emotion. 'Get your men to clear this doorway.'
As the workmen moved the rocks Nicholas and Royan hovered close behind
them, so that they were able to watch the shape of the doorway as it was
fully revealed. It proved to be a dark rectangle, of the same dimensions
as the tunnel leading up from the sink-hole, three metres wide by two
high. The lintel and the door jambs were of beautifully cut and dressed
stone, and when Nicholas shone his lamp into the opening he saw a flight
of stone steps rising before him.
They moved the cables and the lights into the gallery and arranged them
at the entrance to this new doorway, but when Nicholas set foot on the
first step he found Royan at his side.
'I am coming with you, she told him firmly.
'It's probably booby-trapped,' he warned her. 'Taita is lying in wait
for you around the first bend.'
'Don't try that. It just won't work, mister! I am coming.'
They went slowly up the steep steps, pausing on each one to survey the
walls and the way ahead. Twenty steps from the bottom they reached
another landing. A pair of doorways led off it, one on either side.
However, the staircase continued climbing directly ahead of them.
Which way?'Nicholas asked.
'Keep going up,' Royan urged him. 'We can explore these side passages
later.'
Cautiously, they continued climbing. After twenty more steps they came
out on an identical landing, with a doorway on each side and the
stairway in front of them.
'Keep going up,' Royan ordered, without waiting for him to answer,
Twenty more steps and there was another landing with the familiar
openings on either side and the stairway straight ahead.
'This isn't making sense,' Nicholas protested, but she prodded him in we
should keep going on upwards,' she told him, and he did not protest
further. They passed another landing and then yet another, each of them
the exact image of those that they had passed lower down.
'At last!' Nicholas exclaimed when they came out at ay on each the top
of the staircase,,with the expected door.
'This is as far side but now a blank wall in front of them. as it goes.'
she asked. 'How man
'How many landings are there? altogetherr
'Eight he answered.
'Eight,' she agreed. 'Isn't that a familiar number
nowr lamplight. 'You He turned to stare down at her in the mean-'
'I mean the eight shrines in the long gallery, these the bao board.'
eight landings, and the eight cups of They stood silent and undecided on
the top landing looked about them.
an Okay,' he said at last, 'if you are so damned clever, tell me which
way to go now.'
she recited. 'Let's try the
'Eeny'meeny-miny-moe,'
t'hand doorway.' righ and passage only a short They followed ri t
distance before they were confronted by a Tjunction - a blank wall with
identical twin passageways on each side.
