The Mummies of Blogspace9: Chapter Forty-Two

July 27, 2011
Seville, Spain
Hanson http://www.historyismine.blogspace9.ex

It took us two days to find Sebastiano, but Naya let us to him as she promised.  It was mid-afternoon when we came across the old priest holding court at the San Fernando cemetery.  Some distance from the monumental graves of poets and politicians, smaller plots marked the final resting places of orphans and the dispossessed.

A not-insubstantial line of beggars, runaways, and gypsy women with their children in tow led to the nondescript gravestone from which Sebastiano gave out his blessings and his offerings. Behind him, an ageless hunchback tamped the earth back over a grave which had been recently disturbed.

Not wanting to interrupt his ministry, we waited in the shade of a poplar, watching as the old priest doled out rings, wire, bits of filigree, even thin plates, all gold of course.  As I suspected, the seventeen coffins that Sebastiano recovered from Peru two centuries ago did not contain the bodies of priests, but rather the Inca gold that Duran and Cuellar hid in the pyramid, to cheat the Spanish King of his share.

As the line thinned and the grateful stragglers headed off to the jewelers of Seville to convert their treasures to cash, Naya made her way forward.  The old priest fell to his knees when he saw her.  He folded his arms around her knees and wept.

He made no sound as Naya explained the events of recent days, recounting our adventures, but some distress was evident when she told of the destruction of Sebastiano’s greatest accomplishment, the malleus momias.  Naya’s explanation of the internet, and the place the book now had in that realm, was slow to load.  When he spoke, Sebastiano did little more than murmer, his tongue having been removed by the Inquisitor centuries ago, but Naya seemed to understand.

This was the last of the gold, only a few pieces remained.  It had all been doled out, all that Inca treasure, over the last two hundred years to the needy, to the orphans of Seville.

Sacromonte sighed as he rubbed the last few pieces between his fingers.  “So much effort, for so little,” he said.  “So in the end, we fail.”

But that wasn’t the case, of course.  We didn’t fail.  Sebastiano did the work of a priest, long after his dying day.  And that is an accomplishment of some sort.  And of course, we did find the gold.  Duran let those few pieces slip through his remaining hand.  He’d already taken his share, he reminded us.  Vasco Cuellar bit a gold ring to be certain it was real, then swallowed it to be certain he would keep it.

We wouldn’t hurt for money, of course.  The last thing a demonically-possessed long-dead inquisitor thinks about, apparently, is naming an heir or an executor, but for good measure, we took all the money anyway.  Quiroga’s company, Grupo Yapos Iberia, now drained of nearly six billion euros, would soon see the departure of all its executives and the foreclosure of all its properties.

We would split the money.  There was a lot of it.  We had but one final duty here before we left the cemetery.  Naya had insisted on it and ultimately, we reluctantly agreed.  “It’s something he has been craving for centuries,” she counseled.

So we waited as she explained to the old priest what had become of his words, so painstakingly recorded nearly five hundred years ago.  And we waited still as she told him what that meant for him.  When he finally understood, he wept openly, tears falling to the ground.  He nodded once, then again and again as if he could not stop.

“He wants to say something first,” Naya told us, “but he doesn’t know how.”  So I opened my laptop.  Sebastiano was our number nine.  We still had a place open on this, our last day of service from Blogspace9, and nobody deserved it more than he did.  Naya would help guide his fingers on the keys.  Then when he was ready, she would guide his fingers to the PLAY key which would bring his old words back to life, and guide him out of this world.  Although we had just met, we said our goodbyes.

July 27, 2011
Seville, Spain
Father Sebastiano Gota                http:www.sebastiano.blogspace9.ex

Have mercy on my soul, O God.  Restore me to the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing heart.

Amen.

Advertisement