The Stranger: The Labyrinths of Echo, Part One, Page 2

  “Today we’re dining in the Glutton, Max! I’ve been looking forward to this moment.”

  “Dining where?”

  “The Glutton Bunba, the most elegant mangy dive of them all: hot pâtés, the best kamra in Echo, the splendid Madam Zizinda, and not a single sourpuss to be seen at this hour of day.”

  “What do you mean, not a single sourpuss?”

  “Actually, not a single unpleasant face of any kind—but you know this place better than most Echoers!”

  “How’s that?”

  “You’ll see. Put on your shoes and let’s go. I’m as hungry as an armless thief.”

  And so for the first time I changed from my house slippers into tall moccasins that aspired to look like real boots. I also had a driver’s test—ha! As if that was anything to worry about! Having mastered the rusty heap that had belonged to my cousin, and even inherited it when he hit the big time and treated himself to some swanky new wheels, driving the amobiler didn’t pose any problem for me. Several days before, Kimpa had demonstrated for me the simple steps of operating the car, carried out with the help of a single lever. After a short ride in my company, he announced, “You’re going to be fine,” and left. Now Juffin was admiring my professionalism, saying: “Take it easy, young man! Life’s short enough as it is!” After a few minutes he added: “Too bad I don’t need a chauffeur. I’d hire you in a minute.” I swelled with pride right then and there.

  Driving did not distract me from my first real encounter with Echo. First we threaded our way through narrow lanes weaving through the magnificent gardens of the Left Bank. Each yard was illumined in keeping with the taste of its owner, so we rode through bright dappled patches of color, yellow, pink, green, and lilac. I had often admired the nighttime gardens of the Left Bank from the roof of our house, but floating from one lush lake of color to another—it was something else entirely!

  Then we entered what appeared to be a broad avenue lined with the bright little lights of stores still open. It turned out though that I hadn’t understood a thing about this particular urban landscape. This wasn’t an avenue, but rather, Echo Crest, one of the many bridges that connected the Left Bank with the Right. The waters of a river declared the finest in the Unified Kingdom, the Xuron, sparkled in the spaces between buildings. Halfway across the bridge I even slowed down, struck by the splendor of the view on both sides. To my right, on a large island in the middle of the river, was Rulx Castle, the royal residence, glittering with all the hues of a rainbow, while on the left another island gleamed with a steady sapphire light.

  “That’s Xolomi, Max. The Xolomi prison is there. A splendid little place!”

  “Splendid?”

  “From the point of view of the Head of the Minor Secret Investigative Force, such as I am, if you will remember, it is the most exquisite place in the World!” Juffin gave a short snort.

  “Oh, I forgot who I was contending with . . .”

  I glanced at Juffin. He twisted his face into an evil grimace, winked, and we both burst into laughter.

  After we composed ourselves, we continued on our way until there it was, the Right Bank. Juffin began issuing abrupt commands: “Right, right, now to the left!” in response to which I assumed the dignified bearing of an army chauffeur, though where that particular bent came from I have no idea. A bit farther and we were on the Street of the Copper Pots.

  “Over there is our House by the Bridge,” Juffin remarked, waving his hand toward the orange mist under some street lights. “But your visit there is yet to come. As for now—stop! We’re here.”

  I halted the amobiler and stepped onto the mosaic sidewalk of the Right Bank for the first time. Oh, was it really the first time? But I suppressed the dangerous dizziness, nipped it square in the bud, and passed over the threshold of the Glutton Bunba Inn. Of course—it was the pub from my dreams, the very place I had met Sir Juffin Hully and frivolously accepted the strangest job offer anyone could ever imagine!

  Without even thinking, I walked over to the familiar spot between the bar and a window onto the yard. A plump brunette smiled at me as though I was an old customer (this was Madam Zizinda herself, granddaughter of the original glutton named Bunba). But why “as though”? I was, indeed, an old, a very old, customer.

  “This is my favorite little spot,” Juffin announced. “I’ll tell you a basic principle for choosing future colleagues. If they like the same food and, in particular, the same table you like, psychological compatibility with the team is guaranteed.”

  Madam Zizinda, in the meantime, had placed pots with hot pâté on our table. As for the other events of the evening that followed, someday I will commit them to paper, when I sit down to write my tourist guidebook: The Finest Taverns of the City of Echo.

  My second foray into society took place two days later. Sir Juffin returned home very early, even before dusk. I was just about to have breakfast.

  “Tonight is your debut performance, Max!” Juffin declared, confiscating my mug of kamra without waiting for Kimpa to pour him his own. “We’re going to test your progress on my favorite neighbor. If old Makluk still says hello to me after our visit, we may conclude that you are ready for independence. In my view, you can already manage very well on your own. But I’m not being objective: I’m too eager to put you to work.”

  “But just think, Juffin; he’s your neighbor! You’ll have to live with him afterward.”

  “Makluk is kind and inoffensive. Moreover, he’s practically a hermit. He found society so unbearably cloying while he was the Long Arm for the Elimination of Irksome Misunderstandings at the Royal Court that now he can endure the company only of me and a few elderly chatterbox widowers—and that very seldom.”

  “Are you a widower?”

  “Yes, more than thirty years now; so it’s not a forbidden topic. For the first twenty years or so, though, I preferred not to talk about it. We marry at a ripe age, and, generally (we hope), for a long time. But we are accustomed to suppose that fate is wiser than the heart, so don’t fret!”

  And so that I would fret as little as possible, he seized the second mug of kamra, which, I must admit, I had wanted very much myself.

  We arrayed ourselves in formal dress and set off to pay our visit. Fortunately, visiting costume differed from everyday dress only in its richness of hue and ornament, and not in its cut, to which I had already grown accustomed. I was on my way to an exam, and my heart leapt about in my chest, looking for the shortest route to my heels.

  “Max, what’s with the serious face?” Juffin asked in a knowing tone. He always could tell what I was feeling; I supposed that for him, my emotional state was like the headline on the front page of a tabloid: utter nonsense, but written in boldface type that makes glasses superfluous.

  “I’m getting into the role,” I improvised. “Any barbarian from the Borderlands would be nervous before meeting someone who had gotten cuffs on the ear from His Royal Highness all his life.”

  “Ingenuity, B; erudition D-plus: ‘Barbarians from the Borderlands,’ as you phrase it, are supercilious, proud, and ignorant. They scoff at our public servants and officials in the capital. Intuition, A-plus! How else could you have guessed that once, under the reign of Gurig, Sir Makluk really did earn a royal box on the ears when he trod on the hem of the royal robe?”

  “To be honest, I was trying to joke, not playing a guessing game.”

  “That’s what I meant when I mentioned intuition. Just like that, apropos of nothing, you let something slip, and it’s right on the nose!”

  “Okay, suppose I am a prodigy. Also, according to your legend, I’m a barbarian who has serious intentions of settling down in Echo and embarking on a career. So I must be somewhat different from my ignorant but proud countrymen. And when a person wears a veneer of studied hauteur, shyness is usually lurking underneath. I know: I’m the same way. Do you take back your D-plus?”

  “All right, you’ve convinced me. I’ll take back the ‘D,’ and you can keep the ‘
plus.’”

  We crossed our garden and entered the neighbor’s through a side gate. Then we were at the front door, with an inscription that read “Here lives Sir Makluk. Are you sure you’ve come to the right place?” I laughed halfheartedly, as I was not at all sure. On the other hand, Sir Juffin had enough conviction for both of us.

  The door opened silently, and four servants in identical gray uniforms invited us in chorus to enter. A quartet that was nothing if not professional; I had to hand it to them.

  And so began that for which I was not prepared; but then, Juffin claims that no one is ever prepared for a reception by Sir Makluk, except inveterate society lions—the most important and useless creatures in the world.

  A horde of strapping young fellows advanced ominously upon us from the corner, with two palanquins atilt. At the same time, the servants in gray handed us each a pile of multihued rags of ambiguous purpose. There was only one thing for me to do: watch Juffin and try to mimic all his actions.

  First I had to take off the looxi, without which I felt somewhat naked: the thin skaba that gave my body a high-definition contour did not at the moment seem appropriate dress for appearing in public. Then I began studying the garments I had been given and determined it wasn’t a pile of varied rags, but a one-piece construction—a large crescent made of thick fabric, with enormous patch pockets. The inner edge of the crescent was adorned with a kind of necklace made from bright scraps of sheer material. I stared at Sir Juffin. My only guide through the labyrinth of good manners donned his crescent with a careless gesture like it was a baby’s bib. Shuddering, I repeated his performance. The band of butlers remained expressionless. Juffin wasn’t putting on an act for me, apparently; we were doing just what was expected of us.

  When we were finally appropriately decked out, the fellows with the palanquins went down on their knees before us. Sir Juffin mounted the contraption and reclined gracefully upon it. I gulped and clambered onto my own glorified stretcher in turn. We were carried along in this way for quite some time, gazing down deserted corridors as broad as streets as we progressed. The sheer spaciousness of Sir Makluk’s dwelling made an indelible impression on me, and judging by the outside of the house, you’d never have known—it appeared to be just an ordinary house of modest dimensions.

  Finally we arrived at a large hall, half-empty, like all the rooms in the only house in Echo with which I was acquainted. But the similarity to Sir Juffin’s interiors stopped there. Instead of a normal dining table and comfortable armchairs, my eyes beheld something quite extraordinary.

  A narrow and seemingly endless oval table cut through the length of the room. Its centerpiece was a fountain, surrounded by a thick paling of low podiums. On one of the podiums was a palanquin that resembled those in which we had just had the distinct pleasure of arriving. A lively-looking gray-haired old man, who didn’t appear in the least like a grandee, peered out of the palanquin. This was Sir Makluk, our hospitable host. When he saw me he covered his eyes with his hand and greeted me:

  “I see you as though in a waking dream!”

  I reciprocated his gesture: Juffin and I had gone through this one. Then the little old man held out his hand to Juffin, doing this with such ardent warmth that he nearly tumbled off the podium, together with his dubious means of transportation.

  “Hide the food, here comes Sir Hully the Hun!” he exclaimed gleefully. I readily concluded that this was an official form of greeting, and stored it away for future reference. It turned out I was mistaken, however: the host was in the mood for joking. I was more than a little insulted. I tried to grin and bear it, but, come what may, one’s emotional health is more important than emotional equilibrium. Did you wish to spend the weekend in the company of Mad Max, dear Juffin? Well, that’s just what’s in store for you! Here goes nothing . . .

  But nothing came of it, for again I was thrown into a state of bewilderment when a very young creature of indeterminate sex came up to me. To distinguish a girl from a boy here, you need a keen eye and a great deal of experience, since they dress identically, and the hair of both sexes is allowed to grow as it will and then bound up, so that it doesn’t get in the way. The child was holding a basket with appetizing little bread rolls, which I had already grown fond of while devouring the breakfasts prepared by Kimpa. As fate would have it, I was the first stop for the little peddler of delicacies. No one was there to save me, as Juffin had been steered to the other end of the room to join the hospitable host. I helped myself silently to one bread roll. The little creature seemed surprised, but quickly slipped away. When it took the offerings to the gentlemen who had more experience in such matters than I, I realized what had caused the reaction—my very modesty and restraint! Juffin, and Sir Makluk, following suit, began raking up bread rolls by the handfuls and stuffing them into the roomy pockets of their “bibs.” It looked like I was going to starve.

  In the meantime, my stretcher-bearers had begun shifting their feet, as though they couldn’t figure out where to deposit me. Judging by their blank faces, I was supposed to make this decision myself.

  Raise your thumb, resounded someone else’s thought through my poor brain, and they’ll start walking. When you want to stop, show them your fist.

  Thank you, Juffin, I answered, trying with all my might to address my mute message with maximum accuracy to its destination. You just about saved my life. I wish you always would!

  Excellent. You’re getting the hang of Silent Speech, he declared happily.

  I carried out the first part of his instructions and found myself floating in the direction of my dinner companions. When I was close enough to observe their actions, I threatened the bearers with my fist; they stopped, and raised me up onto a podium. I sighed with relief; finally, I had a moment to catch my breath.

  Altogether, we journeyed around the table several times. The system was as follows: opposite every podium stood one dish. Having tasted it and wiped your mouth with one of the bright scraps that decorated the “bib,” the idea was to raise your thumb and travel around the table at a leisurely pace. When you came upon a dish that aroused the interest of the taste-buds, you were supposed to drop anchor for a spell.

  For the first half-hour I was still rather timid, and stayed put even when the food in front of me did not deserve such a lengthy pause. Finally, with a “what the hey,” I got into the swing of things. I tasted everything there was to taste, some things more than once. After downing some “Jubatic Juice,” the local firewater, with its unassuming, yet somehow fitting name, I even ventured to join in the conversation of the old friends—and judging from Sir Makluk’s jovial demeanor, not without some success.

  In short, the dinner went off without any untoward surprises.

  As soon as we left Sir Makluk’s, I could no longer constrain my curiosity.

  “Well, how did it go? You discussed me with your neighbor, didn’t you? Of course, Silent Speech allows you to do that in your victim’s presence—”

  “My fabrication unraveled completely!” Sir Juffin said, grinning with fiendish pleasure. He paused dramatically, during which time I berated myself for being a miserable, dull-witted imbecile. Then he rescued me from my despair: “The old man kept trying to weasel out of me where I had dug up such well-mannered specimen of barbarian! Much more, and he would have offered you a position at court.”

  “Oh no! What will happen now?”

  “Nothing much. In a week or two we’ll find you an apartment and furnish it according to your inclinations, after which I’ll get you off my back and you’ll get down to work. For the time being, you still have a few lessons left with me.”

  “What kinds of lessons?”

  “Very interesting ones. Don’t worry, the lessons in dining etiquette are over. It’s time to get down to business. At long last, I’ve acquired an assistant who has a distinct proclivity for Invisible Magic. You’ll be surprised to discover how easily it comes to you.”

  “Wherever did you get the idea that I
—?”

  “Whenever did you stop trusting me?”

  “The moment we stepped inside the home of your neighbor Sir Makluk! You never warned me about the palanquins and all the rest. I nearly died right there on the spot!”

  “But you didn’t!” Sir Juffin Hully said. “Who would have thought!”

  That night I not only retired to bed long before dawn, but slept like a log, to the great surprise of little Chuff. He already took it for granted that life only starts to get really interesting after midnight.

  The next two days were busy and pleasant. During the day I read old newspaper files from the Royal Voice and Echo Hustle and Bustle. Sir Juffin had immodestly marked all the enthusiastic articles that had to do with the affairs of the Secret Investigative Force.

  This made for far more exciting reading than the most piquant literature. It was the first time I had read newspapers in which dull announcements about the misuse of forbidden magic far exceeded stories about everyday murder, revenge, and extortion—though such things happen here, too, of course. I quickly learned the names of my future colleagues: Sir Melifaro (for some reason his first name was never mentioned), Sir Kofa Yox, Sir Shurf Lonli-Lokli, Lady Melamori Blimm, and Sir Lookfi Pence. They pretty much made up the entire Minor Secret Investigative Force—and a fairly diminutive one it was.

  Here in Echo, photography had still not been discovered, and portrait artists would not condescend to squander their talents on newspapers. Thus, I put my imagination to work, summoning up portraits of them in my head. (Whatever Sir Juffin might have said about my intuition, it turned out that I hadn’t guessed right a single time!)

  At sunset, I took the amobiler and set off for the Right Bank. I got out and meandered along mosaic-laden sidewalks, gazing this way and that, made brief stops at cozy inns, and got a feel for the topography. Indeed, what kind of figure would I cut as a Nocturnal Representative of the Venerable Head of the Minor Secret Investigative Force if I couldn’t even track down the street where my own department was located? It turned out to be fairly easy, however. I’ve never heard of a wolf getting lost in the woods, even if they’re not the woods in which he was born. I suspect the existence of some as-yet-undiscovered “urban instinct,” whereby if you can navigate one city, you won’t feel daunted by any other metropolis.