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She set her lamp in the hollow of the stone, no longer needing its light to make her way and not wishing to waken anyone except Myrddin. She smiled in anticipation. This was not the first trip she had made, tonight, along the secret pathway. Her previous three trips had served to transport everything she would need to spring the trap on her chosen victim. It waited, patiently, below the earth for his arrival.
Covia
A trickle of light from a high, narrow window fell like a sword blade across the bed. She could see the soft rise and fall of the woolen blanket across Myrddin's chest. For just a moment, she regretted the necessity of destroying such a brilliant mind, not to mention the most skilled lover she'd ever lain with; but only for a moment. Marguase's shade cried out for justice and this man's death was the first step in obtaining it. Pulse thundering, Covia
Myrddin's eyelids flickered, then he focused on her face. A tiny furrow appeared between his brows. "Trouble?" he breathed.
She smiled reassuringly. "Not a bit. I've something to show you."
He leaned up on one elbow, so that the blanket slid to his waist. "Show me? In the middle of the night?"
" 'Tis the safest time."
Myrddin's eyes widened. "You've found the caverns beneath the Tor? I knew they must exist!"
Covia
The corners of his eyes crinkled. "Indeed. Let me get my boots and cloak."
A moment later, she was leading him through the silent abbey, down to the Mary Chapel, and through the opening, rescuing her lamp from the eggstone. "This way," she murmured, waiting for him to pass before closing the hidden exit. "The tu
They bent low, following the passageway down to the split, then turning downward for the journey to the first of the caverns. Lamplight flickered across dressed stone, casting distorted shadows as they crept ever downward into the earth. A glow of light from ahead beckoned them forward. "I've been into the cavern already," she murmured by way of explanation when he commented on the fact, "to set everything up. It's far more spectacular when you can see everything in the first instant." Within moments, the walls and ceiling opened out into a magnificent stone chamber nearly thirty feet high. Myrddin gasped.
Glittering stalactites dripped from the ceiling in thousands of points like the teeth of dragons, mirrored by the sharp points of stalagmites reaching toward the roof of the cave. Rock glittered in blood-red and golden hues, glistening with ever-present water which poured and splashed down massive columns of rock. Shimmers of white crystal like hoarfrost surrounded deep, black pools along the floor. The roar of underground torrents vibrated the floor and the very air of the room, from deeper within the hill; at the far end of the cavern, a spectacular waterfall plunged from the ceiling and vanished into the bowels of the deeper caves, adding its volume to the water which gushed to the surface in the Tor's sacred springs. Lit torches burned every few feet, thrust into iron brackets some ancestor had driven into the walls.
"There's a path into the deeper caverns," she breathed softly, hardly able to speak in a less reverential tone. This was one spot where familiarity did not breed casual disregard. "Come, I'll show you."
She led the way across the cave, pointing out the black opening where the cavern descended along the edge of a bottomless sink. Myrddin peered into the hole, down which the roar of water could be heard. "Does the cavern ever flood?"
"Not this high, so far as anyone has ever recorded. Of course, most of what we know about the history of these caves is preserved only in our family's most secret lore and we've lost bits and pieces through untimely deaths, over the centuries. The deeper parts of the cave flood with the seasons, of course, but most of these upper chambers are relatively dry."
"And the monks know nothing of this?" He swept an awed gesture at the glittering beauty of the cave.
"Not a thing," she said cheerfully. "We made certain the cave used for the abbey's cold storage was closed off when the abbey was built. By my ancestors, I might add," she chuckled.
"Is the chapel the only way in?"
"No, there's a passage just beneath the walls of the labyrinth, which opens out at the bottom of the hill."
"Inside one of the forge houses?" he guessed. "It would be the only place you could hide the entrance from the youngsters."
Oh, yes, he was far too clever, was Emrys Myrddin. She had little doubt that, left to his own devices and with no more clue than the existence of the springs, he would have poked and prodded until discovering the way down. She smiled. "Indeed. In a true emergency, of course, we could shelter everyone from the abbey and the village. Which my people have done before, in times of great peril. I wanted to put your mind at ease, before you leave in the morning."
"I only regret I can't stay longer."
"Yes. A pity," she agreed. "I also wanted to show you where we forge our most sacred blades. Artorius' sword, Caliburn, was forged here."
"In the belly of the dragon," Myrddin murmured, glancing at the dragons' teeth stalactites overhead. "How symbolically fitting."
"We put great store by symbolism in my family."
They made a sharp turn where the walls narrowed down to a passage a mere three feet wide, then emerged in the showplace of Covia
"It is impressive, isn't it?" she asked smugly.
He simply stared, mouth coming adrift. Before them stretched a black river, into which thundered the cataract from the chamber above. Water spilled out of the ceiling in an endless roar, catching the light of torches she'd carried down and lit earlier, gleaming like a thousand fireflies in the starlight. Ribbons of stone flowed along the edges of the ceiling, looking like so many long, curling strips of bacon hung for smoking. Near the center of the cavern, the river widened out into a black lake some fifty or sixty feet across. In the center of the lake stood a stone island, ringed by glittering white crystalline walls some three quarters of an inch high. On the island stood a forge, its hearth glowing like balefire where she had patiently stoked the coals in preparation for Myrddin's visit.
A column of stone had been cut away to form a standing pedestal on which rested a massive iron anvil. Leather bellows hung above the coals, held in place by iron brackets in a neighboring flowstone column. A path of stepping stones had been laid across the lake, a pathway which would, if previous experience were any indication, soon be underwater, given the amount of rain falling above. At times, the entire island was underwater. Her timing tonight was, as ever, flawless. Her tools stood ready, waiting only her hand and Myrddin's unwitting cooperation.
"I wanted to show you everything," she murmured, slipping her hand into his. "I lit the fires and brought down all the tools I would need to finish forging a dagger blade I'm making just for you. Help me operate the bellows?"