The Stranger (90 page)
Authors: Max Frei,Polly Gannon
Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Horror, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Epic
“It would never have entered my head. No nocturnal ramblings! If tipsy barflies begin making passes at Lady Marilyn, I’ll have to spit at them. And that doesn’t conform to my notions of propriety and discretion.”
“In that case, I beg your pardon. Good night, Marilyn.”
My companion dozed off. I crawled under my blanket and let my mind wander. I had quite enough to think about after our instructive conversation. At the same time, I could take advantage of the free time and snatch a few cigarettes from under my wonder-working pillow.
I only managed to fall asleep at dawn, and an hour later Sir Shurf, already impeccably groomed and alert, thrust a tray with kamra and sandwiches under my nose.
“I’m very sorry, but we’re leaving in half an hour. I think you ought to use some of your supply of Elixir of Kaxar.”
“No, it’s better if I sleep in the amobiler,” I said, lifting my heavy head from the pillow. “Thanks for your concern, Glamma. Your wife—I mean the real wife of Lonli-Lokli—must be the happiest of women.”
“I hope so,” said Shurf. “I have a strange fate, Marilyn. Real wife or no, I’m the one who serves her kamra in bed, and not the other way around.”
“Sinning Magicians, was that a joke I just heard?”
“It’s simply a statement of fact. If you wish to bathe, you’d better hurry.”
“Of course I want to!” I swallowed the kamra down in one gulp, I couldn’t even look at the food.
I settled down in the back seat of the amobiler, leaving my fellow travelers to contemplate the dreary, monotonous plains stretching to the west of Uguland. I fell asleep so soundly that Sir Lonli-Lokli’s attempts to make me come out for lunch proved futile. “Just tell them that the lady is suffering from motion sickness,” I grumbled sourly, and dove headfirst into the sweetest of sweet dreams.
I awoke not long before sundown. I was as happy, rested, and hungry, all at once, as I had been in a long time.
“I took a few sandwiches from the tavern where we had lunch,” Lonli-Lokli said. “I think it was the right thing to do.”
“You got that right,” I said gratefully. “I hope it’s not some inedible stuff again.”
“The local cuisine differs from that of the Capital, naturally,” said Sir Shurf. “But one shouldn’t underestimate the benefit of some variety in life.”
“Oh, I’m conservative in these matters,” I said with my mouth full. “Maybe it’s time for me to take over from you, Glamma? I hope you trust me behind the levers by now.”
“Of course I do. You can do as you wish, though I’m not really tired yet.”
“One shouldn’t underestimate the benefit of some variety in life. End of quote.”
“Touché.”
My Lady Marilyn made herself comfortable at the levers and daringly lit up a cigarette. I couldn’t wait to partake of the fruits of my night’s labor.
Lonli-Lokli grew visibly uneasy.
“I don’t know where these strange smoking accoutrements come from, but you should hide them from the gaze of strangers. What is all right for Max is not necessarily acceptable for an ordinary citizen, Lady Marilyn.”
“I’m a stranger myself, if you care to remember! And it’s very unlikely that anyone is observing us now.”
“Not now, no, but during the stops.”
“I’m not a complete dunce!” I retorted. “Do you really think I’d light up a cigarette in the company of other people, Shurf?”
“It’s always better to be forewarned. Besides, you probably haven’t considered that it would be better to burn the butts than to throw them away. You really must mind your manners, Marilyn,” my companion reprimanded me.
I burst out laughing. Our dialogue was becoming heated. When I had recovered, I carefully burned my cigarette butt. Lonli-Lokli was, after all, the wisest of mortals. And I was a frivolous ninny who knew nothing about the paramount demands of secrecy.
That night we had already reached the County Shimara. Our Master Caravan Leader sat down at the card table again, and we dined on something exotic—too spicy and oily for my tastes—then went to the night’s lodgings.
Only then did I realize that the huge residential hall was outside the territory of the Unified Kingdom. Our room was not much larger than an ordinary hotel room in my own world, and the bed was a regular double bed. I looked at Lonli-Lokli in dismay.
“Well, I’ll be! It looks like we’ll have to sleep in each other’s embrace, my darling!”
“That may be rather inconvenient,” Sir Shurf said. “Besides, since it has come to this, I can offer you the possibility of using my sleep. When people sleep side by side, it’s fairly easy to do so.”
“How do you mean?” I asked, puzzled. “I’ll have your dreams instead of my own? And anyway, it won’t work—Lady Marilyn slept until sundown.”
“When one person shares his sleep with another, they fall asleep simultaneously,” Shurf explained. “I’ll put you to sleep, and then I’ll wake you up. But I don’t know in advance whose dreams we’ll have: yours, mine, or both at the same time. It’s up to us to decide. Anyway, I think this solution to the dilemma is a reasonable one. Tomorrow after lunch we’ll be in Kettari, and you’ll have to be awake and alert the whole day. If I’ve understood correctly, Sir Juffin wanted us to pay close attention to the road leading into the city.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “Do you have good dreams, Glamma? After the story about some of Sir Lonli-Lokli’s dreams—”
“I would never propose that you share my nightmares. Luckily, I have been free of them for a long time.”
“Well, I can’t vouch for my dreams,” I said, and sighed. “Sometimes I see such terrible things in my dreams that it’s enough to make you despair. Do you like taking risks, Glamma?”
“There’s no risk involved, since I’m always able to wake up at will. Lie down, Marilyn. We mustn’t waste any more valuable time.”
I quickly undressed, surprised again that my body had remained the same beneath the illusion of Lady Marilyn, so very plausible and genuine.
It’s time to sleep in your pajamas, kid, I thought. You’re not going to walk around naked in your friend Shurf’s dreamworld, are you? It’s wouldn’t be polite.
“It’s best if our heads are touching,” Lonli-Lokli said. “I’m not an expert in these matters by a long shot.”
“Okay,” I said, and obediently shifted my head. “All the more since putting to sleep such a live-wire as myself . . .” I yawned without finishing my thought, ready to peek into my companion’s dreams.
It turned out that the “projectionist” in this small dream-cinema for two was me. My favorite dreams of all visited us that night—the city in the mountains, where the only kind of municipal transport was a cable car; the marvelous English park that was always empty; the line of sandy beaches on the shore of a dark, gloomy sea.
I wandered through these extraordinary dreamscapes, now and then exclaiming, “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” “Wonderful!” my partner agreed, an astonishing fellow who didn’t look at all like my good friend Sir Shurf Lonli-Lokli, nor like the Mad Fishmonger who once terrorized all of Echo, nor like Sir Glamma Eralga.
I awoke at dawn, happy and full of peaceful well-being.
“Thank you for that wonderful excursion,” I said, smiling at Lonli-Lokli, who was already pulling on Glamma’s blue skaba.
“I’m the one who should be thanking you, since our dreams belonged to Sir Max. I’ve never had the opportunity to be in places like that before. Without the slightest doubt, they’re marvelous. I never expected anything like that from you, Sir Max.”
“The name’s Marilyn,” I said, and burst out laughing. “Gosh, Shurf, can you really make mistakes?”
“Sometimes one must make mistakes to be understood correctly,” Lonli-Lokli remarked cryptically, and went off to bathe.
“All the same, it wouldn’t have happened without your help! I don’t know how to find those places whenever I feel like it!” I called after him. Then I sent a call to the kitchen; Lonli-Lokli shouldn’t have to be the only one to bother with the trays.
A grand, dusky spring morning, a drive through endless green glades, a languorously long lunch of five identically tasteless courses in a remote tavern, the monotonous chatter of the other travelers . . . I don’t think I said more than ten words all day. I felt too pleasantly contented to break the tranquility with any sound at all.
“When do we arrive in Kettari?” Lonli-Lonli asked our Master Caravan Leader after we had finished our midday meal.
“It’s difficult to say exactly,” said Mr. Abora Vala. “I would guess in about two hours. But you see, in this part of the County Shimara, the roads are pretty rough. We might have to take a detour. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“A very competent answer,” I grumbled under my breath, getting behind the levers of the amobiler. “‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’ That’s just dandy. I’ve never received such exhaustive information in my life. It makes a guy happy to be so well-informed.”
“A girl,” Lonli-Lokli corrected me. “Are you nervous?”
“Me? Where did you get that idea? Actually, I’m always nervous. It’s my normal state. But today I happen to be feeling as calm as I’ve felt in eons.”
“Well, I’m nervous,” Shurf admitted unexpectedly.
“Whoa! I didn’t think I’d ever be hearing that.”
“I didn’t think so either.”
“We people are strange creatures,” I mused. “You never know beforehand what we’re going to do.”
“Indeed, Marilyn,” Sir Shurf said solemnly.
We continued on our way. Lonli-Lokli drove the amobiler, so I had an excellent opportunity to gaze about, savoring the foretaste of mystery.
The road was as predictable as a road can be when you’re seeing it for the first time. After an hour and a half I grew bored, and my vigilance tried to go into early retirement. Just then, the caravan turned off the main road onto a narrow path whose usefulness as a thoroughfare looked extremely doubtful.
Several minutes of merciless rattling and rolling and we turned again. The new road was fairly tolerable, looping a bit through the foothills. Then it suddenly soared upward at a dizzying angle.
To the right of the road loomed a cliff, overgrown with dusty bluish grass. On the left yawned the emptiness of an abyss. At that moment I wouldn’t have agreed to relieve Lonli-Lokli at the levers of the amobiler for all the wonders of the World I had a mortal fear of heights.
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