Robert Silverberg - Enter a Soldier. Later - Enter Another

“You mean New Spain, which was Mexico, where my kinsman Cortes is Captain-General?”

“North of Mexico. Far to the north of it.”

Pizarro shrugged. “I know nothing of those places. Or not very much. There is an island called Florida, yes? And stories of cities of gold, but I think they are only stories. I found the gold, in Peru. Enough to choke on, I found. Tell me this, am I in heaven now?”

“No.”

“Then this is hell?”

“Not that, either. Where you are—it’s very difficult to explain, actually—”

“I am in America.”

“Yes. In America, yes.”

“And am I dead?”

There was silence for a moment.

“No, not dead,” the voice said uneasily.

“You are lying to me, I think.”

“How could we be speaking with each other, if you were dead?”

Pizarro laughed hoarsely. “Are you asking me ? I understand nothing of what is happening to me in this place. Where are my priests? Where is my page? Send me my brother!” He glared. “Well? Why don’t you get them for me?”

“They aren’t here. You’re here all by yourself, Don Francisco.”

“In America. All by myself in your America. Show me your America, then. Is there such a place? Is America all clouds and whorls of light? Where is America? Let me see America. Prove to me that I am in America.”

There was another silence, longer than the last. Then the face disappeared and the wall of white cloud began to boil and churn more fiercely than before. Pizarro stared into the midst of it, feeling a mingled sense of curiosity and annoyance. The face did not reappear. He saw nothing at all. He was being toyed with. He was a prisoner in some strange place and they were treating him like a child, like a dog, like—like an Indian. Perhaps this was the retribution for what he had done to King Atahuallpa, then, that fine noble foolish man who had given himself up to him in all innocence, and whom he had put to death so that he might have the gold of Atahuallpa’s kingdom.

Well, so be it, Pizarro thought. Atahuallpa accepted all that befell him without complaint and without fear, and so will I. Christ will be my guardian, and if there is no Christ, well, then I will have no guardian, and so be it. So be it.

The voice out of the whirlwind said suddenly, “Look, Don Francisco. This is America.”

A picture appeared on the wall of cloud. It was a kind of picture Pizarro had never before encountered or even imagined, one that seemed to open before him like a gate and sweep him in and carry him along through a vista of changing scenes depicted in brilliant, vivid bursts of color. It was like flying high above the land, looking down on an infinite scroll of miracles. He saw vast cities without walls, roadways that unrolled like endless skeins of white ribbon, huge lakes, mighty rivers, gigantic mountains, everything speeding past him so swiftly that he could scarcely absorb any of it. In moments it all became chaotic in his mind: the buildings taller than the highest cathedral spire, the swarming masses of people, the shining metal chariots without beasts to draw them, the stupendous landscapes, the close-packed complexity of it all. Watching all this, he felt the fine old hunger taking possession of him again: he wanted to grasp this strange vast place, and seize it, and clutch it close, and ransack it for all it was worth. But the thought of that was overwhelming. His eyes grew glassy and his heart began to pound so terrifyingly that he supposed he would be able to feel it thumping if he put his hand to the front of his armor. He turned away, muttering, “Enough. Enough.”

The terrifying picture vanished. Gradually the clamor of his heart subsided.

Then he began to laugh.

“Peru!” he cried. “Peru was nothing, next to your America! Peru was a hole! Peru was mud! How ignorant I was! I went to Peru, when there was America, ten thousand times as grand! I wonder what I could find, in America.” He smacked his lips and winked. Then, chuckling, he said, “But don’t be afraid. I won’t try to conquer your America. I’m too old for that now. And perhaps America would have been too much for me, even before. Perhaps.” He grinned savagely at the troubled staring face of the short-haired beardless man, the American. “I really am dead, is this not so? I feel no hunger, I feel no pain, no thirst, when I put my hand to my body I do not feel even my body. I am like one who lies dreaming. But this is no dream. Am I a ghost?”

“Not—exactly.”

“Not exactly a ghost! Not exactly! No one with half the brains of a pig would talk like that. What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s not easy explaining it in words you would understand, Don Francisco.”

“No, of course not. I am very stupid, as everyone knows, and that is why I conquered Peru, because I was so very stupid. But let it pass. I am not exactly a ghost, but I am dead all the same, right?”

“Well—”

“I am dead, yes. But somehow I have not gone to hell or even to purgatory but I am still in the world, only it is much later now. I have slept as the dead sleep, and now I have awakened in some year that is far beyond my time, and it is the time of America. Is this not so? Who is king now? Who is pope? What year is this? 1750? 1800?”

“The year 2130,” the face said, after some hesitation.

“Ah.” Pizarro tugged thoughtfully at his lower lip. “And the king? Who is king?”

A long pause. “Alfonso is his name,” said the face.

“Alfonso? The kings of Aragon were called Alfonso. The father of Ferdinand, he was Alfonso. Alfonso V, he was.”

“Alfonso XIX is King of Spain now.”

“Ah. Ah. And the pope? Who is pope?”

A pause again. Not to know the name of the pope, immediately upon being asked? How strange. Demon or no, this was a fool.

“Pius,” said the voice, when some time had passed. “Pius XVI.”

“The sixteenth Pius,” said Pizarro somberly. “Jesus and Mary, the sixteenth Pius! What has become of me? Long dead, is what I am. Still unwashed of all my sins. I can feel them clinging to my skin like mud, still. And you are a sorcerer, you American, and you have brought me to life again. Eh? Eh? Is that not so?”

“It is something like that, Don Francisco,” the face admitted.

“So you speak your Spanish strangely because you no longer understand the right way of speaking it. Eh? Even I speak Spanish in a strange way, and I speak it in a voice that does not sound like my own. No one speaks Spanish any more, eh? Eh? Only American, they speak. Eh? But you try to speak Spanish, only it comes out stupidly. And you have caused me to speak the same way, thinking it is the way I spoke, though you are wrong. Well, you can do miracles, but I suppose you can’t do everything perfectly, even in this land of miracles of the year 2130. Eh? Eh?” Pizarro leaned forward intently. “What do you say? You thought I was a fool, because I don’t have reading and writing? I am not so ignorant, eh? I understand things quickly.”

“You understand very quickly indeed.”

“But you have knowledge of many things that are unknown to me. You must know the manner of my death, for example. How strange that is, talking to you of the manner of my death, but you must know it, eh? When did it come to me? And how? Did it come in my sleep? No, no, how could that be? They die in their sleep in Spain, but not in Peru. How was it, then? I was set upon by cowards, was I? Some brother of Atahuallpa, falling upon me as I stepped out of my house? A slave sent by the Inca Manco, or one of those others? No. No. The Indians would not harm me, for all that I did to them. It was the young Almagro who took me down, was it not, in vengeance for his father, or Juan de Herrada, eh? or perhaps even Picado, my own secretary—no, not Picado, he was my man, always—but maybe Alvarado, the young one, Diego—well, one of those, and it would have been sudden, very sudden or I would have been able to stop them—am I right, am I speaking the truth? Tell me. You know these things. Tell me of the manner of my dying.” There was no answer. Pizarro shaded his eyes and peered into the dazzling pearly whiteness. He was no longer able to see the face of the American. “Are you there?” Pizarro said. “Where have you gone? Were you only a dream? American! American! Where have you gone?”