Restless Soul. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ it?” Luartaro called back. “The air’s moving. We are getting out of here. Stay close!”

      With Zakkarat directly in front of her, Annja couldn’t feel the air moving, but Zakkarat picked up the pace, crawling as fast as the space allowed.

      Moments later, they erupted out onto a flat space.

      Luartaro reached down and gave Annja a hand up.

      She stood and stretched her back. Her spine, palms and knees were feeling the abuse they’d taken from the rocky climb.

      She looked around. They were standing in yet another chamber. This one had a high ceiling and a delicious, faint breeze that stirred her hair.

      But after a moment, her sense of relief sank. The air—and rain with it—was coming through a needlelike slit directly overhead. It was high above them and looked too narrow for anyone to easily fit through.

      Free me.

      She spun around, looking for the source of the words.

      “Probably couldn’t even get to that opening, let alone squeeze through it,” Luartaro said as if he’d caught her thoughts. “The stone is so smooth around it and steeply canted. We have equipment—”

      “But not the right kind for something like that,” Zakkarat supplied. “I brought only simple caving equipment. We have no pulleys and no harness. Those were in the pack I left behind. Lunch, too. My wife made us pickled cabbage and a little kaeng hang le. All of it gone. Lost. I thought—”

      “You thought that you were taking us to a different cave,” Annja said, still glancing around. “Ping Yah, where we wouldn’t need anything overly complicated.

      “It’s not your fault, Zakkarat. It’s pouring outside,” she added. “This nonstop rain is only going to make things worse. And I’m the one who talked you into coming out here in the first place.”

      Free me.

      We have to free ourselves first, she thought. Her mind raced. She might be able to get to the slit. She had pitons and could probably make it without pulleys or a harness. She knew how to free-climb and could use the pitons as handholds. And she was the thinnest of them. She could try to force her way through.

      Zakkarat was small, but Luartaro wasn’t, and without a harness it might be impossible for both of them to get that high. Still, if she managed to get out she could go for help and bring the right equipment, a drill that could widen the opening, some ropes. That might be the best option.

      “Worth a try,” she told herself.

      “Annja, look!” Luartaro pointed to a spot high along a wall. “Are those roots? Am I seeing right?”

      “Yes!”

      “Then, we’re near the surface.”

      “But we’re trapped,” Zakkarat said. “I brought you here to see coffins, and now we are trapped in one.”

      “Stay with him, Lu,” Annja said. “I’m going up.”

      She hurried to the stone directly below the roots and reached into her pack for a piton and hammer.

      Just as she drove it into the rock, she heard a great whoosh. She didn’t have to look to know what had happened.

      The river had forced its way up the tunnel and into the once-dry chamber.

      Pack over one shoulder, rope over the other, Annja worked fast. Using the pitons as steps, she climbed. The light was faint, and it shifted as Luartaro sloshed around and inspected the cavern. She was certain he was looking for other passages. She prayed he would find one.

      The rush of water was loud, echoing against the stone and mixing with Zakkarat’s worried voice and Luartaro’s reassuring one.

      Her breath came in strong, even bursts, and her heart pounded. The toes of her boots scraped against the rock. The rain pattered down, finding its way through the cavern slit. And through all the sounds, the voice in her head whispered, Free me.

      The scent of the stone filled her nostrils. She canted her head back to gauge how far she had to go to reach the roots and possibly how much beyond that to make it to the needlelike opening.

      Her world went to blackest black. She blinked furiously, but nothing changed. She could see nothing.

      She could no longer see the slit overhead, or maybe she was looking right at it but was unable to differentiate it from the deepest of shadows cast by the stone. There was nothing as resolutely dark as a cave. She had a flashlight, but with both hands needed for climbing, she couldn’t safely reach for it.

      Luartaro must have dropped the lantern in the rush of water, or perhaps it merely gave up the last of its gas, she thought.

      She knew he was all right. She could hear him calling for Zakkarat, and could hear the Thai man shouting nervously back.

      “Annja!”

      “I’m fine, Lu.”

      “The lantern’s gone. We can’t see anything.”

      “I’m still climbing, Lu.” She took in a deep breath, then closed her eyes and concentrated. She fought against the blackness to remember the image of the cave wall.

      She pictured a section that looked like the spine of some large beast and felt a rocky vertebrae shape in front of her face. She stretched up with her right arm, fingers groping against the stone until they wedged themselves in a crevice. She pushed off the last of the pitons she’d embedded and ascended higher.

      No use going for more pitons, she thought. While she could probably do that by feel—find the pitons in her pack, place and hammer them in—she decided instead to spend all of her energy on finding natural handholds.

      Free me.

      Annja let out the breath she’d been holding and centered herself. She couldn’t afford panic. Despite the rising water, the voice in her head and the frantic words of her companions below, she had to stay cool.

      Annja could not allow herself the luxury of even a moment’s doubt. Concentrate, she told herself. Remember what the wall looked like.

      Falling could mean not only her death, but the deaths of Zakkarat and Luartaro. The whole trip had been her idea, as had her need to go cave exploring, and so she was responsible for them.

      She thrust the sounds of the water and the men to the back of her mind and focused on the image of the wall. Slowly, feeling the nubs and cracks in the rock, she pulled herself higher and higher.

      She worked slowly and methodically and was rewarded with the smell of earth and wood. She was nearing the section of wall where they’d spotted roots.

      She wasn’t terribly far from the slit she envisioned herself squirming through. But could she free-climb to it in the absolute dark?

      She often amazed herself with her physical feats, but the notion of reaching the slit under the current conditions might be impossible. But what other choice did she have? She had to try!

      And СКАЧАТЬ