by Mary Stewart
I think it was with this in mind that I nerved myself at length to climb into the crystal cave.
All this while, with my strength at low ebb and the power (I knew) gone from me, I had not been able to face the place of vision. But one evening when, with my store of candles running low, I had sat too long in darkness, I brought myself at last to climb the ledge at the back of the main cavern, and, bent double, to creep into the crystal-lined globe.
I went, I believe, for nothing more than the comfortable memories of past power, and of love. I took no light with me, and looked for no vision. I simply lay, as I had done when a boy, belly down on the rough crystals of the floor, letting the heavy silence enclose me, and filling it with my thoughts.
What they were I cannot now remember: I suppose I was praying. I do not think I spoke aloud. But in a while I became conscious -- as, in a black night, a man realizes, rather than sees, the coming dawn -- of something that answered to my breathing. Not a sound, only the faintest echo of a breath, as if a ghost was waking, taking life from mine.
My heart began to thud; my breathing sharpened. Within the darkness the other rhythm quickened. The air of the cave hummed. Round the crystal walls ran, echoing, a whisper that I knew.
I felt the easy tears of weakness start into my eyes. I said aloud: "So, after all, they brought you back to your own place?" And, from the darkness, my harp answered me.
I groped forward towards the sound. My fingers met the live, silken feel of wood. The carved fore-pillar nestled into my hand as I had seen the hilt of the great sword slide into the King's grip. I backed out of the cave, silenced the harp's faint plaining against my breast, and picked my way carefully down again into my prison.
This was the song I made. I called it "Merlin's Song from the Grave."
Where have they gone, the bright ones? I remember the sunlight And a great wind blowing; A god who answered me, Leaning out from the high stars; A star that shone for me, A voice that spoke to me, a hawk that guided me, a shield that sheltered me; And a clear way to the gate Where they wait for me, Where surely they wait for me?
The day wanes, the wind dies. They are gone, the bright ones. Only I remain.
What use to call to me who have neither shield nor star? What use to kneel to me who am only the shadow of his shadow, only the shadow of a star that fell long ago.
No song comes brand-fire-new and finished from the first playing, so that now I cannot recall just on which occasion, as I was singing it, I became conscious of an unusual sound that had been, as it were, tapping at the door of my brain for several staves. I let the chords die, laid a hand along the strings, and listened.
The beating of my heart sounded loud in the still, dead air of the cave. Below it went another throbbing, a distant beat coming seemingly from the heart of the hill. I can hardly be blamed, shut as I had been for too long from the ordinary traffic of the world, if the first thoughts that came crowding were winged with instinct born of ancient beliefs -- Llud of the Otherworld, the horses of the Wild Hunt, all the shadows dwelling in the hollow hills...Death for me at long last, on this still evening at the end of summer? Then, in less time than it takes for two short breaths, I had arrived at the truth -- and it was already too late.
It was the traveler I had waited for, and at length despaired of; he had ridden up above the cave, and halted by the cliff where the lantern opened on the air, and had heard the music. There was a pause, broken only by the sharp strike of nervous hoofs on stone as the horse fretted, held and sidling. Then a man's voice, calling out: "Is there anyone there?"
I had already laid the harp aside and, with what speed I could, was scrambling through the half-dark toward the cave below him. As I went I tried to call out, but it was a moment or so before my thudding heart and dry throat would let me answer. Then I cried out: "It is I, Merlin! Don't be afraid, I'm no ghost. I'm alive, and trapped here. Break a way out for me, in the King's name!"
My voice was drowned by the sudden confusion of noise from above. I could guess what had happened. The horse, sensing, as beasts do, some strangeness -- a man below ground, the unnatural sounds coming apparently from the fissure in the cliff, even my anxiety -- gave a long, pealing whinny and plunged, scattering stones and small gravel and setting other echoes rattling. I shouted again, but either the rider did not hear or he took the horse's fear for an instinct truer than his own; there was another sharp clatter of hoofs and cascading stones, then the beating gallop retreated, faster than it had come. I could not blame the rider, whoever he was; even if he did not know whose tomb lay beneath him, he must have known the hill was sacred, and to hear music from the ground, at dusk, on the crest of such a hill...
I went back to pick up the harp. It was undamaged. I put it aside, and with it the hope of rescue, then set myself grimly to prepare what could, for want of a worse word, be called my supper.
3
It was perhaps two nights after this, or maybe three, when something woke me in the night. I opened my eyes on total darkness, wondering what had disturbed me. Then I heard the sound. Stealthy scrapings, rattling of stone, the patter of earth falling. They came from the lantern, high in the inner cave. Some beast, I thought, badger or fox or even wolf, scratching its way toward the smell of food. I drew the covers round me, and turned over and shut my eyes again.
But the sounds went on, stealthy, persistent, and now impatient, a fierce scrabbling among the stones that spoke of more than animal purpose. I sat up again, taut with sudden hope. Perhaps the horseman had come back? Or he had told his story, and some other, braver soul had come to investigate? I took breath to shout, then paused. I did not want to scare this one away like the first. I would wait for him to speak to me.
He did not; he was intent merely on scraping his way in through the opening in the cliff. More stuff fell, and I heard the chink of a crowbar, and then, unmistakably, a smothered curse. A man's voice, rough-spoken. There was a pause, as if he was listening, then once again the sounds began, and this time he was using some sort of heavy tool, a mattock or a spade, to dig his way in.
Not for worlds would I have shouted now. No one bent simply on investigating a strange story would do so in such stealthy secrecy; the obvious thing to do would be what the horseman had done, to call out first, or to wait quietly and listen, before attempting to force a way into the lantern. What was more, no innocent man would have come, for choice, alone and at night.
A few moments' reflection brought me the probable truth. This was a grave-robber; some outlaw, perhaps, who had heard rumors of a royal grave in Merlin's Hill, and who had doubtless had a look at the cave mouth, decided it was too thoroughly blocked, and had settled on the shaft as being the easier and less conspicuous way of entry. Or perhaps a local man who had watched the rich procession pass, and who had known for years of the cliff and its precarious entry to the hill. Or even a soldier -- one of those who, after the ceremonies, had helped to block the cave mouth, and who had been haunted since by recollections of the riches there entombed.
Whoever he was, he must be a man of few nerves. He would be fully prepared to find a corpse laid here; to brave the stench and sight of a body some weeks dead; even to lay hands on it and rob it of its jewels before he tumbled it from the gem-encrusted pall and gold-fringed pillow. And if he should find, instead of a corpse, a living man? An old man, weakened by these long days underground; a man, moreover, whom the world believed to be dead? The answer was simple. He would kill me, and still rob my tomb. And I, stripped of my power, had no defenses.
I rose silently from the bed, and made my way through to the shaft. The digging sounds went on, steadily now, and through the widened opening at the top of the shaft I could see light. He had some sort of lantern there, which dealt him light enough. It would also prevent him from noticing the faint glimmer of a rush-light from below. I went back to the main chamber, kindled a light carefully behind a screen, then set about the only preparations I could make.
If I lay in wait for
him with a knife (I had no dagger, but there were knives for preparing food) or with some heavy implement, it was by no means certain that I would be quick enough, or powerful enough, to stun him; and such an attack would make my own end certain. I had to find another way. I considered it coldly. The only weapon I had was one that in times past I had found to be more powerful than either dagger or cudgel. The man's own fear.
I took the blankets off the bed and folded them out of sight. I spread the jeweled pall over, smoothed it, and set the velvet pillow in place. The gold candlesticks still stood where they had been put, at the four corners of the bed. Beside the bed I set the gold goblet that had held the wine, and the silver platter studded with garnets. I took the gold coins, the ferry man's fee, from where I had laid them, wrapped myself in the king's mantle that they had left for me, blew out the light, and lay down on the pall.
A rending sound from the shaft, a scatter of rubble onto the cavern floor, and with it a rush of fresh night air, told me that he was through. I shut my eyes, placed the gold coins on the lids, smoothed the long folds of my mantle, then crossed my arms on my breast, controlled my breathing as best I could, and waited.
It was perhaps the hardest thing I have ever done. Often before I had faced danger, but never without knowing one way or the other what the risks were. Always before, in times of stress or terror -- the fight with Brithael, the Ambush in the Wild Forest -- I had known there was pain to face, but in the end victory and safety and a cause won; now I knew nothing. This stealthy murder in the dark, for a few jewels, might indeed be the ignominious end which the gods, with their sidelong smiles, had showed me in the stars as my "burial quick in the tomb." It was as they willed. But, I thought (not coolly at all), if I have ever served you, God my god, let me smell the sweet air once more before I die.
There was a soft thud as he landed in the shaft. He must have a rope with him, tied to one of the trees that grew from the cliff. I had been right; he was alone. Faintly, under the weight of the gold on my eyelids, I could see the warming of the dark that meant he had brought his lantern with him. Now he was feeling his way, carefully, across the uneven floor toward the chamber where I lay. I could smell his sweat, and the reek of the cheap lantern; which meant, I thought with satisfaction, that he would not catch the lingering odours of food and wine, or the smell of the recently doused rush-light. And his breathing gave him away; with even greater satisfaction I knew that, bravado or no, he was afraid.
He saw me, and stopped in his tracks. I heard his breath go in as a death-rattle. He had nerved himself, one would guess, to face a decaying corpse, but here was a body like that of a living or newly dead man. For seconds he stood, hesitating, breathing hard, then, remembering perhaps what he had heard of the embalmers' art, he cursed again softly under his breath, and tiptoed forward. The light shook and swung in his hand.
With the smell and sound of his fear my own calmness grew. I breathed smoothly and shallowly, trusting to the wavering of his lantern and its smoking light not to let him see that the corpse moved. For an age, it seemed, he stood there, but at last, with another sharp rattle of breath and an abrupt movement like a horse under the spur, he forced himself forward to my side. A hand, unsteady and damp with cold sweat, plucked the gold coins off my eyelids.
I opened my eyes.
In that one brief flash, before movement or blink or breath, I took it all in: the dark Celtic face lit by the horn lantern, the coarse clothing of some peasant levy, the pitted skin slithering with sweat, the greedy slack mouth and the stupid eyes, the knife in his belt, razor-sharp.
I said, calmly: "Welcome to the hall of the dead, soldier."
And from its dark corner, at the sound of my voice, the harp whispered something, on a sweet, fading note.
The gold coins fell, ringing, and rolled away into darkness. The lantern followed, to be smashed into smoking oil on the floor. He let out a yell of fear such as I have not often heard in my long life, and once again, from the darkness, came the mockery of the harp. Yelling again, he took to his heels and ran, stumbling blindly out of the cave and making for the shaft. He must have made a first vain attempt to climb his rope; he cried out again as he fell heavily back to the rock-strewn floor. Then fear lent him strength; I heard the sobbing breaths of effort receding upward as he swarmed to the top. His footsteps ran and slipped down the hillside. Then the sounds died, and I was alone again, and safe.
Safe, in my grave. He had taken the rope. In fear, perhaps, that the enchanter's ghost could swarm after him and follow, he had dragged it up after him. The gap he had made showed a ragged window of sky, where a star shone, remote and pure and indifferent. Cool air blew in, and the cold, unmistakable smell of dawn coming. I heard a thrush from the cliff-top.
God had answered me. I had smelled the sweet air again, and heard the sweet bird. And life was as far from me as before.
I went back into the inner chamber and, as if nothing had happened, began my preparations for another day.
And another. And a third. On the third day, having eaten and rested and written and calmed my mind as far as I could, I once more examined the chimney shaft. The wretched grave-robber had left me a shred of new hope: the pile of fallen stones was higher by almost three feet, and though he had pulled his rope up after him, he had left me another, which I found lying, loosely coiled, at the base of the shaft. But the hopes that this raised were soon proved false; the rope was of poor quality, a cord no more than four or five cubits in length. I could only assume that he had intended to tie his spoils together -- he could never have hoped to carry even one of the candlesticks out with him on his climb -- fasten them to the main rope's end, and draw them after him. I calculated that even to bear away the four candlesticks, the thief would have had to make four journeys up and down the shaft. The cord would never, even had it been long enough to throw and loop over some rocky projection, have been strong enough to bear my weight. Nor could I -- scanning yet again the damp and crumbling side of the chimney -- see any such safe projection or foothold. It was possible that a young man or an agile boy might have managed the climb, but although I had been a strong man all my life, with a strong man's endurance, I had never been an athlete, and now, with age and illness and privation, the climb was beyond me.
One other thing the thief had done: where, before, I would have had to reach the high lantern and then set to work to dig and scrabble a way through -- an impossible task without tools and ladder -- now the way lay open. All I had to do was get to it. And I had a length of good cord. It would come hard, I thought, if I could not contrive some kind of scaffolding which would take me as far as the sloping section of the chimney, and from there, perhaps, I might be able to rig some kind of makeshift ladder. Much of the cave's furnishing had gone, but there was still the bed, a stool or two, and a table, the casks, and a stout bench forgotten in a corner. If I could find some way to break them up, fasten the pieces together with cord, or with torn strips of blanket, wedge them with sherds from the storage jars...
All the rest of that day, and the next following, working directly under the light thrown down from above, I toiled at my makeshift scaffold, bearing a wry thought for Tremorinus, my father's chief engineer, who had first taught me my craft. He would have laughed to see the great Merlin, the engineer-artificer who had outpaced his master, and had lifted the Hanging Stones of the Giants' Dance, cobbling together a structure of which the sorriest apprentice would have been ashamed. All I needed to do, he would have said, was to take my harp like Orpheus, and play to the fragments of the broken furniture, and watch it build itself like the walls of Troy. This had been his theory, stoutly held in public, about the way I had managed the lifting of the great trilithons of the Dance.
By nightfall of the second day I had rigged a sort of rough scaffolding roofed with the stout plank of the bench, which might serve as a base for a ladder. It was nine feet high, and fixed firmly enough with a pile of stones holding it in place. I had only, I reckoned, another
twenty-five feet to build.
I worked until dusk, then lighted the lantern and made my wretched meal. Then, as a man turns to the comfort of a lover, I lifted the harp into my arms and, without thoughts of Orpheus or Troy, played until my eyelids drooped, and a false chord warned me that it was time to sleep. Tomorrow would be another day.
Who could have guessed what kind of day? Tired from my labors, I slept deeply, and woke later than usual to the light of a bright thread of sunshine, and the sound of someone calling my name.
For a moment I lay still, thinking myself still caught in the mists of a dream that had mocked me so often before, but then I came fully awake to the discomfort of the cavern floor (I had broken my bed up for use) and the voice again. It came from the lantern, a man's voice, over-pitched with nerves, but with something familiar about the queerly accented Latin.
"My lord? My lord Merlin? Are you there, my lord?"
"Here! Coming!"
In spite of aching joints, I was on my feet as swiftly as any boy, and ran to the foot of the shaft.
Sunshine was pouring down from above. I picked my way, stumbling, to the foot of the rude structure that almost filled the base of the shaft. I craned upward.
Framed in the gap of brilliant sky was a man's head and shoulders. At first I could distinguish little against the brightness. Me, he must be able to see clearly, unkempt, bearded, no doubt pale as the ghost he must have feared to see. I heard his shivering gasp of breath, and the head drew back.
