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Smoke Around The Moon
by T. K. Sheils
Category: Historical Fiction
Description: The last Sapa-Inca dreamed of rings around the moon; one bloody, one greenish-black, and one of smoke. Red meant war between descendants; black threatened religion, and all he'd accomplished would vanish into the ring of smoke. Smoke Around The Moon is a tale of the Spanish Conquest of Peru and its Sapa-Inca, Atahuallpa, as viewed by the simple Felipillo, an Incan peasant who was coopted by the Spanish to be their interpreter. In Felipillo's simple view, the coming of the Spaniards destroyed more than the Empire of the Inca--it destroyed a whole culture.
eBook Publisher: Amber Quill Press, 2006
eBookwise Release Date: August 2006
 
4 Reader Ratings:
Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [317 KB]
Words: 75574
Reading time: 215-302 min.
In my mind, I tried to picture this man-god I was about to meet. If he were de Soto's leader, I figured he would have to be even taller than de Soto, and even more broad-shouldered and powerful looking. He would be blond, like the sun, of course, and his eyes would be of a cold blue that would pierce a man's mind like a dagger. Perhaps he would wear armor of gold. The man I met, however, did not at first look like a god at all. In the thin morning light that filtered through the one small window, I saw that he was not much taller than I--maybe five-foot-seven inches to my five-five, and though his build was sturdy enough, mine compared favorably. His face was pale white and the skin of his neck was thick and grotesquely ruffled and whiter than his face. He was richly dressed in a glossy black cloak, a pair of black pants that puffed out to just below the knee, long black stockings and pointed shiny black leather shoes. And his hair was as gray as my father's, who I knew was almost sixty years of age. But it was his face that drew my eyes again. It was not what I had expected, but it was what convinced me that I could, indeed, be in the presence of a god. Though his upper lip and chin were hidden by an inch or two of black beard, I could still see that his mouth was wide, and in repose, slightly upturned at one corner so that it conveyed an impression of a cruel humor. And his eyes, beneath a heavy, furrowed brow and bushy black eyelashes, were large and of a blackness even more penetrating than Valverde's. This, I decided was a man to fear ... perhaps not the equal of the Inca Atahuallpa, but quite enough for the moment.
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