The buzz of hushed voices woke me from a pleasant sleep. The room was new to me. Tiny in comparison to Pacal Votan's workshop, it was a great deal more cozy, except for the rather disagreeable smell of fish. My bed was incredibly soft; it had a similar feel to an expensive eiderdown ensemble my parents bought when I was little, shortly before they died. The stone walls were lime green and bare, except for two portraits affixed side by side above a tall wooden box. The pictures showed a man and a woman. Both were young.
The windows were draped with a maroon fabric, which filled the room with an elegant, otherworldly hue. Streams of light got by, however, and the brightness told me I would likely suffer another intense summer day. As I sat up, my head throbbed on one side; the woolen bandage, though, felt kind, as if maternal hands had applied it.
The most wonderful surprise greeted me as I rose. There, at the foot of the bed, asleep and snoring quietly, was my faithful champion, Darkly. He appeared none the worse for wear. The way his nose twitched made me smile, for three feet in front of him was a metal dish half filled with his favorite meal. No doubt he ate that second course of raw fish over and over again in his dreams, and rightly so. He deserved it.
By the time Rodrigo arrived with Pacal and Puma, I had more or less recovered from my dizziness. Puma spoke tersely, and he dispensed with waiting for Rodrigo's translation. Motioning for me to follow him, he rested his fists on his hips until I obeyed. Pacal and Rodrigo said nothing. I shared their intimidation, for Puma appeared to have shed all but his most ruthless characteristics.
Darkly stretched and rose to his feet. He seemed rather unimpressed by the whole affair, though, and proceeded to put away the remainder of his fish before sauntering outside for a stroll. Though Puma met him with a fierce glare, the bear simply yawned before scratching behind his ear.
The heat smothered me as I ventured onto the veranda. The village market was in full orchestration as we followed Puma, Pacal and four other native men past the statue.
"Royal guards of some kind," Rodrigo whispered. "I'm not supposed to speak until we reach our destination. It has something to do with a religious oath. But I think I'd better warn you; we're headed for the Palace of the Kamachej, the King of Apterona himself."
"Thanks for the heads up, then," I replied irritably.
In truth, I was in no mood for kowtowing to any native king. This Kamachej seemed to have godlike sovereignty over the people of Apterona. Not being a religious man, I have no patience with those who would foist their religious beliefs on others. I prefer to find my own answers rather than settling for the dictates of dogma. Yet I must confess, I am in the minority, even in my own time.
We walked over five miles that first day, out through the northern entrance of the village, following the easterly course of the dry river, which wound across an expanse of grassland so unblemished I thought I might have to one day retire to this extinct age.
The isle was far from empty, however. Time and again we passed herds of beasts the number and like of which it would be difficult for anyone from the late twentieth century to imagine. Zebras, antelopes, giant alpacas and graceful white deer roamed, grazed upon the hills. The latter stampeded from our approach with awe-inspiring agility and speed. I wished to observe the more distant species, but Puma's quick pace never faltered. By the time the tip of the bronze building I had earlier spied came into view, I felt satisfied that nothing would eclipse the magnificence of those beasts.
The chill from the dry river bed bit as we crossed. It was then, as we breached the cleft of two high, breast-like hills, that I beheld the largest manmade structure on Apterona, the Palace of the Kamachej.
It was a sight to behold. Even Darkly halted in his tracks. Staggering in its dimensions and ostentation, it engulfed half of my entire vision before I could draw breath. There had been no hint, no gradual reveal of its size during our approach. Indeed, if I had been out walking my dog in England's Lake District and had suddenly bumped into the great wall of Troy, the surprise would not have been greater.
Tiered from foundation to roof in sculpted bronze, gold, and blue stone, its overall shape resembled that of a Babylonian ziggurat, the only difference being the layers of this were not uniformly sequential. The lower ones were rounded and ornate. The higher pyramidal segment was more angular, beginning at about fifty feet above the ground. Openings at various points on the many tiers suggested a complex system of access inside the structure. The only visible steps belonged to the main staircase leading from the ground directly into the second, tallest tier, through a marvelous golden arch. This was the only means of ingress I saw. The palace was an incredible engineering feat by any comparison.
Puma shouted for Rodrigo and me to hurry along. A concerned look from Pacal, however, stopped me in my tracks. He pointed behind me. When I glanced round, Darkly had vanished. With the bear having rarely been more than a few feet from my side for the past two days, I was unnerved to find him gone!
Vulnerable.
I searched for a dark shape in the distance, fearful that he might have collapsed along the way. Pacal this time pointed me toward a cluster of trees far to the east. My heart swelled and then sank as I watched Darkly, my protector, run for the faraway mountains. To this day, I can but speculate as to why he left. But as Rodrigo said to me later, "The bear, after all, only vanished as mysteriously as he arrived."
OK, Henry, take a deep breath!
I followed Puma and Pacal anxiously up the blue steps leading to the Palace of the Kamachej. Not especially steep, they nonetheless rose to a height of thirty or forty feet without a hand rail.
As we reached the golden archway, the entrance to the second tier, I looked down. Two pairs of guards stood either side of the flight. I recalled what Rodrigo had said about our enforced silence ending when we reached our destination, and turned to speak with him. Puma stuck his spear between us and cupped his hand over his mouth, another rude gesture to quiet us.
Damned arrogant copperhead, I thought.
The arch led us into a stone corridor. Two gigantic double doors, about thirty feet high and in the shape of a portcullis, barred our way ahead. On either hand, the enclosed passageway followed the level's perimeter, turning sharply at each corner. Puma bade us stay put, before disappearing round the left hand walkway. Five minutes went by, then ten. Finally, after fifteen excruciating minutes of rocking on my heels, I decided enough was enough.
First I checked the passage Puma had taken. I found another ascending staircase. As it appeared dark up there, I decided not to risk it. Both Pacal and Rodrigo barred my way to the right, so I relented and joined them again, in silence. The deception worked a treat, and I bolted for this more brightly lit of the two passages. The faint glow was not torchlight, however, and I stood at the corner intrigued. Ahead, at the far end of the ziggurat, was daylight beyond a trail of scattered leaves.
A gentle summer breeze felt sublime. I tried to tiptoe between the red leaves, but they had spread as a crispy carpet across the stone, an effective alarm system rendered by the seasonal purge of flora. However, an intoxicating scent teased me on. Sweet strawberry mixed with a rose perfume. I turned to see Pacal march toward me along the corridor, and the disobedience suddenly made me giddy. Was it the scent? The alarm bells crunched underfoot as I ground to a halt in the palace garden.
Words can scarce do justice to the setting. The velvet lawn was bespangled with sapphire-petal flowers. Four or five large trees lined the edge of the balcony. They were almost bare. Their gnarled limbs and fingers swayed, as if in mourning, over a mighty drop to the valley floor. And red leaves fidgeted about the garden, wanting of a place to rest, nudged hither and thither by a probing breeze.
The balcony itself stretched the full width of the palace. As I walked to the edge, facing east, I was treated to a miraculous view of Apterona. Enormous, precipitous mountains rose to the north as far as I could see. One of the nearest, though still many miles away, reached so high it dwarfed the rest. At one point, adjacent to this range, lay a slender avenue of grassland, a bottle-neck created by the two perimeter forests converging, almost to an isthmus. Beyond, I saw nothing through a wet mist masking the island from coast to coast.
I've got some exploring to do.
I noticed a still figure in the shade between two trees. At first I thought it was a statue, as my footsteps would have been enough to call the entire ziggurat to arms. As I approached, however, it came gently alive.
The figure sat upright, facing the edge of the balcony. A loose-fitting cloak, as grey as a winter cloud before a heavy snowfall, draped it. Fresh gusts rippled that smooth material from tail to hood. The figure's head tilted toward me, though not enough that I could make out a face.
A beige parchment slid from the figure's lap. It rolled itself back into scroll form on the lawn. The figure reached down immediately to retrieve it, but somehow managed to fumble about where the parchment should have been had it not recoiled. The hands were small and dainty.
Pity tugged me inside, as I realized they belonged to a blind woman. I rushed over to pick up the scroll.
Underneath the grey hood was the slender face of a woman. She might have been thirty or fifty, I couldn't tell, for there was a deep sadness in her expression. Instead of wrinkles, her skin had a firmness that rendered her somehow timeless. Her wide mouth had lips that seemed never to have parted. Her wide brown eyes struck me still. Lighter-skinned than the other Apteronians, she also appeared more cold and distant, as if she had been beautiful once and could be again, were it not that the world had clouded her radiance from her.
That was my first impression of the woman I met in the garden of red leaves and blue flowers. As I pressed the Braille-like scroll gently into her hand, I discerned a faint red flush on her cheeks.
The next instant I was being manhandled from behind by a dozen strong arms, and escorted inside through a shadowy corridor, where they bound my hands behind my back and affixed me with a tight blindfold.