Once upon a time there were two friends who found a third. Liking no one better in the whole world, they vowed to live in one palace, sail in one ship, and fight one fight with equal arms.
After three months they decided to go on a quest.
‘What shall we seek?’ they asked each other.
The first said, ‘Gold.’
The second said, ‘Wives.’
The third said, ‘That which cannot be found.’
They all agreed that this last was best and so they set off in fine array.
After a while they came to a house that celebrated ceilings and denied floors. As they marched through the front door they were only just in time to save themselves from dropping into a deep pit. While they clung in terror to the wainscotting, they looked up and saw chandeliers, bright as swords, that hung and glittered and lit the huge room where the guests came to and fro. The room was arranged for dinner, tables and chairs suspended from great chains. An armoury of knives and forks laid out in case the eaters knocked one into the abyss.
There was a trumpet sound and the guests began to enter the room through a trap door in the ceiling. Some were suspended on wires, others walked across ropes slender as youth. In this way they were all able to join their place setting. When all were assembled, the trumpet blew again, and the head of the table looked down and said to the three friends, ‘What is it you seek?’
‘That which cannot be found.’
‘It is not here,’ she answered, ‘but take some gold,’ and each of the diners threw down a solid gold plate, rather in the manner that the Doge of Venice used to throw his dinnerware into the canal to show how much he despised worldly things.
Our three friends did not despise worldly things, and caught as many of the plates as they could. Loaded down with treasure they continued on their way, though more slowly than before.
Eventually they came to Turkey, and to the harem of Mustapha the Blessed CIXX. Blessed he was, so piled with ladies, that only his index finger could be seen. Crooking it he bade the friends come forward, and asked in a muffled voice, ‘What is it you seek?’
‘That which cannot be found.’
‘It is not here,’ he said in a ghostly smother, ‘but take some wives.’
The friends were delighted, but observing the fate of Mustapha, they did not take too many. Each took six and made them carry the gold plate.
Helter skelter down the years the friends continued their journey, crossing continents of history and geography, gathering by chance the sum of the world, so that nothing was missing that could be had.
At last they came to a tower in the middle of the sea. A man with the face of centuries and the voice of the wind opened a narrow window and called,
‘What is it you seek?’
‘That which cannot be found … found … found’ and the wind twisted their voices into the air.
‘It has found you,’ said the man.
They heard a noise behind them like a scythe cutting the water and when they looked they saw a ship thin as a blade gaining towards them. The figure rowed it standing up, with one oar that was not an oar. They saw the curve of the metal flashing, first this side and then that. They saw the rower throw back his hood. They saw him beckon to them and the world tilted. The sea poured away.
Who are they with fish and starfish in their hair?