The Stranger's Woes

  Finally, Rulen Bagdasys appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a pair of snow-white dress tights. His boots and jacket had not undergone much of a change, but his head was now crowned with a huge fur hat. It was the middle of the summer, for crying out loud! The fellow looked very satisfied with himself. His huge nose pointed skyward, his eyes sparkled like a gladiator’s, and his lower lip protruded, giving his face a capricious, imperious expression. Apparently, the fur hat was an indispensable feature of the national pride of any Isamonian.

  “Aren’t you a bit overdressed?” I said cautiously.

  “It is imperative to wear a hat out of doors,” said Rulen Bagdasys, “or your brains will blow away.”

  The brothers Melifaro brayed like donkeys. The Isamonian looked down his nose at them, but said nothing.

  I sat behind the levers of the amobiler, and Melifaro sat in the seat next to mine. Now he was eager to get back to the House by the Bridge. Judging by his expression, the ship from Arvarox promised to be a lot of fun.

  Rulen Bagdasys got into the back seat of the amobiler. When I began gradually to pick up speed, he became frantic, started yelling, and even tried to grab the controls.

  “Sit still, pal,” I said. “When people grab me I spit venom. Didn’t anyone tell you that?”

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve been told. But what kind of morons taught you how to drive? Get a grip on yourself! Let me show you how to drive properly.”

  “Should I punch him in the nose?” Melifaro said somberly.

  “Go ahead, what are you waiting for?” I said. “Because if he doesn’t quit grabbing me, we’re going to crash.”

  “I didn’t know that was how you drove around here,” Rulen Bagdasys was quick to say. “I thought you were supposed to hold the levers with your palms facing outward, and you, sir, are doing it the other way around.”

  I burst out laughing from the sheer unexpectedness of it. I thought Rulen Bagdasys was unnerved by our speed, but he was worried about some technical matters.

  “You hold the levers the way it feels comfortable to you as a driver,” I said in a conciliatory tone, and increased my speed a little more.

  I’m sorry to admit it, but I really wanted to scare Mr. Know-it-all. He wasn’t a bit scared, though. Maybe the guy just didn’t know what the average speed of an amobiler was. A few marvelous minutes later, during which the World around me ceased to exist, we pulled over by Melifaro’s place on the Street of Gloomy Clouds, in the very heart of Echo.

  “You just outdid yourself, Max,” said Melifaro wiping the perspiration off his forehead. “This is a new record. Can’t believe we’re still alive.”

  “It was pure luck,” I said, grinning.

  “I think so, too.”

  Melifaro sighed and turned to the Isamonian. “This is it, Rulen. We’re at my place. Get your stuff out of the amobiler.”

  Rulen, as it turned out, had lots of baggage. Melifaro was kind enough to help him take his numerous bags into the house. I suspected that they were chock-full of tights of all colors, fur hats, and manuals on how to hold the amobiler controls properly.

  “Make yourself at home,” said Melifaro. “Or you can go walk around the block. Do as you wish. Let’s go, Max.”

  And we sped off.

  “It’s nice to have a highly disciplined driver,” said Melifaro. “Maybe I won’t fire you just yet.”

  “I’m going to tell Lonli-Lokli that you’re mean to me. He’ll teach you how to talk to a member of a royal family.”

  “Lonli-Lokli? No, please don’t. My father is used to the fact that he has three sons. He counts us from time to time. He would be heartbroken if he came up one short. Wait, don’t miss the turn this time!”

  “When have I ever missed a turn?” I said, whizzing right past the Street of Copper Pots just to make my diurnal half happy. The diurnal half was pleased.

  “Not too shabby, boys,” said Sir Juffin Hully. He met us in the Hall of Common Labor. “Not too shabby at all. When I told you that I wanted to see you two here before dusk, Max, I sincerely believed that you would show up at exactly one minute before sunset. I even wanted to send you a call and hurry you up, but then I made a bet with myself. I wagered a dozen crowns. I sat here trembling with excitement and recalled all the curse words I have learned during my long, long life.”

  “How many did you recall?” asked Melifaro.

  “No more than a couple thousand, to my regret. Back to the business at hand, however. At sunset, the ship from Arvarox will drop anchor at the Admiral’s Pier.”

  “Why the Admiral’s Pier?” I said slurping cold kamra from my boss’s favorite cup. This was quickly turning into a ritual.

  “Because it is an honor,” said Juffin. “Also, it’s a military ship, so officially that would be the right thing to do. But the most important thing is that this will honor them. Say, Melifaro, have you been present at a Customs inspection of ships from Arvarox? I can’t quite remember.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Melifaro with a nod. “I was still a rookie here. I remember I almost fainted when the proud chieftain of those barbarians started listing all his titles, and I had to stand there listening to all that nonsense with a straight face. But I persevered.”

  “A noble performance it was, indeed,” said Juffin. “And today you’ll both have to repeat it. Are you ready?”

  “Well, no,” said Melifaro. “But that’s not up to us to decide, is it? By they way, why us and not Lonli-Lokli? He’s much more imposing, and he certainly won’t start cracking up during the ceremony.”

  “Sir Shurf can’t step aboard any vessel. If he does, it will immediately develop a hole and sink. These are the consequences of his successful career in the Order of the Holey Cup. All his former colleagues suffer from the same problem. Didn’t you know?”

  “Whoa! No, I didn’t,” said Melifaro.

  “Juffin, what does this have to do with us?” I said. “We’re Secret Investigators, not Customs officials. Or am I missing something here?”

  “You are, Max. The ship from Arvarox is a special case. Sending the actual Customs officials to it would be a deadly insult. The Arvaroxians would immediately try to retaliate, not because they’re wicked monsters but because their code of honor says they must. Fortunately, for several thousand years the Office of Worldly Affairs has kept a thick Guide to Good Manners, which one must consult when welcoming guests from Arvarox. This sacred book was endorsed by both parties, but unlike us, the citizens of Arvarox know its contents by heart. Don’t fret, Max. All you need to do is show up on the ship and glance over the contents of its holds. The truth is, there’s no chance they’re going to smuggle any contraband. That book states very clearly that the subjects of the Conqueror of Arvarox swear never to bring any contraband merchandise into the territory of the Unified Kingdom. And trust me, these guys keep their word. If we don’t sniff around the ship, though, they’ll think we don’t take them seriously, and that constitutes another deadly insult to them. So please, remember to pretend that you are very interested in the contents of the ship’s holds. You can even go slightly overboard with your zeal. Then you’ll give them an official permit to stay in Echo, and that’s it. Tomorrow they’re visiting the Palace, and after that the fun will begin. We’ll follow those innocent young men around and make sure nobody and nothing hurts them. You have no idea, boys, how I loathe this nauseating fuss and bother, but Grand Magician Nuflin believes it’s best for everyone. I can’t disappoint the old man, now, can I?”

  “You? You certainly can,” said Melifaro.

  “Yes, I can, but I won’t, of course. Now, scram. If you spend an hour or so waiting for the honorable guests on the pier, you’ll be displaying the strongest grasp of the art of diplomacy. Don’t give me that look. I’m not saying you can’t stay for a cup of kamra.”

  “With pastries,” I said.

  “Kurush has a bad influence on you,” said Juffin with a smile. “You’ve adopted his mannerisms, and his tastes, too. Nex
t thing you’ll know, you’re going to start growing feathers.”

  “That wouldn’t be so bad. In my book, buriwoks are much more highly evolved creatures than humans.”

  “You may be right,” said Juffin, “but can you imagine what it would look like?”

  “What do mean?”

  “Feathers. In combination with your face.”

  Melifaro laughed. This, however, did not prevent him from grabbing a pastry from the delivery boy, who had just walked in and was looking very perplexed at the whole scene.

  A half hour before sunset, Melifaro and I were standing on the Admiral’s Pier. We had arrived early, but not too early: the ship from Arvarox, enormous and splendid, was approaching us swiftly. Against the background of the darkening eastern horizon, it looked like a majestic yet sad apparition.

  “Look at you, Nightmare,” said Melifaro. “You should be a poet, not a king.”

  “I was a poet once,” I said. “Wasn’t all that appealing, let me tell you. Especially the wages.”

  “What? Were you really a poet? But when?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? While I was riding my trusty nag through the endless plains between the Barren Lands and the County Vook. I had to do something to keep my mind busy.”

  Melifaro shook his head skeptically. I think up till then he had had a different picture in his head about the mysteries of poetic creativity.

  The splashes of the dark waters of the Xuron reminded us that the solemn moment was nigh. The ship from Arvarox was approaching.

  “I need to think about something sad right this minute, or I’ll start laughing,” said Melifaro. “How about my first love?”

  “It won’t help in my case,” I said. “My first love was the most delightful moment of my life. I was less than a year old, and my chosen one was a few hundred years older. She was a friend of my grandmother’s, and she took me in her arms from time to time. That, my friend, was true love.”

  The black side of the ship’s hull rubbed lightly against the pier, and a rope ladder landed at our feet. This took me by surprise: I had never had the chance to climb a rope ladder before. But I’d go to any lengths for the triumph of the foreign policy of the Unified Kingdom. Fear gave me the agility and dexterity I needed to climb the ladder. Seconds later, my beautiful boots, sporting dragon heads on their toes, landed on the deck of the ship with a soft thud. I have to confess, though, my knees were trembling.

  In another moment, Melifaro joined me. We could relax and look around.

  Frankly speaking, there wasn’t much to see, apart from the ties and ropes of the ship’s rigging above. The deck was empty. Whoever had thrown the ladder down for us had already hidden himself somewhere in the mysterious semidarkness of the ship’s interior.

  “That’s all right,” said Melifaro, nudging me lightly with his elbow. “The ceremonial exit of some Big Chieftain will start any second now. So start thinking about something sad. Maybe about your second love, since your first one was such a delight.”

  I wanted to come up with some witty retort about my second love but was distracted by a noise. It wasn’t the thumping of heavy boots or a clattering of metal. It was a much more delicate noise: a soft knocking, rustling, and creaking. The author of this modernist piece of music was a human being of such striking beauty that it took my breath away.

  A true giant, no less than seven feet tall, was coming our way. His snow-white hair was pulled into a knot on the top of his head. Even so, the ends fell down long enough to reach to his waist. His amber eyes seemed almost completely round. He had a very high forehead and a perfectly shaped face—too soft for a warrior’s, but just right for a favorite with the ladies. The most striking, yet odd, feature was the combination of a predatory nose and a small, almost childlike mouth. His attire deserved special mention. His shirt and his pants, both of a very simple cut, shone with every color of the rainbow. They didn’t seem to restrain his movements, but I noticed that the folds of the shirt, even though it was very wide, did not flap in the wind. The folds swayed slightly, making a very soft knocking sound when they touched. Later I learned that when one wore a shirt made out of the wool of Arvaroxian sheep, one had to use a considerable amount of muscle power just to bend one’s arm, let alone do something else. His boots, on the contrary, seemed almost weightless: I could see the stranger’s long, flexible toes through the thin skin of his footwear. To my surprise, he had not five but six toes. I looked at his hands, but the hands were all right: they looked like ordinary human hands with five digits on each.

  On one of the stranger’s shoulders, a large, furry, spider-like creature perched comfortably. Its numerous paws were shorter and much thicker than those of a spider, though. The creature was staring at me with eight pairs of tiny yellow eyes, the color of which matched those of its master. I returned the favor and gazed back with my own eyes, whose color had long been a mystery even to myself.

  While I was playing stare-down with the wonder-spider, its owner slowly unfastened from his belt a weapon that looked like a machete. He threw it to our feet, and I noticed that the sound it made when it fell was quiet and dull. That’s right, I thought. Sir Manga said that there were no metals in Arvarox. I wonder what these white-haired giants use for their weaponry instead.

  An extraordinary article that looked like a gigantic flyswatter followed the “machete,” landing on the deck just beside it.

  Having disarmed himself, the giant approached us and stood an arm’s length away. He looked at us for some time. There was no insolence, curiosity, or even tension in his gaze (which would be only natural under the circumstances). The stranger seemed to look at us with the expression of a bird, guarded and indifferent, simply because we happened to be standing in his line of vision. Finally, he spoke.

  “I am Aloxto Allirox of the clan of Ironsided Hoob, ruler of Aliur and Chixo, Sternlooking Master of two times fifty Sharptooths, powerful and loyal warrior of Toila Liomurik the Silver Bigwig, Conqueror of Arvarox, who rules it all the way to the Ends of the World, immortalized in song by Xarlox the Pastry, the greatest storyteller among the living—”

  Holy cow!

  Melifaro’s Silent Speech could have provoked an international conflict, but I managed not to laugh. I didn’t even smile. I had to muster all my strength to maintain a diffident expression on my face. I still have no idea how I was able to pull it off.

  Finally, Aloxto Allirox finished. I was sure that by then his ranks and titles were known to every single resident of Echo. The giant had a voice that could entertain an entire stadium without using any amplification system. Too bad his talent was completely wasted.

  Now it was my colleague’s turn to announce his title to the stranger.

  “I am Sir Melifaro, Diurnal Representative of the Venerable Head of the Minor Secret Investigative Force of the Capital of the Unified Kingdom.”

  Melifaro gave an elegant bow, which, I assumed, was the appropriate gesture of hospitality for welcoming guests of honor from Arvarox, according to the Guide to Good Manners that Juffin had mentioned.

  I thought that Melifaro’s introduction was wanting in many respects, compared to that of the visitor from Arvarox. It was okay, but severely lacking in grandiloquence. I wanted to use a lot more window dressing for myself. I wanted the guy to wake up in cold sweat in the middle of the night and remember my name with envy. I took a deep breath and opened my chatterbox of a mouth.

  “I am Sir Max, the last of the clan of Fanghaxra, Ruler of the Lands of Fanghaxra, Nocturnal Representative of the Venerable Head of the Minor Secret Investigative Force of the Capital of the Unified Kingdom, Death in His Majesty’s Service, who generously kisses the condemned and spares the lucky, Leader of the Dead, and Terror of Madcaps biding their time in pubs.”

  Fortunately, Sir Aloxto was too impressed by the beginning of my speech to notice the irony of its finale. Later, however, I learned that the very notion of irony was completely inaccessible to the citizens of Arvarox. Their ways of look
ing at the world simply lacked the notion of irony altogether.

  This was probably for the best, because my last phrase was intended solely for Melifaro’s ears. I was getting back at him: now it was his turn to try not to laugh. The poor fellow turned bright red, to my utter delight.

  You . . . you . . . Couldn’t you find a better time for your jokes? I’m going to kill you sooner or later, and this World will lose another crazy poet. It even makes me a little sad.

  Praise be the Magicians, at that moment Melifaro could only take revenge by resorting to Silent Speech.

  While Melifaro was trying to maintain a serious expression, our Arvarox guest lowered his head in a sharp movement and began contemplating the boards under his feet. Apparently, this was the equivalent of a bow in Arvarox. In any case, I decided to go ahead and assume that he was bowing.

  “I will make sure to convey my special thanks to your king for this honor,” said Aloxto Allirox in a thunderous voice. “The presence of both of you on my ship is a sign. You are the face of the day, granting rest, and the face of the night, bestowing death. I could not have dreamed of the honor of such an encounter. My heart did not deceive me in sending me on this journey. Welcome to the deck of The Surf Thorn, under the bright cloak of the Conqueror of Arvarox. My Water Tamer will show you anything you find worthy of your interest. You are free to do whatever you like here.”

  The fair-haired giant turned away from us and shouted so loudly that my ears started ringing, “Kleva! Come here, Kleva!”

  Another giant, this one red-haired, appeared before us. He was only a little shorter than Aloxto, but more broad-shouldered. Flung over his shoulders was a long dark cloak. I noticed chain mail underneath the cloak, glittering in the twilight.

  Remembering that Arvarox knew no metals, I thought that his mail must be imported. Later I learned that an Arvaroxian warrior would never buy arms or armor from outlanders. They made their mail from the hard shells of the Eube bug. Arvarox was full of these insects, which provided enough material to supply everyone with armor.