Curse of the Ancients (5 page)

“But Itchik says he’s the best,” Riq told her.

“The best what?” Sera said. “The best mystic?”

“Healer.”

“Dak needs a real doctor,” Sera said. “You saw that wall fall on him.”

Riq rubbed Sera’s shoulder. “We can’t chance warping out of here with Dak unconscious. You said it yourself: It’s getting harder and harder on our bodies. We have to wait until he’s stronger.”

Jasaw was now pushing his hands up Dak’s chest, toward his face.

“What are you doing?” Sera asked him.

“Ridding the body of evil spirits,” Jasaw said without looking up.

Sera shot Riq a desperate look. “I’m staying right here,” she said. “All night. I’m making sure he takes care of Dak.”

Jasaw burned a plant-based incense over Dak’s body. The smell was strong. Riq knew Sera didn’t believe in anything spiritual like this. She believed in hard science. But this was Dak’s only hope.

He pictured what happened again. Dak rushing into the middle of the hut, pushing the girl to safety, the wall coming down on the back of his head. Riq leaned in close to Dak’s ear and said in a quiet voice that even Sera wouldn’t be able to hear, “You saved that girl’s life, Dak. You know that? You’re a hero.”

He kept waiting for Dak to open his eyes and say something sarcastic.

But he never did.

He just lay there, completely still, as Jasaw rubbed dark ash onto his forehead.

Riq tried sleeping on the blanket Itchik set out for him, but he was unable to shut off his mind. He kept picturing the stone wall coming down on Dak and the cryptic riddle they’d pulled up on the SQuare. He also thought about his time on the run in 1850. He’d been able to keep a young boy, James, out of the hands of slave traders. Why was he so helpless now?

Eventually, he gave up on sleep. He walked quietly over to the cave opening and sat on a boulder to watch the powerful storm. The rain still poured down on the beautiful green Mayan landscape. The wind still whipped through the trees. But the thunder and lightning seemed more distant now, which told Riq the worst of it had passed.

Riq had always been intrigued by natural disasters. In an odd way, sometimes he even found himself rooting for storms and earthquakes and tornados. It’s not that he wanted to see anyone get hurt, and he knew the increased frequency of these disasters was a direct result of the SQ creating Breaks in history — the Breaks he, Dak, and Sera were busy trying to correct. But he always thought that maybe the right disaster would come along and hit the SQ where it hurt, compromising their political power. Maybe it would be like hitting the
RESET
button on the world.

But there was a non-SQ-related reason he was so fascinated by disasters, too. A reason nobody who knew him would ever suspect. Secretly, Riq sometimes wanted to hit the
RESET
button on his own life.

For as long as he could remember, he’d worked tirelessly to be the best at everything he did. School, soccer, language acquisition, The Art of Memory . . . At first it was fun, and the praise he received made him feel special. But somewhere along the line, things shifted. The fun faded. The pressure to stay on top started weighing down on his shoulders. He put in all those extra hours not because he was enjoying himself, but because he was afraid to fail. Lately, he had been having an awful recurring nightmare where Brint and Mari followed him around, shaking their heads in disappointment. His classmates spoke in hushed voices about him getting only an A minus.

Riq was watching the pouring rain, dreaming about living a normal life where he’d sleep in on weekends and hang out at the mall, when he heard footsteps creeping up behind him.

He spun around quickly, instinctively popping to his feet.

It was Kisa.

“Hey,” she said, grinning at his military move.

“Hey,” Riq said back, slowly unclenching his fists.

“I can’t sleep either.” She was holding a small wooden box in her right hand. “I keep thinking about what happened to your friend. I’m really sorry.”

Riq nodded.

“Jasaw is a gifted healer, though. He’ll make sure your friend has the best care.”

“Thanks,” Riq said. He searched his mind for something else to say. But he didn’t have any experience talking to girls like Kisa so he sort of just stood there awkwardly, looking at her.

“What about you?” she said. “How’s your knee?”

He furrowed his brow, confused. “How’d you know I hurt my knee?”

She switched the wooden box from her right hand to her left. “I saw you limping while you were carrying your friend. And then in the cave you were rubbing it. You should really tell Jasaw what happened.”

“I’ll be okay,” Riq said. “It’s just a cut.” He looked at her for a few long seconds trying to think of something else to say, something that would keep her out here with him, but his mind felt sluggish and his stomach had that weird feeling again.

“Mind if I sit out here for a bit?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, a little too excitedly. “I mean, no, I don’t mind — yes, you can sit.” He felt heat rising into his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

Kisa sat on the boulder next to his and set down her wooden box.

“What’s in there?” Riq asked.

“Jewelry,” she said. “I figured if I was going to have a sleepless night, I might as well get some work done.”

Riq watched her remove a small block of wood and a knife and start whittling.

“My mother says it’s a man’s job to make artistic things,” she said. “But I know my jewelry’s as good as any man’s, if not better.” She looked up at Riq. “I hate that there are things girls aren’t supposed to be good at. Who says?”

Kisa pulled a metal piece out of her box and held it up for Riq to see.

He took the bracelet and turned it over in his hands. “Wow,” he said. It was shaped like a thin, coiled snake. Each scale was meticulously crafted, as were the eyes and tongue. It was as well constructed as any piece of jewelry he’d seen in the modern world. “I’m impressed,” he told her, handing back the snake.

Kisa smiled and put it away. “Can I ask you something, Riq? I’ve been wondering about it all night.”

“Of course,” he said.

“What’s a Hystorian?”

He studied her dark brown eyes. During training back home, his supervisors drilled into him the importance of guarding Hystorian intel. Even the daily cafeteria menu was password protected. But Riq was weary from all the time travel. And the storm. And what had happened to Dak. He needed to talk to someone.

So he did.

He told Kisa about the SQ and Aristotle’s theory about the Great Breaks. He explained how the world was thrown off balance every time history had been altered by the SQ, causing strange occurrences all over, far worse than this storm. He told her Hystorians were people stationed throughout time, trained to look out for the time travelers Aristotle predicted would one day show up from the future to try to fix history and save the world.

When he finished, Kisa looked at him for a long time before saying, “So you three really are from the future? Like your friend said?”

Riq knew he’d said too much already. He expected this to make him feel tremendously guilty, but it didn’t. For whatever reason, he trusted Kisa.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to answer that.” She went back to whittling away at her piece of wood.

Riq could now see what she was carving. A snake rising up out of a basket. “Can I ask you a question now, Kisa?”

She nodded.

“Did you live in the hut that was destroyed?”

“No,” she said. “But I spent a lot of time there. My uncle Itchik lived there with his family.”

“How will he fix it? And where will everyone live in the meantime?”

“Someone will take them in,” she said. “We all look out for one another in my village.”

They talked for a while longer, mostly about Kisa’s family and her village. Riq was moved by how much they cared for one another. And how much they respected the land. They seemed far different from the way they were presented in history classes. And he was surprised to find out that Itchik was no ordinary man. He was the king of Izamal. Had been for years.

Then they sat together in silence, Kisa whittling and Riq watching the rain soften and the dark slowly lose its grip on the sky. It felt nice sitting beside her without talking. He didn’t feel awkward anymore.

Eventually, Kisa packed up her things and stood and wished Riq a good night. But she didn’t leave right away. She just stood there, watching the quiet rainfall for a few moments. “One day,” she finally said, turning to Riq, “I want to do something special, too.”

“I bet you will,” he said.

She smiled, then turned and walked back into the cave.

It wasn’t until Kisa was long gone that Riq noticed she’d left the snake bracelet on the boulder where she’d been sitting. He was about to scoop it up and hurry after her, but then he saw the message she’d carved into the rock. He stared at the glyphs for several seconds. He was one of the few Hystorians who could decipher Mayan writing, but it wasn’t easy. Eventually, he was able to read:
For my new friend, Riq.

He slipped the bracelet onto his wrist, feeling a wave of excitement pass through his body. He lifted the piece of jewelry up to his eyes to study the details of the metallic snake — and then a thought suddenly occurred to him.

What if Kisa was the snake charmer from the riddle?

S
ERA CONTINUED
down the hill beside Riq, overcome with guilt about leaving Dak’s side. Her best friend still hadn’t regained consciousness, and she wanted to be the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes. And who knew what crazy potion that mystic might try without her supervision? But when Riq had stirred her from a restless sleep, he reminded her of Dak’s last words about the people inside the observatory. The least they could do, he reasoned, was honor their friend’s wishes by checking it out.

So here Sera was.

Trekking down to the observatory.

The guilt tightening like a noose around her neck with each step she took away from the cave.

“I mean, just look at it,” Riq continued. “It’s incredible what Kisa was able to do without the help of modern tools.”

“Wow, it really is,” Sera said, rolling her eyes. Riq hadn’t stopped talking about Kisa and his new bracelet since they started their walk. He’d already explained his theory about her being the snake charmer from the riddle. He believed she might hold the key to discovering the Break they needed to fix. He described for Sera the deep conversation he’d had with Kisa, which had lasted into the morning. Now he was obsessing over the artistic merits of the bracelet she’d given him. Riq was so caught up in Kisa talk, he didn’t even seem to notice all the storm damage they were passing. The thick tree branches strewn all over the dirt path. The massive reddish brown puddles and blown-off roofs. The smaller huts on the outskirts of the village that had been completely flattened.

“And it’s surprisingly comfortable,” Riq said, spinning the bracelet around his wrist for Sera to see. “I never thought of myself as a bracelet-wearing kind of guy, but this thing’s a different deal. I really dig it.”

“I’m sure you do.” Sera hadn’t known Riq long, but she was willing to go out on a limb and say he was acting out of character. Not that she had time to worry about Riq’s character at the moment. Her focus was on getting to the observatory, finding out whatever it was they were supposed to find out, then getting back up to the cave to check on Dak.

When Sera looked up a few minutes later, her eyes grew big and she stopped in her tracks. The observatory.

Riq turned around. “I bet Kisa would make you something, too, if —”

“Look!” Sera interrupted, pointing ahead of them. Yesterday the observatory had been nearly as tall as the temple. Now Sera was staring at a heap of rubble.

“The storm,” Riq said under his breath.

Sera’s body went cold. Most of the roof had been stripped away. The walls were folded in on one another and crumbling near the base. A dozen men, including Itchik, were standing on top of the wreckage, calling out names and carrying debris away, stone by stone.