El Dorado

Part 1. In which our hero awakens.

With a sudden sensation of movement, as if being pulled bodily back
into the world, the Spaniard awoke. He gasped for air and it came,
hissing noisily through clenched teeth. He did not choke or cough now,
there was no pain in his lungs, the disease had left him.

He tried to speak but could only make a low rasp behind a tongue so
swollen it allowed no movement. A terrible thirst bit. Again he tried,
his lips cracking as they moved, and whispered the word for water but
none came. He turned his head first left then right and saw that he was
alone in the clearing, his companions had left him. He moaned in
despair, each sound painful in the dry pit of his mouth.

Desperately, and with great effort, he rolled onto his stomach and
crawled slipping through the mud to the side of the river. He plunged
his face in the water and drank deeply, retching as he tried to force
the first mouthfuls down but finally letting the liquid come.

Suddenly anxious, he lifted himself back to the clearing and the
remains of the fire, it was cold. In anger he threw a charred branch
into the trees where birds scattered upwards with a great rush of
noise. He looked and saw the body of another man, the black carrion he
had disturbed resettling around it. He crawled over and waved them
away, this was no way for a soldier to die. He embraced the corpse with
both arms, protecting it from the birds and holding it for his own
comfort.

He awoke again at night, the hunger maddeningly painful, his parched
tongue in agony. In his mind he knew what he must do. The night was
black as pitch and he groped blindly at the corpse he lay upon and felt
its tunic, its soft stomach, and the hollow drum of its ribcage. Things
crawled on it and crawled over his hands and up his arms but he paid
them no heed, his hunger was all that mattered. He felt at his side and
found his knife and with it cut open the tunic and then, clambering
astride the body and feeling the way with his fingers, he cut deep into
his comrades chest and snapped open a rib. His hand delved into the gap
and with a butcher's precision found the heart. He pulled but it did
not come so he stabbed and sawed at it with the knife, skinning his
knuckles on the jagged bone. At last he brought the meat to his mouth
and bit and sucked at the juices, the heady smell of blood causing his
head to swim. He ate furiously, every mouthful a feast, every painfully
swallowed morsel a banquet. With the last of his strength he gorged
himself. He would live.

Part 2. In which our hero chooses a course of
action.

In the morning he recoiled from the bloody remains beneath him, what
had seemed so right in the dark night horrified him now. He was alive,
but at what price. He brushed dirt from the man's face but it was
swollen and half chewed off by carrion and he did not recognise it. He
ought, he thought, now the sin was committed and there was no going
back, remove and eat the liver, but in the daylight he found he had not
the strength of will. He left the body to the jungle as his companions
had done.

How long since his companions had left, two nights? More? There was
little hope of catching them now. The clearing, which had seemed so
large when he had first staggered into it, weak from the fever, now
seemed claustrophobic and small, the jungle closing up again, healing
the scar they had cut through it. His rifle had been left, besides his
helmet, leant against a tree, at his belt were still the twin bags of
powder and shot, but his meagre supplies had been taken, his canteen,
the stale bread and what little remained of the dried meat. He was not
surprised for they had left him for dead. He was just a name in
Orellana's book now, "taken by disease, spared starvation". At this
thought he was gripped by panic and his fingers went to his neck, they
fumbled and searched but found nothing, his grandfather's silver
crucifix and the chain it hung on were gone, his companions had stolen
it. He screamed obscenities at the jungle, the thieves had left him
without his god.

He looked for their trail but could not find it, was it possible
they had given up and turned back west to Quito. To turn back was to
accept death, they had not the supplies to get them over the mountains.
He looked upstream but found no trail there either, no evidence that
man had ever come to or left this place. The jungle was erasing their
path just as it was erasing their party one by one. But he was alive,
he would not allow himself to die now, not now he had come back from
the brink.

The party could not return it was true, they were driven forward by
necessity as much as their mission: but one man? One man could perhaps
make the journey. There were beasts in the jungle, beasts that growled
and called during the night. If he could hunt and kill a large enough
animal it would provide enough sustenance for him to make the crossing,
to give up this folly and return to civilisation. He picked up his
rifle and his helmet and turned from the rising sun and followed the
river westwards, back the way they had come.

Part 3. In which our hero tries to hunt a wild
beast.

He walked slowly, there was little point in using his strength
trying to make ground before he had provisioned. Instead he searched
the jungle floor for tracks or clues as to an animal. He needed a large
beast to kill, then he could drink the blood, cook and dry the meat,
and have food enough to survive the journey over the mountains.

As the day aged the heat grew, the sunlight forced its way through
the trees and drew steam from the ground till his path was like a
Turkish sauna and every movement an effort. His body ran with sweat and
his beard slick with it. His sodden clothes grew heavy and chafed his
skin, his helmet and rifle burdens he could barely lift, his boots to
which the mud clung in heavy lumps weights he could merely drag across
the ground. He saw no tracks, he saw no birds, he saw no monkeys and no
beasts, he saw nothing.

At noon he rested and slept briefly, cursing himself when he woke
for he could not afford to waste the daylight, he had to hunt, had to
find food. He remembered the native hunters with their bows and arrows
waiting motionless and silent for their quarry. That was what he needed
to do, he pulled himself up, hoping an uncomfortable position would
keep him awake, and listened.

The jungle moved around him, it breathed and hissed, it shifted and
it stirred, it was a living thing, sentient and sinister, feral and
ferocious, vengeful and vindictive. There was birdsong, he thought he
heard the call of monkeys in the distance like children screaming in
play. After more than an hour of waiting he heard movement, something
large coming through the undergrowth not far from him and getting
closer. He tried to pinpoint the sound but it seemed to come from all
directions at once. Slowly he reached for his rifle and drew it on to
his lap. With tiny, cautious movements, always listening in case he had
been noticed, he lifted from his belt the two bags of shot and powder,
he carefully loaded the lead ball in the rifle and then went to
sprinkle the powder into the firing chamber but it came out in one
solid lump, sodden, the jungle steam had somehow penetrated the bag. He
almost sobbed, the setback was too much to bare, the rifle was his one
advantage in the wild, the one prop of civilisation that would save
him, and now it was useless.

At that moment the animal, a pig, appeared from the undergrowth and
stood there, startled to find him waiting. He pinched off a pellet of
the wet powder anyway, loaded it and raised the gun. The hammer snapped
down but did not fire. The pig started at the noise and disappeared
into the undergrowth, desperately he pulled his knife and ran after it
but it was gone.

Part 4. In which our hero has a run in with an
Indian.

An arrow slammed into the tree trunk next to him. He turned and saw
a native man, his face striped with ochre and naked but for plumes of
brightly coloured feathers. The Indian drew another arrow to his bow
and the Spaniard ran. He ran crashing through the undergrowth letting
the thorns and branches scratch and tear him as they would, he ran
wildly, often deviating his path in the vain hope that the native would
not be able to track him. He struggled to breathe and the heat pulled
at him like a harness but his legs still carried him forwards. He would
not die.

Often he looked behind him but saw nothing, eventually he could run
no more and fell panting to his knees and listened for the cries of the
pursuing natives. They did not come. When at last he managed to control
his breathing enough to hear the noise of the jungle it was as normal,
no crashing of feet, no war whoops and no drums, just the chattering of
birds and the whispering of trees. He could only assume he had escaped
but he could not rest, he had to keep moving before he was found again.
With great effort he picked himself up and, using the trees for
support, trudged onwards.

The sun was low in the sky now beckoning the way west, so turned
around had he become in his flight that he had little chance of finding
the river, all he could do was follow the sun. He put one foot in front
of the other and moved, hanging his head in exhaustion and despair.
After a short period of walking something strange happened, through a
gap in the thick confusion of trees he caught a glimpse of the setting
sun, a bright orange light seemingly level on the horizon, only it was
not in the direction he was facing but off to the left. Could he have
gotten so off track so soon? He adjusted his course and kept on but had
not gone a dozen steps before he saw the sun again off to the right and
higher in the sky. Could there be two suns. For a moment he could not
choose between the lower sun to the left or the higher to the right but
saw that the sun to the left seemed brighter and closer so headed for
that. As he walked it seemed to get even more brilliant until he broke
through the last of the jungle onto the edge of a high ridge
overlooking a valley in which sat the sun. He dropped to his knees and
made the sign of the cross. Could it be that the philosophers were
wrong and the sun did not orbit the globe but came to rest here in the
Andes. Had he found the valley where the sun waited out the night.

Then, with a flash, the sun went out.

Part 5. In which our hero discovers the object of his
quest.

Before him in the valley was a vast pyramid, several hundred feet
high, its flank so smooth that it had reflected the sunlight back
through the jungle fooling him into seeing two suns. He peered,
squinting, at the miraculous construction and saw that the whole side
of the pyramid was clad in gold. The shock floored him and he sat on
the rocky ground, stunned out of all action, gazing at the wondrous
pyramid, its apex almost level with his own eyes and its base way down
in the valley. If the gold were only a fraction of an inch thick, if
only the one side of the pyramid were so covered, if some optic trick
deluded him into thinking that the pyramid were twice its actual size,
even if all of these things, here, before him, was a treasure greater
than had been found in all the Americas. Not the Coricancha at Cuzco,
not the ransom room at Cajamarca, not the temples at Pariacaca or
Raqchi, not the entire of Tenochtitlan could rival this find. Pizarro
had led them past it within no more than a few miles, Cortes could
never even have dreamed it. Here finally, was the valley of El Dorado,
the city of the golden prince.

The Spaniard sat and watched with pride over his discovery, basking
in its glory. He was greater now than any of these men for he had found
what they had not and was, at that moment, richer than they would ever
be. A true conquistador. Contented, he relaxed on his kingly bed of
stone and moss, and fell quietly to sleep.

He dreamed of riches, of wine and food and luxury, of women and more
women, and of power which was sweetest of all. He dreamed of his home,
high in the Estremadura, and he dreamed a great villa built there, of
rows of olive groves, of the finest vineyards, of horses and cattle and
a plentiful larder. He dreamed of native women, proud, swarthy, and
feral, and girls who had rejected him in his youth now compliant and
adoring. He dreamed a harem there in the hills of Spain.

The rude point of a spear prodded him awake, a dozen native warriors
stood around him. The sun was up and it flashed off of his helmet like
a signal beacon. Obvious for miles around.

He was led down the side of the valley, the jungle yielding easily
to the natives where it clawed, fought and scratched at him as he tried
to keep their swift pace. He tired quickly under his heavy clothing and
hunger weakened him till he stumbled and twice fell, only to be sharply
prodded up and urged onwards at spear point. Finally they emerged from
the trees into terraced rice fields where crowds of women and girls,
naked like his dreams, gathered around him and nervously, as if he were
dangerous to the touch, reached out to lightly brush their fingers
against his pale skin. His captors strutted and proudly displayed their
victim, pointing out his clothing and armour to the crowd, one took his
helmet and wore it dancing ahead of the party, another took his rifle
and imitated the use of the weapon, the crowd cowering and running
fearfully as it was aimed at them. All about him was the clamour of
laughter and a language he did not understand. He tried the few words
of the Indian tongue he knew but it did not even earn the interest of
the celebrating natives.

Part 6. In which our hero meets the golden
king.

He was led from the fields to the stone city, where the crowd
swelled further, and through the streets to the base of the pyramid.
Here ornately feathered guards met his captors, took him from them, and
led him up the side of the pyramid.

How far up those golden steps he went, how long, how high, he could
not tell. Weak from his ordeal he seemed to pass from the waking world
during the ascent, a sleepwalker marching ever onwards in the fearsome
heat of the day. He walked up the pyramid seeing only the riches over
which he trod. A river of gold, a road stretching ever onwards and
upwards, a solid mountain of metal, the apex of the earth, the crux of
the globe. His head swam, his body drooped, his legs lost all their
strength and he found himself carried over the steps, each shoulder
supported as his feet trailed uselessly behind, he watched the gold
staircase float by beneath his eyes, and saw it turn to a coarse
red.

The stairs ended and he looked about him, he was high above the
green valley on a plateau at the very tip of the pyramid. All about him
were golden statues, grotesque and twisted caricatures of men and
animals, the native gods, each one enough, he reasoned, to make him a
rich man. In front of him, on a high throne, what he had thought was
the only statue of a human being stirred and spoke. He was brought
forward and compelled to kneel and the man-statue said something in the
native tongue and the Spaniard answered in Spanish. Neither understood
the other. His eyes fixed on the wondrous golden figure on the throne,
El Dorado, the golden prince, naked but for a rich coating of gold
dust, washed away every night and applied fresh each morning. The
legends were true. The figure rose from his throne, the gold sprinkling
gently about him as he moved.

At a gesture from the golden man the guards picked him up and
dragged him to the largest of the statues. A hideous grimacing
creature, part man, part bird, depicted struggling from a tight fissure
in the ground. In front of the figure was a large table rimmed with
deep gutters, the table stank of death and the Spaniard finally
realised what was happening. He struggled, fully conscious again, he
could not die now, he could not die having come so far, he could not
die so rich.

The hands laid him on the table and held him down, the few men
easily containing his struggles. The golden figure leaned over him,
silhouetted against the noon sun. He fancied he saw the gargoyle
statues in this golden man, their twisted faces echoed on the obscured
face of their servant. His tunic was torn from his chest and he felt
the knife against his ribcage, tracing one by one across the bones to
stop poised above his heart. He saw black birds describing a circle in
the sky above him, outlining the wheel of the sun, and he remembered
his fallen comrade in the clearing and his own knife at that man's
chest. In a moment of strength he pulled his hand free and groped at
his neck for the crucifix that was not there. He was alone, abandoned
by Jesus in a heathen land, just him and the golden man. The knife went
in, sawing and cutting at his body. In the last moments he reached out
for the golden man, grasping at the naked king's calf, scraping away
the grease and the gold and closing his fist, he would die rich. The
leering bird face of the ancient god leaned close to his cheek, its hot
breath rank with the stench of rotting meat, and as the golden king
took his heart from his chest, it took his soul.