“Well, Sharpsight, will you take service with me, for I need just such a servant as you?”
Yes, Sharpsight would do that; so now the Prince had three servants, and they were such servants as no one in the world ever had before.
They travelled along over the plain, and at last they came to the foot of the mountain that lay between them and the iron castle.
“Now we must either go over it or round it,” said the Prince; “and which shall it be?”
“No need for that, Master,” answered Sharpsight. “Just let me unbandage my eyes, but be careful you are not struck by any of the flying pieces when the mountain begins to split.”
So the Prince and Broad and Long took shelter behind a clump of trees, and then Sharpsight uncovered his eyes. He fixed his eyes on the mountain, and presently it began to groan and split and splinter. Pieces of sharp rock and stones flew through the air. It was not long before Sharpsight’s gaze had bored a way straight through the mountain and out on the other side. Then he put back the bandage over his eyes and called to the Prince that the way was clear.
The Prince and his companions came out from their shelter, and when they saw the way that Sharpsight had made through the mountain they could not wonder enough. It was so broad and clear that ten men could have ridden through it abreast.
With such a way before them it did not take them long to go through the mountain, and then they found themselves in the country beyond, and a black and terrible land it was too. Nowhere was there any sound or sign of life. There were fields, but no grass. There were trees, but they bore neither leaves nor fruit. There was a river, but it did not flow, and there was light, and yet they saw no sun. But darker and gloomier than all the rest was the castle which rose before them. It was the iron castle where the Black Magician lived.
There was a moat round the castle and an iron bridge across it. The companions rode across the bridge, and no sooner were they over than the bridge rose behind them and they were prisoners.
They could not have turned back even if they had wished to, but none of them had any thought of such a thing.