Priestess of Paracas

by K Patrick Donoghue

  While there were still uncomfortable twists and turns on Route 28 from Pisco, he told them, it was a major road, paved all the way, with a number of towns along its course. “If we have mechanical trouble, or need more fuel, we do not want to be stuck on a dirt road, in the middle of the night with no cell signal, no Wi-Fi, in the Andes. Truthfully, even on Route 28, we are better served by waiting until dawn tomorrow and making the full trip in daylight. It will still be slow, and we will undoubtedly be stuck behind buses and trucks at various points, but it will be a safer journey.”

  Lastly, there was also the change in altitude to consider. They would ascend nearly twelve thousand feet before they descended into the valley where the city of Ayacucho and the Wari ruins were situated. It was wise, Cesar said, to stop periodically and acclimate to the thinner air. “I do not mean to make the trip sound like Hannibal crossing the Alps, but it is not, as you Americans say, a Sunday drive, either.”

  Wari Ruins

  Ayacucho Valley, Peru

  September 27

  As frustrating as it had been to Pebbles to drive three hours back to Pisco, stay the night and start for the Wari ruins at dawn the next day, Cesar’s advice proved sound. The supposed six-hour drive according to the map app took ten. But despite its length, the trip was more enjoyable than she expected. The scenery was breathtaking, the towns quaint and making the trip in daylight allowed Pebbles the chance to scan for landmarks that might evoke other visions.

  None occurred, leading Pebbles to conclude Citali had not followed the Pisco River. So, even though she had felt vindicated that her original choice of road into the Andes was the one they ultimately chose, she realized she might not have had the vision of Wari if they had not followed Citali’s path into the desert.

  The absence of other visions suggested another conclusion to Pebbles. Citali had gone to Wari before she went to the caves, a point she made to Anlon as they pulled into the ruins’ parking lot.

  “You’re probably right,” Anlon said. “I know if I were being chased, I’d be thinking about finding a safe place to hole up. But, damn, she sure went a long way to find a sanctuary.”

  “Was her choice of destination about finding sanctuary, or did she come here to warn her brother?” Mereau asked.

  As they piled out of the van, Anlon said, “You know, I thought about that a lot on the way up here. Don’t you think she would have sent out a messenger as soon as Rashana flashed Nonali’s head? To warn her brother?”

  “I would venture a guess and say she did send a messenger, probably multiple messengers, but they never made it.” Mereau yawned and stretched his arms above his head. “Though we do not know the time gap between Rashana’s visit and the vision of the city preparing for war, I find it hard to believe Muran sent Rashana to the city alone. I’m sure there were confederates who watched the comings and goings to and from the temple. They likely would have followed and killed any messengers. After all, Citali received no warning of her sister’s death before Rashana arrived. Correct?”

  Mereau turned toward Pebbles. She nodded. “That’s how I read the vision. Citali was totally shocked to see Nonali’s head, although she seemed to be aware of rumors about Muran threatening to attack Nonali’s city.”

  The discussion continued as they walked toward the admissions office to pay their entrance fees. At one point, Jennifer turned back toward the parking lot and remarked she was surprised to see only one other car parked there. “It’s midafternoon, shouldn’t this place be crawling with tourists?”

  “I would imagine most people come here by bus, on tours. We may have arrived between tour stops,” Cesar said. “We should count ourselves fortunate.”

  “I can’t believe how warm it is given how high up we are,” Sanjay said. “And how green it is. It looks nothing like what we passed through to get here.”

  “The weather is very pleasant, isn’t it?” Cesar said. “Again, we should count ourselves fortunate. The valley is sheltered from the harsher climate in the surrounding mountains.”

  With admissions paid, they walked through the short maze of administrative buildings and came upon the cross-section of paths leading to different sections of the ruins, many of which appeared to be protected from the elements by open-air, steel-roof structures erected over the top of the various excavations.

  “Geez, this place is huge,” Jennifer said.

  “It is indeed,” Cesar said. “As I mentioned yesterday, upward of sixty thousand people lived here at one time. What you see is only a fraction of what once stood here. Much of the city remains buried.”

  “Where should we start?” Pebbles asked.

  He smiled. “I was just getting ready to ask the same of you.”

  They had not traveled far through the excavations when Cesar stopped to show them proof of what he had said earlier about various cultures having built and occupied the city. “Notice the different stonework. How some buildings were constructed with small stones and mortar. And how others, like these, have much larger slabs, custom-fitted against one another with no mortar. Much like the stonework one sees at Machu Pichu, there is a question as to who cut and moved these large stones. Their edges are precise, as if sliced by a laser, yet there are no tooling marks.”

  Pebbles watched Cesar’s eyes drift toward Mereau. The ancient Munuorian smiled. “These do have a familiar craftmanship to them. Crude, but familiar all the same.”

  “The strange thing, of course, is the more technologically advanced structures here are believed to pre-date the latter structures,” said Cesar. “It is a similar phenomenon to that observed about Egyptian pyramids. The earliest were significantly better constructed than later ones. One would think as their civilization expanded, their construction methods would have improved, but they did not. They worsened. We see evidence of the same here.”

  As the historical conversation continued, Pebbles’ eyes drifted to the sloping terrain and stony remains of the city littering the fields below. She searched for evidence of a courtyard, an area where a great tree might have stood. In the distance, above a stone wall, she could see the top of a solitary tree that stood out among others. It was too small to be the tree from her vision and from where she was positioned, she could see no cacti surrounding it. The wall blocked her view of the terrain surrounding the tree. Pebbles grabbed Anlon by the arm. “Come on, follow me.”

  They racewalked toward the tree. To reach the plateau on which the tree stood, they had to scamper up a rise in the trail. As soon as they crested it, Pebbles’ heart began to race. The dusty plateau was square, bounded by walls. On the far end from where they entered, in an opening below the plateau was a horseshoe-shaped enclosure, a courtyard.

  “Oh, my God. Look at that.”

  She turned back and looked at the tree, and then once again at the courtyard. Nothing looked right. The tree was too short, the plateau devoid of cacti, the shape of the courtyard was wrong and the stones that made up its walls were nothing like the slabs she recalled.

  But that did not stop the vision from coming. Pebbles sat down, her legs dangling over the side of the plateau, and stared at the courtyard until it faded from her view.

  At the sounds of the drums, Citali exited into the courtyard. She could see smoke rising from the mountain pass above the city. Soldiers dashed across her view. A voice called to her. She turned to see her brother, Marleau.

  “Come, it is time. You must go. Her army approaches.”

  “No! I will run no more.”

  “Don’t be foolish. You must fetch the new ones. You must take them to the dwellers. Take also that which was given. Go now, while there is still time.”

  “I will not leave you alone to face her. I will not see your head on a spike.”

  “And I will not see both of ours on spikes. You are the Keeper. You must go. Even if she defeats us, she will never find you in the jungle. The dwellers will not let her pass. Now, go!”

  Marleau kissed her cheek and ran after another group o
f soldiers. Citali watched him disappear around a corner of a building before she returned inside the temple to gather her things. With the necklace clasped around her neck, she pulled on the poncho over her tunic, grabbed her bag and left. She stopped long enough at the armory to gather supplies and then exited the city toward the valley.

  Pebbles snapped out of the vision to find Anlon and Sanjay holding onto her arms. Her torso was dangling over the gap between the plateau and the courtyard. Anlon smiled at her. “You almost did a header.”

  “Help me up.” With assistance from Mereau and Jennifer standing behind, they lifted Pebbles to a standing position. She turned around in a circle, looking at the horizon. Her eyes came to rest on the curve of a mountain shaping the way farther into the valley. “She went that-a-way. Come on, let’s go ask the museum people if there are caves around here.”

  The others followed her back to the museum where Cesar helped translate Pebbles’ request. The middle-aged man behind the desk nodded enthusiastically and led them outside to the parking lot. Turning toward the mountain whose shadow loomed over the Wari ruins, he pointed at its lower slope. “Cueva de Pikimachay.”

  Cueva de Pikimachay

  Ayacucho Valley, Peru

  Jennifer sat beside Pebbles at the mouth of the Pikimachay cave. The last remnant of sunlight had passed below the horizon behind them, leaving only a gray dusk over the valley. Anlon and the others had already walked back down the slope and waited for them at the van.

  Even before they had all hiked up to the cave, Jennifer had a strong suspicion it was not the cave from Pebbles’ visions. First of all, Pebbles had described three cave entrances, not one. Further, she had told them the three entrances were situated on a shallow landing beneath a ledge. There was no ledge at Pikimachay and no landing. It was just a gap in the slope of the mountain.

  Pebbles had scrambled up the scrubland and loose rock, anyway, deflecting Jennifer’s observations about the obvious differences. “Maybe there was an earthquake that knocked the ledge away. Maybe there was always one cave, and the earthquake knocked down the walls between the entrances. It’s been almost two thousand years since Citali came here, you know.”

  Once they arrived at the cave, they discovered the entrance was huge but the cave inside was very shallow. While there were gaps in a few places along the back wall, they did not appear to be tunnels. According to another tourist they had met at the entrance, the cave had been used for shelter by humans as far back as fifteen thousand years ago.

  Owing to the man’s apparent knowledge of the cave, Pebbles had asked him if there were others in the area. He swept his hand over the landscape and said, “Are you kidding? There are caves everywhere in these mountains.”

  She had then described the caves from her vision. The man shook his head and told her he didn’t know of any such site. When he left, Pebbles sat down on a slab-like formation next to the entrance and stared blindly down at the valley as sunset rapidly approached. She had been sitting there ever since, waiting for it to get dark enough to see the lights emanating from communities in the valley below.

  Jennifer balanced a flashlight on her knee and said, “We should probably get going.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Pebbles kicked at a stone near her foot.

  “I’m sorry this didn’t turn out to be the one.”

  “Me too, but I’m kinda glad it isn’t. From what that guy said, this cave’s seen a lot of use. If it had been the one, it probably would have been picked clean of any clues a long time ago.”

  “Good point,” Jennifer said. She stood and brushed dust off her rear. “I wouldn’t sweat it. Tomorrow’s another day. Cesar said he’ll call around to some of his colleagues, see if they know of any good prospects off the beaten path. And we can always go back to Wari. You might have another vision that points us in the right direction.”

  She turned to see Pebbles standing beside her, taking one last look at the valley. “Maybe. I just wish there was a way I could summon Citali and ask her. I keep trying Sanjay’s trick, imagining a sanctuary kind of place like the oasis, but it’s not working. I can’t seem to reconnect with her.”

  Jennifer flicked on the flashlight and pointed it down the slope. “Like I said, tomorrow’s another day. Now, come on. I’m starving. I’m sure the guys are too.”

  About halfway down the slope, Pebbles said from behind. “Well, at least this wasn’t a total loss.”

  “Yeah? How so?” Jennifer said.

  “The lights, down in the valley. You see them?”

  “Uh huh. Can’t miss ’em.”

  “The angle’s way too shallow. Whatever cave Citali went into, it was higher above the valley.”

  CHAPTER 18: DIVIDE AND CONQUER

  El Pollo Valiente restaurante

  Ayacucho, Peru

  September 27

  Sanjay ordered a second cup of after-dinner coffee, not because he particularly wanted another jolt of caffeine, but because Pebbles had asked to speak with him alone as the group readied to leave the restaurant.

  In some ways, the request did not surprise him. Despite the breakthroughs of the past two days, she had become increasingly withdrawn and her frustration was plain for all to see. The latter had been the subject of much conversation over dinner, as the group took turns trying to cheer her up. They were right to do so in Sanjay’s eyes. She was zeroing in on the final stages of the mystery. But Pebbles did not see it that way. To her, with each breakthrough, the answers she sought seemed to be moving farther away, a point she revisited as soon as the others had left.

  “I don’t understand. For a while, things seemed to be speeding up, the visions happening more frequently, but now they’re tailing off. I’m not having dreams at night anymore, and inside I feel like I’m losing touch with Citali, like she’s fading away. Why do you think that is?”

  “There could be many reasons,” Sanjay said as the coffee arrived. He thanked the waiter and returned his attention to Pebbles. “When you say you feel like you are losing touch with her, what do you mean? How do you sense it?”

  “Well, I feel kind of numb now. It’s not like it was when the nightmares first began. I felt a lot of emotion then. Fear, panic, desperation. I mean, I still get mad when I see what Muran did to her and stuff like that, but I don’t feel Citali’s emotions as much. And I don’t understand why the visions keep getting shorter, and why some of them are so jumbled up. I thought the opposite would happen. I thought the closer we got to finding out who she was, what she was running from, what she was trying to hide, what she was protecting, the visions would fill in, give me a full picture of what happened.”

  Sanjay stirred cream into his coffee and nodded while he listened. When she finished speaking, he asked, “Do you think it is possible you may be expecting too much from Citali? From yourself?”

  Pebbles stared at her own coffee, apparently weighing Sanjay’s question. Without looking up, she said, “Could be. I do feel like I’m trying real hard to connect with her.”

  “If Citali were to fade from your memory, bit by bit, until you did not think of her or her memories at all, how would you feel about that?”

  “Kinda pissed, actually.” Pebbles lifted her gaze. Sanjay saw a tinge of red rise in her face.

  “You fear that is what is happening.”

  She nodded.

  “And that angers you because you want closure.”

  Another nod. “I feel like, if I could talk to her again, like at the oasis, I could ask her straight up. Get the answers I need. Put this whole thing to bed.”

  Sanjay sipped his coffee and contemplated his next comments. When he looked back at Pebbles, he could see her eyes searching for answers in his. Putting the cup down, he said, “I remember speaking to Anlon about PTSD when we first met. One of the things he was frustrated about was that you struggled with nightmares soon after you came out of your coma, then they went away for a while, only to come back. He wanted my help to make the nightmares go away once and f
or all. I told him at the time that it is not uncommon for symptoms to fade and resurface. I said to him — PTSD proceeds at its own pace and at its own rhythm. One cannot force symptoms to be over. They end when they end.”

  “But this isn’t about PTSD.” The red in her face flushed darker. “This has nothing to do with what happened to me.”

  “I am not talking about you.”

  For a moment, she seemed flustered, her expression turning to one closer to confusion than anger. Then the frown on her face relaxed and she edged back in her seat. Sanjay continued. “As I said earlier, there could be many reasons why the visions feel different now than they did at one time. It goes without saying we are treading through uncharted territory as far as the capabilities of the human mind are concerned. But even so, I doubt human nature has really changed that much over two thousand years. People loved and hated back then. They love and hate now. Ancient people feared and felt joy. We still do today. So, if Citali’s consciousness is inside you, why would her emotions be any different than yours or mine?”

  Pebbles’ head lowered. “They wouldn’t be.”

  “You have good reasons for wanting closure. The same can be said of Anlon, Jennifer, Cesar and Mereau when it comes to their desire for closure for you. It is why they are all here with you, why I am here too. But none of us, me included, can force closure. Not for you. Not for Citali.”

  Wiping away a tear, she nodded. “I hear you. She’s shutting down because I’m pushing her to deal with what happened.”

  “It is one possibility. A strong one, I think.”

  “What can I do to show her I’m backing off?”

  “Clear your mind. Do not put pressure on yourself to find the cave.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that. It’s not the kind of person I am.”

  “There is no harm in trying, is there?”

  “I guess not. But what if it doesn’t work?”

  “Ah…but what if it does?”