Temple (24 page)

The title, The True Relation of a Monk in the Land of the
Incas,
was written in a very rough handwritten scrawl. One thing was for
sure elegance and majesty had been the last thing on
the mind of whoever had written this.
And then it hit Race.
This was a photocopy of the actual, original Santiago
Manuscript.
A Xerox of the document that had been written by Alberto Santiago
himself.
Race leafed through the text. Page after page of Santi ago's
scratchy handwriting unfolded before him.
He scanned the words, and soon he found the place where his last
reading had stopped so abruptly—the part where Renco, Santiago and
the criminal Bassario had landed at Vilcafor only to find it in
ruins, only to find its people scat tered all along the main
street, bathed in blood…
Renco, Bassario and I walked up the deserted main street of
Vilcafor.
The silence around us filled my heart with dread. Never before had
I heard the rainforest so mute.
I stepped over a blood-stained body. The head had been ripped clean
from its trunk.
I saw other bodies, saw horrified faces with their eyes open in
abject terror. Some had had their arms and legs wrenched from their
sockets. Many, I saw, had had their
throats removed by some violent external force.
'Hernando?' I whispered to Renco.
'Impossible,' my brave companion said. 'There is no way he could
have arrived here before we did.'
As we progressed down the main street of the town, I saw the giant
dry moat that encircled the village. Two flat wooden
bridges-constructed of several tree trunks laid down side by
side—spanned its breadth on either side of the village. They looked
like bridges that could be withdrawn at a moment's notice, the
bridges of a citadel town.
Quite obviously, whoever had attacked Vilcafor had taken it by
surprise.
We arrived at the citadel. It was a great two-tiered stone
building, pyramidal in shape, but round, not square.
Renco hammered on the large stone door set into its base.
He called Vilcafor's name and proclaimed that it was he, Renco,
arrived with the idol.
After a time, the stone slab was rolled aside from within
and some warriors appeared, followed by Vilcafor himself, an old
man with grey hair and hollow eyes. He was dressed in a red cape
but he looked about as regal as a beggar on the streets of
Madrid.
'Renco!' the old man exclaimed when he saw my companion.
'Uncle,' said Renco.
It was at that moment that Vilcafor saw me.
I suppose I expected a look of surprise to cross his face at the
sight of a Spaniard accompanying his nephew on his heroic
mission—but none did. Rather Vilcafor just turned to Renco and
said, 'Is this the gold-eater my messengers have told me so much
about? The one who helped you escape from your confinement, the one
who rode out of Cuzco by your side?'
'He is, Uncle,“ Renco replied.
They spoke in Quechuan, but by now Renco had improved my fledgling
knowledge of this most peculiar language and I was able to
understand most of what they said.
Vilcafor grunted. 'A noble gold-eater.., humph… I did not know such
an animal existed. But if he is a friend of yours, my nephew, he is
welcome here.'
The chieftain turned again, and this time he saw the c.riminal
Bassario standing behind Renco with an impish grin spread across
his face. Vilcafor recognised him instantly.
He shot an enraged look at Renco. 'What is he doing here—?'
'He travels with me, Uncle. For a reason,' said Renco. He paused
before he spoke again. 'Uncle. What happened here?
Was it the Span—?'
“No, my nephew. It was not the gold-eaters. No, it was an
evil a thousand times worse than that.'
'What happened?'
Vilcafor bowed his head. 'My nephew, this is not a safe
place for you to seek refuge…'
'Why?”
“No… no, not safe at all.'
'Uncle,' said Renco and sharply. 'Whatmhave—you done?'
Vilcafor looked up at Renco, then his eyes darted to the
great rocky plateau that towered over the little town.
'Nephew, quickly, come inside the citadel. It will be
nightfall soon and they come out with the dusk or at times
of darkness. Come, you will be safe inside the fortress.'
'Uncle, what is going on here?'
'It is my fault, my nephew. It is all my fault.'
The weighty stone door to the citadel rolled shut behind us with a
resounding thud.
The interior of the two-storey pyramid was dark, illuminated only
by the light of a few hand-held torches. I saw a dozen frightened
faces huddled in the darkness before me women holding children, men
bearing injuries or wounds. I guessed that they were all Vilcafor's
kin, those fortunate enough to have been inside the citadel when
the slaughter had occurred.
I also noticed a square-shaped hole in the stone floor— into and
out of which some of the men climbed every few moments. There
seemed to be a tunnel of some kind down there.
'It is a quenko,' Bassario whispered in my ear.
'What is that?' I inquired.
'A labyrinth. A maze. A network of tunnels carved into the rock
underneath a town. There is a famous one not far outside Cuzco.
Originally, quenkos were designed as escape tunnels for the ruling
elite—only the royal family of a given town would know the code
that would enable them to navigate the labyrinth's confusing array
of tunnels.
'Now, however, quenkos are mainly used for sport and gambling at
festival time. Two warriors are placed inside the maze, along with
five adult jaguars. The warrior who successfully navigates the
quenko—and evades the jaguars—and finds the exit first, wins. It is
very popular to gamble on the result. I would imagine, however,
that the
quenko in this town is used more for its original purpose as a
ttmnel through which royalty can beat a hasty retreat.'
Now it happened that Vilcafor guided us to a corner of the citadel
where there was a fire. He begged us to sit in
some hay. Some servants arrived and gave us water.
'So, Renco. You have the idol?' said Vilcafor.
'I do.' Renco pulled the idol—still cloaked in its magnificent
silken cloth—from his leather satchel. He uncovered the glistening
black-and-purple carving and the small group gathered in the corner
of the citadel gasped as one.
If it were at all possible, I do believe that in the flickering
orange light of the citadel the idol's snarling feline features
attained a new level of malevolence.
'You are truly the Chosen One, my nephew,' said Vilcafor.
'The one destined to save our idol from those who would take it
away from us. I am proud of you.'
'And I you, Uncle,' said Renco, although I gathered from the
inflection in his voice that he was anything but. 'Tell me
what happened here.'
Vilcafor nodded.
Then he spoke thusly: 'I have heard of the inroads the gold-eaters
have been making into our country. They have penetrated villages
both in the mountains and in the wetland forests. I have long
believed that it is only a matter of time before they find this
secret encampment.
'With this in mind, two moons ago I ordered a new path be
constructed, a path that would lead deep into the mountains, away
from these gold-lusting barbarians. But this path would be a
special path—-once it was used it could be destroyed. Then, owing
to the terrain in these parts, there would be no other entrance
into the mountains within twenty days' travel from here. Any
pursuer would lose weeks trying
to follow us, by which time we would be long gone.'
'Go on,' said Renco.
'My engineers found the perfect place for this path, a most
wondrous canyon not far from here. It is a wide circular canyon
with an enormous finger of rock protruding up through the middle of
it.
'As it happened, the walls of this canyon were perfect for our new
path and I ordered the commencement of building work immediately.
All went well until the day my engineers arrived at the summit of
the canyon. For on that day, as they
looked down on the canyon beneath them, they saw it.'
'What did they see, Uncle?'
“They saw a building of some kind—a building made by
man—situated on top of the enormous finger of stone.'
Renco cast a worried glance in my direction.
'I immediately ordered the construction of a rope bridge, and then,
accompanied by my engineers, I crossed that
bridge and examined the structure on top of it.'
Renco listened in silence.
'Whatever it was, it was not built by Incan hands. It looked like a
religious structure of some sort, a temple or shrine not unlike
others which have been found elsewhere in these forests. Temples
built by the mysterious empire that inhabited these lands many
years before our own.
'But there was something very strange about this particular temple.
It had been sealed by a great boulder. And on this boulder were
inscribed many pictures and markings
which not even our most holy men could decipher.'
'What happened then, Uncle?' said Renco.
Vilcafor lowered his eyes. 'Someone suggested that perhaps this was
the fabled Temple of Solon, and if it was, then in it there would
be a most fabulous treasure of emeralds and jade.'
“What did you do, Uncle?' said Renco seriously.
'I ordered that the temple be opened,' said Vilcafor, bowing his
head. 'And in doing so, I unleashed an evil like none I have ever
seen. I unleashed the rapa.'
Night fell and Renco and I repaired to the roof of the citadel to
keep watch over the town and look for this animal that they call
the rapa.
Unsurprisingl Bassario went off to a shadowy corner of the great
stone fortress and sat with his back to the room, doing whatever it
was that he did.
From the roof of the citadel, I looked out over the village.
Now, it must be said that after our journey through the forests, I
had become accustomed to the sounds of the night time jungle. The
croaking of frogs, the droning of insects, the rustling of the high
branches as monkeys scampered among them.
But there were no such sounds here.
The forest surrounding the village of Vilcafor was absolutely
silent.
No animal made a sound. Not a living thing stirred.
I looked down at the bodies that lay strewn all over the main
street.
'What happened here?' I inquired of Renco softly.
At first he did not reply. Then at last he said, 'A great evil has
been unleashed, my friend. A great evil.'
'What did your uncle mean when he said that the temple they found
might have been “the Temple of Solon”? Who or what is Solon?'
Said Renco, 'For thousands of years, many great empires have
inhabited these lands. We do not know much about these empires,
except what we have learned from
the buildings they left behind and the stories that have been
passed down through the local tribes.
'One popular tale among the tribes of this region pertains to a
strange empire of men who called themselves the Moxe, or Moche. The
Moxe were prolific builders, and according to the local natives,
they worshipped the rapa. Some say that they even tamed the rapa,
but this is disputed.
'Anyway, the fable that the local tribes most like to tell about
the Moxe concerns a man named Solon. According to legend, Solon was
a man of remarkable intellect, a great thinker, and as such, he
soon became chief adviser to the supreme Moxe emperor.
'When Solon reached old age, as a reward for his years of loyal
service, the emperor presented him with a hoard of fabulous riches
and bequeathed to him a temple to be built in his honour. The
emperor said that Solon could have the temple built at any location
he desired, in whatever shape or form. Whatever he wanted, the
emperor's best engineers would build.'
Renco stared out into the darkness.
'It is said that Solon requested his temple be built at a secret
location and that all his riches be placed inside it.
Then he instructed the emperor's most able huntsmen to capture a
pack of rapas and place them inside the temple with his
treasure.'
'He put a pack of rapas inside the temple?' said I
incredulously.
'That is so,' said Renco. 'But to understand why he did that, you
must understand what Solon wanted to achieve. He
wanted his temple to be the ultimate test of human conduct.'
'What do you mean?'
'Solon knew that word of the immense treasure inside his temple
would spread quickly. He knew that greed and avarice would drive
adventurers to seek it out and plunder its riches.
'And so he made his temple a test. A test of the choice between
fabulous wealth and certain death. A test designed to see if man
could control his own wanton greed.'
Renco looked at me. “The man who conquers his greed
and chooses not to open the temple lives. The man who succumbs to
temptation and opens the temple in search of
fabulous wealth will be killed by the rapas.'
I took this in silently.
'This temple that Vilcafor has spoken of,' said I, 'the one
situated atop a giant finger of stone. Do you think it is Solon's
temple?'
Renco sighed. 'If it is, then it saddens me.'
'Why?'
'Because it means that we have come a long way to
die.'
I stayed with Renco a while on the roof of the citadel, staring out
into the rain
An hour passed.
Nothing emerged from the forest.
Another hour. Still nothing.
At which time, Renco instructed me to repair to the citadel and
sleep. I happily obeyed his command, so fatigued was I from our
long journey.
And so I retired to the main body of the citadel, where I lay down
on a mound of grass. A couple of small fires burned in the corners
of the room.
“ I rested my head in the hay, but no sooner had my eyelids touched
than I felt an insistent tapping on my shoulder.
I opened my eyes and found myself looking at the ugliest face I
have ever seen in my entire life.
An old man stood crouched in front of me, smiling at me with a
toothless grin. He had horrid tufts of grey hair sticking out from
his eyebrows, nose and ears.
'Greetings, gold-eater,' said the ancient fellow. 'I have heard of
what you did for young Prince Renco—aiding his escape from his
cage—and I wanted to express my profound gratitude to you.'
I looked around the citadel. The fires were now out, the people who
had previously been huddled about the room
were now silent, sleeping. I must have actually fallen
asleep,