Even King Haggard gave back a step before the triumphant grin of old Mabruk. The walls of the room seemed to thaw and run away, and the wizard’s starry gown became the huge, howling night. Mabruk spoke no word himself, but the wind was beginning to make a wicked, grunting sound as it gained strength. In another moment it would become visible, burst into shape. Schmendrick opened his mouth, but if he were shouting a counterspell it could not be heard, and it did not work.

In the darkness, Molly Grue saw the Lady Amalthea turning far away, stretching out a hand on which the ring and middle fingers were of equal length. The strange place on her forehead was glowing as bright as a flower.

Then the wind was gone as though it had never been, and the stone walls were around them once more, the dull chamber as gay as noon after Mabruk’s night. The wizard was crouched almost to the floor, staring at the Lady Amalthea. His wise, benevolent face looked like the face of a drowned man, and his beard dripped thinly from his chin, like stagnant water. Prince Lír took him by the arm.

“Come on, old man,” he said, not unkindly. “This way out, granddad. I’ll write you a reference.”

“I am going,” Mabruk said. “Not from fear of you, you lump of stale dough‌—‌nor of your mad, ungrateful father; nor of your new magician, much happiness may you have of him.” His eyes met King Haggard’s hungry eyes, and he laughed like a goat.

“Haggard, I would not be you for all the world,” he declared. “You have let your doom in by the front door, though it will not depart that way. I would explain myself more fully, but I am no longer in your service. That is a pity, for there will come a time when none but a master will be able to save you‌—‌and in that hour, you will have Schmendrick to call upon! Farewell, poor Haggard, farewell!”

Still laughing, he disappeared; but his mirth dwelled forever in the corners of that chamber, like the smell of smoke, or of old, cold dust.

“Well,” said King Haggard in the gray moonlight. “Well.” He came slowly toward Schmendrick and Molly, his feet silent, his head weaving almost playfully. “Stand still,” he commanded when they moved. “I want to see your faces.”

His breath rasped like a knife on a grindstone as he peered from one of them to the other. “Closer!” he grumbled, squinting through the dark. “Come closer‌—‌closer! I want to see you.”

“Light a light then,” said Molly Grue. The calmness of her own voice frightened her more than the fury of the old wizard had. It is easy to be brave for her sake, she thought, but if I begin being brave on my own account, where will it end?

“I never light lights,” the king replied. “What is the good of light?”

He turned from them, muttering to himself, “One face is almost guileless, almost foolish, but not quite foolish enough. The other is a face like my face, and that must mean danger. Yet I saw all that at the gate‌—‌why did I let them enter, then? Mabruk was right; I have grown old and daft and easy. Still, I see only Haggard when I look in their eyes.”