MAMACOCA, p. 8

This vision is interrupted by flashes of consciousness. He hears Lorenzo tell him that a man who "knows" must defy death and that if he has the courage he will fly over the abyss into which he is about to be cast.

Charles fights back with all his strength, but too many hands grab at him for Charles to free himself. In the expanse of the rising sun, he is lifted to the edge of the precipice. As he turns to face Lorenzo, Charles experiences the ultimate horror of seeing the teacher he has come to love give the signal. Lorenzo pierces him with the words "endurance, emptiness, vision."

His body is hurled over the precipice. He falls as if in slow motion. His cry echoes across the abyss into silence.

Above he sees the great condors, circling. Below, the mist and roar of the waterfalls.

His body enters the highest part of the falls. Charles feels the cold water. His body seems to slow down, to float. The water is at once passing him by and roaring below him. He is suspended as if in a magnetic field. Great tremors and spasms go through him. His body is bathed in a soft yellow glow, a warm solar heat, as if coming from the rock wall behind the fall. He realizes he is suspended by a magical power.

The waters part and reveal a large opening, a cave. Powerful golden light emanates from it. Charles thinks himself dead and touches himself in question. The water is still flowing over him; the light from within is pulling him inside the cavern.

Charles now stands inside the hidden Temple of the Sun surrounded by a circle of golden solar symbols. Standing about are many Inca priests. Above them on a raised throne sit the Goddess Mamacoca. Her features are those of the Indian girl he saw in Lorenzo's house.

Charles hears the words of Lorenzo. They come not as a sound to his ears, but his mind.

"Try to understand, Charles. You are outside time in the Real World! Try to 'see,' Charles."

Charles is taken by the priests to a golden circular vehicle, a chariot of the gods. Drawing nearer, he is enveloped by its very intense light. The voice of his teacher speaks once again.

"You are going across time. Try to empty yourself."

The chariot glides silently, then, with increasing speed through a tunnel in the mountain, shoots out over the vast canyon into the blue sky.

As if in a vision Charles sees below him the mythical city of Eldorado, the city the conquistadors sought in vain for many years.

Again Charles hears the voice of Lorenzo.

"Behold the Holy City. Here the Children of the Sun will come at the end of time."

Like a solar god, Charles soars high over the earth.

Once again we are back to the scene inside the cockpit of the DC 10 jetliner. The golden disk causes the crew to react as before. An exact repetition of events.

Inside the passenger section Charles is sitting in the exact same position as the beginning, only this time his eyes are open and his face aglow - as if he were seeing across time.

Groves repeats his first question to Charles in the same tone. This time in answering Charles' voice is different. It comes from another world, no longer a world of dreams, but a world of wakefulness.

Groves, pointing to the giant petyroglyph on the bluff over Pisco, is asking the same questions about it. Charles does not answer.

Framed by the window of the jetliner is the immortal face of the Sun King. Superimposed upon it is the reflection of the sun in the glass. THE END

TOP