The Stranger's Shadow

  He didn’t finish because he had already fallen asleep. I wished I could have followed his example.

  Of course, I could have off-loaded the driving responsibility onto Kofa’s iron shoulders, but we had already spent way too much time on this “field trip.” According to Kofa, he had been sitting here for almost a dozen days. Our only chance to get back home at one go lay in my crazy driving. I took a sizable gulp of Elixir of Kaxar and grabbed the lever.

  “What’s going on in Echo?” I asked Kofa. “Last time I spoke with Juffin he was taking care of some pesky problems. Another old friend, from what I could gather. Did you send Juffin a call?”

  “I sent him several calls a day, and not just him. I hope you don’t think my intellectual needs could be satisfied by personal contact with man-squirrels. We come from different backgrounds. That’s why the initial bond that we formed did not withstand the test of time.”

  He lit up his pipe, taking his time, and then continued.

  “Everything is fine in Echo, and that sly Kettarian fox is particularly fine. They are having loads of fun, too. The ship from Arvarox arrived two days ago. Sir Aloxto Allirox finally gave filthy Mudlax a warm welcome, congratulated him on the occasion of his early parole, and formally executed him right by the ferry crossing, much to the delight of the inhabitants of Echo. That’s it in a nutshell. Feel free to amplify the details with your imagination.”

  “I can’t,” I said, smiling. “I have a lousy imagination. How has Lady Melamori been reacting to all this?”

  “You should ask her. I believe that currently she’s not reacting to it at all. She’s dragging her Arvaroxian pretty boy along with her to the various fashionable taverns for novice rich people. You know, the kind where they serve those disgusting sweet liqueurs.”

  “Oh, so you hate them, too?” I said.

  “That is the only response to them,” said Kofa. “I’m happy that you understand me.”

  We talked about this and that as our off-road vehicle gobbled down the distance separating us from the beautiful Capital of the Unified Kingdom.

  The morning caught up with us as we were passing the Middle of the Woods.

  “Want to drop by?” I said. “I was told that I could always count on room and board in that place for just ‘one small money.’”

  “Frankly, I’d rather not,” said Kofa. “Their cooking is disgusting. If you keep going at this speed, we’ll make it to Chinfaro by dusk. That’s where we can eat to our heart’s content.”

  “Agreed,” I said and sped up a little more. The sounds of pinecones crunching under the tracks became even more frequent.

  We arrived at Chinfaro not by dusk but soon after lunchtime. The locals eyed my track-equipped amobiler with suspicion. I didn’t blame them. If I were them, my jaw would have dropped, too.

  Melifaro woke up only after I had come to a screeching halt by the Old House.

  “How long did I sleep? A day? Two days?” he said, still groggy. “This has never happened to me before.”

  “You didn’t sleep for more than a dozen hours. It’s just that Sir Max has gone completely crazy, praise be the Magicians,” said Kofa. “Never before have I met a person who could go crazy at such an opportune moment.”

  “We’re in Chinfaro already? Holy smokes, Max!” said Melifaro. “You saved more than just my life, Monster! But if I don’t take a hot bath right now, I’m going to die in your arms.”

  “Liar,” I said. “What you meant to say was that you’d die if you didn’t change into something bright crimson right this minute.”

  “Of course, I’m going to change, too,” said Melifaro. “And so should you, by the way. You look like a poor farmer from the outskirts of Landaland in these shabby duds. I wouldn’t be surprised if the innkeeper asks us to pay in advance after he takes one look at you. Want me to lend you something decent?”

  “By ‘decent’ you mean something garish?” I said. “Let’s give it a try.”

  The bathing pool with warm water seemed to me like the best place on earth. Thirty minutes later I noticed I was beginning to doze off. I got out, dried myself, and began to dress. The bright-yellow looxi that Melifaro had donated to me was as comfortable as its color was revolting. I have always been a sucker for things that other people have worn before me. I don’t know why.

  I dressed and went down to the dining hall.

  Melifaro wasn’t there yet, but Kofa was already munching on the contents of the many tiny bowls surrounding him. He looked like he was in a hurry to pay his final dues to his special “diet.” He wouldn’t have time for it when he was back in Echo, that much was certain.

  Kofa scrutinized me long and hard, from top to bottom, and was visibly dissatisfied with what he saw.

  “Maybe you should get a good night’s sleep after all,” he said. “Right now you look more like a Lonely Shadow than a human being. Are you sure nobody put a spell on you?”

  I shrugged and ambled along a crisp, elongated shadow cast by one of the customers. He didn’t even notice my maneuver.

  “Well, the fellow is still alive. That means I’m not a Lonely Shadow. I’m an ordinary human being,” I said and winked at Kofa.

  “You still look terrible,” he said.

  “As if he’s ever looked not terrible,” said Melifaro. He was in a good mood. “For Nightmare is his name.”

  Melifaro looked like someone who would grace the cover of a lifestyle magazine. Even his new attire seemed (who would have thought?) modest: he was wearing a new looxi of an acceptable periwinkle-blue color.

  My looks notwithstanding, I had the appetite of a tiger. After I had gobbled down an enormous amount of food, I finally reconciled myself to the idea that I would have to resign from the position of driver for the next leg of our journey. I think I fell asleep at the table, my head resting on a mug of kamra, and hardly even woke up when I was moved back to the amobiler.

  It was already dark when I woke up. Kofa’s barrel organ was silent. The amobiler was crawling past one-story rural cottages and houses surrounded by thick trees at a whopping speed of barely thirty miles an hour.

  “How come we’ve stopped?” I said sarcastically.

  “And how come there’s so much venom in a man who has just woken up? You should siphon it off into some special vial from time to time,” said Melifaro. “Also, I can easily take offense and start a fight. Before you dropped down on our heads, I was considered to be a fast driver.”

  “Were you really?” I said. “My goodness, you must have even outrun pedestrians on a few occasions. I know that’s considered an achievement among the official drivers of the Ministry of Perfect Public Order.”

  “Your waking up is very timely,” said Kofa. “I was just about to take your place.”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “I’m going to get behind the levers and hope that we make it out of Chinfaro today. Better late than never.”

  “We’re already about to pass Cheli suburbs, by the way,” said Melifaro, offended.

  “Is this still night, or is it morning? How long did I sleep?”

  “It’s around midnight,” said Kofa, yawning. “Go on, free up the seat.”

  “Midnight is the best time for ghost stories,” I said, getting in the driver’s seat.

  Melifaro, who had been fuming for a few moments, couldn’t continue his act. He smiled from ear to ear.

  “All righty, then. Tell me another one,” he said.

  “In a very dark World stood a very dark forest,” I began in a sepulchral voice. “Through the very dark forest ran a very dark road.”

  “Ooh, this sounds so familiar,” said Melifaro. “Go on.”

  “Down the very dark road drove a very dark car . . . I’m sorry, a very dark amobiler, of course. The very dark amobiler drove up to a very dark city, meandered through the very dark streets, and stopped by a very dark wall. Two men dressed all in black got out of the amobiler, and one of them said to the other . . .” I made a dramatic pause and then blurted out,
“‘Hey, Boss! This looks like a good place to take a leak.’”

  Melifaro laughed. Even Sir Kofa grinned in approval, but then he said in a grumpy tone, “Will you please let me sleep?”

  We mustered up all our remaining willpower and shut up for a whopping five minutes.

  Kofa slept for no more than a couple of hours, but when he woke up we were already approaching Echo—I had been doing my best to make up for lost time.

  “Whoa, we’re almost home,” he said.

  His familiar good-natured, kindly manner, which I had already begun to forget, had returned to him. I even turned around to make sure that it was indeed my good friend Sir Kofa in the back seat. Sure enough, it was him: the long-nosed, arrogant fellow was gone.

  “Woohoo, Kofa! Finally. Boy, have I missed you!” said Melifaro.

  “I did get on your nerves, didn’t I?” said Kofa and smiled.

  “Will you be shocked if I tell you that I enjoyed your company the same way I always do?” I said.

  “Are you saying I’m always that obnoxious?”

  “You’re wonderful, Kofa,” said Melifaro. He was moved. “You’re probably the best person in the World, but you owe me at least a dozen dinners. Your music alone is worth it. Admit that you can’t stand it yourself.”

  “Oh, no. Whenever I get the chance to get home, I always take out that toy,” said Kofa. “It calms me down and stimulates my mental faculties. I have no idea why everyone gets so riled up about it.”

  An hour later we drove through the Breach of Toixi Menka.

  “Ah, home, sweet home,” said Melifaro, yawning. “I’m going to hibernate until fall as soon as I get to my blanket.”

  “I’m afraid your hibernation will have to wait,” said Kofa, shaking his head. “At least for another half hour. Max, go right to Juffin’s house. I just sent him a call. It was a fatal mistake: He said he was waiting for us. Eagerly.”

  “Oh, no. What does he want with me?” Melifaro sighed a deep sigh. “What can a Sentry tell him that is even remotely interesting? That I stood on the Threshold and gazed through the mist with two pairs of eyes? He knows that already from his own experience.”

  “Juffin is also a Sentry?” I said. “He can do that?”

  “He can do anything,” said Melifaro. “Who do you think tutored me on all that Sentry nonsense? My mom and dad?”

  “You don’t need any tutoring in that department. You have an inborn talent for nonsense,” I said as I turned to the gates of Juffin’s garden.

  Juffin was standing on the porch, burning with curiosity and anticipation.

  “Just what have you done to the amobiler!” he said. “It’s hideous!”

  “Perhaps,” said Kofa. “But it can now easily cross any swamps in which we would have definitely gotten bogged down, thanks to your friend Glenke. That was quite some place he chose as his final abode. I’m sure it took him a long time to find it.”

  “Glenke didn’t choose where to settle. It’s his ancestors’ abode. They settled there back in the days when Landaland was considered to be the driest province of the Unified Kingdom. No swamps to speak of,” said Juffin. “Sir Max, if you are planning to drive around the city in this monstrosity, you don’t even need to wear the Mantle of Death. Just looking at it will make everybody run the other way. And I will be the first victim. Let’s go inside. Enough of your demonstrative pandiculation already, Melifaro. I am very much aware that you are tired, but I regret to say I don’t give a damn. I missed you, and I wish to talk to all of you. For your information, you have been gone for fourteen days. Of course, it could have been much worse.” Juffin talked nonstop while we were seating ourselves in his soft, comfortable chairs.

  “Is Chuff asleep?” I said.

  Juffin’s dog was my first friend in this World. I had never once left this place without having my nose thoroughly licked.

  “He is. He’ll probably wake up soon,” said Juffin. “What you and I need now is lots and lots of good kamra, and maybe something a bit stronger. I don’t think we should wake old Kimpa up for that.”

  He raised his arms above his head. It was a magnificent, powerful gesture. Such would be the gesture with which one would create a new Universe, or at the very least exorcise a few demons. But when Juffin lowered his arms, there was merely a tray full of various bottles and glasses in his hands.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” he said. “I sometimes feel ashamed of myself. Such a respectable old man with such a passion for cheap special effects. Still, at least I didn’t have to raise my backside off the chair. That fact alone is worth a great deal. Oh, before I forget, Kofa, did you bring me what I asked for?”

  “Of course,” said Kofa. From the pocket of his looxi he produced a tiny box. “You owe me three more crowns, though. The price has gone up, unfortunately.”

  “Thank you.” Juffin smiled from ear to ear and fumbled in his pocket for the money. Of course I was intrigued. The boss looked at me askance, smirked, and shook his head. “Don’t even think about it. I’m not telling. I have the right to a personal secret, don’t I?”

  “Of course you do,” I said and let out such a deep sigh that it should had been obvious to anyone that I was about to die right then and there, in the prime of my life and at the peak of my career.

  Juffin was unflinching. He carefully put the box away in his pocket and looked at us. “Well, tell me everything,” he said. “Not you, Max. We’ll save your story for dessert.”

  Over the course of an hour, I helped myself to the multitude of snacks Juffin had conjured up. Kofa and Melifaro took the lead in relating the story of our adventure. In their rendition our trip sounded like a mixture of a lighthearted traveler’s tale and a dramatic reading of a story of lonely souls lost in the darkness of the Universe.

  At some point, Juffin took mercy on the somnolent Melifaro and even asked Kofa give the poor fellow a lift home.

  Then Juffin and I were alone.

  “My turn to tell the story?” I said.

  “No need to,” said Juffin, smiling. “You did the right thing setting Glenke free.”

  “But how come you didn’t tell me I was supposed to set him free and not kill him from the start? What if I had defied him? What would have happened then?” I said.

  “Oh, come on. Do you think I should make the decision about what to do with your life for you every single time? Or provide you with a fresh instruction manual every day, for that matter? Tough. Glenke Taval has his own fate, and you have yours, and I have nothing to do with either of them. The best I could do was to make sure you two met and then see what happened. You both did a great job, so I can file away your encounter under Things That Improve My Digestion. That is not to say that you didn’t have the right to kill Glenke if he had made a mistake. Why not, after all?”

  “I still can’t wrap my mind around all this,” I said. “What about the story that he told me? Is it true?”

  “Well, how shall I put it? Of course Glenke told you the truth,” said Juffin. “Rather, what he thought was the truth. The problem is, the truth always lies beyond words, in that vague, incomprehensible area somewhere between what has been said and what has been concealed. I’m afraid the answer to your question transcends the ordinary yes or no. Let’s just say that you have heard another myth—the myth of the Origins. As a bonus, you also learned about the foreword to the story that had impressed you so much in childhood. Mind you, it was a foreword, not an afterword, for a true myth never ends.”

  “Actually, there’s only one question the answer to which has any practical significance to me now. Tell me, Juffin, is my life going to change somehow after all this?”

  “That’s a good question,” said Juffin, visibly excited. “It’s good, yet funny, too. Your precious life, Max, is definitely going to change ‘after all this,’ as you put it. But it’s changing all the time anyway. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “I sure have,” I said. “So does this mean that you and I are even older friends than I u
sed to think? And if it hadn’t been for your connivance, I might have become a regular, complacent bore living a happy life? I always wanted to try that, and you ruined my chances.”

  “There is no such thing as a happy human life,” said Juffin, turning suddenly serious. “There are only people, some people, who are dumb enough to consider themselves to be happy. Or to die happy. And don’t you tell me that you are jealous of them—I won’t believe you. In any case, that wasn’t going to happen to you. Even if you had devoted all your allotted time to fulfilling all the numerous trivial desires, you would never have been able to hide from the desperate longing for magic. Yet you would have never figured out what it was you were so desperately longing for. How’s that for an option?”

  “Not too great,” I said. “But it didn’t happen, Magicians be praised, so there’s no point in talking about it, right?”

  “It’s getting light,” said Juffin and yawned. “Did you lift that load from your two anxious hearts, Max? Or not yet?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe there was no load to begin with. I just didn’t like the term ‘Origin.’ It implies something grand, something launching lethal fireballs from its eyes, like Sir Shurf’s gloves. It’s so unlike me. But it’s just a word. It doesn’t change anything. I don’t care what someone is called. But I did learn a thing or two about myself, and that’s not bad. Still, there’s something pretty darn attractive about ignorance, isn’t there?”

  “There is indeed,” said Juffin, his face looking very serious again. “Although, one could say the same thing about knowledge. The important thing is to retain a good balance between the two.”

  “You know what I think? I think that heartrending story about the Origins is just like the one about my ascension to the throne,” I said. “It boggles your mind, shakes you to the core, disrupts your sleep, but it doesn’t really mean much.”

  “My goodness, Max,” said Juffin. “When did you become so wise? Did you catch something on the Dark Side? Speaking of your throne, some representatives of your poor people came to Echo last night. Right now they are probably sleeping in your palace. They declared war on their neighbors—just what the wiseman ordered. His Majesty Gurig is delighted. He has been pondering a pretext for inciting a large-scale attack by Xenxa warriors on the neighboring tribes, and your subjects just happened to indulge His Majesty’s secret desires. Isn’t that a miracle?”