He tried to open the centre door by pulling on the wheel, marveling, as he did so, how quickly one could get used to such a wealth of steel, but it remained stubbornly shut until the young soldier had the idea of turning the wheel, whereupon it opened easily. As it swung open, he saw that it had another identical wheel on its other side, and that it led into a small alcove, in the far wall of which was another, identical door. It also opened easily when its wheel was turned and, stepping through, Matthew found himself at a crossroads. A square as wide as the corridor he’d just left with three steel doors in each of its four walls.

     “What are they for?” he wondered out loud. “You use steel for strength, but they can’t be for defence ‘cos they can be opened from either side, so what in hell are they for? And why have them in sets of three?” Several of the doors were standing open, and looking through them he saw that they all led into small alcoves, each with another door in their far walls.
     “They’re all in pairs!” he cried in consternation. “Why?” Thomas would know, he seemed to know everything, and he almost dashed back to get him, but he hadn’t found his treasure yet and he wasn’t going to go back without it. He pushed open one of the doors leading off to his left, therefore, and stepped through it, through the small alcove and through the second door beyond to continue his search.

     He found himself in another wide corridor, essentially identical to the one he’d just left. There were more doors along this corridor, ordinary wooden doors that opened easily by turning wooden doorhandles, and he looked through several of them as he went. These were smaller rooms and seemed to have been offices where people performed the administrative side of whatever had once been done here. None of them looked as though they’d contain the treasure he was sure existed down here somewhere and he passed them by with scarcely a glance until, leaving the third room on his left and closing the door behind him, he was suddenly brought up short by something he’d seen in there but which had only just impinged itself on his awareness. His heart thumping in excitement, he opened the door again and went back in.

     Hanging on the wall opposite the door was a wooden cabinet with brass straps and hinges that must have once made it as much an attractive ornament as a piece of furniture. The brass was now heavily corroded, though, as was the plaque on one of the doors, the writing of which was now totally obscured. Not only that, but the wood itself was chipped and splintered, as if someone had violently attacked it with a chisel or some other sharp metal instrument in a frantic attempt to break it open. That was the thing that had attracted Matthew’s attention, that and the fact that the cabinet was still closed and, apart from the obvious disfigurement, still largely intact. Now that he had a chance to think about it, that was the most surprising thing of all, because the cabinet didn’t look all that strong. It wasn’t ironwood, just pine or something. If someone had been so determined to break in, how come they had failed?

     He fingered one of the splinters of wood that stuck out from the door and tried to break it off, expecting to find it as brittle as the broken packing crates in the observatory upstairs. To his surprise, though, he found that it was as strong and hard as iron and that, no matter how hard he pulled, it would scarcely bend by as much as a quarter of an inch. Magically hardened! he thought in excitement, and allowing for the fact that some of the magic must have worn off over the centuries, how much harder must it have been when the unknown vandal had tried to break into it? Suddenly, the young soldier was amazed that whoever it was had managed to inflict as much damage as he had, and he reflected that he must have been driven by a mad desperation to have been able to summon that much strength. What could possibly be inside to inspire that kind of fanaticism? Matthew’s heart leapt in excitement. Treasure!

     The cabinet had no lock, or any other means of fastening it shut, indicating that it had been magically locked, but Thomas had said that locking spells often faded over the centuries, in which case... He took hold of the handles and pulled gently. There was a little resistance at first, but then the weak remnant of the locking spell gave way with an audible pop and the door opened easily.

     Matthew stared in astonished delight. There, right in front of his eyes, hanging on wooden pegs, were a dozen jeweled necklaces sparkling in the light of the glowing globes of marble. Each had a single clear gemstone in the middle. A diamond, Matthew thought excitedly, even though he'd never seen a real diamond and had little idea what they looked like. They also had dozens of smaller gems clustered around it and along the chain, the smallest of which, if they were real, would make him richer than his wildest dreams. Of course they're real! he told himself. Fake jewelry wouldn't have been locked away so securely.

     His hands trembling with excitement, he reached out to touch one of them, to reassure himself that they were real and not just some kind of wish fulfilment hallucination, and when he felt its cold, hard surface under his fingers he carefully lifted it off its peg and took it out.

     “It can’t be real!” he whispered to himself, staring at it in rapt adoration. “I must be dreaming!” He pinched himself to make sure he was awake. “It is real!” he said in breathless awe. “It’s actually, really real! I really am holding a necklace that could buy a whole city, maybe a whole kingdom!” He looked up at the other eleven, unable to believe that so much wealth could possibly be contained in such a small space.

     “Di’ll never let me keep it,” he said to himself, looking back at the one in his hands. She would say it belongs to someone. She would insist that they try to track down its rightful owners, the descendants of whoever had put it in the cabinet all those centuries ago. Even if they found no-one alive today who could lay claim to it, she would still insist that they use it for some good cause. Sold and the money given to the poor or something. I’ve got to keep it secret, he told himself. Tucked right down at the very bottom of my backpack until I get the chance to sell it myself. He couldn’t resist the temptation to hang it around his neck, though, and he longed for a mirror to look at himself in. Just so long as I remember to take it off before I see Di, he told himself.

     The greedy young soldier wanted to take all twelve necklaces, but even he had enough sense to realise that, whereas it might just be possible to keep one of them secret for the weeks, months or even years it might be before he could sell it, a dozen would be quite impossible, and so with considerable regret he left the other eleven where they were, closed the cabinet again and left the room.

     Now that he had his treasure he was tempted to go back to the others, who might have noticed his absence by now, but a taste of the curiosity that was always afflicting Thomas was tickling his mind and he wanted to see where this corridor went. A short distance ahead of him he could see another set of three steel doors in a wall that blocked the corridor and he wanted to see what was on the other side of them. He ignored the remaining wooden doors on either side of him, therefore, and went straight up to them.

     The one in the centre opened easily after he’d turned the wheel, but its twin, six feet behind it in the far wall of the alcove, stubbornly refused to open. The wheel was locked in place, and as he searched for the reason for this he noticed that there was a red flag in the window which, he now noticed, consisted not of one thick pane but two thinner ones with a thin space between in which the flag was. The flag was normally lowered out of sight, the young soldier reasoned, but had popped up for some reason in this door, probably for the same reason that the door was locked. Why? he wondered, scratching his head in puzzlement. And why a red flag? Well, red is the colour of blood, the colour of danger. Could it be a warning that there was danger beyond the door?

     He looked through the window, squinting to see past the flag. There seemed to be a large chamber through there. A cave of some kind at least a hundred yards across, brightly lit by the glowing globes of marble in the ceiling. It was full of dead vegetation, he saw. Grass, trees and bushes, all of which had presumably died of neglect over the centuries. There was no danger that he could see, though, so he decided to look for a way to get the door open.

     He wrestled with the wheel for several more minutes, but it remained stubbornly immobile. Locked, he thought. Maybe there's a way to unlock it. He looked back at the door behind him. Why are the doors in pairs? he wondered. Could that have something to do with it? There’d been no problem with any of the other steel doors he’d passed so far, but then none of them had had red flags in the window. A thought occurred to him, and on an impulse he went back to the first door, six feet behind him, and closed it, turning the wheel to lock it, sealing himself in the alcove. Then he went back to the second door and tried it again. This time, to his delight, the wheel turned easily, but even after he’d turned it all the way the door still refused to budge.

     “Damnation!” swore the young soldier out loud. “Now that’s holding it shut?” He searched the door again, this time examining every inch of it, and discovered something he’d missed before. A hole about an inch across, about where the keyhole would be on an ordinary door, blocked by a disc of metal and with another small wheel, about three inches across, next to it. That must be it, the soldier thought. There isn’t anything else. He took hold of the wheel and turned it.

     It was stiff at first, but as Matthew exerted more pressure the resistance gave way and it began to turn freely. As it did so, the metal disc blocking the hole began to move aside and a loud hissing noise came from it. Curious, the young soldier let go of the wheel and probed the hole with his finger. He yelped in alarm as a strong suction pulled it violently, so that his hand struck the edges of the hole with painful force, tearing the skin of his knuckles and drawing blood. For nearly a full minute his finger was held fast by the suction, which was so strong that he couldn’t pull it free even with all his strength. He began to panic as his finger was frozen by an icy cold, accompanied by an awful pressure in his fingertip that made it feel as though it was about to burst like a squashed grape. Gradually, though, the terrible suction began to relent at the same time as the hissing noise died away, and eventually he was able to pull it free. He squeezed it tightly in his other hand until the pain and the cold went away, to be replaced by an angry throbbing.

     When he could bear to look at his finger, he saw to his relief that it didn’t seem to have suffered any permanent harm, although his knuckles were still bleeding a little. He tied a cloth around his hand until he could get Diana to have a look at it. Meanwhile, the hissing had virtually stopped, although what remained of the sound had a strange quality to it, as if he was hearing it from a thousand miles away. He puzzled over this for another minute or two until the sound died away completely to be replaced by a silence more total than any he’d ever heard before. He pulled the door again, it this time it opened easily.