some of your teacher’s luck will rub off on you, too.
For this small discovery, I had my unusual lifestyle to thank—rich in nighttime pursuits and friends, lucky and not-so-lucky, who managed to teach me every card game known to man.
So I had the opportunity to compare, and then draw my conclusion. When I proudly announced this conclusion to Juffin, he nodded absently, which could very easily have passed for agreement.
In any case, I had nothing to lose except one crown and a few bits of loose change, the entire paltry fortune that remained to me and Lonli-Lokli. If I lost, it wouldn’t be a great disaster. Otherwise I would just end up spending these riches in the first diner I came across, on some junk like the local liqueur—the mere thought of which, frankly speaking, turned my stomach.
I headed resolutely in the direction of Cheerful Square. I had no doubt about what the customers at the Country Home were doing at the spacious bar at the back of the main dining hall. I had a reliable witness—Sir Lonli-Lokli, who had lost his shirt.
There was one hitch in this whole affair. I hate playing with strangers. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but it seems I am really quite shy. But no one could help me there. And anything was better than sitting in the living room, watching poor Max lose his mind. A few trivial problems might make you forget about your one and only true problem. I crossed the brightly lighted dining hall of the Country Home and headed straight for the bar, plunged in semidarkness, where I found the epicenter of Kettarian card-playing society, just as I had predicted.
I sat down on a barstool, and without much deliberation ordered some Jubatic Juice. This was a tried and true beverage. In sufficient quantities, not only would it cure me of shyness, I wouldn’t even hesitate to sit, lost in thought, in a glass bathroom in the middle of the city’s central square after imbibing enough of it. For a while I wondered, would it be too dramatic to light up a cigarette without leaving my seat in the middle of the hall? Lonli- Lokli was at home asleep, and there was no one to keep an eye on me.
Finally, I decided that the more exotic I looked, the better. The sooner the locals understood I was a simple alien dork, the better were my chances of being invited to join in their sordid doings. A big gulp of Jubatic Juice gave me courage in my reckless, but essentially judicious, decision.
I waved aside all my qualms and lit up. If only poor Sir Kofa, the unsurpassed master of masquerade, could see me now! After all his efforts, here I was sitting in the middle of Kettari with my own inelegant face and unkempt hair, smoking something that doesn’t even exist in this World, and planning to drink some courage and fraternize with the locals! But whom did I need to hide from in this nonexistent city, in this heart of a new World—a World, moreover, that I myself was helping to create? It was crazy, but it made sense. So I finished my cigarette with great enjoyment, took a few more swigs from my huge glass, and reached demonstratively for the yellowish-gold, already half-empty, pack.
“Well, you seem to be rather bored, sir,” someone behind me observed politely.
“I can’t tell you how bored I am. Since the moment I arrived in Kettari I’ve been dying of it.”
I almost laughed out loud at my own awkward fabrication, as I turned to face the person who had addressed me.
Well, what a surprise! It was an old acquaintance of mine, Mr. Abora Vala, our Master Caravan Leader in the flesh. He didn’t recognize me, of course. Lady Marilyn, the most beloved of the fictitious wives of that passionate gambler Sir Shurf Lonli-Lokli, was the one who had traveled in his caravan.
The fellow studied my face curiously.
“Have you been suffering from boredom in Kettari for a long time already?” he asked casually.
“Five days or so, why?”
“Oh, no reason. I just know most of the visitors to Kettari by face, and yours is unfamiliar.”
“It would be strange if it were familiar to you. I arrived here to visit my aunt five days ago, as I’ve already said. And she didn’t consider it proper to end the dinner celebration for my arrival until half an hour ago. She went to sleep it off; then she’ll start preparing another feast for my departure, I’m sure. That’s why today is the first day I’ve ventured outside in the five blasted days since I arrived!”
In my mind I gave myself an A for quick-wittedness, thought a bit, then added a “plus.”
“Ah, that explains it,” my new-old friend nodded. “I’m acquainted, you see, with the visitors who arrive in Kettari on my caravan. And your aunt, I presume, met you herself?”
“Yes, she sent her sonny boy to some roadside tavern to pick me up. The blockhead is already about two hundred years old, but he’s still a mama’s boy. Can you beat that?”
“Yes, that’s the way it is sometimes,” the gray-haired gentleman agreed politely. “It sounds like you’re sick and tired of your relatives?”
I nodded mournfully. By that time, I had so warmed up to my role that I began sincerely to hate my hypothetical silly aunt and her hypothetical dimwit of a son, my cousin.
“Would you like some diversion?” he asked innocently. “Excuse me for being so forward, but that’s our custom around here. My friends have been enjoying their game for an hour, and I have no partner. We’re not playing for high stakes, so you won’t be risking your fortune.”
You’re darn straight I won’t, I thought maliciously. A certain cheerful and overzealous fellow already had.
“My name is Ravello,” he said.
Oh no it isn’t, you debonair player, you—it’s Abora Vala, as I recall.
“Don’t be shy, sir,” this cavalier liar whispered to me. “In Kettari it’s the custom to dispense with ceremony in making one another’s acquaintance, in particular if the gentlemen have the chance to while away the evening at a game of Krak. What is that you’re smoking, if I may ask?”
“This? A friend of mine brought it back with him from somewhere—from Kumon, I believe, the capital of the Kumon Caliphate.” I had read this name in Manga Melifaro’s
“The chap is a merchant, or pirate—you never know with these sailors,” I added. “You’ve never seen anything like these smoking sticks before?”
“Never.”
This time I had every reason to believe that Mr. “Ravello” was telling the truth.
“And where are you from yourself?” he asked me.
“From the County Vook, the Borderlands. Isn’t it obvious from my accent? Well, let’s play, then, if you haven’t reconsidered. But no high stakes.”
“One crown per game?” my tempter suggested.
I whistled. Right—no high stakes.
The speed at which Lonli-Lokli had emptied our money pouch no longer seemed so improbable to me.
“Half a crown,” I insisted. “I’m not such a rich man, especially tonight.”
He nodded. A half crown for a game is no small potatoes either, I thought.
The only thing left to do now was to place my hopes in Sir Juffin’s success. Two losses, and I could begin to undress, or go home—which wasn’t really part of my plan.
We finally settled down at a small table by the far corner of the bar. Several pairs of sly Kettarian eyes stared at me from the nearby tables. I shivered. I felt sure they were going to try to bamboozle me. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew they would try.
“Be so kind as to tell me your name, sir,” “Ravello” probed cautiously. “Perhaps you have your reasons for not introducing yourself, but I have to address you in some way or other.”
“My name? Of course, it’s no secret.” I deliberated a moment. “Sir Marlon Brando, at your service.”
It was completely logical. Who else could accompany Marilyn Monroe? A bird of the same feather.
Of course, “Ravello” was no more surprised than Sir Juffin had been upon hearing my choice of names for Marilyn. Such is the fleeting nature of earthly fame. Whoever you might be in one World, in another World you might as well be nobody.
“You can just call me Brando,” I said. If this fellow started calling me by my full name, I’d laugh in his face for sure.
I won the first two games easily and swiftly, to my great relief. Now at least I had a bit of breathing space
