The Stranger's Magic: The Labyrinths of Echo: Book Three (29 page)

“You can say that again,” I said.

The door opened, then shut with a bang again.

“You are in high demand today, Max,” said Tekki.

I looked at her. She had taken her eyes off the newspaper and was looking at someone behind me. I looked around and shook my head. It was none other than Mr. Anday Pu—practically sober
and, therefore, very gloomy.

Droopy lifted one ear and gave a single, indecisive, but very impressive bark. Anday took an instinctive step backward, trying to give the dog a menacing stare in return. It wasn’t
impressive, but I had to admire the attempt. I can give you a list of people who would rush back outside upon hearing such an unfriendly hello coming from the mouth of such a monster. My name, by
the way, would be on the top of that list.

“Wrong tree,” I said to Droopy. “He’s a friend, silly.”

“Thanks, Max. Your dog has the manners of some flea-ridden village mutt. I don’t catch why you decided to keep him in the first place. Dogs belong on a farm, not in an urban
apartment,” said Anday. His French accent was stronger than usual. Was that because he was frightened?

I decided that he deserved the right to show off as compensation for the stress he had endured, so I refrained from lecturing him on Droopy’s numerous virtues. Instead, I slapped a
friendly grin on my face. Few people would dare call my bared teeth a smile, but Anday was happy.

Lonli-Lokli put his heavy hand on my shoulder. I jumped up in panic, then broke into a laugh: of course Shurf was wearing his protective gloves. If he hadn’t been, there would be no one
there to panic in the first place.

Lonli-Lokli shook his head. I mentally prepared for a lecture on the benefits of breathing exercises, which one should practice daily and not once every dozen days—something I totally
agree with, in theory—but Shurf was magnanimous enough not to say anything. Perhaps my face expressed a most convincing repentance.

“Thank you for the book, Max,” he said. “I hope you will not be offended if I take off for home now. I have great plans for tonight.” He waved his present in the air.

“Have you ever seen me take offense?” I said.

“No, I do not recall such an occasion,” said Shurf. He bowed to Tekki and then turned to Anday. “Will you be at the Three-Horned Moon tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Anday said with a nod.

“Then I will see you there, provided nothing interferes with our plans,” said Shurf and left.

I gave Anday a meaningful stare. “What’s between you and Sir Shurf, mister? What’s the Three-Horned Moon? And how come I don’t know anything about it?”

“The Three-Horned Moon is where all great poetry happens here in the part of the Xonxona continent called the Unified Kingdom,” said Anday. “It is the only place in this untidy
World where respect is given to poets who are still alive, and not just to those for whom the dinner is already over.”

“Oh, a poetry club? How come you never told me about it?”

“Are you interested, Max? I figured you didn’t give a damn about poets, dead or alive. Now your colleague Sir Lonli-Lokli, he really knows the price of words well aligned and rhymed.
Or are you saying I’ve been looking at you from the wrong window all along?”

“The wrong window? What?” I was confused.

Tekki laughed her tinkling laughter and dropped her newspaper on the floor. “Oh, Max, it’s an expression. Anday wanted to say that his opinion of you does not match
reality.”

“One heck of an expression,” I said. “Very graphic. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how many windows you should look at me from, buddy. And at other people, too.
I’ve made the same mistake myself.”

“So I didn’t catch then,” said Anday. “It’s all right. It happens. I can take you to the Three-Horned Moon if you’re interested.”

“I’m interested in everything. A little. Especially poets societies.” At this phrase I cut myself short. This was the second time today I had almost admitted I had once been a
poet. That was two times too many.

“Just admit that you learned that your friends frequent a tavern you’ve never heard of and don’t invite you,” said Tekki. “Now you don’t know whether to burst
with curiosity or tear everything to pieces. Poor, poor Sir Max.”

I laughed, nodding. “Precisely.” I then turned to Anday. “Whether you want it or not, I’m going to dog your footsteps tomorrow.”

“I didn’t catch that. You’re going to what me?” he said.

I smiled a wicked smile. The presence of Anday Pu invariably provoked me to dig through the baggage of my passive vocabulary, looking for some odd colloquialisms that would throw off that poor
scribe. Tekki also raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“To dog someone’s footsteps means to follow someone who thinks he can easily do without me. But, at the same time, it means that no one will dare slap me in the face and say,
‘Get away from me!’ Now am I making sense?”

They nodded: Tekki with enthusiasm and Anday with a hint of embarrassment, or so it seemed.

“You know, Max, I actually came to you with something . . .”

I never thought Anday was capable of speaking in such a hesitant tone. Maybe I had just never seen him before he got his hands (or, rather, his mouth) full of a pitcher of the local
firewater.

“‘With something’? Sounds like you mean business. Did you and Sir Rogro have a misunderstanding?”

“No, Sir Rogro has been behaving quite decently,” said Anday in an arrogant tone.

I smirked. If only the chief editor of the Royal Voice had heard him, although he probably wouldn’t have been surprised. Long before he became the sovereign of the press in the Capital,
Sir Rogro Jiil had been an astrologist. So now he had an excellent flashlight with which to peer into the darkest corners of the souls of his numerous subordinates.

“Okay, who’s not behaving decently then? One of your colleagues?
I’m curious,” I said.

“What do I care for those peasants of the paper!” Anday demonstrated to Tekki and me an excellent peevish fold at the corner of his mouth, a contemptuous squint, and an arrogant
profile, in that order. Having played with his facial muscles like a bodybuilder plays with his biceps, he continued. “Max, I was robbed eight days ago.”

“Robbed?” I said. “Well, that sure is a bummer, but I’m not exactly the person to turn to. Robberies are the problem of our neighbors in the House by the Bridge.
That’s actually why we keep them there. Oh, hold on a second. You don’t take kindly to our friendly policemen, do you? You probably didn’t even bother to report this to them. Am I
right?”

“Sure I reported this to the rodents,” said Anday. “Actually I wanted to talk to you right away, but you weren’t here or in the House by the Bridge. I met Melamori there,
and she told me exactly what you just did: that you Secret Investigators are too cool for everyday crimes, and that you’re not going to investigate some petty burglary. Now if someone were to
steal His Majesty’s favorite hat from Rulx Castle, that would be a different matter. Then she took me over to the side with the rodents, to another girl. I forget her name, you know,
she’s all like . . .” Anday’s eyes suddenly grew wide, and he ran his hands along the contours of his own tubby body.

I knew he was talking about Lady Kekki Tuotli: I hadn’t met any other curvaceous girls in the ranks of the City Police.

“Melamori did the right thing,” I said. “What happened then?”

“I told her everything, and she said she’d see what could be done about it,” said Anday. “But they still haven’t found anything. And I think, Max, that
they’re not really looking. Who’s going to go out of their way looking for some old chest with my granddad’s stuff in it? I think they don’t catch that—”

“Hold that thought,” I said. “Are you telling me that the burglars stole some old chest? Sir Kofa told me that some burglars of the Capital are first-class imbeciles, but I
didn’t believe him. Silly me. What was in the chest? Your grandpa’s pirate outfit?”

“So you know already,” said Anday.

“Huh? It was just a guess. Was I close?”

“The dinner is over! You totally catch, Max! That’s exactly what was in the chest. Well, maybe a few other things. I kept it in the basement of my house on the Street of Steep Roofs.
The last time I opened it was when I was entering the Higher Institute, so I don’t remember exactly what was in it. I’m totally blank.”

“How did you notice it was gone then?” I said. He didn’t strike me as a fellow who does a routine inventory of his own basement.

“It wasn’t me. You know that I rent half my house to that pesky Pela family,” said Anday, wincing. “I had to give them a twenty-year lease some time ago when I ran out of
those shiny round objects without which it’s not easy to relax. So they live there now, and I try to avoid going home because those plebeians are very noisy and they’re always cooking
something.”

“Oh, dear,” said Tekki.

Anday sensed sincere understanding in Tekki’s tone. She had such an abhorrence of kitchen smells that she refused to have a cook in her tavern. In that sense, the Armstrong & Ella was a unique place in Echo: it served only kamra and alcohol, much to the
chagrin of Echoers who loved to gobble. It seemed that most of them only came here with one objective: to make sure it still existed.

“You two just don’t get it,” I said. “It’s so nice when the smell of something frying wafts right under your nose.”

The two looked at me as though I were the devil. Finally Anday went on. “Eight days ago my tenants’ kids were playing in the basement.
Those Pelas, they have tons of kids, you know. I can never count how many exactly. And they’re always playing!” This time Anday winced so violently it might have seemed the
aforementioned children had been playing Kick the Can with their enemy’s head for a can. “They were playing hide-and-seek or some such game, and then they saw that there were two
strangers in the basement. Two men in plain looxis. The kids got scared and decided to stay put in their hiding spot. They saw how the two men grabbed my grandfather’s chest and
disappeared.”

“Did they go down the Dark Path?” I said.

“Who knows? That’s your department. I got an excellent education, but it was after the Epoch of Orders. I don’t catch all those ‘Dark Paths’ or whatever they
are,” said Anday, “although that has a nice ring to it. The fact is, they took my grandfather’s chest with them, and now I figure maybe there was some hidden treasure in
it.” His almond-shaped eyes shone when he said the word “treasure.”

“In any case, guys who can take the Dark Path are rarely complete imbeciles, that’s for sure,” I said. “You know, Anday, I’m intrigued. I’d like to dig
through that old pirate chest myself. Anyway, what exactly do you want me to do about it? Drop everything and step on the trace of those thieves? Lady Kekki Tuotli is a good girl. I think she can
handle this case without my help.”

“I just want you to remind her about my chest, Max,” Anday said. “Maybe the girl didn’t catch that she was supposed to find it? I wouldn’t bother with something like this if I were her. She probably thinks that the thieves did me a favor by hauling away some useless old junk free of charge.”

“No, I don’t think so. That ‘girl’ is not as flippant and frivolous as you might think. But I will remind her. Forgotten treasures of Ukumbian pirates, mysterious thieves
going down the Dark Path—a lovely story. I’ll help you. Under one condition, though: once the police find your precious chest, you let me rummage around in it. I’ve always wanted
to find some pirate’s treasure.”

“Thanks,” said Anday. “If you tell them it’s important, the rodents will turn the city upside down to find it.”

“How nice of you not to doubt my omnipotence,” I said. “Now, instead of sucking up to me, take me to the Three-Horned Moon. The shortest path to my heart is to drag me to some
tavern.”

“Can you manage to sneak out from work tomorrow night? We usually gather there about three hours before midnight and stay late. Well, some of us, anyway.”

“I think I will. Sometimes my omnipotence knows no bounds. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t—you never know. Send me a call before you set out.”

“Max, I’m going to say something nasty now,” said Tekki.

“Tell me I’m late for work?” I said. She nodded. “Then I’m leaving him with you. As a present. A souvenir. And as my revenge. No one can expel me from a tavern and
get away with it.”

“It’s not revenge, just another client,” said Tekki, smiling. “Don’t take it personally, Sir Pu. This vicious gentlemen only tyrannizes those he loves.”

I jumped off the barstool and shook Droopy, who had dozed off.

“Don’t forget about my chest,” said Anday.

“I won’t. And don’t you forget to take me to the Three-Horned Moon, or I’ll get furious and find the mysterious chest of Captain Kidd myself. And I’ll keep
it.”

“Who’s Captain Kidd? My grandfather’s name was Zoxma Pu.”