The barrow seemed empty, and no one answered Selanil's hails, so, after a time, he returned to Kell's Reach.
In the meantime, work had begun on tearing the mill down. Despite Amalric's words to the miller, removing the mill took more effort than a day could provide. Whatever evil spirit had possessed the village seemed to have loosened its grip, and for several days the weather was fair and warming. Spring flowers began to bloom where they had been planted in front of the villagers' cottages, and the air was scented with the faint aroma of herbs.
Slowly and carefully, under the watchful eye of the dwarf, the villagers removed the upper level of the mill and scattered the old barrow stones it was made of. The hopper bins, gears, and other mill works were reserved, however -- many pieces stored in the miller's old house -- for, with the taint of evil removed, they would be valuable when the time came to build a new mill at some other spot.
Although the upper level was safely removed, when the workers reached the ground level (which should, by all rights, have been easier), there were several injuries. Most were minor, but some required the divine healing channeled by Dain, Kregor, or Amalric to alleviate. It was as though some form of malice was in the stones themselves, causing them to slip when they were secure, or to give way suddenly where before they were held fast. One poor man, Erle Sandown, had his lower leg crushed, and, although the injury was treated, he would carry a limp into his old age.
None dared approach the mill after the fall of dark. Some claimed to have heard scratching from beneath the floor stones while they worked. Echoes, maybe, in some hollow space of the work being done above, but Dain for all his stonecunning wasn't certain, and it seemed at times that the echoes below were longer lasting than reason would permit. And there were whispers, barely heard. They were not loud enough for any to say what was said. In truth, it was perhaps the wind through the dismantled stones of the mill's shell. Whatever the cause, none now doubted that the mill itself was the source of the miller's madness, and of the village's woes.
At last, on a midafternoon a little less than two weeks from first stone's removal, a dark space was revealled beneath the mill's stone floor. Surely, it was the barrow from which the mill's stones had been taken, sealed since the mill was built.
It took the rest of the afternoon to open the space widely enough to admit a man. Then, as the first hint of evening darkened the sky, the workers fled, dropping their tools in mindless terror.
