Chapter 52
Hawker stared at the priest as he uttered the words. It was plainly evident that their little group matched the exact description on the parchment, but what did that tell them. Could it really have been meant to be them? Him, Danielle, Yuri, and McCarter?
He could see the gears in Danielle’s mind whirring. McCarter looked as if he’d just found some place of enlightenment himself, and Hawker could think of nothing more dangerous.
“Don’t get any ideas,” he warned. “It’s just a coincidence.”
“These are the last days, before the day of the Black Sun,” Father Domingo said. “When I saw the four of you, I must admit, my heart shook. With time growing short I have considered this parchment greatly and I wondered if anyone would appear. These words were written four hundred and ninety years ago.”
Hawker watched as Danielle moved to McCarter’s side and the two of them studied the parchment paper. There were several pages of Mayan hieroglyphics spread across its leaves and McCarter was instantly engrossed.
Danielle seemed to have caught her breath quickly. Her eyes were bright in the dimly lit wine cellar, and there was a sense of accomplishment about her, a sudden aura of success, as if the burden she carried had been lifted. He understood it: Their search had not been in vain. The pain, the suffering, the carnage all around them—most likely she felt as if there was some reason to it now. Some destiny beyond it. And that was what scared him.
Hawker didn’t believe in the concept of destiny. Certainly it had its value. There were occasions where it gave people the will to push on, to succeed against monumental odds. But more often than not, Hawker had seen the concept as a destructive one.
Those who thought they were on a mission from God—any god—were capable of horrendous things. All actions and atrocities could be rationalized if they were the will of some supreme being.
For the arrogant and power hungry there was no better rallying cry. It was a lie that made even the good people of society capable of carrying out acts of an evil nature.
And for oppressed peoples it became the mantle of fate; their lot in life to suffer; defeat preordained and thus accepted and unchallenged.
As he thought of these things, he wanted to point them out to both Danielle and McCarter, but he could already see the fever burning in their eyes.