Mystery of the Parents

"" is the thirteenth episode from the first season of The Mysterious Cities of Gold.

At the City of the High Peak, Tao discovers a marker which bears a sun symbol similar to Esteban and Zia's medallions. Chief Kraka suggests that the children speak to Myuca, an old seer living on Machu Picchu who knows more about the artifacts. When they meet, Myuca tells Esteban a story of a white man who came from across the ocean and married an Incan priestess. They had a child together, but the sun god Inti was angered by this and plunged the land into darkness. The villagers sacrificed the priestess and banished the man and his child to the sea. Esteban wonders if the tale is about his parents.

Kraka announces the children as messengers of the gods. While looking around the city, the children find a sundial, a celestial chart, and a mysterious design on the floor of a shallow well. Chief Kraka is unable to explain its meaning, adding that the only man who might know is the local old & wise man, Mayuka. The children are shown to their rooms. The boys bathe in a nearby pool. The next day the children set off to find Mayuka. The locals hide from them, awed by the presence of supposed messengers of the gods, until Esteban plays the fool to reassure them. After some searching, they find Mayuka at the top of Machu Picchu (however you spell it), a nearby mountain. He tells them of a mysterious foreigner who had once shown much interest in the mysterious design. Esteban believes that this man may have been his father. Twelve or thirteen years earlier, this man arrived from across the western sea, and fell in love with an Inca priestess. They had a child, angering the sun god who plunged the land into darkness. The frightened priests sacrificed the woman and set the man and child adrift at sea on a boat. The foreigner had once said that the design represented the point in the sky where the paths of the sun and a particular star cross, which indicates the direction of the first City of Gold.

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