Restless Soul by Alex Archer Page B

phrasings and rhythms of a prayer.
    “We’ll get out of here,” Luartaro reassured them. His voice didn’t carry quite the confidence it had held before. “We’ll find a way out of this. It won’t be too long.”
    Annja moved the lantern in a steady arc as she went, and when the water swirled around her waist she spotted another dark slash in the rocks directly ahead. She took a couple of steps toward it, and the current tugged her gently in that direction.
    “Follow me,” Annja said as she headed toward the only apparent exit. She went slowly, feeling forward with each step and encountering jagged rocks here and there.
    Faint squeaks came from overhead. “Bats.” She gestured upward with the lantern. “A lot of them from the sound of it. They got in here somehow, and if they can get in and out, hopefully we can find a way out.”
    The guano hadn’t been fresh enough in the passage behind them, so the bats had to have flown in another way.
    Roux would definitely chastise her about this, she decided, and it would be justified. But maybe he would also smile when she told him they’d been saved by bat droppings.
    She ventured into the next tunnel that she came across, this one wider at the base and roughly egg-shaped. She thought for a moment the route was taking her deeper still, but it was only a depression she had stepped in. After a few more yards, the floor rose again and the water dropped back down to her thighs.
    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