Curse of the Ancients (2 page)

“Uh, I don’t know,” he said. “That’s kind of why I asked.”

Sera dismissed him with the wave of a hand and stood up, reaching for her face on the sly — sure enough, warm tears met the tips of her fingers. “I’m definitely not crying!” she snapped at her supposed best friend. “Maybe the time travel’s just getting harder on our bodies. Did you ever think about
that
, Dak?”

“It’s definitely getting harder on mine,” Riq said. He gave Sera a subtle nod that meant he had her back.

Dak stood up, too. “What time period are we in anyway? There are supposed to be Spanish conquistadores all over this place, right? And Franciscan monks. The Yucatán was crawling with those guys in 1562. All I see are scared-looking Mayas.”

Sera studied the people hurrying past the temple across from them. It was true, they were all Mayan. She looked down at the Infinity Ring. They were supposed to have landed in 1562. She was sure she’d programmed in the right coordinates.

“Who has the SQuare?” Riq asked.

Sera handed it to him, saying, “According to the display, we’re in Izamal. I don’t understand what I could’ve done wrong.”

She watched Riq study the screen, then step out from behind the trees to stop a passing boy. “Friend, please hold on for a second,” he said in a foreign popping tongue that Sera’s translation device had momentary trouble rendering into English. “Where is everyone going?”

The boy slowed. After looking the three time travelers up and down, he shouted, “The great storm is coming! Everyone must find shelter right away!”

The boy turned and hurried off.

Sera looked up along with Dak and Riq. The sky was full of gray clouds, sure, but it didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary. Definitely not a “great storm.” Then again, according to what she’d learned in school, the Maya were incredibly superstitious. Maybe something had gone wrong at one of their ceremonies.

Dak must’ve been thinking the same thing because he kept shaking his head. “Funny, I thought we would be the ones running for our lives.” He turned to Riq and Sera, clearly readying himself for one of his infamous historical rants. “You
do
know that the Maya are considered a violent and hedonistic civilization, right? They sacrificed people, and they were always at war, and they ate the hearts of their own dead family members.”

“Never read about any heart eating,” Riq said.

“Okay, maybe not that last part, but —”

“That’s enough, Dak,” Sera said.

“What? Their big contribution to the world was that they wrote the Great Mayan Codex. And it’s only considered great because it warned us of the curse, how our world is heading toward a massive Cataclysm —”

“And that our only hope was a group that would one day come along known as the SQ,” Riq interrupted. “We’ve all read the same history books, Dak.”

Sera cringed at the mention of the Cataclysm. She pictured herself reaching for the door of her house again. And then nothing.
Concentrate on the here and now,
she told herself, taking the SQuare back from Riq and rechecking their last series of instructions. They seemed straightforward enough. “Help the Maya. 1562.” Then a series of coordinates for the Ring.

Dak tapped Sera on the arm and motioned toward Riq. “I liked it better when we hated this guy.”

“We never hated him,” Sera said.

“Speak for yourself.”

“Believe me,” Riq said. “The feeling was mutual.”

“Maybe we should turn back the clock,” Dak said. He elbowed Sera and gave her a big, goofy smile. “Get it? Turn back the clock?” He pointed at the Infinity Ring tucked safely back inside the satchel hanging from her belt.

“You truly are a child,” Riq said.

“And you’re a clown.”

“Stop,” Sera said. “Please. I need to think. If there are no conquistadores, like Dak said, maybe we really are in the wrong time. Because we’re definitely in the correct geographical area.”

“You really don’t think we’re in 1562?” Riq said.

“I don’t.” Sera looked back down at the SQuare. There had to be some scientific explanation for this. Science had never failed her before.

“There’s no way we’re in 1562,” Dak said. “All you have to do is look at that temple across the way. If it was 1562, it would have already been turned into a church. The first thing the Franciscans did when they arrived from Spain was modify the major temples into churches. They wanted to teach the locals there were other ways to live. I can’t believe you guys don’t know that!”

“Easy, Dak,” Sera said. “I’m not feeling real patient right now.”

Just then, the sky exploded in thunder directly above them.

A light rain began to fall.

Sera looked up, shielding her eyes with her free hand. The clouds seemed darker now. And the wind was beginning to stir. The Mayas continued hurrying past them along the sparkling white road into the distance.

“Take shelter!” a man shouted. “The great storm is coming.”

What “great storm”?
Sera thought. And what did these people know about predicting the weather anyway? Back home, meteorologists only got it right about a third of the time, and they had the most up-to-date equipment known to man.

“Come on,” Riq said. “Let’s go find a place out of the rain. And we have to do something about these Japanese clothes.”

“It was fun being a samurai while it lasted,” Dak said sadly.

As they stepped out from behind the trees and started across the raised white road, Dak poked Sera in the shoulder. “It really did look like you were crying. Was it because the Ring took us to the wrong time?”

Sera shook her head and focused her eyes in front of her. She was done thinking about the Cataclysm. They had too much work to do.

“Did you have one of those Remnant things?”

“I wasn’t crying, Dak!” Sera snapped. “Just leave it alone already.”

“Jeez,” Dak said. “Bite my head off. Maybe I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

The sky lit up with lightning, followed by the crashing sound of more thunder. All three of them cowered as they ran.

Sera followed Dak and Riq behind a short row of stone huts, her mind slipping back to the horrible details of what she’d seen and heard of the Cataclysm. The sounds of screams over a chorus of never-ending sirens. The earth’s violent shifting under her feet every few minutes.

They had to fix the rest of the Breaks or else.

And warping to the wrong time wasn’t exactly a promising start.

W
HEN DAK
saw Sera emerge from behind the sculpture-covered stone wall, he had to cover his mouth with a fist to stifle a laugh.

“What?” Sera said.

“Nothing,” Dak told her, launching into a fit of fake coughing.

She was dressed in a crazy-looking sack with a hole cut out for her head, as well as a long, colorful skirt that dragged in the dirt behind her when she walked. But the weirdest part was how closely she resembled one of them. The Mayas. Same skin color and high cheekbones. Same coarse, dark hair. If Sera wanted, she could probably pass for a local.

Now was not the time to bring it up, of course. They’d just downloaded a seemingly impossible riddle on the SQuare. And Dak had been best friends with Sera long enough to know when not to mess with her.

“Go on, Dak,” Sera said.

“I promise,” he told her. “It’s nothing.”

“Say it!” she demanded.

The look on her face told him she wasn’t going to drop it. “Okay, fine,” he said. “I was just thinking about . . . um, how nice of an outfit that is.”

“Like your loincloth is any better?” Sera said, pointing below his waist.

“It’s not a loincloth,” Dak said, instinctively covering himself. “It’s a breechcloth.” He looked down at the clothes Riq had swiped for him off of a tree near a cluster of empty huts. “And maybe your vision’s been compromised from all that crying you were doing back there, but I’m also clearly wearing pants —”

“More like leggings,” Sera said.

Dak turned to Riq for help. He was wearing the exact same outfit. But Riq was too busy peeking out from under the overhang that was keeping them out of the rain, watching the Mayas continuing to hurry past.

Dak sighed.

Sometimes it got lonely trying to rescue history all by himself.

“Can I see the riddle one more time?” Riq asked, turning back to the others.

Sera handed over the SQuare, and the three of them studied the nonsensical words for the tenth time:

A snake charmer and a clown

A treasure that never was

A gift from the deity Itzamna: from 9.10.5.10.7 to 11.17.2.13.10

Trace the symbol of the ceiba tree toward the truth of the curse

Dak threw his hands in the air. “Impossible!” He didn’t have the first idea how to approach it. And usually he was pretty good at working through the cryptic clues the Hystorians had left so they’d know which Break to fix.

“We have to make a decision,” Riq said, looking up at Dak and Sera. “We either search for a better place to wait out this rain, or we ignore it and concentrate on solving the riddle.”

“It’s not even a question,” Sera said. “We have to figure out where we should be and what we should be doing.”

“You think you can do it in these conditions?” Riq asked.

“I know I can. We’ve cracked number ciphers before.”

“Then let’s get to work.”

“Uh, guys?” Dak said. “Excuse me?” When they’d both turned to face him, he said, “Don’t you think I should maybe have some say in this, too?”

“What is it, Dak?” Sera asked.

“Well, it’s been awhile since we’ve eaten, right? I mean, technically it’s been several hundred years.”

Sera rolled her eyes. “And your point is?”

Dak motioned to Riq. “What do you say we send this guy off to find us a nice cheese plate? I’m thinking Gruyère and cheddar. Maybe a few figs and grapes on the side. Oh, and saltines.”

Sera’s mouth fell open. “Are you kidding me right now, Dak?”

“Fine, nix the saltines,” Dak said. “I get it: You’re in the mood for something a bit classier. Let’s go ahead and spring for TriSQuits, then.”

“An absolute child,” Riq said, shaking his head.

Sera and Riq both turned away from Dak and began tinkering with the SQuare. “Seriously, though,” Dak called to them, “aren’t you guys hungry?”

They ignored him.

Dak watched them work for a few minutes. Sera obviously knew what she was doing. She was a genius when it came to science, so working with numbers came somewhat naturally to her. And as a language whiz, Riq had an advantage over Dak whenever their clues involved codes or ciphers. Knowing that didn’t make it any easier to be benched, though.

“Whatever,” Dak muttered under his breath.

He wandered a few yards down the stone wall and sat against it, watching the rain and thinking about the riddle. A snake charmer. A clown. A treasure that never was. The truth of the curse. None of it rang any bells.

Being left alone like this reminded Dak of what got them into this history-saving situation in the first place. Just a few days ago — Wait, how was he supposed to measure days while traveling through time? He couldn’t exactly consult a modern calendar. And the Mayan version wouldn’t do him any good.

However long ago it was, the last time they were back home, in the present, he’d mistakenly let Sera into his parents’ lab, where she had become obsessed with the Infinity Ring, ignoring him for hours and hours and hours — just like she was ignoring him now. Dak shook his head, thinking about that fateful day. If he’d never shown her what his parents were working on, Sera never would’ve figured out the missing piece of the puzzle. And if she hadn’t figured out the missing piece of the puzzle, they never would’ve taken that stupid test run back to the Revolutionary War, and his parents wouldn’t be lost somewhere in time right now.

Dak watched several more Mayas race down the white street, carrying their children in their arms. It was a strange sight considering the rain was hardly more than a lazy drizzle, though the wind was definitely picking up now.

Dak leaned his head back against the wall, fingering the iron key he had tucked into the side of his leggings. His parents had given it to him in the year 911, somehow knowing that he would need it to escape the SQ in 1850. It boggled his mind.

Dak squeezed his eyes shut, tightened his grip on the key, and imagined their faces. He understood that what he, Sera, and Riq were doing was monumentally important. They were literally trying to save the world. And he loved warping back to different parts of history, seeing famous events unfold right before his eyes. But lately, in secret, Dak wondered if he wouldn’t ditch all the heroics in exchange for having his mom and dad back in his life — even for a day.

These thoughts made Dak feel guilty, so he got up and hustled back over to Sera and Riq, saying, “Never fear, my fellow time-traveling comrades, I’ve come to save the day. Please, how might my talents best be utilized?”

They didn’t even acknowledge his existence.

“Guys?”

Nothing.

Dak shrugged. If they didn’t need him, he didn’t need them either.

He turned to go and explore the wet Mayan village on his own. If he was lucky, he’d find some vital clue to the riddle . . . which he wouldn’t share with anyone.