The Priest & The God
By Geovanni Botticella
Fernando heard Enrique’s screams echo down the cave walls. The savages dragged Enrique, the finest Conquistador he had ever met, to a faraway room. Yet Enrique’s screams were so loud they pierced Fernando’s eardrums.
Several warriors stood guard, in their jaguar skin uniforms, covering their faces with demonic horned masks. He wanted to make the sign of the cross just at the mere sight of them, but his arms were bound, tied to the roof of the cave, and he was sure his wrist was broken. Enrique’s scream reached its apex, broke into a high-pitched whimper, then fell silent. Fernando felt tears well in his eyes, he was hyperventilating, terrified at what they could have done to Enrique. He prayed that they wouldn’t break him, he was strong, having killed 2 savages before they were captured, but he screamed and died all the same.
He couldn’t remember what exactly happened, how they were brought here, or where they even were.
Fernando was the priest part of an expedition with Enrique and several other conquistadors that were supposed to arrive at the famed capital, Cusco, but happened upon a village on his journey. It was a fairly small mining village that was erected at the mouth of a large cave entrance. At the top of the cave was the head of a terrifying figure. It had long twisted horns protruding from its forehead with massive wild eyes, and a wide-fanged grin. The image disgusted Fernando, and so did the sight of the villagers who seemed to worship the demonic figure. But amongst the villagers was a beautiful young woman who tended to the figure most often. He thought it would have been a shame to see such a beauty burn in hell for her foolish worship of false deities.
Fernando and the conquistadors decided that they should save these villagers from damnation, and bring them into the light of God. He knew they would resist, but if they did, then he knew his fellows would dispatch them quickly, let them burn for their infidelity.
While his men launched their righteous assault, he found the woman, an even greater beauty up close. He took her alone and blessed her personally, but before he could finish, the heathen warriors arrived.
40 holy men of Spain entered the village, but when Fernando woke up, in the dark filthy cave, only 6 of his compadres remained. Now, it was only him.
He had no clue how much time had passed, it could have been a day, or two, maybe even a week. Certainly less than two, but his hunger would argue otherwise. “Dónde estoy!” Fernando said, more frantic than he would have liked. “Tell me where I am and release me! Or face the wrath of God!” The guards did not answer or even flinch at his words. He thrashed at the chains, trying to free himself, to no avail. Dried blood stained his head, an indicator of a grievous head injury he hardly remembered.
Still, he knew he would be free. He was a holy God-fearing man, he would be saved, shown mercy for his undying faith. Enrique and the others only died because they were sinners. Of course, they were men of the church, but they spoke God’s name in vain, and Fernando was sure they stole from their holy empire.
He slowed his breathing and sat on the dirt, calm with the knowledge that he would be rescued, some way, somehow. He stared at his captures. He could not see their faces, but he tried to recognize their features. Their height, skin tone, and any other visible markings. When he was free, he would tell Capitán Pizzaro himself of this treachery. He would gladly watch these heretics from the new world squeal on the garrote o la cuna de juda.
He heard movement down the tunnel. He squinted, trying to make out any shapes in the darkness beyond the torchlight. Three figures appeared from the darkness. A man appeared first followed by two other guards. The man wore an ornate gold headdress that had a face with jade eyes. He wore red, black, and white clothing, with golden braces, and a large jade geometric symbol on his chest, which he heard was called a chakana. The man didn’t wear a mask but held a stoic expression on his face.
Behind him the two guards held Enrique. His body was completely limp, his head slumped over his shoulders, concealing his face. His hair was soaked, but Fernando could not tell with what.
They dropped Enrique’s body next to him with a thud that echoed in the hall. Blood spilled from Enrique’s head, rushing toward Fernando. Fernando wriggled, straining to move, making his broken wrist ache in pain, but he gave up and sat in the pool of blood that soaked his clothing
The man with the chakana turned Enrique’s body over with his foot, revealing his face. His eyes were black marbles, his mouth frozen open silently screaming. Dried blood caked his jaw and exposed chest, but Ferenando could see no inflicting wound. No cuts, bruises or rope burn, just his terrified expression trapped forever in time. The ambiguity of his death terrified him. What could have done this? what heathen magic did they perform on him? He sobbed, terrified of his future. He looked up at the man with the chakana.
“Re-release me now, in the name of GOD.” He said in an attempt to sound commanding, choking on his tears.
The man with the chakana tilted his head, looked at him for a moment, and spoke to the other guards in hushed words that Fernando couldn’t understand.
The guards who stood idle by him cut the rope from the ceiling. He tried to stand up, but the guard forced him back on his knees. He whimpered a weak cry, felt tears run down his face, and tasted snot leaking from his nose. A humiliating position for a man of his station. The man with the chakana looked down at him, staring deeply into his eyes. He felt sudden shame like a child scolded by their parents.
He said something to the guards and they heaved him up, holding him above the ground. Fernando thrashed, kicked, and yelled, screaming for help, wondering where God was to save him. The guards took him down the tunnel, the light dissipating behind him, the man fading behind him, only a shape in the luminance. The tunnel grew darker with each step until he could barely see his hands in front of him.
In the darkness, he saw a figure with what looked like a malformed head. The guards sat him on the floor and lit a new torch. The figure was revealed in the light wearing a terrifying mask. It was red as blood sprinkled with gold and jade flakes. Dagger-like teeth jutted from its mouth and bulging wild eyes peered at him scornfully. It had a black feathered headdress and wore clothing that was dazzling with colors: bright greens, purples, reds, and blues were vibrant in the dim light.
The figure stood by a door made out of a black stone, dark as night. It knelt toward him, its curled nose nearly touching him. He flinched and turned away, sniveling at the site of it. It removed the mask and he saw it was the woman he had blessed.
For a moment he sighed with relief, new hope that the woman he had saved from damnation would, in return, save him. But as he looked at her, his stomach dropped. Her face was dirty, streaks from tears ran down her cheeks, her lips were curled in a snarl, and her eyes were bloodshot, beautiful, but red with fury.
He clasped his hands together as if in prayer and raised them to the woman.
“Mi hija, por favo…”
She struck him on the side of the head, making his ears ring.
“¡Cállete.” she said. The word like venom
“Po…por qué, why are you doing this, I saved you.”
“Saved me?” she said rising above him, looking twice the size she actually was. “If that is how you save people, then I hope never to see how you punish them.”
I hope to show you and the rest of these heathens how we punish people, he wanted to say but decided to hold his tongue.
“I gave you my blessing, you are a child of God now, saved from hellfire, but if you don’t release me, he shall smite you and the rest of your..” She faced him down, staring deep into his eyes, he didn’t finish his sentence.
She stood over him, menacing, and tall, making him feel small, like a rat cowering in a cave
“Your ‘blessing’ is nothing but a curse, a stain on my life.” Tears welled in her eyes, but she held them back. She looked down on the priest as he groveled.
“But I suppose the only way to repay a blessing is with a blessing.” She put the mask back on and nodded toward the guards.
He heard the sliding of stone against stone and saw an opening to a new room, a new prison, with black floors and walls, similar to the door. The room was barren except for a small fire. The light of which reflected off the black surfaces.
“No, no, Por favor! Please tell me where I am.”
The woman looked at him again with wild demonic eyes, none of which, he just realized, had holes to see through. “Urin Pacha,” her voice sounded deeper and distorted behind the mask. “You showed me your god, now I will show you ours.” The guards flung him into the room like he was a small child. The surface was cold to the touch and smooth like glass.
He ran to the shut door, banging his shoulder hard against the blackened glass. He wailed shouting for help which reverberated in the room.
…
After some time his throat became raw from screaming. His head, wrist, and now shoulder all throbbing with pain. He slumped against a wall and took in his new surroundings. Light from the fire danced across the reflective material, toward a path that angled downward into a black abyss.
In his hopelessness he turned to prayer, making the sign of the cross and pressing his injured hands together.
“Senor Dios…”
“Padre”
An all-encompassing voice spoke, shaking Fernando to his core. He couldn’t tell if the voice came from in front of him, behind him, beneath him, or above him.
“Who’s there, who said that. Show yourself.” Fernando stood looking around the room, gazing at the opening.
“We are here Padre, look upon us.”
The voice surrounded him again, confusing him and giving him vertigo as he lost his sense of direction. He looked down at the black glass tunnel and saw nothing. Then in the corner, he saw movement. An object stepped from the shadow. He had a clear glimpse but turned around immediately. Though it was only an outline in the darkness, the shape made no sense to him. He was sure it was a part of something larger, but the mere sight of the appendage made his headache even worse.
“We’re disappointed Padre, you turn away from us.”
The voice softened, and Fernando could tell the direction it was coming from. It speaks perfect Spanish, he thought, like a pompous scholar. Could this be my salvation?
He reflected on the holy scriptures. “Be not afraid” the angels would tell those they visited as they took incomprehensible forms. He wondered if this was an angel seeking him.
“Have you come to save me?”
The voice laughed, enveloping Fernando, he fell to his knees covering his ears. The voices were too much to handle, it was like an intense pressure crushing his head, making his nose bleed.
“Do you think we are a Christian angel, Padre?”
“I don’t know what to think, I don’t know where I am, or why I’m here” He tried to glance back at the creature again, but his fear held him back, and he continued to face the wall.
“You’ve been told where you are and you know why you’re here, but your delusions have left you blind and deaf.”
Fernando felt his body shake, his throat dry. “¿Eres el Diablo”
The voice laughed again, it vibrated through the cave, shaking Fernando, dropping him to his knees. The creature’s voice sounded like it was both near and far. He vomited, dizzy from the confusion.
“You invaders are short-sighted, you believe the world is yours, but you could not grasp our existence. You compare us to your Lucifer, yet we have lived long before his genesis.”
He gripped the wall in front of him and held his heart, wallowing in his own filth. “¿Quién eres”
“You think yourself deserving of answers? No, you deserve nothing. You’ve had your chance to learn the lore of these lands, but now your time has come.”
“I don’t understand!” Fernando sobbed, holding his face in his hands, still avoiding the temptation to look back. “What do you want from me, por qué estoy aquí?” He felt something encapsulate him, a warm yet cold breeze that wouldn’t go away, as if a shadow had conjured a physical form and covered him. He held his eyes shut too afraid to see, for a moment he wished he could pluck his eyes out.
“Punishment Padre, punishment for your sins.”
“I have done nothing wrong! I have been nothing but a devout son of God!”
“YOU LIE, TO US AND YOURSELF. You see yourself as a pious man but you are a prideful, spiteful rapist. Your god would spit on you should you ever meet him, though we doubt he would even waste that.”
He finally stood, defiantly, against the questioning of his stature. “I have done nothing but the work of God, you have no evidence, no proof of any heresy on my part.”
“We are all the proof you need!” it spoke sounding like a thousand shouting voices changing in pitch, tone, distance, and direction. The voices were overwhelming, causing a piercing pain to ripple through Fernando’s head, it felt as if his very brain was throbbing, pressing against his skull. He fell flattening against the ground.
“We are the punishment of your God. If you have not committed any sins, then he would not have sent you TO US! Now submit!”
Fernando lay on the ground, broken and bloodied, his eyes open, but still facing the wall.
“What is my punishment?”
“Tus compadres fell to their deepest fears. You will do the same. You are a God-fearing man Padre, so we will show you, God.”
Fernando felt something touch him. It felt like a liquid forming into a gas, yet firm and solid. The appendage rolled him onto his back, lifting him to his knees. His body and his actions were no longer his own, like a puppet on strings. His head was limp, hanging off his body. He felt something lift his head up and forced him to face forward.
He doesn’t understand what he sees before him. The god of Urin Pacha is darkness, pulling in the light yet emitting its own, brighter than the sun. Its enormity is impossible, far larger than the cave they’re in, larger than the mountain they’re beneath. Fernando tries desperately to cling to a discernible shape, but it changes rapidly, its form and its element. His head is filled with pain as he gazes upon a being that is the entire cosmos collapsed into a single deity. His head pulses, the agony so intense he wants to crack his skull open and spill his brain onto the floor. A kaleidoscope of colors rushes toward him as if he was flying through the stars. He sees colors he’s never seen before, indescribable colors, colors he should never have seen. He feels a pain in his right eye as his retina burst, filling it with fluid. He cries bloody tears that stream down his neck. He screams a terrified joyous scream that is soundless beholding to the god before him. It opens what may have been its maw, a gaping chasm that contains a blank abyss, releasing an incomprehensible sound that shatters Ferenando’s mind. He hears his ear drums pop and ring, silencing the world around him. Blood spews from his ears, his eyes, and his mouth, and he collapses.
He convulses, crippled from body and mind. Thoughts and emotions leave the broken vessel that was his very being. A single thought stays with him for his last moments, which feels like eons before it finally ends. One word scorched into his melted mind, Supay.
…
Cavillace entered the obsidian cave. The air was cool and quiet. The fire burned down to embers, illuminating the floor in a light orange hue. The body of the priest was sprawled on the ground. As she moved closer she saw snakes coiled around the corpse. She waved her torch forward making the snakes hiss and slither away down the tunnel.
She gazed at the corpse of the Spaniard. He was pale white, thin to the bone like a skeleton. One eye was glossed over, completely white with the exception of the faint brown reminisce from his pupil. His other eye was completely black as if someone shoved a dark glass ball into his socket. His mouth was agape, frozen in awe. The body was surrounded by blood, feces, and viscera. She noticed a crack running down the back of his head. The charred remains that might have been his brain leak from the crack into a thick puddle of sludge.
She took her revenge on the man that violated her, and on the men that killed her people, but she didn’t feel the pride or happiness she thought she would feel. The man paid for his sins, but she and others would still have to live with them. She sighed, still looking at the mangled corpse.
She unclenches her fist, not having released they were balled in the first palace, and releases a final relieving exhale. “You will never harm anyone again,” she said, taking solace in this. Though she was not overjoyed as she would have liked, she was content with the outcome. Her brothers came into the cave each placing a hand on her shoulder. They still wore their mask, shielding themselves from Supay, the gods that dwell in the world beneath theirs, though they had long left the cave.
She didn’t wear her mask. She knew no harm would come to her. She had suffered enough and there was much worse to fear.
She feared Supay as most of her people did, but she respected them. Death was just part of their cycle of life. without it, life would be less precious. She faces the opening of the tunnel and whispers thanks. For giving justice, and for showing mercy.
Her brothers removed the body and piled it with the others. They buried the bodies outside the mouth of the cave. Unmarked as they never cared to learn their names, like how the invaders never cared to learn hers.
Once the soil was settled they sealed the entrance. Not to keep anything out, but to keep anyone from going in. Mist covered the mountains, obscuring the peaks of the plateaus, and birds sang bringing in the new day. They gathered their mining tools to find a new place to harvest minerals and materials. As they hiked back to their new homes, Cavillace looked up seeing a Condor fly high, majestically gliding against the winds. Behind the condor was the faint glimpse of a rainbow.
The next world awaited her, her family, and her people. Though it seemed far, it would always be there.
Afterward
Cosmic horror is a genre that always fascinated me. I always loved the idea of the unknown, and what we as humans can and cannot grasp. For instance, there are colors our human eyes cannot process. No matter the colors we mix, or create shades of, we cannot see anything beyond the colors of the rainbow. Every day I wonder what it would be like to see those colors, would It be beautiful or terrifying? The other subject I’ve had an interest in, in relation to this story is Mythology. I try my best to study the mythos of many different cultures from the Norse Gods to the Maya’s Pol Po Vuh, as I believe that mythology is the bedrock of a people’s culture. I also like to follow modern takes on ancient mythology, like Silvia Moreno Garcia’s “Gods of Jade and Shadow”, or Madaline Miller’s “Circe.” As a half-Peruvian, I found it deeply disappointing how little coverage there is on Incan/Quechua mythology. I wanted to remedy that by making a story that is rooted in the Incan mythos.
I wanted to make a story following the Inca god of death Supay, as one of my favorite subjects in mythology are the underworlds. I wanted to make the experience of observing a god of death a truly horrifying experience. Often gods are depicted as humanoid with some animal characteristics, but I thought gods, as celestial beings, could be more incomprehensible. This led me to pull from the cosmic horror genre, depicting Supay as an indescribable being that would shatter the mind by looking at it. Though this would be a loose interpretation of the Inca god, and my overall knowledge is rudimentary, I still wanted to create the story to interest readers in the Inca pantheon. Hopefully, I will encourage someone to learn about these gods so that this knowledge and information never goes extinct.
Appendix
Supay
Supay also known as Tío Supay is the Inca god of death and ruler of the Urin Pacha. (Supay is also the name for the race of demons that inhabit the realm). Supay is often compared to the Christian devil and Urin Pacha, the Christian hell. However, the Incas and their descendants the Quechua and Aymara did not view Supay as harshly as the Christians. Though they feared him, he protected the path of death and balanced good and evil. The Incas viewed death as a new beginning, instead of a final end. The Indigenous peoples did fear Supay but didn’t reject him, often they would offer sacrifices and perform rituals, to earn his favor. Most commonly Supay is associated with miners. Miners will pray to Supay for protection and mines in Peru and Bolivia will sometimes have figures of him with offerings of food, alcohol, or other valuable possessions. Supay is also a shapeshifter, turning into whatever he would like including animals and humans alike.
Chakana
Chakanas or the Inca Cross (dubbed by the Spanish) is a symbol used by the Inca, and pre-Incan Andean civilizations. The word itself means bridge and the symbol represents the bridge between the 3 worlds or Pachas: Hanan Pacha, Kay Pacha, and Urin Pacha. The symbol is also interpreted as the dynamic between the cosmos and the life within, with 3 “steps” on each of the 4 corners representing something different. 1st quarter represents the 3 worlds. The 2nd quarter the 3 revered animals: the snake, puma, and condor. The 3rd quarter the Inca commandments: don’t steal, don’t lie, and don’t be lazy. The 4th quarter, the human practices: love and well-doing, knowledge and work.
Urin Pacha
Urin Pacha (the name in Quechua, more widely known as Ukhu Pacha) is one of 3 Pachas in Incan mythology. Urin Pacha is the underworld associated with death and new life. The realm is often associated with Pachamama the fertility goddess and Supay, the god of death and the race of demons who inhabit it. The other worlds are Hanan Pacha, the overworld where most of the Incan gods live, and Kay Pacha which is our world. It is believed that caves and springs are bridges from our world, Kay Pacha, to Urin Pacha. Snakes are the animal most closely associated with Urin Pacha as they live in the ground.
Bonus: Urin Pacha has several similarities with Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. Similarly, the Mayan believed Xibalba was accessible through caves and believed that snakes would carry the spirits of the dead through the caves into Xibalba.
