Cave Dogs (Pachacuta Book 1) Page 9

  Fortunately for us we had Phil, who did regard himself as a natural communicator. Phil, off-to-journalism-school Phil, wannabe-broadcaster Phil, became the spokesman for the group.

  For our part he told of being in a large cavern, when the big ‘quake had struck. He described vividly, and quite accurately the terror of the crashing boulders and falling walls of the cavern, which was quite surprising I thought, considering he had been face-down under a boulder at the time.

  He even displayed his rainbow coloured leg as evidence, which drew ooh’s and ah’s from the audience.

  Throughout it all Tukuyrikuq translated tirelessly, even translating interjections and comments from other tables.

  Phil was doing fine, and enjoying himself at the same time. He was even onto his third glass of happy chocolate juice, and he didn’t put his foot in his mouth once, until he mentioned the descent into the mirror lined cave.

  Tukuyrikuq was translating on the fly. He was getting tired too, but for a man over a hundred years old he was doing just fine. But maybe it was the tiredness that got to him, because when Phil spoke of the mirrored cave he translated it verbatim, without missing a beat.

  There was a sudden and condemning silence in the room, and Tukuyrikuq went pale as he realised what he had said.

  The bathing wife, a thin creature with an acid turn to her smile, looked directly at me and rattled off an invective-filled stream in Runa Simi.

  Tukuyrikuq listened quietly, then turned to me. ‘I’m sorry, Jason, I wasn’t thinking. She wants to know what you were doing in the Cave of Mirrors.’

  I froze, and hoped the bead of sweat that suddenly broke out on my forehead was not as obvious to the rest of the room as it was, suddenly, to me.

  Tukuyrikuq said quickly, ‘ The Runa believe that mirrors will frighten away demons. That the hairy-faces are so ugly that when they see themselves the demons will panic and run away. The Cave of Mirrors at the top of the Devil’s Staircase is the first line of defence should any demon break through the great Kepa stone at the top of Huayna’s Shaft. But all of that is sealed forever behind the great Gates of Hell, gates so strong, and protected by so strong a spirit, that even the great Garrison which used to be stationed there was eventually broken up and merged into other units.’

  Phil was silent. It’s hard to speak with your foot so firmly planted in your mouth. It was up to me.

  ‘I, er, there are, um, tell her I know of the cave of which she speaks, but have never seen it.’

  Tukuyrikuq rattled away in Runa Simi.

  I said ‘Tell her there are many such caves in the great deeps, protecting the Runa from greater dangers than she could possibly imagine. We were in one of the other Caves of Mirrors, a really deep one. Not that one.’

  Lame, lame, lame, lame, lame lame. My primary school teacher would have seen through that one in a second. Sorry Miss, it wasn’t us, we weren’t there, we were somewhere else. Besides, they knew where we had been found.

  Tukuyrikuq translated it though, and I hope, added some bits to make it more plausible.

  The frown dropped from the Taytacha’s face and he clapped his hands together as a signal to the waiters. I think he wanted the problem to go away.

  Acid Smile, however, obviously wasn’t convinced, and neither was the tall warrior we had met in the caves. He stood behind, and slightly to the left of the Taytacha, part of his elite personal guard, the Kuimata. Now he stepped forwards. Tukuyrikuq continued translating, with a worried countenance.

  ‘Ask him to speak his name,’ the tall warrior intoned. ‘He claims not to be a demon, yet he has seen the Cave of Mirrors. You say he may carry the name of Pachacuteq yet he has done nothing to show this is so.’

  Taytacha-Raki was clearly embarrassed by the intrusion. I thought, he had been hoping we would grandly reveal our identities at the feast, not be forced to by the actions of one of his wives and one of his guards.

  What he didn’t know, that I knew, along with all my friends, was that we could not reveal our identities. I was not Pachacuteq. Certainly I could claim to be, but that façade would crumble in moments and the end of our lives would not be far behind.

  The Taytacha said, ‘Turiz is a simple man. He is an impatient man. The speaking of your name can wait. Let us enjoy the feast and the entertainment which is to follow.’

  I said, ‘Tell your man that he is a great warrior, that I have seen him fight. That he is a good guard for his Taytacha. But tell him also that I do not wish my name to be spoken at this time.’

  That gained a little ground with Turiz and I could see him wondering how I knew that he had fought in the tunnel. He had been masked then, and he was masked now.

  He was far from satisfied though. The Taytacha raised his hands to clap them again for the waiters, but before he could Turiz stepped forwards and stated quietly, ‘Tupaq.’

  There was a hushed silence.

  Taytacha said in a colder, more commanding tone than we had heard till now, ‘These are my guests. Do not declare Tupaq upon them.’

  ‘I declare Tupaq,’ Turiz insisted. ‘These are troubled times and the names of these strangers must be spoken. I declare Tupaq. Pachacuteq cannot be defeated by mortal man. I declare Tupaq and if his name is Pachacuteq then my death will be a blessing for all of Ukhu Pacha.’

  ‘And if he is not Pachacuteq?’ the question came from Tukuyrikuq.

  ‘Then he cannot stand against me.’ A cruel, yet confident smile felt its way across Turiz’s lips. ‘I have been well-trained.’

  Tukuyrikuq turned to me and said. ‘He has declared a challenge. A fight to the death. I can do nothing to help you now.’

  We moved then, as Tupaq must take place immediately it is declared. We were shepherded to a training room, part of Taytacha-Rika’s complex of caves. His ‘mansion’.

  I was surprised at first, as it was merely a section of dusty corridor, as we had first encountered when we had entered Ukhu-Pacha through the Gates of Hell. Then I realised, of course, what else would a training room look like. They were trained to fight in the nans and caves of this world.

  I was stripped to a loin cloth – no battle armour in Tupaq – and thrust into one end of the corridor as Turiz entered from the other. I looked into the eyes of the warrior and I knew I was going to die.

  I was a seventeen-year-old kid from a middle class home on Auckland’s North Shore, with a few months of Karate training. He was a fierce and seasoned warrior from a warrior-people. He was the elite, trained in their harshest combat school, his skills honed in the cry of battle in the dusty corridors of this untamed place. I had never killed a spider.

  ‘Tupaq!’ cried Turiz.

  I knew I was going to die and I wondered at the strange prophesies of fate that had brought me this far through my life, that had spared me during the earthquake, that had fooled me into accepting Fizzer’s belief that my life had some kind of meaning, some purpose, only to let my blood slosh out into the dusty floor of this alien, rocky corridor.

  ‘Tupaq!’ the warrior cried again and brandished his Taiaqha high above his head. Then I felt a steady hand on my shoulder drawing me backwards and Flea stepped forward in front of me.

  ‘Tupaq,’ he said tonelessly, ‘Tupaq.’ I started to protest but Flea glared back at me and anyway it was already too late. The Taytacha clapped his hands together and raised them to quell the growing clamour from each end of the corridor. He held forth for a moment in the language of the warriors, before turning to us.

  ‘It is done,’ he said. ‘It is his right. The small one will challenge Turiz of the Kuimata.’ He shook his head doubtfully, his jowls wobbling. ‘You may choose a weapon.’

  Turiz was eyeing Flea up and down and he looked disgusted. He remonstrated with The Taytacha for a moment before turning away, shaking his head. After a moment Tukuyrikuq translated, ‘Turiz says there is no honour in killing a child. But it is too late. It is done. Now you must choose a weapon.’

  Flea was the same age as I was,
but looked much younger because of his size. I hoped that would count in his favour. The only weapon any of us knew was the bo, and I could see Flea eyeing the broken spear that Phil still used as a crutch.

  ‘Phil, do us a favour,’ Flea said. Phil nodded and passed him the stick, leaning back on the shoulder of Tupai for balance. There was a flash of something, surprise maybe, or something more than that, in the eyes of the Tukuyrikuq, then it was gone, replaced by an air of inevitability, sadness.

  ‘This is a stick which steadies the walk of a cripple.’ The Taytacha said, as if Flea should know such things. ‘It is not a weapon.’ Flea stood there and said nothing. He always seems to know when to stay silent, and after a moment the Taytacha nodded. Flea hoisted the stick, checking again its balance, its weight. After a moment he looked back at me and nodded. I felt a sudden surge of hope. Flea and his Thing would be very hard to defeat. It was immediately replaced by an overwhelming feeling of despair as Turiz advanced slowly towards my friend, the jagged, savage blade of the war club held high above his head.

  Flea turned to Tukuyrikuq and asked ‘When does it start?’

  ‘Be guarded young one. It has already started!” He was still speaking when there was a blur of movement in front of us.

  The warrior leapt towards the narrow wall of the corridor and thrust himself off one leg, spinning high in the air with his weapon slashing down towards Flea’s questioning face. The blade sliced straight through Flea, bisecting him, ripping him in two before continuing in a vicious arc as Turiz landed catlike, the club already coming up for a second, totally unnecessary strike.

  Except Flea wasn’t there. It is one of those strange effects they call persistence of vision. Flea was there, the knife slashed through the space where Flea was, and our minds put it together that the blade had passed right through him. But Flea, with that incredible speed he has when he is doing his ‘Thing’ had swung himself backwards out of the blade’s path, then back to where he had been.

  It looked to me, to all of us, as though the blade had passed right through Flea but left him unharmed. There were several cries from the party of warriors and Turiz himself had a look of incomprehension on his face.

  Incomprehension or not, he had been trained by the best of his race and the second thrust of the club, this time of the sharpened point of the knife end, was through Flea’s heart even as Turiz landed, cat-like on the soft-dust of the corridor floor. I could not see Flea’s movement but I knew that he had swivelled out of the path of the weapon just enough to let it pass beneath his shoulder.

  Turiz’s eyes were wide and he drew a sharp intake of breath.

  Some amongst the on-lookers dropped to their knees. There was a stretch of silence that reverberated off the craggy walls of the corridor.

  The stocky warrior began to circle the cleared area in the centre. Flea circled also, keeping Turiz on the opposite side of the area. Turiz slid his feet across the flat stone floor, never raising a foot off the ground, never giving up an inch of his balance, his feet caused small eddies in the soft dust. Flea walked quietly, as if on a cushion of air, barely disturbing the dust beneath his feet.

  Suddenly Turiz thrust again. Something in his eyes made me want to cry out a warning but it was all over before I could draw the breath to form the words. Turiz thrust forward with his right hand, but even as Flea moved to protect himself with the bo, the Taiaqha propelled itself through the air, I still don’t know how, to Turiz’s left hand and while his right hand continued the feint, his left hand slashed low and hard towards Flea’s unprotected right leg.

  I learned much more about this later from Tukuyrikuq and my other teachers in the tribe. Having lost the advantage of the surprise attack, of Kh’kh, the unexpected blow that finishes the fight before it has started, Turiz had resorted to a more basic level of combat, something that is drilled into Runa children from the time they are taught to fight. Na ka urdu. It has the connotation of patience, and a literal translation of ‘killing by stages’. Warrior-trainees are taught that your first blow does not have to be the killer blow. Rather it is the disabling blow that makes your opponent weaker. Unable to stand is unable to fight, and an easy target for the coup-de-grace to follow.

  But once again Turiz reckoned without Flea’s Thing and although I had to replay in my mind several times later to work out exactly what had happened, it was this: The club never made it to Turiz’s left hand. A flicking edge of the broken-spear bo caught it in mid air and kicked it up into the air. The stick was a blur. A white flash. Then somehow the Taiaqha was in Flea’s left hand and the bo was tucked under his shoulder in the one-handed go-neishi-wa grip.

  Weaponless, but not defenceless, Turiz leaped again, but the bo flashed and his feet were cut out from under him before he left the ground. He fell heavily backwards and looked up at the blade of his own club, resting lightly on the skin of his throat. He closed his eyes and waited for death. His utter calmness in the face of defeat, in full view of the end of his life, was unnerving. Flea had no choice but to kill him, that was the law of Tupaq.

  ‘Flea,’ I said urgently, sensing that he did not know what to do. ‘Yield to him.’ Flea looked up sharply at me, not understanding. The Taytacha looked at me also, but I had the strangest feeling that he knew what I was going to say next.

  Flea looked as if he was going to protest, but he shut his mouth instead. He trusted me and I hoped to any god that would listen that I was right. It was a heavy responsibility to bear. Flea reversed the club and placed it in the hand of the warrior, then knelt down before him. He dropped the bo. ‘What do I say?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll do it.’ I said and continued quickly as Turiz got slowly, perplexedly to his feet. “You are a mighty warrior.” I intoned, more importantly than I felt. “You are deserving of Tupaq. Your strength is the strength of the tribe.” I heard Tukuyrikuq translating the words but only vaguely as if through a haze. My own words came from some deep, primal part of me that I barely understood. I knew that if I thought about it, or tried to think or understand it too much it would go. ‘My champion, my friend, he who fights as me, offers you his neck, he offers you his life, for you have proved yourself worthy to take it. Tupaq!’

  Turiz looked down at the proffered neck of my friend, then at the club in his hand. Abruptly he thrust it away from him as if it were a dirty, defiled thing and before anyone could move he sprawled headlong in the dust, prostrating himself at my feet. My feet, not Flea’s.

  ‘Pachacuteq!’ he cried, ‘Pachacuteq!’

  Even Tukuyrikuq looked a little stunned and he whispered softly, almost to himself, words that he did not translate for me until much later.

  Then he to muttered, more of a question than a statement, ‘Pachacuteq?’

  There was a sudden commotion at the end of the room and a messenger, a Chasqui, entered at speed. Taytacha listened in quiet consternation, then turned to the six of us.

  ‘You will journey immediately to Contisuyo. You have been called. You will meet with the King and also with the Amatua. They will wish you to speak your names.’

  He looked gravely at Tukuyrikuq, ‘There has been an attempt on the life of the King.’

  The word ‘Maeroero’ was known to me, although it took hours of searching through scanty old memories from Cultural Studies class to recall the meaning. It was a Maori word, referring to a supposedly mythical, ancient race of long-haired, tree-dwelling creatures. Peaceable according to Maori legend, but there certainly seemed to be a connection between the creatures of legend and the enemy soldiers we had seen.

  But the more important connection was the linguistic one. If the creatures were one and the same, then the word was the same, and it was a Maori word, or at least a word inherited by them from some previous culture.

  That was the first clue to unravelling the mystery of Ukhu Pacha, and understanding this place was surely the first step on our path back to the surface. On our journey home.

  - from the Journals of Jenny Kreisler
r />   9. Chinkana

  By Daniel Scott

  Contisuyo, the great walled city, was three months walk away through the Nans of Ukhu Pacha. Three weeks by fast Moa-cart. But our presence was required urgently, so we took the train.

  Train is the only word that seems appropriate for the high-speed, long-distance vehicle of the Runa. Subway somehow sounds wrong when the entire city is underground!

  Chinkana was the name of the vehicle, and with the grammatical economy of the Runa, also the name of the tunnel it travelled in. To me it was an engineering miracle. The Runa seemed able to shape solid rock as easily as we could carve wood, or mould plastic.

  The Chinkana tunnel was a perfect circle, drilled through the rock with incredible precision, all at the same level, never varying up or down. It turned, in huge sweeping curves to the left or right where necessary to avoid rivers or caverns.

  The Chinkana, the vehicle, was a tube, or rather a series of connected tubes, just smaller than the tunnel itself. There was no connection between the sides of the tube and the walls of the tunnel and Tukuyrikuq was unable to explain the technology that held the tube in place. Possibly magnetism, or static electricity, or maybe a combination of both. Maybe magic, I didn’t know.

  The engine, at the front of the Chinkana vehicle, was steam powered, and the motive power supplied by three wheels, equi-spaced around the circumference of the engine, the only part of the Chinkana to contact the walls of the tunnel.

  A passenger cart, powered by the great legs of the giant moa, took us to the Chinkana after just a short detour to collect our pitiful few belongings. Our packs and the remains of our wetsuits.