The Stranger - Max Frei [22]
Juffin cast a warning glance at me. Max, do you notice it, too?
“What is it?” I asked aloud, confused. Melifaro turned away in amazement, but said nothing.
Juffin preferred Silent Speech. It’s the smell of a foul death. I’ve come across this before. None of this bodes any good. He then continued out loud.
“All right, let’s go into the bedchamber. My heart tells me that the old man couldn’t resist and popped in this morning to tidy up. Melifaro, today you’ll take Lonli-Lokli’s place.”
“I won’t be able to pull it off. I can’t puff out my chest like he does.”
“Never mind. You don’t have to, just throw yourself into the scorching fire; that’s all there is to it. According to instructions, I can’t subject you to the risk of being deprived of my company. And Sir Max doesn’t have a clue about what to do after you enter the room.”
“So in that case, you won’t miss me, will you? I know, I know, you got sick of me a long time ago. Maybe you can just kick me out of the service and you’ll have a clean conscience? Think about it before it’s too late!” Sir Melifaro said with a smirk.
“Yes, you see, I’m planning to take your place,” I explained. “And for your boss, it’s easier just to kill someone than to offend him without cause. So—”
“Well, fine,” Melifaro replied with a sigh of resignation. “Of course, otherwise why would he have fed me? He was granting me my last wish.”
“Gentlemen, could you perhaps be so kind as to shut up?” said Juffin.
We bit our tongues and fell in step behind our stern leader until he halted by the door to the bedchamber.
“It’s here, Melifaro. Welcome.”
Melifaro didn’t try to pull any stunts in the tradition of a brave storm-trooper from the movies. He simply opened the door and entered the empty chamber. The epicenter of the “smell of a foul death” was right here—judging by how unwell I felt. But what must be done, must be done! And so I followed right behind Melifaro.
For a brief moment it seemed to me that I had died many years before. Then I began to feel wracked with a longing for death—a peculiar kind of nostalgia; but a tiny part of the phlegmatic, sensible Max was still alive in me. So I got a grip on myself—or, rather, the sensible kid gathered up all the rest of the Maxes, all howling in a frenzy of morbid longing.
Sir Melifaro, who until that moment had remained blissfully ignorant, was now also on the alert. He mumbled gloomily, “Not the cheeriest place in Echo, Chief. Why did you drag me in here? Bring on the music and the girls!”
Then Sir Juffin spoke in a voice that sounded like it came from someone else:
“Back off, boys! This time my pipe is going off the scales!”
The dial on the pipe was calibrated to detect magic up to the hundredth degree. This should be plenty, as even during the romantic Epoch of Orders, masters who had greater abilities were few and far between. So if the wand was going “off the scales,” the magic here must be greater than the hundredth degree—say, the 173rd or 212th. From my perspective, it was all the same at that point.
“What’s going—?” Melifaro tried to ask, but Juffin shouted:
“Clear out! On the double!”
In the same instant, he tugged me by the leg, and I crashed onto the floor, just in time to notice Melifaro’s legs flying up in a bizarre somersault as he jumped out of the window. Well, almost jumped out. The sound of shattering glass rang out, and shards flew everywhere, but Melifaro’s flight was broken off abruptly. He slid down onto the floor, turned around, and started walking slowly away from the window.
“Where are you going, you fool! Get out, I say!” Juffin shouted, but without much hope. Even I understood that the fellow wasn’t walking of his own accord. I thought I could see a spiderweb, glistening like cold crystal, envelop Melifaro. His