The Stranger - Max Frei [89]
And so, Mister Annox was deeply preoccupied with the problem of life after death. Not only there, where I was born, but here in the World, as well, no one really knows the answer to the question of what awaits us after death. There are myriad hypotheses—murky, frightening, and seductive—but not a single one of them has much value for someone who isn’t inclined to take a stranger’s word on faith alone.
Of course, the interest in immortality wasn’t solely theoretical for the prisoner of Cell No. 5-Ow-Nox. Those Magicians of yore, one must realize, were serious fellows and didn’t waste their precious time.
As far as I could understand, Sir Annox expended unimaginable effort trying to continue ordinary earthly existence, even after death, in the human body so dear to his heart. In simple terms, he wanted to be resurrected. I didn’t doubt that this old geezer had discovered a sneaky way of returning to the land of the living. But then he died. In this very Cell No. 5-Ow-Nox.
The victors never meant to kill him. It seems they very reluctantly killed their enemies, supposing that every death was an irreversible event. And the Order of the Seven-Leaf Clover maintains the belief that an irreversible event should occur as seldom as possible. This so that the World can become stronger—or something like that . . . I hadn’t yet had time to figure out all the fine points of the local eschatology.
Nevertheless, the Grand Magician Maxlilgl Annox had died. It wasn’t a suicide in the ordinary sense of the word; I think this death was some sort of “laboratory experiment” essential to his research.
The fact that the walls of Xolomi were the most impenetrable barrier for magic of any degree did not infuse me with optimism. On the contrary, it forced me to think that the posthumous existence of Sir Annox was limited to the walls of his cell. It was evident that proximity to the dead Magician didn’t have a beneficial effect on his latter-day cellmates. Being condemned to life in this cell was a kind of death sentence. That was no good, I decided. Unjust. In this sense, prisoners are far more vulnerable than ordinary citizens. They can’t change their place of domicile, even when they feel it is urgent to do so. I wouldn’t want to be in their place . . . but, in fact, I already was.
I whiled away the night reading the next volume of Manga Melifaro’s Encyclopedia, which I was able to find, to my delight, in the prison library. Nothing supernatural happened, except that I again felt someone’s attentive eyes prickling me. They were even more ticklish this night than they had been the night before. Several times I heard a quiet, dry coughing, which seemed more like an auditory hallucination than the real thing.
Toward morning I got another strange sensation—I felt as if my body hardened like the shell of a nut. So much so that the tickling, to which I was already accustomed, felt not like something touching my skin, but like a slight trembling of the air around me. This wasn’t very pleasant, but I felt that the invisible being who monitored my every move all night long was even less pleased. His displeasure translated itself in part to me. Soon I would start berating myself for not letting the possessor of the powerful gaze tickle me to his heart’s content. What spiritual callousness and disrespect for a stranger’s desires, I would say to myself in reproach!
I couldn’t explain these events with any originality. Maybe I’m just imagining it? Or maybe Juffin put a protective spell on me, without my knowing it? He very well could have. And what if the true explanation was that I was a creature from another World—almost like a space alien?
I was so tired from all these conjectures that I went to sleep before dawn. I wonder how poor Lonli-Lokli is spending his time, I thought when I was dozing off. He’s probably bored. And hungry. What a jam he’s in!
But I had no opportunity to be bored. I had no opportunity to sleep, either. I woke up at noon from the familiar tickling sensation. I was amazed. Was this creature, whoever