Page 85 of The Lost Guardian

“Here,” Ali said, trying to take the dishes from him. “I’ll do this; you get back to work.” She motioned toward the petroglyph wall.

“Thank you,” he replied, “but no. You sit. The dishes are on me.”

She nodded, mouth parted in surprise.

“Really.” He caught her elbow gently, before she could rush off. She looked at him, eyes wide and lashes impossibly long.

“Thank you,” he stressed. He didn’t care what her intentions were; Santiago was grateful for their time together.

Her smile was sweeter than the corn they’d just eaten.

“Anytime, Rios,” Ali replied before walking off.

Shaking himself away from his current thoughts—which were neither helpful nor strictly appropriate—Santiago completed his chore.

It was already too dark to make out details on the rock wall, so he moved over to the fire to fashion himself a makeshift torch next. He had a flashlight, of course, but Santi had long fantasized about deciphering ancient glyphs by torchlight. And if not now, when?

Pleased, he returned to the wall.

And gasped with realization.

Lifting the wood, he leaned in closer.

“I was never meant to read this by day,” he whispered to himself.

The carvings he’d spent hours deciphering had faded away in the darkness, but the light of the fire cast dark shadows, stretching this way and that every time Santiago moved the flame. The new shapes flickered and leaped, and he pumped his fist in the air.

“Ali!” he called out. Then, “Ali!” louder. He heard someone crashing through the underbrush, and then she was there, knife in hand.

“What?” She panted, raising the blade. “Where?”

He grinned at her, and her shoulders relaxed.

“I figured it out!”

26

Find the shaman who sleeps in the west

His eyes point to the last light of day

Illuminating the path forward.

He recited it several times to Ali, making sure she recorded every word exactly as it was spelled in Quechua, then they translated it to Spanish. Then English for good measure.

“So you were right?” Ali asked, sipping on a cup of coca tea some minutes later. After sunset, the night had grown cold, and they’d retreated to the warmth of the fire. “About the images, I mean. They weren’t pre-Inca; it was the Guardianes hiding their secrets?”

“The fact that the shadows spelled out words in Quechua seems to confirm it,” Santiago answered.

“Sneaky,” she said, sounding impressed. Santiago smiled, but it dropped quickly.

“I think…” He hesitated, hardly believing the words that were about to come out of his mouth. Ali waited for him to continue. “I think there’s magic here, too.”

“Like with the chakana?” she asked, sitting up straighter. “Or like the warriors?”

“More like the ceque,” he said. “We didn’t see the path until my blood activated it. Here, the shadows revealed the clue. But they don’t really make sense, either. I mean, if the rocks were raised and you shone light on them, they would cast shadows. Depending on the time of day and source of the light, they might look different, but they would be there.”

“And?” Ali asked.