The Stranger's Magic: The Labyrinths of Echo: Book Three

by Max Frei

  Kofa put the old magic cloak over his looxi—he was excited about his new toy. Then he waved goodbye to me and dove into the orange misty light of the street lamps. I couldn’t resist experiencing the magic again, so I watched Sir Kofa’s silhouette going away. He should have disappeared by now, but I could still see him—no otherworldly powers tried to prevent me from contemplating Kofa’s back. One of my hearts kicked against my ribs, followed by the other one. They had been lying low for a while, and now—boom!

  “Kofa!” I said and ran to him.

  “Huh?” he said, turning around. “Forget something?”

  “No, Kofa, but I can see you!”

  “Really? Well, you must be the most extraordinary creature in the World,” he said, “and no charms work against you.”

  “Yes, but earlier today . . . Never mind. Let’s do this: I’ll put on the cloak and walk a few yards up and down the street. If you can’t see me, I’ll give it back to you and go back to the Headquarters, relieved. What I need now is a peaceful heart. At least one.”

  “You think so? No, that’s impossible. But all right, put it on,” said Kofa, handing me the cloak.

  I put it on and started walking down the street. I honestly tried to become invisible. I did everything I could. That primarily consisted of saying to myself, Goodness me! I so want to hide from that horrible Kofa! It was unnecessary, of course. As far as we understood how ordinary magical things worked, the Ukumbian cloak required no effort on the part of its owner to blind the eyes of others.

  “Max, you were right,” said Kofa in a defeated tone. “I can see you, too. The thing doesn’t work. I wish I knew why. It’s great that you noticed it. Can you imagine what might have happened to me?”

  “Let’s go back to Headquarters, I said. “We need to look into your wardrobe. Why would it stop working all of a sudden?”

  Kofa took the cloak, examined it, and shrugged, and we both went back to the House by the Bridge.

  I didn’t have the slightest idea how we were supposed to “look into” the cloak or where to start, but Kofa didn’t need a kick start in these matters.

  “It’s a different cloak, Max,” he said after he had examined the old gray fabric. “It looks almost identical, but it’s a different one. Ours had a torn lining sewn up with red thread in one place. Just two little stitches. I noticed it when I was studying it in the morning.”

  “A different cloak? How can that be?” I said.

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Kofa. “When I put it on earlier tonight, it was the original cloak. No one could see me—even our colleagues, including Juffin himself. I took it off in this office, and no one has been here except you and Kurush. That means that it was you who swapped it. I’ll arrest you, and the case will be closed.”

  “Of course it was me,” I said. “Who else would have done such a thing?” I pondered a little and said, “What about the junior staff? Janitors, couriers? They come and go at will, and we don’t even notice them half the time.”

  “I’ll be darned, boy, you’re right!” said Kofa. “While I was waiting for you, I saw a janitor whirling around here. I didn’t pay much attention, of course.”

  “Those guys don’t even need a magic cloak while they’re doing their job,” I said. “They are the most invisible people. Looks like he was the one who stole the cloak—swapped, rather. I wonder why.”

  “I don’t think he was a regular janitor,” said Kofa. “I would have understood if someone had just stolen it—although who would want an old rag like this unless he knew what it was? But to switch it for another one just like it, this guy not only knew what he had come for, he came prepared.”

  “Yikes,” I said. “A conspiracy!”

  “Exactly,” said Kofa. “It didn’t occur to me until now how much sense job protocols make. Heck, I’ve written a few thousand job protocols myself during my career, and this experience doesn’t predispose one to adhering to them too closely. If I hadn’t left the cloak on the back of the chair but locked it in the safe as I was supposed to, our conspirators would have been given a run for their money!”

  “What do we do now?” I said.

  “We? We get mad. Angry. That’s what. It’s the best mood for going hunting. And I’m very angry now.”

  “Should we wake up Melamori, or do you want me to step on the thief’s trace? Mind you, though, he may not survive the experience.”

  “The last thing I’m worried about now is the thief’s health. Now that isn’t in my job description.”

  “Excellent. Let’s hop to it then.”

  I paced the room, paying attention to the sensation in my feet. Finally I found what I had been looking for: a trace that didn’t belong to any of my colleagues, I was sure of it. And then I felt as though an impenetrable but transparent cone had dropped on me. I could see the world around me virtually undistorted, but the air underneath the cone was poisoned. I could see very clearly that the evening I had enjoyed at the Three-Horned Moon, Kofa’s and my current investigation, my sweet plans for the next morning, and everything that had been, was, and would be—all of that was not only pure nonsense but the helpless cramps of a living piece of meat, the agony of an insect. My body realized that it would die one day and was rehearsing it. Giving it a first reading, so to speak.

  I composed myself promptly: I knew the feeling. I was the one and only lucky fellow who had a talent for stepping on traces of dead people, drat it!

  “Kofa, this man is already dead. It’s a dead man’s trace,” I said.

  “Dead? Wow, that didn’t take long,” said Kofa. “You can step off the trace and recover now. Yes, that was an excellent idea: to send an accomplice to fetch the cloak and then kill him so no one could step on his trace. The new owner of our trophy is a smart fellow—not so smart as to know that you can follow the trace of a dead man, but then again, it’s not his fault. Before you showed up in Echo, that had been considered impossible. And praise be the Magicians, we haven’t yet announced your achievements on the first page of the Royal Voice.”

  While Kofa was talking, I rummaged through Juffin’s desk for the ceramic bottle of Elixir of Kaxar. “The only panacea I know of,” I said after taking a hefty gulp of the liquid, “that can cure the effects of walking down traces of dead people. What would I do without it?”

  “It’s unpleasant, isn’t it?” said Kofa. “Poor thing. Everyone else has normal talents.”

  “I know. Mother Nature must have been drunk when she made me. But anyway, I might as well just stop whining now. What we need to do is follow that darned trace. If all goes well, where this trace ends, the trace of the murderer begins, still warm. I’m ready whenever you are.”

  “I’m ready. Let’s go,” said Kofa, getting up from the chair. “I can run very fast if necessary, so don’t make allowances for my age or constitution.”

  “I wouldn’t think of allowances when it comes to you,” I said, smiling.

  I put the bottle of Elixir in the pocket of the Mantle of Death, stepped on the trace of the dead man, and rushed across the hallway of Headquarters out into the street. Kofa was indeed following right behind me.

  That short walk down the streets of Echo at night was one of the nastiest undertakings in my life. More than anything, I wanted to get down on all fours and howl at the thin new moon. But I managed to contain myself.

  “Here,” I said, hesitating at a corner. “Something happened here. Kofa, this fellow went down the Dark Path! I should try to follow him. I’ve never attempted to follow a dead man’s trace down the Dark Path before. I hope it’s possible, at least in theory.”

  “In theory, what you’re doing now is impossible,” said Kofa, “but you’re doing it. In other words, I’m sure you can do it. Impossible things are your specialty.”

  “Are you coming with me?”

  “Of course I am. If you end up in hell, rest assured I’ll keep you company.”

  “And I’ll bet you’ll find a nice tavern with good cuisine even ther
e.” I tried to force a smile. I had to do it for someone who was about to follow me into hell.

  I let the disgusting dead trace lead me and take me away to the devil knows where. For this to happen, I had to throw away the thought that I was still alive, which, under the circumstances, wasn’t too far-fetched. Finally I felt firm ground under my feet and made a mind-boggling jump to the side—the most effective way to get off the trace you’re standing on. I had to get off it, simply because I wasn’t made out of steel, even though I wished I were.

  I looked around. I was relieved to see Kofa standing just two feet away from me. From the looks of it, we weren’t in hell. We were in a dark and empty room. On the floor I saw a motionless body. I was happy to see it! I sure hoped that it was the dead man whose trace had almost killed me.

  “You must immediately take a gulp from your precious bottle, boy,” said Kofa in the tone of a family doctor. “You look like a person who’s about to faint any second now.”

  “Like heck I am,” I said. “No swooning for me. Your advice, however, is much appreciated.”

  “I don’t give bad advice very often.” Kofa made sure I was capable of opening the bottle of Elixir of Kaxar myself, nodded, and approached the dead body. “Well, well, well, what have we here? Oh, nothing original, praise be the Magicians. Stabbed to death. I think he’s the one we were looking for. He wears the uniform of our junior staff. Ah, he is one of our junior staff. I don’t remember his name, but I recognize him. A hole in the heavens above him! A janitor who could go down the Dark Path was working in our organization, and no one bothered to find out what he had been doing before the War for the Code. I want to look the fellow who hired him right in the eye. But it’s all for the better. I’ll run a check on the rest of them tomorrow. Max, are you ready to look for another trace? The one who killed this lousy creature is the most interesting character in this nasty story. I’m very eager to meet him.”

  “So am I,” I said. “Give me another minute, and we’ll be off.”

  “No hurry if you haven’t recovered yet. I’ll look around this place. I don’t think it’s important, but who knows? Only please lean against the wall. It’s a simple rule, but it helps avoid unpleasant surprises in unfamiliar surroundings.

  “I used to have a colleague, Sir Jura Feella, the General of the Left Bank Police. He was a very eccentric old man, even for the Epoch of Orders. Jura was an adamant adherent to this rule. Whenever he had to rest somewhere beyond the city limits, he would always erect a tall wall behind him. By the way, it wasn’t a simple trick. It required Black Magic of the ninety-second degree. It all ended in a very funny way: one of General Feella’s numerous enemies shot him with a regular Baboom. That fellow was a pretty good magician himself. He managed to climb to the top of Feela’s famous wall. Shooting from there was much easier than from any cover.”

  “So nice of you to give me practical advice and then make sure I don’t follow it,” I said.

  Sir Kofa left to search the house. Fifteen minutes later, he returned with an expression of utmost boredom on his face.

  “Nothing interesting, huh?” I said.

  “A house is a house is a house, boy. A place where people live, or don’t live. It’s not often that you encounter a truly interesting one. As for this one, its occupant has been living a long, ordinary, and quite lonely life. Are you ready to take me for a walk now?”

  “I am, as long as the subject of our next pursuit hasn’t died yet. That would be too much for me!”.

  I had anticipated finding the trace of the murderer somewhere near the dead body, and I was right. Moments later, Kofa and I walked outside.

  “Our murderer took an amobiler from here, and we have no means of transportation at hand,” I said, somewhat perplexed.

  “You asked Melifaro to leave one of your amobilers by the Furry House,” said Kofa. “It’s just two blocks away. Don’t you recognize the place?”

  “I don’t. The city changes at night, as though there are two different Echos—Echo at night and Echo during the day. I sometimes think that even the layout changes.”

  “Really?” said Kofa. “I didn’t know you’d noticed. Okay, I’ll go get your amobiler.”

  “But please hurry,” I said. “This fellow could kick the bucket any second now, what with me standing on his trace.”

  “Good riddance, I say,” said Kofa.

  “Another dead man’s trace? That would be an overload. Besides, it would be a good idea to ask him a few questions first. Granted, Juffin can revive any dead person for a short while, and I’m pretty sure I can make him talk, but can you imagine how much time we’d waste? What if there’s someone else behind all this?”

  “Someone else?” said Kofa, wincing. “That would be an overload. Although you just might be right.”

  Kofa left and returned a few minutes later in my amobiler. I took his place at the steering lever and tore off at a speed that exceeded even my own notions of reckless driving. Moments later, we were at the western outskirts of the Old City, somewhere near the Skauba Cemetery, in the only neighborhood of Echo that one might call the slums. It consisted mostly of old one-story houses that weren’t in good repair—compared to other neighborhoods, of course.

  “He’s still alive!” I said, jumping out of the amobiler. “A tough guy. Who would have thought?” I hit my elbow hard against another amobiler—a plain-looking old jalopy—but at that time I didn’t pay any attention to it. There will be enough time later for wound licking, I thought.

  “We’re in luck,” said Kofa.

  I shot like a bullet through the front door of the nearest house. The paint was peeling, and the door swung in the cold winter wind exactly like the door of the Armstrong & Ella. If I were a locksmith rather than a Secret Investigator, I would have had my work cut out for me today.

  I was approaching the end of the trace. At moments like this, any Master of Pursuit experiences something akin to the trancelike fury of an ancient berserker. My victim lay motionless on a sofa in the dark living room, having no strength to put up any resistance or run away. If I had come just a moment later, we’d have ended up with another useless dead body on our hands. But I jumped off the trace just in time. Now we were both free from each other, my victim and me.

  “Good evening, Lady Misa,” said Kofa. “I’ll take your knife, if you don’t mind. Aw, look at you. So tired you can’t move your arms? Poor thing, how are you going to kill your dear guests then? You know, I think I’ll relieve you of this nice little dagger, too. Thank you. You won’t be needing it now.”

  “Don’t tell me I almost killed your ex-girlfriend,” I said.

  “That’s exactly what you almost did,” said Kofa, chuckling. “Allow me to introduce you to Misa Luddis, alias No-Nose Misa. The first lady among the elderly connoisseurs of blatant violence. Some two hundred years ago, she was a celebrity: none of her colleagues could do what she could with cold weapons. I’ll never forget our walks at night: I helped this lady to get to Xolomi about five times. I had to make sure she didn’t hurt anyone on the way. Are you still breathing, my love?”

  “Dream on, you accursed old rodent!” said the “celebrity.” Her voice was very weak but full of rage. “You’re going to die before me anyway! What did you come up with this time? Who’s the darned werewolf that stepped on my trace? Back in our day, we drowned people in the Great Gugland Mire for this!”

  “That’s a great idea,” said Kofa, smiling. “For you, my love, I’m prepared to revive this noble tradition. You’ll be the first. We’ll go to the Great Gugland Mire alone—only you and me. It will be so romantic.” He turned to me and continued. “I’ve known this old witch for a very long time, boy. She won’t say a word to us without a good spell, even if we call in Melifaro and make him kiss her. I wonder which one of us can make her talk sooner. I’ll need about a half hour—I know this from many years of experience. But I’ve heard something about your Lethal Spheres. They say you can make anyone do whatever you want him t
o, if I understand correctly.”

  “Let’s see. I have no desire to kill your girlfriend, so I can try to make her talk,” I said. I snapped the fingers of my left hand—a unique, almost imperceptible gesture. I’ll never cease to be amazed at Sir Shurf’s mentoring talents, for he had taught me this incredible trick in a matter of minutes.

  One could say, however, that I was a disappointment as a student. When performed by Shurf, the trick inevitably leads to a lethal outcome. When I do it, the result is usually “I am with you, Master!” and so on and so forth. In order for my Lethal Sphere to murder someone, I must genuinely want to kill that person, and that’s not as simple as it seems. Funny, despite my venomous spit and the Mantle of Death that I had to wear for the benefit of the public peace, I was still a lousy killer.

  My “interview” with No-Nose Misa was no different from my previous experiments. After a semitransparent ball, glowing with green, came out of the tips of my fingers and touched the woman’s chest, she moaned, “I am with you, Master.” The variety of the lexicon of my victims left a lot to be desired.

  “Good,” I said. “While you’re at it, tell us where the cloak is,” I said, yawning and perching on the edge of a lonely chair in the middle of the living room. My work shift could be a little less eventful, not to mention shorter—we had started right after noon. Plus, my elbow had begun to hurt. However had I managed to hit it?

  Despite the pain and exhaustion, I finally got a good look at the lady. Tall and skinny, the old woman had so many wrinkles that one would think she was the oldest living person in this World, which was full of people remarkable for their longevity. Her nickname notwithstanding, Misa had a nose—a very short flat one, which did not add to her charm. Nor did she look frail. In spite of her button nose, she looked like an actual old witch fresh down from the Witches’ Sabbath.