Eirn stared at the keys in Nikk's hand, puzzled. "When did manage to obtain those?"
"When you were filling your stomach with local food. Let's go." Nikk strode off toward a narrow side street. The daitias and Anya silently followed, Daphne a few steps behind like she was and, at the same time, wasn't one of them. Nobody was in a chatting mood now.
While walking, Anya made sure no one looked at her and slipped her hand into her pocket. She fumbled for her phone and turned the sound off. She couldn't risk letting Daphne see it now, but get rid of it? No way, not before trying to call dad first, one more time at least.
They passed a few streets that weren't as crowded as the market place. The air here was better, a light breeze allowed to breathe without an effort and cleared the mind. Nikk led them to an worn-out house with whitewashed walls. The fence surrounding the house had a huge graffiti on it, showing an idyllic scene of the ancient Incas—disproportional people wearing loincloths and robes, carving statues of gods out of stones, carrying golden pitchers and gems.
What amazed Anya most was the colors though. All the people on the picture were of different skin colors—black and white, bronze and honey yellow, and red, blue and green even. And they all were working together as if they all were the people of one family.
"Here we are," Nikk stopped by an old jeep with chipped purple paint, which truck wouldn't close because of corn literally sticking out of it.
"Where did you find this rusty junk?" Rill mused, scratching the last of the paint off with her nail.
Nikk shrugged casually. "Bought from a friend."
"And..." the daitian kicked a tire with her right foot and swiftly jump back, probably expecting the wheel to fall off. "...does your friend know that he needs a new car?"
"Nope. He didn't have a chance to learn my name as I replaced the car keys in his pocket with a wad of cash."
"I'll drive." Daphne said in a cold voice. She snatched the keys from her brother's hand, and flung open the driver's door before anyone could say a word.
Despite looking ragged, the car engine roared the instant Daphne switched on the ignition. The others hurriedly crawled inside before the previous owner, clueless about selling his vehicle, came.
The journey began.
*
The highway where tourist buses and similar shabby cars of the locals could yet be seen was soon left behind. Then, following Eirney's instructions, the daitias and Anya swerved into a barely visible road snaking among the trees. Its pavement stones mixed with mud and grass rather suggested that the path was created about the same time as the Inca Empire itself.
In addition to the clumsy route, the weather became a disaster soon. In less than an hour, the clear blue sky was obscured with low, dark clouds. A harmless drizzle at first, it transformed into a raging storm. Heavy raindrops were hammering on the car's roof, blocking the view and turning the world outside the car windows to a watery blur.
And Daphne appeared to be a reckless driver. She was flooring the accelerator pedal, ignoring wet branches thumping against the windshield. The car was swaying from side to side and hopping on every pebble.
By the time Anya was about to throw up and Rill next her looked as pale as the moon, the trees finally started thinning and thatched roofs peeped out. Two more minutes, and the travelers found themselves in a small village nestled in a valley between two turquoise mountains.
"We need to go northwest," Eirn mumbled, not taking his metallic grey eyes shining with thoughts off the navigator screen.
The rainstorm was slowly fading away. Daphne drove around the village twice, but no luck. Except for the road they came from, there were no traces of anything resembling a trail or a path, or some kind of a faintest trodden line people could use to trudge through the woods. Nothing that would suggest the bunch of ragged houses here weren't the outermost pieces of human civilization.
"Maybe you read the map wrong," Nikk flicked his eyes sideway at Eirney for a second, and then peered out the car window, gazing upon the mountains. "Were we supposed to climb up the rocks? Why Klliss didn't give us the equipment then?"
"I know how to read the map," Eirn groaned. "Me and Ther, we were taught mapping."
Daphne cursed loudly as the car got stuck in the mud flooded the road after the rain.
"I don't see any reasons to worry just yet," Rill said flippantly, and swung the car door open, springing off right into the dirt. "Let's ask the locals for help."
"And take donkeys to ride further," Daphne snorted, but the car was beyond saving.
The moment Anya set her feet on the solid ground she felt surprisingly good. The fresh air brushed her hair and caressed her skin as she and all others followed the crimson-haired daitian along the village.
The place was peaceful and quiet. Too quiet, actually. Most of houses looked like they were abandoned and neglected—their windows and doors tightly shut, the streets around them empty. Possibly, it was only because of the rain, but a strange feeling of getting into some sort of a mystical trouble wouldn't leave Anya's consciousness.
"Excuse me," Rill waved to a woman passing across the street, who was carrying a huge basket of clothes. "We're looking for a road to—"
"Machu Picchu?" The woman let out a growl of annoyance. She was speaking with a weird accent, thoroughly pronouncing every consonant, but seemed to forget about the vowels. "No, no no no. You get out, go!" She made an intense shooing motion with her hand. "You go to Aguascalientes city. That's tourist."
"No, we're not going to Machu Picchu," Nikk shook his head and glanced at the GPS map in Eirney's hands. "We're going to... " He frowned, trying to read the word. "Pat... Pai..."
"Paititi," Eirn prompted.
"Yes, Paititi," Nikk snapped his fingers and raised his eyes back at the woman expectantly. "Do you know the place?"
The woman narrowed her coffee brown eyes as if thinking whether Nikk was joking or it was a serious question. Then she tilted her head and looked over everyone beside him, her glance lingered on Daphne's white as starlight ponytail.
"Tales of that mad man reach big world now, huah?" the woman proudly flipped one of her two thick braids of dark hair over her shoulder. "Who you to be? Journalist? Archeologist? Ah, I want to know not... You seek Capac." She pointed at the other end of the village. "Miss not the house."
Thanking the woman and leaving the car die in the mud, the daitias and Anya jogged where the house of mysterious Capac was supposed to be. Rare people who came in their way were watching unexpected guests with curiosity and, sometimes, fear. They hurried to go away and preferred walking the other side of the street.
Anya found herself feeling like an animal kept in a zoo when a little boy ran toward them, shouting something in unknown language, shoved his finger at Rill's bright pink hair and dashed off.
"Seems like the place lack foreign visitors," Amarillis giggled without a shadow of offensive look on her face.
"You'd stand out even among the foreign visitors," Anya chuckled, watching the colorful fringes on the daitian's vast flutter lightly in the wind.
"Why?" Eirn asked, frankly clueless. He tore his eyes off his gadget even, to cast Anya a look of inquiry.
"I have no idea..." Anya drawled, amused. She glanced sideway at this foreign visitor who was a head taller than average people, at his sandy curls chaotically blown about his face. Add his love for a sudden teleportation and appearing out of nowhere, and you'll definitely get the picture of an ordinary human being, right?
Striding beside Anya, Nikk chuckled low in his throat, but said nothing.
Before long, they arrived at the other end of the village. The house the woman with a weird accent was apparently talking about was hard to miss—its roof had a giant hole, the wooden walls showed numerous cracks, and a huge load of twigs was blocking the way to the inner courtyard.
This hut would look utterly uninhabited—for many years—if not for an old man who was sitting in a hammock in front, smoking a pipe and peacefully staring at the sky. His hair was absolutely grey, his clothes dingy, his face wrinkled, and thoughts distant. The thunderstorm that had just passed seemed not to bother the old man at all, as well as his guests who stopped right before him. He went on smoking as though saw not a single soul.
"Ahem," Nikk cleared his throat, trying to draw the old man's attention. "Hello? Excuse me, are you Capac?"
"Manco Capac," the man nodded reluctantly and, for a mere second, shifted his eyes at Nikk and then back at the cloudy sky. "For many years already... Too many years."
Unlike the woman who showed them the way, Capac spoke fluently, offhandedly even—as if he was preoccupied with some important, invisible to the eye business.
"We were told that you could help us," Nikk continued, hesitation in his voice and all over his face. "We're going to—"
"We all do go somewhere." Manco nodded.
"To Paititi." The finished sentence didn't have the desirable effect. Manco didn't move. Nikk's shoulders slouched, and he looked at his friends in despair.
"We've got a satellite navigation system, but..." Eirney shook his gadget in his hand, "I think it's went haywire and—"
"I hear the words, but I don't see the meaning behind them," Manco laughed, still not looking at the daitias and Anya.
Daphne clicked her tongue. "Listen," she started in a quiet voice that suggested she was on the edge of losing her temper, "if you can't help us, say so and we'll be gone. With you or without, we'll find our way. It's just a matter of time."
After these words, Capac suddenly awoke from his thoughts and looked at his guests, puzzled. His eyes were so pale Anya would think he was blind if his gaze didn't contain some captivating power within.
Manco blew out a ring of smoke, watched it dissolve into the air and smiled. "Well, if you will find your way without me, then I can help you."
Daphne arched her thin eyebrows, indignant. She opened her mouth to say something nasty, then closed it and drew a deep calming breath.
"So you've heard of Paititi after all?" Rill's face bloomed with wonderment. Anya realized the crimson-haired daitian was marveled and intrigued with Manco's secrecy. "Do you know much about that place? Where is it? How to get there?"
"Oh, I know of Paititi more than I know of the rest of the world," Capac assured her.
"You've been there before?" Daphne asked incredulously.
Manco winked at her, and said with a hint of playfulness in his voice, "I've traveled a lot."
"There including?"
"From there including."
Watching Capac's measured moves and listening to his rhythmical speech, Anya caught herself thinking that she somehow picked up the old man's stolidity and leisured manners. All of a sudden, her mind was wrapped in calmness, and her apathy was becoming stronger with every minute.
Anya tried to shrug off the desire to fall asleep right here and right now, but it didn't work. Then, she tried another tactic—participating in the conversation.
"Will you guide us to Paititi?" Anya fought a temptation to yawn.
"No, but I will show you the way."
"And the way would lead us to the city?"
"If you would be able to walk it." Without another word, Capac blew out one more ring of smoke, and returned to contemplating the skies.
"The man is obviously crazy," Eirn whistled quietly and turned to his friends.
Nikk shrugged. "At least he knows something."
"I think he's pretending," Anya said, shifting from foot to foot—her back was aching because of her heavy backpack. She saw a silent question in Nikk's eyes and explained, "I mean he's pretending in the crazy part, not the knowing part. Actually, I think he wants to scare us away."
"For the first time, I agree with the earthling." Daphne suddenly said. She sounded more friendly than usual, though her face was still a cold mask that allowed seeing nothing beyond her spurious indifference. "And I don't like this old man. He tells less than he knows for some reason. Yet," the daitian's mouth set into a grim line, "we don't have much of a choice, do we?"
The sun was leaning close to the mountains, casting shadows of deep black. The tangerine light was still fighting its way through the tree branches, illuminating the hut's roof yet wet after the rain. While the daitias and Anya were in the middle of the discussion, Manco Capac rose from his hammock and headed into the house.
"Any chance you're planning to show us the path to Paititi?" Nikk called after him.
Capac turned his head and eyed everyone once again. Then he smothered his curling grey hair and smiled, his pale eyes crinkling around the edges friendly. "I said I will show you the way, not the path. Are you hungry?"
Without another sound, he disappeared inside.
The others stood motionless for a while, confused. From the corner of her eye, Anya saw the daitias to be as ignorant of what was going on as she was. It warmed her stomach a little—it was always good to know that no one around you was more quick-witted.
Finally, Rill laughed, failing to hide coyness in her voice, and trotted toward the house.
"And who's a troublemaker now," Daphne murmured as she and the others followed.