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The Adventures of King Midas
Lynne Reid Banks
A rollicking magical adventure story as King Midas sets out to find a cure for his magic touch so that he can turn his daughter back from gold.Witches, dragons, wizards and a host of amazing characters feature in this spell-binding tale from a supreme storyteller.
The Adventures of King Midas
Lynne Reid Banks
Illustrated by
Hilda Offen
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For E.
Table of Contents
Title Page (#ud67ace13-7eca-5e65-b7a8-056c9b0ed512)
Dedication (#udd0b6b51-42b2-5780-ae45-fad8e5135edf)
Chapter One: The Wish (#ub0533387-dd3e-57d6-820e-dffeb603e66c)
Chapter Two: Gold! (#u20dedbc5-3c97-5346-baf8-07bff1f2f17b)
Chapter Three: The Price (#u71986430-31a7-5a41-a259-9c72051dc8df)
Chapter Four: The Quest Begins (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five: Old Gollop (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six: The Witch’s Cave (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven: The Mumbo (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight: Flight By Moonlight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine: “Gone For Ever!” (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten: Under the Palace (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven: Return of the Magician (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One The Wish (#ulink_3628bec7-0cce-5268-a574-219547f34c74)
King Midas was nothing special, as kings go. He hadn’t got a particularly large kingdom, just a small one, and it wasn’t either rich or poor. Just ordinary, really. Like the King himself, until a certain day in his life, on which everything changed.
But until that day, things jogged along for him quite normally. Of course, you might not think it normal to live in a small but charming palace surrounded by beautiful grounds, to have to sign papers all the time, wear a heavy crown quite often, and to have dozens of servants running around to do your bidding. But that’s normal for a king, and King Midas was quite used to it and thought nothing of it.
He hadn’t got a queen.
He’d had one, once, but sadly, she’d died. The King was terribly grieved. She had been so beautiful – a shining golden beauty that made the sun and the stars come out for him. He kept a lock of her hair, the colour of summer pollen, in a locket round his neck, and would take it out and smooth it in his fingers to keep it shiny and alive-looking.
But he had something better than that left from his happy younger days: a little daughter called Delia.
She looked rather like her mother – the same bright brown eyes and sun-spun golden hair, and lively, loving ways. King Midas simply adored her, and made a great fuss of her, giving her most of what she asked for and thinking of all kinds of lovely surprises for her.
But oddly enough, she wasn’t spoilt. She went to school in the village near the palace, like other children, and was quite ordinary, too, in a way. Of course, a princess can never be entirely ordinary, but there was one nice thing about her – she never boasted or gave herself airs. She was a very nice girl, really, which made what happened to her all the worse. She simply didn’t deserve it.
As to whether the King deserved to be the cause of this awful thing that happened to his beloved child, that’s another matter. There’s no denying that he had a fault. Who hasn’t? But this one was bad enough to lead him into the most dire trouble.
He allowed to grow in him a great desire, which came to rule his whole life.
He thought nobody knew about it. But little things gave him away to those quick-witted enough to understand.
For instance, one day some large oil paintings that he’d ordered from abroad arrived in big flat packing-cases. He was very excited and as soon as they were unpacked, he called Delia.
“You must see my new paintings, my darling,” he cried cheerfully. “You’ve got such an eye, I can’t wait to hear what you think of them!”
Delia had no more “eye” than most people, but she did like paintings. She loved making up stories about them. So she hurried after her father to one of the long galleries in the palace.
“I must supervise the hanging,” said the King importantly.
“Daddy, you know you’ve done away with capital punishment!” teased Delia.
The King laughed uproariously. He was in a very good mood.
There were already several servants up ladders, and several more below, with the first great canvas in their hands, ready to hand it up to those above. The King, who had arrived beaming with pleasure, took one look at the picture and flew into one of his rare, but alarming, rages.
“Take them away!” he roared. “I won’t have them! I don’t want them – not like that!”
One of his personal servants called Biffpot, the only one who dared speak to him when he was angry, murmured, “But Sire, the paintings are very fine!”
“The paintings? The PAINTINGS? Who’s talking about the paintings? It’s the FRAMES I can’t abide! GET THOSE FRAMES OUT OF MY SIGHT!”
“But Daddy, what’s wrong with the frames?” Delia exclaimed anxiously. “They’re beautiful, all carved and gilded –”
“Gilded! Precisely, my darling! You have put your finger on it! They are gilded! I would rather, far rather, have plain wooden ones than these – these – these pretenders! I tell you I will not be lied to – not even by a picture frame!”
And he stormed away, leaving the servants agape and Delia close to tears.
Later, in the servants’ hall, there was much gossip, and not for the first time.
“The King’s got this thing about fakes,” the butler remarked knowingly. “What they call a fixation.”
“No,” said the manservant who had been trying to hang up the picture. “He’s got a thing about lies. And I believe it’s called an obsession.”
But Biffpot, who was closer to the King than the others, being his personal valet, shook his head sadly.
“His Majesty,” he said, “is indeed obsessed AND fixated. But not with the things you mentioned. It is much, much more serious than that.”
“So what is it?” asked the others. But Biffpot only shook his head in a worried way and wouldn’t answer directly.
“I will say only this,” he said. “It is one of the most serious obsessions anyone can have, and No Good Will Come Of It.”
How right he was.
So Biffpot knew about the King’s desire. And soon, one other person knew, because Midas told her – Delia.
When she was at school, and he had finished his signing for the day and had nothing much to distract him, he would walk about the palace and the gardens, with his hands behind his back and his head down on his chest, feeling deeply depressed. No, it was more like feeling desperately hungry. Only what he was hungry for wasn’t food.
Once, Delia, returning from school and not finding him in his office, came out to look for him in the garden. She saw him at a distance and crept up behind him, but when, startled out of his dream, he turned suddenly, she saw he had tears on his face.
She threw herself into his arms.
“Daddy! You’re crying! What’s wrong, were you thinking of Mother?”
“Ah, my darling! If it were only that! I wish I could say I had been, but no. I’ll tell you the truth, but promise you won’t tell.”
“Of course, I’d never tell your secrets,” she said, snuggling under his arm. “It can’t be anything bad.”
He found it very difficult to explain. He cleared his throat several times, and then said: “Have you ever looked around you, and wished everything were a different colour?”
She stared at him. “No.”
He tried again.
“Have you ever thought how wonderful it would be, if everything were made of – a different kind of stuff?”
“No … What kind of stuff?”
“Well, er – anything you like. Chocolate, perhaps?”
She wrinkled up her nose and shook her head. “Too sticky.”
“Wouldn’t you like it if everything around us were a toy, something for you to play with?”
“But then nothing would be real and there’d be no point in pretending.”
He groaned, and came right out with it.
“Well, wouldn’t you think it was the most wonderful thing in the world if everything were made of gold?”
She gazed at him open-mouthed. “I think that would be horrid,” she said. Then she saw his face fall. “Oh, Daddy! I’m sorry, is that what you want?”
He nodded, and she saw the hungry, haunted look in his eyes. She didn’t know what to say. She felt quite shocked and upset. It seemed so … But she couldn’t think words like “silly” and “greedy” about her father.
“But Daddy,” she said slowly. “We’ve got so much gold already. More than most people at school will ever see in their whole lives.”
He said nothing.
“We’ve got all that gold jewellery of Mother’s, and your gold watch, and the gold ornaments, and the special gold knives and forks and plates for state dinners, and –”
But the King was shaking his head.
“It’s – it’s not enough, somehow,” he muttered.
“But if it’s money you want, we’ve got the Treasury!”
“They send me what I order in –” (he shuddered) “bank notes” he said with disgust. “Dirty, deceitful things, pretending to be gold, well, as good as gold, but they’re lying, they’re lying!” His round, jolly face went dark red, and Delia backed away a step. He quickly controlled himself and reached out his hand to her. It was trembling.
“Delia … Tell me it’s not madness. Tell me you understand.”
She couldn’t. So she just held his hand tight and looked at the ground. They stood like that for a moment. Then she raised her face.
“You’ll get over it, Daddy. Now please, stop grumping around and come and read my new book with me!”
And she tugged him after her.
The King shook himself free of his longing, for the moment, and tried to cheer up for Delia’s sake, because he loved her. But the thing was getting too strong for him. It seemed to be taking him over. Any time he wasn’t busy, or was feeling a bit down, that gnawing hunger would come back to him, and he would just have to go away by himself and wish and wish and wish for gold.
One day, when he was feeling like this and walking about the garden, he was startled to see a little old man – really little, about two feet tall – with a long white beard and a black cloak, pop out from behind a bush in front of the King.
Midas blinked. “Good morning,” he said politely.
“It isn’t good and it isn’t morning,” snapped the little old man. “It’s the middle of the afternoon, as you’d know if you were thinking about it.”
“So it is,” said the King. “My mind was on something else.”
“Obviously.”
The King’s white moustache (did I mention that he had a white moustache?) began to bristle.
“Excuse me, but who are you, and how did you get into my garden?” he asked.
“My name is Nandan,” replied this strange little figure. “I got in by wishing to be in. And speaking of wishes, I see that you have a very powerful one.”
Startled, the King said, “What do you mean, you see?”
“It’s written all over you,” replied the little man, his bright eyes twinkling under his bushy eyebrows.
The King looked down at himself. To his amazement, the one word GOLD was written in large letters all over his clothes. Even as he stared, it faded.
