‘I’m not suggesting he would have marched to the heart of Mexico City and asked the governor to keep an eye on the artifact,” Griffin countered. “It’s far more likely that he would have sought out a ruin in the general vicinity which the Spanish had no interest in exploiting.”
Although the three Basques at the table listened avidly to the conversation, they offered no remark.
“It kind of makes sense to me,” Cassie said encouragingly. “Where would he have been likely to go?”
Griffin continued. “Let’s approach this systematically, shall we? Beginning in the south and working our way north, the first landing point might have been with the Inca of Peru. Francisco Pizarro and a handful of conquistadors massacred a large number of natives and took the Incan emperor hostage at Cajamarca in the northern highlands. Not far from Cajamarca is the oldest known city in the Americas—Caral. It is estimated to have been populated around 2500 BCE.”
“By Incas?” Cassie asked.
“No,” Griffin replied. “By an unknown civilization and a highly advanced one at that. The city contained pyramids, amphitheaters, and temples. The culture was in all probability matristic. Like Catal Huyuk in Turkey, Caral had no fortifications, no weaponry, nor any mutilated bodies indicative of career warfare. Instead, it possessed a complex architecture and a record-keeping system which may have been learned by the Inca. Yes, I think that Caral would have been the most likely spot in Peru where our lost sentinel may have gone.”
“How do you know all this?” Cassie asked. “It’s one thing when you read up on places we’re going to visit, but you’re just talking off the top of your head now.”
The scrivener laughed self-consciously. “It’s because I’ve catalogued so many finds in the vault from those regions that I know the history of the area quite well.”
“You mentioned the Maya and the Aztecs too,” Erik prompted.
“Right you are. If our elusive sentinel opted to go farther north, he might have landed in the Yucatan among the Maya. They too were conquered by Spain.” Griffin frowned. “I don’t believe the Yucatan would have presented quite as good a hiding place, however. The Spanish never completely subdued the Maya. Rebellions broke out constantly during the colonial period which would have made it a highly unstable place to conceal an artifact.”
“Not to mention the Mayans were the people who predicted the end of the world,” the pythia observed. “They must have been a scary bunch to deal with.”
“What?” Griffiin peered at her.
“You know. December 21, 2012. All that business about the end of the world.”
“That is a highly inaccurate interpretation of the 2012 winter solstice. The Maya did not predict the end of the world. They were merely projecting the end of a 5,125-year cycle of their calendar—the end of an era, as it were.” Griffin glanced significantly around the table at all the faces. “From an esoteric standpoint, all of you should take a keen interest in this particular cycle because it correlates quite well with the rise and fall of overlord rule of the planet.”
“Are you saying that the Mayans predicted that 2012 would spell the end of warmonger societies?” Cassie’s voice held a note of doubt.
“It’s not quite as simple as turning on a light switch after which we’re magically transformed into an egalitarian society of kinder, gentler people,” Griffin retorted. “It’s a gradual process which begins with a rare astronomical event that occurs on the winter solstice of 2012. The sun aligns with the center of the Milky Way. To the Mayans, this dark rift at the heart of our galaxy symbolizes the female power of creation. They saw this astronomical conjunction as the turning point when the stewardship of the earth would gradually return to the hands of the grandmothers.”
Glancing wryly at his aunt, Ortzi chuckled. “Among the Euskaldunak, the world has always been in the hands of the grandmothers.”
The scrivener nodded. “That’s because your culture predates the 5,125-year cycle during which the world swung out of balance and overlords dominated much of the globe. The Mayan prophecy, if one believes such things, foretells an end to that state of affairs, beginning with the 2012 winter solstice.”
“OK, I get it,” Cassie admitted. “The Mayans aren’t as dire as I thought. They didn’t predict the end of the world. So where does that leave us with finding the sentinel who took off with the relic?”
Griffin sighed. “It leaves us with the Aztecs of Mexico.” He paused briefly and then his expression brightened. “Now that I come to think of it, the Aztecs are linked more closely with dragons and Spain than any of the other civilizations of the New World.”
“Why’s that?” Erik asked. “To me, they seem to be just another blood-thirsty overlord tribe.”
“It’s the peculiar way in which fate turned their veneration of Quetzalcoatl into their undoing,” the scrivener replied.
“Quetzal who?” the pythia asked.
“Their version of the feathered serpent god, or dragon, was called Quetzalcoatl. According to Aztec myth, he was one of the children of the virgin goddess Coatlicue—the creator of the universe.”
“Hmmm. A virgin goddess giving birth to a god. Now, where have we heard that one before?” Erik asked archly.
Griffin resumed his explanation. “Quetzalcoatl was considered a benevolent deity since he taught the people how to write and keep calendars as well as how to cultivate maize. Although the name Quetzalcoatl literally means feathered serpent in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs, the god himself is described as a bearded man with white skin. The legend states that Quetzalcoatl was forced into exile by another Aztec deity. He sailed away into the Atlantic but promised one day to return during ‘his year.’ According to the Aztec calendar, this would have been the First Year of the Reed which occurs every fifty-two years. As ill luck would have it, Hernan Cortez arrived in the vicinity of Tenochtitlan during the First Year of the Reed. He was white, bearded, and came
