The Spirit Banner

by Alex Archer

  Once Davenport was safely at the top, the rope was dropped back down and Mason tied himself off just as he'd been shown. After that it was simply a matter of watching where he put his hands and feet as he climbed up the wall. Despite Annja's jeering earlier, he'd done his fair share of climbing and rappelling in the service, so he wasn't bad at it. He just didn't like it, that was all.

  Partway up the wall a faint sound at the edge of his hearing caught his attention. Mason made sure his feet and hands were firmly planted and secured, then turned slightly to look back over his shoulder at the mountain splayed out below them.

  The view was phenomenal, giving him a good look down the forested mountainside they had just spent several hours climbing earlier that afternoon. The trees were a vibrant green from this height and he could even see the blue waters of the Onon, the Tuul and the Kerulen rivers as they spread out from the spot where they had camped the night before.

  He waited but the sound didn't come again.

  He returned to his climb, finishing the last few dozen yards and then helping Vale coil the rope behind them. There was no sense giving anyone else any clues as to where they had gone, but they left the rope anchored and set so that they could deploy it quickly when it was time to go back down.

  Vale lit a torch of his own and disappeared down the tunnel after the others, but Mason stopped for a moment and looked out at the valley below for another moment, his ears straining.

  Nothing.

  He shrugged, deciding that what he'd heard earlier had only been his imagination, and set off down the tunnel.

  But as he did so, the sound he'd heard earlier followed him in his mind.

  It was the sound of a distant helicopter.

  * * *

  W HEN THE REST OF THE GROUP caught up with Annja there was more than one gasp of surprise at the sight of the doors ahead of her.

  "What now?" Mason asked, eyeing the closed doors as if all the demons from hell lurked behind them.

  Maybe he dislikes being underground as much as he dislikes heights, Annja thought.

  "I say we go in and have a look around," she replied, not giving voice to her musings. Teasing him about his fear of heights was enough for one day, she decided.

  "And how do you expect to do that?" Mason asked. "Last time I looked our gear list didn't include any C-4 explosives."

  Annja didn't reply, just reached out with one hand and gave a gentle push.

  The door on the right swung open without a sound.

  "How the hell?" Mason said, then shook his head at his own lack of insight.

  One set of footsteps led up to the doors. One set of footsteps led away. Obviously, it hadn't taken more than a single individual to open the doors previously, so it stood to reason that they could do it, too.

  Torch in hand, Annja stepped inside.

  34

  The tunnel continued on the other side for a short distance and then opened up into a wide chamber hewn from the living rock.

  Stunned at what she was seeing, Annja slowly moved into the space.

  Every square inch of the walls had been covered with painted images of Mongol life in bright, vibrant colors. Most, if not all of them, focused on a dark-haired boy and showed him in various scenes of everyday life. He could be seen milking goats in the early morning sunlight. He was helping herd the flocks on the wide steppes. He was fishing in the dark waters of a broad lake, and he was learning to ride one of the short, stout horses the Mongols used for warfare.

  She moved around the room, taking it all in, as the others followed behind her. From the similarities in the paintings it seemed they had all been done by the same hand. She didn't want to think of the time and energy involved in creating such a huge and moving masterpiece.

  Davenport's awed voice drifted across the room. "The figure in these paintings? Is it who I think it is?"

  Annja nodded. "If I had to guess, I'd say yes. We're most likely looking at scenes from the early life of Temujin, the child who would grow up to become Genghis Khan."

  The paintings alone were an incredible find. There were no written records of the Khan's life that could be traced to being contemporaneous to his lifetime. The only surviving account in existence, a text known as The Secret History of the Mongols, was written by an anonymous author on behalf of the royal family sometime after his death. It was likely full of as much myth as it was fact. But these—if they proved to be authentic—would be of incalculable value in understanding the early life of one of history's most enigmatic figures. The archaeologist in Annja was nearly breathless with discovery.

  "Hey! There's a door here," Vale said from across the room and suddenly everyone was rushing to his side, including Annja.

  He was right. A particularly bright painting of the young Mongol warrior learning to fire his bow concealed a door set into the rear of the chamber. It was much smaller and far less grandiose than the doors they'd just passed through, but it appeared to be the only way out of the chamber.

  It opened easily at their touch, revealing another passageway like the one through which they had first entered. Leaving the painted chamber behind, they headed off down the tunnel.

  The tunnel was wide enough to allow them to walk two abreast and Annja had Mason join her up front, he on the right and she on the left. She was surprised by the quality of the air as they moved deeper into the tunnel. She'd been expecting it to be dusty and stagnant, and yet it was almost the exact opposite, crisp and cool. There must be another opening at the other end, she thought, allowing the air to move about.

  She was about to mention her thought to Mason when the ground beneath her feet suddenly gave way and she dropped like a stone.

  Annja let go of her torch and instinctively lunged forward as she fell. Her fingers hit and then caught the edge of the floor on the far side of the trap. Her body slammed chest first into the wall and for a moment she thought the motion would jar her fingers loose from their precarious perch, but she managed to hang on.

  When the sound of crumbling rock and earth quieted, she could hear Davenport and the others calling through the cloud of dust that had been kicked up by the collapse of the floor.

  "Here!" she called, coughing a bit until the air settled again.

  "Whatever you do, don't let go. And don't look down." Mason's voice was very close.

  And full of fear.

  She turned her head slightly and saw a gaping hole where the floor used to be. Mason was nearby, balanced on a small ledge against the left-hand side of the corridor. He stood on his toes, the ledge beneath his feet no more than an inch or so in width, with his body flattened against the wall for balance and his arms outstretched on either side.

  Of course, telling her not to look down resulted in her doing just that, her curiosity getting the better of her. A gaping chasm dropped away into the darkness beneath her feet. The bottom was too far away to be seen, if there was one at all.

  "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" she muttered to herself. She'd been so caught up in what they were uncovering that she'd let down her guard. She should have realized that the tomb would be rigged; she was only surprised that they'd made it as far as they had without any problems.

  She shifted her position slightly, getting her feet in contact with the wall in front of her and using her toes as leverage wherever she could find purchase against the rock. She pushed and hauled herself free one inch at a time.

  Once she had pulled herself out, she caught her breath and waved to the others across the gap. "I'm fine," she called out, before turning her attention to Mason.

  He was standing on that tiny ledge, less than three feet from the other side. If he jumped, he was almost certain to make it. With Annja there to catch him, he should have no trouble at all.

  As she watched, the muscles in his left leg began to shake. He couldn't hold his position for much longer.

  She explained her plan to him.

  "You've got to get off that ledge while you still have the strength to do so.
Just push off the wall in this direction. It's not far. Less than three feet or so. I should be able to grab you easily."

  "No."

  His voice was flat, a sure sign that fear had taken control.

  "Come on, Mason. All you have to do is fall sideways."

  "I said no."

  Perhaps it was her use of the word fall. She wasn't sure. But Mason's sudden attempt to push his body through the wall he was leaning against let her know she wasn't helping the situation much.

  She tried a different tack.

  "What are you going to do? Stay there all afternoon?"

  "Yep."

  But the ledge where he was standing had different ideas. The small lip of stone where his left foot rested suddenly gave way, dropping into the gulf below him.

  "Mason!"

  Annja's shout echoed off the stone around them but Mason wasn't listening. He was too busy working to find purchase for his foot to avoid falling into the gaping chasm himself.

  After a second of scrambling that felt like a lifetime, he managed to get his foot back on solid ground.

  "That whole ledge is going to go soon," Annja pleaded. "You've got to jump."

  Annja thought he was going to argue with her again, but the sudden shift of stone beneath his feet for a second time prompted him into action.

  Pushing off the wall with both hands, he threw himself toward Annja.

  She caught him with open arms and the two of them slammed to the ground.

  "Thank you," he told her, his face only inches from hers. His body covered most of her own as a result of their fall and she could feel herself wanting to maintain their closeness.

  "Don't mention it," she said with a smile.

  The sound of clapping reached them from the other side of the tunnel and they climbed to their feet amid hooting and cheering from Williams and Vale. They stood on the other side of the now-obvious tiger trap, next to a quite visibly annoyed Davenport.

  "How the hell are we supposed to get over there now?" the millionaire asked, gesturing at the twenty-foot-wide gap that separated the two groups.

  Several ideas were floated out but most of them seemed impractical or excessively time-consuming. Knowing that Ransom was actively hunting for them made every wasted moment seem precious and they didn't want to do anything that might significantly slow their progress. In the end, it was decided that Vale, Williams, Davenport and Nambai would work to construct a bridge across the gap while Mason and Annja continued on without them.

  No one was thrilled with the idea, least of all Davenport, who was crushed with the thought that the pit might keep him from being in the advance party that would be the first to lay eyes on Genghis Khan's resting place. Still, like any good leader, he recognized what needed to be done and ordered the others to make it happen.

  New torches to replace the ones they had lost when the trap was triggered were tossed across the gap and, with their companions' shouted warnings to be careful echoing off the stone around them, Annja and Mason continued on.

  They passed through the door at the other end of the corridor and into another room similar to the first, except in this chamber the paintings depicted scenes of conquest from Genghis Khan's long military career. There were paintings of the seasons of intertribal warfare, as Temujin united the steppes peoples into a cooperative nation. There were paintings of his alliance with the Uighurs and of the marriage of the Khan's daughter to the Uighur khan. The taking of Beijing and the defeat of the Jin Dynasty occupied one entire wall, showing its importance by the artist. One particularly brutal painting showed the city of Nishapur just after its people had revolted against Mongol rule and killed the husband of the Khan's daughter. In retribution, the daughter asked that everyone within the city limits be killed, and the Khan acquiesced to her wishes.

  "Nice guy," Mason said, turning away from some of the more brutal images.

  Annja couldn't say much. Her years of working with ancient cultures had given her a bit of distance on her perspective. And after all, the twentieth century really hadn't been that much different than the thirteenth, she said to herself. Genghis Khan had twenty years or so of warfare. We had World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Six Day War, the Falklands, the revolutions in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Colombia, tribal warfare in places like Somalia and Darfur; she could go on for hours. In eight hundred years only one thing was certain—the veneer of civilization wasn't so thick, after all.

  They noticed there was a door at the far end of this gallery, just like the one before, and beyond, another short tunnel with a third door at the far end.

  Having been fooled once, they didn't take any chances this time. Mason used the stock of his weapon to test the way ahead, banging it against the stone hard enough to be certain it was going to hold their weight before they stepped forward and tested the next area.

  In that fashion, they crossed the entire length of the passageway and finally stood in front of the door. The light from their torches fell on a bas-relief carving above the lintel displaying the face of a Mongolian warrior. His eyes seemed to gaze down at them in judgment. So strong was the illusion that Annja half expected it to open its mouth and ask what they wanted.

  Beneath the figure was a set of Mongolian letters carved on an ivory disk about two feet in diameter, the white of the ivory contrasting sharply with the dark stone in which it was set.

  "What do you think that's for?" Mason asked.

  Annja shook her head; she didn't know. She eyed it suspiciously and then turned and looked at the empty corridor behind them. An uneasy feeling was building in her stomach.

  After the collapsing tunnel trap, this passage had been too easy.

  She'd missed something.

  She turned back to see Mason reaching for the door, intending to push it open.

  Warnings ran through her head. "No! Wait!" she cried.

  But she was too late.

  * * *

  B ACK IN THE TUNNEL behind them, the others quickly worked out a plan. Because they had the most climbing experience, Vale and Williams were given the task of rappelling back down the cliff and cutting down three to four reasonably straight trees that could be used to bridge the gap. Davenport and Nambai would use their position to play guard during the process, alerting the others if there was any sign of Ransom or his men. After stripping the branches off the trunks, Williams and Vale would drag the trees over to the base of the cliff where Davenport and Nambai would haul them up into the tunnel with the extra climbing ropes they still carried in their packs.

  With the four of them together again in the tunnel, they would push the trunks across the gap, then bind them together to create a makeshift bridge.

  They knew there was a considerable amount of work ahead of them, but after coming this far, none of them, Nambai included, wanted to miss out on the final discovery.

  Selecting the trees was the easy part, as the area below the cave mouth was full of reasonably straight conifer trees. With only small camp hatchets available for use, it took the two men some time to cut down the trunks and trim off the branches. Once they had, they carried them to the base of the cliff and tied one of the climbing ropes to each end of the first log.

  At the signal from Williams, Davenport and Nambai hauled each log up the side of the cliff and set them down inside the cave mouth.

  Once all four logs had been brought up, Vale and Williams rejoined the others inside the cave.

  The foursome took a short break, eating some food and drinking a lot of water to replenish what they had sweated out during their efforts. In the midst of their meal a sudden booming sound reverberated through the cavern.

  The same thought went through all of their minds.

  Another trap!

  Their meal forgotten, they jumped to their feet and began pushing the logs out over the gap, working as quickly as possible to complete the bridge and go to the aide of their companions.

  * * *

  M ASON'S HAND PUSHED against the d
oor, but it didn't open as expected. Instead, it sank several inches into its frame and then stopped.

  "What the heck?" Mason said, more to himself to Annja.

  Annja wasn't listening to him, however. She'd already turned to face the corridor behind them, every muscle tensed as she waited for whatever was coming.

  And come it did.

  A low grinding sound filled the corridor and the bottom edges of the left- and right-hand walls fell backward, revealing a long, narrow opening running the length of the passageway.

  Water began to pour out of those openings with a loud rushing roar, and in less than a minute both Annja and Mason were standing ankle-deep in freezing-cold water as more flooded into the room by the second.

  "The other door!" Annja shouted above the din.