The Stranger's Woes

  If it weren’t for my former exploits, I might have started doubting my professional expertise.

  Red laughed spitefully. “You’re a wretched wizard, stranger!” he said in an unexpectedly high voice that cracked like a boy’s. “Maybe you’re a bit better than I am, but my shield was made by a Grand Master!”

  “He’s telling the truth, Max,” Melamori said. “This handsome lad doesn’t have any special powers of his own, but someone forged an excellent shield for him. You can’t harm him. You’ll never break through it. Now I understand why it was so hard for me to step on his trace, and why you were completely helpless.”

  “And what does one do in such cases, O unforgettable one?” I said wearily. “Should I ask the boys to hold him tighter and then run after Juffin? Like, hold on a minute, I’ll be right back? Or do you have any other suggestions?”

  “Of course I do.” Melamori burst out laughing. “Your loyal slaves can join forces with the trusty policemen and simply tie up their former leader. There isn’t a single magic shield that can withstand a strong rope. In any case we have to transport him to Echo, where Sir Juffin can deal with him.”

  “Gentlemen.” I turned solemnly to the policemen. “We need a strong rope, and fast. You see what a mean geezer we’ve got on our hands. Any suggestions?”

  “Will belts work?” Captain Shixola began unbuckling the belt on which his weapons were fastened.

  “Boys, take off your belts! We’ll swaddle him up like a mummy.”

  “Do you need any help?” I asked the dead men.

  “Yes, Master,” they mumbled plaintively. “We need your help. We can hold him, but tell your men to tie him. He’s too strong for us.”

  “Darn dead puppets!” Jiffa retorted in contempt. He looked at me with more sadness than wrath. “Never try to resurrect dead friends, stranger. It’s bound to fail with such lousy wizards as you and me.”

  “I’m not such an idiot that I’d try to resurrect my dead friends. That’s disgusting.” I turned away from Jiffa hurriedly and addressed the policemen. “Well, gentlemen, don’t just stand there. My lads need help—you heard them. Working beside them isn’t terribly pleasant, I know, but if this mean gentleman breaks loose, it will be a whole lot worse. No need to wrinkle up your nose, Melamori. Your work is done, so my invitation doesn’t concern you. Come on, boys, hop to it!”

  “Thank you, Max,” Melamori said with a slightly bitter grin. “How sweet of you. I think I’ll take advantage of your offer. The sight of these beauty boys turns my stomach.”

  The policemen, judging from the expressions on their faces, concurred. They had no inclination whatsoever to go down into the ravine.

  “Hey, what’s wrong, did the whole bunch of you turn chicken? Feet stuck in the mud?” a voice from behind called out. Sinning Magicians, it was my own personal scribe! I had completely forgotten about him. Anday Pu, meanwhile, marched out in front and took the lead.

  “Look sharp, people! Let me lend this moribund bunch a hand, Max. It’s not going to kill me.”

  “Great, only make it snappy.”

  had neither the strength nor the time to praise Anday Pu’s efforts, but I hope my gratitude was written across my forehead.

  The tubby fellow gathered the belts and slipped into the ravine with unexpected grace. Within a few seconds he had boldly assumed command of my dead assistants. Jiffa moaned, growled, gnashed his teeth, and cursed so eloquently that I was green with envy.

  I turned to the policemen with selfless readiness. Lieutenant Kamshi took the remaining belts and followed behind. Shixola sighed and joined him. The other policemen shuffled their feet, glanced around furtively, and finally, one by one, crawled down into the ravine.

  “Don’t forget to gag his mouth,” I called out after them. “You’ll be the ones who have to listen to him.”

  Within the space of five minutes Red Jiffa was neatly gagged and bound in a leather cocoon. They had even remembered to fasten the buckles. Sinning Magicians, that shut him up!

  Combining their efforts, they managed to pull Jiffa out of the ravine and place him like an offering at my feet. The three dozen dead men hovered nearby. Anday Pu, as grand as the statue of King Gurig VII, looked at them askance.

  “You made your pirate granddad proud, old friend!” I said, and turned to the policemen, who were wiping their hands off fastidiously with clumps of grass.

  “Well done, boys. Here are your Magaxon Foxes, the whole lot of them. Do with them what you will. I’m spent.”

  I slumped down in the moist grass and gazed with delight at the pale morning sky. There, above the trees, a solitary bird was circling. At that moment it seemed to me I loved that bird like life itself . . .

  My musings were interrupted by a strange noise. I raised my head slightly, trying to look beyond the colored spots before my eyes. The policemen were standing in a circle around me and applauding, like passengers on an airplane when it touches the runway after a rough flight.

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “That’s right. I’m a hero. I had a bottle of Elixir around here. Anyone know where it is?”

  “It’s in the pocket of your looxi, Max,” Melamori said. “Do you feel like going beddy-bye or something?”

  “Yep.”

  I rummaged around in my pocket. There was the bottle of Elixir, indeed. I took a sizable gulp, waited a bit, then realized it wasn’t enough. I took another. The annoying spots retreated into the void. Little by little the world assumed its familiar outlines.

  “Well, boys, time to go home,” I said. “Or do you want to bring out the sandwiches for a picnic? No, I see that doesn’t tempt you.”

  “Sir Max, what should we do with them?” Shixola said with an expression of horror.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I can’t kill them—you saw that yourselves. I could keep spitting, but it would take until next year to get the job done. In any case, they’ll come in handy. Let them carry their quarry Jiffa and follow behind me.”

  “On foot? But we have only one amobiler, and the boys all came on their own devices,” Lieutenant Kamshi said, somewhat at a loss. “I guess we could find some transportation at the villages, but that will take until next year, too.”

  “Of course they’ll go by foot. At a trot. If you sit at the levers, they’ll easily keep up with us. What else can we do?” I turned to the corpses. “Are you coming with me to Echo, eagle scouts? Can you run fast?”

  “We will follow you, Master!” said these ideal underlings in chorus.

  “Excellent. Let’s go, gentlemen. I’m wiped out.”

  “You do look terrible, Max,” Melamori said. “Your lightning flashes must really drain you of energy.”

  “Most likely. But it’s so easy to do.”

  “That’s very common. For everything that comes easy you have to pay a high price in the end,” Melamori said.

  Then we went to the clearing where we had left the amobiler. My undead marched behind devotedly, toting the mummy-like load of their former leader. Anday Pu stayed right by my side, throwing supercilious glances at the dead men.

  “We can stuff him in the amobiler,” Lieutenant Kamshi said. “Then you and Lady Melamori can deliver him to Echo, and I’ll go to the village with the rest of the boys.”

  “No, no,” I said. “We’ll return as we came, all together. Do as I say. Sit behind the levers, and go slowly so my little dead soldiers don’t run out of breath. They’ll manage. I think Jiffa will be happier in the company of his old friends, too.”

  “You are a cruel man, Sir Max,” Sir Kamshi said quietly.

  “You really think so?” I said, surprised. “That never occurred to me. But cruel is as cruel does.” And I laughed maliciously. “These fellows died long ago, by the way. And why are you so sure you know what’s good and what’s bad for them? Right now they’re only interested in one thing—carrying out my orders. When these guys are trailing behind my amobiler trying to keep up, they’ll be as happy as clams, believe me. As for Sir Jiffa,
he hasn’t been in the land of the living for a long time either, has he?What difference does it make what a dead body does if its master isn’t there anymore?”

  Kamshi shook his head and went to the amobiler. Captain Shixola threw him a puzzled glance and looked over at me. Then he shrugged and went to give his final instructions to his subordinates. They still faced a long trek to the Capital, making their way by their own means.

  Melamori touched my shoulder gently. “Don’t pay any attention to him, Max. Kamshi has always had his little eccentricities. And you were absolutely right.”

  “Right or not, what does it matter?” I smiled. “Thanks anyway. He did a good job of spoiling my mood, that’s for sure. I don’t even know why myself.”

  “You’re just tired. Anything could spoil it. Try to get some sleep on the road if you can.”

  “I can,” I said. “The trouble is, I could lie down and sleep right here. Get in touch with Juffin, okay? I don’t have the strength to send him a call. Ask him if maybe I’m overdoing things here.”

  “Okay,” said Melamori. She sat down on the grass and stared intently into space. A minute later she looked at me and winked. “Did you doubt it for a second, Max? Our chief is delighted with your idea. He says the Capital has never witnessed such a thing: a bunch of corpses marching in step through the whole of Echo behind an official amobiler of the Ministry of Perfect Public Order. And the noble Sir Kamshi can just eat the infamous giant mushroom of his boss!”

  Kamshi was already sitting in the driver’s seat. He looked at us and said coldly, “Are we going?”

  “We are,” I said. “Anday, old friend, you sit in front. You take up so much room! No offense.”

  “Yes, there’s a lot of me,” Anday said. “It’s no matter. I’m never offended when someone is just stating the facts. Only uneducated philistines object to that.”

  “Ha! Get a load of that, Max.” Melamori looked at me and laughed.

  Captain Shixola hesitated a moment, then burst out laughing himself. Anday looked at them in supercilious surprise. Then I smiled, too, ever so slightly. I didn’t even have the strength for that.

  I rolled up in a ball on the back seat and laid my head in Lady Melamori’s lap. My feet were propped up against poor Shixola’s hips. I knew it was bad manners, but I wasn’t capable of resisting the urge. I slept soundly in spite of the hefty portion of Elixir of Kaxar I had downed and the deliciously disturbing lap of Lady Melamori beneath my left ear.

  It was the first time since my return from Kettari that I had fallen asleep without wrapping the notorious kerchief of the Grand Magician of the Order of the Secret Grass around my neck. Sir Juffin Hully adamantly discouraged such experiments, and I didn’t have the least desire to risk finding out what the consequences of neglecting it might be. But now I didn’t even think about my talisman. It had slipped my mind completely.

  I had no idea what I dreamed about, but I woke up none too cheerful. This in itself was unusual, considering how much Elixir of Kaxar I had recently imbibed.

  “We’re almost in Echo, Max. Wake up,” Melamori said, tugging at my nose playfully. “I don’t think I can take a step. Your head weighs a dozen tons or more!”

  “But of course. It’s where I keep all my clever thoughts,” I said, straightening my stiff back with difficulty. “How long did I sleep?”

  “I guess about five hours. Kamshi didn’t race. He crawled like an old man in his cups. He wanted to spare your loyal slaves, I suppose. Right, Sir Kamshi?”

  “I just didn’t want them to get left behind,” the lieutenant said. “Sir Max, she pestered me the whole way. Tell her I can’t go any faster.”

  “If you think I’m an expert on the optimal speed of living corpsepedestrians, you are sadly mistaken. Do you think things like this happen to me every dozen days?” I mumbled sleepily, reaching into my pocket for the bottle of reviving liquid and looking aghast at the horrific procession straggling behind us. “Everyone here? I don’t want to have to scour the country roads, rounding up the ones that got left behind.

  “No one fell behind, Sir Max. I was watching to make sure the whole way,” Shixola said.

  “The whole way? You poor thing,” I said with sincere sympathy. “You could have looked away now and then. I’m forever in your debt, Shixola.”

  “Well, I must admit, I did turn around once or twice,” the captain said.

  “And it’s good you did. How’s it going, Blackbeard Junior?” I placed my hand on the plumply rounded shoulder of my heroic chronicler.

  “The article is finished. Everyone can take it easy,” Anday said cheerfully. “Want to read it? You’ll catch, Max, I just know it.”

  “That’s for sure,” Melamori laughed. “After an article like that they’ll put up statues of both of us, Max. Yours will be a bit taller than mine. But the biggest of all will be Sir Anday’s, of course. Gurig’s will just have to move over. Did I catch, Sir Anday?”

  “Yes. Catch it she did,” Anday said, a bit annoyed. He seemed to be talking not to us but to his favorite interlocutor: himself.

  “Well?” I said to Melamori. “Should it come out in print?”

  “Should it? It must—after Sir Rogro cuts a few strong passages about how reluctant the policemen were to enter the ravine, of course. And he will cut them, believe me. It is the truth, naturally, but you can understand the boys. And eventually they did go down into the ravine. That’s something I never would have done. You have to be more magnanimous with people, Sir Anday. Have a heart. We are such fragile things, and our inner workings are so delicate.”

  Anday grumbled something under his breath. Lieutenant Kamshi looked at him in frank disapproval but kept silent.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “Magnanimity is an acquired trait since it’s a side effect of the good life and the offspring of prosperity. As for Anday Pu, all that is still ahead of him as far as I can tell.” I patted him on the back. “Don’t worry, hero. If Lady Melamori is satisfied, I won’t even bother to read it now. I’ll read it in the paper, that’s more fun.”

  “Oh, come on. It won’t kill you to read it now,” he said, his grumpy petulance giving way to unbridled enthusiasm. “You were really smoking back there,Max! The heroes from the days of yore would have taken a back seat to you. You catch? It was really something!”

  “I hear you. And they do, too.” Grinning, I waved my hand in the direction of the window.

  The streets of the Capital were swarming with astonished citizens. They stared in unfeigned horror at the gloomy procession of the undead from the Magaxon Forest.

  “I never knew Echo was so full of do-nothings and gawkers.”

  “You can’t blame them. A sight like this would make just about anyone drop everything and come out to look. I wouldn’t want to miss a parade like this, either,” Captain Shixola said.

  “Can I get out here, Max?” Anday said. “It’s a stone’s throw to the editorial offices of the Royal Voice, and I may be able to get the story in for the evening edition.”

  “Sure you can. Why ask? You’re a free man, praise be the Magicians.”

  Kamshi stopped the amobiler, and Anday jumped into the street with remarkable agility, shouting good day to us as he was already disappearing into the crowd.

  “Well, what do you think of my find?” I asked Melamori.

  “The dinner’s over once and for all,” she said. “The first half hour he really did write the article. After that he regaled me with stories of his student days and his adventures at the Court. He has such a sweet accent. I would have died of boredom if it hadn’t been for Sir Anday. You were napping, Shixola didn’t take his eyes off your moribund regiment, and Kamshi pretended he couldn’t look away from the road—though at a pace like that, the amobiler could have gotten along without any driver at all.”

  Lieutenant Kamshi didn’t say a word. He was sick and tired of the whole conversation, I think.

  I don’t know about my fellow picnickers, but I was darned gl
ad to see the old walls of the House by the Bridge. It’s so nice and quiet. Here Juffin Hully was in charge, and he would save me from this bunch of obedient corpses. For some reason it was extraordinarily unpleasant for me to look upon the fruits of my most recent exploits. I couldn’t come up with any rational explanation for how I was feeling.

  Sir Juffin came out to greet us. He gazed at the eccentric crew, snorted in amusement, cocked his head, and began barking out orders, to my great relief.

  “Melamori, go home to rest. Scram! This monster in the Mantle of Death has run you ragged. If I need you, I’ll call. Max, stop looking so mournful. If you don’t smile right this second, I’m sending for the healers. And hurry up and hide this treasure in the small cell next to our office. I’m talking about Jiffa, not Lady Melamori. Then come back to your morbid flock, and help Shurf deal with them. You stay here for a few minutes, boys, and guard the quarry. By the way, which one of you decided to invite Sir Max on this picnic? Was it you, Kamshi? I’m curious.”

  “No. It was Shixola’s idea. I insisted we should be acting on our own since the Magaxon Forest had never fallen under your jurisdiction. Besides, I had been planning the operation so long I really wanted to carry it out myself,” Kamshi admitted.