Unnatural Creatures

by Neil Gaiman

  “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 s
omebody 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 a
nd 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.