Read Ancient Echoes Online

Authors: Joanne Pence

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Ancient Echoes

BOOK: Ancient Echoes
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ANCIENT ECHOES

 

 

Joanne Pence

 

 

 

Quail Hill Publishing

 

 

This is a work of fiction.
Any referenced to historical events, real people, or real locales are used
fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of
the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

 

No
part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval
systems without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who
may quote brief passages in a review. This book may not be resold or uploaded
for distribution to others.

 

Quail
Hill Publishing

PO Box
64

Eagle,
ID 83616

 

Visit
our website at www.quailhillpublishing.net

 

First
Quail Hill Publishing Paperback Printing: April 2013

Excerpt
from Hieroglyphical Figures: Concerning both the Theory and Practice of the
Philosophers Stone (1624) by Nicholas Flamel. Printed by Kessinger Publishing’s
Rare Mystical Reprints

Excerpt
from
The
Lewis and Clark Journals, Gary E. Moulton, ed.
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska

 

Copyright
© 2013 Joanne Pence

All
rights reserved.

 

ISBN-10:
0615783368

ISBN-13: 
978-0615783369

 

 

Also
by Joanne Pence

 

SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES

DANCE WITH A GUNFIGHTER

THE GHOST OF SQUIRE HOUSE

GOLD MOUNTAIN

DANGEROUS JOURNEY

 

The Angie Amalfi Mysteries

 

COOKING SPIRITS

THE DA VINCI COOK

RED HOT MURDER

COURTING DISASTER

TWO COOKS A-KILLING

IF COOKS COULD KILL

BELL, COOK, AND CANDLE

TO CATCH A COOK

A COOK IN TIME

COOKS OVERBOARD

COOKS NIGHT OUT

COOKING MOST DEADLY

COOKING UP TROUBLE

TOO MANY COOKS

SOMETHING'S COOKING

 

 

 

To David

 

 

Table
of Contents

 

 Part
I
The
Travelers

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Part
II
Idaho

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Epilogue

Autho
r
’s
   Notes

About the Author

The
Angie Amalfi Mysteries

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part I
 
The
Travelers
   

 

 

Chapter
1

Mongolia

MICHAEL REMPART FLUNG back the
thick, musty brown quilt, rekindled the metal stove's dying dung fire, and
dressed in heavy woolens and an insulated jacket before stepping out of the
small
ger
.

The bitter winds of western Mongolia's Bayan Ölgiy region
slapped at his face and dried his eyes until they ached. Normally, the sky
above this cold, barren plain was bleak and pale and gray at the edges, as if
viewed through an ice cube. This sky was a murky mustard color that made him
uneasy. He'd seen this before on the Gobi Desert as a prelude to a sand storm.

His archeological dig team should have been busily moving
about the camp. But the camp was empty. The two aged Soviet-built GAZ trucks
used to transport men, equipment and supplies to the dig site were also gone.

Last evening, everyone had retired for the night in high
spirits. After weeks of anticipation, skepticism, and hope, the dig had reached
a depth from which they would learn if they had discovered an ancient tomb
filled with riches, or if all their work had been a colossal waste of time and
money.

Today would tell the story. But why was no one here?

A treeless, dreary expanse of low grass and scrub edging the
snow-capped Altai Mountains surrounded the camp. From China, the jagged peaks
arched through Kazakhstan to Mongolia and then from there to Siberia. The air
was thin in these high mountains, the land empty of humans except for wandering
bands of nomads…and Michael's dig team.

A tall, angular man, Michael Rempart was one of the world’s
top archeologists. His face, burnished and browned by the bright sun and cruel
wind, had a high forehead, sharp cheekbones, and a long, straight nose, while
hair the color of soot fell haphazardly to his shoulders. Only the slightest
crinkling of skin beneath deep-set brown eyes and edging a firm mouth hinted at
his forty years of age.

Michael's assistant, Li Jianjun, had insisted on locating
the dig site a full two miles from the camp. If Michael had placed the camp any
closer to the site, he wouldn't have found anyone willing to work for him. Even
here, despite his best efforts, the workers had remained fearful and jumpy.

It was because of the
kurgans
—long, shallow mounds of
black and gray stones that jutted eerily over the barren landscape to mark
graves.
Kurgans
were death-filled reminders of the ancient cultures that
once wandered over Central Asia and southern Siberia from the eighth century
B.C. to the thirteenth century A.D. Remnants of those cultures and their
traditions were believed by many to still exist. To this day, numerous stories
were told of the dead who walked among them.

Near them,
a darkness
hovered and
the earth seemed abnormally still. Near them, every nerve in Michael’s body
grew taut and tense.

The place they needed to dig sat between three such
kurgans
.

Michael ran toward the
gers
that housed his team. The
nomadic tents were commonly known as yurts in the West, but that was a Russian
word and never used by the fiercely independent Mongolians.

He swung open the three-foot high door.

On the ground stood a rounded object covered by white cloth.
White candles circled it. White signified death in many East Asian cultures,
much as black did in
the  West
.

Michael snatched off the cloth.

A human skull smiled up at him. It had browned with age, and
its few teeth were yellowed and worn. He studied it a moment,
then
lifted it.

BOOK: Ancient Echoes
5.54Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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