“And Pedro, too. But why you?”
“Was I chosen?” Richard couldn’t help smiling. “The way I see it, Matt just happened to stumble into my office in Greater Malling. If I hadn’t been there that day, I wouldn’t even have met him and it would be someone else standing here now. Kate or Julia. They both worked at the newspaper. Maybe it would have been one of them.”
“No, Senor Cole. You are wrong. You also have a part to play in this adventure, and that part was written for you long before you were born.”
“Are you saying I have no choice?”
“We all have choices. But our decisions are already known.”
The Inca held out a hand and the old Indian, the amauta, produced a small, leather bag with two drawstrings so that it could be worn across the shoulder or around the neck. “I have a gift for you, Senor Cole,” the Inca said. “Do not thank me because one day, I assure you, you will curse me for giving it to you. But nonetheless it is yours. It was made for you.”
The amauta opened the bag and handed Richard a golden object, about fifteen centimetres high. Richard found himself holding a statue of a god. At least, that was what it looked like at first. It was an Inca figure with staring eyes and a grim-looking face, its arms folded across its chest. It was standing on top of a triangle that tapered down to a sharp point. The whole thing was made of gold, studded with semi-precious stones: jade and lapis lazuli. Richard had no idea how old it was but guessed it must be worth thousands of pounds.
Then he realized how he was holding it. Quite instinctively, he had let it rest in the palm of his hand with the point jutting out. It wasn’t just a statue. It was some sort of knife.
“We call this a tumi,” the Inca explained. “It is a sacrificial knife. The edges of the blade are not sharp but the point is. You must look after it and keep it safe.”
“It’s beautiful,” Richard said. He remembered the Inca’s warning. “Why wouldn’t I want to have something like this? And what do you mean
… it was made for me?”
“This tumi has another name,” Huascar said. He wasn’t answering Richard’s questions but then, it occurred to the journalist, he never did. “It has always been known as the invisible blade. You can see it, but it cannot be found. When you carry it with you, nobody will notice it is there.”
“How about in airports?” Richard was thinking of the metal detectors. They’d go crazy if he tried to walk through with this.
“You can take it wherever you wish. No policeman or security person will ever find it on you. It is part of you now. And one day, you will find it has a use.”
“Well… thanks.” Richard reached out and took the leather bag. He dropped the knife in and closed it. He was surprised at how light it all was. “Thank you for helping us. And thank you for finding Matt.”
“Good luck, Senor Cole. Look after Pedro and Matteo. They have need of you.”
Richard turned and walked out of the throne room. The prince of the Incas and his amauta watched him until he had gone.
The helicopter took them to Cuzco, where a five-seater Cessna plane was waiting to carry them on the longer leg of the journey to Nazca. Matt was amazed how smoothly everything had gone. There were no passports needed, no travel documents. They simply landed at Cuzco Airport, walked across the tarmac and took off again. Not one official so much as glanced in their direction. It seemed that the Incas still had plenty of influence in Peru – and that while Matt was with them he would be safe.
The flight took three hours. Pedro seemed more comfortable in the plane than he had been in the helicopter. He had barely spoken since the golden disc had been shown to him in Vilcabamba and Matt wondered what was going on in his head. In the seat next to him, Richard was also unusually quiet. He hadn’t told Matt what the Inca prince had said to him and Matt had decided not to ask. But obviously it hadn’t been good news.
Atoc had flown the helicopter, but on the plane he was just a passenger, sitting on his own at the back, deep in thought. The pilot of the Cessna was behind the controls, almost completely invisible in a leather jacket, flying helmet and goggles.
He had said nothing as they came on board and nothing during the flight but suddenly he called out, shouting to make himself heard above the noise of the engine. Atoc leant across the aisle.
“Look out of windows,” he said. “We pass over Nazca Lines.”
The plane dipped, dropping ever lower as if about to land. Matt felt his stomach lurch. They were well below the level of the clouds, flying over a flat, empty desert and he wondered what he was meant to see. The Nazca Lines? There didn’t seem to be anything here.
And then he caught his breath.
There was a line, drawn in the ground, running dead straight for as far as his eye could see. It must have been carved in the earth and it couldn’t have been done by chance. It was too precise. Next to it he saw a shape, a huge rectangle, narrower at one end than the other, at least a mile long. A runway? No. Like the line, it had simply been drawn in the ground.
“Over there…” Richard said, leaning across him.
There were more lines, running in every direction, crossing over one another, all as straight as arrows. Matt had never seen anything like it. The whole desert was nothing less than a fantastic doodling pad on a gigantic scale. He couldn’t imagine how it had been done or when. Nor did he understand how the lines had survived when surely the wind should have blown them away.
The pilot called out to them again and the plane tilted and banked. Now Matt saw pictures, even more incredible than the lines. The first showed a hummingbird. It wasn’t drawn naturalistically, but even so it was unmistakable, with a long, pointed beak, wings and a tail. Matt tried to work out its size. It was hard to say, but if he could see it so clearly this high up, it must be at least a hundred metres long.
One by one, a fantastic menagerie of creatures appeared on the surface of the desert as the plane passed directly overhead. There was a monkey with a spiralling tail, a whale, a condor and a huge spider with a bloated body and eight legs reaching out. Matt recognized the spider. It was identical to the one he had seen on the page Salamanda had photocopied from the monk’s diary.
The drawings were simple, almost childlike. But no child could possibly have produced them on this scale. Each creature must surely have been the work of dozens of men. And there was something very precise about the way each one had been executed. The legs of the spider, for example, were mirror images of each other, as were the wings of the bird. Every line was straight. Every circle was perfectly formed. It was obvious even at first glance that the entire tapestry had been produced with mathematical precision.
A single road ran through the centre of the desert, actually dissecting some of the lines. The Pan-American Highway. It was completely straight too, but next to the drawings it was cold and lifeless – a piece of modern vandalism cutting through a work of ancient art.
The pilot turned in his seat, pulling off his helmet and goggles. And that was when Matt saw that it wasn’t a man but a woman, about fifty years old with a square, rather plain face and long, almost colourless hair. She wore no make-up and it would have done little good if she had. Long exposure to sun and desert winds had wrinkled her skin beyond hope. But she had lively, bright blue eyes. She was smiling.
“So what do you think?” she called out.
Nobody spoke. They were all of them too surprised.
“I’m Joanna Chambers,” the woman said. “I heard you wanted to see me so I thought I’d come and collect you myself.” The plane juddered, caught in an air pocket, and briefly she returned to the controls. Then she turned round again. “They told me you’ve come to Peru looking for a gate,” she went on. “Well if there really is such a thing… if the gate exists and if it’s about to be opened, you’d better take a good look here. Five hundred square kilometres of some of the emptiest, driest desert in the world, and that’s where your gate is to be found.”
Professor Joanna Chambers lived about a mile from the small, pretty airport that mainly served tourists wanting to visit the Nazca Lines. She had one of the most beautiful houses Matt had ever seen: a low, white building with a green tiled roof and a broad veranda shaded by a colonnade. It had been built in a garden the size of a park, where llamas wandered freely across the lawn and dozens of birds filled the air with colour and song. A low, white wall surrounded it, but there was no gate, no guards. Everything about the place suggested that visitors were always welcome.
Richard, Matt, and Pedro with Atoc beside him, were sitting in the dining room, eating a late lunch of cold
