Priestess of Paracas

by K Patrick Donoghue

  Citali yanked against the hand holding her chin so she could look toward the soldiers amassed inside the temple entrance. Bows loaded and drawn, spears and machetes poised, there was no fear in their eyes, only defiance. She returned their gazes. Yes, brothers, it is better to die than surrender.

  “Kill them!” Citali commanded.

  Before Alamare could react, arrows whistled through the air and struck him. Citali felt both of the men on top of her shudder each time they were hit, and she heard the groans of the other assassins as they were felled. Alamare’s grip on her chin faltered. As he lay dying on her back, he whispered, “She will burn everything, freak. You will be the Keeper of nothing but ashes.”

  As if a curtain had been lowered over her eyes, all went black. Citali no longer felt the weight of the dead men on top of her, nor did she hear the sounds of their dying comrades lying nearby.

  What is happening? Why can’t I move? Where are the soldiers? I need to run.

  The darkness began to fade into a gray haze. New sounds began to fill her ears. Birds again, and the fluttering of leaves, then the roar of distant waves mixed with the aroma of salty air. The gray took on color, a dark blue with white and pink at the center. The tendrils of pink swayed. As her vision sharpened, Citali found herself by a white tree with enormous roots that spread over the ground in all directions. Its leaves, a shade of pink Citali had never seen, danced in the wind. Beyond the tree was a cliff and beyond that a vast turquoise ocean.

  A voice out of her field of vision said, “It’s okay, Citali. You’re safe now.”

  The voice was familiar. Citali turned and saw the emblem-painted woman from the oasis sitting on one of the tree’s roots. Citali stepped back, her feet pressing into the wet red clay around the tree roots. Looking down, she saw she was dressed in a tan tunic piped with crimson and gold. She raised her gaze and pointed at the woman. “You! Sorceress!”

  “I’m not a sorceress. I’m Pebbles, remember?”

  Pebbles stood up and walked toward her. Citali backed away, her voice rising. “Stay back, demon!”

  Arms outstretched, Pebbles slowly advanced. “I’m not a demon. I just want to talk some more.”

  “Come no closer or I will strike you down.” Citali reached for her bag but it was gone. With panicked hands, she felt for her necklace. It was missing too. She snarled. “What have you done with my things? My necklace, my knife. Where are they?”

  “Haven’t a clue,” Pebbles stopped and slowly spun around in a circle, her arms raised above her head. “See? I don’t have them.”

  “You are clever, sorceress, but I am no fool. Give them back or I will kill you with my bare hands.”

  Citali crouched down and leaned forward, ready to charge. Pebbles took a few steps back. “Whoa, now. There’s no need for that. Like I said, I just want to talk.”

  “Why? So you can trick me? Understand this, demon — no matter how sweetly you speak to me, I will not tell you anything. I did not tell the Lady. I will not tell you.”

  “I wish you would stop calling me a demon. I’m really not. I’m just a woman like you.”

  “Ha! You are nothing like me. You fill my mind with visions. You—”

  “I fill your mind with visions?” Pebbles snapped back. “Your freaking visions, or dreams, or memories, or whatever the hell they are, have been haunting me for months, sister! I got a deal for you — you stop showing me your visions, I’ll stop showing you mine!”

  Pebbles began to stalk back and forth in front of Citali. “It’s so frustrating. You replay the same shit over and over. People chasing you through the temple, through villages, forests, over mountains, into the desert, across rivers. Your thoughts are always about running, hiding, protecting. Why run? Who are you trying to hide from? What is it you are protecting?”

  Citali relaxed her stance. “Why do you care?”

  Pebbles tugged at her hair and shouted, “Because you’re inside my effing head! Your visions, your memories, are inside of me! I can’t get them out and don’t understand them!

  “For instance, the craziness just now at the temple. What was that about? I mean, I get your people were preparing to defend the city. I understand they were trying to protect you…but I don’t understand why. The girl in your room called you Seer. The man who attacked you called you Keeper. I don’t understand what those titles mean. Were you some kind of priestess? Were you the ruler of the city? Who are the Dwellers? Who is the Lady?”

  Citali’s eyes followed the stalking Pebbles. “It is done. It is all over. It matters not.”

  “Oh, but it does matter…otherwise, you wouldn’t be thinking about it constantly, now would you? Your mind wouldn’t keep going back through the same stuff over and over. It matters to you a whole lot. The question is why?”

  Citali turned without answering and walked to the edge of the cliff. Staring out at the sea, she weighed opening up to Pebbles. If she was an agent of the Lady, the consequences of answering her questions were dire.

  “I am not an agent of the Lady,” Pebbles said. “I don’t even know who the freakin’ Lady is.”

  Wheeling around, Citali said, “You can hear my thoughts?”

  “Hello! You’re inside my brain. Of course, I can hear what you’re thinking,” Pebbles said. She walked up to Citali and stared into her eyes. “Is the Lady in your thoughts the one known as the Painted Lady, the one legends say would sacrifice young women, not by destroying their bodies, but by destroying their spirits, their minds? The one they say could then paint her mind into the soulless, mindless bodies of the young women? She’s the one who strangled me in the vision I showed you. She was going to do that to me. Wipe away my mind and take my body. Is that the Lady in your thoughts? She would have looked different to you, she would have been in a different body than the one in my vision, but she would have been just as evil.”

  “I know of no such legend.”

  “She would have had strange powers. The ability to shoot fire from a stone or throw boulders through the air like she was tossing blades of grass — just by humming on a stone. Things like that. Things that you or I couldn’t do.”

  The description rattled Citali. She averted her eyes, choosing to gaze at the surroundings rather than at Pebbles. Farther along the coastline she could see a large volcano. Panning her vision inland, she saw a long slope running down to a cove. The slope was covered by deep-blue flowers. Thousands of butterflies danced over the swaying blossoms. In the distance, she could see a city made of stone.

  “What is this place?”

  “Nice try, Citali. I can feel you trying to suppress your thoughts. I’m right, aren’t I? The Lady who came to destroy your city, the one who wanted you captured, had strange powers.”

  Citali sighed as she watched the butterflies frolic. “She had many names. The Gold Queen, the Lady of the Mask People, the Blood Goddess, the Soul Taker.”

  “I see. And she came to your city to take your soul.”

  With a shake of her head, Citali said, “No. She wanted to see what I see. She wanted to take what I made. She wanted to have what I keep.”

  Pebbles was still in the dream when Cindy Tanner appeared at the door to Anlon’s office. Out of breath, she asked, “What happened?”

  “We were looking at some pictures.” Anlon pointed to his laptop. “And she had a seizure of some kind. Nothing like we’ve seen before. She felt it coming on beforehand, said she felt wrong. And then after a couple of minutes, she dropped into a dream. She appears to still be in it.”

  As Sanjay lifted Pebbles’ eyelid to examine her eyes, Jennifer turned to Cindy. “Get some water and cold washcloths.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  Cindy disappeared from the doorway. Behind her, two other crewmembers stared into the room from the hall. Sanjay moved back from Pebbles and looked at Anlon. “Where does she keep her sleeping pills?”

  “In our bathroom. Why?”

  “Just considering all the possibilities.”

&n
bsp; As Cindy returned with bottled waters and washcloths, Anlon said, “You’re thinking an overdose? No way. You were with us. She was fully alert before the seizure. The pictures triggered it, I’m sure of it. Jen, is that how you saw it?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. She wasn’t groggy. No slurred speech. She didn’t have the shakes. Nothing that suggests to me she’d taken any sleeping pills.”

  “And you are sure she does not have access to some other drug? A sedative, perhaps? Painkiller? Something recreational? Perhaps she appealed to one of the crew…”

  Sanjay looked up at Cindy. Without hesitation, she said, “Out of the question.”

  “What about your first aid kits on board?” he asked. “Do you have opiates? Other narcotics?”

  The suggestion stirred a twitch on Cindy’s face. “We do. But they’re under lock and key on the bridge.”

  “I would suggest taking an inventory, just to be sure.”

  Cindy looked to Anlon.

  “Yeah, better go check.”

  She handed the bottles and washcloths to Jennifer and departed the room once more. Anlon dismissed the other stewards congregating in the hallway and then turned to Sanjay. “You really think she OD’d on something?”

  “Like I said, I am just trying to consider all the possibilities. It could just be a psychogenic event. Seeing the picture might have created a strong enough surge of anxiety to trigger spasms. But, then again, it looked more like an epileptic seizure than a psychogenic one to me. That suggests either a reaction to medication or an electrical misfire in her brain. If you want my opinion, I would recommend taking her to a hospital, let the doctors run some tests, do a CT scan and an EEG.”

  “Not a chance,” Pebbles said, her eyes fluttering open. “I don’t need any doctors…present company excluded.”

  She propped her torso up with her elbows. Anlon, still kneeling beside her, helped her into a sitting position while Jennifer handed her a bottled water. After a sip, Pebbles looked at the collection of concerned faces. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

  “Are you all right?” Anlon asked.

  “I kind of feel groggy and my head hurts a little, but other than that, I feel fine.” Pebbles said.

  “Yeah, well this trance was very different from the others. You were shaking so much, it was downright scary.”

  Pebbles rolled her eyes and turned her head to look at the laptop. “I’m fine. How fast can we get to Peru? To Paracas? I want to go there and see the Candelabra and the mummies.”

  “Uh…I don’t know. But before we talk about going to Paracas, we need to get you checked out.”

  “I told you, I don’t need—”

  “My boat. My rules.”

  Pebbles glared at Anlon. “Pulling rank on me, eh?”

  He glared back. “Aye.”

  Cindy returned to the room. She first looked at the now awake Pebbles and then at Anlon. “All good on the bridge.”

  “Okay, thanks, Cindy.” Anlon turned back to Pebbles. “Well, what’ll it be?”

  “Fine, Blackbeard. You win. What’s the closest hospital to Paracas?”

  “Hold your horses. We’re going somewhere here in San Diego, not Peru.”

  “We can call for an ambulance,” Cindy said.

  “Now, wait a minute,” Pebbles said. “I don’t need an ambulance.”

  “An ambulance won’t be necessary, but we will need a ride,” said Anlon. Cindy nodded and bolted away as Anlon refocused his gaze on Pebbles. “Come on. The faster we get you to the hospital, the quicker you get released.”

  Pebbles sighed. “All right, I’ll make you a deal. I won’t put up a fuss about seeing a doctor, if you book us on a flight to the closest airport to Paracas as soon as I’m released. Do we have a deal?”

  Anlon hesitated long enough to exchange glances with Sanjay and Jennifer. “We have a deal…presuming the doctors give you the green light to fly.”

  “Fine. But as soon as the green light is given, we need to get going.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jennifer said. “What’s the rush, Pebbles?”

  “I finally got Citali to open up a little and I don’t want to risk her clamming up before we get to Paracas.”

  “So, you had another chat with her?” Sanjay asked.

  “Yeah, you’re two for two, doc. I was able to interrupt a new version of the temple dream. Uh, scratch that. The temple memory,” Pebbles said. “It’s definitely a memory. In fact, it’s where all Citali’s troubles began.”

  CHAPTER 12: DRAWING CONCLUSIONS

  Mercy Hospital

  San Diego, California

  September 19

  During the wait for Pebbles to return from a CT scan at the hospital, Anlon stepped outside the emergency room, found an unoccupied bench and called Cesar. After providing Cesar with an explanation of what had happened during their earlier call and an update on Pebbles’ condition, the conversation gravitated toward Cesar’s findings. They began with a discussion of the people of Paracas.

  “We don’t have a written record, unfortunately,” Cesar said, “but there are multiple archaeological sites and plenty of artifacts that have been discovered in and around the Paracas necropolis…in addition to wonderfully preserved mummies. The air in Paracas is so dry, the mummies, their clothes, jewelry, all of it, are in incredible shape.”

  “I see what you mean. I pulled up a map of Paracas on my phone earlier. It looks like it’s essentially surrounded by a desert.”

  “That’s right, it’s part of the Atacama, a desert that’s spread over a thousand kilometers of the coastlines of Peru and Chile. But if you look closely at your map, you’ll see patches of green around Paracas where rivers bring water down from the Andes. These patches were even more extensive two thousand years ago and the Paracas people settled along the riverbanks.”

  “So, is that what ended their civilization? The rivers ran dry? Or did something else happen? You mentioned something about the Nazca people in our call earlier.”

  “No one knows for certain, Anlon. There is definitely a commingling of Paracas and Nazca artifacts in Nazca-area strata, with the Nazca-created artifacts more prevalent in quantity and more recent in dating. It suggests the two cultures merged, but who knows? Maybe Paracas became uninhabitable and they moved to Nazca. Or it’s possible Paracas weakened as a society and Nazca conquered it. There are as many theories about what happened to the Paracas people as there are about the Nazca lines.”

  Anlon had planned to raise the subject of the Nazca lines, so he was glad Cesar had touched upon them first. Famed for their elaborate animal shapes visible only from high altitudes, the Nazca lines had long been the subject of controversy. Some considered them massive landmarks created to attract ancient aliens, while others considered them landmarks of religious significance or simply elaborate works of art.

  “Cesar, since you brought it up, is there a connection between the Nazca lines and the Paracas Candelabra you sent us a picture of? I know they look very different, style-wise, but I was thinking of their construction. You know, the fact they both used rocks and trenches to create designs in desert hardpan.”

  “For some people, there may be — ancient alien believers and the like — but not for me. They were created hundreds of years apart and are over a hundred miles away from each other. Plus, as you say, the designs are very different. The only real connections, so far as I can see, is that we don’t know the purpose of either and both have withstood the passage of time better than other geoglyphs of similar vintage. The dry air again, I suppose.”

  Cesar’s latter point resonated with Anlon. As he looked at a picture of the Candelabra on his phone, he could not help but think it looked like something a person could easily wipe away with the stroke of a hand. How had winds not destroyed it? Especially when one considered its location. The Candelabra was carved into the slope of a hill that abutted the Pacific Ocean.

  It was a curious location to place the monument in Anlon’s opinion,
for the hill upon which it was carved formed the outer lip of a cove. Facing north, the Candelabra had no protection from the elements. Why had the builders chosen this spot? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to construct it in a more hospitable area? Anlon posed these questions to Cesar.

  “You have hit upon questions that have confounded many an archaeologist,” Cesar said with a laugh. “Since no one knows who built it or why, we are left to guess its purpose and the logic employed to choose its placement. The most practical theory that’s been proposed suggests the Candelabra served as a beacon to ships sailing for the Paracas cove. Since the Peruvian coastline is mostly desert, the theory suggests it would have been challenging for ships to pick out the cove among the desert backdrop unless there was a distinguishable landmark.”

  “Sounds compelling to me,” Anlon said. “Is that where the idea of calling it a Candelabra came from? You know, a beacon lighting the way?”

  “Most likely, but, between you and me, I don’t think the designs on the prongs look like lighted candles,” Cesar said. “And a lot of other archaeologists agree with me. If they were lighted candles, wouldn’t they have been designed to look the same?”

  Anlon squinted at the image on his phone. Using his fingers to zoom the picture, he nudged the picture from left to right to study the prongs. Cesar was right. There were unique designs on each of the prongs, and the differences seemed distinctive enough to suggest the designs were intentional.

  “Are the prong designs religious symbols?” he asked.

  “That’s what many think. Some consider it a trident, given it has a fork-like shape to it and the tips of the prongs look like barbs. They call it Viracocha’s Trident.”

  “Viracocha? You’re kidding.”

  “I thought the name might catch your attention,” Cesar laughed. “The legends surrounding Viracocha mirror the ‘fish-men’ myths tied to the Munuorians. A god who arose in a time of darkness after a great flood, one who arrived by sea, one who exhibited special powers to lend assistance to survivors of the flood. And a god who eventually left the same way he came…by sea…never to return. It’s been suggested that people built the monument as a beacon to Viracocha, should he one day return.”