Something bit him. Matt cried out and slapped his arm. A second later, he was bitten again, this time on the side of his neck. He almost wanted to cry… or swear… or scream. How much worse could this journey get? Atoc caught up with him and handed him a cloth filled with some evil-smelling ointment.
“Midges,” he explained. “We call them puma waqachis. It means, insects who make the puma cry.”
“I know how the puma feels,” Matt growled. He scooped up some of the ointment and rubbed it into his skin, where it mixed instantly with his sweat. Matt felt it trickle down his body. His clothes were sticking to him like a second skin. Another midge bit him on the ankle. Matt closed his eyes for a moment, then set off again.
They stopped twice for water. The Indian guides had plastic bottles in their backpacks. Matt forced himself to drink only a little, aware that all five of them had to share the same supply. The sun was high above them now and he began to wonder if there was something wrong with his vision. The forest seemed hazy and out of focus. Then he realized that in the heat, all the moisture was turning to steam. Soon he was completely wrapped in a dense white fog, barely able to see the man in front of him.
“Stay close!” Atoc called out. His voice came from nowhere. He could have been on another planet. “Not far now.”
They emerged from the cloud forest suddenly and unexpectedly. One moment Matt was fighting his way through the undergrowth, the next he had emerged on the edge of a huge canyon. The sky was clear. A vast mountain range stretched out in front of him, many of the peaks covered in snow. Some of them seemed to be touching the edge of space. Matt was close to exhaustion. He was soaking wet and he had a vicious headache. But even so, he felt a sense of elation. Looking down, he saw that it was raining in the canyon. But the rain was below him. He had climbed above cloud level.
“You see?” Atoc pointed to one of the mountains. From where they were standing, it looked a little like a human head. “Is Mandango,” he explained. “The Sleeping God.”
Pedro had caught up with Matt. He stood panting on the edge of the abyss. He rasped out a few words in Spanish. Atoc smiled for the first time since he and Matt had spoken earlier. “He says he feels terrible,” he translated for Matt. “But you look worse.”
“Where now?” Matt gasped. He couldn’t believe they had climbed all this way up just to go down again.
“It is not so far,” Atoc said. “But take care. It is very far if you fall…”
Atoc wasn’t exaggerating. A single, well-defined path led down the side of the canyon. Somehow Matt knew that it must have been cut into the rock face by hand. There was something completely unnatural about it. The path was flat and the surface was almost as polished as the streets of Cuzco. The one thing it wasn’t, though, was wide. In places there was barely a metre between the wall and the hideous drop over the side. If Matt had taken one false step he would have fallen… and fallen. He saw a herd of sheep or llamas grazing in the pampas at the very bottom of the canyon. To him, they were like ants. There were no trees here to protect them from the sun and Matt could feel it burning his face and arms. He was nothing in this immense landscape. He could be soaked by the rain or fried by the sun. In his entire life, he had never felt so insignificant.
They walked for more than an hour, descending all the time. Matt could feel the pressure changing in his ears. How long had it been since breakfast? He had no idea but he knew he couldn’t go on much longer. His legs were aching and his feet – in the new trainers – were getting blisters. They turned a corner and Matt saw that the path had brought them to a platform of solid rock with steps leading down on the other side. He took a deep breath. It seemed that their journey was over.
They had arrived.
And there, built – incredibly – on the edge of the canyon, was a miniature city. It wasn’t a modern city. Parts of it reminded Matt of Cuzco and he guessed that it had been built by the same people, maybe around the same time.
First, terraces had been cut into the rock. These were the foundation and there must have been fifty or sixty of them, jutting out of the mountainside like giant shelves. Some of the terraces had been planted with crops, some were dotted with grazing sheep and llamas. The city itself consisted of temples, palaces, houses and storerooms, all built of blocks of stone that must have been carried at some time through the cloud forest and over the mountains. A great rectangle of grass ran through the centre: a meeting place, a sports ground, the focus of everyday life. Matt knew instantly that there would be no electricity here, no cars, nothing from the modern age. And yet he wasn’t looking at a ruin. The city was alive. There were people everywhere. They lived here. This was their home.
“What is this place?” he whispered.
“Vilcabamba!” It was Pedro who had replied.
Atoc nodded slowly. “The lost city of the Incas. Many great men search for it. For hundreds of years, they search. But none have found it. Vilcabamba cannot be found. It cannot be reached.”
“Why not?” It seemed easy enough to Matt. After all, they had reached it without too much difficulty. The path that had brought them down the side of the canyon must be clearly visible. Anyone could follow it here. “The path…” he began.
Atoc shook his head. “There is no path,” he said.
“No. What I’m trying to say is…” Matt took a couple of steps back and looked around the corner.
Impossible.
The path wasn’t there. The canyon wall was a sheer, vertical drop with no way up or down. The path that they had just taken, which they had walked down for more than an hour, had disappeared.
“Do not ask questions,” Atoc said. “You have friends who wait for you.”
“But…”
The Indian rested a hand on his shoulder and together the two of them walked round the corner. Pedro and the other men had already gone on ahead. Matt saw them walk through a stone archway, and at the same time a man appeared, climbing up the steps towards them. He was in a hurry. And he was European.
Then the man drew closer and Matt felt a huge surge of pleasure and relief. He shouted out and ran forward. The two of them embraced.
It was Richard Cole.
LAST OF THE INCAS
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” Richard said. “Ever since that screw-up in Lima, I’ve been worrying that I’d never see you again and I blamed myself. But everyone’s been very kind to me. These people are… well, you’ll find out for yourself.
“And this city, Vilcabamba -” Richard shook his head in wonder – “is one of the great legends of Peru, which is to say, it’s not even meant to exist! A bit like El Dorado. A whole lot of explorers have looked but never found it. And here we are right in the middle of it! Amazing!”
Richard had taken Matt to the small stone house where he had been staying, on one of the upper terraces of the city. They were sitting in the only room, a single living space with two beds, a sofa and a multicoloured rug spread over the stone floor. Two of the walls were lined with windows. These were strangely shaped, narrower at the top than at the bottom, like cut-off triangles. Matt had seen the same design all over Cuzco. They had no glass. Nor did the room have electricity or running water. At night it would be lit by candles. The toilets and bath houses were all located on the other side of the city, by a fast-flowing stream, a tributary of the River Chamba.
The two of them had been given lunch: a large bowl of locro, a mixture of meat and vegetables somewhere between a soup and a stew. They were on their own. Pedro had gone off with Atoc – presumably to rest in one of the other houses. Matt was glad to have a bit of time with Richard. Just being with him reminded him of the ordinary life he’d once led.