Ancient Echoes

CHAPTER 8



Mongolia

THE KARABURAN OR “black hurricane” swept over the desert at one-hundred-twenty miles per hour, burying everything in its path with layers of sand. This one was larger than most, a true Sahara-like sand storm caused when individual particles of sand vibrated and flew upward, and then slammed back to earth. As they repeatedly struck the ground they loosened other particles that did the same thing, causing the storm to grow and revolve, much as an ocean wave churned and swelled as it raced over the water.

Jianjun pulled Michael out of the tomb and forced him to hurry. Above them, the sky had turned a sickly brown. In the distance a wall of dust, sand, and dirt rolled toward the site. It looked as if the entire desert had been lifted up and formed a thick ochre cloud that would smother everything in its wake.

“There's no more you can do now.” Jianjun shouted as the wind grew louder. “You covered the coffin. It survived two thousand years; it can survive a few more days. We'll dig it up again when the storm passes.” He hooked one arm with Michael's, and with the other grabbed Batbaatar's shirt as the Mongolian led them to the jeep, with Acemgul pushing from behind.

“Get in quickly,” Batbaatar begged. He'd seen sand hit so hard it tore the skin off a man, and he wasn't about to get stuck in it, or to let that happen to his boss. Despite himself, he liked the difficult, solitary American, but the man had a death wish.

They jumped onto the jeep. Michael pulled his jacket off and covered his head and face with it. The winds advanced, swirling as if in some wild, syncopated rhythm. Depending on how the sands hit, the entire excavation could be wiped out in an instant, burying Lady Hsieh deep underground once more.

Batbaatar drove as fast as he dared across the desert. The first waves of sand punished the jeep, tossing it about as it struggled forward. Batbaatar used every ounce of strength to control the wheel. Yet, Michael's thoughts remained at the tomb.

Once inside the ger, although the storm shook its ribbed walls, its round construction helped withstand the area’s brutal winds. Two sturdy wooden vertical posts supported the entire structure, while wooden latticework framed the circular walls. Slim poles slanted upward from the walls to form a circle at the center of the roof providing a means to vent the stove. The walls were swathed in layers of thick, natural-colored wool with a top layer of off-white canvas. Overlapping rugs of hides from yak and horses along with richly patterned wool carpets covered the floor and portions of the walls.

Acemgul handed Michael a glass of airag, a sour brew of fermented mare’s milk, and made him drink it straight down. Batbaatar gave each man a bowl of hot tea laced with salt and yak milk in the Mongolian style. Michael didn’t realize his fingertips were nearly frozen from the temperature drop in the sunless sky until he touched the hot bowl.

To forget the sound of the storm, Batbaatar took out his stringed huqin and began to sing traditional melancholy songs of brave deeds of warriors past. Soon, the wind’s howls grew too loud for even that simple pleasure. The temperature plummeted further, and they all burrowed beneath rugs and quilts to stop shivering.

Michael leaned back against a pile of pillows, holding another glass of airag. Candles cast shifting patterns on the ger's walls, suffusing it with a subdued and gentle mood within the raging storm. Michael looked over at Batbaatar and Acemgul, and even Jianjun, all now convivially joking and drinking in this land of no power lines, no fences, not even a road sign.

He felt alone. Again. He shut his eyes, hoping for the relief of sleep.

The winds grew louder, thundering around him.

She opened her eyes and looked straight at me.

Gently, Jianjun lowered the lids, and they had stayed shut.

Her skin had been warm and soft. Jianjun saw that, too. Or had he?

He repeated to himself she was dead, she had to be, and yet…

He tried to convince himself he only wanted to find out how Lady Hsieh’s body could have remained without putrefaction or decomposition for over two thousand years. He knew of a few instances of that happening, but none for that length of time. In the west, Catholics believed the body of Saint Bernadette of Lourdes remained preserved after death as in life. In Japan, the tooth of the Buddhist monk, Nichiren Daishonen, honored by the Soka Gakkai cult, was said to have a piece of the monk’s gum on it, and that the gum was living flesh.

At the other extreme, the Soviets had tried to preserve Lenin’s body in a glass enclosure, but it rotted away and they had to rebuild him in wax—a sort of Communist homage to Madame Tussaud’s famous museum.

Michael had never heard of an instance of a body of someone who wasn’t a saint or a holy man surviving unblemished. But he had no interest in saints or sinners, no interest in the spiritual or ethereal. Cold, rational science interested him. Or so he tried to persuade himself.

Somehow, he would find a way to sneak Lady Hsieh out of Mongolia. Bribes might help, but somehow, he would succeed. He must.

She wasn’t just a mummified corpse to him, but much more.

He had to find out why.

The winds grew louder, thundering around him.

o0o

Michael left the ger hours later, drunk and miserable, while the others slept. The brunt of the storm had passed, but the night was cold and dark. He wanted the solitude of his own ger.

He paused, needing to think, but the world swayed under his feet and he stumbled forward.

He angled toward his ger.

It was gone. Smashed by sand. Blown away.

His mind couldn’t function. What had he been thinking? He should go back inside. Back to sleep. But not to dream. He hated his dreams.

It must have been the rush of air entering her mouth when I removed the red stone that caused her eyes to open that way. No other rational explanation existed. No rational...

He raked his hands through his hair. Only here, in this quiet loneliness, could he admit what he saw, what had both frightened yet electrified him. When her eyes were open, they were alive. Not the flat, unseeing eyes of the dead, but focused. Warm. They saw him, and somehow formed an unbidden, unimagined connection. They seemed to understand his innermost, darkest, most frightening thoughts.

The connection felt deeper, stronger, than anything he had known before; perhaps because it had been so startlingly unexpected. And real. He would swear that to his dying day.

Why was he out here? Suddenly, he didn't know if he was awake or asleep, or if this was one of those dreams so vibrant that when you woke, you could scarcely believe it wasn’t real.

He sensed her again. Lady Hsieh. She called to him. Even as he argued with himself about the impossibility of what he heard, something drew him toward the kurgans, away from the camp, out into the open. He couldn't fight it. He turned toward the dig. To Lady Hsieh. He needed to see her again, to answer her call.

He rose as straight as he could, shoulders broad and squared, and forced his steps toward the dig.

The air remained thick and murky, the stars and moonlight dim. All road marks had been covered by a heavy layer of sand and dust that sucked and grabbed his boots.

Yet, he knew he headed in the right direction. She drew him to her, led him there. A dream, but not a dream. He pressed forward.

Another burst of wind and sand hit, and he pulled his scarf low to cover his face. Head bowed, he stumbled, blinded, and then slid down a steep embankment into nothingness.