The Kingdom

As Sam’s words trailed off they pa

“One way to find out,” Remi replied.

8

CHOBAR GORGE, NEPAL

As a ladder, the vertical alignment of the spikes would make Sam’s ascent awkward-if, in fact, he was able to reach the first rung. To that end, he uncoiled his rope, tied a slipknot in one end, and spent two minutes trying to lasso the second spike. Once done, he used a bit of parachute chord to secure a stirrup-like prusik knot to the rope to climb-and-slide his way up the wall.

With one foot perched on the lowermost rung and his left hand wrapped around the second rung, he untied the slipknot and clipped it to his harness. He then reached up, slid out the third spike, and started upward. After five minutes of this he reached the top.

“Not that I’d care to try it,” Sam called down, “but there are just enough handholds to make the ascent without the spikes.”

“It would have taken some skill to set them, then.”

“And strength.”

“What do you see?” Remi called.

Sam craned his neck around until his beam shone over the rock shelf. “Crawl space. Not much wider than my shoulders. Hang on, I’ll drop you a line.”

He withdrew the second-to-last rail spike and replaced it with a SLCD (spring-loaded camming device), which locked itself into the hole. To this he attached first a carabiner, then the rope. He dropped the coil down to Remi.

“Got it,” she said.

“Wait there. I’m going to scout ahead. There’s no sense in both of us being up here if it’s a dead end.”

“Two minutes, then I’m coming after you.”

“Or if you hear a scream and a thud, whichever comes first.”

“No screaming or thudding allowed,” Remi warned.

“Be back in a flash.”

Sam adjusted his position until both his feet were perched on the uppermost spike and his arms were braced against the rock ledge. He took a breath, coiled his legs, and pushed off while levering with his arms, launching his torso onto the ledge. He inchwormed forward until his legs were no longer dangling in air.

Ahead, Sam’s headlamp penetrated only ten to twelve feet. Beyond that, blackness. He licked his index finger and held it upright. The air was perfectly still, not a welcome sign. Getting into caves was usually the easy part, getting out often harder, which was why any spelunker worth his salt was always on the lookout for secondary exits. This was especially true of unmapped systems like this one.

Sam brought his watch to his face and started the chronometer. Remi had given him two minutes, and knowing his wife as he did, at two minutes and one second she’d be on her way up the rope.

He started crawling forward. His gear clanked and rasped over the rock floor, sounding impossibly loud in the cramped space. “Tons.” The word appeared, unbidden, in his mind. There were countless tons of rock hanging over his body at this very moment. He forced the thought from his mind and kept going, this time more slowly, the primal part of his brain telling him: Tread carefully, lest the world collapse around you.

He passed the twenty-foot mark and stopped to check his watch. One minute gone. He kept crawling. The tu

He craned his neck and called over his shoulder, “Remi, are you there?”

“I’m here!” came the faint reply.

“I think I’ve got something!”

“On my way.”

He heard her crawling up behind him as her headlamp washed over the walls and ceiling. She gripped his calf and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “How’re you doing?”

While Sam wasn’t clinically claustrophobic, there were moments in particularly tight spaces when he had to exert strict control over his mind. This was such a time. It was, Remi had told him, the downside of having a fertile imagination. Possibilities became probabilities, and an otherwise stable cave became a death trap ready to collapse into the bowels of the earth at the slightest bump.

“Sam, are you there?” Remi asked.

“Yep. I was mentally practicing Wilson Pickett’s ‘In the Midnight Hour.’”

Sam was a fair hand at the piano, and Remi at the violin. Occasionally, when time permitted, they practiced duets. While composer Pickett’s music didn’t readily lend itself to classical instruments, as lovers of vintage American soul, they enjoyed the challenge.

“What’ve you found?” Remi asked.

“That it’s going to take a lot more practice. And my blues voice needs more-”

“I mean, ahead?”

“Oh. An opening.”

“Lead on. This crawl space is too tight for my liking.”

Unseen by Remi, Sam smiled. His wife was being kind. While Sam’s male ego wasn’t a fragile thing, Remi also knew that offering a little face-saving was a woman’s prerogative.

“Here we go,” Sam replied, and started crawling forward.

It took only thirty seconds to reach the opening. Sam inched forward until his head was through. He looked around, then said over his shoulder, “A circular pit about ten feet across. I can’t see the bottom, but I can hear water gurgling-probably a subterranean offshoot of the Bagmati. Directly across from us is another opening, but about twelve feet higher.”

“Oh, joy. How are the walls?”

“Diagonal stalagmites, the biggest about as thick as a baseball bat, the rest about half that.”

“No conveniently placed spike ladders?”

Sam took another look, pa

“Pardon me? Did you say-”

“Yes. It’s affixed to the wall by what looks like a leather cord. There’s a piece of cord hanging below the spear with a shard of wood attached.”

“Trip wire,” Remi commented.

“My guess as well.”

They’d seen similar traps-designed to foil intruders-in tombs, fortresses, and primitive bunkers. However old this spear trap was, it had likely been contrived to plunge into the neck of an unsuspecting interloper. The question, Sam and Remi knew, was what had the booby trap been intended to protect?

“Describe the spear,” Remi said.

“I’ll do you one better.” Sam rolled over on his back, braced his feet against the ceiling, and wriggled forward until his upper torso was jutting through the opening.

“Careful . . .” Remi warned.

“. . . is my middle name,” Sam finished. “Well, this is interesting. There’s only one spear but two more attachment points. Either the other two spears fell away or they found victims.”

He reached up, grasped the spear’s shaft above the point, and pulled. Despite its half-rotted appearance, the leather was surprisingly strong. Only after Sam wriggled the shaft back and forth did the cordage give way. He maneuvered the spear around, twirling it like a baton, then slid it back along his body toward Remi.

“Got it,” she said. A few seconds later: “This doesn’t look familiar. I’m no weapons expert, mind you, but I’ve never seen a design like this before. It’s very old-at least six hundred years, I imagine. I’ll get some pictures in case we can’t come back for it.”

Remi retrieved her camera from her pack and took a dozen shots. While she was doing this, Sam took a closer look around the pit. “I don’t see any more booby traps. I’m trying to imagine what it must have looked like by torchlight.”

“‘Terrifying,’ is the word,” Remi replied. “Think of it. At least one of your friends had just taken a spear to the back of the neck and plummeted into a seemingly bottomless pit, and all you’ve got is a flickering torch to see by.”