The Lost Treasure Map Series

by V Bertolaccini

  The man who had found the mark on the map seemed to be the best at it, and they all looked at the rooms there.

  As Bryson examined the best places to look he remembered the plan of the castle and removed it, and he started trying to see what the mark was at, and he suddenly noticed the man that had found the mark and Mitchell were measuring the floor in the corridor, outside the rooms, and he wondered what they were thinking.

  The map looked different in the light from outside at a window, and he saw things that had not been recognizable before and it slightly surprised him, as he had expected it to have dulled lines and blemishes, especially because of its already bad condition and ancient age.

  Bryson glared, partially blinded by a sudden illumination from the sun, and its powerful glare from the snow. Then when it decreased he saw more detail and faint lines that had faded and that had not been visible before, and he wondered if the others had seen stuff that he had not seen there, and why they never bothered asking to see it again?

  He studied things on it astonished at missing them and saw where the exact location of the small cross mark was marked at the castle, even though it was so faint that he could easily have taken it to be a badly drawn mark or correction rubbed away.

  Yet though he knew that it was something its size was not big – it looked too small to be significant – and it was not just a bad drawing as it had been carefully drawn there! And he considered why the person had gone to such lengths to draw it so well into the sketch, and wondered how the man in his tomb had died and what the person had been like, and why he had been buried there?

  Bryson stood up and joined Mitchell and some of his men measuring the room, who took it that he knew what they knew.

  Bryson gradually realized what he had missed and that there was a large distance between a room wall and the wall in the room next to it, and when he knocked the wall it did not sound as solid, and it was not as solid as the stone walls in the other rooms.

  He was sure a small chamber existed there, and wondered why it had been hidden away, and why they had been so secretive and had marked it on an old map?

  Nonetheless, how could they check it? Where could the entrance to it be? It could be sealed, but there could be a way to climb into it!

  Bryson considered it for a moment and realized that was what Mitchell was considering, and he wondered if he would knock a hole in the wall of the room where the map cross had been marked? Their faces still some showed puzzlement, indicating that he had a problem and had not realized how best to get into it.

  Bryson started tapping the room wall and listening to see how hollow it was in different places.

  Mitchell decided to do more, suddenly looking more energetic!

  “It would be a shame to ruin this wall,” Bryson explained, considering the hole that they had made in the floor to enter the chamber beneath the floor. “It could make a hell of a mess!”

  The man who had found the mark on the map suddenly used the opportunity to show them what they were missing and went over to the corner of the room and lifted up the edges of the wallpaper, showing them that there was, in fact, a gap going around the entire wall, and looked like a large crack and was deliberately concealed.

  “What do you think it is then?” Bryson asked, confused, not fully grasping what it was or what he was explaining it was.

  “We’ll need to find a way to tug it out from the side at the door as the hinges are at the other side,” he replied, and Bryson shrugged and decided to wait for him to show him what he was talking about.

  He went to different places of the wall examining the crack and inserted a tool into the gap, which allowed him to grip the wall and yank it slightly outwards, proving nothing was holding it, and Bryson recalled an inner library that they had found at the last castle, and realized that the wall was really a giant doorway concealing something behind it, and he helped the man pull it out, and soon realized that it opened out on hinges at the opposite side.

  It opened out like a giant door revealing a hidden chamber full of old books and scrolls, and Mitchell’s men saw value in the books and the information they could hold, and Bryson wondered why the map had it marked on it and why someone would keep just books as a secret?

  Chapter 22

  The Police Investigation

  A bright large fire burning furiously in the fireplace in the lounge enticed Bryson in and to a seat, where he intended to rest and go through all the things that they had found in detail, and he was sure he missing things and that he would realize them now, while resting on his own.

  Yet as soon as he sat down three of the policemen marched in, and looked him over!

  The heat from the fire made the central policeman’s eyes bulge out as they entered further in, making their way to the fireplace, and Bryson saw he was the policeman in charge there.

  “So you’re Bryson!” he exclaimed, looking about him. “I’m Lieutenant Spelman. I’m in charge at the moment ...”

  “Have you found anything?” Bryson asked, becoming interested, examining their official clothing, wondering what they would make of the disturbances there, and wondered if they had encountered anything or what they had heard and thought of it.

  “Where are the others?”

  “They’re at the top floor rooms,” he answered authoritatively.

  “They’ll all be back down soon?” he asked.

  “I don’t know when they’ll be down! But I’m sure most of them will be down soon ... It’s dark now! Have you found anything out about the death of the man in the kitchen?”

  “Various things! But we don’t have the killer yet!”

  “So have you found any fingerprints or DNA?”

  “You’re one of the scientists here! This place is strange!”

  “Strange? Stay here long enough and I’m sure you’ll never see anything as strange again!”

  The policemen showed signs of confusion and surprise, but Bryson was sure that they had been informed of some of the things that had happened there or had already seen something. He was sure someone in the ex-military men with Mitchell had been telling them what had happened. It was also them that had called the police in and he was sure one of them also knew them.

  In distance Bryson realized that there were noises of trouble, and action by the police, and he realized that something was happening, especially going by the reactions of the police in the room, and a policeman rushed in the door.

  “We had him but he escaped!” he hollered, breathing faster. “We know where he went and two of our men are going after him!

  “We were investigating the castle where his footprints were and we found him at the floor of a room. He escaped down a tunnel there!”

  They followed him out and they rushed over to the room, and Bryson sensed that he was going to be in danger of getting it!

  At the side of the room the carpet had been rolled over, and the person had removed a hidden entrance to a tunnel and had escaped without covering it over, and Bryson heard scrambling movements and panic-stricken voices deep in it, where the police were clearly chasing the killer out towards the wood.

  It was worse than he had imagined! More police were rushing in determined for action, and they were contacting the rest of the police force, and he now positively knew that they never knew of the dangers out there and that great danger was there! And yet if he told them, warned them, he not only knew that it would be a mistake, it could very well make things far worse.

  He just did not know what to do and was too tired, and he hoped that Merton and Mortimer would appear and help prevent things escalating further.

  Then he realized that they might be able to catch the man before he left the tunnel, and he thought he could either catch him or make them go faster, and he rushed into the tunnel with the others.

  “That guy was sneaking around up there!” Bryson gasped, speaking to a policeman at his side.

  “If he escapes we may never have a chance to get him again.”
r />   “Let’s go as fast as we can!” Bryson announced, checking his watch.

  He swiftly led them deeper into the tunnel, surprising them with how fast and experienced he was in going through tunnels.

  He surely did not have that much of a head start! If they moved fast enough they might catch him in the wood.

  He gasped at the fact that they could end up going miles into the wood with those things there, as his footprints were guaranteed to be there and force them into getting him. Yet if they moved far faster than him they might capture him first before anything happened. It had only just turned dark!

  As he rushed on he studied the walls of the tunnel amazed at the workmanship and that it had been manufactured like the other tunnels that they found there, and he wondered if the guy knew the people that had made it.

  As he grew tired he thought the police in the tunnel would just give up. Yet he was sure that they could catch him! He wondered what he looked like, and what he was up to? He also knew that the police would be using helicopters and wondered what would happen there, and if he used a hideout?

  From one of the communicators behind him he learned that it was now snowing heavily above and over the whole region, and he happily knew it would cover his trail in the wood, if they could not get there before him entering deep into the wood. They had to be as fast as they could! This could be the only chance to get him!

  As he heard the police not that far ahead of him he realized that they had not been in a tunnel before and that they were going slow, trying to see what was ahead, and he gasped as he suddenly heard the police communicators stop work, from the disturbances in the wood.

  Bryson regulated his breathing, blowing out steam through beams of torchlight, and rushed on and on, as he searched for obstacles ahead.

  He felt surprisingly awake now, with no need to sleep, and he felt things could be successful and he intended to increase their pace further.

  So when the police ahead of him in the tunnel appeared, now going very slowly, they allowed them to pass, almost not believing that they could capture the killer, probably put off by the length of the tunnel.

  While they continued Bryson saw that they were following them, at the back, and he realized that he was now at the front and that the killer could even be nearby, and suddenly realized why they had been so happy to allow him to pass and he realized that he never even knew if the police directly behind even had guns.

  It was hideous! It could be anyone and the guy could be far more different from what he accepted, especially going by what this place had come out with so far.

  He definitely did not want to confront him in the tunnel as he could easily shoot him as there was nothing to give him any cover, and it was better to wait until they were outside. Even though that could mean him escaping or dragging them through the wood in something like a gun battle!

  His eyes stayed on the most distant part of the tunnel, searching for him, waiting for him to take a shot at them or to attempt to ambush them.

  When he recognized the steps to get out the tunnel he sprinted there, and when he approached them he considered what to do next and realized how easily the killer could be waiting for them to climb out of the tunnel. He knew that they were chasing him, and had to have heard them as they had not tried to conceal them being there, and going by the distance the police in front of him were he considered him not far ahead.

  Bryson rushed up the stairs and waited, and the others appeared behind him with startled faces, and he realized that at least he might have talked them out of doing something stupid, and was amused to hear some of them wondering who the hell he was.

  “Well, what will we do now?” one of them asked, panting slightly, looking at him as though he was crazy.

  “We’d better have the police with guns here! We don’t know what this guy could do!”

  Once the police moved to his side Bryson climbed out into an immense blizzard, with the snow blanketing his entire surroundings, almost in complete darkness, without any lights, shifting into deep snow, considering everything that he was up against, attempting to observe any place he could see, and wondered if the killer could possibly see him.

  He listened through the howl of the wind and all that he heard was the trees being blown around, and he looked for a place to take cover and move over to, and one of the policemen appeared at his side and shone his torch about, and though the wood became visible, he could barely see anything else.

  “There is part of his footstep!” a policeman announced, pointing, and they realized that they could not follow him, as there was only part of one footstep there.

  Chapter 23

  The Space/Time Gateway

  Once Bryson arrived back at the top floor that night after resting and having a meal he instantly realized that they had found something else, and he saw Mitchell and his men standing around a large hole in the floor in front of the bookshelves.

  “We just dug through,” Mitchell announced, in excitement, as Bryson arrived, glaring, and Mitchell shone his light around the large hole, where they had removed floorboards and smashed in a stone entrance slab.

  “When did you find it?” he replied, wondering what was there, realizing it probably was what was marked on the map, and that the bookshelves were covering it up.

  “We found it only an hour ago!” Mitchell replied.

  “How did you find it?”

  “Some of the men, who were still exploring the chamber with the tomb, found the area below here was surrounded and hidden by a thick wall ... And we found a sealed entrance over it ...”

  “What’s down there?” Bryson asked, trying to see in it.

  “There’s stairs ... They go down below somewhere!”

  Mitchell entered first, using his light to see the ancient steps going straight down, and Bryson followed, surprised that the tunnel and stairs fitted into the massive walls in the floors below.

  Bryson watched Mitchell moving down making sure he never slipped, and a deep thud echoed down from behind, and he saw that only one other man followed him, and he realized that it was a good idea only having the three of them as the ancient derelict castle steps might not be able to support more weight.

  The ebbing radiance of the light was not enough to allow more than three to go safely down either, and he tried to grasp the concept of the tunnel and he imagined the outside of the castle, as he had seen it, and tried to recall the place where they were on it, and where they were going. He was sure that it might have been part of its defense against invaders!

  Sounds from behind altered and echoed down giving muddled and strange tones, and he had to strain his eyes more and more to see what he was doing, what Mitchell was doing, and occasionally look back at Mitchell’s man behind him, who was the man that had seen the cross map on the map, which had led them there, and he wondered why he was so keen to find what was there.

  He saw little below and that there were no new features of anything, and that the tunnel’s small shape (less than a meter all around him) vanished into the dark.

  The steps descended sharply and hazardously and they had to climb down slowly, rather than walk down like with normal stairs, and he had to hold himself upright and lean backwards, and its drop seemed perpendicular at times.

  Once he thought he heard distant movements from below, surrounded by their growing surges of strange sounds, and he was sure Mitchell reacted, just ahead of him, with the light oscillating irregularly. Its light swayed over the stone, and the narrow shaft seemed to vanish at a point below.

  A feeble glow from something reflecting light caught his attention and he wondered what was there to reflect it, and he saw what looked like a crack in a wall, between the castle stones, and when he looked down he realized Mitchell had vanished!

  At first he thought he never saw him as his light had gone, and that he had broken it and that they would have to return, but as he moved down an explosion of colors exploded out from something stunning him, and he opened his
eyes and studied his surroundings and saw that he was no longer in the shaft, and as he confusedly studied his surroundings a colossal whirlpool of shifting outlines magically shifted about him and he realized that he had no body or proper presence, and was some form of energy formation.

  II

  The Voyager and Treasure

  Chapter 1

  The Supernatural Vortex

  Energy beams exploded at Bryson as he gained consciousness, covering his entire vision with bright colored light, and he studied everything that he could see wondering where the hell he was! A colossal vortex of shifting outlines magically shot by and he analyzed it in greater detail and proved that he could not realize what or where it was, or even what he now was!

  His presence was some form of force formation, and he swirled out into a vortex of reshaping energy patterns that had replaced reality, and he wondered if he could be trapped there for all eternity, and he ignored it and realized that he was no longer bothered and wondered what his future would be like.

  He studied a surreal splendor of mind-bending displacements and saw that they were altering to something that he could not recognize. All of his knowledge of science and universe gave him little and it left him mesmerized! Was he even classified as being a life form? His knowledge of what was beyond the universe was little and he felt like he was about to explore something far greater and mind-boggling than he could have ever imagined!

  Questions started emerging and he mainly wondered how he could observe anything? If it actually was light there what was he using to perceive it? Yet he recalled the mind-bending dreams that had experienced in the castle and being in a supernatural vortex, and he started to realize that it had to be it or something similar.