DIRK STRASSER
DIRK STRASSER has had over thirty adult and children’s books published. He won the Ditmar for Best Professional Achievement in 2002 (with Stephen Higgins) and has been short-listed for the Aurealis and Ditmar Awards a number of times. His Ascension series of fantasy novels have been published in Australia and Germany, and he is the author of Graffiti, a children’s horror/fantasy novel.
He has had SF/fantasy/horror short stories published in magazines and anthologies in Australia, the UK, the USA, and Germany, with several stories appearing in ‘Best of anthologies and lists in Australia and the United States. Some of these stories can be found in magazines and anthologies such as Universe Two, Borderlands 4, Metaworlds, and Alien Shores. He co-edited Aurealis magazine from 1990 to 2001 and founded the Aurealis Awards.
Born in Germany in 1959, Strasser has lived most of his life in Australia. He is currently employed as a Senior Publisher tor Pearson Education Australia, and is living in Melbourne with his wife and two children.
In the rich and elegant voyage of greed, discovery, and betrayal that follows, we travel to the New World with the Spanish conquistadors only to discover yet another new world...
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‘You see, my men suffer from a disease of the heart which can only be assuaged by gold.’
— Hernán Cortés
‘Even if the snows of the Andes turned to gold, still they would not be satisfied.’
— Manco lnca
The following is the first English translation of four fragments from an obviously much larger account that came to light in an archive in the Museo National de Arqueologia, Antropologia e Historia del Perú in Lima. Cristóbal de Varga is a verifiable historical figure, a distant cousin of both Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro who, unlike Pizarro and many of the other conquistadors of his time, was highly literate. This very facility with words has lent credence to those that claim these fragments and the greater work from which they have been derived are merely the fevered imaginings of a man frustrated by his own lack of success in an age where others were making their fortunes.
Translator’s note
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On the eve of the Holy Trinity in the year of Our Lord 1542, I, Cristóbal de Varga, humble servant of His Imperial Majesty Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, led my four hundred conquistadors through an entrada into a new world. I have decided to write of the wonders of this world that lie beyond the wonders of New Spain in the hope that others who may also discover the entrada in the mountains of Peru will contemplate entering only with the full knowledge that I bring. Only thus will those who follow be able to complete what we have begun for the glory of Our Lord and for the Empire on whose horizon the sun never descends.
Let me speak firstly of the moment of passing through to this new and beautiful world whose strangeness far surpasses even that of New Spain. We knew at once that the very air had conspired to change as we urged our horses and dogs through the shimmering curtain that hung in vertical folds like thin veils of snow across the narrow pass. We all reported a sensation which infused the familiar deep Andean cold with an alien bitterness that sliced for a moment into the marrow of our bones. Then, in an instant, it seemed we had entered a landscape over which a new sun shone, for the sky had turned a strikingly deep crimson. And while the same mountains towered around us as they had done, the snows had receded from the peaks, as if we had suddenly lost a season, and smoke and bright sparks issued forth from the summits and hidden crevices.
As, single file, my cavalry, foot soldiers and crossbowmen emerged from the entrada, it appeared from where we stood on the earth of the strange world that these men were being miraculously conjured from nothing. We could see no white veiled curtain once we had passed through, and one disembodied horse head after the other seemed to float momentarily before it was conjoined with its body. And it was for good reason, on that day, that we named this curtain an ‘entrada’, for once we had crossed that veiled bridge, we could not return. When the last of my soldiers and horses had emerged, I sought to reconnoitre momentarily to the Andes of New Spain, wanting to explore the nature of what I perceived as a gate, only to discover that it was not in truth a gate, but only an entrance in the one direction.
Those who hear my story may believe that a deep fear entered the hearts of these humble servants of the Empire at this moment. And yet I, Cristóbal de Varga, must tell you that those who would believe this do not know the true heart of a conquistador. We have hearts that feel fear, only a fool would deny this most human of emotions, but the heart of a conquistador will hone this fear into action. It was the conquistador heart that led my countryman Hernán Cortés to scupper his own fleet and overcome the evil sacrifices of the Aztecs Motecuhozuma and Guatemoc, and it was the conquistador heart which gave Francisco Pizarro the courage to conquer the Empire of Atahuallpa and Manco Inca with a smaller company than I commanded. And it was the conquistador heart that now drove us, for the glory of God, to embrace the unknown and wondrous rather than seek to escape it.
Under my directions, my most loyal captain, Luis Velásquez, staked the Cross of Burgundy standard into the harsh ground and I declared this land, in the name of the Emperor, as a Viceroyalty of New Spain, and claimed for His Majesty Charles V a fifth of the gold that my expedition would find. My carpenters fashioned a large cross and we placed it on the site where the entrada had led us to this new world. Our padre, Bartolomé Núñez, blessed the site, though he feared it could be the work of the devil, and we began our trek into the unknown and to forge deep into this strange land.
On the third day we were set upon by a large party of high-helmeted enanos, thickset dwarven men with wild beards and dark eyes. They thrust at us with three-pronged horcas, lances of dark shining steel that could pierce our armour, and were it not for their obvious fear of our horses and the sting of our muskets, our tale could have ended at that first encounter. We fought against this new assailant, who was so unlike any of the Indians of New Spain, with fury and skill, and managed to capture one before those that remained alive fled into the smoking mountain crevices from which they had erupted.
The captive enano would not speak at first, offering us only stares and silences from behind his beard, and Padre Núñez expressed his fear that he and his people were demons. I implored, in the name of Our Lord, that we only sought peace and proffered this dwarven man maize cakes, salt pork and beads as a sign of our good will towards him. After he finally chose to eat, he began to speak in a tone like a growling dog. The Inca translators that travelled with our company said the language was neither Quechua nor Aymara, nor anything related to these two Incan tongues. We knew then that we were truly in a new world beyond the New World.
I examined the dwarf’s plumed helmet and to my joy saw it inlaid with what appeared to be the highest quality gold. I held it up to him, saying, ‘Oro, oro,’ hoping that he would understand the Spanish word for gold. He appeared to comprehend me almost immediately, but then turned away from me, refusing to meet my eyes. I took this to mean that he knew what we sought, and he knew its value. It was from that moment that I was certain that we had found a source of gold that would exceed the wealth found by Pizarro in the Incan capital of Cuzco.
We took this enano, who we later learned was called Halin, with us as we continued our expedition. Although he was swift to learn Spanish, he never lost his fear of horses and dogs, and would never march near them. We treated him well, hoping to gain his trust so he would be able to aid us in our quest, but though we spoke freely at times, he remained surly and would never speak on the subject of gold.
I was most intent on discovering who ruled in this land, which we simply called Nueva Tierra, and whether it contained any great cities and powerful kings. Halin spoke of kings as if they only existed in the past, and was wary when I spoke of His Majesty. The dwarf told us of the two peoples of Nueva Tierra, using Spanish words to denote them for he held the pagan superstition that true names should never be divulged. The enanos, those dwarven like himself, built their homes into mountainsides in hidden valleys and deep under the ground. The other peoples, the duendes, were taller than Spaniards and were, in Halin’s words, ‘of light and wing’. The two races seemed in an unrelenting state of conflict with no resolution, although in recent times they had lapsed into an ill-defined truce.
In my discussions with Halin I tried to uncover the source of the conflict between the enanos and duendes, for I knew we would be able to use this to our advantage. I had learnt the lessons of Cortés and Pizarro, and attempted daily to extract information I could use, but Halin spoke as if words were coins and he did not wish to pay more than he had to. Padre Bartolomé Núñez spoke to Halin of the need to surrender to God’s will, accept the mercy of Christ our Lord, and cast down any idols that he worshipped. Though Halin showed interest in the padre’s words, he did not accept them as the truth, and claimed he did not worship any idols.
On the twentieth day under the crimson sky of Nueva Tierra, we entered a steep-sided valley and, as night started to fall, we discovered we were suddenly encircled on both slopes by the flames of ten thousand torches. Through the fearful silence that fell upon us, we heard the booming of a single drum. While the courage of my men was beyond question, we all began to tremble at the sound of that forlorn drumbeat in a valley far from New Spain. Our horses reared, their breath clouding in the bitter dusk, and our dogs cowered and whimpered like pups.
We drew our swords and loaded our muskets and crossbows. I gave the order for our cannons to be primed with powder as the drums sounded through the sinistering sky. I commanded Halin to shout words of peace at what we could now see in the gleaming torchlight was an army of his people, fully armoured and brandishing their gleaming trident horcas. His voice echoed through the valley, but while he had rapidly learnt Spanish, none of us knew enough of the enano tongue to be certain of what his message was.
‘They wish you to return to your lands,’ reported Halin once a response had been shouted to us from the darkness.
My reply was that we bring greetings from our king and that we wished only to pay our respects to their leaders and trade for gold. I offered gifts and honour to a delegation of enanos to discuss our presence in their lands.
As the night drew further into blackness, the drumbeat finally ceased and several of the lights on the eastern slope began to move towards us. The enano delegation insisted on meeting us far from our horses and dogs. The leader, Tagón, whose face was almost entirely enveloped by a coarse beard, wore a peaked helmet that towered above the others, and he carried a three-pronged horca that reached almost twice his height.
After both of us claimed, through the interpreter Halin, to be people of honour, I spoke again of friendship from a powerful distant king and of our desire to trade for gold. Tagón said there was little his people valued more than gold, and that there could be only conflict if the strangers sought it in their lands. I understood then, watching this dwarf’s wild eyes as he spoke, that were we to satisfy our mission, there was no choice for us here but to take the gold of this world by force, prising from the grasping hands of each enano. This conclusion gave me no pleasure, other than the pleasure of certainty, for I am no uncivilised savage and my sole motivations were the glory of Spain and Our Lord.
Padre Núñez then came to Tagón, holding a crucifix in one hand and a bible in the other, saying the enanos must submit to the truth of the Word of God in this Book and denounce their gods. The interpreter Halin said that he would attempt to impart the meaning of the padre’s words to Tagón, but that the words God and gods could not be translated accurately into their language. Padre Núñez placed the Holy Script into Tagón’s hands, demanding that he repent his sins and declare his love for Our Lord. Tagón opened the bible and squinted in the torchlight at several pages. He declared that these words said nothing to him and held out the book for the padre to take. When Padre Núñez refused to accept its return, staring instead into the eyes of the enano, the two remained locked as if in mortal, unmoving, combat, until Tagón finally released his hold on the bible and let it fall to the ground.
Padre Núñez pronounced the enanos to be demons, as he had suspected, and beyond salvation. I had no choice but to order the immediate capture of the delegation. It was fortunate that the enanos did not expect us to break the agreement of our meeting, for their slow reaction to our attack enabled us to avoid any bloodshed.
In an effort to avert a pitched battle, I commanded that my most loyal captain, Luis Velásquez, shoot a cannonball into a bare hillock at the entrance to the valley as a show of our power. A thunderous roar echoed through the valley and the acrid smell of gunpowder permeated the air. Through Halin, I offered peace and called on the enanos to submit to our king.
Let there be no doubt that we feared annihilation since for every one noble conquistador, there stood a hundred enanos, tridents in hand on the eastern and western slopes that towered above us. I myself trembled like a child and could barely hold my crossbow. Yet our strength lay in the certainty of Our Lord and the unshakable conviction that we were performing His Will.
And when the solitary drum recommenced its mournful, sonorous beat, we knew that our lives were now held in God’s hands. We said our prayers to the Almighty as the lights of the enanos began to crowd down the slopes towards us, and their raw battle cries tore at our hearts like jagged blades.
Our crossbowmen hit countless marks, but it was our muskets that gave us an advantage during the initial attack. The enanos clearly had no understanding of how to defend themselves against guns, and these weapons destroyed their front ranks, making it difficult for those pressing behind them to break through. Our cannons wreaked a thunderous havoc on the dense clusters of enanos, although the advantage of our artillery diminished the closer the enanos drew.
Once the first of the dwarfs reached us, our advantages were significantly diminished. They fought with the fury and strength of the demons we now believed them to be, wielding their sharp-bladed horcas with powerful arms and brutal determination. Their armour was at least the strength of ours, and we resorted to thrusting our swords at the exposed portions of their helmeted faces and attempting to wound their legs. If it were not for the dogs and horses, we would not have withstood the first pitch of blade-on-blade battle. The enanos who appeared so fearless against us, quaked at the sight of our war-hounds. And our steeds allowed our cavalry to charge and retreat countless times in a tactic that destroyed any battle rhythm the enanos could muster.
Although we, thanks be to God, defended ourselves with skill and bravery in the face of that initial onslaught, we were so grossly outnumbered that we could launch no counter thrust, lest our defences be left weakened and we were forced to parry from our exposed position in the middle of the valley. As the deaths of our attackers mounted, we realised we had their measure and grew bolder in our blade work. Though these dwarven men were as courageous as any soldiers I had encountered, they clearly could not change their tactics mid-battle, and we beat off the attack before dawn, but were too exhausted to chase those enanos who retreated carrying their dead from the valley.
We buried our own dead and staunched our wounds and those of our horses with the fat of the fallen enanos who had not been taken, for our dressing supplies were limited and we feared that the campaign could be a long one. We had lost twenty-four good men and two hounds during the attack, but could only guess at the casualties of the dwarfs. After Padre Núñez had performed the blessings for our fallen comrades and we had erected a cross, we prayed for the strength to continue. With Luis Velásquez and my other captains, I spoke to the captured leader Tagón who assured us through Halin that his kinsmen would not make peace if we marched further into their lands, and that they would learn from their losses and strike again. I took this, at first, to be merely the pride of a captured leader speaking, but Halin confirmed that his were a stubborn people who would continue on a course of action even when that course appeared the most horrific folly.
Three of my captains counselled that we should be seeking a return to New Spain, but agreed in the face of my arguments that we did not yet know anything of the other people of this land, the duendes, and that an alliance with them was the path forward. I then questioned Tagón on these tall people who Halin had described as ‘of light and wing’. He informed me that they lived in the regions beyond these mountains and that, unlike his people, their minds shifted constantly and they could not be trusted. I asked him if they possessed carved objects of gold, and he said that they had many such objects and that they were valued for their spiritual power rather than for the gold itself. I spoke to him of the greatness of Our Lord and God, but the only word he could find in his language for a god was closer to the Spanish word mago or wizard.
We moved from the valley the next day because we feared another encirclement on the eastern and western slopes. The more I spoke with Tagón, who was eager to learn of our people and our God, the more I felt in him a kindred spirit. I sensed that all I had to do was explain fully our beliefs and he would consent to a baptism in the name of Our Lord. Padre Núñez remained suspicious, claiming the enanos as demons had no capacity for accepting Christ as their Saviour, and that Tagón was only seeking to discover our weaknesses through his questioning of our customs and beliefs.
On the forty-third day under the smoking peaks and blood-red skies, we were traversing a high narrow pass when the enanos struck again, as Tagón had said they would. We had been eating and sleeping with our weapons at the ready, never removing our armour in anticipation of another attack, yet nothing could have readied us for the numbers and fury we encountered. They had, as we had been warned, learned from our first encounter, and had chosen a battleground where we were most vulnerable and our horses were of limited advantage. The mountain winds whipped at us as the enanos swarmed up the slopes towards us in full battle cry with shining armour, brandishing their horcas. This time they were stubbornly intent on bringing down our horses, and they attacked them with fury, mortally wounding several of them before we pulled our cavalry deep into our formation for protection. Having lost this advantage, although our dogs continued to defend us ferociously, the battle became a grim blade-on-blade combat, where we were not only outnumbered by greater degrees than in the previous attack, but had less space to manoeuvre.
We were exposed without a path of retreat, and no conquistador in the history of New Spain fought with such courage and skill against such overwhelming adversaries. I can only thank Our Lord for his gift of wisdom as it appeared we would all die a noble death in that strange and far-flung land, when I sensed that the enano battle plan was to destroy our horses and that nothing that would happen in the heat of the conflict would sway them from this course. I ordered our horses to be presented as momentary prizes for the dwarfs, only for us to quickly encircle the enanos who blindly followed their strategy to their doom. When we were finally able to turn the cannons down-slope and shoot at the waves of dwarfs still swarming towards us, we dared to hope that we could once again be granted a victory by God.
It was at the very moment when the outcome of the battle was in its most perfect balance that the sky seemed to lighten like a bright dawn springing to life at midday and a frosted wailing filled the air. Despite the danger that lay upon us, we all looked up, as if entranced, to see a gleaming army of winged men-like creatures, armed with silvered bows and gilded arrows, descending from the heavens. The enanos, too, ceased their battle fury and stared skyward, and both our peoples were thrown from our entrancement only as the first flurry of arrows rained down. As we lifted our shields to protect us from this new onslaught, I sensed that the arrows were meant for the enanos, and not my soldiers. I sought out Tagón, who remained chained at the heart of our formation, and he confirmed these were the duendes of which he had spoken.
Padre Núñez shouted his thanks to the heavens that the angels had come to our aid, and the dwarfs, now caught between two armies, were slaughtered like no army in history. So few enanos remained at the end of the battle that most of their dead could not be carried away. In the silence of our victory, Padre Núñez spoke some words in glory of Our Lord, and we erected a cross before we marched across to the valley beyond the high pass on which we had been exposed.
There the silver-winged leader of the duendes, who gave his name as Ithilium, alighted before us with his captains, his face shimmering like sunlight on water, and spoke to us in a tongue so strange it sounded to our ears as the wind passing across mountain peaks. Tagón refused to face this foe, but Halin spoke their strange language and interpreted for us, although he reported the duende’s words with anger and contempt. Ithilium offered flattery and praise, promising to share with us the treasures and spoils of the final enano defeat, and his only demand was that all the remaining enano prisoners in our custody be killed at sunrise.
During the night I sought counsel with my captains on the course we should take at dawn. Padre Núñez exhorted us to kill the remaining enanos, as we had been requested to do, and join the angels in the final battle to destroy what remained of the demons. While most of the captains agreed with this counsel, Luis Velásquez, whose mind and heart I have always placed the highest faith in, spoke of both the enanos and duendes, despite their appearances, as men like us, not the demons and angels of the Holy Writ. Would not any peoples, he appealed, attack those who entered their lands in battle armour and carrying weapons? Were not the most warlike and barbaric nations of New Spain, even those who tore out the hearts of their enemies and ate their flesh, capable of accepting the Lord? Were silver-winged creatures who shone like the sun and spoke like the wind to be trusted merely because, as they flew down from the heavens, they appeared as we imagined angels to appear?
After much discussion, I announced to my captains that I would retreat for some hours to ponder our fate and the choices it had thrust upon me. I spoke again to Tagón and Halin, whose steadfast nature I had grown to like and trust since his capture. Tagón showed no surprise when I confided to him what Ithilium had demanded of me. He spoke, as he had in the past, of what he called the ‘words of the wind’ that the duende’s spoke, referring not simply to the sound of their tongue, but the very changeability of the meaning of what they say.
Well before sunrise I had made my decision and informed my captains that we would seek the duende’s friendship, but not surrender to their demands to put our enano prisoners to death. Padre Núñez protested with vehemence and the captains other than Luis Velásquez now stood against me, their weapons raised. There was no will among those captains to battle what they believed to be angels in defence of demons, and Padre Núñez convinced them I had been infected by a strange fever. Velásquez, sensing events had conspired against both of us, then too turned on me, brandishing his sword in support of the others as I was placed in chains.
I can only give thanks for my humble life to the quick-wittedness of my most loyal captain Luis Velásquez in convincing the other captains who were once under my command that he was at one with their mutinous plans. In the depths of the night, he and a dozen of his most trusted soldiers came to me and freed me from my chains, informing me of their true convictions. There, under cover of a darkness filled with the memory of countless corpses, we made our fateful decision. After we had released the enano prisoners, we rode away furiously, led by Tagón who rode behind me on my horse despite his fear, and we entered a hidden valley before the sky of Nueva Tierra began to turn the now familiar crimson of dawn.
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So ends the largest of the four fragments of Cristóbal de Vargas account. I have used the original Spanish words where the meaning of the English equivalent would be misleading or inadequate. The word enano simply means ‘dwarf, and perhaps the English term may have sufficed, which is why I have used it at times, but the Spanish word duende translates as ‘elf or ‘goblin’, and we have sufficient description to be certain that this nomenclature would be totally inaccurate. The last three fragments provide further insight into the nature of the entrada which translates as an ‘entrance’ or ‘portal’. It is impossible to be certain exactly how much time has elapsed between the first and second fragments, but estimates have placed the following events somewhere between three months and one year after Cristóbal de Vargas escape.
Translator’s note
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Still, I could not fully trust Tagón’s people, who remain by nature a secretive race, despite the hospitality they have shown me and those few men who remained loyal to me. Although Tagón and those enano leaders who survived the slaughter have assiduously learned our tongue while we still struggle with theirs, my efforts to bring the Word of Our Lord to them remained thwarted and it seemed to me they listened to what I have to say only out of an awkward politeness. Whether they worshipped no god, idol or being of any kind, as they maintained, I could not say, for this claim could merely be a symptom of their secretiveness. I was now firmly convinced, however, of the existence of their souls, and I persisted in preaching God’s mercy to them.
Though the enanos steadfastly refused to take us to their towns and cities (and we can only assume they must have these), and would not even divulge their general location, Tagón eventually decided he would show his gratitude for our actions against the duendes. He announced that, together with a small company of his soldiers, he would lead us on an expedition to the smoke-shrouded mountain that he claimed contained the Boca D’oro, the Mouth of Gold, the source of the exquisite high grade gold that adorned their helmets.
While Luis Velásquez counselled that the enano’s purpose in bringing us to this place could be entrapment, my counter was that I had seen no duplicity in the motives of these dwarven men and that they had sworn to share with us equally the gold of the expedition once the royal fifth had been taken for Emperor Charles.
By mid-morning of the second day of our journey to the Boca D’oro, we had no choice but to leave our mounts behind, as the incline and loose stones made the path treacherous for our horses. After a further three days climbing, our armour weighing heavily on our back and the air growing strangely hotter as we ascended, we entered the smoke plumes that clouded the summit. Soon the enanos lifted their shields, and Tagón warned us to do the same, as we drew closer to the fiery peak that thundered like a storm above us. Despite the smoke, I could see the gilded arrows shoot from what seemed a flaming lake of molten gold cradled by the mountain top. With their free hands, the enanos held out urns they had brought to capture the glowing rain, showing great skill in anticipating the flight and not allowing the fiery gold to sear their skin. To our joy, on inspection of the contents of a filled vessel, we could see the most pure gold cooling to an exquisite shine before our eyes. Tagón gave us each an urn and counselled us on the techniques of catching the golden arrows.
I can only describe the feeling as joyous, as Luis Velásquez and those twelve conquistadors who had remained loyal to me scoured in all directions in the heat of that brilliant sun-lake, capturing the rain of gold in our vessels until they were filled to the brim. And the wonders of that moment at the jaws of the Boca D’oro were soon to be intensified to even greater heights when a chance gust of wind cleared the smoke momentarily. To our astonishment, hovering above the centre of the lake of molten gold, was revealed a scene so achingly beautiful to us that we could only stand transfixed and hold our breaths within us. There, as if a window had been opened in the air, were the snow-capped mountains and blue sky of New Spain as we had known them.
Although the smoke soon obscured the vision, we knew at once that we had found an entrada back to our world. Our joy soon turned to ash, however, as we concluded that there was no boat or other means that could be used to traverse the heat of the flaming lake. Tagón told us that he had seen ‘the vision of the blue heavens’, as he referred to it, on his other expeditions to the Boca D’oro, but that he had not thought that the place it showed was real. I questioned Tagón on whether he had seen such a vision elsewhere, but he said it was unique to the lake.
* * * *
The passage of time between the second and third fragments of Cristóbal de Varga’s account is even less certain. It could be a substantial period. While there have been some studies that have pointed to subtle stylistic variations in the third and fourth fragments compared to the first two, these will necessarily be less evident in the English translation.
Translator’s note
* * * *
Betrayal can numb your soul like the coldest of frosts. I do not accept its bitterness lightly and I pray fervently to always have the will to battle the illusive rapture that it promises. Yet I also recognise that the affirmation of one must sometimes necessarily mean the betrayal of another, and I could only place my faith in the Lord that I have chosen wisely.
So it was that I turned my back on the enanos and led those few men that had remained loyal to me to the high lofts of the duendes. There, where the winds keened in wild rhythms against our armour, we were captured and brought in chains before Ithilium by whose side stood Padre Núñez. It was in the face of this tall bright-winged angel in a palace of marble and electrum that I revealed my betrayal. As the duende leader had now learned our tongue, I offered him directly the means to destroy their enemy, promising to reveal the secret paths to the hidden cities of the enanos. For Padre Núñez and the captains and soldiers who had formerly been under my command, my offer was of limitless gold and the means to return with it to New Spain.
Such was my bargain that both Ithilium and Padre Núñez immediately embraced me, barely hesitating to hear what I required in return. When those soldiers from whom I had parted heard of my promises, they, to a man, returned with great joy to my command and we were all once again united in spirit and intent. Padre Núñez spoke of how he had brought the duendes to Our Lord and how all the winged ones had allowed themselves to be baptised in His Name. My confession that I had made no progress with the enanos only confirmed to Padre Núñez what he had always believed: that these demons had no soul and could not be saved even through our most pious efforts. In returning to New Spain laden with gold for the glory of His Imperial Majesty and the Empire, we knew we would accomplish all that we had set out to do, and our tale would be spoken of whenever the feats of Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro were lauded.
I can barely speak of the exquisite rapture we felt on the day that soon followed as the duendes each lifted a conquistador into the sky and carried us, as if we were a host of angels, across the crimson heavens of Nueva Tierra to the Boca D’oro. There, those of my men who saw the fiery lake for the first time rejoiced in its splendour and filled vessels I had encouraged them to bring with the flaming rain of gold that flew from its molten surface. And their joy grew to still greater heights when, as had occurred on my last expedition to this mountain peak, the smoke dissipated for a moment, and floating above the surface of the lake in the distance appeared a window to the blue skies and familiar snow-capped peaks of the Andes.
There could no longer be any doubts that my plan would be successful. The duendes each grasped a soldier firmly and, spreading their glorious silver wings, began their flight across the lake, taking care not to be scorched by the gilded flames that shot skywards. Thus it was that my men, laden with vessels of the captured golden rain, were carried towards the entrada to New Spain.
I must say, my men, for Ithilium gave no order for me to be lifted skyward and instead approached me in a manner that brought me great displeasure. The duende leader had me immediately disarmed and spoke to me sternly in his clear but breathful-accented Spanish of his disappointment that I had not given him the true secrets of the enano cities. I protested that I had told him no falsehoods, but my words fell on deaf ears. When the smoke of the Boca D’oro suddenly cleared again, my eyes turned to the lake and I saw the entrada appear once more, with my men held by the duendes almost upon it.
Then it was that something occurred which no man should ever have the misfortune to behold. I have witnessed many battles and countless deaths as a conquistador, but the scene before me on that day is a scene that only the devil himself could conceive. With a windblown order from Ithilium, one by one, the duendes released their grips on my men and allowed them to fall from the sky into the molten gold of the lake. The screams and struggles of those who could see what was about to happen to them were something beyond bearing. There was no defence against this most hideous of crimes for we had placed complete trust in the duendes and my men had no opportunity to reach for their swords, and had this been possible, it would still not have saved them from their fate.
It was with a strangled heart that I saw my most loyal captain, Luis Velásquez, fall into the lake, momentarily rising to the surface like a golden statue of a screaming man, only to sink again, never to emerge. With the entrada still visible above the Boca D’oro, I shuddered with the thought that the last thing my dearest friend Luis Velásquez would see was the blue skies of New Spain within reach before him.
I turned my fury on Ithilium, but he now had me constrained by chains and my invectives had merely the effect of the ravings of a madman from whom all control had been taken. Ithilium’s calmness was as if his betrayal was as natural as the wind over which none of us had any power. In his almost voiceless Spanish, with words that chilled my soul, he spoke of the joy of baptism that his people had now exchanged with mine.
* * * *
That this text was indeed written by the conquistador Cristóbal de Varga is generally accepted. Stylistically the material has been shown to correlate strongly with his other known writings. The other Spaniards mentioned in the fragments have been confirmed as members of his expedition into the eastern Andes in 1542. The only other historically verifiable fact in the account is that no member of de Varga’s expedition of discovery and conquest was recorded as returning to Lima. The final fragment is the shortest of all. Despite its brevity, it presents us with information from which we can glean the circumstances under which Cristóbal de Varga wrote this account.
Translator’s note
* * * *
As a young man I had always believed it is the outcomes of battles that determine a soldier’s life. I cannot say that I still hold this to be true. Perhaps the decision not to enter a battle is of greater importance. I have learned many things among the enanos. In truth I am in far greater debt to these steadfast dwarven men than to His Imperial Majesty, and had they not rescued me from my imprisonment by the duendes, I have no doubt I would have suffered, if not the same fate of my men, something far more grave.
The inevitable conclusion that I will never return to New Spain, let alone to Spain itself, has seared my soul, but after so many years, I have finally become resigned to it. I take some solace in my nightly solitude that I have never, in truth, betrayed my most faithful friends, the enanos. And yet, I wonder endlessly at the twistings and turnings of my own mind, for, in reality, I had nothing to offer the duendes when I proffered my fateful bargain so long ago. It was a bargain based on a falsehood, as I had not been entrusted then with the knowledge of the enanos hidden cities. Perhaps these people with no god and no idol are far wiser than I am. Perhaps they were aware that I would have betrayed them if I had known their secrets, rather than merely feigning that knowledge to the duendes in order to trick them into aiding our return to New Spain. It pains me to admit I do not know what path I would have chosen had I, in fact, been in possession of those truths that the enanos had not yet entrusted to me.
So it is that a man makes his decisions and lives by them, and then ultimately dies by them. Nothing will return my soldiers to any world that I have ever visited, nothing will right the deaths I have caused through my actions, and nothing will truly ease the pains in my heart. I can only tell my story, as I have done in these, my last days, in the hope that someone may one day read it and take something from its pages.
Tomorrow I will, with the aid of my most loyal friends Tagón and Halin, climb the slopes to the Boca D’oro a final time. There I will attach this account I have so painstakingly written to an arrow, and when the smoke clears over the golden lake and the entrada appears, I will aim my crossbow at the vision. And, God willing, if my aim is true, my tale will arc unscathed over the gilded fires as they rain their seering treasures upon its pages and reach the blue skies of New Spain.
* * * *
This translation was made directly from the original fragments archived in the Museo Nacional de Arqueologia, Antropologia e Historia del Perú in Lima. I can confirm the other studies of the originals which have stated that many of the pages are flecked with droplets of gold.
Translator’s note
* * * *
AFTERWORD
I’ve often wondered what sort of damage the Spanish conquistadors would have done if they had found their way into a new world beyond the New World. ‘Conquist’ started as a quest for hidden dwarf treasure by a people with a ruthless lust for gold and an unquestioning sense of piety and duty. Somehow the story ended up more than this.
— Dirk Strasser