Professor Gemstone the bookworm? part 5 (19)

The events of the day had been dully resolved.

Ezera and Ming had walked back to put the books in Ezera's quarters. Then, they prepared for class where Onyx and the others had made the acquaintance of religion literature, as well as the basics of oral spells courtesy of Ezera spending all his time in the library to read through all the shelves.

Then, it had been souper and tucking the kids in for sleep. Not really, because they were perfectly capable of going to bed on thei own, they weren't five or seven. In any case, Ezera had gone to hide a certain list of questions in the library for the red clad helper, then both Ming and Ezera had returned to the professor's chambers.

"You aren't going to sleep?" Ming questioned him when he didn't change into his night attire.

"Later," he said. "There's something I should look for. Don't let it stop you from falling asleep," he messed with the boy's hair as a good night, then left...

...Through the window.

Ming wouldn't question him, he had done the exact same the first morning.

Through the window, there was a wall. Under, above, from all sides. Just the stone wall of the castle. The stone was pearl grey, but now under the moonlight it seemed purplish silver. It was rough to the touch, and the pieces were inserted the ones in the other in such a way that Ezera could find little room for his fingers in between.

But he could climb. And so he did. Silently. Until he reached the roof above the third floor. The roof was protected by only a few other ranges of stones, and he could rest against it once he feet touched the stone flatly. He observed his surroundings. The roof was actually just a piece of flat roof, because the rest of it was covered in sea-blue tiles and either rounded or pointy. Castles... Can't even make a normal roof. But he understood. By definition, castles weren't actually one big block of space, but several put together.

He could work with tiles, better than he could work with stonewalls. They were smooth to the touch, but they were easy to grab. Suspended in the sky through pieces of slate, Ezera found his way through the courtyard. To the inner palace.

The inner palace was smaller than the outer palace. This was where the Queen rested until she had to do politics in the big one. Ezera divined that no one but the royal family was allowed inside, except for a few trusted counselors.

Ezera slipped inside through an unguarded window.

Why was he here? Even though he just realized Dereck, the Queen's first knight and friend, was trustworthy? Because there was an obvious conspiracy at work. He could only divine their goals in cutting the heroes to all kind of informations they had hoped to control them better. But if this was about the world, why were they stopping them from learning about said world? This was endlessly suspicious.

If all actual sources of knowledge had been locked away, they might however not have been burned and destroyed. The best place to find the missing information, whether it be about this world or Luversten's intentions, was in the forbidden places.

Of course, there was a hidden door in the wall, that he found as he walked the empty corridors.

He slipped into what looked to be a hidden chapel inside the walls of the palace. The place was vast, but not as large as the throne room, and perhaps a bit less lengthy. It was dark, as they were no window, but Ezera could still discern his surroundings. Experimentally, he let his footstep sound casually against the floor, only for the sound to echo loudly in his ears, against the far wall then back. And again. For ten seconds it went back and forth, and only when it faded did Ezera hear the movement it had provoked in the air, through its sound. Breathy. Just a frequence, too precise to be natural.

He walked slowly and carefully through the room by the middle path, between the ranks of benchs and the statues of allegorias. When he reached the other side, he let his fingers feel the giant instrument facing him. He caressed the majestic organ with respect and curiosity.

Suddenly, footsteps.

Thankfully, Ezera had closed the door behind him. He looked furtively for a hiding spot, in case they entered. The voices were coming closer, quite slowly, but he could recognize that man, Adamus Richard Hortensius, as he approached with someone else... A male person.

He quickly looked around the benches, but they were not a good option. Then perhaps behind the corner of one of the last shelves against the wall... Huh?

Ezera realized something as he went for those shelves, a spot which gave him a vision to behind the organ. There was a strange bump in the back of the corner of said wooden shelf, enplastered in the wall. Perhaps one of those cliche secret passages to an annex room, even if that sounded quite repetitive seeing as the chapel was already hidden in a wall...

*Click*

Oh, his mistake. It wasn't a way through the wall; only through the floor.

From his position, he could see well enough behind the organ, where he had just heard a nearly silent disloging as well as saw a indiscernable movement through the darkness. He came closer, precipitated as he could hear the voices stop near the hidden entrance. There was a slab of uncovered stone, revealing a rope ladder leading down.

No time to lose. He jumped in, grabbing the ropes about two meters down, and slipping down to the far ground. Just as he heard the sound of of the door stone dislocking away loudly, he caught side of a discreet lever. Trusting, he pulled on it.

Thankfully, it closed the opening above, gone unnoticed from the newcomers. He internally sighed in relief. But then, he realized he could still eavesdropp on the high priest and whoever was with him.

"...going too far?"

"We are not," Hortensius snapped at the other. "This is exactly what this country needs to protect itself and finally bloom back to what it once was."

There was a sigh.

"Stop speaking if you do not even believe what you say."

"But I do, ask your dear Queen. She would agree with me."

There was a tense, short silence.

"My Queen, as you say, only agree with you because she has no choice."

"What about you, cardinal?"

"... I follow Her Majesty."

"Perfect. Then there is nothing more to be said on the matter. As I said, continue to train His Highness the crown prince adequately until the time comes for the Promised Night."

"He would be better off practicing diplomatics, if you asked for my opinion."

"Fortunately I did not."

Ezera heard the sound of the organ. It echoed in the chapel and down to his cavernous hiding spot. Eerily. More came. At the same time, Hortensius kept speaking.

"It would be less suspicious if we allowed the Heroes to roam the kingdom, or a part of it. But we can't simply not monitor them, at least not until we get rid of the other nuisance without creating discord. Have you brought it?"

"Yes. But it was always a failed experiment, I do not imagine what you would want to do with it."

"You do not imagine what miracle could be made with defective products. They will soak in 'God''s energy during the night, and then they might become useful to one thing at least."

"...You mean your wicked tricks."

It dawned on Ezera that they were speaking of the organ notes. It was probably a magical artifact of some sort.

"There are no wicked tricks. If only you would believe me," Hortensius laments with a disgustingly regretful voice.

It almost sounded genuine, it creeped Ezera out. He held back a shiver.

"I wish we could be friends, but we only ever seem to be stuck as colleagues. How saddening. At any rate, I overheard you are also here on a side errand for Her Majesty?"

"Yes," replied the cold hesitant voice of the cardinal. "She asked me to pick up some of the volumes in here... For her private use."

"I see. She shall hurry then. I wish for these tomes to be safely protected in my chapel again as soon as possible."

"Of course."

There was movement, as well as the sound of something being put, metal against wood, on the benches of the chapel. Soon after, the music stopped playing out. Ezera waited to hear both persons leaving the room, waiting for their footsteps to echoes away in the hallways.

He pushed the lever, and found himself climbing back up carefully. Once he put his feet on the floor of the chapel again, he did not close the trap. Instead, he also picked a few books of his own from the shelves – thankful for the big pockets in his jacket – and went to look for whatever the Cardinal had abandoned them.

There it was, on the rank of bench from the front, the defective project. Apparently, all it was was a few small, heavy silver amulets with engraving on it. He let his fingers caress their damaged surfaces, thoughtful.

Whatever they had planned for it, he didn't want not to know about it. He didn't like the idea of taking one of those, because they were almost certain to notice they were only three mechanisms left. Yet, it was the best idea, still better than taking them all and leaving them to wonder about a possible intruder or traitor. Too many risks.

He sneaked one of the amulets in another of his jacket's pockets and went back underground. He had noticed earlier that it wasn't just a hiding place, but a whole net of tunnels.

He thought, why should he go back the way he came if he could figure out a safer way to infiltrate inside? With that in mind, he put his incredible direction skills on mode 'on' and went off in the dark.

...Needless to say, it was already early morning when he came through and back to his room, back through where he came from this time. Namely, the window.