by Candace Camp
He stopped and sat down on a chair, sighing. He rested his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands, thrusting his fingers back into his thick hair. “God. You don’t know how many times I have wished that we had simply turned back at that point.” He rubbed his hands over his face, then dropped them to his lap and looked at her.
“But we did not. We set up a base camp, where we stored the majority of our supplies, our tents and pack animals. One of the four of us stayed at the camp with the natives at all times. We took it in turns. The other three of us would venture out in short exploratory trips, taking only a couple of donkeys to carry our supplies. Our last trip out, Barchester stayed at the base camp, while Dennis, Julian and I set out to explore. I fell ill about a day or two into the journey. I think that I must have caught the fever that felled Eberhart. As we hiked on, I grew more and more feverish and weak. Then it began to rain. We took refuge in a cave that we found partway up a hill.”
Theo stood up and began to pace restlessly. “That is where Dennis died. Barchester was not even there.”
“How did he die?” Megan asked quietly, watching Theo.
“He fell. The caves went deep into the base of the hill. He was exploring, and he fell.”
Megan’s heart sank, and tears clogged her throat. “You are lying to me.”
She stood up and walked around to stand in front of Theo. He looked at her, and she could see the misery and pain in his eyes.
“I can see it in your face,” she said, unaware that her eyes filled with tears as she spoke. “In the way you stand. The way you turn your head. You are a dreadful liar, Theo.”
“Megan, I swear to you that I did not kill Dennis,” he told her, gazing straight into her eyes.
Megan felt, with the same certainty in her midsection that had told her the moment before that he had lied, that now he was speaking the truth. “Then look me in the eyes, right now, and tell me how my brother died.”
Theo stared at her for a moment, then broke away with an oath. “Bloody hell, woman. I swore never to reveal this to anyone.”
He stopped and stood, gazing into the distance at something only he could see. Finally, with a sigh, he turned. “All right. Nothing will satisfy you now but the complete truth. I suppose it no longer really matters, anyway.”
He came back to her and, taking her hands in his, led her to the small couch, pulling her down to sit with him. They turned toward each other, her hands still in his, and Theo looked into her eyes as he went on, “We went deep into the cave, carrying our lanterns. There were other smaller caves and tunnels branching off from it. We were curious—even I, despite my growing fever—and we searched them. One tunnel narrowed and then emerged into a large, high cave deep in the mountain. It was very much like a vaulted room, empty except for a tall, flat stone that lay in the center of the cave. The stone was carved and looked like an altar.”
“An altar?”
“Yes, I know. It sounds fanciful. But if you could have seen the place—there were soot marks on the walls at intervals, as if something had burned close to them. It wasn’t hard to imagine torches flickering around the cave and people gathered around an altar. But what was even more astounding was what we found in some of the other caves. In two, there were stores of golden objects.”
Megan drew in an involuntary gasp.
Theo nodded. “Exactly. Hidden treasure.”
“But this is fantastical.”
“I know. It was like something out of a story. There were small statues and sheets of worked gold. Replicas of all sorts of animals and trees. Bowls and trays and goblets of gold and silver. Gold and silver masks, bracelets, necklaces, earrings. Boxes and chests, some all of gold and others of wood with inlays of worked gold. You cannot imagine the sight of it, all piled up, gleaming in the light of our lanterns. We could scarcely believe our eyes. If the others had not been there, I think I would have thought it was a fever dream.”
“And is that what you fought over?” Megan asked softly. “The treasure?”
“Fought over?” Theo grimaced. “No. I told you, I did not hurt Dennis. Someone else killed Dennis.”
“Who? Are you saying Mr. Coffey—”
“No, no. I don’t know who it was.”
“But there was no one else there.”
“Yes, there was. You have to hear all my story. There was another cave, long and low. At one point we had to crawl through it. We got to the end, and we found—well, it opened on the other side of the hill. There was a beautiful enclosed valley. And in this valley was a village. It was lovely, untouched, closed off from the rest of the world. We were uncertain what to do, what our reception would be, so we crawled back into the main cave. My fever continued to grow worse. Dennis did what he could for me, but he was very worried. Finally he felt he had no recourse but to go down to the village.”
Caught up in the story, even knowing that Dennis did not survive, Megan could not help but feel the clutch of worry and fear. “What happened to him? To you?”
“Somehow he communicated with them. I’m not sure how, for they did not speak even Spanish. They spoke in a tongue none of us had ever heard or dreamed of hearing. They were, we think, descendants of the Incas. From what Dennis could gather from their attempts at communication and from some drawings on the wall of the cave, we came to believe that a group of Inca warriors and their families fled from the Spaniards, carrying as much as they could of the treasures of their temple. They found this secluded valley and settled down there. And the people there now are the descendants of the ones who fled.”
“This is unbelievable.”
“Yes. But it is the truth.” Theo looked unwaveringly into her face. “I did not kill your brother, Megan. But I—” Sorrow filled his face. “The truth of the matter is that I did not save him, either. I tried—I swear to you that I tried, but I was still so weak….”
The raw emotion in his voice tugged at Megan’s heart, but she struggled not to let it overcome her reason. “What happened?”
“The villagers seemed friendly, at least at first. Dennis made them understand, I think, that he had a sick companion. A young woman came back with him to the cave. I don’t know who she was. She had long, straight black hair, and she was quite lovely. She gave me a bitter brew to drink. I resisted. It tasted foul, but she insisted, time and again. She tended to me. She lit bowls of incense, and set them at my feet and head. I’m not sure what else happened. I was so feverish that I was delirious half the time. I saw things that—”
He broke off and shook his head. “I woke up one time. I’m not even sure if it was day or night. Everything seemed the same there in the cave. There were torches around the room, casting light. And I saw Dennis struggling with a—a creature.”
“A creature! What do you mean? An animal?”
“No. A man…I think. Frankly, in my delirious state, I took him to be one of the statues of their gods come to life. His face wide and gold, glittering, rising in a high headdress of feathers. His eyes glowed green in the dark. And his body was gold, as well. I cannot explain it. He scarcely seemed human. He was wide and rather boxy, not shaped like a man, and he had scales, golden scales all over him.”
Theo shook his head. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know exactly how he looked, how much was real and how much was the product of one of my fevered hallucinations. But it was clear that he was fighting with Dennis. He had a knife, and he slashed at Dennis with it, cutting his arm, his chest. I let out a shout—or at least, I meant to, but it came out as little more than a hoarse whisper. I got to my feet and staggered over there to help him. He had stabbed Dennis, and Dennis fell to the ground. I fell on the fellow. He was hard, and I think he was somehow covered in metal, like golden armor. He shook me off and hit me in the face with his arm, and I tumbled backward.
“The next thing I remember is waking up and finding Julian bending over me, shaking me and telling me to wake up. I sat up and looked over at Dennis. He was lying there dead. There was
blood all over his chest and on the ground around him. Julian helped me up, and he told me that one of the priests had killed Dennis. Julian said the villagers were gathering and were coming toward the caves. We had to get out of there. I wanted to take Dennis’s body with me. I couldn’t bear to leave it there. But Coffey pushed me out into the tunnel. He told me we could not wait. The villagers would be there any moment, and we must hurry. We stumbled through the tunnel and out to our burros. He put me on one of the pack animals, and we fled.”
Theo let go of Megan’s hands and stood up abruptly. “I didn’t help Dennis. I left him there. You have ample reason to despise me. I shouldn’t have let Julian rush me out. I should have stayed. We should have brought him out with us, not left him there for his enemies.”
Megan sat in silence for a long moment, then said, “That is the most bizarre story I have ever heard.”
Theo sighed. “I know.” He turned. “I can understand why you would have trouble believing it. But I swear to you that it is the truth. I would never have hurt Dennis. In that short time he had become like one of my brothers.” He ground his teeth in frustration. “If I had had any idea what your family believed, I would have come to your father and told him the tale in full.” He paused, then said quietly, “I am not a murderer, Megan. I could never have killed your brother.”
Megan sighed, looking at him for a long moment. There were doubtless a hundred reasons why she should not believe Theo’s story. Her father, she knew, would simply assume that Theo was a smooth liar.
But deep inside, Megan knew that Theo was telling her the truth.
No matter how peculiar or unlikely the story he told was, he was not lying. It was there in his face, in his eyes.
Theo was not a murderer. She had known that, really, on some level, from the moment she’d met him. That was why she had had to struggle so hard to remember that he was a villain.
“I believe you,” she told him simply.
Theo’s brow went up in surprise. “Just like that? Really?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, you are a terrible liar. For another, no one would ever have made up a story like that. If you were going to lie about it, you would have invented something much more plausible.”
The beginning of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Perhaps you are right about that.”
“But why did Mr. Barchester lie about it? Why did he tell us that you killed Dennis?”
“I don’t know.” Theo looked as puzzled as Megan felt. “It makes no sense. He wasn’t even there when it happened. He was back at the base camp. All he knows is the story I told him—that Dennis had fallen, that he had died in an accident.”
“He did say that he couldn’t believe your story, that he questioned you and he was certain you were lying. Having seen you try to tell that story, I can understand why he thought you were lying.”
Theo grimaced. “But why make the leap from that to my murdering Dennis?”
“He was quite definite about it. He told us that you and Dennis had quarreled, and that you had stabbed Dennis,” Megan told him.
Theo stared at her. “He is lying. I cannot imagine why, but he made up that entire story.” He paused, shaking his head in disbelief. “I thought Andrew was a good man. He had been my friend. Even though we are no longer friends, I wouldn’t have thought he would spread such lies about me. And to what purpose?”
“I agree. It makes no sense. I plan to question him about it.”
Theo gave her a sharp look. “Not without me, you won’t. I was furious and sad about Dennis’s death, but I was certain that the priest who had killed him must have believed that Dennis was harming the village somehow. They were a peaceful, gracious people, and they had not harmed us. Indeed, they had taken care of me. I knew that whatever caused the fight, it had to have been a mistake. Besides, the whole village did not deserve to be punished for one man’s sin.”
“So you kept silent to keep the village’s secret.”
Theo nodded. “We agreed not to tell anyone, even Barchester, about what we found. We made up the story about the accident, and that is what we told Andrew. We used my illness as an excuse for packing up our camp and leaving immediately. And we returned to civilization.”
He stopped and turned to look at her. “You cannot know how much I have regretted what I did. I wished I had never taken that trip. I failed Dennis. I could not save him, and then I left him there. I should have brought his body back. I could never forgive Coffey for making me leave. I couldn’t forgive myself either. And now, I see how much I failed you and your family, too.”
Megan ignored the comment. “But I don’t understand. Why did you lie to Mr. Barchester about what happened? Why didn’t you just tell the truth?”
He sighed. “Looking back on it, maybe we shouldn’t have made up that story. I wasn’t thinking very clearly. My fever was still high, and even when it subsided, I was weak as a cat. It was all I could do to stay on my mount. Julian and I talked about it as we rode back to the base camp. The thing was, we didn’t want to reveal anything about the village. If you could have seen it—it was so pure and untouched by the modern world. We did not want it to be destroyed, as it surely would have been if word had gotten out about the fabulous treasure they had concealed in their cave.”
Theo came back to sit down beside her and took her hand in his. “Dennis was dead, and whatever we did could not bring him back.”
Megan curled her fingers around his. “You did your best, Theo. You were ill and weak. What else could you have done?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. But it seems as though I should have done something.” He sighed. “That is why I had so much trouble writing to your father about it. Just to think of it was like a knife in my gut. It pained me to even see Andrew or Julian. We had been friends, but…” He shrugged. “It was never the same after that. I resented Coffey for making me leave. I could barely stand to talk to him after that. Unfair, I know, but…” He shrugged. “Every time I saw one of them, I thought of Dennis and his death. And how I had let him down.”
“No one could have expected any more from you,” Megan told him firmly. “It was not your fault.”
“Perhaps not. But it always felt as if it was.”
They were silent for a moment, each thinking their own thoughts. Finally Megan said, “Why did the villager turn on Dennis and kill him?”
“I don’t know. He was a priest, Julian thought—what I had seen on him was a golden mask and a cloak made of linked pieces of gold. Julian said that he and Dennis had seen it before in the storage room. Julian thought perhaps the man had found Dennis taking something from the storage area.”
“Stealing?” Megan asked indignantly. “Dennis would not have stolen anything!”
Theo gave her a rueful smile. “Most people, my dear Megan, scarcely regard it as stealing if they take some of a treasure hidden in a cave, especially when it is ancient artifacts that belong to what we Europeans consider a primitive society. Just look at the way we have looted Egyptian tombs. Or the ruins of Troy.”
“Yes, but those are just sitting there, buried by people long past. These things obviously were the property of that village.”
“I know. And I am certain that Dennis would not have taken anything that belonged to the village. When he was sitting, watching over me while I was ill, he had talked about the villagers. He had great liking for them and their way of life. I think, perhaps, he was even a little in love with the girl who gave me the medicine and chanted over me.”
“Really?” Emotion clogged Megan’s throat even as she smiled. “So then Dennis was happy those last few days of his life?”
“Lord, yes. The only dark cloud on his horizon was my illness. He was worried about me, I think, and whether I would make it out of there. But he was delighted, fascinated, by the village and its people, the way they had survived and prospered there, passing down a way of life unchanged from three hundred
years ago. He talked to me about the need to conceal their presence from the outside world. It was of great concern to him. That was one of the reasons Coffey and I wanted to keep the place hidden and unknown—it had been so important to Dennis.”
A reminiscent smile curved Theo’s mouth. “And he told me quite a bit about my healer’s beautiful dark eyes and lustrous hair.” He paused for a moment, thinking about his friend, then went on, “So I do not think that Dennis had taken anything from the storage area. I suppose the villager could have thought that Dennis had stolen something or was about to. I thought about it quite a bit, as you might imagine, on that long trip back home. I decided that the most likely thing was that Dennis inadvertently stumbled upon the villagers in some sort of ceremony. Why else would the villager have been wearing that mask and cloak? They were engaged in a secret ritual, and if Dennis intruded, they might have been so angered that the priest killed him—felt that his gods demanded it or something.”
“I suppose.” It seemed a flimsy reason to kill someone, Megan thought, but she knew that many people had killed in the name of religion, even one like her own, which espoused peace and love for one’s fellow man. How much more likely would it be if one worshipped a bloodthirsty god who demanded the sacrifice of children? “It just seems so terrible that Dennis should have died because of a simple mistake.”
“There is no good reason for him to have been killed,” Theo pointed out.
“That’s true.”
“I cannot understand why Barchester lied to us. I have to find out.”
