Chapter Eight
On the other side of the house, and up yet another floor, Konrad at last discovered the room he had been looking for all along. It was tucked away into a corner, at the end of an out-of-the-way and disused corridor. It was the footprints upon the floor that alerted him; upon turning down yet another dark, frigid, empty passage his torchlight shone upon disturbances in the thick layer of dust. Someone had walked this way recently — and frequently.
Upon approaching the only door in view, however, Konrad was startled by the sounds of voices talking nearby. Those low-uttered words struck him forcibly, incongruous after so long a time spent among the silence of long decay. He stopped several paces from the door, straining to discern words enough to understand the import of the c
