Unnatural Creatures

“Then we’ll work it so you won’t have to hide,” said Amos. “If I remember you right, the second piece is on the top of a windy mountain so high the North Wind lives in a cave there.”

“That’s right,” said Jack.

“Very well then, I have a plan.” Again Amos began to whisper through the bars, and Jack smiled and nodded.

They sailed all that night and all the next day, and toward evening they pulled in to a rocky shore where just a few hundred yards away a mountain rose high and higher into the clear twilight.

The sailors gathered on the deck of the ship just as the sun began to set, and the grey man put one grey gloved hand on Amos’s shoulder and pointed to the mountain with his other.

“There, among the windy peaks, is the cave of the North Wind. Even higher, on the highest and windiest peak, is the second fragment of the mirror. It is a long, dangerous, and treacherous climb. Shall I expect you back for breakfast?”

“Certainly,” said Amos. “Fried eggs, if you please, once over lightly, and plenty of hot sausages.”

“I will tell the cook,” said the grey man.

“Good,” said Amos. “Oh, but one more thing. You say it is windy there. I shall need a good supply of rope, then, and perhaps you can spare a man to go with me. A rope is not much good if there is a person only on one end. If I have someone with me, I can hold him if he blows off, and he can do the same for me.” Amos turned to the sailors. “What about that man there? He has a rope and is well muffled against the wind.”

“Take whom you like,” said the grey man, “so long as you bring back my mirror.” The well-muffled sailor with the coil of rope on his shoulder stepped forward with Amos. Had the grey man not been wearing his sunglasses against the sunset, he might have noticed something familiar about the sailor, who kept looking at the mountain and would not look back. But as it was, he suspected nothing.

Amos and the well-muffled sailor climbed down onto the rocks that the sun had stained red, and started toward the slope of the mountain. Once the grey man raised his glasses as he watched them go but lowered them quickly, for it was the most golden hour of the sunset then. The sun sank, and he could not see them anymore. Even so, he stood at the rail a long time, till a sound in the darkness roused him from his reverie: Blmvghm!

Amos and Jack climbed long and hard through the evening. When darkness fell, at first they thought they would have to stop, but the clear stars made a mist over the jagged rocks, and a little later the moon rose. After that it was much easier going. Shortly the wind began. First a breeze merely tugged at their collars. Then rougher gusts began to nip their fingers. At last buffets of wind flattened them against the rock one moment, then tried to jerk them loose the next. The rope was very useful indeed, and neither one complained. They simply went on climbing, steadily through the hours. Once Jack paused a moment to look back over his shoulder at the silver sea and said something that Amos couldn’t hear.

“What did you say?” cried Amos above the howl.

“I said,” the prince cried back, “look at the moon!”

Now Amos looked over his shoulder too and saw that the white disk was going slowly down.

They began again, climbing faster than ever, but in another hour the bottom of the moon had already sunk below the edge of the ocean. At last they gained a fair-sized ledge where the wind was not so strong. Above, there seemed no way to go any higher.

Jack gazed out at the moon and sighed. “If it were daylight, I wonder if I could I see all the way to the Far Rainbow from here.”

“You might,” said Amos. But though his heart was with Jack, he still felt a good spirit was important to keep up. “But we might see it a lot more clearly from the top of this mountain.” But as he said it, the last light of the moon winked out. Now even the stars were gone, and the blackness about them was complete. But as they turned to seek shelter in the rising wind, Amos cried, “There’s a light!”

“Where’s a light?” cried Jack.

“Glowing behind those rocks,” cried Amos.

An orange glow outlined the top of a craggy boulder, and they hurried toward it over the crumbly ledge. When they climbed the rock, they saw that the light came from behind another wall of stone farther away, and they scrambled toward it, pebbles and bits of ice rolling under their hands. Behind the wall they saw that the light was even stronger above another ridge, and they did their best to climb it without falling who-knows-how-many hundreds of feet to the foot of the mountain. At last they pulled themselves onto the ledge and leaned against the side, panting. Far ahead of them, orange flames flickered brightly and there was light on each face. For all the cold wind, their foreheads were still shiny with the sweat of the effort.

“Come on,” said Amos, “just a little way….”

And from half a dozen directions they heard: Come on, just a little…just a little way…little way…

They stared at each other and Jack jumped up. “Why, we must be in the cave of…”

And echoing back they heard “…must be in the cave…in the cave of…cave of…

“…the North Wind,” whispered Amos.

They started forward again toward the fires. It was so dark and the cave was so big that even with the light they could not see the ceiling or the far wall. The fires themselves burned in huge scooped-out basins of stone. They had been put there for a warning, because just beyond them the floor of the cave dropped away and there was only darkness.

“I wonder if she’s at home,” whispered Jack.

Then before them was a rushing and a rumbling and a rolling like thunder, and from the blackness a voice said, “I am the North Wind, and I am very much at home.”

A blast of air sent the fires reeling in the basins, and the sailor’s cap that Jack wore flew back into the darkness.

“Are you really the North Wind?” Amos asked.

“Yes, I am really the North Wind,” came the thunderous voice. “Now you tell me who you are before I blow you into little pieces and scatter them over the whole wide world.”

“I am Amos, and this is Jack, Prince of the Far Rainbow,” said Amos. “We wandered into your cave by accident and meant nothing impolite. But the moon went down, so we had to stop climbing, and we saw your light.”

“Where were you climbing to?”

Now Jack said, “To the top of the mountain where there is a piece of a mirror.”