The Stranger - Max Frei [23]
Juffin raised his hands above his head. It seemed to me that a warm yellow light flared up inside him, and he began to glow like a kerosene lamp. First the spiderweb that enveloped Melifaro became illuminated; then Melifaro himself grew bright. He stopped and turned toward us. Now he’ll be all right, I thought. But the warm yellow glow faded, and died. Melifaro, still smiling his beatific smile, took another step toward the mirror’s dark maw.
Juffin bunched himself up into a tight mass and started hissing. The spiderweb shuddered, and several threads broke off with a strange sound that made my stomach churn. In the darkness, the thing we took to be a mirror started to shimmer and shift. Two empty eyes were staring at us, gleaming with the same crystalline chill as the spiderweb. Something that looked like the face of a dead ape materialized around the brilliant, fiery eyes. In the place where mammals usually have a mouth, a gaping, moist darkness appeared, repulsive and yet captivating. The cavernous black hole was framed by what appeared at first to be a beard, but peering closer, I saw with horror that the “beard” was alive. Around the creature’s hideous mouth, hairy growths like spider legs wriggled madly, writhing of their own accord. The creature gazed at Melifaro with a cold curiosity; it didn’t seem to notice us at all. Melifaro smiled, and said quietly, “You can see that I’m on my way.” And he took another step.
Juffin tore off like a whirlwind. Screaming in an unnatural, strangled voice, and beating the floor rhythmically with his feet, he crossed the room at a diagonal, then again, and yet again. The rhythm of his stamping and shouting, oddly enough, comforted me. I stared transfixed at this dizzying shamanic frenzy. The spiderweb trembled, then faded and went dark. I watched the mirror creature follow Juffin’s every move with its fading gaze.
It’s dying, I thought calmly. It was always dead; but now it’s dying—how very odd.
Juffin quickened his pace; the pounding of his feet became louder and louder, his cries became a roar that drowned out all my thoughts. His body seemed disproportionately large and dark to me, like a huge shadow, and the walls of the room shone with an azure light. One of the small tables suddenly rose up into the air and dashed toward the mirror, but burst into pieces halfway there. The splinters of wood mixed with the shards of broken glass.
Then I realized that I was falling asleep . . . or dying. If there was one thing I had never had any intention of doing, it was dying in the presence of a dead ape with a hairy mug.
Then, from somewhere in the depths of the room, an enormous candlestick flew out with a shrill whistle. It seemed to be aimed directly at my forehead. I was suddenly possessed with fury. I jerked violently, and the candlestick crashed down, an inch from my head. Then it was all over.
Well, to say that it was “all over” was an exaggeration. But the light, the spiderweb, and even the “smell of a foul death” were gone. The mirror again looked like a mirror—but it didn’t reflect anything. Sir Melifaro stood motionless in the center of the room among the domestic ruins. His face was now a sad, lifeless mask. The crystalline spiderweb drooped in dull, stringy, but completely real fibers that looked like spun sugar. Melifaro, poor fellow, was completely wrapped up in the sticky mess. Sir Juffin Hully sat next to me on his haunches and examined my face intently.
“You okay, Max?”
“I don’t know. Better than him, anyway,” I said, nodding at Melifaro. “What was that?”
“That was magic of the 212th degree, my friend. What did you think of it?”
“What do you think I think!”
“I think it’s all very strange. Technically, you should be in the same condition he’s in.” We both turned around to gaze at the