THE ECLIPSE OF THE INCA EMPIRE... No lover of history or visitor to Cuzco will walk the ancient streets of that city or stand before the great fortress of Saqusayhuaman and see things the same way after reading how Pedro Pizarro and his native friend Quispe saw this pivotal time. This is the story of two young friends; Pedro Pizarro who follows his cousin General Francisco Pizarro on an incredible journey and Quispe who has been enticed along to act as interpreter. On the 15th of November 1533, after a heavily contested 800 mile march from Cajamarca to Cuzco, Francisco Pizarro leads 135 desperate, limping, Spanish soldiers and the newly crowned Manco Inca into the civil-war ravaged capital of an enormous Empire. The strange, hairy-faced white men are welcomed as liberators - at first. Working together, Pedro and Quispe have become a bridge between worlds, but the trials of the suddenly-elevated, very young, Manco Inca, the political infighting among the Spaniards who have come mostly for plunder, the terrors of being a soldier in such a small, beleaguered army, and their pivotal roles as interpreters, place Pedro at desperate odds with his native friend Quispe. As two streams that have diverged in the mountains, Pedro and Quispe re-connect in a turbulent ocean that crashes down upon two powerful civilizations, threatening to destroy them both. Pedro and Quispe find their personal strengths, then brief moments of peace where their lives have infinite potential, but only unimaginably dire promise, without them both continuing to work together. This incredible and fascinating 30 months of world-shaking history is detailed on a most compelling, personal scale. It is the story of two great friends and their two views of the historic events that swirled around them. Scott Bernard has a B.A. in Economics from Brown University. He is the author of the highly acclaimed novel Cajamarca, Sons of the Sun. When not traveling, he lives in Central Massachusetts.

A CLASH BETWEEN WORLDS... In 1529 Pedro Pizarro is a sixteen year-old scribe with the promise of an easy life in the grand Church of St. Martin. When his gallant cousin Francisco Pizarro gallops into Trujillo at the head of a stampede of finely-armored cavalry, recruiting for an expedition to the golden cities of Peru, offering "An adventure beyond dreams, riches beyond description and fame beyond generations, while doing God's work," Pedro wrestles with his commitments to his poor goat-farming father who gave him to the Church and to his mentor, the good Father Vincent, who lends him books filled with adventures. Youngest, most inexperienced, and useless aboard ship, Pedro is presented with the young Indian Quispe by the great General Francisco Pizarro and the two misfits are given the task of learning and teaching each other their languages. Their friendship grows in Panama, then closer, in the infested swamps, scorching deserts, desperate battles, and constant hardships as they follow the enigmatic General Francisco Pizarro south. On November 15, 1532, Francisco Pizarro leads 168 Spanish soldiers into the evacuated Andean city of Cajamarca. That night, thousands of campfires blaze the surrounding mountains. The Inca King Atahualpa has just been victorious in a destructive civil war. Now with an Empire of twelve million people, and with 80,000 victorious warriors surrounding the trapped strangers, the Inca King awaited a meeting with the 168 hairy-faced white men. The characters, the dates, the battles, the hardships, and the catastrophic confrontation in the plaza of Cajamarca, and the moral sufferings, are all recorded history. Only the friendship between these two young, real-life characters, Pedro and Quispe, is supposed, and therein grows the intriguing story of two views of the pivotal moments in the violent clash between the "Old World" and the "Americas." This incredible, and fascinating, 34 months of globe-shaking history is detailed o