THE FARAWAY LANDS OF OZ - Book One

Part Seven, Chapter Thirty: Paititi - The lost city

RUBY

My head was throbbing with pain as I slowly woke up inside a cavernous entrance, all by myself. There was no sign of the others. Only the Maya that had ambushed us looked down on me as they had probably waited for me to wake up.
I was stripped of my weapons and talismans, but little did they know that those did not hold my true powers. But I would not engage in an attack. Not before I found out what was going on and why I had been attacked in the city I was rendered friend some time ago.
How could they all look at me like I was an alien? They should know who I was! I knew them! It was a mystery to me really, but I followed them anyway when they picked me up – noticing that I had awoken – and dragged me out of the cavern and into the open.
The men led me into a small hut that I remembered to be my friend's house. A small clay rectangle – slightly bigger than the others – with a straw roof and logs to hold it in place. I was beginning to get amused at what a mistake they were making. Unuratu would know.
One of the men who had helped arrest Ruby called for the chief. A big, broad smile found its way onto my face as I prepared myself to greet Unuratu like the mentor she had been to me. But to my surprise, another man came through the cave entrance on the other end. I could not speak for a second. Where was she and who is this? She could not have died... I would have known!
"Where is Unuratu? I want to speak to her immediately!" I demanded immediately, growing more impatient by the minute and getting more and more excited about beating them to pulp soon. The men looked into each other's eyes with furrowed eyebrows though and the chief back into mine.
"My mother died... Twenty years ago..."
"Egsli..."I stood up and moved to shake his hand and pull him close for a second. I took myself and them all by surprise with my impulsive reaction. He had become a man, whom I remembered being a rosy little baby. The guards around us tightened their grips around the weapons but Egsli waved them off. The Maya aged particularly slowly as well, due to the magic that helped protect this last piece of their civilization.
"I'm terribly sorry... I did not know..."
"Don't worry. If you knew her, you can be trust-"
"CHIEF! WE CAUGHT THIS ONE SNEAKING ABOUT, FREEING HER FRIEND!" Another squad of guards – women, this time – were dragging Ambra and Katina behind them. The Vampire must've tried to escape. A dumb thing to do. Egsli looked at me.
"They're with me. Probably thought they were in trouble," I muttered under my breath and the chief waved once again to tell the guards to release my group. The guards did as told and I threw an angry look at my team. Paititi's chief invited us to sit down for a cup of cocoa and for us to catch up on everything that had happened.
"Tell me, darling. What happened to your mom?" I asked as he seated us in a circle in his hut with a clay cup of steaming cocoa that was rather like coffee in each of our hands. Egsli took a few breaths to remind himself of what had happened to his mother. Twenty years was a lot of time but I doubted that the pain had ever left. Not that I would know.
"First off, let us tell the others a little about Paititi. I doubt that they know nearly as much as you do, Ruby," He began and smiled a little towards my group. After the little misunderstanding, he wanted to be a forthcoming host which he succeeded in, I had to say.
"Now: It is important to know that the city is way older than all of us, even older than Ruby herself. It is the very first Mayan megacity during our culture's free reign over the Amazon but was forced into hiding after the settlers had taken all our possessions and had slaughtered every Indigenous person they saw. Since then, the 'City of Gold' had been a safe-haven for native refugees. Living in solitude had allowed our ancient civilization to prosper and develop into its former glory, several centuries later..."
He began to explain. Paititi had truly been one of the oldest civilizations on this planet and also one of the rare magical sanctuaries of that time. Unuratu had been standing for keeping magic alive with all her heart. I had also visited it even before the humans had discovered America, witnessing the city in its finest moments.
That was when I was taught in the Maya's ancient magic and martial arts by Unuratu, Egsli's mother. We were made blood-sisters by the leading priest at that time but I had never heard a word from her since I had continued my journeys further off into the world.
"My mother died as the secret organization Trinity – similar to us, they had been a remnant of an ancient culture; Templars to be exact – invaded the city with the pretenses to make their leading archaeologist the ruler of the world as the ancient God K'uk'ulkan had manifested his body. She sacrificed herself to save me and her people."
It didn't surprise me at all that I had not heard of my mentor's passing because I had been captured inside the Scroll of Infinity at the time of Trinity's invasion. Egsli had told us it was roughly around the 1990's that Unuratu died. I got captured in the 1980's.
"But enough about me and my depressing stories," He continued, beaming up and trying to hide his still persisting pain. "What about you? Tell me a little about yourself. I would like to know what mom's friend is like."
I chuckled a little. Oh boy, here we go. This was not something I was surely going to finish any time before noon. My story was too long and to tell the truth. Ever since the scroll; I only keep remembering glimpses of it. That curse had taken too much out of me and especially my memories.
"It is a long story, darling. I am not that important in this world to be worthy of a story. And mine definitely a story for another time!" I reassured him and stood up, finishing my invigorating drink with one sip, and feeling the still hot liquid tickle my throat and my taste buds pull themselves tighter from the bitterness.
"Are we free to explore?" I asked as I waited for him to nod only out of politeness, him and the others standing up to follow me. If he had said no to my request, I would have gone anyways.
It was all just as I remembered it: The sun-kissed people with their cheering smiles and tireless faces, children running by and laughing at their games, green meadows and fields amidst banks of water and houses of clay and straw.
Amidst all of this was a marketplace whose treats and goods one smelled from miles away. Grilled fish, baked legumes and chocolate confections were just to name a few of the local delicacies that made my mouth water like the sea.
Goats were running across every street, shouting at everyone and everything that passed them. But the laughter of children and the sizzle of maize – colloquially: corn – on stone platters was my most favorite thing to listen to.
It was surprising how little had changed here from several hundred years ago. Or was it a thousand and something? Anyways, Paititi was located where the three silver-crowned mountains touched in their valley and had therefore isolated itself from the world by having this natural wall that nothing could see through.
Therefore, the houses were made of wood, clay, straw and animal furs, aligned in little clusters around the dirt streets which all led to the big marketplace.
This was one of my most favorite sights in Paititi as I had already mentioned. The market had so much to offer! Not only its fabulous culinary masterpieces that made me hungry when even thinking about them but also unique pieces of craft like decorative pottery and detailed fur drawings.
Egsli had led this place to a whole new level though. He gave the culture a more modern and youthful approach which had ultimately influenced not only the city's culture itself but also its crafts and kitchen. I believed that he was a fine leader and that he honored Unuratu by being himself. She would've been very proud of her boy... I knew that for certain.
"Up there is the temple, people!" He pointed at the only stone structure in the city. High up on the other side of the valley and laid into the stone of the mountain. It was a pyramid of sorts with mossy walls and steps and fading colors. This had been the first thing that had been built in Paititi and that had been the original living quarters of the entire Mayan civilization. That was what Unuratu had told me all those years ago.
"It looks run down but the New Gods promised to restore its former glory so we have let them live there-"
"YOU WHAT?!"I couldn't believe my ears. After all this trouble, the city had been put under due to ancient spirits and angry Gods, Egsli had let another band of them live in the most sacred place in all of South America?
He didn't even have any proof if they were real gods! He said this with such lightness as if it was a common thing to do. Even for mystical, magical and ancient standards, this was nothing one does just like that. Take the sentence your mothers all told you about, not to take sweets from strangers and multiply it a thousandfold. That's what this was.
I had faced K'uk'ulkan before, Unuratu had done so twice and died by his hand. I wouldn't let her legacy die because of a stupid boy's beliefs. Perfect leader my ass. It is astonishing how little it takes for you to ruin your image of someone. And that only within seconds...
I had to find out who those Gods are and reveal them as frauds or as people who want only bad to happen to Paititi, in order to save it once again. I didn't trust them, even though they could mean absolutely no harm at all. If that was the case though, I needed all the help I could get to save Evanora!

*

THE SEEKER

Even the land itself knew that something was going to happen. The sky was unusually grey, and one could see the rain falling at the beach, in the distance. I had sent a message to the Whispmother and the Overlord, the moment I had shifted out of the palace. Even though I didn't know them, I would only rely on their legendary status and sovereign abilities. And I had to admit: they knew how to make an entrance!
The floor seemed to be melting in front of my feet and the sky turned red for a few seconds. The molten ground poured down into what looked like an endless pit of fire and the Overlord began to rise slowly onto the surface.
First, his horned helmet under which you could only see his glowing, orange eyes, his face deliberately hidden behind purely black magic and then his armored body until he was standing on the patch of grass that had grown back behind him.
He was holding a short scepter which he whipped to the side, making it unfold into his flaming long-sword. Then, he bowed to me, holding the sword in front of his own face upon taking the place at the side of my floating being. Shortly after, the Whispmother too arrived at our rendezvous-point. With a blast from the sea, like a geyser, she shot through the air, arriving in no time.
The Whispmother was a pale specter, glowing an ominous white blue. She was draped in oceanic cloths which were floating in the air as if she was still underwater. Something about her made even my fur tingle. She was as old as time and had lived in Oz even before it had been Oz. She was the mother of Sirens, Whisps and Specters. All of their origin could be followed back to her and she was a mix of them all.
With everyone there, I could now dare to visit the magic source: the Borderlands. Those were the edge of Oz as I had found out from the Whispmother's thoughts – the three of us were excellent psychics and needn't talk at all but communicated through our minds – and no one has ever dared to go there but why that was so, nobody had remembered.
The closer we came, the stronger the magic became and the others could feel that too. But the closer we got, the weaker our own magic became. As if the source was sucking it out of our bodies. It had been a magic too potent to be left uninvestigated though and a call too urgent to ignore when the woman screamed at me in deepest pain and agony. There was too much going on for me to ignore it and now we were here: The Borderlands.
These Borderlands looked odd. The further away from the core we went, the odder our surroundings became. There was no vegetation anymore and each of the represented colors blurred together like some sort of feverish dream.
At the very edge of the Faraway Lands of Oz, at the end of the Borderlands, a wall of similarly multicolored mist blocked us from continuing towards the source. Instead of backing away though, I and my companions continued straight for the cloud of magic.
It was impenetrable. Yet once we touched the magical vapor, it parted and revealed a female body; silhouette. She stretched out her hand and it was as if the three of us had been put under a trance for we immediately knew where we were being taken by her.
With no control over our bodies, we would be the first to witness how the Morningstar and his allies dealt with their persisting problems on their own...