Alan Foster - The Metrognome and Other Stories

He put his mouth close to her ear, whispered.

"Ashes, my love. Ashes."

Jessica Amanda Salmonson and I have corresponded for years, infrequently but always with respect and interest. In addition to writing her own stories, Jessica is a busy editor. When I learned that she was putting together an anthology of stories utilizing mythological themes, I was immediately interested.

Mythology always fascinated me in school, but all we were ever exposed to by the Anglocentric American secondary curriculum was the mythlore of Greece and Rome. If the teacher was especially well read and prepared, we might also receive a dollop of Norse gods, those individuals so famed today for .their appearances in Marvel comics. No residuals go to Valhalla or Asgard. Only when l left college did I begin to find out about mankind's wealth of invention, of the tales and fantasies of the rest of my brethren.

One thing I discovered was that mythologies exist to be expanded upon. The dreamtime could be my time, too. Tales twice told in Tanzania were as pointed and relevant as those spilled on the streets of Topeka. When it comes to storytelling, the family of man is wholly egalitarian. I think my embroidery of reality would be as welcome in a yurt in the Gobi as in New York.

What first drew me to the Inca, however, was not their mythology but their tragedy. If only, I told myself as I read the sad story of their destruction by the conquistadores, they had possessed writing. If only they'd known the wheel. If only they'd had matching cavalry or gunpowder. If only they'd had . . .

No one paid any attention to Crazy Yahuar until the Silver Men came.

"They have crossed the river," the exhausted chasqui told the Priest. "Even now they are working their way up the mountain."

"They must not come here," the old Priest muttered. "This is the most sacred place of the Tahuantinsuyu, the Four Corners of the World. They must not come here." He pulled his feathered cloak tighter around his shoulders. The wind was cold on the mountaintop.

"The Silver Men go where they wish." The teacher/noble who stood on the Priest's right hand had seen much these past twenty years. He had become a realist.

"Why dream on, old man? We have three choices: we can submit, we can run away into the jungle with Manco Inca; or we can die here. Myself, I chose my own grave, and it is here. This is where my grandfather began, and this is where his line will end."

"If we pray to the Sun," the old Priest began. The teacher interrupted him angrily:

"It is too late for prayers, Priest. We have forgotten what they were for, have forgotten too much for prayers to be of help now. Prayers did not help Atahuallpa. The Silver Men strangled him, ransom or no ransom, prayers or no prayers. Give me' one of their armored long-legged llamas to ride upon and one of their fire-weapons to fight with, and keep your prayers:" He turned his attention to the panting chasqui.

"How many, post runner?"

The chasqui held out a quipu, and the teacher studied the number and location of the intricate knots tied in the rope. "Too many. You have done your job, runner. I will not hold you here. What would you do?"

"Return to my family." The chasqui was still breathing hard from the long run up the mountainside.

"Go then, if you can avoid the Silver Men, and live long."

"Thank you, noble." The runner turned and fairly flew down the steep trail, anxious to flee the sacred city. He had heard of the barbarity of the Silver Men, of the atrocities they had visited even upon great Cuzco, and he had no desire to be martyred along with those who might choose to try to defend the citadel. Better it be left to Priests and nobles.

The old Priest let out a sigh. "The Empire is coming to an end. It is too bad."

"Too bad has nothing to do with it, Priest." The teacher made no attempt to conceal his bitterness. "I blame Huascar and Atahuallpa. If those two brothers had not spent the energy and wealth of the realm fighting one another over the succession, we would already have driven the Silver Men back into the sea, despite all their strange weapons and ways. Now, it is too late." He turned and gazed past the lower terraces, toward the first wall of the city.

"So now I shall die here, not for the Empire but for my ancestors and my oaths, which is all that has been left to me. What will you do, Priest?"

"I am bid to serve Inti, the Sun. I will pray to him for guidance, and if it be his will, I will perish in the temple at the time he chooses for me."

"Bah. Better to die fighting. Still, I am no priest, and I should not tell a priest how to die. Each must do what each must do."

"That is the law, my son." The Priest put a withered hand on the younger man's shoulder. "I cannot fight with you, but I can pray that you fight well."

"I accept your prayers, old man. They worked in the past, though the past is done. I go to organize the stone stingers."

He turned and started up the steps, leaving the Priest to stare worriedly down the mountainside. The morning sun glinted sharply off the distant white worm that was the Urubamba River. How soon, he wondered? How soon before the sunlight shines off the armor of the Silver Men? If only he could remember the old ways, the old magic.

But so much had been forgotten since the first Inca had started the Empire.

"We will confront them at the steepest part of the trail," the teacher told the assembled band of farmer-warriors. "If we cannot hold them back there, then we have no chance. Their long-necked llamas will have trouble climbing that place."

"A steep climb will not slow their fire arrows," said a voice from the back.

"Are you afraid of fire, Tamo?" asked the teacher. The man who'd spoken lapsed into silence.

"We are ready, then, save for the Priests and the children." The teacher prepared to step down from the speaking stone when another voice broke in:

"What of Yahuar?"

The teacher had to smile. "Crazy Yahuar? Let him play his pipes in peace. Perhaps the Silver Men will let him live. I have heard that they too have tolerance for the mad. Let Yahuar remain with the Priests and the Chosen Women, where he belongs."

Laughter rose from the warriors, and the teacher was glad. Now when the time came the men of the city would raise their legs at the Silver Men in defiance. If the goes willed it, the teacher would make a drinking cup of his enemy's skull. If not, at least they could die like the true children of Viracocha.

At the farthest end of the city, Crazy Yahuar sat on the lower steps of the temple, which were coated with the tears of the moon, and played his panpipes. Children attended him, still unaware of the importance of the coming battle. Women mocked him or smiled sadly at his innocence as they hurried to stock food and water for the men. The priests ignored him, busy making preparations for death.

Yahuar sat on the silver and played and smiled. And watched the sky across the gorge of the Urubamba. It was clouding quickly. Rain pelted his cheeks, ran in drops down his hooked nose. The haunting five-tone notes of his panpipes drifted out over the edge of the cliffs and down into the mists that rose from the roaring river.

"Filthy country, Capitan." The soldier tugged insistently at the reins of his reluctant mount while keeping a wary eye on the heights above.

"Filthy but rich, eh, Rinaldo?" Capitan Borregos scrambled to the crest of a protruding boulder and turned to survey the war party strung out down the mountainside.

He had fifty fighting men, twenty arquebusiers, and three hundred Indian auxiliaries. They had left the cannon at the bottom of the gorge since the men had rebelled at the prospect of hauling the six-pounder up the precipitous slope. Well, with any luck they'd have no need of it, and if worse came to worst, it could shield any retreat.