by Max Frei
“The name’s Marilyn,” I said, and burst out laughing. “Gosh, Shurf, can you really make mistakes?”
“Sometimes one must make mistakes to be understood correctly,” Lonli-Lokli remarked cryptically, and went off to bathe.
“All the same, it wouldn’t have happened without your help! I don’t know how to find those places whenever I feel like it!” I called after him. Then I sent a call to the kitchen; Lonli-Lokli shouldn’t have to be the only one to bother with the trays.
A grand, dusky spring morning, a drive through endless green glades, a languorously long lunch of five identically tasteless courses in a remote tavern, the monotonous chatter of the other travelers . . . I don’t think I said more than ten words all day. I felt too pleasantly contented to break the tranquility with any sound at all.
“When do we arrive in Kettari?” Lonli-Lonli asked our Master Caravan Leader after we had finished our midday meal.
“It’s difficult to say exactly,” said Mr. Abora Vala. “I would guess in about two hours. But you see, in this part of the County Shimara, the roads are pretty rough. We might have to take a detour. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“A very competent answer,” I grumbled under my breath, getting behind the levers of the amobiler. “‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’ That’s just dandy. I’ve never received such exhaustive information in my life. It makes a guy happy to be so well-informed.”
“A girl,” Lonli-Lokli corrected me. “Are you nervous?”
“Me? Where did you get that idea? Actually, I’m always nervous. It’s my normal state. But today I happen to be feeling as calm as I’ve felt in eons.”
“Well, I’m nervous,” Shurf admitted unexpectedly.
“Whoa! I didn’t think I’d ever be hearing that.”
“I didn’t think so either.”
“We people are strange creatures,” I mused. “You never know beforehand what we’re going to do.”
“Indeed, Marilyn,” Sir Shurf said solemnly.
We continued on our way. Lonli-Lokli drove the amobiler, so I had an excellent opportunity to gaze about, savoring the foretaste of mystery.
The road was as predictable as a road can be when you’re seeing it for the first time. After an hour and a half I grew bored, and my vigilance tried to go into early retirement. Just then, the caravan turned off the main road onto a narrow path whose usefulness as a thoroughfare looked extremely doubtful.
Several minutes of merciless rattling and rolling and we turned again. The new road was fairly tolerable, looping a bit through the foothills. Then it suddenly soared upward at a dizzying angle.
To the right of the road loomed a cliff, overgrown with dusty bluish grass. On the left yawned the emptiness of an abyss. At that moment I wouldn’t have agreed to relieve Lonli-Lokli at the levers of the amobiler for all the wonders of the World I had a mortal fear of heights.
Struggling to reign in my panic, I recalled the breathing exercises and started in on them with a vengeance. Sir Shurf glanced over at me in concern, but didn’t speak. In a half hour my torments were over. Now the road was winding between two identically towering cliffs, which seemed to me to offer some guarantee of safety.
“I just sent a call to Mr. Vala. He claims that Kettari is still about two hours away,” said Lonli-Lokli.
“He said the same thing after lunch,” I grumbled.
“Well, nothing to get too alarmed about. But it does seem a bit strange, doesn’t it?”
“A bit? I’d say it’s very strange. As far as I understand it, the fellow makes this journey several times a year. This must have given him enough time to get to know the road.”
“That’s what I would have thought.”
“‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’” I said with a wry smile. “Maybe that motto is emblazoned on the Kettarian coat-of-arms. Looking at Juffin you’d never think so, but—actually, let me send him a call. There’s nothing much to praise, so we might as well grouse to a dyed-in-the-wool Kettarian.”
And I sent Sir Juffin Hully a call. To my great surprise, I didn’t get the slightest response. It was just like the days when I was a bumbling novice in the World and about as competent in Silent Speech as a lazy first-grader at his multiplication tables. I shook my head vigorously and tried again. After the sixth attempt I finally became alarmed and sent a call to Lonli-Lokli, simply to convince myself that I was capable of doing it at all.
Do you hear me, Shurf? Glamma? Whatever your name is?
“Are you enjoying yourself, Marilyn? It would be better if you—”
“I can’t contact Juffin!” I exclaimed out loud. “Can you imagine?”
“No, I certainly can’t. I hope this isn’t another joke.”
“As though I don’t have anything better to do than joke around! Try it yourself. It just isn’t working for me.”
“Fine. Take the levers. I have to sort this out—things like this can’t happen for no reason.”
A yawning emptiness like an ironic grin now appeared in the terrain to our right. It wasn’t terribly close if you tried to look directly at it, but terrifying all the same. I tried to control my fear, and gripped the levers. To admit to Sir Lonli-Lokli that I was afraid of heights—no, better we both plunge to our deaths.
My companion was silent for about ten minutes. I waited patiently. Maybe he’s talking to Juffin, I thought. Of course—he must be talking to Juffin. There’s a lot to tell him and Lonli-Lokli’s always very thorough. Everything is fine. Something is just wrong with me, and there’s nothing unusual about that.
“Silence,” Lonli-Lokli announced finally. “I’ve tried contacting Sir Juffin. And there is no answer from my wife, Sir Kofa Yox, Melifaro, Melamori, and Police Captain Shixola, either. And at the same time, it’s no problem for us to communicate with our Master Caravan Leader. By the way, he still claims that Kettari is about two hours away. I think I ought to continue trying to get in touch with someone in Echo. Allow me to remark that this is one of the strangest incidents of my entire life.”
“Oh devil’s thumbs!” was all I could spit out.
Lonli-Lokli didn’t pay the least bit of attention to this exotic curse—a good thing, as the last thing I wanted to do at this point was to try to explain who in the devil the devil was.
A few more anguished minutes, and I had already forgotten about the abyss to the right of the road. Apparently, my fear of heights was something akin to a bad habit, and getting rid of it was a piece of cake. All it took was concentrating on a problem that was much more serious.
“I tried a few more people. Everyone was silent except for Sir Lookfi Pence, who answered immediately,” Lonli-Lokli said. He was as calm as though we were talking about the ingredients of a lunch we had already eaten.
“Everything’s fine at the House by the Bridge. Something strange seems to be happening just to us. You can talk to Sir Lookfi. I think Juffin is right there beside him by now.”
“This game is called ‘broken telephone,’” I said.
“What? Which game is that?”
“Oh, never mind. Just take the levers, friend.”
We changed places yet again, and I sent a call to Lookfi, not without trepidation. This time everything worked without a hitch.
Good day, Lookfi. Is Sir Juffin with you?
Good day, Sir Max. I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear from you. Sir Shurf told me that neither of you was able to send a call to anyone but me. Isn’t that a bit strange?
Indeed it is! I couldn’t help but smile. I’m sorry we’re causing you such inconvenience, Lookfi, but you’ll have to repeat every word I say to Juffin, and then report to us what he says. Can you manage?
Of course, Sir Max. Don’t worry about me. No inconvenience whatsoever. It’s very flattering and . . . interesting. Taking part in your conversation with Sir Juffin, I mean.
Excellent, Lookfi, I said, and carefully recounted the few, but very curious, events of
the day.
Sir Juffin requests that you describe the route you have been traveling up to this point, after turning off the main road, Lookfi said.
I described in as much detail as possible the narrow, almost impassable lane and the twisting mountain road, the gloomy cliffs overgrown with bluish grass, and the bottomless precipices that opened up now to the right, now to the left of our route. After reflecting a bit, I recalled again the vague answers of the guide to the simplest and most reasonable questions—when, devil take it, would we finally arrive in that blasted little town?
Sir Juffin asked me to relate to you, Sir Max, that he lived for four-hundred some years in Kettari, caught well over several dozen robbers in the surrounding forests, and didn’t spend all his free days in the city. So it’s no surprise he knows every blade of grass in the entire area. But never in his born days has he seen anything like the landscape you’ve described, Lookfi said. And Sir Juffin also says that . . . Oh, Sinning Magicians, but that’s impossible! And Sir Lookfi Pence’s voice disappeared from my mind without a trace.
I tried sending him another call, without much hope of success. No response, just as I suspected.
“Now there’s no answer from Lookfi, either,” I told Lonli-Lokli gloomily. “Sir Juffin managed to catch the story of our absurd post-prandial journey, and announced that in the environs of Kettari there is nothing resembling the terrain we’re passing through. Then he asked Lookfi to relay something else. Lookfi heard what the chief wanted to tell us, said that it was ‘impossible, ’ and then the connection went dead. I wish we knew what Juffin wanted to say!”
Lonli-Lokli didn’t seem in the least bit perturbed about any of this.
“Let’s think about it,” I said. “Lady Marilyn is a simple, uneducated country girl. I won’t even mention the poor fool Sir Max. We don’t know the most elementary things, but I assume that Sir Glamma does know these kinds of things, and Shurf Lonli-Lokli all the more.”
“Can you express yourself a bit more clearly? What exactly do you mean?”
“Wow! My whole life I’ve thought that the only thing I knew how to do was express myself clearly. Fine. I won’t boast—I’ll just ask you a few basic questions.”
“That’s a reasonable decision, Marilyn. Ask away. Maybe you’ll be able to make some sense of information that seems useless to me.”
“All right. First, from what I understand, when you send someone a call using Silent Speech, distance is immaterial. Is that right?”
“That’s exactly right. The main thing is to know the person you’re trying to communicate with. And reaching him in Arvarox, if need be, poses no problem.”
“Excellent. Let’s move on. Is there somewhere in the World where Silent Speech doesn’t work?”
“In Xolomi, naturally—you know that yourself. I’ve never heard of anyplace else, though. Of course there are people who simply don’t know how to use it, but our situation is somewhat different.”
“All right, that all makes perfect sense. Tell me, Shurf, maybe you’ve heard about a problem like this one? Not necessarily a true story—perhaps a legend, or a myth. A joke, if nothing else.”
“In the Order we used to say: ‘A good sorcerer can shout even as far as the next World.’ That’s more likely to be a joke than the truth. You can’t send a call to the next World. Luckily, we have ample evidence that all our colleagues are alive.”
“But what about us?” I blurted out.
“I’m used to trusting my senses. And my senses tell me I’m absolutely alive.”
“Well, gosh! Of course you’re alive! And I am, too, I hope, but . . . Oh, the devil with all my secrets! You’re the best grave for secrets, your own and others’, I imagine. It seems we’re in serious trouble. It will be easier for us to figure out just what kind of trouble it is when we’re both on the same page, I suppose. What I’m trying to say is that the ‘next World’ isn’t necessarily a place inhabited by the dead. There are many different Worlds, Shurf, and I’m living proof of it. My homeland could also be described as the ‘next World.’”
“I know,” Lonli-Lokli said serenely.
“You know? A vampire under your blanket! How? Did Juffin brief you about me, or something?”
“It’s all much simpler than that. The ruse about the Barren Lands was really a good one, so for a while I didn’t doubt its veracity. All I needed was enough time to observe your breathing to grow suspicious, though. Then there were Juffin’s mysterious explanations about how our magic works differently on you than on others. Finally, there’s the color of your eyes. You are aware that they constantly change color, are you not?”
“I know,” I murmured. “Melamori told me.”
“I never thought she could be so observant. Well, that’s a special case. Don’t worry. People don’t usually pay attention to such trifles. I wasn’t sure myself until I traveled in your dreams last night. You were much more talkative than usual. But we’re for now not talking about you. Tell me, where did you want this conversation to go?”
“All right,” I mumbled. “Let’s just hope that Professor Lonli-Lokli really is the one and only expert on the matter of how creatures from other Worlds breathe. I began this conversation with the aim of informing you that it’s highly unlikely I’d be able to send a call to my mom, even if I really wanted to. Am I making myself clear?”
“Absolutely. But it would seem that a journey between Worlds is a highly unusual event. And nothing out of the ordinary has happened to us. So far, it’s a journey like any other.”
“A journey like any other? For several hours we’ve been driving through terrain that, according to Sir Juffin Hully, doesn’t even exist, and a local inhabitant can’t tell us when we’re going to arrive at his home town! I can understand your skepticism. It wouldn’t have occurred to me, either, if I hadn’t traveled between Worlds in a regular old streetcar—which in my homeland is as mundane a means of transportation as the amobiler is here.”
“All right then, you seem to know best,” Lonli-Lokli said. “Let’s drop the subject for now. Sir Glamma will think that he’s just driving to the city of Kettari, and Lady Marilyn can maintain otherwise. That seems reasonable to me—to watch the situation as it unfolds from two different vantage points.”
“As our respected Master Caravan Leader would say, ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’”
“That’s just what I wanted to say,” Lonli-Lokli said. “Don’t you think we might finally be approaching Kettari?”
“Yes, the road has suddenly become very smooth, though the surroundings still don’t look very hospitable. Wait a minute, what’s that up ahead? Is it the wall of the city?”
“That’s what I was referring to.”
“Soon we should be seeing the seven Vaxari trees by the city gates, and the gate itself, which still contains the vestiges of the carving of old Kvava Ulon,” I said. “Now that we’ve finally arrived, I’m as excited as though this were my own hometown and not Juffin’s! What am I blathering on about, though? If it were my hometown . . . Oh, never mind.”
“Eleven,” Lonli-Lokli said.
“Eleven what?”
“Eleven Vaxari trees. You can count them.”
I stared at the approaching stand of trees.
“Ha! There really are eleven! And Juffin said there would be seven.”
“Who knows how many there used to be,” Lonli-Lokli said.
“Do you know anything about botany, Glamma?”
“A bit. Why?”
“Doesn’t it look to you as if these trees are all the same height?”
“Yes, it certainly does. But they’re very old, because the trunk of the Vaxari becomes knotty like those are only when it reaches the age of five hundred years.”
“Exactly! Don’t you see? That means that when Juffin was here there should already have been eleven. If now there were fewer trees, that would stand to reason. But more? Oh, and here are the city gates—brand new! No ancient ruins decor
ated by the long deceased Kvava Ulon. Simple and tasteful. Congratulations, dear. We’ve made it to Kettari. I can’t believe it!”
“Sooner or later it had to happen. Why are you so happy?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, looking around in excitement at the curiously elegant little houses.
An abudance of mismatched, crudely arranged flowers decorated the windows. They would have horrified an ikebana artist, but they warmed my heart. Intricate designs of tiny paving stones in every tint of gold and yellow ran every which way along the narrow streets. The air was clean and bitingly cold, despite the hot rays of the sun beating down on us. But I wasn’t cold, and I felt as though I had been cleansed from the inside out. My head spun slightly and my ears were ringing.
“What’s wrong with you?” Lonli-Lokli asked.
“Lady Marilyn’s in love!” I smiled. “She and I are crazy about Kettari already! Just look at that little house . . . and that narrow, three-story one! What kind of vine has curled around it so that the weathervane doesn’t even budge? And the air—you can eat it with a spoon! Can you feel the difference? When we were driving through the mountains the wind wasn’t half so transparent and clean. Who could have thought that the World contained such a . . . such a . . . words fail me!”
“Well, I don’t like it.”
“You don’t like it?” I asked. “That’s impossible! Glamma, friend, are you ill, or just tired out from the last hundred years? You just need to take it easy. If you can share my dreams every night, if you want. You liked them, didn’t you?”
“Yes, they were wonderful. I must say, your offer is very generous. Even too generous.”
“Yes, and so what if it is! Oh, Glamma, take out the money—we must pay the rest of the fee. There it is, the bazaar! Where do you suggest we settle for the night? Preferably not too near our sweet fellow travelers. Let them think whatever they want. We’ve reached our destination, and après nous, le déluge.”
“‘After us the flood’? You know that expression?”
