The Stranger - Max Frei [92]
“You brought Thumbkins!” Maxlilgl cried with indignation.
It was as if we had agreed on the rules of battle beforehand, and I had breached the hypothetical contract.
“You’re not Perset!” the ghost added vehemently. Evidently, he was still hoping that I would feel ashamed of my behavior and stuff Sir Shurf back in the closet. I think Sir Annox had become considerably softer over the past years of associating only with defenseless, frightened inmates.
“Don’t ‘Perset’ me!” I growled.
The ghost’s confusion was palpable. Sir Shurf needed time to peel off his protective gloves, covered with runes. While the dead Magician and I were squaring off, Lonli-Lokli managed to carry out the necessary preparations. The brilliant light from his death-dealing hands illuminated the cell walls, and life seemed all of a sudden to be a devilishly simple and precious matter. A story with an untold number of happy endings—take your pick.
I didn’t even suspect that my chances for staying alive were still approaching zero.
It was my own fault, of course. I had never had to deal with retired Grand Magicians. I foolishly assumed that there was no hurry in killing him. My vanity demanded that I deliver this mistake of nature to the House by the Bridge and drop it screaming and kicking at Sir Juffin’s feet. How I was going to capture a ghost I had no idea. But then again, I had had a miserable, third-rate education. I didn’t have classes in the foundations of metaphysics, either in high school—which I got through on a wing and prayer—or in college, from which I was unceremoniously expelled. I shared my half-baked thoughts on the matter with my colleague—but Sir Shurf is the most disciplined creature in the universe. As he saw it, I was the leader of the operation. Consequently, my orders had to be summarily carried out. Even the most half-baked ones.
Lonli-Lokli’s paralyzing right hand did not achieve the desired effect. Instead of freezing submissively to the spot, the ghost began to increase in size, threatening to assume gigantic proportions. At the same time, he became increasingly transparent. It all happened so quickly that within the fraction of a second his indistinct head was hovering somewhere up near the ceiling.
“Stupid Thumbkins!” Maxlilgl Annox screeched. “He knows not how to kill! Begone, Thumbkins!”
And without paying any more heed to Lonli-Lokli, the thick mist, which by now had almost lost its human form, lunged at me. It managed to touch me—a cold, damp, sticky pudding—that’s what it felt like. The touch left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth, for some reason, and the cold pain that shot through my body was such that I still can’t imagine how I survived it.
I didn’t even lose consciousness. Instead, I screamed at the top of my lungs:
“Liquidate him!”
Sinning Magicians! Where was my head?
As though from a great distance, I watched Lonli-Lokli join his remarkable hands together and cross his forefingers. This promising gesture had no visible consequences, though. Another tormenting second passed. I didn’t understand a thing. Why didn’t Shurf kill him? The human pudding was already thickening around me.
And then another improbable thing happened. It was like the icing on the cake of this bewitched night. The shining fingers of Lonli-Lokli drew the outline of a wondrous curve in the darkness, and a waterfall came crashing down on us. Tons of cold water swallowed up the transparent silhouette. I still didn’t understand what was happening, but I turned my face to the refreshing streams of water. A good wash was surprisingly welcome right then.
Our opponent, however, turned out to have a very tenacious vitality.