Curse of the Ancients

by Matt De La Peña

  Itchik’s smile quickly faded. “We can’t let the codex leave Izamal, of course. But King Yuknoom is welcome to send his own scribes here to make a reproduction.”

  “Oh, no,” one of the visitors said, “the king was very specific about this. We are to bring back all of the great achievements we encounter on our journey.”

  Itchik glanced at his own men behind him. “I’m sorry, friends,” he said, moving forward. “I cannot allow —”

  “Stay where you are,” the larger of the two visitors said, pulling a large obsidian blade from a pouch on his belt and holding it out toward Itchik. “I will make this simple. We are taking the codex back to Calakmul with or without your consent.”

  Sera and Riq looked at each other, wide-eyed.

  The man pulled Pacal toward him and put the knife to his neck. “You don’t want us to harm the wise old man, do you? Understand, I have over two dozen men out there waiting for us. If anyone follows us there will be terrible consequences, including the loss of one of your own.”

  All the local men, including Itchik, stepped back as the two visitors exited the temple, shoving Pacal to the floor. As soon as they were gone, everyone spoke at once, and Sera couldn’t understand a thing. She went over and helped Pacal to his feet.

  “Silence!” Itchik shouted.

  The room went quiet.

  “We are not going to let anyone take our codex,” Itchik began. “And more important, nobody touches our precious Pacal. Now we need to organize a large group to go after these men. Cocom, go alert the warriors and have the cooks prepare several days’ worth of rations. Kan Boar, I need you to prepare a map with all the possible routes to Calakmul. A few of us will follow them now — because I’m not so sure about the extra men they claim to have — and others will cut them off from the front. Men, we will not return without our codex.”

  Riq turned to Sera and said, “I’m going with them.”

  “It’s not a good idea,” Sera said. “You said yourself, we need to stick together.”

  “I know, Sera. But I have to help them right now. This may be the very reason we’re here.”

  She nodded. “I’ll go check on Dak. I want us to be prepared to leave immediately.”

  Sera watched Riq join the small group of Mayan men who were about to go after the visitors who had taken the codex. One of the men handed Riq a crude version of a sword. Riq turned and met eyes with Sera, and then turned back to the man giving instructions. Sera could tell something had changed in Riq. She just didn’t know what it was.

  She slipped out the door and started toward the cave.

  It was still light out but the sun was low on the horizon. She moved out of the village and began climbing the path up to the cave when a man suddenly stepped out in front of her. It was one of the visitors who had left the temple early, the one who had stared at the Infinity Ring.

  Sera instinctively turned to run the other way, but she ran right into the arms of the other visitor who had left early. He spun her around to face the first man, who said, “We came here because we heard rumors about the wisdom of the local codex. But we will leave with more than that.” He pointed at Sera’s satchel and said, “Remove the device from the bag.”

  “What device?” Sera said, trying to wiggle her way out of the other man’s grasp.

  “You know the one I’m speaking of,” he said, moving toward her. “Remove the device, and show me what it does.”

  DAK HAD been dreaming for what seemed like days, and it was all one continuous dream. He had fallen into the deep well by his parents’ house, and now he was slowly trying to climb out. But he could only climb a step at a time, because he had to dig out each new handhold into the soft rock with a set of keys. He’d dig for hours and hours with the sharpest key, one of the keys that opened his parents’ secret lab, and then he’d test the carved-out gap with his fingers. If it were deep enough to get a good grip, he would pull himself up, shoving his foot into one of the holes he’d previously dug.

  Every once in a while there would be a voice above him. He couldn’t see because the sky was pitch black, but he didn’t need to see to know whose voice it was. He’d been listening to Sera blabber all his life. She spoke to him about their mission and her worries, but she also read him the Mayan riddle, over and over, to the point that he now had it memorized.

  But something was changing about his dream now. He was no longer digging handholds with the lab keys; he was using the key his parents had given him when he’d seen them in 911 France. And the hole above him was growing lighter, like morning was taking over the sky above the well. And the voice calling to him was no longer Sera but someone else. A different girl. And soon Dak found himself right up near the top of the well, and this new-girl-who-wasn’t-Sera reached for his hand and lifted him up into the light until he fell over the lip of the well and opened his eyes, shouting, “I’ve got it! I’ve figured out the riddle!”

  “What?” the girl said.

  He was startled to find himself not on the ground beside a well but in a dingy cave with the faces of two strangers hovering above him. One of the faces, the female one, belonged to a girl he remembered from the Mayan hut that crumbled in the storm — he winced as the memory of the falling wall flashed through his head. The other face belonged to an old wrinkly dude who had a bunch of feathers sticking up around his dome.

  “Dak?” the girl said. “Can you hear me?”

  Dak sprang up to a sitting position and looked around. He was behind a hanging blanket surrounded by dozens of flower bouquets and plates of food. “Where am I?” he demanded.

  “You’re awake,” the girl said. Then she turned to the feather dude and shouted, “He’s awake!”

  “You should remain lying down,” the man told Dak.

  But Dak wasn’t in a lying-down kind of mood. “Where’s Sera?” he demanded. “And Riq? What’d you do with my friends?”

  “They’re both down in the village,” the girl said. “You were knocked unconscious in my uncle’s hut. People carried you here so you could rest and our healer could take care of you.” She pointed at the man next to her. “This is Jasaw. And I’m Kisa.”

  Dak rubbed his eyes and looked all around, the back of his head throbbing.

  “And do you see all these gifts around you?” the girl asked him.

  “Tough to miss,” Dak said, stretching out his stiff neck.

  “They’re from the people of my village. If it weren’t for you, I don’t know what would have happened to my cousin.”

  “No need to toss roses,” Dak told her, his thoughts finally clearing. “That’s just sort of what I do, Kisa.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I save lives.”

  The girl didn’t even crack a smile. “Well, we are all very much in your debt.”

  Dak shrugged and reached down for what looked like a hunk of good ol’ American cheese, but as soon as he took a bite he realized it was squash and spit it back onto the plate, cursing himself because America hadn’t even been founded yet, so how could there be American cheese? He wiped his mouth on his bare arm and motioned toward the healer. “This dude doesn’t have a whole lot to say.” The man was putting herbs into little wooden boxes.

  “He’s been busy because of the storm. Several people were injured.” Kisa moved closer and looked right into Dak’s eyes. She turned to the healer and said, “Do you think he’s okay to walk down to the village?”

  “Not a good idea, but the boy is free to do what he thinks he can.”

  Kisa turned back to Dak and said, “I’m sorry to weigh you down with troubles when you’re just now feeling better —”

  “But . . . ?”

  “But I kind of need your help. I’m worried about your friends, actually.”

  Dak felt a surge of energy and stood up. “Something happened to Sera?”

 
“Well, I’m not sure yet,” Kisa said. “I’m just worried because —”

  “Let’s stop wasting time,” he interrupted. “We need to go find her. Now!”

  “Are you sure you’re well enough to walk?” she said.

  “Of course I’m sure,” he told her. “I could run a marathon if I needed to. Or lift a car. Or jump over a malaria-infested stream.” He jumped up and down a few times to prove himself. “See?”

  Dak promptly fainted into Kisa’s arms.

  As they left the cave, Dak’s arm wrapped around Kisa’s shoulder for support, Kisa said, “When you woke up you said something about solving a riddle. What did you mean by that?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Hystorians?” Dak asked.

  “Only from you and Riq.”

  “Have you ever heard of a Time Warden?”

  Kisa shook her head.

  “That’s because they don’t exist here yet. Neither group has infiltrated the Americas in this era. That’s my theory, at least.”

  “What are the Americas?” Kisa asked.

  Dak took his arm from around Kisa’s shoulder. “I’m feeling better,” he said. “I think I can make it on my own.” He stretched his neck again and reached back to feel the lump on the back of his head. “Anyway, the specifics are not important. The main thing is the question of why we’ve been sent here. That’s what I’ve figured out.”

  “And?”

  “We’re here to protect your codex. To ensure that it is not destroyed by the Spanish conquistadores who are eventually going to invade your land and try to convert you to their own ideologies. It’s Censorship 101, Kisa. Control the masses by controlling the acquisition of information. Your codex is the ‘treasure that never was.’ ”

  “I’m not understanding many of the things you’re saying.”

  “It’s not important, my fair lady. The point is, there are no Hystorians in Mayan territory, therefore there’s no one here to properly secure the codex — which I believe is a very important document. Enter myself, Sera, and Riq.”

  “There needs to be Hystorians here, then,” Kisa said.

  “Preaching to the choir, my friend. Preaching to the choir.”

  “But this is exactly why I came for you, Dak. Some men showed up in the village today, and Itchik —”

  “My man, Itchy,” Dak interrupted. “How is that guy? He never calls. He never writes.”

  “He’s well,” Kisa said, flustered. “Itchik believes they only want to study the codex, but I’m afraid they have come here to take it for their own. The people from Calakmul believe they have a right to anything they want.”

  Dak stopped and turned to Kisa. “Trust me, we’re not gonna let that happen.”

  “Good,” she said.

  They walked halfway down the lush, tropical path before Dak heard voices. He stopped again and held Kisa back by the arm. He put a finger to his lips as a sign for her to keep quiet, and then he crept up the path a few more paces until he had an obscured view of a short squatty man who kept peeking back over his shoulder, like he was acting as a lookout man. Dak crept up a little closer, and he saw the heads of two others in the bushes. A man and a girl with brown hair . . .

  Dak’s heart climbed up into his throat.

  The man was holding a knife to the girl’s throat, and the girl was Sera.

  And the lookout man was holding the Infinity Ring. It was like a great big déjà vu moment. Last time he had sprinted at the pack and tackled the man holding the Ring. And it had been a mistake. But as Dak sat there, studying the scene, he realized something: He would always race to help Sera when she appeared to be in danger. He didn’t care how many times it was a mistake. There was no way he would ever be able to just sit back and let something possibly happen to her. No way. Not on his watch.

  He stood up, still a bit wobbly on his feet, and then he sprinted at the man holding the Infinity Ring, just like he had a few days earlier, yelling, “Nobody messes with my friends!” Only this time he sidestepped that man at the last second and plowed into the man holding a knife to Sera’s throat. The knife went flying, and so did Dak and the man.

  “Dak!” Sera shouted.

  “Dak!” Kisa shouted.

  Dak and the man both tumbled into the jungle brush, and the back of Dak’s already wounded head smacked into a tree.

  He was dazed.

  The whole jungle swirled around him.

  He could hear details of sound he’d never heard before: the whining of mosquitoes and the hot wind rustling the leaves of every tree in the jungle and the songs of faraway birds and the cracking of twigs as he scrambled back to his feet without even telling himself to scramble back to his feet. He found himself face-to-face with the man he’d just knocked over.

  The man was grinning. “Glad you could join us,” he said.

  Over the man’s shoulders Dak saw Sera and Kisa trying to wrestle the other guy to the ground. The Infinity Ring lay in the grass near their feet.

  He lunged for the man again, but the Maya stepped to the side and threw Dak to the ground. He looked up at the man, who was still grinning, knowing Dak was no match, especially in his current physical condition. And Dak saw that the other dude now had Sera and Kisa pinned to the ground, a firm grip on each of their necks.

  It was over.

  The man in front of Dak stepped on Dak’s back and told his friend, “Release the younger girl,” he said.

  The man did, and Sera stood up, looking very hesitant. “Dak,” she said. “You’re okay.”

  “Well, technically not at the moment,” he said, pointing up at the man standing on him. “But, yeah, I’m no longer bedridden. What’s going on here?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” the man above him said. “We came here to retrieve a local codex, but we’ve stumbled into something potentially even greater. This metal thing your friend has.”

  “Our king, Yuknoom the Great, will be very happy,” the other man said.

  “He’ll be even more satisfied when we understand how to use it.” The man standing on Dak reached down for his obsidian knife. He dug a knee into Dak’s back and held the knife to his neck. “So we’re clear about things,” he said to Sera, “you’re going to explain how the item works, or I’m going to slice your little friend into several pieces.”

  “Easy with all that ‘little’ talk,” Dak said. “Besides, the item in question no longer even works. Tell him how I broke it, Sera.”

  Sera shot him an uneasy look.

  “Wait, you fixed it?” Dak said.

  “Sort of.”

  “How could you?!”

  “Quiet!” the man kneeling on Dak said. “If you continue talking, I’ll slice you up just to get some peace and quiet. Now, go on.” He motioned for Sera to pick up the Ring.

  Sera slowly reached down, pulled the Ring off the grass.

  “First of all,” the man continued, “what is it?”

  Lie to him, Dak thought. Make something up. Tell him it’s a can opener.

  “It’s a time-traveling device,” Sera said.

  Dak let his face fall into the grass.

  “It allows you to warp to whatever era you program into it,” Sera went on. “We are from the future.”

  The man holding down Dak looked at his friend and said, “Are you hearing this? We will be legends in Calakmul!”

  “Yuknoom will build temples in our honor,” the man replied.

  Dak lifted his head. Sera was holding the Ring out for the men to see. Kisa was squeezing her eyes shut, like she was injured.

  “How do you go to another time?” the man above Dak asked.

  “It’s simple,” Sera said. “You just program in —”

  “Uh, Sera?” Dak interrupted. “Maybe a little less detail here?”

  “As I was saying,” Sera sai
d, keeping her eyes on the man, “you just program in your desired year and geographic location, and the machine will take you there. But there’s a catch.”

  “And what is that?”

  “The machine will not work unless the three of us” — she gestured to herself, Dak, and Kisa — “are in physical contact with it. It is programmed to respond only to our DNA.”

  The squat man looked at his friend. “What is DNA?”

  Kisa began humming in a strange way, like it was helping her manage the pain. And her eyes were still squeezed shut.

  The other guy shrugged. “Who cares? Let’s just take the machine and let the king worry about it from there.”

  “DNA,” Sera said, “is a nucleic acid that contains the specific genetic code of each unique organism. In other words, it’s a way to decipher that you are you and I am me. No two people have the same DNA. And the machine, as I’ve already explained, will only work if it is in direct contact with the DNA of all three of us.”

  “The girl is deranged,” the squat man said.

  “Oh, I disagree,” the man above Dak said. “In fact, she’s given me an idea. If this thing needs something from each of them in order to work, then we simply cut off a hand from all three of them. We will bring back to Calakmul the codex, this machine, and three hands.”

  “It’s genius,” the other man said.

  Dak’s captor brought his obsidian knife down to Dak’s wrist. He began a sawing motion. Dak screamed.

  “Dak!” Sera shouted.

  But the man kept sawing, and Dak was pinned in such an awkward position he couldn’t even move.

  And then suddenly the man began shouting, “No! Please!” And he let go of Dak and hopped off him. The other man was shouting, too.

  Dak twisted around to see what was going on. He spotted a few large snakes slithering out of the dense jungle foliage. Their tongues whipped around outside of their mouths and then sucked back in.