A priest knelt before her, a feather
from his head-dress tickling her face. His musky odour of old incense and stale
blood was rank, even here on the windy summit of the pyramid. Four other
priests held her body tipped slightly forwards, and the pressure that this put
on her tired old joints hurt far more than the fine, cold bite of the knife at
her neck. Quick blood ran thick down her chin and splashed into the waiting
bowl. Then the flow weakened, the strength went out of her and she died,
content.
Seven elderly pilgrims had set out for
Pachacamac, following their familiar river down to the coast and then trudging
North through the desert sands. Two of the very oldest of them needed to be
carried in litters, but most were able to walk with no more than a stick to
help them in the sand. Lesser members of the community had been delegated to
carry what was necessary. These would return home. The elderly would not.
The better-regarded families of the town
were expected to die as was proper, sacrificed at the Pachacamac shrine for the
betterment of the community. Such was to be their last contribution of ayni, of
the reciprocity that assured communal harmony and health. It was also their
guarantee of a smooth return to the community's soul, to the deep, impersonal
structure from which they had sprung at birth.
The Pachacamac complex appeared to them
quite suddenly from amongst the coastal dunes. They paused to marvel at its
mountain range of pyramids, its teeming myriad of ancient and holy shrines.
Over the millennia, one particular
pyramid had come to process all of the pilgrims who came from their valley.
They were duly welcomed, and guards resplendent in bronze and shining leather
took them safely to its precinct.
They had been expected. The priests were
kind, welcoming them with food and drink, helping the infirm, leading them all
by easy stages up to the second-but-last tier in their great, ancient pyramid.
The full extent of the meandering ancient shrine unveiled itself like a
revelation as they climbed. Then, as whatever had been mixed with their meal
took its effect, they were wrapped up snug in blankets and set to doze in the
late evening sun, propped together against the warm, rough walls of the
mud-brick pyramid. Their dreams were vivid, extraordinary, full of weight and
meaning.
The group was woken before dawn, all of
them muzzily happy, shriven of all their past cares, benignly numb. Reassuring
priests helped them gently up the stairs to the very top tier. In the predawn
light, the stepped pyramids of Pachacamac stood sacred and aloof in an ocean of
mist.
Each pilgrim approached their death with
confidence. A quick little discomfort would take them back to the very heart of
the community from which they had been born. They had been separated from it by
the act of birth, each sudden individual scattered about like little seed
potatoes. Now, ripe and fruitful, they were about to return home, safely
gathered back into the community store. It was to be a completion, a circle
fully joined. Hundreds of conch horns brayed out across Pachacamac as the dawn
sun glittered over the distant mountains. Seven elderly lives drained silently
away as the mist below turned pink.
Dark Sun, Bright Moon, by Oliver
Sparrow, was published in July 2014 and is available for sale on Amazon in
both paperback and ebook.
“Dark Sun, Bright Moon describes people isolated in the Andes, without
the least notion of outsiders. They evolve an understanding of the universe
that is complementary to our own but a great deal wider. The book explores
events of a thousand years ago, events which fit with what we know of the
region's history,” says Sparrow.
In the Andes of a thousand years ago, the Huari empire is sick. Its
communities are being eaten from within by a plague, a contagion that is not of
the body but of something far deeper, a plague that has taken their collective
spirit. Rooting out this parasite is a task that is laid upon Q’ilyasisa, a
young woman from an obscure little village on the forgotten borders of the
Huari empire.
This impossible mission is imposed on her by a vast mind, a sentience
that has ambitions to shape all human life. Her response to this entails
confrontations on sacrificial pyramids, long journeys through the Amazonian
jungle and the establishment of not just one but two new empires. Her legacy
shapes future Andean civilization for the next four hundred years, until the
arrival of the Spanish.
Dark Sun,
Bright Moon takes the reader on a fascinating adventure that includes human
sacrifice, communities eaten from within, a vast mind blazing under the
mud of Lake Titicaca, and the rise and fall of empires cruel and kind.
About the
Author:
Oliver Sparrow was born in the Bahamas,
raised in Africa and educated at Oxford to post-doctorate level, as a biologist
with a strong line in computer science. He spent the majority of his working
life with Shell, the oil company, which took him into the Peruvian jungle for
the first time. He was a director at the Royal Institute for International
Affairs, Chatham House for five years. He has started numerous companies, one
of them in Peru, which mines for gold. This organisation funded a program of
photographing the more accessible parts of Peru, and the results can be seen at
http://www.all-peru.info. Oliver knows modern Peru very well, and has
visited all of the physical sites that are described in his book Dark Sun,
Bright Moon.
To learn more, go to http://www.darksunbrightmoon.com/
Leave a comment with your name and email for a chance to win a paperback copy (USA).
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