Ancient Echoes (5 page)

The size fit that of a tomb.

In China, archeologists already had excavated more than
forty Han dynasty tombs, all made of brick or stone and placed deep in the
earth for preservation. This was the first, as far as Michael knew, found
outside of China.

Michael opened the small crates. Inside he found pottery and
jewelry of jade, gold and semi-precious stones. The quality and value, however,
were minimal. They weren’t anything to give rise to the reputation the tomb had
for riches. It didn’t worry Michael, however. The most valuable treasure was
usually buried with the body.

Michael and Acemgul turned to the coffin. With surprisingly
little effort, they lifted off the lid.

Inside, a skeleton stared up at them. The flesh was gone,
its garments worn away to nothing but a gray gauzy film. The rest of the coffin
was empty.

 “So it comes to this,” Michael murmured, his
disappointment palpable.

“Air clear.
Ground
stable.
Storm is six miles across and will be here in less than thirty
minutes!” Batbaatar called down.

Just then, dirt fell from the ceiling. A cloud of dust
burned Michael’s eyes and nostrils. “Watch it up there,” he yelled, needing to
keep Batbaatar and Jianjun away before they caused the whole roof to collapse,
smothering him and Acemgul along with the worthless corpse they'd found.

Michael perused the tomb with dismay. “I don’t get it. Why
set up such an elaborate site to bury the old governor and a few items with
little value?”

Acemgul turned toward the ladder when a loud
crack!
filled
the chamber. The floor opened up beneath him, and he
dropped.

Michael dove toward him. He landed on his stomach and
grabbed Acemgul's arms as the assistant tried to hold on to something,
anything, to prevent himself from falling into the unknown.

The rotted floor under Michael's chest began to sag. His
body slipped forward.
“Batbaatar!
Get down here! Help
us,” he yelled.

Acemgul held onto him, his eyes wide with fear as he
squirmed,
his
legs flailing to find support for his
feet. “There's nothing under me,” he said, his voice tight, quavering. “I don't
know how far down...”

“I know,” Michael said. “Move your hands. Grip my arms.”

Heavy footsteps sounded on the ladder. “Not too close,”
Michael warned as Batbaatar reached the floor.

Batbaatar knelt on the ground, and looped thick arms and
hands around Michael's waist, pulling him back. The muscles along Michael's
arms and shoulders felt ready to tear from Acemgul's weight as the men
attempted to lift and drag him from the crater. Acemgul wasn't very tall, but
he was solid and muscular.

The small Mongolian shifted forward, stretched, and grabbed
Acemgul's jacket, and used it as a winch to pull the Kazakh from the hole as if
he weighed no more than a child.

Michael and Acemgul sat on what they hoped was solid floor
and waited for the tremors to cease in their quivering muscles.

Jianjun joined them and quickly noticed a musky yet sweet
smell in the air. It wafted up from below. He checked the air meter, but it
gave no indication of a problem gas.

“Flowers,” Michael murmured as he struggled to stand. “It
smells like flowers.” He repressed a visceral reaction to the strong floral
scent in the enclosed space. It brought back terrible memories of his mother’s
death. He was only ten-years old, but he would never forget the overwhelming
smell of the flowers that surrounded her casket, or how it had nauseated him.

“Peonies,” Jianjun murmured. “Much loved in China.”

A sudden loud whistling of the wind through the main burial
chamber
paused
any further conversation.

“The storm is like a mountain filling the entire western
sky.” Batbaatar’s voice shook with worry. “Truly, we must go.”

“The demons tried to swallow me up.” Acemgul stood, his
back, shoulders and neck aching. “The sandstorm is a curse cast upon us for
desecrating the grave.”

Such superstitions outraged Michael. “Go, if you feel that way!”

Acemgul's expression remained rigid. “I gave my word to help
you. I will stay until you say otherwise.”

Michael nodded, sorry for his harsh tone. He moved toward
the new hole in the floor, and shined his flashlight into it.
“Another chamber, a little smaller.
The ground is eight or
nine feet down. It explains why the radar reads indicated a deeper tomb than
the one we found. I'm going to check it out.”

“The storm is visible.” Batbaatar sounded firm yet resigned.
“It will be here in a matter of minutes.”

“Wait. I'll get you another ladder,” Jianjun told Michael as
he headed up to ground level. “If you insist on going down there, I won't stop
you. But I'm not going down! No way.
One ladder, coming up!”

“I'll go with you, Michael,” Acemgul said defiantly, his
dark eyes boring into Batbaatar as if challenging the Mongol to dare to argue
against their boss' wishes.

It was reckless, Michael knew, given the storm and that
there were only four of them. But then, his whole life had been reckless.

He and Acemgul chipped away at the decayed wooden floor
until they reached a solid section. When Jianjun brought down the light
aluminum extension ladder, they rested it there. Michael felt a surge of
excitement, the kind he had felt in the past before making an important
discovery.

“Wait here,” he said to the others. “I'll take a quick
look.”

He descended the ladder to a second chamber. The floor
seemed to have solid ground beneath it. But the scene puzzled him.

Nothing but a large, rectangular wooden box was in the space.

Before he knew it, Acemgul and Jianjun joined him.

“You?”
Michael said, bemused, to
Jianjun.

The strong light of the Petzl headlamp showed Jianjun’s pale
face. The worry in Jianjun's eyes bothered Michael. His assistant loved to talk
and complain, but he rarely showed any sign of fear. Usually, he took command
of a given situation with the technical knowledge and equipment to handle just
about anything that came up. And anything he didn’t know, he knew someone who
did. Michael might be his boss, but Jianjun tended to mother-hen him, and more
than once his cautious worry saved Michael’s life. At the same time on a few
other occasions, Michael's selfless courage returned the favor.

“Don't ask, Michael. Just don't ask. Let's get this show on
the road so we can all get out of here.”

Some kind of resin sealed the lid. They pried it off with
knives.

Saffron-colored silk, faded and dry, covered the inside.
Michael attempted to lift it, but it turned to dust in his hands.

Underneath he found a second large chest surrounded by
lacquered bowls and porcelain figurines of tigers and bears.
Old,
but crude and not remarkable by any means.

In the early Han period, wealthy Chinese often used a
two-layered coffin system with an inner and outer receptacle. The inner container
would be painted and lacquered with scenes of heaven including spirits and
strange animals.

Batbaatar lowered himself half way down the ladder. “You
must come now,” he shouted excitedly. “Sand is already falling into the first
chamber. It will be all we can do to get back to the
gers
.”

“Two more minutes,” Michael said, as he and Acemgul studied
the second box. Made of teak, floral designs were carved into it. They decided
against attempting to lift it out and instead pried off the lid. Inside, they
found yet a third chest, also teak, about five feet long and two and a half
feet wide.

“Is this a joke?” Michael muttered.

Batbaatar climbed down the rest of the way. “What's keeping
you?”

“This might be like one of those Russian nesting dolls.”
Michael waved his hand dismissively at the find. “One chest inside the other
until you
get
to the last one which doesn't open or is
empty.”

The wind whistled ominously.

“Empty? You're risking your life, and ours, for an empty
crate?” Batbaatar gazed longingly back at the ladder, but didn't go toward it.

“We don't know for sure it's empty,” Jianjun said, defending
his boss and friend. “That's why we've got to see what's here. The storm will
bury all this. If it’s as worthless as the first coffin, we can let it stay
buried and go home.”

“Someone or something doesn't want us here,” Acemgul
murmured. His eyes lifted to the ceiling, to the opening that could lead them
out of this tomb.

Michael peered closer. “There's a design on the chest.”

The design had faded over the years, but they could make out
two overlapping triangles with two veed lines and a circle in the center. It
wasn't carved, but appeared to have been painted in red dye:

“What does it mean?” Jianjun asked.

“It’s not a symbol I recognize,” Michael replied. Batbaatar
and Acemgul were similarly mystified.

Michael attempted to force open the third chest the way he
had the earlier two. It didn't work. Some kind of wax or substance that
hardened to a granite-like consistency hermetically sealed it.

The howl of the wind grew loud and commanding.

Opening the last chest was taking too long. Batbaatar and
Jianjun grew more nervous. Acemgul prepared to take a crowbar to it when
Michael raised a hand to stop him. “I've got it.”

It took all four of them to lift off the surprisingly heavy
lid.

They gasped in astonishment at the silk banner inside, as
bright and soft as the day it was created. Silk paintings often served as
burial objects during the Han period.

Against a vermilion background, the scene depicted heaven at
the top protected by a dragon, with the sun and a crow on the right, and the
moon with a toad and rabbit on the left. In the center, a beautiful woman
leaned on a walking stick while three female attendants helped her on her
journey upward. Below them, the underworld swirled in darker hues of blue and
purple.

On one side near the end of the box lay a piece of paper
with a map. They all bent low to study it.

“I am familiar with this,” Batbaatar said with awe on his
face. “Our Buddhism comes from Tibet.
This type of map gives
the dead a means to find their way in the
bardo
.”
He gazed with
superiority at Acemgul and explained. “As described in
The Book of the Dead
,
the
bardo
is the transition period in the afterlife.”

His words confirmed that the chest was a coffin. Acemgul
stepped back as he realized what it must contain.

A chill crept along Michael's spine as he proceeded to peel
back the silk. Under the banner he found more silk as sheer, fine and soft as
if freshly spun.

As he peeled the layers back, a shape began to appear. “It's
a woman,” he whispered. “Lady Hsieh. It has to be her. So, she died after all,
and her servants hid her body before they fled so her corpse wouldn't be
desecrated.”

The sudden pulsating shriek of the wind all but stole his
words.

He slowly lowered the last layer. First he saw her hair, as
black, shiny and thick as it had been in life, arranged in a high, fashionable
style with coils held with combs of gold and rubies.

Next, he saw her face.

She was beautiful with flawless skin, the color of pale
ivory, her cheeks lightly rouged as were her lips. A small stone, a deep but
brilliant blood red color, lay against those lips, as if she were kissing it.

She wore a dress of pure white silk, delicately embroidered
in shades of blue. It skimmed her body showing a slim, youthful figure.

A jade medallion with a gold design in its center of the
same interlocking triangles seen on the
coffin,
had
been placed on her chest. His gaze rose again to her face. To see her so
perfectly preserved startled him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“It's impossible,” Jianjun said.
“No way.
No way at all.”
He had been standing close to the
body, but now he eased back.

A sharp metallic
clang!
made
them all jump. The storm, now gathered to an ear-splitting force, had slammed
the aluminum ladder from the wall it leaned against onto the opposite side. The
noise resounded in the narrow chamber.

Michael ignored the storm. “What process did they use?” he
whispered, as much to himself as to Jianjun. “A modern taxidermist can't keep a
body so lifelike. No culture has been known to mummify a body so perfectly or
so completely.” He turned to Acemgul and Batbaatar. “How can this be, here in
the Mongolian desert?”

Just then, the first grains of sand whipped down upon them.

Her face looked bloodless, yet the skin appeared as fresh
and natural as if she simply slept. A stray lock of hair touched her cheek—a
stubborn lock as if with a will all its own.