After a short time, Renco joined me to do the same. He was still wearing the Spanish attire that he had stolen from the prison hulk many weeks ago—the brown leather vest, the white pantaloons, the knee-high leather boots. The extra clothing, he once told me, had been of immense value to him during our arduous trek through the rainforest.
He slipped a quiver over his shoulder, began putting his sword belt on around his waist.
“Renco?” said I.
“Yes?”
“Why was Bassario in prison?”
“Ah, Bassario . . .” he sighed sadly.
I waited for him to elaborate.
“Believe it or not, but Bassario was once a prince,” Renco said. “A most esteemed young prince. Indeed, his father was no less than the Royal Stonemason, a brilliant builder and fashioner of stone, the most venerated engineer in the empire. Bassario was his son and protégé, and soon he too became a brilliant stonemason. Why, by the age of sixteen, he had surpassed his father in knowledge and skill, despite the fact that his father was the Royal Stonemason, the man who built citadels for the Sapa Inca!
“But Bassario was reckless. He was a brilliant sportsman—indeed as an archer he had no peer—but like many of his ilk, he was prone to drinking and gambling arid disporting with the pretty young maidens of Cuzco’s more raucous quarters. Unfortunately for him, however, his success with women was not mirrored at the gambling houses. He accumulated a monstrous debt with some less than reputable feUows. Then, when the debt became too great for him to repay, those rogues decided that Bassario would repay it another way—with his considerable talents.”
“How?”
“Bassario repaid them by using his brilliant stonemasonry skills to carve forgeries of famous statues and priceless treasures. Emerald or gold, silver or jade, whatever the substance, Bassario could replicate even the most complex object.
“Once he had copied a famous statue, his nefarious colleagues would break into the home of the real idol’s owner and substitute Bassario’s fake for the real one.
“Their scheme worked for almost a year and the criminals profited immensely from it until one day, Bassario’s ‘friends’ were discovered in the home of the Sapa Inca’s cousin, caught in the act of switching a fake idol for the real one.
“Bassario’s role in the scheme was soon uncovered. He was sent to prison and his entire family disgraced. His father was removed as Royal Stonemason and stripped of his titles. My brother, the Sapa Inca, decreed that Bassario’s family were to be relocated from their home in the royal quarter to one of Cuzco’s roughest slums.”
I took this all in silently.
Renco went on, “I thought that the penalty was too harsh and told my brother so, but he wanted to make an example of Bassario and he ignored my pleas.”
Renco gazed over at Bassario, working away in the corner of the citadel.
“Bassario was once a very noble young man. Flawed certainly, but essentially noble. That was why when it became my duty to rescue the idol from the Coricancha, I decided that I would use his talents to aid my quest I reasoned that if the criminal elements of Cuzco could employ his skills to suit their own ends, then I most certainly could too, in my mission to rescue my people’s Spirit”
At length Bassario finished his replica of the idol.
When he was done, he brought the fake idol—together with the real one—over to Renco.
Renco held both idols out in front of him. I looked at them over his shoulder and truly such was Bassario’s skill that I could not tell which was the real one and which was the fraud.
Bassario retired to his corner of the citadel and began gathering his things together—his sword, his quiver, his longbow.
“Where do you think you are going?” inquired Renco, seeing him stand.
“I’m leaving,” said Bassario simply.
“But I need your help,” said Renco. “Vilcafor says that his men had to remove a great boulder from the temple’s entrance and that it took ten men to do so. I am going to need as many again if I am to roll it back into place. I need your help.”
“I feel that I have done more than my share in your quest, noble prince,” said Bassario. “Escaping Cuzco, traversing the mountains, charging blindly through the perilous forests. And all the while making a fake idol for you. No, I have done my share, and now I am leaving.”
“Have you no loyalty to your people?”
“My people put me in jail, Renco,” Bassario retorted harshly. “Then they punished my family for my crime—banished them to live in the filthiest, roughest quarter of Cuzco. My sister was molested in that slum, my father and mother beaten and robbed. The robbers even broke my father’s fingers, so that he could no longer fashion stone. He was left to beg—to beg for scraps to feed his family. I have no grudge against my own punishment, no grudge at all, but then I also have no loyalty whatsoever to the society that punished my family for a crime that was mine and mine alone.”
“I am sorry,” said Renco softly. “I did not know of these incidents. But please, Bassario, the idol, the Spirit of the People—”
“It is your quest, Renco. Not mine. I have done enough for you, more than enough. I think I have earned my freedom. Follow your own destiny and allow me to follow mine.”
And with those sharp words, Bassario shouldered his longbow and climbed down into the quenko and disappeared into the darkness.
Renco did not attempt to stop him. He just looked after him, his face awash with sadness.
Now it was that the rest of us were all prepared for our confrontation with the rapas. All that remained was one final touch.
I picked up the small bladder of monkey urine that the toothless old man had given to me earlier that night and opened its cap.
At once, an utterly vile odor assaulted my olfactory passages. I winced at the odor and despaired at the prospect of pouring the foul-smelling liquid over my body.
But I did so nonetheless. And oh, how putrid it was! It was no wonder the rapas detested it.
Renco chuckled at my discomfiture. Then he took the small bladder from me and began dousing himself in the stinking yellow liquid. The bladder was passed to the other warrior who would be venturing up into the mountains and they, too, began bathing themselves in the foul, reeking liquid.
As all was approaching readiness, Lena returned with a much larger animal bladder—a llama’s bladder, I guessed—also filled with liquid.
“The rainwater you requested,” said she to Renco.
“Good,” Renco said, taking the llama’s bladder from her. “Then we are ready to go.”
Renco poured a trickle of rainwater from the llama’s bladder over the real idol.
It hummed to life instantly, singing its melodious song.
The interior of the citadel was empty. Lena had already sent the women, children and old folk of the village down into the quenko to commence their journey into its labyrinthine tunnels, a journey that would ultimately take them to the waterfall at the edge of the tableland. Lena herself had stayed behind in the citadel, ready to shut the doorstone after us.
“All right,” said Renco, nodding to the pair of Incan warriors manning the doorstone. “Now.”
At that moment, the two Incan warriors rolled the big stone aside, revealing the dark night outside.
The rapas were right there!
Waiting for us.
Gathered in a wide circle immediately outside the citadel’s stone doorframe.
I counted twelve of them—twelve enormous black cats, each possessed of demonic yellow eyes, high pointed ears and powerful muscular shoulders.
Renco held the singing idol out in front of him and the rapas stared at it, transfixed.
Then, abruptly, the idol stopped its singing and equally suddenly, the rapas broke out of their trances and started a low growling.
Renco quickly doused the idol with more water from the llama’s bladder and the idol’s song resumed and the rapas lapsed into their hypnosis once again
.
My heart also started beating again.
Then, with the idol in his hands and the seven Incan warriors and myself in tow behind him, Renco stepped through the citadel’s doorway and out into the cold night air.
The rain had stopped—at long last—and the clouds had parted somewhat, revealing the starry night sky and a brilliant full moon.
With flaming torches held high above our heads, we made our way through the village and onto a narrow path that ran alongside the river.
The rapas were all around us, moving with slow, deliberate steps, keeping their bodies low to the ground while at the same time keeping their eyes fixed on the singing idol in Renco’s hands.
My fear was extreme. Nay, it must be said that I have never been more terrified in my life.
To be surrounded by a pack of such enormous, dangerous creatures—creatures totally devoid of pity or mere creatures that killed without the slightest hesitation.
They were so big! In the flickering firelight of our torch the muscles on their shoulders and flanks rippled orange. Their breathing was loud too—a kind of deep-chested braying sound not unlike that of a horse.
As we walked along the riverside path, I looked behind me and saw Lena standing at the edge of the village holding a torch, watching after us.
After a few moments, however, she vanished from my view—having decided, I imagined, to go back to the citadel and carry out her duties there. We continued on our journey up to the mysterious temple.
Along the path we went. Nine men—Renco, myself and the seven Incan warriors—surrounded by the pack of rapas.
We came to the mountainside, to a narrow passageway set into the rockface. One of the Incan warriors told Renco that the temple was to be found at the other end of this passageway.
Renco doused the idol once again. It sang loudly, its high-pitched tone cutting through the early-morning air. Then he entered the passageway, the cats trailing close behind him like children following a schoolteacher.
As we walked down the narrow passageway by the light of our flaming torches, one of the Incan warriors foolishly attempted to stab one of the entranced rapas with the point of his spear—but just as he was about to drive his weapon into the beast’s flank, the rapa turned on him and snarled ferociously, stopping him in mid-lunge. The big cat then just turned forward and resumed its enraptured pursuit of the singing idol.
The warrior exchanged a glance with one of his companions. The rapas might have been entranced, but they were not totally defenseless.
Now it was that we emerged from the narrow passageway into a wide circular canyon of some kind. As the chieftain Vilcafor had said, a most incredible finger of stone shot up out of the middle of it, soaring high into the night sky.
A path was cut into the canyon wall to our left—the escape path Vilcafor had ordered his people to build. It curled around the circumference of the cylindrical canyon, spiraling up and around the finger of stone in its center.
Renco mounted the path, stepping slowly upward, holding the wet idol in his hands. The cats followed him. The Incan warriors and myself walked slowly up the path behind them.
Up and up we went Round and round, following the steady curve of the path.
At length we came to a rope bridge that stretched out over the canyon, connecting the outer path to the finger of stone in the middle of the great canyon.
I looked out across the ravine at the stone tower opposite me.
On top of the tower, surrounded by some low-cut foliage, I saw a magnificent stepped pyramid not unlike those found in the lands of the Aztecas. A box-shaped tabernacle was mounted atop the imposing triangular pyramid.
Renco crossed the bridge first. The cats followed him, one by one, bouncing with supreme surefootedness across the long swooping bridge. The warriors went next I crossed last of all.
Once I had navigated my way across the bridge, I mounted a series of wide stone steps which opened onto a clearing of some sort. At the head of this clearing lay the portal to the temple, the entrance.
Wide and dark, square and menacing, it yawned open as if daring all the world to enter.
With the wet idol in his hands, Renco approached the portal.
“Warriors,” said he and firmly, “man the boulder.”
The seven warriors and my humble self hurried over to the boulder that stood to the side of the temple’s yawning entryway.
Renco stood in the mouth of the portal, dousing the idol with rainwater, causing it to continue its melodious song.
The cats stood before him, staring at the singing idol hypnotized.
Renco took a step inside the temple.
The cats followed him.
Renco took another step down and the first cat went inside after him.
Another step.
A second cat, then a third, then a fourth.
At which stage Renco tipped as much water as was left inside the llama’s bladder over the idol, and then—after taking a final solemn glance at his people’s most prized possession—he hurled it down into the dark depths of the temple.
The cats leapt inside the temple after it. All twelve of them.
“Quickly, the boulder!” Renco cried, hurrying out of the temple’s entrance. “Push it back into the portal!”
We pushed as one.
The boulder rumbled against the threshold.
I leaned on it with all my might, straining against the weight of the great stone. Renco appeared beside me, also heaving against it.
The boulder moved slowly back into the portal. A few more paces to go.
Almost there . . .
Just a couple . . . more . . .
“Renco,” a voice said suddenly from somewhere nearby.
It was a woman’s voice.
Renco and I turned together.
And we saw Lena standing at the edge of the clearing.
“Lena?” Renco said. “What are you doing up here? I thought I asked you to—”
At that moment, Lena was shoved roughly aside, thrown to the ground, and suddenly I saw a man standing on the stone steps behind her, and in that single, solitary instant, every ounce of blood in my veins turned to ice.
I was looking at Hernando Pizarro.
A stream of about twenty conquistadors poured out from the foliage behind Lena and spread out around the clearing, their muskets raised and pointed at our faces. The firelight of their torches illuminated the entire clearing.
They were accompanied by three olive-skinned natives who each had long, sharp spikes of bone protruding from their cheeks. Chancas. The Chanca trackers Hernando had employed to follow our trail to Vilcafor.
Last of all—nay, most ominously of all—came another olive-skinned man. He was taller than the others, bigger, with a long shock of matted black hair that came down to his shoulders. He also had a spike of bone thrust through his left cheek.
It was Castino. The brutish Chanca who had been in the same prison hulk as Renco at the beginning of our adventure, the one who had overheard Renco say that the idol was in the Coricancha in Cuzco.
The conquistadors and the Chancas formed a wide circle around Renco, myself and the seven Incan warriors.
It was then that I noticed how filthy they all looked. To a man, the conquistadors were covered in mud and grime. And they looked worn and exhausted, weary beyond measure.
Whence I realized—this was all that remained of Hernando’s hundred-strong legion. On their march through the mountains and the forests, Hernando’s men had died all around him. From disease, from starvation, or just from sheer exhaustion.
This was all that remained of his legion. Twenty men.
Hernando stepped forward, yanking Lena to her feet as he did so. Dragging her behind him, he approached the temple and stood before Renco, staring imperiously down at him. Hernando was a full head taller than Renco and twice as broad. He shoved Lena roughly into Renco’s arms.
For my part, I cast a fearful glance at the temple’s portal.
It was still partially open, the gap between the boulder and the great stone doorway easily wide enough for a rapa to fit through.
This was not good.
If the water drained off the idol and it stopped its song, the rapas would break out of their spells and—
“At last we meet,” said Hernando to Renco in Spanish. “You have evaded me for far too long, young prince. You will the slowly.”
Renco said nothing.
“And you, monk,” said Hernando, rounding on me. “You are a traitor to your country and to your God. You will the even more slowly.”
I swallowed back my fear.
Hernando turned back to Renco. “The idol. Give it to me.”
Renco didn’t flinch. He just slowly reached into the pouch on his belt and extracted the false idol.
Hernando’s eyes lit up as he saw it. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn he began to salivate.
“Give it to me,” said he.
Renco stepped forward.
“On your knees.”
Slowly, despite the sheer humiliation that attended it, Renco knelt down and offered the idol to the standing Hernando.
Hernando took it from him, his eyes gleaming with greed as he stared at his long-sought-after prize.
After a few moments, he glanced up from the idol and turned to one of his men.
“Sergeant,” he said.
“Yes, sir?” the sergeant standing nearest to him replied.
“Execute them.”
My hands were bound together with a long length of rope. Renco’s were too.
Lena was snatched away from Renco by two of the Spanish soldiers, and the two brutes goaded her with foul utterings of what they would do to her once Renco and I were dead, utterings which I dare not repeat here.
Renco and I were made to kneel before a large rectangular stone in the middle of the clearing, a stone that looked like a low altar.
The Spanish sergeant stood over me, his saber drawn.
“You, Chanca,” said Hernando, tossing a sword to Castino. Ever since he had arrived in the clearing, the vile Chanca had been eyeing Renco with pure unadulterated hatred. “You may dispose of the prince.”
Temple Page 36
