The Inca Prophecy (40 page)

‘This looks halfway civilised, so I’m betting we’re not stopping?’ hazarded Aleta.

‘Got it in one,’ O’Connor said with a grin. ‘But you can use the bathrooms.’

They pushed on, climbing steadily through open country until they reached the Phuyupatamarca ruins, a spectacular series of stone terraces built into the side of a mountain.

‘We’ll spend the night here,’ O’Connor said, leading Aleta into some thicker vegetation.

‘Five-star,’ Aleta observed wryly.

The next morning they woke early to tackle the Runkuraqay pass. They were getting up towards 3600 metres now, and the clouds drifted below them, reflecting the early morning sun amongst the tundra and the granite where small lakes had formed in the depressions. Occasionally they passed a viscacha, a furry rabbit-like animal dozing on the rocky outcrops amongst the brightly coloured red and white orchids.

‘This is very open country,’ Aleta observed, as they began the steep descent towards the Pakaymayu River below. ‘It’s hard to imagine anything being hidden out here.’

‘But look over there … that’s where we’re headed,’ O’Connor said, pointing up the Pakaymayu Valley, which ran sharply to the north-east, away from the trail.

‘Of course!’ Aleta exclaimed. ‘The Inca called that the Hidden Valley!’

‘From the satellite photos, the vegetation appears very thick in parts,’ O’Connor agreed, ‘and there’s no reason anyone would venture in there, although I suspect the Inca will have taken great care to ensure whatever they’ve hidden isn’t easily found, regardless of how isolated the spot.’

Two hours later, O’Connor checked his GPS compass and they left the trail, heading north-east, following the bank of the river for nearly two kilometres until they reached a steep ravine in the shadow of a massive granite peak.

‘Three hundred metres … in there,’ O’Connor said with a grin, again checking the compass bearing. He drew his machete and began to hack a path into the rainforest when Aleta grabbed his shirt.

‘Look out!’

She pulled O’Connor back towards her frantically. O’Connor had disturbed a small, brilliantly coloured snake among the foliage on the forest floor. Dark blue, with striking cream-coloured stripes, it was ready to strike.

‘Micrurus annelatus,’
Aleta warned. ‘Otherwise known as an annelated coral snake. They may be small, but they’re absolutely deadly,’ she added as they waited for the reptile to slither away.

The jungle was thick, and O’Connor had to stop every few metres to hack a path through the foliage. Abruptly, they broke into the eerie half-light of a shady clearing. The decaying vegetation felt soft
underfoot and small streams tumbled from the mountains above on their way to join the deep creek-line below. Suddenly Aleta tripped on something hard.

‘What’s this?’ she asked as she scraped away at the mulch formed by centuries of decaying leaves. ‘Look,’ she called, pointing at the stone she’d revealed.

O’Connor checked his GPS. ‘And according to this, we’re within metres of where the cipher says we should be.’

The two of them cleared more mulch to reveal a series of stones that looked to be an ancient stone pathway. ‘See how tightly these stones fit together?’ said Aleta in wonderment. ‘This has to be Inca!’

O’Connor bent down to get a closer look but as he did so, the stones began to move.

‘Get back!’ he yelled as the ground gave way beneath his feet. The rocky path collapsed in a rumbling roar as O’Connor grabbed a hanging vine and stopped himself from falling. Aleta, however, was not so lucky. As she fell towards a pit of deadly punji stakes, O’Connor lunged forward and locked his free arm under Aleta’s armpit, stopping her fall. He hauled her back to safety, breathing heavily.

‘Whatever’s here, the Inca didn’t want us to find it,’ Aleta gasped, struggling to regain her breath.

‘It seems we’re getting warm,’ O’Connor agreed, skirting around the punji pit and picking up the path on the other side. But a few metres on, the path finished at the base of a chunk of lichen-covered granite. ‘Trouble is, we appear to be at a dead end,’ O’Connor said, running his hand over the rock.

From his hide in the jungle nearby, shaman Carlos Huayta sent a silent prayer to the cosmos. Had the two who had been promised so long ago finally arrived? The ancient prophecy decreed they would have to solve this puzzle without his help. And if they were to find the Lost City of Paititi, he knew they would have to overcome even greater dangers than those they had already faced.

After hours of searching, it was Aleta who made the breakthrough. ‘Look,’ Aleta said, scraping the dirt away from what looked like a stone water channel at the base of a natural stream. ‘It’s an Inca disc!’

‘But this dirt looks quite fresh,’ O’Connor said, as he joined her on his hands and knees, helping her clear the leaves. ‘It looks like some sort of water system.’

‘That would fit,’ Aleta said. ‘The Inca were brilliant engineers. They built an 800-metre-long canal at Machu Picchu that guaranteed the city’s water supply, and it still works today. But why would they have a piping system here?’

‘And why is there a separate pipe to one side?’ O’Connor mused, watching the water splashing freely through the system. ‘So if we turn it …’ He applied a little pressure, and the ornately carved stone disc shifted easily, diverting the flow into a second channel. The water gurgled into an underground tunnel and after a time, the ground reverberated with a faint thumping sound.

‘I think I know what this is!’ Aleta exclaimed. ‘The earliest civilisations understood hydraulics, and the Inca were no exception. I think this is an ancient hydraulic ram. If I’m right, there are two
valves underneath here, and the weight of the water will close one and force another one open, allowing the water to flow into a second chamber. That will compress the air, which will create pressure on the water – enough to exert a strong force.’

The ground began to tremble and O’Connor and Aleta both stepped back as a stone the size of a small door slid into a recess in the granite, revealing a dark tunnel. O’Connor waited, then probed the opening with a long stick, waiting for another ancient booby trap to reveal itself, but the only sound was the gurgling of the water, deep beneath their feet.

‘I suspect as long as the water is diverted into the underground chamber, the stone will remain in the open position,’ O’Connor said, shining his torch down the steeply sloping tunnel. Together they stepped inside the mountain, O’Connor cautiously leading the way.

‘Lamps,’ he said, flashing his torch on the ornate pottery holders still full of oil. A hundred metres further in, they ran into solid rock.

‘There has to be another way,’ O’Connor said, shining his torch over the mossy granite. ‘What was that odd line in the cipher?… Through gold and obsidian it will be revealed?’

‘Up there,’ Aleta said, ‘there’s something glinting.’

O’Connor directed the torch beam onto the glinting dark object in the niche and cautiously put his hand in the small opening in the rock. ‘It feels like a statuette of some sort, but it won’t move … Wait, there’s a lever behind it.’

O’Connor and Aleta stepped back as the massive stone in front of them rolled silently aside.

Aleta gasped. A mummified king stared silently at them from his throne. ‘My God! It’s an Inca tomb!’

‘And seemingly intact, after all these centuries.’ O’Connor ran his machete around the entrance, half expecting to trigger more punji stakes, but there was silence.

‘And look!’ Aleta exclaimed again. ‘Near his feet – the second crystal skull!’

Together they shone their torches around the king’s ancient resting place.

‘Whose tomb do you suppose this is?’ O’Connor asked.

‘I’d have to take a closer look, but from the clothes, even though they’re in threads, I’d guess it’s the burial place of Pachacuti Yupanqui. He died in 1472, and nobody has ever found his tomb.’

O’Connor whistled softly. ‘So this chamber’s over 500 years old. Now I know how Howard Carter felt when he discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb.’

‘Well, let’s hope we don’t meet the same fate,’ said Aleta, playing her torch over the niches filled with solid gold and silver statues and urns overflowing with emeralds and tumbled turquoise, the stone of Inca royalty. Her torch beam rested on the furthest niche and a simple pottery urn. Intrigued, Aleta eased past the mummified remains of the king.

She beckoned O’Connor. ‘Come and have a look at this! It seems out of place.’

O’Connor felt the base of the urn for any signs of a pressure plate and lifted it carefully out of the niche and placed it on the stone floor. A strange blue light began to glow from deep within the crystal skull. Aleta extracted two leather-wrapped packages from the urn and carefully opened them. The first one contained a solid-gold puma head, and the second, an ancient map.

‘A puma head – it has to be the one in the prophecy, the one that will be critical to finding Paititi. And a map of the location of the lost city!’ Aleta exclaimed, her torch wavering in her excitement.

‘Yes, with a reference to the zenith of the sun and an insignia of a crystal skull. And it looks like it’s in the Amazon Basin, but there’s something odd here. This map has precise latitude and longitude, yet I was sure the Inca didn’t use that system,’ said O’Connor.

‘Don’t sell them short,’ Aleta said, ‘they were superb astronomers. But this map doesn’t look Inca to me. Someone knows this location. That water ram moved very easily … I think it’s been used quite recently.’

‘I think you’re right,’ O’Connor agreed, ‘yet the tomb’s in perfect condition. Perhaps one or two shamans have access. Do you remember the one Gonzáles mentioned? Huayta?’

‘Yes. I suppose it’s possible,’ said Aleta. ‘As to the zenith,’ she mused, ‘Gonzáles was right. The Inca put great significance on solstices and equinoxes, just like the Maya, but this confirms what he meant by the zenith.’

‘The sun directly overhead,’ O’Connor agreed. ‘Which means we have less than a week, and if the details on the bottom of this map are correct, we’re going to need some help getting in there. It’s time we found Huayta.’

Chapter 49

‘It’s just Señor Huayta?’ O’Connor queried the receptionist on the other end of the line. Earlier that evening O’Connor and Aleta had found a small hotel in Cusco for the night, dropped their bags and gone out to eat. Back in their room, O’Connor had taken a call from reception to learn that Carlos Huayta was waiting to see them. He was more than a little puzzled as to how Huayta might have found them. ‘Okay, send him up.’ He turned to Aleta. ‘When he knocks, open the door and step aside. If it’s necessary, I want a clear shot.’

‘You think this is a trap?’

‘We’ll soon know.’ When it came, the knock was firm and confident, and Aleta opened the door and stepped back.

Carlos Huayta stood at the door, looking towards O’Connor, who was pointing his Glock 21 straight at him.

‘You are right to be cautious, Señor O’Connor, but you can put
your weapon away. I’m unarmed. You can check if you wish.’

‘It seems there are quite a few who are not on our side – you’ll have to forgive the welcome,’ O’Connor said, deciding against patting the shaman down. ‘This is Dr Aleta Weizman.’