The Stranger - Max Frei [185]
“Certainly! Everything will be just as you say, my Fierce Lady. I can wait. I can learn to stand on my head, or dye my hair red. I’m a very agreeable guy.”
“Dye your hair red! Red!? Oh, you’re joking!” Melamori laughed out loud, sounding relieved. “How did that idea ever enter your head? Can you imagine what you’d look like?”
“I’ll look magnificent!” I announced proudly. “You won’t believe your eyes.”
When I was alone again, I shook my head in amazement. My long-suffering, longed-for office romance was slowly but surely approaching the finish line. And the dreams—well, we had “stepped all over each other’s hearts,” as they say here in Echo. That’s why we each had the same dreams.
It never occurred to me that I should take Melamori’s questions more seriously. I should have realized that we were both having the very same dream, but I didn’t want to. Sometimes I’m surprisingly thickheaded; especially if it’s more convenient for me.
“Are you bored, boy?” Sir Kofa Yox appeared so suddenly that I jumped up. “Get dressed. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“What do you mean ‘where’? To the place they make miracles. We’re going to work on your education. Change your clothes.”
“But who’s going to stay here?” I had already taken off the black and gold Mantle of Death, underneath which‚ Praise be the Magicians, I was wearing a completely neutral, dark-green skaba. I started changing my other clothes. Boots with bells on them and dragons’ heads would have blown my cover.
“Kurush. He’s the one who’s been holding down the fort while Lady Melamori dragged you around to hideaways only fit for ruining your digestion.”
“Max never stays in one place,” the buriwok complained. “He comes and goes. People are so flighty and fickle.”
“You speak the truth, clever fellow,” said Kofa. “But you don’t mind, do you?”
“I don’t mind, as long as you bring me some pastry,” the conniving bird replied.
“I’m bringing you at least a dozen, you smart thing,” I promised, wrapping myself in a modest swamp-colored looxi. I adore looking unobtrusive!
“I’m ready, Sir Kofa!”
“Ready? No, you’re not. You don’t want anyone to recognize you, do you? Do you think you have the most ordinary physiognomy in Echo? Come here.”
Sir Kofa scrutinized me for a minute. Then he sighed and began to massage my face gently. It was pleasantly ticklish. At the end, he gave my nose a tug.
“I think that’ll do. Come look in the mirror.”
I went into the hall and stared at myself in the mirror. I saw an unprepossessing character gazing back at me—beady eyes, a long nose, with a protruding lower lip and a powerful, receding forehead. My good old pal Max was nowhere to be seen.
“Sir Kofa, can you put me back the way I used to be?” I asked nervously. “To tell you the truth, I don’t much like this sort of guy.”
“A lot you know! Like him or not, the important thing is that no one will recognize you or pay much attention to you. Faces like that are a dime a dozen. Haven’t you ever noticed?”
“Regrettably, no. I’m very slow about certain things. I’m not against it for the time being—just don’t forget to give me back my old face!”
“It will come back of its own accord, no later than tomorrow morning. Tricks like this don’t work for very long. All right, now we can go.”
Kofa then altered his own features with a swift movement of the hand. Now he and I looked like a wise daddy and his not-so-bright sonny boy. Our new faces clearly belonged to the same general category, but Kofa’s looked older and slightly more intelligent.
“Where are we going, anyway?” I asked. I was bursting with curiosity.
“A hole in the heavens above you! Haven’t you guessed? We’re going tavern-crawling. A new era has begun: the Epoch of Good Food. I don’t want your poor training in this area to condemn you to a dreary existence in this wonderful new World. I’m actually a very good person—has it never occurred to you?”
“Do you mean to say that I skipped out on work to go on a pub crawl? Sir Kofa, that’s incredible!” I said, starting to laugh.
“I see nothing funny about it. I assure you, Juffin