Ancient Echoes

Chapter 1 Mongolia Michael Rempart flung back the thick, musty brown quilt, rekindled the metal stove's dying dung fire, and dressed in heavy woolens and an insulated jacket before stepping out of the small ger. The bitter winds of western Mongolia's Bayan Ölgiy region slapped at his face and dried his eyes until they ached. Normally, the sky above this cold, barren plain was bleak and pale and gray at the edges, as if viewed through an ice cube. This sky was a murky mustard color that made him uneasy. He'd seen this before on the Gobi Desert as a prelude to a sandstorm. His archeological dig team should have been busily moving about the camp. But the camp was empty. The two aged Soviet-built GAZ trucks used to transport men, equipment and supplies to the dig site were also gone. Last evening, everyone had retired for the night in high spirits. After weeks of anticipation, skepticism, and hope, the dig had reached a depth from which they would learn if they had discovered an ancient tomb filled with riches, or if all their work had been a colossal waste of time and money. Today would tell the story. But why was no one here? A treeless, dreary expanse of low grass and scrub edging the snow-capped Altai Mountains surrounded the camp. From China, the jagged peaks arched through Kazakhstan to Mongolia and then to Siberia. The air was thin in these high mountains, the land empty of humans except for wandering bands of nomads…and Michael's dig team. A tall, angular man, Michael Rempart was one of the world’s top archeologists. His face, burnished and browned by the bright sun and cruel wind, had a high forehead, sharp cheekbones, and long, straight nose, while hair the color of soot fell haphazardly to his shoulders. Only the slightest crinkling of skin beneath deep-set brown eyes and edging a firm mouth hinted at his forty years of age. Michael's assistant, Li Jianjun, had insisted on locating the dig site a full two miles from the camp. If Michael had placed the camp any closer to the site, he wouldn't have found anyone willing to work for him. Even here, despite his best efforts, the workers had remained fearful and jumpy. It was because of the kurgans—long, shallow mounds of black and gray stones that jutted eerily over the barren landscape to mark graves. Kurgans were death-filled reminders of the ancient cultures that once wandered over Central Asia and southern Siberia from the eighth century B.C. to the thirteenth century A.D. Remnants of those cultures and their traditions were believed by many to still exist. To this day, numerous stories were told of the dead who walked among them. Near them, darkness hovered, and the earth seemed abnormally still. Near them, every nerve in Michael’s body grew taut and tense. The place they needed to dig sat between three such kurgans. Michael ran toward the gers that housed his team. The nomadic tents were commonly known as yurts in the West, but that was a Russian word and never used by the fiercely independent Mongolians. He swung open the three-foot high door. No one was inside, but on the ground stood a rounded object covered by a white cloth. White candles circled it. White signified death in many East Asian cultures, much as black did in the West. Michael snatched off the cloth. A human skull smiled up at him. It had browned with age, and its few teeth were yellowed and worn. He studied it a moment, then lifted it. The skull had been placed atop a square of material with a picture of two demons. One had a bright green body, huge belly and monkey's head. The other, a red dragon-like beast, had a human face in a snake's head with four golden fangs. Both demons glared with furious, black, bulging eyes. Michael squatted low and fingered the material. The silk looked and felt quite old. The art work was Tibetan, a land whose culture and religion had influenced the Mongolian people from their earliest days. The demons seemed to dance before his eyes, mocking him. He hurried back outside and searched the bleak, treeless emptiness, hundreds of miles from civilization, for any sign of what had happened to his companions. He was completely alone except for the kurgans in the distance.