But the sword was a different matter and Nimue knew that he possessed it. It could well be that she wished to take the weapon from him. He shifted his plump saddlebags to his shoulder, went to the crevice. This Nimue knew also, so he was betraying no secret. But let him get inside and she would discover that she had been left behind. He well understood that the mirror had its own safety devices and that he alone was able to approach it.
He worked quickly, refusing to turn around, to look over one shoulder or the other. There was a growing pressure on him, a command—but not to the extent that his own will could not counter it. As if he could hear her laughter ringing again, he believed she was watching— waiting—applying the burden of her will, intent on making him obey. But she was too confident, too sure of her own use of the power. He must not be so overconfident in return; rather he must be wary.
Perhaps she had easily been able to compel obedience by use of the same hallucinations which he had employed to his own purposes during the years. Now her confidence was supreme, because she had not previously met resistance such as he could offer.
So far he had not resisted because his will marched with hers: she wanted him in the cave, he wanted to make sure that the sword was safe. The last stone was aside; he stooped to wriggle through. Once more he discovered that not even the enlarged entrance was big enough to admit him without a struggle. His tunic tore on hip and shoulder and skin beneath suffered painful grazes.
The cave was deeper in gloom, with only one small line of lights alive. Myrddin dropped his saddlebags, went directly to the niche where he had concealed the sword. The wrapped bundle lay there in safety, but he stripped off the sheath to make sure that the blade still rested within. In the dark it shone with a wan light of its own, and he held the hilt in his right hand, ran the fingertips of the left along that smooth length. Like the stone, this touch reported to him the feeling of unleashed strength, of energy which might be released on command. This was more an object of destiny than just a tool to move the King Stone. It had a future use also, and that he would learn in time. But now it was safe and he wound the wrappings about it again hiding its luminosity.
“Merlin!” A voice, but not the familiar one.
He rounded the nearest square to look into the dark surface of the mirror. There was a strange silvery sheen across it and in the midst of the eerie light stood Nimue. She was now a woman and that quality in her which had moved Myrddin at the Place of the Sun was stronger, far stronger. He was dazzled by the woman who looked at him as if she were indeed behind the mirror, her eyes meeting his.
“Merlin!” Now she made his name not a demand for attention, but a soft greeting which stirred an answer within him. Breed called to breed in spite of all he knew.
“Alas, poor Merlin.” Her voice held no mockery, though he might have expected it, rather a touch of pity. “You have entered the trap and it is sprung. All your meddling with the affairs of man—and woman—will be put to naught by time itself. Clever are those who fashioned you to carry out their actions, be their hands and feet in this tormented land. But not quite clever enough. They set guards about their mirror and everything else they landed from star voyages, but perhaps they did not know that guards can be placed around guards. Merlin, you have gone to earth like the fox which is hunted, but unlike the canny fox you will not come forth again!
“I have set an outer force field to keep you in and you shall abide there until your human part fails through hunger and thirst. This deed is terrible, aye, but worse would you in time bring to pass if you are not so halted. Your Arthur will live, but he will be no more than any other man. Thus falls to dust your dream of kingdom. He will never claim a crown, and death unknown will also be his portion. Farewell, Merlin. It is a pity we could not deal together as distant kin should.”
She was gone in a flicker of light. Myrddin had flung out a hand as if to try to arrest her disappearance, though he knew that the real Nimue had not stood so, only a Sending she had released. Now he whirled and in a minute was at the crevice.
The opening was there, he could put an arm into it. Yet before his fist was out into the open it met, with a shock of force, an invisible wall.
Two more testings, top and near ground level, made it plain that the barrier formed a tight plug. He wasted no time in useless physical struggle. Only the mirror might have an answer for this and he returned to it in two strides, crouched down on the viewer’s bench he had so often occupied in the past. Gazing intently at his own reflection, he thought his problem, aware, though he knew not how it was done, that his query or plea for aid registered somewhere.
He saw the installation, so long dark and quiet, waken to life. Then the mirror voice spoke:
“The force field is too strong to break … now. And it is true that you wear a body which was not fashioned to withstand much physical stress. But for that there is an answer. You will sleep. Merlin, and during that, sleep all body processes shall be slowed down. Thus, when the moment comes that time thins the field, you can awake and issue forth once again, alive and whole. This is the manner by which such can be accomplished.”
His own face and body were not gone from the mirror this time, but he saw himself going to a long, low machine at the far end of the row. There he pressed his hands, fingers deep into small holes. The lid of the machine rose on upward-reaching pillars. Then the man he watched stripped off his clothing and he climbed through the wedge between the chest and lid to lie down. The pillars slid toward the cave floor, sealing him in.
Myrddin shivered. He could not doubt the wisdom of the mirror and the voice. Yet this way seemed to be entering his tomb while he still lived. To follow such action needed all the courage he could summon.
The mirror had cleared again. He saw only his own form as it was, while he reluctantly rose to his feet. Slow starvation, death by thirst—or the offer of the tomb? The chances were very slim on either side. But because he trusted the mirror he followed instructions now.
That long box opened as he applied the pressure, just as the mirror had shown. He stared down into the interior as the lid rose. Within was a rosy glow, pale, but strong enough to reflect on his hands. And the bottom was awash in a liquid from which came a pleasant, aromatic scent. He stripped off his clothes, piled them to one side and slung a leg over the edge of the box. The liquid was about his ankle, rising up his shin; it was warm, soothing somehow.
He pushed through the rest of his body, settled himself at the bottom of the box. Now the liquid washed over his chest, caressed his cheeks. And mat was the last thing he remembered, except that the lid was settling swiftly downward to lock him out of the world.
There were dreams, strange dreams of cities whose like he had never thought could exist, so high did their narrow buildings tower into the air. Men flew in things which were not birds, but made stiffly of metal cunningly fashioned. The dreamer sometimes abode for a small time in the body of one or another of those men, though he was then beseiged by thoughts so different from his own time that he could not understand them.
Even as these men flew about the clouds, so did they travel in turn beneath the surface of the sea. It would seem that no secret of their world was hidden from them. Yet they were unhappy, restless and much troubled, and Myrddin soon shrank from any contact with their minds.
There came a time when the world itself went mad. Howling winds broke the cities, did such damage as no normal storm could. Waves rose mountain-high in the sea to crash upon the land, sweeping the remnants of man’s world into oblivion. Mountains breathed forth flame, great gouts of molten rock flowing down their sides. When that met the waters of the insane seas, steam formed so thickly as to blot out both land and sea, and hide the heavens.