CHAPTER 46
Finally, after a few more twists and turns and scraped elbows (not to mention sore butts), we flew out of the stone chute and landed on a heap of something soft.
“Okay,” said Beck. “That was convenient.”
“Or planned,” I said, fingering the fuzzy pile of padding. “I think this might be antique llama wool.”
Beck snapped her fingers. “Inkarri used twenty thousand llamas to transport all that gold and silver to Paititi. His followers probably gave the herd a few haircuts and made this landing cushion when they decided to hide their Sacred Stone deep within this old necropolis.”
“We took the path they planned to take when Inkarri came back to reclaim his treasure,” I added. “They would’ve known about the booby traps and how not to trigger them.”
I shone my flashlight right. Beck shone hers left. It’s a twin thing.
My beam fell on a wall painting.
“It’s a map!” I said. “No, it’s the map. The same one Storm drew for us on her computer. The one the bad guys stole out of the Room.”
“And that,” said Beck, “must be the Sacred Stone.”
“Whaaa—”
I spun around to see what she was talking about.
There it was. A glittering, faceted yellow stone the size of a baseball sitting on a pedestal that had more of those kneeling Incan figures carved into its sides.
“No wonder they put it on a pedestal!” said Beck, her voice filled with awe.
Beck grabbed the stone before I could tell her not to (because, like I said, I’ve seen way more Indiana Jones movies than she has).
And, of course, the column started to rise. Once again, we heard the grind and scrape of stone against stone.
“Is the floor going to open up again?” sputtered Beck, backing up against the far wall.
“I hope not,” I told her. “But the weight of the Sacred Stone was keeping the column locked in place. You were supposed to put a bag of sand that weighed as much as it did on top of the pedestal before you grabbed the shiny stone!”
“Sorry.”
The column kept corkscrewing up from the floor. And that wall Beck had backed up against? It started slowly sliding open, disappearing into the rock like a pocket door.
“Bick? Beck?”
Tommy and Storm were standing on the other side of the sliding wall in what had to be a tomb on the level they’d been exploring. I could see a brilliant rectangle of blinding sunlight behind them.
“How’d you guys get down here?” asked Tommy.
“Very quickly,” said Beck.
“But this is our level,” said Storm. “Besides, you were supposed to whistle if you found something.”
Beck whistled. It was a very dry, very weak whistle.
“Is that the Sacred Stone?” asked Storm, clumping into the chamber to join us. Tommy was right behind her.
“We think so,” said Beck.
“And check it out,” I said. “There’s a map painted on the wall!”
Storm scanned the cave painting.
“It’s a perfect match,” she reported after comparing it to the visual files in her ginormous brain. “It’s exactly the same as the map Dad had on board the Lost.”
“Awesome,” said Tommy.
“Wow,” said Beck. “There’s like a dozen of you guys.”
Storm, Tommy, and I turned away from the wall map to check out Beck.
She had the Sacred Stone pressed against her eye and was staring through it as if it were a telescope.
Tommy shook his head.
“You really shouldn’t be playing with that,” he said, moving away from the wall to go retrieve the stone.
“You guys?” she said, still staring through the stone. “You’re not going to believe what I just saw!”
“What?”
“The Lost City of Paititi!”