The Stranger - Max Frei [35]
“Max!” he shouted all of a sudden. “We’re quite a pair! Amazing! It’s working! You can take a look—but be careful, even more careful than yesterday.”
Not everything was visible from where I stood, but I sensibly decided not to step any closer.
The mirror began to move. The newly awakened mirror-dweller was hungry and cranky; but its double was already stirring to life in the second mirror. The two monstrosities groped toward each other in curious wonder. I stared at the heavy, formless body of the creature, which looked more like the body of a huge, white frog suffering from obesity than anything else. The creature’s body was covered in the same disgusting, living hair that surrounded its mouth—dark, moist, drawing me in with a magnetic attraction . . .
I averted my eyes, but the mouth still stayed in the inmost depths of my consciousness. Then I forced myself to remember the bracing taste of Elixir of Kaxar. That helped, but only somewhat. If only a flagon of the potion was within reach!
To rid myself of the hallucination, I boxed my own ears and screamed silently, get a grip on yourself, man! After a few seconds I was so sober and clear-headed that curiosity got the upper hand. I looked again at the mirrors.
The first thing I saw was the silhouette of Lonli-Lokli, hanging over a sticky, mucous-like ball between the two grappling monsters. The powers were evenly matched. The double—I have to give him that—was not to be outdone by its original. The vile little ball rolled along the floor, and I went faint at the thought that it might make a rush for my leg. I didn’t even think about the danger, so great was my feeling of revulsion.
Lonli-Lokli’s left hand swept upward, slowly and solemnly—it was a strikingly beautiful gesture, laconic and powerful. The tips of his fingers shot out sparks, like sparks from a welder’s arc. A shrill scream, undetectable by the human ear, which nevertheless seared my insides, forced me to bend over in pain. Then the scream stopped just as abruptly as it had begun. The creatures erupted into white flames. I thought that these fireworks signaled the successful end of the operation; but then something happened that was completely not of this world. The mirrors themselves actually began to move. The abyss behind the mirror and its reflection attracted each other like magnets. Their collision, I understood, threatened us with unpredictable consequences.
“Max, get down on the floor!” Juffin barked. “NOW!”
I flung myself down, as he had ordered. He himself somersaulted over to the window that had been smashed the day before, then stood stock-still and alert. Sir Lonli-Lokli retreated backwards in one smooth motion, over to Melifaro’s body. There he sat on his haunches, clasping his hands prudently in front of him.
A quiet, but clearly hostile rumble started up from the matching depths. The glass in the mirrors buckled and grew convex, like sails billowing in the wind.
It seemed to me that we were in no real danger, for the mirrors had absolutely no interest in us. Instead, each revolting infinity advanced on its copy, until they merged into a kind of rabid Möbius strip, as each tried to swallow the other, just as the Mirror Monsters had just done. When it was finished, a dark, twisted up clump of some dark sticky substance was all that remained.
“Well, Sir Shurf, that last piece was your job, I suppose,” Juffin observed with obvious relief.
“Yes, sir. I think so.”
Another moment, and nothing was left of the nightmare.
Juffin jumped to his feet. The