The Stranger - Max Frei [250]
Excellent, Lookfi, I said, and carefully recounted the few, but very curious, events of the day.
Sir Juffin requests that you describe the route you have been traveling up to this point, after turning off the main road, Lookfi said.
I described in as much detail as possible the narrow, almost impassable lane and the twisting mountain road, the gloomy cliffs overgrown with bluish grass, and the bottomless precipices that opened up now to the right, now to the left of our route. After reflecting a bit, I recalled again the vague answers of the guide to the simplest and most reasonable questions—when, devil take it, would we finally arrive in that blasted little town?
Sir Juffin asked me to relate to you, Sir Max, that he lived for four-hundred some years in Kettari, caught well over several dozen robbers in the surrounding forests, and didn’t spend all his free days in the city. So it’s no surprise he knows every blade of grass in the entire area. But never in his born days has he seen anything like the landscape you’ve described, Lookfi said. And Sir Juffin also says that . . . Oh, Sinning Magicians, but that’s impossible! And Sir Lookfi Pence’s voice disappeared from my mind without a trace.
I tried sending him another call, without much hope of success. No response, just as I suspected.
“Now there’s no answer from Lookfi, either,” I told Lonli-Lokli gloomily. “Sir Juffin managed to catch the story of our absurd post-prandial journey, and announced that in the environs of Kettari there is nothing resembling the terrain we’re passing through. Then he asked Lookfi to relay something else. Lookfi heard what the chief wanted to tell us, said that it was ‘impossible, ’ and then the connection went dead. I wish we knew what Juffin wanted to say!”
Lonli-Lokli didn’t seem in the least bit perturbed about any of this.
“Let’s think about it,” I said. “Lady Marilyn is a simple, uneducated country girl. I won’t even mention the poor fool Sir Max. We don’t know the most elementary things, but I assume that Sir Glamma does know these kinds of things, and Shurf Lonli-Lokli all the more.”
“Can you express yourself a bit more clearly? What exactly do you mean?”
“Wow! My whole life I’ve thought that the only thing I knew how to do was express myself clearly. Fine. I won’t boast—I’ll just ask you a few basic questions.”
“That’s a reasonable decision, Marilyn. Ask away. Maybe you’ll be able to make some sense of information that seems useless to me.”
“All right. First, from what I understand, when you send someone a call using Silent Speech, distance is immaterial. Is that right?”
“That’s exactly right. The main thing is to know the person you’re trying to communicate with. And reaching him in Arvarox, if need be, poses no problem.”
“Excellent. Let’s move on. Is there somewhere in the World where Silent Speech doesn’t work?”
“In Xolomi, naturally—you know that yourself. I’ve never heard of anyplace else, though. Of course there are people who simply don’t know how to use it, but our situation is somewhat different.”
“All right, that all makes perfect sense. Tell me, Shurf, maybe you’ve heard about a problem like this one? Not necessarily a true story—perhaps a legend, or a myth. A joke, if nothing else.”
“In the Order we used to say: ‘A good sorcerer can shout even as far as the next World.’ That’s more likely to be a joke than the truth. You can’t send a call to the next World. Luckily, we have ample evidence that all our colleagues are alive.”
“But what about us?” I blurted out.
“I’m used to trusting my senses. And my senses tell me I’m absolutely alive.”
“Well, gosh! Of course you’re alive! And I am, too, I hope, but . . . Oh, the devil with all my secrets! You’re the best grave for secrets, your own and others’, I imagine. It seems we’re in serious trouble. It will be easier for us to figure out just what kind of trouble it is when we’re both on the same page, I suppose. What I’m trying to say is that the ‘next World’ isn’t necessarily a place inhabited by the dead. There