The Stranger's Shadow Page 4

  “Girls still don’t love you?” I said with compassion in my voice.

  Melifaro paused to mull it over. “I don’t know,” he said. “Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. It confuses the heck out of me. But what has happened?”

  “A hunt for Lonely Shadows has happened,” said Juffin, sighing. “Once Sir Shurf is done with the weather, a-hunting we will go. You’re staying behind to hold down the fort. I’m going to be busy on the Dark Side.”

  “Suits me,” said Melifaro. “I’m all up for holding down the fort.”

  I listened to their metaphysical abracadabra talk, ashamed at my ignorance. Juffin noticed my puzzlement and made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Pay no attention to the jargon, Max. They liked fancy words like that during the Epoch of Orders. After you perambulate the Dark Side with me, you’ll become an expert in this phenomenon.”

  “Do you think I will?” I said.

  “Sure you will. You’ve done it before. Many a time, in fact.”

  “I’ve done what before?”

  “Oh, nothing. Don’t fret over trifles, all right? There are plenty of ways to waste your energy, and all of them are much more pleasant than fretting over the trivial matters you’re so fond of. You can take my word for it, if I had the slightest grounds for suspecting you couldn’t manage, I would have just kept you here to help Kofa,” said Juffin.

  “Right you are . . . I guess,” I said. “I still don’t understand, though. Anything. Period.”

  “It’s tough to be a genius, huh?” said Melifaro.

  “No, it’s tough to be you,” I said. “Now quit gobbling my cookies.”

  “I’m so glad I don’t have children, Kofa,” said Juffin. “Imagine coming home from work and having to put up with something like this. I’d go nuts.”

  Lonli-Lokli returned, sat down into the armchair, and examined a stack of napkins fastidiously. Then he pulled out the cleanest one and carefully wiped off the perspiration from his forehead.

  “Are you finished with the clouds now, Shurf?” said Juffin.

  “Of course. It was a little tiring, but nothing out of the ordinary—just as I had suspected.”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary!” said Melifaro, jumping up from his chair. “You should have seen yourself! I can just imagine what kinds of dreams I’m going to be having for the next hundred years. And I don’t even want to think about what kinds of dreams the unfortunate passersby will be having.”

  “That’s a dead giveaway that you were born on the day they passed the Code of Krember, boy,” said Kofa with an avuncular smile. “It all seems like a novelty to you.”

  “Come off it, Kofa. Even in the good old days things like that didn’t happen every day,” said Juffin. “Have you already recovered, Sir Shurf? Can we begin now?”

  “I will be even more efficient if I use my cup one more time. I am not suggesting that I need another bottle of Ancient Darkness. Anything will do, except for water or kamra, of course.”

  “Except kamra, you say?” said Juffin. “But that was what Sir Max just desecrated your holey vessel with.”

  “I am no match for him,” said Shurf, with an expression so full of irony that I felt green with envy.

  He turned to me, hiding a smile that played around the corners of his mouth. That is, I was almost positive I wasn’t just seeing things.

  “In my Order, we believed that kamra was of no use in a situation like this. I prefer to stick to the tried-and-true traditions. I would not mind, however, trying a beverage from another World. Would you be so kind as to fetch something for me, Max?”

  “Something that’s not an umbrella, though, please,” said Juffin. “I can’t stand the look of them anymore.”

  “For your information, I stopped fetching umbrellas from the Chink between Worlds long ago,” I said, looking around for a nook to stick my hand in.

  “What about that blue umbrella with yellow flowers? You produced it not long before the Last Day of the Year,” said Lonli-Lokli.

  “Pfft. That was like three dozen days ago. An eternity in umbrella years.”

  “Yes, but in human years it is still three dozen days ago,” said Shurf.

  “You’re killing me with your irony, Shurf,” I said.

  “Way to go, Sir Shurf,” said Melifaro. “If you and I join forces, we’ll get him in the end.”

  “Do you really have to ‘get me’?” I said.

  “Of course. One has to rid Echo of the evil that has crawled into it from another World. That, in essence, is the ultimate goal of the Secret Investigative Force,” said Melifaro in a pedantic tone. “And you are a typical manifestation of evil, if I’ve ever seen one.”

  “Oh, in that case, go ahead and ‘get me,’” I said. “But don’t bother me now, please. I need to focus.”

  Believe it or not, they did leave me alone. Even Melifaro shut up temporarily. I was able to focus on the task at hand. I stuck the hand in question under the table and began thinking about beverages in general and alcoholic drinks in particular.

  Gradually, my mind painted a picture of a stack of shelves with bottles behind the back of a young bartender. His face seemed familiar, although I couldn’t remember where I might have seen him. I was busy with something else: my fingers were already wrapped around the narrow neck of a bottle. I still hadn’t learned to take full control of my actions during these maneuvers, so I jerked my hand out from under the table. The bottle slipped out of my fingers, made an intricate arc in the air, and landed right in Melifaro’s lap. He squealed in surprise, sprang up on the desk, and looked around, trembling. The bottle fell on the carpet but, thank goodness, didn’t break. I carefully picked it up and glanced at the label.

  “‘Johnnie Walker Whisky. Born 1820—still going strong,’” I said in the voice of a professional voice actor in a complete and utter silence that had fallen over the office. “Seriously, though,” I added in my normal voice, “it’s pretty good stuff. I mean, it could have been worse. Here, Shurf. Take it. But mind you, it’s quite strong. It might even be too strong, I don’t know.”

  “A hole in the heavens above you, Max,” said Juffin with admiration. “Maba Kalox himself would envy your show.”

  He sounded as though he was about to ask me for an autograph. Melifaro began to laugh, which made it difficult for him to get down from the desk. Even Kofa gave a few chuckles.

  “In fact, you can control your movements, and have been able to for a while. Yet you enjoy indulging your childish desire to make as much racket as possible,” said Lonli-Lokli, taking the bottle from my hands.

  He unscrewed the cap, sniffed the contents, and shook his head in disapproval. Nevertheless, he poured some whisky in his holey cup, played around with it a moment, and then downed it in one gulp.

  “It is strong, indeed,” he said, “but that is exactly what I need right now. The taste, however, is wanting. If you have been waiting for me, I am ready to go now.”

  “We’re off and running,” said Juffin, leaving his armchair. “Good day, Kofa. I’ll try my best not to take too long, but I can’t guarantee anything, you understand.”

  “That’s all right, we’ll manage,” said Kofa. “Considering that you only take along the worst specimens with you . . . No, Sir Shurf, I don’t mean you. Lookfi, on the other hand, is pure pleasure to deal with, not to mention Lady Melamori. She’s far less trouble than your so-called deputies here.”

  “You think so?” said Juffin. He even paused in the doorway, giving the matter some consideration. Then he gave a short, resolute nod and added, “You’re absolutely right, Kofa. It doesn’t get any worse than these two.”

  Melifaro and I left the office, proud as two tom turkeys at a spring farmers’ market. Lonli-Lokli walked at the end of the procession. He wore such a vacant, otherworldly expression, you might have thought we had all died a long time ago, and no subsequent event had any bearing on us whatsoever.

  In silence, we walked down to the basement and then descende
d even farther down, where the true underground labyrinths began. One of the narrow passages (although I didn’t remember which one) led to Jafax. Where the others led, I had no idea. It was the second time in my life that I was in these dungeons. My first excursion here was neither lengthy nor memorable, and even seemed like an accident.

  We meandered in darkness for a long time. I’m not very good at spatial orientation in general, but here I lost my sense of direction right after the second turn. The trip ended more abruptly than I had thought it would.

  “You’ll stay here,” said Juffin to Melifaro. “A good place for a Sentry, don’t you think?”

  “It is,” said Melifaro.

  He stopped, took a few unsteady steps to the side, and stood stock-still. Juffin and Shurf moved closer to him. I was still standing where I had stopped, uncertain what to do now.

  “Come closer to me, silly,” said Melifaro, smirking. “My arms aren’t that long.”

  His arms? What the heck is he talking about? I thought, joining the gang. Melifaro put his arms around the three of us. His arms felt very heavy and warm. The next moment I felt another hand, also heavy and warm, on my shoulder.

  “I shall remember you,” said Melifaro.

  No. It wasn’t just Melifaro. I distinctly heard another voice, too. I could swear it was a very synchronous duet.

  Then Shurf’s hand in its coarse protective glove grabbed me by my elbow and carefully pulled me out of the thickening darkness. I turned around again and gasped. A few feet away from me stood two Melifaros. They stood back-to-back—two crisp outlines against a background of clouds of whitish mist that had come out of nowhere.

  “Looks great, doesn’t he?” said Juffin. “Just don’t swoon on me now, Max. As if you’ve never seen a Sentry before.”

  “A Sentry? Of course I’ve never seen a Sentry. What’s a Sentry? Where would I have seen a Sentry? In my bedroom? There’re no Sentries in my bedroom,” I said.

  “Calm down, I get the point,” said Juffin. “So you haven’t seen one. Well, take a good look, then. Our Sir Melifaro is one of the best Sentries around. There were only a few of them in the old days; nowadays, they are very rare indeed.”

  “This is all fine and good,” I said. “But I still don’t understand what a Sentry is or why we need one.”

  “Sentries are these special, very useful guys,” said Juffin, pulling me behind him into another dark passageway. “We need them to help us come back from the Dark Side. Remember the magic charm you used to have, the kerchief of Grand Magician Xonna?”

  “Sure. It was the best thing for waking up out of any nightmare, not to mention its other useful properties. It’s too bad it burned up in the den of the Magaxon Foxes. It was one of a kind.”

  “Well, our Melifaro is something similar to that kerchief—a protective charm for the three of us. While he’s keeping vigil we can rest assured that he won’t let anyone follow our traces to the Dark Side. Sometimes it’s very important. If something goes wrong, he’ll bring us back, and most likely alive, too. That, as you no doubt understand, is a very good thought to hold on to when the going gets tough.”

  “It sure is,” I said. “What about the other guy? Where did he come from?”

  “Beats me,” said Juffin. “You see, Sentries are peculiar in this way. There’s always a double that arrives to help them. Afterward the double disappears. Sentries are strange and mysterious creatures. Then again, many people are strange and mysterious creatures, too. Did you ever stop to think about that?”

  “I did. Then I moved on and forgot about it. My head is full of holes, as you know. Smart thoughts don’t stay there for long—Hey, where are we?”

  I got a little carried away, talking and thinking about Sentries, one of whom was Melifaro, so I forgot to pay attention to what was going on around me. Only then did I notice that we had climbed out of the catacombs and were standing on one of the city streets. Except that I never would have recognized the place. Like a giant quilt, the cityscape around us was woven from all sorts and shades of darkness—which, however, did not prevent one from making out the smallest details. Unlike the ordinary darkness of the streets at night, this darkness glowed and quivered as though it were alive.

  “Welcome to the Dark Side, Max,” said Lonli-Lokli, turning to me. He looked a hundred years younger and light as a feather. “You cannot begin to imagine how much I love these walks.” His smile was so serene that I almost stopped breathing.

  “I think I can,” I said. “I once saw you looking like that. In a small mountain town near Kettari, where we got rid of Dead Magician Kiba Attsax, remember?”

  “Of course I do. Your town is also on the Dark Side. You simply did not know it was called that.”

  “I told you that you had already been to the Dark Side and back many times. And you did it without a Sentry, mind you,” said Juffin, winking at me. “It’s bad when you don’t know your jargon, isn’t it? You think everyone around you is a powerful magician of some sort, and you’re not worth a crown? Well, it turns out we just learned a bunch of smart words back in the day, is all.”

  “But it wasn’t so dark in my town,” I said.

  “Is it dark here?” said Lonli-Lokli, surprised.

  “Oh, our Sir Max is a great storyteller,” said Juffin, grinning. “He loves telling fairy tales, and believing in them, too. He heard that we were heading to the Dark Side and immediately told himself that it would be dark here. A truly ingenious conclusion, I must admit. Now it’s probably easier to kill him than to convince him that it is indeed light in here. On top of that, the place is very, very beautiful.”

  “Okay, it is beautiful, I’ll give you that,” I said. “But light? Are you telling me that the sky isn’t black? Or that the leaves on this tree—”

  “Are bright lilac,” said Juffin.

  “Oh, no. Everything is a shade of golden yellow,” said Shurf, laughing. His laugh was so contagious that I couldn’t help but join in.

  “Get it?” said Juffin. “The Dark Side is the way we want to see it. In a sense, each of us has his own Dark Side, which, nevertheless, doesn’t prevent us from coming here all together, if necessary. Do you like your personal version of this place, by the way?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “It’s beautiful, but somewhat disquieting.”

  “Of course it’s much more quiet and tranquil to be in the reality that you’ve made yourself than on the Dark Side of Echo,” said Juffin. “But we like it here, too, don’t we, Sir Shurf?”

  “And how,” said Lonli-Lokli.

  “You are a completely different person here,” I said. I couldn’t contain a smile, looking at Shurf. His presence was even more soothing to me now than Juffin’s.

  “I am, aren’t I?” Shurf said with uncharacteristic flippancy. “Maybe here I am the real me. The others—Sir Lonli-Lokli and the Mad Fishmonger, among them—are husks; traveling attire, if you will. I believe I am like a person who has set off on a trip with a very large wardrobe.”

  “Well put,” said Juffin. “But a large wardrobe is not necessarily superfluous. For travelers such as yourself, traveling light isn’t an option. A large wardrobe is indispensable to you.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Lonli-Lokli.

  “And now it’s like you’re on a nude beach,” I said.

  “What’s that?” said Juffin.

  “Well, it’s a place where anyone can go sunbathing in the nude, and no one feels embarrassed,” I said.

  “Must be a fun place,” said Juffin. “All right, I think Sir Max has already gotten his bearings on the Dark Side, so we can get down to business. Let’s go hunting, boys.”

  He went rigid, swiveled his head like a beagle, and, it seemed, even sniffed the air a few times. Then he did an about-face and marched on somewhere into the glimmering darkness, which, as I had just learned, was darkness only to me.

  “Let us go, Max,” Shurf said softly. “You should not be so nervous. Right now we are where we are supposed to be. Yo
u and I are both people of the Dark Side. There, where we just came from, we are only visitors. Strangers that many people find unusual and attractive, but will never consider to be one of them.”

  “You can speak so beautifully when you want to,” I said, picking up my pace. “What about Juffin? Is he also a person of the Dark Side?”

  “Of course. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here. Now Kofa, on the other hand, is a genuine person of the World. He is a keystone in some sense, although it is not immediately obvious. Sir Lookfi Pence is, too.”

  “Melamori?” I was whispering, as though I was afraid she could overhear us gossiping about her.

  “It is much simpler with women in this regard. They are at home everywhere.”

  “Rather, they are strangers everywhere,” said Juffin, turning around to us without slowing down. “That’s why most women go out of their way to surround themselves with proof that they can stand firmly on their feet instead of dangling about between the heavens and the earth with a light heart, as they’re supposed to. I can anticipate your next question. We haven’t picked to pieces my Diurnal Representative. Well, Melifaro is a Sentry. He belongs neither to the World nor to the Dark Side. His place is on the border. Now try not to get sidetracked. I’d be burning with curiosity myself, if I were you, but the circumstances don’t favor chitchat now.”

  “All right, I won’t get sidetracked, but please tell me what I shouldn’t get sidetracked from. I still don’t understand what it is that you want me to do,” I said.

  “I don’t know what I want you to do myself yet,” said Juffin. “We’ll see how it pans out. Just keep walking close to Shurf and keep your nose to the grindstone. Be prepared for anything. Just in case.”

  “Be prepared for anything,” I said. “Check.”

  For the next thirty minutes or so, I carried out Juffin’s order with all due diligence: I moved my feet along, kept my mouth shut, and admired the surroundings, going out of my way to pretend that I was “prepared for anything.” From time to time, the glimmering darkness shone with bright colorful spots. Apparently, I had managed to make slight adjustments to my “fairy tale of the Dark Side,” as Juffin had put it.