Return of Sky Ghost (8 page)

The suspected area was also sparsely populated, but some tribes still lived in the region, and again, that’s why the Night Brigade’s talents would be needed. It would be up to them to question the local tribesmen by any means necessary as to what they might have seen along the lines of a secret installation or airplanes flying overhead. Through these native peoples, Wakisaki was certain, the mysterious air raiders would be found.

A line of tracked vehicles rolled out onto the runway just as Wakisaki was reviewing the dastardly Argentine troops. There were no speeches, no ceremony. Wakisaki simply looked over the gigantic soldiers, nodded a little, and rubbed his bandaged nose. Then, with his vast entourage in tow, he jumped into his heavily armored limousine and left the air base.

Once he was gone, the Night Brigade climbed aboard their huge tracked vehicles—there were thirty of them in all—and their long column departed.

Across the airfield, toward a highway just recently built, they headed north.

Northeast Peru

The place was called
Exuxuci.

Loosely translated in the dialect of the Intez Indians, it meant the Two Mountains of the Gods.

And indeed there were two mountains here. Both more than 8,000 feet above sea level, both enshrouded in perpetual mist. They were known as Xne and Xwo. Ringing them on all sides were thick forests, the trees of which reached about two-thirds of the way up both mountains. After that, they both wore crowns of stone and snow.

Like Xne and Xwo, the forests were considered holy by the local Intez Indians. Stories passed down from the Ancients, the distant ancestors of the Intez, told of beings from the Heaven landing on Xwo thousands of years before and living there for a very long time. These beings made friends with the Intez, even though they never really spoke to them. After a while, the Intez came to revere the beings, and in turn, the beings protected the tribe. When the beings finally returned to space, they asked the Intez to watch over Xwo, as it was now a holy place to which they might someday return.

One family of Intez, the Xuzu, lived in the forest between the two mountains. Their warriors had protected these holy lands for nearly five millennia. It was the duty of the family chief to make a pilgrimage to the top of Xne Mountain at least once a week, to check on things on the top of Xwo, the second mountain nearby.

The current family chief was a man named Xaxmax. He was 253 years old by Intez time, and considered a very noble and brave leader. He’d been head of the 145-member family for nearly forty-five years, taking on the traditional role his father had passed to him.

Xaxmax had made the weekly pilgrimage to Xne to look over at Xwo every week for the length of his tenure. This involved sitting on the peak of the first mountain and gazing for one whole day and one whole night on the flattened-off surface of Xwo, which was approximately half a mile away.

This weekly trip had been a mostly ceremonial journey for the past 5000 years, yet it had remained unchanged in all that time. There was no reason for it not to be. After all, this area of Peru was so isolated, the world’s anthropologists weren’t even aware of the existence of the Intez. It was accurate to say that very little ever happened in this part of the continent, either down in the jungles or on the tips of the holy peaks.

At least, not until a month or so ago.

That’s when Xaxmax had first seen them. Three weeks ago. The lights. The fire.

The gods themselves.

Now, he was preparing to make his weekly climb up to the top of Xne once again. He hoped this trip, like the last three, would prove to be very exciting.

He’d already eaten his mescal flowers; the ingestion of the powerful hallucinogenic was part of the weekly ceremony. He’d also drank from the waters of the nearby River Ugu. He’d hugged his wife good-bye and all of his twenty-seven children, saving the last embrace for his oldest son, Itax. Then, as the mescal began to kick in, he set out on the path to the top of Xne, starting as always when the sun was highest in the sky.

The trip up usually took six hours. The first three were relatively easy. The path Xaxmax followed had been worn down for thousands of years by his ancestors making this same journey. It was as smooth as glass in some places, its texture feeling cool to the bottom of Xaxmax’s bare feet.

At the beginning of the fourth hour, however, the path got steeper, rockier, the jungle less dense. By the fifth hour, there were no more trees, just the rocks and the wind whipping everywhere. When the trees dropped away, the mescal flowers really began to take effect, and usually Xaxmax could see the stars and planets, even though the sun was still out. The constellations took on new shapes in the daytime and whenever he saw the animals of the jungle in the star formations—the jaguar, the snake, the condor—then Xaxmax knew it would be a good journey up.

One month before, on his 2,334th trip up to Xne, the chief had seen a strange, new star formation. This was of a huge bird—long wings, a long silver body, with a mighty hooked beak and huge talons. Xaxmax was frightened by this image at first. The stars looked strange enough in the daytime; this particular vision had been slightly terrifying.

But he’d continued climbing that day, knowing it was the proper thing to do. But thoughts of his family, his wife, his children, his oldest son, and the rest of the tribe had saturated his brain with every step he took. When he’d reached the top, his body had begun vibrating, though he wasn’t sure why.

This journey had been easy compared to that one.

This day, the sun was not so bright, and he saw the stars through the sunlight very clearly. They formed the large silver bird again, but he no longer feared it. This would be the fourth time he saw it; and each time, he grew to like it even more.

The mescal was at full peak when he reached the top of Xne. His brain was spinning in a million different directions as usual. From here, he got his first good glimpse of Xwo, half a mile over. The peak of the sacred mountain was obscured in fog, but that was not unusual. Xaxmax found his favorite rock and sat down on it. He ate his last mescal flower, drank his Ugu water, and sat back. Slowly his eyes gained in power and clarity.

Just like that trip one month ago, strange sounds began to reach his ears. It was not the wind, not the jungle below. Not the symphony of the planets. These sounds were very unusual and so different from anything Xaxmax had ever heard before.

They were very high-pitched, the sound of metal and fire mixed together. Xaxmax sat on his holy rock, the flattened piece of stone where he would spend the night and the next day and tried his best to make his eyes burn a hole through the fog. Sometimes, this would take a while.

As before, his nose began picking up the strange odor; he’d smelled it the last three times he was here as well. But what was it? Something was burning … over on Xwo. But still, he could see nothing but fog.

So Xaxmax sat on the holy stone, peering through the mist, smelling the smell, and hearing the strange sounds until night fell and the stars came out for real.

That’s when it happened again.

The fog had blown away from the top of Xwo, but Xaxmax could still see nothing unusual. The flattened-off peak looked the same, though his vision was getting blurry from the afterglow of mescal.

But then, the noise! It came again. Like a thousand children screaming at once. It was so loud Xaxmax fought the temptation to put his hands to his ears. With all his willpower he fought to keep from closing his eyes. Soon his mouth was open, but he could not scream.

Above him, as if it had suddenly appeared out of the thin air itself, there was a huge flying machine. It was much bigger than Talaz, the mythical bird of creation. It had silver wings and a giant glassy head, there was fire coming from it, and the noise it made nearly caused his ears to bleed.

It went right over his head. Screaming, burning, filling the air with fire and smoke.

Then suddenly—it was gone.

Just like that.

Xaxmax shook his head, cleared his eyes, and stared over at the nearby mountain peak. Just like the past three times, it seemed as if the giant silver bird had simply disappeared as soon as it had reached Xwo. But how could this be? Even under the influence of the mescal, Xaxmax knew that things like a giant silver bird could not simply disappear. That was just not the way of the world—or at least this part of the world.

So, what had happened?

Like before, Xaxmax, still frozen in place, tried to wrack his brain for anything in his teachings that might give him a clue as to what he’d just seen. Then, he heard the sound again—and an instant later, another gigantic silver bird appeared over his head! It too was sprouting fire and smoke. It too was screaming with the voices of angels. It too disappeared into nothingness.

Then came another. And another. And another!

They were flying over his head, with fire and smoke and noise, and the smell, descending onto Xwo, where suddenly they simply vanished.

This was madness, and again for a moment Xaxmax feared that he’d ingested too much mescal. What should he do? He’d asked the same question the last three times he’d journeyed to Xne. Those times he’d fought the temptation to flee back down the mountain after seeing the silver birds. He’d fought to keep his courage and his sanity and had laid on the rock all night long, shaking with fright, but knowing that to be brave, he must stay. And each morning he woke up and the sun was shining and all seemed normal again. And he’d gone back down the mountain and told not a thing to his tribe.

But now the silver birds were being very loud, very fiery, and very terrifying. Xaxmax wasn’t sure he could take it. He cried out. He prayed. He beseeched the gods for an answer. But he heard nothing in reply.

Now more of them went over his head and simply vanished. His ears sounded like they were full of bells, he knew he couldn’t take it anymore. He got up and gathered his things, making ready to run down the mountain and face the disgrace that would bring.

Then he heard another sound. This one was not a scream. Rather it was like many wings flapping at once. He turned around and saw that another kind of flying monster was hovering right above him! It was just as big as the others, but very different. This one was flying in place, right over his head.

And then suddenly, a line fell from it, and smaller monsters came down these lines. And the whirring things on top of the flying beast—there were eight of them in all—were kicking up dirt and dust and little bits of snow, and Xaxmax found it hard to breathe and keep his balance.

This might be the end of him, he knew. The monsters had spotted him and now they might tear him to shreds. The first few reached the end of their lines and now they were coming toward him. He drew his only weapon, a small, sharpened stick which held some small magical powers, and tried to stand tall. If he was to die, he had to do it with dignity, so at least the gods would not show displeasure on his surviving family members.

But these monsters were huge! And they were dressed in strange blue skins and had strange bubblelike heads and their belts were full of weapons and wires and things. They were carrying long magic sticks which Xaxmax knew could destroy him in a second.

So this is how I will die,
he thought …

But then something very odd happened.

One monster stopped, looked at Xaxmax, and slowly removed his headgear. His face was very white, his hair long, and Xaxmax realized he was not a monster but a human being like himself. The man smiled at him, and Xaxmax smiled back. Above them another silver bird went over and quickly disappeared from view.

The man smiled again.

And somehow, Xaxmax finally understood.

Later that day, when Xaxmax went back down the mountain, he gathered his family around him and told them of his adventure. He’d watched the huge silver machines—yes, that’s what they were—go over his head and simply disappear. He had made friends with the ones he had first thought were monsters. Before he left, he waved to his friends inside the silver machines and they waved back to him as they went over and disappeared into the fog of Xwo.

What Xaxmax now understood, and what he told his tribe, was that these men were here to save the people of the forest just as the people from Heaven had come 5,000 years ago to do the same thing.

He told the people of his tribe that these strangers were their friends too, and that some evil ones were now ravaging the jungles for many miles around.

Someday soon, the Intez and the strangers might have to fight these evil ones.

And when that day came, they would all have to be ready to die.

T
HE FIRST VILLAGE THE
Night Brigade reached was called Oxapi.

It was located about eighty miles northeast of New Lima, on a small mountain which looked out over a vast river valley. To the Oxapi people, the mountain and the valley beyond were considered sacred ground. The plants, the animals, the water, and the earth it contained were gifts to them from the gods above.

The long column of trucks and armored vehicles pulled into the very isolated settlement around dawn, waking many of the 300 inhabitants. The sight of the trucks was startling to the Oxapi—many had never seen a motorized vehicle before, and certainly never an Argentine soldier. The Oxapi were peaceful people, prone to singing most of the day and coloring their hair and faces with red berry paint at night. Small in stature, some were not even half the size of the massive Argentine commandos.

The commanding officer of the Night Brigade column was a colonel named Juis Ganganez. His nickname was
El Bruto
and it was one well earned. He was a pathological killer who just happened to be a soldier. He was known for such ruthlessness that even his superiors had had to rein him in on occasion.

Ganganez was a charming killer however. His face was solid and handsome, his features always ready to break into a disarming smile. He gave most people a queer sense of reassurance upon first meeting, a grave error for many of them. Ganganez also knew how to speak many of the languages of the jungle tribes.