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.