Bink looked. 'They are! I see the curving glass walls, and the upholstery. It has been shaken up some, but the bottle never broke.' He was relieved. A broken bottle might well have meant the end of his friends. 'And they have another fragment of glass!' He raised his hand in a wave. 'Hi, folks!'
Silently, Humfrey waved back. 'He sees us in his fragment!' Chester exclaimed. 'But that's impossible, because the broken mirror is out here.'
'Anything is possible, with magic,' Bink said. It was a cliche, a truism, but right now he had his doubts.
'Look at the shambles in there,' Chester said. 'That bottle must have been bounced against a wall.'
'And the mirror broke, and a piece of it flew out here,' Bink said uncertainly. 'Right where we could find it. That's quite a coincidence, even if we can believe the possibility.'
'What else can we believe?' Chester demanded.
Bink could not argue. His talent operated through seeming coincidence; it must have had a part in this. But wouldn't it have been easier to have the Magician's bottle itself float to shore here, instead of one piece of glass? 'We can see them, but not hear them. Maybe if we print a message-' But they had nothing to do that with.
'If we can find the bottle, we can let them out,' Chester pointed out He seemed to be feeling better, physically.
'Yes.' Bink held the fragment close to his face and mouthed elaborately 'Where are you?'
Humfrey spread his hands. He pointed to the bottle wall Outside it, turbulent water swirled, its phosphorescence making streaky line-patterns. The bottle was somewhere in a river, being carried along by the current-where?
'I guess that mirror isn't much use,' Chester said. 'Crombie could locate us-but can't get to us. We might get to the bottle-but can't find it.'
'We'll have to follow the river down,' Bink said. 'It must start at the vortex pool here in this lake, and dribble on to wherever it goes. Yet if we follow it-'
'We delay our quest for the source of magic,' Chester finished.
That made Bink pause. 'The quest will have to wait,' he decided. 'We have to save our friends.'
'I suppose so,' the centaur agreed. 'Even that arrogant griffin'
'Do you really dislike Crombie?'
'Well?he's a scrapper, like me. Can't blame him for that, I suppose. But I'd like to try his strength, once, just for the record.'
Male competition. Well, Bink understood that, for he experienced it himself at times.
But there were more important matters now. 'I'm thirsty,' Bink said. He walked back to the lake shore.
'Have you noticed,' Chester remarked, 'that there is no life in this lake? No fish, no monsters, no plants, no beach creatures?'
'No life,' Bink repeated. 'But we're all right, so-'
'We haven't drunk from it yet. Or if we did, it was from the fresh water of the vortex, when we were on the pill.'
'That's true,' Bink said uncomfortably.
'I wonder whether the cork loosened in Humfrey's bottle, and he got a sample of this water, and hauled the cork back in place right after the mirror broke.'
'Could be,' Bink agreed. 'We'd best not gamble. Well need food soon, too. We'd better check around. We can't rescue the Magician if we don't take care of ourselves.'
'Right,' Chester agreed. 'And the first thing to do is-'
'Is to find my clothes,' Bink finished.
They were farther along the shore, complete with Bink's sword, as luck would have it. But as luck would also have it, the bottle was not with them. Chester had retained his weapons and rope, so was in good shape.
They moved on through the cavern passages, leaving the suspicious river behind, their eyes acclimatizing to the dimming subterranean reaches. Bink hoped they would not encounter nickelpedes here, but was careful not to voice this wish. No sense alarming Chester. They tried to mark their way by scratching X's in the floor every so often, but Bink wasn't sure how effective this would be. Time passed, and the way was interminable-especially since they did not know where they were going.
Bink's thirst had been casual, at first, but now that he knew there was no water it became more pressing. How long could they go on, before-?
Abruptly they saw light-real light, not the mere passage glow. They hurried cautiously up to it-and discovered a magic lantern suspended from a jag of stone. Its soft effulgence was a welcome sight-but there was nothing else.
'People-or goblins?' Bink asked, nervous and hopeful.
Chester took it down and studied it. 'Looks like fairy-work to me,' he said. 'Goblins don't really need light, and in any event this is too delicately wrought.'
'Even fairies aren't necessarily friendly,' Bink said, 'Still, it seems a better risk than starving here alone.'
