Secret Of The Slaves

Annja glanced at Dan. To her surprise he sat more tightly angled back in his chair than slouched, with his legs straight under the table, arms folded, chin on clavicle. He frowned slightly at her but gave no indication she shouldn’t discuss their real purpose.

“We’re here doing research for an institution in the United States,” she said, parrying an internal stab of annoyance at Dan. “I’m an archaeologist and historian by trade. My partner is a representative of the institute.”

“It’s a humanitarian institution,” he said. “We’re here doing research on quilombos. ”

Patrizinho raised his brows. “Not many Americans I’ve met know anything about them.”

A male server appeared. Patrizinho ordered fruit juice, Xia some bottled water.

“What’s your interest in the quilombos, then?” Xia asked.

“We understand that some of them actually managed to survive as independent entities until Brazil became a republic,” Annja said.

“True enough,” Patrizinho said. “Some of them still exist as recognized townships today.”

Annja glanced at Dan, who seemed to be sulking. “We’re trying to track down reports that there might be a settlement derived from a quilombo far up the Amazon, which has declined to join Brazil or, perhaps, the modern world.”

Patrizinho grinned and tapped the table with his fingertips. “Hiding like Ogum in the forest!”

“What’s that?” Dan asked sharply.

“An old expression.”

“A lost civilization,” Xia said. “Do you really think that’s possible in today’s world? With airplanes and satellites everywhere. Wouldn’t it turn up on Google Earth?”

Annja shrugged. “We aim to find out.”

For a moment they sat without exchanging words. A breeze idly flapped the red, green and yellow awning over their heads. From somewhere came strains of Brazilian popular music, faint and lively.

Since their newfound acquaintances weren’t jumping in to offer clues to the location of the lost City of Promise, or even expand on local legends to the effect, Annja said, “Patrizinho, your mention of Ogum puts me in mind of a question both Dan and I had.”

“What’s that?” he said.

“We keep seeing people wearing these T-shirts. They’ll say something like Cavalo Do Xango or Cavala Da Iansã, around images of colorful-looking persons. I know those phrases mean, basically, horse of Xango or Iansã. We’ve seen them for Ogum, too. But who are they, and why do other people wear shirts saying they’re their horses?”

“Those people are orixás, ” Patrizinho said. “You know what that means?”

“We’ve heard the word,” Dan said.

“Xango is the thunder and war god. Iansã is his wild-woman wife, also known as Oyá, goddess of winds and storms—and the gates of the underworld. If somebody is a horse for one of them, that means they regularly serve as host or vessel for that spirit.”

“You mean like in voodoo,” Dan said, perking up a bit, “where ritual participants are ridden by the loa? ”

“Pretty much the same,” Xia said. “In fact many people here worship the very same loa. Sometimes they’re even taken over by Catholic saints, they say, although the saints are usually identified with specific orixás. ”

“People advertise the fact that they regularly get…possessed?” Annja asked. For all that she liked to think of herself as a tolerant person—and she’d spent enough time among enough people in strange and remote places to have what she thought pretty good credibility for the claim—the notion creeped her out considerably.

“They believe it’s an honor, to be chosen by the god or goddess,” Patrizinho said.

Xia checked an expensive-looking designer watch strapped to her thin wrist. “We’d better get on our way, Patrizinho,” she said, rising. “It’s been lovely meeting you, Annja, Dan. Perhaps we’ll get a chance to see each other again.”

Patrizinho stood, too. With a serious expression he said, “We should warn you to be wary of people who proclaim themselves horses for Ogum, or of Babalu. They are the gods of war and disease, respectively. They are dangerous, cranky spirits. Not to be trifled with, you understand.”

Dan smiled a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ve never been real afraid of gods and spirits.”

“Horses,” Xia said dryly, “tend to mirror their masters’ personalities. So perhaps you should keep an eye on them. ”

7

Annja opened her eyes to darkness—and the cold conviction she was not alone.

The night throbbed with a samba beat from the small hotel’s nightclub a couple of floors below, audible as a bass thrum beneath the white noise of the overburdened air conditioner in the window. For a moment she lay frozen, wondering if she was having a sleep-paralysis experience.

She smelled a waft of greens and warm, moist, dark earth—

She and Dan had spent a hot, tiring and unproductive day trolling the museums, the dark shops and bustling outdoor markets for clues to the fabled lost city of Promessa. As far as Annja was concerned it was anything but promising. For all the apparent conviction of Mafalda’s warning to them the day before, Annja was beginning to suspect they were on a wild-goose chase. And Annja knew enough about folk beliefs and culture to understand too well that Mafalda’s role in the community practically demanded she be a skilled actress.

But now—

With a sense of foreboding rising up her neck and tingling at the hinges of her jaw, Annja turned her head.

A figure stood at the foot of her bed. It was a shadow molded in the shape of a human. As she stared, the light of a streetlight and the half-moon glowed through inadequate curtains and enabled her wide eyes to resolve the form into what seemed to be an Amazonian man, short, wide shouldered, with a braided band holding long heavy hair away from what the shadows suggested was his darkly handsome face. His lean-muscled torso was bare; he appeared to be wearing only a loincloth of some sort.

As almost self-consciously quaint as this older part of Belém could be, the apparition had no more place in the climate-controlled room in a modern city than a pterodactyl or knight in armor. I don’t believe in ghosts, she thought.

“I am real,” the apparition said. Did he read my mind, she wondered, or did I speak aloud?

“You must stop asking the questions you are asking,” the man said. “Please. Otherwise untold harm will result.”

She struggled to sit up in bed, her heart racing.

“What about the harm you’re doing by withholding your secrets from the world?” She said it more to see if she got a response than from any belief that such harm was being done, or that such secrets even existed. “Isn’t that the ultimate selfishness?”

The man shook his head. “You speak of things you do not understand,” he said sadly. “There are many things you do not know, and cannot be permitted to know.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Anger at the violation of her privacy mixed with the adrenaline of fear surged within Annja.

“You have been warned,” the man said sorrowfully. “We are willing to die to protect our secret. Consider what we will do to you, if we must.” His apparent sadness only added mass to the soft menace of his words.

Annja whipped the sheet clear of her with a matador twirl and jumped from the bed. The sword came into her hand.

During the eyeblink that the sheet obscured her vision, her mysterious sad-voiced visitor had vanished. As if into thin air.

Scowling ferociously, she searched the room, sword almost quivering with eagerness to strike. Sometimes it seemed to have almost a life of its own.

She didn’t like to think such thoughts. They smacked of madness. She pushed them firmly from her mind.

M OMENTS LATER Annja found herself standing barefoot on the threadbare green-and-maroon flower-patterned carpet in the hallway, wrapped in a white bathrobe, aware that her hair and eyes were both wild. She did not carry the sword, since she felt a grim certainty she was much more likely to encounter alarmed innocent tourists or hotel staff than any crafty cat burglars.