Prologue

[ Draft - April-25-2005 ]

January 13^th, Cambodia

The forest covering the hills was dozing under the hot afternoon sun. The waters of the Tonle Sap glittered in the distant south, while the jagged rise of the Dangrek Mountains broke the northern horizon. At the feet of the hills, the narrow lines of winding dirt roads cut the green of the jungle. One of them, more a path than a road, was leading to a recent clearing spotted with tents and small Quonset huts. The camp was silent, except for the buzzing of the insects, the piercing calls of a few birds and a muffled whirring sound coming from somewhere under the trees.

Richard stepped out of the kitchen hut. He noticed a movement from the corner of his eye. A monkey had climbed on top of one of the workshop sheds, trying to get in by the ventilation shaft. Richard grabbed a pebble and threw it in the direction of the intruder. He missed but the clatter of the stone on the hot roof was enough to send the animal scrambling down. As he watched the gibbon scurry away, another noise caught his attention: a car. He smiled. A car was a rare occurrence in this region where most vehicles were bus, trucks or old motorbikes. It had to be the one he was waiting for. He pushed his glasses back up his nose. He was soaked. The cooling effect of the icy soda he had just gulp down was already wearing off. Hot tea would have been better. Three months in Cambodia had not been enough to get used to the heat. If this was supposed to be the one of the coolest part of the year he didn’t want to be here to experience the hottest. One more month of work and the site would be closed until next year. Then, he could go back to England to enjoy the cool Spring and balmy Summer while working on the data collected this season and preparing for the next one.

The engine noise materialized into a small Japanese four-wheel drive. Its white paint was caked with dry mud and red dust. It was going slowly, the driver visibly looking for the camp. It stopped when he saw Richard.

The man who stepped out was a Cambodian in his early thirties, wearing the popular white short-sleeved shirt and tan pants. He waved at Richard, took a camera from the passenger seat, and jumped over the deep ditch that ran along the road and walked in the camp. He asked something in French, guessing a Westerner wouldn’t speak Khmer. Richard didn’t speak French either—the second language here—but knew enough to understand most of the question.

“Yes,” he answered in English, “this is Butterfly Point, the archeological site.”

The man smiled and switched to English.

“Good afternoon. I’m Kima Pruong from the Phnom Penh Daily. I’m here to cover the opening of the chamber your team has discovered. Yesterday I talked to someone who said it was all right for me to come.”

“Yes indeed, Lupe told us about your visit. I’m Richard Pendleton. Please, call me Richard,” he added shaking the reporter’s hand.

“Good to meet you, and please call me Kima. Who is Lupe?”

“Doctor Guadalupe Martinez, the head of the team. The person you talked to.”

“Oh, Doctor Martinez. I see.”

The visitor made a gesture toward the empty camp.

“The place doesn’t look very busy. Did I come at a wrong time?”

“No, not at all. Everybody is at the main temple, back at the main site. In fact, I was waiting for you to get you there. You arrive just in time: We have finished digging an access to the wall of the chamber two days ago, and we should be able to break through the wall before tonight. Come, I’ll show you.”

Richard led the reporter through the camp and the excavation area. The glade there was a maze of small tracks, trees, stones and trenches, squared in a checkerboard of cords. Several ruins were scattered on the slope of the hill, some cleared, some still entangled in the bushes and the lush vegetation.

“I’m curious,” said Richard. “How did you come to know about our discovery?”

“That’s part of the job. I keep my ears open to the rumors in the street. I was at Siem Reap this week, to cover that story about the Chinese restaurants there. While I was in there I went to visit a friend who works for the Conservatory at Angkor Wat. He told me about your findings. My editor thought it could be a nice change from the depressing stories we usual have to print. Talking about the glorious Khmer past will be refreshing.”

“Indeed.”

“And, who knows,” Kima added with a mischievous smile. “Maybe you will unearth some magnificent treasure. I wouldn’t want to miss such an opportunity.”

“I wouldn’t count on that. I doubt very much we are going to find anything but a few stones and maybe some carvings and perhaps one or two statues. Treasure discoveries are far from being the norm in our field. ...Uh, by the way: What is the story about the Chinese restaurants in Siem Reap?”

“You didn’t hear the rumors? The police raided several restaurants last week and they caught many of them serving illegal meat. You know: monitor lizard, pangolin, monkey, and even binturong. If it continues like that Cambodia won’t have any more wildlife left within a few years. There are already so many animals killed by the land-mines.”

“Yes, quite right. ...Uh, what exactly is a binturong?”

Kima smiled with indulgence at the European’s ignorance. “It’s like a small bear, except that it lives in trees and smells like popcorns.”

“Popcorn, really?” Richard glanced at the man’s face, not sure if he was pulling his leg. But the journalist features were as serene and friendly as before. “I see. So, they were cooking and serving binturongs and lizards, and all those things?”

“Yes. It’s easy. Most people, especially the tourists, can’t really tell what is in a Chinese dish anyway, there are too many things mixed together. The problem is that some of those animals have diseases that would be not too good for a man to get.”

“I see.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence: Kima looking around him, and Richard, a frequent patron of the Chinese restaurants of Siem Reap, digesting the news.

They reached the main temple as the whirring sound stopped. A group of people was gathered near the north wall of the construction, but Kima barely noticed them. He was looking at the temple in awe. Even with most of its dark brown stones still covered by moss, vines and tree roots, the splendor of the delicate architecture was obvious. It appeared better preserved and more complete than any Angkorian ruins he had seen so far. Some of the Vishnuite figures carved on the lintel of one of the portals had been already cleared from the foliage and looked astonishing. Kima recognized Vishnu reclining on the serpent Anata, and Lakshmi, and several other Hindu deities. The few rays of sunshine piercing the canopy of the forest and the erratic dance of yellow, white and red butterflies were giving a strange sense of life to the scene.

“Hello Mr. Pruong. Welcome to Butterfly Point”.

The voice brought the journalist back from his contemplation. It belonged to a short and thin woman with Hispanic features. Several stands of black hair escaped from her chignon and plastered her brow. She had an air of authority and, to the journalist surprise, had spoken in Khmer.

“Nice to meet your Doctor Martinez. This temple is incredible. I’ve never seen any preserved like this.”

She smiled proudly.

“Me neither. We are very lucky. You have come at the perfect time: We have just finished cutting the inner wall and are about to open the chamber.”

“Great. Could you give me a general background on how your team made this discovery?”

“Sure.” She collected her thoughts as they walked toward the trench.

“In 1996 a satellite survey revealed the ruins at Sman Teng, not far south from here. Based on these new findings, more satellite surveys were arranged. In 2000, the coverage of this area was done, with higher resolution. That’s when these ruins were detected. It took more than a year to organize for a scout team to come and verify on the ground. They found this: a small complex of three temples and some additional buildings. The constructions probably date back to around 1150, at the end of the reign of Suryavarman II, and more or less at the same time Angkor Wat was built. But, unlike Angkor Wat, this complex has been left untouched. It hasn’t been re-consecrated as a Buddhist temple or modified in any way. By all reckonings, the temples here are exactly as they were eight centuries ago.”

“A friend at the Conservatory told me you were funded by the UN. Is that true?”

”That’s correct. It took several years to this organized, but we finally we were able to take advantage of one of UNESCO programs to mount this field campaign in cooperation with the Cambodian Ministry of Culture. We have been here for about three months now, and we will be back for probably two or three seasons. Maybe more depending on what is in the chamber,” she added with a grin.

“So nobody knew about those ruins before the satellite pictures?” Kima asked.

“Not exactly. The few people living around here have actually an oral tradition about this place. But they keep it quiet. It’s a forbidden ground. Frequently we see ruins of temples kept secret by the local villagers, but here it seems to go beyond that: The stories say it’s a place that must not be disturbed. Even back when the Khmer Rouge was controlling the region the place was left alone. Actually they had even set land-mines all around the site. We had to wait for the army to clear the area before we could start working. It’s like they were trying to protect it.”

“Or to protect themselves from it,” Kima remarked.

“I suppose you could see it that way too. Whatever was the reason, it had the effect to keep the statuary well preserved. Apparently even the looters, who do so much damage everywhere else, do not dare to come here.”

“Aren’t you afraid to have some protest from the locals when opening the chamber?”

“Not really. We have the government’s green light, and besides there is not a lot of local population around here anyway.”

“How did you actually detect the presence of the chamber?”

“By accident.” She pointed one of the smaller structures, a stone throw away from the main temple. “See this smaller construction? When we checked it for structural damage we found many cracks on its south wall. Usually it indicates there is some problem in the foundations or that a sinkhole has formed nearby. Fixing the cracks won’t do any good as long as the reason for them still exists. So we used a ground probing radar to try to locate the source of the problem. It’s a fairly common procedure. And sure enough, we did find two sinkholes between the two buildings. Both created shifts in the soil, weakening the wall and ultimately causing the cracks.”

“But the main temple didn’t have any cracks?”

Lupe smiled, appreciating the reporter’s deductions implied by the question.

“That’s right. Not a single structural fracture. So, as you probably guessed, we asked ourselves why and we did more ground probing. We found that the building had very unusually deep foundations. More probing led us to finally discover the presence of the chamber directly under the north side.”

“Could it be a tomb?” wondered the journalist.

“I guess it’s a possibility. The buildings are oriented westward, which usually indicate the direction of Death in Hindu architecture. This said, it’s very unlikely that the chamber would contain the remains of a king or a prince. Like now, most people were cremated back then. All this is just theory: it may be something else than a mausoleum.”

“What could it be then?”

Lupe laughed. “Each of us has a different opinion. Your guess is as good as mine.”

“But what is yours?”

“I suppose it could be some sort of ceremonial chamber. The readings from the ground probe don’t show any passage between the room and the temple above, but it could have been filled or have collapsed at some point, and the chamber forgotten. In any case this is very unusual. As far as we know, no subterranean room like this has been found in any Angkorian building. It’s a first.”

“Could it be a natural cave?”

“Not according the geology of the area: we are mostly on alluvial terrain, with lot of sand and leached clays, and erosion debris from the hills. I would be mightily surprised to find a large natural cavity here. Besides, the readings indicate a rectangular and regular shape, not something you would find in Nature.”

They had reached the northern wall where everybody was. Most workers were Cambodian, but Kima also noticed two Westerners and several Japanese. Most were looking inside the trench; a few greeted him with a nod. Lupe gestured toward the hole.

“We are ready to open. Any more question before we start?”

“Just one: You said the people living around here knew about this place; how do they call it?”

“Pka Wat –the Temple of the Flowers.”

The excavation dug by the crew was right against the temple’s wall and almost three men deep. It was flanged with wooden beams, and had a steep incline to facilitate access.

“We hadn’t planned on having to open a buried room, but the Japanese team working at Angkor Thom has been kind enough to let us borrow some of their heavy equipment,” explained Richard pointing at pneumatic drills and a stone-saw. “The wall has two layers. The outer is made of laterite bricks, very hard to cut through. The inner side is made of sandstone. First we removed enough bricks for an opening, and then, this morning, we started working on the inner wall.”

“Aren’t you worried about damaging some artifacts or some sculptures by getting into the chamber like this?” Kima asked.

Lupe sighed.

“It’s unfortunately the only way to get in. Even with the probe we couldn’t find any trace of an entrance anywhere. Yes, there is always the risk of breaking some carving on the other side of the wall, but for what it’s worth, we tried to pick a location where there is less chance to break something: low and off center. That’s why the trench is so deep.”

Time and the damp soil had rotten some of the surface of the stone, but it remained solid and cutting a panel hadn’t been easy. The crew’s foreman, a burly Cambodian with a broken nose, that Lupe called Chetra, was now fixing ropes on three hooks that had been anchored at the top of the square section they had cut.

Kima could see the method they had followed. They had first drilled holes in a low horizontal row and insert steel struts. Then, they had cut a square section, using the row as its base, and had completed the work by cutting between the struts. Now the slab was completely severed from the wall and rested on the improvised girders, ready to be pulled down.

“Will it be safe to breathe the air inside?” He asked.

Richard nodded. “Good question. Yes, it is safe. We already analyzed the dirt and air samples taken through the cuts. The most common problem is usual caused by Cryptococcus fungi in the dirt. Some can cause serious lung infection and even meningitis. But as far as we can tell this room is safe.”

Lupe had joined Chetra and three of his men in the trench. One of the Japanese was filming the scene with a small video camera.

Silence settled on the site as the four men took the ropes and started to heave. The lump of sandstone was heavy but gravity was helping. It fell down the trench with a deep thudding sound. A smell of stale air rushed out of the opening. Everybody was stretching their necks trying to see inside but the opening was at a bad angle and too deep into the trench to make out anything.

“Where is that flashlight I asked for, half an hour ago?” Lupe asked.

As someone raced to the camp, she knelled down and put her head through the small gaping hole.

She saw immediately something was not right. With her upper body blocking most of the light, the interior of the chamber should have been almost pitch-dark. It wasn’t. A faint glow was hovering in the musty air. It came from the center of the room: a soft horizontal sliver of indigo light on a big square of stone.

The chamber was not very large, about four paces by six. The opening stood almost at the base of the wall, about twenty centimeters from the floor and the ceiling was about two meters above. Both floor and ceiling were made of stones as well. As far as she could see, except for the central block, the chamber looked empty and had no door or other visible entrance. She had the sudden realization that the strange contraption resting at the middle of the room had been immured and buried on purpose. To keep people from reaching it. Or it to reach people.

“So? Can you see anything?”

Richard had climbed down and was standing behind her, impatient.

Lupe shrugged off the strange feeling she had experienced and backed out of the hole.

“I’m not sure. Where is the flashlight?”

“What is wrong?”

“I don’t know.” She looked at her colleague. “There is something glowing inside.”

“Glowing? What do you mean glowing?”

Above the trench, the small crowd became agitated. Someone reminded everyone that the temple was facing west, the direction of Death.

Richard stepped forward and plunged his head in the opening. A long minute passed before he stepped back.

“Yes. There is definitely something glowing. What is it?”

“I guess we’ll know soon enough. Maybe some phosphorescent fungus.” said Lupe who was recovering from her initial surprise and was getting back to her usual efficient self.

Someone handed her a flashlight.

“I’ll go first. We need picture. Akira, you follow me. Will you have enough light?”

The Japanese with the video camera, who had also climbed down, nodded and switched to a simple camera with flash.

They both crawled through the opening, head first.

The room smelled of decay and ancient dust. The walls were simple slabs of sandstones, bare of any decoration or carving. The room was completely empty, except for a central block of stone standing knee-high. The faint light was coming from the base of an upturned bowl of ceramic resting on the flat surface of the stone.

While Akira was taking pictures of the bowl, using his pen for scale marker, Lupe examined it and decided it should be fine to move to see what was the source of the light underneath. She took firmly hold of the curved sides of the bowl and left it slowly. The bluish light became more intense. She put the bowl aside and frowned at the uncovered stone. The light formed a small opaque but glowing dome-like half-sphere which seemed to merge into the stone.

“What in the world is this?” Lupe wondered aloud, mystified and vaguely uneasy.

Akira moved his pen closer to the light and took more pictures from different angles. When he was done he reached to put the pen back in his shirt pocket. His sweaty and nervous fingers betrayed him: at midway the pen slipped and felt on the light.

The light vanished on contact, like a bubble.

They both swore. Then, they saw the three forms that had been hidden under the dome. Their mind froze, incapable of processing the information their eyes were transmitting.

There, resting on the cool surface of the stone, in a buried room sealed eight hundred years ago, were a small shinny disk of metal and two flowers ...freshly cut.