by C. W. Trisef
Like the saddle of a pack animal, the ruins of Machu Picchu sat in a wide-bottomed trough, cradled between two crests, with a large summit on one side and a shorter one across the way. Ret thought of it in terms of a recent lecture in science class, classifying the scene as a wavelength that was low in both frequency and amplitude—for it truly rested at the top of the mountain, whose sides were more like sheer cliffs than steep slopes. In fact, the whole operation appeared as if it might slide off like sheet cake at any moment. Unlike most of the surrounding mounts, Machu Picchu was a tad shorter and considerably more isolated, like a butte in its own valley. Its tall precipices met the ground in a healthy river that encircled the mountain on nearly all sides.
Ret groped for the right word to describe the sight before his eyes. It certainly was breathtaking, in might and majesty, but it was also curious, nontraditional, and downright unusual. It seemed one of the worst possible locations to build a city, at least for practical reasons, but quite ideal for protection against armed conflict or concealment of hidden treasure. Still, its utter remoteness was a suspicion too glaring to be overlooked. It was as though it had purposely withdrawn itself nigh out of existence—perhaps to be out of sight also meant to be out of prying minds—and even if it had been newfound, it was no easy task simply to get to it. Secluded, excluded, precluded—that was the story of Machu Picchu. But Ret wanted to know the why.
Mr. Coy maneuvered the balloon up onto the southern end of the saddle. Ishmael heaved the ladder over the side of the wicker basket and climbed down to the ground to secure the guy-lines. Anxious, Ret skipped the last few rungs of the ladder when it was his turn to descend and jumped onto the mountain soil. He turned northward and stared at the panorama of the lost city. It was not an entirely new sight, for directly in front of them lay the skyline that had been bored into the belly of the giant figure at Nazca. It was the spitting image of the desert lines; there was no mistaking it.
Like a child amid his slew of birthday packages, Ret looked to his scar, anticipating good news. Nothing. No glow, no numbness, nothing. He sighed with dejection.
The curious quartet set out to explore their surroundings. The rich dirt beneath their feet was largely blanketed in grass, brightly colored and thick as hair. A gentle breeze blew an occasional cloud into the mountainsides, temporarily veiling the city and shielding it from the warm sun in its strikingly blue sky. Despite the elevation, the air was warm and moist, which were conditions much enjoyed by the tropical flora. The calls of exotic birds rang among the forested cliffs, and the elongated neck of a sunbathing llama stretched above the low-growing ferns and orchids nearby.
The architects’ use of stone was quite impressive. Although not a place of many roofs, the walls of homes and buildings were expertly crafted using stones of all shapes and sizes but without requiring any kind of mortar. With trapezoidal frames and even modest windows, the structures were clearly built to withstand the tests of time—either that or seismic shifts. At times, browsing the ruins felt like walking a tightrope, so vertiginous and dizzying were the constantly changing levels of varying heights. One misstep near the city limits could lead to a grave freefall of thousands of feet. Where the boundaries didn’t end in precipice, the still-steep slopes bore the workmanship of terracing, which, as if stairs for giants, spanned up and down and all around the mountainsides like a modern stadium, each terrace’s dirt retained by the same stone-walled and mortar-free building technique.
There was not a soul in the whole compound. Walking through the narrow alleys between the rows of cold dwellings, it felt more like touring a former concentration camp than the hidden jewel of a once-great civilization. Why was this place, which had been so painstakingly constructed, now utterly abandoned?
While the others roamed the site in pursuit of personal fancies, Ret wandered aimlessly in the forsaken city. For a brief time, he stood under the leafy boughs of a lone tree in the central courtyard, which seemed as out of place and on its own as he felt. Then, as his three separated comrades individually began to gravitate toward him in their continued combing of the community, Ret set out in search of a more solitary place to be alone with his despondent thoughts, which he didn’t wish to share with anyone.
Ret noticed a sort of hill at the upper periphery of the property and started climbing a set of irregular steps at its base, hoping to secure solitude somewhere along the way. Reaching the top of the hill, he entered a shoddy enclosure. Though roofless and sporadically walled, Ret found a large block of white stone inside, one side of which had been cut out to form an ideal bench. Ret sat down with a frustrated sigh.
“What a bust!” he lamented. “A total waste! We’ve come all this way, and what do we have to show for it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” In his self-defeatism, he kicked a clump of small rubble in front of him, as if it was in his way. “All this time, all this effort, all this worry—and for what?”
He stopped his whispered dialogue at the sound of approaching footsteps on the dusty stairs. Someone was climbing toward his private enclave.
“Hey, Ret!” Lionel greeted with wonder in his voice. “Pretty amazing place, huh?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s amazing,” Ret said bitterly.
“Oh? And why not?”
“Well, have you found anything related to the Oracle here?” Ret asked.
“No, not yet,” Lionel answered sheepishly, sensing Ret’s displeasure. “Have you?”
“Not a thing,” said Ret, his disappointment apparent, “which is why I’m sitting on this bench, waiting until we leave this place.”
“First of all,” Lionel said in an upbeat tone, noticing how Ret needed some cheering up, “this is not a bench. It’s the Intihuatana Stone, one of many ritual stones in South America, carved out of the rock of the mountain itself. We’re not entirely sure why the ancient cultures built them, but the answer may lie in astronomy.”
“What did you call it?” asked Ret, backtracking to the unfamiliar term he had heard Lionel say in his spiel, to which he wasn’t really paying much attention.
“The Intihuatana Stone,” Lionel repeated, amused by Ret’s naïveté in the field of ancient archeological artifacts. “I know; it’s kind of a funny word, huh? It comes from the local Quechua dialect and means ‘the place that ties up the sun’ or something like that.” Lionel commenced a methodical walk around the large granite block, sliding his fingers along its rough surface. “This top piece,” he said, reaching to touch the rectangular prism in the center, “was carved so precisely that each of its corners points in one of the four cardinal directions.” Ret didn’t bother to turn around and look behind him at the object of Lionel’s lecture. “Twice a year, on the equinoxes, it supposedly ‘ties up’ the sun—pointing directly at it and, therefore, casting no shadow. It’s also rumored to share some special significance with each of the solstices.” As though intrigued by a word spoken from his own mouth, Lionel paused to check the date on his cell phone. “If I’m not mistaken, today is the winter solstice—which means it’s the summer solstice in this hemisphere, of course.” He studied the stone with greater thoroughness upon this realization, squatting for different perspectives and squinting in search of finer details. “But I’m not sure what I ought to be looking for.”
Ret wondered why Lionel was telling him so much about a lame rock that wasn’t even very comfortable to sit on. “Well, it’d be nice if it could tell me where to find the next element.”
Cringing at Ret’s sour attitude, Lionel completed his walk around the stone and then sat down on it next to Ret. Motionless, they sat in silence for a few moments. Then Lionel opened his mouth to tell Ret something that had been on his mind.
“Ret,” he said, in a tone that wasn’t altogether pleased, “it seems to me as though you’re a little obsessed with this Oracle business.”
“Well yeah,” said Ret as if Lionel had stated the obvious. “Filling the Oracle is my top priority. I want it more than anything else.”
“That’s what worries me,” Lionel admitted.
“Why?” Ret asked incredulously, almost offended. “Is that bad? Is it bad to want something so much that you’d do anything to get it?”
“Depends,” Lionel replied, somewhat to Ret’s chagrin. “Does ‘anything’ include being willing to do without it?”
In his vexation, Ret made no response, waiting for Lionel to explain his conundrum.
“Ret,” Lionel counseled, “there are some things in life that you can’t have unless you’re first willing to not have them.” He paused to let his words sink in, knowing such maxims hadn’t the tendency to initially strike very forcefully the chimes of youthful inexperience.
Shaking his head, Ret replied, “Lionel, that doesn’t make any sense—”
“I know, I know,” Lionel agreed. “At first, it seems self-contradictory. But think about it for a while, and, by and by, I think you’ll come to understand the truth behind it. It took me a long time to figure out that lesson, but I thought I’d share it with you—you know, to give you the upper hand.”
“So if I want something,” Ret said dubiously, attempting to repeat the perceived paradox in his own words so as to better understand it, “the trick is to not want it?”
“Yeah,” said Lionel, more or less agreeing. “That’s the gist of it. It’s a universal principle; what it means for you is up to you to figure out, Ret.”
“Then what am I supposed to do,” said Ret, suddenly jumping to his feet, “just walk away from it all?” He took a few haphazard strides forward to ridicule the concept presented in his words. “Shift gears? Change course—180 degrees? Forget all about my scars and the Oracle? Pretend Sunken Earth never happened? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“What I’m telling you, Ret,” said Lionel, remaining calm, “is that you need to learn to control your passions.” Ret put his hands on his hips and looked at the ground with dissatisfaction. “It’s not a bad thing to have desires—wants, ambitions—even strong ones. But when they consume us—when the fire of our passions burns everything we touch, singes every thought we think, scalds every person we know—then there’s a problem: a raging inferno that gags the voice of reason and blinds the clearest vision. So the ‘trick’ is to discipline yourself—to control the burner, to limit the fuel, to bring out the fire extinguisher—and not let your passions control you. That’s the secret to success: giving it all you’ve got without letting it take all you are.” Ret’s pensive gaze remained fixed on the ground.
“In the meantime,” Lionel advised, “don’t overlook the joy that’s to be found in the journey. Don’t see through the people you see all the time.”
“You mean Paige?” Ret said with a pinch of contempt.
“Maybe the reason you lost your past is because you already spend too much time in the future at the expense of the present.”
“But it’s always on my mind, Lionel,” said Ret earnestly. “What’s the next scar? Where’s the next element? What does the Oracle want me to do next? I can’t enjoy today because I’m so worried about what’s next—wondering why I’m not getting any help from my scar, whether or not I’m in the wrong place, how in the world I’m going to find these elements.” Then, with a face of pure desperation, Ret said, “I just want the reassurance that I’m on the right track. What if I made a wrong turn somewhere along the road? It’s hard to ‘enjoy the journey’ when I’m not sure if I’m making the right one.”
Lionel smiled and asked, “Do you know what faith is, Ret?”
Ret thought for a moment, though unable to come up with his own definition. “Believing is seeing,” he replied, employing the traditional, though hardly understood, cliché.
“That’s the gist of it,” said Lionel, again. Recognizing the repetition, Ret tried to restrain a smile, grateful for Lionel’s patience. “Faith means believing something even though you don’t really have any proof. It’s hoping and trusting when the evidence is not there. It’s not the easiest thing to do; it’s uncertain, and risky.”
“Like you riding in Coy’s balloon,” said Ret.
“Right,” Lionel said, glad Ret was following. “I had never seen Coy’s balloon in action, but you told me to trust him, so I put my faith in your good judgment. But people don’t want to believe; they want to know.”
“So you’re saying I need to have more faith?”
“Have you ever heard the old Quechua fable about the man with no shadow?” Lionel asked. Ret shook his head, so Lionel proceeded. “In his quest for completeness, a good man chased Sun to escape Shadow for so long that, upon finally finding no Shadow around him, he wondered wither the Sun had fled.”
Ret waited for a few moments and then asked, “That’s it?”
“Almost,” said Lionel. “You see, shadows have a bad rap. They’re dark and scary, synonymous with doubt and mischief. But as undesirable as they may seem, shadows can also be very helpful because they reveal where light is. When we have faith, we step into the unknown—into darkness, into shadow. The man in the fable was so bent on fleeing his shadows of doubt and uncertainty—so consumed by his passion to supplant faith with knowledge—that, when he at last got to that point, he wondered where the Sun had gone,” and then Lionel recited the last line of the fable, “unaware that it was directly above him.”
Lionel slowly stood up to finish his lesson. “We can’t outrun faith in our search for knowledge, Ret. You can’t know something unless you’re first willing to not know it, or, in other words, unless you’re first willing to have faith. Oftentimes we think we’ve wandered way off the deep end because we can’t even see our own shadow, when actually quite the opposite is true: we’re so on track but don’t realize it because we’re standing right under the light.”
Lionel stepped close to Ret. He put his hand on Ret’s shoulder, and they stared at each other for a moment. A slight frown had grown on Ret’s face, the kind brought on when youthful inexperience rears disgruntled ambition. As if it reminded him of a former time in his own life, Lionel returned Ret’s minor scowl with a tempered smile, the kind that bespeaks tenderness and seasoning gained in the refining rotisserie of life.
Then, with his charismatic smile that could garnish even the darkest of lies with truth, Lionel concluded, “We all need a little shadow to show us our next move.”
Across the complex, Mr. Coy and Ishmael stood behind one of the many unfinished walls, concealing themselves from plain sight. They were keeping a close eye on Lionel’s interaction with Ret at the Intihuatana Stone.
“Lionel sure has been talking to Ret a lot lately,” Mr. Coy spoke softly as he watched Lionel take his hand off Ret’s shoulder and start down the stairs. “You’re positive he’s been drinking the extract, Ishmael?”
“Without a doubt,” Ishmael affirmed. “I pour a dose into his personal flask every chance I get. So far, I’ve been undetected, sir.”
“Well done,” Mr. Coy complimented. “Keep up the good work. Thanks to you, I can sleep at night.”
Though Lionel had excused himself and started down the stairs, Ret stood in place, contemplating the possible meaning of Lionel’s parting words. Ret looked down at his own shadow. It lay on the ground to his right, a bit behind him, short in length since it was still early in the afternoon. Almost out of instinct, Ret glanced to his left, a little in front of him, then heavenward. As he knew he would, there he found the sun, directly opposite the slant of his shadow. It was a commonsense fact that he had never thought much of before: how a shadow gives away the location of its light source. But there had to be more to it than that, for the depth of Lionel’s lessons were never so shallow.
Still standing and engrossed in thought, Ret stared purposelessly at the Intihuatana Stone in front of him. He hadn’t paid much attention to it until now, and he was somewhat intrigued by its erratic shape. Overall, it looked like a deli sandwich with an extra thick toothpick stuck through the center: there was an upper slab stacked atop a lower one, as well as a stunte
d pillar-like piece jutting up from the top in the center, curiously carved to serve the sundial-like functions that Lionel had alluded to.
The recollection of its potentially astronomical purposes prompted Ret to take a closer look at the peculiar top piece, a rectangular block sitting on its short side. The prism was not shadowless, which made sense since the nearest equinox was months away. In fact, a waxing shadow was already present behind its eastern side. If the rumors were true, as Lionel had mentioned, that the block held some affinity to the solstices, then the phenomenon would have to include the presence—not the absence—of shadow.
It was at the end of this maze of thought when the mouse of Ret’s reasoning reached its cheesy prize. With swelling interest, he studied the shadow of the upright brick, which would have been quite ordinary had it not been for an inconsistency in the tabletop. A large portion of the top layer had not been made level with the rest of it, so it rose like a step, as when a tree root abruptly forces a sidewalk slab upward. This disparity in depth distorted the shadow. With wide eyes, Ret gaped at the shaded image before him: it was his scar.
With restrained excitement, he manipulated the shadow to make sure he wasn’t imagining things. He passed his hands in and around and through the dark figure, only to confirm its authenticity. At one point, he grasped the stone itself to test its mobility. Though it refused to budge, as soon as Ret touched it, the stone began to spark and smoke. In fact, it put on the same spectacle as had both Mr. Coy’s pilfered rock and Lionel’s airmailed sliver. This time, however, Ret retained his grip.
The block erupted into a smoldering mass of flames and steam. Despite the blinding effervescence, Ret maintained his hold on the prolonged and miniature explosion, well aware that the combustion was a result of his tactile stimulus. Unharmed by the incineration, Ret could feel the stone lessening in size as it was reduced to ash and vapor.