The Rosetta Codex (8 page)

“You carry the stone.”

The imbecile cried out, arched his back with arms thrown out to the side, then collapsed and huddled against the ground, eyes closed.

Aliazar turned to Cale. “He's finished.”

 

When Cale woke the next morning, Aliazar and his brother were gone. Bewildered, he wondered briefly if he had imagined them. The tree was a blackened, skeletal ruin, gray smoke rising into the pale blue sky; wheel ruts in the dried mud curved away from the tree and headed north. He felt drugged, and guessed that Aliazar had put some narcotic in his wine. He sat before the smoldering tree, still disturbed by the imbecile's vision.

Cale wondered if anyone could truly see the future. It seemed unlikely. Glimpses, perhaps. A
possible
future, maybe. He could not believe that the future was completely predetermined. Some of the anchorite's religious writers seemed to believe in such a future, but just as many did not, so it appeared to be an open question. For himself, he did not see much purpose in pressing on with life if everything was predetermined.

Still, the imbecile's words, the intensity of his voice, were impossible to ignore. Cale would not forget those visions; he did not
want
to forget them. He felt they had some connection to this world, if not the future itself. He thought he could use them as guideposts or warnings. Something to keep him focused and cautious, and help him through all the unknowns that lay ahead.

He rose to his feet and surveyed the land around him. No one in sight, no signs of human life anywhere except a scattered cloud of dust far to the north, the wake of Aliazar and Harlock's passage. Alone again, but Cale was glad they were gone.

The village was laid out along the western bank of the river, about forty small dwellings that appeared to be well-constructed and well-maintained. Nearby were several large, cultivated plots striped or otherwise patterned with various shades of green and yellow. From his vantage point in the foothills, Cale watched distant figures moving about the village and plots. There was a safe, comfortable feel to the place, but he was wary—he would observe for at least two days, maybe three, before approaching.

Early in the afternoon, Cale nodded off in the heat, fragments of a dream trying to gain hold. A noise intruded, shattering the dream, and he jerked fully awake, scrambling to his feet while at the same time trying to identify the
sound he'd heard. He froze, staring at a young woman who stood a few feet away with a weapon trained on him. The weapon looked like a tiny bow rigged to a hand-held apparatus with a small arrow poised to be fired from it.

The woman seemed to relax slightly. “You're younger than I thought,” she said.

Cale didn't move, and he didn't say anything. He didn't think she was much older than he was. The woman lowered her weapon, and a hint of smile worked into her mouth.

“You've been up here all day,” she said. “Alone. What are you looking for?”

“Just watching,” Cale replied. “To see if it was safe.”

She nodded as if what he said made perfect sense. “Not planning to attack us, then?” A bit more of a smile, now.

“No,” Cale said.

“Good, then,” she replied. “Let's eat.”

From a pack she'd stashed partway down the hill, she produced a variety of foods, more than enough for both of them, and refused to let him share any of his. Her name was Lammia Sarko, and she was taking her turn as one of the village sentries. Although slightly shorter than Cale, she was strong and lean and he was certain she could overpower him even without her weapon. They ate, drank some diluted wine, and sat looking out on the village as the sun rose hot and bright above them. Lammia was talkative, and Cale was content to listen.

She explained to him that the village was a community of political dissidents. They had been sentenced across the Divide, not for criminal acts, though most of them had committed their share of civil disobedience, but for their political activities. Like most of those in the village, her
parents were both Resurrectionists, and had been exiled here more than thirty years earlier. Lammia had been born here.

“What are Resurrectionists?” Cale asked.

“You don't know about them?”

Cale shook his head.

“The Resurrectionists are trying to unearth and restore the remains of an alien civilization that used to live here on Conrad's World, long before we arrived. Morningstar is actually built on top of the ruins. Some people think the first people here wiped out the aliens and destroyed their city, then built Morningstar over it to hide all traces of them, though my parents don't think that's very likely. The Resurrectionists just want to learn what the aliens were like, and maybe learn what happened to them.”

Cale thought about the desert village and the wall of glyphs, and the book now buried with Sproul. “Why do you need to post sentries?” he asked.

“We work hard to make a decent life here. Most of the people on this side of the Divide don't give a damn about decent life, and would be happy to just take everything we've got, everything we've worked for.”

“Then why are you telling me all this? Maybe
I'm
here to steal from you.”

“I don't think so,” she said. “I'm a fairly good judge of people. I think you're just looking for a place to live. I think you'd like a community of your own, a place to call home.”

Maybe so, Cale thought, but it wasn't that simple. “I'm headed for the Divide,” he told her.

“You can cross?” she asked.

“I think so.”

She nodded wistfully. “I'd like to be able to go with you.
Morningstar's a terrible place in many ways, but this . . .” She gestured expansively at the village and the valley. “This is just existing. I'd like to join the Resurrectionists, like my parents. I'd like to bring my parents back, and we could all be with the Resurrectionists.” She stopped and sighed. “But none of us will ever go back.”

A distant, muted horn sounded. Lammia turned and looked to the north, brows furrowing. The horn sounded again. She turned back to Cale, studied his face, then shook her head. “Not you,” she said. “You don't know what this is, do you?”

Confused, he had no response for her. The horn sounded a third time, and now they both looked in its direction. At the far end of the valley, a group of twenty or twenty-five riders on ponies emerged from the trees and bore down on the village.

“No . . .” Lammia moaned, drawing it out as she got to her feet. She ran down the slope toward the village.

The villagers out in the cultivated plots hurried back to the town, while those already there ducked into buildings to retrieve weapons, then gathered behind the barriers at the northern end of the village. Lammia was already halfway to the village by the time Cale started hesitantly down the slope after her.

The riders neared the village, shouting now, arms raised and holding weapons Cale had never seen before. Trailing them was a single rider on a much larger animal, the rider dressed in a greatcoat and wide-brimmed hat—Blackburn. He appeared to be more observer than participant, riding steadily toward the village but in no hurry.

Arrows flew toward the riders, and smaller bolts from
crossbows like the woman's. The riders responded with several bursts of small explosions and crackling sounds, accompanied by puffs of smoke and arcs of colored light not unlike the lightnings that had snapped across the surface of the marsh. A crossbow bolt pierced the neck of one of the riders and he pitched from his mount. A thump shook the air, followed by a much larger explosion and screams as a section of the village barrier burst apart and two bodies flew backward.

Six riders split off from the main group and skirted the village to the west, cutting down two of the villagers who were still on their way in from the fields. Then they swung around and approached the village from the south, where there were no defenders. They rode unimpeded into the village, and moments later two of the huts had burst into flames.

Cale reached the bottom of the slope, and could no longer make out what was happening. He saw flames rising from the village, black smoke and the blurred motion of ponies and riders and men and women running frantically; he heard shouts and popping explosions, more screams and loud cracks, pounding hoofbeats and whistling, and a terrible inhuman wailing sound that came from one of the riders' weapons. He stopped at the foot of the hill, afraid, gazing with stupefaction through the billowing smoke and swirling ash.

Off to the west, away from the fighting, Blackburn sat on the drayver and regarded the scene before him. Without thinking, Cale threw his rucksack to the ground and ran toward man and beast. He was barely aware of his surroundings. His attention was on the figure of Blackburn ahead of him, Blackburn atop Morrigan, Blackburn who now turned toward the person running at him, raised a weapon, and aimed.

Cale kept running without pause or hesitation, because he did not know what else to do. Blackburn must have recognized him, for he lowered the weapon and waited.

Breathing heavily, Cale staggered to a stop just a few paces away. The big man looked down at him and smiled. “It's you.”

“Stop them!” Cale shouted, his voice hoarse and dry. “Stop them!”

“I can't.”

“They're slaughtering them!” Wheezing, doubled over with pain in his side.

“There's nothing I can do.”

Cale turned back toward the village and dropped to his knees. He did not want to see, but he could not avert his gaze. Most of the dwellings were now ablaze, and the smoke was thick and black. Streaks of red and golden fire lanced through the smoke, and a fountain of emerald sparks shot up out of the village, climbed in several directions at once, then showered down and faded. Much of the activity was so chaotic and obscured by smoke that he couldn't make out visual details, but the sounds were distinct and horrifying—the pounding of the ponies' hooves, so intense at times it seemed as though an entire herd of them, sixty or seventy or more, raced through the village; the screams of terror and pain from people and animals, tearing through the air; the crackling of burning wood, and the crashes of roofs and walls collapsing; and the popping explosions of gunfire. Then, slicing through the pervasive odor of charred wood, came the smell of burning flesh and blood.

As if to confirm this perception, one of the villagers staggered out of the smoke, his left arm hacked or blown off at
the elbow, blood pumping from the ragged stump and splattering across the earth. The man stumbled, righted himself for a moment, took one more step, then pitched forward and lay still.

The fighting gradually wound down. The screams abated, the gunfire became sporadic, and the terrible wailing of the mysterious weapon subsided until it silenced altogether. The riders now moved deliberately through the smoke and burning buildings. Cale saw no signs of the villagers except for the obscured forms of bodies sprawled on the ground.

One of the attackers emerged from the village and rode toward Blackburn and Cale. When he reached them, he thrust his bearded chin toward Cale and spoke to Blackburn in a language completely unfamiliar to Cale. Blackburn replied in the same tongue, and the two men spoke back and forth. Eventually the man turned his pony and rode back to the village.

“It's over,” Blackburn said. “They won't harm you.”

Cale got to his feet and started toward the village.

“You don't need to see all that,” Blackburn said. “Wait here, we'll make camp later.”

Cale ignored him and walked on.

The stench was terrible; Cale could not identify all the acrid smells, nor did he want to know what they were. The first body he saw was the man who had staggered into view missing part of his arm. The blood pooled thick and dark beside the body, already aswarm with fat black flies. Farther on, the barely recognizable detached limb lay crushed and broken in a clump of blood-soaked grasses.

He wandered through the burning village like a lost and troubled amnesiac. The dead lay everywhere, a few partially
inside buildings that still burned, the flesh blackening. Sound faded away, as if coming from a great distance, replaced by a ringing in his ears. Cale felt sick and weak, and his eyes stung from the smoke.

Most of the attackers were on foot now, looting the dead and those buildings that had not yet been set afire. They either ignored Cale or grinned at him, pointing and making gestures he could not interpret but which he felt certain were obscene. They all appeared somehow inhuman.

He found Lammia at the river's edge, face up with one arm and leg in the river; blood colored the water with dissipating swirls of red. Most of her chest had been blown open. Her dead wide eyes surprisingly held neither judgment nor condemnation. Cale knelt beside her and gently tried to close those eyes, but the lids would not stay shut—her eyes remained open in silent witness to all that had occurred.

 

After recovering his rucksack, Cale hiked upstream and made camp beside the river. The village continued to glow orange and red in the dark gray light of dusk, and occasionally new flames would come to life, springing up from the embers to consume some stray piece of wood. The attackers had set up their own camp on the outskirts of the wasted village, gathering around two large fires to eat and drink; their laughter carried across the night air, and Cale wished he had gone even farther upstream.

He sat before his own fire, numb and unable to eat, and wondered if he would be able to sleep. He wasn't sure he
wanted
to sleep, afraid of the nightmares certain to visit.

Blackburn appeared on foot after dark had completely
fallen, leading a saddled pony by a set of reins. “Can I join you?”

Cale didn't look up from the fire. “Seems to me you can do just about anything you want to do, except stop a massacre. Unless maybe you were actually directing it yourself.”

“It had nothing to do with me,” Blackburn said.

Cale looked at him, started to say something, then shut his mouth and shook his head.

“I'll go if you want me to,” Blackburn said.

“I don't care.”

Blackburn tied the reins to a bush just back from the fire, then sat across from Cale. “I'm surprised to see you still on this side of the Divide,” he said. When Cale didn't reply, he went on. “The pony's for you. They lost a few men, and have a couple of extras. She's a good mount. You're not that far from the Divide now, but the first bridge is a long way to the south. With the pony, you can get there in a matter of days rather than weeks.”

“You didn't even try to stop them,” Cale said.

“How could I?” Blackburn replied. “One man against all of them. They would have killed me, too.”

“I doubt that. They seemed to come to you for counsel.”