The Rosetta Codex (5 page)

The old woman began to read from her sacred texts. She explained that they were the canonical texts and authoritative commentaries of most of the major religions, and some of the minor or obscure sects. Over the next several days she gave him an overview of the major religions, read texts from each, but although it had become clear to him that she had chosen this solitary existence for religious reasons, she never discussed her own beliefs, and Cale thought it would be rude to ask.

The religious books interested him less than the others she had read, however, and the woman appeared to sense that, because after a few days she abandoned her sacred texts and returned to the other books in the cabin.

She read aloud a book called
Invisible Worlds
, which at first appeared to be a kind of travel guide to other planets, filled with descriptions of exotic and wonderful places; but Cale gradually realized that few, if any, of the worlds described in the book could actually exist. This realization did not diminish his enjoyment of the book, nor dampen his desire to travel to those imaginary places.

One day she acted out the scenes from several dramas, moving about the cabin, gesturing, modulating her voice for each of the different characters. Another day she brought
out several large volumes of art reproductions, and explained painting, sculpture, and other art forms to him as she leafed slowly through the books.

Philosophy. Natural sciences. Sociology, which the anchorite said she read more for amusement than insight, but which Cale found fascinating for the descriptions of large numbers of people living together in cities on different worlds.

Astronomy, cosmology, and physics, all of which were so far beyond his comprehension as to be nearly meaningless.

More novels and stories, which Cale relished most of all.

The anchorite read, and Cale listened.

 

The day he left, the sun was bright and the sky was clear, but the air was still cold with a crisp edge that tightened the skin on his face. The anchorite had presented him with several gifts the night before: a water-testing kit, which she insisted could save his life; packets of dried meat and fruit; a hand light; and a small Bible. “One day you will be able to read it,” she had said. “Until then, it may provide some small measure of protection. For your soul.”

Cale stood at the edge of the rock shelf and studied the snow, which still blanketed the earth, though now with a thinner layer. His rucksack was heavier than when he'd arrived, but seemed lighter. He was ready to leave, though he would miss the old woman and all those books.

He had learned much during his weeks with the anchorite. The biggest change was a new and growing awareness of the world . . . no, not just the world, but an entire universe that existed out there, somewhere, a universe filled
with worlds and cities and people and technologies, beliefs and ways of thinking and views of life that he could not yet truly imagine. The woman's books had provided only glimpses of that universe, but they were enough to instill in him a yearning to explore it. But he wasn't sure he was ready for that yet. For there was also the fitful and incomplete awakening of the memories of his life before the crash, which produced more confusion than anything else.

“Where will you go now?” the woman asked.

Cale turned. She stood in the cabin doorway, watching him. He knew she was both glad and sorry to see him go. “I haven't thought about it, yet.”

“Going west from here you come out of these mountains pretty quickly, not more than four or five days on foot in good weather. But what you get to is wasteland. A barren desert that seems to have no end, at least not one you can see. I don't know that anyone can survive out there for very long.”

“So I've come about as far west as I can.”

“Just about.” She appeared concerned. “This is no place for you, Cale. If you want to live with decent people, go east. Cross the Divide. You don't have to go all the way to Morningstar, but at least get to the other side.”

“I think I'll go west,” he said. “I guess I want to see that endless wasteland first.”

“Why, Cale?”

He shrugged. “It feels important, somehow.”

“And after that?”

“Then I'll make my way east. To the Divide.”

She walked toward him, and suddenly seemed ill at ease. “I will never see you again, Cale.”

“I might come back.”

“No . . . you won't.” She reached out with her hands, took his between her warm and gnarled fingers. “Take care of yourself, Cale. It's a terrible world out there.” For a moment he thought she would step forward to embrace him, but she didn't move, and he sensed her discomfort. He gently squeezed her hands.

“Goodbye,” he said. “Thank you.”

She withdrew her hands, then turned and walked back to the cabin. She stepped inside, and closed the door.

Time to go. Cale turned from the cabin and started down the slope.

For several days on the lower slopes of the western foothills, Cale shadowed a caravan of families. Ponies half the size of Morrigan pulled wheeled carts and wagons while the men and women and older children walked beside the laboring beasts; a few elders and small children rode in the carts, wedged between crates and bundles and furniture and other belongings lashed securely to the vehicles. One old woman cloaked in heavy folds of black cloth rode in a chair mounted high atop a cart near the center of the caravan, like some ancient matriarch guiding the remnants of a once prominent clan. Cale counted thirteen vehicles, close to forty animals, and nearly seventy-five people—a small village on the move.

The narrow road was rutted and muddy, and the animals strained at their harnesses, breath steaming in the cool air as they struggled with their footing on the slick earth. Several times some of the men and women would have to join efforts with the animals, pushing at the carts to free them from deep ruts or heave them up and over a ridge or hump in the road. The old woman lurched from side to side, jolted up and down, but never seemed disturbed by the motion.

In the afternoon of the fourth day, Cale emerged from the trees on a rise above the caravan, and took in his first full view of the barren plains stretching westward. The anchorite's description had not completely prepared him for the utter desolation and vastness of the flatlands that now lay spread before him like the basin of a colorless universe, or one of the anchorite's several versions of Hell.

As he stood regarding that great expanse, however, he began to distinguish colors and features that had at first appeared to be nonexistent—pale rust-colored rocks; pockets of dry, spindly scrub; shallow and shadowed depressions that might once have been stream beds; striated sands of bleached reds and purples; far in the distance, a splotch of color that might have been a small butte; and farther still a crater of indeterminable size. But as the anchorite had said, no sign of hills or mountains as far as he could see—it seemed that this wasteland truly stretched into a strange, lost infinity.

Three days later, the caravan reached the edge of the flatlands, and in the early evening camped at the base of the foothills beside a spring. Cale remained in the brush on the slope above them and watched their fires burn in the night; the drifting smells of cooking food made his cheeks ache.
He chewed on a piece of dried meat and drank cold tea, and reflected on the anchorite's warning that no one could long survive in that wasteland.

In the morning, after an hour spent filling enormous containers from the spring, the caravan set out, headed almost directly west, following their own long shadows across the sands. With no place to hide on that open expanse, Cale knew he would have to reveal himself, or let them go. He hesitated, considering his options, then scrambled down the hillside. He stopped at the spring to refill his water bottles, then stood and watched the departing caravan with a sense of loss. He was certain the anchorite was right, and that out on that desert these people would find only their deaths.

 

He headed east. In the early summer he came upon a deserted town at the edge of a dry lake bed. Sixteen small dwellings built of stone and wood formed an irregular ring around a larger building near the center. Nothing moved, and the silence rose from the town like a warm, dense fog.

Cale squatted on a hillock, looking down on the ruined dwellings. Roofs sagged, broken shutters hung askew from their hinges, chimney rock lay scattered on the ground. He watched for a long time, until midday when the shadows nearly disappeared, then he clambered down the rocky slope and entered the empty town.

Heat shimmered up from the ground, reflected off the walls. Cale blinked the sweat from his eyes. No breeze stirred the air. He did not at first enter any of the dwellings, but circled several of them and searched the shadowed interiors through open doorways and windows. He coughed at
the smell of rancid dust, a harsh grit he kicked up with each footstep.

Three of his water flasks were empty, but there was no sign of a well anywhere in the town. Although he had little hope of finding water inside any of the dwellings, he dug the hand light out of his rucksack, squeezed the beam on, and entered one of the small buildings.

There was only one room; the air was dry but heavy and stifling, as if there had been no circulation inside since the town had been abandoned. Bright motes of dust hung almost motionless in the light. Scraps of faded, curled paper hung on one wall, flanked by two chains of oxidized metal.

In the corner farthest from the doorway lay a human skeleton, the bones discolored by bits of dark and desiccated muscle or sinew. The hands and arms were folded across one another atop the figure's chest, as if the inhabitant had died peacefully, but its skull had been crushed in by a huge mallet that still lay nestled within the shattered bones.

Once outside, he breathed freely again. He looked into a few of the other buildings, saw pieces of broken furniture, scattered bones, two more nearly complete skeletons, and the smaller skeleton of a six-legged animal. He saw no signs of food or water, but even if he had he would not have dared to eat or drink.

Cale approached the larger central building and studied it. There were a number of large windows on either side of its length, and two open doorways at one end. Sunlight slanted in through two holes in the roof, irregular beams that illuminated rotting benches and a pedestal tipped onto its side. He set the rucksack on the ground, then stepped through the doorway.

The wooden floor was surprisingly firm beneath him, more solid than any of the other wood he had seen in this town. His footsteps were loud but did not echo as he expected. He righted the pedestal; set into the top surface was a wide metal bowl. When he looked up, the sun shone through a ragged hole in the roof and directly into his face. Cale moved on.

He worked his way among the rotting benches, stepping over broken candles, pieces of colored glass, a black leather shoe. For some reason he was reminded of pictures of church sanctuaries the anchorite had shown him. At the far end of the room, the floor stepped up twice and he stopped before a long stone structure that might have been an altar. A strip of rich, deeply colored fabric lay across the stone, dark purple and indigo patterns lined in bloodred, the ends weighted with brass cubes. He stared at the fabric, and gradually made out the image of a woman holding up clasped hands in prayer.

The high stone wall behind the altar was etched with strange, alien glyphs unlike anything he had ever seen. The anchorite had shown Cale several alphabets, including the odd letters she had said were Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and Cyrillic, as well as the Asian ideographic systems, but nothing in any of her books had even vaguely resembled these figures. He was reminded of the tracks of terratorns, and patterned blades of grass. Standing before the wall, he felt a power in the glyphs, as though the words they formed, when spoken, could conjure up the dead.

When he finally turned away from the wall, he froze as he saw for the first time a large painting at the other end of the building, above the front doorway. The painting depicted
a tall, massive armored figure emerging from the impenetrable darkness of a cave mouth surrounded by a star-filled night sky. Shining silver spines bristled from the arms and legs of the blue-black armor, gleaming in the starlight. Most of the head was obscured by the cave's shadows, but a strip of reflected light illuminated the lower half of the face—where there should have been a mouth there was only smooth pale skin. Cale glanced back at the wall of glyphs, then looked back at the painting, sensing some kind of invisible connection between the two.

He hiked out of the deserted town and onto the dry, gently sloping lake bed. Large splotches of tiny white crystals spread across the bottom of the dry lake like diseased skin; each step left a distinct footprint, but he saw no tracks other than his own. He passed small white bones and the bleached ruins of old boats. In the distance, storm clouds darkened the sky above the nearest foothills.

There was a small, shallow pool at the center of the lake bed, surrounded by a few clumps of reeds and several short, scraggly berry shrubs. Day-bats looked up at him from across the pool, green fleshy wings shivering; they hopped back fluttering from the water's edge, but did not take flight.

Cale knelt beside the pool and filled the water tester, then added the drops from the two small bottles. The water in the tester column remained clear. He filled his flasks, then drank deeply from the pool.

He considered staying the night by the pool, but when he looked up at the sky again, the storm clouds were nearer and he could see the slanted wall of dark rain descending from them. The clouds roiled with the winds, and a breeze
picked up around the pool, bending the reeds. The day-bats squawked and rose with a frenzied flapping of wings and flew off toward the deserted town. Although he did not welcome the thought of spending the night in one of those buildings, Cale decided he had better go back.

By the time he reached the town, a colder gusting wind swirled dust and dirt up from the earth, and he could feel the storm at his back. He put the rucksack inside the large central building then went back outside to secure it as well as he could against the storm. He was able to cover many of the windows with cracked or broken shutters, but he could close up only one of the two doorways, and there was nothing he could do about the holes in the roof.

Minutes later the storm hit the town with a tremendous downpour and bursts of lightning and thunder. Cale cleared an area in the front corner of the building, on the side with the closed door and away from the two ceiling holes, and set up camp for the night. He assembled the stove and cooked up a stew with the last of the smoked meat from a lame buckbaby he had killed a few days earlier. While the stew simmered, he went to one of the open windows and watched the storm.

The sky had darkened further, but Cale could not tell if that was from a worsening of the storm, or night beginning to fall. When lightning flashed, the dwellings of the town seemed to momentarily come to life, lit somehow in those moments from within as well as from without, sharpening their shadows, which now seemed to move.

Watching the rain and the mud sluicing between the buildings, Cale was reminded of the day he had first seen Blackburn riding atop Morrigan through the downpour and
into the village. He thought about Aglaia, and the way he had watched for her each day, hoping to catch her eye, not suspecting how badly that all would end.

A flash of lightning lit up a drenched and ragged figure stumbling among the dwellings. When the light faded, Cale could still make out the figure, though now as a dim shadow moving among other motionless shadows. The figure disappeared, either behind or into one of the dwellings, then reappeared running and splashing through mud, headed toward him.

Cale retreated into the corner, shut down the stove, then pulled the larger hunting knife from his rucksack and crouched behind one of the rotting benches. The figure staggered through the doorway and stood dripping and breathing heavily just inside the building. As he shook himself and stamped his boots, another flash of lightning illuminated his face, which glistened with moisture. Ropes of hair hung from beneath the man's hat, and a long thick moustache framed his open mouth and prominent jaw. He wore a knee-length slick plastic poncho that dripped water steadily onto the wood floor.

In darkness again, the man stood almost motionless, his head turning slowly from side to side. There was just enough light for Cale to make out his outline, his movements, his eyes. The man sniffed once, then twice more long and deep.

“Somebody's here,” the man said. His voice was dry and cracked. “I smell food. Good eats, yeah?” Then he slowly lowered himself into a crouch not unlike Cale's.

A long wordless time passed, the rain producing the only sounds: splashing the mud, clattering on the roof tiles, and
spraying through the holes in the roof and onto the floor.

“Not going to hurt no one,” the man said. “Just need a dry place to sleep. Wouldn't mind some of that food, though. Haven't eaten too much for a while, yeah. Got no weapons, just my knife, that's all.”

Another long silence passed. The man put his hands on the floor, then shifted from the crouch into a sitting position.

“Not going nowhere,” he said. “Too damn wet and dark out there, and those other buildings are too damn spooky. Just take my chances in here.” He removed his hat, hit it twice against the pedestal. “Not giving up my knife, either. I'm not stupid.” Then he gazed slowly around the long room. “Maybe no one's here, maybe they cooked their food and ate and then left and I'm all alone.” Cale thought he saw the man smile and shake his head. “Don't think so, though.”

Either way, Cale thought, he wasn't going to get much sleep tonight. He got to his feet and he must have made a noise because the man turned toward him.

“Somebody there, yeah?” the man said.

“I am,” Cale said.

“You going to kill me?”

“No.”

“How many are you?”

“One,” Cale replied. “But one's enough.”

“Meant what I said,” the man assured him. “Don't wanna hurt anyone. Don't wanna
be
hurt.” He stood. “Could use some food, though, if you got any to spare.”

“I guess I do,” Cale told him.