Unnatural Creatures

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.”