by Alex Archer
She froze and stared at the small body. Free it? No, she still got the sense that the voice was coming through the stone, not from one of the coffins.
Free me.
The words were no louder than they’d been before, so she had no way of knowing if she was closer to her mysterious goal.
“We could take the artifacts, some of them at least,” Zakkarat suggested. “Maybe we should take the child’s body, Annjacreed.”
Annja shook her head. “We don’t have the means to do it properly. Everything needs to be recorded and—”
Free me.
Free who? she wanted to shout. Free who? And free you from what? Free the Hoabinhiam spirits? The spirits in the lime?
“Annja, we need to get out of here!” Luartaro gestured behind them. “We need to get out of here right now.” The water had risen to cover the edge of the shelf. “This isn’t good. The water’s moving fast. Not good at all. Come on.”
He stepped off the shelf into water up to his thighs. He held the lantern high. “Annja! Zakkarat, we have to move!”
She took a dozen more pictures in rapid succession and reluctantly placed the camera in the plastic. She clutched it tight and jumped into the water.
Zakkarat slogged toward the opposite passage. “Do not thank me for getting us lost, Annjacreed. We could well drown here, and no one will find our bodies. We will be like those ancient corpses.”
The water was up to her hips by the time she followed Luartaro and Zakkarat into the next corridor.
She paused in the entry to look back at the coffins, picturing the precious mummies floating away, being sucked under the dark, swirling water. Then she shook herself. She was more worried about the ancient remains than herself and her companions!
As she forced herself to turn away, she whispered, “The loss of history.” Her throat went dry. “The terrible, terrible loss.”
5
Annja was growing more anxious. She held her camera high over her head as she shoved herself forward in the swirling water. The water was at her armpits now, and the current had picked up speed and strength.
Luartaro sloshed along ahead of her, also straining to move faster in the rising water.
Light from the lantern he carried was both bright and eerie in the enclosed space. The walls were close and the ceiling had dropped from where they had first entered. It was only a few feet above her head.
As the lantern light rippled over them, some of the bats hanging from the ceiling squeaked an agitated protest and some of them flew away.
“We will drown,” Zakkarat said. “I was wrong to bring you out here with all this rain. The baht, I wanted the baht. My wife, she will not know. They will find the Jeep, but not our bodies and—”
“I don’t need to hear this kind of talk,” Luartaro cautioned. “And you don’t need to be thinking such things. We are getting out of here, Zakkarat. Just stay quiet and stay near, all right? I’ll lead us to safety.”
Zakkarat didn’t reply, but he did increase his pace.
Annja did, too, peering around their guide to watch Luartaro’s inky silhouette. He held the lantern high to illuminate the area directly in front of him.
Roux would like him, she decided. He would like Luartaro’s athletic, unwavering ease and his determined voice filled with feigned bravado. And Roux might understand why she so impetuously decided to vacation in Thailand with the Argentine archaeologist.
She wanted to find a way out of this cave and meet up with Roux again and tell him about her inane adventures. And she wanted to see so many other things in this world, including a long list of caves. And so many countries. And many, many digs and many sites, both large and small. Her “bucket list” was endless.
Free me.
She also wanted to find the source of the voice in her head.
The water was to her shoulders. It pulled at her clothes and the backpack and rope over her shoulder and pushed at her knees, making it difficult to stay upright. The growing rush of it competed with the squeaks of the agitated bats and Zakkarat’s ragged breath.
“Hurry,” she said, half surprised at herself for voicing her concern.
As if the bats didn’t want to be outdone by the water, they squeaked louder. They dropped, at first one by one, then in groups, flapping their papery wings just before they touched the water. She felt the air of their passing on her forehead and the tips of her ears.
She put her head down and slogged forward in the direction Luartaro was leading, looking up from time to time to make sure it was the direction the bats were going.
The river smelled fresh from all the rain, and there was only the slightest fishy scent to it. The rocks had an odor, too, and certainly the bats did. Overall, the scent was neither pleasant nor unpleasant.
The pack she toted smelled of oil and the earth, and she briefly considered abandoning it and her coil of rope so she could move unencumbered.
“A dead end!” Zakkarat spat the words. “We will—”
“It’s not a dead end,” Luartaro shot back. “C’mon. Up here. There’s a way through.”
Annja pressed herself against a wall to better see around Zakkarat.
Luartaro was climbing. He paused to shift his feet, then reached up and swung himself up onto a ledge that the water hadn’t yet reached. Beyond it was a dark space that looked like the opening to another tunnel.
He balanced on the edge and struggled out of his pack. The fit was so tight he had to drag the pack behind him to slip into the passage.
The coffins had obviously not come in this way. There must have been another passage into the previous chamber and they hadn’t noticed it, Annja thought.
Through all his contortions, Luartaro had managed to hold on to the lantern. He swung it in front of him as he disappeared into the opening.
As Luartaro moved away and Zakkarat entered the cleft, the light dimmed.
Annja climbed up the steep, wet wall in near darkness. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps in cadence to her movements up the wall.
Zakkarat’s hand filtered down into her line of sight like a barely visible offer of help from the gods.
She gripped it and pushed hard with her feet and slid up into the passage.
She patted Zakkarat’s arm in thanks and edged away from the opening. The tunnel angled up steeply.
Free me.
Before she could pause to see if she could determine the direction of the voice, Zakkarat began to fret. “There is no way out of here. We will be—”
“Hush!” Luartaro said.
Annja’s heart stuttered, and then hammered at her ribs.
If the tunnel dead-ended, as Zakkarat’s words suggested, they would be trapped. They could retrace their steps back to the chamber with the high ceiling and wait for the river level to lower, but they might have to swim underwater part of the way.
She was confident she could do it, almost certainly Luartaro, too, but she didn’t know if Zakkarat could manage it. The Thai guide seemed spry, but how long could he hold his breath?
“It can’t be a dead end,” she said. “The bats get in and out somehow.”
Please don’t be a dead end, she thought as she dropped to her hands and knees and followed the men up the steep passage. A shard of rock bit into her palm. Her pack slipped from her shoulder, and she twisted so that it was cradled to her stomach.
The air smelled old and foul, and she breathed shallowly.
Boots scraped against the rock. Fabric rustled, tugged by their frantic movements. The lantern clanked as Luartaro tugged it along.
There were no bats in the cramped tunnel, but there was a smattering of fresh guano, a stinky but fortunate sign, she thought. Bats had come this way.
Annja fervently wished she’d taken the lead. She didn’t like not being in control. She should have squeezed past the men in the previous passage. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Luartaro’s capabilities. He was an experienced caver, and she trusted him. But she preferred leading to following. She n
eeded to be in charge of her own destiny.
“Feel it?” Luartaro called back. “The air’s moving. We are getting out of here. Stay close!”
With Zakkarat directly in front of her, Annja couldn’t feel the air moving, but Zakkarat picked up the pace, crawling as fast as the space allowed.
Moments later, they erupted out onto a flat space.
Luartaro reached down and gave Annja a hand up.
She stood and stretched her back. Her spine, palms and knees were feeling the abuse they’d taken from the rocky climb.
She looked around. They were standing in yet another chamber. This one had a high ceiling and a delicious, faint breeze that stirred her hair.
But after a moment, her sense of relief sank. The air—and rain with it—was coming through a needlelike slit directly overhead. It was high above them and looked too narrow for anyone to easily fit through.
Free me.
She spun around, looking for the source of the words.
“Probably couldn’t even get to that opening, let alone squeeze through it,” Luartaro said as if he’d caught her thoughts. “The stone is so smooth around it and steeply canted. We have equipment—”
“But not the right kind for something like that,” Zakkarat supplied. “I brought only simple caving equipment. We have no pulleys and no harness. Those were in the pack I left behind. Lunch, too. My wife made us pickled cabbage and a little kaeng hang le. All of it gone. Lost. I thought—”
“You thought that you were taking us to a different cave,” Annja said, still glancing around. “Ping Yah, where we wouldn’t need anything overly complicated.
“It’s not your fault, Zakkarat. It’s pouring outside,” she added. “This nonstop rain is only going to make things worse. And I’m the one who talked you into coming out here in the first place.”
Free me.
We have to free ourselves first, she thought. Her mind raced. She might be able to get to the slit. She had pitons and could probably make it without pulleys or a harness. She knew how to free-climb and could use the pitons as handholds. And she was the thinnest of them. She could try to force her way through.
Zakkarat was small, but Luartaro wasn’t, and without a harness it might be impossible for both of them to get that high. Still, if she managed to get out she could go for help and bring the right equipment, a drill that could widen the opening, some ropes. That might be the best option.
“Worth a try,” she told herself.
“Annja, look!” Luartaro pointed to a spot high along a wall. “Are those roots? Am I seeing right?”
“Yes!”
“Then, we’re near the surface.”
“But we’re trapped,” Zakkarat said. “I brought you here to see coffins, and now we are trapped in one.”
“Stay with him, Lu,” Annja said. “I’m going up.”
She hurried to the stone directly below the roots and reached into her pack for a piton and hammer.
Just as she drove it into the rock, she heard a great whoosh. She didn’t have to look to know what had happened.
The river had forced its way up the tunnel and into the once-dry chamber.
Pack over one shoulder, rope over the other, Annja worked fast. Using the pitons as steps, she climbed. The light was faint, and it shifted as Luartaro sloshed around and inspected the cavern. She was certain he was looking for other passages. She prayed he would find one.
The rush of water was loud, echoing against the stone and mixing with Zakkarat’s worried voice and Luartaro’s reassuring one.
Her breath came in strong, even bursts, and her heart pounded. The toes of her boots scraped against the rock. The rain pattered down, finding its way through the cavern slit. And through all the sounds, the voice in her head whispered, Free me.
The scent of the stone filled her nostrils. She canted her head back to gauge how far she had to go to reach the roots and possibly how much beyond that to make it to the needlelike opening.
Her world went to blackest black. She blinked furiously, but nothing changed. She could see nothing.
She could no longer see the slit overhead, or maybe she was looking right at it but was unable to differentiate it from the deepest of shadows cast by the stone. There was nothing as resolutely dark as a cave. She had a flashlight, but with both hands needed for climbing, she couldn’t safely reach for it.
Luartaro must have dropped the lantern in the rush of water, or perhaps it merely gave up the last of its gas, she thought.
She knew he was all right. She could hear him calling for Zakkarat, and could hear the Thai man shouting nervously back.
“Annja!”
“I’m fine, Lu.”
“The lantern’s gone. We can’t see anything.”
“I’m still climbing, Lu.” She took in a deep breath, then closed her eyes and concentrated. She fought against the blackness to remember the image of the cave wall.
She pictured a section that looked like the spine of some large beast and felt a rocky vertebrae shape in front of her face. She stretched up with her right arm, fingers groping against the stone until they wedged themselves in a crevice. She pushed off the last of the pitons she’d embedded and ascended higher.
No use going for more pitons, she thought. While she could probably do that by feel—find the pitons in her pack, place and hammer them in—she decided instead to spend all of her energy on finding natural handholds.
Free me.
Annja let out the breath she’d been holding and centered herself. She couldn’t afford panic. Despite the rising water, the voice in her head and the frantic words of her companions below, she had to stay cool.
Annja could not allow herself the luxury of even a moment’s doubt. Concentrate, she told herself. Remember what the wall looked like.
Falling could mean not only her death, but the deaths of Zakkarat and Luartaro. The whole trip had been her idea, as had her need to go cave exploring, and so she was responsible for them.
She thrust the sounds of the water and the men to the back of her mind and focused on the image of the wall. Slowly, feeling the nubs and cracks in the rock, she pulled herself higher and higher.
She worked slowly and methodically and was rewarded with the smell of earth and wood. She was nearing the section of wall where they’d spotted roots.
She wasn’t terribly far from the slit she envisioned herself squirming through. But could she free-climb to it in the absolute dark?
She often amazed herself with her physical feats, but the notion of reaching the slit under the current conditions might be impossible. But what other choice did she have? She had to try!
And she was going to use the stretch of earth to help her. She’d dig handholds there to gain a better position to work from and to hopefully retrieve her flashlight so she could get a look at the ceiling.
Luartaro called to her again, but she ignored him. Mind made up and plan conceived, she couldn’t risk dividing her attention at the moment.
Annja felt dirt with the fingertips of her right hand. It was hard packed, but presented a good possibility.
While she couldn’t dig through stone with her sword, she could dig through dirt to make some hand-and footholds. Her mind stretched out and wrapped around the pommel of Joan of Arc’s ancient weapon.
At the same time, she reached up with her left hand and wrapped her fingers around an exposed root. She let go with her right hand.
In that instant she felt the familiar weapon and gripped hard, driving the powerful blade into the earth.
It went in easier than she’d expected. Do it again, she thought, pulling herself up, withdrawing the blade and plunging it in again a little higher. Her arms burned from the exertion of climbing, but she was in too perilous a situation to pay attention to the sensation.
“Annja!” Luartaro called once more. This time his voice was accompanied by a beam of light angling up from below. It wasn’t strong, but it was steady.
The flashlight he’
d brought, she realized. He’d found it in the dark and was sweeping it in an arc trying to find her.
“I’m fine,” she finally called back. “Don’t worry about me.” Then she pulled herself higher, tugged the sword free and repeated the motion. This time the blade sunk in even more easily and dirt came free around it, showering her face and stinging her eyes.
The earth wasn’t at all hard packed, and when she wiggled the sword free more dirt came loose. “Hollow. It feels hollow,” she said.
Annja used the sword for digging. It was awkward but effective.
Clumps of dirt and gravel spewed down, and she closed her eyes as she continued to frantically worry away at the wall. Her eyes were no good here, anyway.
There was more than simply dirt. There was a hollow spot behind it. She couldn’t tell how big, though.
Luartaro’s light was too dim to be of any help that way. Still, her spirit soared in hope. Maybe the hollow was just big enough for her to climb up into it. She’d be able to give her arms and legs a rest before she attempted to free-climb to the slit. She might even be able to retrieve her flashlight and use it to get a better idea of her bearings and to see how many pitons she had left.
She worked furiously, digging at the soil with the blade. Dirt and rocks pelted her face. Moments later, she sent the sword back to the otherwhere in her mind and hauled herself up into the niche she’d dug out. She crouched on hands and knees and sucked in several deep breaths. The taste of earth and the river and the scent of her own sweat were strong on her tongue.
“Annja! Where are you?”
She maneuvered around so she was facing out toward the cavern, still on her hands and knees.
Far below, Luartaro’s flashlight was feeble but it faintly reached her.
Her fingers tested the lip of the niche and she cautiously peered over. She couldn’t see him, only the spot of light that was doing little to punch through the darkness.
Carefully, she shrugged out of her backpack and retrieved her flashlight. She turned it on and pointed it down. The beam wasn’t as strong as Luartaro’s, and she flicked it on and off like a firefly’s light. She could use Morse code to send him a message, but she doubted he knew the language.