Coin

by Ronil Caine

  Luis asked Gua about human sacrifices, but his guide told him that was more typical of the Aztecs and the Mayas; the Incas did not practice such sacrifices, or only did very rarely and on a voluntary basis. This was not what Luis had heard, but he did not know too much about the Incas.

  The road forked off into the forest and Guayasamin left the main route. This track was narrower than the car and less travelled, and the branches and the leaves kept lashing the side of the SUV. Luis pulled his elbow back in and grabbed the door.

  “We’re almost there,” Gua said.

  “This is where you’re from, right?” Luis asked.

  “My father was born to this tribe, yes, but I grew up in Lima and I’ve lived there all my life.”

  It was getting dark when they arrived. Suddenly, the trees disappeared, and a wide plateau opened up before them. Luis counted as many as thirty houses surrounded by croplands and pastures. Guayasamin stopped the car two hundred yards away from the closest house; he did not want to frighten the locals or their animals.

  “We'll walk from here,” he said and climbed out of the SUV. Luis grabbed his backpack and followed.

  Three men came from the village to greet them, while everyone else visibly slunk away between the houses. The children only dared to steal a glance at the strangers from behind their mother’s backs. Gua greeted them in Quechua and told them who they were and the purpose of their visit.

  One of the men told Gua, and Gua dutifully translated, that they had come in vain; the priest did not see strangers and it was ill-advised to meet him.

  Luis did not understand Quechua, but he could feel the tension in their voices. It was a worry beyond tongues, something no human could have missed.

  Gua explained to the locals that his father was born there and that he had met the priest before, once on a visit eight years earlier. The mood became visibly more relaxed. The three villagers talked amongst themselves for a few minutes before waving a hand to them to follow.

  They were led to a hut made of stone and wood. An unkempt, middle-aged man greeted them. One of the escorts explained that he was the village priest, but Luis felt as if he had stepped into the booth of a shady fortune teller at a dodgy fairground. The priest stared at them dispassionately. He looked strong, but half his face was horribly disfigured by a scar. It looked as if he had been mauled by a wild beast, and even though he survived the attack, the wounds healed badly. The scar ran across his cheekbone and disappeared behind his ears, but not before branching off towards his temple. He was not a trustworthy sight and Luis had his doubts that they would receive any help here. They sat down in front of him and Gua explained who he was and told him Luis’s story. The Inca muttered something and Gua translated it.

  “Show him the coin, Luis!”

  Luis took the coin from his pocket and thrust it under the man’s nose. He did not touch it, just leaned over to get a good look. He muttered some more.

  “Turn it over!” Gua ordered. Luis turned the coin and Gua translated what the priest said. “This is a dark luck coin. It is called dark because it brings good luck to its owner by bringing ill luck to someone else. It was made for the Sun King to protect him in his noble life and to punish those who would harm him.

  “Sun King?” Luis asked.

  “The Inca emperors were the mortal stewards of Inti, the sun god.”

  “Like the pharaohs?”

  “Yes, something like that. The hummingbird is a symbol of good luck, and that pattern around it refers to the ruling dynasty.”

  “And what does the writing say?”

  “He doesn’t know that,” Gua said. “The Incas did not use writing.”

  “What do you mean, they did not use writing?”

  “They did not use writing as we know it. They used a knot-writing called quipu. They tied knots of coloured yarns on a stick and that was how they wrote. The content was defined by the combination of knots and colours. Whatever this inscription is, it is not in Quechua.”

  “They told me in Mexico,” Luis said, “that this is some coded writing magicians used in the Inca empire.”

  The priest kept silent for a while and then he rubbed at the scar on his face and Luis could see that his forearm, his hand and his fingers were covered in scars as well.

  “This is just a legend,” the priest said and Gua translated. “Even if they did have such knowledge, it was lost in time. Nobody knows the truth anymore.”

  “And what do these legends say?” Luis asked, even though he could see the priest was not happy he kept forcing the issue.

  “They say the Inca sailed to the Far East, which, to them, was the West. The priests took their script back from this journey, but, instead of sharing it with others, they kept it to themselves. They re-shaped it so they would be the only ones to understand. This was how they recorded their knowledge, and maybe it still exists somewhere, maybe it does not. Maybe it never existed.”

  “How could I get rid of this coin?” Luis asked after a short pause. He was starting to feel very uncomfortable in the hut. The priest’s gaze was even, but Luis sensed some sort of threat in it as well. “I put everyone around me in danger. Whenever I have luck, someone gets hurts, or dies, or suffers some other loss.”

  Gua translated patiently. Sometimes he had to repeat a phase and other times, he had to rephrase a sentence so that Luis and the priest could understand each other.

  “He doesn’t know that,” Gua said, “but there is a wise old Inca with another tribe, who might know more.”

  “Great!” Luis said. “Let’s go!”

  “It is a day’s walk from here,” Gua said. “We can’t leave tonight. He invited us to stay for the night and he would give us a guide tomorrow morning.”

  Luis accepted, even though he knew he would not be able to sleep. He kept thinking all day long if that moment or the next was lucky, and if it was, what would be the price? Was it luck they did not have a flat tyre? Or that the rope did not tear when they crossed the river? That they were not attacked by marauders or beasts? That he would not get bitten by a snake at night?

  Even though he had no reason to be suspicious, he put most of his valuable belongings into a small bag for the night, and fastened it across his chest with a strap.

  He took another look at the coin. He could clearly see the four-winged hummingbird now, as well as the signs of the inscription. They did look some kind of a South-American kanji system.

  He managed to sleep for a few hours, after all, but he nearly fell out of bed in terror around dawn. He dreamed his family burned to death in their old apartment and that jolted him awake. The air was cool and Gua was snoring peacefully at the other side of the hut.

  It did not matter whether his dream held a deeper meaning or not, he had to get rid of the coin. Even if it cost him his life; he was convinced of this now, and he was ready for the worst.

  As he was lying awake in the darkness, he thought if he was an Emperor who did not have to care about anyone but himself, he would consider such a coin very handy indeed. The Sun King, who is always lucky, and what does it matter if a few of his men, warriors, and concubines die? And then he saw the gaze of the priest again and it seemed even more threatening in retrospect; memory cast horrible scars on both sides of his face.

  If the priest killed him and took the coin, Luis’s luck would certainly fall on him. It never occurred to Luis before, but there were a lot of people who would be happy to have such a coin, and his death was not such a high price for a life of good luck.

  He nodded off, but twenty minutes later he woke up again; and this time, for a more uncomfortable reason.

  10

  Something hit his chest. He opened his eyes and the priest was kneeling above him. A pale light leeched in through the door; the sky started to turn grey above the trees, but it was still almost pitch black. Luis could only see the scarred half of the priest’s face, which made him look more like a night terror than a living man. Something glittered above him. The pr
iest held a knife and was about to slam it into him again. Did he stab Luis? But Luis felt no pain.

  He did not cry out, he did not want to wake Gua because he was afraid the priest would hurt him as the man came to his defence. He pulled up his leg and kicked the Inca in the chest. The priest could hear but not see what happened, and he was not prepared for the attack. He fell down on the carpet by the bed and landed flat on his back. Luis jumped up and ran for the entrance. His bag fell off, and it was then that he realised what the punch that woke him up could have been. The priest stabbed him in his sleep but hit the bag’s clasp instead. The clasp broke, but it saved Luis’s life.

  He thought he had more chance to protect himself in the open. For one thing, it was lighter out there, and for another, somebody could see them and come to his aid. As he rushed out of the hut, he expected a full cadre of warriors intercepting him and handing him over to the priest, but no one was there. The village was under the spell of the dawn quiet only woodlands know.

  The priest ran out of the hut and rushed at Luis. His face was distorted by determination, but the scarred side of his mouth did not snarl and that looked even more terrifying. He pointed a six-inch-long blade at Luis. The Mexican froze. He never fought seriously, or even read about such things. He was completely unprepared. He had no other idea than to start running, but the priest was already in motion and could catch him easily, slashing at him with this knife.

  In that very moment Luis tripped on one of the tree stumps around the bonfire place. He fell on his face, while the momentum of the slash carried the priest forward and he fell on the trunk. Unlucky as he was, he landed on his own knife, skewering his own chin with it. He rolled over and started to whimper. The knife entered under his chin, half cut off his tongue, and stopped just under his palate.

  Luis got up, stared at the priest, and waited for something to happen. If he dies, the others would not help him get to the next village. The Inca kept whimpering; he looked weak and harmless. The scars on his face looked like a misfortunate disability now, and not terrifying stigmas. Luis knelt down beside him and had a look at his new wound. There was no artery nearby, so Luis took the knife out, no matter how much it hurt the priest, and softly told the man.

  “You will never come up lucky against me.”

  The priest nodded and clutched his bloody chin. Luis did not know if he understood what he said or simply resigned to the fact that he could not defeat the stranger. He could not get the coin just like that. Luis helped him up and waited until he staggered back to his hut, then threw the knife into the bushes. He was incredibly lucky again! Fear grasped his heart, but there was something majestic in how he did not defend himself and defeated the other. He went back to his bed but remained awake.

  11

  The others woke up half an hour later. They departed after a modest breakfast. Guayasamin decided to stay in the village. He did everything he could do and the locals told him there would be Spanish speakers in the other village as well. He told Luis he would wait for him for three days before heading back to Lima. Luis thanked him and they shook hands.

  The priest did not show his face again, but he did send Luis the guide he promised. It was a young boy named Raimi; he was around twenty. He wore cotton trousers, a linen shirt, and a dark, plain k’eperina. His sandals were made of recycled car tyre. He had short black hair, a bent nose, and friendly, though not very clever eyes. He walked into the forest with a staff that reached up to his shoulder and a machete on his belt. Luis followed him glancing anxiously back at the village disappearing behind them between the leaves. He had a feeling they would never come back here. He could not always see the path as they hiked through the woods, but Raimi walked as confidently as if it had been a paved highway. They walked in silence; they did not speak a common language.

  They stopped to rest every two hours, but even so, they left the forest behind in the afternoon. They continued their journey along the face of a cliff. The pebbles kept crunching under their feet. Luis had a sudden bout of vertigo but he refused to stop. On his right, there was an eighty-feet-deep ravine, hypnotically pulling his gaze to the bottom, while the cliffs on his left seemed to want to push them down into the abyss. He could see goats above them and on the cliffs. Vultures circled in the sky. They could even see llamas in the valleys. Without the coin, it would have been a wonderful hiking trip in the Andes. They caught a glimpse of the village in the distance, but Luis saw there was still one more forested swathe and a valley before they would reach it. All the same, he thought they could be there by nightfall.

  Luis walked carefully. They were at the end of their journey and Raimi reached a rocky plateau when Luis missed a step and slid on the pebbles. He fell, but he managed to grab an edge of the cliff. His feet were hanging over the abyss. Raimi started to run back but when he saw that Luis had already pulled himself to safety, he stopped. This was when the rock fell down. Probably a goat pushed it or it came loose some time before. It slammed into the path a few inches from Luis’s head and ricocheted off into the deep in a cloud of dust and debris. The very next moment a coral snake flashed out from under a stone and bit Raimi’s leg. Coral snakes usually cannot bite through thick canvas, but Raimi’s trousers were too thin and the snake was a big one.

  Luis knew what happened. He survived the rock, so Raimi had to die. He did not know anything about snakes but he knew that was the case.

  Raimi knew a lot about snakes, but this one was too fast and by the time he looked down, it already disappeared between the stones. The bite did not hurt, but that did not mean anything. If it had been venomous, he would be dead in a few hours without the antivenom. Luis did see the snake but he could not explain what colour it was. They kept pointing at stones, flowers and each other for a while, but they did not get anywhere. It was certainly a red snake with yellow and black coloured banding, but what is crucial is the order of the bands. If the yellow touches both other colours, than it's venomous, any other combination means the snake is harmless. Luis had nothing that was clearly yellow or red. And they even had trouble saying “yes” or “no” to each other. In the end, Raimi waved that they should go on.

  They walked another hour before reaching the forest. The space between the trees was filled with a heavy mist. They were getting tired but Raimi did not stop. Luis suspected they must be very close and that was the reason the boy kept going. Then Raimi disappeared right in front of him; he was swallowed by the vegetation. Luis stopped and took a few cautious steps forward. As he got closer, he could see Raimi lying on his belly among the leaves. His body was racked by spasms. Luis knew he was dying. How many more people has to die just because the universe revolved around his luck?

  He knelt down and turned the boy around. Raimi looked like he was being strangled. His face was reddish and purple, his eyes stared into nothingness, his hands were shaking. Then these involuntary spasms slowed and stopped. He died. Luis hung his head and sat on the ground. He was sitting in the woodlands of the Andes, all alone with a dead Inca, without knowing where he was or which way to go on. It was getting dark, time moved on, and all the while Gua was waiting for him to return, as were Camila and Marcos much further away. His clothes were dirty. His mouth was dry. And he was one of the luckiest men on Earth.

  Luis pulled himself together. He got up and hoisted the boy on his shoulders. He was not particularly strong, but then Raimi was not particularly heavy, either. The sun was about to set and the valley was veiled in portentous greyness.

  Luis carried Raimi for half an hour before reaching the village. Then it started to rain. Villagers came out to greet him and took Raimi to one of the adobe huts, ushering Luis in as well. Everyone was dressed as if they were still living in the 15th century and he felt like a visitor from the future. They were true Incas, not modern people. Luis was overwhelmed by a mixture of shock, respect and curiosity. It was hard to believe that what he saw was real.

  When he looked around, they did not seem either happy, or friendly. M
ost of them carried blades and weapons. Others had coiled ropes, waterskins and tools Luis could not identify.

  One of them started speaking Spanish, and that shocked Luis even more than their looks did.

  “Raimi, what happened?” he pointed to the dead boy.

  “Snake,” Luis answered and made a serpentine wave with his hands.

  “Yellow?”

  “Yes. And black.”

  The Inca nodded and told the others something in Quechua. For some reason, Luis felt he was not their leader, but he might have been the oldest in the hut.

  The Incas carefully covered Raimi’s body and escorted Luis to another, bigger hut with a stone foundation, though the upper parts were made of branches and roughly worked wood.

  The hut was lit by the yellowish flutter of a single torch. An ancient man was sitting inside. In the dim light, his wrinkled face looked like a death mask carved of wood. He addressed Luis in Spanish.

  “What’s your name?” he asked. His voice was deep and rough and it made Luis shiver, but all in all, he trusted the old man more than he ever trusted the priest.

  “Luis,” he said and thought that should be enough.

  “My name is Hawka,” the old man said. “Why are you here?”

  “I have a coin with me,” he said and took it out of his pocket. “An Inca coin.”

  Hawka’s eyes widened a fraction, but Luis still noticed it.

  He recognised it, he thought. He knows what it is!

  “A coin,” the old man repeated.

  Luis held it out to him. Hawka hesitated at first but then took it.

  “Tell me the story!”

  Luis told the gist of it, that he was lucky, but whenever he had good luck, someone near him had bad luck. Raimi died because he escaped a falling rock. Hawka thought for a moment and then he started to speak. Sometimes he said a few words in Quechua but one of his fellows translated it to Spanish. There were a few words that were not translated but Luis could understand what he said and did not like it one bit.