Nexus again, that’s for sure,” he said.
Matt nodded and then yawned, suddenly tired.
“You’d better get some sleep,” Richard said. “You must be exhausted. Then you can wash and change those clothes. I have to say, I hardly recognized you when I saw you just now. You look ridiculous.”
“Thanks.”
“Then you can introduce me to your friend Pedro. And we’ve all got to be in the main square at sunset.” Richard smiled. “The Incas are having a party and we’re invited!”
Matt slept until the middle of the afternoon. When he woke up, Richard took him to the bath house – a series of wooden cubicles in a stone building with a jet of water pouring through a hole in the wall in a non-stop stream. The water was ice cold but sparkling clean. It couldn’t wash off the dye and Matt felt he came out looking much as he had done when he went in. But he was certainly refreshed.
He had been given new clothes to wear. The Indians who lived in Vilcabamba wore clothes that were a strange mix of the ancient and the modern, with the brightly coloured hats and ponchos above and jeans and trainers below. When he came out of the bath house, he was given a new poncho – a deep red colour with a green diamond pattern around the border. The strange thing was, he didn’t feel self-conscious wearing it. Perhaps he had changed so much in the last few weeks that he no longer had any idea who he really was.
Then he and Richard were taken to a grand building, twice the size of any of the others, at the very heart of the city. All around them there were Indians preparing the feast to come – setting up wooden tables, building fires, carrying out trays of food and drink. The sun had turned red and was sinking fast behind the mountains below them. It was a new experience for Matt to see the sun this way. Normally he would look up at it. Now he seemed to be above it and could actually see it slipping over the edge of the world.
The building they were entering was a palace. Matt knew it without being told. There was a guard, barelegged, ceremonially dressed in a tunic and carrying a golden spear, on each side of the door. More guards lined the passageway inside. And there, in front of them, was a throne mounted on a platform, and on it a man wearing a long robe, with a headdress and golden discs attached to his ears. He probably wasn’t much older than Richard but there was a sense of confidence and seriousness about him that made him look somehow ageless. Matt stopped and bowed. The Incas, it seemed, had a prince.
“You are welcome, Matteo,” the man said, speaking in perfect English. He had the same accent as Atoc: foreign, but not Spanish. In fact his first language was Quechua, the language his people had spoken before the Spanish arrived. “My name is Huascar and I am very glad to meet you at last. I have been waiting for you a long time. My people have been waiting even longer. Please, sit down.”
There were four low stools set out in front of the throne. Richard and Matt sat down. A moment later, Pedro and Atoc entered through a side door. Pedro had also been given fresh clothes. His poncho was a soft blue. He bowed to the Inca prince and took his place beside Matt. Atoc sat on the fourth stool.
“You are also welcome, Pedro,” Huascar continued. He was still speaking in English for the benefit of Richard and Matt, but Atoc whispered quietly in Pedro’s ear, translating. “We have very little time remaining to us and there is a great deal to discuss.”
He raised a hand and servants stepped forward carrying four golden goblets of red wine, which they set down on the floor in front of the guests. The Inca drank nothing himself.
“Five hundred years ago,” he began, “one of the mightiest empires ever built fell and died. With the coming of Francisco Pizarro and the conquistadors from Spain, everything my people had created was destroyed. Our cities were burned down, our gold looted, our temples desecrated, my ancestors ruthlessly killed. So began for us the time of the great darkness.
“Today, the glory of the Inca world is almost forgotten. Our cities are ruins, the broken pieces laid bare for tourists. Our art is locked away in museums. Only this place, Vilcabamba, remains undiscovered. Only here can we live as we once did. We are the last of the Incas.”
He fell silent. Atoc whispered for a few seconds more, then stopped. Pedro nodded.
“But we haven’t lost our strength.” The Inca prince looked Matt in the eyes. “You have seen only a small part of our secret world, a fraction of the gold we hid from the Spaniards. We do not live here all the time. We cannot hide from modern life. But we have come here from all over Peru and South America to show ourselves to you. Because, when the final struggle comes, you must know that you can call on us.
“We have entered more than a new millennium. We are on the threshold of a new world and we believe that one day we will be able to regain our rightful place. The Incas will live again with our own laws, our own justice, our own peace. But we will have to fight for it – and our enemies are more deadly than the conquistadors ever were. The Old Ones. We know about them. We’ve always known about them. They mean to destroy the new world before it is even born. And they are here in Peru.”
Again, the Inca raised his hand. At once another man entered the throne room, walking with the help of a stick. He was wearing a poncho that was as grey as himself. His entire body was hunched over. His arms and legs were all bone. Richard nudged Matt. This was the amauta he’d been talking about.
“Tell them,” Huascar commanded.
“Before the sun has risen and set three times, the Old Ones will break through the gate that was created in Peru before the world began,” the amauta said. He spoke in English. His voice was surprisingly strong. “I have read the signs in the sky and on the land. The birds fly where they should not fly. There are too many stars in the heavens at night. A terrible disaster is a heartbeat away and perhaps all our hopes will come to nothing. One boy will stand against the Old Ones and alone he will fall. Maybe he will die. This I do not know.
“But not all will be lost. Five defeated them at the dawn of time and five will defeat them again. That is the prophecy. This boy is one of the Five. This boy also.” He pointed first at Matt, then at Pedro. “The others will follow and when the Five come together they will have the strength to defeat the Old Ones. Then the last great war will take place and the new world will begin.”
He fell silent.
“You say the gate will open three days from now,” Richard muttered. “Do you know where it is?”
The Inca prince shook his head. “We have searched for it. We have never found it.”
“Then where do you suggest we go next?” Richard hadn’t meant to sound rude, but he was aware that he had been even as he spoke the words and he flinched, wondering if he was about to find out what it felt like to have two metres of golden spear in his back.
But the Inca did not seem offended. His face hadn’t changed. He gestured at Atoc, who took out a sheet of paper and laid it in front of them. Matt recognized it at once. It was the page that Pedro had taken from the photocopier. It had been in the back pocket of his jeans. He wondered when Atoc had taken it.
“This the only clue,” Atoc said.
“What does it say?” Matt asked. He had been wondering about the strange verse ever since Pedro had found it.
On the night when the white bird flies Before the place of Qolqa There will the light be seen The light that is the end of all light.
And below that, the two words – INTI RAYMI – and the blazing sun.
As Atoc translated, Matt felt his heart sink. The paper had obviously been important enough for Salamanda to want to copy it. But why did its message have to be so complicated? He had thought the lines would tell him what he needed to know about the gate. They told him nothing at all.
The old amauta shook his head. “Inti Raymi…” he said.
“Inti Raymi is the most important day in the Inca calendar,” the prince explained. “It is the time of the summer solstice when the sun is at its furthest point south of the equator. June the twenty-fourth. Today is the twenty-first.”
There were three days left. Just as the amauta had said.
“What about the place of Qolqa?” Richard asked. “Do you know where that is?”
The amauta glanced at the Inca ruler but he knew the answer already. “Qolqa is a Nazcan word,” he said.
“They were talking about Nazca -” Matt said excitedly – “Salamanda and the others. They said they were looking for a platform in the Nazca Desert.”
“The pictures on this paper would very much indicate the desert,” the Inca agreed. “But that is on the other side of Peru, back where you’ve come from. We must give serious thought to what we do next. If this page told
