The Stranger - Max Frei [40]
While I was doing this arithmetic, our numbers had grown. A young man with a disproportionately long, skinny body hidden in a violet looxi stood in the doorway, smiling shyly. Walking toward us, he managed to knock over a stool. He apologized so sweetly to the middle-aged lady sitting near ground zero that she followed the clumsy young man with a tender gaze. The affable creature began talking even before he got to our table, gesticulating as he advanced.
“I am most honored to be able to pay you my respects in person, Sir Max! I have so many things to ask you. I must admit that I have been burning with anticipation for the past few days, if you will forgive my lack of discretion.”
“And you are—?” I asked.
The corners of my mouth began to spread into a smile. I felt like a rock star in the embraces of a fan who had been raised by his elderly grandmother, a countess.
“Please forgive me! I am very glad to speak my name. Sir Lookfi Pence, Master Keeper of Knowledge, at your service.”
“This little marvel of nature looks after our buriwoks, Sir Max,” Sir Juffin said. “Or, rather, the buriwoks look after him in their spare time.”
My interest in Mr. Pence grew. I had already heard about these clever talking birds endowed with absolute memory. Buriwoks are rare in the Unified Kingdom. They come from the distant shores of Arvarox, but there are several hundred such wonderful creatures at the House by the Bridge. They serve as an archive for the Ministry of Perfect Public Order. The bird’s prodigious memory can store thousands of dates, names, and facts. I can certainly imagine that it would be much more interesting to talk to a buriwok than to sift through reams of paper. I was desperate to see one of these amazing birds with my own eyes, so the man who spent all his working days with them seemed to be a useful acquaintance.
“Why are you alone, Sir Lookfi?” asked Juffin, smiling at the Master Keeper of Knowledge, who had already seated himself beside me. One of the edges of his expensive looxi accidentally ended up in a mug of kamra though this was his only mishap for the moment.
Now, having studied his face for a time, I saw that Sir Lookfi was not as young as I’d first thought. Rather, he belonged to that rare breed of men who look like boys until they are old, when all of a sudden they begin to look their own age.
Lookfi smiled and said, “I’m alone, Sir Juffin, because the others stayed behind to discuss a philosophical matter: the question of necessity versus free will.”
“Sinning Magicians! What’s going on over there?”
“No need for concern, sir. They are trying to come to a decision. After all, someone should stay behind at the Ministry. On the one hand, that is Sir Melifaro’s responsibility. He is your Representative, and when you can’t be at the House by the Bridge, his presence there is required. He already knows Sir Max, so his presence here as a matter of etiquette would seem unnecessary. On the other hand, as your Deputy and our Senior, he has the right to appoint any substitute he judges to be competent.”
Juffin chuckled, and Sir Kofa smiled.
“When I left,” Lookfi continued, after absent-mindedly taking a gulp from my glass of Tears of Darkness, “Lady Melamori was saying that of the three of them, she was the only one who had not yet met Sir Max. She said she didn’t want to hear any more of their philosophical wrangling, and that she was going to sit in the next room until they finished their idiotic debate. Allow me, if I may, to disagree with her view of the matter. I think the discussion was very interesting, and I believe there is a moral to be learned from it. But I thought