Макс Фрай - The Stranger

“—of the Watery Crow!” I added triumphantly, unable to conceal a smile.

“I’d like to see you smile if you met up with this fellow. Although, maybe you would be the one who could really keep smiling,” Mackie said. “Loiso Pondoxo was so formidable, I still can’t imagine how Juffin managed to win that Battle. Perhaps I’m just used to considering him to be young and foolish. Most likely—it’s always like that with pupils. I guess it’s the same way with children. Well, then, to answer your question, it’s all very simple. The Down Home Diner is on all the maps, right?”

“Right.”

“You bet it is. It was my favorite tavern down through all the peaceful centuries. From here you may reach any destination you have in mind. Just use any of the maps that show the house where you’re staying. The bridges themselves will take you where you need to go. Just remember—if you ever get lost, try to find your way back to the Down Home Diner . It’s your point of reference, your touchstone.”

“Great!” I said. “But my heart tells me I’ll have to try to find Lonli-Lokli. What if he ended up in the Kettari where there’s no Old Riverbank Street?”

“Don’t worry. Your friend didn’t cross a single bridge. I’ll let you in on a little secret—he never even left the Country Home .”

“You’re kidding! And he calls that ‘entertainment’? What’s he been doing all this time, eating?”

“He’ll tell you all about it. Don’t worry about him, Max.”

“Thank you, Sir Mackie. I’m grateful to you for the coffee, and to Sir Maba for the cigarettes. I never dared hope—”

“We had nothing to do with it,” Sir Mackie Ainti said. “It was all your own doing. You always get what you want—sooner or later, somehow or other. Strictly speaking, that’s a very dangerous quality. Never mind, though, you’ll manage.”

“I get everything I want?” I was astonished.

This announcement, in my view, didn’t conform to reality at all. Just what “everything” did he mean?

“Yes, that’s what I said. But don’t forget—sooner or later, somehow or other. That changes things, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” I sighed.

Then we both fell silent. I thought over the new formula for my own happiness, and Mackie observed this process with kind curiosity.

“As I understand it, I can come here anytime?” I asked, getting up to go.

“You? You sure can. Good night, Lady Marilyn.”

“Good night, Sir Mackie.”

I went outside, armed myself with the first map I hit upon, and turned toward my lodgings. I had to gather my thoughts, but the main thing was to make sure my new home still existed.

Everything went off without a hitch. The bridges led me back, just as Mackie had promised they would. And lucky for me, unlike Maba Kalox, he didn’t have the distressing habit of playing tricks on novices.

Making myself comfortable in the rocker that I had grown to like, I lit up a cigarette. The meaning of what Sir Mackie had told me was sinking in very slowly. I would have preferred to be a complete blockhead. My head was spinning in circles, my ears were ringing unpleasantly, the world consisted of a million tiny points of throbbing light, and, it seemed, it was about to implode.

Max, I told myself earnestly, get a grip on yourself, all right? Whatever those mighty Creators of the World may have done, it’s no reason for you to lose your mind.

This helped, as it had helped me occasionally in the past. I decided to take a bath. Twenty gallons or so of cold water on an overheated head is an ancient, time-tested remedy for all misfortune.

When I went back to the rocker, I lit up again and noticed with pleasure that the living room looked just as it was supposed to—without even the throbbing points of light. There was an ordinary human floor, ceiling, and four walls, all exactly where they were supposed to be.

“Okey-dokey,” I said out loud. “Now it’s safe to go wherever you wish, honey, whether to the Country Home in search of wayward Lonli-Lokli, or beyond the gates of the city to observe absolute emptiness, or whatever I’m supposed to discover there. I suspect that the first option is more tempting, but Sir Mackie was very insistent in urging the second on me, so—” I shut up then, as there was a clear hint of madness in that soliloquy. I smiled an apologetic smile at Marilyn, staring at me from the large antique mirror, then stood up and left the house with a determined air.

My legs took over and led me in an unknown direction, beyond the uncanny bridges and the narrow dark wrinkle of the Meaire River. To the city gates—where else would my crazy limbs be destined? It looked as though I had no choice but to go along with them.

Forty minutes later I was already walking along the ancient wall of the city. It was so high it seemed the inhabitants of Kettari had tried to block out the sky, and only after many centuries of stubborn effort finally abandoned the hopeless endeavor. I was able to find the gates easily. Too easily for my taste, since my fear was far stronger than my curiosity, and only a strange feeling of helpless doom pushed me to undertake this expedition. I passed quickly beyond the gates as I had once dived headfirst off an enormous cliff.

Instead of a yawning abyss, I was relieved to discover the massive silhouettes of the famous Vaxari trees, blacker than the sky. The greenish disk of the moon kindly agreed to light my path, and I gazed at it in gratitude. I had never thought a distant celestial body would do so much to help out a lowly human creature.

I found myself walking down a wide road. There was no doubt that it was the same road that our caravan had driven along into Kettari just yesterday. I ambled along straight ahead, realizing with pleasure that my mood was steadily improving. My silly, childish fears scattered into the dark lairs of my unconscious like scampering mice. For the time being, at least.

I don’t know how long this stroll lasted, but at a certain moment I noticed it was already getting light. I stopped abruptly and stared, flabbergasted, at the sky. It could hardly have been later than midnight when I left home, although . . .

Are you sure your sense of time is in working order? I asked myself. After the instructive conversation with Sir Mackie Ainti and your pathetic attempt not to cave in under that small avalanche of information?

I looked around, and my heart thudded behind my ribcage—but this time from joy rather than fear, though it was most likely a mixture of both. A few yards ahead I saw the end station of a cable car, and up ahead loomed a city in the mountains—the wondrous, seemingly uninhabited city in the mountains I always dreamed about. I was certain that these were the silhouettes of its massive buildings; its fragile, almost toy-like towers; and the white brick house on the edge of the city, atop its roof a weathervane like a parrot that spun even on a windless day.

This fantastic city was already quite near, and I realized I could use the cable car to reach it. It was the only means of municipal transport, as I well remembered. I also remembered that I was never afraid of heights sitting in the flimsy little car. I simply wasn’t afraid of anything there at all.

I crawled into the cable car as it slowly floated past, and ten minutes later I was standing on a narrow, crooked little street that I had been familiar with since childhood. Melamori, I thought, here’s a place where we could walk after all! How is it possible? A place so marvelous, and I’m all alone. I’m going to explode, it’s so wonderful. It’s too much for just me alone!

I didn’t explode, of course.

I knew this city better than the one where I was born. It seemed to me that now I had really come home. I had finally returned, not in my dreams, but for real, and wide awake.