Restless Soul

“I don’t need to hear this kind of talk,” Luartaro cautioned. “And you don’t need to be thinking such things. We are getting out of here, Zakkarat. Just stay quiet and stay near, all right? I’ll lead us to safety.”

Zakkarat didn’t reply, but he did increase his pace.

Annja did, too, peering around their guide to watch Luartaro’s inky silhouette. He held the lantern high to illuminate the area directly in front of him.

Roux would like him, she decided. He would like Luartaro’s athletic, unwavering ease and his determined voice filled with feigned bravado. And Roux might understand why she so impetuously decided to vacation in Thailand with the Argentine archaeologist.

She wanted to find a way out of this cave and meet up with Roux again and tell him about her inane adventures. And she wanted to see so many other things in this world, including a long list of caves. And so many countries. And many, many digs and many sites, both large and small. Her “bucket list” was endless.

Free me.

She also wanted to find the source of the voice in her head.

The water was to her shoulders. It pulled at her clothes and the backpack and rope over her shoulder and pushed at her knees, making it difficult to stay upright. The growing rush of it competed with the squeaks of the agitated bats and Zakkarat’s ragged breath.

“Hurry,” she said, half surprised at herself for voicing her concern.

As if the bats didn’t want to be outdone by the water, they squeaked louder. They dropped, at first one by one, then in groups, flapping their papery wings just before they touched the water. She felt the air of their passing on her forehead and the tips of her ears.

She put her head down and slogged forward in the direction Luartaro was leading, looking up from time to time to make sure it was the direction the bats were going.

The river smelled fresh from all the rain, and there was only the slightest fishy scent to it. The rocks had an odor, too, and certainly the bats did. Overall, the scent was neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

The pack she toted smelled of oil and the earth, and she briefly considered abandoning it and her coil of rope so she could move unencumbered.

“A dead end!” Zakkarat spat the words. “We will—”

“It’s not a dead end,” Luartaro shot back. “C’mon. Up here. There’s a way through.”

Annja pressed herself against a wall to better see around Zakkarat.

Luartaro was climbing. He paused to shift his feet, then reached up and swung himself up onto a ledge that the water hadn’t yet reached. Beyond it was a dark space that looked like the opening to another tunnel.

He balanced on the edge and struggled out of his pack. The fit was so tight he had to drag the pack behind him to slip into the passage.

The coffins had obviously not come in this way. There must have been another passage into the previous chamber and they hadn’t noticed it, Annja thought.

Through all his contortions, Luartaro had managed to hold on to the lantern. He swung it in front of him as he disappeared into the opening.

As Luartaro moved away and Zakkarat entered the cleft, the light dimmed.

Annja climbed up the steep, wet wall in near darkness. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps in cadence to her movements up the wall.

Zakkarat’s hand filtered down into her line of sight like a barely visible offer of help from the gods.

She gripped it and pushed hard with her feet and slid up into the passage.

She patted Zakkarat’s arm in thanks and edged away from the opening. The tunnel angled up steeply.

Free me.

Before she could pause to see if she could determine the direction of the voice, Zakkarat began to fret. “There is no way out of here. We will be—”

“Hush!” Luartaro said.

Annja’s heart stuttered, and then hammered at her ribs.

If the tunnel dead-ended, as Zakkarat’s words suggested, they would be trapped. They could retrace their steps back to the chamber with the high ceiling and wait for the river level to lower, but they might have to swim underwater part of the way.

She was confident she could do it, almost certainly Luartaro, too, but she didn’t know if Zakkarat could manage it. The Thai guide seemed spry, but how long could he hold his breath?

“It can’t be a dead end,” she said. “The bats get in and out somehow.”

Please don’t be a dead end, she thought as she dropped to her hands and knees and followed the men up the steep passage. A shard of rock bit into her palm. Her pack slipped from her shoulder, and she twisted so that it was cradled to her stomach.

The air smelled old and foul, and she breathed shallowly.

Boots scraped against the rock. Fabric rustled, tugged by their frantic movements. The lantern clanked as Luartaro tugged it along.

There were no bats in the cramped tunnel, but there was a smattering of fresh guano, a stinky but fortunate sign, she thought. Bats had come this way.

Annja fervently wished she’d taken the lead. She didn’t like not being in control. She should have squeezed past the men in the previous passage. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Luartaro’s capabilities. He was an experienced caver, and she trusted him. But she preferred leading to following. She needed to be in charge of her own destiny.

“Feel 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.”