v

There are rooms underneath the Hall, underneath the whole Place, under where we stand now. There's a great maze of tunnels, a Labyrinth. It's like a great dark city, under the hill. Full of gold, and the swords of old heroes, and old crowns, and bones, and years, and silence."

She spoke as if in trance, in rapture. Manan watched her. His slabby face never expressed much but stolid, careful sadness; it was sadder than usual now.

"Well, and you're mistress of all that," he said. "The silence, and the dark."

"I am.