Explore the Ruins

Roofless, stone buildings spread out around them. There were small clusters of houses that seemed to share walls like a maze. And then, rising among them, larger stone buildings that could have been old temples, or maybe even mansions for the people who once lived there.

On one side, sprawling, green terraces that looked like farm fields stepped gracefully down toward the jungle below.

Daniel turned around. A green mountain towered above the ruins, its sharp peak jutting skyward. It was beautiful, but something about it made him feel uneasy—like a pair of unseen eyes watched from somewhere on its green slopes.

Up close, the building seemed to glow. But then he realized it was made of translucent gold and was lit from behind by the sun…. Coricancha, Daniel thought, remembering it was the location of the next shard. He wasn’t certain how he knew this was it.

The mountains were covered in a light mist, so it was hard to see everything clearly, but he could easily make out the large stone ruins of Sayacmarca on the hilltop in front of them.

The rays of the setting sun shone over the mountains…The crumbling stone walls of a small ruin perched on the ridge soon became visible, and, on the green slopes far below it, Machu Picchu. This is Intipuncu, the eagle said, slowing its descent and landing on a flat outcropping in front of the stone pillars.

Image 1: Far left silhouette courtesy of sattva/FreeDigitalPhotos.net. The image of Machu Picchu is from the Wikipedia Free Commons, a freely licensed media file repository and is used courtesy of Charlesjsharp. The other two silhouettes are copyright free images.

Image 2: The image of the terraced fields is from the Wikipedia Free Commons and is used courtesy of Christophe Meneboeuf.

Image 3: The image of Wayna Picchu is from the Wikipedia Free Commons and is used courtesy of Sacha Wenninger/Flickr.

Image 4: The image of Coricancha is from the Wikipedia Free Commons and is used courtesy of Hakan Svensson (Xauxa) 2002.

It was combined with Sunrise at Haleakala-20080730-13, which is used courtesy of Raphaël Fauveau/fotopedia (<div xmlns:cc=”http://creativecommons.org/ns#&#8221; xmlns:dct=”http://purl.org/dc/terms/&#8221; about=”http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/raphael-c8c40553487737ec6611e3de1794ea1c-hd.jpg”><span property=”dct:title”>Sunrise at Haleakala-20080730-13</span> (<a rel=”cc:attributionURL” property=”cc:attributionName” href=”http://www.fotopedia.com/users/raphael”>Raphaël Fauveau</a>) / <a rel=”license” href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/”>CC BY 3.0</a></div>)

It was also combined with Rural Fields near Athena, Oregon is used courtesy of markhillary at Flickr at (http://www.flickr.com/photos/markhillary/2791341796/)

Image 5: The image of Sayacmarca is used courtesy of James Preston/Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamespreston/1311022767/)

Image 6: The image of Intipunku is used courtesy of risaclics/Marcy Schrum/Flickr (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en)