Curse of the Ancients (17 page)

Sera stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “What happened to the king’s son? Did he die?”

“You can’t leave us hanging,” Dak said.

Sera noticed that Riq seemed far less interested. She tapped the back of his elbow and mouthed, “You okay?”

He nodded.

“The king’s son washed ashore several minutes later,” K’inich said. “He had drowned. The elder told the truth that night when the king came to see him. He said he understood in the sea that he would only be able to save one boy, and he had chosen the neighborhood boy. The king ordered the elder to be put to death the following morning. Just before the elder was to be sacrificed, the neighborhood boy snuck over to the holding cell, sobbing, and begged the elder to tell him why he hadn’t chosen the king’s son. And do you know what the elder said?”

“What?” Dak said. “Tell us.”

K’inich glanced at Sera and smiled. “He told the boy that he knew the choice he made in the sea would be negative in the short term. He would pay with his life. But in the long term he believed it would prove to be the most beneficial. ‘How is that possible?’ the boy cried. ‘Because tomorrow,’ the elder explained, ‘you are going to go see a group of people who are very important to me. And you’re going to listen to what they have to say. And if my instincts are correct, you will carry their important message into future generations.’ ”

María came hurrying out of the room at the end of the hall holding a candle. “You found the key?” she asked.

K’inich held up the massive key ring for her to see, then he began sifting through them, looking for the right one.

Sera watched nervously as the first two keys he tried failed to work.

“So, I must’ve missed something,” Dak said to Sera. “Why was he telling that story?”

“He’s right here,” Sera said. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“How about it, K’inichy?” Dak said.

K’inich was too preoccupied to answer. The third and fourth keys failed as well. But the fifth slid right into the lock and turned easily. K’inich shoved open the heavy stone door, saying, “After you, my friends.”

Sera was the first one inside. She expected to see all kinds of Mayan artifacts, but the room was completely empty. She walked to the far wall, studying the floor along the way. It looked like there were fresh drag marks.

“I don’t understand,” María said. “According to all the records, this is the room.”

“Looks like you got some bad intel,” Dak said.

Riq tapped Sera on the arm and motioned back at K’inich, who was still hovering by the door. “Are we sure we trust —”

“I’ll tell you the point of the story,” K’inich interrupted, gripping the top of the door frame.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“Sometimes we must do things that are detrimental in the short term because we know they will prove advantageous in the long term. There is nothing left in this room because I cleared it all out. The artifacts you thought you’d find are at the bottom of the pile in the village square.”

María fell to her knees. “What are you saying, K’inich?” she cried.

The realization hit Sera like a ton of bricks. “He’s a Time Warden,” she said.

Dak started marching toward K’inich with his fists clenched, but K’inich only smiled as he pulled an arrow from the pouch on his shoulder. He loaded it into his crossbow and raised it at Dak, who stopped in his tracks. “I am a proud Maya,” K’inich said. “And in the short term, it will be painful to see the legacy of my people turned into ash. See, Diego de Landa will only allow one codex to survive for historical purposes. It shall be the only legacy of the Mayan people. He selected a codex from ancient Izamal, written by a legendary scribe named Pacal. But we have composed our own codex, which reveals the SQ as the rightful savior of the world. It is the perfect opportunity to spread our message far and wide. For the long term, this is what has to be done.”

“You’re selling out your own people!” Sera shouted.

“I’m advancing an ideology,” K’inich said. “Now, please, hand over what’s in your satchel. From the second I saw you two enter the holding cell I suspected you might be from the future.”

“Is de Landa a Time Warden, too?” Dak asked.

K’inich looked appalled. “That man could never be part of our movement. He’s too blinded by religious zealotry. But he’ll make a fine tool.” He turned back to Sera. “Now hand over your time-travel device.”

“I’ll never give it to you,” Sera said through her gritted teeth.

K’inich pointed the arrow right at her forehead. “You have three seconds,” he said, pulling back on the cocking stirrup.

Riq ripped open Sera’s satchel, pulled out the Ring, and set it on the ground in front of her.

“No!” Sera screamed as K’inich reached down to pick it up.

He backed through the doorway, lowering his crossbow. “In case you were wondering,” he said, “the neighborhood boy in the story was me. Sometimes destiny finds the man, instead of the man finding his destiny. If the elder who saved my life had been a Hystorian, instead of a Time Warden, who knows? I may have been on your side. But that is not the way events unfolded.”

K’inich slammed closed the stone door, and Sera heard the click of the lock.

R
IQ CURSED
himself as he watched Sera pound the stone wall with the undersides of her fists. Why hadn’t he trusted his instincts? From the second K’inich had volunteered to accompany them to the observatory, Riq had been skeptical of his motivation. Before that even . . . when he’d asked Sera what she was looking for in the observatory basement. And that story about the two boys in the sea. Riq had sensed all along that something wasn’t right. But he had done nothing to stop it. Zero. And now look where they were.

He watched María pacing all around the room with her candle, watched Dak sit against the wall, letting his face fall into his hands. Sera turned around with a panicked look on her face and said, “What now? We’ll never get out of here.” She looked right at Riq. “Why’d you let him have the Ring?”

“I couldn’t let him hurt you,” Riq said.

“I’d rather take an arrow in the chest than be stuck in here forever,” she said.

“They’re probably torching Pacal’s codex as we speak,” Dak said. “You know, the one we were supposed to protect?”

“I’ve always known there was an SQ presence here,” María said. “But I never once considered Bacab’s cousin.”

“So, what are we supposed to do?” Sera said. “Sit here and wait for our air to run out? Because that’s what’ll probably happen.”

Dak, Sera, and María continued on like this as Riq began walking around the room, studying every inch of the dark walls. María’s candle gave just enough light that he could see. After several minutes he spotted something that made the hairs on his arms stand up. A tiny snake had been carved into one of the stones.

Then another snake, even smaller, on the stone below it.

“And why are
you
so quiet?” Dak shouted at Riq’s back. “You don’t care that we’re all going to die in this tomb?”

Riq ignored Dak and kept scanning farther down the wall. He found a third snake. Then a fourth.

“I know you hear me, Lover Boy!”

“Leave him alone, Dak,” Sera said. “Just, please, be quiet for once in your life.”

“What did I do to you?” Dak snapped back at her.

María moved in closer to Riq and held her candle to the wall so he could see better. “What are you looking at?” she asked.

“There’s a pattern of tiny engravings on the wall,” Riq told her. “They go all the way down to the floor.”

Sera came to look at them, too. “They’re snakes,” she said. “Hold on a sec. Dak, get over here with the SQuare.”

“Oh, I can’t even get a ‘please’ now?”

Riq turned around, saw Sera take the SQuare from Dak, power it on, and quickly pull up the riddle. “ ‘Dig deep, deeper, deepest,’ ” she read. She looked up at Riq and Dak and said, “What if this isn’t the deepest room in the observatory?”

“Kisa’s trying to tell us something,” Riq said, scanning stones again. The tiny snake engravings clearly descended all the way down the wall. But the stone closest to the floor had
two
snakes. Maybe that stone was the most significant. He dropped to his knees and began feeling all around the stone. But it felt no different than the others.

“What is it?” Dak asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Riq told him. He stood up and studied every stone that had a snake on it, starting up near the ceiling. He had to figure this out. What was Kisa trying to tell him? All he saw was a solid stone wall.

“Is there a hidden door or something?” Sera asked.

“What am I not seeing?” Riq mumbled to himself. He felt all around the stones on either side of the ones with snakes. Then he studied the actual engravings. But nothing stood out to him. He grew so frustrated he stood up and punched the wall with a closed fist, which really hurt, so he kicked the stone with two snakes.

A strange thing happened.

The stone he kicked moved a few centimeters into the wall.

Riq turned to look at Dak and Sera, their eyes wide with anticipation.

Riq knelt down and pushed the stone farther and farther into the wall until it revealed a small latch. Riq undid the latch and moved a thick piece of leather to the side to grab the handle underneath. He pulled on it with all his strength. All of the sudden, a small part of the floor came up, revealing a narrow opening that led to a dark staircase.

They all looked at each other, and Sera repeated, “ ‘Deep, deeper, deepest.’ ”

“This is amazing!” Dak shouted. “I should have been an architect.”

The four of them climbed down the narrow stairs, one at a time, Riq now holding María’s candle to light the way. When he got to the bottom, he held up the candle and scanned the small room. There was an old wooden desk and a chair. The walls were full of glyphs. The shelves around the desk were covered with rusted lockets and antiquated paintbrushes.

“Oh, wow,” Sera said behind him.

“What?” Dak said.

Riq followed Sera’s eyes to the floor underneath the desk where there was a full skeleton. His eyes grew big, and he walked over to it and leaned down to get a better look with the candle. There was an open locket near the skeleton’s hand. Inside, the glyph for
observatory
was only half finished. He fell to his knees near the skeleton, fighting back tears. He knew in his heart it had to be Kisa.

“Guys!” Dak shouted.

Riq spun around, saw that Dak was holding a codex in his hands.

“Is that what I think it is?” Sera asked.

Riq pulled himself together, got up, and walked over to Dak. He looked at the first panel of the codex. And there it was: the symbol of the ceiba tree. The writing looked slightly different from Pacal’s, which told Riq it was a reproduction. He looked up as Sera quoted from the riddle, “ ‘To save the reproduction of the treasure’s truth . . .’ ”

“A copy of Pacal’s codex. We found it,” Dak said. He took the candle from Riq and circled it all around the room. “Do you know how incredible this is? There probably hasn’t been another living soul in this place for hundreds and hundreds of years. At least since she kicked the bucket, right?” He pointed at the skeleton. “I’d assume if anyone found her they’d give her a proper burial.”

“I can’t believe it,” María said. “All along this has been under my feet.”

Riq took the candle from Dak and put it in the candleholder on the wall. Now the entire room was dimly lit.

“Um, you guys?” Sera said, pointing at the far wall. “I just found a glyph etched into a stone near this handle. Can you read it, Riq?”

Riq moved closer to her and read the glyph. “It’s an exit,” he said.

“Are you kidding me?” Dak started jumping up and down. “There’s another way out of here! This Snake Woman was a genius!”

“Easy,” Sera warned him. “Let’s make sure we can get out before we start patting ourselves on the back. Even then, we still have a lot of work to do switching codices with the monks.”

“Come on, Sera,” Dak said. “Where’s that positive attitude?”

Dak, Sera, and María started trying to turn the handle built into the wall. They barely got it to budge. Sera called out, “Riq, get over here and help us. This thing’s rusted in place.”

Riq ignored her because he’d just spotted a thin block of wood with a series of painted glyphs. It looked like a letter, placed on the desk for someone to find. Riq picked it up and began reading, his heart now thumping inside his chest.