Mabruk's semblance of affability vanished like a spark on snow, and with the same sound. His whole face became like his eyes. "I am not packed off as easily as that," he said very softly. "Not on a whim, even a king's whim, and not in favor of a fool. Beware, Haggard! Mabruk is no one to anger lightly."

A wind began to rise in the dark chamber. It came as much from one place as another – through the window, through the half-open door – but its true source was the clenched figure of the wizard. The wind was cold and rank, a wet, hooty marsh wind, and it leaped here and there in the room like a gleeful animal discovering the flimsiness of human beings. Molly Grue shrank against Schmendrick, who looked uncomfortable. Prince Lнr fidgeted his sword in and out of its sheath.

Even King Haggard gave back a step before the triumphant grin of old Mabruk. The walls of the room seemed to thaw and run away, and the wizard's starry gown became the huge, howling night. Mabruk spoke no word himself, but the wind was beginning to make a wicked, grunting sound as it gained strength. In another moment it would become visible, burst into shape. Schmendrick opened his mouth, but if he were shouting a counterspell it could not be heard, and it did not work.

In the darkness, Molly Grue saw the Lady Amalthea turning far away, stretching out a hand on which the ring and middle fingers were of equal length. The strange place on her forehead was glowing as bright as a flower.

Then the wind was gone as though it had never been, and the stone walls were around them once more, the dull chamber as gay as noon after Mabruk's night. The wizard was crouched almost to the floor, staring at the Lady Amalthea. His wise, benevolent face looked like the face of a drowned man, and his beard dripped thinly from his chin, like stagnant water. Prince Lнr took him by the arm.

"Come on, old man," he said, not unkindly. "This way out, granddad. I'll write you a reference."

"I am going," Mabruk said. "Not from fear of you – you lump of stale dough – nor of your mad, ungrateful father; nor of your new magician, much happiness may you have of him." His eyes met King Haggard's hungry eyes, and he laughed like a goat.

"Haggard, I would not be you for all the world," he declared. "You have let your doom in by the front door, though it will not depart that way. I would explain myself more fully, but I am no longer in your service. That is a pity, for there will come a time when none but a master will be able to save you – and in that hour, you will have Schmendrick to call upon! Farewell, poor Haggard, farewell!"

Still laughing, he disappeared; but his mirth dwelled forever in the corners of that chamber, like the smell of smoke, or of old, cold dust.

"Well," said King Haggard in the gray moonlight. "Well." He came slowly toward Schmendrick and Molly, his feet silent, his head weaving almost playfully. "Stand still," he commanded when they moved. "I want to see your faces."

His breath rasped like a knife on a grindstone as he peered from one of them to the other. "Closer!" he grumbled, squinting through the dark. "Come closer – closer! I want to see you."

"Light a light then," said Molly Grue. The calmness of her own voice frightened her more than the fury of the old wizard had. It is easy to be brave for her sake, she thought, but if I begin being brave on my own account, where will it end?

"I never light lights," the king replied. "What is the good of light?"

He turned from them, muttering to himself, "One face is almost guileless, almost foolish, but not quite foolish enough. The other is a face like my face, and that must mean danger. Yet I saw all that at the gate – why did I let them enter, then? Mabruk was right; I have grown old and daft and easy. Still, I see only Haggard when I look in their eyes."

Prince Lнr stirred nervously as the king paced across the throne room toward the Lady Amalthea. She was again gazing out of the window, and King Haggard had drawn very near before she wheeled swiftly, lowering her head in a curious manner. "I will not touch you," he said, and she stood still.

"Why do you linger at the window?" he demanded. "What are you looking at?"

"I am looking at the sea," said the Lady Amalthea. Her voice was low and tremorous; not with fear, but with life, as a new butterfly shivers in the sun.

"Ah," said the king. "Yes, the sea is always good. There is nothing that I can look at for very long, except the sea." Yet he stared at the Lady Amalthea's face for a long time, his own face giving back none of her light – as Prince Lнr's had – but taking it in and keeping it somewhere. His breath was as musty as the wizard's wind, but the Lady Amalthea never moved.

Suddenly he shouted, "What is the matter with your eyes? They are full of green leaves, crowded with trees and streams and small animals. Where am I? Why can I not see myself in your eyes?"

The Lady Amalthea did not answer him. King Haggard swung around to face Schmendrick and Molly. His scimitar smile laid its cold edge along their throats. "Who is she?" he demanded.

Schmendrick coughed several times. "The Lady Amalthea is my niece," he offered. "I am her only living relative, and so her guardian. No doubt the state of her attire puzzles you, but it is easily explained. On our journey, we were attacked by bandits and robbed of all our -"

"What nonsense are you jabbering? What about her attire?" The king turned again to regard the white girl, and Schmendrick suddenly understood that neither King Haggard nor his son had noticed that she was naked under the rags of his cloak. The Lady Amalthea held herself so gracefully that she made shreds and tatters seem the only fitting dress for a princess; and besides, she did not know that she was naked. It was the armored king who seemed bare before her.

King Haggard said, "What she wears, what may have befallen you, what you all are to one another – these things are fortunately no concern of mine. In such matters you may lie to me as much as you dare. I want to know who she is. I want to know how she broke Mabruk's magic without saying a word. I want to know why there are green leaves and fox cubs in her eyes. Speak quickly, and avoid the temptation to lie, especially about the green leaves. Answer me."

Schmendrick did not reply quickly. He made a few small sounds of an earnest nature, but not a sensible word was among them. Molly Grue gathered her courage to answer, even though she suspected that it was impossible to speak the truth to King Haggard. Something in his winter presence blighted all words, tangled meanings, and bent honest intentions into shapes as tormented as the towers of his castle. Still she would have spoken, but another voice was heard in the gloomy chamber: the light, kind, silly voice of the young Prince Lнr.

"Father, what difference does it make? She is here now."

King Haggard sighed. It was not a gentle sound, but low and scraping; not a sound of surrender, but the rumbling meditation of a tiger taut to spring. "Of course you are right," he said. "She is here, they are all here, and whether they mean my doom or not, I will look at them for a while. A pleasant air of disaster attends them. Perhaps that is what I want."

To Schmendrick he said curtly, "As my magician, you will entertain me when I wish to be entertained, in manners variously profound and frivolous. You will be expected to know when you are required, and in what guise, for I cannot be forever identifying my moods and desires for your benefit. You will receive no wages, since that is certainly not what you came here for. As for your drab, your assistant, whatever you choose to call her, she will serve me also if she wishes to remain in my castle. From this evening, she is cook and maidservant together, scrubwoman and scullery maid as well."