"Fuck off, man.” Emilio shook his head vehemently. “I’m seriously not pretending to be a god again. Do you have any idea what kind of shitshow that got me into last time?”

“Would you rather have been locked up in a cell like I was?” Mateo looked at him with open disdain. “Or treated like a slave? Stop making such a big deal out of it. You’re wearing fancy shit, you can make yourself understood in the local language... You got off pretty damn well. Just tell the ruler of this valley that that asshole forced you to marry him and that you strangled him with your bare hands. Make it a good story. Tell him that marriage made you the ruler of the Valley of the Jaguar and that you want to make peace.”

“Why don’t you do it?” Emilio grumbled. “You could easily pretend it was you.”

“I’ve been trying for weeks to memorize some words too, but I suck at it. Languages just aren’t my thing.”

Emilio shrugged. “Then try harder. I’m not getting involved in all this political bullshit. We find Juan, then I find Iliyan, and then...”

“And all of that gets a whole lot easier if people actually respect you. They’ll welcome you like a hero, man. You killed their enemy and you’re offering peace.”

Emilio let out a long sigh and kicked a pebble away. As Mateo’s words sank in, he stared across the glittering water that was just visible through the trees. According to T’ukri, if they followed this river to the coast, they’d reach the Valley of the Condor.

The place where Iliyan had grown up.

The place he’d been driven out of.

“I can’t exactly tell people I married a man,” Emilio muttered. “Iliyan was banished for that, and his lover was murdered.”

“You also ended that marriage about five minutes later. You’ll talk your way out of it.” Mateo waved a hand. “Come on, dude. They’ve probably already heard that guy’s dead. We should use that.”

Grumbling, Emilio kicked another stone. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a better plan himself. The simple fact was that he and Mateo stood out here. They hadn’t been born in this world. There was no way they could pass for ordinary locals.

Mateo and you, maybe not...

His eyes drifted to T’ukri, who was walking a little farther ahead along the riverbank with a spear in his hand.

“Hey, T’ukri,” he called.

The boy stopped and looked over his shoulder.

Emilio walked over to him. “Couldn’t you scout ahead for us? Find out where Juan is? If he’s locked in a dungeon, there’s a good chance we’ll end up there too. But if he’s walking around freely...” Then there’s a better chance they’ll welcome us too.

The sparkle that was almost always present in T’ukri’s eyes faded. “What if they think I’m a spy? Then they’ll kill me.”

Emilio sighed. Right. That was a fair point.

A limping warrior was exactly the kind of person the Moche could send on a mission like that. As far as they were concerned, he wasn’t much use for anything else. 

“Then we’ll just have to take the risk that they don’t throw me into a dungeon straight away.” His thoughts flashed back to his first evening in this world, when the rulers of a neighboring divine couple had had their throats slit.

The Moche had spilled so much blood.

Would Iliyan’s family hold that against him, or would they really welcome him as a hero?

If only Iliyan were still here so Emilio could ask what he thought.

Another stab of longing went through him.

His thoughts kept drifting back to Iliyan. Even when we set out together to do something impossible, we barely doubted we’d pull it off. Emilio wished he felt that same certainty now.

He dropped the idea of sending T’ukri ahead.

The three of them continued west together.

The sun was already setting the sky ablaze in fiery reds and oranges when the outline of a structure rose on the other side of the river.

It was an earthen rampart, and every few metres he could make out the silhouettes of a man or woman standing atop it. A ball of nerves tightened in his stomach. So far, he hadn’t seen a single bow and arrow around here. Hopefully, they hadn’t just been invented in this valley. Spears had a range of dozens of metres too, but he assumed people were a little more sparing with those and didn’t simply throw them at the slightest movement.

He was glad night would soon swallow them up, allowing them to travel a good distance along the river without immediately having to face a confrontation. This was the end of the valley; the city where Iliyan’s family lived was probably all the way on the other side, just like in the Valley of the Jaguar.

They walked for hours, keeping a considerable distance from the river in the hope of staying out of sight. It did nothing to ease his nerves. Who knew if they had posted guards on this side as well?

“Let’s get a few hours of sleep,” Emilio suggested after another few hours. The nerves were wearing him down, and he wanted to look at least somewhat energetic when the time came. Showing up there looking utterly exhausted wouldn’t exactly make a good impression.

A fire was too risky, so the three of them simply wrapped themselves in blankets.

Mateo took the first watch and promised to wake T’ukri halfway through the night.

Emilio pushed a few pieces of stone and branches aside before lying down on the ground. Months ago, he would have spent the entire night tossing and turning, but by now he could barely remember what a bed looked like, and it didn’t take long before nightmares of what lay ahead hijacked his dreams.

Now that they were so close to their destination, Emilio felt comfortable enough using some of their drinking water to freshen up his face. Unfortunately, he still looked like a traveller rather than a god. Hopefully, no one there would take offense at that.

We’ll see Juan soon. By repeating that to himself, he hoped to keep his nerves at bay. His friend had at least been able to send a letter, and he hadn’t said anything about being imprisoned. There was no reason to think he was being held captive, even if it had been weeks since he must have sent that message.

And if he is, we’ll figure something out. He had gotten Mateo out too. All he had to do was build on a lie. He could do that. Ever since their time travel, that was practically all he had done.

Emilio stuffed the now-empty leather waterskin back into the woven bag T’ukri had given him at the beginning of their journey and slung it over his shoulder. The thing had left a raw mark on the back of his neck. He missed his own backpack, as well as something as ordinary as a plastic bottle. And his cigarettes…

Iliyan had probably thrown them away. Maybe he had ritually burned all of Emilio’s meagre belongings.

“There’s a heavily guarded bridge farther ahead.” T’ukri stepped out from between the trees. Even though it was still early, sweat was already beading on his forehead. He must have hurried, because it wasn’t exactly unbearably hot.

“A bridge. Well, that saves us from crossing the river.”

By now, crossing rivers was hardly anything to him anymore. Still, the presence of a bridge surprised him; he hadn’t come across one before.

“I only saw it from a distance. To get there, we first have to pass along a guarded wall made of mud.”

Mateo gave him a questioning look, and Emilio translated the words for him.

“Well, that’s fine, isn’t it?” Mateo walked past them and continued in the direction their companion had just returned from. “Sneaking inside was never our plan anyway. That cripple just needs to announce us. I’m sure they’ll want to speak to you. It’s not every day they get a god coming over for coffee.”

“Coffee…” Emilio muttered.

A sudden pang of homesickness washed over him. It seemed like years since he had been able to simply open the cupboard, put coffee in the filter, and fill the reservoir with water. He would have given a lot for a cup right now.

With a sigh, he forced himself to move. He had thought he would miss the parties, a warm woman’s body in his bed, but all he wanted now was a simple cup of coffee. He would gladly walk through the wilderness for another week if that was what he’d get as a reward.

His thoughts were still on a cup of coffee at his parents’ kitchen table when the wall came into view. It looked the same as the rampart they had seen on the other side of the river. It was nowhere near as tall as a castle wall; Emilio estimated it to be about two and a half metres high. A decent warrior could probably run up it. Still, it would certainly stop an advancing army. With nothing but spears, war clubs, and cudgels, getting through it would surely take some time.

Emilio fiddled with the tassels on his purple robe, hoping to make it look at least somewhat presentable.

Mateo grabbed him by the arm. “Stop looking so nervous. It makes you look like you have something to hide.”

He did have a hell of a lot to hide! If he hadn’t fucked things up so badly with Iliyan, the two of them would now be working on a plan to take down the rulers of this valley.

And now he had to come knocking on their door asking for help?

It felt like he was stabbing his friend in the back for a second time.

He would just have to make the most of it. Maybe he would be in a position to gather information and help Iliyan from the inside. If he ever wants to speak to me again.

By now, they had reached the end of the line of trees. All he could see ahead of them was a field of stumps. There weren’t even any felled trees left.

It wasn’t long before shouting came from the wall.

Emilio forced himself to keep breathing calmly. He had survived a confrontation with His Holiness. He could handle this too.

In the distance, the sea shimmered. Emilio kept walking in that direction until a small gate appeared to his right. If they ever got the idea of using a battering ram around here, they would probably smash straight through these defences.

“Can you announce us?” Emilio asked T’ukri.

The boy nodded and walked towards the entrance. He stopped there and looked up at the two men standing directly above him.

Emilio and Mateo remained about five metres away. Although T’ukri was the one speaking to the warriors, Emilio could feel their eyes burning into him. He gave them a bored look. Even though he no longer felt all that much better than the people here, pretending to be arrogant wasn’t difficult when you had spent so long looking down on others.

Excited shouting erupted. He couldn’t miss the words “husband,” “Jaguar,” and “dead.”

Well, at least it’s getting a reaction out of them.

And they weren’t throwing spears or stones at him yet, so that was something.

He glanced at Mateo.

His friend was grinning with satisfaction. “Let’s just hope my brother doesn’t have a heart attack when he sees me. That would be a shame after all this effort.”

“He probably thinks he’s imagining it,” Emilio said with a shake of his head.

Sometimes, Emilio still found it hard to believe himself. That Mateo had actually stepped into a fucking time machine to come here. To find them. Two years after their disappearance, while they hadn’t even been here for a year.

Does that mean we’ll be stuck here for at least another year? Or that by then we’ll all be dead?

Considering he had just killed a ruler and had a vengeful friend planning to wipe out this entire valley, that wasn’t exactly far-fetched.

He shook the thoughts from his head. They could rack their brains over that later. Right now, he just wanted to get into the Valley of the Condor without being thrown into the dungeons.