Paula Guran - The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu

“What would happen if you stop feeding me the drugged food and drinks?”

“It’s not drugged. And the answer is, you would starve. That’s all we have.”

“Well, if it’s not drugged, then what is it?”

Nayra stretches out on the floor and stares at the cloudless sky. She doesn’t look at Chicya. “Everyone says our people died because the conquistadores brought smallpox, not because their gods were stronger than ours. You remember how the only time the Inca ever defeated the Spanish was at Ollantayambo?”

Chicya doesn’t understand. What does this have to do with anything? But she nods. “Yes.”

“And how, years later, the Manqu Inca was betrayed and attacked by those under his protection? Barely alive, he came to Wakapathtay to die in the Sacred Cave?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what do you think is so special about the cave? About this place?” Nayra asks.

“Look, just tell me. Don’t play guessing games. Maybe I can figure out a way to get us out of here.”

Nayra scoffs. “This isn’t a riddle. I thought you might know more than me. I don’t know what’s in the cave. I never go up there. I don’t cross Maras. I prefer to remain off the shelf .”

A long pause.

“Besides,” Nayra continues, “if you haven’t noticed, not many people here have feet or a body shape suitable for walking, much less climbing stairs or mountains.” Her voice trails off, and her eyes shut. She fades into the fog of the stew and the corn and the chicha .

Maras said that Chicya would make a fine replacement for the Bachue and Cava act. Nayra says that she’s turning into a freak because the Bachue and Cava pottery is broken. An image of Cisco and Luis flashes through Chicya’s mind, how they clubbed each other to death for the true believers, the Inca of the Sacred Valley.

After Nayra leaves, Chicya plucks a lime slice from a jar of alpaca stew and sucks on it. The tartness revives her, and thinking she might need sustenance, she tucks the jar into the front of her pants, then grasps the pole in the middle of the tent and forces herself to stand. She limps outside, where the forests buzz with insects, twigs crackle, streams slosh, and the alpaca chew the ichu . A buzzard whirls overhead. The elderly woman on skinny stumps is a statue by the cook tent, her harp fused to her body.

Chicya isn’t sure what’s real and what’s in her mind. But when she sees Maras hoisting himself up the stairs toward the Sacred Cave, she knows that he’s real. And this time, she’s going up there after him.

His tunic sparkles. The condor wings of his nosepiece shoot light into her eyes. His backpack bobs as he disappears into the brush at the top of the stairs.

Where will she find the strength to follow him?

On the other hand, how many times has Chicya climbed the stairs up Orq’O Wichay? If she can climb her own sacred mountain without eating for days, then she can climb this one, too.

She grasps ichu in her fists and hoists herself up to the first stair. She pauses, then hoists herself up two more stairs. A chinchilla darts from the ichu to a boulder draped in yellow flowers, scoots across the rock and disappears.

It must be a sign from the true Inca gods. They won’t let the false holiness of Maras taint the already warped villagers any longer.

Perhaps Chicya spent her life on Orq’O Wichay for a reason. She kept the ancient ways alive. She was the only one. Perhaps with Chicya’s help, the true Inca gods will intervene.

To the left of the yellow flowers, a coca bush displays its leaves like ornaments. Chicya plucks several and chews, mashes the coca with the lime and lets the juice dribble down her throat.

Eventually, she reaches the brush where Maras disappeared. The mountain rises far beyond the top stair, which levels off and joins a rock path cut into the side of the cliff. She ducks beneath the brush, then scoots against the rock wall along the narrow path. Her palms press against the rock, red like clay, red like blood.

She’s not afraid. She’s been training for this moment her entire life for reasons she only now understands.

The buzzard circles. He’s in the right place, for now is not her time, but it’s time for someone else.

Maras’ voice trills happily from the Sacred Cave. “Back on the shelf with you, my lovelies. I need new Inca blood. Perhaps you will do. And you .” Pottery clatters, and an odd keening echoes off the walls of the cave and filters down the cliff.

Chicya slides closer to the cave.

His trilling stops—

and she stops—

and now she inches closer until she finally steps into the mouth of the Sacred Cave. Heat flushes through her body. Her flesh tingles. The ancient air envelops her, and suddenly, she knows . . . without a doubt, she knows why she’s here.

A candle flickers in the far end of the cave, where Maras tinkers with his pots.

Hundreds of pots.

Thousands of pots.

Shelves reach from the cave floor to the ceiling in all directions, and crammed on every shelf are ancient Incan pots of all sizes, types, and dimensions. Black pots with white paint. Clay pots with red paint. Pots of men fighting. Pots of clay okra, corn, all forms of vegetables and fruits. Pots of doctors performing surgery on a girl’s chest, a man’s abdomen, a child’s head. Pots of women giving birth. Pots of two girls and a dead man having sex. Pots of deer frolicking in the woods. Pots of owl faces with cat bodies.

Next to the broken Bachue and Cava pot — the two girls — is one that looks like the fused Cisco and Luis.

Does Maras plan to turn Chicya and Narya into a pot like Bachue and Cava?

Yes. Maras plans to put Chicya and Narya on the shelf . . .

Chicya gazes at row upon row of the clay figures. Some weep. Some wave their arms at her. Some squirm, some twitch.

The ancients made pots depicting every aspect of life involving humans, animals, vegetables, fruits, and the supernatural dead. In Wakapathtay, the corn is larger than any other Peruvian corn, the alpaca wool is stronger than any other wool, and the alpaca meat tastes the best.

Why doesn’t Maras turn into pottery along with everybody else?

The stew jar shifts in her pants, and instinctively, her hand grabs it. Her back knocks against some pots, which rattle on the shelves.

Maras spins, and he whips out his gun. His lidless eyes widen, and candle light flicks across his slick smile. His laughter is shrill. “I knew you were special. I knew you were different. You’re feisty, aren’t you, little girl?”

He wiggles the gun, breaks into wild laughter, and leaps at her, and his forefinger presses the trigger.

She screams and darts to the side, her back banging against the shelves, as a bullet cracks into a pot of two warriors. They crumble to dust at her feet.

She throws herself at him, tackles him to the ground, and pins his arms down the way the female freaks pinned hers in the pickup truck. The gun skitters across the floor.

He wriggles beneath her, but she’s massive now and rock-solid, having consumed so much of the alpaca stew and corn, for now she knows: it is the special alpaca and corn of Wakapathtay that deforms the people and turns the pots into living creatures. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

Everyone here eats the stew except Maras, who eats cuy chactado . He must have stopped eating the stew shortly after his body began to change. This is why he still has feet, why he doesn’t freeze up and turn into a footless freak.

This is why the pots seem so alive, because they are alive.

Withhold the stew, the deformed people become pots again. On the shelf. Give them stew, the pots transform into mindless fighters.