and they’ll bring you to me, at any time of day or night. Here you can do anything your heart desires. My people have already been informed about you, of course.”
“Excellent!” I nodded. “And now, arrest me, please!”
Cell No. 5-Ow-Nox seemed to be quite a cozy little place. And, by the way, in my homeland you’d have to plunk down several suitcases of greenbacks for a pad like this! But for a native of Echo, it would probably be difficult to reconcile oneself to such cramped quarters—only three “small” (by local standards, miniscule; by ours, enormous) rooms, all on one floor. And also a bathroom with a toilet one floor below, as is the custom here. In the bathroom there were only three tubs, the same number I had at home. Now I began to understand why my landlord had been unable to find a tenant for so long. When I got home, I’d have him put in a fourth tub. I can’t live like I’m in prison!
But praise be the Magicians I had still not completely adapted to local customs, so the modest prison cell seemed to me to be the height of luxury. A half-hour later I realized I had already gotten used to being there.
Actually, I get used to things very quickly. If I move my belongings to a new home in the morning, by evening I feel I have lived there my whole life. It even occurred to me that in a few days I’d grow so used to Xolomi that I’d “remember” why they had thrown me in prison. And then I’d repent, and try to reform with all my might!
And so I sat in my cell and gazed at the ceiling. The marvelous Lonli-Lokli lived some sort of ineffable life between my thumb and the index finger of my left hand. I was terribly curious—what was he feeling about all of this? In any case, the fellow had taken his “work diary” with him. How he could comfortably pass the time away with that notebook is as much a mystery to me as it is to you.
Finally, I decided it was time to go to sleep. I’d have to rest, since the most interesting things would happen at night, I assumed, if they were to happen at all.
I was still afraid that nothing untoward would happen. I wondered how much time I would have to spend in Xolomi before I realized that seven deaths in the space of three years was very sad and awkward, if not idiotic— but finally, that it was just a coincidence after all. Would I be here a year? Two? More? Well, never mind. The gentlemen Secret Investigators would be able to survive for about twelve days without us, after which they’d be the ones raising hue and cry to get us released themselves. Sir Juffin would no doubt be the first to decide that our business trip had dragged on too long.
I slept remarkably well. When I woke up, it was already dark. I received a prisoner’s meal, which tasted curiously like the recent festive breakfast. Why do Juffin and I always eat at the
Night was coming on. So as not to waste precious time, I tried to do what I truly know how to do well (and it wasn’t much): to chat with the objects around me, and to see that part of the past that they “remembered.”
It was hopeless. All the prison flotsam and jetsam that surrounded me answered my appeals with surging waves of fear. We had seen that before!—in Makluk’s bedchamber, where the little balsam box had sent out the same currents of terror. There was no doubt about it. I had stumbled upon a real story, not a chain of awkward coincidences.
Just then a guard appeared to “convoy” me to a business meeting. One of my guards, by the name of Xaned Janira, had been dying to meet me since morning, but the good commander had tried to preserve my peace and quiet, and ordered him to wait until I woke up.
Mr. Janira bears the title of Master Comforter of Sufferers. As I came to understand it, he was a sort of psychotherapist. He visits the prisoners regularly, asks them how they slept, what they are anxious or worried about, and what messages they want to send home. In Echo, prisoners are treated very humanely. It is thought that if a person has landed in Xolomi, he has no farther to fall, and to subject a prisoner to further discomfort and inconvenience is senseless and cruel. The psychological and emotional comfort of a prisoner is a matter of great concern, and this is, of course, only proper.
“I thought you’d be interested, Sir Max, in some information I possess,” Xaned Janira said, after the ritual greeting was over.
He turned out to be an exceedingly youthful fellow, with a round face and a melodic voice, and narrow green eyes that settled on me with a penetrating gaze.
“Strange things have been happening here recently,” he said. “I suppose this is the reason for your stay. It seemed only right that before investigations get underway you should hear me out. I’ve been waiting all day for you to call me, but I finally could wait no longer. At the risk of being importunate, I decided to take the initiative.”
“I ate too much for breakfast, Sir Janira! So much that I just couldn’t think straight,” I said, trying to excuse my behavior. “I should have turned to you as soon as I crossed the threshold, but I didn’t sleep very well last night, and I just collapsed in my cell right after breakfast. Forgive me. Thank you for inviting me to talk with you.”
From the expression on Xaned Janira’s face, I understood that at that moment he was prepared to go through hell and high water for me.
I don’t know what it was in me that won him over—the respectful “sir,” a form of address not warranted by the station of junior psychotherapist, or my willingness to admit my mistakes. Somehow or other, though, I had traversed the path to his heart without much trouble.
“Not at all, Sir Max! You had every right to rest before getting down to work. I just wanted to explain to you the reasons for my own persistence—I thought I might be able to assist you. Maybe my information will prove useless, but . . . well, just listen to what I have to say, and then you decide. Two days ago the prisoners from cells 5-Soya-Ra, 5-Tot-Xun, and 5-Sha-Pui, which are adjacent to cell 5-Ow-Nox, complained to me about bad dreams. Strangely enough, the content of all their dreams was very similar.”
“I can only sympathize with them, poor fellows! And what did they dream?”
“All three of them dreamed about a ‘small, transparent man,’ as they described it. He came out of the wall, and they all experienced inconceivable horror. From then on their versions of the dreams diverged. Malesh Patu claims that the transparent man wanted to poke his eyes out, and Sir Alarak Vass complained that he ‘was groping for his heart.’ The third case is rather amusing,” Janira related with downcast eyes. “The prisoner insists that he tried to plug up his backside. His biggest fear is that his next dream will see the attempt succeed.”
“Goodness! I wouldn’t want to be in his place.”
It sounded to me as though the prisoners’ nightmares had been an eccentric combination of real dangers and individual phobias. This transparent fellow had most likely done something wicked to all of them, but each of them had a personal interpretation of the events. That made sense. What didn’t make sense was where this creature who haunted all their dreams had come from in the first place. Sorcery was not supposed to be possible in Xolomi; that’s why it had become a prison for those who had a penchant for forbidden magic.
“How is their overall health?” I asked. “Have you shown them to the wiseman?”
“Yes, of course. We cannot just ignore complaints like that, all the more since the trouble began simultaneously with three prisoners. These gentlemen hadn’t been acquainted before, and here in Xolomi, you understand, they couldn’t organize any kind of conspiracy. And why should they? It turns out that the health of all three of them is hardly anything to brag about, but the organs that the transparent ‘dream man’ allegedly targeted are in perfect condition.”
I noted with pleasure that my theory about the influence of personal phobias on the interpretation of nightmares wasn’t so far from the mark. Not bad for a dilettante like myself.
“What could be wrong with them, then?”
“All three of them are gradually losing the Spark,” Janira said in a portentous whisper. Then he went quiet, waiting for the significance of what he had just said to sink in.
I let out a low whistle. To lose the Spark means to suddenly lose the life force, becoming so weak that death comes like sleep after a hard day, when you cannot resist it and don’t even want to. According to my competent colleagues, this mysterious condition is the most dangerous thing that can befall a person born in this
