The Rosetta Codex

by Richard Paul Russo

  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.

  Cale was surprised by their generosity. Or was it guilt?

  He stood and turned, and through the trees he could see slivers of the lake, the water like floating pieces of chipped stone. He would be glad to leave the lake behind.

  The sky was a little lighter now. Dawn, then. A faint breeze blew in under his coat; he shivered, then pulled the coat tight, sealing it. He remembered the warmth beneath the blankets and Aglaia’s smell and the feel of her warm smooth skin under his fingers. Maybe this was better for both of them. He shook his head; it was something to tell himself. It might be better for him, eventually, but he wondered if she would ever be able to get away now, if she would ever get to Morningstar.

  The rucksack was heavy, but the straps were padded and did not cut much into his tender shoulders. Cale limped out of the clearing and headed south, away from the village and the lake and the last twelve years of his life.

  He could have taken the roadway and trail, but he did not want to chance meeting any of the villagers, as unlikely as that was, so he stayed in the dense woods and hiked on without rest. The sun rose, and wide shafts of golden light angled through the trees, lighting the way and providing a faint warmth. Cale was only vaguely aware of his surroundings; he walked in a trance of dull pain and numbed thoughts, his feet avoiding holes and loose rocks without conscious direction.

  Near midmorning he came across a narrow stream of cold, clear water. Cale cleaned off the dried blood and dirt, cuts stinging; he drank deeply, then filled the water flasks. Although he felt no hunger, he ate some of the cheese that had been packed for him, and chewed painfully on a piece of dried fish. He sat beside the stream for some time, dizzy again. He watched the water flow past him, listened to it bubble over stones and roots, breathed in the warm aroma of tiny pale blue flowers that spread their petals to the sun. Then he shouldered the rucksack and continued on.

  The sun was almost directly above him when he encountered a well-traveled path through the trees. He stood at the crossroads, fighting against the pain and weariness, looking along the path in both directions, trying to think. Deciding he was far enough from the village by now, he stepped onto the trail and followed it south. For a time the land rose, though not steeply, and the trees grew taller and farther apart. The air cooled, most of the sunlight blocked by the dense branches, but the woods were peaceful and quiet and the whisper of the breezes through the leaves high above him was comforting.

  He crested the mountain and began to descend; the trail wound back and forth down the steeper southern slope. The trees became sparser and the sun warmed the hillside. A flock of loud, cawing terratorns flew by, casting dozens of moving shadows across his path. Unseen creatures scuttled beneath the undergrowth as he walked past, leaves and twigs shivering as they sped away from him. The warmth and the steady movement eased away some of the pain, soothed the ache in his muscles.

  The trail emerged from the woods and intersected a wide dirt roadway heading east and west, heavily rutted by the wheels of carts and wagons. Here the roadwa
y curved around the hillside on an outcropping of rock, and the view to the south was expansive, overwhelming in its breadth. Cale overlooked a mountainside that descended to meet lower hills in the distance, which in turn became flatlands that extended as far as he could see. To the east, the mountains continued and curved around to the south, bordering the eastern reaches of the plains; the mountains continued to the west as well, but ran parallel to the flatlands. He could not make out where either of them ended.

  The sun hung low in the sky, coloring the narrow strips of cloud with magenta and bloodred. Cale saw no one on the roadway in either direction, and heard not even the faintest sounds of travelers. Blackburn had told him to go east. He looked again in that direction, where, according to Blackburn, the Divide lay, and presumably the city of Morningstar. Better places than this, Blackburn had said. He wondered.

  He adjusted the pack on his shoulder, drank from one of the flasks, then turned to face the setting sun and headed into the west.

  FOUR

  He was several weeks in the mountains, gradually making his way west. The days grew cooler, the nights often freezing; mornings now he woke up to frost, or puddles completely iced over. But no matter how cold the nights were, the insulated bedroll kept him warm and dry.

  The first snow found him atop a ridge of uneven black rock, looking out over mountains that stretched beyond the range of his sight. The flakes were light and cool and soft as they landed on his skin; they tasted fresh and dry, even as they melted on his tongue.

  A shiver worked through him—not from the cold, but from a momentary touch of fear. A terrible winter, Blackburn had said. Cale turned to the south, but could no longer see the end of the mountains in that direction, either. He should have headed south to begin with, he thought, or maybe even east, as Blackburn had told him. Too late now. He slowly turned full circle, searching all directions. He had to get out of the mountains, and soon. For no reason that he could articulate, continuing to the west seemed his best option; the south had once been, but no longer.

  That first snow did not stick, the skies cleared, and for the next three days there was bright sun and mild afternoons. More than that, it seemed that the highest mountains were now behind him, with the peaks gradually declining before him. Then another icy front blew through with dark roiling clouds, and a cold heavy snow fell, and kept falling for two days, laying a bed of hard and dirty ice upon the ground. Winter had finally arrived.

  He came across another road, rutted and uneven and poorly traveled, and he followed it for several days as it wound through the mountains. Food grew scarcer, or more unrecognizable—he was reluctant to eat plants he had never seen before. Game, too, became more difficult to find, though he feasted one day from a pond well-populated with yellow, fat crawling creatures twice the size of his foot that were slow to move and easy to catch. He spent the following morning and afternoon smoking as much meat from them as he could carry, then moved on.

  Two days later, in the cold early morning, he came upon a dead man hanging upside down from a tree beside the road. His shirt fell around his armpits and neck, exposing a belly crusted with thin ragged lines of dried blood, and his swollen arms and hands hung down so that the broken fingers nearly touched the ground. Black and brown stingflies crawled in and out of the man’s blackened mouth and nostrils, and his eye sockets had been torn and gouged, though Cale could not determine whether that had been done by scavengers or by those who had killed him; either possibility seemed equally plausible.

  An hour down the road, Cale passed another dead man hanging from a tree. Perhaps the two dead men were warnings; but for whom, and why? Travelers on the road, or those who might live around here? Perhaps both. Better to be safe, he decided. He left the road, and continued on through the dense, cold woods.

  Snow fell for days without letup. Cale soon found himself struggling through drifts that reached his thighs and occasionally his waist. If there was a trail or roadway anywhere, it was impossible to locate. There was no sun, the sky an almost featureless gray and white above him, and he lost all sense of direction. Downhill was the only direction he followed now. If he could get out of the mountains, if he could reach the flatlands he had once been able to see, it might be warmer, there might be less snow or no snow at all. He thought often about Blackburn’s warning about this winter—that it would be terrible, long, and cold, that to survive it he would need to find shelter to wait out the worst of it. He should have been prepared.

  Time passed strangely, as though he had entered some alternate world where it stopped or became nonexistent. Sound, too, seemed to vanish except for the huff of his breath and the crunch and sliding of snow as he pushed through it. The trees became brown and white skeletons, paralyzed by ice.

  Cale came across a shallow cave and camped inside for two days, drying out his clothes before a fire and trying to stay warm in his bedroll. His mind was numb with hunger. One morning, bundled in the bedroll and looking at the cold ashes of the fire, a clear and certain thought formed—If I stay here, I’ll die.

  He dressed in dry clothing, packed everything carefully, then left the cave and pressed on through the still falling snow.

  The ground leveled and the sky brightened as he stepped between two trees and into a clearing. His heart sank when he saw he was on the floor of a narrow valley, mountains rising again on all sides.

  The snow wasn’t as deep here, barely above his knees, but that was little compensation for the despair he felt as he looked at the ascending slopes all along the valley. Then, far down the valley, a thin column of rising smoke caught his eye, its source a third of the way up the opposite hillside. From this distance he could not make out any details, but he thought he could see a dwelling of some sort sheltered by a rock overhang.

  An hour later he stood directly below the dwelling, watching the smoke rise from a round metal chimney, curl around the overhang, then continue to rise until it merged with the clouds above. A steeply roofed cabin nestled against a rock cliff face that angled out from the slope, providing some shelter. The windows were shuttered. Off to the side was a small shack.

  It took him nearly an hour to climb up the hillside through the snow. Darkness was falling. The flat shelf upon which the cabin rested was larger than he had first thought. Cale listened intently, but all he heard was the snapping of a branch, the hiss of snow sliding across stone, and a faint whistle of wind. The cabin was nicely sheltered, protected from the wind and the worst of the snow, a pocket of quiet and calm.

  He stepped up to the cabin door and knocked. No response. He knocked harder and called out. “Hello! Anyone here?” When there was still no response, he tried the door, but it was barred or bolted. “I just need a place for the night,” he said loudly. “I need some rest. I’ll leave in the morning.” Cale banged on the door one final time, then turned away and approached the shack.

  The shack wasn’t locked. Inside were gardening tools and shelves filled with boxes and two small wheeled carts; a damp, earthy odor. Wood was stacked several rows deep against the back wall. Cale shut the door. In the dry and quiet darkness, exhaustion overwhelmed him. He stood motionless, hardly thinking, went back outside to relieve himself, then returned and laid out his bedroll. He undressed, hung his clothes on the tools to dry, crawled into the bedroll, and dropped immediately into sleep.

  When he woke, it was light outside, but the storm had worsened, and even here in the shelter of the overhang the wind whipped the snow in a frenzy of chaotic patterns, occasionally twisting upward so that the snow seemed to be returning to the clouds from which it had fallen. Cale stood in the doorway and watched the storm. The cabin was unchanged—windows shuttered, door secure, smoke rising from the chimney. Someone was inside, he was certain of that, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He also couldn’t do anything about the storm; he closed the door against it and retreated to the back, where it was slightly warmer. He wasn’t going anywhere in this weather.

  Later that day there came
a pounding on the shack door, and a voice shouting above the storm. “Come on out!” A woman’s voice, he thought.

  Cale pushed open the door and looked out. A figure bundled in a heavy coat, head wrapped in scarves, stood a few paces away and pointed an object at him. Probably a weapon.

  “You’re hardly more than a kid,” the woman said. She shook her head. “Pack up your things, then come on inside. But don’t get too close to me or I’ll burn a hole right through you.”

  Cale believed she wouldn’t hesitate. He quickly gathered his belongings, then walked ahead of her to the cabin, opened the door, and stepped into the warmth of the interior.

  Aside from a number of shelves filled with books, the cabin was surprisingly bare. One large chair, two smaller ones at a plain wood table, a sleeping mat in the corner. A large wood stove, atop of which steamed a kettle, a basin, a few basic cooking utensils. Oil lamps, two now lit with all the windows shuttered. A stack of wood. No decorations on the unpainted walls other than a single disturbing icon—the figure of a naked man nailed with arms spread to two crossed pieces of wood.

  The woman removed her coat and scarves, then tucked the weapon into her belt. She was much older than he had expected, thin, with wrinkled, weathered skin. Hair short and coarse and almost completely white. Eyes that now looked kindly upon him.

  “I’ll make us some tea,” she said.

  She was an anchorite, she told him, and she had lived in the cabin for six years. It had been built long ago by an old man who had given it into her keeping when he decided it was time to go off and die.