The Stranger's Magic: The Labyrinths of Echo: Book Three

  Juffin chattered away while carefully pouring sand between me and the walls of the deep hole. I felt like a root crop, a gigantic carrot. It was funny, and under the influence of the overdose of Elixir of Kaxar, I giggled like a madman.

  “Aw, that’s so sweet,” said Juffin. “I love dealing with you. I’m practically burying you alive in a desert at the edge of the Universe; I’m about to summon Gugimagon, who, by the way, is craving your blood; and there you are, neighing like a drunk horse.”

  “Why a ‘drunk horse’?” I couldn’t stop laughing.

  “Because sober horses behave themselves, especially under similar circumstances. Fine, you’ve convinced me. I’m going to have lots of fun, too,” said Juffin.

  He turned around and walked toward the middle of the beach in quick, long strides. When he was about forty yards away from me, he stopped and yelled, “Gugimagon, you son of a werewolf! Get your backside down here now!”

  This impolite summons did more than just thunder above the beach, like a normal human holler. Each word Juffin uttered materialized as it flew out of his mouth. An enormous orange inscription hovered in the air over his head like a speech bubble in a comic book. The letters expanded, and at the same time the color began to fade. A few seconds later, they became pale yellow and covered almost the entire sky. Juffin raised his right hand and made a commanding gesture. The glowing letters flowed like milk out of a pitcher into his outstretched palm. He gave his hand a violent shake, and the transparent fabric of the writing turned into a thin cane, the color of ivory.

  “Come here now!” Juffin roared, plunging the cane into the sand. He sounded very compelling. I’d have submitted to his voice myself if he hadn’t immobilized me in advance. Then Juffin relaxed, nodded, and returned to me. “He’s coming,” he said, winking at me. “I’ve pinned him down. He’ll naturally flounder a bit at first, for half an hour or so, until he’s exhausted. But he’ll come all right.”

  “That was beautiful, what you just did there,” I said.

  “Thank you. It was for your benefit,” said Juffin. “I could have done the same without resorting to visual effects. I blame your movies for this. I never used to be such a show-off. But, you know, I like it. I have the right to make a routine job enjoyable.”

  “‘Routine job’?”

  “Of course. Chasing Gugimagon, that unfortunate talentless romantic and sucker for long journeys, through the remote corners of Xumgat is terribly routine.”

  “I thought I’d gotten myself into one of the most dangerous adventures of my life,” I said.

  “You thought right, but one doesn’t exclude the other. Besides, you were only in real danger when you were giving a lift home to your friend Shurf Lonli-Lokli. Now if you had been stranded here all by yourself, that would’ve been something different. I can only imagine what would have happened then.”

  “Well, I can’t. Which is probably a good thing.”

  “Hey, will you look at that!” said Juffin, pointing to the sea. “It seems Gugimagon has been eavesdropping on us. Now he’s offended and wants to prove to me that hunting him will not be as boring as I thought.”

  I looked in the direction Juffin was pointing and froze in horror: the rippled surface of the sea was no longer a continuation of the level of the beach. The sea stood on end and hung over us like a wall, defeating all the laws of physics, optics, and reason. The angle decreased at a dangerous speed: the wall of water was leaning toward us and was about to come down like the lid of an enormous box.

  Juffin sighed, got up, and made a nonchalant gesture. “Back off,” he said in the voice of a sleepy dog owner trying to get rid of a pet who has decided he wants to go for a walk at three in the morning. From my own experience, I knew that it could take until morning to reason with a dog. In contrast, calming down the sea was a piece of cake. A moment later, the sea was a smooth surface of lively shimmering turquoise, stretching all the way from the sand to the horizon again.

  “Don’t pay any attention to that, Max,” said Juffin. “That was also a mirage. Who does he think I am, a senile old man? I think I’m about to lose my temper now.”

  Juffin probably liked his own idea. In any event, he began implementing it without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Come here!” he said, hitting the knob of the cane. “Come here! Move it! Faster! Faster! NOW!”

  He was bellowing so loudly, I thought my nerves would snap. The last howl sounded positively inhuman. People are simply incapable of screaming in such a voice, low and shrill at the same time. I would gladly have burrowed into the sand all the way, so that I wouldn’t have to hear Juffin’s voice anymore.

  Finally, a large tall silhouette reminiscent of a weight lifting champion appeared in front of Juffin. From my vantage point, it looked like a giant. Behind Juffin, I saw another giant looking exactly like the first one. Skinny Juffin didn’t look like a match for them. He didn’t look much like anything. Thank goodness this wasn’t an Olympic event.

  “Oh, look who’s here! It’s Mr. Gugimagon himself. And he’s brought his Shadow with him. How nice!” said Juffin in a thin voice, doing an about-face at the speed of lightning.

  He grabbed one giant by the haunches without any visible effort and tore the bulky dark body in half, as though it were made out of cardboard. Then he giggled, jumped up like a flea, and grabbed the leg of the other adversary.

  “Poor old Sir Gugimagon. He no longer has a Shadow,” said Juffin.

  He lifted up the giant like a feather and smashed its head into the ground with all his might, exactly like Muscles, Jerry’s cousin from the Tom and Jerry cartoons. I’m sure Juffin, a hard-core fan of MGM shorts, reenacted that scene intentionally.

  “Did you like it, Max?” said Juffin, smiling one of his most charming smiles. He was still holding his adversary by the leg, waving him nonchalantly in the air. I blinked my eyes, not saying a word. What could I say?

  “Sinning Magicians, Max, have I finally made you lose the faculty of speech? Now that’s what I call a miracle!” He approached me, dragging along the huge Gugimagon.

  “You’re not going to kill him?” I said.

  “Why are you so bloodthirsty?” said Juffin. “If you had your way, all the Worlds would be as barren as this one. He’s as good as dead now, actually. No one can outlive his own Shadow—well, maybe for an hour or two. Enough time for me to have a good heart-to-heart talk with my old buddy.”

  “Great,” I said. “Can you dig me up now?”

  “No way! You are completely unshielded. It wouldn’t be a good idea for you to walk around the territory where two elderly men just engaged in Magic of the two hundred and twenty-eighth degree.”

  “Wow!” I said. “Almost the highest degree of Magic!”

  “Almost. You know, it turns out it’s much easier to perform at that level in a newly created World. A peculiar effect. Now I understand how you managed that wonderful battle scene with the beachgoers. I don’t think you’d be able to pull it off at home, which is probably all for the best.”

  “And I thought I really was that powerful and ferocious. Fine then. If not, so be it.”

  “All in due time, Max. All in due time.”

  Juffin sat down beside me—or, rather, beside my head. I had the feeling that I had nothing left but my head. My body seemed to have mixed with the sand and dissolved, and I even liked the feeling.

  The boss shook Gugimagon’s body like a rag. His victim sat up, his head lolling on the shoulder of his tormentor.

  “Sit up straight!” said Juffin.

  To my surprise, the body obeyed and straightened up. I could see the face now. Unattractive but impressive, it reminded me of the proud faces of Indian chiefs—not the real ones, of course, but their Hollywood incarnations. His right eye was shut, and his left one stared at me with a heavy, unblinking stare. The iris was dirty white. The pupil, bright as the sun, had the shape of a crescent. I remembered the conversation between Juffin and the wiseman from the Refuge for the M
ad: Gugimagon was blind in his left eye. Could’ve fooled me.

  And then I remembered something I couldn’t have known or even suspected a second before: This blind white eye had stared at me like this once before, the day I had been stupid enough to decide to visit my home World.

  I still shudder when I think about that adventure. From the beginning, everything went wrong: there was no Corridor between Worlds, no search for the right Door, not a single conscious step in the right direction. I fell asleep in my enchanted bedroom on the Street of Old Coins and then woke up under my old checkered blanket in the wretched shack that I once had called home, thinking that the two years of my life in Echo had been a wonderful dream I could already hardly remember.

  I had gotten out of that mess, found myself in a worse one, and, for better or for worse, gotten out of that one, as well. After I had returned, I learned to live as though nothing had happened, keeping my memories at bay, not panicking at the sight of checkered blankets. I had even stopped screaming in my sleep. But now, when my eyes met the pale blind eye of Gugimagon, I realized in an instant what had been wrong with my first journey, and why.

  Of course I had gone through the Corridor between Worlds. I’d fallen into it as soon as I’d closed my eyes on the Street of Old Coins. But on the border of the invisible and the unthinkable, in the place where a person is left alone with himself—without himself, rather—this very same one-eyed fellow had been waiting for me, wishing to . . . I couldn’t quite put into words what it was he wanted to do. But now I knew that I had been in danger that was worse than death—which, allegedly, is as bad as it gets.

  “You remembered him now, right?” said Juffin. “Yes, it was he who hunted you when you traveled to your World. Gugimagon stunned you good then. And still you managed to escape from him. Good boy. I wonder how many guys like you weren’t so lucky.” Juffin gave his captive a light flick on the forehead. “Come on, look alive, buddy. I have a question for you. You, Sir Gugimagon, have gone too far. It was one thing to slaughter those unfortunate madmen—I might have done the same if I were you. If Xumgat doesn’t accept you, you must hone your skills and rely on the help of the homeless Shadows that wander there—that would be a noble solution. But why on earth did you think you had the right to use the power of the true minions of Xumgat? Answer the question!”

  “You know as well as I do that this bastard isn’t human,” said Gugimagon. Not only did he say it, he pointed his finger at me in a most rude manner. “And I really needed your other guy. I wouldn’t have messed with you and risked everything if I could’ve done without him.”

  “They say that one who feasts too much on the powers of the mad becomes mad himself,” said Juffin. “Looks like they say right. How quaint. Well, I guess we have nothing more to talk about. Summon the others, Gugimagon, and let’s get this over with.”

  “The others? What ‘others’?” said the giant.

  “I know there are other minions of Xumgat here—or, rather, the parts of their spirits that you have managed to straddle. I can imagine what happens to the poor remains of those fellows, burning out without their better halves, not realizing what has happened to them. I can summon them myself, but I’m afraid I’ll hurt them even more. They’re in trouble as it is. Your game is not over yet, Gugimagon. Did you think I’d just kill you and that would be it? No, buddy, we haven’t seen each other for ages. You probably don’t even know that I can stretch out your death till the end of this World. The two hundred and thirty-third degree of White Magic—just one step short of the Green Fire. You don’t remember me fooling around with such tricks back in the day, huh? Would you like to die slowly? Let me tell you, this wonderful World is going to exist for a very, very, very long time. Am I right, Sir Max?”

  I nodded, even though I had no idea what they were talking about. The dialogue between the two old Magicians had completely drained me of the ability to think. The only thing that concerned me was this one-eyed fellow’s confidence in denying my human nature, not to mention his calling me a bastard. Not that I could be bothered by his opinion of me, but the information was worrying.

  “Since when have you paid attention to the delirium of madmen?” said Juffin. “If I’d known you were so sensitive, I’d have buried you up to the top of your head.”

  “And a minute later you’d have noticed my curious ears peeking out of the sand,” I said. “I could have pulled off such an innocent trick, trust me.”

  “I do,” said Juffin, who then turned back to his captive. “Come on, Gugimagon. Move it!”

  “I am not going to indulge your whims, Juffin,” Gugimagon said. “Do what you want, but those bastards stay here. All of you are brazen, ungrateful, senseless creatures. You were born with a wonderful gift, and you are incapable of understanding what it means to be a man who is doomed to stay where he was born. I paid a very high a price for my journey, and I want everything to stay the way it is now.”

  “You haven’t paid squat!” said Juffin. “It was others who had to pay your fare, and they didn’t even get to see the wonders for which you almost put out their Spark. That’s what drives me to fury! Summon those who can still return to you, Gugimagon, or else . . . You’ve known me for a long time. You know I always get what I want.”

  “Everything will stay the way it is!” said Gugimagon.

  “We’ll see.”

  Juffin lifted Gugimagon’s body and threw it upward. Instead of one, two bodies fell on the sand. Lightning fast, Juffin tore one of them in half, exactly the way he had done so a few minutes ago.

  “A Shadow can resurrect fast, but it can die even faster. Right, Gugimagon? I can go on like this for as long as necessary.” Juffin’s voice was quiet, almost tender. “I know it hurts, but you leave me no choice. Summon your captives before it’s too late. I can get carried away, and then, who knows, maybe Sir Max will want to take a few lessons from me.”

  “You could let me die a different death,” moaned Gugimagon. “You already got your people back. What do you care about the others?”

  “You sure do hate those poor souls,” said Juffin. “But envy has never set anyone on the right path. Quit fooling around and summon them, Gugimagon.”

  “All right,” said the giant. “But . . . Can you make me die in Xumgat and not here? I know you can. Will you do this for me if I summon those people?”

  “Sure, why not?” said Juffin, softening suddenly. “You should have begun with that request. You fully deserve this reward, Gugimagon. After all, you’ve done the impossible. But first I must release your prisoners. Summon them while you still can.”

  Now the one-eyed old man looked almost happy. His stubbornness, hatred, and fury were gone.

  He is a madman, I thought. What difference does it make where you’re going to die? A death is a death. Or not?

  Juffin suddenly pulled my ear. His face looked mischievous, but his eyes betrayed seriousness and even sadness—a very untypical combination for him.

  “They are here, our comrades in misfortune. Can you feel them, Max?”

  “I don’t feel a thing. Who are ‘they’? You mean those ghosts?”

  “What ghosts?” said Juffin.

  “Well, those transparent, shimmering shadows by the water. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. You see them in a peculiar way. I see them completely differently. Rather, I don’t see them at all. You and I interpret the same phenomenon in two different ways. Perhaps it’s all for the better. How many ‘ghosts’ do you see?”

  “Let me count.” I counted. “Seventeen.”

  “That’s correct. Seventeen. Ten definitely can find the way back; the others will have to take their chances. Look, Gugimagon, they treated you with the Crystal of Memory in the Refuge for the Mad. Hand it over. These guys could use some right now.”

  “Take it,” said Gugimagon, handing Juffin a dark, shiny object that looked like a piece of anthracite. “Why do you care so much about them? What difference does it make what’s goin
g to happen to those Shadows? They don’t belong to your people.”

  “Of course they don’t. They’re not even from Echo, not even from the outskirts of the World, except for one woman from Tulan. Magicians only know what they were doing here. Okay, I need to divide the Crystal of Memory into seventeen pieces: ten larger ones and seven smaller ones. Let’s see if I can make a good wiseman’s apprentice.” Juffin began to tap the dark stone rhythmically. “Done. There you go, folks!”

  He tossed the dark pieces of crystal into the sea. I saw the glowing transparent figures start to move. Something resembling hands stretched toward the pieces that were slowly sinking to the bottom of the sea.

  “Try to get back to your homes, people,” said Juffin with surprising tenderness. “And try to remember at least something of this story. The memory of it might help you later, when you enter the Corridor between Worlds of your own accord—if you ever do. Now I’m going to open the Door for you.”

  He raised his hand and, with visible effort, drew a large rectangle in the air. It looked like he was cutting very thick fabric with a very dull knife: the corners took the greatest amount of effort. At last, he succeeded. I saw the contours of the rectangle glowing with a pale reddish light.

  The seventeen ghostly creatures rushed toward Juffin, one after another. They vanished once they touched the glowing outline of the invisible Door. Less than a minute later, everything was finished. Juffin sat down again by the remains of Gugimagon. The giant’s game was definitely over: he looked less and less like a living person. But Juffin didn’t pay any attention to him. He turned to me and smiled a disarming smile.

  “Long, long ago,” he said, “when I was a very young lad, the same thing happened to me. Someone like this fellow here”—he nodded in the direction of Gugimagon’s immobile body—“stole my spirit. A small part of it—I was lucky. Naturally, back then, I didn’t realize what had happened. On the outside, I remained an ordinary boy. No one would have thought of taking me to the Refuge for the Mad. Something was missing, though I didn’t realize it. I was very young and didn’t know what other people felt. I thought the emptiness I felt inside was a regular human feeling, that life felt empty, stupid, and cheerless for everyone else, too. I couldn’t muster a genuine interest in anything. It all seemed pointless: boring and gloomy days that all looked alike, nights without dreams, and a weariness that seemed endless.