Page 42 of The Lost Guardian

Ali’s eyes narrowed. “Why is this so important?” she asked. “What happens if Santiago doesn’t get his grandfather’s ashes to the tomb in time?”

“That, I’m afraid, is the bad news.” José shuddered. Like, physically shuddered. “This edict states that if the fallen Guardian is not laid with Atahualpa by the time the sun god Inti reaches his zenith on the holy day of Inti Raymi, it will mean that the line of the Guardians has fallen…”

José closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Whatever the professor had read, it was clear to Santiago that he believed it.

“And a curse shall be unleashed upon the land.”

“A curse?” Ali’s head snapped up. “What kind of curse?” she asked, stepping toward the parchment as if she could decipher it for herself.

“According to this, if I’m reading it correctly…”

“Please, Professor, out with it!” Ali insisted.

José’s jaw clenched, but he nodded. “If Santiago cannot bring Manco to the tomb in time, then Atahualpa himself will return from the dead with his army of slain Incan warriors. They will rise to ‘destroy the descendants of those who betrayed him.’” He said the last bit with air quotes.

Silence fell over the room.

Santi gripped his necklace, willing the cold obsidian to soothe his burning skin. It didn’t work.

“The descendants of those who betrayed him…those who killed him?” Ali finally said. “Like, the Spanish? All the Spanish?”

“I believe so, yes.” The professor nodded, gravely serious.

“Dios mío.” Ali’s face had grown pale. “If Atahualpa believed his enemies to be the conquistadores…” Her voice trailed off for a moment, but then she forced herself to continue. “Thanks to colonization, those descendants are spread all over the globe. That means most of South America, and anywhere else that suffered from Spanish colonization, would be a target.”

“Stop it, both of you, just stop it!” Santiago exclaimed over the sudden ringing in his ears. For a moment there, he had forgotten he didn’t believe in magic. “You’re being ridiculous. There are no such things as curses.”

“You just saw your necklace morph like a Transformer and spit out that,” Ali stressed, pointing at the paper, which was once held in a piece of stone. “But you’re going to draw the line at a curse?”

“That was, that…” He faltered, fiddling with his pendant. “The Inca were masters of engineering, mathematics, astronomy.” He dropped the chakana to run his hands through his hair. “This is…it’s just fancy mechanics. Technology that was lost centuries ago.”

“Rios, you are too smart to be this dense,” Ali told him. “And it doesn’t matter whether or not you believe it,” she snapped. “We have the map now, so we can find the location of the tomb! As long as we get there before Inti Raymi—”

“No,” José interrupted.

“No?” Annoyance crept into her tone. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“This isn’t a map to the tomb itself,” the professor said, hovering his finger above the etchings. “It is a clue to the first location.”

“The ‘first location’?” Ali repeated.

Santiago deflated. “What does that mean?”

“I am uncertain, but I think you have to unravel the clues, one by one, each step leading you closer to your destination,” José ventured. “Presumably, the elder generations of Guardianes would have passed down the knowledge of these steps to the newer ones, but…” He looked apologetically at Santiago. “Your father did not, and Manco never had the chance.”

“Did he tell you?” Santiago asked, hopeful.

José looked surprised. “Me? Of course not!” he said, stepping backward. “I am not a Guardian, merely an ally. I shouldn’t even be looking at this. I am sorry.” He turned away from the parchment.

“Don’t apologize,” Santiago said. The man’s sudden propriety was the last thing he wanted. “We need your help. I can’t figure this out on my own.”

José hesitated, but Santiago stepped closer, motioning for the professor to join him at the page.

“Please. What are we looking for?” he urged him.

Fortunately, as a student of history, the professor was easily persuaded. José turned and followed Santiago’s gaze to the page. Together, they ducked to examine the figures more carefully.

“Can you decipher the rest?” Santiago asked, squinting down at the images. It looked as if they were meant to interpret the writing along with the pictograms together.