The Archivist Read Online Free PDF Page B

Dee,” he says and his shoulders visibly sag. “I didn’t want to worry you, and the means of his death didn’t really matter to Walecki.” She crosses her arms and glares at him, until I gesture impatiently and we resume walking along the ridge.
    The sun beats down on us in the ten minutes it takes to cross the hundred yards to where the cairn stands. We take our time since the path is barely boot-wide. Several times I get brief shots of adrenaline when the ground gives way under my feet. I can see why Doc did not want to drag Wally back, even if he had had the strength.
    Wally’s cairn is built on a narrow rocky outcrop, but it is wide enough to hold us as well.
    “What sort of weapon killed him?” I ask as I circle the grave and examine the ground. Disciples are particularly fond of swords and clubs, but I suspect Wally ran afoul of something far deadlier than a Disciple.
    The old man shudders at the recollection. “I’ve tended to more broken men than a beach has sand, but the injuries he suffered were like nothing I’ve ever seen. The man was sliced open in a series of parallel cuts,” and Doc holds his hand in the shape of a talon. “But the wounds were sharp, as if from a knife, not like claws from any animal I know of.”
    “Can you show me exactly where you found him?” I have been dreading this moment all morning, even as it approaches with the inevitability of a rising tide.
    Doc leads me about fifty feet further, out to the very end of the ridge. I know what I will find, and I am not going to like it.
    Just as I expected, there it is amid dried and faded bloodstains: the shattered remains of the radio that Wally called me with. The device is sheared cleanly into several pieces.
    I squat for a moment, whispering to myself, “Wally, you dumb shit. I told you being careless would get you killed one day!” A few tears gather at the edges of my eyes, and I brush them away as I stand back up. He was probably dead before I turned my radio off.
    There is nothing salvageable from the wreckage of his radio. I curse as I kick the remaining radio parts over the edge as hard as I can. The pieces spin lazily, reflecting bright sunlight as they drop. I remember his last words to me, that when we got back to the Archives we were going to tap into his latest cask of ale. Now, instead, I will have to break the news to his widow. The parts clatter as they vanish into the landscape below, and I turn back to the old man.
    “So where is your find?” I ask wearily. If it really is what Wally described, the least I can do is give his death some meaning.
    “We’re less than an hour away now,” Doc answers as he leads us back. “Years ago, when I was still doing rounds to some of the outlying villages, I took a shortcut and found this strange metal boat, kind of like a kayak if you’ve ever seen those. I can’t imagine how it got there, but it was half buried in a hillside. Anyway, I continued on to see my patient, and after saving the farmer’s daughter, I borrowed his horse and hauled the thing to a small cave I occasionally sheltered in. It’s somewhat banged-up, but it was in pretty bad shape when I found it anyway.”
    That is pretty much the story Wally relayed to the Archives, and it is the reason I am here. Doc had the Archives hooked when he said it was a metal kayak; that was one of the main reasons I insisted on taking this retrieval. We return to the main ridge, and a couple hundred yards further, we start a gradual descent along the hillside. A short while later, Doc leads us across a sloped clearing, up to a brush barrier piled against a rocky outcropping.
    When he starts clearing it away, I set my pack down and start tossing branches to the side. I keep straining to make out something in the darkness; in a few minutes, the mouth of a small cave is revealed.
    Deep inside, I see a glint of metal, and reach into my pack to retrieve another priceless relic: an electric light. My hand trembles slightly