The Rosetta Codex (3 page)

“You're going to cause trouble for me,” Cale said.

This time Blackburn did not respond to Cale's complaint except to open the tavern door and push him inside. Thick and heavy heat overwhelmed Cale for a moment, dizzying
him. Blackburn steadied him, chuckling softly. Ten or twelve men and women sat at tables throughout the large room, most of them staring at the two newcomers. Quiet. The crackling of the two fires and someone coughing. The slide of a boot. The smell of wood smoke and tobacco and lantern oil and the faint aroma of malt and yeast. A tension in the air, the sense of anticipation. Someone began to talk to his companions, and people returned to their drinks and conversations, but the tension didn't break.

Blackburn led Cale to a corner table near the smaller fire. He gestured at Pig, the tavern owner, and held up two fingers. Pig squinted and scratched his elbow; he was a fat man with a round face, his skin spongy and mottled. He turned to a large barrel, drew two mugs of drink, and brought them over to the table. When Blackburn tried to pay, Pig refused to take either barter chits or coins.

“You know you drink free,” Pig said with a frown.

“I'll pay for Cale.”

Pig looked down at the floor, shook his head, and walked away.

Cale looked down at his drink. Steam rose from thick, russet foam. “What is it?”

“Oh, a kind of milk stout nog. You haven't been in here before?”

“Not to drink.”

“You ever drink alcohol?”

“Just once.” Four years earlier, Petros had forced him to drink glass after glass of wine the clan had made. They were celebrating something at night down on the lake shore, fires burning, everyone drunk, Tanya and Zarra pounding on drums and providing a beat for people to dance to. Petros
made Cale drink until the faces and waving arms and leaping flames spun around him and then the others forced him to dance, pulling him in circles, holding him upright when he could not stand on his own. Only when he began vomiting did they let him go. Much later, Mosca, Petros's brother, came into his bed and tried to force himself on Cale. Fortunately Mosca was so drunk he could barely control his limbs and Cale had sobered enough to fight, scratching and biting at Mosca until the man fell back and Cale escaped into the night. The next day Mosca whipped Cale with a rope until his back ran with blood.

“Drink up,” Blackburn said.

Cale sipped at the drink. It was warm and sweet and bitter all at once, bubbling tartly on his tongue, and then a different kind of warm as it ran down his throat and into his stomach. He drank again.

By the time they started on their second mugs, Cale felt light-headed, yet suffused with a numb comfort and sense of contentment. He watched the flames in the hearth, concentrated on the profound orange and crimson glow of the wood and embers beneath the grate.

“You don't talk much,” Blackburn said.

Cale looked at him, but did not reply except to shrug.

“You don't say much, and you don't reveal much about yourself,” Blackburn continued. “Sometimes that indicates depths of thought. A quiet but cautious and careful intelligence.” Blackburn paused. “And sometimes it indicates stupidity.” He cocked his head. “Which is it with you?”

Cale still did not respond. He drank deeply.

“I think I know,” Blackburn said.

“You think you know a lot,” Cale said.

“I know more than most people on this miserable world. I know more than the ignorant bastards in this godforsaken village. But I also recognize how little that is, how much more there is to know and to learn. Which is why I'm here on this backwater planet instead of on some more civilized world, or traveling among the stars.”

“I don't understand.”

“I'm still learning, especially about human beings, and this is a better place for it. For now. Less is hidden by the veneer of civilization.”

Cale still did not completely understand, and he wasn't sure that what little he
did
understand made sense, but he let it go.

“I said once before that you were little more than a slave here,” Blackburn reminded him. “And that it was all you would ever be if you stayed.”

“I remember.”

“You're better than that.”

“How do you know?” Cale asked. “Maybe it's all I'm good for.”

Blackburn shook his head. “Come away with me,” he said.

Cale tipped his head to the side, and the motion dizzied him. “What do you mean?”

“I'm leaving in a couple of days. I'll take you with me.”

“They won't let me go.”

Blackburn nodded. “That's why you need to go with me. They probably wouldn't try to stop us, but we'll go at night. There's room on Morrigan.”

It was tempting. But it was also frightening. Cale was not so much afraid of the villagers as he was of something in
Blackburn. He did not know what that was, but he knew he was afraid. He was also thinking about Aglaia.

“They offered to sell you to me,” Blackburn added.

“But you want me for nothing.”

Blackburn shook his head firmly. “I don't
want
you at all. I just want to help you.”

Cale drank again, draining the mug. He welcomed the warm thrumming that coursed through his limbs, the heaviness. He wanted to lie down in front of the fire, close his eyes, bask in the heat. He wanted Aglaia beside him, wanted to be able to reach out and lay his hand upon hers.

“I guess maybe I'll just stay here,” Cale eventually said.

Blackburn stared at Cale, his gaze unwavering, then finally nodded. “I see now that it's more difficult for you than I realized. But someday you will decide that you have no choice. That you have to get out of this place or die.” Then he cocked his head, as though with some growing realization. “You don't understand why most people live out here, do you? Out here in primitive conditions, away from towns and cities. You don't realize that most of them have no choice, do you?” Cale shrugged, and Blackburn continued. “Yes, that explains much. I am here by choice. I can go back anytime I want. Most people out here can't.”

“Go back where?” Cale asked.

“Across the Divide.”

“The Divide,” he said, not quite a question.

Blackburn nodded. “It's inaccurate, but that's what it's called. A divide is a high ridge of land, like a mountain range, a barrier between two areas. The Divide is a barrier, too, but it's just the opposite of a ridge—it's a vast, incredibly deep crevasse that splits this continent from one end to
the other. A great crack in the earth. This part of the continent, west of the Divide, is a prison. The worst of the criminals in Morningstar and other parts of the Eastern Continent are exiled across the Divide. Murderers, rapists, men and women with multiple convictions for assault and other violent crimes. Political dissidents. Unrepentant troublemakers. Drug dealers who aren't executives in the pharmaceutical consortiums. The list goes on.

“They're sent across with almost nothing. Clothes and food and rudimentary tools. No advanced technology. No weapons. The airspace is rigorously monitored so no flights across can be made, and there's heavy security at the Divide bridges. The authorities are very thorough. Nonprisoners are allowed to cross to this side, go back and forth, though not many people want to. Traders, mostly.”

“Like you.”

“Like me. A market has been established over the years. A somewhat legitimate network, and an illegal one as well. Contraband is smuggled across the Divide. And there is a demand for trade goods that exist only here. There are plants that grow wild on this side of the continent, valuable minerals. Exotic foods, particularly aquatic.”

Cale thought about all the shellfish he had opened and cleaned, and wondered what was special about it. Something, apparently—the cleansed shellfish were processed and sealed into tiny containers that were then shipped out with traders.

“Two bridges have been built across the Divide, and they are wonders indeed, as you will one day certainly see. The only way back to the east and out of this pesthole, to Morningstar or any of the other towns or settlements, is over the bridges. But to cross them, you must be tested.”

“Tested how?”

“Genetic analysis. The authorities maintain the genetic records of everyone exiled to the west. First-generation descendants, as well as the exiles themselves, are all forbidden to cross. Second-generation descendants are permitted to return to ‘civilization' if they wish.” He stopped. “You don't know what genetic analysis is, do you?”

“No,” Cale said.

“Well, I can't explain it to you. But they scrape some skin from you, take some hair and blood, and analyze it. They can tell if you're a convicted prisoner sent into the west, and they can tell if you're a descendant of a prisoner, and what generation.”

“What if you're not descended at all from any exile?” Cale asked.

“Do you know that you're not?” he asked him in return.

Cale didn't answer except to shrug.

Blackburn smiled slyly. “You're not from this world at all, are you?”

Again, Cale didn't answer.

“Here's some advice for you,” Blackburn said. “When you do eventually leave here, head east. When you reach the Divide, if you meet anyone nearby, ask them which way to the nearest bridge. If you don't find anyone, head south. Get to a bridge, and cross it.”

“What will I find?” Cale asked.

“Better places than this, that's for damn sure.” Blackburn looked down into his own empty mug. “Better places than this.” He turned to Pig and gestured for two more drinks.

 

Two days later Cale stood beside a ruined boat he was dismantling for salvage, and watched Blackburn depart. Blackburn rode tall astride the drayver, the great beast holding its own head high and rigid as they passed between two lines of villagers watching them with envy and resentment. Cale expected Blackburn to look for him, but the man did not once turn his head. Blackburn and Morrigan just kept riding out of the north end of the village, then along the lake shore. Just past the last dock, Blackburn turned the drayver away from the water; they marched into the trees and were gone.

She waited for him at the edge of the lake. When Cale came over the rise and saw her shadowed form in the bright orange moonlight, surrounded by translucent strands of pale mist, his breath caught and he felt a fluttering deep inside his chest.

It was an hour past midnight and the air was cold, damp from the mists drifting in from the lake like the phantoms of long dead aquatic creatures. Burnished gold scales of light reflected from the lake's surface. Water lapped quietly on rocks and pebbles; the docks creaked with a melancholy regularity. Behind him, the village was silent, and dark except for the light in Crazy Mary's hut.

As Cale approached, Aglaia stepped toward him and
they both stopped when they were an arm's length apart. The moon was behind her and her face was in shadow, but her eyes shone in the darkness.

“So you understood,” she said.

Of course,
he wanted to say. If he hadn't understood her message, he wouldn't be here. But he remained silent and nodded once.

They walked along the shore for a time. He was careful not to touch her, but her presence was like a static charge in the air, and he smelled an aroma he could not identify or name, except that he knew it was
her
; he thought he could feel heat radiating from her skin.

They did not talk at first. He did not know what to say, and perhaps she didn't, either. Something splashed out on the lake, but when he turned to look, all he saw were quickly fading ripples. The moon glowed like the low flames of a fire, but it generated no warmth, and Cale shivered inside his jacket.

“Winter's coming,” Aglaia said.

Cale nodded, wondering if she expected a response from him, but he still did not know what to say.

“I'd like to leave someday, like Blackburn,” she said, turning to him. “Wouldn't you? I'd like to get out of this rotten place.”

“Where would you go?”

“Morningstar,” she replied.

Morningstar. Blackburn had mentioned it, too. The name sounded familiar, but he didn't think he had heard it from Petros or any of the others there. Not from anyone here, either.

“What's Morningstar?” he asked.

“A city. A real city with millions of people.”

Millions. Cale could not conceive of how many people that truly was, and he could not imagine what a city with that many would be like. He had vague recollections of cities, from his infancy, but those memories were so fragmentary, and so actively suppressed, that they did not provide him with anything concrete. He doubted Aglaia had any real idea, either.

“Why don't you just go, then?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “It's not so easy to leave this place. I couldn't do it on my own. And I don't know where it is or how to get there. Blackburn's been there, though. I think he comes from there.”

“How often does he come through here?”

“Twice a year.”

“Have you thought about asking him to take you with him?” Thinking of Blackburn's offer three weeks earlier.

She made a sound that might have been a laugh, but there was something disconcerting about it. “I'd be afraid,” she said. “Not to
ask
him. I'd be afraid he'd say yes and take me.”

They stopped, and when he looked back he could not see any part of the village, not even Crazy Mary's light. The trees grew close to the water here, and he looked at the dark forms rising above them, listened to the hushed sounds of tiny animals within those shadowed woods. Did she want him to help her get away? Did she want him to leave and take her with him?

“Why would you be afraid of Blackburn?” he asked.

“Do you know what he brings?”

He shook his head. “No. Do you?”

“No. But it makes some people scary for a while. After
they see him, you have to stay away from them or they'll do things to you.”

“What things?”

Aglaia shuddered and shook her head.

“What about one of the other traders that come through? Like that family that came through a few weeks ago with the knives and coffee and tobacco?”

“Most of them are scarier than Blackburn,” she said. “And that family, did you see the two girls? They were sick and they had all those open sores and scars and I don't want to know what else was wrong with them.” She sighed and gazed out over the water, and her face was half hidden in shadow. “Cale,” she said.

“Yes?”

She turned back to him. “Kiss me.”

Cale could not move, he could not speak. He felt his heart race, felt the thumping at his ribs and the throb of the pulse up his neck, rushing in his ears. She touched his hand with her cold fingers and leaned toward him. Her eyes remained open, watching him. Finally he moved forward and brought his lips softly against hers.

Lost and uncertain but strangely unafraid, he put his arms around her and pulled her to him, reveling in her warmth and smell and the moist heat of her mouth. He felt dizzy and short of breath and weak. They separated, cold air flowing between them, and she led him into the darkness of the trees.

Cale could see nothing but shadows and darkness, misting slices of moonlight, but Aglaia seemed to know where she was going, so he followed.

“Here,” she said.

Faint moonlight filtered through the branches to illuminate a small, circular clearing with a cloth mat and blankets laid out on flat ground. Aglaia knelt on the edge of the mat and gently tugged at his hand. Cale knelt beside her and they kissed again, but now he was scared. Maybe not scared, but anxious. Afraid he would not know what to do.
Certain
he would not know what to do.

“Wait,” he said. “I . . . I don't . . .”

“It's all right,” she said. She brushed her fingers softly along his cheek. “Just lie here with me. Just hold me, Cale.”

They lay together fully clothed under the blankets, hardly moving. He could not see her face, but he could smell her, could smell the damp and musky odor they both produced as they held each other, the odor trapped by the blankets. He could hardly believe he was here with her.

“We can take off our clothes,” Aglaia said.

Cale did not move, he did not say a word.

“Cale?”

“Yes.”

“Are you all right?”

He nodded. He helped her out of her jacket, then slowly, gently, he untucked her shirt and pulled it up along her body; she twisted and raised her arms so he could slide it up over her head. He laid it carefully on the mat beside them, then put his arms around her once more, running his hands along her warm smooth skin. His breath caught again, and he thought his heart stopped for a moment. Lost, wonderfully lost.

A cracking and a wavering light stopped him. “What?” she whispered. Bright light washed across his face, someone yelled; crash of footsteps, more shouting. Light danced crazily
all around them.
Move!
Cale told himself, but he held Aglaia more tightly to him. The blankets pulled away, cold air rushing in. Aglaia cried out. More light, lanterns swinging in the darkness, shouts and cursing. Cale released her and tried to rise.

Someone grabbed Cale's arm and yanked him around and he sprawled onto his back, jerking at a grip that would not let him go. Shifting light and shadow and yelling figures all around him. Two more hands grabbed Cale's free arm and then he was being dragged off the mat, across the ground, then spun around and dragged over rocks and branches. He could not see faces. Lantern light flashed inches away, blinding him. “Cale!” Aglaia's voice.

He fought his way to his feet, stood upright for a moment, but they threw him down again. Where was she? What were they doing to her? “Cale!” He pulled and jerked his arms, twisted and kicked without success. He craned his head around, saw Aglaia huddled on her knees with the blankets wrapped around her and her father standing just behind her, both hands holding her firmly in place.

When he realized she was all right, when he realized what was happening, Cale ceased struggling. The men maintained their grip on his arms and he hung between them on his knees.

There were seven or eight men, including Aglaia's father, Dextram, and Walker. No women. Four lanterns on the ground burned steadily now, casting long shadows up into the trees. Aglaia stared at Cale with anguish in her eyes, in her trembling mouth. He saw hatred in the faces of the men around him, hatred cut through with fear and guilt.

The two men holding Cale pulled him up to his feet and
Walker approached with a cudgel in his hand. It occurred to Cale that they might kill him.

Walker jabbed the cudgel into Cale's chest; the cudgel was formed from a thick branch, the blunt end a knot that was twice the size of a man's fist. Walker leaned in close, his breath yeasty and foul. The sweat on his face glistened in the lantern light. He put his cracked lips against Cale's ear and whispered. “He's not going to help you now, that bastard. He can't do a damn thing, nothing this time. You think about that.”

Walker stepped back, spat, then swung the cudgel against Cale's ribs. Cale cried out, twisting violently. The men released him and he dropped to the ground, holding his side. On one hand and knees he backed slowly away from Walker only to be blindsided, kicked in the head, jolting his vision. Then came Walker and the cudgel again, this time driven into his shoulder, collapsing him.

He curled up, pulled his arms in tight against his sides, tried to tuck his head down deep between his knees, his forehead pressed into the dirt. Another kick, something slammed across his back. A slight pause, then they all seemed to join in and soon the blows landed steadily and frequently—boots and cudgels and sticks and fists and rocks. Cale thought he heard Aglaia crying out, pleading with them to stop, but perhaps he just imagined it because that was what he wanted to hear.

The beating stopped. Cale realized that it had actually ended sometime earlier, but he had been so lost in a mental place of refuge, a trancelike state, that he had not noticed.

He did not move. He listened. Yes, they were still there. Labored breathing. Shuffling footsteps. A hacking cough.
Whispering in the trees above him. Aglaia weeping softly.

He hurt everywhere. He could not pinpoint particular areas of pain, and there was a strange numbness laid over it all, but there seemed no longer a distinction between his body and the steady driving ache that coursed through it.

Cale opened his eyes, but still did not move. He was afraid to move, afraid to raise his head. The light wavered about him, laced with shadow; dizzy, he felt he was slowly turning, and the light was rotating around him in the opposite direction. He closed his eyes; the spinning grew worse, and he opened them again. The world steadied—a fragile stability.

With a long, deep, and painful breath, Cale slowly raised his head, fighting against the threatening vertigo. His vision was slightly blurry, shifting in and out of focus. The men surrounded him, but back several paces now, faces almost empty of expression, eyes glazed and hardly seeing him. He raised his head farther, his vision clearing and holding steady, and he marked the lumined branches of the trees capped by dark shadow, tipped his head back until he was staring straight upward through the ring of spiked treetops, at the shining stars glittering brightly and peacefully in the night sky.

“Cale!” Aglaia cried.

He lowered his head and saw Walker stepping forward with the cudgel raised. For a moment he could not move, then Walker swung the cudgel at his face and in that instant Cale turned and ducked and the cudgel smashed into the back of his skull with an explosion of light, and he pitched forward to the earth.

 

When he came to, Cale wasn't sure he was alive. All he could see was diffuse dark gray and brown; and for a few moments he felt no pain.

He lay facedown in the clearing, the taste of dirt in his mouth. As soon as he turned his head, the pain returned, knifing up his neck and driving in and behind his eyes. Cale slowly rolled onto his back, the pain returning all through his body, and stared at the gray sky above him, the treetops swaying gently in a breeze he did not feel. Dawn or dusk? he wondered. Dawn, he hoped.

He sat up, then worked his way to his feet, feeling a sense of accomplishment when he stood. He looked and felt like one resurrected. Dried blood matted the hair on the back of his head, marked his face and hands like crusted birthmarks. He knew his skin was severely bruised under his clothing, and was glad he could not see it. A deep breath brought a sharp, intense pain to his ribs and tears to his eyes.

A few paces away, propped against a chunk of rotting log, was a rucksack. Cale looked at it, then turned away and staggered to the nearest tree. He unbuttoned his trousers and pissed onto the rough bark, fighting nausea and closing his eyes against the pain in his kidneys; he was afraid to look, certain he would see blood in the urine.

He returned to the rucksack and knelt beside it. Strapped to the bottom was an almost new, insulated bedroll; attached to the sides of the rucksack were four empty plastic water flasks. Cale looked through a few of the bulging outer pockets and discovered two firestarters, a ring of barter chits, a small pouch filled with coins, two knives, a hand-fishing kit. Next he inspected the contents of the two main
compartments, searching carefully without unpacking them. There was a cooking kit, cold weather clothes including gloves and a cap, food, and a leather bag with his few personal belongings. There was more, packed well inside, but a complete inventory could wait.