by Alex Archer
* * *
THE TEMPLE WAS GORGEOUS.
It was simple—there was no other adjective that so encompassed the condition of the place to Annja. She’d seen her fair share of ancient ruins and architecture, but she’d never seen a building from an ancient culture the way it was meant to be viewed, with all the vibrancy and color of the time in which it had been settled. This particular structure looked as if it had been built yesterday.
Lining the entire interior of the temple, starting at about ankle height and rising to eye level, was a glorious full-color mural. It showed scenes from Incan mythology, from the creator god Virachoca bringing the world into being and pulling the sun and moon from the waters of Lake Titicaca, to the transformation of a flirtatious woman who was cut in half by jealous lovers into the goddess of health and beauty, Cocomama. Image after image splayed out along the walls, all of them done in exquisite detail, the likes of which Annja had never seen.
The centerpiece of the temple was a twice-life-size statue of the sun god, Inti, the second most powerful god in the entire Incan pantheon, subordinate only to Virachoca himself. Inti was usually represented by a humanoid figure sitting crossed-legged with his hands in his lap. The top half of his head was a vast array of sunbeams, extending outward like an unfurled ladies’ hand fan.
That alone should have been enough to keep an archaeologist like Annja in heaven for weeks, but the fact that the entire statue was made from gold sent the treasure-hunter side of her reeling, as well.
The value of such a piece was incalculable.
Marcos gave a low whistle when he saw it, and it did the one thing none of the others thought was possible: it struck him dumb at the site. All he could do for several minutes was stand and stare.
Annja didn’t blame him.
As she turned away, intending to look at other parts of the temple, she spotted something on the floor behind the statue. Stepping over to investigate, she found a tan fedora, very similar to the ones that she’d seen Dr. Knowles wearing in pictures taken at his various dig sites. When she bent to pick it up, she discovered a satellite phone underneath it.
“That’s Richard’s hat!”
Annja stood as Claire rushed over and grabbed both the hat and the phone. Claire immediately tried to turn the satellite phone on, only to discover that the battery was dead. Still, both items were proof that they were still going in the right direction.
They didn’t seem like the kind of objects one would simply forget, so Annja guessed that Knowles had left them behind intentionally, just like the marks he’d made along the trail. Dr. Knowles was trying to tell anyone coming after him that he was still alive and kicking.
Or, at least, he had been recently.
“Hey, come take a look at this,” Hugo called from the other side of the statue, and the group joined him near the back wall. The mural Annja had been examining continued here, but now it was different. Where the earlier scenes had been images captured from Incan mythology, these pictures chronicled events a bit more recent than that. In the image Marcos was pointing at, there was the unmistakable picture of a sailing ship with three masts that sailed into port and deposited three groups of people on the beach before continuing on their journey. There was little doubt in anyone’s mind that they were looking at a picture of the Reliant.
Later scenes showed the Incas attacking the ship, leaving the captain for dead and herding the captives into the jungle. What seemed to be a long march followed, with the captives ultimately ending up in what Annja thought appeared remarkably like an Incan city.
They moved “down” the mural a few feet, their eyes widening at the number of ships and expeditions to the island that were cataloged in the images on the walls. The pictures of the ships progressed from sailing vessels to more modern-looking motor yachts, including two that Annja would have sworn were the Sea Dancer and the Neptune’s Pride.
There were several images of Dr. Knowles’s expedition, identified by the cave full of treasure drawn nearby. Like the crew from Jeffries’s Reliant, it seemed that Knowles and his people had been captured and taken to the temple as well, if the images were to be believed.
Now all they needed to do was find this Incan city and they should find Knowles and his team. And if there was one thing that Annja was good at, it was finding things that other people didn’t want found. Ancient or modern, it didn’t matter—she had the skills and capability to track them down if given enough time.
The very last image in the mural was chilling, though, for it showed an individual who could only be Marcos being taken from his tent in the midst of their camp and strung up in the tree while a jaguar sat patiently at his feet.
Well, we foiled that plan, Annja thought. Guess they will need to have the artist do some touch-ups by the time we’re done.
She was poring over the images, trying to find some clue as to the whereabouts of the Incan city, when the jaguar outside let out another scream.
This time, however, the cat was answered by another.
Annja knew it was two different beasts; the second call had a deeper timbre than the first.
She would have passed it off as two unfriendly cats hunting the same source of food if it had stopped there.
But it didn’t.
The first and second calls were answered by a third.
And then a fourth.
Four jaguars in the same place?
That didn’t make any kind of sense at all. Curious, she stepped over to the door they’d entered through and looked down to where the jaguar had been sitting in the shade when they’d entered the pyramid half an hour ago.
The cat was still there.
But a new cat sat at each of the other cardinal points of the compass, guarding the steps down from the pyramid.
The activity was too human to be anything but trained.
Even as she looked on, she saw figures moving through the trees, converging on the pyramid. Most likely brought there by Marcos’s rifle shot earlier.
“We’ve got company!” Annja called.
The others rushed over to join her.
By then the figures had revealed themselves to be a hunting party of about fifteen men. All of them were dressed in lightweight tunics and pants made from local materials and decorated with colorful thread arranged in geometric patterns.
Annja had seen clothes just like these before on the Incan warriors in her dream the other night.
It seems their adversaries had finally chosen to reveal themselves.
Armed warriors and trained hunting cats.
Perfect.
29
Slopes of Mount Yglesias
Cocos Island
Incan warriors. Here, on Cocos Island.
Annja was having trouble wrapping her head around the idea. One side of her was saying, Yes, of course it’s the Inca. Who else did you expect it to be? while the other half was telling her how ridiculous it was to even think that the men at the foot of the pyramid were members of a civilization that had disappeared in the sixteenth century.
She might still be standing there staring if Hugo hadn’t brought his rifle up to his shoulder and aimed it down the slope of the pyramid at the newcomers below. Claire followed suit seconds later. The sudden motion broke her mental paralysis and focused her on the problem at hand.
She reached out and put a hand on Hugo’s arm while, below them, the Incan warriors reacted in predictable fashion, bringing their weapons—blowguns, bows and arrows, and long, metal-tipped spears—to bear on the four of them atop the pyramid.
“That might not be a good idea,” Annja said to Hugo gently, not wanting to spook him into accidentally pulling the trigger. She hoped that Claire was listening.
“Why not?” Hugo snarled at her, without taking his gaze away from the warriors below.
Annja kept her voice calm. “Because they’ll turn you into a human pincushion full of darts and arrows before you could even get off a second shot. And that’s if the cats don’t
get you first.”
As if on cue, the cats had risen to their feet and were leaning forward, lips drawn back from their teeth and their tails twitching behind them as they stared unblinkingly at the threat above. One of them let out a snarling cry that gave no doubt as to its intentions.
“What do you want us to do? Surrender?” Hugo hissed at her, suddenly afraid to raise his voice.
“If you want to live to see tomorrow, then yes. We can’t escape if we’re dead.”
One of the warriors stepped forward and shouted up at them, gesturing at the same time. Annja didn’t understand a word, but the gist of it seemed plain enough.
Drop your weapons and come down here.
Sounded like a quick way to get themselves killed, but really, what choice did they have? They were cornered like rats, with nowhere to go. All the warriors had to do was sit there until Annja and her companions were too weak from the lack of food and water to resist, then climb the steps and take them captive, anyway. Annja didn’t see the point in going through all of that just to end up at the same place. Better to be seen as cooperating, which might gain them some mercy at a crucial time, than fighting and generating more ill will than they’d apparently already gained.
The warrior repeated himself, this time a bit more sharply.
“He wants us to drop our weapons,” Marcos said from where he stood on the other side of Claire.
Annja glanced his way, ready with a quick retort about stating the obvious, when she saw the expression on his face—surprise, wonder, amazement, confusion, all rolled up in one.
“What?” she asked sharply, concerned.
But she needn’t have worried.
“The language. I recognize it,” Marcos said. “Or at least some of it.”
Claire stared at him.
“You do?”
Marcos nodded. “It’s Quechua. Or close enough to it that I can get the gist of it.”
Quechua was one of the indigenous languages of South America, spoken by nearly eight million people throughout the nations of Bolivia, Ecuador, Columbia, Peru, Chile and Argentina.
It was also the main language of the Incan Empire throughout most of its history.
It all seemed so obvious in hindsight, but then again, that was why they said hindsight was twenty-twenty. Hard not to see the connections when you already knew the answers.
Beside her, Claire said, “Annja’s right. Do what she says, Hugo.”
Hugo grumbled beneath his breath, but complied.
Annja and Marcos raised their hands over their heads. Claire and Hugo lowered their weapons, slowly put them down on the ground by their feet and then did the same.
The leader of the warriors, the one who Annja decided to privately call Cuzco after the capital city of the Incas, shouted something else up to them and then gestured for them to come down.
Annja didn’t need Marcos to translate that one.
“What do we do?” Claire asked.
“Unless you’ve got a full case of jaguar repellent hiding in your shorts somewhere, I’d do what the man says,” Annja said laconically. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
Hands in the air, she started down the stairs.
Behind her, the others followed.
She was halfway to the bottom when one of the warriors stepped forward and looped a leather strap—a leash, really—around the neck of the cat at the bottom of the steps. The cat barely noticed, its gaze fixed firmly on Annja as she came down the steps toward it.
Hope he’s got a good grip on that leash, she thought and then reassured herself that she wasn’t entirely without protection if the cat somehow broke free. She really didn’t want to face off against another jaguar, but she’d do so if necessary.
When she reached the bottom, two warriors came over to her, took her by the arms and led her over to stand in front of Cuzco. They pushed her down to her knees, firmly but without any sense of anger or intent to harm that Annja could pick up. Just two guys doing their job. She was surprised a bit at their lack of curiosity. Then again, if their group had recently snatched the crew of the Sea Dancer as well as the members of Dr. Knowles’s dig team, they had probably seen more mainlanders in the past few weeks than they hoped or wanted.
Her three companions were forced down to their knees beside her.
“What are they going—”
Claire didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence, for the warrior behind her cuffed her across the back of the head to silence her.
Cuzco eyed them all for a long while and then said something in Quechua to Annja.
Annja frowned and, not understanding, glanced at Marcos for some help.
“He’s either asking why you’re here or where’s your lama. I’d go with the former if I were you.”
Annja had no idea if any of the warriors understood English, but she gave it a try, anyway.
“We mean you and your people no harm. We are here to find our missing friends.”
Cuzco’s expression didn’t change as Annja spoke; he just kept staring at her.
“Can you say that in Quechua?” she asked Marcos.
He shook his head. “I can barely understand it, never mind speak it.”
“Try it in Spanish, then.”
Marcos obliged, but Cuzco barely glanced in his direction and clearly didn’t understand a word that he was saying. More rapid-fire Quechua followed, all of it seemingly directed at Annja. When the Incan leader was finished, he gestured to the men standing nearby.
Annja felt her arms lifted behind her back and tied together with some kind of rough cord. A glance to the side showed Claire getting her hands tied, too. The men were searched first, the warriors removing knives from both of them and a pistol from Marcos’s belt, before they, too, were bound. Hugo started to struggle when they began to loop the cord around his wrists, but quickly subsided when one of the cat handlers walked his cat closer to where Hugo knelt on the ground. Once they were tied, blindfolds were produced and slipped over the captives’ heads.
The fact that the Inca had blindfolded them allowed Annja to relax a little. The blindfolds meant the Incans didn’t want them seeing something, most likely the route to wherever it was that they were headed, which in turn meant they weren’t going to be killed outright for violating the sanctity of the temple. They might still pay that price, but it wasn’t going to happen immediately, and that was a good sign.
Annja was pulled to her feet and, at another sharp command from Cuzco, marched forward. The Incan who had tied her hands behind her back became her minder, keeping one hand on her biceps at all times as they walked along. Initially she was worried that they were separating her from her companions, but then she heard a grunt of annoyance from Marcos as he misjudged a step, and she relaxed, confident that they were still together.
The group got under way, moving at a slightly faster pace than Annja and her companions had been traveling earlier. The bottom edge of Annja’s blindfold was just loose enough to allow her to see her feet, which kept her stumbling to a minimum, but from the regular exclamations coming from some of the others behind her, she knew they weren’t so fortunate. The same view allowed her to see that they were on a trail of some kind, perhaps even the same one they’d been on earlier. It was just wide enough for her and her minder to walk abreast of each other, with relatively little debris to step over along the way.
About an hour into their march, they left the jungle behind. Their steps took on a bit of an echoing quality. The air around them stilled and the light became greatly reduced, leading Annja to believe that they’d entered a cavern or tunnel of some kind. Her captors seemed to calm a bit; the grip her minder had on her arm lightened, as if he were no longer as worried about her making a break for it as he’d been at the start of their journey together.
A considerable time later, her minder brought her to a stop and then let go of her arm. As he hadn’t done that since the group had begun walking, Annja was momentarily alarmed, but that subsided
when she felt his hands untying the knot of her blindfold. They’d been going for what felt like hours, though she knew time could be deceptive without the usual visual references to mark it. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light that had been filtering in through the cloth, so it took a moment or two for her eyes to get used to the sudden light. But when they did she couldn’t do much more than stare ahead of her in amazement and wonder.
She stood in a massive cavern, the space stretching out before her as far as she could see and the ceiling literally hundreds of feet above her head. The enormity of the cave might have been enough to get her to stop and stare, but it was what was in the cavern that captured her attention and held her mesmerized.
An entire Incan city stretched out before her.
30
City of the Sun
Beneath Mount Yglesias
Annja stood on a ledge about halfway up the cavern wall, giving her a bird’s-eye view of the city laid out in a gridlike pattern below her. Wide streets ran through the city center and gradually gave way to more narrow pathways once one left the main thoroughfares. Buildings rose up in orderly fashion, everything from pyramids and temples to administrative centers and residential space. Areas that could only be parks were scattered here and there throughout the city, their brilliant green competing with a plethora of other colors amid the brightly painted structures. Everywhere she looked was a riot of color, an explosion of exuberance that Annja had always imagined might be the norm for the Incan civilization but until now had never had the opportunity to prove.
Oh, the things they could learn in this place, she thought.
She heard Claire gasp in amazement behind her and knew her companions’ blindfolds had been removed, as well.
It suddenly occurred to Annja that despite being entirely underground, the city before her was bathed in the rich light of the afternoon sun. Almost reluctantly, she tore her gaze away from the city streets and looked to the walls of the cavern rising high around it, searching for the source of the light. At first it was hard to see, the light being brighter there than anywhere else in the cavern, but then she saw that an intricate series of mirrors had been put in place along the walls of the cavern. A massive mirror near the roof captured the rays of the sun and then relayed them to the other mirrors throughout the cavern, bathing the entire city in the same level of light. As the sun set outside, so, too, would it set inside. It was an incredible engineering feat for a civilization without modern tools and construction techniques, but Annja knew she shouldn’t be surprised. The Incan civilization had invented terrace farming, aqueducts and freeze-dried foods, just to name a few, so a working system of mirrors certainly wasn’t beyond their capability.