The Stranger's Magic: The Labyrinths of Echo: Book Three (48 page)

“Have you looked at your face?” said Tekki. “Did you get into a fight with all the poets in Echo?” I grabbed a tray made out of polished metal from the nearest table and
looked at the poor semblance of a reflection in it. “Not quite what you were hoping for, huh?” said Tekki, handing me a small mirror. “Here, have a good look.”

“Pfft. A couple of scratches,” I said, heaving a sigh of relief. My nose and chin were covered in the thick web of superficial scratches that I had received when I was rolling
downhill. That wicked Loiso didn’t have to push me, I thought. I could have walked down by myself.

“Enough for one night, I suppose,” said Tekki, covering my face in some transparent stinky gel. “In thirty minutes, you can go outside. What happened to you?”

“A lot of things,” I said, sighing. I was in no mood for making up believable excuses, lying, or—Magicians forbid!—telling the truth. But Tekki seemed to have been
satisfied with my answer.

“Get ready for receiving your numerous friends any minute now,” she said. “Our rotund poet just sent me a call. He wanted to know if you had opened your pretty eyes yet. I
think it’s just the beginning.”

“Gosh, I have no personal life,” I said. “How can you still stand me?”

“I wish I knew myself,” she said. “Maybe I’m just very patient.”

The door slammed behind me. I turned around and saw my friend Anday Pu, a brilliant poet and a most unhappy person. His appearance was very timely. I was just about to stick my scratched nose
into his business. After all, he had been asking me to do it for a long time.

The descendant of Ukumbian pirates said hello, climbed atop a barstool, and began chatting with Tekki. He must have decided that after his performance in the Three-Horned Moon his status had
grown in my eyes and he could do anything now.

“You know, Blackbeard Junior, if you really want to move to Tasher, I think I can arrange that,” I said. “Go to the Port Quarter right now. Find the house of Captain Giatta and
tell him I sent you. Also tell him . . . No, don’t tell him anything—I’ll tell him myself. Just ask him when he’s going back home to Tasher. He’ll take you with him
and help you settle there—that is, unless you’ve changed your mind.”

“Changed my mind! Are you joking? How can I change my mind! Now you catch, Max. That’s so great! Thank you so much. I’m going to see the captain right now,” said Anday
like a machine gun. “Why did you decide to help me? Was it my poetry? Did you catch?”

“Exactly,” I said. “It was your poetry.”

Of course the poetry of this haughty wordsmith—which sounded so much like my own youthful experiments, full of open self-admiration and melancholy—didn’t have anything to do
with it. At least not directly. I had the opportunity to let Captain Giatta go home and to prove to Anday, using his own example, that a dream fulfilled didn’t always equal happiness. That
hypocrite Loiso Pondoxo could see right through me. I did like to “set free anyone I came across.” Maybe just so they didn’t get in the way.

Fortunately, Anday couldn’t read my mind. He said goodbye and rushed out of the tavern to the Port Quarter, his feet barely touching the ground. I followed his figure with my eyes and sent
a call to Captain Giatta.

I finally thought of a way you can pay me back, Giatta. A really funny fellow is on his way to see you. He’s my old friend, and he’s been dreaming of moving to Tasher. If you take
him there and help him settle in the new place, consider your debt to me paid. But don’t rush with your departure this time. First finish up your business here.

Sir Max, is this really what you want? Or are you just trying to get rid of me after such a long wait?

I really want this, I said very sincerely. I don’t quite know why, but I desperately want this.

All right, I’ll do it for you. Can your friend wait until the Last Day of the Year? I need to pay my assistants and get a new crew. This will take time.

Of course. There’s no rush. In any case, he won’t be waiting long. The winter is coming to an end, and the Last Day of the Year is just around the corner. He will wait all right. He
has no choice—you’re his only chance.

I said goodbye and, relieved, poured myself another cup of kamra.

“What’s going on, honey?” said Tekki. “Are you into settling other people’s lives now? It’s a thankless business, and not the most original one.”

“I know,” I said, smiling. “But that pretty boy Anday was flirting with you so openly that I thought it would be better to send him off someplace far way before it’s too
late.”

“Phew!” said Tekki. “What a relief. I was afraid he’d sweep me off my feet with his poetry. He’s really sweet. And those almond-shaped eyes of his . . .”

I made a face and shook my fist at her. Tekki took my fist into her hands, pulled it close to her face, admired it for a few seconds, and then laughed.

We spent two more hours of our lives in the greatest of spirits, but then I felt a desire to go to the House by the Bridge that was stronger than I was. As the years went by, the fire under my
backside wasn’t getting any cooler.

“If you were going to pour out the story of Kofa’s and your adventures, I have to tell you that I already saw Kofa himself, as well as the great avenger Nennurex Kiexla—and
No-Nose Misa, to top it off,” said Juffin. He tried to assume an air of suffering but failed miserably.

“All right then, I’ll pretend that I’ve already told you everything and shut up,” I said. “How’s our Master Eavesdropper-Gobbler feeling?”

“Great, as usual, I think. Oh, you mean his foot? He’s already forgotten that anything ever happened to it. By the way, you should lift off the spell from your victims. I’ve
been trying to send them to Xolomi since morning, but they’re so enchanted that it pains me to look at them,” said Juffin.

“I’ll get right down to it,” I said. “In theory, I’m supposed to feel immense pleasure when I do. A mutual friend of ours believes that I have a hypertrophied
desire to set people free. He doesn’t put it as eloquently as I just did, though.”

I looked into the detention cells housing the victims of my Lethal Spheres and issued them my last command: to rid themselves of the irresistible desire to follow my commands. I didn’t
feel any “immense pleasure” doing this, of course. Perhaps a sense of mild relief, akin to what you feel when you bid good riddance to bad rubbish.

“Beautiful,” said Juffin when I returned. “Baguda Maldaxan’s people will come pick them up in a few minutes. Then I’m going to abuse my exalted position as boss and
go to the Street of Old Coins.”

“Will you take my girlfriend to the movies?” I said. “I have a feeling she’s too shy to bother you. From time to time, she thinks my former bedroom has turned into an
extension of your office.”

“And she’s right,” said Juffin. “Okay, I’ll send her an invitation since she’s so tactful and all. I hope you won’t ask me to invite her daddy,
too?”

“And all her sixteen ghost brothers to boot,” I said. “By the way, what did you watch last night? More cartoons?”

“More cartoons and a pretty good movie about some crazy Magician. After he died, he got into the habit of visiting people in their dreams. And he didn’t just scare people; he
actually murdered them—just like that Phetan that almost spoiled your housewarming party a little over two years ago. Do you remember him?”

“Do I!” I said.

“See? Our worlds are not that dissimilar,” said Juffin. I realized that Juffin thought
A Nightmare on Elm Street
belonged to the genre of neorealism, but I wasn’t in the
mood to disabuse him of the notion. Then again, who knows where screenwriters get their stories from?

Lonli-Lokli appeared in my office an hour later. He looked like a man who was beset by sudden and urgent personal problems.

“Max, I finished your book,” he said, sitting down across from me.

“And judging by your tone, you’re dissatisfied with it. Mind you, though: I didn’t write it.”

“‘Dissatisfied’ is not the term I would use here,” he said. “But I am confused and do not understand the World you were born in. Answer me this: Are all your
compatriots so hopelessly horrible?”

“Well . . .” I grinned crookedly as I remembered my new friend Loiso Pondoxo, the charming misanthrope, as well as my own recent adventures on a certain sandy beach. Sir Shurf
couldn’t have found a better person to turn to. “There were times in my life when that was exactly what I thought,” I said finally. “Then there were times when I thought the
opposite. I think my feelings toward humanity depended solely on the state of my personal affairs. Don’t lose any sleep over the book, though. I told you it was science fiction, which means
the contents of the book have very little to do with the way things really are. How did it end, by the way? Yesterday you only told me the beginning.”

“I am afraid I have not understood much myself. I do not know where to begin. You see, the powerful beings from another World, which I told you about yesterday, gave a few select people
the ability to save the rest. They gave their chosen ones time and almost unlimited strength so they could help the rest of the people become perfect and occupy a higher rank in that strange
classification of living beings that the aliens had come up with. Granted, their system of values is mostly in line with my own.”

“Sounds great,” I said. “Maybe I should read this strange book myself, just to familiarize myself with that value system. So how did it end?”

“Initially, the chosen ones were happy with the outcome,” said Shurf. “They tried numerous ways of changing their compatriots. In particular, they established a system of birth
control that was somehow connected with your horoscopes. As far as I can judge, they achieved impressive results. Then they got bored with it. Well, not bored, but they were disappointed in their
fellow earthlings. And they destroyed everyone before their powerful masters from another World got the chance. The aliens, however, approved of their decision. The book left a bad taste in my
mouth. There is something shatteringly hopeless in it. I should very much like to look the person who wrote it in the eye and ask him how he can live with it.”

“Aw, Shurf. It’s just another dystopia. Forget about it. The author would be surprised to know that someone took his story so much to heart. In my World, people read this nonsense
when they’re bored and then forget it as soon as they close the book. I highly recommend that you do the same.”

“Your people have nerves of steel,” said Shurf. “Or they have no imagination whatsoever.”

“Perhaps. But I tend to think we were just brought up differently. It’s simply unpleasant to get so emotional about a book. I suspect I owe you a good dinner. If one of my
compatriots ruined your day, I simply must put things right.”

Lonli-Lokli didn’t mind. Our dinner at the Juffin’s Dozen marked another period that I put at the end of the apocalyptic chapter that my life had been opening up over and over again
recently. Enough is enough, I told myself.

The remaining two dozen days before the Last Day of the Year went by quickly and pleasantly. I felt no urge to have another meeting with Sir Loiso Pondoxo. I put off this social visit until some
indeterminate “later.” Occasionally my life enters phases of wonderful, sweet laziness, which, unfortunately, don’t last long.