Lost In The Sun
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Mark Waring
Lost In The Sun
Mark Waring
Published by Mark Waring at Smashwords
Copyright 2009 by Mark Waring
This book is a work of fiction. Names of characters, locales, and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental, and any reference to real persons or characters is made coincidentally.
For more information please contact info@ayacoco.com
First Edition, 2009
Cover design by the author.
Acknowledgements
First, to the undeniable power of the internet, which allowed me to stalk the corridors of storied English halls of learning, sail south to the sun kissed beauty and gothic charms of the Spanish coast, and jump in seconds across the ocean (and back and forth), to explore places real, histories lost, and magical mountains blessed by the tragic beauty of their past and present travails.
As well, to the very real haunts where James, Monte and Johnny stoically tagged along as I typed, edited, hand marked up, typed, retyped, erased-no, wait, let me restate this...
Finally, to my wife and my girls, who encourage me and remind me the power of imagination.
Prologue
The granite face soared up from the steep mountainside, smooth vertical sheets of stone emerging from the forest canopy and climbing high above the treetops, folding and narrowing as they towered skyward. Overhangs crowned massive crystalline deposits, formed by moisture clinging in the recesses, eking minerals to the surface from the rich veins within. Finally, high above, the face ended abruptly in fissured clefts and ridges, in places eroded away, exposing shafts of harder stone reaching up from within like fingers grasping up towards the sky.
Through much of the year the pale sheen of its face stood outlined against dark grey, hulking thunderheads above, which drenched the valleys below before being torn into swirling fragments, chased to the west in front of freezing currents which roared down from distant, snow capped mammoths. The remaining, scattered streaks glowed pink in the evening sky, then as the sun fell lower towards the horizon brilliant oranges, and finally, as the sky deepened to an eerie cobalt blue, blood red trails glowing fiercely above the darkening mountains.
As the sky changed hue so did the cliff, its striations glowing in the falling rays, sparkling pink and yellow, in places green and violet, all diffused together in a glittering pastel display. The effect lasted for only minutes, but for that time it seemed to glow with an iridescence of its own; an enormous, rough carved jewel, gleaming intensely against the darkening sky.
At its base beneath the treetops a large slab of stone lay on its side, fissured away from the cliff and creating a nearly flat ledge which rested on the sloped ground. Its surface was weathered smooth and dark, dramatically setting off the pale granite face rising behind.
On the cliff above the ledge, rows of rings had been carved on the rock. In the light of early morning they shimmered, dew clinging to their edges, interrupted in places by tiny rivulets of water trickling down the stone, leaving dark trails behind. The first rays pierced the heavy, steamy air, forming golden shafts of light as they penetrated leaves and limbs in perfect parallel lines, illuminating the mist till they disappeared into the soft forest floor. As the sun rose the forest floor darkened, shaded by the thick canopy overhead, the dew evaporated as temperatures quickly climbed, the circles again dark and hidden on the wall.
Nearby, a steep trail climbed up the mountainside, the cliff face hidden where it passed by, obscured by trees and brush growing on the slope between. It began in a valley far below, along the lip of a deep gorge whose banks were blanketed by small trees, large sweeping fronds, ferns, and dense ropes of climbing vines, all but obscuring the rushing river which coursed through its base. The water rushed over rocks and fallen tree trunks, then in stretches swirled in swiftly flowing pools which reflected strips of blue sky. It was fed by streams, rivulets and countless tiny trickles which spilled down from the slopes above, rushing unseen along the base of small rills, flowing over half rotted stumps in tiny waterfalls, and forming pools in earthen hollows, percolating through the decomposing forest bed below, speeding its transformation into rich, new earth.
The trail wound its way higher past the carvings, continuing in endless switchbacks, ascending until it reached the bare, towering summit of a snow capped mountain peak high above. There, where the trees, and then the small alpine flowers, and then the last traces of grass dwindled away, leaving only bare windswept earth and rocks underfoot, the path too disappeared amongst enormous frozen crags which loomed beneath the frozen summit.
Below one outcropping a series of stone terraces formed a flight of giant steps up the mountainside, their carefully laid forms strangely out of place. Thin drifts of crusted snow lined the crevasses at the base of each step. Red and brown lichens formed splotchy patterns on the stone. Though bare of other life, the air sang on its own, wailing and whistling as icy gusts blew through chinks and gaps between stones, sometimes accompanied by a sharp clattering of brittle shale as large flakes were dislodged by a particularly fierce curl.
The ancient steps were the work of slaves, a wiry lot of malnourished, bronze skinned men, none more than twenty five, most much younger, all belonging to a small clan which ruled the valley below. They had struggled in the mountain’s icy grip, working from sunrise till darkness, two perishing the very first night, cuddled together under a large outcropping, their underfed bodies unable to resist the plummeting temperatures, even with the protection their sewn llama skins provided. The survivors left them where they lay and worked on until the terraces were finished. In only twelve days it was completed, a garden for Manca Punac, the sun god, a garden where special animals and humans would grow from seeds delivered from the heavens.
When they marched silently down to report their success, the clan’s spirit seer and his son prepared to ascend the same trail the following day, portered in part on the shoulders of more slaves, including two who had just survived the ordeal of its construction. The mountaintop ceremony consisted of a shuffling dance, the elder leader blown almost off his feet more than once by the gale force winds which whipped the peak, and then the casting of small, sacred stones and shells over the terraces by his son. Finally, with a cursory grunted command a small llama calf was brought forward. It had been carried up strapped to the back of a slave, braying, kicking and spitting for the first hour of the climb, and then growing still, the only sound its small gasping for breath, tamed by fear or exhaustion. It lay still on the cold stone, only its eyes bulging and darting wildly about as the priest deftly slit its throat with an obsidian blade. The ritual was completed with a quick chant which was impossible to hear above the whistle of wind. He and his son, helped once more by others, climbed down without another word.
Thoughts of the mountaintop shrine were soon preempted by more immediate concerns. By the time of the grandchildren of the clan members who had ordered its creation it was forgotten entirely. The steps stood vigil on the mountainside, as alien in appearance as when first completed, braving freezing winds under the sere sun, silently reflecting the night’s brilliant star filled skies, while below life slowly evolved and at times leapt forward in moments of ferocious change.
The circles on the cliff face halfway down the mountainside were carved by another small forest tribe’s spirit leader and chief, born more than two centuries after the steps high above had been abandoned and forgotten. He was addressed by his clansmen as Inta Amu, though his full name was much longer, including secret names of power which he had memorized for his father when he was a small boy. He carved the rings to mark the passing of each winter since his first and only son’s birth. He completed one row of nine and one more of eight above before being overcome one spring morning by a sudden, terrible pain gripping the side of his stomach. By that afternoon he lay murmuring, semi-comatose, under a shelter near the cooling breeze of a waterfall, and was dead before the sun had sunk beneath the mountaintops
The ritual circles, along with the leadership of the small clan left behind became the responsibility of his son, an able apprentice, already well established in his own manhood and position within the small group’s hierarchy. He was addressed as Apocac Tama, his full spirit name Puma Amu Apocac Tama. He had accompanied his father each winter to watch as the older man patiently etched another ring on the cliffside by the light of the moon, or by the dark glimmer of clouds covering the sky above. As he stared at his side, the boy felt the power of his own spirits surge within him. The sun would be reborn, growing stronger in the sky, granting longer days, spring rains, and ample harvests.
After his father’s death Apocac Tama quickly learned to avoid the lurking memories of their winter nights together at the cliff. His first trek there alone under a moonless night sky, many months after his father had left the human world, he had remembered as he stared at the perfect patterns glistening on the wall before him. Soon he was forced to hide, crouched at the base of the rock, salty tears staining his face, bringing only anger and recrimination for the womanliness and cowardice they conveyed. He did not repeat the mistake.
He was proud to inherit the role of chief. He was now, like his father had been before him, guardian of the portals to the spirit worlds for his people, and their unquestioned leader in all decisions that affected the clan’s position amongst its neighbors.
The seasons passed, one after another, marked by harvests, hunting expeditions, and welcome and much celebrated births of new sons. He had served his responsibility well, winning respect and the unquestioned fealty of his own warriors. Forty two circles he had counted on his last visit. He was sure that he was now older than any of his clan’s hunters, older than any of his many cousins, and he guessed that he was even older than any of his slaves.
It was three months since that last sojourn to the hidden cliff, and nearly a year had passed since the attack by the men from the west. He had only recently allowed himself to feel a cautious reassurance, which the warm spring days encouraged. His clan’s stores of potato eyes were healthy and would soon be ready for planting.
The next night the moon waxed half full in the sky. As night took hold, he performed a dance, a ritual dance he and his wives had prepared for carefully for several days, bent over in swirling motions near the middle of a small clearing on a gently sloping hillside above his village. The dance was an offering to the gods of the sky: to the Sun, Inti Amu, as it disappeared below the horizon, and then in turn to the Moon, Illaca Amu, rising in the sky above him as he continued his motions. In return he knew he would receive portents from the gods, visions which would ensure success in the harvest, in their hunts, and now, even more importantly, against their enemies.
The trees around the clearing were sparse. Fires from his village could be seen through their limbs, flickering far below like fireflies. The darkness encircled him, wrapping his motions like a dark mist. He had begun two hours earlier, in the still warm and humid air of evening, but now the night was cold, chill gusts flowing down the hillside. Apocac Tama paid no attention, spinning slowly, his leather tunic tied about his shoulders, a tightly woven skirt of dyed cloth fixed about his waist.
His right eye was missing, gouged by an iron edged club the summer of the previous year. The attack had cost him dearly, on the still dark, early morning when the strange band of warriors had snuck unseen into his village. He learned later that the strangers called themselves Moche, and that they came from beyond the mountains to the west. He also learned that hours before, the Moche had attacked two neighboring valleys, murdering several of his relatives.
He had had no warning that morning, awakened suddenly to the sounds of screaming men and women, grunts of fighting, the clash of clubs and spears. He bolted upright inside his thatched, skin draped hut, an instant later leaping to his feet, his club already in hand. He pulled aside the pelt that hung from the wooden limb above the entrance and saw a large shadow appear to his side, and an instant later the head of a wooden club, barbed with jagged metal bands, sailing towards his face.
He slowly regained consciousness the following day, feeling at once the right side of his head caked in dried blood. He struggled to make out his clansmen staring down at him in fear, warriors of his village, most of whom had survived by running and hiding in the jungle after a short attempt to fend off the well armed and well organized attackers. One assured him that the strangers, the ones who called themselves Moche, had soon left as suddenly as they had appeared, though one had shouted to the hiding villagers first, many of his words unclear but the message still clear enough; that the Moche claimed control of their land as far as the eastern horizon, though immediately after they had turned and disappeared back into the mountains to the west.
Apocac Tama slowly recovered. For almost one year the intruders had not reappeared. The men of his valley and the surrounding valleys, however, had not ventured far into the western hills since the attack.
The sight in his missing eye was replaced by constant mottled shades of darkness, interrupted at times by intense flashes of bright colors, often appearing in distinct shapes. He quickly grew familiar with the images, soon relying on them as signs from the spirit world.
As he continued to spin in the clearing, the night air grew even colder. He stared up at the sky, his head thrown back. A headpiece made of a thick band of animal skin dyed with yellow diagonal lines and squares, with tiny feathers sewn to the bottom wrapped tightly about his head. Attached above his forehead was the jawbone from a young jaguar he had killed in the still of night one year ago. It had come to feed on a llama kill he had watched from his hiding place since early that same evening. The incisors rose like horns from his head, the bone running back on each side like a crown, held tight by leather cords. Three tightly braided strands decorated with black and silver beads hung at his temples, one on his right, two on the left. Small gold amulets were fixed to the end of each, mingling with his long, matted black hair. One had been formed into a small, gold sun, delicately twisted rays extending out in all directions, another a figure with sloped forehead, the mouth a mass of sharp teeth, a pointed tongue protruding at its center. The other was a plain disc of gold, inlaid however by rows formed of tiny bits of black, red and sparkling green stones.
Near the edge of the clearing the remains of a fire glowed. Swirls of smoke danced up from the embers and disappeared in the cold night air. The moon hung low above the horizon, and overhead stars shone in an endless array of twinkling diamond points stretching to the tops of the trees. Apocac Tama’s one eye could not focus as he leaned back, his senses numbed by the ritual consumption of chicha which he had begun that afternoon before painting his face and arms. The weak alcoholic mixture had been prepared with special care by his eldest wife several days earlier, patiently boiling germinated corn kernels and afterwards fermenting them together with the cobs in large clay pots, adding beet sugar to speed the distillation.
He drank through the evening, gulping liberally with a wooden ladle while seated around the fire, repeating incantations intended to alert the ghosts of the underworld, most importantly his own ancestors and the gods of the sky to the approach of his offering. The alcohol accumulated in his blood, as he finally danced bringing the intended dulling effect, after the heightened awareness of the prior day, as he mechanically chewed and refreshed a wad of crushed coca leaves and ground limestone from a leather pouch attached to his waist.
Near the dying embers three others sat cross legged. They were dressed similarly, one wearing a simple leather head band, bare of any adornments. Their heads bobbed to their chests as they chorused a chant over and over. The man wearing the band beat the ground in time with a wooden club, a small bowl formed in the earth before him.
On the opposite side of the clearing, almost invisible in the dark shadows of the trees, two small women sat on their knees on the bare ground. Their hair was long and heavily oiled, as jet black as the men’s. Both wore woven leather tunics decorated with colored tassels woven about their waists, attached to thick rope belts.
One’s face was wrinkled, lined prematurely by the intense sun and dry winds of the mountainsides. She stared blankly at the man dancing in front of her, the bony fingers of one hand rhythmically tapping her other arm.
The woman at her side was younger, though she too had witnessed similar rituals many times. For some reason on this night the dance failed to keep her attention. Feeling ashamed for her weakness but still distracted, she stole glances up at the sky, knowing she would be punished if seen making eye contact with the world of the gods while her spirit leader danced for their benefit. Still she gazed, risking tilting her head back slightly, feeling herself pulled upwards, as if a giant hand was reaching down to draw her towards the brilliant points aligned in magical patterns. Some shone especially bright, and she noticed one was actually a cluster of several individual points, revealed when she stared carefully at their halo. She saw all the detail that her spirit leader did not, and she marveled at how they dared to shimmer with such beauty.
Apocac Tama danced. His movements and the chant were new. He had derived them from the increasingly frequent visions in his head since the attack, and since the unforgivable theft that had followed. The dance was an appeal to the gods for favor, for justice, and for revenge. And privately as he danced, he implored the Sun and the Moon for forgiveness for his failure to protect his village’s most powerful source of magic.
The day after the attack by the strangers from the west, conscious again, though still blurry mentally and physically from his severe injuries, Apocac Tama struggled to listen to the details shared in hushed tones by his oldest son. Soon his eyes flashed with anger on top of his pain. He stared up wide eyed at the boy leaning over him, who was also injured with a horrific welting slice across his upper arm, staring back fearfully as Apocac Tama struggled to regain his senses.
After routing the village, he learned, the Moche warriors had made for a small cave which lay above a rock ledge overlooking the narrow, fast rushing river at the bottom of their valley. A young clansman who spotted the intruders from his hiding place in the bushes leapt forward and charged across the waters to protect the shrine. He was killed before he made it to the entrance, impaled by a spear in his chest. A minute later the intruders disappeared into the forest, one holding an object in his arms, an object Apocac Tama knew without asking what it was.
As the news of the loss sunk in his mind whirled madly. How could the men from the west have known of the Visitor, the living god delivered to his clan by the overseers themselves? A dark cloud of suspicion formed as he remembered the reports a nephew had delivered to him thrice over the last month; accounts of men from the clan two valleys away to the south, a clan into which his nephew’s brother-in-law had married and who now reported back to the nephew regularly, who in turn shared his observations with Apocac Tama.
Three men from the neighboring clan had suddenly reappeared in the village after having been overdue from a hunt in the hills to the west for two days. They had showed off strangely woven baskets filled with berries and cured meats. The men laughed off questions about how they had come across the offerings, but had since twice left in the same direction again, each time returning two days later, each time with more strange gifts, boasting each time of their own growing power in the clan. Their insolence had grown, his nephew had been told; even daring to savagely beat a girl from their own village who asked them whether they had met a jaguar spirit.
Apocac lay on the floor of his hut, his head pounding as he wondered furiously. He had already suspected that the men had formed some alliance-a forbidden alliance-with another clan, likely one traveling from somewhere farther away. As he sat up painfully, clutching his head and taking a drink of water from a gourd offered gently by one of his wives, he wrestled with the thoughts, alarms ringing in his head, trying to reject the crushing pain washing over the right side of his face.
The two distant relations would have known of his clan’s shrine by the river, and of the object secreted within. They might have even visited, as its presence was a well known source of power for his clan and it had kept their neighbors in respect and fear. Two days of feasting had followed the completion of its new resting place, with generous gifts presented to all who came to pay tribute. Its presence even now brought offerings of pelts, root medicines and amulets from those same neighbors, and at times from even more distant clans, though Apocac Tama recognized, and resented that now its presence was largely taken for granted, the offerings grown few, even these limited to auspicious weeks before harvests.
His head throbbed violently. A wave of dizziness and nausea swept through his body and he was forced to lie down again, a reed pad propped beneath his head by the same woman who had given him water. He was too weak now to try to plan anything, to figure out anything more. He closed his eyes. His mind drifted far back in time, to the events which had led to the idol’s presence in his valley.
He had marked thirteen years just two moons prior, excited to have been initiated into manhood in time to accompany his father and a small group of important clansmen and hunters, including a few women servants, to survey lands far to the south, with the expectation of finding new grounds for hunting llamas, gathering valuable herbs and fruits, and procuring slaves, maybe even more women to bring back to their own valley.
After three days of arduous trekking, every step of which the priest’s son found exhilarating though nerve-wracking as well, as they marched farther and farther from the world of their mountainside the group finally found themselves surrounded by the peaks they had sought. As they marched across high ridges, he stared at the sun as it sank to the west, towards the great lake hidden somewhere far below, which a neighboring warrior had once described to an awestruck Apocac Tama when he was only a boy.
The evening air grew sharp and cool. The scent of sage and dried grass filled the air. The small group paused in the middle of a large clearing which afforded a view of the valleys below, several more unexplored ridges before them. As they huddled, standing or crouched on the ground, his father carefully scanning the horizons, their mission was suddenly forgotten.
Those squatting stood in alarm and then hurried to their leader, staring with him at the streak of light that suddenly appeared in the sky above their heads. A fiery apparition, certainly a god, blazed across the darkening sky, diving like a hawk in front of them, in seconds disappearing behind a ridge not far to the east. His father turned in alarm, searching the skies for more visions, and then spying one of his warriors cowering behind a stone. He ran over, angrily berating him with shrill screams, and striking him rudely across the back with his fist for his womanliness, which surely had disgraced them all in front of the messenger, then turned back, staring up to the sky once more before hurriedly removing amulets from his pouch and examining them on the ground.
When he stood again, he followed the gaze of another who pointed urgently to a distant plume of dust which now rose from beyond the ridge where the demon god had disappeared. He shouted commands to leave. The small group, the women wailing softly as they scurried at the back of the line, hurried behind their leader across the slopes, towards the ridge where the apparition, they all knew now, lay waiting.
An hour later the small expeditionary force stood barely visible in the last glimmers of twilight, the clouds black shapes against the cobalt blue sky, two tiny clusters of life in the midst of a high, sharply sloping mountainside field covered by knee high grass. The men stood tensely in front, the women squatting in the grass farther below, huddled closely together, their wailing now a common chant which consisted of only a few words, repeated over and over in soft, high pitched strains.
Apocac’s father and the others, Apocac close by his father’s side, stared up the slope before them. Three held stone tipped spears at their sides. One spoke, jabbing menacingly up the slope with his spear. Apocac’s father silenced him with a quick, chopping motion of hands in his face. To his son the evening had quickly become a dream like swirl of semi-consciousness, a vision quest as bizarre as the hallucinations he experienced during his three days and nights in the men’s skin lodge, drinking chicha replenished by the women through a covered flap, during his passage into manhood.
All of them stared ahead again in silence. The sound of the women’s wailing swirled softly in the air, mixed with the rustle of grasses. The screeches of bats echoed up from below, where they darted above the bushes.
Presently, after more tense exchanges of words and a moment of nervous, angry shoving between two of the men, Apocac’s father finally stepped forward. He stood by himself in the growing darkness, the others falling silent at once, staring at him expectantly. Cold gusts of air swept past, fanning strands of hair about his face. He stared up the hillside towards the sight which had brought them to a stop after their hike in pursuit of the mysterious visitor.
After making his decision to pursue the Visitor, he had led his party down from the crest of the ridgeline they had been following. They stopped again where a ledge afforded a view of the same distant plume, the swirl in the air appearing to quickly be fading. They quickly trekked down through the narrow valley between, then back up the sloping mountain, fighting their way through a long patch of sharp, thorny, waist high brush at one point, until they finally emerged up onto the grassy slopes above, and after more rocky, tree lined crests and hollows, came finally to a broad, sharply slanting plane, where they stopped, huddled together in awe, staring at the scene on the mountainside before them.
His father now stepped cautiously up the slope, crouching low to the ground. He was twenty nine in years, wiry, strong, and proud. His cheeks and arms were covered with rows of small scars, highlighted with painted dots and dashes of color. His chest was scarred with three wide, long slashes which made white lines on his bronzed skin, one above, and two more below his breasts. His short, matted black hair was adorned with small bones attached to a leather head dress which wrapped tightly around his forehead.
Slowly he stepped up the hill, chanting under his breath, his arms held out at his sides, palms facing down, sweeping back and forth slowly above the ground as he crouched even lower, as if trying to disappear into the grass and dirt below his feet. Before him the slope was scarred bizarrely. A large crater lay torn into the mountain, dirt and stones disgorged about its rim and trailing down the slope below. As he approached he saw that farther ahead and to the left another raw gash in the ground. It was smaller and more elongated, spurs of dirt kicked out in a fan about its rim. The shape and orientation told him instinctively that it had been gouged in the mountain by the same demon that had bored the larger hole before him, that both were the work of the apparition they had seen hurl by from afar.
His memory of what happened next, as his father disappeared in the dark haze, was forever unclear; muddled, shorn into incomplete sensations and stark images, as it was now as he grasped once more at the past, trying to ignore the throbbing pain, made only worse after having lain back down on the floor of the hut.
Still clear was the image of his father climbing grimly into the crater, looking back down the hillside and then turning and slipping on the loose soil, sliding down and disappearing with a terrifying cry. Less clear was the sensation of himself running frantically up the hill, ignoring cries from one of his fellow clan men to stop, and then hearing others following behind him.
Then, only fragments frozen, bleached and eroded by time: a terrible rushing of wind, a hurricane like sensation pushing him down, lying on the ground in a mist or fog and holding his head up to see a funnel of intense light shooting up into the night sky, leaping upwards from a single point on the ground near him, fanning out and up, pulsing, throbbing in some blinding flickering pulse too fast to follow, leaving him covering his head with his hands. Then a shrieking, never sure as the memory of it shot fear through him again whether it had been his own, or his father crying in some torment at the bottom of the pit, or maybe, he had once concluded, a roar of the demon god itself. It had, he decided later on his own with a combination of fear and fascination, intended to stay hidden on the mountainside, its twilight flight not meant for mortal eyes, his father’s daring act to follow and capture it from its perch on the mountainside unwelcome.
The images grew even more haphazard; his father’s painted leg, bloodied and dirty, digging into the soil next to him, crawling forward, his face shouting in his own, but no sound emerging, only a half stunned, half crazed look as he urgently screamed something to Apocac. Running with abandonment down the grassy slopes, seeing one of the women left behind, huddled on the ground, trying to cover herself with her tunic like a sack of potatoes. Running, then tripping; viciously scratching his side on a sharp broken branch which stuck out of from a fallen trunk which caught his foot. Ignoring the torn tunic and the blood, running again, at the same looking about him wildly, thinking the others had disappeared, slipped away into the darkness, only to suddenly collide into the back of one of the others running ahead before him into the brush and towards the safety of the forest below.
Finally, minutes, an hour later, a pause, but only until his father ordered them on, heading north, abandoning their original mission. Finally another rest, longer this time; an hour or two, maybe longer, long enough that the horizon had turned a dim yellow with the coming of the sun. His father commanded them onwards once more, and as they trotted in single file on a trail which was still unfamiliar to him, he finally noticed in the early light the large, oblong object his father held under his arm, covered by his leather satchel which he had hastily tried to wrap about it. As they jogged silently towards home, the sky now growing brighter about them, he felt still in a trance, exhaustion and shock funneled in to a myopic vision of the hints of the jet black, inky smooth surface showing from under the blanket. Rest again; furtive gulps from their water flasks, chewing wordlessly on flat pressed cornmeal cakes which they carried with them.
Later, hours later, he finally recognized his surroundings as they followed his father up out of the forested pathway and onto another grass covered hillside. Ahead, a stone arch stood near the top of a hillock. His father yelled coarsely as they approached, and moments later a man appeared at its side, a man Apocac recognized at once by his tall bent form, his craggy nose and chin, a mystic called Tuca Ama, a strange, powerful man who had visited their own village three times that Apocac Tama could remember, each time delivering messages of power that he had divined from forest deities who he called on, which were interpreted by him into propitious choices of amulets for male clan members entering the age of manhood. He had spoken for a long time to his own father his last visit the past spring, and Apocac had later been presented with an icon carved from the wood of a Toc’tolcha tree into the shape of a wolverine’s head. He had accepted it proudly and kept it in a small reed basket hidden underneath the foot of his bed coverings.
After quickly greeting Tuca Ama by the stone altar, his father had commanded the others to wait, heading into the small hut located farther up the hillock alone with the man, the bundle still held tightly under his arm.
The sun rose above the ridges. Finally his father emerged, empty handed, followed by the forest priest, who called for all of them to follow to a circle formed on the ground by an array of flat stones. The mystic passed around a large wooden cup filled with chicha, and after the group had drunk it dry he recited a long chant, followed by a spontaneous and impressive homage to the sun god, his black teeth smiling gleefully as he recounted the bravery of Apocac’s father in delivering a protector from the stars to give them strength and power.
After Tuca Ama was finished, his father waved his hands brusquely over his head, commanding them all to leave at once and head back to his village, and telling them to prepare his people for a new, important and powerful overseer to come and dwell in their valley, one which would bless them with great power. The next day, the icon had come to rest within the boundaries of their own village, hidden in his father’s hut till the cave by the river was ready, forbidden thereafter for any but his father to enter.
Apocac Tama enjoyed a heady sense of importance, the benefit of being part of the auspicious expedition. He enjoyed this new status; it was more than he had hoped for on his first expedition as a man, and he relished the status it imported upon himself, in spite of the lurking conviction in the back of his mind that the encounter with the gods had been an uninvited one.
He was disappointed, however, when he anxiously sat with others to hear the village elder, his own great uncle, recite the tale which all had waited to be ready for several days. He found it at once disappointing, not describing the real events, the real experience. It did not capture the visceral reality of the evening on the mountain, the feel of the earth, the lights and dreams which emanated so forcefully in front of him, and did nothing to explain what had actually happened, or described what his father had held under his arm.
Stolen! With another surge of pain the memories were swept away again by rage, and by thoughts of how he would exact revenge and recover the glory that belonged to his family. His anger stewed inside him, with little to do now, without the resources to abandon his village and pursue the unknown enemy.
The Moche returned a few weeks after his dance on the hillside, which was already almost a year since the attack. This time the men from the west did not attack with a sudden, surprise assault, but with a more insidious and even more effective tactic. A hunting party from his clan, including two of Apocac Tama’s own wives who had been sent to carry meat home, did not return one evening as planned. An hour after sunset one of the women straggled into camp, limping and covered with mud. The others had been killed, she explained between spells of fainting. They were the same men who had attacked the last summer, she was sure. The victims had included his two most able warriors, in addition to one of his wives. The news reverberated throughout the village at once. The next day, all of the women, even many of the men, refused or made excuses not to venture out of the immediate village.
Four days later, as some semblance of normalcy was beginning to return, three more men were murdered. A man watching Apocac Tama’s herd of llamas in the upland fields was ambushed shortly after sunrise. Two others, sleeping nearby, had run to his aid upon hearing his cries. When Apocac Tama had quickly gathered a group of others to investigate the cries from the hillside, they found the first man lying dead in the field, his head caved in by a stone edge, and soon found the two others lying nearby amongst the trees, impaled by sharpened wooden spears.
Apocac Tama spent the following days furiously chewing coca during the day and imbibing chicha at night, his head filled by quickly changing tides of uncertainty, fear, and rage. The village now resembled a prison, with no one daring to step far from their huts. Food supplies quickly grew low, his total population now a terrified contingent of no more than a dozen men of fighting age, the rest women and children.
The fourth night after the attack he had a vision as he lay in the darkness of his hut, unable to sleep. It was preceded by painful flashes of light pulsing in his blinded eye socket, which suddenly subsided and were replaced by a path, a directive delivered to him by his own wolverine spirit guide. He called the remaining men to come to his hut and told them to prepare for a trading forum the next day. They stared at their leader, clearly weakened by his drug and alcohol binge. His bloodshot eye and raspy, tired and somewhat querulous voice gave his clansmen little cause for reassurance as he haltingly explained to them that he had received instructions from his own animal protector to entreat the Moche to a truce, and to propose a sharing of knowledge and power within their valley. One began to protest but was silenced quickly by others, knowing that challenging their chief and priest would only guarantee their doom.
They gathered up what objects of value they had, which were still considerable; the attacks so far had not touched their collection of gold and silver wrought amulets, their stone jewelry, nor the ceremonial stools and feather robes they saved for dressing their own stone idols during the harvest ceremonies. After drinking heavily of chicha from Apocac Tama’s remaining stores, the small group crossed the river and climbed cautiously into the hills above, heading to the west with their offers of trade slung over their shoulders.
For the first few miles he paused often, raising his hand in the air and crying out greetings to the empty forest. No one answered, and as the sun rose and hung high overhead, he reduced the frequency, stopping to call only when they rounded a new ridge, or when he simply needed a break to rest. By afternoon, they still had found no trace of the westerners or of any humans amongst the thin chain of trails that they had followed so far.
Tired, and now upset by the lack of results, he motioned them to stop. The group set their bags on the ground and sat in a circle within a small natural clearing, surrounded by tall cypress and alder trees. Apocac said nothing, staring blankly at his men. One man across from him wanted to know who had brought water. Apocac realized that he had forgotten to order any flasks to be filled at the river before hurrying on with their quest, and he looked angrily back at the young man in reply.
A high pitched whistling sound caught his attention at the same moment he felt a rude jolt shove his body forward. He looked up to see his men suddenly staring back at him, their faces frozen, eyes wide in terror. The pushing sensation continued. He looked down and saw a pointed arrow tip protruding from the front of his chest, a red stain spreading onto his leather tunic. As he looked up a second arrow pierced his neck, the razor sharp obsidian tip severing his windpipe, the shaft tearing at his jugular, its momentum carrying it across the clearing and bouncing harmlessly off the tunic of the man who had asked for water.
Apocac desperately stretched a hand out before him, bracing his palm on the ground. He raised the other to his neck and felt a spraying stream of fluid, looking down and seeing a red gushing flow spilling onto his arm and pooling on the ground before him. His mind swelled. He grasped at the meaning, and then clung desperately to the sight of the blood, the stream surging now in spurts which matched a massive, throbbing force, as if a giant stone was being lowered upon his entire body, pushing him relentlessly down to the stained ground. As he slumped forward the vision in his good eye went black, and then for a moment was replaced by a startlingly clear image of the circles on the cliff, his father’s serious face huddled close to the surface, studying his effort intently.
Chapter 1
The voyage by sea from the shores of England to the Mediterranean coast of Spain, though considerably longer in distance, was still preferable to the arduous (and often dangerous) journey over land until the middle of the eighteenth century. Sailing south along the cliffs of Normandy and then past the tip of Brest, frigates, schooners and galleons plied across the Bay of Biscay, then west over the northern coast of Spain before turning south again. Past Portugal’s crumbling rocky coast, interrupted by small harbors and sheltered coves filled by fishing boats bobbing gently at their moors (and today by tourists soaking up the long summer sun), past the sprawling seaside city of Lisbon before finally tacking east, splitting the Strait of Gibraltar and following the reliable easterlies back up the Spanish coast through the warm waters of the Mediterranean, where the city of Barcelona lies bordered in front by ribbons of golden sand, and backed by gentle rises which lead to Spain’s fertile inland plains.
The city’s sprawl flows down from the hills, filling the generous basin below. Today it is easily identified by the mix of ornate buildings, some dating from the height of the Spanish empire, and beautiful modern architecture, both interspersed by busy squares and tree lined parks. Nestled near the base of the hills lies the university, recognized throughout Europe as an historic and important collection of colleges spanning the sciences and arts, and adding undeniably to the city’s historic character.
The early fall semester had already begun as the sun sank towards a few scattered clouds gathered along the coast. At the northeast corner of campus, near a quad most famous for hosting marathon sessions of Ultimate Frisbee stood a cluster of buildings, most of these as old as any on campus. One, however, was clearly more modern, its dark glass windows framed by a façade of handsome, roughly polished stonework. A brass plaque embedded in a stone wall in front of the entrance read, Edmundo Del Torres History & Archival Center. Above the doors, white letters stenciled on the glass read, SNSc Hall 400.
The third and fourth floors housed labs, offices, and small lecture halls. On the second, long labs stored animal fossils and bones, an odd arrangement with the Department of Biology. Its most important contents, however, were stored on the basement level, reached by a flight of stairs hidden behind a pair of large, motor activated doors at one end of the main floor, or (and even less obviously) down an oversized elevator past a locked doorway leading towards the rear of the building, from where it could also be accessed from the loading dock entrance in back.
The humidity controlled basement housed over one hundred thousand documents, books and records, stacked on rows of shelves which stretched its length, adjoined on one side by a handful of small rooms which held special collections, tables for private study, and two larger labs for restorations. It comprised the largest collection of records of the Spanish presence in the Americas found anywhere in Spain, surpassing the more famous General Archive of the Indies in Seville. On the subject of the Spanish conquests and early colonial rule it held more volumes than anywhere in the world, including the central Catholic archives in both Lima and Mexico City, neither of which could match the sheer scope of the collection.
A man squatted at the end of one aisle in the underground labyrinth. He was slim, lightly bearded, his face exuding a boyish sense of youth. As Chair of the Department of Ancient History and Archeology, he felt a sense of responsibility for the tremendous resource the archive represented. It had been designed specifically for the purpose when the building had been erected twelve years earlier, and he had himself assigned its official name, The Ancient and Critical Document Archival Library,Universidad de Barcelona. Upon completion a parade of trucks and vans had delivered carefully packed collections from eight different university libraries, along with endowed and purchased collections from private, religious, and other academic sources, including collections from Mexico and South America.
The man paused for a moment and looked at his watch. His name was Montserrat Aguara; ‘Professor Aguara’ for students, but, as he quickly insisted, Monte to friends and peers. A large metal tray lay open on the floor before him. He muttered something as he stared intently at a piece of loose leaf parchment which he held in his hands.
He had spent two hours amongst the aisles filled with early documents related to the Spanish conquest of the Americas, concentrating on those associated with Peru, the last half hour camped on the floor at the side near the back, where a small alcove formed between the end of the rows and a dark glass wall separating the main archive room from small labs was piled with boxes and cases waiting to be sorted and shelved in turn. It was a likely place to find new examples of the information he was currently after. The cases left here would have been presorted to Peru, and would of course consist primarily of clergy records: journals, logs, and other writings which, though often less than scientific, often included copious, in many cases first hand accounts, of the conquistadors’ own fledgling activities and their early attempts to rule in the New World.
Church records, for better or worse, were the best surviving source of data regarding the early Spanish presence. Clergy priests and their emissaries had frequently been the first to visit the Inca in their native cities and villages, making brave (at times foolhardy) sojourns into the mountains and river valleys to establish relationships with the Native Americans. Their religious zeal was encouraged to ensure that the church shared in the rewards the New World had to offer; first conquistador plunder, and afterwards (and in the long run more valuable) grants of land and regencies, which included native Inca to squeeze for every drop of profit possible, all in order to satisfy the expectation that the church’s coffers be replenished for their efforts.
Though traveling for the most part with soldiers, often as part of large expeditionary forces, the church’s emissaries also ventured forth as lone missionaries, true zealots with little fear for their own safety, intent on pushing the envelope of their religious practices further into the new frontier From these individual first meetings between the Europeans and the Inca there was evidence of genuine interest in dialogue and understanding by both sides. And regardless of the underlying intentions and the often tragic end results, the written records produced were still recognized as irreplaceable sources of historical data.
Professor Aguara had spent more time than he intended on his visit this afternoon. He was looking for additional records to support a somewhat minor but nonetheless important element of his current publication effort. Well into his cursory review of document after document, hopping methodically from one shelf to the next for the better part of an hour, he had strayed from his plan upon noticing two steel cases placed against the glass wall behind two chairs. Their presence was somewhat unusual, even amongst the piles of other unsorted materials, and after passing by them a second time he stopped, staring curiously. He bent over to take a closer look, peering in between two of the chairs. They each had a handwritten label attached above the latch, the paper yellowed and faded. He moved a chair and crouched to make out the faint ink writing. It read the same on each case,
- 16th-17th century, various et.al.
- Church Records
- Inca transciptos/descriptions/miscellaneous; Iglesia de’l
Rocharrios
- Archived Madrid, 1758
He recognized the name of the church post, Rocharrios, as one of the first outside of major Inca cities. It represented an early attempt to push Spanish influence deeper into native Inca lands. He tried to recall its location, finally guessing it must have been somewhere in the foothills to the southeast of Cusco, in the highlands towards Lake Titicaca. He stared at the last line. It must mean, he realized, that the materials had been transferred to Spain from the New World in the mid eighteenth century. The circumstance was not hard to surmise, likely part of the many shiploads of records ordered returned for safekeeping by King Phillip II. The professor knew well the monarch’s efforts to repatriate as many New World accounts and records as could be requisitioned back to Spain, likely to avoid dispersions based on records of Pizarro’s aggressions to be cast on his own colonial ambitions. The king’s efforts to ensure the records were properly stored and archived in Spain were, however, not as energetic, and most of the documents were hard to find in present libraries, many or most having been lost or destroyed in the intervening centuries.
He moved the chairs further out of the way and with some effort slid one of the cases out from the wall far enough to open its lid. It was heavy. At least it’s not empty, he thought with some satisfaction, just as it lurched forward suddenly at his effort, a corner landing on top of his hand.
“Damn!” he swore, pulling his hand out and jumping to his feet in pain, and then glancing about embarrassedly, but realizing with relief there was no one present to hear. His hand was still healing from a bad cut he had suffered while working on a bookcase at home with his oldest boy the weekend before. It was something he had promised weeks ago, but only after missing all but the leftovers of Max’s eighteenth birthday party due to staff reviews which couldn’t be rescheduled had he felt bad enough to shove everything aside and tackle it that Saturday, Max gamely at his side.
The project had gone smoothly, if slower than hoped. He marked and drilled three sets of mounting holes for each shelf so Max could adjust them to different heights to accommodate whatever volumes he would soon be packing, together with the purchases he would be ringing up at the college bookstore for his first year away at university that fall.
Monte would insist his son take his dictionaries; English and Spanish, and at least one or two of the college texts which he had waded through during high school. Max would likely want to take some of his prized science fiction novels with him as well. The boy had amassed an impressive collection of hard cover, early edition classics: Herbert, Asimov, Farmer and many others, most of which he had purchased on the internet, usually for little more than the cost of shipping.
The frame had slipped from the vise, sending the corner cutting deep into the flesh of his palm. It bled heavily and he let Max help him to the kitchen with a towel held tightly about it. Delores rushed inside from the back porch, sensing that something was wrong and matter-of-factly, though with a concerned frown cleaning and tightly bandaging the wound. He gave her an encouraging smile when she was done, receiving a stern frown in return.
Max suggested they stop, but his father assured him he was okay, and by suppertime they had completed the ruggedly handsome piece. It would be a touch of home in a cramped college dormitory room, Max’s first real time away from Mama and Papa.
After noting no signs of fresh blood through the bandage, Monte turned his attention back to his find. Grasping the latch, he twisted with some effort and pulled open the lid. Two metal frames lay within, each filled by metal containers he thought at first were drawers, which would mean first wrestling out the whole frame to open them. On closer inspection, however, he saw they were in fact stacked trays that could be lifted out one by one.
He paused to retrieve a pair of latex gloves from a dispenser in the main hallway and struggled to work the plastic over his bandaged hand, managing somewhat imperfectly.
Next he knelt by the case and carefully picked up the first document resting on the top of the upper tray. It was a vellum sheet, yellowed by age but feeling firm enough in his hands. The flowing script was arranged in neat rows, words followed by numbers. After adjusting to the stylized penmanship he recognized it as a daily record of weather conditions, written, he was certain from seeing many similar logs, by a priest or assistant at a colonial church, most likely from the same church outpost listed on the label of the case. He looked at the dates listed beside each. The first read October 7, 1675. Scanning quickly to the bottom he found the last, February 24, 1676.
He set it down and lifted out another stack of documents. More weather records. He lifted the top tray out of the case and set it on the floor beside him. Pulling out papers from the next, he found more weather logs, others sheets recording packages and letters sent and received from the outpost. He set these back inside and tried once more, taking out the entire tray and setting it next to the first. The third appeared less clearly organized, and perhaps more interesting he hoped. It contained several oversized and clearly aged manila folders.
Who left manila folders in here, he wondered. They should be replaced with acid-free paper sleeves. He opened one and stared at its contents. Several handwritten pages lay inside. He labored to read the script. The ink had seeped into the vellum, blurring the lines and leaving him to decipher one word at a time. Presently he concluded they were journals, summary recordings from an early Spanish priest located wherever it was that the names on the documents referred to.
He looked again for dates. Near the bottom of the second page, written clearly in the same flowing script he found, Fifteen eighty eight.
Practically in Pizarro’s lifetime, he realized excitedly! If the documents hadn’t been studied already (and their poor condition made him almost certain they had not) they must be, he thought, if only for their early provenance.
After making his way slowly through more of the contents, he paused and glanced at his watch and hastily set the journals back inside, lifting out the other trays one by one. More records, mainly church logs, another producing pages which appeared part of an early Spanish friar’s journal, with references to skirmishes with Inca, complete with casualty lists.
In this, he uncovered something else; what appeared to be an account of an Inca ritual, a first hand description, this time embellished with condescending remarks by the Spanish author regarding the barbaric aspects of the dance and chant described. The account continued on another page with some questionable conclusions (likely written later, Monte decided), consisting of some trite conjecture on the meaning behind the performance.