The Archivist

by Tom D Wright

  Danae maintains unblinking eye contact with Angie, and puts her hands on her hips as she turns to keep facing the woman. “Like he said, we’re friends, nothing more. The fact is, he’s the one more likely to find an empty blanket.”

  Angie narrows her eyes, and then laughs as she gives Danae a solid pat on the shoulder. I relax. We are past the hard part.

  “I know it’s short notice,” I say, “but I’m on my way to Wolfengarde, and I was hoping you could put us up for the night.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Angie bathes me with a cynical look as she walks over to lock her door and flip over a ‘closed’ sign in the window. Then she turns to face me with crossed arms. “So why are you really here? I know you didn’t take the scenic route to Wolfengarde just because you miss me.”

  “A couple of reasons. First, I need to enter Wolfengarde to recover something they took from me, and I thought you could give me some tips on how to get around inside.”

  “It’s been years since I left that shithole. Any information I give you is as likely to get you killed as it is to help. And the other thing?”

  “I was hoping Danae could stay with you for a couple of weeks while she gets settled here.”

  Angie looks at Danae, laughing, while she points at me. “See! What did I say?”

  I disregard Angie’s comment. “There’s something else. I keep hearing references to a person or group I’m not familiar with. Do the initials EV mean anything?”

  “What?” Angie looks at me and freezes, her face turning so pale I am afraid she might faint. She shuffles backward to the counter and slides down into a sitting position on the floor. Angie stares at the ground for a few moments before she whispers, “I hoped to live the rest of my life without ever hearing that name again.”

  “You know who it is?” Danae asks.

  Angie closes her eyes as she sighs, then leans back and responds quietly, “EV is Erde Vater, the supreme leader of the Disciple movement.”

  “Erde Vater,” I say, half laughing. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Believe me, there is nothing about that son of a bitch that is a joke, and Disciples do not speak of that title lightly. Erde Vater is an old time name which means Earth Father, but only old-timers still speak the Awm language, although some of the titles have carried over. Sometimes they just call him Vater, but he is their high priest, leader and supreme judge.” Angie pauses to stare out a window, lost in some memory or thought.

  “So you’ll help us?” I ask finally.

  “I’ll do what I can for old time’s sake, as long as you get your ass out of here first thing in the morning. I don’t need any kind of association with an Archivist, especially one going to Wolfengarde.”

  “When we came in, we left a couple of horses tied up outside. Do you know where we can stable them overnight?”

  Angie sighs, and stands up wearily. “I have an, um, friend, who owes me some favors. Don’t ask what kind of favors, that’s none of your business now.”

  We exit the shop and Danae and I lead our horses, while Angie guides us over a couple of blocks and down an alley, where we leave Saffron and Thorn at a stable behind a small tavern. Angie makes the arrangements while whispering with her friend, off to one side. I overhear a comment about getting him what he needs next week. Her favors apparently involve trading in special herbal substances.

  When we return to her shop, we withdraw to her quarters on the second story. It is a simple but efficient apartment, with a small, studio-like living room/kitchen, and a door leading to a compact bedroom. The main room has a futon couch facing a couple of plain chairs. Angie gets a fire going in the tiny, freestanding wood-burning stove at the far end of the small room.

  As we share a pot of hot stew along with some bread and cheese, I fill Angie in on the events that have taken place since I walked into the Broken Mast. Danae appears pensive when I recap her father’s death, and displays a fleeting smile when I skip over our one-night encounter and the faux wedding in Port Sadelow.

  After Angie clears away the dishes, she brings out her ever-present jug of whiskey. I swear it is the same jug she had back when we met. Angie is one of the few women I almost let myself get involved with, but her self-medicating was one of the main reasons nothing more developed between us years ago.

  I accept a cup, but Danae politely refuses, which surprises me after seeing her put away shots in her tavern. Maybe she does not want to lower her defenses, but I am not concerned about our safety now. I am still sipping my first cup, while Angie plows through her third.

  Angie nods when I complete my tale. “I’m sorry to hear about Brannock. I only met him that one time but he was a good friend. So—now you are on your way to recover your artifact from the Disciples?”

  “Never one to beat around the bush,” I respond. “I know you left quite a few years ago, but you grew up there, so if anyone knows the Disciple compound, it would be you. Just tell me anything you think might be helpful, like how to get in and out, where they might stash their treasures, ways to move around without being noticed.”

  Angie takes a deep drink and looks at me with narrowed eyes. “I’m not going back there. Don’t even think that for a second.”

  “It never crossed my mind to ask. Little Crow, the Native friend I told you about, is going there with me.”

  “That’s one hell of a friend!” Angie exclaims. “Either brave or stupid, maybe both. Anyway, there is no secret way to get in and out of Wolfengarde. They have the entire town sealed off, and the walls are patrolled and watched like a prison. No tunnels, no secret passages, no hidden doors in the walls. But getting into Wolfengarde won’t be your problem, compared to getting into the Temple.”

  Angie is so reassuring, I think sarcastically. “Let’s just say I figure out how to get past the town gate. What am I going to find inside? Since the Temple is where they would take a blasphemous piece of technology, it would help if you could draw me a map.”

  “I can do that,” Angie frowns. “It’s a fool’s mission to go in there, especially for an Archivist, but if you are determined, I can show you the best places to die.”

  She gets up and leaves the room. Cabinet doors open and close as she rummages downstairs. A few minutes later, she returns with several sheets of paper and a crude pencil.

  Angie and I spend the next couple of hours creating and reviewing several maps that she draws out. Danae distracts herself with a couple of mechanical puzzles that Angie has lying about. It only takes a minute to disassemble them, but she alternates back and forth between reassembling one or the other.

  First Angie details a high level layout of the Disciple capital, which centers on a huge temple. Then we focus on a floor plan of the Temple itself, which she had free run of as a child, since her mother was a high priestess.

  She points out some relatively abandoned areas of the building, which look like a converted sports arena. And if all else fails, she shows me a secret escape route she used as a teenager when she finally fled the Disciples. We have burned through a couple of candles by the time Angie rolls the papers up and hands them to me, along with a couple of extra candles for Little Crow’s lamp.

  “I don’t have much to offer, but I do have a few things you might find useful. Don’t ask how I acquired them, but they are just your kind of gadgets.”

  Angie heads downstairs again, and returns a few minutes later with a small sack. The first thing she retrieves looks like a staple gun.

  “I’m not doing this for old time’s sake, I’ll have you know. I just want to help you really piss off those bastards. Now this thing—if you get injured, just hold the wound closed and press the button while you run this along the seam. This’ll seal it tight as a rat’s ass.” She turns to Danae. “Feel free to use it on his mouth if he gets annoying.”

  Then she pulls out a hypo spray, and touches a small dial. “This has several settings. A shot of the green, and your patient will babble his guts out. The blue will sedate a troublesome
prisoner right quick, and after a shot of the yellow, you won’t even feel a limb being amputated.”

  “What about the black one?” I ask.

  “You could walk across a bed of rusty nails with bare feet and never catch tetanus.”

  Pouring out the rest of the contents onto the table, Angie runs through a variety of antibiotics, tourniquets, and other medical supplies. She claims that she wants to help me put a hurting on the Disciples, but I can tell that as much or more of the reason is because she cares about me, though she would never admit it. This is the best medical kit I have seen in years. I store it in my pack.

  Angie takes a candle and stands up. “I hope you two really are good friends, because I only have this couch that folds out to make a bed. Blankets are underneath. If you decide to get frisky with each other, just try to keep it down,” she says. After she gives us both a quick hug, she enters her bedroom and closes the door.

  I pull the bottom of the futon couch out, and it opens into a full-size bed. I am so tired that by the time we toss blankets across the makeshift bed and crawl under the covers, my pillow is the only thing I have any desire to be friendly with. Danae snuggles up with her back against mine and is lightly snoring before I fall asleep.

  My eyes snap open to a dawn-lit room. My left foot sticks out from under the covers, where Angie is tickling it with a feather.

  “Time to get those old bones of yours up,” she says as she tosses the torture instrument aside, and heads into her small kitchen. Before I rouse my bedmate, the thought crosses my mind to rise quietly and leave, but I know Danae well enough by now to know that trying to slip away while she sleeps would only backfire one way or another.

  Plus, Angie would kill me, because that is how I tried to leave her.

  While we eat a breakfast of fried eggs covered with a gravy made from salted beef, I review the maps with Angie one more time to verify all the details. Before we head out to the stable, she hands me a sack with dried rations. She is every bit as tough as she seems, but she also has a heart of gold.

  As soon as we step outside, Angie frowns. “It’s unusually quiet. There’s something wrong.” Backing up her point, a pair of men scurry around the corner, keeping their heads down as they dart along the other side of the street. One of them hazards a furtive glance at us as they pass.

  “Quickly,” I whisper, and we hurry silently down the street a couple blocks and turn into the alley leading to the stables. When we reach the entrance, I hear someone talking inside and flash a warning signal, gesturing for the others to hold up just outside the wide open doors. Then I ease to the edge so I can listen.

  Inside the building, a man with a deep-throated voice mumbles something I don’t quite catch. Then I hear Angie’s friend respond.

  “No, I’m not a believer. But I’ve never had any gripe with you Disciples.”

  I feel a cold knot deep in my stomach. What the hell are Disciples doing here, now?

  My musing gets shoved aside as Deep Throat says something about strangers, and the groomsman responds, “Yes, a couple of travelers did come in last night, but they were just traders.”

  Another man says he wants to see the horses the unbelievers rode in on. I realize what that dust column was that I saw on the way into town: a contingent of Disciples has taken over Georges.

  I congratulate myself on keeping my backpack with me, then almost smack my forehead as I recall that I left my field glasses in one of the saddlebags. They were a nice, compact titanium pair that I will really miss, too. Sure enough, a minute later I hear footsteps returning, and the deep-throated man growls as he addresses Angie’s associate.

  “You are not the innocent groomsman you would have us believe. The friend of an Archivist is a prime enemy to all Disciples.”

  “Please, I’m just a simple man. I have no reason to deal with an Archivist. Grooming horses doesn’t require tech, you know that.”

  Gesturing to the women to turn back, we retreat as quickly as we can. Once we are on the street heading back to the shop, I fill them in on what I heard.

  “You son of a bitch,” Angie hisses. For a moment I fear she will knife me on the spot. “You led those bastards right to me!”

  “I came from a different direction, over the western mountains. I didn’t bring them here. You can blame me for a lot of things Angie, and rightly so, but you can’t pin this one on me.”

  “Then why are they here, looking for you?” Angie asks, as she grabs my duster.

  I have the same question, but no answer for either of us. “I honestly have no idea, but we need to get the hell out of here.”

  “Don’t worry, Michael will never give us up,” Angie assures me as we enter the shop and she bars the door.

  “You used to be a Disciple, Angie!” I retort. “You should know better. He’ll hold out as long as he can, but he’ll break. Grab what you can’t live without and let’s go.”

  Angie curses, then runs upstairs, while Danae looks at me with frightened eyes. It occurs to me that the only other time I have seen her show fear was when her father died.

  Personally, I cannot imagine how the Disciples could stumble on us again so quickly, but if it were me, I would not even come back here. We should already be heading through the gates dressed as shepherds or farmers.

  Angie rushes back and forth upstairs, while I pace downstairs. Every minute she takes is two minutes too long.

  Just to do something, I pass through the curtains behind the counter to see where the back leads to. I swear to myself. This town obviously does not enforce any fire codes; there is no back exit. There are no windows, either, and the only door in the rear of the shop leads down into a basement.

  Angie finally scrambles down the stairs, and we’re starting toward the exit when the front door rattles, followed by a furious banging.

  “Open up, we seek Disciple’s Justice.” Apparently Michael did not hold out very long at all. I am prepared to stand and fight, and pull my knife out, but Angie has other ideas.

  She stands in the middle of the shop and gestures for us to retreat into the back. “Hide downstairs,” she hisses. “I can convince them they’ve got the wrong place.” The pounding on the door resumes and we have no time to debate our course of action.

  Danae and I move as quickly as we can without making noise, and ease ourselves down the stairs. The basement is dimly lit through a small slit of a window, just large enough to tantalize us without offering any hope of escape unless we somehow turn into cats.

  I scan the room for anything useful, and hear Angie stride across the floor upstairs and open the door. There is little more than boxes and bags of herbs down here, so I set my pack on a box and dig out my crossbow.

  “I’m not open for business yet. Come back after the bells ring nine.” Her muffled voice carries through the ceiling planks.

  Then I hear a smashing noise when the door slams open, followed by a thud that sounds like someone falling. The deliberate, heavy footfall of several men who force their way into the shop echoes throughout the basement as I load my crossbow and set several bolts on the box next to my pack. At least I should be able to even the odds a bit.

  “We aren’t here for drugs or medicine, woman. You harbor an Archivist.”

  “If you really think so, then you’ve already got better drugs than anything I have to offer,” Angie boldly laughs. “I have no use for those charlatans, and whoever told you otherwise stole your gold.”

  At the far end of the basement sits a large trunk. It is somewhat dusty, with a padlock on it, but the lock is broken and good for little more than show. I swing the top up and find that the chest is only half full of clothes. A noticeable layer of dust on the clothing tells me the trunk is not airtight, so it will not be comfortable, but there is room for one person inside.

  “Hurry up and get inside,” I whisper to Danae, as I hold the trunk open.

  “Well, well, what do you know?” The voice is muffled through the floor but it is the deep-thr
oated Disciple. “Boys, it looks like we’ve found the long lost daughter of our high priestess. The blessed Earth Mother led us here for more than one reason.”

  Angie cries out in pain. I’m starting to move to go back upstairs when I hear a hiss and feel a burning sensation on my neck. I turn just in time to see Danae holding the hypo spray, then I sway as my body becomes limp as a wet rag.

  “Don’t be mad at me,” Danae whispers, as she eases my slumping body into the trunk.

  “I never explained the shaman’s vision to you. The last time I saw my husband, we had a fight and Sheldon left on his boat, just as a storm came in. It was partly my fault for driving him out into weather no person should have been in. I see now that what Raven Eye saw was this moment. It’s my turn to go out into the storm.”

  She arranges my legs to fit inside, and drops my pack in between them.

  “Understand something: this is my choice. You’ve saved my life more than once, so now it’s my turn to save yours. All I ask is that after the Disciples are gone, you do whatever you must to get that generator thing back and go home to your wife. That is what I want.” Danae’s voice begins to break. “When you see Sarah, just… tell her she is a very, very lucky woman.”

  Warm tears splash down on my face as Danae leans over to give me a gentle, drawn out kiss on the lips. Her own lips tremble as her mouth delicately and almost reluctantly separates from mine. Then she whispers, “I know, an Archivist won’t last long in Disciple hands. I’ll be dead soon, so I figured I deserve a last kiss. Goodbye, my friend.”

  Then I am in complete darkness as the lid closes and I hear Danae slip the broken lock back in place. Moments later, muffled footsteps come charging down the stairs.

  “Declare yourself,” a Disciple states loudly.

  “There is no need to use force, I will not resist,” Danae says boldly as her voice moves away from the trunk. “I am Danae, the Archivist.”

  I hear them escort her up the stairs as I float in pitch blackness. Then I sink into a whirlpool of unconsciousness.