The Lost Treasure Map Series (79 page)

At his front an object came into sight and
he felt its roughness with his fingertips through thick dirt,
obscuring a proper view of it, and he cleaned the dirt away, and he
placed his hands over it and its shape and hideous outline became
clear and he moved back jerking his hands away, and established
that it was an open-mouthed skeleton with a rusted knife embedded
in its chest.

The others soon came over and crowded around
it!

“
How recent do you think this
happened?
”
Merton asked, examining it up close.

“
A very long time ago
...
”
one of
the archaeologists confirmed confidently, who was examining it
closely.

Their voices changed and became more
professional! Some archaeologists gave silent explanations to what
might have happened, clearly affected by the occurrences that had
happened at the castle.

Bryson watched
Merton
’
s
figure hanging over the chamber trying to grasp information about
it, and he searched the remains of the clothing on the skeleton,
but found nothing there except pieces of thick string, which it had
been tied in.

“
This place could have had devil
worshipers or similar?
”
Merton said firmly to Bryson, unsure what
else it could have been.

“
I would say so!
”
one of the archaeologists
replied.

“
Someone gave this human sacrifice
here, a long time ago!
”
he stated to them, and one of the
archeologists wrote it down.

As Merton moved away the archaeologists
moved in and got to work on checking it in detail, and with gasps
and surprises they revealed its hideous agonized face more from the
dirt.

They continued brushing away thick dirt,
which obscured a proper view of it, while some crumbling bits of
gray rot fell off.

Bryson
’
s mind slowly grasped its hideous
outline, and he moved forwards to the chamber wondering what the
place had been and why they had been doing it there, and he no
longer heard the murmurs of the archaeologists still discussing
their find, and what other people would think of it.

How many centuries had the chamber been
hidden away there, and how long ago had the death occurred? The
chamber had a chilling silence, and he regularly watched dim gleams
from stone lighting up like from a mysterious source.

After listening to more of the
thoughts of archeologists
he
realized that they were excited about
discovering one of the inhabitants there, which they had not so far
found, and they wanted quickly to reveal its fully cleaned features
and properly examine it! But Bryson knew it would not show much as
it was too old and bad condition, and all its remaining features
were revealed already and that it could have even been
human.

They wondered why the chamber had been so
buried away? Why devil worshippers or whoever had made deadly
sacrifices? The race was clearly an advanced race and from some
form of ancient tribe!

He wondered what the place would throw at
him next! All his life he had been use to solving things as they
appeared and now he was having every unsolvable mystery dumped on
him simultaneously without a suggestion of a clue.

“
Did you come up with
anything?
”
Mortimer asked, entering the room, to his amusement, noticing
that he looked frustrated.

Yet they had an alien skeleton, which he
noticed most of the archeologists were now more interested in than
anything else, and he realized that it could give some information
about them, and that they could be superstitious and make
sacrifices to something, and he wondered if they could be even more
deadly, defensive, and powerful than they imagined, which would
explain why they built such a castle.

Mortimer moved around looking baffled, as
well as tired, and examined the skeleton.

Bryson rested and listened to two of the
archeologists explain what their theories were to him.

Bryson
’
s sight fell on the skeleton as they
lifted the remaining bits of it out of the chamber, and he wondered
if he should react to having the privilege of encountering an alien
species.

The remains of the skull showed that it had
similar looks after all, and he considered why!

Mortimer grew annoyed and one of the
archeologists dropped part of the skull, and Bryson shifted
position and saw something sparkle in it as he did, and he bent
over it and stuck his hand in it at where it was, and into dirt in
the center of it, and he probed through it and felt an object, and
pulled it out.

“
What do you think?
”
Merton asked, trying to see
what it was.

Bryson cleaned the dirt away, encrusting
most of it, and found it, and he started polishing it with a cotton
handkerchief that he had in his pocket and revealed an ancient
large thick metal collar, and he examined it and made it
sparkle.

The large size of it was peculiar and he had
not seen any normal one that size before.

“
Can I see it?
”
an archeologist eagerly
asked, and he swiftly shifted in beside him and put out his
hand.
“
I
’
ve seen something like that before
...
”

Bryson handed it over seeing that he knew
something, and the archeologist twisted and unscrewed an area of
it, and removed it from it.

“
Objects can be hidden in
them!
”
the
archeologist stated, and his fingers probed inside it and removed a
piece of oily cloth.

Chapter 12

The Map

Bryson placed the ancient piece of worn cloth
over the floor and stretched it out as far as he could without
damaging it. Perhaps done for the first time in thousands of years,
and someone shone a light directly onto it, and Bryson gasped as
its faint details became clearer and archeologists grouped around
it and they examined it.

“
It
’s
an old drawing of
something?
”
one of the archeologists moaned, seeing something that
confirmed his beliefs.

Bryson knew that it was more, and that it
was a combination of different views of some region of the castle
structure with different side views and a top view, showing where
things were there, and he knew it because it was so important and
used to find things there, and he had seen something similar in the
other castles. It was far more detailed and advanced, as he would
have expected it to be, and more than what it looked like, and it
was an accurate map of a region there.

Bryson
’
s thoughts occasionally went wild
wondering what they had been up to there! This castle was like a
town, and he was sure that they were in an accommodation region!
What were they doing here? And why were there so many mysteries at
the place?

Mortimer took
the map when he stopped searching it and held it over his light,
and Bryson considered the faint lines on it for a moment. He tried
to realize what it had been like! And what they thought of the
castle?

“
But has
it anything to do with the treasure?” one of the archeologists
finally asked, desperate for clues.

They all took it and examined it for clues
to its identity and passed it on, while mainly trying to guess why
it was there!

It could be
more valuable than assumed but on the other hand it could be
anything! They studied it from different angles, until they lost
interest.

“
There
looks to be far more there than there is here?” Merton stated,
pointing at faint lines that showed far larger places and rooms
than there. It was logical that the entire castle would not be
accommodation! Unless the aliens were different, and only seemed
human!

“
Where
do you think it is though?” an archeologist finally muttered, like
he knew where it was and wanted to confirm it.

“
It’s
surely the central region!” Mortimer finally answered, seeing they
were not coming out with anything. “So let’s have a check
...”

After a few seconds the others agreed and
showed that they wanted to look there anyway, and were tired of
exploring the accommodation region, and they started moving out
into the corridor, and Bryson put the map away in his pocket.

The place was valuable beyond belief and
that could well prove there was more and that they had great
wealth! Yet he could not realize why they never admitted there
would be more treasures?

As he marched
on behind the others he vaguely wondered how safe the castle
structure itself really was and if the top floor was safe, as it
had been built a vast amount of time ago and there could have been
things that had been keeping it up that had deteriorated. The top
floor looked far different from the rest of the castle, and clearly
never repaired itself. Who would know if they had only designed it
to last a few hundreds of years at the most?

Yet if
it had stayed up the amount of time that it had it must be strong
enough not to collapse! They could have easily built it to last! He
had only seen castles with no roofs that were crumbling away, and
he had never heard of one such as it falling. Yet he had heard
of
parts
of modern
structures collapsing! This world the island was on could well have
a higher gravity than where it had been before, and there could be
earthquakes!

Chapter 13

The Center of the
Castle

It was
surprising how accurately and firmly they had identified where the
location on the map was in the castle, and he at one point had not
even thought that they would locate it without spending weeks and
exploring the whole castle!

The members of
the Exploration Association with them seemed to be the best at it,
and kept some of their detection methods a secret from them, and
they soon were in the region examining the incredible place from
the top floor, and identifying the places on the map.

The walk there
had been about five-miles, through incredible corridors, which in
places had collapsed into the floor below, and they learned far
more about what the castle looked like than over their entire stay
there and since finding the castle in the jungle.

The corridors
entirely changed and many turned into corridors that went along
balconies of immense halls and meeting places, where things like
seats went out everywhere around central stage regions, and they
entered other vast areas that were identical to city locations,
which he compared them to, but many had no equivalent and had them
stumped.

The castle was
like a miniature city with the outer regions mainly accommodations
and the central region with all of the governing and public work
and leisure regions, and he estimated that the castle was around
ten-miles in size, all around the square castle, which they
confirmed from a central tower that went high above the castle,
showing the immense structure, even with trees and vegetation
covering most of the roof, and they saw large regions that had
collapsed in at the top floor, and they photographed the castle
from every angle before they left.

Bryson
examined the best places to look on the map, and he started trying
to examine any hidden marks on it, and one of the archeologists who
helped him suddenly noticed something marked on it at the tower,
and later on he saw him measuring the floor at the bottom of the
tower, and he wondered what he was thinking.

The map looked
different in the bright light from outside at a roof 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 overhead,
and its powerful glare, and from not having seen it for a long
time. Then 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 if they had why they
never bothered examining it.

Yet it was
also the fact he had not seen the place or what it was that had
made parts of it unrecognizable as anything!

He studied
things on it astonished at missing them and saw his location on it
was marked in more detail, even though it was so faint that he had
have taken it to be badly drawn marks or corrections rubbed
away.

It looked too
small to be significant and it was not just a bad drawing as it had
been carefully and accurately drawn! And he considered why the
alien had gone to such lengths to draw it so well into the sketch,
and wondered why it had been killed and what it had been like, and
why it had been buried there?

Bryson joined
Merton and some of the archeologists measuring the room, who took
it that he knew what they knew.

Bryson
gradually realized what he had missed and that the map gave the
exact location and center of the bottom of the tower, and they
accurately measured the precise spot.

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