Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2))

by Clair, Rosemary

The thought of running back to the river and letting the river nymph finish what we started was the first thought that popped into my mind. If I couldn’t make her give me answers at least it would be a quick way to go. Of course, it wasn’t rational, but at that moment nothing about my life was rational so what did it matter. I sprang up to throw on some clothes and my phone buzzed again.

  I swatted at it as I threw on a sweat shirt, hoping the force of my hand would somehow kill the thing. It felt good to have a physical outlet for the emotional tornado whirling through me. Every inch of me shook and quivered in a way I couldn't possibly control. My brain felt heavy between my ears, throbbing and aching as it ran circles around the same realization over and over—my life was impossible without him.

  The door knob was firmly in my white-knuckled grasp, my feet itching to run back to the woods when her voice filled the room.

  “Faye? Faye, can you hear me?” I startled, jerking around as if a ghost had entered my room. It was Mattie. Somehow my swat had inadvertently answered my phone and turned it on speakerphone.

  I dropped the knob with a sigh, the familiarity of her voice bringing me back from the brink, and dragged a hand across my forehead. Taking a few steps toward where the little black box lay, I fell to my knees again, huddled around the phone, almost afraid to pick it up, but knowing I had to.

  “I’m here, Mattie. Can you hear me?” I sniveled as I wiped the back of my hand across my cheek and cleared my throat.

  “So, I’m guessing these are tears of joy over your Christmas gift?”

  Christmas gift? Oh yeah. I had forgotten about that.

  “Oh, I haven’t…”

  “Haven’t booked it yet? Well, you’d better hurry up if you want to get a good flight back to Ireland!”

  “Wh...what?” My brain was too heavy to process what she was saying, and I shook my head, rubbing at my eyes to try to clear it.

  “The international buddy pass with my mom’s airline? Hello?” Mattie’s voice was excitedly sarcastic and I could almost see an unnecessarily confident smile curling her lips through the phone. “They only allow so many passes on each flight. If you want to be sure to get the itinerary you want, you better book it now.” A loud intercom voice boomed in the background wherever she was. “Oh! They’re calling for my connection into Charles De Gaulle, I gotta run. You can thank me later, girl! Merry Christmas!” With that Mattie hung up on me, and I was left staring at the rug once again.

  International buddy pass with her mom’s airline?

  I quickly pulled up my email where I found my Christmas gift, exactly as Mattie had said. A free round trip flight to any international destination I wanted. Mattie and Sam surely had assumed I would use it to go see Rose and Phin since my parents had abandoned me for the holidays. If I had read this email last night, I would have been booking a flight back to Clonlea instead of sacrificing myself to the water nymphs.

  But not now.

  I needed answers before I ventured back into LisTirna. And now…

  I knew exactly where I was going to get them.

  Chapter Ten

  Answers From An Angel

  Three days later I was sandwiched in a cramped coach seat somewhere over the Andes, my stomach turning somersaults from the danger that lay in my future as well as the turbulence that shook the overstuffed plane like a tambourine in the sky.

  But I wouldn’t turn back. No longer would I allow fear to stop me. So, what if Chassan was a harbinger of death? If he had the answers that would unlock my magic and lead me back to Dayne, risking my life to find him was worth it. What other option did I have?

  Somehow the man to my left was finding it possible to sleep against the fuselage wall despite the fact that most of the passengers had their faces buried in barf bags. The flight was impossibly rough, flying over the constant air pockets that swirled over the looming mountains. Luckily, he wasn’t blocking the tiny porthole window, and I needed a distraction from the bile threatening my own stomach.

  They started as foothills at first—low, lumbering mounds that, after millenniums of brutal attack by wicked pacific weather, had finally relented. Their slumped, faded backs rounded like massive charcoal briquettes into the distance.

  A grassland, more golden than green, spread its fields for a brief moment amongst the mounds, the shadows of passing clouds darkening its vast expanse like great ghostly lakes.

  The grasslands began to morph into fine, golden fingers, lifting heavenward from the fields, twisting and gnarling as they grew larger, larger, larger still, forming the unforgivingly rigid slopes of the great Andean Mountain chain that stood like great fists capable of smashing anything that dared to rise against them.

  Row after row of towering peaks lifted into the heavens, some golden, some slightly green, a sprinkle of black with snowcapped white. They were endless, rising into the horizon with slopes like wrinkled paper bags. Puffs of white clouds circle the peaks, shrouding the tops of the ancient mountains in secrecy and wonder.

  “Whew! I don’t recommend that.” Rhea pinched her nose and curled her lip for effect. “They must’ve run out of barf bags,” she gagged at the thought of the airplane bathroom she had just returned from and fell into her seat. “I’ve been a nurse for thirty years and I’ve never gotten used to other people’s throw up!” Her face twisted in disgust as she slathered on hand sanitizer from her pack.

  I smiled.

  Rhea had to be hiding a halo under the bright red handkerchief wrapped around her unruly salt-and-pepper hair, because she was certainly my guardian angel. Had she not grabbed me by the arm and pulled me through the Lima airport I’d still be wandering around like some poor lost soul.

  No one in Peru knew, or cared, that I was the little girl lost in Ireland last year. But they swarmed me the minute I stepped off the plane anyway, knowing I was a tourist just by looking at me. A jubilant mob of coffee black hair, tanned round faces and brilliant onyx eyes had overtaken me, thrusting their handmade wares in my face. Not that I was ever in real danger. Most of them only came up to my shoulders, and every one of them wore a broad smile as they hawked their goods. But I had been so inundated by the locals I almost missed my connecting flight to Cusco.

  That’s when Rhea swooped in and scattered the little vultures to the wind. She grabbed my arm and whisked me away to our flight bound for the last mountain kingdom of the Incas.

  “So how did you know I was going to Cusco?” I asked when she put her hand sanitizer away.

  “I noticed you reading a book on our flight from San Francisco about Machu Picchu. You have to go through Cusco to get there.”

  “Is that where you’re headed?”

  “Sort of.” Her answer was curiously vague, telling me there was more to it. She tucked her head and peeked from the corner of her eyes to see if anyone was listening. Satisfied her secret would be safe, she turned back to me, leaning in close. “I’m a member of an amateur archeological society. We meet every year over Christmas break to search for the lost city of Paititi,” she whispered the last part like she didn’t want anyone to hear.

  “What’s Paititi?” I whispered back to her.

  “You’ve never heard of Paititi?”

  I shook my head. She tucked a loosened grey curl back into her bandana and continued.

  “El Dorado?” she asked.

  I nodded my head remembering a cartoon I had seen about the ancient city of gold.

  “But El Dorado is just a myth. It isn’t real.”

  “The Aztecs had El Dorado. The Incas had Paititi. Most say the Aztecs invented the El Dorado myth to confuse Spanish conquistadors. Paititi however, is a different story.”

  “So what’s Paititi?”

  “In Incan culture, one had to give the gods a gift of gold if they wanted their prayers to be answered. The Incas were a very rich culture. All that gold had to go somewhere. Paititi was where the gods kept it, guarded over by the Apus.”

  “What are Apus?”

  “Mountain
gods. It’s hidden somewhere in these mountains just waiting to be discovered.” She leaned over me to look out the window, eyes blazing with excitement. “Just think! We could be flying over it this very minute!”

  “So every year, you get together with a group of archeologists and look for it?” I hugged my stomach with my arms when we hit a rough patch of air and the plane lurched sideways.

  “Um-hum.” She nodded, resting back against her seat. “My husband loved the legend of Paititi. He always said when he retired we were going to find it.”

  “Oh. Is he with you?” I started to get up, wondering if I had taken her husband’s seat.

  “He’s always with me,” she sighed, looking down at two golden bands on her left hand. One was a feminine circle, the other a chunkier, more masculine ring. “He passed away years ago. I do this as a way to honor his memory.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I dropped my gaze as I sat back down, suddenly uncomfortable.

  “Don’t be. He lived a good life. That’s all anyone can ask for.”

  She was silent for a moment, as if thinking back over the life they shared with a distant smile.

  “So what brings you to these mountains, Faye?”

  I bit my lip as I thought about how to answer her question, nerves adding even more tumbling to my stomach for a moment.

  “I guess you could say I’m looking for something, too,” I shrugged, looking down at my hands again, trying to be as vague as possible.

  “Ah! I can tell you’re a woman with secrets! Fair enough. You can keep those for yourself.” Rhea reached out a hand to help steady an elderly woman as she stumbled in the aisle when we hit another rough patch of air and the plane plummeted.

  When she was certain the woman was steady she turned back to me.

  “You aren’t the only one who comes to these mountains in search of something. Machu Picchu is one of the most spiritual places I’ve ever been. You can almost feel the mountain breathing beneath your feet. If your soul can’t find what you’re looking for in a place like that, you might as well give up.” She patted my knee, assuming my quest was all about soul-searching and not having a clue that what I searched for was a living, breathing being who could probably give her turn by turn directions to Paititi if it were real.

  “So, the gold in Paititi belongs to the sun god?”

  “Um-hum.”

  “Would that be Apollo?”

  “Same god, different name. In Peru, the sun god is called Inti.”

  “You know a lot about mythology, huh?”

  “I’m a night nurse at an old folks home,” she said deadpan, rolling her eyes playfully at the thought. “The job is beyond boring. I need a way to escape more than most. The nights fly by for me when I read mythology.” She gave an unapologetic shrug.

  “You use it as a way to escape,” my face twisted into what must have been an odd smile. She nodded.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Oh, my aunt does the same thing. But she always dreams about the Sidhe.”

  “Irish fairies! I’ve read of them.”

  “They don’t really like that word,” I giggled, slightly nervous about the next question that was waiting on my tongue. “So, have you ever heard of the forgotten gods?”

  Rhea’s face went slack with shock, her soft brown eyes bulging to twice their normal size.

  “How do you know about the forgotten gods?”

  “My friend took a mythology class this semester. I’d never really heard the stories before.”

  “And you probably won’t hear them again.” She shook her head, pursing her lips into a line. “Those stories were wiped from the history books.”

  “Then how do you know about them?”

  “My great-great grandmother was from Greece. I found an ancient book in her stuff when I was a girl. Almost too faded to read and in Greek. But I studied it day and night until I could make out the stories.”

  “So do you think the forgotten gods are real?”

  “Hard to say what’s real. Zeus forbade their names from being uttered. The book was written as nothing more than a story because those who worshipped the forgotten ones were cursed. But if you research the facts and cross-reference them with what we do know, there is little doubt of their existence.”

  “Um... Do you know much about a child of Hera and Hades, a daughter born of fire who had the power of Zeus’ lightening bolts?” I twirled a curl in my fingers, hoping I was acting nonchalant about my question, even though my heart began pounding.

  “Seraph.” Rhea nodded as she said the name, knowing exactly who I was talking about. The sound of her voice echoed in my ears.

  “Seraph,” I said her name aloud and nodded, feeling the base of my spine ignite.

  Rhea’s eyes danced like a little kid’s obviously seeing I was just as enamored with the gods as she was.

  A loud voice boomed over the intercom, interrupting our conversation. I caught a word of Spanish here and there, but didn’t understand much else.

  “Better tighten your seat belt!” Rhea said when the intercom clicked off, and she bent to the task of tightening her own lap belt. “We’re almost to Cusco and landing at an airport between two mountain ranges will make this bumpy flight look like a walk in the park!”

  Chapter Eleven

  Sacrifice

  The sun sat fat and low in the western sky, a flaming orange orb, seemingly a hundred times its normal size. Was it being closer to it on top of these mountains that made it look so large, or the fact that it held my destiny so firmly in its portentous hands?

  I couldn’t be sure.

  What I did know was that I had already risked my life once by the time I entered Machu Picchu. It would have taken a week I didn’t have to hike to the sacred city the way the Incas used to do it. Instead, I opted for a rattletrap bus ride through hairpin turns and great gully washed ravines all the way to the top of the 8,000 foot mountain. After forty-five minutes on a bus that wouldn’t have been deemed fit for live stock back home, I arrived, stepping from the bus on weak knees and all but kissing the ground.

  Exhausted as I was, seeing Machu Picchu for the first time was nothing if not spiritual, just as Rhea had said. She had put me on a train bound for Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu’s lifeline in the valley, and told to be ready for the most moving experience of my life.

  I had laughed to myself at the time, thinking Rhea’s mother-earth-hugging ways were endearing, but totally ridiculous—until the clouds blew away and sunshine rained down like gold on the sacred city. When I focused my eyes for the first time on the venerated village spilling over a peak so high it sat above the cloud bank, it stole my breath away.

  I had prepared myself for a great architectural feat, like the pyramids or the Parthenon. This city, given its age and location was a wonder of the world, and would have been impossible to build even with modern technology. A fact that gave rise to myths that Machu Picchu had been built with help from extraterrestrials.

  Almost. I thought to myself, as a tour guide discussed the false rumor. No one would have believed me if I told them this city was so amazing because it was home to the last remaining son of Sun—a god, not an alien.

  A vast and intricate city terraced down great green slopes. Nearly a hundred workers bent to the task of caring for its immaculate grounds just as the Incas had centuries before. Spanning nearly five square miles of mountaintops, the retreat in the clouds harmonized so perfectly with the virginal terrain it looked as if it had been birthed from the same colossal collision that formed the Andes millennia ago.

  Thick stone walls, grey and weathered with age, marched straight as pins in squared rows. Symmetrical buildings, clustered by size, lined streets of grass so green I could have been in Ireland.

  Agrarian terraces formed a semi circle around the city, falling off the side of the mountain, stone wall after stone wall, each one lower on the mountain slope than the one before it—giving a home to life sustaining crops o
f potatoes and corn. The grey walls just as precise as the ones in the city, interrupted only by vibrant grass and vegetation kept green a the near constant sprinkle of afternoon rains.

  The grey stone looked velvety to the eye, worn and weathered like river rock. Dotted among the incessantly green foliage grazed a flock of black and brown llamas—the only inhabitants to survived whatever force wiped out the humans. Breathtakingly beautiful in its simplicity, I was not the only one who stopped, gaping at yet another awesome vista, every time the tour guide scooted us along to another spot.

  No wonder this was where the son of the sun chose to live. I couldn’t imagine a place more resplendent or closer to his creator. And yet the mountain did seem to breathe beneath my feet, just as Rhea had said. There was a secret hiding in those ruins. A secret I knew, but one that only cast the average unsuspecting tourist into a deep and lulling peace that radiated through the body so forcefully it made your bones hum. It was a sacred place. Once home to the gods.

  Serenity swam in the air, every lungful washing the cares of the world away. The city’s only neighbors were cumulous clouds and towering mountain peaks, adding to its seclusion. Despite the enormous crowd that toured the area everyday, and the one resort located near the entrance, the place was quiet, allowing nature’s symphony of birds and gentle breezes to fill the ears. Everyone talked in hushed whispers like they had discovered some secret they didn’t want to share, or feared their voices would break the trance and the dream they had stumbled into might disappear.

  On the highest mound of the city, perched so precariously on the slope that it almost seemed to hover above the unseen valley on its own, sat a temple. Great walls rose up to meet the sun, and when the small square windows caught the light just right, sunshine bathed the temple’s interior with warm golden light.

  “The Temple of the Sun,” our tour guide announced with great pride and mysticism in his voice. “This is where the Inca worshipped the sun god, Inti, their one supreme god.” He walked around the oval shaped walls, stones stacked one on top of the other, until he came to a great triangular stone rising from the ground. “This is the altar of the Inca’s great Condor god. Sacrifices were made here to honor the dead and ask the great Condor to transport their souls to his father, Inti. Only the richest and most noble of Inca would have given offerings here,” he over annunciated in badly broken English.