The Stranger - Max Frei [167]
“Everything’s fine, Sir Juffin. I can imagine how upset you were, but at least a few dozen days without Boboota are guaranteed. He has been taken to Abilat Paras. This great healer claims that bringing Boboota around will be difficult—and Boboota was lucky. The others can already be buried: the changes were irreversible. How crafty that hunchback must have been to lure them into his clutches!”
“Have a drink, you poor fellow! I won’t offer you food, if even Sir Max turns up his nose at it.”
“Well, perhaps a little something sweet,” Melifaro drawled. “Only, please—no meat!”
“How fastidious my reps are! Who would have thought,” Juffin said grinning. “Eat your pastries then. I’ll get down to something more serious.”
The chief solemnly lifted the lid off the pot filled to the brim with Madame Zizinda’s renowned hot pâté. Melifaro and I exchanged queasy glances, before launching right into the platter of sweet confections—just to take our minds off the days’ horrors, of course.
“All right, let’s hear it, son,” Juffin demanded with his mouth full. “Max here is bursting with curiosity; and, I must admit, it’s not all that clear to me, either. How do you think he lured them there?”
“Rumors about that blasted pâté had been doing the rounds in Echo for a long time. Lots of people went to Itullo’s to partake of the secrets of old cuisine. The fellow really had learned to make the dishes without resorting to Forbidden Magic. I found his papers, and the police questioned the servants already, so I can explain everything with some certainty. This is how it worked. The hunchback made a list of gourmets. He collected information about them, and then invited them, preferably those who both lived alone and were prosperous, to his establishment. There he fed them his foul delicacy. As soon as they tried it, some people—not all, only the weakest and most vulnerable—were instantly hooked. They felt they couldn’t live without it. When a customer like that came to Itullo in the middle of the night, fell on his knees, and offered his whole fortune in exchange for a serving of the pâté, the chef knew that he had caught another one in his snares. He started making them pay in earnest; and they had to pay a high price to be led down the garden path to the grave-yard. The poor fellows sank into debt and would even begin selling their property to buy the cursed dish. One of them sold two houses, at least; I know that for a fact. Within a few dozen days, the hunchback succeeded in reducing the poor gluttons to rags. By then they were ready to be lured to the next step. One fine day, the customer would just fall asleep over his plate. To be more exact, he would fall unconscious. It didn’t take much effort for the hunchback to put him into a cage in the cellar. Then the last stage of feeding began. The denizens of the cellar were fed another mixture of ingredients: the vile invention of the great chef, resembling the pâté itself in taste and aroma, but much more radical. Another few days, and a heaping portion of King Banjee was ready to be served to a new batch of unfortunate gourmets. What will they do now, poor things?”
“Go to the wisewomen,” Juffin said. “Better late than never. So the pâté itself reduced them to a state of stupor, then knocked them out completely. After which they were fed some other junk that turned them into pâté themselves. Extraordinary! What a brilliantly devised vicious circle! And he did all this without resorting to Forbidden Magic? Now that’s talent, a hole in the heavens above him! What a waste.”
“Poor Karwen!” I blurted out. “Hunting for culinary secrets turned out to be a dangerous pastime. He no doubt found his way into Itullo’s covert kitchen and swiped the first pot he came to that smelled like King Banjee. He took it home, studied it, tasted it, of course—then perhaps got carried away and ate it all at one sitting. What terrible luck!”
“Ah, the hapless proprietor