Chapter 3 - The Legend of the Lost City
Comfortably seated in one of Don Miguel´s library couches, James felt a light breeze that cooled him down for the first time. He had become so used to the hotness of the jungle during their journey upriver that the simple fact that he was inside a house seemed as if being in a different place altogether. But, on its downside, he became aware that sweat glued his clothes to his body.
“Don Miguel,” said Eduardo, “thank you for receiving us on such short notice.”
Don Miguel waved his hand dismissively.
“Not a problem, my dear friend. Always happy to receive guests. But, unfortunately, it’s only Yani and me most of the time, so it tends to feel lonely once in a while.”
Eduardo nodded curtly before continuing.
“These are the friends I mentioned in my letter. Bill Weasley,” he gestured to Bill, “and his nephew James Potter.”
Don Miguel’s brows gave an involuntary glitch of surprise at the mention of his name. But, of course, James was used to this, so much so that he was now amused watching how people reacted to knowing he was the son of the famous Potter.
“Ah,” said Don Miguel with delight, “I see. You must be tired of hearing people talking about your parents, but I must say your mother was an exceptional Quidditch player. Saw her play a couple of times.”
James was slightly surprised by this. Usually, people first mention his parents in relation to the fight against Voldemort or his father’s works as an Auror.
“I’ve heard of your father as well,” Don Miguel hastened to add. “Notable work, no doubt. But here in the jungle, news of the world travels slowly, unless it’s about sport, and people still care more about their teams than about political issues.”
He chuckled at his saying.
“But, you’ve not come all the way here to talk about sports,” he said.
“No, we did not,” said Eduardo. “Bill and James need advice on some legends of the Amazon, and who better than Don Miguel to help them?”
“You flatter me.” Don Miguel turned to Bill. “I’ve worked with Eduardo some time ago in identifying some magical creature descriptions in local tribes legends. But the truth is always in what those that came before us left us. Be that in written words,” at this he gestured to the shelves on the walls, “or in spoken tales. I’ve spent some of my time amongst the local tribes of the Amazon to understand them better.”
“Don Miguel is the leading expert on the subject.”
“Again with the flattery, Eduardo. But let us move on. What brought two Englishmen to such a strange land as the Amazon?”
Bill straightened himself before starting to talk.
“First of all, señor Arramendi, let me thank you for receiving us.”
“Please, Don Miguel, it’s fine. Señor Arramendi was my grandfather. I might be old, but I’m still not that old.”
Bill nodded.
“Thank you, Don Miguel. I don’t know if Eduardo told you, but my nephew and I work as Curse Breakers for the Gringotts bank.”
“He mentioned. Are you here working for Gringotts then?”
“No. We’re here in a personal capacity of sorts. We’re looking for something in the Amazon. Something that we believe has been lost for several hundreds of years”.
James noticed that Bill was dancing around the issue instead of just saying what they were looking for. Don Miguel had his right leg crossed over the left, and his hands were folded over his lap. He was entertaining a smile that told James that he was aware of what Bill wanted to say.
Bill hesitated a little more before letting it out.
“We are looking for the lost city of the Amazon.” James thought he seemed relieved by it. “And we wonder what you could tell us about it.”
Don Miguel’s smile widened as he uncrossed his legs and edged himself a little on the chair in a gesture of approximation.
“I can tell you something about it, but I doubt it will help you find it,” he said.
“Could you indulge us anyway, please?” asked Bill.
Don Miguel leaned back on his chair and seemed to ponder the matter for a minute or so.
“I will tell you what I know about the legend. But I see that this is going to take more than a couple of minutes, and I’ve been a rude host by not offering anything for you to eat or drink.”
“There is no need….” Bill tried to say before being interrupted.
“Nonsense. You are my guests, and it would be a dishonor upon the Arramendí family if I didn’t prove to be a welcoming host.”
With that, he flourished his wand, and a table filled with biscuits, pastries, bread, juice, and coffee appeared in the space between them.
“Let us eat and drink while we talk,” said Don Miguel. “Yani, please take a seat near the young James and join us.”
Yani gracefully nodded and seated herself in a chair next to James, who tried to control himself not to blush again and decided that eating something might help as a distraction. Unfortunately or not, Yani had the same idea, and their hands touched as they both tried to grab the cookie on top.
“Sorry.” He muttered, feeling the heat on his cheeks and ears. “Please, after you.”
“Thank you.”
James smiled inwardly as he saw that her cheeks were now rosy, as she blushed as well. Either because of that or because he was hungry, the food seemed wonderful.
They all ate and drank for a while before returning to the subject at hand.
“So, Bill,” he said. “You don’t mind if I call you Bill, do you?” As Bill nodded, he continued. “If you are not here at Gringotts behest, what’s your interest in the Lost City?”
“Professional curiosity.”
Don Miguel chuckled.
“You’ll have to do better than that.”
Bill smiled.
“Alright. I’m a Curse Breaker, so all mysteries and legends have a special appeal to me. I’ve studied everything I could about the Lost City of the Amazon, but books can only take you so far. And as I had some vacation days to spare, I decided to have a go at finding it.”
“Fair enough,” said Don Miguel. “The Lost City always had a powerful appeal over men’s hearts, and, naturally, someone whose job is to find lost treasures would be drawn to the idea of finding it.” He took another sip of water. “Countless others have tried it, myself included, but the Lost City remains, alas, lost. And I’m beginning to think that it will remain like that forever.”
“That may be,” said Bill. “But I would like to take a shot at it. And your expertise on the subject would be a great help for us.”
“Far from me to discourage others from trying where I failed. I would love to have it found while I’m alive.” Don Miguel paused as if contemplating something only he could see. “But,” he continued, “prey, tell me, how can I help you?”
“Books only tell us part of the story. You, Don Miguel, have tried to find the Lost City and know the jungle and its legends better than anyone else, according to Eduardo.”
“Eduardo is too kind,” Don Miguel said. “It is true that I’ve studied the legends of the Amazon, including the one about the Lost City, deeper than anyone I know. I won’t be modest about that. So what do you want to know?”
“Everything,” Bill said emphatically.
“Ok then, where to start? I’m assuming you all know the legend of the Lost City of the Amazon?”
Bill and Eduardo both said “yes,” while Yani curtly nodded.
“I don’t,” said James. “Yesterday was the first time I ever heard of it.”
“Well now,” said Don Miguel cheerfully, “you can’t go looking for something you don’t know anything about, can you?”
James felt himself starting to blush again.
“No need to worry,” Don Miguel said. “I love telling the story, and it’s always useful to refresh old men’s memories.”
Don Miguel shifted himself in the armchair to be more relaxed before starting.
“Now, as you might be aware, the Amazon remains, even to this day, a secret trove of secrets and treasures that we are yet to solve. And by we, I mean both wizards and muggles alike. When the first European settlers arrived in South America more than five hundred years ago, they assumed that the civilizations on the continent to be primitive and, as such, inferior.”
Yani shifted on her chair, and James had the impression that Don Miguel had touched a weak point.
“But there were wizards among those settlers, although cleverly disguised as priests, missionaries, and scribes, as those were dark times for our kind. Everywhere in Europe, witches and wizards were being persecuted due to ignorance and superstition.” James noted that Don Miguel’s left hand was gripping the chair so tightly his knuckles went white.
“Those of our kind who came with the first waves of Conquistadors soon realized that this was a place with powerful magic. Not only was the jungle filled with magical creatures, but everywhere there were traces of magic. But there were few learned in the magical ways among the tribes’ members they could talk to. And most of them were untrained. But all of them, magical or not, talked about a great city at the heart of the jungle, where magic ruled and filled everyone with wealth and riches. But one day, without warning and without apparent reason, that great city of immense power disappeared, never to be found again. What remained were a few scattered tribes that kept the memory and the tales of it alive, but not knowledge.”
“How do we know all of this is true?” Asked James.”I mean, it could be just as well some story passed from generation to generation.”
“Precisely,” said Don Miguel, excited. “That is one of the reasons that led us to believe that the legend is true because the same story is shared by hundreds of tribes across the Amazon. Tribes that haven’t had contact with each other for hundreds of years. If it was something that only a tribe, or a couple of them that lived in the same region, was sharing between themselves, it could as well be just another story.”
“But,” said Bill, “as there are reports from several sources, and they tend to have the same general structure, researchers believe that there is more than myth beneath it.”
James nodded, understanding the reasoning. The Amazon was giant. Before departing, he compared it on a map and saw that it occupied an area roughly the size of half of Europe. Scattered tribes across that area, with primitive ways of communication, wouldn’t be able to share stories that would be so similar.
“What’s more,” added Don Miguel, “even the Muggles started to learn about it and to search for the city.”
“The muggles?” said James in surprise.
“Yes. You see, the separation between those who can do magic, and those who can’t, it’s not something that you would find here before the arrival of the Europeans. Native tribes have a different understanding of magical abilities. It’s not something that frightens them or that they feel is tainted with evil. For them, it’s an expression of nature, of the spirits of the jungle. People blessed with magical abilities were revered, and hold special places within the tribe, as leaders, healers or spiritual guides.”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“And we call them savages,” said Eduardo derisively.
“Yes,” continued Don Miguel, “naturally, the tribes’ members detailed all this to the new settlers, whether they were wizards or not, as that was of no consequence for them. And the muggles created their myths of fabled cities as well. And they share the same attributes as ours.”
“And what are these attributes?” James asked.
“That there is a lost city in the middle of the Amazon; a city that was once a kingdom that ruled all over the area of the jungle, with immense richness and of mystical properties, where the buildings and roads are made of gold and where the city’s inhabitants never aged or got sick. A city where one could live forever and never have any need.” Don Miguel spoke with such passion that it seemed to James that he was suffering from some kind of feverish reverie that was interrupted by Bill.
“The Muggles,” he said, “call it different names according to each part of the legend they have heard. For some, it's El Dorado, the city of gold. Others look for the Fountain of Youth. And there are others that, in the lack of a more creative name, just called it Z.”
“Z?” asked James.
Bill shrugged apologetically.
“Hang on,” interjected James. “A city of gold, of eternal youth and bliss. It seems that you’re describing a Philosopher’s Stone.”
Don Miguel clapped his hands and opened his arms in excitement.
“Aha,” he shouted. “My dear James, that is precisely what all the wizarding scholars that studied the legend believe that was, or still is, hidden in the Lost City. A Philosopher’s Stone. Or,” he continued, “something similar. But it has to be something of immense magical power, further than the ones of the stone your father helped to protect, and that was eventually destroyed.”
At the look of surprise of James and Bill, Don Miguel laughed heartily.
“I too have friends that deal in alchemy and know the works of Nicholas Flamel. And a good thing too that it was destroyed,” he added. “A Philosopher’s Stone is a dangerous tool in the wrong hands.”
He got up and walked towards the windows.
“But, whether some sort of stone or another artifact, if the tales are true, whatever there was at use at the City was immensely more powerful than the stone we know Flamel created.” He paused for a moment before continuing with such passion and enthusiasm that James thought he was back at Hogwarts. “Can you imagine it? A city of golden streets? Where sickness and old age never strike? A civilization capable of ruling over the vastness of the Amazon, sharing the wealth among all, wizards and muggles alike?”
Everyone was quiet for a while. James was sure that everyone was thinking the same thing as he was. Sure, this sounded like a utopia where everyone was happy and got along with each other. But it also sounded like something he read about Grindelwald and his plans for the “Greater Good.” Good on paper, cruel in reality.
“Yes,” Bill chimed in, “it sounds good. But as you said, that kind of power in the wrong hands might cause a lot of damage.”
Don Miguel came back from his reverie quickly, and, for the first time, he seemed old beyond what his appearance might let it know.
“That is the problem with power. It tends to have its way around being grabbed by the wrong people.” He leaned back on his desk. “But that is a whole different philosophical question; we need not worry; not unless we find the city at any rate.”
He paused a bit to sip some water.
“You see,” he continued, “sometime about two, or three, hundred years before the first Europeans arrived at these shores, the city disappeared without a trace.”
“What do you mean, disappeared?” Asked James.
“Just that. One day was there in all its glory; the other, it wasn’t.”
James chuckled.
“Cities don’t just disappear overnight.”
“This one did,” said Bill.
“All the oral accounts that traveled through time to our days concur. The City vanished from existence. No one ever found it again.”
“Was there some disaster that might explain that? Some earthquake or volcano?”
“No," said Don Miguel. “Nothing of the sort. The most we can get is that the jungle swallowed it.”
“What?” James’ surprise came out as a shout.
Don Miguel laughed.
“Not literally,” he assured James. “The Amazon is a living magical place, but as far as I know doesn’t include cities in its diet.”
“What they probably meant,” said Eduardo, “is that as the city became lost, there was only the jungle left, without any trace of it ever having existed in the first place.”
“Correct,” said Don Miguel pointing approvingly to Eduardo. “In any circumstance, knowledge of the location of the city, and even full descriptions about it, vanished. Something happened and, puff,” he motioned with his hands to exemplify something disappearing, “gone. No one ever found it again, or even could tell where it once was.”
He walked back to his armchair sitting.
“Of course,” he continued, “we all know there are many ways a place can be magically concealed.”
“Like the Fidelius charm?” Ventured James.
“Yes, that is one of the ways,” answered Bill. “But that works best with a single location, not with a whole city. It could be unplottable or under a potent concealment charm.”
“Whatever it is,” said Don Miguel, “it’s powerful enough to have kept everyone away from it for centuries. Not only people who could find it by accident but all those actively searching for it. Both wizards and muggles alike. And that’s it. The short version at least,” he added. “The longer version is hundreds and hundreds of pages with testimonies and dozens of failed attempts to find the fabled Lost City of the Amazon.”
All went quiet for a moment. James was thinking how a single city could disappear, even in the middle of the jungle. And what secrets might it have taken with it? Was it possible that the streets were made of gold? Images of him and his uncle finding a city long lost in the middle of the jungle run through his head. Secret rooms full of treasures for them to find. International glory awaited as they came back from the depths of the Amazon to lead others to their finding. And in all of those images, James could see Yani looking admiringly at him. He smiled and hoped that no one was a Legilimens.
Bill’s voice brought him back to the real world.
“You said you’ve tried to find the Lost City, Don Miguel. What happened?”
“Yes. Three times I tried, and three times I failed. As all others before me.” He sighed. “More than ten expeditions, led by the most renowned magical explorers, have combed the Amazon and never found more than echoes of it. The muggles have tried by the dozens, and they also didn’t fare better.”
“If it’s not too much to ask, can you tell us where you go looking for it?”
Don Miguel heartily laughed.
“Well now,” he said when he controlled himself, “what’s in it for me?”
“If you share what you know with us, we’ll share with you what we know,” Bill answered. “Sounds fair?”
“I knew you had something in the sleeve of your robes.”
Bill smiled.
“Do you agree?”
“Seems reasonable, although I’m not so sure you have any information new to me.”
With this, Don Miguel waved his wand, and a roll of parchment flew from one of the shelves and unrolled itself over the table to show a magnificent handmade map of the Amazon area. He then tapped three times with the wand on the map, and three golden circles appeared over it.
“These were the places where I went looking for the city,” said Don Miguel. “My first expedition focused here, in Colombia” he pointed to the circle marked with the number one at the northern part of the map. “The second,” he focused on the second point, at the lower end of the map, “was here in the frontier between Brazil and Bolivia. And finally,” he pointed to the third sign, “and last, here just some hundred kilometers south of where we are now.”
He tapped again on the map, and this time dozen more signs, some in silver, some in other colors, appeared on the map covering it in such a way that James thought it might have dragon pox.
“And these,” Don Miguel gestured to the map, “are all the other expeditions I could track and get hold of some information. As you can see, there aren’t many places on the Amazon that weren’t searched for in the hopes of finding the Lost City.”
Bill got up and studied the map for a while. James tried to glimpse something from his uncle’s expression, but his face was a mask of concentration that didn’t betray what he might be thinking.
“These include muggle expeditions?” He asked finally.
“All that I know of. Why? Am I missing some?” Don Miguel sounded excited at the prospect that Bill might have information that he was missing.
Bill leaned over the map so close that his nose almost touched it. Then, when he got up, he spoke without taking his eyes off the map.
“I think so. Have you ever heard of Percy Fawcett?”
“No,” said Don Miguel.
James could see that his interest in what Bill had to say grew.
“I didn’t think you had,” said Bill. “Now, it’s my time to return the favor and share a story.”
James shifted so to better look at his uncle. He noticed the others did the same, as he felt a change in the room’s ambiance. The anticipation was almost palpable.
“Percy Fawcett was a muggle explorer and archaeologist that spent a great part of his career in the Amazon, chartering borders, studying the local wildlife, and learning more about local tribes. Both currently in existence and those that disappeared. During these expeditions, Fawcett uncovered evidence of what he believed was proof of a long-lost civilization in the Amazon and devoted the rest of his career trying to find the city, as well as convincing others that such a city might have existed in the first place. He called this city Zed. ”
“Zed? Never heard anything about that,” said Don Miguel.
“I didn’t expect you to have heard of it. Fawcett never linked his lost city to the other legends of the Amazon. He wasn’t looking for golden cities or ever-lasting youth. To him, Zed was an ancient city, built by a muggle civilization that once lived in the Amazon.”
“Where did he go looking for it?”
“Fawcett was convinced that this city was somewhere in what is now the Mato Grosso area, here in Brazil.”
“Mato Grosso?” Don Miguel got up and went to recheck his map. “There were some expeditions, including by wizards, in that area, but none found any evidence that led them to believe there was any city in that region.”
“Neither did Fawcett. He went on his final expedition in 1925 when he disappeared in the middle of the jungle, never to be seen or heard of again. Several expeditions went looking for him, but aside from some confusing and contradictory reports from local tribes, no one ever found what happened to him and his party. Their fate is still a matter of dispute amongst muggle scholars.”
“Not only amongst muggles, otherwise you wouldn’t be telling us about him,” noted Don Miguel. “You believe that this Fawcett was on the right track?”
“Yes, and no.”
James thought that his face was probably as confused as the one he was seeing on the others.
“Explain, please,” asked Don Miguel.
“Does the name Manuscript 512 mean anything to you, Don Miguel?” Asked Bill.
“No, please tell me about it.”
“The Manuscript 512 is a document in the muggles National Library of Brazil. It refers to a letter, from 1753, sent by a group of Bandeirantes to the governor of Rio de Janeiro, describing an incredible finding.”
“Sorry,” interrupted James. “What are Bandrantes?”
Eduardo answered.
“Ban-dei-ran-tes”, he corrected. “They were treasure hunters, explorers, and slavers, used by the first governments established by the Europeans, to explore and discover the region. They were cheap, practical, and brutal.”
“Yes,” continued Bill. “One of these groups was sent to discover the location of some silver mines in the region of Bahia, but instead discovered a lost city in the middle of the jungle and mountains, according to their report.”
“They found a lost city? How?” Don Miguel’s enthusiasm was bursting, so much so that he couldn’t keep himself seated and started pacing through the room. “And where? In Bahia? That doesn’t make any sense. But, on the other hand, could it be that we were so focused on the depths of the Amazon that we missed something?”
Bill raised his hands, palms upfront, in a gesture meant to calm Don Miguel’s excitement.
“No,” he said smiling, “I don’t think they found a lost city in Bahia. Their mission was to find mines in Bahia, but somewhere and somehow, they got themselves in a whole different place. My guess is that they most likely encountered some sort of magical transportation device that led them to the Lost City of the Amazon. There are parts of the documents missing, and there is evidence that the document has been tampered with to hide some information.”
Now it was Bill’s time to pass over the room.
“The letter describes how they found a path to the city by chance. It was one of the slaves that saw a white dear in the middle of the jungle and followed it to discover a path built with stone between two hills, and following it came to a place where they could see a city. When they got there, they were surprised to find it empty and in ruins, for it seemed to them that it was a wonderful city, like no other they dreamed of seeing in this part of the world.”
He continued describing how the document talked about an entrance with three arches and a mighty statue on a square on top of a huge black stone. On how they marveled about the organization of the city and its buildings. And that they found what they thought could be a temple, laid in ruins but whose majesty was still a wonder to behold. And, finally, how they discovered a significant part of the city destroyed, engulfed by ghastly earth openings that swallowed the buildings and all those who stood there.
“They then described, only in part, how they managed to get their way back, only mentioned that they made their way through a cave that finished in a waterfall, given access to a great river,” Bill concluded his story and sat again.
Don Miguel was fixed on Bill, his right hand stroking his beard lost in some thought.
“That must be it,” he finally said. “The statue, the temple, the ruins. All fit in what we know about the legend. They found it; they found the Lost City. All those years searching for it in vain, when the answer was in a muggle document. I feel like a fool. But were there any clues on where they found it?”
“No,” said Bill, shaking his head. “At least not on the part of the document that survived.”
“But you are here. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think you might know where it was.”
Bill smiled.
“I do. As I’ve told you, only part of the original document survived, but there were still traces of the information that lingered there. Last year, I had the opportunity to study the document during a brief visit to Brazil. And there I found some coordinates that point to this area,” he pointed to an area in the map on the border between Brazil, Peru, and Colombia.
“The three borders…” murmured Don Miguel.
“Exactly,” said Bill. “For what I understood that is where the tunnel that ended in a waterfall led them. They then got to the Amazon and sailed back to the eastern shore. But there’s more,” Bill pulled up a piece of parchment that he had folded in its pocket and lined it on the table in front of them all.
It was a small slip of parchment, a little longer than three inches that showed the signs of having been hastily torn from a larger patch. Scribbled on it were some strange symbols that James had never seen before.
[https://imgur.com/OfCqsmX][https://i.imgur.com/OfCqsmX.jpg?1]
“What are those?” He asked.
“Never seen these symbols before,” said Don Miguel.
“These symbols,” explained Bill, “were written on the manuscript. There were others. But these are the most important to us as they will guide us to the Lost City.”
“What do they say?” asked Eduardo excitedly.
“That I do not now,” Bill answered. “Nor anyone alive, as no one over a hundred years identified the language these symbols represent. But, that is of no consequence for us.”
“What? If you don’t know what they say, how will they help us find the city?”
“Because they were used to mark the hidden path to the city,” Bill explained. “The people that found the city carved them on rocks throughout the path so that they could identify it when they went back for it, in a way that only they would be able to understand. We just have to find them and follow them.”