Martez and the Portuguese Explorers.

Craig Hainsworth

Martez and the Portuguese Explorers

The Portuguese had sailed the waters around South America many years before any of the other great Europeans had ventured to those areas. The first expeditions of these territories were abject failures. No one knew of the events there, no one remembered, no one suspected and no one cared. However, inside a temple on the jungle continent an artefact was found, a plaque. Upon touching this plaque the first true explorers were granted a vision.

A sleek Portuguese ship enters the great mouth to the river of Southern Newfoundland. It is not a large ship, but a merchant vessel fitted out for an expedition. On board is a company of Portuguese soldiers, belonging to the same merchant kindred. Their leader stands at the prow. His name is Martez and already he has gained a reputation in Portugal as an intrepid explorer.

Martez's obsession is the mysterious land of Newfoundland. His interest in the wealth of this exotic land is superficial, that is what motivates his men and why the merchant kindred financed the expedition. Martez, however, has another motive for exploring the interior of this new land. He searches for secrets and hidden knowledge.

The ship glides effortlessly up the great river, the breeze ushering it against the current. The mist rises from the waters and the distant riverbanks, swathed in jungle, appear blue on the horizon. It is a glimpse of a remote age, a time before Europe, the dawn of the barbarous empires. But for the hidden dwellers of the rainforest it is the dawning of a new age, a time of contact with outsiders, new races of which their prophecies speak. The progress of the Portuguese expedition is being watched.

Eventually the sleek ship arrives at the headwaters of the mighty river. Its shallow draught enables it to penetrate the reed-choked creeks, manoeuvring the menacing mangroves. The river narrows. After a while the ship runs aground. Martez debates with his officers. It is decided to try and drag the ship over the mud banks to the swamps and pools beyond. All the ship's company labour under the hot tropical sun, dragging the ship forward inch by inch across the mud.

Men with keen eyesight and powerful bows shoot arrows at the crocodiles as their comrades’ trudge through thigh-deep, cloying silt. At length the attempt is abandoned. Leaving a few men on board the ship, now high and dry on the mud bank, the majority trek onwards, with their equipment strapped to their backs and so a long file of Portuguese pushes its way between the trees, deeper and deeper into the jungle.

The men are suffering in the humidity and heat. Their clothes are tarnished with mud. Their pale outlandish skin burns under the scorching sun. Their faces are hidden ...

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The men are suffering in the humidity and heat. Their clothes are tarnished with mud. Their pale outlandish skin burns under the scorching sun. Their faces are hidden under their hoods. The insects bite and delirium takes its hold.

It is a bad decision, made in haste and surprise, to shoot arrows and muskets at the natives who suddenly appear from the trees. A small party of them are slain, transfixed with arrows and musket balls. None are spared, and none escape.

Martez and his men emerge from the forest. They enter a broad sunlit clearing. Beneath their feet the ground is paved and not overgrown with weeds. As they continue into the plaza they look up at great pyramids, towering on all sides of them. The stone gleams white in the sun. Strange carvings grimace down at them. The place is utterly deserted, yet pristine, as if some unforeseen catastrophe has overcome the missing inhabitants, leaving the city intact.

For a long time the party stays together for fear of ambush. They make camp in the middle of the plaza, posting guards to keep watch throughout the dark night.

The sun rises over the summit of the greatest of the pyramids. Rays of light shine between the obelisks and along the paved road, cutting the plaza like a golden knife from the sky and waking Martez's men. Several of their number are found to have perished overnight from insect bites, stings and sickness.

Suddenly an eerie sound pierces the dawn. Martez and the others gaze up to the platform of the nearest pyramid. They see a lone figure playing a strange tune on the pipes. It is Hotx-Potz greeting the sun, as has been the custom for millennia. A foolish man of Martez's, crazed with delirium, shoots a musket at Hotx-Potz. Hotx-Potz tumbles. His greeting to the sun is not finished. Martez glares at the man who fired the shot. His words of rebuke are unspoken; his eyes betray his dread.

Martez orders a search of the, once again silent, city. This takes a long time, as his men are tired from the troubles of the jungle. His men also fear ambush at any time, gold plaques are ripped from the walls. Strange things are found from the lesser pyramids. Martez is shown these things when another party of his followers approaches.

"We have discovered something which you ought to see." They say.

Martez accompanies them across the plaza. They enter the portal of one of the largest pyramids. The torches are lit and the party file along the descending shafts. The walls are filled with strange glyphs to them. Sacred glyphs. They finally reach the chamber at the end of the passage. Martez notes the yellow glow of the room, he also notes the gold plaques that adorn the room in their hundreds. His men smile with satisfaction and looks of greed.

In the centre of the chamber, set into the stony floor is a deep, round hole. It looks like a well.

"What is that?" says Martez.

"We don't know!" his men reply. "We came to fetch you as soon as we found the place, we have not yet been inside the chamber." Martez steps through and looks into the depths of the hole. Suddenly he lets out a cry of despair. His men shudder and feel icy terror in their hearts though the room is so hot and humid that even the stones are sweating.

Martez backs away from the well and pushes his men back through the tunnel. "Go back, go back!" he says. "What about the gold?" asks a plumed officer. "Leave it!" Replies Martez making his way in haste past the officers. His party's mouths were agape in disbelief. The party glanced back into the chamber then quickly follow their leader back along the passage and into the sunlight. The gold was left.

A nasty sight greets their eyes as they emerge onto the plaza. The pavement is strewn with dead bodies and awash with red blood. Most of the bodies are Portuguese, horribly slain. Martez gazes in silence, his mind is clearly disturbed. There are no traces of any enemies. Another party of Portuguese arrives in the plaza, back from plundering.

"What's happened?"

"We don't know," comes the reply, "we heard cries so we came as fast as we could."

The two groups of Portuguese meet. The plumed officer again turns to Martez,

"They must be around here somewhere, what shall we do?" Martez's mind is clearly in another place. Then he says, "Pick up everything we have found, everything you can carry, then we go!" The men set to work.

The rhythmic beating of a drum makes its second song this day. Martez and his men look up in the direction of the noise. A line of savages armed with spears and shield of bronze and bone emerges out from the largest pyramid. The line of warriors wheel around perfectly in step and in utter silence but for the drum. Then a second line appears, a third, a fourth. The elves look on in bewilderment as the warriors bear down on them. Then flee with their gold.

Priest Xiliquncanci sits upon his palanquin within his chamber. Ichipozi the scribe approaches. The great priest blinks placidly.

"Speak!" he commands the scribe before him.

"Wise one! Revered one! Venerable one! Focus of peace! The strangers have left the city. Are they to be pursued?"

The priest is silent and then says, "Their leader has looked into the well of time. He should not have done such a thing!" Ichipozi replies "Indeed! Great one, let us slay him!" The priest bestirs himself once more. "Stop, impetuous one! His offence is his own punishment! He has seen the doom of his own kind!"

A pitiful band of men stagger out of the jungle, and begin to make their way across an expanse of mud, baked and cracked by the relentless sun. They reach the ship, high and dry on the mud and held fast. The ship is little better than a wreck. The sail hangs in tatters and there is no sign of the life, the guards are gone. Martez is demented; he rants and mutters to himself. He declares the founding of a trading point where he stands. His troops ignore him. Under the orders of the plumed officer the troops make a raft from the timbers of the ship.

It is many days later. The raft is complete. Martez is again in command. The raft drifts slowly down the river. Insects buzz around the exasperated men. Vultures circle the crew. The men lie dead or dying, the head of one of them lolls over the side of the raft into the water. It is already a skull in the forest heat. Piranhas eat the remaining tissue still clinging to bone. The plumed officer sits with his sword, awaiting death's approach. Martez is striding about on the vessel, describing the great trading colony he is going to build in all its splendid detail. He turns to his only surviving companion; "You don't believe me do you?" He says. "You think it will never happen, but you're wrong I tell you, wrong! You'll see, you'll see…"

A gold plaque slips into the water. The vision fades.