5
Treasure of the Incas
Jones had managed to put the fear and dread of being entombed forever in this death chamber into a corner of his mind that he could close the door on, at least for a time. Right now fear would not serve him any purpose. Right now he needed to concentrate on the task at hand. If he failed to split the stone, and get out of this death chamber, then that would be the time for fear and dread, but until then he would keep the fear locked up, and replace it with hope. It was all he had; that and one more flare.
He threw another piece of a pelvic bone on to the fire before reaching into his leather pack and pulling out the old map again. He needed to distract his mind as the slow process of heating the stone continued.
Jones sat back against the wall of the cavern and unfolded the map. The glow of the fire provided a gently flickering, vibrating light which illuminated the old parchment with a warm incandescence. Indeed the scene would be almost cozy, if not for the perilous and bizarre circumstances.
He smoothed the map out on his legs and began to trace his finger along the drawings, lines, and writings which covered its surface. The first thing that struck him was that the map had more than one author, possibly even several. Crude drawings of physical features indicating mountains, rivers, and valleys, contrasted with finely etched artwork in the Inca style. He recognized the figure of a winged 'chasqui', an Inca runner or courier. There was an etching of the hero Naymlap, with his rainbow head dress, as well as drawings of bird men, and others. To Jones' archaeological eye, the drawings didn't seem to be drawn as simple ornamentation. The figures appeared to serve some purpose, though what it was he couldn't quite tell yet.
One figure caught his eye more than the others. It was the largest drawing on the map. It was circular and was obviously intended to represent the sun. The Spanish writing scrawled beside it left no doubt. El Disco del Sol......
Jones set the map aside for a few moments as he fed the now voraciously consuming flames some more fuel from his stack of bones. He rather unceremoniously broke a pair of femurs across his knee and pushed the four large bone fragments into the center of the fire, followed by a skull, minus jaw bone. He'd already hardened himself to his task, and felt nothing as he went about the gruesome business. Deep in his heart he knew that the spirits of these dead welcomed the chance to finally escape from this death pit; even if their escape was as smoke, smoke which curled upward and out through the lava tubes above.
He sat back down and studied the map again. "El Disco del Sol......the Disc of the Sun," he read aloud, translating the Spanish words.
The legendary Disc of the Sun, perhaps the greatest treasure of all, of an empire with more treasures than maybe any on earth. Indeed the glut of gold that Pizzarro and his conquistadors found when they arrived in the Andes seemed to drive them almost to madness. They committed the most heinous crimes and depredations against the Inca peoples in their insatiable lust for the precious metal.
One of the worst crimes of course was their treacherous betrayal and murder of the Inca Emperor Atahualpa. Through perfidy and deception the Spanish had captured the Inca ruler, and held him in the city of Cajamarca. Atahualpa, knowing of their lust for gold, offered to fill the entire room in which his captors held him with gold in exchange for his release. The Spaniards agreed, but after the ransom was paid in full, the treacherous conquistadors, rather than release him as they had agreed, instead condemned him to death.
Jones absently fed more bones into the flames as he recounted in his mind the tragic story of Atahualpa and the fall of the Inca Empire. The fire was burning hotter now, the embers glowed a bright orange-red.
In Cuzco, Atahualpa's first wife, the Queen gathered a second ransom in hopes of saving her husband. Eleven thousand llamas, each carrying one hundred pounds of gold, were dispatched from the Inca capital. But before the convoy reached Cajamarca the Queen consulted the Black Mirror, a supposed magic mirror in the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco. It foretold of the murder of her husband. The horrified Queen immediately ordered the convoy of gold, as well as all of the golden treasures of Cuzco, to be hidden away in caves in the mountains.
Among this vast horde of gold was the famous Disc of the Sun. El Disco del Sol was a massive plate of purest gold, encrusted thickly with emeralds and other gems of superb size and quality. It was kept at the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco, where, at dawn, the sun's rays fell directly onto the disc in the temple chamber. There it reflected a dazzling golden light on to the walls and ceilings, themselves adorned with gold, in what was the most sacred and spectacular of all the Inca temples.
It must have been a magnificent sight, Jones thought as he set the map and his musings on the wonders of the Incas aside for a few moments to feed more fuel into his fire. The bones were now more than half consumed. The fire burned hot, and the glowing body of embers cast a formidable amount of heat up into the crack of the lintel stone. But Indy still wasn't sure he was accomplishing anything more than just giving these poor wretches a decent cremation. Only time would tell. He forced his anxiety to pass and went back to the map. Fingers and eyes again traced along its etchings, writings, and lines.
Via del Dios, Jones read from the map.
"The Way of God...Path of God?" he spoke aloud as he traced his finger along.
He averted his eyes from the map for a moment and gazed into the flames of the fire, his brows narrowed in thought.
"Path of God... up. Upwards, toward God. Up... up a mountain maybe?" Jones talked to himself as he endeavored to discern some of the cryptic writings.
His eyes went back to the map, Via del Diablo.
"Via del Diablo... Path of the Devil." He read, and then looked away from the map again, "Down? Down into the earth? A cave maybe?"
He threw more fuel on to the fire.
The Disc of the Sun was more than just a legend. It was real. It was well documented by the earliest Spaniards who visited Cuzco and saw the magnificent disc with their own eyes. But in 1531, it, along with the rest of the fabulous horde of Inca treasure was hidden away by the Queen when she saw that no amount of gold would quench the salacious thirst of the Spaniards. To avenge the murder of her precious husband she would have the satisfaction of denying the Spaniards that which was most precious to them. This vast Inca treasure has never been found.
Inca treasure maps had surfaced before in the world of Archaeology, but they had always proven to be nothing more than frauds; often times very poor frauds. The treasure was real, but the maps were not. So why did Indiana Jones think that he might now hold in his hand a document that could very well be authentic, and hinted at the lost treasure?
For the next hour and a half Jones alternately tended his fire, and studied the map. He kept the fire burning hot and bright beneath the lintel stone, while the images and writing on the map fired his imagination and curiosity.
He translated what he could from the Spanish writing which was haphazardly scribbled here and there. It was almost as if the Spanish was written on to it later, after it had been first drawn by other hands, perhaps Inca hands.
El Pala--- -e la --ina, Jones squinted as he read one Spanish inscription that was partially obscured, trying in his mind to fit in missing letters. He turned the map sideways to try and get a better look at the letters but could not make it out. So he moved on to others.
"El valle de los siete vientos... Valley of the seven winds. El valle del sol...Valley of the sun," he read on as his finger traced around the old parchment studying its details and translating the Spanish where it was written. After a while his fatigue caught up with him and he put the map away, back into his leather satchel. He stared for a long time into the fire, then laid his head back against the cavern wall and allowed himself a moment to close his eyes.
"El Palacio de la Reina...The Palace of the Queen!" he opened his eyes and exclaimed loudly after a few minutes. But after a moment's exultance at figuring out the obscured Spanish writing he'd been reading before, the gravity of his situation once again presented itself. He continued to tend his fire with the now dwindling supply of bones. It would not be long now until he would know if his fire had achieved its purpose.
The passage of another hour found Indiana Jones finally feeding the very last of the bones into the fire. The final addition was the leering skull of a long forgotten victim; an Inca slave maybe, or a Spaniard, or perhaps a more recent victim, maybe an archaeologist or treasure hunter who'd entered the tomb in search of Payahuatac's golden Death Mask, just as he had. The thought was not a pleasant one.
He watched as the flames engulfed the skull, soon to turn its perpetual grin to ashes. Jones could only hope that it was enough; enough heat to expand the small crack and split the lintel stone.........for him it was the difference between life and a slow death.
The strange thought occurred to him that if he were not able to escape the death chamber he now would not have even the company of the bones of its past victims for solace. The idea of such an utterly lonely death sent a slow chill up his spine. He knew too that as the fire died down, and then out, so too would the light turn back to darkness. The rats would return.
The time was now.
He picked up the conquistador's sword, which had served him so well thus far, and swung it at the lintel stone, still hot from the burning fire. The sword bounced off of the stone with a loud clang, and the vibration stung his hand. He ignored the jolt of pain and struck again, and then again, and again, and again. He swung the sword like a madman, like a man possessed, like a man who knew that to succeed was to live, to fail was to die. He swung harder, and harder, putting his back into every blow, using every ounce of strength in his tired muscles. His arms ached, but he still struck at the unyielding stone with every ounce of energy in his body.
The clanging sound of metal on stone reverberated and echoed off the dark walls of the cavern in a deafening cacophony. As much as the light of the flare had startled the rats before, this dissonant and caustic assault on their little rodent ears drove them even further away from the pit; a pit of death where a desperate man now fought a furious and frantic battle for nothing less than his own survival.
But before Jones' strength would give out, the sword did. The four hundred year old weapon could take no more. The blade broke off close to the handle and spun away into the darkening recesses of the cavern. In the flickering light of the fading fire Jones found himself staring at a handle, with about two inches of broken blade, clutched in his hand. For a moment he stared at it in mute silence, before sitting back down in defeat.
The last flames of the fire were dying out now, their embers cooling. The darkness slowly encroached back into the pit.
Would the rats be far behind?
Treasure of the Incas
Jones had managed to put the fear and dread of being entombed forever in this death chamber into a corner of his mind that he could close the door on, at least for a time. Right now fear would not serve him any purpose. Right now he needed to concentrate on the task at hand. If he failed to split the stone, and get out of this death chamber, then that would be the time for fear and dread, but until then he would keep the fear locked up, and replace it with hope. It was all he had; that and one more flare.
He threw another piece of a pelvic bone on to the fire before reaching into his leather pack and pulling out the old map again. He needed to distract his mind as the slow process of heating the stone continued.
Jones sat back against the wall of the cavern and unfolded the map. The glow of the fire provided a gently flickering, vibrating light which illuminated the old parchment with a warm incandescence. Indeed the scene would be almost cozy, if not for the perilous and bizarre circumstances.
He smoothed the map out on his legs and began to trace his finger along the drawings, lines, and writings which covered its surface. The first thing that struck him was that the map had more than one author, possibly even several. Crude drawings of physical features indicating mountains, rivers, and valleys, contrasted with finely etched artwork in the Inca style. He recognized the figure of a winged 'chasqui', an Inca runner or courier. There was an etching of the hero Naymlap, with his rainbow head dress, as well as drawings of bird men, and others. To Jones' archaeological eye, the drawings didn't seem to be drawn as simple ornamentation. The figures appeared to serve some purpose, though what it was he couldn't quite tell yet.
One figure caught his eye more than the others. It was the largest drawing on the map. It was circular and was obviously intended to represent the sun. The Spanish writing scrawled beside it left no doubt. El Disco del Sol......
Jones set the map aside for a few moments as he fed the now voraciously consuming flames some more fuel from his stack of bones. He rather unceremoniously broke a pair of femurs across his knee and pushed the four large bone fragments into the center of the fire, followed by a skull, minus jaw bone. He'd already hardened himself to his task, and felt nothing as he went about the gruesome business. Deep in his heart he knew that the spirits of these dead welcomed the chance to finally escape from this death pit; even if their escape was as smoke, smoke which curled upward and out through the lava tubes above.
He sat back down and studied the map again. "El Disco del Sol......the Disc of the Sun," he read aloud, translating the Spanish words.
The legendary Disc of the Sun, perhaps the greatest treasure of all, of an empire with more treasures than maybe any on earth. Indeed the glut of gold that Pizzarro and his conquistadors found when they arrived in the Andes seemed to drive them almost to madness. They committed the most heinous crimes and depredations against the Inca peoples in their insatiable lust for the precious metal.
One of the worst crimes of course was their treacherous betrayal and murder of the Inca Emperor Atahualpa. Through perfidy and deception the Spanish had captured the Inca ruler, and held him in the city of Cajamarca. Atahualpa, knowing of their lust for gold, offered to fill the entire room in which his captors held him with gold in exchange for his release. The Spaniards agreed, but after the ransom was paid in full, the treacherous conquistadors, rather than release him as they had agreed, instead condemned him to death.
Jones absently fed more bones into the flames as he recounted in his mind the tragic story of Atahualpa and the fall of the Inca Empire. The fire was burning hotter now, the embers glowed a bright orange-red.
In Cuzco, Atahualpa's first wife, the Queen gathered a second ransom in hopes of saving her husband. Eleven thousand llamas, each carrying one hundred pounds of gold, were dispatched from the Inca capital. But before the convoy reached Cajamarca the Queen consulted the Black Mirror, a supposed magic mirror in the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco. It foretold of the murder of her husband. The horrified Queen immediately ordered the convoy of gold, as well as all of the golden treasures of Cuzco, to be hidden away in caves in the mountains.
Among this vast horde of gold was the famous Disc of the Sun. El Disco del Sol was a massive plate of purest gold, encrusted thickly with emeralds and other gems of superb size and quality. It was kept at the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco, where, at dawn, the sun's rays fell directly onto the disc in the temple chamber. There it reflected a dazzling golden light on to the walls and ceilings, themselves adorned with gold, in what was the most sacred and spectacular of all the Inca temples.
It must have been a magnificent sight, Jones thought as he set the map and his musings on the wonders of the Incas aside for a few moments to feed more fuel into his fire. The bones were now more than half consumed. The fire burned hot, and the glowing body of embers cast a formidable amount of heat up into the crack of the lintel stone. But Indy still wasn't sure he was accomplishing anything more than just giving these poor wretches a decent cremation. Only time would tell. He forced his anxiety to pass and went back to the map. Fingers and eyes again traced along its etchings, writings, and lines.
Via del Dios, Jones read from the map.
"The Way of God...Path of God?" he spoke aloud as he traced his finger along.
He averted his eyes from the map for a moment and gazed into the flames of the fire, his brows narrowed in thought.
"Path of God... up. Upwards, toward God. Up... up a mountain maybe?" Jones talked to himself as he endeavored to discern some of the cryptic writings.
His eyes went back to the map, Via del Diablo.
"Via del Diablo... Path of the Devil." He read, and then looked away from the map again, "Down? Down into the earth? A cave maybe?"
He threw more fuel on to the fire.
The Disc of the Sun was more than just a legend. It was real. It was well documented by the earliest Spaniards who visited Cuzco and saw the magnificent disc with their own eyes. But in 1531, it, along with the rest of the fabulous horde of Inca treasure was hidden away by the Queen when she saw that no amount of gold would quench the salacious thirst of the Spaniards. To avenge the murder of her precious husband she would have the satisfaction of denying the Spaniards that which was most precious to them. This vast Inca treasure has never been found.
Inca treasure maps had surfaced before in the world of Archaeology, but they had always proven to be nothing more than frauds; often times very poor frauds. The treasure was real, but the maps were not. So why did Indiana Jones think that he might now hold in his hand a document that could very well be authentic, and hinted at the lost treasure?
For the next hour and a half Jones alternately tended his fire, and studied the map. He kept the fire burning hot and bright beneath the lintel stone, while the images and writing on the map fired his imagination and curiosity.
He translated what he could from the Spanish writing which was haphazardly scribbled here and there. It was almost as if the Spanish was written on to it later, after it had been first drawn by other hands, perhaps Inca hands.
El Pala--- -e la --ina, Jones squinted as he read one Spanish inscription that was partially obscured, trying in his mind to fit in missing letters. He turned the map sideways to try and get a better look at the letters but could not make it out. So he moved on to others.
"El valle de los siete vientos... Valley of the seven winds. El valle del sol...Valley of the sun," he read on as his finger traced around the old parchment studying its details and translating the Spanish where it was written. After a while his fatigue caught up with him and he put the map away, back into his leather satchel. He stared for a long time into the fire, then laid his head back against the cavern wall and allowed himself a moment to close his eyes.
"El Palacio de la Reina...The Palace of the Queen!" he opened his eyes and exclaimed loudly after a few minutes. But after a moment's exultance at figuring out the obscured Spanish writing he'd been reading before, the gravity of his situation once again presented itself. He continued to tend his fire with the now dwindling supply of bones. It would not be long now until he would know if his fire had achieved its purpose.
The passage of another hour found Indiana Jones finally feeding the very last of the bones into the fire. The final addition was the leering skull of a long forgotten victim; an Inca slave maybe, or a Spaniard, or perhaps a more recent victim, maybe an archaeologist or treasure hunter who'd entered the tomb in search of Payahuatac's golden Death Mask, just as he had. The thought was not a pleasant one.
He watched as the flames engulfed the skull, soon to turn its perpetual grin to ashes. Jones could only hope that it was enough; enough heat to expand the small crack and split the lintel stone.........for him it was the difference between life and a slow death.
The strange thought occurred to him that if he were not able to escape the death chamber he now would not have even the company of the bones of its past victims for solace. The idea of such an utterly lonely death sent a slow chill up his spine. He knew too that as the fire died down, and then out, so too would the light turn back to darkness. The rats would return.
The time was now.
He picked up the conquistador's sword, which had served him so well thus far, and swung it at the lintel stone, still hot from the burning fire. The sword bounced off of the stone with a loud clang, and the vibration stung his hand. He ignored the jolt of pain and struck again, and then again, and again, and again. He swung the sword like a madman, like a man possessed, like a man who knew that to succeed was to live, to fail was to die. He swung harder, and harder, putting his back into every blow, using every ounce of strength in his tired muscles. His arms ached, but he still struck at the unyielding stone with every ounce of energy in his body.
The clanging sound of metal on stone reverberated and echoed off the dark walls of the cavern in a deafening cacophony. As much as the light of the flare had startled the rats before, this dissonant and caustic assault on their little rodent ears drove them even further away from the pit; a pit of death where a desperate man now fought a furious and frantic battle for nothing less than his own survival.
But before Jones' strength would give out, the sword did. The four hundred year old weapon could take no more. The blade broke off close to the handle and spun away into the darkening recesses of the cavern. In the flickering light of the fading fire Jones found himself staring at a handle, with about two inches of broken blade, clutched in his hand. For a moment he stared at it in mute silence, before sitting back down in defeat.
The last flames of the fire were dying out now, their embers cooling. The darkness slowly encroached back into the pit.
Would the rats be far behind?