More Secrets and the Horse Race - Book 8 - The Frencolian Chronicles

Chapter 10

The reception chamber still seemed empty of life and Luke with his bodyguards continued searching for any kind of trigger to open a portal through which they could enter the chamber or a way out of there that didn't involve climbing all the way back up to the tower.

Granville and Loran couldn't find anything that felt, or looked, like an indent, a knob or even a random setting of tiles that could be triggers to open any part of the paneled wall, or the other walls.

"There has to be something," Loran said, pressing every seam. They turned their attention to the floor but again, there was nothing unusual or out of place. It was a bare stone chamber with one plain paneled wooden wall.

"What is it even there for?" Luke queried. No one had an answer.

Stepping across to a corner, where the wood panel ended and the stone seemed to cut through it, Luke pushed his fingers down the seam. It felt as if the wood went behind the stone, not the other way around. Positioning himself so that he could press the panel toward the reception chamber with both hands, he pushed it with his fingers, running them up as high as he as able. A faint 'click' sounded out. 

"It clicked," he said unnecessarily, and ran his fingers down towards the floor, applying the same pressure. "Another!" he said, turning. "Oh, you're here." Loren and Granville were right behind him. Luke stepped aside.

The pair repeated Luke's movements, Granville, the taller, sliding his hands upwards while Loren, kneeling, ran his hands from the middle of the wall to the bottom. The clicks sounded but a second apart.

"You might need to pressure the pair of triggers at the same time," Luke said, remembering the many openings he had investigated after Jobyna had returned to the King's Castle, having escaped, that first time, from Elliad.

After the men's third attempt, the two triggers clicked at the same time and the thick wall panel slid behind the great stone piece, all the way along so that a tiled marble wall was revealed. Black, charcoal and gray, the variety of marble tiles were in no pattern or order along the long wall.

Sabin arrived back after having climbed up and filled two more lamps to lend extra light to the area here. He hoped they wouldn't have to climb back up that long spiral step way.

"That ... step... way..." he said, leaning on the wall to catch his breath. He asked, with hope in his voice, "Can we go out into that chamber? Perhaps there's a way behind or beneath that spiral."

"You're right, Sabin, we should examine that area. But I'm thinking that this isn't a transit room but a room to observe. Beneath that step-way, yes, there was space for a portal of some kind, wasn't there?"

Minette turned, saying, "Hush, people are returning."

Stepping from peephole to peephole, seeing faces, but not able to understand anything that was happening in the reception chamber, she said, "They must have built a way to hear the conversion. I can see Dorai in there now." She moved to another portal, one that was an upright rectangle, "That's better, I can see him with a knight, he's taking something, a piece of folded parchment, maybe it's a message. He's talking but I can't hear him." She peered in again, saying, "He's gone from view." She moved further away to find another view-hole.

"I saw him; it didn't look like a message roll," Luke whispered.

Loran stepped over to one of the peepholes. Straightening his hand and reaching his fingers inside the gap, he moved his hand along from one end to the other. A very slight click sounded out and Dorai's voice came to their ears. Moving from visor to visor, Loran, with a finger to his lips, and the other hand in each cavity, triggered open all the eavesdropping ducts he could find.