by Jon Saboe
The man swung back around to Peleg and pointed at the sleeping Serug.
“Why does he not rise!” he demanded.
“Nothing can wake Serug, when he’s really tired,” Peleg answered nervously. “Besides, I think he got a slightly poisonous sting from that insect-eating plant over there. He’s probably sleeping it off.”
The man walked to Serug’s form and watched intently. The smaller man was increasingly anxious—seeming to alternate between fear of a trap and respect for the brave man who had returned with him.
Thaxad spoke. “The youth is basically lazy,” he said.
The man spun towards Thaxad, then turned back to Peleg and studied the three men standing in front of him. His face was one of disbelief, as though someone had proven to him that his parents had been childless, or that it was possible to divide by zero.
He squinted slightly. “You are men,” he stated, more as a question. It was obvious he believed this impossible, and desperately hoped for an alternative.
“Yes, we are,” Peleg responded calmly.
“You are not from along the coast?”
“No,” Peleg answered. This man seemed to need some reassurance. “We have spent almost six years crossing the Eastern Ocean and charting islands and surveying your northern coastline. We are part of a four-vessel expedition to chart the world for exploration and trade. Of course, from your perspective it would be the Western Ocean.”
“This is simply not possible.” He thought for a moment. “But your speech is broken and crude. No Waca would speak in this manner.” He looked down at Serug. “And no demon would display such frailty.” He looked back at those standing. “Besides, no imposters or deceivers would wear such ridiculous clothing.”
Peleg looked down at his garments which were designed for comfort on the ship, not hiking.
“Sir,” he said respectfully. “We’re just a little dirty from our climb from the coast.”
The tall stranger studied them carefully—grudgingly accepting the obvious. As men, they should be treated with respect. His face softened and he nodded.
“I must apologize. You are travelers, and deserve hospitality. I also must introduce myself.”
He drew himself up and extended his right hand which held his staff. With his left hand, he made some kind of symbol in front of his chest.
“I am Manco Chavin, Priest of Apu Inti, and Arbiter for this district. I am a member of the Inner Thirteen, the governing council of our land.”
Peleg bowed slightly. “I am Peleg, and this is Mentor Thaxad and Chief Untash.”
The two men nodded, and then Thaxad went over to Serug and kicked him in the side. With a grunt, Serug’s eyes snapped open, and, as he took in the scene, he tried to instantly make sense of what he saw.
“This derelict is called Serug,” Thaxad explained as the young apprentice fought his way out of his deep sleep and stood up too fast. Serug recovered from his dizziness, lurched towards Manco Chavin with his hand extended and said, “Hi, I’m Serug.”
The Priest laughed. “You are certainly no demon.”
He shook his head. “We must get you to my dwelling where you may wash and receive proper coverings.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “We can not take the main path since it would be disastrous if anyone saw you. It is still early. We should be able to make it without being seen.”
He turned to the shivering man who had summoned him.
“You must come with us. We will have to decide how these events may be explained.”
The man nodded quickly, but he did not seem reassured.
Manco Chavin pointed to him. “Allow me to introduce Klempé, the sentry of this outpost. You must understand his fear. His only task for many years has been to watch for the Waca demons who wear short clothes, and until last night, he always hoped this to be a meaningless, ceremonial task with no chance of it ever coming to pass.”
The four men from the Urbat nodded a greeting to him, but he did not respond and would not allow them to get close.
They gathered their belongings and followed Manco Chavin as he cut through the underbrush.
They walked in an indirect path through the foliage, while Manco Chavin explained more fully the reason for his difficulties.
“The Inner Thirteen used to be the Inner Nine. These were the nine men whose families and servants were saved from the terrible curse that destroyed all life. Viracocha warned the Inner Nine, and they built a barge which carried their belongings and livestock to this new land. All humanity, save us, was destroyed.”
He scowled.
“At least, that is what I have believed until I met you. Apparently some survived.”
“How many years ago did they arrive here?” asked Peleg.
“Apu Inti has returned to his path One hundred and ninety-six times since the Survivors arrived,” Manco Chavin said, pointing to the mid-morning sun.
Peleg thought for a moment. One hundred and ninety-six years ago would be immediately after the Great Calamity. He had always been taught that the only survivors were those who repopulated the plains.
Manco Chavin continued.
“When they arrived, they saw the great height of the mountains, and chose to live as high above the earth as possible. Should Viracocha become angry again, they hoped to be above the floodwaters. Viracocha brought them to the Sea-on-Top-of-the-World where he promised they would be safe. There we built our capital city, and there we now construct our monument to him.”
“It must be an enormous city if you have been building it for One hundred and ninety-six years.”
Manco Chavin looked at him sharply.
“Apparently they don’t teach much about the path of the sun where you are from. Each year, Apu Inti returns to his path twice—once from the north and once from the south. We arrived on this land just over ninety years ago—which is how a child would say it.”
Peleg’s mind raced. This priest was obviously wrong. Peleg would have been almost ten years old when Manco Chavin claimed his “terrible curse” occurred. In fact, his dates roughly coincided with the time of the Great Awakening. Was there some way the two events were confused?
Peleg didn’t want to challenge any more of this man’s religious beliefs, so he kept quiet. Two impossible events in one day were too much for any man to handle, so he nodded graciously and accepted the correction.
They emerged from the brush and found themselves at the backside of a large stone dwelling. Manco Chavin escorted them quietly through a small back doorway which appeared to be designed for servants.
They entered into a large room with marble tiling and shelves lined with exotic plants and small statuettes of strange animals which Peleg had never seen. Three divans covered with wildly colored throws were placed in the room in an apparently random fashion.
“This is my dwelling,” said Manco Chavin. “You may rest and wash here. You will find baths outside in the front courtyard.” He pointed through two large double doors.
“Place your ‘clothing’ at the threshold, and a servant will try and clean them. If you need any care for your scratches and bruises, let me know after your baths.”
He paused briefly as if waiting for questions, but didn’t give enough time for any.
“I will go arrange for food to be prepared,” he said, and disappeared into a side door.
There were five large baths in the open courtyard, and, although a tall stone fence surrounded them, it had many decorative carved openings, and the men could see a small village in the valley below. In the center was a large fountain with water coming out of the mouth of a large jaguar and spilling into the waiting pool.
The baths each had a shallow end with fresh water entering from an opening along the top edge. Presumably, this was the same source as the fountain, but they hoped it wasn’t recycled in the same manner.
They had left their clothing at the doorway, and were soon enjoying the fresh water as it rinsed away over three weeks of hiking grime. The b
aths were actually small pools, and they were able to submerge completely and even swim to some extent.
Manco Chavin’s concerns about their secrecy seemed to vanish once their clothes were removed. There was no attempt to keep their presence a secret from the many servant girls that could be seen. They came and went, busily running unknown errands, and paid no attention to them.
When they were finished, they returned to the doorway where a servant girl (with her head turned away) offered a dark blue robe to each of them. They put these on and entered into the room.
They could see into the doorway where Manco Chavin had disappeared earlier, and now saw him—along with Klempé—seated inside next to a large table.
“Please, come in,” he waved to them. “I have many fruits and some steamed fish.” He was still wearing the long robe, but the leather helmet had been removed and been replaced by a small silver skullcap.
A beautiful wooden table with elaborate gold trim filled the room, and several large bowls were filled with a wide variety of fruits. Peleg recognized pears, apricots, and cherries, and also saw many forms of melons which were cut into slices.
One of the stranger fruits caught his attention. It had bright yellow meat, but the rind seemed to be covered with sharp spikes.
“Please, sit,” he called again.
They each took one of the small couches which surrounded the table and began to sample the wares. They were hungry and ate silently, except for Serug who managed to groan his appreciation as he ate twice as fast as anyone else.
“I have sent a message to the Prime of the Inner Thirteen, and asked that a meeting be convened. We have quite a dilemma here.” He looked around at the four men.
“Your existence is quite impossible,” Manco Chavin continued. “All life was destroyed—yet here you are. It may take some work to convince the others that you are not Waca, but once they meet you, they will realize how wrong we have been.”
“Will we be allowed to have our clothing back?” asked Untash. He was obviously uncomfortable wearing nothing but a robe.
“I have informed my slaves that you are a traveling group of actors, and that you simply play the part of the Waca in your production. They were incredulous, but they would not dare to doubt me.
“They are scrubbing your garments as we eat, and, of course, you can wear them again. However, you must never leave this place without wearing the robes you currently have on over them.”
A silver platter of steamed mountain fish arrived, and was quickly passed around.
“Tomorrow we leave to present you to the Inner Thirteen. Your robes have hoods on them, and you must keep your heads covered as we travel. No one will question you while you are in my company. I have requested a meeting at the Acapana in Tiwanaku.”
Peleg choked. “Tiwanaku!” he gasped. “There is such a place?”
Manco Chavin’s eyes flashed, transforming into daggers of suspicion.
“How can you know of this place? If you are truly from across the sea, you can have no knowledge of this name.”
Peleg thought hard and fast. How much should he tell them? Only Serug continued eating the spicy fish.
“In our travels,” Peleg began, “we ventured upon an island where there were men who claimed to come from such a place. They were criminals charged with blasphemy, and had been banished from a seaport they called Tiwanaku. We have seen no seaports since that time, and of course, there could be no seaport this high in the mountains.”
“Oh, Tiwanaku is a seaport,” Manco Chavin said matter-of-factly before continuing his questioning.
“Who led these men, and what was their crime?”
“Their crime against us was the attempted kidnapping of Mentor Thaxad, seated over there. Their crimes against the rulers of Tiwanaku seemed to be slander against Apu Inti, the one you serve. They apparently arrived on their island about forty years ago.”
Manco Chavin nodded. “You mean eighty returns of the sun,” he corrected. “Do you have a name for their leader?”
“His name was Commander Irawaru, and they had found refuge on this island after drifting for a great time at sea.”
“Irawaru,” Manco Chavin repeated. “Of course, that is not a real name. It simply means ‘leader’.”
He thought for a moment, then made a decision.
“Yes, I presided over that case.” He gave a slight smile. “Either you are telling the truth, or you are the most informed Waca I could ever imagine.”
Suddenly a large black bird swooped into the room through a large open window near the ceiling and dove toward Manco Chavin. Peleg jumped, and wondered if it were some kind of attack. Manco Chavin raised his left arm in what looked like a futile block, but at the last moment, the large falcon landed and perched on his forearm and began preening itself.
“Ah, we have a response,” Manco Chavin said with some urgency. The falcon began squawking angrily and glared at its master.
“You’re a good girl, Hina,” Manco Chavin cooed to his bird. Hina had a bright red and gold braided collar which he reached for. He carefully unfastened and removed the collar, stroked its neck a few times, and then said, “Thank you, Hina. You may go now.” Hina hopped off his arm and onto the table next to him, but made no effort to leave.
He turned to the men.
“I was so anxious about this message, I forgot all about Hina. She gets very jealous.” He straightened the collar out on the table, and unraveled it into three separate threads. Peleg noticed that each contained a variety of decorative knots. Manco Chavin bent over and studied the strings intently for a moment, and then picked one up and pulled it slowly between his thumb and middle finger, muttering silently to himself as the knots slipped past his fingertips. He did the same with the second—a look of concern passing over his face.
Hina stood there twisting her head back and forth, first watching Manco Chavin intently, then eyeing the fish. Finally Hina made a noise which could only be described as a cough, and Manco Chavin looked up.
“Yes, you may have a fish,” he said. Immediately the large bird rose high into the air, swooped down on the plate of fish, and snatched one in its claws. She flew straight to the other end of the room and exited through the doorway.
Manco Chavin ran the third knotted braid through his fingers then spoke.
“We leave immediately,” he announced. “The Inner Thirteen wish you to appear before them on the morning four days from now. We will have to travel much of the night.” He turned to Klempé. “They also demand that you accompany us.”
Peleg and the others stared dumbfounded.
“How could you possibly know this?” asked Peleg. “All of that was in your bird’s collar?”
Manco Chavin stared at them with bewilderment.
“You have not seen the quipu cords? It is the means by which the thoughts of the Council are shared with its members.” He said this as if it were a great mystical art—some form of mind reading that onlyinitiates could possess, and it was meant to intimidate.
It was not successful.
“No, seriously,” said Serug. He reached for the braids.
Manco Chavin snatched the cords and glared at them.
“You must be the most ignorant Waca ever,” he chided incredulously. “Never heard of the quipu…”
He shook his head and laughed slightly.
“I have never had someone question my explanation of the quipu before.”
He lowered his voice conspiratorially.
“You must never speak of this to the underlings,” he stated, then waited for their non-verbal ascent. It was obvious he was not supposed to speak of this, but couldn’t help being proud of its ingenuity.
“The color and material of each braid tells who the sender is,” he continued. He held out one of the cords for them to view, and they could each see the strange little knots that were tied into it.
“There are six different knots; a simple, a figure eight, and four different long-turn knots made up
of one to four loops. Each knot also has its reverse, which allows for twelve different characters which are grouped by twos and threes.”
“How is it read?” asked Thaxad.
Manco Chavin shook his head and pulled back the cord.
“I have spoken too much already,” he said. “Suffice it to say that it is a kind of numeric representation of our written language.”
He turned to the wall where a thick rope hung in a taut semi-circle; with the ends fastened to the wall by a simple hook. Hanging from this rope were dozens of quipu cords, which had appeared to be nothing more than simple decorative tassels when they had first entered the room.
Manco Chavin unhooked one end from the wall, attached the latest quipu to his ‘message library’, and then turned back to address them.
“We leave tonight.”
Peleg looked at the others and spoke in their own language.
“We have to make sure we give ourselves enough time to get back to the Urbat,” he said. “We will have to leave almost as soon as we get there.”
Thaxad and Untash nodded, while Serug finished a handful of grapes.
“A word of advice,” interrupted Manco Chavin. His face had resumed a look of severity.
“I do not know the tongue you just used, but I strongly urge you to never use it again where you can be overheard. Others will not be as understanding as I.”
Two more small villages were his, and he had consolidated control of all shipping on the Tigris River. Plus, new armies were in training.
The Sar of Heaven and Earth was also pleased at how quickly his original city and temple were being rebuilt. It was great to be alive.
What he really needed was a good hunt. He could leave his endeavors alone for a few weeks. It had been ages since he had taken weapons and horses to fight an enemy other than another army.
It would be a nice diversion to hunt down some Gutians. Presumably they still hid out in caves to the west, but lately there had been only rumors of their continued existence. It had always been delightful to flush out the sub-humans.
