TWENTY - NINE

The Crystal Cave was located deep within the Cambrian Mountains, in the county currently called Radnor near the quiet hamlet of Builth Wells. This was the original coal country of England. The vast mining operations which honeycombed the mountain, supplied the power for an emerging country and propelled it along the road of the industrial revolution through the colonization of a world. Builth Wells had once been just a small farming community until the mountain was discovered filled with coal. Coal caused the little hamlet to grow into a bustling community. The coal company employs thousands, and thousands more depend on the coal workers for their livelihood. For almost eight decades tens of thousands of metric tons of coal were taken from the ground.

Then one year the miners refused to go any deeper. The offers of bonuses enticed a few miners to go down for a shift or two, but never long enough. Then one night on the third shift, at the farthest end of the lowest shaft a spark ignited the coal dust. Two levels collapsed upon each other in the area affected. That corner of the mine on the lowest levels caught on fire and the mine operators thought it best to just let the mine burn itself out.

The lower levels had let the demons out. The coal company owners started to cannibalize the coal between the levels to keep the mines going for another sixteen months. Once the last kilo of reachable coal had been mined, the coal company moved to the next mountain. The miners moved with the company and the sleepy little hamlet of Builth Wells became a tiny little agricultural village again with a coal mine on fire. Since nobody knows how much coal is left in the mine, nobody has any means of estimating how long that mine could burn. As of this week, the fire had been burning for over a century.

There were ten entrances into the mountain that the mining company had placed in the earth. The two main shafts are at right angles to each other three hundred meters apart. Eight one meter by one meter square ventilation shafts dotted the side of the mountain, now covered by faded painted rotten wood boards, ‘KEEP OUT’. Nothing was really needed to keep the villagers out. The strange noises, occasional belches of coal dust into the air, and the fire was enough. After all the mines were possessed by demons now.

For the true spelunkers with more courage than brains, there were other ways into the mountain than the mining entrances. Villagers knew of twenty-three caves that dotted the base of the mountain. Twenty of the caves lead to dead ends twisting and turning, rising and sinking as many as eighteen kilometers, but good luck coming back because the tunnels split into extra entrances that were not noticeable with your back to them. Soon the amateur troglodyte was hopelessly lost. Scores of drunks and a few men who thought they knew what they were doing, entered to never be seen again. Only a mere handful had entered to return and tell the tale of their sojourn to hell and back.

The twenty-third cave, on the far northeastern slope of the mountain, was the one cave that the townspeople knew nothing about, nor cared to know. Seventeen of their finest and bravest, had ventured in to explore its hidden depths. None had ever returned. If any had returned, they would have told a tale of wonder and riches. You would have told them how the cave ran straight and deep for one and a half kilometers, before the first ‘S’ turn back on itself started to change your orientation to direction. After another kilometer or so of twists and turns angling down into the earth, you would have talked about jumping the ten to twelve foot wide black hole across their path in the deep dark earth. Of almost falling backwards into that black hole of death.

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On the other side of the chasm, the torch is shown on multiple streaks of light reflecting the veins of gold in the walls. Your backpack was crammed with the fist size nuggets of gold adding another sixty-eight kilos of weight to already tired shoulders and back. Squeezing through and crawling the next three kilometers tore up knees and palms, making you wonder if you should reduce your burden, Securing everything in place while you trekked on did not seem like a good idea. Then except for the hole in the floor there is nowhere else to go except back. Sitting on the edge of the black bottomless pit, the backpack has been turned around so now it sits in your lap. Your feet touch the opposite wall and your butt scoots to the very edge. Squeezing your body between feet and back the journey down begins centimeter by centimeter.

Suddenly your foot presses against nothing. Shining the torch you saw an opening that you had to crawl into to advance forward. Carefully you take off the backpack and work it across your legs to force it onto the ledge until you can get your body there too. There was no way you could reach to push yourself across the black pit. If you could twist your body halfway around the pit, you could lift the edge of your butt on the edge to go in butt first.

Trying to keep your back to the sharp edges of the wall, as tight as possible, while trying to keep the balls of your feet pressed to the opposite wall. Sliding one foot to the left, sliding the next foot over, left you at an awkward angle and you felt your body slipping. You are scrambling for a hand hold of any type. The first drop of four meters tears up your shirt and back, causing you to lean forward and fall the remaining twelve meters.

The sudden jarring of hitting the floor caused you to drop the torch after hitting the ground hard, twisting your ankle. You crawl around on the ground feeling for the torch, praying that it will still work. Finally you touch the torch and get it working. You shine the light up to see the strap of the backpack dangling over the edge. There is the opening to a tunnel that you forge ahead into. There is no going back.

Down, down, down the tunnel thins and bends to the right in a huge sloping curve until you spill out onto a pebble beach. The air is humid due to the large pool of water that you can hear lapping at the shore. The ceiling was at least one hundred meters tall and seen because it was covered with some form of bioluminescence alga along the ceiling and down the walls. The water is frigid and black in this underground lake, inhibiting you from entering the waters. Gruesome words would describe the sudden splashing noises of some dark creature of the lake. The remains of a broken wooden skiff, now only wooden shards remained on the black pebble beach. In the furthest corner was an opening that looked as if the light was from the other side of the mountain.