The Stranger (74 page)

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Authors: Max Frei,Polly Gannon

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

BOOK: The Stranger
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The knife fell on the mosaic, and I tried to figure out what was happening. I wasn’t there. I just wasn’t. That’s all. I had disappeared somehow, gone “nowhere” and ceased to be “something”—for the space of a second. Then I appeared again. Just in time to step on the knife with my foot, as well as on the hand of the stunned would-be killer.
“Hi!” I said. “Now we’re going to undress. Or we’ll just go straight to the House by the Bridge. As you wish, darling. Take your pick. Today is your day.”
The bearded fellow jerked with such force that I almost flew head over heels, along with my tasteless jokes. It finally dawned on me that my chances for winning this contest of wills were very slim. The Mantle of Death and lots of good food had made a very benign fellow out of Max. An uneasy feeling of doom had crept up behind me and was about to leap out and put an end to my existence. I didn’t like it a bit.
I knew very well that I wouldn’t spit at the bearded chap. It would be cruel to kill him, not to mention foolish. Who knew what kinds of secrets the angry old salt was keeping inside him? On the other hand, how could I fight a strapping fellow like that? I had never been any good with my fists. Making a big noise, yes, but standing my ground in a fight to the death was not my cup of tea. Whatever Sir Juffin Hully said about the possible dire consequences of mixing two curses, I had to take the risk and do a bit of sorcery.
Praise be the Magicians, at least I knew how to do
something
. With a practiced gesture, I hid the long-beard between the thumb and the forefinger of my left hand.
Exhausted, I sat down on the pavement and hung my head between my knees. I should take this souvenir to Juffin, I thought gloomily. I’ll go presently. Let me just sit here a minute, then on to the House by the Bridge, blast it!
I felt stunned. It seemed as if an enormous heavy stone had settled on me, and I couldn’t move.
Then I felt a gentle hand come to rest on my shoulder.
“Has something happened, sir? We heard some noise. Perhaps you need some help?” asked an elegant, bright-haired lady in a richly adorned looxi.
Her broad-shouldered companion sat on his haunches and stared searchingly into my face. What could I tell them, these fine, upstanding young people?
After all, just recently I had been Sir Max, the most lighthearted, frivolous civil servant on either side of the Xuron.
“It’s all right, kind people,” I said with a smile. “I came here with a friend, and that idiot refused point blank to visit the Trysting House. He cried half the night about how lonely he was, but as soon as we were here he got cold feet. I’m ashamed to say that he was afraid. He punched me and then ran off.”
“Your friend must be crazy,” the lady said, shaking her head in disapproval. “How can someone fear his own destiny?”
“It turns out that it’s possible,” I said, staring at my left hand, where, inconceivably, the arrestee was being held. “So I’m all right. Thank you kindly. Good night to you.”
“We certainly will have a good night,” the lady said, smiling.
Her companion finally stopped studying my face and took the woman by the hand.
“Magicians be with your mad friend. Drop in yourself and meet your destiny. Morning is a long way away,” she grinned archly, waving goodbye.
Left alone, I looked pensively at the Trysting House. Had this fair-haired stranger bewitched me? I didn’t know why, but I suddenly wished very much to go inside. After all, I still hadn’t been with a woman in this World. Except in my dreams—but that didn’t quite count.
 
As though from a distance, I observed a tall young man in a modest garment, who stood up from the pavement and reached for the doorknob. That young man seemed to be me. In any case, I discovered that I was already on the threshold of that establishment. When someone asked me to pay two crowns, I dug nervously in the pocket of my looxi. The building was located on that side of the street where the Seekers were men, and the Seeker paid a double entrance fee.
I paid the money, but had no idea what to do next. Melifaro’s explanations had evaporated from my memory. What the heck was I thinking, coming here with an arrestee in custody! I felt slightly panicky. I realized that in my other hand I was grasping a tiny, smooth ceramic tag with the number 19 stamped on it. How and when I had managed to come by it was a mystery.
I stared thoughtfully at a huge glass receptacle that was sitting on the floor by the entrance. It was full of tags of the same kind. I had probably taken it from there. What now? I wondered in horror. I started to tremble. I no longer remembered that I had come here to meet an unknown woman, to meet my own destiny. I had only one goal: not committing another blunder. I had already screwed up enough for one night!
“What are you waiting for, sir?” the affable host asked in surprise. “Your number is 19. Go meet your destiny, my friend.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you for reminding me why I came here. People are so absent-minded; and I’m a person, after all.”
I finally remembered what I was supposed to do. I slowly entered the rooms where the Waiters, lonely women both beautiful and plain, were biding their time. An absurd thought flickered through my brain: I was no doubt the first cop who had ever sought a lover with an arrestee in his fist!
One, two, three . . . I couldn’t even make out any faces. They all swam together in a blurry mass, and I walked through it with a foolish grin on my face. Six, seven . . . too bad, I have another number, sweetheart. Ten, eleven . . . May I get past, please? Eighteen, nineteen . . . You’re the one I’m looking for, my lady.
 
“Are you doing this on purpose? Are you casting spells again?” asked a familiar voice. “You shouldn’t be doing this, Max. Well, anyway, that’s that. You can’t fool fate, can you?”
I finally managed to focus my eyes. The pale splotch of a face slowly acquired a sweet, familiar outline. Lady Melamori looked at me guardedly. It seemed she couldn’t decide what to do—whether to throw herself at me in a warm embrace, or run for her life.
“That’s it!” I said. “This really is the limit!”
Then I sat down on the floor and began to laugh. I couldn’t have cared less about propriety and all the rest. My good sense simply refused to take part in this implausible adventure.
My little tantrum seemed to convince Melamori better than any rational argument could that there was no plot against her, and never had been. Ever.
“Let’s get out of here, Sir Max!” she begged, sitting on her haunches next to me. She carefully stroked my poor, crazy head, and whispered, “You’re scaring the visitors. Let’s go. You can laugh all you want when we’re outside. Come on, get up.”
I leaned obediently on the strong, small hand. Sinning Magicians, this delicate lady lifted me up without any effort at all!
Outside, the fresh breeze seemed to put everything in its proper place, and I no longer felt like laughing.
“Strange things have been happening lately, Melamori,” I said. Then I was silent. What else was there to say?
“Max,” she cried. “I’m so ashamed. When I was in your bedroom—well, now I understand that I did something very foolish, but I was so frightened! I completely lost my head!”
“I can imagine,” I said. “You fall asleep in your own house, and you wake up the devil knows where.”
“What’s ‘the devil’?” Melamori asked.
It wasn’t the first time I had had to explain my way out of such idiomatic scrapes. Now I didn’t even try.
“It doesn’t matter. But you know, I really don’t know what I did. I still have no idea how it happened.”
“I believe you,” Melamori said, nodding. “Now I realize you didn’t know your own powers, but . . . it’s too late.”
“Why?”
“Because it has already happened. Only we’re going to your place, not mine. I live too close. Let this last walk be a long one.”
“The last walk? Are you out of your mind, Melamori? Do you think I’ll bite your head off in a burst of passion?”
I tried to be upbeat, so that I could raise my spirits.
“Of course you’re not going to bite my head off. It wouldn’t fit in your mouth,” Melamori replied with a weak smile. “But that’s not the point. Don’t you realize where we just met, Max?”
“In the Quarter of Trysts. You’ll never believe how I got there. Think what you wish, but I ended up there in pursuit of a fellow in a mother-of-pearl belt. You remember all that business with the belts, don’t you?”
Melamori nodded, and I went on.
“We had a little scuffle on the street, and then I arrested him. He’s still here.” I pointed to my left fist.
“Do you mean to say—” Melamori burst out laughing.
Now it was her turn to sit down on the sidewalk. I sat next to her, my arm around her shoulders as she howled with laughter.
“And I thought that you—Oh, it’s too much! You’re the most extraordinary fellow in the World, Sir Max! I adore you! What a shame!”
At long last, we got up to go.
“Have you never been to the Quarter of Trysts?” Melamori asked suddenly.
“No. In the Barren Lands everything is much simpler. Or much more complicated, depending on how you look at it. So, no. This is the first time.”
“And you don’t know—” Melamori’s voice broke into a whisper. “You don’t know that people who meet in the Quarter of Trysts are supposed to spend the night and then part forever?”
“In our case that’s absolutely impossible,” I said, and smiled, although my heart was slowly sinking down to my toes. “We aren’t both going to quit our jobs, I suppose.”
Melamori shook her head.
“That’s not necessary. We can see each other as often as we like, Max, only we will be strangers. I mean—well, you know what I mean. It’s the tradition. You can’t do anything about it. It’s my own fault. I went there to get back at someone. I don’t know who, or why . . . I shouldn’t have gone there, and you shouldn’t have either. Although, who knows whose fault it is? People don’t really have any choice in the matter.”
“But—”
I was completely bewildered. My mind was such a mess I should have just shut up.
“Let’s not talk about this, all right Max? Tomorrow is still a long way away, and . . . they say destiny is wiser than we are.”
“We won’t if you don’t want to. But I think all this sounds like primitive malarky. We can decide for ourselves what to do. Why do we need all those silly traditions? If you wish, we can just walk around today as though nothing happened. No one will tell anyone anything, and then—”
“I don’t want to, and it’s impossible,” Melamori sighed, smiling, and covered my mouth gently with her ice-cold hand. “I’m telling you, enough about that, all right?”
We continued on our way in silence. The Street of Old Coins was quite close already. Another few minutes, and we entered my dark living room. Ella and Armstrong began meowing pitifully. Day or night, in female company or all alone, as soon as I walk in the door they demand food! I was distracted for a moment by the feline distress signals. Melamori examined the cats with astonishment.
“So those are the parents of the future Royal Cats? Where did you get them, Max?”
“What do you mean? They were sent from Melifaro’s estate, didn’t you know?”

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