Morlock Night

8

"Well, Hocker, we all thought we'd just about lost you that time. How do you feel?"

My eyes opened wide, letting light and consciousness drain away the last clinging dregs of sleep. For some reason I had been dreaming about a chess game played in a vista of ruins… No matter. The fantasy ebbed, replaced by the even more bizarre reality I was in. I focused on Clagger's kind, ruddy face and nodded. "I'm doing all right," I said, and raised myself on my elbows. I was lying in the middle of a large bed. "Where's Tafe?"

"Somewhere about here," said Clagger, "getting dry. Or as dry as one can in these clammy regions. You were well under, you know, when Tafe jumped in to fetch you out. Said she had the damnedest time prying your fingers loose from that thing."

The memory of the submarine and the dark, enclosing water came spilling back into my mind. So I had been spared that death… for what? Another even worse? An overwhelming fatigue swept through my body and my thoughts were paralysed with a deep, foreboding dread of the future and all it might hold. Hope was born in the sunlight upon the Earth's surface; down here in the gloomy bowels of rock and muck it died.

My dismal meditation was broken by Clagger. "Come on, then," he said. "Put on your clothes and let's be about our business. I fancy there's quite a few questions you'd like to ask. To throw a little light in the darkness, that is to say. What? None at all?" He tossed my clothes – dried and mended by some unknown agency – across the foot of the bed.

"Just wait a few seconds," I snapped somewhat irritably. "I'll have questions enough for you, though what bloody good the information will do is beyond me at the moment."

While I dressed I cast an ill-tempered eye over this chamber in which I found myself. It held the aspect of what can only be described as decayed opulence. The bed itself where I had lain recovering a measure of my strength was little more than a sagging heap of brocades and other fancy materials, now tattered and soiled with countless years of use and neglect. The silk covering of the pillows, made thin with wear, was all split and water-stained. Over sections of the dark stone walls were hung heavy embroidered draperies, but these too were rotted away by Time. Their torn centres sagged to the floor like the slack skin of old men.

Over everything was the inescapable feel of dampness and rot, as though the vapours of the sewers had penetrated through every atom of things down here. My own skin now felt like that, undergoing a sewer-change down into my bones. I shuddered involuntarily as I drew my clothes, really only relatively dry, over my limbs. What awful metamorphosis would overtake me if I didn't soon return to the surface world's light?

Clagger was still waiting for me. "What place is this?" I said. "I take it that this is the region to which you meant to guide us, as you show little anxiety about being here." For the moment I laid aside the question of how he and Tafe had escaped drowning in the underground ocean. That was simply another piece of my ignorance to be filled in.

"This is it indeed." said Clagger, nodding in vigorous assent. "And not many a tosher could have found it, either. For of all of them that have heard of it, only a few would know the way."

"I'm well convinced of your knowledge." The old sewer hunter's boasting was becoming tiresome to me. "But still… what is this place?" The old man's grey eyebrows arched with the importance of the revelation. "None other," he intoned, "than that known as the Lost Coin World."

"Never heard of it."

"Your ignorance is a pity, then, and none the less either for being shared by all those who have never trod the sewers' paths. Even the greenest boy fumbling under the street gratings for a dropped shilling has heard of this place."

I drew on my boots and stood up. The damp mound of my bed sighed like a gratefully released animal. "Since a certain evening some time ago," I said, "when I first talked with our mutual friend Dr. Ambrose, the appalling extent of my ignorance has regularly been revealed to me. The only other fact with which I've become as well acquainted is the way that anyone who knows anything will go to any length to spin it out into a mystery."

"Aye, you're right enough about that." He absorbed the comment without any recognition that it could have been directed at him. "It took a fair amount of persistence, I can tell you, to get these people down here to tell me something of themselves. I wasn't just asking out of idle curiosity, either, mind you. It was all for the highest of scientific and historical purposes that I wanted to know."

"I'm sure of it. What were the results of your, ah, investigating?"

"Ah, Mr. Hocker, there's as much to tell as would make a man thirsty to relate it all, even in a damp set of environs such as this. So wait a bit and you'll soon enough know all, revealed to you over the best victuals and drink as the folk down here can prepare without the blessing of God's sunlight and the green things that sprout beneath it. They do the best they can, though, as you'll find out for yourself soon enough."

"'They?'" I echoed. "And who are 'they' who are providing all this?"

"Tsk, Hocker, hold your questions for a moment. Though I know a great deal, there's others who are fitter to provide you with answers, including the man who first told me all of what I know about this place. So come along now, as they're going about the raising of that submarine that sunk beneath you, and that should prove of interest to us both."

I stifled my feelings of resentment and followed him out of the chamber. Like all the other mysteries that had preceded it, the current one would apparently have a gradual unfolding as well. If nothing else, all my adventures thus far were providing me with an excellent schooling in the art of patience.

Down a long corridor we passed, the damp walls of which, like the room in which I had awakened, were lit by crude torches that emitted a cloying, resinous smoke along with their sputtering light. I noted that the torches were mounted in brass fittings that, as with the ornamentation of the machinery aboard the, submarine, were based upon ancient British and Celtic motifs. The elaborate, intertwined designs, despite all the craft that had gone into their making, now seemed oddly funereal, like the devices upon the tombs of a dead race. The sight of them produced in me a feeling of oppression such as I had felt only once before in my life and that was when Ambrose by his powers had transported me to that chilling spectacle of a ruined London, overrun and murdered by the Morlocks at the very end of Time itself, I shuddered, feeling the cold air of the passageway go through my bones and into my soul, then hurried along behind Clagger.

After many turnings, the corridor at last opened onto a great cavernous space. It was the shore of the underground ocean opposite that from which Tafe, Clagger and I had, set out in the small boat. Its dark, scum-laced waters looked no less foreboding from this side. If anything, it seemed more so, due to my present knowledge of how close I had come to death while crossing it. The still water seeped through the cracks and crumbling ridges of the, ancient masonry that formed its boundary.

"Hocker!" I turned at the sound of someone calling my name and saw Tafe striding across the shore toward me. She now had once again all the appearance of confidence and strength that she had possessed above ground. It was as if by having faced her most inwardly dreaded doom – death by suffocation in the thick and vile waters of the underground ocean – the fear itself was conquered. The sight of her, albeit still in male disguise, was the brightest torch my faltering spirit could have perceived in these, light-starved depths. How much better, it struck me, to have a woman as your comrade rather than as the fawning admirer and house-slave that so many men of my generation unfortunately insist upon! Surely in the future, if there was to be one, such an improvement in attitude would be universal throughout society.

At Tafe's side was a strange figure of a man. Obviously he had once been quite tall, but advancing age had bent his reed-like frame so that the weight of his upper torso was almost entirely supported by the staff clutched in one gnarled hand. Wisps of silvery hair trailed back to his shoulders, and his skin, through being long away from the sunlight, had paled to the translucency of the finest waxed parchment. Tafe curbed the length of her stride so that the old man could keep apace with her as they approached us.

Clagger stepped forward and clasped the old man's free hand in both of his own. "So you thought you had seen the last of me, eh?"

"Hm, well, in this life perhaps." The voice was surprisingly rich and firm, a young man's baritone rather than the fluting geriatric quaver I had expected. "Though I suppose it's a common failing of old crustaceans like us to think upon the end of things too soon." The affection and respect that flowed between the two men was easy to discern.

"Hocker," said Clagger, turning and pulling the other figure toward me. "May I present to you Professor Gough Felknap of Edinburgh University?"

"Late of Edinburgh, I'm afraid," amended the old man. "Late of most people's memories, too, I suppose – however many there are that reach so far back." His red-veined but still clear eyes regarded me.

"Felknap…" I mused aloud. "Of Edinburgh? I seem to recall… must have been before I was born, though I think, I read of it. Wasn't there a stir about your disappearance? And your hall porter accused of your murder, or something like that?"

"Ah, yes, poor Weskind. I didn't mean to get the poor fellow in trouble. Managed to get a letter to an old classmate of mine on the Bench and that got the case dropped, but of course by then an unfortunate air of mystery had been created about the whole thing. Most regrettable, really." He shook his head at the memory, then glanced back at me. "And so you're the leader of this little expedition into deep territory, eh?"

"I could hardly say that," I protested. "I seem to have gone through more of a muddle than anyone else to reach this point."

"Nonetheless, young man, you bear a heavy responsibility." Felknap's keen eyes studied me closely. "Destiny – with perhaps a little assist from Dr. Ambrose – has called upon you for a great service to your land and queen. It is still Victoria up there, isn't it?"

"You know that as well as we do," said Clagger chidingly. "Eh… Just making sure. Things tend to get a little… hmmm… confused down here." He laughed and jabbed the edge of his bony elbow into my ribs. "As you've no doubt noticed."

"Frankly," I said mildly, "I don't have the vaguest notion of where I am or what's going on here. I take it you are acquainted with Dr. Ambrose. You do intend to enlighten me as he would, don't you?"

"All in good time, all in good time," said Felknap. "A lot for you to absorb, young man, and if there's anything I remember from lecturing at Edinburgh it's not to expound faster than ears can take it in. Courage, my lad; all things will be explained presently. But do step down this way a bit. I believe they've just about got their grapples down to the submarine, and I want to make certain it comes up all right. Come along, then."

The three of us, reunited once more, followed Felknap along the crumbling brickwork. "How are you feeling?" asked Tafe.

"Quite well, thanks," I said. "I suppose I owe a bullet-less brain-pan to you."

"Forget it. And don't relax just yet. We're not exactly in a safe harbour down here, you know."

"What do you mean?"

She looked away, her face set in a grim expression. "Just be careful, all right?"

"There, see?" Ahead of us, Felknap halted and pointed a thin arm out to a distant point on the water. "They're bringing it up right now."

I looked and saw a cluster of small boats, perhaps the same ones that had hunted down the hapless Morlocks. As I watched, the men in the boats continued hauling up the numerous ropes that plunged down into the dark water. At last the curved oval of the submarine's top surfaced in the midst of the boats. Rivulets of water ran off the metal plates as several of the men threw additional grappling hooks at the submarine's projections.

"Good, good," murmured Felknap. "Fine work these fellows do."

Without warning, the submarine's immersed bulk shifted, and several of the ropes holding it snapped. The vast bulk below the surface tilted, pulling the ropes out of the grasps of the men. More hooks, thrown in desperation, failed to halt the abandoned submarine's slow descent, The last ropes parted and the curved shape disappeared beneath the water.

"Pity," said Felknap. His age-contorted body sagged with disappointment. "They did all they could, I suppose. It's hard to keep ropes in good condition down here, what with damp and rot getting into them. But it is a shame, though, to lose that submarine. It was the finest of all the Atlantean artifacts in the Grand Tosh." He sighed, looking regretfully at the spot where it had vanished. The boats were wheeling about and rowing back toward the shore where we stood.

"Excuse me," I said. "But did I understand you correctly? Did you say 'Atlantean?'"

"Oh. Yes. Quite." He nodded for emphasis. "The craft was quite ancient, I assure you."

"But- Atlantean? I had no idea…"

"I imagine not, young man. Like most educated people, I considered the story of Atlantis to be a mish-mosh of unfounded legends and confused references to other parts of the world. But that was before I made my way down here and discovered the evidence to the contrary."

"The submarine?" I said.

"Oh, much more than that," said Felknap. "Indeed, my dear fellow, you're standing in part of Atlantis right now, or at least a far-flung outpost of it."

"But I thought- I thought it was called the Lost Coin World, or something like that."

"Aye," said Clagger beside me. "That's what I told you, and that's the name the toshers have for it. Because, you see, they've heard of the place and think it to be where all the coins and valuable things that are never found even by them eventually drift down to. Only a few of the oldest and wisest toshers working the sewers of London know what's really down here."

"And that is?" I asked.

"Well, now," said Felknap, "you might not credit it in such a gloomy environment, but I have a chamber nearby where we can talk in comfort. I've several casks of salvaged malmsey as well to aid in the exposition of pertinent matters. Excalibur as well is tucked away in a safe place there. Shall we?" He pointed to one of the torch-lit tunnel openings that flanked the shore.

"Lead on," said Clagger quite cheerily.

As our little group followed behind the professor, I looked back to where the small boats that had attempted to reclaim the submarine were now rowing up and being tied to iron posts set in the man-made shoreline. Even from this distance I could see the sharp looks of suspicion and distrust on the pale faces of the men. I hurried after the others as a deep foreboding stirred in my vitals.

"Permit me to ramble on unchecked for a while," said Felknap as he poured a thick stream of wine into the goblets before him. "An old man's prerogative, and a professor's as well." He looked up and noticed the attention with which I was studying, the goblet he had pushed toward me. "Ah, yes, solid gold that is. A lovely piece of Atlantean craft, you know."

"The designs," I said, tapping a nail upon the side of the goblet. "Those intertwined, serpentine knots. Quite a resemblance to the ancient Celtic arts."

"Indeed." He nodded approvingly. "Many of the old Celtic traditions have their origin in the lost culture of Atlantis. Not that the Celts are descendants by blood of the Atlanteans, of course, but there was a considerable amount of trade between the two peoples once. The Celts, being far less advanced than the Atlanteans, were able to absorb the superficial art motifs, but naturally none of the technology that could produce something such as that submarine. If I had a chalkboard I could make a proper lecture out of all this, I assure you. But to continue.

"I first became interested in the legends and rumours concerning certain remnants of the lost Atlantean culture that were supposedly somewhere beneath London while I was still at Edinburgh University. After much investigation I tracked down the source of these stories to an old drunken sewerhunter who had been driven away by his fellow toshers for using the cover of the sewers' darkness to practice certain loathsome vices-"

"By God," interrupted Clagger, "toshers are as high minded a bunch as any of the rest of mankind."

"Yes," said Felknap, "more's the pity. At any rate, this banished fellow had wandered north to try his luck in combing the sewers of another city, but had chanced to come upon an equally lucrative and more pleasant occupation. In return for food, beer – mainly beer – and a doss in one of the hall's cellars, he regaled the Edinburgh undergraduates with his preposterous ravings about the so-called 'Lost Coin World', and all the treasures that had drifted over the ages down into its keeping. The students regarded him as an entertaining loony and nothing more, and the entertainment value was wearing a bit shabby when I at last located him. I had to fuel his thirst in order for him to consider my questions, but his answers, when wrung dry and studied, were of the utmost intrigue to my mind. With a shaky pen he drew some of the designs and ornaments he had observed during his sojourn in the Lost Coin World, and their specific similarity to ancient Celtic motifs was easily beyond the poor sot's power of fabricating by himself.

"Was he an agent in some elaborate hoax? Or had he indeed seen such things far below the city of London? Be it a fragment of Atlantis or not, such a find would be of considerable archaeological importance. Secure in my professorship at the university, I was nevertheless bitten by the viperlike lust for fame. So I travelled to London on my sabbatical, leaving my initial informant behind as in his liquorfogged state he would have made a poor guide, and sought my passage through the London sewers."

"Twas me very own father he engaged to lead the way," Clagger informed the rest of us.

"And a fine man he was, too. Here's to his memory." Felknap took a long pull at his goblet and his listeners followed suit. The malmsey's warmth spread across my chest, fighting away the chill of the underground. "Yes," continued the old professor, "Moses Clagger led me straight and true to this very region, and told me all he knew of it as we travelled. He introduced me to his friends among the inhabitants of these depths, and arranged with them for my comforts and assistance in my research. At first I intended to stay but a few days or at most weeks, but when old Moses recrossed that great water he left me on this side." He drained his goblet and sat back, gazing into its glowing interior.

"You mean," I said, amazed, "that you've been down here all these years, without once returning to the surface?"

The silvered head nodded. "When first I came the gloom and damp and the weight of the earth above all quite oppressed my spirit. But I was soon caught up in my research and was as comfortable as if I were turning pages of some tome in the cosiest niche of the British Museum. For you see, I had found my life's work down here. These Stygian depths are the field upon which the seeds of my genius have been sown. The burning passion of the scholar, though it has nearly consumed my life, has nonetheless kept me warm down here. Though all this is but the tiniest fragment of the glory that Atlantis must once have been before its destruction, still this fragment is a richer, more rewarding object for my attention than all the much-handled bones and potsherds that were ever scrabbled up from the surface's dry dust. Think of it – Atlantis. And I found it." An immodest pride thickened his voice.

"There's no doubt of it being Atlantis?" I said.

"None whatsoever, my dear Hocker. I've managed to do some rough translations from a few of the runic inscriptions that were left behind by the departed Atlanteans. Their import is quite clear. This complex of underground chambers and tunnels once formed a sort of way-station in a network of subterranean passageways that once extended beneath most of the European continent. And perhaps even farther than that; an obscure reference exists to the most distant terminal in the network being located in the roots of the Tibetan mountains. All of these tunnels were constructed by the ancient Atlanteans with their lower depths filled with water, the temperature of which was ingeniously regulated so as to provide separate currents running in either direction. Submarines, such as the one with which you, Hocker, became so regrettably, acquainted were the devices used for transportation.

"A quite remarkable race were these Atlanteans. Their achievements and ambitions far outstrip ours. Indeed, only the greatest of geological calamities was able to vanquish them. Those who were not on their native island when it sank below the Atlantic apparently soon passed away in grief for their drowned brethren."

"All the Atlanteans died?" I gestured at the stone walls around us. "Then who are these other men who live here in these depths? I had presumed them to be the descendants of the lost race."

"Unfortunately, such is not the case." Felknap paused to refill his goblet and to pass the cobwebbed bottle among his audience. "The present inhabitants of these regions are the descendants of a band of London sewer-hunters who migrated to these depths back in the Eighteenth Century. Finding things more congenial here among the decayed trappings of a dead race's past glory than up amid the squalor and general hard times of London's top side, they elected to stay. Can't say I would blame them for their decision – there's no sense in viewing that shabby period of English social history through a veil of nostalgia.

"There are a couple of species of strong-flavoured fish that are unique to this locale, plus an abundance of what is euphemistically termed 'straight-tailed pig' – that's rat to you. Some of the wet slimy things that grow on the walls can be scraped off and prepared quite tastily. All in all, these people have conducted themselves with typical British ingenuity. Rather like a band of Robinson Crusoes lost on an island under the Earth. Some of the original pioneers made a brief topside expedition in order to fetch their wives down here. This little unknown outpost of Queen Victoria's empire has had all the civilised amenities."

"Quite a thriving little colony, then," I noted.

Felknap shook his head, the long silver strands of Ibis hair catching at his shoulders. "I'm afraid not. The rigours of an underground, sunless life didn't agree with most of the women and with very few of the children born here. On the whole, the group is dying out. I very much doubt whether there will be any of them still living after another ten or fifteen years. No, the successful – if you wish to call it that – adaptation of Man to a subterranean existence lies in the far future with the rise of the Morlocks that are now besieging us."

"You've had contact with them down here?" My heart stepped up a pace at the thought of our enemy and their clandestine activities.

"Oh, yes. It was quite unavoidable that some of the men should meet up with them. The Morlocks are making their preparations on quite a large scale. In the regions of the sewers that they've taken over are enormous stockpiles of weapons and supplies to be used in their invasion of the surface world. They apparently intend to erupt all over London and the surrounding areas simultaneously. And at the centre of their hoard of armaments is, of course, their doorway ahead to their own time – that cursed Time Machine which is the root of all this evil."

"You've seen the Time Machine?"

"No," said Felknap. "But I've had reports of it from some of the men down here who have become familiar with the Morlocks. What they've told me about it, in addition to what Dr. Ambrose has related to me, is the extent of my knowledge concerning the device."

His words aroused an uneasy feeling in me. "Do you mean to say that some of the people down here have dealings with the Morlocks? Fraternise with them?"

The age-gnarled hands gripped his goblet tightly. "I'm sorry to say that that has indeed become the case. Over half of the men have gone over to the Morlocks completely, serving the invaders as guides through the sewers and the like."

"For God's sake – how could they? Can't they see the extent of the fatal enmity that exists between our race and the Morlocks? How could such traitors come to be?"

"Tis a shameful revelation," muttered Clagger. "A stain upon the honour of them that hunt the sewers, that their deepest kin should do such a thing."

Felknap nodded, his seamed face cast in a mournful expression. "True," he said. "But the darkness and the cold down here can slide all around a man's heart and freeze it as tight as an Arctic rock. When you live in these deep regions it becomes harder and harder to remember your brethren who still live under the light of the sun. Those men who cast their lot with the Morlocks at last thought that they saw more of a similarity between themselves and the Morlocks than with the human beings of the surface. The others, who haven't given their allegiance to the enemy – I don't know. They've always been a taciturn lot, not much on voicing their thoughts, so I can't tell whether some scrap of loyalty to the human race still resides in their hearts, or whether they simply dislike surface men and Morlocks equally. Ah, whichever it is, it's a sorry condition for men to have let their hearts sink into."

My hopes of finding allies among these subterranean residents seemed effectively dashed by the old professor's information. Tafe and I were still essentially alone on our mission, with a sick, perhaps even dying Arthur waiting for us above, Ambrose beyond any chance of assisting us, and Clagger and Felknap capable of little more than guidance due to their advanced ages. A hopeful thought formed in my mind. "Couldn't it be," I asked Felknap, "that you are misjudging the ambivalence of these remaining men? Perhaps the Morlocks inspire in them an intenser loathing than you suspect. After all, didn't they surround and kill the Morlocks who abandoned the submarine when it sank? Surely that says something about their attitude toward the invaders."

"Yes, but not what you think. As far as that incident is concerned, the men were simply taking revenge on the Morlocks for their having stolen the submarine in the first place. The men are quite passionate about what they call the Grand Tosh, which is the great store of valuables that were left here by the Atlanteans or have drifted down here from other parts. A bad business, that of the Morlocks sneaking into here and making off with the submarine, not to mention kidnapping someone to pilot it. Now that a good number of Morlocks are dead because of it, the blood-lust of the men is pretty well satisfied. The only fortunate aspect of the affair was that the men were out on the water waiting for the submarine to surface, and thus able to rescue Tafe and Clagger when your boat was capsized."

I was by now sufficiently convinced of Felknap's statement of the underground dwellers' sentiments. "There's nothing for us to do here, then," said I, "but to fetch the copy of the sword Excalibur that is in these people's possession and return with it to the surface."

The old professor's hands knotted and clenched once more. "I fear it's not as easy as all that."

"You mean they won't give it to us willingly?" Despite my bristling words, my heart was sinking. Fatigue and the underground gloom were sapping my strength. I felt little in the mood for violence or subterfuge in order to get the sword. "We have the authority of the one Excalibur we already possess. Wouldn't these men see the rightness of reuniting the swords and returning them to the hand of the king whose weapon it is? Surely the name of Arthur, Lord of Britain, bears a little weight with them."

"Perhaps it does," said Felknap. "They are not so far removed from their British heritage as to have forgotten it. And perhaps they would willingly give you the sword – if they had it."

His last words struck me like a blow to the throat. "Doesn't it reside in this Grand Tosh you spoke of?" The flaring light of the torches on the wall dimmed at the edges of my vision. Was this entire dismal trek to turn out fruitless at last? Worse than fruitless – every delay meant so much more time for the Morlocks to ready their invasion plans unhindered.

A look of shock had burst forth on Clagger's face. "You told me the sword was here," he said in a piteous strangled voice. "When I sent me nephew to inquire of it, he returned with your message that the sword was down here in the Grand Tosh."

"And so it was – then," said Felknap grimly. "That was before the defection of the greater part of the men over to the side of the Morlocks. Acting on the orders of their new masters, the traitorous men removed the sword from the Grand Tosh and handed it over to the Morlocks. From what little communication I've had with those who did it, I now fear that the sword is now no longer anywhere here in the sewers at all!"

"The Morlocks have taken it to their own time?"

"That is my well-founded suspicion. But as to what the Morlocks' purpose may be in removing it hence, I have no idea."

I mulled over this latest, most bitter revelation. What was the import of such a manoeuvre on the part of the Morlocks? Could it be that they no longer considered the bowels of the Earth below London to be a safe enough hiding-place for this one copy of Excalibur? But the only thing that could have prompted such a fear in so arrogant a breed would be if they suspected our efforts to retrieve all the Excaliburs and field them back into the one true sword. Had Merdenne then eluded the trap by which Ambrose meant to remove him from the scene and thus prevent our plot from being discovered? The questions whirled about in my mind at a faster and faster rate, driving all my hopes and fears before them like chaff on the wind.

"Looks bad," said Tafe in her usual laconic manner. Her face betrayed no sign of tension, yet I knew that her thoughts were on the problem as frantically as mine were.

"Even if we were lucky enough to gather together all the other Excaliburs," I mused aloud, "it would do no good without this one that's lost to us now. And bloody well lost it is, too. The Morlocks have the only Time Machine, and thus the only access to that sword, and we have no hope of winning past the Morlocks without Excalibur restored to its true power and in the hands of Arthur again." I fell silent, the rigid obstinacy of the conundrum before us paralysing my means of speech. The darkness was spreading through my heart, the darkness that would soon swell, fester and cover the Earth if no spark of light could be found in this blackest of times.

All my recent efforts and exertions were catching up with me now, as though all along the poisons of fatigue and weariness had been draining into this low point and I had at last stumbled into the bottomless pool they formed. Perhaps an Arthur, a true hero, could battle on and on without rest or respite but a mere human such as I would feel the effects sooner or later. My very bones felt tired, limp from the pervasive damp and chill. It's one thing to face great odds, but even the smallest struggle, if undertaken without hope, looms and swells with the fatal poisons of despair.

I could tell that Tafe felt the same way, though she had intimated nothing like this aloud. She sat in a corner of the chamber, empty now except for the two of us, gazing at the drained goblet in her hands without seeing it.

Idly, I reached and drew the cloth-wrapped bundle across the table toward me. Felknap had brought our poor Excalibur from out of safekeeping and left it with us while he put the exhausted Clagger to bed. What the old professor's motives were in doing so was unclear to me. I lifted the bundle in my hands, the wrapping stiff and darkened from immersion in the dirty waters of the sewers. The cords that bound it slipped off easily and the cloths fell away, leaving the blade exposed to the chamber's flickering torchlight.

What an unholy conjunction of science and magic had weakened the ancient weapon! Even in its diminished state, its rightful power leeched away by its cruelly distant duplicates, it was still an impressive vision. The gleaming metal of the blade shone red as blood in the torchlight, and the jewelled eyes of the twin serpents that coiled about the hilt sparked with the same fire. Enough could be made of the obscured runic engraving on the blade to catch-the mind as one's fingers ran along the fiat of the weapon. An evil work was that which had clouded over these sacred letters. When would they be read again, and understood by the eyes for which they were meant? The hand that by ancient right should be holding this weapon might even now be clutching at the failing heart that staggered in an old man's chest.

I was aware of Tafe watching me as I gripped the sword's haft and held it out before me, the cutting edge uppermost. So much seemed to balance on that fine line slicing without moving through the thick noisome air. Not the least of the things poised on the blade's edge was myself. Which was it to be? I could set the blade down and creep away ashamed, to die here or back on the surface, no matter which. Or on the sword's other side lay more pain and effort and perhaps even a crueller death at the end of it all, with not even the faintest glimmer of hope that the trials would accomplish anything at all. Nothing to sustain us in the battle but our will and a faith so blind as not even to see how dark the valley was through which it passed.

Though treacherous cunning had made the sword only a quarter of its true weight, its burden was still heavy in my outstretched hand, and my arm began to ache from holding it out before me. I gazed down its gleaming length for what must have been an even longer time, then lowered it carefully down onto the wrappings spread out on the table. As I retied the cloths about the sword, I looked over at Tafe's waiting face.

"An idea has occurred to me," I said almost casually, though my heart was beating wildly in my chest at the closeness of the decision between life and living death. "A plan, perhaps," I went on. "Tell me what you think of it…"