The Stranger (84 page)

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Authors: Max Frei,Polly Gannon

Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Horror, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Epic

BOOK: The Stranger
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“Can’t you guess? I know only one old lady capable of making a real lady out of this crazy dame.”
“Are we going to Jafax?” I asked. “To Lady Sotofa?”
“Yes. I’ve already sent her a call. She’s also from Kettari, after all, so it’s a matter of concern to her, as well. Sotofa was surprisingly quick to agree to help us. Actually, it’s not her style, but she seems to have a soft spot for you.”
“And that is completely mutual.”
“Then let’s go, Lady Marilyn.”
 
Lady Sotofa met us at the door of a small garden pavilion that served as her study.
“Oh, what a pretty girl! Too bad she’s not the real thing. If she was, I’d bring her here to live!” she said smiling, and hugged me.
I was, as usual, a bit flustered. I felt that no one had ever been so unabashedly delighted about a visit from me as this formidable wisewoman with the mannerisms of a doting grandmother.
“Sit down, Juffin! Remember the kamra they used to make five hundred years ago in Kettari, in the
Country Home
on the Square of Joy? Well, I managed to make it even worse. Try it. You’ll approve! And for you, my girl-boy, I have something very special.”
Lady Sotofa produced a miniature jug from under her looxi. Its appearance witnessed to origins deep in the ancient forest.
“It’s delicious and very good for you, in some cases.”
“You haven’t found some Heavenly Half, have you, Sotofa?” Juffin shook his head in amazement. “I haven’t laid eyes on it in at least three hundred years!”
“What use is it to you, Juffin?” Lady Sotofa retorted, her laughter ringing out. “It’s all the better you haven’t. And if you haven’t seen it, no one else has, either. Things like this should be secreted away in the dark. But do sit down, Max. No, not at the table. Over here in the armchair. It’s more comfortable. Here you are!” She held out a glass with some thick, dark-red liquid. She thought a bit, then nodded. “Yes, one’s enough. It’s better not to go overboard with such things.”
I took the small glass obediently and sipped it. It really was delicious, almost as good as Elixir of Kaxar.
“Look at that, he’s drinking it,” Juffin said gruffly. “With me he would have asked a thousand questions to make sure it wasn’t poison.”
“Good boy. I’d ask a thousand questions myself before accepting a potion from your hands, Juffin, you sly old fox,” Lady Sotofa said gaily.
Sir Juffin Hully looked quite satisfied.
“And now, you can just relax,” Lady Sotofa said. “I can explain to you the properties of what I just gave you to drink. I don’t mind. You know, back in the good old days, they gave Heavenly Half to the mad.”
“Thank you, Lady Sotofa,” I mumbled gloomily. “That’s a comfort.”
“Hear me out, silly.” The good nature of the fearsome sorceress was inexhaustible. “They gave this potion to the mad, and the poor things immediately regained their senses. That’s why it’s called Heavenly Half —it was thought that the drug would help the mad find the half of their souls that was groping about in the dark. This continued until one wise person discovered that these unhappy creatures hadn’t really become healthy and whole, but only seemed so. In fact, their tormented souls remained who-knows-where. Do you understand?”
I shook my head sadly.
“Never mind. Such are your years. It will come with time. Now you’ll sleep a bit, and when you wake up, you’ll be the same old silly Sir Max. But you’ll behave like a true lady. You’ll stay just as you are, but people will think they are in the presence of a completely different person. To be honest, it’s not a very good potion, boy, for if people want to seem different from how they really are, they must make an effort themselves. And wonder-working concoctions dissipate the spirit. But just this once, for a good cause, it won’t hurt, I suppose. I don’t think you’ll find it necessary to study to be a real woman. You’re very good at it already!”
“Thank you, Lady Sotofa. You’re the only one in the World who loves and compliments me . . .” I murmured, dozing off.
“Hush, and go to sleep. Don’t try to fight slumber, or everything will come to naught! You see, wondrous things prefer to happen when a person sleeps. That’s the way things are arranged.”
Lady Sotofa covered me with a fur blanket and turned to my chief.
“Have we really found some time to talk at long last? You don’t have to rush off anywhere?”
Through a haze of sleep, I noticed that Juffin tapped the end of his nose twice with the forefinger of his right hand, the famous Kettarian gesture. Well, well . . .
 
When I woke up, it was already light. The beaming Lady Sotofa sat by my side and peered at my face with interest.
“Goodness, Max, you’ve been asleep for so long.” Her smile grew even wider. “Where did you learn that?”
“It’s an innate talent,” I replied in a strange, velvety voice.
I didn’t experience any emotional reaction, which couldn’t help but make me happy. I realized that Lady Sotofa and I were now alone. Had the chief really abandoned me in Jafax? He would do that.
“Where’s Juffin?”
“Home or on duty, I don’t know. I didn’t try to find out. Do you know how long you’ve slept? Juffin and I like to wag our tongues, of course, but in the time you’ve been asleep, we could have discussed all the causes of the origin of the Universe, which isn’t terribly entertaining.”
“How long was I asleep?”
“More than twenty-four hours, Max. That did surprise me.”
“Wow! Juffin’s going to tear my head off!”
“Of course, he could do much worse, that awful Juffin. But I don’t think anyone intends to tear anything off you in the near future. Take it from an old soothsayer.”
“All the same, I’ve got to run,” I said anxiously. “I have to leave tomorrow . . . or the day after tomorrow. I don’t know.”
“Of course you must leave, boy,” Lady Sotofa said, nodding. “But first you have to bathe, and if there’s time, I’ll whip you up some kamra. I hate fussing around with the brazier, but I’ll make an effort for your sake.”
I smiled.
“You spoil me, Lady Sotofa.”
“Of course I do. Someone has to. The bathroom is downstairs, just where it should be. Nothing newfangled or out-of-the-ordinary around here, boy.”
“And I thought it might be in some other World altogether!” I shouted on my way downstairs.
“One doesn’t exclude the other,” Lady Sotofa called after me.
In the bathroom, I immediately started scrutinizing myself in the mirror. Yes, Lady Marilyn Monroe was no longer angular, thanks to Lady Sotofa and her Heavenly Half! I couldn’t take any credit, that was certain.
The illusion was so convincing that I undressed almost with a feeling of panic. Under the skaba, however, I discovered my own body. I sighed with relief and began to wash.
I ran back upstairs in leaps and bounds, from a surfeit of energy. Sleeping for more than twenty-four hours in a chair, and feeling so good afterwards—that is magic of a higher order!
 
The plump, gray-haired old woman, undoubtedly one of the most powerful beings in this World, was waiting for me at the table.
“Here’s the kamra, and here are some cookies. That’s all there is. But you don’t like having a real breakfast.”
I nodded.
“You know that, too!”
“It’s no mystery to me. You’re too young to have secrets from me, boy.”
“You frighten me. To know everything about me—that’s scary.”
“There’s nothing in the least scary about it, Max. On the contrary, it’s all very sweet. Even your dark past in some, please excuse me, insane place.”
“I completely agree with you that it is insane. Perhaps you might mend my broken heart, Lady Sotofa? That sadist Juffin claims that I have to learn to deal with all these misfortunes on my own. But I’m not managing too well.”
“Good gracious, me. What kinds of misfortunes can you possibly have? All your sorrows are like summer snow: now it’s here, now it’s gone, as though it never was. Just don’t bury your nose in the past all the time or keep dreaming of the future. Today you’re in masquerade. You should enjoy it!”
They were only words, but I felt as relieved as I had when Juffin had tweaked my ear.
Yes, what kinds of sorrows can you have, friend? I said to myself. You ran away from a place where you felt miserable, and ended up in the best of all Worlds, surrounded on all sides by marvelous people who do nothing but try to share their wisdom with you and treat you to delicious delicacies the rest of the time. And you just whine and complain, you ungrateful swine!
“Lady Sotofa, you are truly the best of women,” I said.
“Of course I am. And a great beauty, besides, if you’d care to know.”
“I can imagine,” I said. “I’d like to peek into the past, to get a glimpse of you in your merry youth!”
“To see how that crazy Juffin chased after me, brandishing a warrant for my arrest after I refused to leave the city with him? Well, fine, since now we can have a ‘girl to girl’ chat, I can boast a bit. Watch out, though! Make sure you don’t fall in love—you’ll fare worse with me than you did with Kima’s niece.”
And before I had a chance to register what she had just said, she jumped up and began swinging her arms in circles with astonishing speed. I couldn’t make anything out—only her hands flickering and flashing before my eyes.
“Well, what do you think?”
By then I had already been fairly showered with wonders, and had begun to think I would never again react with my former passion and fervor. But now, standing before me, I saw a petite young beauty. Rooted to the spot, I inhaled spasmodically. Exhaling proved to be problematic, however. The fantastic Lady Sotofa patted me on the back absently.
“Oh, come on. It wasn’t that scary.”
Somehow managing to breathe out, I closed my mouth and stared at this vision. She was the one who had the famous figure of Marilyn Monroe—whose name I had so carelessly appropriated. Lady Sotofa, however, was a dark brunette with almond-shaped green eyes tilting slightly upward toward her temples, and snow-white skin.

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