“A great wave took the castle,” said a second man-at-arms, “exactly as the witch foretold. I saw it go spilling down the cliff as slowly as snow, and why we did not go with it, I cannot tell.”

“The wave parted to go around us,” another man said, “as I never saw any wave do. It was strange water, like the ghost of a wave, boiling with a rainbow light, and for a moment it seemed to me—” He rubbed his eyes and shrugged, and smiled helplessly. “I don’t know. It was like a dream.”

“But what has happened to you all?” Lír demanded. “You were old men when I was born, and now you are younger than I am. What miracle is this?”

The three who had spoken giggled and looked embarrassed, but the fourth man replied, “It is the miracle of meaning what we said. Once we told the Lady Amalthea that we would grow young again if she wished it so, and we must have been telling the truth. Where is she? We will go to her aid if it means facing the Red Bull himself.”

King Lír said, “She is gone. Find my horse and saddle him. Find my horse.” His voice was harsh and hungry, and the men-at-arms scrambled to obey their new lord.

But Schmendrick, standing behind him, said quietly, “Your Majesty, it may not be. You must not follow her.”

The king turned, and he looked like Haggard. “Magician, she is mine!” He paused, and then went on in a gentler tone, close to pleading. “She has twice raised me up from death, and what will I be without her but dead for a third time?” He took Schmendrick by the wrists with a grip strong enough to powder bones, but the magician did not move. Lír said, “I am not King Haggard. I have no wish to capture her, but only to spend my life following after her‌—‌miles, leagues, even years behind‌—‌never seeing her, perhaps, but content. It is my right. A hero is entitled to his happy ending, when it comes at last.”

But Schmendrick answered, “This is not the end, either for you or for her. You are the king of a wasted land where there has never been any king but fear. Your true task has just begun, and you may not know in your life if you have succeeded in it, but only if you fail. As for her, she is a story with no ending, happy or sad. She can never belong to anything mortal enough to want her.”

Most strangely then, he put his arms around the young king and held him so for a time. “Yet be content, my lord,” he said in a low voice. “No man has ever had more of her grace than you, and no other will ever be blessed by her remembrance. You have loved her and served her‌—‌be content, and be king.”

“But that is not what I want!” Lír cried. The magician answered not a word, but only looked at him. Blue eyes stared back into green; a face grown lean and lordly into one neither so handsome nor so bold. The king began to squint and blink, as though he were gazing at the sun, and it was not long before he lowered his eyes and muttered, “So be it. I will stay and rule alone over a wretched people in a land I hate. But I will have no more joy of my rule than poor Haggard ever had.”