The Stranger's Woes (4 page)

“Yes, in a dozen days or so. Ulima, you see, thinks I should take it easy and not rush things.”

I sighed again, this time in relief. Everything was sorting itself out without any help from me.

“You’re quite right, Lady Ulima.” I could have kissed the General’s sweet wife then and there. “King Banjee is no joke. The slightest overexertion, or, let’s say, nervous strain, can lead to a relapse. I can vouch for it.”

“Vouch for it?” Lady Ulima said, confused. “Did you eat some of that dreadful mess, too, Sir Max?”

“Praise be the Magicians, no. But I have spent a great deal of time investigating the consequences of others’ misfortunes.”

“Did you hear that, dumpling?” said this wonderful woman. “I don’t think you should return to work until Midyear’s Day, if not later.”

Boboota nodded obediently.

Kamshi and Shixola’s upcoming two-man antiterrorist campaign in the Magaxon Forest had been saved.

“Will you drop me off at home, Max?” Melifaro said, plunking down wearily in the back seat of the amobiler. “Juffin has no choice now but to free us from work for half a dozen days. I’ve never been so exhausted in my life.”

“Really? What wore you out? Counting all Boboota’s toilets? That’s understandable—you don’t have enough fingers to count them on.”

“Are you making fun of me? That’s not fair. I can’t bear these formal dinners. They drive me to distraction. In my family, everyone eats when they please, including guests. So there’s always someone at the table enjoying a meal or a snack, except at night, of course. That’s what I was used to when I was growing up. But here, you sit in one spot for three hours with your mouth full, making polite conversation. I thought our hosts would be amusing, but they turned out to be such bores. Although Lady Ulima, of course, is charming. And the mushroom—that was something else!” Melifaro livened up a bit just thinking about it. “Yes, that mushroom is something to write home about.”

“And the portrait?” I chuckled. “And the dozen toilets? And the family lore about how the youthful Boboota filled his pants? Holy crap!”

Melifaro brayed so violently that the amobiler jumped up and down.

Fifteen minutes later I deposited him in front of his door on the Street of Gloomy Clouds, in the center of the Old City. I watched him with envy as he went inside, then turned toward the House by the Bridge. I still had to go to work.

The job that awaited me wasn’t an easy one. It consisted of arranging my posterior more on the chair than off, placing my feet on Sir Juffin Hully’s sacred desk, and imbibing an endless stream of kamra. The poor couriers would be running their feet flat, beating a path to the
Glutton
and back.

Relief came just in time. Kurush was pecking listlessly at his third pastry. His fondness for sweets seemed to be diminishing. At about the same time, I was beginning to fear that I might explode. Just then, in the doorway appeared the object of my long-standing envy: the splendid nose of Captain Shixola. He was on tenterhooks, awaiting my detailed report about our visit to the deathbed of General Boboota Box, Chief of Public Order.

I beamed at him. “Come in, come in. I can offer you a sea of kamra and some good news.”

“You aren’t busy, Sir Max?” the owner of the nose inquired tactfully.

“See for yourself,” I said, grinning. “I’m swamped. The kamra is tepid, the mug heavy, and there’s no end in sight to this hard manual labor. Don’t you feel for me?”

Captain Shixola finally appeared in full. In spite of his unusual height and athletic build, he still seemed like an unnecessary afterthought to his own fathomless nose.

“But where is Sir Kamshi? Maybe he finally wore himself out with worry and headed for the Xuron to put a watery end to it. Too bad. Hope is supposed to die last.”

“He’s so tired after the last few days that he no longer cares. He just went home to sleep.”

Shixola had the habit of responding to my wildest statements with a half-smile. It was universally applicable to all situations. If I was really joking—well, here’s a smile for you. But if that Sir Max uttered something unbelievably stupid or outrageous—well, it wasn’t a real smile after all.

“Okay,” I said. “Let him sleep. Looks like you’ll be the one to get all the good news. And all the kamra, too. I can’t bear to look at it anymore, much less drink it.”

“That’s what Max always says,” said Kurush. “Then he orders another jug of it. You people are extraordinarily contradictory creatures.”

“You got that right, smarty,” I said. Then I turned to Shixola again. “You owe me one, my friend.”

“Do you mean that General Boboota—”

“You wouldn’t even recognize him! He’s the sweetest-tempered, most soft-spoken person on earth. He doesn’t speak above a whisper. Is he always like that at home?”

“Quite the contrary. Lady Ulima is the only one who can tame him, and only half the time at that. But you know yourself how he treats us, Sir Max.”

“Yes. What happened tonight was truly beyond belief. When the conversation turned to toilets, he inquired whether the subject was too shocking for us.”

“That really is beyond belief,” Shixola said, looking bewildered. “Is it possible he has changed that much?” He clearly couldn’t believe his luck.

“Well, if I were you I wouldn’t hold my breath. It might just be the consequences of the poisoning. And he has every chance of fully recovering. Be that as it may, for now the Dark Magicians are on your side. Boboota himself decided not to return to work for another dozen or so days. And after my little song and dance, Lady Ulima will keep him at home until Midyear’s Day, I think.”

“Sir Max, it’s no wonder you’re the stuff of legend around here. You—”

“What kinds of legends are they telling about me, Shixola?” I said, interrupting him.

“Oh my, hasn’t Sir Kofa told you?” He was quite perplexed. “I can’t repeat these silly things in front of Kurush.”

“Don’t worry. I’m asleep,” the buriwok said dryly.

I laughed. Kurush may be the wisest of birds, but the things he comes out with sometimes! Too much exposure to people can’t lead to any good, it seems.

“You see? Kurush is asleep. And I need to hear the bitter truth, so spit it out. Sir Kofa only wanted to spare my feelings.”

“Well, they say you are Sir Juffin Hully’s illegitimate son,” Shixola said, after some hesitation. “But you must know that already without my telling you. And they say that you were imprisoned in Xolomi for five hundred years for the murder of the entire ancient royal dynasty that abdicated the throne in favor of the first of the Gurigs. That crime, by the way, is a historical fact, but the guilty parties were never found, no matter what people may think. They also say that you are the very first of the ancient Grand Magicians. You came back to life, dug your way out of the grave, stole one of Sir Juffin’s numerous souls, and—”

“Wow, curiouser and curiouser!” The quote, which was known to me alone, sprang unbidden to my lips. “I see. What else?”

“More of the same. They say you are even more powerful than Loiso Pondoxo, but that you haven’t yet come into your full powers since you first have to kill all the living Magicians—former Magicians, I mean. The ones that are left. That’s why you entered the Secret Investigative Force, they say.”

“Yikes! More powerful than Loiso Pondoxo? Oh, come on! I’m such a fine, upstanding guy. Sweet and inoffensive as a stuffed animal. Not without my little eccentricities, mind you, but even those are completely innocent. Come on, do people really believe all that nonsense?”

“Of course they do,” Shixola said. “There’s nothing they like better than being on intimate terms with a miracle, at least in their imaginations. Otherwise life is so monotonous, so dull.”

“You’re all right, Shixola. You have a clear and simple explanation for everything. I wish I did.”

“Are you making fun of me, Sir Max?” Shixola said guardedly.

“Not in the least. But tell me about these outlaws of yours. Better yet, about their predecessors. Is it a tale of derring-do?”

“It’s the stuff of romance and adventure, all right. Red Jiffa’s men were known as the Magaxon Foxes. Those fellows were determined to become legends right from the start. Take Sir Jiffa Savanxa. He hailed from a very distinguished family—distant relatives of the king himself. It’s not every day that gentlemen like him run off to become outlaws.

“His story began during the Troubled Times, but things were different at first. Back then, the Magaxon Foxes hunted down Mutinous Magicians who were fleeing to Echo from the Residences of the provincial Orders of Magic. (These were the Junior Magicians, of course—the Senior Magicians were more than they could handle.) The Foxes were thus performing a service for the king, and for those who remained loyal to him.

“After the Code was introduced, Sir Jiffa refused to return to the Capital to collect his laurels. I think he had simply found his true calling. That happens, you know.”

“You got that right, Shixola,” I said grinning. “And what did these wholesome kids do next?”

“That’s easy to guess. They kept on hunting. Only now they were more interested in ordinary people. Ordinary and rich. Merchants, for instance. At first the king tried to reason with Jiffa. Huntsmen from the Royal Court tried bringing him back into the fold for at least a dozen years. Finally the late king realized it was a lost cause. Jiffa and his brigands were declared outlaws, and the huntsmen had to try to chase them down out of other motives. Sir Jiffa was a master in the arts of secrecy and camouflage, and he taught his people all he knew. The Foxes knew how to make themselves invisible. Literally. Finally they were captured and their hideouts were discovered. You know, Sir Max, they hid underground, and Jiffa had his own palace down there. There was a whole system of passageways that led into the Magaxon Forest. The Foxes really did live like foxes, in lairs. It’s no wonder that the huntsmen gave chase for five dozen years.”

“What did they do with the stolen goods?” I said, naively recalling the legend of Robin Hood I had been so fond of as a child.

“They stuffed the corners of their lairs with the loot. What else can you do with treasure if you live in a forest? Actually, that slyboots Jiffa had the temerity to come sniffing around Echo. He managed to squander some of the fortune before they were hot on his trail. After that, Red Jiffa buried himself in his lair for good.”

“Well, well,” I said. There was no hint in the account of anything that smacked of robbing from the rich to give to the poor. And even in Robin Hood’s case, I had my doubts.

“During the reign of the old king, things stayed pretty quiet,” Shixola went on. “But when the present monarch, King Gurig VIII, took the throne, he decreed a Royal Hunt for the Magaxon Foxes. This time His Majesty enlisted the help of a bunch of former Magicians, though not Mutinous Magicians, of course. These fellows had their own issues with Red Jiffa. Back in the day he had cut down a number of their close friends. And so we add yet another detail to his portrait: he adored wielding cold steel. It made him dizzy with rapture.”

“How vile,” I said sincerely, recalling my own meager but unfortunate experience with dangerous sharp objects. “So tasteless.”

“You must admit, though, Sir Max, that there’s a certain fascination in it,” Shixola said.

Touché! Live and learn, Max, I reminded myself. And don’t forget for a minute that you are surrounded by intensely interesting people.