The Stranger - Max Frei [280]
After a time, it occurred to me that I had easily gotten through to Sir Maba, who was in Echo, I presumed. Maybe that meant I could finally contact Juffin?
After the first try, I realized it was futile. Dead silence, as before. I tried once more, just so no one could say I hadn’t. Nothing.
Could this mean that Sir Maba was also lurking around Kettari? It’s becoming a very fashionable watering hole, I told my reflection aloud. Then I got down to work again, which I won’t deny was quite entertaining . . . It turned out that I could get a pizza right from under my favorite divan. After the third pizza, I realized this was the limit of the divan’s capabilities. I stuck my hand under the rocker. A bottle of grappa, then a can of Belgian beer. All right, got that figured out. That’s where they keep the drinks. But it was high time for a cigarette. I had only one left. Well, live and learn! I stuffed my hand in the pocket of my looxi almost mechanically—and to my astonishment, it grew numb almost immediately. I quickly drew my hand from my pocket. I couldn’t believe my eyes! There was a golden-yellow pack. A full pack of my favorite cigarettes, a hole in the heavens above your head! Unopened! But of course, where should you find cigarettes but in your own pocket? I stuck my hand in the same pocket again, and out came the crumpled, empty pack I had counted on finding from the very first. My head felt giddy from my own power, so I had to smoke and calm down a little. And try to get a grip on myself. These miracles were all well and good, but I still had to take charge of the situation somehow.
“What’s that, Max?” Lonli-Lokli asked in surprise. I hadn’t heard him come downstairs. The protective gloves, covered with runes, adorned his already enormous hands.
“Food from another World,” I said with a weary sigh. “It seems today I’m on a roll, though I’m quite baffled myself. You’re not hungry, yet? It might do you good. Maybe it’s wonder-food?”
“Maybe,” Lonli-Lokli drawled, sniffing cautiously at the pizza. “It does seem edible.” He tore off a piece, chewed it a while, then shrugged. “You know, I don’t really like it.”
“I don’t like it much, either,” I said, feeling a bit guilty. “Let’s try the chocolates. Do you want a drink, by any chance? A shot of courage, and all that? Do you have your holey vessel with you?”
To my surprise, Lonli-Lokli nodded enthusiastically and drew from his looxi the bottomless cup.
“In any case, I intended to resort to this, since I need to try every possible means,” he explained. “And a drink from another World could only increase my chances of victory.”
“So all my efforts weren’t in vain!”
It took only a minute to open the bottle, and I poured the grappa into the holey cup.
“May I try, perhaps? I mean, drinking from your crazy vessel?”
Lonli-Lokli stared at me, then emptied his cup in one gulp, and shrugged.
“Well, try it if you wish.”
And he handed me the cup. I poured a little grappa into this truly bottomless object and drank it down with gusto. I don’t much like the taste of grappa, but since I was privileged to be using Lonli-Lokli’s cup I was prepared to brave even this.
“Thank you. What am I supposed to feel now?”
“You? I have no idea!” My friend seemed quite bewildered. “I almost thought that your strange, powerful wine would pour straight through it. You haven’t undergone the initiation into the Order. I had some doubts about you—completely silly, unfounded ones—so I let you try it. Tell me, Max, are you aware of your own powers?”
“I didn’t even know there might be a problem,” I replied. “I thought that it all depended on your magic cup.”
“The cup is the most ordinary kind. Just an old cup full of holes,” Lonli-Lokli said. “What matters is who drinks from it. You know Max, you’re a very strange creature.”
“I’ve always thought so, too. Especially