Inti

The air is different in Peru. You breathe in the Incan civilization with the smell of hot ají peppers frying on an open flame in the market. This particular market had no name. I passed under a sign that simply read “mercado” and stepped into a new world.

I wandered through the rows of shops. People were selling everything from bootleg copies of movies to knock-off designer sunglasses. A large tiled counter stood in the back corner, and an old woman on the other side butchered chicken with a cleaver and a strong set of hands.

The market, as I’ve been told, was designed to discourage theft. There were so many twists and turns that it would be impossible for anyone to make it out with whatever they managed to snatch while a shopkeeper had his back turned. There was a spiral staircase in what I believed to be the center of the massive building. It led up for three floors and down for one. Upstairs you could find more of the same. In the underbelly of the market, questionable products were sold by even more questionable salespeople.

I walked passed produce stands, vendors selling nuts and spices, clothing, jewelry, and houseware. I snaked up and down the rows and columns until I found the spiral staircase in the center. My host family warned me about the lower level of the market in vague terms. I didn't travel all the way to South America to play it safe. I took the stairs, descending into the dark.

I questioned what my host family had told me when I reached the bottom step. Everything appeared to be business as usually. The shops mostly catered to tourists, selling bags, knick knacks, and other souvenirs. Walking up the aisle, I glanced at each shop, eyeing over all the items. I decided to stop at one to get a better look and maybe get something to remember my trip by. On a shelf at the back of the stand were candles, decorative plates, and other things. What caught my eye was a chess set.

It was unlike any other set I’d seen before. The board was black with brown instead of white tiles. Along the edges were Incan inspired designs. The pieces were made of painted ceramic. On one side of the board were Spaniards. The rook was a castle and the knight was a horse. It was very standard compared to other chess sets I’d seen. On the other side, however, were the Incans. The rook was a stone tower and the knight was a llama. 

The concept of the conquistadors and indigenous people being pitted against one another in a game of chess was fascinating and novel to me. I asked the old woman behind the counter how much it would be.

“Twenty soles,” came her response.

I could definitely afford it, but I was eager to practice the South American art of haggling.

“What about twelve?” I countered.

“Eighteen,” she shot back.

“Fifteen."

She shook her head, not willing to budge. Feeling like I was about to lose, I doubled down. I took out fifteen soles from my wallet.

“I have it right here,” I said. “Fifteen.”

She rolled her eyes before nodding and holding her hand out for my money. Once she’d counted it and made sure that I wasn’t trying to pull anything, she took the chess set down and packaged it up so that nothing would break. She put it in the same black plastic bag that everyone in the market held, and I left. 

Walking down the street, I had to consciously remind myself not to swing the bag around victoriously so I wouldn’t break any of the ceramic pieces. That feeling of victory would be short lived. When I arrived at my hotel room and took everything out to examine my purchase, I found that one of the little ceramic pieces was missing. The Incan king was nowhere to be found.

I hadn’t watched her closely enough. Perhaps when she was packaging everything, she slipped a piece out to spite me for my haggling. She must have dealt with tourists like me all day every day and was finally so sick of it that she figured this time she’d have the last laugh. I wasn’t going to allow it.

The next day, I returned to the market. I winded through the aisles to find the staircase in the center of the building. It took me longer than it did the day before. Everything was where it had been, but it seemed a little off. I went downstairs and walked up and down the aisles. I didn’t find the woman, her store, or anyone that sold chess sets of any kind. I went back to the area where I thought she had been and asked the other shopkeepers near by. No one remembered her.

I gave up and went upstairs. Near the staircase was a food court. Vendors sold old ceviche and three course lunches of chicken and rice with potatoes and tres leches cake. I ordered a lunch. At only $2, I couldn’t resist. As I ate, I watched people around me in the market meet up with friends to have lunch and shop. The market bustled around me. 

From the crowd, a young woman emerged and came up to my table. She had on multiple beaded necklaces and bracelets. Her long, dark hair fell in waves on both sides of her face, and her black eyes pierced a hole through my third eye. She approached my table and sat down across from me.

“I saw you downstairs,” she said. “I heard you say you were looking for a woman that sold chess sets.”

I was very thorough when I scanned the floor, and I was sure I hadn’t seen her anywhere. It was weird that this woman was talking to me out of nowhere. I was hesitant to tell her anything. What did she hope to gain by helping me?

“I must sound crazy, don’t I?” she said.

She laughed out loud, producing a shrill cackle that only added to her crazy, witch-lady vibe.

“Steven,” she said between giggles, “I sold you the chess set yesterday. You don’t recognize me?”

I wasn’t sure how she knew my name, and it freaked me out. She couldn’t have been the same woman. It was impossible. The woman from the other day was at least 60 years old, if not 70. She had medium length grey hair, and age spots dotted her nose. The woman in front of me was not yet 30. They looked alike, as if they were mother and daughter, but they were certainly not the same person.

“Look,” she said.

She held out her fist. Wrapped around her fingers was the missing chess piece, the Incan king. An aura of faint gold glowed around the piece like a halo of light. She unlaced her fingers so I could see the piece better. I reached out my hand to take it, but she snapped her fingers shut and held it to her chest.

“This can’t go with you,” she said.

“Why not? I paid for it. You sold me a chess set with a missing piece! I mean, someone did.”

“It was me! I see you still don’t believe me.”

“How could I? You’re half the age of the woman I met yesterday,” I said.

I put my plate of food on the empty table next to me and leaned forward, eager to hear her explanation. She nodded to herself and looked off into the distance, studying the shoppers. She seemed to weigh her words. I began to wonder if she’d ever tell me what was going on and how I could believe her.

“Ok, I know a skeptic when I see one,” she said.

She stood up and went to the stand where I bought my lunch. She came back and sat down with a rotten, old banana. It was a deep shade of brown and ready to be made into banana bread. She touched it with the Incan chess piece. The glow got stronger, and I felt a wave of heat coming off of it. Before my eyes, the banana turned from brown to a perfect shade of yellow.

“Try it,” she said.

I peeled the banana and tasted it. It was absolutely perfect. No one would have ever known that it had just been on the verge of death. I was convinced. Something was happening that couldn’t be explained by science.

“This chess piece is a talisman. It houses the magic of Inti, the Incan sun god. It’s taken me nearly 500 years to perfect my practice with the talisman, and I don’t intend to hand it over.”

“So why did you sell me the chess set at all?”

“Each of the pieces in that set contains ancient Incan magic. They all do something different. Some are for immortality, some for wealth, some for love. None of them work without their king. He’s the key that unlocks the set. Right now, there are people who know this secret. They’re hunting down the set as we speak. I’ve separated the pieces from their key.”

“Ok, but why do I have it?”

“You are going to take it home,” she said. “Enjoy it. Use it to play chess. Put some other token where the king goes and tell the story of the crazy lady in the market who sold you a chess set with a missing piece. With you, it will be far away from here and safe. When the time is right, I will come for it.”

“When will that be?” I asked.

“Years from now. You may have the set in your family for generations before it disappears one night. Do me this favor, and I will make sure that your family is fortunate and healthy for years to come.”

I still thought she sounded insane, but I could hear desperation in her voice. I decided to appease her whether I bought her story or not. I promised her I'd keep it safe, and she thanked me profusely.

We parted ways. I snaked through the labyrinth of shops until I found the exit. I did what she said. I took the set home and put it on a shelf. When friends wanted to play, we used a token from a different game. I always told them that the old woman who sold it to me was angry at me for haggling which is why she snuck a piece out while she was wrapping it up. I don’t know why that witch-lady trusted me with her secret, but I intended to keep it.