The Stranger: The Labyrinths of Echo, Part One

by Max Frei

  “Of course it does, Max. We can leave without the caravan, if I understand correctly?”

  “Precisely. No caravan and no stops, since I’ll be sitting behind the levers of the amobiler. You don’t object to speed, do you Shurf? We’ll set a record and go down in history in one of the simpler and more reliable ways. Listen, you must buy some Kettarian carpets to take home with you. That’s why we came, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I was intending to. But are you going to be at the levers the whole way back?”

  “You can’t even imagine how fast we’ll get home,” I said dreamily. “After you explained the principle of operation of the amobiler . . . You know, I think that until now I drove so slowly because deep down I was sure the old jalopy couldn’t move any faster.”

  “Slowly?” Lonli-Lokli asked incredulously. “Well, I guess in that case we’ll be home in no time at all.”

  When we had finished our meal and gone outside, I turned the corner and headed for the rainbow-hued fountain.

  “I always went though that wooden door, Shurf,” I told him.

  “Of course you did, Max. I don’t doubt it. But it’s not a real door. Just a stage prop.”

  “As Sir Lookfi Pence likes to say, ‘People are so absent-minded!’” I sighed. “But what am I supposed to do, one might ask? Should I be surprised? No—I’m through with surprises for now.”

  We spent the rest of the day like real tourists. Shurf did, if fact, set out to buy carpets, and I tagged along to keep him company. As it happened, I couldn’t resist the dark and silky nap of one enormous rug. It would match the fur of my cats perfectly. I was most likely the first customer who had ever bought a rug to go with his cats.

  We loaded the rugs into the amobiler and went home to pack. Lonli-Lokli only needed about ten seconds to get ready, but I wasn’t ready until dark. When and how I had managed to spread my belongings through every room of this spacious house was a mystery to me. Finally, I came across the pile of junk that I had pulled out from under my magic pillow only yesterday. The box of candy was already nearly empty, but there were still some cookies, the collection of keys, four silver spoons, and the box of Cuban cigars. I thought a bit, then stuffed these riches in my traveling bag—you never know when they will come in handy.

  When we were already outside, I was struck by an absurd notion, so our departure was delayed by another half hour. I needed to stop by the Country Home. This time I didn’t want to play cards, though.

  When I had settled myself behind the levers of the amobiler, I happily lit up a cigarette, and the vehicle started to move. I drove fairly slowly to the city gates. But when we had passed the eleven Vaxari trees, I drove like a bat out of hell—a hundred miles an hour, at least. I couldn’t believe I had managed to get that kind of speed out of the absurd old jalopy. And that was just the beginning!

  Shurf sat frozen in the back seat. I couldn’t turn around to see the expression on his face, but I could have sworn I heard him breathing rapturously. It was indescribably wonderful. We flew though the darkness along an unknown road. There were no gray cliffs, none of the bottomless precipices we had passed on our way into Kettari. The cable car on the edge of my nameless city, and the city itself, were nowhere to be seen, either—only the darkness and the cold minty air of Kettari. I didn’t even notice when the air lost its biting freshness.

  “I just contacted Juffin,” Lonli-Lokli told me. I raised my eyebrows in surprise

  “Good news, Shurf. Tell him . . . tell him your part of the story of what happened in Kettari. I can’t afford to get distracted when I’m driving this fast—and slowing down would be too much to ask. Tell Juffin that, all right?”

  “Of course. I realize you don’t really like using Silent Speech. In any case, by my calculations we’ll be in Echo very soon—no later than tomorrow at noon, if you don’t get tired.”

  “Well, what’s Elixir of Kaxar for? I know, I know, the driver isn’t supposed to indulge. But since I’m the big boss these days, I think I can.”

  “Yes, Max. You can,” said Lonli-Lokli.

  Then he was silent for a long time. He and Juffin clearly had a lot to talk about after their long separation. I didn’t envy them. If anyone was enjoying life now, it was me. Tomorrow I would talk my fill. Oh, poor Juffin! I’d talk his head off.

  After about two hours, Lonli-Lokli touched my shoulder gently. I shuddered in surprise. The dizzying speed at which we were traveling had made me forget about everything else on earth, including my silent passenger.

  “Sir Juffin and I have finished our conversation. Besides that, you know, I’m hungry. It would be nice to stop at a roadside diner.”

  “Dig around in my bag there—you’ll find some cookies. They’re imported, but edible, I hope. And pass me some. I’ve also got the munchies.”

  Lonli-Lokli rummaged around in my bag for a while, then produced a bag of cookies for me, and some for himself, which he munched with gusto.

  “Are these from another World, too?”

  “Most likely. Oh, Shurf! I have an excellent idea. Wait a minute.”

  I stopped the amobiler and stuck my hand under the seat. I waited for a minute or two. Ah, there they were! Then I started to laugh.

  “What happened, Max?”

  “Nothing, it’s just that yesterday, when I was trying to get hold of some cigarettes, I kept finding all kinds of edibles. And now, when I’m trying to forage for our dinner—voilà!” I waved a long cardboard carton in front of his face triumphantly. “There are tens packs in here, Shurf! And they’re my favorite kind—555! I’m in luck!”

  Greetings, Max, Mackie Ainti’s call reached me so suddenly I gasped, slumping down in the seat. It wasn’t the most pleasant feeling—like getting slammed by a dump truck. Not a real one, of course; but still, what a greeting! It was lucky that I hadn’t been driving just at that moment.

  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, h
is 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 anything sensible,” Shurf said. “As far as I know, they always dwell in a darkened state of mind.”

  “Now that makes me prick up my ears,” I said grinning. “It’s a painfully familiar state.”

  I sped up so that talking wouldn’t be necessary.

  We drove into Echo at dawn. Even Shurf’s boldest predictions turned out to be too modest. Noon, had he said? When we arrived in Echo, a fat, pleasant-looking sun had just begun to peek over the horizon, trying to figure out what people had managed to do in the short time it had been away. I waved at the puffy-cheeked luminary and turned into the Lane of Northern Paths. Oh, what a beautiful name! I had never heard it before. I had to slow down considerably, but there was nowhere to hurry to, and Echo in the morning seemed to me to be the most beautiful place in the World. In this World, in any case. In other Worlds there were a few rivals. But now Echo was the best place in the universe, because I was coming home, and my heart loved what it saw, without regretting what it had lost.

  “You’re going to take a wrong turn,” Lonli-Lokli warned. “What’s wrong? Don’t you know this part of town?”

  I shook my head, and Shurf took the task of navigation upon himself. After a good earful of his instructions, I noticed with surprise that we were already on the Street of Copper Pots, approaching the House by the Bridge.

  “Are we here?” I was even short of breath from anticipation.

  “We’re here. I’d like to go home, but I guess my wife will still be asleep. At this hour she won’t even be glad to see me, all the more since I don’t look like myself these days. You know, she didn’t care at all for Sir Glamma Eralga.”

  “It would be convenient if Sir Kofa happened to be on duty. He could reverse the spell right away.”

  I parked the amobiler by the Secret Entrance to the Ministry of Perfect Public Order, and was suddenly stupefied. The vehicle began to disintegrate. Lonli-Lokli’s reaction was lightning quick. His arms shot upward, then dropped slightly to his sides, and tiny strands of metal and wood remained poised in midair.

  “Get out of here, Max!” he roared.

  He didn’t have to ask twice. I flew out of the amobiler like a bullet. How I managed to grab the carton of cigarettes remains a mystery to me to this day!

  I turned around when I was already in the hall. Shurf was pensively removing our traveling bags from under the debris of the amobiler.

  “Give me a hand. What are you looking at?” He smiled as naturally as if he had been doing it for the last hundred years.

  “You really are a fantastic racer, Max, if I do say so myself. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life!”

  “If there’s anything this guy can do, it’s travel far and travel fast,” a familiar voice sounded from behind me.

  I turned around and stared at Sir Juffin Hully in delight.

  “You wouldn’t believe me, Juffin, if I told you how long I’d been waiting for this meeting,” I said in the ingratiating voice of Sir Mackie Ainti, and burst out laughing at the unexpectedness of it.

  “Stop it, Mackie!” Juffin exclaimed merrily. “I can’t listen to that. Now try to greet me again, Max.”

  “Juffin, what’s going on?” I said in my own voice, and laughed, my head a-spin.

  “That’s better. Good morning Shurf. This fellow totaled the amobiler, just as I predicted. And it was an official Ministry car, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “He’s a superb racer,” Shurf insisted, dragging his valuable carpet out of the rubble. “Max, perhaps you’ll help me with this?”

  I grabbed the bags nimbly, leaving my friend to deal with the carpets, and Juffin and I went into the office to drink some kamra and shoot the breeze. The prospect was so tempting it made my mouth water.

  I got carried away, and talked without a break for four hours.

  During that time, Juffin had managed to return Shurf’s own natural-born face to him by some surreptitious gesture. (“It’s easier to destroy than to create, boys. Why should we wait for Sir Kofa?”) I was even slightly shocked at first. I had completely forgotten what Shurf looked like.

  “So that’s that story,” Lonli-Lokli drawled thoughtfully when I finally shut up.

  My ears were ringing, whether from exhaustion, or from listening to myself talk. Shurf, in the meantime, had gotten up from the table.

  “I’m going home, if you don’t have any objections, gentlemen.”

  “Of course, go on home,” Juffin said, nodding. “You could have left long ago. I understand, though. You had a right to hear out the whole story. It’s your story, too. I’m very glad Sir Shurf. About the adventure with Kiba Attsax, I mean. You think you may owe Max another serenade now.”

  Sometimes Juffin’s sarcasm went overboard, and this time Shurf and I glanced at each other. I smiled ear to ear, and he with the corners of his mouth, a hole in the heavens above him!

  Juffin gazed on this rare spectacle with pleasure, smiling from ear to ear as well. Such an idyll reigned in the office of the Secret Investigative Force that all the rosy tints in the universe would not suffice to describe it.

  Then only Juffin and I were left.

  “And where’s Melifaro’s curious nose?” I asked. “Where is everybody else?”

  “I ordered them not to disturb us. There will be plenty of time later for hugs and kisses of joy. I don’t want anyone else to overhear your report about the events in Kettari. It’s top secret, Max. I hope you understand that. All my life I’ve expected something like this from Mackie, but never anything on this scale. I can’t even claim that I understand it all now, but that’s not unusual. Mackie is the kind of fellow who isn’t capable of clarity. Show me all the maps of Kettari again, Max.”

  “Shall I give them to you, Juffin? I know you aren’t sentimental, but in the interests of the case . . .”

  “No. Keep them. You may need them. It looks like Mackie is counting on several more visits. By the way, did it ever occur to you that you needed to be very careful? It’s the most dangerous kind of scrape of all, the
one you got mixed up in. Though it’s also the most useful.”

  “I liked it,” I exclaimed dreamily. “What do you mean, Juffin? Dangerous how?”

  “Because you learn too quickly. And you display your powers so ingenuously. Mackie is very crafty, but he can’t always come to your aid when you need him. He loves confronting a person with his fate, and then—just leaving him to it. You know, in every world there are hunters who are looking for people like you. Compared to some of them, the late Kiba Attsax is like a sweet dream. Speaking of dreams, Max. I hope you haven’t lost the personal kerchief of the Grand Magician of the Order of the Secret Grass? I strongly recommend that you not go to sleep without it, no matter what. Never. Understood?”

  “Yes,” I nodded uncertainly. “But what—”

  “I don’t know,” Juffin said sharply. “Maybe nothing at all will happen, you’re a lucky one. But I want to be certain that no matter what you dream you’ll be able to wake up. That’s all. Now we can move on to more pleasant things. Praising you, for instance. You truly exceeded not only your own, but also my expectations.”

  “I guess so,” I said with a shrug. “But it doesn’t seem like such a big deal to me. Maybe I’m just tired.”

  “You must be. You need a good rest—reporting to work every evening, and so forth. Our notions of what constitutes rest are the same, are they not?”

  “They are,” I said. “We’ll start today. I’ll just go home for a few hours sleep. Or maybe I won’t sleep at all.”

  “Better take a few slugs of your Elixir and stay here till evening. Tonight you’ll stay over at my house. I want to figure out once and for all what exactly happened to you in Kettari. So you’ll slumber, and I’ll satisfy my curiosity.”

  “Wonderful,” I said. “Sleeping at your house like I used to, just after I arrived in Echo. Yes, it’s just like then! I’ve popped in, fresh from another World. It’s a good excuse for me to visit Chuff.”