[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Instantly a tiny ball of illumination appeared, conjured onto the coin.The light was sufficient for him to see the entirety of the small room, the same as if he had lit a torch, though the glow of his coin was of a morepearly hue, like moonlight.He let the symbol settle back against his breast and peered about.It was nothing more than a storage closet, a small room lined with shelves on the walls holding linens that were not in use during the summer season.In the fall, when the weather cooled once more, the inhabitants of the temple would very likely retrieve the warmer bedclothes, but for the moment, no one would venture into the closet for any reason.Unless they knew something unique about the chamber, as Pilos did.When he had first been raised to the level of Abreeant and awarded, for his pious service in the temple, the position of servitude to the Grand Syndar himself, Pilos discovered a few secrets—or rather, he was taught those secrets by the Grand Syndar himself—about the architecture of the temple.One such secret was the numerous concealed passages that threaded their way through the temple structure, passing through the thickest of the walls and following narrow and steep staircases to different levels.The Grand Syndar seldom used those covert passageways, but they were there in cases of dire need.As Mikolo explained it at the time, one never knew when the Grand Syndar might need to move from one locale within the temple to another "unmolested," as the old man had put it.Pilos had never been able to imagine what use the Grand Syndar might have had for such secretive modes of travel, but he did not question their existence, nor did he ever reveal to anyone else that he was aware of them.Right then, he was feeling more than a little gratified that the Grand Syndar had seen fit to share their presence with him.Moving to the back of the closet, Pilos stared at the shelving attached to the wall for a few moments,trying to recall exactly how the Grand Syndar had made them function.He remembered something about a loose stone, but he could not recall exactly which one might be suitable.He shrugged and began to feel with his hands each of the stones that made up the wall.After the fourth or fifth one, he began to grow frustrated.Perhaps it wasn't a stone at all, he thought, pondering.Then the young priest remembered.There had been a loose stone at chest height, but it was on the other side of the wall.From the closet side, the trigger mechanism was actually one of the shelves.In fact, Pilos remembered, it was the bottommost shelf.He reached down and felt with his fingers along the bottom of the lowest one.When they brushed across a small stud, he pressed it in and tugged.The entire shelf shifted, and there was a deep click from inside the stone wall.Very carefully, Pilos stood and pushed against the wall, watching with satisfaction when it swung backward, revealing the narrow passageway beyond.Quickly, before he could lose his nerve, Pilos scurried through the opening and pushed the swinging section of wall back again, until he heard it click shut.Sighing, he wondered if he would be able to figure out how to open it again, but he did not stop to determine which stone was the correct one right then.Instead he turned and began to follow the passage, guided by his glowing coin.After a short walk down a dusty and cobweb-filled corridor, the passage split into a four-way intersection, and Pilos considered for a brief moment the correct route.When he'd made up his mind, he turned to the right, went down some steep stairs, and turned left at another intersection.He continued to follow that passage for quite some time, passing a coupleof different points where he knew other doors were camouflaged in the stonework.Finally, Pilos turned a last corner and found himself in a dead end.Bolstering his courage, he moved right to the very end of the hallway and stepped on a smallish projection rising up from the floor in one corner.The resulting click was barely audible, but Pilos held his breath anyway, ready to bolt if there was any indication that someone on the far side of the secret portal had heard it open
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]