Brood XIX (20 page)

Ladd skirted the edge of the dune. His
reluctance to walk on it was irrational, he knew, and yet he simply
couldn't bring himself to step on any more of it than absolutely
necessary. There was something unnatural about it. Not the sand
itself, per se, but the fact that it simply shouldn't be here. He
felt a swell of relief when he ducked out of the room and into the
tunnel.

"Amazing," Pascual said from somewhere
ahead, his voice hollowed by the acoustics.

"What is it?"

"You have to see it to believe it."

Ladd wasn't in the mood. The feeling that he
needed to get out of this mountain this very second nearly
overwhelmed him.

The stone corridor opened into another domed
cavern. Pascual stood in the center, directing his light at the
walls as he slowly turned in circles. Another dark channel exited
the far side.

Ladd followed the beam with his eyes. The
walls weren't covered with writing. Hundreds of recesses had been
meticulously carved into them instead, small arched shelves
separated by a finger's width of granite. They were barely large
enough to accommodate the skulls wedged inside them. More shadowed
eye sockets than he could count stared directly at him.

"It's an ossuary," Ladd said.

"Of sorts. There aren't any other bones.
Only the skulls." Pascual's voice positively trembled with
excitement. "Notice anything interesting about them?"

Ladd directed his light at the nearest arch
to his left and stumbled backward in surprise.

"Jesus."

"Tell me about it. I've never seen anything
like them on a hominin. A Great Ape, maybe, but not on a
proto-human."

"What in God's name do you think---?"

"Ramsey!" Rivale shouted from behind him. He
spun toward the tunnel leading back to the room with the sand.
"Ramsey!"

Something in her voice awakened the panic
inside him. He took off at a sprint, made awkward by his crampons.
Something was definitely wrong. Everything was wrong. They
shouldn't be here. No one was ever meant to be here.

Ladd burst into the cavern to find Rivale
kneeling beside Nelson on one of the dune's peaks, waving her hand,
palm-down, over the sand. He hurried to her side. She glanced up at
him, eyes wide.

"Hold your hand right here. Just like this,"
she said. "Can you feel it?"

Ladd removed his glove and waved his hand
over the ground just as she had. The tip of a reed reminiscent of
the stalk of a cattail stood several inches above the sand at a
slight angle. Warm air caressed his palm when he passed over
it.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I don't know. Nelson found it. And several
more just like it."

"At least four more," Nelson said.

"There's something under here." Ladd brushed
the sand away from the base of the thin reed, only to find that it
extended deeper than he had suspected. The fine grains slid back
into place. "What could possibly---?"

"Quit screwing around and just do it
already," Pascual said. He shouldered Ladd aside and shoved scoops
of sand away from the reed. "For someone in such a rush to get out
of here, you're sure taking your sweet time about it."

Ladd glanced back toward the tunnel through
which they had initially entered. Suddenly, the prospect of
descending the sheer, icy face of Mt. Belukha wasn't nearly as
intimidating, even blindly in the darkness and the blizzarding
snow.

"Stop, Carlos."

"I can feel something down there."

"For Christ's sake, stop digging! Let's get
out of here while we still---"

"What the hell is that? Someone. Give me
some more light."

Rivale shined her beam into the bottom of
the foot-deep hole as Pascual brushed away the grains that trickled
back down the sides. He jerked his hand back and scrabbled
away.

Ladd saw a prominent brow over eyelids
dusted with sand, the ridge of a slender nose, a pair of lips
pursed around the base of the reed.

"It's too late," he whispered.

The eyes snapped open at the sound of his
voice.