Polar Shift

27

The rooms and passages of the cavern were like a dreamscape. Mineral curtains of soft orange and yellow draped the walls and the stalactites that ranged in size from pencil-thin rods to tall cascading columns as thick as a man's waist hung from the ceiling.

The ethereal beauty of his subterranean surroundings was lost on Schroeder. The bruise on his forehead throbbed like a tom-tom, and walking on the uneven floor of the cave aggravated his swollen ankle. He was struggling up a natural staircase when the exertion triggered a dizzy spell.

His vision swam and he began to see double. The loss of equilibrium made him nauseous. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead even though the air was cool. He stopped and pressed his head against the cave wall. The cold rock had the soothing effect of an ice pack.

Karla was right behind him. She saw him falter and went to his aid.

'Are you all right?'

'I cracked my head back there at the cave entrance. Probably suffered a slight concussion. At least it takes my mind off my sore ankle.'

'Maybe we should stop and rest,' Karla said.

Schroeder saw a low ledge. He sat down with his back against the wall and closed his eyes. He felt as if he had aged twenty years. The dampness was working on his joints, and he was having a hard time breathing. His ankle was swollen so much that he couldn't even see the bone.

For the first time in his life, he felt like an old man. Hell, he was an old man. He glanced at Karla, who sat beside him, and he was awestruck at how the baby he had awkwardly held in his arms on their first meeting had become a lovely and intelligent young woman. How sad he had never allowed himself to have a family. He consoled himself. Karla was his family. Even if he had not made a pledge to her grandfather, he would have done everything in his power to keep her from harm.

Their respite was short-lived. Muffled voices could be heard coming from the passageway they had just passed through. Schroeder was on his feet instantly. He whispered to Karla to turn the flashlight off. They stood in the darkness and listened. Distorted by the twists and turns in the cave, the echoes were like the mutterings of some troll-like creature. As the voices grew louder, they became more distinct. Men could be heard speaking in Russian.

Schroeder had hoped that he and Karla would not be pushed deeper under the mountain. He had been worried about finding their way back. Apparently, he had underestimated the determination of Grisha and his murderous band of ivory hunters.

Putting his aches and pains aside, he took the lead again. The passageway went down at a shallow angle for a few hundred feet before leveling out. The trek had taken its toll on Schroeder's ankle, and he had to lean against the wall a number of times to keep from falling. They were in danger of losing the race with their pursuers.

Karla was the first to see the cleft in the wall. Schroeder had been so intent on putting distance between them and their pursuers that he had walked by the wrinkle in the limestone where the wall folded in on itself, creating a narrow opening little more than a foot wide and five feet tall.

Schroeder's first instinct was to keep going. The hole could be a death trap. He stuck his head through and saw that the tunnel actually widened after a few feet. He told Karla to wait and he walked for fifty paces or so along the main cave. He placed his flashlight on the floor as if it had been dropped in haste.

The voices got louder. He went back to where Karla was waiting, squeezed his tall body through the cleft, then helped Karla through. They kept moving until they found a place where the cave curved slightly. He slipped the rifle off his shoulder and flattened his back against the wall. The first man through the hole would be dead.

They could see the ghostly glow of lights from the main tunnel. Grisha's harsh voice was clearly identifiable as he urged his men on with threats and jokes. The ivory hunters passed the crevice, and there was an excited yell. They had seen the flashlight. The voices receded.

Schroeder's intention was to slip back into the main tunnel and backtrack, but Grisha was no fool. He must have assumed that the flashlight's placement was too convenient to have been accidental. He and his men turned around and came back to the cleft in the wall.

Schroeder whispered in Karla's ear to get moving. As they hurried through the winding passageway, Schroeder decided their only course of action was to remain on the run. The flashlight beam was growing dimmer, indicating that the batteries were weakening. He would have to pick an ambush spot before they became lost or found themselves deep in the mountain with no light to show the way.

They walked for another ten minutes. The air was musty but it was still breathable, indicating that there was a flow coming in from the outside. The cave narrowed, and Schroeder saw a narrow fissure ahead. He stepped through the breach and his foot came down on thin air. He crashed down onto a slope and rolled several feet.

He crawled over, picked up the light and pointed it at Karla, who was peering from the fissure. The opening was about six feet above the floor. She looked bewildered. One second, Schroeder had been there, leading the way. The next, he had dropped out of sight, the flashlight had gone flying, and she had heard a thud.

'I'm all right,' he said. 'Be careful, there's a drop.'

She eased out of the hole and picked her way down the slope. Schroeder tried to stand. The fall had aggravated his injured ankle even more, and shards of pain shot up his leg when he put weight on his foot. He leaned on Karla's shoulder.

'Where are we?' she said.

Schroeder explored their surroundings with the flashlight. The tunnel was around thirty feet wide and thirty feet high. A section of the wall collapsed to uncover the hole. The ceiling was vaulted, and, unlike the cave they had come through, the floor was as level as a pancake.

'This isn't a cave,' Schroeder said. 'It's man-made.' He aimed the light at the opposite wall. 'Well, it seems we have company.'

Life-size figures of men and women adorned the wall. They were painted in profile, as they marched along in a procession, carrying flowers, jugs and baskets of food and herding sheep, cows and goats with the aid of large, wolflike dogs.

The women wore long, diaphanous white dresses and sandals.

The men were dressed in kilts and loose, short-sleeved shirts. Trees and other greenery made a backdrop for the parade.

The people had medium complexions, high cheekbones and raven hair worn in a bun by the females, cut short for the men. Their facial expressions were neither solemn nor happy, but somewhere in between; they could have been out for a Sunday stroll. The colors were brilliant, as if the paint had only been applied the day before.

The murals covered both walls. No figure was repeated. Most were young, in their teens and twenties, but there was a scattering of children and old people, including gray-haired men who wore ornate headgear and could have been priests.

'It looks like a religious procession,' Karla said. 'They're carrying gifts for a god or a leader.'

Schroeder leaned on Karla's shoulder as he limped beside her. As they continued through the tunnel, the figures began to number in the hundreds.

'It's good to have company, in any case,' Schroeder said. 'Maybe our new friends here will show us the way out.'

'They're definitely headed somewhere. Look!'

The mural had changed in nature. There were new animals in the mural-large, lumbering creatures that resembled elephants except for the shaggy, grayish brown fur covering their bodies. Flowers had been twined into their fur. The animals had high-peaked heads, and trunks that were relatively stubby. Some had tusks, almost as long as their bodies, that curved like the runners on an old-fashioned sleigh. Men rode on the animals like Indian mahouts.

'Impossible,' Schroeder said.

Spellbound, Karla stepped closer for a better look. In her eagerness, she forgot that Schroeder was using her for a crutch. He went down on one knee.

'I'm so sorry,' she said, seeing his predicament. She helped him up. 'Do you know what these pictures mean? People of an advanced civilization lived on this island thousands of years before the Egyptians built the Pyramids.