The Rosetta Codex (2 page)

They came across the water at night. There was no moon, but the sky was cold and clear and the stars were bright slivers of shining ice. The strangers came in four boats, six to each, and they rowed as quietly as possible; oars dipped gently into the cold black water, pulled deep and through, then carefully rose and swung forward, water dripping invisibly, almost silently from the dull wide blades.

Shivering, the boy watched from the shelter of rocks. He wanted to warn them, but he was afraid of what Petros and the others would do to him. They had beaten him regularly over the years—because he had no father to do it, they said, no mother to scold him or slap his face. He worked hard for them, did whatever he was told, but it never seemed to be enough.

The boats were headed for the short, narrow strip of sandy beach. The boy crouched out on a spit of land that jutted into the lake, a clutter of rocks and driftwood and dead grasses. The boats would have to pass by on their approach to the beach. He could hear the creak of wood, the faintest splash of water, and he could see shards of starlight reflecting from metal and shining eyes.

The boy was tall for his age—thirteen or fourteen, no one knew for sure—and lanky. He crouched lower behind a large rock. The first boat slid past, so close he could have jumped into it. He counted the people—two rowing and facing backward, four staring fixedly forward—and looked for weapons, but the floor of the boat was too dark. It didn't matter. It wouldn't be enough for what they were about to encounter.

The second and third boats passed, then the fourth. So quiet. Tiny splashes and flashes in the black of the water. Their stealth was futile.

The first boat slowed as it neared the beach and the rowers pulled in their oars as wood hulls scraped against sand and gravel. Moments later the beach lit up with a burst of flames.

Petros and the others had ignited a string of fires just back from the water's edge, wood coated with oils and resins. Orange and scarlet flames roared and cracked and spit into the night sky like some great malevolent beast. Unable to stop in time, the second and third boats landed on the beach beside the first as a volley of flaming arrows shot between the fires, across the open sand and into the midst of the attackers. Some of the arrows missed their targets completely or deflected away and fell into the water
with loud hissing, but others dug deeply into the wood or clattered still aflame inside the boats.

One arrow plunged into the back of an oarsman. He lurched forward in stupefied amazement, then jerked back with a harsh cry, the arrow tail lodging in the boat as he fell, the head driving up and through him until the shaft broke apart as he rolled onto his side and dropped from view.

The boy remained motionless on the point, huddled in a coarse blanket, watching, listening to the screams that tore the night. More arrows flew, now accompanied by shouts and burning spears and flaming, oil-filled glass vessels that burst on impact and spread thin sheets of blue and orange flames, engulfing the boats.

The fourth boat had managed to stop just before beaching, and now moved slowly in reverse, the rowers frantically and awkwardly shifting direction, pushing the oars instead of pulling, struggling against the resistance met by the flat stern.
Go,
the boy thought at them.
Go!

The people in the first boats scrambled for weapons, for clubs and blades, long staffs and bolas, stumbling into each other, unbalanced, panicked and confused. Leaping and howling, Petros and the other men rushed through the gaps between the fires and attacked with spears and knives and cudgels. Blades bit deep into flesh; knotted wood cut the air and crushed bones. The beach became an inferno of smoke and screams and flames and blood, the bitter stench of burning flesh, and cries of victory; rising above it, strings of burning embers climbed toward the sky like the dying swarms of lantern bugs in the late summer nights. Sickened, the boy turned away.

But he watched the one boat that might still escape.
A small fire burned in it, but was quickly extinguished. When they were several boat lengths away from the beach, the oarsmen, now composed and synchronized, dug in on one side, turning the boat around, then began pulling desperately with the oars. Several more flaming arrows launched toward them, but only one made contact, and it bounced harmlessly off the side of the boat and into the water.

The boy's decision was almost unconscious. As the boat neared the spit of land, he stood upright, shrugged off the blanket, clambered onto the rock, and dove into the lake. The cold stunned him for a moment, and he slid through the water like a slowly sinking statue. He opened his eyes, but was as good as blind. For several long moments he did nothing, nearly accepting the bottom of the lake as his final destination. He had no will, no desire, no sense of loss. Then some spark of life returned and he recovered; he pulled with his arms and kicked with his legs, and swam awkwardly for the surface.

His boots filled with water. One at a time he kicked them from his feet. Finally he began to rise through the cold and dark. A driving ache in his chest, strange inner glistenings of silver in his vision. His arms and legs felt dead and useless, but he managed movement, upward progress until at last he broke the surface.

Water came with his first breath, choking him. For a moment he couldn't see the boat, and he was afraid it had already passed him by. Then he heard a splash, turned his head, and saw it no more than fifteen feet away; but it was moving quickly now. He swam toward a point ahead of it, and in ten strokes he was within reach.

The boy kicked hard, rising slightly out of the water, and
grabbed the side of the boat with one hand. The boat's momentum continued, dragging him through the water, straining his arm and shoulder. He pulled himself up enough to get a grip with the other hand and cried out. “Help me!”

The help he received was an oar cracked across his hands, then again across his skull. He fought the instinct to let go, his vision shifting slightly.

“Help me!” he cried again.

The oar came down hard on his left hand and he released its grip, but held on with his right. His face smashed against the wet dark wood, the fingers of his left hand scrabbled for purchase somewhere, anywhere.

“Wait!” a voice whispered forcefully from inside the boat. “He's just a boy!”

The boy couldn't see anything but darkness; he craned his head around, tried to look above him, saw something like moving shadows.

“I don't care what he is.” A deep, scared voice of a man. “He's one of them and they're slaughtering us back there.”

You would have slaughtered them first if you'd had the chance,
the boy thought. “No,” he choked out, “I'm not one of them.”

The boat had slowed, and now there was almost no forward movement; it rocked slightly with the shifting of people and water.

“Pull him in or bash his skull,” a third voice said. “I don't care. But do it quick, whatever you do. We have to get the hell out of here.”

“Please,” the boy cried desperately. “Take me with you.”

“He's just a boy,” the first voice repeated.

He didn't know which way it would go. His fingers were numb and started to slip.

Then the boy felt a large hand grip his forearm, and he was pulled up and out of the water, the boat tipping as he was dragged in over the side. He scrambled the rest of the way into the boat and sprawled face up in the bottom, his breath ragged. The cold bright stars in the sky and the face of a woman looked down at him. He began to shiver violently. The oars creaked and dipped into the water, pulling, and the boat slowly picked up speed.

No one spoke for a long time. The sounds of the slaughter receded until he heard nothing but harsh grunts, muttered curses, the steady splash of water. Still on the bottom of the boat, unable to move, he sensed they were safe.

“What's your name?” the woman asked.

His mind tried to work through the cold and the shivering. Petros and the others had given him a name, and they had called him other things; but he had always kept his own name deep inside his heart. Now it was there for him to take on again, and he brought it forth.

“Cale.”

The woman nodded. “That's a good name.” She laid a blanket over him, tucked it in tight. “A strong name.”

He didn't feel strong. He felt very weak. But he was escaping, and he had his name back. The stars seemed even brighter now above him, shimmering in the black sky. Eyes of the night, someone had once told him. Cale closed his own eyes, and soon he was dreaming.

Rain had been falling for days and the village roads ran with rust-colored mud. Cale sat at the window of his room watching the downpour in the gray afternoon light; mud and water flowed and swirled through ruts and sinkholes, over river rock and crushed gravel, streaming toward the lower end of the village. He was grateful for the respite from work that the storms provided. It had been almost three years since the night he dove into the water and convinced the fleeing attackers to take him with them, and six months since he'd arrived at this village. He no longer suffered the beatings and abuse that Petros and the others had inflicted, but the villagers worked him hard, and until the rain had
come he had been perpetually exhausted. Scraping, sanding, and painting boat hulls; cleaning crustaceans and shellfish by the hundreds; digging pits for new latrines; hauling rocks from the dry riverbed an hour away and then working them into the roadways. Blisters, scrapes, and cuts; sore muscles, aching spine, and burning eyes.

He looked across the road and up several huts, hoping to catch a glimpse of Aglaia. Pale yellow candlelight flickered in her bedroom window, then steadied. Shadows moved, and a dark shape filled the window for a moment, then she put her head out into the rain and looked at him. Before, he would have pulled back, but now he didn't move and they stared openly and frankly at one another. She was older than he was, but that no longer intimidated him. Her hair was long and dark, almost black; her eyes were large, and as dark as her hair. Cale thought she was beautiful. Although they had been watching each other for weeks, exchanging furtive glances, or more rarely the long mutual appraisals such as this, they had never spoken—the villagers kept him away from the older girls, the younger women.

A sound broke through the pouring rain, a kind of sucking and splashing. Cale turned to see a man straddling the back of an enormous four-legged animal, riding steadily up the muddy road and into the village. The man was clean-shaven and wore a wide-brimmed hat and a long, shiny black greatcoat that repelled the rain so intensely that it seemed to leap away from him. Several bulging leather satchels hung across the animal both behind and in front of the saddle. Surefooted despite the slick and uneven ground, the great beast marched with its maned head held high, as if proud of both itself and its rider. As the man rode past, he
turned and looked at Cale, raised his hat in greeting—revealing a large, glistening shaved head—and rode on.

Aglaia was no longer in sight, the candle extinguished, the window dark and empty. Man and beast rode steadily through the village, then pulled up just before they reached the last of the dwellings. The man glanced to the left, turned the animal, and they disappeared between two huts. Cale remained at the window a long time, but the rider did not reappear.

 

Storms pounded them nonstop for three more days. No one mentioned the man until Cale asked. Marta, the woman who provided his room and meals, said only that the man's name was Blackburn and that he was staying with Dextram, the village headman. Marta's brother, a bitter and unhealthy man called Walker, whose hair periodically fell in patches from his scalp, scowled at her and said, “Not another damn word.”

On the fourth day after the man arrived, the rain let up and there was regular work again. Cale spent the morning down at the lakeshore, cleaning, scraping, and sorting split blade-clam shells in a light drizzle. Faint vibrations in the ground beneath him. Regular beats. Cale looked up to see the man approaching atop the great maned beast. He still wore the wide-brimmed hat, the black greatcoat that reached his calves. The animal's massive, metal-shod hooves kicked up mud with each step, and its head shook and whipped the reins, which Blackburn held loosely in his hand.

He kicked loose a stirrup extension and dismounted; he seemed small next to the animal, the top of his hat only
reaching midneck. He looped the reins around the branch of a dead, fire-scarred log and came forward. Cale rocked back on his haunches, bloody hands resting on his knees, and looked up at the man.

“Rough work,” the man said.

Cale shrugged, rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. Now that the man was on foot and away from the huge animal, Cale could see that he was tall, though his build was obscured within the folds of the coat, and his skin was weathered. The man sat on a tree stump; water dripped from the brim of his hat. Cale thought he smelled tobacco smoke.

“You weren't here the last time I came through,” the man said. “They tell me you've been here less than half a year.” When Cale did not respond, the man said, “They tell me your name is Cale.”

“What's
yours
?” Although he knew.

“Blackburn.
Is
your name Cale?”

Cale hesitated, then reluctantly nodded.

“What's your surname?” Blackburn asked.

Cale shook his head.

“Can't remember, or don't have one?”
Or won't tell me?
was the question unsaid but understood by both of them.

“Don't know,” Cale said. The drizzle had washed away most of the blood, but he still felt a sting in the thin slices across his fingers and palms. Walker, Marta's brother, stood on the crest of a low dune back from the water's edge, wet stringy hair whipped by the wind; he stared at Cale with his permanent scowl. “I need to get back to work,” Cale said.

Blackburn turned and looked at Walker. “It's all right. No one will object if you're talking to me.”

“Until you're gone, maybe.”

“No, not even then. Because they know I'll be back.” He returned his attention to Cale. “I understand your people live on the other side of the lake. That you left them a few years ago.”

“They weren't my people.”

“No?”

“No.” Cale stopped, but Blackburn gazed intently at him, waiting to hear an explanation. There was something about the man, the way he listened and watched, that invoked in Cale the desire to tell him anything he wanted to know. Cale fought against that urge, determined to reveal as little as possible.

“They found me,” Cale said. “When I was young.”

Blackburn smiled. “You're young now.”

“Very young,” Cale replied.

“Found you where?”

Cale shrugged. “Lost. Up on Glass Mesa.”

“What were you doing up on Glass Mesa?”

“I don't know. I don't remember. I was hurt.” He almost said he had been in a crash of some kind, but he managed to hold back.

Blackburn glanced at Cale's forehead. “I saw the scars. I assumed they were more recent.”

“The only recent scars are on my back,” Cale said without thinking.

“Do they beat you?” Blackburn asked. “Flog you?”

“No, not here.” He wished he hadn't said anything. “Where I was before.”

“Ahh, that's why you fled.” Blackburn sighed heavily. “They may not beat you, but you aren't treated much better here.”

Cale didn't reply. What could he say?

“You are little more than a slave.”

Cale vaguely understood the word, though he wasn't sure why, or where he had heard it before.

“That's all you'll ever be if you stay,” Blackburn added.

That was probably true, Cale thought. But he did not see that there was anything he could do about it. He leaned forward and reached into the sack of shells he had already scraped clean, then withdrew a handful. He sorted through them, checking for size and shape, tossing a few into the crate on his left, the others into the one on his right.

Blackburn got to his feet, shaking the water from his coat and hat. He looked out over the lake and up into the low gray clouds overhead, then returned to the large animal and unlooped the reins. He led the beast a few steps closer to Cale, who scrambled to his feet as the two approached; the animal towered over him and seemed to grow with each stride. Blackburn pulled up a few paces away, but even so, Cale could feel the steam from the animal's breath.

“Don't be afraid,” Blackburn said. “She won't hurt you.” He grinned. “Not unless I give her the command. Then she would tear you to pieces. She could stamp you to death, then rip out your throat just for pleasure.”

“That's supposed to reassure me?”

Blackburn chuckled. “She's a wonderful animal. Have you ever seen a drayver before?”

Cale shook his head.

“Ever seen an Earth horse? A picture of one, I mean.”

Again Cale shook his head.

“A drayver is larger and meaner, but it's about half horse. They used the genetic sequence of Earth horses and combined
it with a wild animal that's native to this world, and this is what they ended up with. A magnificent creature. Mostly what you see here on Conrad's World are those small, scrawny creatures they call ponies, but they're really only half-assed horses. Failed experiments, I think, but far more numerous. Drayvers are twice their size, and a lot better adapted to this planet than the damn ponies.” Cale knew what the ponies were—traders often rode them or used them to pull their wagons—but other than that he had no idea what Blackburn was talking about. Blackburn ran his hand firmly along the drayver's neck, tugging at its long coarse mane. The drayver bowed her head and nuzzled Blackburn's face, breath steaming; when she pulled back, his cheek was shiny with saliva, which he gently wiped away. “Her name is Morrigan,” Blackburn said. “Come closer, she likes to meet new people.”

Cale hesitated, then took a couple of steps. He was still frightened, but he did not want Blackburn to know. “Morrigan?” he said.

Blackburn nodded. “It's an old Earth name. Means something like ‘Queen of the Demons.' Which she surely is when she gets angry. Rub her neck, she likes that.”

Cale reached out tentatively; he had to stretch his arm to run his hand along her neck. The thick coat was softer than he had imagined, the muscle beneath it warm but firm, twitching at the contact. She lowered her head, nudged his brow, then nibbled at his hair. The drayver's breath was hot and moist and almost sweet, a strangely comforting smell.

Morrigan snorted and stamped her hoof, and Cale stepped back. He eyed the drayver, but when she made no other threatening movements, he turned back to Blackburn.

“What's the mystery about you?” Cale asked.

“What do you mean?”

“No one wants to talk about you. No one wants to tell me why you're here or how long. But I've seen people going into Dextram's house to see you.” He hesitated. “They go, but . . . but they don't like you.”

Blackburn smiled faintly. “No, they don't. They don't like me, but they would be extremely unhappy if I left right now, or if I never returned.”

“Why?”

“I have things they want. Things they need.”

“What things?” Cale asked.

But Blackburn just shook his head again. “You don't need to know about that. You'll have plenty of time in your life to discover the more depraved aspects of human character. No need to hurry it.” He glanced at Walker, then turned back to Cale. “We'll talk again,” he said.

Cale nodded, but said nothing. He watched Blackburn walk away then purposefully climb the dune and stop at Walker's side, Morrigan snorting and tossing her head. Blackburn leaned close to Walker, and his lips moved. Walker's left eye twitched, but he did not otherwise respond. Blackburn nodded once, then walked on, descended the far side of the dune, and disappeared. Walker remained atop the low dune for a few moments, glaring at Cale, then he, too, turned and walked away. Cale reached for another handful of shells.

 

Three nights later, just after supper, Blackburn stopped by the hut and asked Cale to accompany him to the village tavern. Cale declined, but Blackburn insisted, grinning at
Marta and Walker. “The boy needs to break loose once in a while,” he said. Neither Marta nor Walker returned the smile or otherwise responded.

Outside, the air was crisp and clear and the stars shone bright and crystalline above them. Cale sealed up his coat and stuffed his fists into the pockets.

“A beautiful night,” Blackburn said. “Autumn is firmly arrived, and winter approaches.” He sighed. “It's going to be a terrible winter.”

“How do you know?”

“I've seen the omens,” Blackburn replied with a smile that quickly faded. “They bode ill. It will be terrible and cold, and violent storms will batter the land.”

As they passed Aglaia's home, Cale glanced at her window, but it was dark, the cloth panels drawn. He realized he had not seen her since Blackburn's arrival.

“What do you do during the winter?” he asked. “Keep traveling?”

“As long as I can,” Blackburn answered. “But when the worst storms arrive, no one should be unsheltered. I have several places to go. Depends on where I am and what sort of company I want for weeks on end.”

At the far end of the village stood the tavern, a stone building with two massive hearths; smoke rose from both chimneys. Orange light flickered in the low windows. Cale had been inside only once, soon after he had come to this place; he had not been allowed in since.