Page 151 of The Lost Guardian

The main reason, of course, was the large stone coffin in its center.

The room held nothing else. No gold, no silver. No fine treasures. Only stone and death.

Santiago was almost relieved. Nothing for the huaqueros to melt down here. Nothing Santi needed to protect.

“No,” Torres whispered, stepping closer. “No!”

Santiago followed him numbly. The stone rectangle was clearly a coffin, Atahualpa’s mummified remains presumably inside it. On the top was a carved depiction of the emperor, wearing an Inti sheet mask, squiggles zigzagging out from his face and across its surface. The god’s sun rays. In the center of the stone, the emperor’s hands were cupped and open. It looked as if he was readying himself to pray—or to accept a ladleful of water.

Torres frantically paced the room.

“This isn’t possible,” he yelled, pushing at the walls and stomping his feet into the stone, as if trying to activate another mechanism. When that didn’t work, he joined Santiago at the coffin and pushed at the stone carving, trying to move the sculpted hands.

Nothing happened.

“Maybe Atahualpa’s followers never did take back the treasure,” Santiago suggested softly. “Maybe it was just a rumor after all.”

“No!” Torres repeated, shoving a finger in Santiago’s face. “No. I didn’t come all this way, spend all this money, for the rumor of treasure. It has to be here!”

“Please let me lay my abuelo to rest now,” Santiago said, exhaustion tugging on his bones. He thought he would feel more like himself, here at the end of their journey. Instead, he was only tired. “That was our deal. I get you here, and you let me spread his ashes.”

“That was not our deal,” Torres ground out through clenched teeth. “Our deal was for the treasure. The lost treasure of Atahualpa. Not this.”

“This is all there is!” Santiago yelled, frustrated. “Here he is, the last emperor of the Inca Empire. We found him. It seems that in death, he is no different than anyone who fell before or after him.”

With a strangled scream, Torres pulled his pistol and lunged toward Leo. The huaquero took a hasty step backward, raising his arms. But Torres did not point the weapon at the man. Instead, he swung it to face Ali.

“Figure this out,” he seethed. It was obvious that he was ordering Santiago, though his gaze didn’t waver from Ali for a second. “Find me the real tomb or she can be one of those equal to the emperor in death.”

Santiago mirrored Leo, slowly raising his hands in the air. “All right, all right,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “Let’s just relax a bit.”

“Now, Rios!” Torres spat.

Ali’s eyes were fixed on the gun, but they darted toward Santiago for just a moment. He needed to do something.

“Okay,” he conceded. “Okay, maybe there is more to this.” Why would Atahualpa’s followers go through the trouble of the obstacles and booby traps just to bury him like this? Just to preserve his remains?

He looked at Torres. “I’ll try to figure this out, but just lower the gun, okay?”

“After you find my treasure,” Torres said.

“I can’t focus with her in danger like this!”

Torres made no move to change it, and Santi was in no position to barter. He gave Ali what he hoped was a reassuring nod.

Santiago’s skin burned with anxious energy, but he made himself take his time in examining the room. He circled it clockwise, scrutinizing every wall and corner. He took note of any stone tile or piece of wall that looked even slightly different from the others. He searched for another chakana etching, thinking that maybe he needed to use the key once more.

He returned to the entrance and passed his hands across its frame, trying to find anything that would explain what he needed to do next.

He found nothing.

Finally, Santiago returned to the stone coffin and the drawing on top of it. He stared at the mask of Inti and the upturned hands.

“This is the only remarkable thing in the room,” he said slowly, bending to examine the mask more carefully. “The Inti mask and the hands. One of them has to have the answer.”

“You said that whomever the ruling emperor of the Inca was, that person was regarded as the earthly embodiment of the sun god Inti,” Ali reminded him, her voice soft but even. “Would it be so out of place to have his coffin adorned with an Inti mask?”

“No,” Santiago admitted. “The carved stone reliefs outside depicted Inti as well, so it may just be a recurrent theme of the temple.”