The Stranger's Shadow Page 10

  “Don’t you think that the ‘intensity of the emotional changes you are currently undergoing testifies to your low mental capacity’?” I said, mimicking Kofa’s arrogant tone.

  Melifaro burst out laughing. “I underestimated you. You are much worse than Kofa. Good night, Monster. Don’t get lost in the town.”

  He ran off upstairs to his room, and I went outside.

  At first, any unfamiliar city seems beautiful to me, and Chinfaro was no exception. I like to treat an unfamiliar city like some men treat a girl on a date—I gently touch the cobblestones with my feet and take shallow breaths, accepting each whiff of air, permeated with unusual smells, with gratitude, like a kiss. I do many other things so that the city doesn’t think I’m a thoughtless brute like all the others, and I tell it, completely in awe, “You are the most beautiful of all the places I’ve ever been to. There are no places better than you!”

  I say it with utmost sincerity—at least, I believe it myself—and the city believes me and reciprocates in kind. Soon after, it asks me point-blank if there is anything it can do for me. Maybe that’s why I’ve never really felt uncomfortable anywhere, except, perhaps, for the city where I was born. But back then I didn’t know how to charm anyone. Or anything.

  It was already morning when I returned to the inn. I was elated and emotionally drained, as though I had just returned from a date with a beautiful stranger. In fact I had tortured my feet, circling around Chinfaro’s old downtown lit by the bluish light of the gas-filled spheres hanging from all the trees.

  Without further ado, I slipped under a thin blanket and fell asleep instantly. It was a wise thing to do because that cruel Melifaro burst in and woke me up before noon.

  “What’s the hurry?” I said. “Are we late for school?”

  “Just wanted to ruin your day from the get-go,” he said, staring at me with imploring eyes. “Get up, Max, I beg you! Let’s go already. I can’t stand loafing around in this blasted empty inn. Also, it’s no fun without you.”

  “Really?” I said, fumbling in my bag for the bottle of Elixir of Kaxar. It still was the only way I knew to put myself to rights in record time. “You could have suffered a couple more hours. You were doing just fine without me for the first hundred fifteen years of your life.”

  “I was, but you’re like a bad habit I can’t get rid of. I fear that if things keep going the way they are, I’m going to have to move to your place,” said Melifaro. “Also, how come you’re so sleepy? What have you been doing all night, you monster? Murdering good people again? Orphans, widows, and other innocents that villains like you usually murder?”

  “You mean like their best friends?” I said, yawning, and went to the bathroom. Melifaro followed me there and sat down right on the floor so as not to interrupt the conversation. I was about to demand my right to privacy during such an intimate procedure as brushing my teeth, but then I changed my mind and said, “What’s Kofa been up to?”

  “He’s eating. And thinking. And cranking his dratted barrel organ. The dining hall is totally empty now. No one could muster the gumption to stay there and listen to its sounds. I’m about to snap, too. Ma-a-a-ax! Let’s get out of here! Puh-lease.”

  We went downstairs, where I had the chance to verify Melifaro’s words. The monotonous sound of Kofa’s barrel organ didn’t exactly facilitate a warm and friendly atmosphere. A few years ago I definitely would have gone insane if that had been the soundtrack of my life. But now I had Shurf Lonli-Lokli’s breathing exercises at my disposal. They came in handy as they never had before.

  As a result, I didn’t go insane. Instead, I had a quick cup of kamra and headed for the exit.

  “Finally.” Kofa’s grumpy voice came from behind my back. “I thought we’d never leave. Still, it was a mistake on your part not to have anything to eat. It’s going to be quite some time before our next opportunity to stop and have a snack.”

  “I couldn’t care less,” I said. “Say what you will, but I just can’t stomach anything in the mornings. I can always fetch something from the Chink between Worlds. By the way, if you feel like eating while we’re on the road, just tell me and I’ll get you something yummy.”

  “I am not eating any garbage from another World,” said Kofa. “My stomach is the national treasure of the Unified Kingdom. One could easily end up in Xolomi for maltreating it.”

  I wrote off his tirade as a joke, although I had my doubts about whether it really was.

  By noon we were already driving down the country road. It was too narrow and rough for my taste. It was flanked by dense woods that looked wild and uninhabited. This wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined a journey from one province of the Unified Kingdom to another.

  “The main road—the one that the farmers take to go to the fair in Numban and back—lies farther off to the side,” said Melifaro. “These, though, are the backwoods, in the most literal sense of the word. You should get used to the thought that it’s only going to get worse from here on out. Much worse, in fact.”

  “Yes, and all thanks to none other than Sir Juffin Hully,” said Kofa, “who sent us to wander about the swamps looking for his former friend, who is even nuttier than that raging Kettarian himself. A worthy task, I’ll hand him that. Me? I prefer different forms of entertainment.”

  He never stopped cranking the handle of his horrible miniature barrel organ. Now it was producing some new tune that was no less tormenting than the first one. I focused solely on steering the amobiler and soon was able to tune out the concert.

  Two hours into the journey, the road became so bad that I had to slow down. Sir Kofa was still torturing us with the barrel organ. I noticed that Melifaro had stopped complaining about it. On the contrary, he had assumed a placid, even dreamy air.

  “Has the music grown on you?” I said. Melifaro didn’t reply, and I thought he was sleeping with his eyes open.

  “He can’t hear you,” said Sir Kofa. “Nor can he hear anything. He had to resort to earplugs since his backwardness and lack of taste prevent him from enjoying exquisite music.”

  I had to laugh. Melifaro gave me a puzzled look.

  “Did I miss something?” he yelled.

  I shook my head. Melifaro nodded and went back to staring at one spot. I’d never thought the fellow could sit motionless for hours, not to mention remain silent. At the same time, he looked as contented as if he had been dreaming of this opportunity his whole life.

  Suddenly, the music stopped. Perhaps some local deity had been merciful enough to grant me a break. I praised the mysterious deity and focused on my driving again. Soon my nostrils started quivering as they picked up the appetizing aroma of good food. The temptation was too strong for me. I broke the rules of safe driving in all the Worlds known to me and turned around to look.

  What I saw was worth the risk I had taken. On Kofa’s lap stood an intricate structure that looked like a dollhouse with the roof removed. I peered closer and saw that I hadn’t been mistaken by much. It was a miniature replica of a kitchen, complete with stoves, ovens, tiny cooks, and dishes. Even the fire looked very realistic, and pungent steam was emanating from the tiny pots and pans.

  “I suggest you either stare at me or focus on the road,” said Kofa, “but not both at the same time. I don’t relish the thought of an accident during my luncheon.”

  I opted for pulling over to the side and stopping the amobiler because averting my eyes from Kofa’s toy was simply beyond my power. Now I noticed that the tiny figures of cooks were moving. Not just moving but cooking. One of the figures came a little closer to Kofa and handed him a plate with a tiny sausage. The sausage, however, only seemed tiny from my perspective. Compared to the cooks that had made it, it was enormous.

  “Can I please, oh please, have a bite?” I said.

  Kofa looked at me askance, frowned, and then broke off half the sausage for me.

  “Here. And don’t even think of asking me for more. You can rummage around in your Chink between Worlds, or what
ever you call it, and fetch yourself whatever garbage you can find there,” said Kofa. “There’s hardly enough for me. They take their time cooking as it is, and the portions are tiny, as you can see.”

  “Thank you,” I said, munching on the treat. “Mmm, it’s so good!”

  “Of course it is. This toy is the acme of my late father’s genius, so to speak. He had to go completely mad at the end of his life to finally invent this useful gadget. The old man didn’t want to leave it for me, but he had to. He had no other heirs.”

  Melifaro livened up, took out the earplugs, and looked at me, his eyes full of envy.

  “You managed to cajole it out of him?” he said. “Lucky you. I’ve never had a piece for as long as I’ve known him.”

  “Kofa, will you please give him a piece?” I said. “It’s not fair. I’ll get you my grandmother’s apple pie for it. It’s the best thing ever in all the Worlds. Well, except maybe for Chakatta Pie.”

  “I don’t want your grandmother’s pie. I told you I’m not going to eat any garbage from another World.”

  The tiny cook handed Kofa another sausage. The lucky owner of the magic portable kitchen hesitated a while, then snipped off a microscopic morsel and passed it to Melifaro.

  “Today is your lucky day,” said Kofa. “But no one is getting anything from me again.”

  “Pfft,” said Melifaro. “As if I’ll ever ask you again.” But after he swallowed his portion, he melted and added, “Thank you, sir. It’s very good and very tiny. What was it that you said about your grandmother’s pie, Max? I’d gobble down just about anything now, be it a pie or werewolf’s ears, as long as it’s tasty.”

  “Since we’ve stopped anyway, I guess I should fetch us something,” I said. “I can’t bear that smell on an empty stomach. I knew our journey would require extraordinary courage, but I never thought it would come to this.”

  “Well,” said Melifaro. “There’s courage and there’s courage.”

  I hid my hand under my seat and tried to focus on memories of my grandmother’s pie. My skills still weren’t perfect, and instead of Grandma’s pie, I ended up with some other generic variety. It wasn’t too bad, but it couldn’t hold a candle to my grandmother’s baking.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It’s a different pie. And not the best kind.” I felt nervous, as though I were responsible for upholding the reputation of apple pie before Melifaro.

  “It’s very good, though,” he said. “Or maybe I’m just too hungry to be discriminating.”

  I realized that we could move our jaws while driving, too, and sped off. The journey became more and more difficult: the road deteriorated with each new mile, and the aroma coming from Kofa’s “field canteen” was killing me.

  An hour later, Kofa’s commanding voice rang out in back of me: “We’re about to turn left. You need to slow down. This road is only good for birds.”

  “For birds?” I said.

  “Yes, birds. You know, the creatures that flap their wings to stay up in the air? That’s why they don’t need roads,” Kofa shot back in a rude tone. “Here’s the turn. Don’t miss it!”

  “Miss it?” I said. “How can I miss it, crawling along at this pace? Or do you still think I’m driving too fast?”

  This new road was barely maneuverable. It was just a path running through the murky, dense woods.

  “Holy mackerel!” I said.

  “Yes, and it’s going to get even worse than this,” said Kofa.

  After a couple of hours of battling bumps and potholes at a snail’s pace, the amobiler’s wheels started getting stuck. I persevered a little longer and then finally gave up and stopped.

  “Good thinking,” said Melifaro. “Your pie was great, but I’m still hungry. Fetch us something else.”

  “That I can do, but that’s not the reason I’m stopping. We can hardly drive any farther.”

  “If it is only ‘hardly,’ than that’s no reason for stopping. We should keep driving while it is still possible, no matter how hard, and only stop when it becomes impossible,” said Kofa.

  “If we keep driving while it’s still technically possible, I’ll end up wrecking our only amobiler,” I said. “We’d better come up with a plan B.”

  “You’d better focus on getting us food,” said Melifaro. “Then you can come up with any plan you wish.”

  I stuck my hand under the seat again. This time it took me a lot longer before I sensed the familiar numbness in my fingers. My efforts resulted in a skillet full of ordinary fried potatoes. Melifaro, however, liked it. He even referred to it as a delicacy. Kofa looked at us with disgust but didn’t say anything.

  While they were munching on their respective provisions, my mind cast around frantically for a solution to our transportation problem.

  “Tell me,” I said, “among those movies that you all watch so fervently on the Street of Old Coins, were there any about war?”

  “Is this dinner conversation, or are you actually trying to make a point?” said Kofa. “Frankly, I still don’t know which of the numerous disasters that beset your horrible homeland you call war. Is it when one man chases another around with some sort of shooting device in his hand?”

  “No, that’s probably a detective movie. Well, okay, forget war. Maybe you saw a transportation vehicle with tracks instead of wheels? They are these long, sort of crawling . . . things . . . at the sides. Heck, I have no idea how to explain it,” I said.

  “I think I know what you’re talking about,” said Melifaro, his mouth full. “Why, though?”

  “Because my next question is: Would you, O mighty magicians, work some magic and transform my amobiler into one of those things? Because we’re not going to get far on wheels.”

  “We could try, I suppose. Can’t you do it, though?”

  “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Actually, I don’t know either,” said Melifaro, “but I can still try.”

  “You know what would really be great?” I said. “It would be great if you could transform this buggy into some sort of flying machine.”

  The two stared at me as though I had asked them to strip off all their clothes and play hopscotch.

  “You probably didn’t know this,” said Kofa, “but it takes a great deal of the power of the Heart of the World just to launch yourself into the sky. Such things are only possible in Echo, and then not for everybody. I myself have only done it four times, and have no inclination to repeat those experiments. And you want us to make an amobiler fly?”

  “Okay, fine. You can’t make it fly. I get it,” I said, sighing. “What about the tracks? Melifaro, could you try it?”

  “Not me—we could try it. Or did you think I was going to sweat it here alone while you and Kofa are off in the woods picking flowers?” said Melifaro.

  “I could stand by and try to sweat, too, to keep you company,” I said.

  “Do as you please,” said Kofa. “I am not going to do any physical labor. You are both strapping young lads, full of energy. You can have all the fun you want. But spare me.”

  He got out of the amobiler, gave the dense woods around us a scornful look, and began filling his pipe. Melifaro was also looking around.

  “See, Max, I can’t create something out of thin air,” he explained. “So you and I are going to have to remove the wheels from the amobiler and make some kind of prototype of the tracks. Doesn’t matter how bad it looks as long as it looks like anything at all. Turning a bad thing into a good thing, that I can do. Making something out of nothing, that’s not my line.”

  I was beginning to regret the whole idea, but after taking a few paces down the path, I realized I had stopped the amobiler just in time. It was so swampy that even my boots got bogged down immediately. We needed an off-road vehicle, and we needed it badly. Otherwise we’d have to headhunt for Magician Glenke Taval on foot.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s make a prototype. But we don’t need to remove the wheels. We’ll put a few thick branches on
them and wrap some rags around the whole thing. It’ll make one heck of a travesty of what we need. I just hope you can do some wicked magic on what we come up with.”

  “And where do you propose we get ‘some rags’?” said Melifaro.

  “I suspect you brought a few changes of clothes with you,” I said. “I’m sure Sir Glenke Taval wouldn’t mind if you came to his funeral dressed in your traveling attire.”

  “Don’t even think about it!” said Melifaro. “My clothes are a memorial to the money I spent on them. For your information, I order my clothes from the best tailors in Echo.”

  “Oh, really? It’s not evident to me. Don’t fret over it. You’ll write a note to Sir Dondi Melixis, and the Treasury will reimburse your for your irreplaceable loss.”

  “It’s your wardrobe that deserves to be sacrificed, if anyone’s does,” said Melifaro, offended.

  “That may be true, but I only brought one spare looxi with me, and it simply won’t be enough.”

  “What about you, Kofa?” Poor Melifaro made one last desperate attempt to save his wardrobe. “Have you brought any clothes that you’d be embarrassed to wear in public?”

  “Stop running off at the mouth,” said Kofa, launching a puff of smoke directly into Melifaro’s face. “Do you think I will let you ruin my garb for some silly experiments in magic? I sometimes think that people under the age of two hundred should be isolated from society. Every last one of them. Young fools are more dangerous than madmen.”

  “I sometimes think society should be isolated from smokers,” Melifaro snarled back.

  “I’ll bet both of you are going to bury me alive. I’m way younger than two hundred, and I’m going to smoke now,” I said, taking out a cigarette from my pocket.

  My companions seemed to like the idea of burying me alive. They even stopped bickering. Then we got down to work. One would be hard-pressed to think of a more moronic activity. I really hoped Melifaro hadn’t come up with his prototype idea just to get back at me. But when I saw him take out a revolting yellow looxi from his suitcase as his contribution to the project, I knew he wasn’t playing a prank on me. Melifaro was a first-class prankster, but not at the expense of his garments.