Chasing the Phoenix Read Free Page B

like what you describe in them.” She looked away. “But enough about my problems. Tell me of yourself and the adventures that brought you to our door.”
    â€œIt is a long and convoluted story, and one which I do not care to relate at this time.” Surplus waved a paw vaguely. “Suffice it to say that when I entered Siberia, I possessed tremendous wealth and a living friend. Now I am as you see me.” He sighed. “And I must find an appropriate place to bury the illustrious Aubrey Darger, who was the nonpareil of his profession and the best and truest of friends.”
    Abruptly, Capable Servant, who had been quietly poking about among the handwritten codices that thronged the room’s many shadowy shelves, said, “Madam lady doctor, look! Within this book titled The Thwarting of Death there is a drawing of a physician placing a silver skeleton about the body of a corpse and of his assistant exclaiming at the fact that the skeleton begins to sink beneath the skin. And look! A caption below the drawing reads: The Reversible Death . Furthermore, on the next page, there is another picture showing a second physician using a strange device to extract that same skeleton from the anus of a man who is no longer dead.”
    Leaping to his feet, Surplus snatched the book from his servant’s hand. “It’s true! This first picture illustrates the exact method I saw employed in Mongolia.” He looked sternly at his hostess. “You have been lying to me, Bright Pearl.”
    Defiantly, Bright Pearl scrambled to her feet and closed the book in Surplus’s paws. Then she placed it back on its shelf. “There is a rich collector of antiquities who wishes to buy all my father’s books and instruments. We are negotiating the price. Further, the instrument shown in the book can only be used once. And I can see by looking at you that you are not a wealthy man.”
    Surplus favored Bright Pearl with his most winning and sincere expression. “It is true that I am currently penniless,” he said. “But that is a condition that will not last long. Inevitably, money will, one way or another, flow into my pockets. There is no need to await that happy event, however, for I am currently prepared to offer you a price beyond imagining if you return my friend to life.”
    â€œAnd what is that?”
    â€œMy yak.”
    â€œI am no farmer. Why should I desire such a creature?”
    â€œIt will make your reputation as a surgeon, and that in turn will make you wealthy.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œWithout question.” Surplus explained carefully and at some length. He laid out his plan step by step, with such detailed clarity that the lady doctor could have no doubt whatsoever that it would work.
    When he was done, Bright Pearl rubbed her chin and said, “You are a cunning and deceitful man, sir.”
    Surplus smiled modestly. “It is how I make my living.”
    *   *   *
    IT TOOK a few minutes to script their performance and a while longer to rehearse it. But at last, leaving Bright Pearl’s father in the house, the three main players walked outside. Up and down the street, old men loitered under trees smoking long pipes and housewives lingered by the well with empty buckets or knelt in their gardens pulling weeds or sat in their doorways weaving. Husbands worked in their yards, carving bone clothesline pins or weaving rattan chairs or building drying racks for fish. Wives hung laundry and smoothed it inch by inch (as no woman ever had before) to remove nonexistent wrinkles. The village was uncannily quiet. Not a person spoke to any other. All were positioned so as to have a good view of the Infallible Physician’s hut.
    They had their audience.
    Surplus was the first on stage, with Capable Servant scurrying after him. The two carefully took Darger’s corpse from the yak’s back and placed it at the feet of Bright Pearl, who