There was no life there but for himself, none he could detect. Against the far wall was a stairway which wound up, cut into the stone itself, leading to the floor above.
Merlin strode down an aisle between the flashing boxes. The very familiarity of some of this equipment reassured him. Now he began to climb up to the second story where there were windows. The bold light of the interior came from long rods set into the walls, but those were only below. As he came up through an opening in the floor he was greeted by not only the light of day entering much more dimly and wanly through the slits of the windows, but by scents he himself knew. Here were the odors of herbs and cordials. Sniffing, he could detect that and this which he had harvested and stored in his own chamber.
A long curtain divided the round room into two. On one side were stools, a table, garlands, of dried herbs against the wall, a chest with shelves set above it on which stood lidded pots and beakers. Studying this array. Merlin felt entirely at home.
Yet there was something else to be sniffed in this half room—sniffed or discovered by that other sense of his. For the wholesome scent of the herbs did not entirely disguise another odor, and that was far from pleasant. Someone had dealt in illusions here, but such dealing had been reinforced with drugs such as Merlin knew better than to employ. That was the stink of evil, insidious, half hidden, but there.
He passed the edge of the curtain to the other side. Here was a carved bed covered with linen which had been steeped in saffron for a golden tinge. Over that was drawn a coverlet of deeper gold on which was worked a complicated design in sea-green thread, looped here and there to draw a pearl into line. On the walls were hangings worked with gold thread on green. But there were none of the fanciful beasts, hunters, other patterns such as the ladies of the court were wont to use. Rather the lines were sharp and stiff, consisting of angles and squares, drawn in a manner not altogether strange to Merlin.
In his dreams of the tower cities he had glimpsed paintings which were not unlike these. And it was the trick of such work that the longer you stared at it, the more an uneasy feeling grew in you that something lurked within those lines, watching and skulking for no good purpose. Yet he could glimpse nothing he was sure of but the lines themselves.
There was a chest also, carved like the bed and, standing on it, one end propped against the wall, was a mirror. A mirror! Merlin made a careful way across the room, taking every precaution to keep his reflection from its burnished surface.. It could well be that this was set as a trap and that on her return Nimue might summon up on the surface the likeness of any intruder. When he came close enough, however, he was certain that this was not the same as the mirror of his cave, merely an article aiding to adornment.
This side of the upper chamber was not tainted with that trouble he had found in the other. He decided that it was no more than Nimue’s own quarters. As there was no further way up, the tower must contain only the two rooms.
He had seen no sign of any servants. Nimue must live alone—except for such as needed no quarters and perhaps no food nor drink, unless what he picked up in the herb chamber might be termed that.
Back in the other section, fronted once more by all the raw materials of a healer’s training. Merlin again swung the wand widely, pointing the metal-covered gem at the wall, turning very slowly so that any movement of his indicator would be noted.
But the wand lay quiet in his hand. What was here had no affinity for the star things. All that must lie below. He returned to the crowded lower section.
What he wanted most was complete destruction of everything that stood here. But there might be more than he could hope to control if he attempted that. Slowly he paced among the machines, noting those which were in any way different from the ones he had come to know—if not wholly understand—in the cave.
There were three of the latter. One stood upright, a little taller than Merlin himself. Its front panel was unlike the rest, which were of smooth metal, while the one he faced was pebbled and rather akin in substance to an opaque glass. The wand in his hand came to life. Before he could tighten his grip on it, the gem-and-metal tip thudded against that panel at the height of Merlin’s breast.
Though the panel was not broken there came a change in it. It was as if an inner skin was sloughing away as he watched, to show what stood behind. What stood…
Merlin caught his breath. He was looking now on a woman, propped upright in the cabinet or else standing there. But, though her eyes were open, there was no sign of life about her. She might have been some statue, except she was far too lifelike.
Red hair lay in long, ribbon-entwisted braids down her shoulders, shining brightly against the clear light blue of her robe. She had a torque around her throat, a bracelet of bronze curiously worked around one wrist. To Merlin’s eyes she was young, yet in another way she carried about her a kind of ripeness, as if she knew well the pleasures of the body.
At first he believed that he faced the dead, cunningly preserved after no fashion this world knew. Then he stared more closely, even venturing to tap with one fingertip against the now transparent panel. There was a swirl of small particles across the face of the girl in answer. She stood’ there fully engulfed in liquid, just as he had lain under the protection’ of the mirror so that he might live, not die as Nimue willed.
Nimue was once rumored to have brought someone here—Morgause, Uther’s daughter! But this was only a girl. She could not be the mother of Modred, a fully grown youth … unless she had been so imprisoned shortly after her son’s birth! When Merlin studied her longer he was sure he could indeed trace a faint likeness to Uther, but certainly none to the dark-browed Modred!
Why did Nimue hold her prisoner so? The Lady of the Lake must foresee some future use for Uther’s daughter, not as she would have been if time had dealt commonly with her, but as she was when Uther had sent her forth from his court. And, knowing Nimue, Merlin did not believe that that purpose could be any good one.
He inspected the box carefully for any fastening or latch. It seemed sealed on all four comers as well as the top. Perhaps it was the sort of coffer which could only be released by the right word, spoken in just the proper tone. Though he pitied the girl who slept, he could see no way of freeing her.
Oddly enough, that opaque backing which had been dislodged by his wand was beginning to gather again, spreading over the inner surface as frost covered a stone. It was thickening and for that he was glad, since the fewer signs left of his visit here the better.
Now he went past Morgause’s strange prison to an object made of fine wires spun with ribbons of metal. This was woven into a crown-like head covering, though some of the wire rose up from the top of that crown into a tall pillar standing behind it, where they were swallowed into the substance of the pillar itself. ^
Before that pillar on Merlin’s side was a bench, on which the crown waited. He considered the whole thing carefully. Then suddenly he was excited. He had the mirror and the voice; this crown might be a device for communication just as the mirror was for him! If that were so…
Merlin edged around to the back of the pillar. It was entirely smooth and rose nearly to the ceiling overhead, There was a space about half the length of Merlin’s wand between its top and the overhead beams. Some glistening rods about the thickness of his little finger jutted into that space from the crest of the pillar at irregular lengths, no two the same.
Not even in his dreams of the lost cities had Merlin ever seen its like, but if this was Nimue’s link with those who had set her tasks here on this earth, and if it could be destroyed…
He had a hearty respect for anything fashioned by the Star People and so little knowledge—simply because he had none of their devices in common use—of what they might be, that he was loath to interfere with any of this. Yet he also knew that he finally had before him the chance to deal his enemy the greatest defeat.