The Archivist

by Tom D Wright

  “How did your father end up there?” I ask. “Not that it’s a bad town, I’ve seen a lot worse. But it’s definitely on the other side of remote.”

  Danae smiles to herself as she replies, “My mother was from Port Sadelow, but she died when I was ten. Since the town still needed a doctor, Papa stayed on, but after Mother died her family never wanted anything to do with me. They said I was cursed or something. So when Sheldon was lost at sea, that just confirmed the rumors and convinced my relatives.”

  Based on my experience over the past day, I might agree with her maternal relatives, if I were the superstitious sort. But I will not let a fisherman wife’s tale spook me, even if she is a widow.

  “Just make sure you don’t waste time leaving town,” I warn her. “You probably have a few weeks before he’s missed. But as certain as the sun will rise tomorrow, the Disciples will come, so get out sooner rather than later. Do you know what you want to do?”

  As she walks, Danae stares at the ground for a few minutes. I can see that she is thinking, and I just wait for her response.

  When it comes, she speaks with a subdued voice. “When my mother died, it was like my childhood died with her. That took my past, and then when Sheldon died it was like my future died with him. So Papa was everything I had to live for, from day to day. Now that he is dead, I don’t even have the present to live for. So I don’t have an answer, except to say that I need to look for it. All I know is that it’s not in Port Sadelow.”

  “Good luck with that,” I tell her. “I’ve been seeking that answer for quite a few years.”

  Danae laughs quietly and smiles at me. “So what are you going to do from here?”

  “I have a backup plan in case I lose contact, a series of rendezvous points. The first one will be a week from now, in another town.”

  “Really? Where? Maybe we’re going the same way.”

  “Like I’m going to tell you, of all people!” I cannot help it, the words pop out of my mouth before I think about them. Danae stops in her tracks and drops her pack on the trail. By the time I turn to face her, her arms are crossed and she regards me with a cold stare.

  “I know what I did was a mistake,” she says with a quivering voice, fighting back emotion. “But I paid dearly for it with my father’s life, and will have to live with what happened to him until the day I die. That weight is everything I can bear right now, and I sure as hell don’t need you to add to it. So believe me when I tell you that I will never betray you or lie to you again. Or don’t. Really, I don’t give a damn. But if you can’t start trusting me then just leave me here. Now.”

  For several moments I stand there, examining her hardened eyes glistening with unshed tears. I am tempted to turn and start walking. It would be so easy, and I have more than enough reason. Instead, the intense, naked honesty of her direct, unflinching gaze deflates my skepticism. I do believe her sincerity. Whatever else may happen, she is not going to stab me in the back again.

  I cannot take back my words, much as I regret them now, but I can give an equally sincere apology. Dropping the travois, I walk over to her and hold out my hand. “Okay, I do believe you, so let’s make a new start. Shall we pledge to be friends?”

  Her expression is impassive as she regards my face for several long seconds before making up her mind, then uncrosses her arms and says, “Alright, then, as of this moment whatever happened in the past is behind us. I swear that I’ll be a good and true friend.”

  Tears finally emerge from her eyes when she takes my hand and shakes it. Then she gives me a long embrace followed by a kiss on the cheek, before reaching down for her pack. I pick up the sledge crossbar, and we resume our trek to town.

  Now that we have made nice and she has agreed to leave town, I can leave her in Port Sadelow and walk away with a clean conscience, but a chivalrous part of me continues to nag. We have gone about ten steps when I say one word.

  “Entiak.”

  “I’m sorry, what’s that?” she asks.

  “Entiak is where I’m going,” I tell her. “A small, unremarkable fishing boat will be there for a few days, looking to hire a crewmember. Particularly, someone who meets my description.” The rendezvous is not the only reason I am going to Entiak. I need to swing by there anyway, due to some unfinished personal business I have to take care of while I am in this region. But that side trip comes after getting the generator into Archives hands.

  We walk along the trail under the leafy canopy for about a half-mile before she responds, “That’s where my father is from. He only took me there once, but his brother lives in Entiak, so I think I’ll go stay with my uncle for a while, until I get on my feet.”

  Great, I knew that was coming. I still have not figured out how I will get myself there, let alone my newfound friend. “I’ll help you get as far as Entiak, but that’s it.”

  Danae nods.

  The hike to Port Sadelow is uneventful and quiet, and the hours turn into miles. As we near the first farmsteads, several small caravans pass by, heading toward us. They move quickly and do not even slow down as they approach, let alone acknowledge us. I scramble to pull the travois off to the side in order to avoid being trampled. It is mid-afternoon when we reach the last hill leading down into the town.

  Those caravans rushed by as if fleeing a fire, which rouses the paranoid survivalist in me. So my instincts tell me not to rush down blindly into the port town. I learned the hard way decades ago that it is better to be safe than dead.

  At the top of the ridge overlooking Port Sadelow, I find an abandoned barn on the edge of the forest. Large blackberry brambles have grown up, mostly engulfing the outside. After ensuring no one is observing us, I clear a path and drag the travois inside the dark structure. The damp smell of rotting wood permeates the air, and thick stands of fern dominate the floor.

  Half of the interior stalls have fallen over and the other half require little encouragement, but the walls of the barn itself seem sturdy enough that we are not in imminent danger of being buried alive.

  Just inside, I stash my rig with the packs in the broken remains of the first standing stall, along with my walking stick. Outside the barn door is an old cistern which is seriously falling apart. What water it manages to hold is somewhat brackish, but it is regularly flushed with rain that runs through a drain from the roof. I definitely would not drink the liquid, but it is bearable enough to clean up and make ourselves presentable for town.

  Checking again to make sure we are still alone, we step out onto the road and head down through the falling daylight into Port Sadelow.

  From the top of the hill I can see the whole settlement laid out below. The port town is not large—I would guess it has a couple of thousand inhabitants. The main street runs about ten blocks, and several parallel side streets flank both sides of the main thoroughfare.

  Danae leads us down the side street we used to exit town the previous day. The dirt road is lined with what I guess are fishing cottages, based on the handful of people in their yards who ignore us, focused on mending nets or smoking fish—except a couple of old women who eye me suspiciously.

  When we come up to Danae’s street and start to turn the corner, I stop. Two figures wearing black capes and hats stand with their backs toward us, a few houses down. They are talking casually and pointing at the building in front of them, so I do not think they noticed us. Grasping her hand, I pull her back and we retrace our steps. It is a good thing we do not have our packs.

  “Tell me they weren’t outside your house,” I say wistfully, hoping I am wrong.

  “I will if you want me to, but the fact is that they were. Should we try the back way?”

  I ponder whether there is even any reason to enter the house, but if we can check it out, I want to find out what they are up to. Waiting for darkness would be to our advantage, but the ground is unfamiliar and I do not want to use a light to broadcast our presence inside the house. I nod for her to lead the way.

  We pass several ot
her houses, then turn onto a path that cuts through the block around a small shed, and duck into some brush behind her home. Working our way forward carefully, we crouch down and examine a broken door about twenty feet away.

  It slowly sways open and closed as the gentle, salty breeze pushes it one way and then the other. The concerned look on Danae’s face tells me that the entrance is not normally in this state of disrepair. I watch for a few minutes and see no movement, then gesture for Danae to stay where she is while I reconnoiter.

  Keeping low, I dash across the back yard past a large vegetable and herb garden and stop at the door to listen. No sound comes from inside, so I glance around the corner of the house just in time to see the Disciples walk off. Holding the door ajar, I slip inside a small kitchen and stop.

  Pots, pans, dishes and utensils lie strewn across the floor, and drawers have been thrown into one corner. Bags of flour, beans and grain have been slit open and spilled in one corner, and the shattered remains of numerous pottery containers of spices and herbs lie in a corner where they were hurled against the wall.

  I carefully navigate through the obstacle course until I get to the entrance to the common room to ensure that there are no unwelcome guests. Then I return to the back door and gesture for Danae to join me.

  When she steps into the kitchen, she gasps and stands in shock, taking in the scene. I urge her forward and she actually begins to cry when we enter what remains of the living room, dining room and Doc’s clinic. A tornado blowing through the house probably would have been neater.

  Just like in the kitchen, every manner of container from the workbench has been opened, smashed or dumped out onto the floor. It even looks like some of the floorboards have been pried up in places.

  Danae finally finds her voice as she whispers, “Why?”

  “That’s a good question. Why don’t you tell me?” She stands there for several moments until my words register, and then she turns to me.

  “What did you say?”

  I step over to a leather chest that has been turned over and slashed to make sure there was not a false bottom. “If they wanted to exact revenge, they would’ve just torched the building. They were searching for something and from the looks of it, they wanted it pretty bad. So, aside from setting bones and removing fishhooks, what else was your father up to?”

  Danae shakes her head slowly as she surveys the room. “I honestly don’t know. He said the device you were bringing was very important, even more important than his life. And if anything happened to him, I should get it to my uncle in Entiak. But he never told me why.”

  “So that’s why you want to go to Entiak,” I state.

  “No, I’m not holding anything back,” she hisses. “I figured now that Papa’s dead you were going to keep that reader thing. So taking it to my uncle never occurred to me.”

  If there was anything of value hidden here, the Disciples would have already found it, so there is no point in our searching the home. Every minute we stay here makes me more nervous.

  “Is there anything you absolutely can’t live without?” I ask Danae. “We need to leave, now, and we’re not coming back.” She hurries into a side room and a couple minutes later she emerges with a small bundle of clothing and a torn scarf.

  “My mother made this for me, just before she died,” Danae explains as she ties the scarf around her neck. We make our way back out through the kitchen and into the brush.

  When we get to the center of the stand of large, thick shrubs where it looks like some kids have built a small fort, I gesture for her to sit. I need time to think, and we are well-hidden within the vegetation behind rows of houses. No one will find us unless they stumble through here.

  I knew the Disciples would come after Danae, but not this quickly. The only way they could have reacted so fast is if they know what happened up there in the hills, when it happened. They revile any communication technology more sophisticated than smoke signals, yet they must have descended on this town the moment their brother Disciple was killed.

  I am seriously tempted to head straight out of town and return to the location of the cave to search for clues. This development represents an unprecedented threat to the Archives. But my planning for another countryside excursion is interrupted by the sound of shattering glass from the house.

  Danae gasps as she scrambles to her knees. I follow her to the edge of the brush, then pull her back down just as the first flames start licking through one of the side windows.

  Tugging her sleeve, I shake my head and gesture for her to follow me as I crawl away from the house. At the far end of the sheltering brush, I pause to give Danae a chance to compose herself before we head out of this town. She takes several deep breaths, wipes away her tears and nods at me. For someone who has just seen her whole life literally go up in flames, she shows remarkable fortitude. More than the average civilian.

  We regain our feet behind the neighbor’s shed and stroll out onto the street. I glance back at a growing column of flames as we walk away, while a fire alarm bell begins to ring, a block over on the main street.

  Ahead of us, standing at the end of the road leading out of town, two caped figures watch these events. When they see us, they begin to walk in our direction.

  I slip my arm around Danae’s waist and pull her close so we look like a couple, and lean into her as I whisper in her ear, “You know this town. Where can we find a public place nearby, but not too public?”

  “The seaman’s chapel,” she whispers back as we reach a street corner. Then she guides me to turn left toward the main street. “It’s always open during the day, but it’ll be empty except for a widow or two. I should know, I spent enough time there myself.”

  Black smoke billows in a rising column above us, growing in size as we stroll arm-in-arm over to the main street. As we turn left, I steal a casual glance back, just in time to see the two Disciples reach the corner we recently vacated. They hesitate, and then the taller one gestures toward us and leads the short one our way.

  Several dozen black-garbed figures roam in clusters along the main boulevard. Danae and I are among the few townsfolk out in the open. A few blocks ahead of us, several caped Disciples intercept a man running down the street.

  Two of the Disciples hold his arms while the man cries out that he was responding to the fire bell. The third Disciple, apparently unsatisfied with that answer, uses the luckless fireman as a punching bag while several other volunteer firefighters stop and turn around to go home.

  Danae quickly strides up to the door of a wooden building that must be at least a hundred years old. The structure is built on a small tract of land lined with dozens of weathered headstones. She pushes on the door, and we slip inside.

  The interior of the building is a single large room, perhaps fifty feet long and twenty feet wide, filled with pews that face an altar at the far end. An elderly man in brown robes who is about my height but stouter in build looks up from the altar as we enter.

  Danae dips her head and I follow suit. Then she leads us toward a small shrine on one side, where a bank of votive candles sits on a ledge facing a statue. The figure resembles the Virgin Mary, but standing in the midst of waves instead of clouds. Only a few candles are lit, but Danae kneels down and uses a wick to light a new one.

  The priest turns back to tending the burned-down candles on the altar while Danae and I put our heads together. This town is crawling with Disciples, and I have no desire to take them on. I just need to avoid them long enough to get back to the travois and get the hell out of this area.

  “We can’t stay here,” I whisper in a voice so low the words barely float out of my mouth.

  “I know, Father Alendo closes the chapel after the evening bell,” Danae answers.

  “No, I mean the town. We need to leave for Entiak.”

  She hisses back, “Yes, but how are we going to get there?”

  “I have an idea, but first we need to get past the Disciples,” I reply as the front
door swings open and the two Disciples who were following us enter. I watch from the corner of my eye as they step inside the chapel and the door thuds closed behind them.

  Whoever designed this chapel was an architectural genius, I think, because I notice that the wall surrounding the entrance has a fresco with a slight parabolic curve. We happen to be in the right spot to catch the acoustic echo of a low whisper from the taller and older of the men.

  “These might be the two blasphemers that EV warned us about. We should test them.”

  There is that reference to the initials ‘EV’ again. I tighten my grip on the knife I keep in a shoulder holster. It is not my favorite weapon, but it is the best I have handy at the moment. The Disciples have taken several steps in our direction when the priest at the altar calls them out.

  “Greetings, brothers of a different cloth. What brings the brethren in black to my humble chapel? Have you come here to worship, in accord with the Coeur D’Alene Agreement?”

  The two men stop, and the short, pudgy one grabs the arm of his companion and whispers something in his ear, which I cannot hear because they have moved out of the acoustic sweet spot. Then the tall man responds, “That agreement only applies with respect to ceremonies. It appears you are not in service, so we are not interrupting anything. We will be brief.”

  “Do you have a plan?” Danae whispers urgently. This is one of those rare occasions when I have no clue what to do, and my deer-in-the-headlights look answers Danae’s question.

  “I have an idea, but you need to trust me,” Danae whispers and stands, pulling me to my feet. Father Alendo glares at the pair of Disciples, then turns his gaze to us as we walk up to the altar.