THE WEIGHT OF THE SUNRISE
VYLAR KAFTAN
1. The Disfigured God So you ask for the story of your origin, beautiful boy, and why you and your father are different from those around you. You are fourteen and nearly a man. Before you choose your name, you should know yourself—and I, your grandfather, will tell you the story of you. The tale is written in the scars of my hands, and told in the blood of the Incan people.
You must imagine me younger, child—much the age that your father is now. Picture a warm December day, just before midsummer. It was 1806, though back then we did not count the years as Europeans do. Smallpox raged through the southern Land of the Four Quarters. You’ve seen your grandmother’s pitted face; once she was considered a beauty for those telltale scars. I worked in the fields near Cusco, because I enjoyed farming. I had never liked the city. The cool soil on my hands reminded me of childhood, and of home in the northern mountains.
When the gods summoned me, I was planting late-spring tomatoes—the ones that would blossom shortly before June frost. I knelt on the terraced slopes south of Cusco, on land owned by your grandmother’s clan—since as you know, I myself came from a poor potato-farming family. Each seed entered the ground lovingly; I thanked Pachimama that I could enjoy the planting and not fear the harvest. The noon sun blessed my bare head. My water jug rested nearby, with my flintlock rifle leaning against it.
. . .
