by Max Frei
“Then I told Zekka that there was some unbelievable mystery connected with their late chef, which I was investigating as part of my job, and that I’d be grateful if he could remember any little detail. I didn’t mention the chest, of course. Instead, I said that there was a reward for any assistance in this case. Almost immediately, Zekka ‘remembered’ and began pouring out the details of his distant youth. He was on a roll, so I could afford to relax a little and even ordered some Fire in the Dragon’s Throat—the house specialty—for both of us.
“Zekka thanked me, then complained that he felt a little chilly, pulled an old looxi from the back of his chair, and began wrapping himself in it. I was even about to ask him why on earth he was wearing these old rags. He comes from a very well-to-do family, and I’ve never heard any rumors about the Moddoroks rejecting their misguided son. His mother is still crazy about the blue eyes of her little baby boy.
“I had just opened my mouth to ask Zekka about his financial and family affairs when he mumbled something about the door not being closed and sitting right in the draft. With these words, he got up and headed to the door. And then something unfathomable happened.”
“You lost your appetite?” said Melifaro.
“Worse. I lost my suspect. I never took my eyes off him, yet he disappeared in the middle of a well-lit room and I didn’t even see it happen. The needle of the gauge in my pipe didn’t budge, which means that he didn’t use Forbidden Magic.”
“So he went down the Dark Path then,” I said.
“Oh, no, he didn’t,” said Kofa. “Trust me, if something as extraordinary as that had happened, I would have sensed it.”
“Hold on, Kofa,” said Melifaro. “Let me get this straight. Are you saying that Zekka Moddorok just vanished, evaporated right in front of your eyes?”
“Not really. At some point I just couldn’t focus my vision on him. I know it sounds insane, but my sight just went all blurry. Then I started seeing circles, and everything went a little wonky, like when you’re about to faint. It only lasted for a couple of seconds, no longer. I blinked a few times and it passed, but when I stared at the space between the table and the door, Zekka Moddorok wasn’t there. He was nowhere in the tavern. I ran outside, but he wasn’t on the street, either.”
“Should I listen to the end of your story, or should I go look for this invisible man right away?” said Melifaro, getting up.
“No need to go look for him,” said Kofa. “And let me tell you why. Sit down.”
“Fine,” said Melifaro, sitting back down. “If you say so.”
“If I told you that this had never happened to me before, I wouldn’t be exaggerating,” said Kofa. “It made me furious. I decided I’d turn this World inside out as many times as it would take me to find this fellow, and no later than right after dawn.”
“I see now,” said Melifaro. “If I understand you correctly, Mr. Zekka Moddorok has already made himself comfortable in our detention cell in the House by the Bridge. I know you!”
“In a sense, he has indeed made himself comfortable in the House by the Bridge—but not quite the way you think he has,” said Kofa. “But let me go on. I like to tell things in an orderly fashion.”
“Of course, of course,” said Melifaro.
“I returned to my table and focused on my desire to find Zekka. But I couldn’t even do that! Which was something almost unheard of. Then I tried a different approach. Instead of thinking about where Zekka was at that moment, I thought about what he had done. I didn’t doubt for a second that he had done something already. I went out, and some time later, I found myself on the Left Bank—more specifically, by the villa of old Sir Chaffi Ranvara. And I had a very distinct feeling that Zekka had been there not long ago. I didn’t want to bother Sir Ranvara or his servants—it was after midnight—so instead, I sent a call to Kekki and asked her if anything bad had happened at Ranvara’s villa recently.
“Kekki replied that just four days ago the villa had been robbed. The burglars had taken money and a great deal of valuables—all under very mysterious circumstances. The villa had been full of servants all day, and the room where most of the valuables had been stored had been locked with a very strong, intricate lock—the work of an old craftsman. The lock would scream if anyone tried to pick it, and Sir Ranvara always carried the only key in the pocket of his looxi. The door showed no signs of a break-in, and there were no windows in that room. In any event, there had been so many people in the villa that it was unimaginable that no one had noticed anything. Of course the police suspected every servant since they didn’t know better.
“I then asked Kekki if there had been similar cases around that time, and what do you think? Seven days ago, a large sum of money had been stolen under similar circumstances—and not just from any place but from the Chancellory of Big Sums of Money!”
“Whoa!” said Melifaro. “How come they never turned to us?”
“Well, the loss of a ‘large sum of money’ wasn’t a good enough reason to pass the case to the Secret Investigative Force,” said Kofa. “Now, if they had stolen all the money . . . But that would’ve required an army of very muscular thieves. Anyway, that’s irrelevant. With this news, I set out to pay a visit to Lady Moddorok, Zekka’s mother. I had to get her out of bed. It’s not in my nature to do such a thing, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Besides, what was she thinking, giving birth to such a rogue? So I told her that her son was in trouble. I said his old enemies from ninety years ago were following him, and that I needed to know where he was staying or else those horrible people might find him before dawn, and I was the only person who could save her poor baby. It was utter nonsense, but it worked like a charm on the old lady.”
“He told his mother where he was staying?” I said. “Some criminal.”
“Exactly,” said Kofa. “But you have to know this fellow really well to understand why I wasted my time chatting with his old lady. He visits her almost every day because, you see, that old ex-con just can’t live without his mommy’s sweet, sweet love.”
“I’ll be darned,” I said.
“People often make blunders like that. Even criminals much tougher than Zekka,” said Kofa. “Here’s an interesting one. About two hundred years ago, I was chasing after a murderer who couldn’t live a day without a cream puff pastry. Instead of lying low somewhere in the suburbs, he would come to Echo daily for his favorite treat. I busted him right here in the Glutton, except that back then Mr. Bunba himself was behind the bar.” Kofa gave a soft sentimental sigh and began filling his pipe. “The odd part was that Zekka Moddorok wasn’t at the address his mother gave me. I found a little Secret Door in his bedroom, and behind it a closet filled with Chaffi Ranvara’s valuables, as well as a great deal of money, fresh from the mint. Only an imbecile couldn’t guess the origin of the coins.
“I called the police and made them happy with my find. Then I went to the House by the Bridge and sat in your chair, Max, because I was going to give the situation a lot of thought. The policemen had stayed behind to ambush Zekka in his own bedroom, but I had doubts that the fellow would be so stupid as to come home. He was either increasing the distance between himself and Echo at a very high speed or waiting for the morning to look for another place. I was almost positive that he’d prefer the latter: he loves the Capital and his mother. What’s more, Zekka apparently had very good reason to consider himself impossible to catch, and a head stupid enough to believe that it would last forever.
“I thought I should probably stick to the protocol and call Melamori. She could stand on Zekka Moddorok’s trace, and that would be it. But I didn’t want to wake Melamori up an hour before dawn. I told myself we could catch Zekka a couple of hours later—no hurry. I dozed off in the armchair, then sent a call to the Glutton and demanded some semblance of a breakfast. Yet when I was about to take my first sip of kamra, my feet took me outside. I suddenly felt I was about to find Zekka. After all, I had promised myself to find him before da
wn.
“I walked out of Headquarters, got into the amobiler, and drove off not knowing where I was going. I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I was about to grab Zekka Moddorok by his hair. It was like looking blindfolded for a piece of smelly cheese: you can’t miss it. I didn’t even notice when my amobiler swerved from the pavement to the sidewalk. It all happened in a matter of seconds. The sidewalk looked empty, although I was having a hard time focusing my eyes again, just like earlier in the Drunken Rain. Then I felt a hard jolt and heard a scream. Trust me, boys, I’ve heard plenty of screams in my long, long life, but that scream was one of a kind. I still have a ringing in my ears.
“My amobiler skidded to the side, and I crashed into the wall of a house. I was fine, except for some bruises. I got out of the wrecked amobiler and saw lying dead on the sidewalk the object of my investigation, wrapped in the same raggedy old looxi. Zekka Moddorok was truly very unfortunate. My luck had led me to him like a magnet, so I had swerved onto the sidewalk. But I hadn’t noticed him, nor had he noticed me or my amobiler, the quietest amobiler in the Capital. I had run over him. And I did it as skillfully as an executioner at the court of some bloodthirsty emperor obsessed with newfangled forms of torture and death.
“But if you think my story ends with me bringing the body of the unfortunate Zekka Moddorok to the House by the Bridge, delivering him to the morgue, and calling Sir Skalduar Van Dufunbux so he could officially determine the cause of death, you are mistaken.”
“We don’t think that,” said Melifaro. “You wouldn’t have wasted that much time just to tell us this weepy story. It’s clear you want something from us, and the story of the late Zekka Moddorok is to be continued.”
“Precisely. It was clear to me that the poor fellow couldn’t have done all those things on his own. All those mysterious robberies in front of so many witnesses in broad daylight! And the way he slipped away from me in the Drunken Rain? Besides, I never forgot for a minute that I had met Zekka when I was trying to find the thieves that had stolen the old pirate chest. Old chests usually have old things in them, so while Skalduar was busy with the dead body, I was examining the dead body’s clothes and belongings. First I looked for some amulets or charms, but Zekka didn’t have anything of that sort. Then I turned to his clothes—and look what I found!”
Kofa produced a small parcel from his looxi. It was another looxi—or, rather, it looked like an old gray cloak. Kofa put the cloak around his shoulders, but nothing happened. I thought he would disappear like in a fairy tale.
“It’s all right, boys,” said Kofa, smiling. “Nothing’s going to happen while I’m sitting here at the table with you. But watch what happens as I’m leaving. Watch me closely, though.”
Melifaro and I stared at Kofa. He got up and walked toward the door. I felt very disinclined to watch his back and wait for a miracle that wasn’t going to happen. It would probably turn out—again—that I was a genius and those tricks didn’t work on me. Plus, there was something in my eye, and I couldn’t focus on the large silhouette of my older colleague.
“Max, I think I just went insane,” said Melifaro. “Where’d Kofa go? Do you see him?”
“No,” I said, realizing “those tricks” worked very well on me, too. I had also lost sight of Kofa, even though I had been staring at him the best I could.
“How do you like them apples?” said Kofa. It turned out he had been standing by our table all the time. “Isn’t this something? Just what I need in my line of work. Our wise Kurush says this cloak belongs to the category of ‘ordinary magical things.’ I like the way he puts it. This is a catch-all term for the various sorts of charms made far away from Uguland. Usually, they are not very powerful objects, which is understandable: only the lowest degrees of Apparent Magic are used when making them. But when such things turn up in immediate proximity to the Heart of the World—here in Echo, that is—their magical powers intensify. Back when this cloak belonged to the grandfather of your friend, Max, it probably could only distract an attacker and make the aiming harder, nothing fancier than that. Here in Echo, it makes whoever wears it invisible. More than that, no one pays the slightest attention to him. At the same time, magic indicators don’t register a thing! What a neat little rag.”
“It sure is,” said Melifaro. “The best part is that you got hold of it so quickly. Otherwise we’d still be running around chasing it. Besides, this garment from overseas suits you. All the beggars at the port will envy you.”
“Indeed,” said Kofa. “This is all fine and dandy, but we’re going to have to put our brains to work now. We’re going to have to imagine where that chest might be, along with its mysterious contents. There could have been something else in it besides the cloak. Plus, there were two burglars hauling it off, and that second burglar could be anyone. We should get down to it right away.”
“Before we put our brains to work, I suggest we listen to my story,” I said. “It’s a lot shorter than yours, and you’ll have just enough time to polish off your dessert to the accompaniment of my soporific mumbling. I’m done with mine.”
“Order another one,” said Melifaro. “Maybe then you’ll finally burst, and I’ll have to comfort your numerous widows.”
“Not at all,” said Kofa. “If he bursts, you’ll be busy doing his job in addition to your own. Get on with your story, Max.”
And I told them the strange story of Captain Giatta. All the time I was telling the story, I hadn’t been able to get rid of the feeling that the captain had come to the House by the Bridge not last night but at least two years ago. Something weird was happening to my sense of time.
“So there you have it,” I said when I finished. Now I was more convinced than ever that the story was as nonsensical as it was insignificant. I didn’t know why I’d bothered to tell it at all.
To my surprise, Kofa’s eyes lit up. “You’re so incredibly lucky, Max!” he said. “Did you ever stop to think that what you have in your hands is the other end of the tangle of yarn that I was trying to unravel last night?”
“Uh, no.” I said. “Why? I mean, what makes you think so? Intuition?”
“This has nothing to do with intuition, my boy. Pure academic knowledge. I didn’t waste a minute this morning. I was gathering information about the traditional magic of the islands of the Ukumbian Sea,” Kofa said, turning to Melifaro with a wink. “Your father must be cursing me left and right. I sent him the first call three hours before noon, and only just now left him in peace.”
The offspring of the great encyclopedist smiled from ear to ear. “Cursing you? Please, Kofa! Sir Manga loves to chat, especially if during said chat he can demonstrate that he’s the one and only true know-it-all in the World.”
“All right then,” said Kofa. “I hope Sir Manga got some pleasure out of the long, long, oh so incredibly long lecture I demanded from him. And his efforts were not in vain. Imagine this, boys: among the numerous Ukumbian amulets and charms, pirates attach most value to those that give you some power over other people—that increase your powers of persuasion or your personal charisma, as it were. It’s understandable: such things come in handy when you need to keep in check a whole gang of muscular drinking men who have not the faintest idea about discipline. Imagine what such a thing might be capable of once it turns up here, in the Heart of the World.”
“Are you suggesting that the mysterious captain who was hiring a crew for his around-the-world trip had an amulet like that?” said Melifaro. “And as soon as he opened his mouth, everyone around him was simply at the mercy of his oratory skills?”
“Let’s go to the port,” I said. “We’ll look for that Tobindona. The sooner we find it, the better.”
Melifaro jumped up. No flies on him, that’s for sure.
“In a minute,” said Kofa. “We still need to discuss one little detail. Did it occur to you that whoever he is, he is capable of persuading us to think whatever he wishes, too?”
“We’re not that stupid!” I said.
“No, we’re not,” said Kofa. “And we’re not that blind, either. Yet none of us could see a person wearing this cape, no matter how close we were. Not one of us. What makes you think the other talisman from that chest is going to be any less powerful?”
“Hmm. I guess you’re right. But you have this magic dust rag. That means no one will see you. He’ll be addressing his passionate speeches to Melifaro and me, and you’ll be standing at a safe distance,” I said.
“Not so safe that I won’t hear his ‘passionate speeches,’ as you put it. I’m not so sure that he must see everyone he’s addressing. It’s enough that they can hear him.”
“Then just plug your ears!” I said. Odysseus could protect his whole crew from the enchanting choir of the Sirens. It should be much easier to resist the sweet voice of one single trickster, I thought.
“Good idea,” said Kofa. “That’s what we’re going to do. I’ll plug my ears and watch you succumb to the spell of one of the ordinary magical things. I’m dying to see how it’s going to work on you.”
“Aren’t you afraid he’s going to suggest to us that we get rid of you?” said Melifaro. “Then we’ll go on his around-the-world journey with him. My father will be happy to learn that his son is following to the family tradition.”
“He may persuade you to try to get rid of me, but you won’t be able to find me,” said Kofa. “I’ll be wearing the cloak.”
“Darn it,” said Melifaro. “There goes my dream of circumnavigating the earth. You’ll get us out of the holds of any ship. Let’s go then. Time is short.”
On the way to the port, Kofa was trying to make earplugs from whatever materials he had at hand.