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July 18, 1939
Puerto Ocapa
Peru, South America
The first glow of dawn colored the sky over the Amazon jungle by the time Wilkins and Richard approached the outskirts of town. They entered the old ruin before noon, and Wilkins thought they had only spent a few hours inside. However, when they emerged, it was already well into the night. They hiked through the darkness, both eager to put distance between themselves and the strange edifice; even if Richard was not openly willing to admit as much. They passed the satchel with the heavy parcel back and forth several times to share the burden of the unusually heavy stone. As they left the thick jungle behind, Wilkins had it slung over his shoulder.
They were finally on a dusty road, which wound through several small farms alongside the river. Some locals were already in the fields, tending to their crops or feeding small herds of swine. Wilkins waved to one such man as they passed near him, but was met only with a suspicious glare. As they entered the town proper and passed more residents setting about on their daily routine, the chilly reception to their presence persisted with an uneasy regularity.
“Strange,” Richard said. “They were a friendly lot before now. I wonder what’s gotten into them.”
Wilkins shook his head. “I don’t think they’re happy about our trip to the ruins. Remember the old man in the pub trying to warn us off?”
“That old kook? I remember him spouting something about the Virgin Mary visiting his grandmother, too.”
“These people are very devout in their faith, something we shouldn’t dismiss casually. We are guests in their home.”
Richard reached into his pocket and flashed a wad of American currency. “This says I can dismiss whatever I want. We’re only guests because we’re paying for it. Or would you rather sleep in a pig pen instead of the hotel?”
Wilkins was about to continue the argument when something soft struck him in the temple. “What in the name of—” Another object struck him in the face. Local townswomen gathered around them, holding bundles of dried flowers in their arms. One woman broke off a brittle bulb and chucked it at Richard. Men stood behind them, most likely watching over their wives and sisters, but not taking part in the assault. Children ran between their mother’s legs. Soon, several dozen local townsfolk surrounded Wilkins and Richard.
The American ducked away from several more thrown botanicals. “Is this their way of welcoming us back?”
Wilkins batted away dried petals from his shoulders. “Not likely. If I remember correctly from the cultural studies courses at the university—”
“The point?” Richard urged.
“They think we’re possessed, and they’re trying to drive off the evil spirits.”
Richard rolled his eyes and said, “I’ll show them evil spirits.”
As his friend shouted and attempted to wave off the growing crowd, Wilkins suddenly felt an overwhelming pain behind his eyes. He pulled off his wire-frame eyeglasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose. The dawn sunlight was suddenly unbearable, and he closed his eyes tight to keep the blinding rays out.
“Richard, something is wrong.”
The American’s boisterous yelling seemed muffled, as if they were under water. A wave of nausea overtook Wilkins. There was a sudden rush of blood to his head, and if his feet were not planted firmly upon the Earth, he would have sworn he had been turned upside-down. He fell to his knees, eyes still clutched tight, and retched.
When he opened his eyes, it was dark. Flickering firelight barely lit his surroundings, emanating from torches ensconced on the side of squat buildings of rough-hewn stone standing where the wood-plank shacks of the Peruvian town had been only seconds before. Twisted oaks devoid of any foliage stood in the place of the jungle. Richard was gone, as were the townsfolk. Several squat figures emerged from the stone huts as Wilkins regained his feet. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and replaced his glasses.
There were a dozen figures, all chubby and barely three feet tall. They wobbled on crooked legs, and had bulbous eyes crowned by bulging foreheads. They were adorned in an assortment of rough linen shifts and tanned animal hides. One figure—slightly taller than the others and holding a great stone mallet—stepped ahead of the rest. His milky-green eyes locked with Wilkins’s for a moment, then the creature raised the hammer and charged.
Wilkins yelled out in panic and turned to run, only to find himself caught by Richard’s muscular arms. The sun beat down and his eyes burned from the sudden brightness flooding back into the world. He looked over his shoulder in a panic, expecting the stone mallet to fall upon them both in only a moment.
Instead, the sight of a tall man in a white suit greeted him. Despite the dusty road, the fabric was bright and pristine. It bore a black pin-stripe pattern, and he wore a matching fedora. He had one arm raised, just as the strange figure had, but he was simply waving to the two explorers.
Richard grabbed Wilkins by the shoulders and pushed him out to arm’s length. “What the hell?”
“You didn’t see that?” Wilkins asked.
“See what? I lost you in the crowd for a few minutes. When I finally found you, you were just standing there gawking. Then Santos here showed up, and you panicked like the entire kraut army was behind him.”
Wilkins shook his head, trying to dispel the fog which still cluttered his thoughts. His stomach felt as if it were tied in a knot, and his pulse pounded behind his eyes. “Wait. Who is Santos?”
“Who is Santos, you ask?” The man in the suit removed his hat and gave a low bow with a theatrical flourish. “Santos is I, and I am Santos.” When he straightened, he beamed a broad smile which made his pencil-thin mustache sit horizontal to the street, which was made even more comical by the gap between his front teeth that formed a perfect bisection of the line.
Wilkins looked at Richard with a cocked eyebrow.
“He’s my contact,” Richard said. “He’s the one who told me about the ruin. Hell, he’s the one who tipped me off to more than half the treasure runs we’ve done in South America over the last few years. This man either knows everything, or he knows everybody who does.”
Santos leaned in close. “It is a bit of both, si?”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Wilkins said before turning to Richard. “We must get back to the hotel. Something is terribly wrong.”
Richard stared at him in silence, but Santos soon cut in. “Something is wrong? ¡Dios mío! We can’t have that. Come, let us get back to the hotel. Descuida. Your friend Santos will make sure everything is taken care of!”
The three of them walked further into town through the still-swirling mob. Wilkins shifted the satchel to his other shoulder. The weight of the stone statuette inside seemed to be growing heavier. Could it be increasing in weight somehow? Wilkins shrugged off the notion. He was no scientist, but he was sure such a thing was impossible. That knowledge did little to alleviate the pain of the satchel’s strap digging into his shoulder.
* * *
The building they were staying at in Puerto Ocapa could only be called a hotel in the loosest sense of the word. The two-story, wood-plank building sat on the edge of the river with long canoes piled against one side. The ground floor was little more than a concrete foundation set between stilts supporting the second. It acted as a dining room for the guests and a town cafe for the residents. An open-air kitchen sat off one corner with a wood-fired stove and brick oven. A dozen round tables were ringed with chairs, all painted white and the only objects in the town which could be considered clean. The second floor housed the guest rooms, each a simple affair with two small beds and a water basin for washing. Water had to be brought up from the river in a pitcher supplied by the management.
Wilkins carefully set the satchel down on a table and plopped into a chair. Richard did the same, and they exhaled a relieved sigh in unison. Wilkins rubbed his legs, which were so sore they had progressed beyond pain to a tingling numbness. Santos found the owner by the river, collecting water for the morning’s cooking and washing up, and demanded food and drink for his friends. The man brought a platter of fried bread, fruit, and boiled eggs to the table, along with a pitcher of warm beer. It was by no means a proper English breakfast, but Wilkins was so famished that it was nonetheless delightful.
“Ricardo, are you going to introduce me to your friend?” Santos asked as they ate.
Richard swallowed a mouthful of food before answering. “He’s a... Oh, hell. I can never remember the full thing.”
Wilkins shook his head and sighed. “A cultural anthropologist. Wilkins Chapman, Oxford University. At your service, I’m sure.”
Santos grinned. “Ah, the English are so... how do you say? Polite. Bueno. In my homeland, we appreciate the finer courtesies as well.” He extended a hand to Wilkins, who took it in a reluctant grasp. “Santos Oliveira, your guide to the wonderful world of South America and purveyor of—let us say—unconventional trades.”
He turned to Richard with an uncharacteristic eagerness. “So, did you find anything?”
Richard nodded, wiping mango juice from his hand before reaching out to the satchel. Wilkins shot up and grabbed him by the wrist. “I think it’s best if we avoid touching it.”
Moments of tense silence passed. Santos’s gaze pivoted between the two men as their eyes locked with a stony stare.
Richard leaned forward. “I think you’re taking what happened too seriously. We were exhausted, and we passed out. Nothing more.”
Wilkins’s eyes grew wide, and he released Richard’s arm, but not without drawing the satchel toward his side of the table. “It was more than that, and you know it. Didn’t you hear the voices? The screaming? And then there’s what happened when we got to town.”
“The women throwing flowers?” Richard asked.
“No,” Wilkins said as he sat down. “The dvergar.”
Santos’s face was a portrait of confusion.
Richard mumbled around a mouthful of bread, “The hell are you talking about now?”
Wilkins stared down at the satchel, rubbing its leather strap as he explained. “When we were in the street, something happened. I thought I was sick, or maybe exhausted from the hike. My head started pounding and my stomach twisted into a knot. I closed my eyes and vomited. When I opened them, everything had... changed.”
“Dios mio,” Santos said, making the sign of the cross. “What do you mean, changed?”
Wilkins looked around to make sure nobody was within earshot, then leaned in close over the table, pulling the satchel close to his chest. “It was dark. Not night-time dark, but a blackness the likes of which I have never seen. The jungle was gone, replaced by dead oaks. The town and all the people were gone as well. There were stone huts. From them, came the dvergar.”
Richard cocked his head to the size and raised an eyebrow. “What the hell is a damn duv... der... dur... whatever you just said?”
“A dwarf, in layman’s terms.” Sweat beaded on Wilkins’s brow, and he realized he was clutching the idol through the leather satchel. He shoved it away, leaving it in the center of the table. “The dvergar are creatures from Norse folklore. They were spirits of the Earth in the Eddic poems, prominently in the Völuspá—”
Richard waved a hand to cut him off. “Hold up just a goddam minute on the lecture. Have you gone completely stark-raving mad?”
Wilkins sighed and stared at the leather bag on the table. The wood furnishing felt cold under his palms, and he jerked them back. “It was like I was in another place, and one of them was about to attack me. I turned to run away, then was back here in the street.”
Santos grew pale. “The women are right. El Diablo besets you. You should rid yourself of that curse right away. It must be taken far away. Perhaps Santos can assist?” He leaned forward, reaching over the table to the bag containing the idol.
“No,” Wilkins nearly shouted as he grabbed the bag and pulled it close. He took a deep breath, surprised by his own outburst, and tried to calm himself. “I need to write a colleague. He may be able to answer some questions. Until then, Richard,” he paused to ensure he had his partner’s attention, “do not touch the relic. We need to do more research, and it’s best to err on the side of caution, all things considered.”
“Fine,” Richard mumbled, “as long as I can still sell it when you’re done.”
