Макс Фрай - The Stranger

Finally we finished our divinity tutorial and began sending signals to the world outside the cell. We were immediately released and led to the commander’s office. They fed us an excellent breakfast and plied us with fresh, hot kamra. It was wonderful. When I began to feel quite chipper again, I hastened to relieve my curiosity.

“Tell me, Shurf. How did you pass the time when you were small? I’m not asking about your childhood, of course. I mean when you were hidden from prying eyes in my tightly clenched fist.”

“Time?” Lonli-Lokli asked with a shrug. “Time, Sir Max, passed as it always does. During these few hours I even managed to work up an appetite.”

“What? Few hours!”

“Do you mean to say that I miscalculated?”

“We’ve spent three days and nights here!” I exclaimed.

“A curious effect,” Lonli-Lokli concluded impassively. “But it’s for the better. Three days and nights is too long an interval to go without sandwiches. One might call it a lucky thing that my temporal perception was distorted.”

I would have liked to delve into many more details about his existence in the palm of my hand, but Sir Shurf said that in matters like this you have to take it as it comes—you can’t learn about it secondhand. Then he generously offered to give me the experience firsthand—but I decided I’d had enough excitement for one day, and tactfully changed the subject.

After breakfast, we took our leave of the hospitable Sir Marunarx. It was time to head back to the House by the Bridge. I felt superb—though my body felt a bit weightless under the effects of the outsize portion of Elixir of Kaxar. I was tempted to fill my pockets with rocks to prevent inopportune levitation.

“I really don’t think you should sit behind the levers, Max,” Lonli-Lokli announced, getting into the amobiler. “You are the best driver I know, but even in former times, when it was possible to buy Elixir of Kaxar in any store, driving the amobiler in such a condition was strictly prohibited.”

I had to reconcile myself to it.

“Nevertheless, you Borderland dwellers are marvelous creatures,” said Lonli-Lonkli, driving onto the wooden planks of the ferry that traveled between the island of Xolomi and the Old City. “I must admit that I can’t quite put my finger on what it is that distinguishes you, but you are not at all like other strangers. Unfortunately, I am a poor theoretician.” With these words, the fellow buried his nose in his famous “work diary”—to register his fresh impressions, I could only suppose.

“What do you mean by that, Shurf?” I asked with unfeigned interest.

“Don’t take offense, Sir Max. It’s just that some are of the opinion that Elixir of Kaxar, like ordinary cheering beverages, acts as a depressant on the psychological state of so-called barbarians—please forgive the crudeness of the term. Some wisemen even claim that Elixir of Kaxar endangers the mental balance of your countrymen. It is thought that only natives of Uguland can cope with the effects of magic drinks. But you don’t seem to suffer any harm from it. On the contrary, this beverage has a much milder effect on you than it does on many representatives of ‘Civilized Peoples.’ That is what I meant to say. Again, forgive me for my tactlessness.”

“Have you forgotten, Sir Shurf? You are now my friend, and you can say anything you wish.”

Needless to say, I heaved a sigh of relief. When Lonli-Lokli started talking about my idiosyncrasies, I almost thought I had given away my true origins, and that all Juffin’s labor had been dust in the wind. But no—he was just amazed that I didn’t dance naked on the table after a few gulps of Elixir. Well, next time I’d have to make him happy.

Sir Juffin Hully himself was quite happy when he saw us, alive and triumphant, and all in one piece.

“I doubt that the problem of life after death is still relevant for the Grand Magician Maxlilgl Annox,” I quipped from the doorway. “If we had killed him when he was alive, anything could have happened. But we killed him after he had already died. Sinning Magicans, what am I saying! Stop me!”

“In any case, I’m sure his research is finished once and for all,” Juffin assured me.

“One hopes so. I didn’t much like your Grand Magician. By the way, I wanted to deliver him to you alive—well, as alive as it was possible to consider him to be. But it just didn’t work out.”

“Magicians be with you, my boy! You might not have come back alive yourselves!”

“That’s what I assumed,” Lonli-Lokli observed. “But an order is an order.”

Juffin shook his head reproachfully. I couldn’t figure out which of us he was more dissatisfied with.

“I was an idiot. I’ll mend my ways,” I repented. I collapsed in a chair, and right away realized I was falling asleep. Just as my eyes were closing, I muttered, “Don’t forget to tell him about the water, Shurf. That was something else!”

I was still feeling the beneficial effects of Elixir of Kaxar, and so I awoke only an hour later. I felt as light as a feather, and surprisingly chipper. My colleagues were drinking kamra that they had ordered in the Glutton , and were conversing quietly.

“Aha, he’s up and about,” said Juffin.

He stared at me with suspicious enthusiasm, as though I were a holiday pudding that may just have reached the proper consistency. It wouldn’t have surprised me if his mouth were watering.

It didn’t. But he did launch into a medical examination, though this didn’t really resemble an ordinary medical procedure.

Juffin asked me to stand by the wall, and for some time I felt his motionless, light eyes drilling into me—not a very pleasant sensation, I’ll have you know. For the first time since I had made his acquaintance I felt uncomfortable under his gaze. Then he told me to turn my face to the wall, which I did with relief. For a time, the boss studied my backside and its environs. Not satisfied with a visual examination, he began patting me on the back. This massage, in contrast to the “I spy” game, was enjoyable. Then his relentless hands—the sizzling hot right one and the ice-cold left one—were on my head, and I felt wretched. It was as if I had died and nothing was left of me. Nothing at all. And then I began shouting—not from pain, but to prove to the whole world that it wasn’t true. I shout, therefore I am. A stupid phrase, but it worked.

“Easy, Max,” Juffin said, his voice full of sympathy and concern, helping me into the nearest armchair. “Unpleasant, I know; but it’s over now.”

Almost immediately I felt better physically, but I couldn’t vouch for my emotional equilibrium.

“What was that all about?”

“Nothing, really. The ordinary dialog between the body of a healer and the body of a patient. Not everyone likes it. You, for example, didn’t. But you have to grow accustomed to these things, and you haven’t yet. Are you ready for some news?”

“Depends,” I answered cautiously. “Is it good? Bad? Or what?”

“Or what. Depends on your sense of humor.”

“Well, that’s never been too much of a problem for me.”

“We’ll put it to the test now. You see, Max, your . . . how can I put it most accurately . . . your physiology has undergone a change.”

“What kind? Have I become a woman? Or do I just never have to go to the bathroom again? What do you mean, Juffin?”

“No, everything is fine below the belt,” Juffin said with a chuckle. “As for the bathroom and other little joys of life—there’s no need to worry.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“Nothing really terrible has happened. But you do have to know, all the same. You’ve become poisonous.”

“Poisonous? Me?” Juffin’s revelation sounded simply absurd. “Do you mean to tell me that if someone eats me he’ll die? Alert the local cannibals, on the double! They may become victims of their own appetites,” I laughed like it was the last laugh of my life.