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It hispered the golden warriors' guardian, the winged jaguar/serpent, had devoured the inquisitive ain dared risk its wrath by setting foot on the island There was an eerie quality, alhostliness about the island It became a sacred place that was only mentioned in hushed voices and never visited

Who were the warriors in gold and where did they come from? Why had they sailed into the inland sea and what did they do there? The witnesses had to accept what they had seen, no explanation was possible Without knowledge the ends were created and nurtured when the surrounding land was shaken by an ies When, after five days, the trereat inland sea had vanished, leaving only a thick ring of shells on as once a shoreline

The ious tradition and becah tirew and then eventually faded until they were but a bit of vague supernatural folklore handed down froeneration, by a people who lived in a haunted land where unexplained phenomena hovered like smoke over a campfire

CATACLYSM

March 1, 1578

West Coast of Peru

Captain Juan de Anton, a brooding reen eyes and a precisely trie ship following in his wake and raised his eyebrows in mild surprise A chance encounter, he wondered, or a planned interception?

On the final lap of a voyage from Callao de Lialleons bound for Pana's wealth would be packed aboard mules for a journey across the isthmus, and then shipped over the Atlantic to the coffers of Seville He perceived a trace of French design in the hull and rigging of the stranger trailing his wake a league and a half astern If he had been sailing the Caribbean trade routes to Spain, de Anton would have shunned contact with other ships, but his suspicions cooled slightly when he spied an enor fro tautly in the wind, it sported a white background with the rampant red cross of sixteenth-century Spain Still, he felt a trifle uneasy

De Anton turned to his second-in-command and chief pilot, Luis Tomes "What do you make of her, Luis?"

Toed "Too se her to be a winefor port in Panama the same as we"

"You do not think there is a possibility she ht be an enemy of Spain?"

"Ie through the treacherous labyrinth of the Magellan Strait around South America"

Reassured, de Anton nodded "Since we have no fear of thereet them"

Torres gave the order to the steersun deck from under a raised trunk on the deck above Heshaft that turned the rudder The Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion, the largest and alleons, leaned onto her port side and came around on a reverse course to the southwest Her nine sails filled from a swift, easterly offshore breeze that pushed her 570-ton bulk through the rolling swells at a comfortable five knots

Despite her ns painted on the sides of her high stern and forecastle, the galleon was a tough custoed and seaworthy, she was the workhorse of the oceangoing vessels of her ti it out with the best privateers asea nation could throw at her to defend the precious treasure in her cargo holds