easy, however. I’ve never heard of a wolf getting lost in the woods, even if they’re not the woods in which he was born. I suspect the existence of some as-yet-undiscovered “urban instinct,” whereby if you can navigate one city, you won’t feel daunted by any other metropolis.
Then I was on my way home. As it had ever been in my life, nighttime still proved to be the most enchanting time of day. Sir Juffin, by his own admission, had had a temporary quarrel with his blanket. After dinner, he didn’t retire, but steered me into his study, where we undertook to “meditate on the memory of things.” This aspect of Invisible Magic, the most abstract and obscure science of this World, was the simplest and most indispensable one for my future profession.
There are few in the World who have any inkling of its existence. A knack for Invisible Magic, as far as I understand it, is in no way linked to the wondrous qualities of the Heart of the World. Indeed, this talent had been discovered in me, an alien. Sir Juffin himself, the undisputed expert in this area, hails from Kettari, a small town in the county of Shimara. The residents of that place lag significantly behind residents of the capital when it comes to knowing how to enhance their lives by means of magic.
But back to the lessons. I discovered very quickly that if you let your eyes rest on an inanimate object with a “special gaze” (I don’t know how else to describe it), the object would reveal its past to the observer—that is to say, events that happened in its presence. Sometimes these events were quite horrific, as I learned after an encounter with a pin for a looxi that had belonged long ago to a member of the Order of the Icy Hand, one of the most sinister and wicked of the ancient orders of magic. The pin showed us the rite of passage into the Order: a frenzied, exultant bear of a fellow voluntarily hacked off his left hand from his arm, after which a handsome, spry old fellow in a shiny turban (the Grand Master of the Order, as Juffin informed me) launched into some bizarre, incomprehensible fumblings with the amputated piece of anatomy. During the finale, the hand was presented to its former owner in the center of a glittering ice crystal. It turned my stomach.
Juffin explained that as a result of this procedure the fresh-baked invalid had gained an eternal inner fountain of marvelous youthful energy, and his missing digits would become a kind of “supersponge” that provided him with the powers indispensable to that occupation.
“Does he really need that?” I asked in naïve wonder.
“People will do strange things to sate their hunger for power and glory,” Juffin replied with a shrug. “You and I are lucky. We live in a much more moderate age. The opposition is complaining about the tyranny of the King and the Order of the Seven-Leaf Clover, yet they forget the true tyranny of several dozen omnipotent orders of magic, of which almost none has ever chosen the path of rejecting vice and ambition altogether.”
“Why didn’t they tear the World to shreds?”
“They almost did, Max. They almost did . . . But we’ll have time to talk about that later. This is the night when you to begin your studies in earnest. So, grab that cup there . . .”
This was all too good to be able to last for very long. The idyll was shattered on the evening of the third day, when Kimpa announced the arrival of Sir Makluk.
“Strange,” Juffin said. “In the ten years we have been neighbors this is the first time Makluk has ever honored me with a visit. And so casually! Too casually, by far. My heart fears that there is some business to take care of.”
Little did he know how right he was.
“I’m afraid circumstances force me to request a service of you!” Makluk exclaimed, still standing in the threshold, holding one hand to his chest, and gesticulating wildly with the other. “I beg your pardon, Sir Hully, but I am in great need of your help and advice.”
They exchanged a long, meaningful glance; the old fellow had switched to Silent Speech. A moment later, Juffin frowned, and Sir Makluk shrugged, looking a bit shamefaced.
“Let’s go,” Juffin said abruptly, and stood up. “And you, Max, come with us. Don’t bother to dress up. This is business.”
For the first time I was witnessing Juffin Hully on the job—or, more precisely, on the verge of one. The speed at which he crossed the garden exceeded in all likelihood the cruising speed of the amobiler. I automatically undertook to pacify Sir Makluk, who clearly felt a bit unmoored without the four heavyweights who carried his palanquin. We reached the finish without breaking any records—but also without doing any damage to his weak knees. Along the way, Sir Makluk took advantage of the opportunity to confide in the “Gentle Barbarian.” He seemed to need to get it off his chest.
“I have—or, rather, had—a servant named Krops Kooly, a good lad. I had even planned to secure a place for him at court in fifteen or twenty years, when he had some experience under his belt . . . But I digress. A few days ago, he disappeared. Disappeared—just like that. He had a sweetheart on the Right Bank. Naturally, his colleagues decided that since you’re only young once, they wouldn’t make a fuss about it. You know, simple people are also capable of noble discretion . . . His disappearance was reported to me only today. My cook ran into his girlfriend at Linus Market, and the girl asked him why Krops hadn’t been to see her in so long—didn’t they allow him any Days of Freedom from his professional commitments? Then everyone began to panic. How could Krops just up and leave? Where had he gone, and why? About an hour and a half ago, Maddi and Shuvish went to clean the room of my late cousin, Sir Makluk-Olli, as they always did at that time. Yes, Sir Max, I had a cousin, a big bore, I’ll have you know. It even took him ten years to die. He finally decided to go at the beginning of the year, soon after the Day of Foreign Gods. Yes . . . and in there, in the room of my late cousin Olli, they found poor Mr. Kooly; and in what condition!”
Sir Makluk shivered visibly, as if to say that he had never expected such antics from poor Krops Kooly, even posthumously.
In the meantime, we had arrived at a small door—the backdoor of Sir Makluk’s luxurious living quarters. The old fellow had grown somewhat calmer after relating the recent events. Silent Speech is all well and good, but it’s not for nothing that psychotherapists make their patients talk out loud.
Without wasting time to call for a palanquin, we made our way into the late Sir Olli’s bedroom. Almost half the room was taken up by a soft floor. Here in Echo this is the way beds are constructed. A few tiny marquetry tables were scattered haphazardly around the giant lair. One wall was an enormous window onto the garden. On the opposite wall there was an ancient mirror with a small vanity table to the side.
It would have been preferable if this had about summed things up, but there was another element of the room’s interior. On the floor, between the mirror and the window, lay a corpse, a dead body that resembled, more than anything else, slobbery chewing gum. The spectacle was not even grisly; it was, rather, awkward, even absurd.
Somehow, it didn’t fit my notions of a crime victim—no streams of blood, spattered brains, no icy gaze of a dead man. Just some sorry, rubbery ABC gum.
I didn’t see Juffin at first. He had retreated to the farthest corner of the room. His slanting eyes shone phosphorescent in the dusk. When he saw us, he abandoned his post and came up to us with a deeply troubled expression.
“For the time being, two pieces of bad news; I daresay more will follow. First, this is no ordinary murder. You don’t end up with someone looking like that with your bare hands alone. Second, I’ve not discovered any signs of Forbidden Magic. I’m very suspicious of the mirror, as it seems to be too close to the body. This looks like a case of Black Magic of the Second Degree; the Third Degree, at most. And, it already happened long ago.” In his hands Juffin was pensively rotating a pipe with a built-in gauge, which conveyed precise information about the degree of magic that it detected. Now the arrow pointed to the number “2” on the black half of the round dial. Sometimes it shuddered visibly, trying to crawl up to “3”; but the kind of magic locked in the ancient mirror wasn’t strong enough for that.
“My advice to you, neighbor, is to go get some rest. Just, tell your vassals that Max and I will still snoop around here. Have them assist us in the investigation.”
“Sir Hully, are you sure I can’t help you?”
“I’m positive,” Juffin sighed. “It’s possible that your people can—so give them your orders, and retire to bed. Whatever has happened, it’s no reason to neglect your own health.”
“Thank you,” the old man said, drawing his lips into a troubled smile. “I’ve truly had all I can handle for one day.”
Sir Makluk turned toward the door with an expression of relief. At the threshold he met someone who
