The Stranger - Max Frei [274]
Finally, I decided that the more exotic I looked, the better. The sooner the locals understood I was a simple alien dork, the better were my chances of being invited to join in their sordid doings. A big gulp of Jubatic Juice gave me courage in my reckless, but essentially judicious, decision.
I waved aside all my qualms and lit up. If only poor Sir Kofa, the unsurpassed master of masquerade, could see me now! After all his efforts, here I was sitting in the middle of Kettari with my own inelegant face and unkempt hair, smoking something that doesn’t even exist in this World, and planning to drink some courage and fraternize with the locals! But whom did I need to hide from in this nonexistent city, in this heart of a new World—a World, moreover, that I myself was helping to create? It was crazy, but it made sense. So I finished my cigarette with great enjoyment, took a few more swigs from my huge glass, and reached demonstratively for the yellowish-gold, already half-empty, pack.
“Well, you seem to be rather bored, sir,” someone behind me observed politely.
“I can’t tell you how bored I am. Since the moment I arrived in Kettari I’ve been dying of it.”
I almost laughed out loud at my own awkward fabrication, as I turned to face the person who had addressed me.
Well, what a surprise! It was an old acquaintance of mine, Mr. Abora Vala, our Master Caravan Leader in the flesh. He didn’t recognize me, of course. Lady Marilyn, the most beloved of the fictitious wives of that passionate gambler Sir Shurf Lonli-Lokli, was the one who had traveled in his caravan.
The fellow studied my face curiously.
“Have you been suffering from boredom in Kettari for a long time already?” he asked casually.
“Five days or so, why?”
“Oh, no reason. I just know most of the visitors to Kettari by face, and yours is unfamiliar.”
“It would be strange if it were familiar to you. I arrived here to visit my aunt five days ago, as I’ve already said. And she didn’t consider it proper to end the dinner celebration for my arrival until half an hour ago. She went to sleep it off; then she’ll start preparing another feast for my departure, I’m sure. That’s why today is the first day I’ve ventured outside in the five blasted days since I arrived!”
In my mind I gave myself an A for quick-wittedness, thought a bit, then added a “plus.”
“Ah, that explains it,” my new-old friend nodded. “I’m acquainted, you see, with the visitors who arrive in Kettari on my caravan. And your aunt, I presume, met you herself?”
“Yes, she sent her sonny boy to some roadside tavern to pick me up. The blockhead is already about two hundred years old, but he’s still a mama’s boy. Can you beat that?”
“Yes, that’s the way it is sometimes,” the gray-haired gentleman agreed politely. “It sounds like you’re sick and tired of your relatives?”
I nodded mournfully. By that time, I had so warmed up to my role that I began sincerely to hate my hypothetical silly aunt and her hypothetical dimwit of a son, my cousin.
“Would you like some diversion?” he asked innocently. “Excuse me for being so forward, but that’s our custom around here. My friends have been enjoying their game for an hour, and I have no partner. We’re not playing for high stakes, so you won’t be risking your fortune.”
You’re darn straight I won’t, I thought maliciously. A certain cheerful and overzealous fellow already had.
“My name is Ravello,” he said.
Oh no it isn’t, you debonair player, you—it’s Abora Vala, as I recall.
“Don’t be shy, sir,” this cavalier liar whispered to me. “In Kettari it’s the custom to dispense with ceremony in making one another’s acquaintance, in particular if the gentlemen have the chance to while away the evening at a game of Krak. What is that you’re smoking, if I may ask?”
“This? A friend of mine brought it back with him from somewhere—from Kumon, I believe, the capital of the Kumon Caliphate.” I had read this name in Manga Melifaro’s Encyclopedia of the World, and, to be honest,