Unnatural Creatures

11


Two of my very favorite writers, growing up, were SAMUEL R. DELANY, who wrote books like Nova and The Einstein Intersection, which I loved even if I didn’t understand them; and James Thurber, who wrote The 13 Clocks, which may be the best book in the world. Here Mr. Delany (Chip, to his friends) writes a story that may owe its inspiration to Thurber, but is very much his own tale. And what is inside the steamer trunk?

A very thin and very grey man arrives in a tavern with a large steamer trunk, which contains his “nearest and dearest friend.” The man offers to pay for the assistance of the quick-witted Amos in procuring the cure his friend needs. Off Amos goes, questing for three shards of magical mirror….





ONE

ONCE THERE WAS A POOR MAN NAMED AMOS. He had nothing but his bright red hair, fast fingers, quick feet, and quicker wits. One grey evening when the rain rumbled in the clouds, about to fall, he came down the cobbled street toward Mariners’ Tavern to play jackstraws with Billy Belay, the sailor with a wooden leg and a mouth full of stories that he chewed around and spit out all evening. Billy Belay would talk and drink and laugh and sometimes sing. Amos would sit quietly and listen and always won at jackstraws.

But this evening as Amos came into the tavern, Billy was quiet; and so was everyone else. Even Hidalga, the woman who owned the tavern and took no man’s jabbering seriously, was leaning her elbows on the counter and listening with opened mouth.

The only man speaking was tall, thin, and grey. He wore a grey cape, grey gloves, grey boots, and his hair was grey. His voice sounded to Amos like wind over mouse fur, or sand ground into old velvet. The only thing about him not grey was a large black trunk beside him, high as his shoulder. Several rough and grimy sailors with cutlasses sat at his table—they were so dirty they were no color at all!

“…and so,” the soft grey voice went on, “I need someone clever and brave enough to help my nearest and dearest friend and me. It will be well worth someone’s while.”

“Who is your friend?” asked Amos. Though he had not heard the beginning of the story, the whole tavern seemed far too quiet for a Saturday night.

The grey man turned and raised grey eyebrows. “There is my friend, my nearest and dearest.” He pointed to the trunk. From it came a low, muggy Ulmphf.

All the mouths that were hanging open about the tavern closed.

“What sort of help does he need?” asked Amos. “A doctor?”

The grey eyes widened, and all the mouths opened once more.

“You are talking of my nearest and dearest friend,” said the grey voice, softly.

From across the room Billy Belay tried to make a sign for Amos to be quiet, but the grey man turned around, and the finger Billy had put to his lips went quickly into his mouth as if he were picking his teeth.

“Friendship is a rare thing these days,” said Amos. “What sort of help do you and your friend need?”

“The question is: would you be willing to give it?” said the grey man.

“And the answer is: if it is worth my while,” said Amos, who really could think very quickly.

“Would it be worth all the pearls you could put in your pockets, all the gold you could carry in one hand, all the diamonds you could lift in the other, and all the emeralds you could haul up from a well in a brass kettle?”

“That is not much for true friendship,” said Amos.

“If you saw a man living through the happiest moment of his life, would it be worth it then?”

“Perhaps it would,” Amos admitted.

“Then you’ll help my friend and me?”

“For all the pearls I can put in my pockets, all the gold I can carry in one hand, all the diamonds I can lift in the other, all the emeralds I can haul up from a well in a brass kettle, and a chance to see a man living through the happiest moment of his life—I’ll help you!”

Billy Belay put his head down on the table and began to cry. Hidalga buried her face in her hands, and all the other people in the tavern turned away and began to look rather grey themselves.

“Then come with me,” said the grey man, and the rough sailors with cutlasses rose about him and hoisted the trunk to their grimy shoulders —Onvbpmf came from the trunk—and the grey man flung out his cape, grabbed Amos by the hand, and ran out into the street.

In the sky the clouds swirled and bumped each other, trying to upset the rain.

Halfway down the cobbled street the grey man cried, “Halt!”

Everyone halted and put the trunk down on the sidewalk.

The grey man went over and picked up a tangerine-colored alley cat that had been searching for fish heads in a garbage pail. “Open the trunk,” he said. One of the sailors took an iron key from his belt and opened the lock on the top of the trunk. The grey man took out his thin sword of grey steel and pried up the lid ever so slightly. Then he tossed the cat inside.

Immediately he let the lid drop, and the sailor with the iron key locked the lock on the top. From inside came the mew of a cat that ended with a deep, depressing Elmblmpf.

“I think,” said Amos, who after all thought quickly and was quick to tell what he thought, “that everything is not quite right in there.”

“Be quiet and help me,” said the thin grey man, “or I shall put you in the trunk with my nearest and dearest.”

For a moment Amos was just a little afraid.

TWO

Then they were on a ship, and all the boards were grey from having gone so long without paint. The grey man took Amos into his cabin, and they sat down on opposite sides of a table.

“Now,” said the grey man, “here is a map.”

“Where did you get it?” asked Amos.

“I stole it from my worse and worst enemy.”

“What is it a map of?” Amos asked. He knew you should ask as many questions as possible when there were so many things you didn’t know.

“It is a map of many places and many treasures, and I need someone to help me find them.”

“Are these treasures the pearls and gold and diamonds and emeralds you told me about?”

“Nonsense,” said the grey man. “I have more emeralds and diamonds and gold and pearls than I know what to do with,” and he opened a closet door.

Amos stood blinking as jewels by the thousands fell out on the floor, glittering and gleaming, red, green, and yellow.

“Help me push them back in the closet,” said the grey man. “They’re so bright that if I look at them too long, I get a headache.”

So they pushed the jewels back and leaned against the closet door till it closed.

Then they returned to the map.

“Then what are the treasures?” Amos asked, full of curiosity.

“The treasure is happiness, for me and my nearest and dearest friend.”

“How do you intend to find it?”

“In a mirror,” said the grey man. “In three mirrors, or rather, one mirror broken in three pieces.”

“A broken mirror is bad luck,” said Amos. “Who broke it?”

“A wizard so great and so old and so terrible that you and I need never worry about him.”

“Does this map tell where the pieces are hidden?”

“Exactly,” said the grey man. “Look, we are here.”

“How can you tell?”

“The map says so,” said the grey man. And sure enough, in large letters one corner of the map was marked HERE.

“Perhaps somewhere nearer than you think, up this one, and two leagues short of over there, the pieces are hidden.”

“Your greatest happiness will be to look into this mirror?”

“It will be the greatest happiness of myself and of my nearest and dearest friend.”

“Very well,” said Amos. “When do we start?”

“When the dawn is foggy and the sun is hidden and the air is grey as grey can be.”

“Very well,” said Amos a second time. “Until then, I shall walk around and explore your ship.”

“It will be tomorrow at four o’clock in the morning,” said the grey man. “So don’t stay up too late.”

“Very well,” said Amos a third time.

As Amos was about to leave, the grey man picked up a ruby that had fallen from the closet and not been put back. On the side of the trunk that now sat in the corner was a small triangular door that Amos had not seen. The grey man pulled it open, tossed in the ruby, and slammed it quickly: Orghmflbfe.

THREE

Outside, the clouds hung so low the top of the ship’s tallest mast threatened to prick one open. The wind tossed about in Amos’s red hair and scurried in and out of his rags. Sitting on the railing of the ship, a sailor was splicing a rope.

“Good evening,” said Amos. “I’m exploring the ship, and I have very little time. I have to be up at four o’clock in the morning. So can you tell me what I must be sure to avoid because it would be so silly and uninteresting that I would learn nothing from it?”

The sailor frowned awhile, then said, “There is nothing at all interesting in the ship’s brig.”

“Thank you very much,” said Amos, and walked on till he came to another sailor, whose feet were awash in soapsuds. The sailor was pushing a mop back and forth so hard that Amos decided he was trying to scrub the last bit of color off the grey boards. “Good evening to you too,” said Amos. “I’m exploring the ship, and I have very little time since I’m to be up at four o’clock in the morning. I was told to avoid the brig. So could you point it out to me? I don’t want to wander into it by accident.”

The sailor leaned his chin on his mop handle awhile, then said, “If you want to avoid it, don’t go down the second hatchway behind the wheelhouse.”

“Thank you very much,” said Amos, and hurried off to the wheelhouse. When he found the second hatchway, he went down very quickly and was just about to go to the barred cell when he saw the grimy sailor with the iron key—who must be the jailer as well, thought Amos.

“Good evening,” Amos said. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, and how is yourself, and what are you doing down here?”

“I’m standing here, trying to be friendly,” said Amos. “I was told there was nothing of interest down here. And since it is so dull, I thought I would keep you company.”

The sailor fingered his key awhile, then said, “That is kind of you, I suppose.”

“Yes, it is,” said Amos. “What do they keep here that is so uninteresting everyone tells me to avoid it?”

“This is the ship’s brig, and we keep prisoners here. What else should we keep?”

“That’s a good question,” said Amos. “What do you keep?”

The jailer fingered his key again, then said, “Nothing of interest at all.”

Just then, behind the bars, Amos saw the pile of grubby grey blankets move. A corner fell away, and he saw just the edge of something as red as his own bright hair.

“I suppose, then,” said Amos, “I’ve done well to avoid coming here.” And he turned around and left. But that night, as the rain poured over the deck and the drum-drum-drumming of heavy drops lulled everyone on the ship to sleep, Amos hurried over the slippery boards under the dripping eaves of the wheelhouse to the second hatchway, and went down. The lamps were low, the jailer was huddled asleep in a corner on a piece of grey canvas, but Amos went immediately to the bars and looked through.

More blankets had fallen away, and besides a red as bright as his own hair, he could see a green the color of parrot’s feathers, a yellow as pale as Chinese mustard, and a blue as brilliant as the sky at eight o’clock in July. Have you ever watched someone asleep under a pile of blankets? You can see the blankets move up and down, up and down with breathing. That’s how Amos knew this was a person. “Pssst,” he said. “You colorful but uninteresting person, wake up and talk to me.”

Then all the blankets fell away, and a man with more colors on him than Amos had ever seen sat up rubbing his eyes. His sleeves were green silk with blue and purple trimming. His cape was crimson with orange design. His shirt was gold with rainbow checks, and one boot was white and the other was black.

“Who are you?” asked the parti-colored prisoner.

“I am Amos, and I am here to see what makes you so uninteresting that everyone tells me to avoid you and covers you up with blankets.”

“I am Jack, the Prince of the Far Rainbow, and I am a prisoner here.”

“Neither one of those facts is so incredible compared to some of the strange things in this world,” said Amos. “Why are you the Prince of the Far Rainbow, and why are you a prisoner?”

“Ah,” said Jack, “the second question is easy to answer, but the first is not so simple. I am a prisoner here because a skinny grey man stole a map from me and put me in the brig so I could not get it back from him. But why am I the Prince of the Far Rainbow? That is exactly the question asked me a year ago today by a wizard so great and so old and so terrible that you and I need never worry about him. I answered him, ‘I am Prince because my father is King, and everyone knows I should be.’ Then the wizard asked me, ‘Why should you be Prince and not one of a dozen others? Are you fit to rule, can you judge fairly, can you resist temptation?’ I had no idea what he meant, and again I answered, ‘I am Prince because my father is King.’ The wizard took a mirror and held it before me. ‘What do you see?’ he asked. ‘I see myself, just as I should, the Prince of the Far Rainbow,’ said I. Then the wizard grew furious and struck the mirror into three pieces and cried, ‘Not until you look into this mirror whole again will you be Prince of the Far Rainbow, for a woman worthy of a prince is trapped behind the glass, and not till she is free can you rule in your own land.’ There was an explosion, and when I woke up, I was without my crown, lying dressed as you see me now in a green meadow. In my pocket was a map that told me where all the pieces were hidden. Only it did not show me how to get back to the Far Rainbow. And still I do not know how to get home.”

“I see, I see,” said Amos. “How did the skinny grey man steal it from you, and what does he want with it?”

“Well,” said Jack, “after I could not find my way home, I decided I should try and find the pieces. So I began to search. The first person I met was the thin grey man, and with him was his large black trunk in which, he said, was his nearest and dearest friend. He said if I would work for him and carry his trunk, he would pay me a great deal of money with which I could buy a ship and continue my search. He told me that he himself would very much like to see a woman worthy of a prince. ‘Especially,’ he said, ‘such a colorful prince as you.’ I carried his trunk for many months, and at last he paid me a great deal of money with which I bought a ship. But then the skinny grey man stole my map, stole my ship, and put me here in the brig, and told me that he and his nearest and dearest friend would find the mirror all for themselves.”

“What could he want with a woman worthy of a prince such as you?” asked Amos.

“I don’t even like to think about it,” said Jack. “Once he asked me to unzip the leather flap at the end of the trunk and stick my head in to see how his nearest and dearest friend was getting along. But I would not because I had seen him catch a beautiful blue bird with red feathers round its neck and stick it through the same zipper, and all there was was an uncomfortable sound from the trunk, something like Orulmhf.”

“Oh, yes,” said Amos. “I know the sound. I do not like to think what he would do with a woman worthy of a prince such as you either.” Yet Amos found himself thinking of it. “His lack of friendship for you certainly doesn’t speak well of his friendship for his nearest and dearest.”

Jack nodded.

“Why doesn’t he get the mirror himself, instead of asking me?” Amos wanted to know.

“Did you look at where the pieces were hidden?” asked Jack.

“I remember that one is two leagues short of over there, the second is up this one, and the third is somewhere nearer than you think.”

“That’s right,” said Jack. “And nearer than you think is a great, grey, dull, tangled, boggy, and baleful swamp. The first piece is at the bottom of a luminous pool in the center. But it is so grey there that the grey man would blend completely in with the scenery and never get out again. Up this one is a mountain so high that the North Wind lives in a cave there. The second piece of the mirror is on the highest peak of that mountain. But it is so windy there, and the grey man is so thin, he would be blown away before he was halfway to the top. Two leagues short of over there, where the third piece is, there stretches a garden of violent colors and rich perfumes where black butterflies glisten on the rims of pink marble fountains, and bright vines weave in and about. The only thing white in the garden is a silver-white unicorn who guards the last piece of the mirror. Perhaps the grey man could get that piece himself, but he will not want to, I know, for lots of bright colors give him a headache.”

“Then it says something for his endurance that he was able to put up with your glittering clothes for so long,” said Amos. “Anyway, I don’t think it’s fair of our grey friend to get your mirror with your map. You should at least have a chance at it. Let me see, the first place we are going is somewhere nearer than you think.”

“In the swamp, then,” said Jack.

“Would you like to come with me,” asked Amos, “and get the piece yourself?”

“Of course,” said Jack. “But how?”

“I have a plan,” said Amos, who could think very quickly when he had to. “Simply do as I say.” Amos began to whisper through the bars. Behind them the jailer snored on his piece of canvas.

FOUR

At four o’clock the next morning when the dawn was foggy and the sun was hidden and the air was grey as grey could be, the ship pulled up to the shore of a great, grey, dull, tangled, boggy, and baleful swamp.

“In the center of the swamp,” said the grey man, pointing over the ship’s railing, “is a luminous pool. At the bottom of the pool is a piece of mirror. Can you be back with it by lunch?”

“I think so,” said Amos. “But that is terribly grey. I might blend into the scenery so completely I could never get out again.”

“With your red hair?” asked the grey man.

“My red hair,” said Amos, “is only on the top of my head. My clothes are ragged and dirty and will probably turn grey in no time with all that mist. Are there any bright-colored clothes on the ship, glittering with gold and gleaming with silk?”

“There is my closet full of jewels,” said the grey man. “Wear as many as you want.”

“They would weigh me down,” said Amos, “and I could not be back for lunch. No, I need a suit of clothes that is bright and brilliant enough to keep me from losing myself in all that. For if I do lose myself, you will never have your mirror.”

So the grey man turned to one of his sailors and said, “You know where you can get him such a suit.”

As the man started to go, Amos said, “It seems a shame to take someone’s clothes away, especially since I might not come back anyway. Give my rags to whoever owns the suit to keep for me until I return.” Amos jumped out of his rags and handed them to the sailor, who trotted off toward the wheelhouse. Minutes later he was back with a bright costume: the sleeves were green silk with blue and purple trimming, the cape was crimson with orange design, the shirt was gold with rainbow checks, and sitting on top of it all was one white boot and one black.

“These are what I need,” said Amos, putting on the clothes quickly, for he was beginning to get chilly standing in his underwear. Then he climbed over the edge of the boat into the swamp. He was so bright and colorful that nobody saw the figure in dirty rags run quickly behind them to the far end of the ship and also climb over into the swamp. Had the figure been Amos—it was wearing Amos’s rags—the red hair might have attracted some attention, but Jack’s hair, for all his colorful costume, was a very ordinary brown.

The grey man looked after Amos until he disappeared. Then he put his hand on his forehead, which was beginning to throb a little, and leaned against the black trunk, which had been carried to the deck.

Glumphvmr came from the trunk.

“Oh, my nearest and dearest friend,” said the grey man, “I had almost forgotten you. Forgive me.” He took from his pocket an envelope, and from the envelope he took a large, fluttering moth. “This flew in my window last night,” he said. The wings were pale blue, with brown bands on the edges, and the undersides were flecked with spots of gold. He pushed in a long metal flap at the side of the trunk, very like a mail slot, and slid the moth inside.

Fuffle came from the trunk, and the grey man smiled.

In the swamp, Amos waited until the prince had found him. “Did you have any trouble?” Amos asked.

“Not at all,” laughed Jack. “They didn’t even notice that the jailer was gone.” For what they had done last night, after we left them, was to take the jailer’s key, free the prince, and tie up the jailer and put him in the cell under all the grey blankets. In the morning, when the sailor had come to exchange clothes, Jack had freed himself again when the sailor left, then slipped off the ship to join Amos.

“Now let us find your luminous pool,” said Amos, “so we can be back by lunch.”

“Together they started through the marsh and muck. “You know,” said Amos, stopping once to look at a grey spiderweb that spread from the limb of a tree above them to a vine creeping on the ground, “this place isn’t so grey after all. Look closely.”

And in each drop of water on each strand of the web, the light was broken up as if through a tiny prism into blues and yellows and reds. As they looked, Jack sighed. “These are the colors of the Far Rainbow,” he said.

He said no more, but Amos felt very sorry for him. They went quickly now toward the center of the swamp. “No, it isn’t completely grey,” said Jack. On a stump beside them a green-grey lizard blinked a red eye at them, a golden hornet buzzed above their heads, and a snake that was grey on top rolled out of their way and showed an orange belly.

“And look at that!” cried Amos.

Ahead through the tall grey tree trunks, silvery light rose in the mist.

“The luminous pool!” cried the prince, and they ran forward.

Sure enough, they found themselves on the edge of a round, silvery pool. Across from them, large frogs croaked, and one or two bubbles broke the surface. Together Amos and Jack looked into the water.

Perhaps they expected to see the mirror glittering in the weeds and pebbles at the bottom of the pool; perhaps they expected their own reflections. But they saw neither. Instead, the face of a beautiful girl looked up at them from below the surface.

Jack and Amos frowned. The girl laughed, and the water bubbled.

“Who are you?” asked Amos.

In return, from the bubbles they heard, “Who are you?”

“I am Jack, Prince of the Far Rainbow,” said Jack, “and this is Amos.”

“I am a woman worthy of a prince,” said the face in the water, “and my name is Lea.”

Now Amos asked, “Why are you worthy of a prince? And how did you get where you are?”

“Ah,” said Lea, “the second question is easy to answer, but the first is not so simple. For that is the same question asked me a year and a day ago by a wizard so great and so old and so terrible that you and I need never worry about him.”

“What did you say to him?” asked Jack.

“I told him I could speak all the languages of men, that I was brave and strong and beautiful, and could govern beside any man. He said I was proud, and that my pride was good. But then he saw how I looked in mirrors at my own face, and he said that I was vain, and my vanity was bad, and that it would keep me apart from the prince I was worthy of. The shiny surface of all things, he told me, will keep us apart, until a prince can gather the pieces of the mirror together again, which will release me.”

“Then I am the prince to save you,” said Jack.

“Are you indeed?” asked Lea, smiling. “A piece of the mirror I am trapped in lies at the bottom of this pool. Once I myself dived from a rock into the blue ocean to retrieve the pearl of white fire I wear on my forehead now. That was the deepest dive ever heard of by man or woman, and this pool is ten feet deeper than that. Will you still try?”

“I will try and perhaps die trying,” said Jack, “but I can do no more and no less.” Then Jack filled his lungs and dove headlong into the pool.

Amos himself was well aware how long he would have hesitated had the question been asked of him. As the seconds passed, he began to fear for Jack’s life, and wished he had had a chance to figure some other way to get the mirror out. One minute passed; perhaps they could have tricked the girl into bringing it up herself. Two minutes—they could have tied a string to the leg of a frog and sent him down to do the searching. Three minutes—there was not a bubble on the water, and Amos surprised himself by deciding the only thing to do was to jump in and at least try to save the prince. But there was a splash at his feet!

Jack’s head emerged, and a moment later his hand holding the large fragment of a broken mirror came into sight. Amos was so delighted he jumped up and down. The prince swam to shore, and Amos helped him out. Then they leaned the mirror against a tree and rested for a while. “It’s well I wore these rags of yours,” said Jack, “and not my own clothes, for the weeds would have caught in my cloak and the boots would have pulled me down and I would have never come up. Thank you, Amos.”

“It’s a very little thing to thank me for,” Amos said. “But we had better start back if we want to be at the ship in time for lunch.”

So they started back and by noon had nearly reached the ship. Then the prince left the mirror with Amos and darted on ahead to get back to the cell. Then Amos walked out to the boat with the broken glass.

“Well,” he called up to the thin grey man, who sat on the top of the trunk, waiting, “here is your mirror from the bottom of the luminous pool.”

The grey man was so happy he jumped from the trunk, turned a cartwheel, then fell to wheezing and coughing and had to be slapped on the back several times.

“Good for you,” he said when Amos had climbed onto the deck and given him the glass. “Now come have lunch with me, but for heaven’s sake get out of that circus tent before I get another headache.”

So Amos took off the prince’s clothes and the sailor took them to the brig and returned with Amos’s rags. When he had dressed and was about to go in with the grey man to lunch, his sleeve brushed the grey man’s arm. The grey man stopped and frowned so deeply his face became almost black. “These clothes are wet, and the ones you wore were dry.”

“So they are,” said Amos. “What do you make of that?”

The grey man scowled and contemplated and cogitated, but could not make anything of it. At last he said, “Never mind. Come and eat.”

The sailors carried the black trunk below with them, and Amos and his host ate a heavy and hearty meal. The grey man speared all the radishes from the salad on his knife and flipped them into a funnel he had stuck in a round opening in the trunk: Fulrmp, Melrulf, Ulfmphgrumf!

FIVE

“When do I go after the next piece?” Amos asked when they had finished.

“Tomorrow evening when the sunset is golden and the sky is turquoise and the rocks are stained red in the setting sun,” said the grey man. “I shall watch the whole proceedings with sunglasses.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” said Amos. “You won’t get such a headache.”

That night Amos again went to the brig. No one had missed the jailer yet. So there was no guard at all.

“How is our friend doing?” Amos asked the prince, pointing to the bundle of blankets in the corner.

“Well enough,” said Jack. “I gave him food and water when they brought me some. I think he’s asleep now.”

“Good,” said Amos. “So one-third of your magic mirror has been found. Tomorrow evening I go off for the second piece. Would you like to come with me?”

“I certainly would,” said Jack. “But tomorrow evening it will not be so easy; for there will be no mist to hide me.”

“Then we’ll work it so you won’t have to hide,” said Amos. “If I remember you right, the second piece is on the top of a windy mountain so high the North Wind lives in a cave there.”

“That’s right,” said Jack.

“Very well then, I have a plan.” Again Amos began to whisper through the bars, and Jack smiled and nodded.

They sailed all that night and all the next day, and toward evening they pulled in to a rocky shore where just a few hundred yards away a mountain rose high and higher into the clear twilight.

The sailors gathered on the deck of the ship just as the sun began to set, and the grey man put one grey gloved hand on Amos’s shoulder and pointed to the mountain with his other.

“There, among the windy peaks, is the cave of the North Wind. Even higher, on the highest and windiest peak, is the second fragment of the mirror. It is a long, dangerous, and treacherous climb. Shall I expect you back for breakfast?”

“Certainly,” said Amos. “Fried eggs, if you please, once over lightly, and plenty of hot sausages.”

“I will tell the cook,” said the grey man.

“Good,” said Amos. “Oh, but one more thing. You say it is windy there. I shall need a good supply of rope, then, and perhaps you can spare a man to go with me. A rope is not much good if there is a person only on one end. If I have someone with me, I can hold him if he blows off, and he can do the same for me.” Amos turned to the sailors. “What about that man there? He has a rope and is well muffled against the wind.”

“Take whom you like,” said the grey man, “so long as you bring back my mirror.” The well-muffled sailor with the coil of rope on his shoulder stepped forward with Amos. Had the grey man not been wearing his sunglasses against the sunset, he might have noticed something familiar about the sailor, who kept looking at the mountain and would not look back. But as it was, he suspected nothing.

Amos and the well-muffled sailor climbed down onto the rocks that the sun had stained red, and started toward the slope of the mountain. Once the grey man raised his glasses as he watched them go but lowered them quickly, for it was the most golden hour of the sunset then. The sun sank, and he could not see them anymore. Even so, he stood at the rail a long time, till a sound in the darkness roused him from his reverie: Blmvghm!

Amos and Jack climbed long and hard through the evening. When darkness fell, at first they thought they would have to stop, but the clear stars made a mist over the jagged rocks, and a little later the moon rose. After that it was much easier going. Shortly the wind began. First a breeze merely tugged at their collars. Then rougher gusts began to nip their fingers. At last buffets of wind flattened them against the rock one moment, then tried to jerk them loose the next. The rope was very useful indeed, and neither one complained. They simply went on climbing, steadily through the hours. Once Jack paused a moment to look back over his shoulder at the silver sea and said something that Amos couldn’t hear.

“What did you say?” cried Amos above the howl.

“I said,” the prince cried back, “look at the moon!”

Now Amos looked over his shoulder too and saw that the white disk was going slowly down.

They began again, climbing faster than ever, but in another hour the bottom of the moon had already sunk below the edge of the ocean. At last they gained a fair-sized ledge where the wind was not so strong. Above, there seemed no way to go any higher.

Jack gazed out at the moon and sighed. “If it were daylight, I wonder if I could I see all the way to the Far Rainbow from here.”

“You might,” said Amos. But though his heart was with Jack, he still felt a good spirit was important to keep up. “But we might see it a lot more clearly from the top of this mountain.” But as he said it, the last light of the moon winked out. Now even the stars were gone, and the blackness about them was complete. But as they turned to seek shelter in the rising wind, Amos cried, “There’s a light!”

“Where’s a light?” cried Jack.

“Glowing behind those rocks,” cried Amos.

An orange glow outlined the top of a craggy boulder, and they hurried toward it over the crumbly ledge. When they climbed the rock, they saw that the light came from behind another wall of stone farther away, and they scrambled toward it, pebbles and bits of ice rolling under their hands. Behind the wall they saw that the light was even stronger above another ridge, and they did their best to climb it without falling who-knows-how-many hundreds of feet to the foot of the mountain. At last they pulled themselves onto the ledge and leaned against the side, panting. Far ahead of them, orange flames flickered brightly and there was light on each face. For all the cold wind, their foreheads were still shiny with the sweat of the effort.

“Come on,” said Amos, “just a little way….”

And from half a dozen directions they heard: Come on, just a little…just a little way…little way…

They stared at each other and Jack jumped up. “Why, we must be in the cave of…”

And echoing back they heard “…must be in the cave…in the cave of…cave of…

“…the North Wind,” whispered Amos.

They started forward again toward the fires. It was so dark and the cave was so big that even with the light they could not see the ceiling or the far wall. The fires themselves burned in huge scooped-out basins of stone. They had been put there for a warning, because just beyond them the floor of the cave dropped away and there was only darkness.

“I wonder if she’s at home,” whispered Jack.

Then before them was a rushing and a rumbling and a rolling like thunder, and from the blackness a voice said, “I am the North Wind, and I am very much at home.”

A blast of air sent the fires reeling in the basins, and the sailor’s cap that Jack wore flew back into the darkness.

“Are you really the North Wind?” Amos asked.

“Yes, I am really the North Wind,” came the thunderous voice. “Now you tell me who you are before I blow you into little pieces and scatter them over the whole wide world.”

“I am Amos, and this is Jack, Prince of the Far Rainbow,” said Amos. “We wandered into your cave by accident and meant nothing impolite. But the moon went down, so we had to stop climbing, and we saw your light.”

“Where were you climbing to?”

Now Jack said, “To the top of the mountain where there is a piece of a mirror.”

“Yes,” said the North Wind, “there is a mirror there. A wizard so great and so old and so terrible that you and I never need worry about him placed it there a year and a day ago. I blew him there myself in return for a favor he did me a million years past, for it was he who made this cave for me by artful and devious magic.”

“We have come to take the mirror back,” said Jack.

The North Wind laughed so loudly that Amos and the prince had to hold on to the walls to keep from blowing away. “It is so high and so cold up there that you will never reach it,” said the Wind. “Even the wizard had to ask my help to put it there.”

“Then,” called Amos, “you could help us get there too?”

The North Wind was silent a whole minute. Then she asked, “Why should I? The wizard built my cave for me. What have you done to deserve such help?”

“Nothing yet,” said Amos. “But we can help you if you help us.”

“How can you help me?” asked the Wind.

“Well,” said Amos, “like this. You say you are really the North Wind. How can you prove it?”

“How can you prove you are really you?” returned the Wind.

“Easily,” said Amos. “I have red hair, I have freckles, I am five feet, seven inches tall, and I have brown eyes. All you need do is go to Hidalga who owns the Mariners’ Tavern and ask her who has red hair, is so tall, with such eyes, and she will tell you, ‘It is my own darling Amos.’ And Hidalga’s word should be proof enough for anybody. Now, what do you look like?”

“What do I look like?” demanded the North Wind.

“Yes, describe yourself to me.”

“I’m big and I’m cold and I’m blustery—”

“That’s what you feel like,” said Amos. “Not what you look like. I want to know how I would recognize you if I saw you walking quietly down the street toward me when you were not working.”

“I’m freezing and I’m icy and I’m chilling—”

“Again, that’s not what you look like; it’s what you feel like.”

The North Wind rumbled to herself for a while and at last confessed: “But no one has seen the wind.”

“So I had heard,” said Amos. “But haven’t you ever looked into a mirror?”

“Alas,” sighed the North Wind, “mirrors are always kept inside people’s houses where I am never invited. So I never had a chance to look in one. Besides, I have been too busy.”

“Well,” said Amos, “if you help get us to the top of the mountain, we will let you look into the fragment of the mirror.” Then he added, “Which is more than your friend the wizard did, apparently.” Jack gave Amos a little kick, for it is not a good thing to insult a wizard so great and so old and so terrible as all that, even if you or I don’t have to worry about him.

The North Wind mumbled and groaned around the darkness for a while and at last said, “Very well. Climb on my shoulders, and I shall carry you up to the highest peak of this mountain. When I have looked into your mirror, I will carry you down again to where you may descend the rest of the way by yourselves.”

Amos and Jack were happy as they had ever been, and the North Wind roared to the edge of the ledge, and they climbed on her back, one on each shoulder. They held themselves tight by her long, thick hair, and the Wind’s great wings filled the cave with such a roaring that the fires, had they not been maintained by magic, would have been blown out. The sound of the great wing feathers clashing against one another was like steel against bronze.

The North Wind rose up in her cave and sped toward the opening that was so high they could not see the top and so wide they could not see the far wall, and her leaf-matted hair brushed the ceiling, and her long, ragged toenails scraped the floor, and the tips of her wings sent boulders crashing from either side as she leapt into the black. They circled so high they cleared the clouds, and once again the stars were like diamonds dusting the velvet night. She flew so long that at last the sun began to shoot spears of gold across the horizon; and when the ball of the sun had rolled halfway over the edge of the sea, she settled one foot on a crag to the left, her other foot on the pinnacle to the right, and bent down and set them on the tallest peak in the middle.

“Now where is the mirror?” asked Amos, looking around.

The dawning sun splashed the snow and ice with silver.

“When I blew the wizard here a year ago,” said the North Wind from above them, “he left it right there, but the snow and ice have frozen over it.”

Amos and the prince began to brush the snow from a lump on the ground, and beneath the white covering was pure and glittering ice. It was a very large lump, nearly as large as the black trunk of the skinny grey man.

“It must be in the center of this chunk of ice,” said Jack. As they stared at the shiny, frozen hunk, something moved inside it, and they saw it was the form of lovely Lea, who had appeared to them in the pool.

She smiled at them and said, “I am glad you have come for the second piece of the mirror, but it is buried in this frozen shard of ice. Once, when I was a girl, I chopped through a chunk of ice to get to an earring my mother had dropped the night before in a winter dance. That block of ice was the coldest and hardest ice any man or woman had ever seen. This block is ten degrees colder. Can you chop through it?”

“I can try,” said Jack, “or perhaps die trying. But I can do no more and no less.” And he took the small pickax they had used to help them climb the mountain.

“Will you be finished before breakfast time?” asked Amos, glancing at the sun.

“Of course before breakfast,” said the prince, and fell to chopping. The ice chips flew around him, and he worked up such a sweat that in all the cold he still had to take off his shirt. He worked so hard that in one hour he had laid open the chunk, and there, sticking out, was the broken fragment of mirror. Tired but smiling, the prince lifted it from the ice and handed it to Amos. Then he went to pick up his shirt and coat.

“All right, North Wind,” cried Amos. “Take a look at yourself.”

“Stand so that the sun is in your eyes,” said the North Wind, towering over Amos, “because I do not want anyone else to see before I have.”

So Amos and Jack stood with the sun in their eyes, and the great blustering North Wind squatted down to look at herself in the mirror. She must have been pleased with what she saw, because she gave a long, loud laugh that nearly blew them from the peak. Then she leapt a mile into the air, turned over three times, then swooped down upon them, grabbing them up and setting them on her shoulders. Amos and Jack clung to her long, thick hair as the Wind began to fly down the mountain. The Wind cried out in a windy voice: “Now I shall tell all the leaves and whisper to all the waves who I am and what I look like, so they can chatter about it among themselves in autumn and rise and doff their caps to me before a winter storm.” The North Wind was happier than she had ever been since the wizard first made her cave.

It gets light on the top of a mountain well before it does at the foot, and this mountain was so high that when they reached the bottom the sun was nowhere in sight, and they had a good half hour until breakfast time.

“You run and get back in your cell,” said Amos, “and when I have given you enough time, I shall return and eat my eggs and sausages.”

So the prince ran down the rocks to the shore and snuck onto the ship, and Amos waited for the sun to come up. When it did, he started back.

SIX

But, at the boat, all had not gone according to Amos’s plan during the night. The grey man, still puzzling over Amos’s wet clothes—and at last he began to inquire whom Amos had solicited from the sailors to go with him—had gone to the brig himself.

In the brig he saw immediately that there was no jailer and then that there was no prisoner. Furious, he rushed into the cell and began to tear apart the bundle of blankets in the corner. And out of the blankets rolled the jailer, bound and gagged and dressed in the colorful costume of the Prince of the Far Rainbow. For it was the jailer’s clothes that Jack had worn when he had gone with Amos to the mountain.

When the gag came off, the story came out, and the part of the story the jailer had slept through, the grey man could guess for himself. So he untied the jailer and called the sailors and made plans for Amos’s and the prince’s return. The last thing the grey man did was take the beautiful costume back to his cabin where the black trunk was waiting.

When Amos came up to the ship with the mirror under his arm, he called, “Here’s your mirror. Where are my eggs and sausages?”

“Sizzling hot and waiting,” said the grey man, lifting his sunglasses. “Where is the sailor you took to help you?”

“Alas,” said Amos, “he was blown away in the wind.” He climbed up the ladder and handed the grey man the mirror. “Now we only have a third to go, if I remember right. When do I start looking for that?”

“This afternoon when the sun is its highest and hottest,” said the grey man.

“Don’t I get a chance to rest?” asked Amos. “I have been climbing up and down mountains all night.”

“You may take a nap,” said the grey man. “But come and have breakfast first.” The grey man put his arm around Amos’s shoulder and took him down to his cabin where the cook brought them a big, steaming platter of sausages and eggs.

“You have done very well,” said the grey man, pointing to the wall where he had hung the first two pieces of mirror together. Now they could make out what the shape of the third would be. “And if you get the last one, you will have done very well indeed.”

“I can almost feel the weight of those diamonds and emeralds and gold and pearls right now,” said Amos.

“Can you really?” asked the grey man. He pulled a piece of green silk from his pocket, went to the black box, and stuffed it into a small square door: Orlmnb!

“Where is the third mirror hidden?” asked Amos.

“Two leagues short of over there is a garden of violent colors and rich perfume, where black butterflies glisten on the rims of pink marble fountains, and the only thing white in it is a silver-white unicorn who guards the third piece of the mirror.”

“Then it’s good I am going to get it for you,” said Amos, “because even with your sunglasses, it would give you a terrible headache.”

“Curses,” said the grey man, “but you’re right.” He took from his pocket a strip of crimson cloth with orange design, went to the trunk, and lowered it through a small round hole in the top. As the last of it dropped from sight, the trunk went Mlpbgrm!

“I am very anxious to see you at the happiest moment of your life,” said Amos. “But you still haven’t told me what you and your nearest and dearest friend expect to find in the mirror.”

“Haven’t I?” said the grey man. He reached under the table and took out a white leather boot, went to the trunk, lifted the lid, and tossed it in.

Org! This sound was not from the trunk; it was Amos swallowing his last piece of sausage much too fast. He and the grey man looked at one another, and neither said anything. The only sound was from the trunk: Grublmeumplefrmp… hic!

“Well,” said Amos at last, “I think I’ll go outside and walk around the deck a bit.”

“Nonsense,” said the grey man, smoothing his grey gloves over his wrists. “If you’re going to be up this afternoon, you’d better go to sleep right now.”

“Believe me, a little air would make me sleep much better.”

“Believe me,” said the grey man, “I have put a little something in your eggs and sausages that will make you sleep much better than all the air in the world.”

Suddenly Amos felt his eyes grow heavy, his head grow light, and he slipped down in his chair.

When Amos woke up, he was lying on the floor of the ship’s brig inside the cell, and Jack, in his underwear—for the sailors had jumped on him when he came back in the morning and given the jailer back his clothes—was trying to wake him up.

“What happened to you?” Amos asked, and Jack told him.

“What happened to you?” asked Jack, and Amos told him.

“Then we have been found out, and all is lost,” said the prince. “For it is noon already, and the sun is at its highest and hottest. The boat has docked two leagues short of over there, and the grey man must be about to go for the third mirror himself.”

“May his head split into a thousand pieces,” and Amos, “with the pain.”

“Pipe down in there,” said the jailer. “I’m trying to sleep.” And he spread out his piece of grey canvas and lay down.

Outside the water lapped at the ship, and after a moment Jack said, “A river runs by the castle of the Far Rainbow, and when you go down into the garden, you can hear the water against the wall just like that.”

“Now don’t be sad,” said Amos. “We need all our wits about us.”

From somewhere there was the sound of knocking.

“Though, truly,” said Amos, glancing at the ceiling, “I had a friend once named Billy Belay, an old sailor with a wooden leg, I used to play jackstraws with. When he would go upstairs to his room in the Mariners’ Tavern, you could hear him walking overhead just like that.”

That knocking came again.

“Only that isn’t above us,” said Jack. “It’s below.”

They looked at the floor. Then Jack got down on his hands and knees and looked under the cot. “There’s a trapdoor there,” he whispered to Amos, “and somebody’s knocking.”

“A trapdoor in the bottom of a ship?” asked Amos.

“We won’t question it,” said Jack, “we’ll just open it.”

They grabbed the ring and pulled the door back. Through the opening there was only the green surface of the water. Then, below the surface, Lea appeared.

“What are you doing here?” whispered Amos.

“I’ve come to help you,” she said. “You have gotten two-thirds of the broken mirror. Now you must get the last piece.”

“How did you get here?” asked Jack.

“Only the shiny surface of things keeps us apart,” said Lea. “Now if you dive through here, you can swim out from under the boat.”

“And once we get out from under the boat,” said Amos, “we can climb back in.”

“Why should we do that?” asked Jack.

“I have a plan,” said Amos.

“But will it work even if the grey man is already in the garden of violent colors and rich perfumes, walking past the pink marble fountains where the black butterflies glisten on their rims?” asked Jack.

“It will work as long as the silver-white unicorn guards the fragment of the mirror,” said Amos, “and the grey man doesn’t have his hands on it. Now dive.”

The prince dove, and Amos dove after him.

“Will you pipe down in there,” called the jailer without opening his eyes.

In the garden the grey man, with sunglasses tightly over his eyes and an umbrella above his head, was indeed walking through violent colors and rich perfumes, past pink marble fountains where black butterflies glistened. It was hot; he was dripping with perspiration, and his head was in agony.

He had walked a long time, and even through his dark glasses he could make out the green and red blossoms, the purple fruit on the branches, the orange melons on the vines. The most annoying thing of all, however, were the swarms of golden gnats that buzzed about him. He would beat them away with the umbrella, but they came right back again.

After what seemed a long, long time, he saw a flicker of silver white, and coming closer, he saw it was a unicorn. It stood in the little clearing, blinking. Just behind the unicorn was the last piece of the mirror.

“Well it’s about time,” said the grey man, and began walking toward it. But as soon as he stepped into the clearing, the unicorn snorted and struck his front feet against the ground, one after the other.

“I’ll just get it quickly without any fuss,” said the grey man. But when he stepped forward, the unicorn also stepped forward, and the grey man found the sharp point of the unicorn’s horn against the grey cloth of his shirt, right where it covered his bellybutton.

“I’ll have to go around it then,” said the grey man. But when he moved to the right, the unicorn moved to the right; and when he moved to the left, the unicorn did the same.

From the mirror there was a laugh.

The grey man peered across the unicorn’s shoulder, and in the piece of glass he saw not his own reflection but the face of a young woman. “I’m afraid,” she said cheerfully, “that you shall never be able to pick up the mirror unless the unicorn lets you, for it was placed here by a wizard so great and so old and so terrible that you and I need never worry about him.”

“Then what must I do to make this stubborn animal let me by? Tell me quickly because I am in a hurry and have a headache.”

“You must prove yourself worthy,” said Lea.

“How do I do that?”

“You must show how clever you are,” said Lea. “When I was free of this mirror, my teacher, in order to see how well I had learned my lessons, asked me three questions. I answered all three, and these three questions were harder than any questions ever heard by man or woman. I am going to ask you three questions that are ten times as hard, and if you answer them correctly, you may pick up the mirror.”

“Ask me,” said the grey man.

“First,” said Lea, “who is standing just behind your left shoulder?”

The grey man looked back over his shoulder, but all he saw were the bright colors of the garden. “Nobody,” he said.

“Second,” said Lea, “who is standing just behind your right shoulder?”

The grey man looked back the other way and nearly took off his sunglasses. Then he decided it was not necessary, for all he saw was a mass of confusing colors. “Nobody,” he said.

“Third,” said Lea, “what are they going to do to you?”

“There is nobody there, and they are going to do nothing,” said the grey man.

“You have gotten all three questions wrong,” said Lea sadly.

Then somebody grabbed the grey man by the right arm, and somebody grabbed him by the left, and they pulled him down on his back, rolled him over on his stomach, and tied his hands behind him. One picked him up by the shoulders and the other by the feet, and they only paused long enough to get the mirror from the clearing, which the unicorn let them have gladly, for there was no doubt that they could have answered Lea’s questions.

For one of the two was Amos, wearing the top half of the costume of the Prince of the Far Rainbow, minus a little green patch from the sleeve and a strip from the crimson cape; he had stood behind some bushes so the grey man could not see his less colorful pants. The other was Prince Jack himself, wearing the bottom of the costume, minus the white leather boot; he had stood behind a low-hanging branch so the grey man had not been able to see him from the waist up.

With the mirror safe—nor did they forget the grey man’s umbrella and sunglasses—they carried him back to the ship. Amos’s plan had apparently worked; they had managed to climb back in the ship and get the costume from the grey man’s cabin without being seen and then sneak off after him into the garden.

But here luck turned against them, for no sooner had they reached the shore again when the sailors descended on them. The jailer had at last woken up and, finding his captives gone, had organized a searching party, which set out just as Amos and the prince reached the boat.

“Crisscross, cross, and double-cross!” cried the grey man triumphantly as once more Amos and Jack were led to the brig.

The trapdoor had been nailed firmly shut this time, and even Amos could not think of a plan.

“Cast off for the greyest and gloomiest island on the map,” cried the grey man.

“Cast off!” cried the sailors.

“And do not disturb me till we get there,” said the skinny grey man. “I have had a bad day today, and my head is killing me.”

The grey man took the third piece of mirror to his cabin, but he was too ill to fit the fragments together. So he put the last piece on top of the trunk, swallowed several aspirins, and lay down.

SEVEN

On the greyest, gloomiest island on the map is a large grey gloomy castle. Stone steps lead up from the shore to the castle entrance. This was the skinny grey man’s gloomy grey home. On the following grey afternoon, the ship pulled up to the bottom of the steps, and the grey man, leading two bound figures, walked up to the door.

Later, in the castle hall, Amos and the prince stood bound by the back wall. The grey man chuckled to himself as he hung up the two-thirds completed mirror. The final third was on the table.

“At last it is about to happen,” said the grey man. “But first, Amos, you must have your reward for helping me so much.”

He led Amos, still tied, to a small door in the wall. “In there is my jewel garden. I have more jewels than any man in the world. Ugh! They give me a headache. Go quickly, take your reward, and when you come back, I shall show you a man living through the happiest moment of his life. Then I will put you and your jewels into the trunk with my nearest and dearest friend.”

With the tip of his thin grey sword he cut Amos’s ropes, thrusting him into the jewel garden and closing the small door firmly behind him.

It was a sad Amos who wandered through those bright piles of precious gems that glittered and gleamed about. The walls were much too high to climb and they went all the way around. Being a clever man, Amos knew there were some situations in which it was a waste of wit to try and figure a way out. So, sadly, he picked up a small wheelbarrow lying on top of a hill of rubies and began to fill his pockets with pearls. When he had hauled up a cauldron full of gold from the well in the middle of the garden, he put all his reward in the wheelbarrow, went back to the small door, and knocked.

The door opened, and, with the wheelbarrow, Amos was yanked through and bound again. The grey man marched him back to the prince’s side and wheeled the barrow to the middle of the room.

“In just a moment,” said the thin grey man, “you will see a man living through the happiest moment of his life. But first I must make sure my nearest and dearest friend can see, too.” He went to the large black trunk, which seemed even blacker and larger, and stood it on its side; then with the great iron key he opened it almost halfway so that it faced toward the mirror. But from where Amos and Jack were, they could not see into it at all.

The grey man took the last piece of the mirror, went to the wall, and fitted it in place, saying, “The one thing I have always wanted more than anything else, for myself, for my nearest and dearest friend, is a woman worthy of a prince.”

Immediately there was thunder, and light shot from the restored glass. The grey man stepped back, and from the mirror stepped the beautiful and worthy Lea.

“Oh, happiness!” laughed the thin grey man. “She is grey too!”

For Lea was cloaked in grey from head to foot. But almost before the words were out, she loosed her grey cloak, and it fell about her feet.

“Oh, horrors!” cried the thin grey man, and stepped back again.

Under her cloak she wore a scarlet cape with flaming rubies that glittered in the lightning. Now she loosed her scarlet cape, and that too fell to the floor.

“Oh, misery!” screamed the grey man, and stepped back once more.

For beneath her scarlet cape was a veil of green satin, and topazes flashed yellow along the hem. Now she threw the veil back from her shoulders.

“Oh, ultimate depression!” shrieked the thin grey man, and stepped back again, for the dress beneath the veil was silver with trimmings of gold, and her bodice was blue silk set with sapphires.

The last step took the thin grey man right into the open trunk. He cried out, stumbled, the trunk overturned on its side, and the lid fell to with a clap.

There wasn’t any sound at all.

“I had rather hoped we might have avoided that,” said Lea as she came over to untie Jack and Amos. “But there is nothing we can do now. I can never thank you enough for gathering the mirror and releasing me.”

“Nor can we thank you,” said Amos, “for helping us do it.”

“Now,” said Jack, rubbing his wrists, “I can look at myself again and see why I am Prince of the Far Rainbow.”

He and Lea walked to the mirror and looked at their reflections.

“Why,” said Jack, “I am a prince because I am worthy to be a prince, and with me is a woman worthy to be a princess.”

In the gilded frame now was no longer their reflection, but a rolling land of green and yellow meadows, with red and white houses, and far off a golden castle against a blue sky.

“That’s the land of the Far Rainbow!” cried Jack. “We could almost step through into it!” And he began to go forward.

“What about me?” cried Amos. “How do I get home?”

“The same way we do,” said Lea. “When we are gone, look into the mirror and you will see your home too.”

“And that?” asked Amos, pointing to the trunk.

“What about it?” said Jack.

“Well, what’s in it?”

“Look and see,” said Lea.

“I’m afraid to,” said Amos. “It has said such dreadful and terrible things.”

“You, afraid?” laughed Jack. “You, who rescued me three times from the brig, braved the grey swamp, and rode the back of the North Wind!”

But Lea asked gently, “What did it say? I have studied the languages of men, and perhaps I can help. What did it say?”

“Oh, awful things,” said Amos, “like onvbpmf and elmblmpf and orghmflbfe.”

“That means,” said Lea, “ ‘I was put in this trunk by a wizard so great and so old and so terrible that you and I need never worry about him.’ ”

“And it said glumphvmr and fuffle and fulrmp,” Amos told her.

“That means,” said Lea, “ ‘I was put here to be the nearest and dearest friend to all those grim, grey people who cheat everybody they meet and who can enjoy nothing colorful in the world.’ ”

“Then it said orlmnb and mlpbgrm and gruglmeumplefrmp—hic!”

“Loosely translated,” said Lea: “ ‘One’s duty is often a difficult thing to do with the cheerfulness, good nature, and diligence that others expect of us; nevertheless…’ ”

“And when the thin grey man fell into the trunk,” said Amos, “it didn’t make any sound at all.”

“Which,” said Lea, “can be stated as: ‘I’ve done it.’ Roughly speaking.”

“Go see what’s in the trunk,” said Jack. “It’s probably not so terrible after all.”

“If you say so,” said Amos. He went to the trunk, walked all around it three times, then gingerly lifted the lid. He didn’t see anything, so he lifted it farther. When he still didn’t see anything, he opened it all the way. “Why, there’s nothing in—” he began. But then something caught his eye at the very bottom of the trunk, and he reached in and picked it up.

It was a short, triangular bar of glass.

“A prism!” said Amos. “Isn’t that amazing. That’s the most amazing thing I ever heard of.”

But then he was alone in the castle hall. Jack and Lea had already left. Amos ran to the mirror just in time to see them walking away across the green and yellow meadows to the golden castle. Lea leaned her head on Jack’s shoulder, and the prince turned to kiss her raven hair, and Amos thought: “Now there are two people living through the happiest moment of their lives.”

Then the picture changed, and he was looking down a familiar seaside cobbled street, wet with rain. A storm had just ended, and the clouds were breaking apart. Down the block the sign of the Mariners’ Tavern swung in the breeze.

Amos ran to get his wheelbarrow, put the prism on top, and wheeled it to the mirror. Then, just in case, he went back and locked the trunk tightly.

Someone opened the door of the Mariners’ Tavern and called inside, “Why is everybody so glum this evening when there’s a beautiful rainbow looped across the world?”

“It’s Amos!” cried Hidalga, running from behind the counter.

“It is Amos!” cried Billy Belay, thumping after her on his wooden leg.

Everyone else in the tavern came running outside too. Sure enough it was Amos, and sure enough a rainbow looped above them to the far horizons.

“Where have you been?” cried Hidalga. “We all thought you were dead.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” said Amos, “for you are always saying you take no man’s jabbering seriously.”

“Any man who can walk out of a tavern one night with nothing and come back in a week with that”—and she pointed to the wheelbarrow full of gold and jewels—“is a man to be taken seriously.”

“Then marry me,” said Amos, “for I always thought you had uncommonly good sense in matters of whom to believe and whom not to. Your last words have proved you worthy of my opinion.”

“I certainly shall,” said Hidalga, “for I always thought you an uncommonly clever man. Your return with this wheelbarrow has proved you worthy of my opinion.”

“I thought you were dead too,” said Billy Belay, “after you ran out of here with that thin grey man and his big black trunk. He told us terrible stories of the places he intended to go. And you just up and went with him without having heard anything but the reward.”

“There are times,” said Amos, “when it is better to know only the reward and not the dangers.”

“And this was obviously such a time,” said Hidalga, “for you are back now, and we are to be married.”

“Well, come in, then,” said Billy, “and play me a game of jackstraws, and you can tell us all about it.”

They went back into the tavern, wheeling the barrow before them.

“What is this?” asked Hidalga as they stepped inside. She picked up the glass prism from the top of the barrow.

“That,” said Amos, “is the other end of the Far Rainbow.”

“The other end of the rainbow?” asked Hidalga.

“Over there,” said Amos, pointing back out the door, “is that end. And over there is this end,” and he pointed out the front window, “and right here is the other end.”

Then he showed her how a white light shining through it would break apart and fill her hands with all the colors she could think of.

“Isn’t that amazing,” said Hidalga. “That’s the most amazing thing I ever heard of.”

“That’s exactly what I said,” Amos told her, and they were both very happy, for they were both clever enough to know that when a husband and wife agree about such things, it means a long and happy marriage is ahead.