Gisco’s descriptions of people from the future are sometimes tinged with emotions. When he talks about my parents, I can sense his love and respect. When he alludes to the leader of the Dark Army, I pick up on his fear. Now the veneration in his telepathic tone approaches awe: The only person who has a chance to stop him is the greatest wizard-scientist who ever lived, the Mysterious Kidah. He came back in time for that express purpose.

Great, I say, then let these two titans of the future battle it out—the Wizard against the Dark Lord. Why do you need me?

Because Kidah disappeared, Gisco admits sadly. He may be dead or in hiding. No one can find him. And sand is slipping through the hourglass, Jack. Now and a thousand years from now, time is running out.

Suppose he doesn’t want to be found? It sounds to me like your great wizard doesn’t want to tangle with the spidery Dark Lord either. Maybe he made himself disappear.

Kidah’s courage is indisputable.

Okay. Then where is he? Where was he last seen?

Gisco looks back at me and then raises a paw dramatically and thrusts it down at the purple cloud cover beneath our balloon. We think he’s there.

I look down. The clouds are no longer purple. Shafts of morning sunlight now make them glow a remarkable shade of green.

Then I realize that I’m not looking down at cloud cover but rather tree cover! Except that it can’t possibly be tree cover because forests have boundaries and limits, they thin out and give way to grasslands, but the expanse of rippling green below me seems to go on forever.

The green is laced and flecked with silver that glints in the noonday sun. There are glowing veins and flashing arteries, and millions of tiny, twisting capillaries. Water! The almost impenetrable forest canopy conceals a second, hidden world of rivers, lakes, and swamps.

“The Amazon?” I whisper.

Yes. We’re pretty sure he’s somewhere down there in Pará or Amazonas state. And if he is, you and I have to find him and get him back on his feet.

Sure, I mutter, staring down at the forbidding tree canopy. We’ll track the greatest and also apparently the most cowardly mind of the future down in the biggest, wildest, and most dangerous swamp in the world. Talk about trying to find a wizard in a haystack. Count me out.

Kidah’s no coward. And don’t worry about the Amazon, Gisco assures me. Predatory reptiles and giant insects and fish with teeth are only dangerous when they can sink their teeth into you. That’s why we came airmail. You’re totally safe up here with me.

No sooner has Gisco given me this reassurance than I hear the concussive thuds of antiaircraft fire. Luckily, we seem to be out of range.