The Stranger's Magic: The Labyrinths of Echo: Book Three (7 page)

If I had allowed myself even a second to evaluate the situation, if I had wasted any time on doubt, reflection, or even panic, death—my indefatigable companion—would definitely have
caught up with me that night. Yet I didn’t even bother to assess the situation. Praise be the Magicians, I didn’t waste time trying to understand something that could not be understood.
Sir Shurf Lonli-Lokli, my most predictable and reliable friend, who, according to my naive, childish notions, held the World on his shoulders, was about to kill me there and then without
elaborating on the details of his eccentric intention, to put it mildly.

I hit the brakes, and the amobiler stopped as abruptly as it could. Even lucky boys like me rarely get away with a trick like that, but I was spared. Something cracked in my right wrist, which
had been squeezing the lever, but unlike the face of my passenger, mine didn’t hit the windshield. He hadn’t expected such a turn of events, so he catapulted out of his seat.
Instinctively, he threw his left hand with the death-dealing glove forward, to protect his head. The windshield died a quick and painless death, leaving only a pile of silvery ashes behind. Barely
realizing what I was doing, I picked up the protective glove from the floor of the amobiler, grabbed the arm with the lethal hand just below the elbow joint, and yanked the protective glove onto
it. I think I acted faster than was humanly possible: the entire operation took less, much less, than a second.

“Quit it with your stunts, you reptile!” the creature hissed.

What else would you call it? That voice didn’t belong to my friend Shurf. No way. Not in a million years.

It had taken the creature an instant to recover; it was spoiling for a fight. I was surprised I had managed to pull anything off at all, but I didn’t have time to be puzzled. I
didn’t have much time for anything.

Completely on their own, the fingers of my left hand snapped a short, dry snap, producing a tiny green fireball, a Lethal Sphere. None other than Shurf Lonli-Lokli himself had taught me this
trick way back when. It hadn’t occurred to me that he’d ever run me through a test that would cost me my life if I failed it.

“What a load of crap! All your tricks are useless, you snake. You haven’t learned a thing,” my colleague said, laughing, and he caught my Lethal Sphere with his right hand, in
the protective glove covered in runes.

The green glow wobbled and disappeared. At the same time, Lonli-Lokli’s left arm dislodged itself from my grip without any visible effort. I had never been a strong guy and didn’t
stand a chance against Lonli-Lokli himself.

I had to admit he was telling the truth. I didn’t have too many tricks in my arsenal—at least none that could stand up to the Master Who Snuffs Out Unnecessary Lives, a veritable
killing machine whose “skillful hands” many an ancient Grand Magician had failed to escape. Maybe I could shrink him and hide him between my thumb and my index finger?

I was sure, however, that my favorite trick would be tantamount to suicide: however small Sir Shurf might be, nothing was going to prevent him from exposing his death-dealing hands even while he
was curled up in my fist. And then I’d be dead. Very, very dead.

Spit at him! Spit at him now, you idiot! my mind was yelling, but this uninvited adviser had to stuff it. I wasn’t going to waste precious time on experiments, the results of which were
already obvious to me.

My logic was approximately as follows: Sir Shurf was my colleague, my comrade in arms, my partner in many perilous adventures—my mentor, one could say. Since he himself had taught me a
great deal of magic, he knew what to expect from me. Moreover, one would assume, he was prepared for everything, as well. For example, I was sure he had some kind of protection from my venomous
spit. To get out of this alive, my primary objective was to forget all of my old tricks and pull off something absolutely unimaginable, something that shattered all his preconceptions of me and,
indeed, my own preconceptions of myself.

I had nothing to lose—I was virtually a dead man. Sir Shurf was already taking off his left protective glove. Fortunately, he was doing it slowly and carefully, which was a usual safety
measure. Unfortunately, however slowly he was fiddling with his gloves, I still didn’t have a chance in hell for survival.

All I could do was try to have a good time dying, and to go out in style. Why not? My scant but sad postmortem experience suggested that I wouldn’t have much time for it after the
fact.

I laughed like a madman and jumped onto my feet, not quite realizing why I was doing it. Was I going to challenge my friend Shurf to play a game of chase? Then again, knowing me . . .

The next thing I knew, my feet were no longer touching the ground. The wonderful lightness that had poured into me after the ritual with the holey cup had finally overflowed. A moment later I
was contemplating the spiky rooftops of the Old City with surprise. The street lamps were glowing somewhere down there. I hadn’t merely levitated; I had shot up into the sky: a merry
lightweight force had jolted me, then launched me upward like a cork from a bottle of champagne.

I was still laughing like crazy. Maybe I was crazy. What else would happen to a man if his most trustworthy and predictable friend was going to kill him? The fact that I was hovering above the
Echo night like Winnie-the-Pooh at the end of his balloon complemented the crazy events of the evening very nicely.

A piercing white flash somewhere down below brought me to my senses. Until that moment, I had had no idea of the range of Lonli-Lokli’s deadly left hand. For a moment, I thought it was
curtains for me. Yet I was about to learn some good news: the distance to the target mattered. The snow-white lightning flashed and fizzled out somewhere above the roofs of the Old City. I was much
higher and, apparently, completely beyond reach.

Gotta see Juffin right now, I thought. What I really need now is to curl up and shelter under Sir Juffin Hully’s wings. I don’t think I can solve this problem myself.

I clutched at this thought like a drowning man grasping hold of someone else’s lifebelt. For a few moments, I thought only about how desperate I was to see Juffin: I rehearsed my
performance, imagined the boss’s possible reaction, and prayed to the indifferent heavens to arrange this meeting for me. When I finally forced my mind to shut up and made myself look down, I
saw that the ground was much closer than it had been before. If Sir Lonli-Lokli wanted to give his longrange shooting experiment another go, he had a very good chance—a hundred percent
chance, rather—to complete it and tuck it under his belt as the crowning glory of his brilliant career.

Then I realized that neither Lonli-Lokli nor the remains of my favorite amobiler were anywhere to be seen. This was a different street. I was just a few blocks away from the Ministry of Perfect
Public Order, and it was in my best interests to be on the ground—the sooner the better.

No sooner had I thought about it than my feet touched the sidewalk. I didn’t even try to understand how I had managed first to defeat gravity and then to join the Greater Pedestrian
Community as though nothing had happened. I dashed to the House by the Bridge. Quite possibly, I beat the sprint record that night, however meaningless it was under the circumstances. Fortunately,
my heart, though indignant at the inexcusable overexertion, hadn’t blown up in my chest, although I have to admit it tried to the best of its ability. My other heart—the mysterious
one—simply ignored the situation, which was either below its dignity, beyond its comprehension, or simply out of its jurisdiction.

When I crossed the finish line on the Street of Copper Pots, I remembered that the boss’s shift had long been over, so I didn’t bother going inside Headquarters and instead sank into
the driver’s seat of one of the company amobilers. Praise be the Magicians, I didn’t have to explain anything to the driver. The fellow had probably gone off to have a cup of kamra in
the company of his colleagues. That was very wise (and timely) of him: I could not possibly have uttered a single comprehensible word at that moment. I’d no doubt have scared him to death if
I tried.

I grabbed the lever and tore along to the Street of Old Coins: Juffin had said that I could find him there tonight. I really hoped I would. I seriously doubted that I could use Silent Speech: it
would have been as difficult as making a phone call under general anesthesia.

I hit the brakes by the door of my old apartment on the Street of Old Coins almost as hard as I had a few minutes before when I had to save my own precious skin. Well, maybe not quite that
hard.

I didn’t have to get out of the amobiler: Juffin was standing in the doorway. I nearly died from relief when I saw him. I was so happy, I was about to demonstrate a mixture of hysterics
and a swoon, but I got a grip on myself just in time.

It’s not over yet, I said to myself. Far from it. If you think about it, it’s just the beginning.

“Someone tried to kill you,” said Juffin. He didn’t ask—he stated it.

I nodded. I still couldn’t speak: I needed a little more time to come to my senses. Praise be the Magicians, I could use the breathing exercises that—oh, the irony—Lonli-Lokli
had taught me.

Juffin watched me very calmly, and I think I even detected a hint of curiosity in his gaze. He noticed the effort I was making to calm down and recover, nodded in approval, and got into the
amobiler beside me.

“Let’s go to the House by the Bridge,” he said. “It’s the best place to solve any problem. Actually, that’s what it was built for.”

I nodded again, and we drove back. Now I was driving at a normal, human speed, maybe even a little slower than usual: Sir Juffin Hully’s presence, along with the breathing exercises, had a
most salutary effect on me.

The boss was lost in thought all the way back. He spoke only when we were already in the hallway leading to our office: “I still don’t understand who was trying to kill
you.”

“Shurf,” I said in a wooden tone. Then again, a wooden tone is better than none.

“I see. Are you certain it was him?”

“If there’s anything I’ve ever been really certain about, it’s that it was him when we left the Vampire’s Dinner. And it was him sitting next to me in the front
seat of the amobiler. And then the person sitting next to me in the amobiler tried to kill me. Logic suggests that it was Shurf who tried to kill me. There was no one else there. Yet I refuse to
accept this kind of logic,” I said, sinking into my armchair.

“So do I,” said Juffin. “All the more since this is not the only kind of logic known to me. Just the most primitive. I’m afraid that the fellow is in even deeper trouble
than you are, if being in deeper trouble is even possible.”

“It is,” I said, shuddering at the thought of what might have happened to my friend. “After all, I’m still alive, as far as I can tell. I’m even sitting here
talking to you. I wish Shurf could say the same about himself.”

Juffin nodded a slow, thoughtful nod and stared somewhere behind me with a motionless gaze.

“I have good news,” he said suddenly. “Sir Shurf can say the same about himself—or, more precisely, will be able to very soon. He just sent me a call and will join us in
a few minutes.”

My body tensed up in an unnatural way, and then I felt the already familiar sensation of supernatural lightness. I had to exert an enormous amount of effort not to float up toward the ceiling.
The only thing that stopped me was the fear of piercing the roof of the House by the Bridge with my tender head.

Juffin contemplated my inner struggle with visible pleasure. “Come on, Max. Everything is all right,” he said. “It is Sir Shurf Lonli-Lokli and not some crazed channeler. And
do you really think I couldn’t put a stop to anything untoward that might happen in my presence?”

“Sure you can. Maybe. It’s just that it’s a bit too much for me.”

“Oh, shush. Stop your whining,” said Juffin. “‘Too much for me.’ You’d be surprised if I told you how many surprises you could gobble down before you have the
right to wince.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said. “Okay, you know best. I have a business proposal for you, though. First you treat me to a big cup of kamra and offer me one free psychoanalysis session.
Then you can present me a ceremonial dessert spoon.”