The Tenth Chamber

SIX

Luc was aware of motion.

He felt surrounded, in the middle of a pack, a stampede.

It was at once suffocating and disorientating, compounded by the way he was hyperkinetically moving his torch, bouncing angles of light off the tawny walls and stalactites in an effort to take it all in, flitting from image to image, creating a stroboscopic jumble in the black confines of the cave.

To his left was a charging herd of horses, huge beasts boldly rendered in charcoal that overlapped one another, their mouths open in exertion, their manes thick, their pupils piercing black discs afloat in pale ovals of unpigmented rock.

To his right were thundering bison with upraised tails and cloven hooves, all energy and menace, and unlike the horses which were done in stippled black, their massive bodies were fully shaded in bold swathes of black and reddish-brown.

Above his head was a single giant black bull in full motion, running headlong into the cave, two legs off the ground in a full gallop. Its head was lowered, presenting its horns in aggression and its nostrils were flared and its scrotum swelled.

Ahead, to his left and right, were massive stags with racks of antlers half as large as their bodies, their heads turned up, their eyes rolled back and their mouths open in bellowing posture.

And there was more, much more, fantastic creatures he strained to see in the dimming reach of his torch beam – a crush of lions, bears, roe deer, colour, so much colour, and was that the trunk of a mammoth?

Although there was a sense of velocity all around, his feet were firmly rooted to the ground. He must have stood on the same spot for an immeasurable length of time before he became conscious of the pleading shouts coming from below.

He also became aware that he was shaking febrilely and that his eyes were wet. This was more than a moment of discovery. This was Carter at the Valley of Kings, Schliemann at Troy.

In the mouth of the cave alone were dozens of the finest prehistoric paintings he had ever seen, nearly life-size animals done in a confident, masterful, naturalistic style. The great Lascaux Cave had a grand total of some nine hundred beasts. Within his limited sightlines he already saw nearly a quarter as many. And this was the tip of the iceberg. What lay beyond the limits of his torch?

Luc fully realised the weight of the moment – this was potentially even more important than Lascaux or Chauvet. Luc had never shown any interest whatsoever in mapping out his future. He’d always let things just happen in his professional and personal lives. He let himself be carried along by the stream of fate. But in an instant both exhilarating and frightening, he knew he’d be spending the rest of his life here, in this cave on the outskirts of Ruac.

He stepped back towards the fresh air, stuck his head out and had to snap his eyelids shut when Hugo’s beam hit him full-on.

‘Thank God you’re okay!’ Hugo shouted. ‘Why didn’t you answer me?’

All Luc could say was, ‘You need to come up.’

‘Why? What have you found?’

‘This is Barthomieu’s cave!’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, it has to be. Climb the same route I took. Carefully. And think about this: your life, my friend, will never be the same again.’