Rogue Angel - The Spirit Banner Part 21

"What do you propose we do? Put the spear on the floor and spin it around, then head off in whatever direction it lands?" Mason asked.

Annja bit back the quick retort that sprang to her lips. "I just think we should look around a bit more. It has to be here somewhere. The lama wouldn't have sent us here if that wasn't case."

"Maybe he just wanted us to find and protect the sulde sulde," Mason grumbled, but he started looking around like the other two, checking the walls, the floor, even the ceiling, for hiding places or secret pa.s.sages.

When they struck out there, Davenport took the sulde sulde and began going over it inch by inch, while the other two turned their attention to the platform itself and the chest the and began going over it inch by inch, while the other two turned their attention to the platform itself and the chest the sulde sulde had been stored in. had been stored in.

The two of them were searching the interior of the chest when Annja heard a soft click coming from Mason's end.

"Hold still!" she said sharply the second she heard it, and Mason, used to a lifetime of obeying urgent commands, froze immediately.

Annja had encountered quite a few b.o.o.by traps while searching ancient ruins and the quiet snick she'd just heard sounded uncomfortably similar. She had a sudden vision of a blade flashing downward in the dark, of screams of pain echoing down the pitch-dark hallway through which they stumbled. She shook her head, dispatching the illusion. That had been another day, another time, and besides, she'd made it through. If she wanted to prevent something deadly from happening to Mason, she needed to focus on the here and now.

Mason's right hand was pressed against the inner surface of one end of the chest.

"What did you do?" she asked him.

Without moving his hands, he said, "Nothing. I just pushed against the interior wall, trying to see if it was solid."

Annja brought the candle closer and peered at the area behind Mason's hand. A small section of the chest wall had shifted backward the slightest bit, which must have been the sound she heard. With the candlelight, the outline of a small rectangular opening was revealed.

"Pull your hand away slowly," Annja said. She watched closely as he did so, ready to knock him out of the way if she saw any hint of movement from that section of the chest, but nothing shot out at them and Mason was able to remove his hand without incident.

Once he had, they could all see that he had inadvertently opened a small compartment built right into the side of the chest. Using the edge of his knife, Mason was able to slip the cover free, revealing the sc.r.a.p of parchment that was hidden inside the cavity.

Very carefully, he fished it out and then handed it to Davenport.

"Why don't you do the honors," Mason said, and Annja nearly laughed aloud when she saw how excited the offer made their employer. He was like a giant kid turned loose in the candy store and, seeing his exuberant att.i.tude, she understood what drove a man as wealthy as he to get his hands dirty, literally, on an expedition like this. She had to admit, that was one of the things she liked about him best, his desire to experience things for himself and not just through his employees.

Annja and Mason crowded around him so they could see as he unfolded the small piece of parchment.

The revelation, when it came, was a disappointment, however.

Annja had been hoping for another stanza or two in the puzzle, another set of clues that could help her narrow down the directions to bring them to the second destination necessary to find the tomb. Instead, all they got was a few wavy lines that looked like lightning falling from the sky; they started at the same point and then spread downward away from one another from there. Above them was a triangular shape that could have represented everything from the delta symbol to a visit by s.p.a.ce aliens.

It looked pretty useless.

22.

While Davenport puzzled over the meaning of the drawing, Annja and Mason finished searching the rest of the chest. That took another ten minutes and ultimately proved fruitless, so they turned their attention to the spear itself, looking for markings or any kind of writing that might help them.

They struck out there, as well, just as Davenport had moments before.

A glance at Mason's watch told them it would be dark soon, so they decided to wait until after their evening meal before making any decisions regarding what to do next. They placed the sulde sulde back inside the back inside the tangka tangka and wrapped it all up, then carried it with them back to the surface, closing the entrance to the secret chamber behind them and exiting the building. and wrapped it all up, then carried it with them back to the surface, closing the entrance to the secret chamber behind them and exiting the building.

Mason's men had managed to get the fire out and rescued what bodies they could while the others were underground. The heavy stench still hung over the area, as did a dark cloud of smoke, but there wasn't anything they could do about either, and so they did the best they could to ignore them.

There was considerable concern that whoever had done this might return and so the decision was made to continue up the road a bit before finding a place to camp for the night. Jeffries and his men hadn't found anyone else alive in the ruins and the boy had walked off in the wake of the old man's death.

Mason gave the orders and the teams quickly regrouped, loaded back into the vehicles and left the shattered remains of Shankh behind them as they drove toward the setting sun.

About ten miles farther up the road they found a nice spot in the lee of a small ridge to set up camp for the night. A cold wind was pushing down from the north at this point and the ridge would at least provide some shelter during the course of the night.

They had a quick dinner and then retired to their tents, one for each carload.

The excitement of the past few hours was still with them and so no one wanted to sleep. Davenport was making notes in his journal, chronicling the trip, while Annja stared absently at the map over Mason's shoulder as he tried to figure out their next course of action.

A sudden thought occurred to her. She stared at the map for a long moment, following the topographical lines to be certain, before turning to Davenport and asking him for the piece of parchment they'd found in the chest.

He saw the look in her eyes as he handed it over. "You've figured it out, haven't you?" he asked eagerly.

"Maybe. Not sure yet." She took the sc.r.a.p of parchment from him and unfolded it, making sure she was remembering the design on it properly.

She was.

Mason was watching her now along with Davenport, so she reached out and took the topographical map he was holding. "May I?" she asked.

"Be my guest," he replied.

She laid it across her knee, then put the piece of parchment against it, comparing the two.

After a moment she looked up at her two companions and said, "I'm an idiot. It was right there in front of us the whole time." She pointed at the three wavy lines on the piece of parchment. "'To where the blood of the world intertwines, and the voice in the earth has its say.' Freakin' obvious," she said, grinning.

Apparently Mason didn't think so, for he stared at her as if she'd suddenly lost her mind.

"Obvious?" he said. "Riiiight."

She shook her head, frustrated with her slowness in not seeing it before. She hadn't expected Mason to catch it, but she should have seen it right away. "The Mongols were, at heart, animists. Everything had its own spirit, including the earth. Still with me?"

Mason nodded.

"A typical Mongol encampment stank to high heaven, which was one of the reasons the Europeans began calling them the Mongol horde, but that was because they didn't understand the cultural differences between the two societies.

"Unlike their European counterparts, Mongol warriors refused to bathe in rivers and streams. This wasn't because they liked being dirty, but because they considered such places to be holy. They saw the land beneath their feet as the body of the earth spirit, so to speak, which meant that the rivers and streams..."

"...would be the veins that carried its blood through its body," Mason finished for her. "So, if that's the case, what's with the triangle-looking thing?"

Davenport answered that one. "It's a mountain. Or, at least, I think it's a mountain."

Annja nodded encouragingly. "That would be my guess, too. A mountain. Which means that all we have to do is find one that stands near the convergence of three rivers and we've found where the blood of the earth intertwines."

"Should be easy enough," Mason said, and the three of them huddled around the map.

Fifteen minutes later, they'd found several different possibilities and had only covered half of the map. Clearly they were missing something.

"How do we know which one is more likely than another?" Davenport wanted to know.