Marika explained in more detail. “The same shield that rises from Kukulkan and protects our valley also grants a common tongue to all the Lost Tribes. So one neighbor can understand another. To unite all in peace and harmony.”
Jake stared toward the stone dragon. It sounded like some universal translator.
“But we have not forgotten our own tribe’s language,” Heronidus said, and puffed out his breastplate. “It can be spoken, but it takes concentration.”
Demonstrating this, Heronidus spat out something in Latin, aimed at Pindor. It sounded like an insult.
Pindor blushed, while Marika bristled. She must have understood the Latin. “Pindor is not a coward! He’s a thousand times braver than you!”
This only earned a dismissive chuckle from Heronidus.
The Mayan girl pointed back the way they’d come. “I’ll have you know that we were not just at the Broken Gate. Pindor and I went outside them.”
Pindor stiffened. “Mari!”
“We went off into the jungles to snatch an egg of a thunder lizard!”
Heronidus’s eyes grew huge as he turned his full attention back upon his younger brother. “You went beyond the Broken Gate?”
“Heron…” Pindor blustered for a bit, searching for words. “I had to try…because…”
Heronidus cut away any further explanation with a swipe of his sword. “When Father hears about this, you’ll be locked up in your room until the next full moon. And rightfully so!”
Pindor gave Marika a sad shake of his head.
Marika winced and mouthed, I’m sorry.
Marched even faster, they quickly reached the gate to the city. The walls climbed two stories tall. The heavy iron gate stood open.
Heronidus ran forward and spoke to a guard leaning on a spear. Jake could not make out what was said, but Heronidus pointed an arm toward him and Kady.
The guard leaned out. His eyes grew huge upon seeing the strangers. He finally nodded, stepped back, and waved. A moment later, two huge beasts stamped into view.
Jake recognized the species.
Othneilia.
Standing on two legs, each beast bore a rider in light armor, burnished and shining in the sun. One rider leaned from his saddle and spoke to Heronidus, who nodded and came running back.
“Let’s go!” he ordered, his face flushed with the excitement of it all.
With the monstrous escort, the group headed through the gate and into the city proper. Jake didn’t know what to expect, but Calypsos proved as chaotic as it was colorful.
Inside, the streets were paved with cobblestones, and the homes stacked close together. A woman in an apron leaned out a second-story window and called down to a thin man dragging a wagon. “I’ll take two bloodmelons and one pail of mushberries! But they better be ripe this time, Emmul!”
“Ripe and mushy as they come!”
Jake had expected the place to smell bad with so many people and animals in one place, but the city was crisscrossed with flowing canals, along with raised aqueducts and roadside drains. It was amazing engineering. Even the main street formed a spiraling corkscrew that wound around and around. It led toward the crown of the hill where a stone castle, flanked by two towers, waited behind tall walls.
“Kalakryss,” Heronidus said, naming the place. “Home of the Council of Elders.”
It was plainly their destination.
As they continued, Jake stared down alleys and narrow avenues. Everywhere he looked he spotted bits of other cultures from every continent and age: a Native American sweat lodge, a Sumerian temple, a large wooden Buddha. In one square stood the slender Egyptian obelisk carved with hieroglyphics.
Marika must have noted the wonder in his eyes. “The tribes are many. We number over two score.”
“How did you all get here?” he asked.
It was a question that had plagued Jake through the march. The weight of the coin around his neck grew heavier the more he pondered the miracle of their own arrival. There had to be some sort of portal. The coins must have acted like keys. But that could not be the only path here, not with all these people.
Marika shook her head. “We don’t know. Centuries ago, the Lost Tribes were drawn to this savage world, pulled from their own homelands. We all arrived within a few generations of each other and made our homes here in this valley. Where Kukulkan protects us.”
Jake stared between Marika and Pindor. How could tribes from so many different eras of human history arrive in this place at relatively the same time? If what Marika said was true, the Tribes hadn’t just been pulled from their homelands, but also from their time lines.
“There are rumors of other towns like Calypsos,” Marika continued. “In other valleys far out in the jungle. But here we live as best we can, in peace and cooperation with each other and the land. Or at least we used to….”
Jake heard a trace of worry behind her last words. He could guess the root of it. “The Skull King you mentioned? Who is—”
“You two shouldn’t be talking!” Pindor urged, stepping between them. “We’re all in enough trouble already.”
Heronidus glared back. “Hurry up!”
Marika sighed, but she obeyed.
With his mind awhirl, Jake continued through the town. Lost Tribes. Jake had heard of matching tales throughout history, of villages that suddenly disappeared, of Roman legions that vanished without a trace, of entire civilizations that were simply swallowed up by time.
Was this where they all ended up?
He sensed there was much more to learn.
“Ugh!” Kady danced a step away from Jake’s side. She scraped vigorously at the bottom of her left boot on one of the cobblestones.
Jake glanced over a shoulder and saw her boot print in a pile of dark, earthy-looking material along the edge of the street. Only it wasn’t earth. The ripe smell made that clear. Dinosaur dropping.
Jake tried not to smile—especially after she came back to his side, her face pale and slightly green.
“We don’t belong here,” she said. “We have to get home.”
“We’ll get home,” Jake assured her with more certainty than he felt.
Kady took a deep breath and nodded.
“It just might take some time to figure out a way,” Jake added under his breath.
He looked around at the mix of cultures here, his worry growing. A new worry took root. If these people—after so many centuries—hadn’t figured out a way to open a portal back home, how could he hope to do so on his own? He kept this fear to himself and reached over to take Kady’s hand.