The Stranger's Shadow Read online

  “I want to believe you so much that maybe I even do,” Melifaro said with a crooked grin.

  He clutched at the soft rag dolls so desperately that I feared for his sanity. This really was crazy. Perhaps Lady Atissa’s madness actually was catching. Korva should have listened to the doctors.

  Luckily, Juffin had already finished his business at Xolomi—the only place in the entire United Kingdom where it was impossible to receive a call in Silent Speech. I caught him on his way home. I told him somewhat incoherently what had happened. I never knew it was possible for me to tell a story that was so laconic and so garbled at the same time. Luckily, Juffin has a very high IQ, and he has honed his skills in dealing with idiots over many long centuries. He knew just where we had to start.

  Gather the dolls together and try to arrange them more comfortably, just as if they were alive, he commanded. Then come over to the House by the Bridge. I think I’ll get there before you do. I’m telling Kimpa to turn around, so consider me there already. That’s it, over and out.

  “Over and out,” I said out loud in my own absurd turn of phrase.

  Melifaro stared at me.

  “The boss advises us to play with dolls,” I said, smiling. “He says it will calm our nerves. And he believes, of course, that they are still alive. In some sense of the word, anyway. So we have to make them as comfortable as possible.”

  “Of course,” Melifaro said, nodding. “Hey, you really seem to bring luck. If the boss believes they’re still alive . . . Anyway, that news is better than if he told us to burn all the traces.”

  “Let’s take them into the bedroom. And move it, mister. Juffin will be at Headquarters in five minutes. I don’t want him to turn into an old man before we get there.”

  To be honest, I was really hoping that nature would answer in kind, and Melifaro would dump a load of garbage on my head, in turn. Nothing doing. He just shuffled along behind me in silence. I couldn’t even get a rise out of him, poor guy.

  I went into the hall where we had left the rest of the dolls, gathered them up, and started upstairs to the huge sumptuous room that was considered to be my bedchamber. I had never once slept in these impersonal and forbidding quarters, designed especially for the relaxation of my royal person, and I hoped I’d never have to. Nevertheless, I laid out my poor servants so they could experience the utmost comfort. Some I placed carefully on the pillows, others on the soft carpets; the chef I seated in the armchair. He was an important personage, after all.

  Gazing at the fruits of my labors, I realized that I would probably never make a good interior designer. The arrangement of the furnishings and accoutrements attested to a complete lack of taste and common sense. I shrugged and headed for the door. Suddenly, I turned around and went back to pick up the little white dog.

  “Do you want to come with me, boy? That’s right. There’s no reason for you to stay here in the company of strangers. And you’re so compact these days.”

  I hid the toy carefully in the inner pocket of my Mantle of Death. If anyone had tried to frisk me, the poor fellow would have been in for a shock: the terrible Sir Max is walking around town clutching a toy dog to his chest. There was, however, little chance that anyone was going to try frisking me for the next millennium.

  I found Melifaro in the next room. He was tenderly wrapping the remains of my wonderful wives in a warm blanket.

  “I hope they’ll be comfortable,” he said.

  That was the last straw. I burst out in a wild guffaw. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, trying to stifle my laughter. “It’s just that seeing you this way . . . I just did the same thing, but I couldn’t see myself, of course.”

  “Actually, it’s not hard for me to imagine,” Melifaro said, smiling suddenly. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Then I noticed that only two dolls’ heads were peeking out from under the blanket. “But where’s Kenlex? Did you bring her along with you?”

  “It will make me feel better,” Melifaro murmured. “At least I won’t be overcome with panic when I recall that fires can sometimes break out in empty homes. Also, I’ve still never been able to persuade her to spend the night with me. Now the poor girl doesn’t have a choice.” This time it was Melifaro’s turn to break into hysterical laughter.

  “It’s pure pleasure getting to work with you,” I said. “No matter what happens, we just laugh like madmen.”

  “We are madmen,” Melifaro said. “That’s the only reason we’re still alive. Let’s go, Max. You’d better hide your dog a little better. His shaggy ear is sticking out from under your armpit like a wilted chrysanthemum. Which don’t even grow in our World.”

  “How do you know about them, then?”

  “From the movies. Where else?” he said with a deep sigh.

  Juffin was already sitting in the office. And he wasn’t alone. Sir Lookfi Pence was perching on the edge of another chair. He looked confused and even somewhat affronted. The fellow had long ago come to take it for granted that his working day ended at sundown, when the buriwoks from the Main Archive preferred to be left alone to pursue their own lives.

  “Sinning Magicians, talk about hangdog looks, boys!” Juffin said by way of greeting. “I hope you’ve brought some of these poor dolls with you to show me.”

  I drew the small, shaggy Droopy out of the folds of my Mantle of Death and handed him to Juffin.

  “Is this what happened to your dog? I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. To be honest, I like him more in this state than the former one. He’s so tiny and quiet—a perfect charm.” Juffin handed me my dog back and smiled in sympathy. “Don’t be angry, Max. It really is a terrible thing, of course. I just had to insult your dignity a bit, to humor Melifaro. He likes that kind of thing, as far as I know.”

  “I can’t live without it,” Melifaro said, gloomier than ever.

  “Well, I’m glad to have pleased you. Now we’ll proceed upstairs, where we’ll try to talk the clever beaks from the Main Archive into breaking with custom. I hope they’ll see the gravity of the situation. Our Kurush, of course, is a genius, but he doesn’t have any information about the magic rites of the Barren Lands stored in his memory. Whoever would have thought I’d need it one day—and so urgently.”

  “Do we really need the information about the magic rites of the Barren Lands?” I said.

  “A hole in the heavens above your head, Nightmare! You haven’t understood a thing!” Melifaro was jubilant. “What do you think happened? You said yourself that your trusty vassals brought you some war trophies that you had never laid eyes on. And where did we find the girls?”

  “In the storeroom.” It started to dawn on me what he was driving at.

  “Exactly. Earlier today, after the girls said goodbye to their countrymen, they went downstairs to examine the gifts. Unlike you, they were very curious about them. They unpacked a few of the bales, and at that moment, as far as I can gather, some horrible mysterious nasty thing happened.”

  “You guessed it,” Juffin said. “The rest is piffle. We just have to find out what the nasty thing was. It looks to me like the defeated Manooks decided to wreak their vengeance on the sovereign of their enemies. Poor, poor Sir Max. To think that I inveigled you into this sorry venture, certain that His Majesty Gurig and I were only playing a harmless practical joke on you. Let’s go up the Main Archive, boys.”

  “You don’t think the buriwoks will tell us to take a hike till morning?”

  “I think they’ll agree to help us. Sir Lookfi thinks they won’t. Now we’ll find out who’s right.”

  “If Melamori were here, the matter would definitely end in a bet,” I said with a smile.

  “You can bet with me if you have such a burning desire,” Juffin suggested.

  “No, that won’t work. I wanted to bet on you, but you would no doubt bet on yourself, too.”

  “Perhaps you could submit your request to the buriwoks yourself, sir?” Lookfi said to Juffin. “I feel a little awkward about it,
to tell the truth.”

  At these words, the poor fellow got inextricably tangled in his looxi. I had to take precautionary measures to prevent him from tumbling down the stairs headfirst.

  “Of course I will,” Juffin said to reassure him. “I will even tell him that you were categorically against this break with tradition.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Lookfi said, brightening. “My relations with the buriwoks are founded on mutual respect for one another’s habits, and I would like—”

  “As I said, don’t worry about it,” Juffin said, reaching for the door that led to the Main Archive. “Wait here.”

  A few minutes later he poked his head out from behind the door. He wore an expression of triumph.

  “Come in. I told you our buriwoks are very understanding.”

  We greeted the buriwoks far more ceremoniously than we would have greeted even His Majesty Gurig VIII. Lookfi mumbled his excuses. Melifaro and I kept bowing humbly and held our tongues. Juffin waited until it was possible to get down to business.

  “Which of the buriwoks keeps information about the customs of the Manooks, Lookfi?” he said finally.

  “Tunlipuxi keeps all the information about dwellers in the Barren Lands.”

  Lookfi approached one of the buriwoks. How he was able to distinguish between a hundred or so rotund, bright-eyed birds that all looked exactly alike, I’ll never understand.

  “Tell us all you know about the Manooks, Tunlipuxi,” said our Master Keeper of Knowledge.

  “No, no, not everything,” Juffin said. “Please, not everything. A lecture like that could last until dawn, and that’s something that neither I, nor you, nor our feathered colleagues need. The secret magic of the Manooks—this is what we’re after.”

  “Very well,” the buriwok said. “But if you wish to receive information about the secret magic of the Manooks, I’ll have to give you a short historical overview.”

  “Tell us whatever you consider to be necessary, my dear friend,” said Juffin tenderly.

  When the boss converses with buriwoks, he is unrecognizable. Honeyed words drip from his mouth. The birds seem very pleased with his attentions.

  “Unlike the other peoples who make their homes in the Barren Lands, the Manook people are not indigenous dwellers of Xonxona,” the buriwok began. “It is beyond dispute that they are descendants of people from the Uandook continent who once made up the Secret Retinue of King Mynin. Allegedly, they inhabited the Great Red Xmiro Desert. Some sources claim that Mynin selected his Secret Retinue exclusively from dwellers of the enchanted city Cherxavla. Unfortunately, I have no information about Cherxavla. You must consult with Kuvan if you wish to have it.”

  “Thank you, Tunlipuxi. I think we can manage without the legend of Cherxavla for now, dear. How did these remarkable people end up in the Barren Lands, though?”

  “After King Mynin disappeared, his Secret Retinue fell into disgrace—primarily because they refused to submit to the laws that bound all citizens of the Unified Kingdom. Moreover, they weren’t able to see eye to eye with the retinue of the new king. It would hardly be possible to enumerate all the reasons for their banishment. The fact was, however, that the Manooks and their families were forced to leave Echo, and then even Uguland. They liked the Barren Lands because they could live there according to their own laws. Several thousand years of an isolated existence in the vast steppe turned the Manooks into a fairly ragtag nomadic tribe. My own view is that their impoverished existence was a result of the Manooks living by rules that were far from perfect. I don’t think it would really interest you, however, to hear my personal opinion of these somewhat abject people.”

  “Of course we are interested in your opinion,” Juffin said. “We are grateful that you told us. But if I have understood correctly, you explained the origins of the Manooks to us so that we would understand that the roots of their magic go back to the ancient traditions of the continent of Uandook. To be honest, this is not something about which I can boast of having any precise knowledge. In fact, even the current inhabitants of Uandook have only a superficial knowledge of the magic arts of their remote ancestors. And how lucky it is that those few who guard these dangerous secrets don’t turn up on my doorstep every day to wreak havoc. Go on, Tunlipuxi.”

  “Keep in mind that from this moment, I will be imparting only unverified information to you,” the bird warned. “It is not my fault that not one of your men of letters has managed to separate true fact from whimsical fabrication. The fact is that the secret magical rites of the Manooks right up to the beginning of our present epoch were connected with certain mythical beasts known as the Mice of the Red Desert, which no one has ever laid eyes on—apart from the Manooks, of course. The legends of the Manooks claim that the mysterious mice arrived from Uandook with their forebears. Furthermore, the Manooks believe that it was the mice who made up the real Secret Retinue of Mynin and their ancestors were only intermediaries between the king and these creatures. The name Doroth figures in all the known legends. According to the Manooks, this was the name of the ruler of the Uandook mice.

  “The traditions surrounding the cult of Doroth are rather unseemly. It is rumored that the Manooks fed him with the bodies of children raised for this purpose. In return, Doroth shared his might with their leaders. It is supposed, for example, that Manooks were able to change the climate and even the terrain at will. Some say that the Barren Lands were transformed into an almost infertile desert through the machinations of the Manooks. They wanted their surroundings to resemble, at least in part, the homeland of their ancestors from the Red Xmiro Desert. The Manooks had never been good warriors. Nevertheless, in spite of that, no one had ever succeeded in causing them harm. If the Manooks’ neighbors tried to cause trouble for them, they simply disappeared. There are reports of the sudden disappearance of the Nougva people, about two thousand years ago, and the also fairly large warrior tribes of the Nexrexo and the Shaluvex. This happened only six hundred years before the end of the Code Epoch.”

  “But how did my guys manage to beat them if they’re so invincible?”

  “I anticipated that you would ask this question before I had time to elucidate the reasons for the Manooks’ defeat in the recent battle,” the buriwok said. “The Manooks lost their superior might much earlier, about three hundred years ago. Legend has it that Doroth, the leader of the Mice of the Red Desert, fell into hibernation. Some of the other mice were eaten by the Manooks, who hoped in this way to acquire their former power; others simply ran away. Without their leader they reverted to ordinary rodents. Until now, the Manooks have made no attempts to awaken Doroth since their fear of his wrath is boundless.”

  “I see,” Juffin said, nodding. “One last question, Tunlipuxi. Do you have any information about the events that accompanied the disappearance of the Nougva people? And the others—I forget their names.”

  “The Nexrexo and the Shaluvex,” the bird said. “I have no information on this subject. You know it is not customary to burden the Main Archive with unverified information. I think I managed to recall everything I’ve already told you only because there is no verifiable information about the Manooks at all. In such unfortunate cases one is forced to choose between the information that is to a greater or lesser degree reliable.”

  “Well, thank you, at least, for that,” Juffin said with a sigh. “In any case, now we won’t be barking up all the wrong trees. Good night, my clever ones. Thank you all. And I would like to apologize once more for disturbing you after sundown.”

  “We hold our traditions dear, but not so much as to refuse to share your grief,” the buriwok said with an air of solemnity.

  We left the Main Archive feeling despondent. Mice, some Doroth or other, and not a single clue about what to do to revive the rag dolls and restore them to their former existence.

  “Go home, Lookfi,” Juffin said. “You’ve already stayed here past the call of duty.”

  “I’m terribly sorry that your daugh
ters have experienced such a calamity, Max” Lookfi said. “But don’t despair. Maybe everything will come right in the end.”

  He turned around and left, and I stared after him.

  “My what?” I said. But it was already too late. Lookfi was gone.

  “Yeah, well, that’s Lookfi for you,” said Juffin.

  “What are we going to do?” Melifaro said. “Did you understand anything that plumed genius told us, gentlemen?”

  “I, for one, understood absolutely everything,” Juffin said. “The fact that the information isn’t useful at this stage in the game is another matter.”

  “Maybe there are other more useful informants,” I said. “My subjects have been living among the Manooks for some time. By the way, my general—Barxa Bachoy, that is—called them ‘mouse-eaters.’”

  “Perfect,” Juffin said, brightening. “They left not long ago to go back home, didn’t they?”

  “Today after lunch. Moreover, they have several cartloads of sweets in tow, so it won’t be hard to catch up with them. I can set out in pursuit this very second.”

  “No, I’ll go,” Melifaro said. “And don’t argue. I want to do something. Wanting is one thing, but aside from personal motives, there are practical considerations. When it’s a matter of going off to claim the head of some half-dead Magician, I will gladly hide behind your back. But when it comes to interrogating a few potential witnesses . . . Excuse me, Nightmare, but ‘the dinner’s over,’ as your absurd little rotund friend used to say. You’ll ask them a million questions, get a million answers, half of which you’ll promptly forget and the other half of which you’ll garble so much that they will become useless. Then it will turn out that you didn’t ask about the most important thing, and you’ll have to turn back again.”

  “I agree with you one hundred percent,” I said, smiling. “But how do we make those sweet folks listen to you in the first place? Maybe we should go together.”