Curse of the Ancients (7 page)

The worried look on Sera’s face made Riq feel guilty. He’d never seen her so distraught.

“Maybe you’re right,” she said, slipping the Ring back into her satchel. “Let me check on Dak and then we can go.”

They stumbled into Itchik as soon as they’d made it into the village. He was standing at the foot of the fallen observatory, laughing.

“Itchik?” Riq said.

Itchik turned to look at Riq and Sera, his grin falling from his face. “How is your friend? His condition is improving, I hope.”

“Jasaw claims he’s getting better,” Sera answered. “But he’s still unresponsive.”

Itchik nodded. “My entire family owes him a debt of gratitude. That was my youngest daughter he pushed out of the way.”

“What are you doing out here?” Riq asked. It seemed more than a little odd that a king would be laughing at his own fallen observatory. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, yes.” Itchik turned back to the rubble and said, “I was just thinking about how long it took us to build. Many years. The entire village pitched in. We made many important discoveries about the world from inside these walls.”

“Why were you laughing, then?” Sera said.

“My scribes were not harmed,” Itchik said. “And I believe one’s greatest misfortune is also his greatest opportunity. We will build a new observatory now. One that is bigger and better. One that will not fall, no matter how hard the wind blows.”

Riq wished he could have this kind of attitude about life, too. But it was easier said than done. He looked all around the village, at the series of storm-damaged huts people were already attempting to rebuild, the towering temple, the muddied white road. There had to be a reason Riq, Dak, and Sera had come here. It couldn’t be a random mistake. What if they’d come here specifically for Riq? So he could meet these people and see how they live and hear what they believe?

Riq looked up when he heard voices. He spotted a group of children hurrying down the path toward them.

“King Itchik!” they called in unison. “King Itchik!”

Itchik and Sera looked up, too. Riq saw that there was a smaller group trailing behind the children. Older kids. Teens like him. One of them was Kisa.

“King Itchik!”

“Yes, children, what is it?” Itchik asked.

A boy at the head of the pack spoke. “The men have arrived from the jungle!” he said, out of breath as they reached the foot of the fallen observatory. “King Yuknoom’s men. From Calakmul!”

“They’ve come days earlier than expected,” Itchik said. “Where are they now, children?”

“The north ball court,” the biggest Mayan boy said.

Itchik turned to Riq and Sera. “I must go greet the great king’s men,” he said. “They have come to appraise our learning. You are welcome to meet them, too.” He started following the children back the other way.

Riq and Sera looked at each other. “I’m going with him,” Sera said. “Maybe I can find out more about the codex.”

“I’ll meet you there later,” Riq said.

Sera nodded and hurried to catch up with the group heading toward the ball court. Riq moved toward Kisa. Before he could even open his mouth to ask to speak with her, she took his arm and told him, “Come with me.”

Kisa pulled him into an empty hut that no longer had a roof. This hut was much smaller than the one Riq had visited during the great storm. “I don’t trust these men,” Kisa told him as soon as they were alone.

“The king’s people?” Riq asked. “Why not?”

“Itchik believes they want to study our codex so they can learn from it. But he’s too trusting. I believe they want to steal our work and claim it as their own. Everyone knows Pacal is the best scribe in any village.”

Riq looked out the open door. Several older Mayan women were in an organized line sweeping the road. Men were moving in and out of other huts with ancient-looking tools. “Shouldn’t we warn Itchik?” he said, turning back to Kisa.

“He won’t listen. All he cares about is proving our progress to others.” Kisa took Riq’s arm. “You need to be careful, too,” she said. “And the smaller boy who was hurt. They have been known to capture people who look different. I heard they take them back to Calakmul and shove them in cages. People pay to view them.”

“Trust me,” Riq said, remembering his experiences in 1850, “nobody’s putting me in a cage.”

Kisa nodded and picked up one of the ceiling boards lying by her feet. She stared at it for a few seconds and then turned to Riq with glassy eyes. “I guess I’m just worried for the people I care about. This storm has ruined so many of our homes. And our observatory. Everyone is working hard to recover. And here come these men from the richest village in the lowlands, demanding to see the fruit of our learning. It doesn’t seem right.”

“I wish I could be more help,” Riq said.

Kisa shook her head. “You have your own worries.”

Riq focused on the ground, thinking. No matter what happened to him, he needed to make sure Dak and Sera were okay. He needed to make sure the Hystorians’ mission didn’t end here. He pulled the SQuare out of his satchel and looked up at Kisa.

He waited for her to ask what it was, but she just stared at it, watching him push the power button. “I was wondering if you’d look at something for me,” he said.

“Of course,” she told him. “But I’ve never seen anything like that. I may not be any help.”

He typed in the password and pulled up the riddle, then held the screen up for Kisa to see. When she gave him a blank look, he blushed. Of course she couldn’t read it. It was written in English. He translated for her verbally.

“This is why you asked about snakes in my jewelry,” Kisa said.

Riq nodded. “Do any of the lines make sense to you?”

“I don’t know what the clown could be. Or the treasure. But I know Itzamna, of course. He is the god who gave us our calendar. And the numbers you read, those are calendar dates. One of them is today. The other is far into the future. Knowing one, it is a simple matter to deduce the second.”

The hair stood up on Riq’s arms. “One of them is today?”

Kisa nodded.

Riq powered down the SQuare and stuck it back in his satchel, looking all around the battered hut, trying to think. He saw old cooking tools and fallen boards and cloth. He saw a half-covered piece of wood that had been carved into a snake head. Riq knew he needed to tell Sera about the significance of today as soon as he possibly could. The Hystorians really had led them here intentionally. It was now just a matter of figuring out why. Dozens of images flashed through his mind: Itchik leading them into his hut; the scribes coming up out of the rubble; the storm as seen from the mouth of the cave; Jasaw burning incense over Dak’s lifeless body.

“Is everything okay?” Kisa asked.

“I’m not sure,” Riq said. “I just know I need to get to Sera. You’ve helped us tremendously, Kisa. And please —”

“Don’t worry,” Kisa said, cutting him off. “I will not mention the riddle to a soul.”

Riq nodded. “Thank you.”

“Be careful, Riq. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Riq squeezed her hand and turned to leave, but he only made it as far as the open door before spinning back around. “I need to tell you something, Kisa. Something I’ve been thinking about all day.”

“What?”

“The three of us. Me, Dak, and Sera. We’ve been traveling from place to place, trying to make the world better. It’s a quest I prepared for my whole life. But I’ve realized something since we arrived at your village.”

Kisa held the ceiling board, waiting for Riq to finish.

“Maybe helping the entire world is less important than helping a specific community. Because with a community you can see faces. You can know them, and they can know you back.” Riq returned to Kisa, took the board out of her hands, and studied it for a few seconds. “Who lived in this hut before the storm hit?” he asked.

Kisa lowered her eyes. “Me and my family.”

Riq nodded. “You know, all my life I’ve cared more about a quest than I have about people. I believed having a friend would take my focus away from what was important. But I was wrong about that, Kisa. Having a friend is the most important thing in the world.”

“It’s the most important thing for you, too?” Kisa asked.

“From this day forward.”

“And are we friends?”

Riq nodded. “I’d like to think we are. Even though we haven’t known each other very long.” He handed the board back to Kisa. “Do you think it’d be okay if I stayed here and helped your village rebuild? It would be a great honor if your people would allow me to help.”

“We’d like that very much,” Kisa said, dropping the board and taking his hands in hers. “I only wish I could do something for you in return. Something just as important.”

“You already have,” Riq told her.

His heart was racing. But at least the matter was settled. He would stay here and help Kisa and her family. Dak and Sera would be fine without him. They were the important time travelers. And when their mission was successful, Riq’s life back home wouldn’t be the same. If he even
had
a life there. Here, at least, he would serve a purpose. He would help rebuild a village. And he would be Kisa’s friend. And maybe he could even assist the scribes when they started their next project.

“I have to go,” Riq said. “Sera needs to know what you’ve told me.”

“And I have to help Mother with the children,” Kisa said.

Riq let go of Kisa’s hands and started through the door when Kisa called out, “And, Riq.”

He turned around.

“Please be careful of those men. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Nothing can happen to me now, Kisa.” Riq left the hut and started running through the village, toward the ball courts. His legs and chest felt incredibly strong, like he could run forever. Like nothing in the world could slow him down.

S
ERA SAT
in awe as Pacal opened the codex like an accordion and pointed to the top right section. “Here we show the path of Venus,” he said. “We tracked its movement in the sky for many years.”

Sera looked at the foreign glyphs. Her translation device did little to help her with archaic written text. But it was an amazing thing to see in person. This was the first written language on the entire continent. And it had an almost otherwordly beauty to it. Each glyph was a miniature work of art.

After Sera had followed Itchik and the children to the ball courts, she had met the four visitors from Calakmul. They were squatty, powerful-looking men with dark brown eyes and bushy brown hair. She also met the three scribes, Cocom, Kan Boar, and Pacal. Itchik invited all the men to a special meal inside the temple, prepared by the best cooks in the village. Sera was all set to head back to the cave and check on Dak when Pacal announced that he would skip dinner and do a little more work. Sera was shocked when he then turned and asked if she wanted to accompany him.

She jumped on the offer, thinking she might get a chance to see the codex up close.

“Past generations have followed the movements of the sun and moon and stars.” Pacal went on, “And in our first very amateur codex, we did the same thing. But in this much wiser version I believe we are the first to have charted the course of Venus.”