He began to dream. As his lips touch the vessel, he drifts back to Vallunaraju summit and to his body. After a brief shudder, Selio rose to address the Swiss who were agitated over the numerous fires creeping upslope out of so many valleys around the range. At Inti Raymi, the time you call winter solstice, the sun dies and is reborn. The Indios burn the fields to regenerate both earth and sky.
Today is the beginning of our biggest festival.
For the next three days and nights there will be fireworks, music, drinking and many fields on fire. That explained, Selio glanced once more at Aguas Puqio and turned the party homeward. M arco's anxieties about violence were replaced by keen interest as they rounded a curve where the trail turned to cobble as a roadcut, bound in mortarless Incan stonework, deepened around them. They seemed to dive into history. At curve's end they emerged before a great temple of a ruin.