The Stranger (106 page)
Authors: Max Frei,Polly Gannon
Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Horror, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Epic
We drove into Echo at dawn. Even Shurf’s boldest predictions turned out to be too modest. Noon, had he said? When we arrived in Echo, a fat, pleasant-looking sun had just begun to peek over the horizon, trying to figure out what people had managed to do in the short time it had been away. I waved at the puffy-cheeked luminary and turned into the Lane of Northern Paths. Oh, what a beautiful name! I had never heard it before. I had to slow down considerably, but there was nowhere to hurry to, and Echo in the morning seemed to me to be the most beautiful place in the World. In this World, in any case. In other Worlds there were a few rivals. But now Echo was the best place in the universe, because I was coming home, and my heart loved what it saw, without regretting what it had lost.
“You’re going to take a wrong turn,” Lonli-Lokli warned. “What’s wrong? Don’t you know this part of town?”
I shook my head, and Shurf took the task of navigation upon himself. After a good earful of his instructions, I noticed with surprise that we were already on the Street of Copper Pots, approaching the House by the Bridge.
“Are we here?” I was even short of breath from anticipation.
“We’re here. I’d like to go home, but I guess my wife will still be asleep. At this hour she won’t even be glad to see me, all the more since I don’t look like myself these days. You know, she didn’t care at all for Sir Glamma Eralga.”
“It would be convenient if Sir Kofa happened to be on duty. He could reverse the spell right away.”
I parked the amobiler by the Secret Entrance to the Ministry of Perfect Public Order, and was suddenly stupefied. The vehicle began to disintegrate. Lonli-Lokli’s reaction was lightning quick. His arms shot upward, then dropped slightly to his sides, and tiny strands of metal and wood remained poised in midair.
“Get out of here, Max!” he roared.
He didn’t have to ask twice. I flew out of the amobiler like a bullet. How I managed to grab the carton of cigarettes remains a mystery to me to this day!
I turned around when I was already in the hall. Shurf was pensively removing our traveling bags from under the debris of the amobiler.
“Give me a hand. What are you looking at?” He smiled as naturally as if he had been doing it for the last hundred years.
“You really are a fantastic racer, Max, if I do say so myself. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life!”
“If there’s anything this guy can do, it’s travel far and travel fast,” a familiar voice sounded from behind me.
I turned around and stared at Sir Juffin Hully in delight.
“You wouldn’t believe me, Juffin, if I told you how long I’d been waiting for this meeting,” I said in the ingratiating voice of Sir Mackie Ainti, and burst out laughing at the unexpectedness of it.
“Stop it, Mackie!” Juffin exclaimed merrily. “I can’t listen to that. Now try to greet me again, Max.”
“Juffin, what’s going on?” I said in my own voice, and laughed, my head a-spin.
“That’s better. Good morning Shurf. This fellow totaled the amobiler, just as I predicted. And it was an official Ministry car, if I’m not mistaken.”
“He’s a superb racer,” Shurf insisted, dragging his valuable carpet out of the rubble. “Max, perhaps you’ll help me with this?”
I grabbed the bags nimbly, leaving my friend to deal with the carpets, and Juffin and I went into the office to drink some kamra and shoot the breeze. The prospect was so tempting it made my mouth water.
I got carried away, and talked without a break for four hours.
During that time, Juffin had managed to return Shurf’s own natural-born face to him by some surreptitious gesture. (“It’s easier to destroy than to create, boys. Why should we wait for Sir Kofa?”) I was even slightly shocked at first. I had completely forgotten what Shurf looked like.
“So that’s that story,” Lonli-Lokli drawled thoughtfully when I finally shut up.
My ears were ringing, whether from exhaustion, or from listening to myself talk. Shurf, in the meantime, had gotten up from the table.
“I’m going home, if you don’t have any objections, gentlemen.”
“Of course, go on home,” Juffin said, nodding. “You could have left long ago. I understand, though. You had a right to hear out the whole story. It’s your story, too. I’m very glad Sir Shurf. About the adventure with Kiba Attsax, I mean. You think you may owe Max another serenade now.”
Sometimes Juffin’s sarcasm went overboard, and this time Shurf and I glanced at each other. I smiled ear to ear, and he with the corners of his mouth, a hole in the heavens above him!
Juffin gazed on this rare spectacle with pleasure, smiling from ear to ear as well. Such an idyll reigned in the office of the Secret Investigative Force that all the rosy tints in the universe would not suffice to describe it.
Then only Juffin and I were left.
“And where’s Melifaro’s curious nose?” I asked. “Where is everybody else?”
“I ordered them not to disturb us. There will be plenty of time later for hugs and kisses of joy. I don’t want anyone else to overhear your report about the events in Kettari. It’s top secret, Max. I hope you understand that. All my life I’ve expected something like this from Mackie, but never anything on this scale. I can’t even claim that I understand it all now, but that’s not unusual. Mackie is the kind of fellow who isn’t capable of clarity. Show me all the maps of Kettari again, Max.”
“Shall I give them to you, Juffin? I know you aren’t sentimental, but in the interests of the case . . .”
“No. Keep them. You may need them. It looks like Mackie is counting on several more visits. By the way, did it ever occur to you that you needed to be very careful? It’s the most dangerous kind of scrape of all, the one you got mixed up in. Though it’s also the most useful.”
“I liked it,” I exclaimed dreamily. “What do you mean, Juffin? Dangerous how?”
“Because you learn too quickly. And you display your powers so ingenuously. Mackie is very crafty, but he can’t always come to your aid when you need him. He loves confronting a person with his fate, and then—just leaving him to it. You know, in every world there are hunters who are looking for people like you. Compared to some of them, the late Kiba Attsax is like a sweet dream. Speaking of dreams, Max. I hope you haven’t lost the personal kerchief of the Grand Magician of the Order of the Secret Grass? I strongly recommend that you not go to sleep without it, no matter what. Never. Understood?”
“Yes,” I nodded uncertainly. “But what—”
“I don’t know,” Juffin said sharply. “Maybe nothing at all will happen, you’re a lucky one. But I want to be certain that no matter what you dream you’ll be able to wake up. That’s all. Now we can move on to more pleasant things. Praising you, for instance. You truly exceeded not only your own, but also my expectations.”
“I guess so,” I said with a shrug. “But it doesn’t seem like such a big deal to me. Maybe I’m just tired.”
“You must be. You need a good rest—reporting to work every evening, and so forth. Our notions of what constitutes rest are the same, are they not?”
“They are,” I said. “We’ll start today. I’ll just go home for a few hours sleep. Or maybe I won’t sleep at all.”
“Better take a few slugs of your Elixir and stay here till evening. Tonight you’ll stay over at my house. I want to figure out once and for all what exactly happened to you in Kettari. So you’ll slumber, and I’ll satisfy my curiosity.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “Sleeping at your house like I used to, just after I arrived in Echo. Yes, it’s just like then! I’ve popped in, fresh from another World. It’s a good excuse for me to visit Chuff.”
“He’ll lick you from head to toe,” Juffin said. “I wish I had your worries, boy! Fine, let’s quit gabbing for a bit. You should eat something, and I want to take a minute to try puzzling out these blasted maps.”
He puzzled not for a minute, but for a good half-hour.
“Now it’s clear to me why Mackie won’t let me into Kettari,” my boss said at last, grinning.
“But Mackie said—”
“Never mind what he said. It seems the old man still thinks I don’t catch on too quickly. He’s the one who won’t let me in, who else? You see, Max, I remember too well what Kettari was really like. And when authentic and reliable memories of sorcerers like Mackie and myself collide, and even contradict each other—well, any World at all, not just a newborn one, runs the risk of flying to pieces.”
“So I was led by the nose,” I sighed. “And it was Mackie who wouldn’t let Shurf follow me, and not some unknown force.”
“And a good thing it was he didn’t let him. You were very busy just then. You were creating a new World, as I understand. It’s very natural, Max. You were led by the nose a bit, but the true purpose was to lead me astray. So don’t fret about it. Mackie doesn’t always know himself what is true and what isn’t, believe me. He’s come up with more than a dozen versions of Kettari! It’s too bad you couldn’t collect all the existing maps of my dear old town.”
“Well, what can I say? Juffin, are you in the mood to tell me a little about Sir Mackie Ainti? I just can’t figure out what kind of creature he is. He told me he’s been alive since time immemorial, and that he rolled into the World from who-knows-where, and somehow I believe him implicitly. Last night he sent me a call, very friendly, thanking me one last time. I hardly survived that short exchange with him! And what happened after I met him for the first time—I’ve already told you about that.”
“Believe it or not, I can’t help you there, Max,” Juffin smiled. “I spent more than twelve dozen years by his side, but I could never get to the bottom of him. It’s most likely my fate, to live in proximity to strange creatures like you and Mackie all the time. You may laugh when I say this, but you and he are like two peas in a pod. But you’re young and foolish, while he, in a sense, is perfection. That’s the way I remember him. There wasn’t a single human weakness in him. To this day, I’m still not sure he ever goes to the bathroom! I swear by the World I never caught him at it!” Juffin said with a hearty laugh. “But I’m sure you’ll be better at talking to him in his own language than I was in my time. You and he already see eye to eye. Oh, you’re a lucky fellow!”
“Yes, lucky! Only you advise me not to go to sleep without your protective rag, since all the Monsters of the Universe are out hunting. All the same, everything’s just hunky-dory!”
“Well, what is it you really want, Max?” the boss asked, knitting his brow. “A tranquil life? A little house with a garden, where you can wait patiently for old age in the company of your dear wife and a horde of grandkids? A royal pension for ‘outstanding service’? I can tell you right now that’s not going to happen. Never. All the other joys of life are there for the taking, though. Including the Monsters of the Universe, as you call them.”
“That’s fine with me. Better monsters than hordes of grandkids! You’re good at scaring people, Juffin—I’ll grant you that.”
And I was sent on my way.
There was a free-for-all of everyone else who wished to smother me in hugs, starting with Melifaro, who was the first to tackle me (he had been waiting in line, it seemed, since the evening before), and ending with the shy Sir Lookfi Pence and Sir Kofa Yox, who was too heavy for such strenuous exercises. Even Melamori dispensed with the demure restraint that had characterized our not-very-businesslike dealings lately. It appeared that she wanted us to be friends again. That was no small thing, since friendship was the only thing on the horizon for us. But I had already learned to live with this prospect. And she had, too. In any case, it didn’t hurt me anymore. I was glad to see Melamori and all the others. And they were glad to see me with my own face again. I was loved! Darn, it’s worth a lot if in some World or other there’s a place where you’re loved by at least five people. And then there was Lonli-Lokli, who was already at home asleep, and the mighty Lady Sotofa, who was so genuinely pleased with my rare visits. And a few more good fellows who also seemed to have a soft spot in their hearts for me.
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