Free The Rosetta Codex by Richard Paul Russo Page A

top step with it, near the candle, and held the book in his lap. The candlelight flickered across the covers so that the coppery material seemed to be in flux, transmuting before him. There were no markings, no letters or designs of any kind. Tentatively holding the corner between thumb and finger, he slowly raised the front cover.
    The pages appeared to have been fabricated from incredibly thin sheets of metal rather than paper like the anchorite’s books. The markings, which looked disturbingly like the incomprehensible glyphs on the wall behind him, were etched completely through the metal sheets, so that each leaf was like a stencil. He sliced his finger as he turned one of the pages, and blood dripped onto his pants, but he ignored the cut.
    Sproul’s shadow fell across the book. A rough, dirty hand held three large blue stones before Cale’s face.
    â€œLook at them,” Sproul said. “More than enough for both of us. Our lives will never be the same.”
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    When they left the next morning, Sproul carried all of the blue stones himself, distributed throughout the numerouspockets and pouches of his vest. Cale carried the book in his rucksack; the extra weight pulled at the shoulder straps.
    They set out under clear skies. They would traverse the dry lake bed, replenish their water supplies at the pool, then head for the nearby foothills to the east. Sproul said he knew the best way to the Divide and the northern bridge. He wasn’t sure how they would get the gems across, but he said he had some ideas.
    As they left the town, Cale stopped and looked back at the central building. He felt as though someone, or something, was watching them. Observing and judging them, as if they had committed some foul deed. Cale thought that perhaps they had. Desecration. A word he had learned from the anchorite. He turned away from the building, and followed Sproul out across the dead dry lake.

SIX
    Sproul coughed up blood, bright red spattering the dry and dusty earth. His hands shook and he was feverish. He drank deeply from his canteen, which seemed to provide little comfort. His curses were weak and hoarse.
    They were five days out from the deserted town, camped in the shelter of a tilted stone slab. Crouched with his back against the cool stone, Cale surveyed the barren expanse before them, watching the waves of heat rise like visions of delirium. He looked back at Sproul, who knelt half in shade, half in the late morning sun, eyes nearly closed and dripping with sweat.
    â€œYou need to stay in the shade,” Cale told him.
    Sproul blinked several times, nodded halfheartedly, andcrawled back to lay beside the slab, dragging the canteen with him. “This damn heat,” he said.
    â€œCan I do anything for you?”
    Sproul rolled his head slowly from side to side and closed his eyes without a word. Oozing sores had first appeared on his hands the second day out, and by the following morning had spread to his arms and legs, a few working their way up his neck. His skin became flushed and sensitive, and a painful fever coursed through him. Sproul refused to stop and rest, however, and they struggled through the morning until they reached the shelter of a dry riverbed, where they slept until sunset in the shade of a fallen tree partially buried in the crumbling bank.
    Temporarily revived by sleep and the cool darkness, Sproul resumed a steady pace. For most of that night he had been lucid and seemed certain of the way, but before the first light of dawn had even appeared he became delirious and disoriented, staggering chaotically from one direction to another until Cale had spotted the large stone slab jutting up from the earth and guided Sproul to it. They had remained here since, Sproul becoming more and more ill, their water supply dwindling.
    â€œWhere do I go for water?” Cale asked. It was not the first time he had asked, but like the previous time, Sproul didn’t reply. Sproul had