“Not yet. We’ll have to walk for about half an hour. That will give us time to discuss a few details of what awaits us. I was going to ask you not to interfere in the fight, and suggest that you generally keep your distance from Kiba Attsax, but—”
“You changed your mind?” I asked. Shurf nodded earnestly.
“Yes, you taught me a good lesson. Underestimating your enemy is an unforgivable blunder. But underestimating your ally is even more dangerous. So go ahead and interfere, if need be.”
“That’s all well and good,” I said, somewhat confused. “But how do you kill dead Magicians? Until now, I knew of only one method—your famous left hand. An excellent thing. But as I understand it, it won’t shine for us?”
“No. If it were a matter of any other creature, perhaps. But my glove was at one time Kiba’s hand, so it won’t offer us any help. I can still do some other tricks, maybe they will be sufficient. Each person has his own best way of killing a Grand Magician, living or dead. You have a chance now to find out what your own best way is,” said Lonli-Lokli, and fell silent. I decided not to burden him with conversation.
Meanwhile, we continued along the streets of Kettari. I enjoyed this walk as I had enjoyed no other. Every step sent a pleasant tickling sensation through my entire body, starting as a pleasant itch in the soles of my feet.
“Why am I levitating, Shurf? Has anything like this ever happened to you?”
“Yes. After I drank dry all the aquariums of the Order I didn’t touch the earth for several years. It happens from a surcharge of strength and the inability to use it properly. That befell you after a surprisingly small dose, so your case might differ from mine. I must note that Kiba Attsax is now very close by. A bit closer, and I’ll have to take off my glove. It’s burning my hand.”
“Wow!” I said, and immediately shut up. What a thing to say at such a moment!
“Well, Max, I’m taking off the glove,” Shurf said quietly. “I have to give it to you now. Together with the protective one, of course. You have no part in the old dispute, so you can hold it without any problem.”
“Maybe I should just shrink it and hide it away? That’s my favorite trick. Would it be safe?”
“Yes, go ahead. Take it and follow me.” Shurf nodded at me, already somewhat aloof.
The dangerous glove obediently settled down between my thumb and the forefinger of my left hand. One thing I had certainly mastered was transporting bulky physical objects in this supremely practical way.
“Whatever you do, try to stay alive,” Lonli-Lokli said all of a sudden. “Death is a horrifying prospect if you’re dealing with Kiba. I know that for a fact.”
“I have a long lifeline,” I said, glancing stealthily at my right hand. “Do you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, save it for later, Max. He’s there in that house. Let’s go!”
The house Lonli-Lokli pointed to was a small, two-story structure with a signboard that read
“A rooming house?” I asked in surprise. “A dormitory for dead Magicians, room and board for a modest fee?”
“I think it is some sort of hotel. Do you really consider that to be important?”
“No, it’s just funny. A dead man living in a hotel. Where does he get the money, I’d like to know? Or did he have an account in a local bank when he was still alive?”
“Well, he had to be somewhere,” Lonli-Lokli murmured glumly.
I threw open the heavy lacquered door for him with a determined gesture.
“After you.”
The ancient steps creaked under the weight of his tread.
“Here we are,” Lonli-Lokli observed calmly, stopping in front of a completely nondescript white door with the vestiges of a number 6 in faded gold—something only I would notice, with my habit of paying attention to random nonsense.
“Open it, Max. Don’t hold back.”
“Oh, I forgot—your hands are tied up, in a manner of speaking.”
I grinned, and opened the door. Somewhere in one of the numerous magazines I devoured long ago in a previous life, I read that they asked Napoleon what the secret of his victories was. “The main thing is to throw yourself into the fray. After that you can sort out the details,” he quipped. Or something to that effect. Quite a fellow, that Napoleon—though he met with a rather unfortunate end.
By the window, with his back turned to us, sat a completely bald, withered old man in a bright looxi. Suddenly, a ball of lightning, white as snow, flew out from under Lonli-Lokli’s looxi. It struck the bald man right between the shoulder blades, and he flared up with an unpleasant pale light, like an enormous streetlamp. The ball of lightning didn’t seem to hurt the stranger in the least, but he turned around.
“Greetings, Fishmonger,” said Sir Kiba Attsax, the former Grand Magician of the Order of the Icy Hand.
The most horrifying thing was that Kiba Attsax looked very much like Lonli-Lokli himself. I remembered that Juffin had said our Shurf had an unremarkable appearance—that people who look like him are a dime a dozen. Blockhead that I was, I hadn’t believed him!
The many years he had spent in a non-living state had not made him more attractive. The bluish, pock- marked, unnaturally gleaming skin was what really compromised his charm.
The whites of his eyes were dark, almost brown, and the eyes themselves were light blue—a lovely combination, it can’t be denied. I even felt a bit calmer when I got a good look at him. How could such a pathetic, dilapidated old creature possibly harm the fearsome Lonli-Lokli?
Oh, how wrong I was!
The dead Magician, it seemed, welcomed the opportunity for a chat. Completely ignoring another ball of lightning, which struck him in the chest this time, he went on with the performance.
“You succeeded very well in hiding from me, Fishmonger. You hid yourself very well indeed! But you weren’t smart enough to stay away from a place like this. Did it never occur to you that a newborn World is like a dream? Here your powers don’t work. You don’t believe me?”
I turned to Lonli-Lokli. I still thought that this dead man would put the fear of the Magicians in us, and then we would make short shrift of him, as the genre required. But the expression on Sir Shurf’s face—Sinning Magicians, what’s happening to him? I wondered, starting to panic. He was really afraid, and—it looked like he was falling asleep!
The jangling voice of Kiba Attsax jolted me back to reality. “I have no quarrel with you, boy. You may leave. Don’t interfere. We have old accounts to settle,” he said. The dead Magician waved the stump of his left arm in front of my nose. “He stole my left hand. How do you like that?”
A cold lump of panic shot into my throat. The situation completely knocked me off course. Until that moment I had been sure that I could calmly observe this World full of dangers safely behind the shoulders of the invulnerable Lonli-Lokli. But “even old ladies make mistakes,” as they say where I come from. And today we had mistakes galore—enough to share among widows, orphans, and other have-nots, if they wanted them, I thought with crazed glee.
And then I stopped thinking and went into action. It seemed I had been pinned against the wall. For a start, I spat at the dirty mug of the dead Magician. It wasn’t that I seriously believed this would help matters, but I couldn’t come up with anything more original. To my surprise, the spitting improved the general situation. Of course, it didn’t kill my opponent—he was already dead on his feet, so to speak. But I was lucky. It turned out that my spit left proper holes in corpses—just like the ones that adorned my rug at home. The dead Magician seemed very surprised. For the time being, anyway, he was distracted from his cryptic plans for giving Lonli-Lokli his comeuppance.
Behind my back I sensed Shurf coming to life again. He would still need a few moments to recover. I’d just have to buy a little time.
I charged forth, almost up to the alcove where the dead man was sitting. I decided that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to spit right into the dark pupils of his eyes—eyes are so fragile and vulnerable. But I had never been a crack shot, and this time the poison landed on his forehead! Some sniper I’d made.
I laughed nervously, moved closer, and spat again. This time I did myself proud—where his right eye had been, there was now a gaping hole.
Kiba Attsax backed up toward the window in confusion.
