Restless Soul - Alex Archer [21]
Bats rustled above her. A good sign, she thought. Several of them flew away, in the direction Annja was traveling. A better sign.
Moments later, the water was only to her knees and she emerged in a chamber. The wider end of it rose above the waterline, and a half dozen of the teak coffins were evenly spaced on a limestone shelf.
Annja headed straight toward them, shrugging off Zakkarat’s hand on her arm.
“Annjacreed,” Zakkarat said, “the passage continues over there. See? And we—”
“And we will follow it,” she said. “In a minute.” She paused. “Give me just a minute, please.”
“These coffins are magnificent!” Luartaro took the lantern from Annja so she could more easily take pictures of the coffins. He held the lantern high and turned it up to improve the lighting.
“No bones in these, either. Wait—” He stepped forward, climbing onto the shelf and standing between two of the coffins. “Here’s one, a body! It’s small and like a mummy. A body!”
Annja climbed up next to him and took several pictures. “Mummified,” she observed. “Look how tight the skin is…what’s left of it. This is amazing. They must have done something to preserve the flesh because otherwise in this damp climate it would have rotted away.”
A silence settled, save for the squeaking of bats hanging in crevices in the ceiling and the soft shushing sound Zakkarat made by pacing in a shallow strip of water.
“I don’t think anyone has been here for a very long time,” Annja said. She pointed to another coffin that held an even smaller body. It was a skeleton with pots arranged around its legs. “Local archaeologists would have moved these things to a museum. The bodies would have been studied and medically scanned.”
“Or looters would have stolen them.” Zakkarat slipped forward and peered into the far coffin. “Old jewelry here. Ugly, old jewelry. But someone would think it is worth something because it is old and ugly. Historical significance. Maybe we are the first here since…since these people died.”
Annja doubted it, but certainly no looters or serious archaeologists had been there. “Thank you for getting us lost, Zakkarat,” she said.
She took several more pictures. “Truly, thank you. We’ll have to make our own map to this place so people can come back here and get these things to a museum. Maybe get a film crew in here. And so we can come back when it’s a little drier. I think my vacation has just been extended.” Her mind whirled with the possibilities of bringing in a film crew and taping a special for the network.
Free me.
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