OUT NOW at Amazon <a href="http://amzn.to/1eHQTb5" target="_blank">USA</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/1khSEnn" target="_blank">Canada</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/1oce56A" target="_blank">UK</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/1d3nk7x" target="_blank">France</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/1fZu6Za" target="_blank">Germany</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/1fZu6sd" target="_blank">Italy</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/1mLhBtp" target="_blank">Spain</a>, <a href="http://bit.ly/1hwOF2R" target="_blank">India</a> &amp; <a href="http://amzn.to/NdxZD3" target="_blank">Japan</a>.

----------------------------------------------------------

<b>ROUNDABOUT</b>

I’ll be the round about
The words will make you out ‘n’ out
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley

The music dance and sing
They make the children really ring
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley

In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they
Stand there
One mile over we’ll be there and we’ll see
You
Ten true summers we’ll be there and
Laughing too
Twenty four before my love you’ll see I’ll be
There with you

I will remember you
Your silhouette will charge the view
Of distance atmosphere
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
Even in the valley

In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they
Stand there
One mile over we’ll be there and we’ll see
You
Ten true summers we’ll be there and
Laughing too
Twenty four before my love you’ll see I’ll be
There with you

Along the drifting cloud the eagle searching
Down on the land
Catching the swirling wind the sailor sees
The rim of the land
The eagle’s dancing wings create as weather
Spins out of hand
Go closer hold the land feel partly no more
Than grains of sand
We stand to lose all time a thousand answers
By in our hand
Next to your deeper fears we stand
Surrounded by a million years

I’ll be the roundabout
The words will make you out ‘n’ out
I’ll be the roundabout
The words will make you out ‘n’ out

In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they
Stand there
Twenty four before my love and I’ll be there

I’ll be the roundabout
The words will make you out ‘n’ out
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and
In and out the valley

In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they
Stand there
One mile over we’ll be there and we’ll see
You
Ten true summers we’ll be there and
Laughing too
Twenty four before my love you’ll see I’ll be
There with you

----------------------------------------------------------

WRITTEN BY

Jon Anderson & Steve Howe

PERFORMED BY YES

Jon Anderson – vocals
Bill Bruford – drums, percussion
Steve Howe – electric and acoustic guitars, backing vocals
Chris Squire – bass guitars, backing vocals
Rick Wakeman – Hammond organ, piano, RMI 368 Electra-Piano and Harpsichord, Mellotron, Moog synthesizer

PRODUCED BY
Eddie Offord & YES

----------------------------------------------------------

<b>WONDEROUS STORIES - THE BEST OF YES</b>

A superbly packaged and tastefully selected budget-priced compilation of Yes's studio work spanning the years 1970-1983.

Previously available with different packaging, this 2014 double CD release includes sleeve notes by Alan Robinson, new artwork from Roger Dean, and features the classics Heart Of The Sunrise, Close To The Edge, Starship Trooper and more.

An ideal introduction to one of the UK's most innovative bands.

CD 1:

1. Siberian Khatru
2. Yours Is No Disgrace
3. No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed
4. Mood For A Day
5. Everydays
6. I've Seen All Good People (Your Move; All Good People)
7. Heart Of The Sunrise
8. Starship Trooper
9. Close To The Edge

CD 2:

1. Owner Of A Lonely Heart
2. Wonderous Stories
3. Roundabout
4. And You And I
5. Long Distance Runaround
6. Going For The One
7. Parallels
8. Leave It (Acapella Mix)
9. The Remembering: High The Memory
10. Tempus Fugit
11. Soon


Message from cover artist Roger Dean:
Hello everyone! Good news, out now is the album ‘Wondrous Stories: The Best of Yes’, it was originally released in 2011 with a cover I didn’t know about or approve. Both Demon who released it and Rhino were very helpful in putting right the situation, and the two cd set has been re-released with a cover specially made based on an updated view of the ‘Fragile’ world. This was a closer match to the colours and shapes in the first Yessong painting “Escape”.


Also Available:
YES - THE STUDIO ALBUMS 1969-1987
  • 12 Albums on 13 CDS 
  • All Remasteres and Expanded
  • 66 Bonus Tracks
  • Box Set with new Roger Dean Artwork

OUT NOW at Amazon <a href="http://amzn.to/16NsWBM" target="_blank">USA</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/177bVmB" target="_blank">Canada</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/177bVmB" target="_blank">UK</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/1fJn0g4" target="_blank">Italy</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/16hdcqk" target="_blank">France</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/16hdduA" target="_blank">Germany</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/19XbFqv" target="_blank">Spain</a>, <a href="http://amzn.to/19foM3u" target="_blank">Japan</a>.

Buy at Amazon USA 

YES - Roundabout

Two imaginary podcasters discuss my forthcoming novel 'Night Shift'

Night Shift podcast

Earthbound - Pollyanna - I Believe In You

Reincarnation - Kiria (Yoshino Nanjo)Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE

Visit Caposcripti.com to buy print or digital copies of this book, or https://www.amazon.com/Caposcripti/dp/B07M5HQFVK for the full audio version.

Caposcripti

A novel about shrunken heads and dropouts, language and voyeurism, set in London and the Amazon basin.
Modern London. The photographer is a man ruled by two obseessions. First, to take photographs that speak for him. Second, to make the subjects of his photographs speak to him alone. 

Rewind to Peru in 1851. An explorer is battling to survive in a claustrophobic and unknown world, in flight from modernity and seeking older truths, which he finds in the customs of the Caposcripti.

How these secrets survive, and how the photographer uses them in his terrifying experiments is only the beginning of the journey with these intriguing characters.


praise for Caposcripti:

“Beautifully constructed” ....“immaculate prose” ... “John Grisham meets Carlos Castaneda”
BOOKMONGERS LONDON

“I loved the way the dialogue builds and builds, but is very subtle...a different way of looking.”
Anna Druka

“It's a great read!”
Rod McLaren

“I was hungry for more, each of my busy days, to induldge myself in this book. Each time I opened the pages I was there, with the characters, my six senses working the pages, sitting on the edge of my seat throughout my Caposcripti experience. This is an incredible book! Zelda Rhiando's first novel reads as if she is already a seasoned writer...a natural talent like hers is undeniable and hats off for a superior first novel. Highly recommend reading!”
Lisa Billson of The Loose Salute

“It's really good. Very accomplished for a first novel.”
Patrick Kelly

“Just finished Caposcripti and what a cracking good read it is too. Genuine sense of menace throughout.”
Ron Meerbeck

“Finished!! Favourite bits: the ending, nina cleaning up after murder, taypi's daguerreotype. I'm spreading the word!”
Emily Foges

“I saw one of your stickers in the toilet and wanted to scrawl 'beware the photographer!' - but I'd lost my pen.”
Julia Roberts

“Can't put down. Betty leaves you on such a nervous edge. Love it.”
Julia Roberts

Author interview on Scott Pack's blog:
meandmybigmouth.blogspot.com/   http://t.co/7NZUpjWd

More about the book:
http://www.caposcripti.com

Chapter 1: Personae

4. Betty
Night-time in London – or rather the electric dusk that passes for night in the city, where the sky develops a perpetual orange glow that conceals all but the brightest stars, and a thin haze softens everything into indistinctness.
Patches of light from the street lamps intensify the areas of shadow under the long landbridge supporting the railway line, and cast doorways and corners into obscurity. Beneath the overhang arches curve along the pavement. The shops and offices are shuttered against the night, rendered uniform by the dark outlines of graffiti etched into them. The street is littered with the debris of daytime and has that peculiar sense of isolation of the shuttered outdoor market.
Save for the dim glimmer of reflection thrown from his lens, the Photographer is near invisible in his hiding place, black coat melting into the dark stone, dark eyes dim hollows in his pale face, camouflaged in stillness, checking for cameras.
His quarry, an old drunk entering the final stages of dipsomania, is about half-way down the street bedded down for the night in the entrance to the station. Like the market and the shops it’s closed now, quiet and deserted, and she
is only just visible through the metal cage that forms the stairwell. A near shapeless bundle in the darkness, even the filth and the stink of piss and stale cider have not been enough to dissuade her from the shelter that the stairwell affords in coldest hour before dawn. Shelter, the Photographer reflects, that will provide his activities with some cover too.
Everywhere these days there are cameras watching; cameras, hidden by them, tricks and feints. Even the concealed ones might be dummies, double bluffs, no escape. Watching me? He marks her and bides his time; there’s no need to rush. Does anybody really see such people? Maybe not, but the camera catches everything.
The Photographer pictures a grand controller, seated in front of a giant switchboard, wired into a chamber studded with monitors in obscene symbiosis: a monstrous eye. Images flash on the screens, zoom shots, wide pans – from the grainy black and white of CCTV to the lurid polychrome of cheap porn.
Suddenly everything vanishes, every screen switches to a single shot, a magnified view of the very street, the very doorway where he is hiding, camera lens glinting in the streetlight, sight and senses straining. But what would
they see? Nothing. For how can they see what they’re not looking for? Blind. Blind leading the blind. Eyes closed to the patterns in the noise, fragments of the lost language. He’s been watching this one for some time now, saving her up like a banquet, waiting for the moment of significance, the confluence of signs.
Even in the dark he can form a perfect mental picture of every contour of her person – from the filthy and crusted layers of petticoats, and blouses, and skirts, and coats, and cardigans, to the bloated feet wrapped in layers of plastic; conjunctival eyes squinting from the lined and bloodshot face. He is impervious to the decay, for this face still
holds a promise of beauty for him, hints given in the high cheekbones, weathered cheeks, sockets spaced wide and eyes of an extraordinary colour.
He’s observed her in all weathers: panhandling for change or drinking Tennent’s Super on a bench by the library with
the other regulars; shouting and spitting at the pigeons, at the government, at the rain, and at the great confusing conspiracy of it all; sleeping it off on the pavement, as oblivious to the passers-by as they are to her.
How many times has he asked himself: does anybody see such people? Really see them or just register their presence
as they pass in the morning as an annoyance or obstacle or object of sudden pity, quickly forgotten? How many hundreds of pairs of eyes glance at this woman on a daily basis without ever seeing her at all? And if challenged to describe even
one small aspect of her appearance, what would they recall? Naturally this last is an important consideration.
It’s different for him, for them; he’s intimate with her, close as no other. Who else could describe, as the Photographer can describe, the colour of her eyes, the moles on her face, the deep lines carved down to the mouth? Who knows the precise number of her teeth, and which are crowns? Who traces the lines on her hands, the varicose veins marbling the back of her calves, measures the tone and tenor of her voice, when she wakes, when she sleeps, where she goes?
Who had last touched her emaciated body – as he would – filled with a kind of awe before the microcosm of humanity; the machinery of natural language latent in her cells, like some complex DNA strand waiting to unfold? She will be more than the sum of her parts, society’s discard, nameless and invisible. She exists for this, fragment of an equation
that embodies that primary relationship between the identity of the individual, and the millions of dim reflections of the original form that people the universe, the fragments of Babel that she carries within her.
And all this contingent on the cameras, the CCTV, his present concealment and his long observation of her habits: Will anybody miss her? Will anyone register her absence, and having registered it, ask questions, instigate a trace, compile footage of her haunts to establish just when and where and how she disappeared? Will they delve into the black economy of the nameless and unrecorded to discover her true identity, that long-forgotten National Insurance number, the place on the Electoral roll surely lapsed?
So much easier to suppose that she has moved on, succumbed quietly to the maw of the streets, been rescued to rot her days away in institutionalised peace....
All potential truths, all possibilities, all made concrete to confuse the pursuer – a paper trail laid for those who might be looking.
“Black and white. Clear-cut. No, there is nothing preventing this: she is nothing. Camera never lies. People do. I must remember as life is art, she is symbolism. Nearly time now: woo her with the camera; always works, black and white: Camera never lies. Fool the eye. Time. Now.”
When he was younger he relished these opportunities. Anticipation and the quick strike, snap, run. But this is only the first step in the process. Each element is deliberate, each a part of the ritual.
Above all there must be no haste in his actions.
As with each of his victims there’s an element of the lover’s nervousness in this first contact. Despite all his observation, even having seen inside them with the eye of his lens, clear
as the cross-section of a cell on a microscope, even then first contact is a shock, recognising in each of them a fragment
of the true language. Whilst others dismiss their drunken ravings, he rejoices in their deafness to the language of Babel, the speakers of tongues – Have they no ears to hear? Here, in
this dark and filthy street, shuttered for the night and watched by the blind lens of a score of CCTV cameras, here, would he hear the voice of God? Her cries could be the only remedy for the lost symmetry of his soul.
Not all of his subjects have been women: although there
have certainly been a few. Outwardly they differ from each other, but linked by a common theme; the shibboleth latent in their musculature, in the juxtaposition of cheekbone and eye socket, the grammar of the sacred language encoded in each like a cipher. Each of these individuals could be prepared and reduced to their essence, the barest equation. Each would become an elegant notation in the vast and complex calculation, the answer to which is the original word, the knowledge the first humans stole from the Garden of Eden, which was lost in the destruction of the Tower of Babel.
It was time now, painfully, to reconstruct that language
to unpick the myths and conspiracy theories of society’s remnants, living on the borders of its conscience, and rework them into his own private mythology.
Time. Strike. Thrill of fear or is it anticipation? He feels himself becoming hard, the street silent enough to hear her gently snoring in the stairwell, his measured tread as he approaches.
Softly he speaks her name, all reassurance – Betty come now dear, come with me, calming her with his mild voice and gentle hands, talking to her all the time as he gathers her up from her den. Somehow it’s easier than expected to convince her that he poses no threat. She comes quietly, holding his hand in hers, grasping his fingers like a child, despite the illusion of bulk created by her many layers. She is so light and frail she seems barely anchored to the ground.
Her hand: cracked and slightly crusted – is it exposure, or some skin complaint worsened by dirt and lack of washing? The contact is uncomfortable but necessary to reassure her; the last thing he needs is a scene in front of the cameras. He glances at her profile in the darkness, walking head-down, one foot in front of the other, and the next gets you where you’re going; how many years of the same round? Deliverer.
The rented car is around the corner, but it feels like miles, like they’re crawling, open targets on the battlefield. Finally they reach it. He opens the passenger door.
“It’s all right Betty, I’m going to help you, can’t have you sleeping on the cold street at night. Got a nice warm bed and a few ciders for you at home, come along now, in you get.”
Slow, slow talking in a gentle monotone, reassuring smile, no sudden movements; in his pocket, the solution – just in case.
Once she’s in he closes the passenger door gently and walks slowly around to the other side of the car, settling his large frame into the seat. Turns the ignition and starts the car; turns to look at Betty, already dozing, head on her chest in the comfortable seat. Good. They can drive for a while.
After half an hour or so, sure that she is deep in slumber, he slowly brings the car to a halt in a residential street beneath a large tree. What infinite patience it requires to wait for a couple more minutes. The street is quiet and dark, and she has not stirred at all. Time. Now.

Chapter 4: Betty

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George Michael - Careless Whisper (Mood Funk Beat) // FREE DOWNLOAD

In this new podcast series, author and journalist Dolly Alderton will be talking to guests about their most defining relationships: the passion, heartbreak, longing, familiarity and fondness that have formed who they are.

Dolly's guest this week is the journalist and author Cosmo Landesman.

Love Stories with Cosmo Landesman

Now with more tracks and improved audio! This is a little more than half of the Original Soundtrack to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Excluded tracks include short sounds and jingles, repetitive tracks (like the different Blight Ganon battle themes which are all the same), tracks that include game audio as part of the song, and a few others that I feel do not contribute to the overall sound collection. Enjoy! (© Nintendo 2017) (I don't own the music.)

Main Theme

An excerpt from the audio version of Caposcripti by Zelda Rhiando - Print and Digital versions available at http://www.caposcripti.com

41. A Journey for Taypi

Taypi set off before dawn on the first leg of the journey that would take him to Iquitos, and the men in the iron ships that would transport the journals back to England along with their cargoes of sarsaparilla, rubber and guano. No one was awake to see him off except the Speaker, who gave him blessings and charms to ward off evil spirits, and furnished him with the Explorer’s machete. The Speaker’s face was impassive as he reminded Taypi of the instructions of the Explorer, and added some of his own. Taypi was to follow the river (which the Explorer had told him was called the Pongo) downstream until it fed into another huge river, called the Amazon. The Explorer had told Taypi how to construct a raft, and suggested that this would be the fastest and safest way to travel downriver. With the last of his strength he had begun to teach Taypi a few words of Spanish, to add to the English that they had practised together, so that he would be able to communicate with any Mestizo, or settlers, that he met along the way. He was mindful that this might be risky, as many of them had good reason to fear the warlike tribes such as the Jivaros, who regularly carried off and killed settlers on their lands. He told Taypi that he should be sure to make plenty of noise when approaching a settlement, and wave the piece of white fabric that he had given him. War parties always approached silently.
To this the Speaker added admonishments to avoid any other tribes that he might find along the way, and return to the lands of the Caposcripti as soon as he had discharged his promise to the Explorer.
Taypi travelled light: his only luggage was an oilcloth parcel containing the journals and letters of introduction that the Explorer had given him, a string hammock that doubled as a bag, and a pouch containing roots and herbs in whose use the Speaker had instructed him. His step was springy as he travelled through familiar lands, going over his instructions again and again until he could have recited them in his sleep.
It was the first time that Taypi had left his people since the journey that had led him to discover the Explorer. Then Taypi had been a boy, full of the desire to prove himself a man. This time he felt the heavy burden of adulthood and his promise to the Explorer weighing on him, and he was full of misgivings. Nevertheless there was enough of the child still there for him to feel that he was setting out on a great adventure, and he was confident in his ability to deal with anything that the jungle might throw at him. His fears were more concerned with loneliness, which could drive a man to lose his judgement, and about the spirits that might try to entice him from his path, for they were jealous of life.
He rubbed anato and uruku into his skin to repel the mosquitoes and sand flies that swarmed everywhere, and doggedly followed the stream in its long journey to the great water, as the Explorer had instructed him to. He subsisted on guavas and on the many different types of nuts and fungi that he had learn to forage from a young age, and occasionally speared a fish or discovered a cache of turtle’s eggs on the sandy beaches of the river. He was healthy and strong, and fell victim neither to hunger nor illness, but after a while the solitude began to prey on him.
On the edges of his vision he could see the jewelled dances of hummingbirds and butterflies, and began to discern patterns in their flight that spoke to him of the Caposcripti language. He wished that the Speaker was there so that he could ask him the meaning of these things, or the Explorer, who had his own theories to explain their dances, all bound up with the way that species changed over time. He had explained many new ideas to Taypi, and told him of the naturalists who had travelled the great continents of the Americas and written down their observations. Maybe Taypi would meet one of these naturalists on his journey, and he could give him the package that the Explorer had entrusted to him. For although he was fired with the enthusiasm and the curiosity of the young he did not think that he would want to live for long amongst the Explorer’s tribe – even after this short time his people’s absence was like a pain in his spirit.
Although the Explorer’s head had been reduced according to the Caposcripti rituals, Taypi feared that his unquiet spirit would seek him out from the afterworld if he did not carry out the promise that he had made. The Explorer’s lips had been sewn shut with the sacred chords, but Taypi still saw them struggling to shape those final words in his dreams. No, no matter how long the journey, or dangerous the way, he could not fail in the task that had been set him, or he would be like the Wandering Jew that the Explorer had told him of when he was well, doomed to walk the world forever.
After a time the river became too deep and swift to wade in, and Taypi decided that it was time to make a raft. The Explorer’s machete made this task much easier, as it was far sharper than the palm knives of his people. Although he had never constructed a raft before (the Caposcripti rarely used them) he had been told how it was done, and knew which creepers were good for binding, and how to weave palm fibres to make a rope. He bound the trunks of balsa trees together and cut himself a long pole to steer the craft. This whole operation took two days, and at the end of it Taypi was exhausted. He crawled into the fork of a tree, made himself a bed of moss and leaves, and fell into a dreamless sleep, punctuated by the din of cicadas and tree frogs.
The next day he gathered bunches of aguavas, nuts and other fruits and made neat bundles out of the wide flat leaves of the plantain tree. He lashed these to the raft along with the journals and letters, which the Explorer had wrapped in oilcloth, and stood back critically to view his handiwork. The raft was ready. It was just big enough for him to stand or lie on, and floated low in the water with the ballast of supplies he had loaded on it. He made an offering of papayas to the river spirits and poled himself away from the bank.
As it turned out, making the raft had been much easier than controlling it. Constant vigilance was necessary to avoid sandbanks and whirlpools, and the logs and other detritus that swirled in the brown water so that you could hardly see it until you were right on top of it.
The raft took many knocks, so that Taypi was sometimes forced to lay himself flat and grasp the bindings whilst it bucked and shuddered. He was constantly soaked by the water splashing over the side, and by the sudden rainstorms that came down so hard that the surface of the river turned into a boiling cloud of mist and made breathing difficult. Earth temporarily became a place of water, filling his eyes and lungs so that he was chilled to the bone and thought he would grow gills like a fish. After these showers the river became swollen and angry, and his raft was rushed pell-mell with the current, but he made steady progress downriver. The showers rarely lasted for long, and provided him with fresh water to drink, which he collected in cannonball gourds. The sun soon returned with fiery heat and dried both himself and the surface of the raft as if the rain, and the thunder and lightning had never been.
Just as he had begun to feel confident in his control of the raft Taypi nearly came to grief. The river had widened, with red mud cliffs along one side where the land had fallen away in the floods. The current here was very rapid, and Taypi kept the raft as close to the bank as he dared, to avoid being swept away. But as he turned a bend the raft was suddenly and swiftly taken by the current and flung into the centre of the river. Taypi nearly lost his balance, but clung to the fibres that held the raft together and managed to stay on. The pole fell into the water and was swept out of sight.
Taypi was carried along pell-mell until the raft hit a large obstruction. A temporary island had been created twenty feet or so from the bank by an earlier landslide, where a large chunk of riverbank, including a tree that had happened to be growing there, had detached itself during the rains. The island had grown in size as brush collected on the upstream shore, and formed a dense floating mat. It was this that had snagged the raft.
Taypi shifted his position slightly, but the raft held solid. He rocked back and forth as much as he dared, but there was no movement. It seemed to be fairly firmly wedged, and he cursed the moment of inattention that had led to the loss of the pole. Not only was he now stuck on this island, unable to push the raft away, but he wouldn’t be able to navigate towards the bank with any safety. He sat up and considered his options. He could try and swim to the nearest bank. It was mid-morning, and not a particularly dangerous time for swimming (the piranhas and other carnivorous fish tended to swarm at dawn and dusk) but the river here was strange to him, and the unpredictable currents made it risky. He would have to try and cut a new pole from the brush and flotsam that had built up to form the island.
Taypi unrolled a coil of palm rope from around his waist and lashed the raft to a sturdy trunk as best he could. Then with infinite care, and keeping his centre of balance as low as possible, he crept off the raft and onto the floating mass of junk that the river had deposited there. In amongst the tree branches, vines and other vegetable matter were the skeletons of animals that had been swept along the river and drowned. Small plants had taken root and begun to carpet the temporary island so that footing was treacherous, and Taypi had to take great care not to cut his bare feet, toughened though they were by a lifetime without shoes.
All of a sudden he heard a shrill song of alarm, coming from somewhere by his feet. When he looked down he saw a tiny monkey, no larger than his hand, curled in a crevice between two branches. It looked shrunken, as though it were dead, and certainly not capable of making the shrill noise that appeared to be coming from it. As Taypi looked closer he realized that an even tinier monkey clung to its neck, frantically trying to rouse its dead mother. Taypi reached down and felt the warm body. The creature was shrieking in terror, and he felt its heartbeat thudding against his fingers. He’d seen these monkeys in the jungle – his people called them the ‘little lion sagui’ – but they were so small and so shy that he’d only ever caught the most fleeting glimpse of one before. Taypi drew his hand back slowly. He didn’t want to frighten the little creature to death.
“You and I are both trapped here, Sagui. Perhaps if I find a pole for the raft I’ll take you with me, eh? You certainly won’t survive here on your own. There’s not much for a little monkey like you to eat. And not much for me either.”
Taypi stood up and continued looking through the brush, Eventually he found a branch that would do and dragged it back to the raft, where he set to work cutting it down to size. The sun was blazing overhead by now, and he was hot and thirsty. He cut open a stick of raw cane and took a long slug of the sweet and refreshing juice inside. Then he remembered the tiny monkey. He scrambled back over the brush to where he had left it, guided by the shrill song that started up again as the monkey heard him approaching. Taypi reached down and carefully plucked the little creature from its dead mother’s neck. He cupped it between his hands and made his way back to the raft, feeling it gradually calming in the warm dark space, although it still trembled uncontrollably.
When he had got back to the raft again he tried to put the sagui down, but it squealed and clung to his fingers so that he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Then he had an idea. He lifted the little monkey up to the long queue of hair that grew at his crown. It seemed to get the idea immediately and transferred its grip from his fingers to the hair, hanging on quite happily and settling itself in with a birdlike chirrup. It was so light that Taypi had to put his hand up to check it was still there, and it seemed to fall asleep immediately.
Taypi stood up and, grasping the makeshift pole, positioned it against the brush and pushed with all his might. The raft moved fractionally and then settled back in, but he was heartened. He pushed again, throwing the full weight of his body behind the pole. The raft bucked but stayed solid. He realised that the rope still bound it to the brush and felt very foolish. He quickly untied the knots he’d made, coiled the rope up again, tied it down and shoved the raft off into the current. He steered around the island using the pole, and did his best to direct the raft towards the bank. After a while he found himself in a slower current and was able to relax a bit. He steered the raft along the bank until he found a tree growing low over the water that he could moor the raft to, and set about making himself a meal of fruit and fish that he tickled out of the water. The little monkey woke up and scampered down his arm at the smell of the fruit. Taypi gave him some and smiled at how enormous the morsel of papaya looked in its tiny paws.
Now that he had a travelling companion Taypi felt less lonely. He found himself talking to the little creature more and more, and spilling out his concerns about the enormous task he’d been given. The Explorer had told him that it would take less time for him to find the settlement on the river
than it had taken the Explorer to travel to the lands of the Caposcripti, as the river coming down from the mountains would take him there. All Taypi had to do was follow the river downstream for twenty days, and he would find Iquitos: a settlement of some three hundred and fifty people, along with a bustling port where ocean-going steamships called to pick up sarsaparilla, tobacco and salt fish, before returning down the Amazon to Brazil, and the sea – an unimaginable distance away, at the other side of the continent.
At night he saw the red eyes of caiman glinting on the banks in the light of the moon and the stars, and heard the splashes as they slid into the water around him. The surface of the water was like glass, broken only by the rings made by fish as they leapt for flies. One dusk a dozen small silver fish leapt onto the raft, and he moored so that he could cook them over hot stones. He shared them with the little monkey, along with giant grubs that he dug out of the rotten boles of fallen palm trees.
In some places trees formed a canopy over the water, where quiet anacondas waited to snag unwary prey. His pole did double duty, both for steering and for repelling the attacks of the giant reptiles, and after a while he learnt to sleep
in snatches, with one eye always watching for danger. In this semi-awake state he felt as though he were travelling through a dream world, where anything were possible. It seemed as though he were living constantly in the spirit world, which he had previously visited only briefly with the aid of the Speaker’s drugs and concoctions. He began to experiment with the possibilities of this, discovering that he could communicate with the Speaker, who was able to send his spirit out in the form of a toucan. He listened for the cough of the jaguar at sunset, and for the sound of the great tree trunks, which his people beat with sticks to send, coded messages to each other.
But just as he was beginning to get the hang of distant communication, his raft moved out of range of the sound – and knew that he had left the tribal lands for good, and that henceforth the jungle would get stranger and stranger to him. It was soon after this that he began to see the first signs of settlements along the riverbank. Temporary jetties had been built at the water’s edge for women to wash clothes, and dugout canoes were moored to sticks that had been sunk into the riverbed. Taypi was wary of these settlements, and kept the raft as far as possible to the other side of the river. The river was very wide now, so he felt himself fairly unobserved as he was swept past the settlements on his raft. Small children playing around the canoes moored to the banks looked up as he passed, but he was gone almost as soon as they spotted him.
In this way Taypi travelled on for several more days and nights, mooring each evening as the sun fell, to find a place to sleep, with the tiny monkey clinging to his hair.


Chapter 41: A Journey for Taypi

An excerpt from the audio version of Caposcripti by Zelda Rhiando - Print and Digital versions available at http://www.caposcripti.com

52. Iquitos to Omaguas; Meeting the Commissioner

At some nameless staging post Nina swapped the big boat from Iquitos for a crowded river taxi, which would take her along a tributary to Omaguas. Although it was a small outpost, it was in fact the administrative hub for an area the size of Wales. The small boat was crowded, and had no roof – just a palm awning to keep off sun and rain, and plastic shields on the sides to protect the occupants of the boat from the splashing water and its inhabitants. Nina could see little of the landscape as they passed, and sat cramped on one of the plank seats clutching her bag, ready to hop off at any one of the numerous stops, until she heard the singsong ‘Omaguas ... aca... todos para Omaguas’ announcing that they had arrived.

Like many of these riverside settlements, Omaguas was built atop a high bank with a tortuous mud-slide of a path down to the river proper, where a battered-looking wooden jetty allowed boat passengers to gain the shore. Nina quickly gathered up her possessions and fought her way past other passengers with many apologies and hopped off the river-taxi, just about getting onto the jetty before the driver blew his horn and it was off. She slung her bag securely around her, and slithered up the steep path.

At the top, she found a row of shacks built precariously on stilts, suggesting that in rainy season the river came above the high bank. Facing these wooden buildings was a rather incongruous town square, brick-new and neat with its regular design of flagstones, fountain (dry) and ornamental pillars. There was even a bronze statue of some military dignitary. Plates affixed to the statue, the fountain and the pillars extolled the generosity of Fujimori and the Peruvian government in creating this, the titular head of the vast Loreto district. One block back from the main square, the jungle visibly strained to encroach; the houses a strange hybrid of traditional palm dwellings and breezeblock structures. Another plate, larger than the rest and hand- painted on wood with large letters ‘Comisaria de Omaguas Alta Amazonas’ distinguished the Commissioner’s office. The door was open, and inside Nina found the man himself. He was huge, and sat beneath a ceiling fan sweating in his tight green uniform. He had a round and guileless face and seemed genuinely excited and interested by Nina’s visit.

“Charmed to meet you. You would be Nina? I hope your journey was pleasant?”
“Well, it was certainly interesting.” replied Nina in careful Spanish. “And I’m pleased to meet you too. It was kind of Jim to arrange this meeting.”
“Jim said you are working on a novel. About the Loreto people. You wish to travel upriver to observe the tribes there?”

“Yes. I’d really like to get in touch with some of them. But unfortunately I don’t speak Quechua. Just bad Spanish! So I need a guide as well. Jim said you might know someone?”

“I may do. A very reliable man called Fernando. But you must know that an American TV company was in that area a few months back. They gave the tribal people money to parade in their native dress, and pretend that they have never had any contact with civilisation. These people started to think that they are not really Peruvians, subject to the Peruvian government. This has made things difficult. The Rimachi control entry to the area and they will demand a big bribe,
even though I have given you permission to enter their lands. They should not do this – it is illegal – but we cannot stop them. In the past it was enough to bring trade goods. Now they want hard cash.”

Nina wondered what he was trying to say; whether there was a hidden meaning in the words. Did he want her to bribe him?

“Obviously I’m not rich,” she replied carefully “but I have been given a small advance by my publisher for my research...”

“I have a boat you can borrow. But you’ll need to buy petrol, and provisions. And gifts for the Rimachi and other tribal people. Fernando will guide you and take you to the market. He’s not here now, but he’ll be back any day now. He knows the local people and settlements very well – he’s taken people to the lake of the Rimachi before. Have you got somewhere to stay?”

Nina didn’t, and shook her head sheepishly. This far off the tourist route the usual backpacker hostels were absent, and Nina hadn’t though beyond arriving in Omaguas – hadn’t even known what she would find there; what kind of reception.

The Commissioner smiled.

“Well you can stay in the government visitor hostel – that’s no problem. I’ll have someone take you there after this. But Nina, please, take care when you travel upriver. The selva can be very dangerous. You must listen to Fernando and do what he says.”

“Thank you so much. You’ve been so kind. I really appreciate this. My novel wouldn’t get written without you.”

“Well, be sure to put me in it. In a nice light of course! Now, sadly I must get back to official business. I’m sure we’ll meet again before you leave. I’m always here in the mornings.”

Nina wondered what it must be like to be stuck in that tiny outpost of civilisation. This man was ruler of a region the size of Wales, but seemed to have no pretensions at all. However she recognised dismissal, polite though it was. She thanked the Governor once again, and then followed the uniformed officer that he assigned to take her to the hostel.

They emerged into the bright light of late morning; the plinths and statues cast short sharp shadows on the dusty ground and the streets were silent and almost deserted. After a couple of minutes they arrived at another breezeblock building and the officer handed her over to another government official, who gave her a register to sign. As she went through the familiar ritual of name, passport number, arriving from, leaving for, Nina reflected that she really wouldn’t be that hard to track down if anyone had thought to look in the remote Amazon for her.

Her room was a bunker-like space with no windows and no bed – just a selection of hooks set into the walls, the space just wide enough to sling a hammock. There were a couple of lockers built into one wall and Nina quickly chucked her bag into one before turning to thank the hostel manager. A non-committal grunt was her only reply, as she watched his retreating back.

For lack of anything better to do, Nina strung up her hammock, removed the Explorer’s journal from its waterproof coverings, and settled down for a read, and a think. She sensed that she was getting closer to the source, but the more she saw of jungle life, the less hope she had that anything had survived a hundred and fifty years since the death of the Explorer. After all, even the homes of the
rubber barons were crumbling, and they had been built more recently than that. The idea that any native artefacts had survived in this environment seemed nonsensical. She lay in her hammock and turned one theory after another over in her brain.

Could the heads be kept in a wooden case – like one of the drums she’d seen in the museum in Iquitos? But the Explorer hadn’t said anything about drums. The Caposcripti used the exposed roots of trees to send their messages through the jungle. Drums played no part in their ceremonial. She didn’t even have a name to go on. The Explorer knew them as the Caposcripti – but he said this was just a made-up name. How could she find a tribe with no name?

At least their appearance was unique enough that she could make up a description.

She thought back to the daguerreotype she had seen at the museum. She was sure it was Taypi. The date fitted, and the description that the Explorer had given of him in the journal. The tangibility of the clue excited her – but the fact that it created a trail that anyone could follow was also terrifying. Except that she had the only copy of the journal, and she had ensured everything else was burnt... hadn’t she?

Which she was going to need for this Fernando guy that the Governor had said would guide her up the river. How much could she tell him? She’d stick with the story of the novel – say that it was historically based on the life and travels of a 19th Century explorer and the tribes that he’d found. Hmm.

She felt frustrated. Surrounded by clues but more clueless than ever, she was reduced to coming up with wild theories. The indigenous museum in Iquitos had been interesting, but there was no mention of head-shrinking, let alone the Caposcripti, and books with any detail were frustratingly hard to come by – only the tantalising daguerreotype suggested that she might be on the right path. The maps that she had been able to track down told her nothing: they were almost all characterised by a lack of detail; vast tracts of white space that had still not been catalogued. Nina had a suspicion that she was chasing wild geese. Perhaps the Caposcripti had moved, or died out.

So? How could she find them? What hope does she have
of being able to locate the tribe, much less the head of the Explorer? The tribe will be different now. The young may no longer accept tattoos. Maybe only the elders of the tribe are still marked with the ideograms of the Caposcripti as the Explorer would have known them, if any survive. Would they still retain their network of Speakers?

After a couple of hours of musing, scrutinising the Explorer’s journal and turning theories over in her head, Nina realised that she was ravenous. Breakfast had been a couple of stale empañadas, when the dawn was still pink on the horizon, and by now it was mid-afternoon. Not great timing for a snack, in a tiny place like this where most of the business would be done in the morning, but he was too starved to wait till evening. Nina pulled her few spare clothes out of her bag, stashed them in one of the lockers, and shouldering her bag once again, headed out of the room. She didn’t bother to lock the door. The only things she had of value were cash, her passport and the Explorer’s journal – and those were staying on her person at all times.

Outside, Omaguas had the hot, dry glare of ghost-silent deserted streets. She made her way back to the waterfront where she had seen the stilted shacks. As she had already guessed, a couple of them were cafés – radios blaring Latin music and bags of water hung around to ward off the ever- present flies. There were no other patrons at this time of day,
but a guy was lounging asleep in a chair next to the radio, and a glass case with a few papas rellenos and empañadas – and what looked suspiciously like a plate of grubs sitting next to them.

“Una cervecita Señora?
“Si, y algun para comeer, tengo mucho hambré, Señor!” Nina
replied.

He pulled a sweating bottle of beer out of a bucket of cold water, and put a couple of stuffed potatoes and empañadas on Nina’s plate, whilst she sat down at a table overlooking the river.

“Veinte Sol.” Nina handed over the twenty and he pocketed it before returning to his seat. Within a few seconds he gave every appearance of having gone back to sleep.

Well, thought Nina wryly as she sipped the beer and nibbled on a corner of empañada – this will have to keep me going for a little while.

For the first time since she could remember, she suddenly felt lonely. What was she doing in this remote jungle outpost in Peru? It had seemed important, and exciting, in London, to come all the way out here and track down the Caposcripti. But in reality she was running from the enormity of her actions. Of course the murder of the Photographer had been self-defence; the stake her very life. But when she had decided to dispose of the Photographer’s body instead of doing the sensible thing and calling the police, she had crossed a line and there was no turning back.

And she had been so very naive. On the one hand she was pretty sure no trace of the Photographer’s skin and muscle and bone remained. On the other, there had been blood; plenty of it. Modern policing methods could create a full and detailed reconstruction of events from a strand of hair, a few drops of blood; a fleck of skin could speak volumes....

For that matter, how thorough had the Photographer been with his own victims? Nina had picked up a copy of ‘The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer” from the airport shop and read it in snatches over the long journey that had followed. One phrase in particular had stuck in her head, when the murderer Dennis Nilsen likened the clean-up operation after a murder to ‘the dirty platter after the feast’. The grisly pyramid of heads and notes that she had immolated suggested that
the Photographer had feasted many, many times. Once the police put him on the missing list and checked his flat, Nina was sure a whole lot of questions were going to be asked. Belatedly she cursed the impulse that had led her to create a flaming pyramid of the heads. Stupid buying into his mythos.

As the one person who knew the answers (for she was almost certain the Photographer had let no one else into his secrets) she was going to make sure she was very far away. There was no going back.

For someone still in their twenties, that was a heady and terrifying prospect.
Don’t worry about that now. Lose yourself in the experience. The Amazon is a fascinating place. Even though she had barely scratched the surface (Tabbatinga, the boat journey, the river taxis) she was already fully immersed. Could this place ever be home? Nina had always thought of herself as rootless and independent. Now that she was truly isolated she understood that she had been fooling herself, in her squat in Elephant. She was still part of a tribe, then. Even though they nominally travelled under the same passports, that Nina was an entirely different person. Exhilarating, terrifying. She
knew now that the Photographer had succeeded in his final experiment. He had indeed reinvented her, and she was still discovering the extent of the changes he had wrought.
Nina noticed that the sun was setting, and a few more people had started to make their way to the café where she had whiled away several hours watching the river, lost in thought. It was cooler now and the bar was filling up. She became aware that she was a covert object of attention. Strangers were not that common in a place like this; especially tall, apparently single and obviously foreign women. With her redhead colouring, Nina stood out like a sore thumb and the locals were not slow to pick up on it. But no one spoke to her. She began to feel a little self-conscious, and wondered if the Commissioner would pop in for an evening beer. Judging from the number of people out now, Omaguas was bigger than it first appeared. Obviously the Commissioner had better places to be than a waterfront bar. It would probably look bad.

Nevertheless, the coffin-like room was not appealing in this heat. Nina held up her empty beer bottle and tried to catch the barkeeper’s eye. Eventually he made his way over with another beer. Nina was still hungry and noticed a couple of the other patrons were tucking into bowls of soup. In a place like this it would just as likely have entrails in it, but Nina had learnt the hard way not to be too fussy about her food during the last several weeks. She gestured towards one of the diners.

“Quiero sopa por favor?”
There was no reply from the waiter, but Nina assumed he must have heard her request because he filled up a bowl from a huge pot which had appeared near the glass case, now refilled with fresh empañadas, patarashca and other snacks.

Nina tried not to look too closely at what was going into the bowl; as he brought it to the table saliva was literally squirting into her mouth. “Beinte cinquo Sol”. She handed over more of the Peruvian coins and set about the soup. Actually it was delicious, though she did discard some tube- like things that she thought might be bits of heart, and a few other unclassifiables that she discovered once she reached the bottom of the bowl. The heat of the soup suffused her body, radiated out from her stomach, and she realised it was the first hot thing she’d eaten in several days. As her digestion got to work on the unfamiliar proteins, she felt suddenly exhausted, and staggered back to the hostel to sleep.


An excerpt from the audio version of Caposcripti by Zelda Rhiando - Print and Digital versions available at http://www.caposcripti.com


Chapter 52: Iquitos to Omaguas

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Chapter 4: Betty

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