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It was a relatively short distance to the site, but it took an hour and a half to get there on the rough road, their battered suburban lurching painstakingly through dense forest. The tree canopy enclosed them in a greenish haze. The overpowering thunder of the Mad River grew louder until they passed by a gorge where a twenty metre drop emptied into the foaming torrents of ripped and twisted rapids. A dense, damp foggy mist choked out most of the feeble light that managed to penetrate the dark forest cover. Just as Neal nodded off, and Sam was starting to get into his cheap romance novel, Christa's worried voice brought them back to attention. "What's that, can either of you make it out?", she said, pointing. There was smaller river ahead. It had carved a channel maybe two metres deep or so, more than big enough to strand a vehicle. Fortunately there was a bridge over it. Christa had a bad feeling. "Let's check out that bridge." She pulled the suburban to a halt and they walked up to the rickety old structure. It was old, and obviously not built for cars. Christa doubted it could carry a half-tonne vehicle. Neal stepped out onto the moist wood and jumped up and down a few times. "Seems solid enough. Looks like a car came through here not long ago, too. Tracks, see." It was true. A car had driven this route recently. The tire tracks had left an impression in the ubiquitous mud. The truck edged its way over the ominously creaking structure. To the relief of the archaeologists, it seemed to support their weight comfortably enough. As they drove, it became apparent they were travelling in a slow circle winding around a large, denuded hill. Someone had been taking wood from this area. Ghostly tree stumps poked out of the ground, and rotting logs lay strewn everywhere. The site had been visited recently. There was a clearing in the debris, roughly circular, with the bare skeletons of tall pines piled on one side. They found the abandoned buildings easily enough. A hundred metres away dozens of carved, pillar-like wooden poles, arranged in unnaturally straight lines, stood jutting up from the freshly cleared undergrowth. "Well, that was easy. If everything's like this, we'll be ready for the crews in no time." Clouds of mosquitoes and blackflies descended on them as soon as they left the suburban, but the swarms were a little less voracious in the open air. The dark forest canopy and rotting wood seemed to shield the ravenous vampires from the sun's heat. Sam had three painful welts on his arms already. The stench of decay and death permeated the damp night air. Beneath the soil itself, evil, lurking things moved. Gangly,thin limbs reached up, tearing at the ground, their green fingers hungrily scrambling after the slumbering bodies of the tent's hapless occupants and their living, wet flesh. They reached through the floor of the tent, ripping apart the rancid earth floor, fingers crudely probing the sleeping bags, lifting and pulling them under. The sleepers awoke too late, screaming, clutching desperately at the sky... Neal woke several times during the night in cold sweats, trembling from the continuous nightmares. They'd thought the campsite was outside the ancient cemetery, but... bubbling noises during the night sounded alarmingly like water filling up graves and then trickling slowly out. Neal tried to ignore it. They laughed about it nervously in the daylight, but at night it was more difficult to dismiss. After the first few nights, Neal slept on several layers of blankets. They'd set up camp in a cleared area near the bottom of the hill. The shallow depressions of graves spread around them, but the area they chose was relatively even. While not superstitious, the place truly was the stuff of nightmares, and Neal wasn't the only one who found sleep difficult. The brilliant Aurora Borealis dominated the night sky. Under its eerie light and the flickering glow of the campfire, distant trees seemed to be surveying interlopers looming on the edge of the clearing. Weird shapes moved just beyond the darkness, flitting forms on the edge of human senses. The branches of the distant trees rustled in the wind, but the soft noise often didn't stop when the breeze dissipated. Animal life surrounded them. They could feel eyes watching from the trees. In the morning, the three archaeologists walked back to Thudaka River. "We can use this for water", Christa said, dipping her hands into it to drink. The water was icy cold, refreshing in the stifling heat and humidity. "You know what I want to do?", Neal announced with a grin. An excellent swimmer, he was standing near the shore, the water swirling gently around his legs. He pulled off his shirt and waded out. Sam followed, and Christa waded out to her knees. Precisely when they did this, the river picked up speed dramatically. Bits of shore broke free and sailed down the stream. Talons of icy current tried to grab the student's bodies and drag them along. "This is weird", Neal said, struggling. "It's as if it's trying to grab me." All three made quickly for the shore. The moment they escaped from the river, its speed slowed perceptibly. "Uh, right. This river, my friends..." He paused. "... uh, this river is evil." There was nothing living in the water they could see. They should have noticed this before they waded out, Christa thought; nothing alive in the water at all. It seemed acceptably pure, if tasteless, and it passed the portable Water Testing Kit standards. Not far away the Thudaka emptied into the savage Mad River. Surely, no-one could survive a trip down this. "Um, Let's not go swimming, eh?" The river gurgled noisily. Sam stood slowly and scanned the landscape. "I really, really don't like this place," he said, shaking his head. Sam glanced at his friends and then sat still for a long while, staring at the now sluggish, bubbling river. Saturday arrived, the site was finally cleared and surveyed, and the trio could get a good view of it. The hill had already been cleared when they arrived. As well, several pits had been dug into the crest of the hill, though they weren't in the survey area itself. Grimsley had given them no indication that any work had been done. If people had been tampering with the site, it would complicate excavations. A large town had been built on the hill, and the remains were remarkably well preserved. Even before they finished the survey, the outlines of the old settlement were apparent. With the constant rain at night, though, any excavations were going to be difficult. During the afternoon, Sam set about examining the pits that had been dug into the hill. Christa and Neal soon heard him shouting. They both dropped their survey notebooks and coils of string and ran up the steep slope of the hill. "You guys, you have to see this!" Their two faces bobbed into view, suspended over the side of a pit wall. Sam gesticulated wildly. "It's a tunnel. I think someone dug a tunnel. Get a lantern and some rope." With three lanterns and several lengths of rope, they descended into the pit. Lighting the lanterns, with an air of barely contained excitement, they then set off down the tunnel. It was short and had a general downward slope. After thirty metres, it opened into a cavity which Christa estimated to be about ten by ten by twenty metres, the floor level far below the tunnel's exit. Stone steps led down to the bottom of the room. From this, several other tunnels radiated off in different directions. Chests, made from moldy pine, were stacked up against the walls. The walls were reinforced by some kind of plaster, about twenty centimetres thick. Sam whispered, "I feel like Howard Carter, opening Tutankhamun's tomb." Christa, in the flickering lamplight, frowned. "Not quite. Look at those footprints. Heavy boots, made recently, I'd say. Someone's been here." "Yeah, I think so", added Neal, "And there's dog or animal tracks everywhere." The wood was covered with fungi and seemed spongy. It was a miracle that it was preserved at all. Earth showed through the floor through holes and pits in the plaster. Sam walked over to one of the wooden chests. Within was a vast collection of fish bones. The pine was coated on the inside with some kind of gooey resin. "Well, we know what this place was for. I'd guess it was a larder." "Or a tomb", Neal offered. "Food for the afterlife?" They thought about this for a moment. "Do you know what this means? We were looking for post-holes and shallow cemeteries. This, you know, this is bigger than us." Sam looked at his two companions. "I want to follow some of those tunnels." In a silence broken only by the ceaseless dripping of water, they took what seemed to be the shortest tunnel. After ten metres it led to another room, smaller, with several tunnels branching off. Piled in the room were innumerable evil-looking wooden masks and finely crafted chipped spearpoints. Christa shot a glance at Sam. "You were right. This whole complex is for storage." Every tunnel led to another room, each with hundreds of items, stacked or sorted neatly. "This complex is a complete inventory of Tatlatui material culture." Neal touched the plaster on the wall and rubbed away the resin from his hand. "You know, I think this whole hill is one big maze. I bet these caverns have several levels. Look-- that tunnel goes down. And I saw a trap door or something back there." Sam held up one of the masks. It was painted blue and had a toothy grin. It was a particularly hideous example of the woodcarver's artform. He cringed. "Can't say I'm an art critic as such, but this isn't the most appealing sort of thing." Christa examined the ancient wooden artifact. "These were all for rituals. You know, characters from mythologies, they'd re-enact stories." They started following a very long tunnel, which angled down, then back up. It had no branches. It was much wider, but wasn't plastered like the tunnels under the hill. Neal held up the piece a paper on which he'd been hastily scribbling. "You know, guys, I think we just walked to Thudaka River. These tunnels don't show any sign of stopping, either. We're, ah, about fifty metres under the ground. Look." He held up a makeshift grid-paper map, with rough measurements on the edges. "I bet this goes halfway to the town. Maybe all the way." Christa held up her lantern and, squinting, tried to peer into the distance. She couldn't make anything out. She turned to face the two men. "Right. Let's get out of here, I feel like I'm sprouting mushrooms. And we could explore this for months. We have Excited, they made their way slowly back to the first room. Flights of stairs and roughly-carved ramps led up into more levels above. Rotten ladders led to other tunnels. The maze seemed endless. Back in the harsh light of day, the trio sat on the edge of the pit, sweating and wet but exhilarated. Sam slapped each of his companions on the back. "My friends, I think we got ourselves a big one here." |