Ancient Echoes
Authors: Joanne Pence
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Horror, #Occult, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Supernatural, #Religion & Spirituality, #Alchemy
ANCIENT ECHOES
Joanne Pence
Quail Hill Publishing
This is a work of fiction.
Any referenced to historical events, real people, or real locales are used
fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of
the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No
part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval
systems without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who
may quote brief passages in a review. This book may not be resold or uploaded
for distribution to others.
Quail
Hill Publishing
PO Box
64
Eagle,
ID 83616
Visit
our website at www.quailhillpublishing.net
First
Quail Hill Publishing Paperback Printing: April 2013
Excerpt
from
The
Lewis and Clark Journals, Gary E. Moulton, ed.
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska
Copyright
© 2013 Joanne Pence
All
rights reserved.
ISBN-10:
0615783368
ISBN-13:
978-0615783369
Also
by Joanne Pence
SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES
DANCE WITH A GUNFIGHTER
THE GHOST OF SQUIRE HOUSE
GOLD MOUNTAIN
DANGEROUS JOURNEY
The Angie Amalfi Mysteries
COOKING SPIRITS
THE DA VINCI COOK
RED HOT MURDER
COURTING DISASTER
TWO COOKS A-KILLING
IF COOKS COULD KILL
BELL, COOK, AND CANDLE
TO CATCH A COOK
A COOK IN TIME
COOKS OVERBOARD
COOKS NIGHT OUT
COOKING MOST DEADLY
COOKING UP TROUBLE
TOO MANY COOKS
SOMETHING'S COOKING
To David
Table
of Contents
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 sand storm.
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 from there 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 a 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,
a 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.
On the ground stood a rounded object covered by 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.