Curse of the Ancients (14 page)

“So that’s why you gathered in the cave,” Sera said.

“That and the acoustics make my voice sound nice,” Bacab said with another grin.

“They’ve been threatening us,” K’inich said. “Diego de Landa, one of the leaders of the Franciscan monks, says if we don’t obey he will get rid of everything we hold sacred.”

“Oh, wow,” Dak said. “I’ve totally read about this. That de Landa dude gets so mad he orders an
auto-da-fe
, where he —”

Sera stepped on Dak’s foot to cut him off.

“Ow!”
Dak shrieked.

“You’re speculating, of course,” Sera said, shooting Dak a dirty look.

“Oh. Right.” Dak turned to Bacab. “What I meant to say is, aren’t you guys afraid something bad might happen to your codices and stuff?”

Sera noticed that K’inich was staring at Dak. “How could you know something that has yet to happen?” he asked.

“No, I don’t,” Dak said. “I was just . . . sometimes I get my verb tenses confused.”

“My hope is that a highly spiritual man like de Landa,” Bacab said, “would never stoop so low as confiscating our history.”

“Well, I wouldn’t hope too hard,” Dak said quietly, so only Sera could hear.

K’inich was whispering something into Bacab’s ear now. Sera pulled Dak aside and said, “Maybe this is the Break we’re supposed to fix.” After talking with Bacab she felt suddenly reenergized, like she was ready to fight again. Maybe this was the mark of a great leader.

“That’s it,” Dak nearly shouted. “We have to stop de Landa’s
auto-da-fe
.”

Sera put a finger to her lips for Dak to lower his voice. “So, at some point are you planning to explain what the heck an
auto-da-fe
is?” she said. “Or do you just enjoy hearing yourself say it?”

“
Auto-da-fe
.
Auto-da-fe.
Auto-da-fe
.” Dak smiled. “Just kidding, dude. An
auto-da-fe
is —”

Before Dak could finish, a few of the Mayas got up suddenly and started converging around the far window. Bacab and K’inich hurried over to join them.

Sera and Dak stood on their tiptoes near the back of the crowd to try to see what was going on. All Sera could see was the bottom portion of a monk’s robe on the other side of the window. Someone was there. And that someone was now kneeling down to look inside the cell.

Sera’s eyes widened.

It was Riq.

Dressed like a Franciscan monk.

“What do you want?” one of the Mayas barked at him.

“To speak with Dak and Sera,” Riq said. “I’m not an actual monk, I promise.”

“Riq!” Sera shouted over the crowd.

“Why should we believe you?” another Mayan man said.

Sera started pushing through the pack. If she could just get to him, she could explain. Dak suddenly weaseled right past her, though, and lunged for the window, holding out a piece of jewelry. Riq reached his hand through the narrow bars and took it.

“It looks like the one you lost!” Dak shouted. “I thought maybe you’d want it!”

“Thanks,” Riq said, slipping it into the bag hanging off of the rope belt of his robe.

“Why are you here?” a woman shouted at Riq. “Haven’t you people done enough for one night?”

Several other Mayas began peppering Riq with questions, too, until Bacab shouted, “Silence!”

The entire cell went quiet.

“Thank you,” Bacab said. “Let me ask the boy our question before we proceed any further.” The Mayas nodded and made a path for Bacab to get to the window. As he wrapped his hands around the bars, he looked up at Riq and said, “What is the most important thing in the world, young man?”

Sera watched Riq look to the ground, confused. She was about to move toward the window so she could explain that they weren’t from around here, when Riq suddenly raised his eyes to Bacab and said, “Friendship.”

All at once the Mayas looked at one another, nodding, and began reaching their arms through the bars to shake hands with Riq.

Sera turned to Dak, who was already staring at her with a puzzled look on his face. He motioned toward Riq and said, “What the . . . ?”

Sera shrugged and told him, “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

A
S RIQ
hurried away from the subterranean prison cell, he kept repeating in his head the name of the boy he’d just been asked to locate, the boy that Bacab claimed would have a key to the cell:
Okib. Okib. Okib
.

He couldn’t allow himself to forget.

But at the same time he was also thinking about the ancient locket Dak had handed him through the prison bars. It was the only reason he’d been able to answer Bacab’s strange question. In a conversation with Kisa, he remembered telling her that the most important thing in the world was having friends. So he threw it out there to Bacab. But he was completely shocked that he’d gotten it right.

Riq pulled the locket out now as he moved through the village looking for the boy. It was rusted shut, the metal on both sides dull and badly dented. There was no way it was the locket Kisa had tried to give him before he warped away with Dak and Sera. Even if it was, would he actually want it? The girl had done nothing but confuse him. One minute she seemed so excited for him to stay. The next minute she was ordering him out of her village.

Riq was tempted to boot the locket right into the bushes.

He didn’t, though.

He slipped it back into his belt’s bag and continued repeating the boy’s name in his head:
Okib. Oki. Okib
.

Riq had been walking around for a half hour before he spotted a small group of Mayan boys playing on a ball court. He called down to them, “By any chance, is one of you guys named Okib?”

The boys all looked at one another, shaking their heads.

“You sure?” Riq said. “I’m not a real monk, I promise. And I have an important message from Bacab.” He wished he could ditch the Franciscan robe he was wearing. It was making the kids nervous.

“He might be getting stuff out of the cave,” one of the boys offered.

“Did something bad happen?” another boy asked.

“I don’t think so,” Riq said, not wanting to alarm them. “Bacab just asked that I find Okib.”

“You should try the cave,” the first boy said.

Riq thanked them and started in the direction of the path that would lead him to the cave. He looked down at his robe, feeling entirely out of place. When he left Dak and Sera earlier, he had ducked into the church to be alone and saw the robe hanging over a chair. He’d changed into it without much thought . . . other than he no longer wanted to be wearing the clothes he’d worn when he knew Kisa. A new outfit, he had told himself, might help give him a fresh perspective.

It didn’t, of course. He left the church feeling just as confused as ever.

Kisa must have realized something truly awful about him to change her mind so quickly. Riq pulled the locket out again. He just needed to get rid of it. All it did was remind him of what happened.

Instead of hurling it into the bushes, though, he fired it at the ground, as hard as he could. Then he sat down on a boulder and looked up into the sky. The moon and stars were out, and he thought how it was the same moon and stars that had hovered over Izamal almost one thousand years ago. The sky didn’t need a time machine to witness all that went on in the world, which included the time he’d spent with Kisa.

The air was warm and humid. Far off to the east he saw storm clouds. He watched them for a few seconds, trying to determine how quickly they were approaching, then he shifted his attention back to the locket on the ground.

He was surprised to see that it had broken into two pieces.

He walked over and picked them up, and stared at the inside of the back half where a single glyph had been written:
observatory
. The handwriting reminded him of the message Kisa had carved into the boulder when she’d left him the snake bracelet.

Riq got chills as he looked up at the tall observatory.

Could it really be Kisa trying to send him a message?

The path that led up to the cave was just past the observatory. If Riq hurried, he could take a quick look inside before heading up the hill.

He shoved the locket pieces back into his bag and took off running.

The two monks near the front entrance didn’t pay Riq any mind, most likely because of the robe he was wearing. He was able to duck right inside the huge observatory and check things out. It was quite old though still functioning. Parts of the walls were peeling and cracked. The center of the ground floor was flat, and the roof was open at the very top so that Riq could see the sky. All around the main part of the observatory were doors, maybe a dozen of them.

Riq knew what he was doing was insane — trying to figure out the meaning of a single-glyph clue written almost one thousand years ago. Or maybe it wasn’t a clue at all. Maybe it had been written by someone other than Kisa. Or what if Kisa had left the clue for someone else? This version of the observatory didn’t even exist yet when she’d tried to hand him the locket.

Another question started circling through his head: Why would a girl give a clue to someone she didn’t even want around?

Riq moved around the interior of the observatory anyway, opening every door, peering inside. They were mostly small rooms with new desks and chairs. Three of the doors were locked. One led to a staircase. Riq took the skinny stairs all the way up to the ceiling and looked back down at the ground floor, trying to figure out what might be significant about an observatory. But it was all so ordinary.

There was a thin walkway up near the dome. He stepped out onto it, moved carefully around every inch looking for some other kind of clue. But it was just a walkway. Nothing more. He eventually climbed back down the stairs, passing the ground floor and ducking into the basement. He opened the door and felt his way down the dark hallway, sliding his hands against the wall. He tried a door along the way that was locked. Then he saw that there was an open room at the far end of the hall . . . with what looked like candlelight flickering within.

Riq walked faster through the darkness and peeked inside. There were three women sitting on simple wooden chairs, sorting through wooden boxes. One looked up at Riq, her eyes growing wide with surprise. “Who are you?” she demanded, dropping what looked like another locket inside the box. “And what are you doing in here?”

All three women picked up their sewing and stood up, kicking the boxes behind their feet.

“We’ve been cleared by Brother de Landa to do our embroideries in here,” the shortest of them said.

“They’re for the church,” the first woman added.

“Don’t worry,” Riq told the women, “I’m not a real monk. I was just looking for a girl.” It was clear they weren’t doing anything for the church.

“A girl?” the short woman asked. “No one is allowed to be down here but the three of us with our embroidery.”

“A woman, I mean,” Riq corrected himself. “She lived a long, long time ago. Her name was Kisa.”

The women all looked at one another, shaking their heads.

“Her uncle was King Itchik,” Riq added. “I believe he was responsible for building this observatory.”