“Are you dead?” he asked, with such intense scrutiny that it seemed nothing on earth was more important to him than a candid report on the state of my health. “In this place, the living can’t stand up to the dead in an argument, so you must be dead. Why are you on his side?”
“That’s my job—to be on his side,” I said.
And then I got just what I deserved. I felt Kiba Attsax’s right hand on my chest. Idiot! Why did I move so close to him? I berated myself.
Suddenly, I grew cold and calm, and I had no desire to fight with anyone anymore. I just needed to lie down and think a bit. It felt like the most primitive sort of narcosis. That infuriated me, so instead of shaking his hand off, I spat into the dead Magician’s face, already seriously disfigured by now.
“Shurf, hide him, quick!” I shouted. “Between your fingers, like I did with your glove. Hurry!”
I dropped to the floor to make sure he wouldn’t accidentally shrink me to keep the dead man company.
I just had to hope that Shurf was feeling well enough again to follow my advice, or to think of something better himself. I had run out of ideas.
Then, to my intense relief, I realized that Magician Kiba Attsax was no longer beside me. I turned around. Lonli-Lokli silently showed me his left hand. His thumb and his forefinger were pinched together in a peculiar fashion. It had worked!
We left that inhospitable room and went downstairs. I was shaking all over. Sir Shurf was silent, as before. I think he also needed time to come to his senses after his ordeal. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what this had been for him.
Outside there was a cold wind and a soft dusky twilight. We were alive, and we were walking away from the small two-story building. I turned around almost mechanically, and froze in my tracks.
“Look, Shurf! The house is gone!”
Lonli-Lokli turned around and glanced indifferently, then shrugged.
It’s gone all right, said the expression on his face. I realized it didn’t really make much difference to me, either. We kept going. Still, I couldn’t master my trembling. Even my teeth were chattering.
“Try some of my breathing exercises,” Shurf said suddenly. “They seem to have helped me.”
I tried. Ten minutes later, when we dropped into a tiny, deserted tavern, I could already hold a cocktail glass in my hand without spilling it or crushing it to pieces.
“Thanks,” I said. “They really do help.”
“What would they be for, if they didn’t help?” Lonli-Lokli asked stolidly.
“What are we going to do with him?” I said, trying to think practically. “Or do you want to keep him as a souvenir?”
“I doubt I’ll be needing it,” Lonli-Lokli replied. “In any case, I have to say your idea was praiseworthy. So simple, and at the same time it was something even I could do, although my chances of success were slim. You realize you saved much more than my life, Max?”
“Well, I think I can guess. I’m very impressionable. Your story about the dreams of the Mad Fishmonger are still ringing in my ears. Did this fellow do the same thing again? He managed to inform me that meeting him in Kettari wouldn’t be such a good idea, that here your chances would be no higher than in your dreams.”
“That’s how it is, indeed. You know, Max, we’ll have to kill him all the same. To kill him once and for all, I mean. Your mysterious friends, the ones who told you about Kiba Attsax—will they help us?”
“I really don’t know. We can ask, of course. Let’s have something else to drink, Shurf. Your breathing exercises work like a charm, but it’s better to take a comprehensive approach to restoring one’s health, don’t you think?”
“You’re probably right,” said Lonli-Lokli. “I guess I’d like to drink something myself.”
We silently drank some dark, almost black, biting wine. I felt astonishingly good: lightheaded and sad, and no thoughts at all—not one.
I wasn’t in the least worried about what we were going to do next. Deep down, I probably already knew, but—
Shurf gave me a quizzical look.
“Let’s go,” I said. And I stood up resolutely. At that very moment, it became absolutely clear to me where we were going, though I still don’t remember how I arrived at the decision. I felt I was being carried along and I couldn’t resist. I had no strength to do so.
Lonli-Lokli didn’t ask any questions. His trust in me seemed by this time to be unlimited. Maybe that was just as it was supposed to be.
We walked to the city gates. A few days earlier, Shurf hadn’t been able to leave the city, but for some reason I didn’t doubt for a second that now he could. If need be, I’d just say, “the guy’s with me,” and everything would be fine.
This wasn’t necessary, however. We left Kettari as easily as if we were passing beyond the city gates to admire the famous grove of Vaxari trees or other pastoral beauties. We walked down the road, and still my feet didn’t touch the ground. Or maybe they did, I didn’t know. I couldn’t think about that. An extraordinary sense of my own power filled me like warm water to the very top of my head. It seemed that during this outing I really could do anything I liked; but it never entered my head to take advantage of it. I just wanted Shurf to take a ride with me on my favorite cable car, and then—come what may!
“What’s this, Max?” Lonli-Lokli asked in surprise. In front of us was the boarding station for the cable car. In the distance we could see the delicate towers of my city in the mountains, and still further off was the white brick house with a restless parrot-weathervane. I looked at my companion happily.
“Don’t you recognize it? You were here not so long ago.”
“The city in your dreams?”
“The very one. And in your dreams, too . . . Let’s go for a ride.”
The little cabin of the cable car was meant for two, so we fit snugly. Sir Shurf stared, enchanted, now to the left, now to the right. His silence was not so much a sign of aloofness as it was the thrill of ecstasy. I felt as if I had just won the Nobel Prize or in any case, that my “outstanding contributions to mankind” were deemed worthy. The enthusiasms of Sir Lonli-Lokli were not dispensed lightly.
I laughed. It was as if I had been given a certificate that read: “The bearer of this document is immortal, and free to do whatever he wishes, now and forever more.”
“Now,” I said, when I had stopped laughing. “Throw your dead man into this abyss so that he doesn’t prevent us from enjoying the landscape. I think it’s is my favorite way of killing dead Magicians. I highly recommend it.”
A shadow of doubt flickered in Lonli-Lokli’s eyes, but he glanced again at the ghostly landscape that stretched out below us, then nodded and shook his left hand. Kiba Attsax plunged downward. He was-n’t the least surprised. Of course, he knew what I was capable of—the dead know everything. Somehow, I felt that Sir Kiba was not at all opposed to such a strange end to his long, tiring existence that confounded common sense. He disappeared; just disappeared, without reaching the earth. Which, to be honest, wasn’t underneath
I burst out laughing again, raised my eyes to the sky, and asked, gasping for breath in my merriment, “Did you like it, Maba? Surely you did!”
“Excellent!” said Lonli-Lokli, looking glad and youthful.
Now, however, there was nothing unnatural in his good cheer. He was like the fellow who had walked with me here not long before, when the city in the mountains was still just one of my favorite dreams. Shurf didn’t seem to have paid any attention to my yelps into the emptiness.
“Were you sure?” he asked.
“Yes. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea! But I was absolutely sure that this was how it would be. Look,
