Anthony Horowitz - Evil Star

“Yes. Do you know where he is?”

“I’m sorry, Atoc. I’m afraid he’s dead.”

Atoc nodded slowly as if this was what he had expected to hear. But his dark, brown eyes filled with grief and he stood, still and completely silent, as Matt told him what had happened at the hacienda .

“I’m so sorry that he died because of us,” Matt said.

“But I am glad that if he had to die, it was for you,” Atoc replied. He took a deep breath. “Micos was my younger brother,” he said. “There were two years between us. In our language ‘micos’ is ‘monkey’, and he was the funny one, always in trouble. Atoc is fox. I was the one who was meant to be clever. And yet when we were playing once, when I was eight years old, I threw a stone at him and almost took out his eye. He had a scar… just here.” Atoc raised a finger and drew a crescent moon next to his eye. “My father took his belt to me for that. But Micos forgave me.

“He wanted to help you, Matteo, because he believed in you. You are one of the Five. He would not be sad that he died if he knew you are safe now and so it is also wrong for me to be sad too. There will be more deaths. Many more. We must grow used to it.”

He turned his head and looked away into the distance, his eyes focused on something far away.

“Now I walk alone for a few minutes,” he said. “When I return, we forget what has been said and we not speak of it again.”

He walked away into the undergrowth.

“Matteo…!” Pedro had woken up and was calling to him from the tent.

Behind them, a trickle of white smoke from the bonfire rose, uncertainly, up into the morning sky.

After breakfast, the two Indians put out the bonfire and packed up the tents. They had already tied down the helicopter and covered it with a green tarpaulin, camouflaging it in case anyone happened to fly overhead. Matt could see these people thought of everything… although he still wasn’t sure who they actually were.

Atoc had eaten with them. Whatever grief he might be feeling, he didn’t let it show. “We leave now,” he said and signalled to one of the Indians who came forward, carrying two new pairs of trainers. “You cannot walk in those shoes.”

Matt gratefully removed the rubber-tyre sandals he had been wearing since Lima. Somehow he wasn’t surprised that the new trainers fitted him perfectly. All of this had been planned. As he pulled them on, he noticed Pedro holding his own pair with a look of complete awe. It occurred to him that the Peruvian boy had probably never owned a new piece of clothing in his life.

When they were both ready, Atoc reached into his poncho and produced a handful of dark green leaves and what looked like two small pebbles. “You put this in mouth,” he explained, first in English and then, for Pedro, in Spanish. He wrapped a pebble in the leaves, forming a small bundle. “The leaves are coca,” he went on. “The stone we call llibta. The two mix with saliva in mouth and give you strength.”

Matt did as he was told. The coca leaves tasted disgusting and he couldn’t imagine how they would work, but there didn’t seem any point arguing.

They set off. The two Indians went first. Matt followed, with Pedro – tripping over several times as he got used to the new footwear – just behind him. Atoc was at the back. Matt had hoped they would be heading downhill but it seemed that their path was going to be up all the way. The jungle wasn’t as impenetrable as it seemed. Someone, a long time ago, had cut a staircase. The steps were almost invisible, uneven and covered in lichen, but they wove between the trees, twisting up the face of the hill.

“If you need rest, you say,” Atoc said.

Matt gritted his teeth. They had only covered a short distance and already he needed to rest. It wasn’t the steepness of the slope: the air was even thinner here than it had been in Cuzco. If he walked too fast his head would begin to thump and he could feel the burning in his lungs. The secret was to measure out a careful pace, one step at a time, and not look up, as it only reminded him how far they had to go. He turned the llibta over in his mouth. Now he understood why he needed it. He just hoped it would actually work.

The sun climbed higher and suddenly it was hot. Matt could feel the sweat trickling down his back. Everything was wet. Once, he reached out to steady himself against a tree and his hand sank into it as if it were a sponge. Beads of moisture hung in the air. Water dripped through his hair and ran down the sides of his face. Pedro stopped and removed his poncho. Matt did the same. One of the Indians took them, his expression making it clear that he would accept no argument. Matt didn’t mind. He was using all his strength just to keep going. He must have already climbed five hundred steps. And the staircase showed no sign of ending.

Something bit him. Matt cried out and slapped his arm. A second later, he was bitten again, this time on the side of his neck. He almost wanted to cry… or swear… or scream. How much worse could this journey get? Atoc caught up with him and handed him a cloth filled with some evil-smelling ointment.

“Midges,” he explained. “We call them puma waqachis. It means, insects who make the puma cry.”

“I know how the puma feels,” Matt growled. He scooped up some of the ointment and rubbed it into his skin, where it mixed instantly with his sweat. Matt felt it trickle down his body. His clothes were sticking to him like a second skin. Another midge bit him on the ankle. Matt closed his eyes for a moment, then set off again.

They stopped twice for water. The Indian guides had plastic bottles in their backpacks. Matt forced himself to drink only a little, aware that all five of them had to share the same supply. The sun was high above them now and he began to wonder if there was something wrong with his vision. The forest seemed hazy and out of focus. Then he realized that in the heat, all the moisture was turning to steam. Soon he was completely wrapped in a dense white fog, barely able to see the man in front of him.

“Stay close!” Atoc called out. His voice came from nowhere. He could have been on another planet. “Not far now.”

They emerged from the cloud forest suddenly and unexpectedly. One moment Matt was fighting his way through the undergrowth, the next he had emerged on the edge of a huge canyon. The sky was clear. A vast mountain range stretched out in front of him, many of the peaks covered in snow. Some of them seemed to be touching the edge of space. Matt was close to exhaustion. He was soaking wet and he had a vicious headache. But even so, he felt a sense of elation. Looking down, he saw that it was raining in the canyon. But the rain was below him. He had climbed above cloud level.

“You see?” Atoc pointed to one of the mountains. From where they were standing, it looked a little like a human head. “Is Mandango,” he explained. “The Sleeping God.”

Pedro had caught up with Matt. He stood panting on the edge of the abyss. He rasped out a few words in Spanish. Atoc smiled for the first time since he and Matt had spoken earlier. “He says he feels terrible,” he translated for Matt. “But you look worse.”

“Where now?” Matt gasped. He couldn’t believe they had climbed all this way up just to go down again.

“It is not so far,” Atoc said. “But take care. It is very far if you fall…”

Atoc wasn’t exaggerating. A single, well-defined path led down the side of the canyon. Somehow Matt knew that it must have been cut into the rock face by hand. There was something completely unnatural about it. The path was flat and the surface was almost as polished as the streets of Cuzco. The one thing it wasn’t, though, was wide. In places there was barely a metre between the wall and the hideous drop over the side. If Matt had taken one false step he would have fallen… and fallen. He saw a herd of sheep or llamas grazing in the pampas at the very bottom of the canyon. To him, they were like ants. There were no trees here to protect them from the sun and Matt could feel it burning his face and arms. He was nothing in this immense landscape. He could be soaked by the rain or fried by the sun. In his entire life, he had never felt so insignificant.