“Sir Max,” my savior protested in an injured tone, “my name is not Loki, but Lonli-Lokli. Until now you have always managed to pronounce it correctly. I would hope that the ability will return to you in the near future.”
The poor chap had decided, apparently, that I was as big a dunderhead as Melifaro.
“That was no slip of the tongue, Sir Shurf. I was simply reminded of a menacing god whose name resembles yours. Please don’t take offense, my friend.”
“I’ve never heard of a god by the name of Loki,” he admitted in surprise. “Do your fellow tribespeople worship him?”
“Some of them, anyway,” I didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow. “We of the Barren Lands have a multitude of divinities, you know. Everyone believes whatever he wants to. Every second nomad is a high priest. And some chaps, myself included, don’t believe in anything in particular, but take a lively interest in everything.”
“It isn’t secret knowledge, is it?” Lonli-Lokli inquired. “You could enlighten me about these matters?”
“Yes, I can,” I nodded resolutely. “For you—I’d do anything.”
For the next hour and a half, over the cold remains of the excellent prison kamra, I waxed eloquent on the subject of Scandinavian mythology, passing it off as legend of the Barren Lands.
I must give Sir Shurf his due—the Scandinavian epic was very much to his liking. He especially liked Odin, the chief of the gods and dead heroes, who brought the honey of poetry to earth. The Master Who Snuffs Out Unnecessary Lives viewed poetry with profound reverence, if not outright trepidation.
Inspired either by the unexpectedness of our shared literary passions or by overindulgence in Elixir of Kaxar, I patted my imposing colleague on the back. I had forgotten that in the Unified Kingdom this gesture is only allowed to close friends. Luckily for me, Sir Shurf didn’t object to this official acknowledgment of our newly established friendly footing. Indeed, he seemed very flattered.
Then it occurred to me that I had no idea what obligations my status as close friend of Sir Lonli-Lokli would entail. Here in Echo there must be myriad peculiar rites and customs surrounding true friendship. I decided I’d have to consult Juffin about it. Let him teach me how to be a friend here. And I’d write it down in my notebook and try to check every move I made against it. I just hoped that in the next hour and a half I wouldn’t offend him; that would be just like me.
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
“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
