The Stranger's Woes (34 page)

“Not too shabby, boys,” said Sir Juffin Hully. He met us in the Hall of Common Labor. “Not too shabby at all. When I told you that I wanted to see you two here before dusk, Max, I sincerely believed that you would show up at exactly one minute before sunset. I even wanted to send you a call and hurry you up, but then I made a bet with myself. I wagered a dozen crowns. I sat here trembling with excitement and recalled all the curse words I have learned during my long, long life.”

“How many did you recall?” asked Melifaro.

“No more than a couple thousand, to my regret. Back to the business at hand, however. At sunset, the ship from Arvarox will drop anchor at the Admiral’s Pier.”

“Why the Admiral’s Pier?” I said slurping cold kamra from my boss’s favorite cup. This was quickly turning into a ritual.

“Because it is an honor,” said Juffin. “Also, it’s a military ship, so officially that would be the right thing to do. But the most important thing is that this will honor
them
. Say, Melifaro, have you been present at a Customs inspection of ships from Arvarox? I can’t quite remember.”

“Oh, yes,” said Melifaro with a nod. “I was still a rookie here. I remember I almost fainted when the proud chieftain of those barbarians started listing all his titles, and I had to stand there listening to all that nonsense with a straight face. But I persevered.”

“A noble performance it was, indeed,” said Juffin. “And today you’ll both have to repeat it. Are you ready?”

“Well, no,” said Melifaro. “But that’s not up to us to decide, is it? By they way, why us and not Lonli-Lokli? He’s much more imposing, and he certainly won’t start cracking up during the ceremony.”

“Sir Shurf can’t step aboard any vessel. If he does, it will immediately develop a hole and sink. These are the consequences of his successful career in the Order of the Holey Cup. All his former colleagues suffer from the same problem. Didn’t you know?”

“Whoa! No, I didn’t,” said Melifaro.

“Juffin, what does this have to do with us?” I said. “We’re Secret Investigators, not Customs officials. Or am I missing something here?”

“You are, Max. The ship from Arvarox is a special case. Sending the actual Customs officials to it would be a deadly insult. The Arvaroxians would immediately try to retaliate, not because they’re wicked monsters but because their code of honor says they must. Fortunately, for several thousand years the Office of Worldly Affairs has kept a thick
Guide to Good Manners
, which one must consult when welcoming guests from Arvarox. This sacred book was endorsed by both parties, but unlike us, the citizens of Arvarox know its contents by heart. Don’t fret, Max. All you need to do is show up on the ship and glance over the contents of its holds. The truth is, there’s no chance they’re going to smuggle any contraband. That book states very clearly that the subjects of the Conqueror of Arvarox swear never to bring any contraband merchandise into the territory of the Unified Kingdom. And trust me, these guys keep their word. If we don’t sniff around the ship, though, they’ll think we don’t take them seriously, and that constitutes another deadly insult to them. So please, remember to pretend that you are very interested in the contents of the ship’s holds. You can even go slightly overboard with your zeal. Then you’ll give them an official permit to stay in Echo, and that’s it. Tomorrow they’re visiting the Palace, and after that the fun will begin. We’ll follow those innocent young men around and make sure nobody and nothing hurts them. You have no idea, boys, how I loathe this nauseating fuss and bother, but Grand Magician Nuflin believes it’s best for everyone. I can’t disappoint the old man, now, can I?”

“You? You certainly can,” said Melifaro.

“Yes, I can, but I won’t, of course. Now, scram. If you spend an hour or so waiting for the honorable guests on the pier, you’ll be displaying the strongest grasp of the art of diplomacy. Don’t give me that look. I’m not saying you can’t stay for a cup of kamra.”

“With pastries,” I said.

“Kurush has a bad influence on you,” said Juffin with a smile. “You’ve adopted his mannerisms, and his tastes, too. Next thing you’ll know, you’re going to start growing feathers.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad. In my book, buriwoks are much more highly evolved creatures than humans.”

“You may be right,” said Juffin, “but can you imagine what it would look like?”

“What do mean?”

“Feathers. In combination with your face.”

Melifaro laughed. This, however, did not prevent him from grabbing a pastry from the delivery boy, who had just walked in and was looking very perplexed at the whole scene.

A half hour before sunset, Melifaro and I were standing on the Admiral’s Pier. We had arrived early, but not too early: the ship from Arvarox, enormous and splendid, was approaching us swiftly. Against the background of the darkening eastern horizon, it looked like a majestic yet sad apparition.

“Look at you, Nightmare,” said Melifaro. “You should be a poet, not a king.”

“I was a poet once,” I said. “Wasn’t all that appealing, let me tell you. Especially the wages.”

“What? Were you really a poet? But when?”

“Isn’t it obvious? While I was riding my trusty nag through the endless plains between the Barren Lands and the County Vook. I had to do something to keep my mind busy.”

Melifaro shook his head skeptically. I think up till then he had had a different picture in his head about the mysteries of poetic creativity.

The splashes of the dark waters of the Xuron reminded us that the solemn moment was nigh. The ship from Arvarox was approaching.

“I need to think about something sad right this minute, or I’ll start laughing,” said Melifaro. “How about my first love?”

“It won’t help in my case,” I said. “My first love was the most delightful moment of my life. I was less than a year old, and my chosen one was a few hundred years older. She was a friend of my grandmother’s, and she took me in her arms from time to time. That, my friend, was true love.”

The black side of the ship’s hull rubbed lightly against the pier, and a rope ladder landed at our feet. This took me by surprise: I had never had the chance to climb a rope ladder before. But I’d go to any lengths for the triumph of the foreign policy of the Unified Kingdom. Fear gave me the agility and dexterity I needed to climb the ladder. Seconds later, my beautiful boots, sporting dragon heads on their toes, landed on the deck of the ship with a soft thud. I have to confess, though, my knees were trembling.

In another moment, Melifaro joined me. We could relax and look around.

Frankly speaking, there wasn’t much to see, apart from the ties and ropes of the ship’s rigging above. The deck was empty. Whoever had thrown the ladder down for us had already hidden himself somewhere in the mysterious semidarkness of the ship’s interior.

“That’s all right,” said Melifaro, nudging me lightly with his elbow. “The ceremonial exit of some Big Chieftain will start any second now. So start thinking about something sad. Maybe about your second love, since your first one was such a delight.”

I wanted to come up with some witty retort about my second love but was distracted by a noise. It wasn’t the thumping of heavy boots or a clattering of metal. It was a much more delicate noise: a soft knocking, rustling, and creaking. The author of this modernist piece of music was a human being of such striking beauty that it took my breath away.

A true giant, no less than seven feet tall, was coming our way. His snow-white hair was pulled into a knot on the top of his head. Even so, the ends fell down long enough to reach to his waist. His amber eyes seemed almost completely round. He had a very high forehead and a perfectly shaped face—too soft for a warrior’s, but just right for a favorite with the ladies. The most striking, yet odd, feature was the combination of a predatory nose and a small, almost childlike mouth. His attire deserved special mention. His shirt and his pants, both of a very simple cut, shone with every color of the rainbow. They didn’t seem to restrain his movements, but I noticed that the folds of the shirt, even though it was very wide, did not flap in the wind. The folds swayed slightly, making a very soft knocking sound when they touched. Later I learned that when one wore a shirt made out of the wool of Arvaroxian sheep, one had to use a considerable amount of muscle power just to bend one’s arm, let alone do something else. His boots, on the contrary, seemed almost weightless: I could see the stranger’s long, flexible toes through the thin skin of his footwear. To my surprise, he had not five but six toes. I looked at his hands, but the hands were all right: they looked like ordinary human hands with five digits on each.

On one of the stranger’s shoulders, a large, furry, spider-like creature perched comfortably. Its numerous paws were shorter and much thicker than those of a spider, though. The creature was staring at me with eight pairs of tiny yellow eyes, the color of which matched those of its master. I returned the favor and gazed back with my own eyes, whose color had long been a mystery even to myself.

While I was playing stare-down with the wonder-spider, its owner slowly unfastened from his belt a weapon that looked like a machete. He threw it to our feet, and I noticed that the sound it made when it fell was quiet and dull. That’s right, I thought. Sir Manga said that there were no metals in Arvarox. I wonder what these white-haired giants use for their weaponry instead.

An extraordinary article that looked like a gigantic flyswatter followed the “machete,” landing on the deck just beside it.

Having disarmed himself, the giant approached us and stood an arm’s length away. He looked at us for some time. There was no insolence, curiosity, or even tension in his gaze (which would be only natural under the circumstances). The stranger seemed to look at us with the expression of a bird, guarded and indifferent, simply because we happened to be standing in his line of vision. Finally, he spoke.

“I am Aloxto Allirox of the clan of Ironsided Hoob, ruler of Aliur and Chixo, Sternlooking Master of two times fifty Sharptooths, powerful and loyal warrior of Toila Liomurik the Silver Bigwig, Conqueror of Arvarox, who rules it all the way to the Ends of the World, immortalized in song by Xarlox the Pastry, the greatest storyteller among the living—”

Holy cow!

Melifaro’s Silent Speech could have provoked an international conflict, but I managed not to laugh. I didn’t even smile. I had to muster all my strength to maintain a diffident expression on my face. I still have no idea how I was able to pull it off.

Finally, Aloxto Allirox finished. I was sure that by then his ranks and titles were known to every single resident of Echo. The giant had a voice that could entertain an entire stadium without using any amplification system. Too bad his talent was completely wasted.

Now it was my colleague’s turn to announce his title to the stranger.

“I am Sir Melifaro, Diurnal Representative of the Venerable Head of the Minor Secret Investigative Force of the Capital of the Unified Kingdom.”

Melifaro gave an elegant bow, which, I assumed, was the appropriate gesture of hospitality for welcoming guests of honor from Arvarox, according to the
Guide to Good Manners
that Juffin had mentioned.

I thought that Melifaro’s introduction was wanting in many respects, compared to that of the visitor from Arvarox. It was okay, but severely lacking in grandiloquence. I wanted to use a lot more window dressing for myself. I wanted the guy to wake up in cold sweat in the middle of the night and remember my name with envy. I took a deep breath and opened my chatterbox of a mouth.