The Stranger - Max Frei [289]
I’ve got to thank you, Mackie went on, sounding somewhat guilty. He probably imagined what I was experiencing just about then.
Maybe I’m too pragmatic, but I somehow thought you’d be glad. Farewell, partner. I’m a man of few words, as you can see.
Thank you. I tried to make my Silent Speech calm and intelligible. You can’t imagine—
I can. With that, Sir Mackie Ainti disappeared from my mind. I sighed a deep sigh of relief. He was a complicated man. Simply unbearable, for all the tenderness I felt for him.
“Is that a present?” Lonli-Lokli asked. “I think you deserved it, Max. You left the most precious part of yourself in that World.”
“Did you hear our conversation?”
“In a way. You know, now that I don’t have to waste so much energy fending off Kiba, I can use it for other purposes. Of course, it takes time, but some simple things just happen of their own accord. And you know, it’s not hard at all to keep track of what’s happening to you. In that sense, you’re much more vulnerable than other people. You have an expressive face.”
“I am what I am,” I said. “I’ll try again. Maybe we’ll still be able to get some dinner.”
A half hour later, after stockpiling several bottles of mineral water and a fistful of tokens for gambling machines, Shurf and I found ourselves the proud owners of a huge cherry pie. After eating a large portion, I started up the amobiler and set off down the road again. The vehicle ate up the miles hungrily. Never had I been such a speed-demon behind the levers as I was on that drive!
“Listen, Shurf,” I began. “Did you by any chance ask Juffin what happened the night we tried to get in touch with him? I mean the night we had such a strange conversation with Lookfi, since we couldn’t reach anyone else. Why did Lookfi break the connection?”
“I didn’t have to ask. Sir Juffin brought it up himself. He thought that you would be eager to find out. You guessed right when you suggested that it was another World. And Sir Lookfi Pence is such a scatterbrain that he didn’t even notice my call had come to him from a place where it shouldn’t be able to reach him. In this case, his absent-mindedness served a good purpose. Then something happened that you might find amusing. Sir Juffin immediately realized where we had ended up, and wanted to explain it all to you through Lookfi. Lookfi listened calmly to Juffin’s conjectures about another World, and began relating it to you. Only then did he grasp the significance of his own words. He realized that the impossible was happening and that’s when it ended. Why aren’t you laughing, Max?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m probably just trying to understand, I don’t know, something, at least! But you’re right. Usually things like that seem funny to me. You changed very much in Kettari, Shurf. Do you know that?”
“That’s logical, since . . .” Lonli-Lokli sank into thought.
“Well, of course. First Glamma Eralga’s face, then a wife like Lady Marilyn, may she rest in peace, a journey to another World, a joint, and Kiba Attsax for dessert. You poor fellow, Sir Shurf. What a jerk I am, always moaning about my own problems!”
“Well said!” I detected something strange in his voice, so I turned around. Shurf was smiling, ever so slightly. The corners of his mouth were turned up, Magician’s honor!
“Not so fast, buddy,” I winked. “There’s still another dead Magician. What’s his name, by the way?”
“Yook Yoggari. But he’s far less dangerous. I don’t regret these changes, Max. I don’t intend to deny who I am. As I’ve already said, it doesn’t prevent me from concentrating on the really important things. It doesn’t get in the way of anything, and that’s what matters.”
“All the same, if this dead fellow starts bothering you, you can count on me,” I announced airily. “I’ll come to him in his dreams, and make him sing for his supper!”
“Magicians be with you, Max. Dead people don’t dream.”
“Really? All the better. That means I’m alive, because your little friend suggested that I also . . . well, died . . . in my time, way back when.”
“Dead Magicians seldom say