The Basingstoke Chronicles Page 8

  "I'll double that sentiment," I replied, at which I felt the tip of something sharp prick my ribs.

  "It's good to hear you, Baz. I forgot to mention, though, you're not allowed to speak."

  "Terrific," I mumbled.

  The booming voice restarted. This time, it didn't cease for many minutes. I felt for Rodrigo. How he was expected to translate that much gobbledygook while he was still getting to grips with the language, I could not comprehend. He later told me how he convinced them he was more or less fluent--a feasible way to guarantee his playing an active role in my audience with the Kamachej. I have to say, though, the way he set about delivering the translation makes me think he had not over-sold his linguistic skills at all.

  "Right, I think I caught most of that," he said. "It appears you're to be given some kind of lie detector test, and you're to do it standing where you are. His highness' name is Vichama Supay, and his wife is Chasca Quilla. He has a son, who's in attendance, and he's suspicious of your motives for being in his kingdom, the color of your skin, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. He also wants you to know that he doesn't mean you any harm. If you're completely honest with your answers, he says, we'll both go free today. I could probably do this for you, Baz, but we'd better play along, right?"

  Didn't anything faze this Cuban? I, for one, was dreading the mysterious test. Rodrigo touted it all as a game. I half wondered whether or not this was for my benefit, an act to keep me loose and my spirits up, to prevent me from succumbing to fear, a fear that might place both our lives in jeopardy. In any event, I was glad beyond measure to have him by my side.

  The blindfold inquisition began, an experience I will never forget. Vichama Supay's bellowed instructions were offset each time by Rodrigo's calm translation. My knees shook, so I shifted weight from one to the other. I was sure any display of nervousness on my part would be interpreted as deception.

  "If you're completely honest, we'll both go free" was the promise, but if there is one thing history has taught us, it is that where religion is concerned, expediency saves a man's hide. But without knowing anything about the Kamachej's beliefs, how could I placate him? How far might his patience stretch if I so much as intimated at time travel?

  "Right, Baz, now's the time to concentrate," said Rodrigo. "From now on, I'm going to try and translate verbatim, as he's giving the instructions a sentence at a time. He says you're standing on the first square of a stone bridge. After each answer you give, you're to take a single pace in the direction your honest instinct compels you: either forward, back, left or right. The only stipulations are that you can't start with a backward step, you can't re-tread a step, and you mustn't use your hands or feet to feel your route, as that is akin to deception.

  "Legend has it that only a person of honest bearings can find the sequence to take him across these stepping stones. The bridge was built centuries ago across a great chasm, under divine influence, to root out traitors and heretics. It's called the Tongue of Deceit, and I have to say, Baz, I don't like where this is going. Keep your wits about you.

  "One false reply and the lie will haunt you forever, as your misstep will tumble you into an infinite abyss, in which your life will play out as an eternal purgatory of lies. Everything you hold dear will be twisted, and everything you've ever loved will become shadow."

  Let's hope these boot-laces are good and tight, I thought, trying to keep myself from swallowing too much of this hokum. Nonetheless, I was in a sticky spot. Every twentieth century impulse told me it was hogwash, but when the lights go out, every man is superstitious. And what if is a powerful notion.

  I decided to clear my mind of all diplomacy and speak nothing but the truth, so help me God. As the saying goes, there are no atheists in foxholes.

  "Stranger, what is your name?"

  I replied straight away, "Lord Henry Basingstoke."

  The mysterious Kamachej then adopted a more patient tone.

  "Take your first step," he said, as per Rodrigo's translation, "let your instincts guide you."

  Naturally, I hesitated. As I've said before, intuition isn't among my strongest assets. A loaded roulette wheel suddenly sprang to mind. My heart jack-hammered. I concentrated hard on keeping balance...on the edge of a fathomless drop. Realizing how such a lengthy pause would be perceived, I took a deep breath, held it, and picked a direction. Left! A quick sidestep and it was over. My left foot planted itself firmly on the second stone flag.

  One small step for man, one giant leap for an agnostic!

  My mind painted a thousand portraits of the bridge over the abyss, the Tongue of Deceit. It was the one time in my life I felt truly cursed to have been given an imagination.

  "What is the name of your companion?"

  "Rodrigo Quintas," I shouted, before taking a haughty forward step. Again, I touched stone. Right, Henry, that's it. Honesty is the only policy. Think of that and nothing else, and you will get through this.

  "Where have you come from?"

  And there it was! Exactly what I had hoped to be spared--the one question I knew would give me pause. Where did we come from? The future? One would be committed to an asylum in 1979 for peddling that truth. I imagined an enormous hand reaching up from the chasm, its black fingers clasping around me, when suddenly I remembered my bedroom window at home, and my view over the darkening, wintry grounds of Basingstoke Manor.

  "England!" I cried.

  A queer sensation gripped me. I knew my next step ought to be instinctive, but my legs would not move. I could not pick a direction!

  Oh, hell.

  Obviously a half truth was not good enough for this inexplicable, supernatural device of lie detection. Saliva collected in my mouth. I was about to swallow when, suddenly, an idea occurred.

  I leaned forward as if to take a step, but paused just before lifting my foot. I guessed my head was now over the next stepping stone, if forward was the correct choice. Discreetly, I opened my lips to let a dribble of spit fall. I froze. More attuned to the frequency of silence than at any other time in my life, I listened. I hoped. I waited for the softest sound in the world, the gentle pat of saliva on stone.

  There was nothing. Either the spit had been insufficient to make enough noise or there was nothing ahead of me but an endless drop. Either way, my life was back at three to one odds. A bead of sweat tickled down my cheek and rested on the cleft of my chin. Another followed the same path. I wiggled my nose. The two drops merged, dangled as one, and then fell. The next moment, I heard the slightest tap.

  That was enough for me. Best foot forward, I quickly placed myself on the third step of the bridge. What a lengthy ordeal it seemed. In fact, it was over in just a few seconds. I often wondered, after, what Einstein would make of that disparity--time and relativity taken to absurd psychological extremes.

  And the test was far from over.

  I chewed my lower lip until the booming voice resumed.

  "And where does this England lie?"

  "A great distance to the east, across the ocean."

  Sweating profusely, I focused on the problem at hand. Here is what I formulated to deceive the Tongue of Deceit. Firstly, and most crucial, was the now frequent patter of sweat hitting the step at my feet. I set about using this perspiration to hedge my bets. Without moving my feet, I swiveled my body to the right, leaning my head over just enough to take a sounding. If the patter ceased, snake eyes; if not, I had it made. In a different sequence of directions each time, forward, right or left, I repeated this either once or twice. I knew that after two negatives, the only possibilities remaining were back from where I had come, which was forbidden, or the correct step.

  Each stepping stone was traversable by a single pace. Each step landed me firmly in the centre of the stone. It required only a small lean in any direction to position my chin over the edge. In addition, so that each gesture would appear to be my chosen step, I either pulled back or proceeded only at the very last moment. Anything less, I feared, would give the game away.
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br />   Thus, my mind became a difference engine as I played out this charade. The ultimate Blind Man's Bluff.

  A step to the right.

  "Why have you come to The Land?"

  "To learn. We are curious to learn from this great land of which we have heard so little."

  Another step to the right.

  "What do you know of the seafaring science?"

  "We are well versed in the basic laws of seafaring, though few from England can sail the seas any more. You need not fear more of us arriving, as we have traveled a near fatal distance to reach you."

  A very unsure, heart-in-mouth step backwards.

  "How well do you know the stars in the sky?"

  "Not well at all. The science of the stars is of little interest to me."

  Though his choice of topics intrigued me, I wondered how many of these bizarre questions the Kamachej had in store. Through his crafty mind game, he was obviously putting together a subtle jigsaw picture of me. I took another backward step.

  "How did you come to travel with a great bear from the east?"

  Picturing that awful moment when Darkly first appeared, his ferocious claws having scythed two hyenas, I smiled. The irony lifted my spirits. The bear did all that for me, and I thought he was lining me up to be the main course. Darkly, my great protector from the east.

  "He saved me from the jaws of death in the forest. Before that, I had never seen him. Afterwards he stood by me without incentive. I will be forever in his debt."

  An easy step to the left.

  "What do you know of the Chamber of Skulls?"

  "Nothing, sir."

  "Right, don't move," warned Rodrigo, in response to a curt phrase from the Kamachej. "Stay right where you are, Baz."

  Footsteps snapped rhythmically behind me. I cursed the Kamachej. For all my brave efforts, was this to be it? Was this Chamber of Skulls ploy a trick question, an excuse to dispose of undesirables without fair process? Perhaps the Tongue of Deceit resided in the mouth of this viper, Vichama Supay. Expecting to feel the tip of a spear push me over the edge at any moment, I felt bitterly disappointed.

  But the guard loosened my bonds and, a moment later, cut my blindfold free. It is impossible to describe that sense of release. Having toiled over a game of life and death, I was now to be shown that puzzle I had played in darkness.

  As my eyes adjusted, I looked down into a deep, square shaft a single step ahead, the contents of which, far below, were orange and molten. My bridge was in fact a three by three square of stone flags surrounding this central chimney. A hot shiver ran through me. Sweat streamed down my face. All I had done was walk round this square pavement to the very spot I had started.

  Indeed, the deception was partially in the name itself, Tongue of Deceit, that one's mind would never imagine crossing in the form it actually took. Those first two steps haunt me even now. Was there really sorcery at work, which my first two honest answers had satisfied? If I had been truthful each time, would I have survived without cheating?

  Behind me was a narrow bridge, about five paces long, across another drop. This bottomless void was completely black and encircled the square I was on. Even the scenarios my imagination had painted were less precarious. I was, indeed, over an unfathomable pit!

  Two figures sat on a dark seat across the room. The larger, whom I took for Vichama Supay, remained in shadow. A shaft of sunlight lit his wife, Chasca Quilla. She was the woman I had met outside in the garden, the grey-cloaked figure. As I heard these words that I shall never forget, the solitude of being blind struck a sinuous chord in my heart, for that which I had suffered so briefly was what this woman was forever doomed to endure.

  "Wun'aa pacha morhanto."

  "You're free to go."

  Chapter 12

  I felt as though an enormous weight had been lifted. Rodrigo must have also felt it, for he puffed his cheeks. Two columns of guards flanked us, waiting to escort us from the chamber. The bloke who had untied me quickly ushered me across the narrow bridge, the only means of traversing the chasm.

  When I reached my Cuban friend, we shared a firm handshake. Sweat cascaded from his brow. It soaked his tidy stubble and glazed his bronzed skin so that he glistened in the flickering torchlight. He grinned in that broad manner I knew well, a cheeky, mischievous smile which somehow covered any mood, on any occasion, without ever changing in the slightest.

  I turned once more to look at Chasca Quilla as we marched out. A tall fellow helped her down the steps from the throne. Before he left, he stopped to meet my glance. I recognized him straight away as Puma Pawq'ar.

  The Prince of Apterona?

  His superior demeanor seemed to fit. Also, his insistence that we follow the strange code of silence en route to the Kamachej tallied with that of an obedient son.

  He and Pacal were wise to keep that from us. Strangers are always best dealt with cautiously.

  Our exit from the palace was far less convoluted than our entrance had been. Only two guards accompanied us to the golden arch. The rest filed away into a shadowy alcove.

  Pacal greeted us with all the warmth of the afternoon sun. Behind him, the blue steps leading outside the ziggurat baked in a liquid haze, as if our miraculous survival had somehow predicated a walk on water. No sooner had we reached the valley floor than Pacal broke the silence. "He says only two foreigners have ever survived their audience with the Kamachej," relayed Rodrigo, "including you, Baz. He's very pleased, and wants to know how you did it."

  "Tell him it's because I've got nothing to hide," I replied.

  Rodrigo translated, after which the native gave me the slightest of bows. "Tataku wan fijiga menunto," he said.

  "The devil possesses all faces but one," Rodrigo translated.

  "And which one is that?" I asked.

  Rodrigo answered that one on his own. "Honesty, of course."

  On that afternoon of our third day, we relied solely on Pacal Votan. Our trek back to his village was spirited. Rodrigo and I bombarded him with questions on every facet of his culture, to such an extent that he began deflecting them with queries of his own, but he learned considerably less about us than we did of Apterona.

  To me, the most pertinent mystery was the absence of law enforcement. The assassination attempt on me, Pacal said, "Needed no further intervention, as the status quo was resolved on its own."

  Even forgetting the fact that our party, including Darkly, had killed five men among us, and the status quo had therefore not been resolved, I found this an abhorrent philosophy. What was the motive behind the attack? Who had orchestrated it? Was there to be no investigation?

  "The guard of the Kamachej guards only the Kamachej and his family," explained Pacal. "If there is a dispute that we cannot resolve among ourselves, Puma Pawq'ar, son of the Kamachej, makes the decision. Now you can understand why he treated you so abruptly. There is no more responsible a role than his on Apterona."

  "But what if a serious crime is committed? Is there no punishment?"

  "Not punishment, no. We humans are not qualified to measure a crime. Who are we to judge what reprisals fit the flaws of a man? No, in such instances, and those are extremely rare, that person is allowed to prove his worthiness to remain among us."

  "Yes, Baz," agreed the Cuban. "The next time you get an urge to sneak up on the queen, feel free not to. I intend to stay here longer than suicide attempts like that will permit."

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "What? You're actually thinking of living with this rabble?"

  Rodrigo nodded.

  "My friend, tell me, how many more attacks do you think they'll plan before one of them does the job properly?" I asked. "You heard Pacal. Their law only wakes up after the fact--which, by that time, is something we won't be able to do. I'm telling you, these people are the worst kind of iniquities, just begging for a reason to turn nasty."

  Pacal observed me closely as I said this. Nothing in his conduct thus far had given me cause to suspect him, yet he ha
d not been able to protect me the previous day. I felt far from safe.

  He offered us both a strip of dry meat, which we promptly devoured. It was my first bite of anything substantial since supper on board the Moncado. I have never tasted a more succulent slice of beef!

  "There's no rush to leave is there, Baz? Pacal says the palisade gates are under constant supervision. If we arm ourselves and keep a low profile, we can stay as long as we like."

  "Just how long are we talking about, Rodrigo? Weeks, months, years? I've a feeling we've learned all we need to learn already."

  "I tell you what, give me the time it takes you to learn the language, OK? That way, when you return to England you'll have a real souvenir to show off."

  "OK, Rodrigo. Just one condition--if anyone even begins to suspect we're from the future, we hot-foot it immediately. No buts. We've lucked out so far, but if the Kamachej should ever get wind of the time machine--"

  "Absolutely. But there's no way they can find that out unless we let it slip. Plus by the time you learn their language, we'll be the relics around here."

  "Easy up," I replied. "I should tell you--I'm a dab hand at speaking bullshit."

  "Brother, you can say that again."

  Try as I might, he did not take my warning seriously, and I resigned myself to the fact that if Rodrigo had no desire to leave just yet, I could not leave him marooned. We had, after all, traveled through time together as explorers. And a little exploring is all he has in mind, isn't it?

  We set about making this voyage of discovery a fulfilling one. In truth, only a few incidents during our stay in Yaku, or water village, had any significant bearing on this tale, for we confined ourselves safely within the bounds of the palisade. But we were there to learn, and learn we did.

  For the first few weeks, we were content with an introduction to this remarkable culture. It was a steep learning curve. As students from a time of great technology, the practicalities of basic living were as alien to us as computerized payrolls or pizza delivery would be to an Apteronian.