The Stranger

  “Excellent!” I said. “That’s just where I wanted to go. How about you, Melifaro?”

  “Absolutely! Shall we go now, or after we eat?”

  “However we can, without being noticed.”

  “Why?” Melifaro asked in surprise. “Do you think anyone would dare try to stop us?”

  “No. But all the same, I don’t want anyone to see us. We Borderlanders are so shy and inscrutable.”

  “Yes, especially when you’ve had a drop too much of Elixir of Kaxar. Well, if you don’t want anyone to notice us, so be it. How do you suggest we pull it off?”

  “For a start, we tactfully send a call to that booth, to find out whether anyone is there. If there is, we’ll just have to wait while they split their sides laughing. If not, we’ll have to hurry before someone comes. Shall we?”

  “I’m only doing it for your sake. Yes, there’s one fellow in there. A very sleepy one! He didn’t notice a thing. He didn’t even twitch.”

  “Well, we’re in luck. That means we’ll have time to eat.”

  “I hope so. I was already starving when we were in the Archive, if you’ll remember. Then what will we do?”

  “Nothing much. We’ll wait till that gloomy damsel returns to the kitchen. Then we’ll just slip into the booth and find out how it smells.”

  “Smells? Do you think—”

  “I don’t think anything. We’ll just have to wait and see. But I smell a rat.”

  “A rat? What’s a rat, Max? Is it some delicacy from the Barren Lands and you recognize he smell?”

  I was already weary of idiomatic misunderstandings, so I didn’t say anything.

  The gloomy old lady, who entered bearing two trays in her muscular hands, distracted us from the talk of rats that so confounded my colleague. Then we attacked the food with gusto. ‘Crystal clarity of taste’ was a very apt description. Even I was able to appreciate it.

  “Try to exercise a bit of restraint,” I suggested to Melifaro. “Don’t eat everything at once. Leave a bit on your plate.”

  “Why should I? Oh, I understand. You mean we might have to hang around here a while. Don’t worry. The sleepyhead’s on his way out, I’m keeping track of him.”

  “Ah! Well, don’t hold back, then. Dig in. I grant you permission.”

  “Thank you,” Melifaro mumbled, his mouth full of food. When we both had nearly cleaned our plates, he said, “I think we can venture out now . . . no, wait a second. He’s still standing in the hall.” He paused. “Perfect. I needed to finish chewing that last morsel. Come on, Max. The moment has arrived. The old shrew isn’t anywhere in sight.”

  We slipped out, and in a matter of seconds we were inside the booth, which the magnificent General Boboota had lately graced with his world-renowned presence.

  “Sinning Magicians! That smell!” Melifaro whispered in alarm. “The smell was coming from here. The sleepyhead was feasting on King Banjee, or whatever the dish is called. They’ve already cleared away the dishes, but it smells just like the kitchen!”

  “Not ‘like’ the kitchen. It’s coming from the kitchen.”

  “No, Max. The kitchen is to the left of the entrance. Didn’t you see where the hunchback went with our order?”

  “That means there are two kitchens,” I murmured. “Think about it. The smell is very powerful just here. And it’s the only smell around. Why don’t you tell me something else, Sir Ninth Volume—can your limitless wisdom lead us to find a door that a blockhead like me would have to look for until tomorrow morning?”

  “A secret door? Good thinking, Max. Let me look.”

  Melifaro closed his eyes. He shuffled around the room uncertainly. I froze, expecting the loud crash of overturned furniture.

  It didn’t come. He carefully skirted a chair standing in his path, then continued to inch forward. By the far wall, he stopped, and got down on all fours. Then he went on with his search.

  “Here it is!” Melifaro looked up at me, beaming. “Come here, Max. I’ve got something to show you.”

  I shuddered. His half-closed eyelids shone with pale green phosphorescence in the murky semidarkness.

  “Look!”

  “Well? It’s just a regular floor. Ah, I see. It’s warm!” I discovered that one spot on the floor was almost hot to the touch.

  “Warm!” Melifaro huffed. “Well, you could have found the blasted door yourself, then!”

  “It would have taken me hours to find it, crawling around on my hands and knees. Your way is much better.”

  I couldn’t admit that I still had no clue about my own abilities in this area.

  “Do you want me to open it for you, too?” Melifaro inquired spitefully.

  “It’s in your own best interests. Didn’t Juffin ever tell you how I once tried to open a box containing the Royal Gift?”

  “He told us. He gathered us all together and said, ‘People! If you want to stay alive, don’t allow Sir Max to open cans of preserves in your presence!’ We were terribly frightened, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

  “‘Preserves’? Is that what you said, ‘preserves’?”

  For some reason it struck me as very funny that there were also preserves in Echo. Well, where would I have seen them? I almost always ate in restaurants, or was invited to someone’s home as a guest.

  “Are you hungry again already?” Melifaro asked in surprise, moving the floorboards aside with a careless gesture.

  We stared into the darkness, from which a cloud of delicious odors wafted toward us.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “Though we’ll look like a pair of fools if it turns out just to be a side entrance to the main kitchen.”

  “Right, disguised like the secret passage into the garden of the Order of the Seven-Leaf Clover? Not likely, Max.”

  We descended a narrow ladder. Melifaro replaced the false floor behind us, and we found ourselves in utter darkness.

  “You don’t have a problem finding your way in the dark, I hope?” I asked.

  “Do you?”

  “I think I do. I don’t know. In any case, I can’t see a thing.”

  “Fine, I’ll guide you. Some Child of the Night you are.”

  Hand in hand we groped our way toward the divine aroma that grew stronger with every step. Gradually I discovered that I instinctively knew where to turn so as not to bump my forehead against a wall, and where to raise my foot a bit higher to step over an invisible, but hard impediment in our path.

  “Are you joking at my expense?” Melifaro asked, trying to withdraw his paw from mine. “You sure don’t miss any opportunity to make me look like an idiot.”

  “My whole life I’ve dreamed of holding hands with you, and now I’ve found a pretext. Don’t be so touchy. I’m absolutely serious. I don’t know whether I can find my way around in the dark or not. I never know anything for sure about myself beforehand.

  “You are a lucky fellow, after all. What an interesting life you have. Here we are. We still need some light, though. You are a smoker, I recall.”

  “To the degree that I can tolerate the rubbish that passes for tobacco around here. I do have matches, though, don’t worry.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be enough light. You’ll have to smoke your pipe. It’s the only light-bearing apparatus we have that gives off a steady glow.”

  “Are you trying to hasten my demise? Well, so be it.”

  I quickly filled my pipe. The idea was brilliant. I had only to draw on the pipe, and the dim reddish glow dispelled the darkness around us. We we were standing on the threshold of a small storeroom, stuffed to the brim with huge, oddly shaped cupboards. Strange furniture. I had seen things like this a number of times at home, but never here in Echo, where the spare, elegant objects that functioned as domestic furnishings looked more like works of art.

  Since the capacity of my lungs was limited, we were once more plunged in darkness.

  “What was that?” Melifaro tugged on the sleeve of my Mantle of Death. “
Puff on that pipe one more time, please.”

  “If you want to boss me around, you’d better learn to smoke,” I growled.

  “When I was eighteen I swiped my older brother’s pipe, smoked nearly all the contents of the snuffbox, and got terribly sick. Please, Max. Give us some light! What are these things?”

  I went right up to the nearest ‘cupboard’ and took a mighty draw on the pipe.

  Holy cow! It wasn’t a cupboard at all, but a cage! And a person was trapped inside it. He seemed to be sleeping. In any case, the fellow didn’t react when we appeared right in front of him, and the clouds of tobacco smoke that enveloped him didn’t faze him, either.

  “He’s neither alive nor dead,” Melifaro observed after a brief silence. “Try sending him a call, Max! Very curious sensation. It’s like talking to a sausage.”

  I immediately regretted it. The ‘curious sensation’ turned out to be one of the most uncanny and horrible experiences of my life. I suddenly felt as though I myself was a large, living sausage that had somehow preserved the very human characteristic of being able to contemplate his essence and his fate. I was a sausage that dreams of the moment he will be eaten. I couldn’t extricate myself from the sticky spiderweb of nightmarish sensations. A slap in the face, fairly powerful, made me drop my pipe, then sent me reeling to the opposite wall where, I banged my knee against the corner of yet another cage.

  “What’s wrong, Max?” Melifaro asked in a trembling voice. “What is happening to you? Who taught you to do that? What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” I murmured, fumbling around for my pipe, which had gone out. Now a good draw on the pipe was just what I needed. Sausages don’t smoke, I knew that for certain. The foul taste of the substance that they mistakenly consider to be tobacco here in Echo convinced me I was a human being, and a moment later, I even remembered who I was.

  “You know, friend, I sometimes surprise myself,” I admitted. “I’m afraid of myself. I’m a danger to my own existence—that’s what I think.”

  “Maybe you’re just some former Grand Magician? And Juffin gave you a good whack, so you lost your memory?”

  “I hope not. Speaking of good whacks, thanks for slapping me around there. You seem to have saved my life. You ever tried that with the deceased? Maybe it would work on them, too.”

  “Nonsense, Max. I wanted to slap you around a long time ago, and now there was a reason. But really, what happened to you?”

  “I sent him a call, and I probably tried too hard. Some hundredth degree of your blasted magic, instead of the second. It’s always that way with me. My whole life I’ve always put too much salt on my omelets, too. That’s the sort of thing that happens to me.”

  “Hey, look over there, Max! There’s another curious spectacle.”

  I turned around to look. That cage contained a person, too. I puffed on my pipe so we could see it better. Sinning Magicians! It was a piece of meat that still hadn’t lost the outline of its human form. A piece of aromatic meat dressed in a skaba and a looxi!

  My nerves were ready to snap. We seemed to have unraveled this cursed affair, and much more quickly than we had anticipated. But I still felt no sense of relief.

  “Do you see what I see, Melifaro? He cooks them! He cooks them, somehow, the swine! Send a call to our boys. We need Lonli-Lokli here. The sooner the better.”

  “Yes,” whispered Melifaro. “And I really need the bathroom. I feel sick. We just ate what he cooked.”

  “Go ahead and hurl,” I replied with a forced calm. “Don’t be ashamed. But I don’t think they fed us human flesh. I have a feeling the hunchback has only one Speciality of the House.”

  “Lonli-Lokli will be here soon,” Melifaro reported. “I requested that he bring a few boys from the Police Force. What is this filth we’ve dug up, Max? Let’s go look at the rest.”

  “Are you sure you want to? Go without me, then. I don’t want to barf after a good meal. I wasn’t raised that way. My mother thought that after visiting a good restaurant you shouldn’t even do number two for a week.”

  “Still joking, Mr. Bad Dream? How would you have known about expensive restaurants living in the Borderlands? It can’t get worse than it already is. But what if there are live people in the other cages?”

  “Maybe there are. Go take a look. I’ve seen enough.”

  I turned away from the loathsome House Special and puffed on my pipe with genuine pleasure. Honestly, it wasn’t so bad after all, this local tobacco.

  “Max, I was wrong!” Melifaro’s voice sounded improbably loud. “It just got worse! Come here and shed some light. Come on, puff on it one more time. You can close your eyes if you don’t want to look.”

  I looked, of course. I had always known that my curiosity would be my undoing. A piece of meat in a looxi—that’s disgusting enough. But when above the belt there’s meat, and below, a pair of legs . . . Nevertheless, I didn’t get sick. My stomach is quite a reliable piece of equipment. No matter what kind of filth crosses its path in life, it continues to function. All of a sudden, though, standing upright became too much for me, and I sank to the ground with a dull thud, like an overloaded shopping bag.

  Only then did I realize we were no longer alone.

  The rest was like a dream. A second that seemed to last a whole lifetime—that’s what they usually say. “A whole lifetime” is an exaggeration; but that a few hours fit into the span of this second is something I’ll stake my life on.

  In the doorway, I saw a darkness thicker than that which surrounded it and a short, stooped silhouette. The chef was hurrying to restore order to his kitchen. He was enraged, and wasn’t thinking about the consequences. One split second was enough for me to become this person, then to stop being him, and to realize—he’s a madman.

  Itullo the hunchback was armed with a hatchet and a silk noose, which they use here to kill turkeys before plucking and roasting them. The hunchback had come to kill us, filthy rotten little boys who were making mischief with his frying pans. From the very start he didn’t stand a chance; but madmen don’t bother their heads with such trifles.

  I turned around and looked again at the monstrous creations of this kitchen wizard. There are many ways to meet one’s death, but people shouldn’t have to die like that. Not that way.

  I wanted to fly into a rage. I wanted to desperately, but it didn’t happen. I remained utterly calm. It was almost a matter of indifference to me. The breathing exercises that Lonli-Lokli had taught me turned the nervous Max into an extremely steady and composed beast. That meant there would be no show. As long as I was calm and good, spitting was useless. It would flop.

  The hunchback did try his best to enrage me, poor thing! He charged at me, flourishing his implements of destruction, the tools of his trade. I think the certainty of this “culinary genius” that he could really kill me and Melifaro with his paltry weapons was the last straw for me. Truly, what was there to be angry about? I grew downright cheerful.

  Since I hadn’t managed to lose my temper, I decided at least to scare Itullo a little, and to amuse Melifaro, who was looking terribly serious just then.

  I winked conspiratorially in the darkness and spat juicily at the distorted face of our hospitable host. Then I drew back my right hand for a good blow to the throat of our attacker with the back of my palm—it was already clear that there would be no getting around a fight.

  What does a snake feel when it sinks its teeth into the flesh of a stranger that disturbs its repose? At that moment, I knew: it feels nothing in particular. Nothing, really, at all.

  What was bound to happen sooner or later happened just then. The monstrous gift of Grand Magician Maxlilgl Annox finally manifested itself in the full glory of its power. Contrary to Juffin’s prognosis, it happened when I was neither angry nor afraid. Itullo the Hunchback fell dead, conquered by my spittle, the deadly power of which now left no room for doubt.

  “Oh, boy,” Melifaro stared at me in unfeigned rapture. “You’re reviving
the best traditions of the Epoch of Orders. Without you the World would be a terribly dull place.”

  “Did I kill him?” I asked in disbelief, still needing confirmation.

  “Do you have any doubts about it? Do you think you just told him ‘Begone, creep!’?”

  Melifaro, praise be the Magicians, doesn’t have the weakest nerves in the World. His smile stretched from ear to ear.

  “You know what? I’m happy,” I said frankly. “I’ve never in my life seen anything so lowdown and loathsome in my life. Feeding people such filth, and at such outrageous prices! That mad chef has spoiled my appetite for a long time to come, and he has been fairly punished for his services. By the way, Melifaro,” I remarked, “I did spare your wallet. You never paid for the meal, did you?”

  “A good way to save money, I can’t deny it. Not to mention that this Grand Magician of the Order of the Giant Sausage was planning to cut you into little pieces and serve you up in a gravy made from my blood I’m sure.”

  “I’m still wondering, though.” My senses were rapidly returning to me. “That fellow, Karry; Mr. Karwen Kovareka. He was transformed into meat at home in his bed, instead of in some cage . . .”

  “Leave it to me, Sir Max. Your job is to kill far-from-innocent people. I’ll deal with everything else. Believe me, in about two hours I’ll be able to answer all your questions. I’ll send a call to Lonli-Lokli and let him know he can just take it easy, maybe go out for a quiet meal. You’ve put the poor fellow out of a job. What I really need now are a dozen of Boboota’s smartest men.”

  “No problem, friend. You just need to arrange it with their boss,” I muttered. “Did it never occur to you, genius?”

  “You think—”

  “I don’t think anything. Thinking is your job. My job is killing far-from-innocent people. General Boboota ate here, then disappeared without a trace. Take my matches and go look for him. If he’s already well done, we’ll put him aside for Juffin. Who knows, maybe Sir Venerable Head wants to eat him for dinner.”