The Tenth Chamber (20 page)

And then, after exchanging the briefest of mutual glances, no more than a tacit acknowledgement of Tal’s presence, they were gone.

Nago’s last night was turbulent.

There was no doubt that Tal’s poultice had done some good – the wound stayed clean and fresh-smelling and the blood flow had slowed to an ooze. But he had lost so much blood after the goring that no remedy or chant could reverse the outcome.

In his last hours his body grew swollen and the flow of urine stopped. Drops of water spooned into his mouth from a creased leaf just spilled out. As the dawn came, his breathing slowed then stopped.

The moment the women began to howl, the sky opened and a warm rain fell, a sign their ancestors had welcomed the head man’s son to their realm. Their camps were burning bright in the night sky but they were too far away for the Bison Clan to hear their songs.

Tal’s father laid his hands upon his shoulders and spoke to him in front of all the people. Tal would be the next head man. The old man wearily declared his time would come soon. Once Nago’s mourning ritual was done, Tal would need to go to the highest point of the earth to be close enough to their ancestors to hear their chants.

The rain kept falling and soon his mother’s limestone bowl, half-filled with unused poultice, was overflowing with rain water.

Tal was not afraid to climb.

He was sure-footed and even though the cliffs were wet from the rain he was able to make good progress. He had learned an old climbing trick from an elder years ago and had wrapped his loose hide boots with thongs of leather to keep them snugly on his feet.

Hours of daylight remained before he had to reach the top so his pace was unrushed. He carried two pouches on his belt, one with strips of dried reindeer meat and one with kindling and fire-making tools. When it was dark, he would build a campfire, chant and listen for the responsive song from the heavenly campfires far in the distance. Maybe, if he were pure enough of heart he would even hear a song from the campfire of his mother.

He didn’t burden himself with a water skin. He knew there was a waterfall flowing over the cliffs and he would reach it in time to slake his thirst.

Halfway up the cliff he stopped on a safe ledge and turned towards the mighty river. From this great height it did not look so powerful. The earth stretched as far as he could see, an endless sea of grasses. In the distance, two brown shapes were moving through the savannah, a pair of shaggy mammoths. Tal laughed at the sight. He knew they were the largest beasts in the earth but from high on the cliff, it seemed he could pluck them up with his fingers and pop them into his mouth.

At the waterfall, he drank and washed the sweat away.

He looked for a good way to the top and traced a path with his eyes.

He made his way to another safe ledge and when he pulled himself up, he stopped and stared.

A sign!

There could be no doubt!

In front of his eyes was a cleft of blackness in the face of the rock.

A cave! He had never seen it before.

He approached it slowly. There were creatures to fear. Bears. The Shadow People.

He cautiously stepped into the cool blackness and inspected the mouth of the cave to the point where the light of the sun stopped.

The floor was pristine. The walls were smooth. He was the first to enter. He was jubilant.

This is Tal’s cave!

I was meant to be the head man!

When it is my time I will bring my clan here!

The next day when the sun was high, Tal returned to his camp.

He shouted to his people that he had heard their ancestors chanting and that he had found a new cave in the cliffs. He could not understand why they seemed preoccupied with something else, all of them pointing at the ground by the camp fire. The women were crying.

Uboas ran to Tal and pulled him by his sleeve.

Her brother, Gos, was lying on the ground, spouting mad, nonsensical things, sporadically flailing his limbs about, trying to strike whoever drew closest.

Tal demanded to know what had happened and Uboas told him.

His mother’s limestone bowl had been sitting by the fire and the hot sun and warmth of the fire had made the contents hiss and bubble. Gos had wandered by that morning and with his usual curiosity he dipped a finger in and tasted the red liquid. He liked it well enough to taste more, and more, until his chin was red.

Then he became possessed, screaming words that did not fit together. He thrashed and fought, but now was becoming quieter.

Tal sat beside him, put the boy’s head on his lap and touched his cheek. The touch calmed him and his little eyes opened.

Tal asked how he felt and told him not to be afraid. He would stay with him until he got well.

The little boy wet his lips with his tongue and asked for water. In time he sat up and pointed at the bowl.

Tal wanted to know what he wanted and the boy’s answer shocked those who had witnessed his spell.

He wanted more red liquid.

General Gatinois’s mistress was almost at orgasm or at the very least she was announcing in her own way that it was all right for him to think about finishing things up and rolling off.

He got the message and redoubled his efforts. His sweat beaded up and wicked down the fine white hairs of his chest where it mingled with her own dampness.

She was saying, ‘Ah, ah, ah, ah,’ and suddenly his mobile phone pitched in with a ring tone and cadence remarkably similar to hers.

He reached for the phone which made her angry so she pushed him away and padded off to the lavatory, pink, naked and swearing under her breath.

‘General, am I disturbing you?’ Marolles asked.

‘No, what is it?’ Gatinois asked. He really didn’t care he hadn’t climaxed. It was all too predictable and boring anyway.

‘We’ve been able to hack into the server at PlantaGenetics and obtain the report Dr Prentice intends to deliver to Professor Simard and Professor Mallory on Monday.’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s quite alarming. It’s preliminary, of course, but he’s made some profound observations. He is clearly on the right track to discover more, should he so choose.’

‘Send it to my email. I’m presently not at home but I will be shortly.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘But Marolles, time is short. Don’t wait for my review. Let our people know they may proceed.’

Marolles sounded uncomfortable. ‘Are you certain, General?’

‘Yes, I’m certain!’ Gatinois was annoyed by the question. ‘And I’m also certain I don’t intend to be summoned to the Elysée Palace to explain to the President why the greatest secret in France has been compromised on my watch!’

The campsite at Ruac Abbey was a melancholy place that Sunday night.

Most of the team had packed up and took off during the morning; Luc and Sara had left at noon to catch a flight to London. A skeleton crew remained to shut down the cave for the season.

For fifteen days, the camp had been a beehive of scientific activity, ground zero in the world of Paleolithic archaeology. It had crackled with excitement, the place to be. Now, it felt empty and a bit sad.

Jeremy and Pierre were in charge of the wind-down and cleanup, commanding a group of four undergraduate students itching to get back to the bars and clubs of Bordeaux. The only senior scientist who stayed to the bitter end was Elizabeth Coutard, who was setting up the environmental monitoring protocol to evaluate conditions within the cave throughout the off-season.

The chef was gone too so the quality of the meals was poor. After an every-man-for-himself dinner, Jeremy and Pierre ambled over to the office to pack boxes taking a couple of bottles of beer with them.

Well into the evening, Pierre caught something out of the corner of his eye. He stiffened and snapped his head towards the computer screen.

‘Did you see that?’ he asked.

Jeremy looked bored. ‘See what?’

‘I think there’s someone in the cave!’

‘Can’t be,’ Jeremy yawned. ‘It’s locked.’

Pierre sprang up and hit the surveillance program’s replay button, pushing the clock back thirty seconds. ‘Come here, look.’

They watched the recording stream forward.

There was a man with a backpack in full illumination.

‘Christ!’ Pierre exclaimed. ‘He’s in Chamber 9 heading towards 10! Dial 17! Get the police! Hurry! I’m going down!’

‘That’s not a good idea,’ Jeremy said urgently. ‘Don’t!’

Pierre grabbed a hammer off the table and ran for the door. ‘Just call!’

Pierre’s car was already backed up to his caravan so it took him no time to jump in and speed towards the cave. Jeremy listened to the high-pitched whine of his engine fade into the distance.

He nervously glanced at the computer monitor. Either the intruder had left or he was somewhere in between camera angles.

He lifted the telephone handset, punched in the 1 then every-thing went black.

Pierre swiftly climbed down the cliff ladder, using all his athleticism to eat up the rungs, the hammer thrust into his belt.

The gate was wide open, the interior lights were blazing. He’d never gone into the cave without protective gear but now was not the time for caution. He ran into the mouth and pulled the hammer from his belt.

Pierre had been a pretty good footballer in school and he was able to run through the cave at a good clip while maintaining his balance on the uneven matting. He burned through the chambers, the cave art blurring in his peripheral vision. He had the illusion of running through herds of animals, weaving in and out, avoiding hooves and claws.

His heart was in his throat when he got to Chamber 9. There was no trace of the intruder.

He had to be in the tenth chamber.

Pierre had never had an easy time crawling through the narrow passage. His legs were too long to fold into an easy crawl. He tried to be as quiet as he could and prayed he wouldn’t run into the man in the middle of the tunnel – a claustrophobic nightmare.

He stood in the Vault of Hands and crept forward. There were sounds of activity within the Chamber of Plants.

The intruder was on his hands and knees, facing the other way, concentrating on wires and bricks of material he was removing from the backpack. He didn’t see Pierre coming.

‘Who are you?’ Pierre yelled.

The startled intruder looked over his shoulder at Pierre, tall and muscular, wielding a hammer, an incongruously menacing sight since Pierre had the frightened look of a cornered rabbit on his face.

The man slowly stood up. He had thick, powerful arms and an untidy speckled beard. The shock of seeing Pierre quickly disappeared, replaced by a cold-as-ice expression.

Pierre got a better look at the paraphernalia on the cave floor, a jumble of wires, detonators, batteries and cakey yellow-brown bricks. He’d seen this kind of gear before, at the mines back in Sierra Leone. ‘Those are explosives!’ he shouted. ‘Who the hell are you?’

The man said nothing.

He lowered his greying head, as if he were politely bowing, but instead he rushed forward and caught Pierre with a head-butt to his chest, knocking him back against the bird man who was standing there with his open beak and his ridiculous cock.

Pierre started swinging his hammer defensively, trying to fend off the man’s fists and fingers which were swarming all over his most-sensitive areas, his groin, his eyes, his neck. The man was trying to exact as much pain and cause as much immobility as possible.

The hammer blows weren’t slowing the man, because Pierre’s sense of humanity was stopping him from smashing him on the head. Instead, he whacked his shoulders and his back but that wasn’t enough: the man kept coming.

Then, the man landed a hard punch to Pierre’s throat that hurt him mightily and set him into a panic. He coughed and choked and for the first time in his life thought he might die. In desperation, he swung the hammer one more time, as hard as he could, and this time he aimed for the top of the man’s head.

There were three men at the campsite, toting shotguns and rifles. They went from caravan to caravan in a frenzy, like a pack of wild dogs, barging in each cabin, and when they found the ones that were occupied, they dragged out frightened students.

Elizabeth Coutard heard a commotion and emerged on her own. She saw a male student being frogmarched at gunpoint.

She ran towards the abbey, her white ponytail bobbing against her shoulders, awkwardly feeling in her pockets for her phone.

She made it as far as the barn.

Pierre had only a moment to deal with the horrible sight of this man lying at his feet. He was making guttural noises and oozing blood from a hammer wound to the dome of his skull. The blood was seeping out concentrically making it appear as if he had donned a red skullcap.

Then Pierre felt the worst pain imaginable, a lightning strike to his kidney that took his breath away, making it impossible to scream.

Four students huddled with Elizabeth Coutard in the Portakabin. Jeremy was motionless on the floor. The lone woman among the students, Marie, a girl from Brittany, was shaking uncontrollably and Coutard moved to hold her, defying one of the men who menaced them with a raised weapon.

‘What do you want?’ Coutard demanded somewhat fearlessly. ‘Jeremy needs medical attention. Can’t you see that?’

One man appeared to be in charge. He ignored her and shouted at the three male students to sit on the floor. They meekly complied and he trained his double-barrelled shotgun at them and assumed a tense at-ready position. Then he nodded in the direction of the women, a pre-arranged sign.

His two compatriots responded by roughly dragging the women out the door, shouting at them like crazed prison guards, ‘Move! Move! Come on!’