I couldn't breathe properly, as if I had to breathe through a keyhole. My senses were numb and I hadn't felt the cold or heat for a while. I couldn't smell the salty sea breeze, I couldn't hear the crashing of the waves against the promenade, the buildings all looked the same, so impersonal that they could have been built during any period I had lived through. Or maybe it was the fact that every human being looked the same to me that night. A beast that I had raised had kidnapped my wife and had ordered me to find them, as if we were playing hide and seek.
"Ok, Gunnarr. Do you want it to hurt?" I shouted at the air, facing the dark Cantabrian sea. "Well, here you have it, son. It hurts, of course it hurts. You've got what you wanted. Now what?"
The sea just laughed at me, it ignored me and the tide continued to rise, oblivious to my distress.
9
The Sons of Adam
LÜR
Sungir, in what is now Russia 23,000 B.C.
Lür opened his eyes, trying to remember something from the last few days. The red poison from the root kept him in a world of pleasant dreams.
And that was better than the reality, than the cold, than the loneliness.
He had descended the side of the snowy mountain at night, in the dark, with his sights set on the tiny dots of light. He had fallen down a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, and he had gotten back up a thousand times, singing like a madman, like the happiest crazy person on earth.
There are more survivors, I'm not alone.
The first thing he made out was a robust face, with a beard like his. The man smiled at him, placed his muscular arm between Lür's legs and lifted him onto his shoulders, wrapping him around his neck.
"You weigh less than a child," he said.
"I thought that I was the last man on Earth," Lür managed to answer.
He had managed to identify the language he was speaking, similar to the ancient dialects from the northwest.
"At the start we also thought that there was no one left after the Cataclysm. But my clan has spent many cycles sending out expeditions in the four directions of the wind and to the south there are entire clans that are beginning to recover. We have good trackers among us.
"How have you survived all this time?"
"Mother protects us," he said, shrugging. "She knew how to interpret the signs from the Earth and from the animals when they fled. She took her sons to a safe place, that only the First Fathers knew of. Mother Rock protected them until the tremors passed. And the rest... well, I guess you already know that. There was barely anyone left out there."
"Mother?" repeated Lür, slightly more alert. "Please put me down. We have to speak."
The man obeyed setting him down on his feet in front of him, while holding hand out to make sure that Lür didn't fall. There was something about him that reminded Lür of a bison.
"Are you talking about Mother, the matriarch of the Sons of Adam?"
"Is there any other, stranger?"
"If you only knew the time I have spent following the legend, questioning every story I heard, asking the elders in each camp... So she's alive, she's real?"
"She never dies. How could the Cataclysm have ended the life of Mother, if she is eternal?"
"But, what is Mother, is she a matriarch, a Goddess?"
"Both. She is beautiful, pure, she remains forever young. She has the wisdom of the Ancient Times, of the Ancient Clans, of the First Fathers."
Lür tried to take in those words that he had spent so long waiting to hear. Maybe it was a hallucination from the red root and nothing that he was hearing was actually happening.
"Doesn't she have any enemies?" he urged. "Has everyone accepted her immortality?"
"She is powerful, she has everyone's respect."
Or fear, Lür thought.
He had known too many leaders and he knew how they gained everyone's respect.
The vigorous man kept up a good pace, but Lür thought that he was walking a bit too fast for their dwindling strength.
"I can see that you are very curious. Well, the Sons of Adam clan is made up entirely of her descendants. Her first children and their first grandchildren, died many ages ago. But Mother is very fertile. In our clan, the sons of her grandchildren live with their grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great- grandchildren... Although we are not savages who breed within the family. We look for companions from other clans, the further removed, the better. We attend the Solstice meetings but we never spread out. If a Child of Adam takes a companion, they must come with us and adapt to our way of life. That's what makes us powerful, and Mother always protects us."
"Are you taking me to your camp now?"
"Yes, you will be welcome there. And many of our daughters would love to get to know a new companion, once you are better nourished. I imagine that you don't have enough strength to be a suitable companion right now," he smiled.
"I can't even think about that at the moment," sighed Lür, in great spirits. "I didn't think that I would ever get to see another woman, other than those painted in the depths of the caves,"
The man gave him a friendly pat on the back and they both laughed.
"What's your name?"
"They call me Lür. In your language it means Earth."
"Is that your Real Name?"
"Yes, I never changed it. It describes me well," Lür answered, slightly thrown aback by the direct question.
"They call me Negu, which means harsh winter, like this one. How do you know how to speak my language?"
"I learned it many years ago. There are some words that I don't understand, I think I speak the language of your grandfathers, but don't worry, soon I will speak like you and it won't sound so strange."
"I can see that, you imitate my accent very well. Are you an interpreter, like me?" asked the man.
"Yes, there were times that I worked as an interpreter. When it was necessary."
Negu stopped at the top of the mountain, holding out his hand to help Lür reach the snowy peaks.
They could now see the billows of smoke that came from the tents, although Lür didn't expect to find what he saw.
Some twenty round tents, made with defenses and mammoth bones, big enough for several men to lie down in a row. They were covered with taut skin, and smoke from the fires rose out of the holes in the domed ceilings.
Now I understand, he thought ecstatically. The mammoth is also Mother's totem, that's why she is so ancient.
All the members of her clan milled around her. Children, many young, and women, some old. Most had similar features. Slightly tanned skin, and slanted eyes. You could tell the real members of the Sons of Adam from the ones that didn't share the same blood.
They were all well prepared for that eternal winter. Long, fur pantaloons, coats, capes, hats, gloves. Thousands of cowrie shells, white and shiny, were sewn onto their furs. Further south, those shells were very valuable and Lür had used them many times when trading.
An old woman held out her hand and smiled, inviting him to go inside the main tent. Lür accepted the invitation, shivering from the cold and with a fatigue that he had accumulated over centuries.
Several boys and girls followed him, asking all sorts of questions.
From which direction of the wind had he come? Were there any men or animals left alive in his camp? Was Father Sun recovering in the places he had traveled through, or was it as weak as the one shining on them?
Lür hurriedly answered their questions, sometimes talking like a child, giggling at seeing so many new faces, so many eyes, so many smiles.
Then they fed him, it was dried meat that he chewed with delight without asking where it had come from. They gave him a wooden bowl with pure water and finally laid him down, covering him with several furs next to the fire and leaving him alone in the tent to rest.
But Lür couldn't rest, his body began to shake violently, without his permission, and all the fear from centuries turned into a long sob of joy.
The next day he woke up tire
d, hungry and thirsty. Several members of the clan were wandering around the tent, some hanging small, gutted fish next to the fire to smoke them, a couple of mothers fed their babies while others wove long nets with tight knots.
Negu was sitting next to him and Lür sat up with some difficulty. Negu had made him a rabbit stew. Lür polished it all off in just a few minutes, still a little dazed from the hubbub around him. He had one thing in mind, although he wondered if it was still too early for that. But he had spent centuries hearing of the legend, if there was a remote chance that it was true... He wouldn't be alone anymore, he wouldn't be the only longevo in the world.
He had better find out, he convinced himself. Maybe they would all fade away tomorrow and he would never find out.
"Can you take me to Mother?" he finally dared ask Negu.
"She doesn't see outsiders. Mother protects us, but we also protect her. We don't want to leave her exposed, she is always surrounded by a Son of Adam."
"I understand."
"Why do you want to meet her, Lür?"
"To tell her that I'm also special, that I would like to talk to her. I want to ask her about the Ancient Times, what she's lived through, know where she saw the light for the first time, how many thaws she has survived..."
"You say you're special. In what way?" said Negu, scrutinizing his face, as if he wanted to know whether he had a liar before him.
Lür sighed, he trusted his carrier. He could tell by his frank look that he was a wise and intelligent man. Maybe he had been a leader in his clan until he exiled with the Sons of Adam.
But Lür had a good memory. A memory of how he had been rejected by all the clans when they found out his real age, a memory of the terror of the women who thought that he would steal their strength by sleeping with them and turn into old women in one night, a memory of the forced exiles from both sides of the Great Crest... Negu looked like a good man, but that could all change following such a revelation. Lür hadn't survived by running unnecessary risks, but rather by dodging and skirting them.
"In some sense, I'm very similar to her. But I can't, I shouldn't, give you any more details. What I need is for you to understand the importance of being able to speak to her."
"Importance, for who?"
"For me, for Mother, for all the Sons of Adam."
Both men weighed the other up. Both men saw nothing more than a clean honesty in the eyes of the other.
Negu stood up and held out his hand, helping Lür to stand up.
"Ok, Lür. Mother will see you."
"Shouldn't you ask Mother first?" asked Lür, suspiciously.
"This time it won't be necessary. Mother is not one to take advice, and she's the one who makes all the decisions that concern the Sons of Adam. But from the start I saw something different in you, just as you say, although I can't work out what it is that makes you different. However, Mother will see you when I explain it to her."
"So who are you then, the person that Mother listens to?"
"Mother is my companion."
10
The old man
ADRIANA
Breath, Dana. Just breathe, a voice from inside my subconscious ordered.
But even that was a difficult task. A sack covered my head, the rough feel of esparto scratched my face, although it was the dirt that was bothering me the most. There was dirt inside the sack, and it got up my nose and in my eyes. I blinked, trying to get it out, but it just scratched my corneas and each time I blinked it was worse. I tried to use my hands to rub the dirt out, but I discovered that they were tied behind my back. The knot was tight and after a good while fighting with the rope and getting burns on my wrists, I had to give up.
This is serious, this is a real kidnapping, I thought, in horror.
And for the first time in my life I went out of control and had a panic attack, emptying my lungs trying to scream. Because I couldn't, because a handkerchief, a cloth, whatever it was, covered my mouth and ended in a very tight knot behind my head.
I was shut inside a box, without any light, but I was conscious of the fact that I was being taken somewhere, because I could hear the sound of traffic. Maybe I was in the trunk of a car or in a van.
And after that first moment of panic, I stopped worrying, because the sack barely allowed me to breath and I wasn't even aware that the lack of oxygen was once again taking me along the path to an imposed sleep.
I don't know how long I was unconscious for the second time, but when I came to, even though it was still dark, I could tell that my kidnappers had moved me. The box they had put me in this time was slightly larger than a family-sized suitcase. The inside was soft, as if they expected me to get knocked about during the journey, and my feet were touching a hard, metallic object which I identified straight away: an oxygen bottle.
I also discovered that my kidnapper had loosened the knot that held my hands behind my back, and after a short fight with the thick rope, I was finally free. I pulled the sack off my head and began to blink in the dark inside that casket. The oxygen bottle was hooked up to a mask, and then I understood: the journey was going to be long, they wanted to keep me alive, and screaming would be useless. So I placed the mask over my mouth and managed to open the valve. I breathed in the air it gave me with the anxiousness of a newborn and I took my time.
I didn't want to think about anything.
Just in breathing, it would be my anchor. I didn't have anything else and I didn't want to think about the unknown, in the reasons, in the kidnappers, in where that forced journey was taking me.
I decided to focus on controlling everything that was in my control: internal factors such as my attitude, panic and anger would play against me. I didn't know how long I had been kidnapped for, I didn't have any visual references, I didn't know if it was night or day, but I could control my sleep cycles, my hunger. Hunger... it was hours since I'd had anything to eat. Since that breakfast with Iago in the morning.
Don't think about Iago, I stopped myself. He would be sick with worry. If I thought about him I'd lose myself again.
Don't think about Iago.
That was when I realized that everything was vibrating, the suitcase, my body, the oxygen bottle. To start with it was a deafening roar, and then the vibrations heightened and it was like being in a washing machine. The noise was taking over everything, until my eardrums hurt from the pressure. I opened my mouth, I covered my ears, I thought they would explode.
And that's when I figured it out: I was in the bowels of a plane. A plane that was taking off. I gulped.
Where were they taking me?
I woke up in a cell with freezing walls. It was an old chamber, like in a prison. The furniture was sparse, with just a bed and a sink. The rickety old cot was narrow, but the sheets and quilt were of extremely good quality. They were ironed and I would say that they were brand new. I examined the large rocks that made up the four walls that held me. Judging by the state of the mortar and the construction, I calculated that it must have been about a thousand years old.
And that's where I spent the first night, freezing cold and scared to death.
The next day I didn't wake up on my own, I was woken up. Once again I could feel the raffia sack on my head and the rope tying my hands behind my back. Someone took me by the elbow and I was dragged like a dead weight, blind and tied up. During the awful move I was taken up some stairs with little care. I was then dragged across a smoother surface, finally noting the warm and soft feel of a rug under my feet.
We're nearly there, I thought.
I was close to discovering the truth.
My capturer threw me to the floor and I fell on my knees, disorientated, still without being able to see a thing. I felt them the torment of the rope around my wrists and the sack was finally taken off my head.
Before me, in a lounge with a huge fireplace, lined with noble, ostentatious wood, filled with the most solid, most luxurious furniture that I had ever seen, I watched someone who used to be Jairo de
l Castillo walk in, although he was no longer that man.
Nagorno limped over to me, like an old, decrepit man, dragging the oversized tail of a damascene and garnet man's robe. I had to look at him again to understand what had happened to that man I hated so much.
Because his face hadn't changed, he was still a glorious beauty without a single wrinkle. His hair was shorter, but the same shade of black. His body was still that of a young, eternal thirty-year-old man, but underneath that outer shell, from the way he moved, from his gestures, from the infinite weariness of his legs that barely held him up with the help of a walking stick, underneath that body, I could see that Nagorno had turned into an old man.
11
The old arguments
IAGO
I received Nagorno's call at midmorning. The unidentified-caller message on the screen announced that the game had begun.
"Hello brother," he whispered, in a creakier voice than I remembered.
"You know that I'm going to kill you, don't you?"
"On the contrary, you're going to save my life. Otherwise I'll return Adriana in numbered boxes."
Ok, I save your life and you give her back to me. In seventy years, when she's dead and you don't have anything to hurt me with, I'll get you just the same.
"Is she ok?"
"She's fine, she slept for twelve hours and is well rested. What do you think, I'm a sadist?"
I had to stop myself from throwing the phone into the sea.
Calm down, Urko, calm down.
"So tell me what you want."
"I'll catch you up with what's been going on in my life since you stuck that needle into me: two heart attacks, Iago, two myocardial infarctions. I've seen the best cardiologists on the planet. I've got the heart of a hundred-year-old man. They're pretty sure that in the next few months I'll have a third heart attack and won't survive."
I listened, stunned. I wasn't expecting such rapid, such dramatic results.