“So you don’t speak Spanish?” Magnus asked. “Or you don’t speak Quechua? Or is it that you don’t speak Aymara?”
Magnus was perfectly aware he was a stranger everywhere he went, and he took care to learn all the languages so he could go anywhere he chose. Spanish had been the first language that he had learned to speak, after his native language. That was the one tongue he did not speak often. It reminded him of his mother, and his stepfather—reminded him of the love and the prayer and despair of his childhood. The words of his homeland rested a little too heavily on his tongue, as if he had to mean them, had to be serious, when he spoke.
(There were other languages—Purgatic and Gehennic and Tartarian—that he had learned so that he could communicate with those from the demon realms, languages he was forced to use often in his line of work. But those reminded him of his blood father, and those memories were even worse.)
Sincerity and gravity, in Magnus’s opinion, were highly overrated, as was being forced to relive unpleasant memories. He would much rather be amused and amusing.
“I don’t speak any of the things that you just said,” Ragnor told him. “Although, I must speak Prattling Fool, since I can understand you.”
“That is hurtful and unnecessary,” Magnus observed. “But of course, you can trust me completely.”
“Just don’t leave me here without guidance. You have to swear, Bane.”
Magnus raised his eyebrows. “I give you my word of honor!”
“I will find you,” Ragnor told him. “I will find whatever chest of absurd clothes you have. And I will bring a llama into the place where you sleep and make sure that it urinates on everything you possess.”
“There is no need to get nasty about this,” Magnus said. “Don’t worry. I can teach you every word that you need to know right now. One of them is ‘fiesta.’”
Ragnor scowled. “What does that mean?”
Magnus raised his eyebrows. “It means ‘party.’ Another important word is ‘juerga.’”
“What does that word mean?”
Magnus was silent.
“Magnus,” said Ragnor, his voice stern. “Does that word also mean ‘party’?”
Magnus could not help the sly grin that spread across his face. “I would apologize,” he said. “Except that I feel no regret at all.”
“Try to be a little sensible,” Ragnor suggested.
“We’re on holiday!” said Magnus.
“You’re always on holiday,” Ragnor pointed out. “You’ve been on holiday for thirty years!”
It was true. Magnus had not been settled anywhere since his lover died—not his first lover, but the first one who had lived by his side and died in his arms. Magnus had thought of her often enough that the mention of her did not hurt him, her remembered face like the distant familiar beauty of stars, not to be touched but to shine in front of his eyes at night.
“I can’t get enough adventure,” Magnus said lightly. “And adventure cannot get enough of me.”
He had no idea why Ragnor sighed again.
Ragnor’s suspicious nature continued to make Magnus very sad and disappointed in him as a person, such as when they visited Lake Yarinacocha and Ragnor’s eyes narrowed as he demanded: “Are those dolphins pink?”
“They were pink when I got here!” Magnus exclaimed indignantly. He paused and considered. “I am almost certain.”
They went from costa to sierra seeing all the sights of Peru. Magnus’s favorite was perhaps the city of Arequipa, a piece of the moon, made of sillar rock that when touched by the sun blazed as dazzling and scintillating a white as moonlight striking water.
There was a very attractive young lady there too, but in the end she decided she preferred Ragnor. Magnus could have lived his whole long life without becoming involved in a warlock love triangle, or hearing the endearment “adorable pitcher plant of a man” spoken in French, which Ragnor did understand. Ragnor, however, seemed very pleased and for the first time did not seem to regret that he’d come when Magnus had summoned him to Lima.
In the end Magnus was able to persuade Ragnor away from Arequipa only by introducing him to another lovely young lady, Giuliana, who knew her way in the rain forest and assured them both that she would be able to lead them to ayahuasca, a plant with remarkable magical properties.
Later Magnus had cause to regret choosing this particular lure as he pulled himself through the green swathes of the Manu rain forest. It was all green, green, green, everywhere he looked. Even when he looked at his traveling companion.
“I don’t like the rain forest,” Ragnor said sadly.
“That’s because you are not open to new experiences in the same way I am!”
“No, it is because it is wetter than a boar’s armpit and twice as smelly here.”