Mariah's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The train let Mariah out at a platform half-eaten by vine. She walked the last miles into a town where the pavement broke under green shoots. She had the professor's rubbing in her notebook and no way to make one of her own. Paper alone would tear on weathered stone. A pencil would skip the shallow cuts and lose half the script. A bad copy would give the professor nothing to translate, and the archive room clock kept ticking in the city behind her. She asked at the market for anyone who worked with paper and ink. A woman selling peppers pointed her down a lane of white brick. The shop leaned under climbing roses. A hand-painted sign read OLD PRINT SHOP. Inside, stacks of newsprint rose past Mariah's shoulder. A cast-iron press stood in the center of the room, its oak frame carved with gears and topped by a small clock face. Ink smelled like wet iron. A short old man stood at the press, feeding a sheet between the rollers. White hair stuck up in every direction. Round glasses slid down a red nose. His hands were black to the wrists. This was the grave rubbings collector the pepper seller had named — the one man in the region who copied stone for a living. "I need to copy an inscription," Mariah said. "On a temple wall. Weathered." Rouge Ashworth did not look up. "Everyone needs to copy something. Hold this." She caught the damp sheet he pushed at her. He wiped his hands on his coat and finally studied her — the rhinestones on her cuffs, the folder, the mud on her boots. "South temple?" he said. "Yes." "Then pencil won't do. Stone's soft where the vine ate it. Press too hard, you lose the cut." He shuffled to a shelf and pulled down a thick book. He set it on the counter. The cover was cream leather, ringed with painted symbols in red, green, and blue. "Illustrated Symbol Codex. If your script matches anything human, it's in here. Take it." "I can pay for the loan." "Bring it back." He turned to a drawer and counted out sheets of black waxed paper, a roll of soft cotton, and a stub of graphite wrapped in cloth. "Lay the paper. Rub with the cloth first, then the graphite. Two passes. Don't rush the corners." Mariah wrote it down word for word. "One more thing." He reached under the counter and set a pair of pink-lensed glasses in gold frames on top of the codex. "Old stock. They read what the eye can't. Try them on the stone before you copy. If a mark's too faint to see, they'll catch it." She paid what he asked. She left with the tools bundled under her arm and the codex heavy against her ribs. The temple was still a day's walk south. But now, when she found the wall, she could take it home clean.