The Stranger

spry lady, wrapped in an elegant looxi the color of the night sky. Instead of the broad-shouldered Amazon I had expected as my colleague, she was a celestial creature with the face of Diana Rigg, the English actress who played James Bond’s erstwhile girlfriend. I wonder how they feel about office romances here? I made a mental note to ask Juffin about that.

Jokes aside, the lady was indeed lovely. Her eyes twinkled with intelligence and humor. I had always thought those were two sides of the same coin. I sensed with all my body—only recently awakened to all the wonderful possibilities—the power that exuded from this little lady, no less dangerous than that of the phlegmatic Sir Lonli- Lokli, whose deadly hands I had already seen in action.

“I am happy to speak my name: Melamori Blimm, Master of Pursuit of the Fleeing and Hiding,” the lady introduced herself quietly. Much to my surprise she seemed visibly nervous. Sinning Magicians, what had they told her about me?

“It gives me joy to hear your name spoken,” said I. Not out of a sense of courtesy. I sincerely meant it.

Lonli-Lokli nodded at me politely with the surreptitious pride of an old friend and sat down next to Lookfi Pence. Melamori moved closer, and my head felt giddy from the pungent scent of her perfume.

“Forgive my familiarity, Sir Max, but I decided to come with a gift. Sir Juffin would surely think me a miser if I had done otherwise.” With these words she drew out a bottle from the folds of her looxi. “I am sure you have not tried wine of this kind before. I myself have rarely had the pleasure to enjoy it, although my uncle, Kima Blimm, favors me above everyone else in the family.”

Handing me the bottle carefully, she sat down on a stool next to Kofa. I examined the bottle.

“You’re a lucky man, Sir Max!” Juffin exclaimed. Suddenly he looked two hundred years younger. “That is indeed a rarity. Eternal Dew is a wine from the deepest cellars of the Order of the Seven-Leaf Clover! Kima Blimm, Melamori’s uncle, is the Supervisor in Chief of the Order’s wines. That’s why I hired her. There, there, don’t take offense, Lady Melamori! We didn’t meet just yesterday. You could very well make a list of Sir Juffin Hully’s Worst Jokes and sell it to the Echo Hustle and Bustle.”

“Well, Sir Max has just met me, and he’ll think that I got my job in the Secret Investigative Force because of my relatives,” Melamori said, sounding hurt.

“Sir Max knows me too well, my dear. Besides, I suspect he’s already sensed your worth. Not even half an hour ago he pointed out Sir Kofa, who came disguised as a lady of grand proportions, and asked me if he wasn’t one of the Secret Investigators. Isn’t that right, Sir Max?”

Three pairs of eyes fastened themselves upon me. I felt a strong urge to study the contents of my cup.

“You’re exaggerating, sir. Suppose that my guess was right, just for once . . . All right, I admit that when I saw Lady Melamori, I thought that she must be at least as dangerous as Sir Shurf, that’s all,” I said, winking at the pouting beauty. “Am I right?”

Melamori smiled like a cat who had eaten a filling meal.

“I think the men I dragged by the collar and threw into Xolomi, or someplace worse, would agree with you, Sir Max,” she said, then added with the expression of a sweet little girl, “Still, you do me too much credit. Sir Shurf is an unparalleled killer. Me? I’m still learning. But I am good at manhunting!” Melamori smiled again, showing her sharp little teeth. “And I need only start trailing a man for his luck to turn and his strength to wane,” the dangerous lady said, then looked at us quizzically. “Forgive me, I seem to have allowed myself to get carried away!”

“It’s quite all right,” said Juffin. “You should take advantage of Melifaro’s absence while you can, dear girl. At what point do you think he would have interrupted that fiery speech of yours?”

“Right after the second word,” said Melamori, and giggled. “That’s for sure! Although when Sir Melifaro and I are alone, his gallantry knows no bounds. He lets me say at least five or six words at a time. Can you believe it?”

“No, I can’t. Even I am rarely able to accomplish that; and I am the Most Venerable Head! By the way, Shurf, how did you manage to get past him?”

“That was easy. I asked your personal buriwok, Kurush, to quote from the section of the Code that Sir Melifaro received upon being appointed to his job. It clearly stated that—”

“I see,” said Juffin, laughing. “There is no need to continue. A hole in the heavens above you both! You’re two of a kind!”

Harmony in the Minor Secret Investigative Force, I surmised, was based on the ancient dialectical principle of the unity and struggle of opposites. Temperamental Melifaro and cold-blooded Lonli-Lokli; unpredictable Juffin and steady, reliable Kofa Yox; harmless, gangly Lookfi and the formidable little lady Melamori Blimm. I wonder, which of them I would have to counterbalance? I suppose it would have to be all of them at once. I am, after all, a creature from another world.

In the meantime, everyone’s attention seemed to be fixed on the bottle of Eternal Dew.

“May I ask you, Sir Kofa, to divide this luxury between all of us fairly?” My intuition told me that this elderly gentleman was a person one could depend on in such sticky everyday situations.

My generosity won me the heartfelt goodwill of all present. Later, Sir Juffin told me that if I had taken the gift home with me it would have been accepted as a matter of course—they know how to respect the gastronomic weaknesses of others here. But my decision came as a pleasant surprise to the gathering of gourmets.

During the tasting, Lonli-Lokli astonished me yet again. From beneath the snow-white folds of his looxi he produced a wooden cup, darkened with age, and handed it to Sir Kofa. This in itself did not surprise me: I could very well imagine Sir Shurf carrying an ancient family heirloom around with him everywhere he went for just such an occasion. Then I noticed that the cup had no bottom. Sir Kofa paid this no heed and impassively filled the holy chalice with the rare drink. Not a drop spilled from the cup. Juffin understood that I was in urgent need of a brief history lesson.

“Don’t look so surprised, Max. In his time, Sir Shurf was a member of the Order of the Holey Cup. He served there as a Fish-Fellow, Keeper of the Order’s Aquariums, which had as many holes as this honorable vessel. Members of the Order ate only fish, which they bred in those very aquariums, and washed down their meals with drinks from jugs with holes in the bottom. Isn’t that right, my friend?”

Lonli-Lokli nodded gravely, and downed his portion of the drink.

“Before the Troubled Times,” Juffin continued, “the Order of the Holey Cup was in good standing with the Order of the Seven-Leaf Clover.” This he said with a respectfully comic bow in the direction of Lady Melamori. “So it was dissolved on very agreeable terms. Like his other former colleagues, our good Sir Shurf still has special permission to adhere to the ancient traditions of his order. In other words, he may drink from a holey cup. Because he is using forbidden magic, he is obliged to offset the potentially dire consequences of his actions with all his might. This he does every time, although it consumes a great deal of the power he gains from the ritual. Have I left anything out, Sir Lonli-Lokli?”

“You have explained the reasons and consequences of my action in a succinct and informative manner,” Lonli-Lokli intoned with a nod. He held the cup in both hands, and his impassive face radiated an intense serenity.

After a tray filled with pots of delicacies and a portion of Eternal Dew had been sent off to poor Melifaro at my insistence, I could be certain that from then on, every one of my colleagues would be willing to die for a smile from me. I wasn’t going to be the one to impose that fate on them, though. I smiled a lot that evening, and absolutely free of charge. I managed to maneuver around the thorny ethnographical questions that poured from the curious but trusting Lookfi, to flirt with Lady Melamori, to listen to Sir Kofa, to pronounce Lonli-Lokli’s name correctly, and to amuse Juffin. It was amazing! For the first time in my life I was the life of the party, and a significant one at that. When the number of dirty dishes finally exceeded the capabilities of any local dishwasher, we decided to part ways. Sir Kofa Yox kindly deigned to take Melifaro’s shift, and in an equally compassionate gesture, Sir Juffin Hully awarded them each an extra Day of Freedom from Chores. Then he extended an invitation to both of them for dinner tomorrow around sunset at the Glutton. So it seemed that Melifaro had only gained from missing today’s event.

The Ministry of Perfect Public Order had to do without me for one last night. I planned to spend it moving into my new place. The next day, after lunch, I was supposed to report to the House by the Bridge and officially begin my job. Put simply, I had to figure out what was required of me in the course of a few hours, though doubts about my abilities were gradually disappearing.

The family amobiler arrived for Lady Melamori. The fragile, petite Master of Pursuit smiled as we bid each