BOARDING THE
Mixcomitl was soundly different from boarding in Casablanca, where the boarding ramp reaching up into the sky had seemed insubstantial to the task. Oken rather suspected that was the beginning of Mabruke’s discomfort with flying. Disembarking at the island aerodrome at Wat’a Mona had been no better, with wind making the ramp sway. Mixcomitl, however, was moored to a wide boulevard of stone arching upward. Statues of pumas crouched atop the walls on either side. Their teeth were gold and they had ruby eyes. Living guards in jade armor were stationed between these, with puma designs painted on their faces and helmets. They saluted Prince Viracocha as he walked past.
Oken was pleased to see how casually Mabruke strolled alongside the prince. His friend was showing the more usual signs of his enjoyment of travel, the pleasure at the journey’s anticipation. Oken turned his focus to memorizing the elaborate creature before them, layers of golden wing- sails amid blackened lines, bobbing ever so slightly at his mooring as though eager to return to open flight. As they got closer, Oken could see that every surface was engraved with the same wild and furious designs, coiled and swirling and outlandishly different.
They were preceded by a dozen nude porters, painted as a matched flock of brightly colored birds, carrying their luggage. Oken knew he was going to enjoy this.
He immediately appreciated the interior of the prince’s Quetzal, larger and grander in every scale, mostly of the ubiquitous bamboo. Oken was especially pleased that, in addition to greater size, the lounge and bridge were combined. There were two engine pits, one on either side of the bridge dais at the nose, backing the claim about the aeroship’s speed.
A brace of tall pipes and painted drums awaited the musicians on a pair of balconies at either side of the bridge windows. Beaded curtains covered the arched entrances to the crew positions. The bird-perches were wooden carvings of nude women, painted in macaw colors, kneeling, heads bowed and hands raised up, with palms spread wide for the birds to rest upon. Three of these knelt facing the broad front windows, so that the birds could see the same view as the pilots. The carpets strewn across the deck were red and gold on black, woven variations of the imperial puma in fatal embrace with a condor.
“What a delightful change from the standard,” Oken said. “A much more comfortable way to fly.”
“Yes,” Viracocha said happily. “I do so love the music of flying. It is too quiet in the corridors of the standard Quetzal, don’t you find?”
Oken agreed. “The music gets into the blood. I discovered that on our flight here.”
“Hara’wi—the sacred music—this is the heartbeat of the Quetzal. Without hara’wi, he is just a machine.” Viracocha’s voice was strangely gentle. He gazed over at the bridge and the view from the windows with an expression of deep fondness. “You are the first Egyptians I have brought on board. My father disapproves. He fears you will steal the secrets of the Quetzal, and sell them to the world.”
“Your secrets are safe with me,” Oken said quietly. “I already understand why they cannot be stolen. No one else in the world can do what Tawantinsuyu has done. No one else could build one, nor could anyone else train the pilots and avian navigators as Tawantinsuyu trains them.”
“My father would be pleased to hear this,” Viracocha said. “I do not think, however, that I will tell him how you came to know it.” His dark eyes were slightly hooded as he spoke, looking at Oken.
Oken knew from Viracocha’s expression that the prince was not referring to the Mixcomitl.
“I have my own agents. Very loyal agents.”
Oken bowed slightly in acknowledgment of the prince’s meaning. “Loyalty is a most valuable asset. It can make a poor man into a king.”
Viracochanodded. “And a king into a poor man.”
Mabruke strolled over to the lounge area and stretched himself out comfortably on the closest divan. Coverlets and pillows were piled about the bamboo furnishings, with the puma–condor design woven in rich fabrics.
As if out of nowhere, a young woman appeared, carrying a bamboo tray with a jug and three brightly painted bamboo cups, carved and lacquered as thin as the finest porcelain, almost translucent. The handles were slender female forms with painted breasts. The woman carrying the tray was painted to match the cups. The silver circlet on her brow bore the white jade profile of a rabbit with bared fangs and a forked tongue. She set the tray on the table at Mabruke’s elbow, bowed to him gracefully, turned, and disappeared.
This time Oken was watching from the corner of his eye and saw her slip behind a tapestry of feathers and gold thread. He smiled, remembering another entrance hidden behind a tapestry. “What does your brother think of Mixcomitl?” he said casually.
A sneer flickered across Viracocha’s face. “The Inheritor is not allowed to fly. Neither is our father, the Inca. It is considered unlucky. The only emperor of Tawantinsuyu ever to board a Quetzal was killed, struck by lightning on his first flight. He crashed into a temple of the wind gods, and the high temple courts made it law.”
Oken smiled at Viracocha. “I have also discovered the benefits of being at a remove from my father’s throne.”
Viracocha did not respond to that. He sat down on a larger, wider seat clearly designed for him, and picked up the choclatl jug. He lifted the lid, caressing the breasts on the handle with his thumb while swirling the jug gently. He closed his eyes to sniff the aromatic steam rising up. “Excellent,” he said pleasantly. He filled the three cups carefully, pouring from a height to make the foam rise up to the rim. The warm scent of fine choclatl filled the lounge.
Viracocha raised his cup in salute. The glyphs on his cup matched those on his feathered collar of rank. “Gentlemen, you will find that a good potato vodka added to hot choclatl provides an excellent way to spend an eve ning!”
Mabruke stared into his cup thoughtfully, as though reading something in the foam. “Have you considered adding a bit of vanilla?”
“Let us try it, Mik. Let us try it.” Viracocha clapped his hands sharply.
The same woman appeared, falling gracefully to her knees and bowing her head before the prince, hands folded in her lap.
“Find a bit of vanilla from the galley, little one. The prince here would like some in his choclatl.”
She nodded without answering, and disappeared behind the tapestry once more.
“It will take a moment,” Viracocha said. “The galley is a distance for Runa’s feet.” He sipped at his own choclatl, gazing out the hugewindows at the nose of the bridge. “Runa. She is the Inheritor’s eldest child,” he said then, more quietly. “Her mother is a slave at the Queen Mother’s estate. Pachacuti pretends he is being kind by putting us in each other’s care. Runa spies on me for her father, because she believes that pleases him.”
“Does it?” Mabruke said.
“Does it what?”
“Does it please him?”
Viracochascoffed, bitterness twisting one corner of his mouth. “My brother is pleased that she spies on me. He does not care that she is his daughter. Runa and I have great fun deciding what next she will tell him. She is a quick study.”
“Does she enjoy flying?” Oken said. “Being on board, I mean?”
“I do not know,” Viracocha said with a shrug. “Yet this is something her father, for all his power, will never experience.”
“Are we in flight now?” Mabruke said. He looked at the cup in his hands, not out the windows.
“I have not yet given the order for flight,” Viracocha said. He fell silent as Runa reemerged from the tapestry, carrying a small tray.
“Ah, thank you, Mademoiselle Runa,” Mabruke said, turning the intensity of his smile on her as he took the tray and set it on the table beside him.
After Runa had been caught in Mabruke’s gaze for too many seconds, Viracocha said to her. “Runa, go!”
She scurried away, turning her head to look over her shoulder at Mabruke before ducking out of sight.
Mabruke made a show of sniffing the vanilla, eyes closed. He then took a carefully measured spoonful and stirred it into his hot drink. He sipped slowly, swishing it around his mouth before swallowing, as one tastes a fine wine. “Finest quality vanilla. Finest quality!” he said finally. “The two flavors complement each other handsomely. Would you care to try?”
Viracocha leaned forward in his seat to hold his cup out, as did Oken. Mabruke measured and stirred as carefully for them.
As the coffee served in tents in the Atlas Hills had outshone the best coffees of Europe, the choclatl and the vanilla were markedly superior. Oken spoke agreeably. “I am not as familiar as I would wish to be with the degrees of either choclatl or vanilla, yet I seriously doubt I will ever taste finer anywhere else in the world.”
“You speak the wisdom of innocence,” Mabruke said. He sipped at his again, and held his cup up in brief salute. “I, too, have never had better. Let us send our compliments to the galley crew!”
They drank a toast to this. At that moment, the captain of the Mixcomitl emerged from the bridge entrance, announced by the gentle tinkle of the beaded curtain parting.
The captain was similar to other crewmen of the Quetzal, in that he was of slight build, like a jockey primed for riding champion racers. His oversized lungs gave his deep-barreled, hardy look a slight sense of disproportion. He was different, larger than life despite the greater size and rank of the noblemen before him. His skin was polished mahogany, and tattooed on every visible bit with bloodred swirls and flame-colored curls flowing around upside- down faces and eyes. His kneecaps and elbows were condor heads, and a serpent in vivid green inks coiled around his neck and up his cheek, with the serpent’s head swallowing the Third Eye on his forehead. The Third Eye was done with such living detail that Oken expected to see it blink. Over these the captain wore only a short kilt of carved jade tiles that made a gentle clicking sound as he moved. He was barefoot and walked with the focused grace of a bird in flight. He bowed before the prince, and Oken fancied for an instant that he heard the sound of folding wings.
“We are ready for flight, then, Hanaq Pacha?”
Captain Hanaq Pacha straightened up, met the prince’s eyes, and nodded.
“Excellent!” Viracocha turned to Mabruke. “Ready?”
Mabruke shrugged, leaning back into the divan and stretching his legs out in front of him. “By all means, let us take wing.”
Viracocha nodded to the captain, who turned and sprang across the bridge to the captain’s seat. On an unheard signal, the bridge crew emerged as one through the beaded curtains, settling themselves into crew positions in unison, including the cyclers leaping up to the saddles of their wheeled steeds. The musicians appeared on the balconies at the same signal, each one going to her instrument with a single flourish. Their nude bodies were painted to match the colors and patterns of the macaws, and their hair was spread across their shoulders like a shining cape. When the human crew all were in place, the macaws flew in, emerging from round openings high in the chamber.
Mabruke had set his cup back on the table with a curious gesture, pushing it back so that he could not see the level of the choclatl in it. “What can you tell us of our destination?” Oken said to Viracocha.
“Quillabamba.” The prince seemed pleased. “My mother’s estate is there. We cannot fly over the temples, not anywhere near the sacred lake or Tiwanaku, so we will go to the queen’s mansion first, to get different transportation.”
“Indeed?” Mabruke said. Oken could see by the tilt of his head that this fact had struck Mabruke as new and useful information. “Why is that?”
“It is considered to be spying on the gods in the temples and the Inca in his palace.”
“Is it, now?” Mabruke said thoughtfully. “I can appreciate that.” He glanced at Oken, meeting his eye with a knowing look.
“We will be several days in flight, gentlemen, depending on how often we stop to look at the sights along the way.” Viracocha gestured around at the Mixcomitl with his cup. “Meanwhile, I think you will find the accommodations and cuisine on board to be far superior to your Quetzal ride over the Atlantic.”
“I’m already more comfortable,” Oken said, stretching back in his seat to demonstrate. “I think this is going to be a fine vacation.”
Flight was smooth and power sang through the aeroship in harmony with the musicians. The musicianship was superior even to the musicians of Verdi’s opera. Perhaps it was because Verdi’s musicians were hindered by wearing clothes, Oken thought to himself as he admired the women and their inspired performance.
Mabruke stood, casually brushing down the folds of his kilt. “I think I’ll have a nap,” he said to Viracocha, barely audible above the music.
Oken pulled himself to his feet.
Viracocha clapped his hands sharply, and Runa at once popped out from behind her tapestry. Oken was amused. She had obviously been standing there, listening to them.
Viracocha signaled her silently with an elaborate hand gesture that suggested these two were accustomed to communicating in the midst of the symphony. Runa bowed, smiling happily, and sprang past the lounge tables, waving for them to follow her.
Guest quarters were on a deck above the lounge, up a spiral stair with bamboo steps and railing. The corridor was narrow, although wider than expected. Their cabin was spacious, with comfortable- looking beds at either end. An elegant bar, adorned with black and white feathers in complex patterns, lined one wall. A selection of Andean wines and beers with exotically adorned labels was lined up neatly, reflecting in the mirror behind the bar. The wall beside the exit to the corridor was also mirrored.
“Gentlemen may share or have private cabins, as you wish,” Runa said. She seemed very pleased.
“This will do, ma de moiselle,” Mabruke said, turning his smile to her. “Lord Oken is my bodyguard. I sleep more safely when he is here.”
Her dark eyes got big as she looked back and forth between them. “You are afraid here, with my lord Viracocha as your protector?”
“No, my dear,” Mabruke said kindly. “Sometimes he just has to guard me from bad dreams.”