### 149

You reach the door to the Vizu-diar without being seen, only to find that it is securely bolted from the inside. You are about to curse your bad luck when you notice a window set into an elaborately carved panel above the door; its iron shutter is open.

In spite of your injured arm, you successfully climb the nail-studded door and drop through the window into the silence of the trophy room. An eerie collection of stuffed heads lines the walls of this private chamber. Most are those of reptilian desert creatures, souvenirs of imperial hunting expeditions into the Dry Main. Among the snake-like trophies, and more gruesome, are human heads! They are ghoulish battle honours, the heads of enemy commanders slain in battle during the countless wars waged by Vassagonia.

You hurry out of the Vizu-diar and into a long marble corridor, where the walls are inlaid with veins of gold and pearls. It leads to a large hall where palace guards and brightly robed courtiers are walking to and fro, but a colonnade of statues provides all the cover you need to reach a distant staircase unseen. Stealthily, you sprint up the staircase to arrive at a junction where passages head off to the east and west. At the end of each is a door with a symbol engraved into the wall above. The symbol above the east door depicts a mortar and pestle; the symbol above the west door, an open book.

If you wish to investigate the east door, turn to 57.

If you wish to investigate the west door, turn to 100

Text copyright © 1985 Joe Dever.
Illustrations copyright © 1985 Gary Chalk.