Authors: Max Frei,Polly Gannon
Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Horror, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Epic
The Stranger (59 page)
“You know, friend, I sometimes surprise myself,” I admitted. “I’m afraid of myself. I’m a danger to my own existence—that’s what I think.”
“Maybe you’re just some former Grand Magician? And Juffin gave you a good whack, so you lost your memory?”
“I hope not. Speaking of good whacks, thanks for slapping me around there. You seem to have saved my life. You ever tried that with the deceased? Maybe it would work on them, too.”
“Nonsense, Max. I wanted to slap you around a long time ago, and now there was a reason. But really, what happened to you?”
“I sent him a call, and I probably tried too hard. Some hundredth degree of your blasted magic, instead of the second. It’s always that way with me. My whole life I’ve always put too much salt on my omelets, too. That’s the sort of thing that happens to me.”
“Hey, look over there, Max! There’s another curious spectacle.”
I turned around to look. That cage contained a person, too. I puffed on my pipe so we could see it better. Sinning Magicians! It was a piece of meat that still hadn’t lost the outline of its human form. A piece of aromatic meat dressed in a skaba and a looxi!
My nerves were ready to snap. We seemed to have unraveled this cursed affair, and much more quickly than we had anticipated. But I still felt no sense of relief.
“Do you see what I see, Melifaro? He
cooks
them! He cooks them, somehow, the swine! Send a call to our boys. We need Lonli-Lokli here. The sooner the better.”
cooks
them! He cooks them, somehow, the swine! Send a call to our boys. We need Lonli-Lokli here. The sooner the better.”
“Yes,” whispered Melifaro. “And I really need the bathroom. I feel sick. We just ate what he cooked.”
“Go ahead and hurl,” I replied with a forced calm. “Don’t be ashamed. But I don’t think they fed us human flesh. I have a feeling the hunchback has only one Speciality of the House.”
“Lonli-Lokli will be here soon,” Melifaro reported. “I requested that he bring a few boys from the Police Force. What is this filth we’ve dug up, Max? Let’s go look at the rest.”
“Are you sure you want to? Go without me, then. I don’t want to barf after a good meal. I wasn’t raised that way. My mother thought that after visiting a good restaurant you shouldn’t even do number two for a week.”
“Still joking, Mr. Bad Dream? How would you have known about expensive restaurants living in the Borderlands? It can’t get worse than it already is. But what if there are live people in the other cages?”
“Maybe there are. Go take a look. I’ve seen enough.”
I turned away from the loathsome House Special and puffed on my pipe with genuine pleasure. Honestly, it wasn’t so bad after all, this local tobacco.
“Max, I was wrong!” Melifaro’s voice sounded improbably loud. “It just got worse! Come here and shed some light. Come on, puff on it one more time. You can close your eyes if you don’t want to look.”
I looked, of course. I had always known that my curiosity would be my undoing. A piece of meat in a looxi—that’s disgusting enough. But when above the belt there’s meat, and below, a pair of legs . . . Nevertheless, I didn’t get sick. My stomach is quite a reliable piece of equipment. No matter what kind of filth crosses its path in life, it continues to function. All of a sudden, though, standing upright became too much for me, and I sank to the ground with a dull thud, like an overloaded shopping bag.
Only then did I realize we were no longer alone.
The rest was like a dream. A second that seemed to last a whole lifetime—that’s what they usually say. “A whole lifetime” is an exaggeration; but that a few hours fit into the span of this second is something I’ll stake my life on.
In the doorway, I saw a darkness thicker than that which surrounded it and a short, stooped silhouette. The chef was hurrying to restore order to his kitchen. He was enraged, and wasn’t thinking about the consequences. One split second was enough for me to become this person, then to stop being him, and to realize—he’s a madman.
Itullo the hunchback was armed with a hatchet and a silk noose, which they use here to kill turkeys before plucking and roasting them. The hunchback had come to kill us, filthy rotten little boys who were making mischief with his frying pans. From the very start he didn’t stand a chance; but madmen don’t bother their heads with such trifles.
I turned around and looked again at the monstrous creations of this kitchen wizard. There are many ways to meet one’s death, but people shouldn’t have to die like that. Not that way.
I wanted to fly into a rage. I wanted to desperately, but it didn’t happen. I remained utterly calm. It was almost a matter of indifference to me. The breathing exercises that Lonli-Lokli had taught me turned the nervous Max into an extremely steady and composed beast. That meant there would be no show. As long as I was calm and good, spitting was useless. It would flop.
The hunchback did try his best to enrage me, poor thing! He charged at me, flourishing his implements of destruction, the tools of his trade. I think the certainty of this “culinary genius” that he could really kill me and Melifaro with his paltry weapons was the last straw for me. Truly, what was there to be angry about? I grew downright cheerful.
Since I hadn’t managed to lose my temper, I decided at least to scare Itullo a little, and to amuse Melifaro, who was looking terribly serious just then.
I winked conspiratorially in the darkness and spat juicily at the distorted face of our hospitable host. Then I drew back my right hand for a good blow to the throat of our attacker with the back of my palm—it was already clear that there would be no getting around a fight.
What does a snake feel when it sinks its teeth into the flesh of a stranger that disturbs its repose? At that moment, I knew: it feels nothing in particular. Nothing, really, at all.
What was bound to happen sooner or later happened just then. The monstrous gift of Grand Magician Maxlilgl Annox finally manifested itself in the full glory of its power. Contrary to Juffin’s prognosis, it happened when I was neither angry nor afraid. Itullo the Hunchback fell dead, conquered by my spittle, the deadly power of which now left no room for doubt.
“Oh, boy,” Melifaro stared at me in unfeigned rapture. “You’re reviving the best traditions of the Epoch of Orders. Without you the World would be a terribly dull place.”
“Did I kill him?” I asked in disbelief, still needing confirmation.
“Do you have any doubts about it? Do you think you just told him ‘Begone, creep!’?”
Melifaro, praise be the Magicians, doesn’t have the weakest nerves in the World. His smile stretched from ear to ear.
“You know what? I’m happy,” I said frankly. “I’ve never in my life seen anything so lowdown and loathsome in my life. Feeding people such filth, and at such outrageous prices! That mad chef has spoiled my appetite for a long time to come, and he has been fairly punished for his services. By the way, Melifaro,” I remarked, “I did spare your wallet. You never paid for the meal, did you?”
“A good way to save money, I can’t deny it. Not to mention that this Grand Magician of the Order of the Giant Sausage was planning to cut you into little pieces and serve you up in a gravy made from my blood I’m sure.”
“I’m still wondering, though.” My senses were rapidly returning to me. “That fellow, Karry; Mr. Karwen Kovareka. He was transformed into meat at home in his bed, instead of in some cage . . .”
“Leave it to me, Sir Max. Your job is to kill far-from-innocent people. I’ll deal with everything else. Believe me, in about two hours I’ll be able to answer all your questions. I’ll send a call to Lonli-Lokli and let him know he can just take it easy, maybe go out for a quiet meal. You’ve put the poor fellow out of a job. What I really need now are a dozen of Boboota’s smartest men.”
“No problem, friend. You just need to arrange it with their boss,” I muttered. “Did it never occur to you, genius?”
“You think—”
“I don’t think anything. Thinking is your job. My job is killing far-from-innocent people. General Boboota ate here, then disappeared without a trace. Take my matches and go look for him. If he’s already well done, we’ll put him aside for Juffin. Who knows, maybe Sir Venerable Head wants to eat him for dinner.”
“Ugh! That’s revolting. Hand over the matches.”
A few minutes later, Melifaro’s jubilant voice echoed through the room.
“Juffin’s going to fire us, Mr. Bad Dream! Boboota’s here, but he seems to be all right. He doesn’t even look like a sausage—he’s just sleeping.”
“He’s been here since yesterday. Evidently, turning into pâté is a fairly lengthy process. Oh, if it hadn’t been for my darned good luck, poor Juffin would have been so happy! It looks like it just wasn’t meant to be.”
“What’s going on here? Are you here, Sir Melifaro?” It was the voice of Lieutenant Shixola, a policeman, and our good friend.
“Over here. Keep it down, boys. Your boss, it seems, is taking a nap.”
“What?! Our boss?”
Shixola quickened his pace, and tripped over the corpse of the mad chef at a rapid clip. I managed to catch him at the very moment his thoroughbred nose was an inch from the floor. His colleague, following close behind, miraculously avoided the same fate, and several more policemen reached for their weapons in alarm. Melifaro guffawed.
“Good day, Sir Max,” Shixola mumbled, freeing himself from my embrace. “Lucky for me you have excellent reflexes. What did I trip over?”
“Over the body of a state criminal—a poisoner, a cannibal, and the abductor of General Boboota. Mr. Itullo tried so hard to make your life easier and more pleasant! Truly, gentlemen, Sir Melifaro and I are terribly sorry. We are to blame. Here is your boss, healthy and all in one piece.”
“Not ‘we’—just you, Max!” Melifaro hurried to rid himself of the undeserved laurels. “I just came here for dinner. So, gentlemen, if you have come to punch the living daylights out of the one who rescued your boss, Sir Max is your man. I ask you to observe the proper protocol!”
The policemen looked at Melifaro as though he were a slow-witted sick child. It seemed to them that saying such things about a person wearing the Mantle of Death, in his presence, no less, was not courage, but suicide. I made a horrible grimace and showed Melifaro my fist. One shouldn’t let down one’s defenses in front of strangers, all the same. Otherwise, how could you keep them quaking in fear?
“I won’t disturb your work, gentlemen,” I said, bowing to Melifaro. “Carry on.”
“And you?” Melifaro asked indignantly.
“What more is there for me to do here? I’ll go cheer up Juffin. By the time you get there, he will already have had time to kill me for the good news. Then, you’ll see, you’ll be relieved. I’m saving your skin, friend. It’s nothing to me—I’m immortal.”
The poor policemen listened to me, mouths agape.
As I was going out the door, Melifaro’s voice reached me. “Were you serious about that immortality business, Max?” I sighed and resorted to Silent Speech, which I had been avoiding all day,
Who knows who I am? I told you
.
Who knows who I am? I told you
.
I set out for the House by the Bridge. I really couldn’t wait to repent before my boss. And I hadn’t seen Melamori since the morning.
Since I was driving the amobiler, I was in Sir Juffin Hully’s office, in less than ten minutes.
“I never expected you to be so prompt, Max. Finding Boboota a dozen seconds after sunset! That’s a record even for our office—cracking a case less than a minute after it was officially opened. We have something to celebrate. Let’s go to the
Glutton
. And you can stop peering around in hopes of seeing Lady Melamori. She has been home for two hours already, by my estimation. I let her off, poor thing: first her relatives, then that foolish call from you at sunrise. What brought that on? A surge of tender emotion? Come on, let’s go.”
Glutton
. And you can stop peering around in hopes of seeing Lady Melamori. She has been home for two hours already, by my estimation. I let her off, poor thing: first her relatives, then that foolish call from you at sunrise. What brought that on? A surge of tender emotion? Come on, let’s go.”
Other books
Last Surgeon by Michael Palmer
Morgan's Rescue by Lindsay McKenna
The Dark Light of Day by T.M. Frazier
Bishop as Pawn by William X. Kienzle
Up Till Now by William Shatner
Promposal by Rhonda Helms
Pecked to Death by Vanessa Gray Bartal
Everyone Pays by Seth Harwood
Fury’s Kiss by Nicola R. White
Heartbreaker by Linda Howard