The Stranger - Max Frei [202]
I didn’t recall having been in this part of Echo before, or perhaps it was just that at night it was hard to recognize. Anyway, I wasn’t in the mood for sightseeing. I didn’t take my eyes off the back of the stranger. Where was he taking me? I already envisioned how I would discover the hideout of a whole band of belted long-beards, and Juffin and I would swoop in and save them from their benighted existence. Actually, I wasn’t too eager to repeat my recent flirtation with someone else’s death. Never mind, we’d get out of it somehow.
Sinning Magicians, who would have thought! The bearded object of my undivided attention had led me not just anywhere, but into the very heart of the Quarter of Trysts. Bewitched or not, it seemed he still suffered from loneliness and wanted to try his luck. I smiled bitterly. Lady Melamori was kicking up her heels somewhere nearby, if she hadn’t reconsidered her vow to come here seeking oblivion from my repellent embrace. I couldn’t just let this smart fellow slip away, getting his happiness for a night! And jumping into bed with the happy couple was out of the question.
But life was wiser than I was. I didn’t have to find a way out of a ridiculous situation. The stranger stopped short and turned to me.
“You’re too late, mate,” he said in the same distinctive Tasherian drawl that Captain Giatta spoke with. “Do you know how many people there are all around us? If you take another step I’ll shout for help.”
Then it dawned on me. He thought I was trying to rob him. Of course, what else would a wealthy stranger think if he had been pursued by a suspicious character in a nondescript looxi for the last half hour?
“I’m no robber,” I said, with my most charming smile. “I’m much worse. There’s no stopping me. You came at it from the wrong end. I’m from the Secret Investigative Force of the Unified Kingdom. Are you in the mood for a walk to the House by the Bridge?”
I winked at the bearded chap. The stupid circumstances of my conversation with the suspect in the middle of the Quarter of Trysts suddenly filled me with a senseless buoyancy. I swiveled my hips suggestively and pursed my lips in a Cupid’s bow.
“Tonight, I am your fate. What’s your name, handsome?”
“Handsome” gasped for air. My unbridled approach seemed to have disarmed him. But the Tasherian’s voice remained firm.
“I can’t go with you, sir. I very much regret it, but I am forced to stand my ground.”
And the bearded one drew an enormous butcher knife from under his looxi—the kind of knife that is probably considered to be an ordinary dagger in distant Tashera.
“No one loves me,” I concluded. “Fine, let’s fight it out. All the more since I know your weak point, my friend. I’m not going to slice you up into pieces. I’ll just undo your wonderful belt and see what happens. Well, have you changed your mind? Give me your little toy.”
Recent events had made me absurdly reckless. I was even surprised at myself. I seemed to have decided I had nothing to lose. My opponent seemed to think likewise.
“It’s all the same to me,” the stranger said gloomily, grasping his instrument more deftly. “We’ll have to fight. I’m very sorry, sir.”
With a sudden movement of the hand, a silver bolt of lightning pierced my stomach. Rather, it should have pierced me—only I suddenly had no stomach for it to pierce.
To tell the truth, to this day I don’t understand what happened. I was behaving like a second-rate hero of a B movie, so I should have died right there, on the