that is a long story for this hour, and one of which I am ashamed. But it is also, I suppose, one that you must hear. So, if you are rested, let us go together, and I shall show you part of the answer to your question.”
Cadellin led the children out of the cave and down a long winding tunnel into the very heart of the hill. And as they went the air grew colder and the strange light fiercer, turning from blue to white, until at last they came into a long, low cavern. An echoing sigh, like waves slowly rippling on a summer shore, rose and fell upon the air; and before the children’s eyes were the sleeping knights in their silver armour, each beside his milk-white mare, just as Gowther had described them in the legend, their gentle breathing filling the cave with its sweet sound. And all around and over the motionless figures the cold, white flames played silently.
In the middle of the cave the floor rose in the shape of a natural, tomb-like couch of stone; and here lay a knight comelier than all his fellows. His head rested upon a helmet enriched with jewels and circlets of gold, and its crest was a dragon. By his side was placed a naked sword, and on the blade was the image of two serpents in gold, and so brightly did the blade gleam that it was as if two flames of fire started from the serpents’ heads.
“Long years ago,” said Cadellin, “beyond the memory or books of men, Nastrond, the Great Spirit of Darkness, rode forth in war upon the plain. But there came against him a mighty king, and Nastrond fell. He cast off his earth-shape and fled into the Abyss of Ragnarok, and all men rejoiced, thinking that evil had vanished from the world for ever; yet the king knew in his heart that this could never be.
“So he called together a great assembly of wizards and wise men and asked what should be done to guard against the enemy’s return. And it was prophesied that, when the day should come, Nastrond must be victorious, for there would be none pure enough to withstand him since, by that time, he would have put a little of himself into the hearts of all men. Even now, it was said, he was pouring black thoughts from his lair in Ragnarok, and these would flow unceasingly about mankind until the strongest were tainted and he had a foothold in every mind.
“Yet there was hope. For the world might still be saved if a band of warriors, pure in heart, and brave, could defy him in his hour and compel him to sink once more into the Abyss. Their strength would not be in numbers, but in purity and valour. And so was devised the following plan.
“The king chose the worthiest of his knights, and went with them to Fundindelve, the ancient dwarf-halls, where they were put into enchanted sleep. This done, the most powerful magicians of the age began to weave a spell. Day and night they worked together, pausing for neither food nor sleep, and, at the end, Fundindelve was guarded by the strongest magic the world has known, magic that would stay the sleeping warriors from growing old or weak, and that no evil could ever break.
“The heart of the magic was sealed with Firefrost, the weirdstone of Brisingamen, and it and the warriors became my charge. Here I must stay, for ever keeping watch, until the time shall come for me to rouse the Sleepers and send them forth against the malice of Nastrond.”
“But, Cadellin,” asked Susan, “in these days how can you hope to win a fight with only a hundred and forty men on horseback?”
“Ah,” said the wizard, “you must remember that the hour of Nastrond is not yet at hand. It was prophesied that these few could prove his desolation, and I have faith: the wheel may turn full circle ere that day will come.”
This cryptic reply was hardly satisfying, but by the time Susan had tried to make sense of it and found that she could not, the wizard had resumed his tale.
“Now it happened that, at the Sealing of Fundindelve, there were not more than one hundred and thirty-nine pure white mares, in the prime of life, to be found anywhere. Therefore I was forced to wait for that one horse to complete my company, and when at last such a horse came my way, I little knew that it would be so dearly bought.
“But now I must leave this matter and speak of Nastrond. Word of what we had done at Fundindelve soon reached him, and he was both angry and afraid: yet his black art was of no avail against our stronghold. So he too devised a plan.
“In the next chamber to that of the Sleepers had been stored jewels and precious metals for the use of the king to help put right the ills of the world, if he should conquer Nastrond. This treasure, since it lay in Fundindelve, was safe as long as the spell remained unbroken; and although Nastrond had no thought for the treasure, he did desire most furiously to break the spell, for, if this were achieved, the Sleepers would wake and become normal men, who would grow old, and die, and pass away centuries before his return, since there would no longer be magic left upon the earth powerful to hold them once more ageless in Fundindelve.
“To this end he summoned the witches and warlocks of the morthbrood, and the lords of the svart-alfar, together with many of his own ministers, and put greed and a craving for riches in their hearts by telling them of the treasure that would be theirs if they could only reach it. And from that hour they have striven to find a way to break the spell. At first I had no need to fear, for the sorcery of the morthbrood, though powerful, and the hammers and shovels of svarts could have no effect where the art of Nastrond had failed. But then, on the day that I found the last white mare, disaster fell upon me.
“This light around us is the magic that guards all here, and its flames are torment to the followers of Nastrond: and the source of the magic, as I have said, rests in the stone Firefrost. While Firefrost remains, and there is light in Fundindelve, the Sleepers lie here in safety. Yet each day I dread that I shall see the flames tremble and give way to shadows, and hear the murmur of men roused from sleep, and the neigh of horses. For I have lost the weirdstone of Brisingamen!”
Cadellin’s voice trembled with rage and shame as he spoke, and he crashed the butt of his staff against the rock floor.
“Lost it?” cried Susan. “You can’t have done! I mean, if it’s a special stone it should be easy to find if it’s lying around somewhere in here … shouldn’t it?”
The wizard smiled grimly. “But it is not here. Of that, at least, I am certain. Come, and I shall show you proof of what I say.”
He beckoned the children towards an opening in the wall and into a short tunnel not more than thirty feet in length, and halfway down Cadellin stopped before a bowl-shaped recess about six inches high and a yard above the level of the floor.
“There is the throne of Firefrost,” he said, “and you will see that it is now vacant.”
They passed through into a cavern similar to the last, and Colin and Susan halted in awe.
Here lay the treasure, piled in banks of jewels, and gold, and silver, which stretched away into the distance like sand dunes in a desert.
“Oh,” gasped Susan, “how beautiful! Look at those colours!”
“You would not think them so beautiful,” said Cadellin, “if you had run through your fingers every diamond, pearl, sapphire, amethyst, opal, carbuncle, garnet, topaz, emerald, and ruby in the whole of this all too spacious cave, in search of a stone that is not there!
“I spent five years labouring in this cave, and as many weeks scouring every gallery and path in Fundindelve, but without success. I can only think that that knave of a farmer was a greedier and more cunning rogue than he appeared, and that, as he followed me from here, laden as he was with wealth, his eyes fell upon the stone, and he slyly took it without a word. Perhaps he thought it was merely a pretty bauble, or he may even have seen me replace it after I had tethered his horse with sleep while he crammed his pockets here.
“Seldom have I need to visit these quarters, and it was a hundred years before I next came this way and found that the stone had gone. First I searched here; then I went out into the world to seek the farmer or his family. But, of course, by this time he was dead, and I could not trace his descendants; and although my quest was discreet the morthbrood came to hear of it, and they were not long in guessing the truth. Throughout the region of the plain they coursed, and even to the bleak uplands of the east, towards Ragnarok, but neither they nor the ferreting svarts