“Was that the case, Alon?”

“The Spaniards destroyed much of our precolonial history when they came here as conquerors. Your American armies arrived afterward and destroyed most of the rest.”

“Don’t blame us, kid,” Goatee snorts. “I wasn’t even alive back then.”

“But we reaped the benefits of that past all the same,” Gries replies. “It’s likely that Lapulapu was as responsible for Cortes’s death as Magellan’s. It explains why he has the journal.”

“I have another question for our tour guide,” Hemslock says. “Those tourists who tried to explore the cave wound up dead or missing. That’s why fifteen dead is an estimate. We haven’t found all the bodies of those who’d disappeared yet. But the science team explored the cave without any mishap. Same with the aviation accident investigators. Now don’t get me wrong—I’m glad. But what makes them different?”

I keep my eyes on the ground, careful not to stumble over the loose roots in the path. “The Diwata only punishes the cruel. They were curious, but respectful.”

“And it doesn’t consider us respectful?” This from Goatee. “I mean, it fucking screamed at me!”

I don’t say anything, choosing diplomacy. Hemslock laughs. “Guess that answers your question, Karl. Hang on. This must be the area.”

He whistles low as we step through the passageway into a wider cavern beyond. There are no altars here, but there is something else.

Staring back at us is a wide, glaring eye carved into the wall, easily twenty feet high. There are crude lines around it, as if to symbolize rays of light. Underneath the eye is a stick figure’s body, simple, almost an afterthought in comparison. One hand is raised, as if to strike.

Jagged-looking drawings of trees surround the figure. “Balete,” Hemslock notes quietly.

“Damn,” Goatee says, staring. “How the hell did they draw them so high up?”

“The size of the cave entrance didn’t clue you in?” the historian points out. “The Diwata was a supposed giant.”

“Hey Denny,” Hemslock says, speaking into his mic. “Are you getting all of this? Beautiful, isn’t it? Portrait of an Artist as a Young God.”

“We found some writings in the cave last time,” the researcher says excitedly, gesturing at the others to draw nearer. She points at a series of inscriptions below the massive figure. “We sent photographs off to be translated—it’s an ancient script, a syntax that I believe is based on Baybayin. This likely dates to what we know of precolonial society in this region.”

“What does it say?” Hemslock asks, reaching out to touch one of the crudely carved letters.

“They’re not sentences, so much as words. This one says ‘Feed.’ This one, ‘Seed.’ The third, ‘Wear.’”

Hemslock grins. “First to feed. Second to seed. Third to wear. So you’re telling me that these writings, likely to have been scrawled here centuries ago, maybe even thousands of years ago, exactly depict the eight deaths riddle.”

“It’s too much of a coincidence not to be. I don’t know how the aviation accident investigators missed all this, but—”