Machu Picchu (The Old Mountain) - pt 1
Title: Machu Picchu (The Old Mountain)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Character/s: The Tenth Doctor
Summary: The Lonely God leaves an impression on a young Inca priest. Written for
dwliterotica's 'Anywhere But London' Fic Challenge.
(Note: the pictures here aren't mine, but I yanked them off the net so long ago I can't remember whose they are anymore. If you see one of yours then please email me or comment with your name and the site I grubbed it from and I'll credit you.)
*****
Machu Picchu (The Old Mountain)
So old....
We wear the weight of our years, this place and I.
I feel its every weathered stone in the rough scrape of my palm; its every winding road and wall mirrored in the lines of my face.
I know it as a lover. It knows me as a child. And soon the People will know me as the Old Man Who Vanished, for I have come here to die.
My home is dead. My people, my city, my world - all gone. And I am useless in the Conquistadores' New World. They say my herbs and mixtures are rude superstition; my stories and legends hateful to their new God. So I sit in the marketplace day after day, as dry as an old corn husk, and remember what the world has forgotten.
I cannot bear such idleness. Better to die and fertilize Pachamama with my body than to live out such a worthless existence.
I made sure I was not followed. The Conquistadores do not know the way here, and when I am gone, the memory of the path will likely die with me.
The houses and huts are deserted. No crops grow in the terraced Steps of Heaven. The streets where children played and beasts brayed and goods were sold and chasquis ran back and forth with khipus and treasure and fish from the Gold Shores below are as still as a burial cave.
The life of the Old Mountain is gone. Mine is fading. The only sound is the distant rush of water in the canal.
But no...there is another sound. A sound that my ears heard only twice in their youth and have never forgotten.
The cry of the Blue Temple...and the Lonely God within it.
I hear him emerge. I do not turn around. I know he will appear just the same as he did on the day I first saw him, lying there on the rocks...a place I can see now from where I sit.
The Conquistadores laugh at our gods. They mock our legend of the Sun Stone binding Father Inti...as though we worshipped the sun, and not the Power behind it. But they do not know it is no legend.
My Lonely God and I made it happen.
*****
I was a boy then. I thought myself a man, which was all the more proof of my childishness. My early skill with herbs and mixtures had earned me a place in the healing priesthood, and thus it was that the three herder's children found me that day when they ran into the Temple.
"Come quick!"
"We found someone!"
"Outside the western pasture. A king or something. I think he's dead!"
The day was old; Father Inti nearly touched Pachamama by the time I arrived. But there was still enough light to see clearly.
It was a man. But like no man I had ever seen. His hair was the color of earth; his skin as pale as ewe's milk. His clothing was not of any tribe I knew. He lay at the base of the rock where the Old Ones once threw their sacrifices. Perhaps he had simply fallen...but perhaps he had not. Beyond all belief, he was still alive.
We bore him back to the Temple. My novice and I stripped and tended him, mixing poultices and setting the bones we found broken. When little else remained but to bathe his wounds, I dismissed the children and sent my novice to bed.
They went reluctantly. I understood, but I craved time to study this stranger. The dawn would bring elders and questions. Tonight I sought answers.
Our visitor certainly dressed like a king. The weave of his clothing was so exquisite as to be nearly invisible. Never had I seen such crafting. Each piece was fitted exactly to his body: the outer robe; the tunic; the leggings; the stiff cloth sandals with eyes like a centipede's legs...
Next, I steeped medicinal herbs in water from the mountain to make his body clean for healing. His finery and pallor had provoked one of the children to ask me if he was a god. I did not know...but seeing him unclothed, lying here on the mat with the soft clear night shining in on his pale skin...he looked like a fallen child of the Moon. Mama Quilla gently bathed him in her pale blue light, as I gently bathed him in my medicines...
He was very beautiful.
I would have to surrender him tomorrow, if he lived. I knew that. His sudden appearance; the Silver Ghosts seen down in the valleys; Pachamama's rumblings every day at High Sun; and the bright new star in the sky...it could not all be a coincidence.
But tonight, he was here. This god, if a god he was, rested under my care. I finished my applications, wrapped a cloth around his middle, and covered him with the finest blanket in our stock. And then I sat down beside him.
Watching. Waiting. And willing him to heal.
*****
His movement stirs me. He is awake - and past the limits of belief, he is sitting upright. The blanket lies crumpled at his waist as his eyes scan the room. He sees me.
"Did I change?"
I do not know how to answer him.
"During the night, did I change?" I still cannot answer, and at my confused silence he grabs a golden ornament from the wall behind him and gazes into it.
"Nope. Still me. Well, still This me. And good thing too, what a tawdry way to die. Been there, done that; got the cricket coat." He discards the ornament and turns back to me. "Were there any creatures around when you found me? Tall silver chaps; too much armor and no sense of humor?" I shake my head dumbly. At that moment my novice comes in with the morning meal, and nearly drops it when he finds the pale stranger awake.
"Ah, breakfast! Thank you very much." Our guest grabs a bowl of quinoa mush and dips his fingers in, scooping drippy handfuls up to his mouth almost without pausing for breath. He speaks around the food. "Anyway, more's the pity. Means they've gone underground, or back to their ship - that new star in the sky, in case you were wondering. Their little boat in the stars." He takes the ornament again and reflects a beam of light onto the ceiling to illustrate.
Suddenly his eyes grow wide. He smiles. "Oh, no...no, it can't be as simple as that!..." He attempts to jump to his feet...and nearly faints in the effort. I catch him before he can hit the floor and put him back onto the mat.
"Rest," I tell him, and I have found my voice at last. "Save your strength. Time is the best medicine for healing. Even for spirits who fall from the sky."
"I'm...I'm not a spirit. My coat..." He means his robe. I fetch it. He puts it on and withdraws two items: the first, an intricate framework that he unfolds and places upon his nose; the second, a small thin instrument no bigger than a lamb's hind leg.
The second instrument is alive. When he points it towards the floor it wails like a cricket, its tip suddenly glowing blue with captured moonlight. The children were right then, he is a god; he is Mama Quilla's son...my novice and I back away.
"S'alright, it won't hurt you. Sonic screwdriver. Just taking a reading." The instrument falls silent and he examines it. "S'what I was afraid of," he mutters, and puts the moon wand back into his robe. "Right. I'm gonna need your help. What did you say your name was?"
"Marca," I answer...but then, for no reason I can grasp, I add, "but my father called me Acqui."
A smile lights the stranger-god's face. "Acqui...'The Little Prince'. Good name."
My father has been dead since I was three years old. I have not even thought of this nickname since I left my grandfather's house for the Temple. But the son of Mama Quilla accepts it as my proper name. "Nice to meet you, Acqui, I'm the Doctor."
A title. Not a name. A title very much like my own. "Are you a healer, then?"
"Yes. Well...no. Not exactly. So - this is really good, by the way, have you got any more?"
He holds out his empty quinoa bowl to my novice, who snatches it away as though fearful of snakebite. When he is gone my visitor god, this Doctor, takes a handful of coca leaves from a nearby bowl and pops one into his mouth.
"So Acqui," he says, chewing with his mouth full, "let me fill you in." As he warms to his speech, he actually begins to pace back and forth, limping slightly. "Those silver chaps you've been seeing want to invade your world. So they're trying to bump the Earth out of its orbit to lower the temperature and kill every living thing on the planet. Dead world; they invade. Trouble is, they can't do it all at once or the stress would cause the planet to break up, and thus the little earthquakes every day at High Sun. Are you with me so far?"
At my confused stare, he retrieves the gold ornament and reflects another beam of light onto the wall. "They have a ship up there, that new star. Like a boat that sails the heavens. And they're using it as a deflector beam to magnify the sun's energy and push the Earth away, little by little."
The words are unfamiliar. But somehow, as he says them, I can almost grasp their meaning. As a priest I have studied the stars and their movements intimately. But what manner of power must these creatures have not only to sail the heavens, but to move the very world itself?
The Doctor pops another coca leaf in. "That's the bad news. The good news is, if I can get to the Tardis and find a good grounding spot to channel the earth's energy - "
"The Sun Stone," I interrupt him.
"What?"
"The Intihuatana. It is our link to the Sun. Many people feel a holy presence there."
For a moment the Doctor is silent...then he seizes me and kisses me full on the mouth.
"Acqui, that's brilliant! Why didn't I think of it? Right on a planetary ley line too, I'll be bound. I bet their base is right underneath it." His delight is almost comical. I never imagined a god to look like this - standing before me, naked except for his robe and the cloth I wrapped around him, grinning like a child with the odd framework on his face. If he is a god, I decide, then he is surely the jester in Father Inti's court.
But then his smiles fades. "That means I'll have to stop them before the next cycle. How much time till High Sun?" He limps to the window, moving with some difficulty but amazing speed.
He means to leave. Now. "But...you can't," I protest. "Your injuries, they...you need to...aren't you in pain?"
"Yes. How much time till High Sun?" His gaze is suddenly intense, and there is nothing at all comical about him now.
But there is a noise in the outer passage. The partition is flung aside, and Marsala the chief priest enters with two of the Inca's guard at his side. My novice scampers behind them, trying to hide in their shadows.
Marsala stops before the Doctor. "It is true, then."
My visitor steps up to him. "Hello. I'm the Doctor. I need an audience with your Inca."
"And you shall have it, Outlander. At the base of our altar." He nods, and the Inca's guards take the Doctor by both arms and pull him towards the door.
I block their way. "This man is in Healing." I tell them, mustering what authority I can and searching quickly for some excuse. "...Pachamama will be angry if he comes to her broken."
"Pachamama is already angry," Marsala bears down on me, but I hold my ground. "Her last rumbling was more violent than all the rest. This Outlander is a gift from Father Inti to appease her."
I do not move. "I believe this man knows what is happening. And I believe he can help us."
Marsala snorts. "Yes, we heard his story from outside - Silver Ghosts and star-boats. If you actually believe such talk, Marca, then you need your own medicines more than he does."
My voice is calm as I reply. "Father Inti's children came to Our Land in such a boat. Is it a tenet of our faith."
For a moment my chief priest is stunned into silence. But before he can reply - possibly to order my demotion or expulsion - the Doctor speaks.
"Am I allowed a spiritual advisor?"
Everyone looks at him. "Well, if as I surmise by your use of the words 'base' and 'altar' that I am about to be sacrificed to the gods, then at least I get a spiritual advisor to tell me what to do when I meet them, right?" A bewildered silence greets his question.
For a moment no one answers him. Then Marsala indicates my novice. "If this boy's tale is true, then you are a spirit yourself, and need no counsel on your way back to their realm." He nods to the Inca's guard, and they pull the Doctor past me out the door.
"But I need him to show me the way to Heaven!" he protests, managing to grab another handful of coca leaves and stuff them into his robe as they drag him away. "Acqui, if we ever meet again, show me the Way to Heaven!"
...And then he is gone.
Marsala frowns at me. "'Acqui'?"
The name is foul on his lips. "It was a nickname my father gave me," I reply quietly. His frown deepens.
"We will talk of your punishment later." And with that he exits the chamber, leaving me alone with my novice. The boy cannot meet my gaze. I know he is only a child, frightened and trying to do what he thought was best; but it was still a low thing to run tattling to Marsala like that. Without a word to him, I put on my priest's robe and follow the guard to the Intihuatana.
*****
go on to part 2