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