The Metrognome and Other Stories

MOTHER THUNDER

Jessica Amanda Salmonson and I have corresponded for years, infrequently but always with respect and interest. In addition to writing her own stories, Jessica is a busy editor. When I learned that she was putting together an anthology of stories utilizing mythological themes, I was immediately interested.

Mythology always fascinated me in school, but all we were ever exposed to by the Anglocentric American secondary curriculum was the mythlore of Greece and Rome. If the teacher was especially well read and prepared, we might also receive a dollop of Norse gods, those individuals so famed today for .their appearances in Marvel comics. No residuals go to Valhalla or Asgard. Only when l left college did I begin to find out about mankind's wealth of invention, of the tales and fantasies of the rest of my brethren.

One thing I discovered was that mythologies exist to be expanded upon. The dreamtime could be my time, too. Tales twice told in Tanzania were as pointed and relevant as those spilled on the streets of Topeka. When it comes to storytelling, the family of man is wholly egalitarian. I think my embroidery of reality would be as welcome in a yurt in the Gobi as in New York.

What first drew me to the Inca, however, was not their mythology but their tragedy. If only, I told myself as I read the sad story of their destruction by the conquistadores, they had possessed writing. If only they'd known the wheel. If only they'd had matching cavalry or gunpowder. If only they'd had . . .

No one paid any attention to Crazy Yahuar until the Silver Men came.

"They have crossed the river," the exhausted chasqui told the Priest. "Even now they are working their way up the mountain."

"They must not come here," the old Priest muttered. "This is the most sacred place of the Tahuantinsuyu, the Four Corners of the World. They must not come here." He pulled his feathered cloak tighter around his shoulders. The wind was cold on the mountaintop.

"The Silver Men go where they wish." The teacher/noble who stood on the Priest's right hand had seen much these past twenty years. He had become a realist.

"Why dream on, old man? We have three choices: we can submit, we can run away into the jungle with Manco Inca; or we can die here. Myself, I chose my own grave, and it is here. This is where my grandfather began, and this is where his line will end."

"If we pray to the Sun," the old Priest began. The teacher interrupted him angrily:

"It is too late for prayers, Priest. We have forgotten what they were for, have forgotten too much for prayers to be of help now. Prayers did not help Atahuallpa. The Silver Men strangled him, ransom or no ransom, prayers or no prayers. Give me' one of their armored long-legged llamas to ride upon and one of their fire-weapons to fight with, and keep your prayers:" He turned his attention to the panting chasqui.

"How many, post runner?"

The chasqui held out a quipu, and the teacher studied the number and location of the intricate knots tied in the rope. "Too many. You have done your job, runner. I will not hold you here. What would you do?"

"Return to my family." The chasqui was still breathing hard from the long run up the mountainside.

"Go then, if you can avoid the Silver Men, and live long."

"Thank you, noble." The runner turned and fairly flew down the steep trail, anxious to flee the sacred city. He had heard of the barbarity of the Silver Men, of the atrocities they had visited even upon great Cuzco, and he had no desire to be martyred along with those who might choose to try to defend the citadel. Better it be left to Priests and nobles.

The old Priest let out a sigh. "The Empire is coming to an end. It is too bad."

"Too bad has nothing to do with it, Priest." The teacher made no attempt to conceal his bitterness. "I blame Huascar and Atahuallpa. If those two brothers had not spent the energy and wealth of the realm fighting one another over the succession, we would already have driven the Silver Men back into the sea, despite all their strange weapons and ways. Now, it is too late." He turned and gazed past the lower terraces, toward the first wall of the city.

"So now I shall die here, not for the Empire but for my ancestors and my oaths, which is all that has been left to me. What will you do, Priest?"

"I am bid to serve Inti, the Sun. I will pray to him for guidance, and if it be his will, I will perish in the temple at the time he chooses for me."

"Bah. Better to die fighting. Still, I am no priest, and I should not tell a priest how to die. Each must do what each must do."

"That is the law, my son." The Priest put a withered hand on the younger man's shoulder. "I cannot fight with you, but I can pray that you fight well."

"I accept your prayers, old man. They worked in the past, though the past is done. I go to organize the stone stingers."

He turned and started up the steps, leaving the Priest to stare worriedly down the mountainside. The morning sun glinted sharply off the distant white worm that was the Urubamba River. How soon, he wondered? How soon before the sunlight shines off the armor of the Silver Men? If only he could remember the old ways, the old magic.

But so much had been forgotten since the first Inca had started the Empire.

"We will confront them at the steepest part of the trail," the teacher told the assembled band of farmer-warriors. "If we cannot hold them back there, then we have no chance. Their long-necked llamas will have trouble climbing that place."

"A steep climb will not slow their fire arrows," said a voice from the back.

"Are you afraid of fire, Tamo?" asked the teacher. The man who'd spoken lapsed into silence.

"We are ready, then, save for the Priests and the children." The teacher prepared to step down from the speaking stone when another voice broke in:

"What of Yahuar?"

The teacher had to smile. "Crazy Yahuar? Let him play his pipes in peace. Perhaps the Silver Men will let him live. I have heard that they too have tolerance for the mad. Let Yahuar remain with the Priests and the Chosen Women, where he belongs."

Laughter rose from the warriors, and the teacher was glad. Now when the time came the men of the city would raise their legs at the Silver Men in defiance. If the goes willed it, the teacher would make a drinking cup of his enemy's skull. If not, at least they could die like the true children of Viracocha.

At the farthest end of the city, Crazy Yahuar sat on the lower steps of the temple, which were coated with the tears of the moon, and played his panpipes. Children attended him, still unaware of the importance of the coming battle. Women mocked him or smiled sadly at his innocence as they hurried to stock food and water for the men. The priests ignored him, busy making preparations for death.

Yahuar sat on the silver and played and smiled. And watched the sky across the gorge of the Urubamba. It was clouding quickly. Rain pelted his cheeks, ran in drops down his hooked nose. The haunting five-tone notes of his panpipes drifted out over the edge of the cliffs and down into the mists that rose from the roaring river.

"Filthy country, Capitan." The soldier tugged insistently at the reins of his reluctant mount while keeping a wary eye on the heights above.

"Filthy but rich, eh, Rinaldo?" Capitan Borregos scrambled to the crest of a protruding boulder and turned to survey the war party strung out down the mountainside.

He had fifty fighting men, twenty arquebusiers, and three hundred Indian auxiliaries. They had left the cannon at the bottom of the gorge since the men had rebelled at the prospect of hauling the six-pounder up the precipitous slope. Well, with any luck they'd have no need of it, and if worse came to worst, it could shield any retreat.

But Borregos had no intention of retreating. He'd worked too long to pry these men away from the comforts of conquered Cuzco. It had been less difficult than he'd expected, though.

Most of the wealth of that plundered city was well on its way to Spain by the time these men had arrived in Peru. Cortes and the Pizarro brothers had stripped the Inca capital of its gold and silver and jewels. The city had been full of desperate, anxious men eager for a chance at the loot that had aroused the interest of all Iberia. Such men made good fighters, willing to obey any order that promised a golden reward.

No Priest traveled with Borregos's party. The fathers made him nervous, with their moaning and whining over the deaths of infidel Indians. Their presence would make the necessary butchery awkward. So Borregos and his men had slipped out of Cuzco quietly, in clusters and couples, to avoid the attention of the authorities as well as the Church.

He turned and shouted to the Indian standing nearby. Omo started at the mention of his name, hurried over to the Capitan's rock. He was Cotol, from a tribe of Puma worshipers who lived far up the coast. The Cotol had no love for the Inca. Many of Borregos's Indian allies were Cotol. A degraded race, Borregos mused, with none of the primitive dignity of their Inca masters.

"Are you certain of this trail, Omo?"

The Indian replied in broken Spanish. "Yes, lord. This is the right way. This is the only way. Soon we be there, at the greatest place in all the Four Corners of the World. It is small because it is secret, and more important even than Cuzco."

"And this is where the gold is?"

"Yes, lord. The temple atop the mountain city is consecrated to the memory of Viracocha, the first Inca, the Creator. The walls of the temple are plated with the sweat of the sun, its roof and floor with the tears of the moon. It is here that Huanya Capac, the last great emperor, brought much treasure for safekeeping. It was here that Viracocha first touched the earth amidst fire and thunder and sent down his children to be Incas and lords over the world."

"You're afraid of this place, aren't you, Omo?"

"Yes, lord."

"Then why do you go onward? Why not return to your home in the far north?"

"Because my lord would have me killed." The Indian's gaze did not meet Borregos's. Which was as it should be, the Capitan thought.

"That's right, Omo. Until we've finished our business here. Then you can go home, with all the llamas you and your men can drive." Borregos could be generous. He had little use for llamas. It was gold he was after. Sweat of the sun, the Incas called it. His eyes gleamed.

"Come on, men!" he shouted at the struggling. troop. "For good King Charles and for glory!" Drawing his sword, he brandished it at the cliffs overhead.

"He can keep his glory," muttered one of the bearded, dirty soldiers m the column as he urged his horse upward, "so long as there's plenty of gold."

"Don't forget the Chosen Women," grinned his companion. "This is a big temple place. There ought to be plenty of them, too, and no priests to trouble our pleasure."

"Aye, I'd forgotten them," the other soldier confessed. He shoved at his mount with renewed strength. "This will be a memorable day."

The farmer-warriors fought bravely, and the Priests prayed hard, but sling-stones and cotton armor were no match for bullets and Toledo steel. The Spaniards' closeorder fire eventually drove the defenders back from the trailhead. Once the invaders crested the first wall and achieved relatively level ground where they could use their horses, the end seemed near.

The teacher retreated with his surviving fighters to the great temple of the sun that rose from the far end of the city. There the Spaniards paused, impressed but not awed by the massive stone structures. Sacsayhuaman in Cuzco had been larger and better defended, but it too had fallen.

For now the invaders contented themselves with looting and burning the thatched buildings of the city and enjoying a late afternoon meal. On three sides of the temple the cliffs fell away to sheer precipices thousands of feet high. Their prey had nowhere to go. Though the men were anxious to press in to the real treasure, Capitan Borregos counseled them to rest and regain their strength.

There was gold aplenty even in the common houses, and while the unchosen women were not as comely as those who served the temple, the conquistadores were momentarily sated. Within the barricaded temple the teacher and his warriors listened to the screams and shouts and bit their gums until they bled.

"What are we to do now?" asked one badly lacerated warrior.

"We should not stay here. We must go out and meet them and die like men," said the teacher.

"Perhaps we can bargain with them?" suggested another hopefully. "They do not kill everyone."

"They do when the mood strikes them," the teacher snapped. "Nor are these men of nobility, such as the few who led the army which took the capital. These do not even bring a Priest with them to remind them of their god. We can die in here, or outside, in the sun."

"Not even that," said another fighter mournfully. "The rain covers the sky."

"What is that infernal noise?" The teacher whirled, stared toward the back rooms of the temple, from which odd, piping music could be heard.

"Have you forgotten Crazy Yahuar?" said a warrior apologetically. "He sits by the hitching post of the sun and plays his pipes."

"Go and get him," ordered the frustrated teacher. "At least he can die like a man."

Two of the warriors hurried back through the passageways until they reached the little plaza open to the sky where the stone and metal obelisk of the Inti Huatana stood probing the storm. It was very dark there from the clouds. A strange rumbling was coming from the mountain beneath them, and the crown of the Inti Huatana was glowing like the sun as Crazy Yahuar played to it. The two warriors drew back from the holy place, for it seemed to them that as Crazy Yahuar played, the hitching post of the sun answered him.

"Better get the horses to shelter," one of Borregos's lieutenants suggested. "We can wait out this damn storm."

"I suppose that's best." Borregos was unhappy. He'd told his men to wait. Now they faced the prospect of spending a wet night waiting in the native enclosures or making an attack m the rain. "Curse the luck. Though our gold will wait for a pleasant morning, I suppose."

"Capitan!" Horregos whirled to stare at the soldier standing guard on the nearby rampart.

Something was rising toward the citadel from the gorge below, soaring into the clouds. Faces gathered at the windows of the temple of the sun. Even the priests were drawn from their final devotions. Above the rising wind and the deep-throated thrumming that rose from inside the mountain was the erratic whisper of Crazy Yahuar's pipes.

The sled was bright silver and gold, and it floated through the air like the condor. Riding the sled and clad all in tears of the moon was the form of a woman. Her silvery hair was long and stiff and formed a glowing halo about her. Of her face, some thought it beautiful and others the face of a coated skull. Her eyes glittered with inhuman fire.

She held in one hand the staff of the sun, a rod filled with sunlight too bright to look at. When it snapped downward, it sent a thunderbolt flying toward the mountaintop city.

It touched first Capitan Borregos, then his lieutenant, then the men next to them, turning them to ash and memory. Subsequent bolts sent stones as well as men flying from their positions. A few of the soldiers forgot their fear long enough to fire at the apparition, but bullets were as useless as lances against it.

And when the last invader had been cut down and destroyed, Mother Thunder whirled once over the citadel and touched downward with her staff before vanishing into the fading storm.

Trembling and fearful but alive, the survivors followed Yahuar out onto the steps of the temple and gazed at their city.

"Behold the work of Tllapa Mama, daughter of Viracocha!" No one thought the words of the pipe-player mad now.

Where the crackling staff had last pointed, a hole had appeared in the roof of the mountain. A series of steps led downward, down out of sight, down into the unknown.

"Here is the way to the place of return," announced Yahuar. "Take down the sacred objects, the remnants of the Tahuantinsuyu."

The people hurried to obey, stripping the temple and its adjacent buildings of the tears of the moon and sweat of the sun and the sacred relics. Then they gathered food for the coming journey, a journey all knew would take a long time.

"The works of Viracocha came to naught because his people forgot his teachings. They fell to pleasuring themselves and did not work to maintain his memory, and busied themselves instead with petty squabbles and arguments," Yahuar explained. Among those nodding agreement was the now-silent, solemn teacher.

"But Viracocha was wise. One wise man of each generation was taught the special song, the song of remembrance, to be played only in dire need. The song that would bring forth Illapa Mama to rescue his children and show them the way to return to learning and peace.

"We must go back now to the home of Viracocha until it is time again for his descendants to return and extend their rule over this land. Know that I am the wise man, the song-player, of this generation, great-grandson of the first song-player, who was taught by Viracocha himself. Follow my song now." He put the panpipes to his lips and began to play.

Humming wordlessly to the familiar tune, the people of the city followed Yahuar down into the gut of the mountain, and they did not even tremble when it closed up behind them.

A great thunderclap was heard even in Cuzco. Some thought they saw a pillar of fire and a mountain ascending heavenward. Others said it was only a cloud lit by lightning. Still others heard and saw nothing and decried the words of those who did. Later travelers wondered what became of the people of the sacred city of Machu Picchu, even as they wondered at the western side of the great mountain that seemed to have split off and vanished.

Most of the city remains. So does the Ind Huatana, the hitching post of the sun, though no metal crowns it anymore. There are nights when the panpipes of a somnolent shepherd strike an odd resonance in the ancient pillar. No one thinks it remarkable, for many earthquakes plague the land once conquered by Viracocha, just as no one thinks to dig to see what may lie inside the great, mountain . . .