Naamah's Blessing - Jacqueline Carey [151]
In the evenings, we made landfall along the rocky shores, slinging our hammocks along the verges of the jungle.
We fished and foraged, augmenting our stores of sweet potatoes that ever dwindled too quickly.
I didn’t bother keeping count of the days. I’d long ago lost track of the length of our journey. And despite Balthasar’s and Denis’ assurances to the contrary, I privately thought that Thierry de la Courcel must have done the same.
It was the sameness.
The sameness was mesmerizing; the endless river, the endless green of the jungle. The incessant heat, the constant clouds of mosquitoes and gnats. The gnawing sense of hunger that never quite went away as there was never quite enough to eat. The myriad deadly dangers to be avoided. The ever-present sound of rushing water; whispering at times, roaring at others. It lulled one’s mind into a strange state of wary torpor, where one’s only thoughts were of survival and the never-ending journey.
And yet all journeys end.
“Tomorrow, I think,” Eyahue announced unexpectedly one evening, using a stick to poke at a sweet potato roasting in the ashes, rolling it within reach. “Tomorrow, we will come to Vilcabamba.”
I lifted my head to stare at him. “You’re sure?”
He grabbed the potato and dropped it with alacrity, sucking his burned fingers. “Sure, no. But I think so.”
The rumor spread through our camp, raising hope and dispelling the torpor that all of us felt.
“What is it like there?” someone asked. I translated the question for Eyahue.
“Very fine.” The old pochteca cackled and exposed his gums and remaining teeth in a broad grin. “Oh, yes! Very fine indeed.”
Eyahue spun a tale of a great city of stone rising from the jungle, accessed by hanging bridges built over vast chasms in the earth. It was the easternmost stronghold of the empire of Tawantinsuyo, a name that in itself referred to the four disparate quarters of the empire of the Quechua folk. They possessed gold in abundance, he told us, for it was sacred to the sun god Inti they worshipped. The Emperor of Tawantinsuyo made his permanent residence in another city far away in the mountains, but Vilcabamba, where his sacred plant was cultivated, was one of his seasonal refuges.
“That’s what you came to trade for, isn’t it?” I asked him. “This sacred plant?”
He put a finger over his lips and winked at me. “Shh! Only Quechua royalty are permitted to use it.”
The spotted warrior Temilotzin chuckled.
The following day, we set out on the river in higher spirits than usual, hoping that there actually was an end in sight to the journey. It was in the late morning when I noticed a phenomenon along the southern bank of the river, a trickle of darkness moving toward us, oddly shiny in the sunlight. It wasn’t until our paths converged that I was able to make out what it was.
Ants.
Tens of thousands of them, pouring in a stream over the rocky shore, black bodies glistening.
I had to own, it made my skin crawl.
We pulled alongside Eyahue’s canoe to ask him about it.
“Nasty buggers,” the old pochteca confirmed. “They hunt as an army. We’ll want to stay out of their way.”
“How dangerous are they?” I asked.
Eyahue sucked his teeth. “Their bite stings like fire. I’ve never known them to take down prey as big as a man… but I wouldn’t like to be lying injured in their path, either.” He looked askance at the teeming shore, his expression apprehensive. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen quite so many in one place before.”
As our canoes glided past the stream of ants, the head of the column roiled in confusion, doubling back on itself and reversing direction, following our course. Here and there, I could make out individual insects, antennae twitching as they appeared to regard our progress with their faceted eyes.
And there were more coming, thin trickles emerging from the depths of the jungle to broaden the stream.
“Poor Denis,” Bao murmured, paddling steadily. “This must be driving him mad.”
“Bao?” My voice shook a little. I pointed to the shore. “Would you call that a