The Stranger's Magic: The Labyrinths of Echo: Book Three (8 page)

“A dessert spoon? What are you talking about, Max?” said Juffin.

I swear he was ready to take his words back. He probably thought he had overestimated the strength of my poor mind.

“You thought I’d agree to ‘gobble down’ your surprises with my bare hands?” I said. “Please, Juffin, I do have some dignity. Ask your butler.”

The joke was below average, but Sir Juffin laughed so loud that the windows trembled. I think he was just glad that I had recovered so quickly. I was pretty glad about it myself: marvelous are
thy deeds.

Boomshakalaka.

The courier came in and placed a tray with kamra on the desk. Juffin stuck the huge mug right under my nose. “Now, in return, you’re going to tell me everything that happened to you.
Be clear, concise, and take it from the top please. Can you manage that?”

“I think I can.” And I began telling Juffin about the dreams Shurf and I were having. It was the confession that, as it had turned out, I should have hurried to make from the very
start.

I made another amazing discovery, perhaps the most amazing discovery of the entire crazy evening: I could recount my thoughts in a coherent and concise manner if I really wanted to. By the time
I finished my improvised lecture on the mysteries of dreams, the kamra in my cup was still hot, and I didn’t even need to put it on the burner.

“Quite a story,” said Juffin. “Especially the ending. Just like in the good old days. No, I take that back: it’s even too much for the Epoch of Orders. I wonder how many
lucky stars were shining on you when you were born?”

The door opened and slammed shut. I shivered. Juffin, on the other hand, smiled a broad, friendly smile.

“Oh, come in, Sir Shurf,” he said. “I’m dying to interrogate you under torture. I’m under the impression that some bastard has decided to sneak through Xumgat on
your back. Am I right, or am I right, eh?”

“You are most certainly right. I have been asking myself why I could not guess what had been happening to me,” said Lonli-Lokli. “And I am not the only one in trouble here. I
was straddled while I was asleep—or, rather, while I was taking a stroll through Sir Max’s dream, which, according to his latest conjecture, is a ‘real place’ in another
World. My Rider had to get there somehow in the first place.”

He stopped by my armchair and carefully put down a box covered in faded runes on the desk. Then he cautiously put his hand on my shoulder. I saw that he wasn’t wearing either the outer
protective gloves or the inner death-dealing ones.

“I never thought you would be able to escape from me, Max. But you did, praise be the Magicians! I can just imagine how disappointed that monster must be. He was so confident in his
success.”

“I would be, too, if I were him,” said Juffin. “By the way, why did you say ‘he’?”

“I am not sure,” said Shurf, sitting down beside me. “As far as I can trust my own feelings, the creature is most certainly male. I think you should put away this box with my
gloves, sir, the sooner the better. My guest might return any moment. You know as well as I do that Riders who have taken a fancy to wandering through Xumgat do not like to leave their steeds for
long.”

“‘Riders’? ‘Xumgat’? ‘Wandering through’?” I said. “You guys should tone down your metaphors. I don’t understand a thing.”

“It is actually quite simple,” said Juffin. “Xumgat is the ancient name of the Corridor between Worlds. I don’t particularly like using that term: it smacks of some
ancient mystical posturing. It’s much easier to call things by their actual names, right? But then the Corridor between Worlds—it’s still an open question who knows more about
that place.”

“You, naturally,” I said. “Sure, I ran around there a bit, but I definitely lack the theoretical background.”

“Naturally. But in these matters, you need theory like a buriwok needs an amobiler,” said Juffin, laughing. “The question is: Can you get to that place or not? Most people
can’t, including the powerful ancient Magicians. Among the few who can are our mutual friend Maba Kalox, Sir Loiso Pondoxo (a vampire under his blanket!), and such brilliant fellows as you
and me. One either has the gift of practicing Invisible Magic—which is what brings us to that mysterious place—or one doesn’t. There’s no in between. It’s a gift. Some
can multiply twelve-digit numbers in their heads and some can’t, all their university education notwithstanding.”

“True, but an education helps you manage even when you have no talent whatsoever,” I said. “One can learn to do long multiplication tables on paper, for instance—or,
better yet, to use a calculator.”

“Do such things really exist?” said Lonli-Lokli.

“Shurf, you wouldn’t believe the magical things in the World,” I said. For the first time since he had arrived, I found the courage to look him in the eye. I smiled from an
immense sense of relief: it truly was the old Shurf Lonli-Lokli—strong and imperturbable, never passing up the opportunity to add something else to his already huge encyclopedic knowledge.
And that meant that life was wonderful. That meant that maybe, just maybe, there would be a tomorrow for you, Sir Max, if you were lucky enough, and if destiny would agree to keep putting up with
your silly ass, and if you could learn this lesson well: you can’t offload your own heavenly vault onto someone else’s shoulders. You can trust anyone you want to, but you can only rely
on yourself. Everyone has his own vault to carry; everyone is the Atlas of his own world. It’s no one else’s fault that you were only beginning to understand the rules of the game after
thirty-something years.

Juffin pried me away from my thoughts.

“You know, Max, you yourself just came up with a brilliant metaphor with those calculators of yours. That is approximately what is going on here. When a powerful Magician realizes he
cannot enter the Corridor between Worlds by himself, he can turn into what is called a Rider. He finds a person who is capable of traveling between Worlds, and then he captures that person’s
spirit. For someone who has mastered the higher degrees of Apparent Magic, this is a piece of cake. Ideally, of course, you’d want to capture the spirit of some madman: they are often very
talented, and what’s more, they have no clue about their own talents or the possible uses thereof. Besides, their spirits don’t belong to anyone anyway.”

Juffin fell silent and took a good look at Lonli-Lokli. Apparently he liked what he saw, so he continued. “Given enough magical power, one can capture or possess not just someone’s
spirit but also his body. The body of someone who was born for magical travels. Now, if one really tries, one can also capture all the powers of one’s captive. The captive then dies, and the
lucky captor keeps a great deal of the victim’s talent. People like you or me are of no interest to him: we are too dangerous to deal with since we know what we do, more or less, and can put
up resistance.”

Another pause. Now the boss was looking at me.

“Although . . . You know, I wasn’t going to tell you this so as not to scare you beforehand. Now you know, and this knowledge might come in handy. One such clever fellow already
tried to straddle you when you traveled back to your home World. He failed, but you almost lost your memory, thanks to him: the bastard really stunned you. So, how do you like them
apples?”

I was shocked and dismayed, but recovered quickly. No doubt I had begun getting used to unpleasant surprises.

“So that’s why I couldn’t remember anything about my life in Echo! If I were a little weaker, I’d have thought I’d just seen a wonderful dream. But you should have
told me sooner, Juffin. I should know such things about myself.”

“What’s the point? If I’d told you, you might have been too scared to even try traveling between Worlds again,” said Juffin. “I was going to look for your fellow
traveler, but then I got hooked on your ‘cartoons’ and thought I could put off looking for the Rider for a while. You weren’t in any immediate danger: after such a crushing
defeat, the Rider wouldn’t have tried to bother you—believe me, I know his kind.”

“Fine,” I said. “Magicians be with you and that failed tourist.” I turned to Lonli-Lokli. “So does this mean you can travel between Worlds, too, Shurf?”

“Not yet. But I will someday. That time has not yet come. In my life, everything happens slowly. It is my destiny.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to the thought that that time has already come,” said Juffin. “Don’t you get it? It didn’t go exactly how
you and I had planned it, Sir Shurf. This fidgety fellow”—he nodded in my direction—“stirred you up a bit sooner than he should have and was punished for it.”

“Hey! I didn’t stir anyone up,” I said. “Quit speaking in riddles.”

“If there’s anything I’m really certain about, it’s that I’m tired of speaking in riddles,” said Juffin, mocking my earlier line. “Fair enough,
I’ll explain. You accidentally, one might say out of sheer idiocy, dragged Shurf into your dreams. I believe you both know what I’m talking about. Then there were your joint walks
around the outskirts of Kettari. All of this resulted in Sir Shurf being in dangerous—or, I should say, dubious—situations: he is already quite capable of journeying between Worlds, but
he is not yet ready to consciously put his talents to good use. Currently, he’s no better than some of the inhabitants of the Refuge for the Mad . . . Hold on, boys. That’s where we
need to sniff around a bit. I have no idea where we will find our client, but we have a pretty good chance of encountering a couple of his victims in the Refuge for the Mad. You’re absolutely
right, Shurf—there’s no way you could have been his first prey. You are way too tough for a novice traveler through Xumgat. What we’ve got here is a very, very experienced
Rider.”

“I believe you are correct,” said Lonli-Lokli, nodding. “It is unfortunate that I will not be able to take part in the search. The timing could not have been worse.”

“Very true,” said Juffin. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now. Do you want to stay here? I’d rather you stayed here, although, frankly speaking, you’d
be much more comfortable in Xolomi.”

“Naturally, I shall stay here. Comfort is not the topmost priority at the moment. The small room in your office where we used to keep prisoners is exactly what I need now. It is as
isolated from the world as Xolomi is. At the very least, I shall be nearby and you will be able to observe me safely. In addition, I may perhaps bring some benefit without even leaving these
premises.”

I glanced in perplexity first at Juffin, then at Lonli-Lokli. Shurf noticed my confusion and raised the corners of his mouth in a sympathetic smile. “This Rider might straddle me yet
again,” he said in a soft voice. “I gave Sir Juffin my gloves, but I am quite a capable Magician even without them. You know, as far as I understand, he feels something akin to personal
hatred toward you. I had to be subject to his emotions, so I can assure you that his attempt on your life was born of a passionate desire to kill you, not a necessity. If that creature was afraid
of your telling Sir Juffin about my problems, he would have made me silent from the outset: he is powerful enough to do that. When he comes, I have nothing to counter him with—a disgusting
feeling. For this reason, I will have to be locked up for the time being—at least until you and Juffin are done with this creature that has straddled me. You know, you were not the only one
walking on the edge today. I still cannot fathom the magnanimity you must have had not to spit your venom at me. You had more than one opportunity to do so.”

“Nah, it’s not magnanimity,” I said, embarrassed. “To demonstrate magnanimity, I’d have needed a little time for consideration, and there wasn’t any time. No
time to decide to spit or not to spit. I just didn’t. Why? Magicians only know. Maybe because I was sure that it wouldn’t work on you. I thought that the only right thing to do would be
to do something completely unexpected, something I’d never done before, something you’d have no idea I’d be capable of doing. Actually, now, in retrospect, it’s hard for me
to reconstruct how my logic worked back then. Chances are I didn’t use any logic at all.”

“Allow me to assure you that I had no ready-made antidotes to your poison. I am a living human being, and I would have died from your spit just as any other person would, provided I had
not been able to shield myself with my protective glove. The creature that possessed me had no particular reason to value my life. Had I died, my Rider would have found another ‘horse’
for the joint descent to Xumgat. I believe he has enough of them in his ‘stables.’ I just wanted you to know that you stood a very good chance of finishing me off.”

“Good golly!” I said. “It would’ve been almost as bad as your finishing me off. Or worse?”

“There is nothing worse than your own death, for when it arrives, everything else collapses. Other events may only destroy a part of your personal universe,” said Lonli-Lokli in a
didactic tone. He thought for a moment and then added, “Although sometimes even this part may seem disproportionately large. Then, when that part collapses, it takes everything along with
it.”