Gold
Chapter Eight
The doorway in the mountainside was dark.
Very dark.
Pitch black.
The dying daylight from the rock opening afforded them only so much light and after a few steps, it was already dark. Arthur was about to turn to Merlin to get him to run back and find them a branch to make a torch from when, with a slight rumble felt only beneath their feet, the blackness suddenly became much more intense. Merlin turned with Arthur to the doorway and shouted as they both realised that the doorway had shut behind them leaving them with no light whatsoever.
Arthur pushed past Merlin, thanking that the floor was smooth rock and there was nothing to trip up on in the darkness, until he got to the rock. It was perfectly smooth and flat again and most definitely closed.
"What are we going to do?" Arthur heard Merlin ask him from a few steps behind him.
Arthur turned back and returned to where he had been. "We carry on. We're here for a reason." Let's hope there aren't any surprises up ahead, he thought to himself, hoping mostly that there weren't any rocks or holes in the ground. He stopped suddenly, as that last thought occurred to him. He instantly felt Merlin walk straight into his back, making him stumble forwards. "Watch it Merlin!" he chastised the man, although lightly as they were essentially blind.
"Sorry Arthur," he said. "I can't see where I'm going," Merlin told him unnecessarily.
"Obviously." Merlin couldn't see Arthur rolling his eyes, but he knew by the tone of voice that it was happening.
"I was going to say," Arthur continued, "that you should hold on to me- we don't want to lose each other in the dark."
Merlin was silent a second. "Hold on to you, Arthur?"
"Yes Merlin, the concept shouldn't be that hard for even you," Arthur said.
Merlin moved his hand forward, reaching for Arthur's hand, where he thought it would be. Luckily, he was right and he found it. As he grasped the other man's fingers though, they were suddenly whisked away.
"What on Earth do you think you're doing?" The question was filled with incredulity.
"I'm holding on to you Arthur, like you said."
"I meant my shoulder, idiot!"
"Ohhhh," Merlin answered, suddenly understanding.
"You're going to have to work very hard to stop me from telling people that you tried to hold my hand," Arthur said, and Merlin could hear the amusement in his voice.
"I'm not going to live it down, am I?" Merlin realised.
"Noooooo," Arthur said, drawing the syllable out. "It's too good."
Merlin sighed, a very deep sigh, just to make sure Arthur heard it and then put his hand on Arthur's shoulder.
Arthur started walking again, holding one arm out so that his fingers brushed against the wall so he could feel what the path was doing, Merlin following behind and a little to his side. The path had started to slope downwards, but it still seemed to be clear for them.
After a few more steps, there seemed to be a little more light.
"Is it getting lighter in here?" Merlin asked Arthur.
There was a silence for a moment. "I think it might be." Arthur moved so that his face was closer to the walls of the tunnel. "Lichen on the walls- it's providing a small amount of light," he told Merlin.
It was a very soft light, barely able to shed light on to anything, but the absence of the oppressing blackness from before certainly comforted them a little. They were both men of the outdoors, and the underground blackness was weighing heavily on their souls.
"Shouldn't this be a catacomb?" Arthur said, partially thinking to himself. "Where is the light, or at least, where are the torches? People would have had to come down here at some point."
Merlin thought about this a moment. "Maybe they used magic, as it was allowed. Maybe they didn't need conventional light," he offered.
Arthur was about to agree with him when the wall he'd been following took them sharply around several bends and corners and then opened out into a slightly larger tunnel, but this tunnel dazzled their eyes with light. Both men felt the need to blink.
The tunnel had turned to gold. Everything was gold- the floor was of golden slabs, and the walls and curved arched ceiling a little above their heads was made of rounded gold pebbles, intricately placed into a porcelain-coloured mortar. The sight was astonishing, yet neither of them could see where the light source was coming from. It simply was- from all around them.
They cautiously moved down the tunnel until it expanded out into a room of yet more shining gold.
"This is a sacred place Arthur," Merlin whispered.
"I know," Arthur said whispering back. Even the magicless King felt the need to whisper and they both felt awestruck. The walls were clearly carved with loving care and inlaid in what looked like gold filigree. The work was extraordinary. As they walked down the room, there wasn't a bit of wall, ceiling, or floor that hadn't had some artistry devoted to it. The new pathway opened up into a small circular chamber just as decorated, but with a small trickle of crystal-clear water falling from a downwards spring in the centre of the domed ceiling and into a round font no higher than Arthur's knee and was filled with the same crystal-clear water made the more obvious for the shining gold at the bottom of the pool.
Arthur looked up, and then back down at the pool. "I wonder if this is underneath the fountain well in the garden courtyard," he pondered. "We've gone through enough twists and turns and the slope went downwards enough that it could be..." he trailed off, pondering it. Ulric and his thieves had certainly thought so.
They wandered around the circular room which, other than the artistry and the pool, seemed to be entirely empty. Merlin checked everywhere though- he had a strange feeling coming upon him. The Queen was nowhere to be seen to give him any hint of what they should be doing, but his unease was growing, and it wasn't because of her. "I have a bad feeling about this," he said quietly.
"Merlin, you always have a bad feeling," Arthur said to him, but without much conviction. Even he had to admit that Merlin's 'feelings' usually hit the mark.
On the other side of the room, Merlin caught his foot slightly on one of the flagstones, but didn't fall. He glanced over at Arthur to check if he'd seen his clumsiness once again and was floored by the expression on Arthur's face. He looked shocked and somewhat unbelieving.
"Merlin," Arthur said, before Merlin could ask him if he was alright. "Who is that?" Merlin turned to face him properly, and then turned further to look behind him at what Arthur was staring at. A smoky black spectre of a man was contemplating them with a vicious glare and a sadistic twist on his lips that showed no humour whatsoever. "I don't think that this magic has degraded Merlin," Arthur whispered, still looking towards the apparition.
"This place is MINE!" The spectre screamed at them, the voice changing unnaturally between a rumbling bass and a high pitch, the mouth hanging open as if the jaw had suddenly become unhinged. It did nothing but stay where it was, but both Arthur and Merlin were flung back against the walls and the spectre was suddenly between them, cutting one off from the other. Arthur got up quickly, sword strong in his hand, slashing uselessly against the curling black smoke. Now the spectre laughed cruelly, but the smoke got a darker black and it was harder for Arthur and Merlin to see each other through him. Merlin got up, a little shakily, but ran towards Arthur. The spectre turned to him and flung out black bolts of smoke towards him at the speed of an arrow, and they hit Merlin straight in the chest.
Merlin stopped exactly where he was and fell to his knees, a gasp dying on his lips. Black smoke curled around him and he felt as if he were being suffocated from the inside out. He coughed, and a few wisps of smoke came out of his mouth and nostrils. He fell back, eyes no longer seeing what was around him, and he was struggling for breath. He could vaguely hear Arthur shouting his name, and then he heard Arthur no longer, but only the spectre coming closer laughing. "This place is mine!" The high pitched warble was the last thing Merlin heard before he fell unconscious.