by Andre Norton
“When Ralph came home alone I never thought of James being up there by himself. But it is a place to start looking. Oh, Susan—thank you!”
Before Mom could get a word out Mrs. Mason was on her way.
“Well!” Mom exploded. “When she gets that young man back to town your father and I will have something to say to him. Now, Sue, you go and lie down. Dr. Wilson said no undue strain until he's entirely sure about that concussion. And I am not at all satisfied about this accident story either, young lady—why James went running off that way. There is something very queer about it all.”
Sue relaxed, she had gained time, time to think things out. Mom got her into bed and then, mercifully, left her alone. She lay looking at the ceiling, not in the least inclined to sleep as Mom had practically ordered her to. There was such a lot to think about.
How many miles to Babylon? That silly little rhyme flashed into her mind again.
How many miles to Babylon?
Three score and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?
Yes, and back again.
Babylon was a city, she remembered that now—a long way off. But she had traveled a lot of miles this afternoon when she had seen the lake and J.J. by it. If Mrs. Mason did find him there—then— It was still frightening, but exciting, too. Things to do, places she could travel to—all hers if she could learn how to do this. Sue smiled slowly; it was the learning which mattered now and that she was going to do, surely and certainly.
THE TOYMAKER'S SNUFFBOX
* * *
* * *
Once upon a time when the world of magic was much closer to our world than it is today, there lived in the city of Kammerstadt a toymaker who had his shop at the very end of the Street of Carpenters. So perfect were the toys he made and so well had he learned his trade, that all the kingdom found their way to that shop to buy. No child's Christmas or birthday was complete unless among the gifts was a doll or a box of soldiers, a talking bear or a galloping horse made by Master Franz.
It was often Master Franz's custom to work late in his shop to finish some toy. And one night while he was painting the last red spoke in the wheel of a cart, he heard a sound which was made neither by the wind whistling around the crooked old roofs in the Street of Carpenters nor by a mouse nibbling within the walls. He put down his brush and got up to hunt for the source of that sound.
On the shelves around the room were arranged all the finished toys. Soldiers marched in regiments and armies; animals stood in herds and families. Rows of tiny chairs fit for doll queens’ palaces were placed beside tables, chests, and curtained beds. And it was from the last and largest of these that the sound was coming.
With his paint-stained finger Master Franz looped aside the bed curtain. And there, lying on the embroidered coverlet, her hooded head half-buried in the tiny pillows, was a little lady hardly taller than the finger which disturbed her hiding place. The sound he had heard was her sobbing.
“What is this? By St. Nick himself, I must be dreaming!” burst out Master Franz, his eyes wide as he stared at the creature.
The sobs ended in a frightened gasp as the tiny head was raised, and eyes as blue as the satin of the doll queen's best court robe met his.
“I am surely dreaming! How did you get out of your box now?” He looked up at the row of fine lady dolls, each neat and tidy in her own lace-paper-edged box.
“I'm not one of your dolls, man!” answered the little thing indignantly.
“No? But then you are not a child either. You are much too small to be one of them. Just what are you, and why should you hide in the best bed to cry?”
“I am an elf. And why am I crying?” Her little voice became a wail. “Because of this, man!” With her two hands she pulled off her hood. And there was the round ball of her head, as smooth and polished as fine ivory. There was not a single hair on it)
“So-o-o? Is that the way of it now?” Master Franz, thumb to chin, considered her thoughtfully. “Lost your wig, have you? Well, that should be a lesson to you to stay comfortably in your proper box and not stray about in this giddy way.”
But at this the elf leaped down from the bed and stamped her foot.
“I tell you, man, I am NOT one of your sawdust-stuffed puppets!”
But Master Franz was no longer listening to her. Instead he pulled open a narrow drawer where, each in a compartment all its own, lay tresses of hair, hair in all colors and shades from glowing red-gold to shadeless black.
“Blue eyes,” he muttered to himself. “Not brown, then, nor this yellow. Yes, we shall use black.”
The elf who had been leaning over the edge of the shelf in a most perilous manner drew a deep breath.
“Why not?” she asked herself. “That old witch's spell may have wiped the hair from my head, but wearing a wig I could still go to the ball tonight. Let him continue to believe me a doll until after he has done that for me.”
So she allowed Master Franz to lift her down to his worktable, to measure and fit until she could stand it no longer, but wriggled out of his fingers to run and stare at herself in the mirror of a doll's toilet set.
“One of my best jobs, I think,” said Master Franz with some pride. “Now you are even prettier than Her Majesty up yonder.” He pointed to the doll queen seated haughtily on her throne on the very top shelf.
“I should think that I am!” retorted the elf. “Prettier than a puppet, indeed! But I like your work very much, toymaker, so I shall make you a gift in return. What do you want most in the world?”
“What do I want? This is a queer dream indeed. Well, I shall answer the truth to that. I wish for nothing that I do not now have in my two hands. I am very content with this shop and my work here. No, there is nothing at all for me to wish for,” laughed Master Franz.
The elf frowned. “That is not a proper answer at all, man. But since you will not tell me, I shall choose for you. And now I must be off or I shall be late for the ball. Goodnight, toymaker, and see what you shall find on this table tomorrow!”
With that she disappeared and Master Franz sat blinking. He rubbed his eyes sleepily. To be sure, there were two long black hairs caught in a drop of glue on the boards before him. But of course he had been dreaming.
“Bed is the place for me. I'm too sleepy to be of use here.”
He blew out his candles and went off to his bed.
When he came into the shop the next morning something lay glittering in a patch of sunlight on the worktable. It was a snuffbox of gold with a quaint design of dancing elves scrolled around its edge.
“Was I dreaming last night or not?” marvelled Master Franz. He turned the box over. “But I'm no fine gentleman to be using snuff. I do not need this.” He dropped the snuffbox into one of the table drawers, and before the hour was past he had forgotten all about it.
But the happy days in the Street of Carpenters did not last One day the King's trumpeters rode into the marketplace to proclaim war, and the men of Kammerstadt were called upon to serve in the army. Master Franz gave away the rest of the toys, laid aside his tools, and locked his shop, to put on a red coat and march away with the rest.
One cold winter's night he came home again. But there were no bright lights in the crooked-roofed houses to welcome him, only dark shadows and the driving cold of winter to bite through his worn coat and freeze the tears on his cheeks.
Only in the baker's shop was there the gleam of a candle. And Master Franz turned in there to spend his last coin for a bit of bread.
“These are hard times for us now, Master Franz. The good days are gone from Kammerstadt,” the baker's wife told him. “And if you are wise, you will try your fortune elsewhere. Here the King's treasurer has sent tax gatherers to sweep up all our money, and no one has aught to spare for the buying of silly toys. A man must labor from daylight to candlelight for bare bread alone.”
Franz went on to his shop. But all the magic which had once filled it was gone. Cobwebs, heavy with dust, h
ung from the empty shelves and he could hardly remember now how it had once looked. He crouched down beside the worktable with his aching head in his hands and there he spent the night. In the morning he opened the drawers to look for his tools but they had all been stolen long ago.
However, as he pulled open the last drawer something within it rattled. And so again he found the snuffbox. Franz could hardly believe his good fortune. Such a trinket would certainly be worth a pocketful of gold to him now. But should he, dared he, offer it for sale in Kammerstadt? Who would believe that one as ragged and poor as he had come by it honestly? He might be thrown into prison if he showed it.
It would be better to take the advice of the baker's wife. If no one in Kammerstadt would now buy toys, there were other cities where his skill might again earn his living. He had no ties to keep him fast in these ruins of his old life.
So, with the snuffbox safely hidden, Franz went out through the gates of Kammerstadt and followed the highway eastward to a new life.
He wandered from city to city, village to village. And he did not sell the snuffbox, for it seemed to him that his luck had changed from the moment he had found it. Now he was able to find work, and for some weeks he was a carpenter's helper. When he left that shop he had a new coat on his back, whole shoes on his feet, and a knapsack of supplies.
But in all his wanderings he found no city or village in which he wished to settle, or where he thought that the toymaker's craft would be truly welcomed.
After many months he came through the pass in the Gorgen Mountains and looked down upon a green and smiling land below wherein was set a fair city of many towers.
“Now I believe,” said Franz to the tumbled rocks about him, “that this is the place for which I have been searching all these weary days. Here lies the city where I wish to stay.”
And he set off down the mountain road at a good pace. But the city was farther off than it had appeared from the pass. At nightfall he found himself still in the wilderness, so he built a fire and grubbed in his knapsack for any bits of food he might have overlooked. His fingers found only the snuffbox. He brought it out into the firelight, turning it over and over.
“There is good gold in you,” he observed. “Mayhap it will buy me proper tools and a roof to use them under. But tonight I could almost wish that you would give me food and drink.”
No sooner had those words passed his lips than the snuffbox squeezed between his fingers and flew open on the moss at his feet. Before he could pick it up, a square of cloth floated out to grow and grow and spread itself with smoking dishes fit for a king's table.
At first Franz was almost afraid to eat the mysterious feast. But his hunger was greater than his caution, and he ate and drank to the last crumb. When he had done, the cloth and the dishes shrank back into the snuffbox, which then snapped shut with a click. Franz picked it up and stowed it away in his money belt.
“It would seem that I have an even greater treasure than I thought,” he mused. “Will it obey my every wish or only three? That is a point I must think about, for many such gifts in past legends have been limited that way. And if that is true, I must take care as to how I spend the two still remaining.”
He began to dream of all a man might wish for: wealth, a throne, the hand of the loveliest princess in the world. But none of these seemed very real to Franz. He decided that he had lived too long by the skill of his hands to care for any of them.
By noon of the next day he came to the gates of the city. But now its grim gray walls and the many angry-red and somber-black banners hanging over them did not seem inviting. The spiked gates were closed, and to enter he had to pass through a small postern and answer the many sharp questions of the sentries on duty there.
Within, the city was no pleasanter. There were many merchants’ booths in the market, but the men who kept them had white, worried faces, and they all glanced back now and again over their shoulders as if an enemy might creep upon them. To Franz it was plain that this was a city where some terror ruled.
He found an inn, but when he sat down and called for ale, the little serving maid came reluctantly to bring it. As she put down his tankard she lingered a moment, scrubbing the table with her stained apron.
“Get you gone, stranger,” she whispered.
“Why?”
Her face was twisted with fear as she answered. “They will be after you. No stranger enters the gates that she does not hear of it. And with strangers she has her sport.”
“And who is she?”
“The Lady Carola, she whom the Princess Katha set over us in rule. Go quickly now, if you can, stranger. But perhaps it is already too late. And if that is so, no man or woman within these walls will raise a hand to aid you.”
Franz sipped his ale. Fear he had known many times before, and never did it profit a man to turn his back upon it.
Some minutes later a file of men-at-arms tramped into the inn and ordered him to come with them. So was Franz brought to the tall keep in the very heart of the city to meet the ruler of that place.
She was neither young nor old and he could not have said whether she had beauty or was plain. But in her face and her clutching hands there were both power and evil, and Franz straightway hated her as he had never known hatred before.
“A strong man,” she said harshly. “Now if you but have wits to match your strength, it shall make our contest the more interesting for both of us.”
“Our contest, Lady?”
“Aye. Since the Princess Katha thought it wise to retire from the world, I have ruled this doltish city and its teeming fools. Contests of wit and will are my only amusement. Thus shall I set you three tasks and if you cannot accomplish them—then you shall take your place among these!”
At her gesture one of the guards swept back a curtain of tapestry, and Franz saw in the wall a row of niches, In each, except for one, was a man of stone.
“Witch,” returned the toymaker, “the contest you propose is an old one. There are legends in my homeland of such. But in the fullness of time there was always the same end to them.”
“And that?” she prompted him.
“The witch lost.”
She laughed. “If I lose, stranger, your reward shall be all the greater. But time is passing. I must set the first task before daylight is gone.
“On the top of this keep there is an eagle's nest which has been there this hundred years. And in that nest—so men say—lies the crown of an earlier ruler of this land. I have a fancy to wear that crown. Fetch it down for me, stranger!”
The guards marched Franz out into the courtyard.
“You have two hours,” the captain told him sharply.
The walls of the keep were smooth stone without even hold enough for a fingernail of one who would climb. Franz slipped his hand beneath his coat and brought out the snuffbox. Now, if never again, he needed its aid.
“I wish for a way to climb the keep,” he said slowly.
The box clicked open, and a thin golden vine hitched out of it. Up to the wall of the keep it crept and plastered itself against the stone, clinging as an ivy vine, growing steadily higher and higher. On this ladder Franz began to climb, not daring to look down. Up and up he followed the golden vine until at last, with aching arms, he pulled himself over the top and half tumbled, half jumped into a great mass of sticks and the bones of the eagles’ prey.
Through this evil-smelling mess he combed until he found a circlet which flashed with jeweled fire. Then he trusted himself again to the vine. As he climbed down it, it shrank with his passing, so that when the stones of the courtyard were once more under his feet, the vine flowed back into the snuffbox.
But the Lady Carola had no pleasure in the crown when he offered it to her. Instead, flames of anger danced in her eyes.
“You are very clever, stranger!” Her voice was the hiss of a serpent. “Once you have won, but not twice, 1 think. Listen to the second task I set you:
“In the stable stands a r
oan mare which it is my will to ride. But since the beast is mad and attacks all who would approach it, it has never been saddled. Bring it hither gentled, stranger, and I shall believe that you have powers greater than mine!
“So be it, Lady,” replied Franz calmly.
Now Franz was city bred and knew but little of horses.
However, it was plain to the most ignorant that the roan that the guards showed him was not only mad, but in its madness it was driven by a hate against all mankind. It reared and beat its hoofs against the wall, baring teeth at those who would come near it, restrained only by the heavy chains at its bridle.
“Within the hour, fool,” laughed the captain, “we shall return to carry hence what is left of you.”
“A most courteous act,” returned Franz quietly. He waited until they had left the stable before he brought out the snuffbox.
“Give me now what will best master this demon,” he asked of it.
Over the rim of the snuffbox fell a ball of rosy light which grew larger as it rolled across the floor until it lay quiet before the mare. The tall horse stood still, its eyes fixed upon the light. Franz ventured to lay a hand on a quivering flank. The horse did not move.
So did it continue to stand statue-still while Franz, with many rumblings, saddled it. Then it allowed the toymaker to lead it out, while the ball rolled before them. Thus Franz brought the mare through the crowd of awestricken men into the great hall.
At the sight of the mare, the Lady Carola shrank back in her seat. But the flames in her eyes grew, and her mouth was straight and grim.
“Twice you have won, stranger!” Her voice arose in a harsh scream of rage. “But for you there shall be no third victory. Ten years upon ten years ago the Princess Katha went from among us, leaving this city in my hands. And no man knows whither she went. Bring her back to this high seat! That I ask of you now, little man who would match wits with me!”
For the last time Franz touched the snuffbox and muttered his wish. But nothing happened. And he knew, with a sinking heart, that three wishes only had that box held, and he had used them all. As he stood there defenseless, the Lady Carola laughed.