Pacha’s Escape

Inca Empire, near the city of Cuzco – July, 1532

Pacha was alone in the forest.  He listened for sounds of pursuit but there was only silence.  On a quiet night, he might hear a gentle breeze through the trees, the beating of butterfly wings, or the soft rustling of small animals settling in for the night.  But silence meant hearing nothing.  No birds, no insects, no wind, no people.

Nothing.

And nothing scared Pacha even more than a cougar in the underbrush.  He would’ve given anything for a cougar, because at least he could’ve run from it.  But how could he run from what he couldn’t see or hear or smell?

Rumors in the village had warned of strange men arriving by sea – some with skin as pale as the moon and others as dark as shadows.  Similar reports had come from other tribes further north.  The men came with huge four-legged beasts that sounded like a prayer drum when they walked and the rumble of thunder when they ran.  Pacha would’ve been glad to meet someone new, especially these strange visitors with their unique features and exotic animals.  The problem was that these men brought nothing with them.

That’s not to say they didn’t bring supplies and food and water for their journey, or weapons to protect them from the forest’s dangers.  They had all those things.  But wherever they passed through, it wasn’t long until nothing settled in behind them.  In the north there were stories of whole villages disappearing – men, women, and children – as if Inti had reached down and snatched them from the Earth.

Left behind there was only silence.  Farms fell into neglect.  Houses were abandoned.  Food was left on tables to spoil.  It was as if the people had stepped out with every intention of returning, but never did.  The llamas, with no one to tend to them, moved on to seek the care of neighboring villages, but when nothing swept in behind them, they fled into the forest.  The tamarins and the bats, which usually kept a safe distance from human villages but could at least be heard moving about, had all completely left the area.

There was always at least one person left to tell the story, to warn the other villages of nothing’s approach.  Yet it seemed that to talk about nothing was to invite it into your village and inside your home.  If that were true, then what about the messengers that were already on their way to warn their leader, the great Sapa Inca?  Would they be inviting nothing to follow them all the way into the heart of the mountains and into Cuzco?

Pacha had no time to think about it.  He had to get back to his own village.  He had spent the past week working with the farmer Atoc, in exchange for his family’s share of the seasonal maize and potatoes.  But on the last day, when Pacha was to return home, he found the farmer lying in the middle of the field.  Atoc’s face was drawn, his skin sallow and covered with dark splotches.  His eyes were wide open, conveying a horror that his mouth would never be able to put to words.  His mouth was wide open too, flies buzzing in and out, ants crawling along dusty, cracked lips.

Pacha ran, as fast as his spindly legs would carry him, navigating the forests as well as if he could see in the dark.  If he had one advantage, it was that he knew the jungles better than anyone.  Except his twin sister Quilla, who really could see in the dark, as she so often boasted to him by traveling between villages blindfolded.  He really wanted to see her – needed to see her – because she always brought him comfort.

But when he reached his village, what he saw there slammed into him with the force of a  charging boar.  He doubled over, suddenly out of breath.

The village was dark.  Uninviting.  Silent.  It looked abandoned.  Pacha kneeled on the central road, examining the signs in hopes of learning what had happened.  There had been a lot of traffic recently; he could see the footprints of many different people.  But instead of the usual linear patterns of daily routine, these were erratic.  There was an anxiety in them, a fear.  And mixed up with the familiar prints of the villagers were those of the foreigners – hard-edged and deep, as if they walked with stone feet.  The prints of these men, along with the half-ring shapes left by their thundering beasts, indicated a calmness, a sense of purpose, in stark contrast to the hysteria of the locals.  Swallowing down his own fear, Pacha made his way to his family’s hut at the far end of the village.

He peered in from the outside, afraid to go any further.  From that distance he could make out two hazy gray shapes – one slumped against the wall in the main room, another positioned awkwardly on a sleeping mat.  He looked for a third one – a smaller one – but didn’t see it.

“Mama?” he called, his voice barely above a whisper.

There was no response.  Pacha felt a burning sensation rising from his stomach into his chest.

“Taita?” he called, a little louder.

Nothing.  His body started to feel heavy.  Tears welled up in his eyes.  He knew what it meant, he knew what he’d find if he stepped inside, but he just couldn’t allow the thought to fully develop.

“Qui…” The name caught in his throat.  He swallowed hard.  “Quilla?”

Suddenly there was a loud ruckus, starting on opposite sides of the village and converging on his location.  It sounded like the voices of men, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.  There were other sounds too – a restless shuffling, the tinkling of metal, and the loud snorting of large animals.

“Hacia fuera!” said the loudest of the voices, “Busque cualquier sobrevivientes!”

Pacha didn’t understand the language, but he knew it meant he couldn’t stay.  If the men didn’t catch him, then it wouldn’t be long until nothing claimed him in their wake – like it had claimed farmer Atoc.

So he ran again, away from his village, searching for sound or light or anything at all.

“Quilla wasn’t in the hut,” he said to himself, hoping that speaking it would make it true.  “She must’ve escaped, too.”

But where would she have gone?  Maybe to Cuzco.  Surely these men and whatever evils they brought were no match for all the light and sound and activity in the capital city.  It could never be silenced.  Surely Quilla would’ve thought the same thing; they were twins, after all.

****

The moon loomed huge in the night sky – yellowish, ominous, like the eye of some unforgiving god gazing down upon the capital city.   As he cleared the forest, Pacha looked down at the countless buildings spreading out before him in organized clusters of sandy-colored stone, divided up by a criss-crossing grid of narrow pathways.  Even someone completely new to the region would recognize Cuzco right away.  The city had come into the world with so much sound and fury – like a newborn who would become emperor – even the forest had pulled back to make room.  And Cuzco hadn’t stopped making noise day or night ever since.

Until now.

There wasn’t a person in sight.  No townspeople, no merchants, no guards at the perimeter.  Not a single conversation could be heard.  The familiar scents of grilled papas, freshly made stew, and bitter-sweet chicha were gone from the air.  Even the crackle of the torches lining the streets had been silenced, smoke still coiling slowly into the night sky.

Nothing had arrived ahead of him.  It had come into the city from all sides, coiling around the stone buildings, and snaking its way through open doors and windows.  It had silenced the heartbeat of a civilization.  And now, as Pacha stood before the palace of the Sapa Inca, it would come to claim him, too.

Pacha.

The voice echoed throughout the dead city, bouncing from one vacant building to the next, making it difficult to determine the source.  It sounded familiar, like the voice he had heard all his life, and wanted so desperately to hear again.  It sounded like…

“Quilla?” he cried out, turning around and around where he stood, hoping to catch a glimpse of anything still alive.

Then he lifted his gaze to the top of the palace stairs, to find a small hooded figure gesturing towards him.

“Quilla!” he shouted, moving for the stairs.

The figure beckoned once more, an urgent waving of its hand before it turned and ran into the palace.  Pacha cleared the stairs three and four at a time, stumbling and skinning his knees as he reached the top.  Breathless, aching, his mind racing, he pushed himself back to his feet and made his way into the entry hall.  The figure – he prayed it was Quilla – stood at the far end, in front of a large circular door as red as the sunset and inlaid with carvings of silver and gold.

He started to call out his sister’s name again, but was interrupted by a tremendous roar behind him, followed by what sounded like a massive rockslide.  Pacha turned to find a material darkness engulfing the city from the outside inward, washing over the streets and buildings like waves crashing down against the shore.  The city collapsed under the burden, shattered stone and splintered wood absorbed into the darkness.  Pacha thought he saw other things in that darkness, too – claws maybe, and gnashing metal teeth, and the heavily stomping hooves of dangerous foreign animals.  Within moments the whole city was blanketed in darkness – no more streets, no more torches, no more buildings.

The dark waves converged along the city’s central road – the one leading to the palace – and with a concentrated surge made a move for the stairs.

“Quilla!” shouted Pacha again, turning quickly and running through the palace hall.

The figure made some sort of gesture in front of the door and there was a loud click, followed by a deep grinding behind the walls and beneath the ground.  Pacha watched as the red door pulled apart along the golden engraving lines, six separate pieces sliding into hidden channels around the opening.

Light surged forth in a golden column that filled the entire hall.  With it came warmth and power that forced the darkness to recoil.  Pacha found he didn’t have to look away from the light, that instead it was like opening his eyes under water.  The figure reappeared, a dark silhouette, its features washed out by the light.  Pacha reached out his hand and the figure took hold of it gently, pulling him towards the portal door.  He felt a pang in his chest as up close he realized that this person was not his sister.  After all, his sister didn’t have long ears pointing up from the top of her head.  Just as he considered that she had not made it to Cuzco at all, he was suddenly surrounded by the familiar sounds of children running through the streets, and drawn in by the wonderful scents of cassava and agave.  The sadness he felt was forced into the corners of his mind, forgotten, as he gave himself over to the light’s embrace.

Pacha left nothing behind – and everything else too – as he crossed over into a brand new world….