“I can almost feel the weight of those diamonds and emeralds and gold and pearls right now,” said Amos.
“Can you really?” asked the grey man. He pulled a piece of green silk from his pocket, went to the black box, and stuffed it into a small square door: Orlmnb!
“Where is the third mirror hidden?” asked Amos.
“Two leagues short of over there is a garden of violent colors and rich perfume, where black butterflies glisten on the rims of pink marble fountains, and the only thing white in it is a silver-white unicorn who guards the third piece of the mirror.”
“Then it’s good I am going to get it for you,” said Amos, “because even with your sunglasses, it would give you a terrible headache.”
“Curses,” said the grey man, “but you’re right.” He took from his pocket a strip of crimson cloth with orange design, went to the trunk, and lowered it through a small round hole in the top. As the last of it dropped from sight, the trunk went Mlpbgrm!
“I am very anxious to see you at the happiest moment of your life,” said Amos. “But you still haven’t told me what you and your nearest and dearest friend expect to find in the mirror.”
“Haven’t I?” said the grey man. He reached under the table and took out a white leather boot, went to the trunk, lifted the lid, and tossed it in.
Org! This sound was not from the trunk; it was Amos swallowing his last piece of sausage much too fast. He and the grey man looked at one another, and neither said anything. The only sound was from the trunk: Grublmeumplefrmp… hic!
“Well,” said Amos at last, “I think I’ll go outside and walk around the deck a bit.”
“Nonsense,” said the grey man, smoothing his grey gloves over his wrists. “If you’re going to be up this afternoon, you’d better go to sleep right now.”
“Believe me, a little air would make me sleep much better.”
“Believe me,” said the grey man, “I have put a little something in your eggs and sausages that will make you sleep much better than all the air in the world.”
Suddenly Amos felt his eyes grow heavy, his head grow light, and he slipped down in his chair.
When Amos woke up, he was lying on the floor of the ship’s brig inside the cell, and Jack, in his underwear—for the sailors had jumped on him when he came back in the morning and given the jailer back his clothes—was trying to wake him up.
“What happened to you?” Amos asked, and Jack told him.
“What happened to you?” asked Jack, and Amos told him.
“Then we have been found out, and all is lost,” said the prince. “For it is noon already, and the sun is at its highest and hottest. The boat has docked two leagues short of over there, and the grey man must be about to go for the third mirror himself.”
“May his head split into a thousand pieces,” and Amos, “with the pain.”
“Pipe down in there,” said the jailer. “I’m trying to sleep.” And he spread out his piece of grey canvas and lay down.
Outside the water lapped at the ship, and after a moment Jack said, “A river runs by the castle of the Far Rainbow, and when you go down into the garden, you can hear the water against the wall just like that.”
“Now don’t be sad,” said Amos. “We need all our wits about us.”
From somewhere there was the sound of knocking.
“Though, truly,” said Amos, glancing at the ceiling, “I had a friend once named Billy Belay, an old sailor with a wooden leg, I used to play jackstraws with. When he would go upstairs to his room in the Mariners’ Tavern, you could hear him walking overhead just like that.”
That knocking came again.
“Only that isn’t above us,” said Jack. “It’s below.”
They looked at the floor. Then Jack got down on his hands and knees and looked under the cot. “There’s a trapdoor there,” he whispered to Amos, “and somebody’s knocking.”
“A trapdoor in the bottom of a ship?” asked Amos.
“We won’t question it,” said Jack, “we’ll just open it.”
They grabbed the ring and pulled the door back. Through the opening there was only the green surface of the water. Then, below the surface, Lea appeared.
“What are you doing here?” whispered Amos.
“I’ve come to help you,” she said. “You have gotten two-thirds of the broken mirror. Now you must get the last piece.”
“How did you get here?” asked Jack.
“Only the shiny surface of things keeps us apart,” said Lea. “Now if you dive through here, you can swim out from under the boat.”
“And once we get out from under the boat,” said Amos, “we can climb back in.”
“Why should we do that?” asked Jack.
“I have a plan,” said Amos.
“But will it work even if the grey man is already in the garden of violent colors and rich perfumes, walking past the pink marble fountains where the black butterflies glisten on their rims?” asked Jack.
“It will work as long as the silver-white unicorn guards the fragment of the mirror,” said Amos, “and the grey man doesn’t have his hands on it. Now dive.”
The prince dove, and Amos dove after him.
“Will you pipe down in there,” called the jailer without opening his eyes.
In the garden the grey man, with sunglasses tightly over his eyes and an umbrella above his head, was indeed walking through violent colors and rich perfumes, past pink marble fountains where black butterflies glistened. It was hot; he was dripping with perspiration, and his head was in agony.
He had walked a long time, and even through his dark glasses he could make out the green and red blossoms, the purple fruit on the branches, the orange melons on the vines. The most annoying thing of all, however, were the swarms of golden gnats that buzzed about him. He would beat them away with the umbrella, but they came right back again.
After what seemed a long, long time, he saw a flicker of silver white, and coming closer, he saw it was a unicorn. It stood in the little clearing, blinking. Just behind the unicorn was the last piece of the mirror.
“Well it’s about time,” said the grey man, and began walking toward it. But as soon as he stepped into the clearing, the unicorn snorted and struck his front feet against the ground, one after the other.
“I’ll just get it quickly without any fuss,” said the grey man. But when he stepped forward, the unicorn also stepped forward, and the grey man found the sharp point of the unicorn’s horn against the grey cloth of his shirt, right where it covered his bellybutton.
“I’ll have to go around it then,” said the grey man. But when he moved to the right, the unicorn moved to the right; and when he moved to the left, the unicorn did the same.
From the mirror there was a laugh.
The grey man peered across the unicorn’s shoulder, and in the piece of glass he saw not his own reflection but the face of a young woman. “I’m afraid,” she said cheerfully, “that you shall never be able to pick up the mirror unless the unicorn lets you, for it was placed here by a wizard so great and so old and so terrible that you and I need never worry about him.”
“Then what must I do to make this stubborn animal let me by? Tell me quickly because I am in a hurry and have a headache.”
“You must prove yourself worthy,” said Lea.
“How do I do that?”
“You must show how clever you are,” said Lea. “When I was free of this mirror, my teacher, in order to see how well I had learned my lessons, asked me three questions. I answered all three, and these three questions were harder than any questions ever heard by man or woman. I am going to ask you three questions that are ten times as hard, and if you answer them correctly, you may pick up the mirror.”
“Ask me,” said the grey man.