The angry bump of the waters almost covered the noises of the tropical forest. And yet, the scared ears of Lopes de Gathemuz seem to be surprised, beyond the long, thin leaves of the trees-trees, the call of the black leopard female. The man scratched his neck defended by the metal tongue of the headset and leaned more strongly to the high spear handle; He struggled to catch the thread of Aguirre's words, seated beyond the circle arch that could cover his eyes. It was, however, about death.

-If you chose to come with me and His Majesty too Catholic Leon Alfons I by Eldorado and you killed the six worshipers of King Fernando II by Aragon Y Castilia, that means you swore not to stop and give back until the river will deposit us. Especially, don't go back! Because where I betrayed, where I violated the oath to Spain and Christ, there is no place for other betrayals. The betrayal of God is the last and greatest betrayal. No one has the right to think about the past anymore, did you understand me? The past means Hernando Cortés, but no one can say, now, if he and the one hundred and forty soldiers who have left them are still alive. His way back to Tlaxcala passes through the heart of the jungle and through the swamps full of yellow colds in the north of Guaxocingo. And for those who dream of Cortés' camp, the road on the river means thirty -six days to draw at the rows and six waterfalls over the unknown pools in the north.

Aguirre's voice was extinguished for a moment, and the foamy waters of the waters rushed to cover the void left by the lack of words. Lopes wiped his neck of water splashes to the back of the mountain and glanced at the not too distant foundation of the forest. Beyond the black trunks and the foliage more and more difficult to distinguish, due to the approach of the insertion, perhaps, the spies of the Indian Cepal, the cannibals whose huts had set on fire two days ago, in a small valley on the right bank. Lopes did not see them, none of the 26 nobles and soldiers (plus the emperor, quickly corrected, plus His Majesty too Catholic) had failed to see at least one leg of the curses of pagans-eating-carne-de-m, but they all knew they were there, beyond the greene curtain, ambush. Hernando Carrero died yesterday night, while leaving the improvised latrine in the tail of the cork, without seeing the unknown dwarf warrior. He had only managed to break the tails of the tiny arrow with a blue feathers and murmur: "Yellow devils ... Eldorado ...".

Lopes hurried to shake his head to chase memories. Aguirre's distant voice tuna again:

- You all wanted to go beyond the golden gates and get out of the riches without borders there. Nobody asked you for any oaths for this, because the oaths are made precisely to be violated. The road through sin is unique and unrepeatable. You wanted the gold above the repentant ways of the believers of the Lord God. Then continue this road to the end. And you will have gold, I, Alvaro Lopez de Aguirre, promise you. But for those who give back there is only one reward: they will be shorter with a head. With that head that did not advise them in the right time.

Lopes de Guatemuz did not hear the slab of the sword, but imagine it. Today, the back of the palm wiped the apple of Adam, tense in a violent spasm. Beyond the deformed rock, to which the cork was linked, on the wet soil, covered with thick muscles, the head of the noble Juan of Grandalva had fallen, the secret eye and ear of King Fernando II, who had tried to determine Aloonso Yanese, Diego Velsquez and the renegade priest Francisco de Lugo Cortés, promising them to forgive him.

***

- There is no forgiveness! Aguirre growled, dragging his body tight in the metal plate over the grim soil. There is neither God, nor saints, nor angels. The devil is an invention of that sinner of renegade stern. We are ... Pfuii!

He stopped from the drag and spit the mud that had entered his mouth. The soldier next to him stopped, in turn, waiting. Two steps in front of him, Juan of escalators and Bartolome de Olmedo stopped in their turn, clutching the swords between his fingers.

- Cursed mud! Aguirre snorted and looked back.

The riverbed was barely seen, deepened in a canyon as if endless. The gap of God's wrath, as if he had told him about Lugo, looking at him strangely, just a moment before losing his head. You will browse through his unlimited anger to the torment of the condemned at death. Do you condemn without death, as if he had said, he submitted his Aguirre lips. Nonsense! He decided after a moment, feeling the doubt catching in his soul. He, Francisco de Lugo, was twice condemned: once he had reneged his holy oaths to follow him on an adventure with nothing holy in her and the second time, because now he was floating, without a doubt, in the flames of his hell, with whom he had threatened so many times the sheep, Cadiz ...
Alvaro Lopez de Aguirre spit again in the mud and signaled forward. The eight bodies caught and struggled with the mud hats. Something less than a hundred steps separated them from the stone threshold, exited just above the path, the threshold beyond which they seemed to see, the previous night, the bright points of some fires.

— Suntem singuri în locul ăsta afurisit numit Pământ, pricepi, Montejo? Alone!

- Not Blasfemia, Aguirre! Juan de escolant in front, but without turning his head. If we have agreed to break the holy oaths and accompany you on this road without return, this does not mean that we are with all the pagans or, worse, renegade. If you do not believe in the Lord God, do not force others to be on your side. And pray, if you have to whom, this path will end under the golden walls of the fortress. Otherwise, the food will only reach us for three days and we will have to eat each other, like those curses, who have killed us so far 13 soldiers. And I'm not sure they did not unearthed and did not eat them behind.

- Mouth, escalators! Why believe in a god who does not support you, when you hardly give you? How did Lugo help him get rid of the sword?

— Lugo e un afurisit de renegat și nu merită decât Iadul! The other angry shuddered, then he was silent, feeling the storm in the other's voice.

"Olmedo, on the other hand, is much more cautious than you," Aguirre laughed, and he was silent.

He knew that escalators were right, about food. Ever since they had decided to revolt against Alonso de Avila, the chief commander named by Hernando Cortés, and against his four close friends, hanging them right above the river, had rationalized food three times. And now they had reached the bottom of the bag. And they had not yet been able to get out of the mountains. Only mountains everywhere, Aguirre sighed and bites his lips furiously. Eighteen nobles and soldiers, the two horses and Doña Maria Heredia, Cortés's stepmother ... This was the balance of losses. Down there were three soldiers, a black slave and two Yucca slaves, on a coastal cork, less than ten meters from the shore. Ten meters that, at the shelter of the insertion, a leather kayak would have crossed them in less time than he would take him to say "our Father".

Suddenly, the two in front stopped and left their hats in the mud. Aguirre raised his left hand and motioned for the back to stay still. Above, somewhere in the faded belly of the sky, screams a spike. He slowly crawled before, striving not to make too much noise. The weapons of the two were also a mud, making them almost invisible. He pulled his elbows under him and approached his ear to Olmedo's lips.

- I heard something up, "he whispered, among his lips. Like a horse trop.

"The Indians have no horses," said Aguirre, smiling sinister. And we have ours runs a lot through the belly.

- I know, but it's the way I tell you. Beyond the ridge was a horse. Or an animal with hooves.

He shook his chin. If the enemy had left, he had been dressed in arrows for a long time. On the other hand, a horse or more, on a mountain plateau in a country that had not known this animal until the Spanish came, seemed like a bad joke. Or a tragic truth, Aguirre frowned. An ironic God, who was beating him. Or, even simply, an expeditionary body sent by Cortés to catch them. No, it was impossible, Cortés had only three ways of burden and a few donkeys. And then how can you find your road on the top of the mountains in this wild?

He raised his forehead and looked behind. The bodies of the soldiers looked like tree trunks, scattered on both sides of the path. Here and there, the tip of a spear was shining. The condor screams again, much closer, but Aguirre ignores him. There, down, somewhere where he could no longer look, the cork was trembling at the end of a long, wet rope.
He waved them to wait still and dragged themselves to the stone threshold. When he reached, later, his body was bathed in sweat, and his heart was beating.

"I know there is no God," he murmured and flexed his fingers several times. Somewhere, nearby, only you, the proud golden city ... Only you and I ... We will both go through history and our names will become immortal. Eldorado and Alvaro Lopez de Aguirre ... You will give me your secret and gold, and I, the without borders of those who will come after me to discover and conquer new worlds. Help me, now, when my will is approaching the edge of life, I can believe in you. Give me a sign ...

From a leap, he jumped over the stone slope, rolling beyond. He got to his feet, with one hand on the guard's guard and the other, keeping his eyes away from the glow that took his views. The light wall seemed endless, cutting the plateau diagonally and cutting the tip of the mountain to the north. His lips were dried, and the tongue is harsh and swollen, like a tree bark. He stretched his palms, fearful, but the wall sparkled suddenly and threw his arms with an incredible force. Aguirre screams, feeling how they are shrugging. He took a few steps back, shaking.

-The sign ... Bălmăji, with his tongue preventing his teeth. Are you Eldorado?

But the wall did not answer. He snatched his sword from the hip and threw it like a spear in its direction. No sound was heard. Like his arms, the sword made the way back, rolling beyond the stone threshold. A tormented cry rose from the back, then something was over and extinguished. His gaze turned to the right. On the slope on the other side of the river, there was a deleted glow climbing the mountain ridge and losing south.

You will sail through his unlimited anger to the torment of the condemned at death ... He remembered the words of the renegade. And the way he looked at him before he died. As if he knew! Aguirre struggled. Where did you know?

The condor screams again, even closer. Aguirre raised his eyes, but he saw no bird. Only the stinging glow of the wall without end, which left him no other direction in which to grab, than that of the flow, always on the valley of the river. He shook and descended the threshold to his. They had only three days until the food was over.

***

And the food ended.

A day earlier, he had given his imperial Majesty, Leon Alfons I by Eldorado. Villa Viciosa had found him lying, with his head in the water, behind the cannon. Not finding no trace of wound and no animal bite on his body, Aguirre stated that the emperor had died of bad heart and had prepared a sober funeral. Because there was no favorable shore, although they had sailed uninterruptedly for 16 hours, they had sewed his swollen body in a jute bag and had sprung it, with all the honors (the five soldiers had greeted in the right position, and the cannon had released a ghost), in a crate, where the crate, from which the ladder had gone, times, to enter the fortress. Then, in a solemn silence, they had freed him in the waters and looked after him. The box had floated, for a while, to the right of the float, moving away, then one of the ends had sinks suddenly and gradually remained behind, until the eyes had lost it completely, when the river had made a sharp elbow to the left, crushing in a threshold.
Now, all the seven stood around the affection, holding both hands with anchor ropes, and staring up, following the rope that trembled over the deck. Small waves hit the cork, jump over the half -sinking trunks and washed their almost rotten boots. Era frig, și umezeala afurisită le umflase palmele, care deveniseră albicioase către vârfurile degetelor.

"He won't succeed," you mumbled. It's too cold.

"Maybe he climbs," Bartolome de Olmedo said and made a wide cross. If Christ is not with Him, the devil may help him. Someone has to do it, otherwise we die here.
Juan de escalants said nothing, but he took a short look in the direction of the river. There were anchored between two almost flat rocks, less than 15 meters from the shore, where a wave had come from the Central Center, shortly before the atmosphere was trying. Two of those who slept on the right side of the cork had rolled into the water and drowned, before the others realized what was happening. As the first glimmeries of light had been embraced in the gorge on the tops of the ridges, they had tried in every way to detach from the rocks or reach the shore, but without any success. Moreover, Lopes de Guatemuz had drowned to lunch, while swimming to the shore, with a middle -related rope.

When the sun had exceeded the ridge on the right, they had made one last attempt: they had gone more than half of the dust load of a projectile and put in the mouth of the gun a kind of kiss, related to the chain collage that had served to bind the legs and hands of the slaves. The detonation had not been too strong, but the result of the resulting gas had thrown the heels upward and stuck it between the branches of a tree raised to one side, above the river, not far from where they were.

-There are too many meters so that the muscles can support him and the armor, resumed escalates and was closer to the edge jump above the wet stones. If it will collapse - and it will collapse, without just and - what do we do?

Olmedo bites his lip from above. Aguirre remained their last chance to escape with life and to extend the agony with a little. With still a little ... maybe just needed. Maybe after the elbow that was in front and where a deafening buzz came from, there was the much sought -after plateau. Eldorado Gold Fortress ...

- How, what do we do? We throw the rope, along with the barrel, as we established.

- We throw his rope ... the other is drunk, in a beating. Damn, it's the only time we can get rid of this madman and do you want to throw his rope? Do you not understand that, wherever we reach, with him only death does? You don't see how many of the 42, how many did I start at the beginning?

Escalante's voice had become almost a scream and Olmedo feared that his words would not cross through the continuous waters and to fight Aguirre's ears. However, he continued to advance slowly, supporting only in the muscles, almost three meters above the liquid snakes that were struggling, angry that they cannot reach their prey. The soldiers next to them had heard them and fixed them with glittering eyes.

-Maybe he arrived, he resumed undecided, wondering how to react, if the sudden hysteria of the other had pushed him to a reckless gesture, such as ...

- Not if we cut the rope! Juan screams from escalators and, before one next to him could intervene, removed the sword from the sheath and hit her in the thick knot of the rope, which tied the chain to the feet of the affection.

- No! Olmedo shouted and tried to catch him in his arms, but the other was shuddered and managed to hit again.

- To die Juda! He screamed and escalators, trying to get rid of him. To die the Antichrist and the Golden Fortress will be ours only! Leave me, rejection, leave me! Don't you understand that it will never be another moment like this? Do you not understand that the power with which we dominate us, when it is around and that does not let us think with our heads, is not a human one?

Olmedo was not sure that the man hanged in the middle of the rope, like a huge spider weaving his thread, had heard something, but he had to feel a danger, because he stopped and twisted his whole body in their direction.

He cannot return, Bartolome de Olmedo decided, because no one would have managed to climb the dangerous path to the branches of the tree. They were all overweight and it was surprising that Aguirre had arrived there, without even breaking.

He tightened his arms around his escalators, which, exhausted by effort, left soft and slid on the wet deck. The soldiers looked at him still, breathing agitated, as if they had fought against him.

"He went crazy," he said slowly, as if he had apologized. The Vicontele Juan de escalante Y Ramiro drove crazy because of hunger. If we break the connection with Aguirre now, no one will follow us from these rocks and, at the latest tomorrow night, we will be dead here or crushed by the rocks, like Guatemus. Aguirre, do you know? Aguirre is our only connection with the world, with Eldorado, with God ... Pray to succeed.

And Aguirre succeeded. Without any other pause, it went on a meter by meter and, when the insertion caught over the foamy waters, it was jumping, black, almost indecipherable, on the skeletal branches. From there to the surrounding rocks, it was almost a child's play.

-If God exists, then he wanted me, Alvaro Lopez de Aguirre, to die, he spit on the waters below, looking at his hands full of blood. Because the precise devil does not exist, otherwise he would have helped me. Or maybe he helped me, he grinned. The cursed Olmedo wanted to see me hanging like a jigity kitten above the vijel below me.

He stands up and listened carefully in the direction from which the distant bump was heard.

"Maybe there is the key to our despair," he mumbled further, as if he had courage. Maybe the destiny wanted to stop on those rocks, to keep us from something much worse. On the road, therefore, death is around everywhere.

He rises to his feet, on the sharp tip of the rock, and leaned against the thin trunk. Somewhere, at a small eternity of him, the stingy dolls of the soldiers seemed to be waiting for a sign from him. He raised his arm and made a pig.

- Wait for, the rejections! cried to them, but the words were scattered in the airflow. You would be worth dying, like thorny pigs you are. But then no one will be able to attend the final victory and triumph of Alvaro Aguirrez. It is destiny that wants to live, so that my glory is full.

Start on the road. At the only road he could cross: he dug with his sword in the stone back and climbed his nails, sticking his body to the inclined back of the mountain. The belly of his fingers broke and wrapped them in the strips of cloth broken from the foot. The boots lose their heels, and the pants were crushed, hanging through the stars. He fell several times, but each time he managed to cling to something, so he came to the conclusion that he had not yet arrived the day of death. When he managed to rise in the muscles and cross the right edge, as cut with a huge saw, the rock, the riverbed was like a palm -like, and the cork had completely disappeared.

He rolled over the light grass, with his belly up, and waved his eyes wide, trying to capture between the openings of the whole sky. The night hangs above it, like a crystal bell, thin and striking. Hundreds of stars pointed the immeasurable depths, giving it the feeling of dizziness. He breathed deeply, striving to forget the pain in his hands.

I know no constellation, he thought, amazed that everything seems natural to him. The strangest thing that can happen to a man is to discover suddenly under a foreign sky. A heaven he never dreamed of. Or maybe this is the sky of the Golden Fortress? If so, then no effort was too big.

"It's not a foreign sky," someone had contradicted him. It is the sky always of this place. Maybe you are not his and you come from a foreign space.

He turned immediately on his belly and rose to his knees, with his high sword, ready to hit. He finds that it was not very dark. Not far from him, a kind of teddy bear, an oposum, staring at him, staring at him, his head away. He licked his lips and discovered that they taste salty. He said, then shook his head. No, there are no speaking opposite, and I certainly do not come from a foreign space. I come from the camp of Hernando Cortés, and it is at most 200 legs up the water. I think I'm very tired and sick. And I crave.

"You do not stir," the voice had contradicted him, which sounds somewhere close. Aguirre could swear that the ears were not the ones heard. You managed to get here, which is an extraordinary thing. None of the previous reproductions managed to overcome the moment of the death of the one to whom Leon Alfons I by Eldorado said. An extraordinary thing, but which does not bring us any extra information, so history remains an enigma, and the cycle will have to be resumed.

"An oposum can't speak," he said slowly. It's against nature.

Lift the sword lightning and throws itself forward. The glittering wall appeared only at the moment when the blue blade's blue steel broke down to the place where the chubby body was, then disappeared. The shock projects it in the back. It hinders and falls. He rolled quickly to one side, but nobody attacks him. He stood again, with the sword ready. But in front of him was only the hard silhouette, who was waiting silent.

- I'm Alvaro Lopez de Aguirre! cry. Aguirre the one who disappears the gods and awaits their anger! You, a small jivina, are you the tool of the upper or the bottom?

The teddy bear moves a lab and the plateau seemed to light, gradually.

I'm dead. Dead and I dream that I am alive, Aguirre struggled and threw the sword. I fell off the chain and drowned. I woke up here and no one to tell me if this is the sky or hell.

"No, you're not dead," the oposum laughed. Or he seemed to laugh. But you are the strangest reproduction I have made so far. You do not like any of the development projections we made before you let go of the route. I told you that the random segment, which you insisted on introducing, was too big, he turned to the left. What would have happened if I didn't enter the barriers?

"Nothing," said the black leopard female. Absolutely nothing. It's a projection, your brilliance. A simple projection, and I think the random segment meant nothing. The deviations from the initial program must be sought within the changes we have introduced in the environment, with each new resumption. I insist on believing that matter does not possess matrix typical for the evolution towards the threshold of intelligence.

- This is what happens every time we do not have enough information, so that we can make adequate reconstructions, whistle the condor on the finger -shaped stone. Simply, reproductions crystallize other historical environments. I said from the beginning that we were wasting our time.
The leopard female left the front paws.

— Este vorba numai de o afurisită de situație diferită de proiecții. This does not mean that we do not keep everything under control.

-It is not whether or not you keep the situation under control, first assistant. But by the fact that we have lost too many eions, striving to decipher the history of a civilization, starting from the information frosts discovered in that ancient chip, from the asteroid in Park Saadelid. We have only the journal fragment of that unknown Francisco de Lugo. Too many unknown. Maybe that Eldorado from whom…

- Eldorado ... He softens, almost without voice, Aguirre.

The light behind the speaking animals. The golden light came from the fortress long. He knew, he knew he would arrive! He hurried to the edge of the plateau, bypassing the bear by the right.

-Let's send it back! orders the first assistant. It still has one day to the end of the cycle. Maybe he will find an explanation for the meaning of the term Spain ...

- There is no explanation, probably, the teddy bear bent. We try again. I propose to have a patience a cycle and not to introduce the random segment. After all, I think this name Terra hides only a myth. Much more real seems the other - Eldorado. I suggest a constellation beyond the Triffyde 00-Eyre.
Aguirre stopped. Suddenly, at the tip of the rocks the rock is cut straight down, falling into a bottomless hole. He almost crushed his tongue, trying not to scream.
No, there is no God, only I alone ... I arrived so far ... at the end of the world ... I alone and my crazy dream about Eldorado ... Aguirre, the unspeakable king of the Golden Fortress ... What do these beasts know about the happiness of dreaming ...

He left on his knees. The river collapsed into the bottomless hole, from which the stars were sprinkled.

-Perhaps the logical principle of reconstruction of its story itself is different from the logical system used by the one who wrote it. In this case, we will only get…

Stand up. Alvaro Lopez de Aguirre had seen Eldorado. He had seen the end of the world. The gap of God's anger. The torment of those who have not been terminated without death. Here and now. Because here was the end of the road.

"Your anger ... Don't touch me anymore," he said very slowly and stepped into empty, without looking back.
Since then, that galactic point, around a red star of type FDK-0067, bears the splendid and the incomprehensible name Eldorado. But no expedition ever wanders through those forgotten places in the arid deserts of the peripheral maps.