Isabelle writes...
It was a sweltering summer day. I had led an expedition to
discover the golden treasure of the Incans, a quest that led us
through the hills of their homeland searching out hidden clues and
abandoned treasure. My men and I had just emerged from the woods
where their most secret treasure was finally uncovered, and as we
progressed around a bend we saw a fantastic sight
People.
We had only ever seen one Incan, little Natomi who we found
scrabbling through a deserted temple. It was hard to tell her age,
an old girl or a young woman, she was sylph-like and utterly
silent. When the men cornered her I had them give her over to me
and made it clear she was off limits. She was invaluable at finding
the most cleverly hidden artifacts, and after a few weeks I could
coax an occasional glancing smile from her. Once the smile came out
the men were changed and Natomi was as safe among them as a nun
among altar boys. Still, she never spoke and her secrets were as
tightly held as those of any of the fantastic wall-statues of her
people.
No, this was different. Not just one, two or a few natives,
but a whole mob of them, gathered around some sort of corral and
dealing with an even larger herd of cattle. The hovels of a
settlement were visible beyond. It was as if we had come out into
another country, which, in a way, we had.
These were Mayans, and we had crossed over into their lands.
The men were starving and set to finding some way to make these
natives understand that we wanted a cow or two in some sort of
trade. Their shouting and hand-waving would have been comical had
it ultimately worked, but the men finally lost patience and went to
take what they needed by force of arms.
The skirmish was short. The men waded in and the Mayans
fought back for a moment, but their thin clothing was no match for
our armor and they soon scattered - except one poor soul who caught
a blade a little too deep. We examined his strange garments and
found the most curious thing - a thick silver breastplate held dead
center on his chest by leather thongs. On it was carved a strange
symbol. The man who clamed the plate allowed me to sketch it for my
notes, and when I showed the symbol to Natomi she seemed to
recognize it and she held up some fingers. Apparently this was the
symbol for a number and I wrote the same under my sketch. I made a
copy and hid it nearby.
With the meat we had fought for and the sun rising into the
sky, our most thoughtful course of action would have been to stop,
eat and regroup. But the men weren't thinking. They saw that heavy
silver, and they saw the Mayans hurrying up into the hills, and
their pulses ran hot with the one thing that driven them across the
seas, over the mountains and into this remote village on the far
side of the Earth...
Greed