Restless Soul - Alex Archer [17]
“You’re right, Lu. There’s no way the coffins were carried along that tunnel we came through,” Annja said. “All of these coffins had to be brought here another way. They’re massive, some of them. And teak is very heavy. Maybe an earthquake changed the passages through the years. Maybe a rock slide. Caves change. Rivers change them, too.”
“Change, yes. But—” Zakkarat held the lantern in front of him. The light casting up and out haloed his puzzled face. “This is not a part of Ping Yah I remember. I’ve seen coffins, but not these. I’ve not been here before. Perhaps this is not Ping Yah at all. Perhaps we should have taken the other way, and went up. Perhaps that was Ping Yah with the blind cave fish. Not this cave.”
He made a tsk-tsking sound, took his helmet off, scratched his head and put the helmet back on. “But you wanted to see coffins, and there are plenty here.”
“Yes, we wanted to see more coffins,” Annja said softly, gritting her teeth as a wave of cold washed over her.
She stepped to the closest coffin. There were intricate carvings on it, some tugging at her memory, as if she’d seen something similar in a book. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her digital camera. The plastic bag had kept it dry. She took several pictures, and then moved to the next coffin.
What is bothering me? she wondered. Something she couldn’t explain had her feeling very unsettled.
Like the coffins from Tham Lod Cave, these held no bodies. Scientists and explorers who had been there before had likely removed them—if there were any to remove. They may even have taken some coffins, too, for it looked as if there were odd gaps between some of them. There were pots inside some of the coffins, probably heavy by the thickness of the clay. They were intact and looked as if they should be in a museum.
“No, maybe this is not Ping Yah at all,” Zakkarat repeated. “I am so sorry. The rain, not coming out here for some time…so sorry. I should have looked at a map and my father’s notes. I have gotten us lost. Nothing here is familiar to me. I will not charge you so much. We can go back and—”
“I’m not sorry,” Luartaro said. “These are magnificent. You did just fine, Zakkarat.” He let out a low, appreciative whistle and retrieved his own digital camera. “In fact, you did very well.”
Annja’s fingers hovered above the teak. She peered inside and used the flashlight to better illuminate a large coffin’s interior. Though there was no trace of a body, there was evidence one had been there. The wood was slightly discolored in the shape of a prone person.
What were these people like? What was their view of life and death? And did they believe in an afterlife? How a society treated its dead often reflected the extent to which they valued life. Annja was certain the primitive people placed great reverence on life—or at least on the lives of the people they had interred in the cave.
“So very sorry,” Zakkarat repeated, shaking his head. He let his pack slip to the ground. “Should have realized this was the wrong way. These coffins would not have fit in the tunnel we crawled through. We barely fit.”
“Maybe an earthquake changed things.” Luartaro voiced what Annja had said earlier. “There have been earthquakes throughout Thailand and all of Asia. Or maybe—”
“Or maybe they brought the coffins in through there.” Zakkarat pointed halfway up the wall, where a wide cleft in the rock looked like the opening to another passage.
Luartaro took a picture of Zakkarat pointing, and then snapped several of Annja and the wall of large teak coffins.
“Let’s hope that’s a passage,” Annja said. She turned away from the coffins and looked back the way they’d come.
Water was spilling into their chamber, meaning the tunnel they’d taken to get there was completely flooded, and the chamber was going to fill next.
“All the rain,” she said, her voice cracking with nervousness. “Yesterday, and today. That underground river is