The Stranger (30 page)

Read The Stranger Online

Authors: Max Frei,Polly Gannon

Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Horror, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Epic

BOOK: The Stranger
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The morning was just as cold as the night had been. I walked to the House by the Bridge, appreciating every step along the way. The thought that I could expire prematurely like my predecessors at Xolomi honed all my senses and perceptions. Although . . . maybe it was just a chain of improbable coincidences? Could be!
But you can’t fool the heart. My heart, at least. And slowly, but surely, it seemed to fill up with lead. What would happen when I showed up at Xolomi? I was getting more and more unnerved by the minute. Even the thought that the terrifying Lonli-Lokli would be hiding in my fist, that I was keeping him in reserve so that I could thumb my nose at danger, gave me only the slightest comfort. I still had to manage to let him out at the right moment, if need be.
Sir Shurf Lonli-Lokli was waiting for me in the Hall of Common Labor—unruffled, dependable, as always. He was noting down something in his “work diary” so as not to waste time. Looking at him, I livened up a bit.
“Are you ready to become my victim, Sir Shurf?”
“Victim? Sir Max, you clearly overestimate the significance of the impending event,” he objected phlegmatically. “Believe me, I have no cause for alarm—and you even less.”
“Well, thanks for the reassurance.”
And I made a motion with my left hand, undetectable to the prying eyes of others. Lonli-Lokli disappeared. In theory, I knew that he hadn’t disappeared, but was to be found between the thumb and the index finger of my hand. But this useful knowledge somehow didn’t fit into my head.
“Dandy, Mr. Nightmare!” Melifaro beamed, emerging from his office. “Tell me, might you not be persuaded to keep him there for the next two hundred years or so?”
“Lady Lonli-Lokli would object, and I wouldn’t want to grieve her,” I replied, smiling. “And why are you here so early?”
“Juffin woke me up. Sent me a message that he wouldn’t be here before midday. He ordered me to see you off. He wants me dead! Usually he’s here at the crack of dawn, but today . . . Well, there you are.”
“He’s hiding from me,” I informed him proudly.
“From you? You’re making progress! To my knowledge (and I do know something about the history of the Unified Kingdom), Juffin Hully hasn’t hidden from anyone for the past one hundred years. Well, in the Epoch of Orders there was a case—and it wasn’t the only one. Then again, everyone ran from each other during the Epoch of Orders. How did you scare him?” asked Melifaro and sat down in front of me.
“Give me some kamra and I’ll tell you,” I said, crossing my feet and placing them carefully on the table. It’s frightening to think of the number of dumb movies that inspired me to assume this pose. “You’re here to see me off, so you must see to it that I leave here happy. Thus, you must bribe me with every possible means at your disposal.”
“Well, that’s the limit! Bribing a jailbird!” Melifaro grumbled. “Fine. Take advantage of my generosity.” He sauntered into the office and brought out a jug of kamra and two mugs of completely improbable dimensions.
“So why is our ‘Sir Venerable Head’ running away from you?”
“I ask too many questions. Actually, that’s why he decided to stick me in Xolomi.”
“Oh, is that all? Questions! And here I was thinking that yesterday you tried to get him drunk on Elixir of Horse Dung, the national drink of your Barren Lands.”
“That actually did happen,” I admitted. “But Juffin said that his Diurnal Backside usually does the dirty work. Thanks for reminding me—I’ll have to treat you to some!”
“No thanks!” Melifaro screwed up his face in anxious trepidation, and he shot into his office like a bullet. Several times he peeped out timidly; then the joke grew stale, and he returned.
I killed another half-hour in this pleasant manner. Lady Melamori, for whose sake I was dragging it out, didn’t appear. Finally, I got behind the wheel of the amobiler and set off for Xolomi to turn myself in.
 
“I see you as though in a waking dream!” The senior commander of Xolomi covered his eyes respectfully, in the ritual of a first meeting. “I’m happy to speak my name: Sir Marunarx Antarop.”
I introduced myself, and they led me off to be served breakfast.
“You’re so skinny, Sir Max! They really work you hard in the Secret Investigative Force. I know all about it! You need to eat more!” Sir Marunarx exclaimed, refilling my plate over and over again. “Never mind. You’ll fill out here with us, I promise you that!”
The sumptuous breakfast was suspiciously reminiscent of a formal banquet. The commander fussed over me like a doting uncle. I thought I was going to prison, but it looked like I had ended up in a resort. And so, it turned out, I had.
“Whew, I’ve already filled out! By about ten pounds,” I said an hour later. “Thank you, Sir Marunarx. I should go to the cell now, I suppose. That’s why I came, after all.”
“I’m so sorry, Sir Max! I’m afraid it will be uncomfortable for you there! But Sir Hully requested that I put you not in the guest quarter, but in a prison cell. What do you think—could it have been a joke?”
“You never know with him,” I laughed. “No, Sir Marunarx, I’m really supposed to go to the cell. No one has died in your guest quarters, I hope?”
“I understand,” the old man said with a sigh. “Well, let’s go then. By the way, Sir Max, you know that when you’re in the cell you can’t use Silent Speech? I can’t change that for you, I’m afraid. The prison is built that way. You know yourself, Xolomi is a magical place. It’s not for us, the employees, to decide what is permitted here and what isn’t.”
“Yes, that’s what I’ve been told.”
“So if you need to get in touch with Sir Hully or anyone else, tell the guards that you wish to take a walk, and they’ll bring you to me, at any time of day or night. Here you can do anything your heart desires. My people have already been informed about you, of course.”
“Excellent!” I nodded. “And now, arrest me, please!”
 
Cell No. 5-Ow-Nox seemed to be quite a cozy little place. And, by the way, in my homeland you’d have to plunk down several suitcases of greenbacks for a pad like this! But for a native of Echo, it would probably be difficult to reconcile oneself to such cramped quarters—only three “small” (by local standards, miniscule; by ours, enormous) rooms, all on one floor. And also a bathroom with a toilet one floor below, as is the custom here. In the bathroom there were only three tubs, the same number I had at home. Now I began to understand why my landlord had been unable to find a tenant for so long. When I got home, I’d have him put in a fourth tub. I can’t live like I’m in prison!
But praise be the Magicians I had still not completely adapted to local customs, so the modest prison cell seemed to me to be the height of luxury. A half-hour later I realized I had already gotten used to being there.
Actually, I get used to things very quickly. If I move my belongings to a new home in the morning, by evening I feel I have lived there my whole life. It even occurred to me that in a few days I’d grow so used to Xolomi that I’d “remember” why they had thrown me in prison. And then I’d repent, and try to reform with all my might!
 
And so I sat in my cell and gazed at the ceiling. The marvelous Lonli-Lokli lived some sort of ineffable life between my thumb and the index finger of my left hand. I was terribly curious—what was he feeling about all of this? In any case, the fellow had taken his “work diary” with him. How he could comfortably pass the time away with that notebook is as much a mystery to me as it is to you.
Finally, I decided it was time to go to sleep. I’d have to rest, since the most interesting things would happen at night, I assumed, if they were to happen at all.
I was still afraid that nothing untoward would happen. I wondered how much time I would have to spend in Xolomi before I realized that seven deaths in the space of three years was very sad and awkward, if not idiotic—but finally, that it was just a coincidence after all. Would I be here a year? Two? More? Well, never mind. The gentlemen Secret Investigators would be able to survive for about twelve days without us, after which they’d be the ones raising hue and cry to get us released themselves. Sir Juffin would no doubt be the first to decide that our business trip had dragged on too long.
I slept remarkably well. When I woke up, it was already dark. I received a prisoner’s meal, which tasted curiously like the recent festive breakfast. Why do Juffin and I always eat at the
Glutton Bunba
? The food is great there, of course, but prison fare seemed to be more refined. We’d have to introduce the tradition of carousing at Xolomi: purely out of professional considerations, of course. Or perhaps we could spend Days of Freedom from Care on the premises—it’s quiet, cozy, and there’s nobody to bother you.
Night was coming on. So as not to waste precious time, I tried to do what I truly know how to do well (and it wasn’t much): to chat with the objects around me, and to see that part of the past that they “remembered.”
It was hopeless. All the prison flotsam and jetsam that surrounded me answered my appeals with surging waves of fear. We had seen that before!—in Makluk’s bedchamber, where the little balsam box had sent out the same currents of terror. There was no doubt about it. I had stumbled upon a real story, not a chain of awkward coincidences.

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