by Alex Archer
She explored further, certain that she’d been here before—or rather it felt like that, familiar, yet discomforting, too.
“I dreamed this.”
“Pardon?” Roux was on his feet, brushing off the dust and dirt, scowling at the blood on his jeans. She watched him shift his weight from one foot to the next, testing each leg. “Annja, did I hear you right? Did you say you dreamed all of this?”
“Yes. No.” She shook her head and continued to prod the bones with her foot. “The Dslala dreaming experience, it is supposedly a mystical mind-expanding thing. I guess it was for me. Charlemagne, Joan of Arc. You were there, too. And there was this monstrous caiman. But I’m thinking the caiman represented Dillon. I felt like I was drowning, fighting him...fighting the caiman. I got free and found this cave. This cave.” She pointed to the paintings and turned her head so the light on her helmet showcased them. “I’m not kidding, Roux. I saw these exact paintings in that dream.” She dropped her gaze, the light falling on the bones.
There were several of the large cow-ape looking skulls. She waded in and picked one up. It was heavy. Her thumb rubbed across the surface, smooth and the shade of eggshells. “I’m taking this with us.”
“With us?” Roux snatched up the other hard hat and put it on. He walked around the cavern, and then looked up. “We’re not getting out that way. Not unless we can sprout wings or magically levitate.”
“You’re funny, old man. But we are getting out.” Annja carried the skull over to Edgar and checked on him again. “We’ll have to wait until he comes round.” She shivered. This far down, it was a little cold. She’d seen some decayed plants and retrieved them, putting them in a pile. Next, she found broken roots. Then back to the wall. She waded through the bones and hunted for small rocks.
“What are you doing?” Roux had taken his rain jacket off and respectfully placed it over Moons’s face.
“I want to keep Edgar warm. I’m starting a fire.” She sat next to the pile of broken roots and plant matter, rock chip in one hand. Annja opened her other hand and the sword appeared. “This blade is steel, and this is a piece of flint.”
“Yes. Very clever.”
Annja carefully arranged all the bits and pieces. Flint in her left hand, she awkwardly held the sword and struck it down on the edge of the rock. It took only a few tries for a spark to fly and catch the tinder. She leaned over it and blew gentle puffs until a flame grew, and then added her kindling.
“You could’ve managed it, too,” she said, warming her hands over it.
“But I, dear Annja, didn’t have the steel.”
“This won’t burn all that long unless we can add to it. We need to keep it small anyway, don’t need smoke choking us.” She saw Roux scanning the ground and coming up with more roots. “Great. Hey, you stay with him all right? I’ll be back.”
“You going to find us a way out?” Roux broke up the leaves and sticks he’d found and added them to the fire.
“That’s my plan.” She looked at him for a moment. He turned the light off on his helmet, letting the light from the small fire suffice. “For whatever reason, when I’d snuck into their camp yesterday I stuffed my pockets with batteries. I’ve got a dozen.” The flashlights on the helmet required two, and that’s how many she passed Roux. “Maybe some little voice in my head told me to take them.”
“Joan heard voices, too,” Roux said softly.
Annja didn’t have anything to say to that. She turned and struck out toward where the shadows were the thickest, a niggling memory of her dream tugging her.
Chapter 31
Annja was an experienced caver, and well aware of the rules...take nothing but pictures, well, she didn’t have a camera, leave only footprints, and kill nothing but your own time. She had no intention of harming the cave’s inhabitants. Bats, there were a good number of them, evidenced by the squeaks and rustling. She saw a few large spiders, a salamander-like creature and tiny insects.
The bats were what intrigued her. They might not have come in the same way she did. In fact, she prayed they hadn’t. They might be able to show her a way out. There were more paintings along the wall, showing more versions of what Annja guessed was a mapinguari. She wished she had a camera, but maybe...if she could get through this, she could come back and record these for Chasing History’s Monsters.
Take nothing but pictures?
Annja hoped to break that rule and take out one of the unusual skulls.
There was no way to judge the time, her watch gone in the trade; she hadn’t thought to see if Moons or Edgar had one for the borrowing. Exhaustion couldn’t serve as a measure; she was already past the point of exhaustion and knew if she wasn’t moving, she’d be sleeping soundly. The floor of the cave sloped down dramatically now and there were no more paintings or bones in this section.
She walked through a stony corridor now, the ceiling higher than the beam of her light would reach, the walls steep and smooth and fifteen feet apart. If they were narrower, she could climb them with her legs and arms extended and sort of walk up the walls. There were no handholds that she could see. The place had been formed by a river.
Her footfalls echoed eerily, and she could hear her breath. She wondered if Edgar had come to. It would be better for his own health and well-being if he did; however, he’d then be faced with his friend’s death. Annja was glad she was away from the situation—she had enough of her own emotions to deal with.
Annja had to brace herself against wall when the floor sloped down at an even steeper grade. She almost stopped and turned back, needing to go up, not down. But she heard more bats ahead, and that presented more possibilities. She also noticed more paintings.
The archaeologist in her would have spent as much time as possible reveling in the discovery. These paintings were more intricate than the others, but in the same style and colors, suggesting the same relative time period, but more accomplished artists. No bones in here, but there were shaped rocks—primitive tools, a great find. She couldn’t help herself to take a brief look, her practiced eye noticing stone awls, scrapers, hammers and spear heads. They must have hunted game in the area and processed it, ground grains with some of the tools. Some were large. She’d seen enough Paleolithic relics to place these in the same area, about ten thousand years old when they’d likely went after large prey such as mammoths.
And maybe smaller game like mapinguaries, she thought.
She estimated she’d traveled two or three miles from Roux and Edgar, through the twists and turns it had taken. Now she stood at a wide point, roughly egg-shaped and with three tunnels leading away and looking to stretch ever downward.
“I shouldn’t be here alone.” It was the first basic rule of caving that she was violating. Two cavers were barely adequate—one to spot for and aid the other; but three should be the minimum, as well as three sources of light. Annja had one light, and it was fading. She replaced the batteries. Eight fresh batteries remaining.
She had no gear, no ropes, no jacket, and it was beyond chilly. She was cold. Annja could climb without ropes, provided she could find some hand-and foot-holds, but Edgar? The situation was starting to look more desperate.
Fatigued, hungry and with her optimism fading, Annja nevertheless pressed on.
Three tunnels, all pointing down.
“I need to go up.” She needed to get back to Roux and Edgar. But when she looked up again all she saw were walls that had been washed smooth by a river a long time ago and darkness.
She selected the tunnel to her right. Annja had no idea what direction she traveled, other than down. She’d gotten turned around in the number of curves the corridor had taken. West, she guessed, but ultimately the direction didn’t matter.
Down and down and down, an abrupt turn to the right and down so steeply now that she slid.
“Wonderful. Now how am I going to get
back up? How in the—”
Then she heard it. The fluttering of wings and rushing water.
But the river was farther below, not above where the Amazon flowed.
A river under the river?
Down to go up.
Somewhere below was a way out.
Please, Annja thought, let there be a way out.
Chapter 32
Roux explored the cavern, collecting anything that looked like it might burn—roots, bits of plants and two broken planks that must have been dropped down here by the miners. They’d probably done a little exploring themselves and discovered no veins of emeralds. He also discovered a fairly recent corpse amid the bones where Annja hadn’t searched.
The man, once young and fit, had probably been dead two days, maybe three. Roux had been around corpses enough to hazard a good guess. The chill of the cavern had helped preserve the body.
The dead man looked like one of Dillon’s crew, dressed in coveralls. Two bullet holes in his chest, all the pockets on the coveralls ripped, back and front, big pockets on the thighs shredded, fingers broken...maybe from the fall, but Roux didn’t think so. His mind played over the possibilities. Maybe the man had gotten greedy and tried to keep some of the emeralds, the pockets ripped to check for pilfered stones.
Since Roux had nothing better to do at the moment, and since he’d been long inured to the condition of corpses, he searched the body, thinking maybe he might find something useful. Under the coveralls the man had worn a T-shirt and boxers. The boots had steel toes and were expensive looking. He tugged these off, wondering if they might suit the unconscious man better than the flimsy things he was wearing. Provided Edgar ever regained consciousness.
Roux smiled grimly. As he removed the boots from the dead man, uncut emeralds fell out and onto the ground. There had been a dozen pieces in one boot, three in the other, all of which he pocketed, the fading light from his helmet wasn’t enough to let him properly inspect the gems. The dead man did not need them, but Roux might.
His fellow thieves had killed him because he’d broken their code. But a handful of gems were not worth more than a man’s—even a thief’s—life.
Man’s cruelty never ceased to surprise Roux. But in all the centuries he’d never come to understand where the evil came from. Why was there such darkness in some men’s souls and only light in others? Roux knew his own soul held a mix of darkness and light that sometimes battled each other. Always the light managed to prevail, but that hint of darkness provided a balance, and it was why the poached stones were now in his pockets.
He’d only seen light in Joan’s soul.
In Annja’s? She had both, and it was probably that blend that gave her such fire and drove her. He rolled the dead body over, seeing bugs clustered around the exit wound in the corpse’s back.
Annja had been so confident about finding a way out. Gone eight hours now, he prayed she actually could. Roux didn’t fear death. He’d “died” so many times or came close to it, that staring the Grim Reaper in the face was old hat. But he feared being trapped down here.
He worried that if Annja did not prevail this cavern would be permanent; his company—Annja and the young man still unconscious—would eventually die. Roux would be left alone. Would he go mad? He shuddered and paced, watched the fire die down and fed it a little more. And when the fire was out and the batteries dead, would he spend eternity in darkness?
He would have liked to dump everything he’d gathered onto the fire and make it rage to match his spirit and keep him and Edgar warm. But he needed to conserve his bounty. The fire would remain small to extend its life. He flipped off his helmet light again. The batteries were dying and he wanted to conserve those. Annja had given him two more, but he could suffice by the meager firelight.
Roux cursed himself for coming here. In France he’d been worried about Annja; he feared that fate was telling him something had gone horribly wrong and that she was in jeopardy. He didn’t want to lose Annja as he had Joan. A failed knight once, he did not want to repeat the experience.
And so he was here, in this damnable cave.
And so here he was wondering if that warning he’d felt wasn’t so much about Annja’s fate, but about his own...a hint that his existence was the thing in jeopardy.
If he hadn’t come to Brazil and subsequently found Annja stumbling around in the rainforest, she might not have regained her memory. She wouldn’t have charged back to Dillon’s camp in search of Moons and Edgar, nor would she have wound up captured and thrown down here. If he hadn’t followed her, he’d not be here either. Moons might be alive.
Had he set all these unfortunate things into motion? Or was he merely playing a role that had been assigned to him? Roux glanced at some of the cave paintings, knowing Annja had been excited by them. They were mildly interesting, but did not intrigue him.
He returned to the fire and stared into it, in his mind’s eye seeing Joan burning at the stake. Roux closed his eyes and let a more pleasant recollection consume him. Joan had been an amazing commander, aggressive and smart. He’d ridden with her on many campaigns, winning most of them. And he’d traveled with her to places far and wide—all of them surrendering when she’d approached, banner held high. They hadn’t wanted to fight her.
Wise, Roux reflected, she was a remarkably skilled swordswoman, whether fighting on foot or from horseback. And tactics? She knew precisely how to direct an army and how to orchestrate her gunpowder artillery, the cannons that had so often made a difference in the battles.
But when the odds had become overwhelming, when she did not have access to those cannons...that was when the defeats had come about. Those were the battles she shouldn’t have joined. So while her aggression and skill made her formidable, Roux also knew she had weaknesses. Those traits had led to her capture.
Annja had those traits. They’d led to her capture by Dillon.
Gone eight hours? Maybe he should go in search of her.
Instead, he lost himself in another memory. Charles VII wanted the city of Troyes to surrender, but after days of intense negotiations, it was clear that wasn’t about to happen. Roux had been in the room when Charles asked Joan her opinion. She didn’t hesitate.
“Nous devons commencer le siège,” she’d said.
Charles agreed to the siege and designated Joan in charge of it. Roux walked with her that night as she placed the cannons and directed her army and her knights to fill the ditches that circled the city.
At dawn, Joan yelled for their forces to attack.
Without a single cannon firing, the city yielded. Roux knew it was the mere sight of her forces that made the enemy’s troops surrender.
Annja lacked the cannons, but she had her own heavy artillery...laptops and the internet, satellite phones and a cadre of archaeologist peers throughout the world to call upon. But just as Joan saw defeat in battles where she lacked her best weapons, so, too, Annja was now missing hers. She had only her wits and Joan’s sword.
Would that be enough?
* * *
SIXTEEN HOURS GONE and Edgar woke up. He grieved over Moons, and then Roux moved the woman’s body into the space with the other corpse, hiding death from their view, if not their thoughts.
He listened politely while Edgar alternately mourned Moons, complained about how much his arm hurt, and spilled his life story. So many people talked endlessly when they were frightened, as if their words could keep the terror away. And while Roux listened, taking in only bits and pieces, he continued to ruminate about Joan and Annja, cannons and computers.
Eighteen hours gone.
Twenty.
“Roux.” Annja’s voice was a whisper. She looked beaten, defeated, a mere stick of a woman. She stood far enough away from the tiny fire that he couldn’t see her eyes, only the shadowed sockets. “I might have found a way
out of here.” She collapsed on the stone and he went to her, picked her up and laid her next to the fire, adding the last bit of kindling.
He watched her sleep until the fire went out and the cavern was plunged into blackness.
Chapter 33
“Stop complaining.” Roux sent Edgar a withering look, but Annja knew the expression was lost on the young man.
Edgar was shuffling along with his face down, grumbling about wearing a dead man’s shoes.
She stepped ahead of the pair. The cavern was large enough that they could walk side-by-side, but she opted for a little solitude and so walked faster than was comfortable for either of them. Still, she could hear Edgar.
“My arm, it hurts like nothing I’ve felt before. Like sometimes I can’t feel it, sometimes like an elephant stepped on it. And it’s cold down here. You’d think under a tropical rainforest it would be warm, same latitude and everything.”
Annja agreed with Roux—Edgar prattled so he wouldn’t have to think. If his tongue stopped wagging he’d have to face up to how unfortunate Becca Mooney had been and the dire predicament they were all in. Bats scattered as the three of them followed Annja’s earlier path, disturbed by their noise and the light on her helmet and Roux’s. She took a large step to avoid a slick patch, though she couldn’t avoid the stench that made her eyes water.
“And these boots, they’re tight. Sure, they’re better than what I had. But they belonged to one of Dillon’s goons, and—”
Even Annja reached a point where her patience wore thin. “Edgar, if you’re so uncomfortable, maybe you should wait for Roux and I back in the hole that Dillon dropped us in. You can safeguard my mapinguari skull.” That had actually occurred to her at the outset, leaving him back there. But she wouldn’t have left Edgar a light and doubted he could handle the dark for what might be days.
“And starve? Die of thirst? Because you might not come back for who knows how long...provided that you can find a means to escape this place, and then provided that you can find the camp and get past Dillon’s goons, and get a rope down to me. I don’t think so.”
