? We have to find out. I think for Kofa, finding out is just a matter of one, two, three. And Melamori probably has to visit the bedroom to discover whether anyone else was there who shouldn’t have been. I don’t think so myself, but just to make sure I can talk to Lady Tanita. She seems to like me. I gave her some advice about how not to lose her mind, and we made friends. Now, Melifaro, I think, should lead the parade. He knows how to ignite everyone’s interest, and he can manage Boboota’s boys, as well. That’s about it.”

  “Wonderful!” exclaimed Juffin. “This means I can even retire tomorrow if I want to. You’re really a fine fellow, and I mean that with all my heart. Eat up!”

  I tucked into my food, already growing cold, with relish.

  “We’ll put your plan into action,” Juffin said in a decisive tone. “You seem to have all the bases covered. I have only one comment to make.”

  “What is that?” I said, my mouth full of food, and happy that there was just one comment.

  “You must remember how you recognized the smell,” he said earnestly.

  “Oh, Juffin. I’ve already broken my head—my nose—over that one. It’s no use.”

  “I know one thing for sure: it’s not from your world. You can trust me on this one. It’s a very strange scent, but it is indigenous to this World. There’s not the slightest doubt about it. So start walking around town. Visit one by one all the taverns you’ve been in before. And sniff them out. Who knows?”

  “Okay, but what’s to say that when I find the place they’ll be serving the same thing?”

  “You’re lucky, Max. That’s your only guarantee. The main thing is not to come down with the sniffles—this is absolutely the wrong time. Let’s go to the Ministry. You’ll be in command, and I can enjoy myself.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Why should I want to do that? Your plan deserves the highest praise. So implement it.”

  “Juffin, it’s much easier for me to do things myself than to explain to a bunch of people what I think they should be doing.”

  “I know. I’m the same way. But life doesn’t always live up to our expectations. You have to get used to that.”

  We returned to the House by the Bridge. Then Juffin went home to have a few dreams, since, as he said, his faith in me was absolute. He had finally convinced me of that. I also understood that I had
to crack this case before sunset or die. Or at least burn up from shame, and become a silver residue of ash somewhere in a dark corner of the Ministry for Perfect Public Order. And it has plenty of dark corners.

  I heaved a sigh, gathered my wits, and got down to work. I sent a call to Melifaro, to Sir Kofa, and to Melamori. I told them to report to work. All three of them were shaken down to the soles of their feet. I wasn’t so fluent in Silent Speech, though, that I could offer my colleagues the opportunity to say everything they thought about me and my idiotic appeal at daybreak on the First Day of the Year. “Over and out!” I barked, and signed off, realizing further cause for why Juffin had been so willing to give me a chance to prove my mettle.

  There was no point in bothering Lookfi. The buriwoks from the Main Archive don’t open their beaks before noon. They have their own daily rhythm of existence. It’s only our Kurush who is a saint.

  Melamori was the first to arrive. It seemed I had given her a reasonable pretext for escaping the parental embrace a few hours earlier than planned. In any case, she wasn’t angry.

  “You look fabulous!” It was impossible for me not to gush. “Have you had enough sleep?” I gallantly filled her cup with kamra.

  “Has something happened, or did you just miss me?” Melamori asked with a grin.

  “Of course I missed you, but that’s no reason to wake you up at dawn. I’m not such an ogre as they claim I am. Well, I wouldn’t think twice about devouring a few dozen old men and babies. But not allowing a lady to sleep her fill?”

  “Well, whatever has happened?”

  “A corpse happened. And a strange one it was. You can come to admire it—and to enjoy the aroma at the same time. I’m not kidding: take a deep whiff. Then come back here. There will be another cup of kamra waiting for you, and an assignment.”