The Myst Reader

by Rand; Robyn Miller; David Wingrove

  He looked back at her, surprised, then bent and lifted one of the remaining sacks onto his shoulder.

  As he made his way down and across to the storeroom, he saw the rich pattern of the cloth in his mind and smiled. There was a faint gold thread within the cloth, he realized, recalling how it had felt: soft and smooth, like the underside of a leaf.

  Depositing the second sack, he went back. While he was gone, Anna had lifted the two bolts of cloth up onto the lip of the cleftwall, beside the last of the salt and flour sacks. There was also a small green cloth bag of seeds, tied at the mouth with a length of bloodred twine. Of the final sack, the one he’d thought had moved, there was no sign.

  He frowned, then looked to his grandmother, but if she understood his look, she didn’t show it.

  “Put the seeds in the kitchen,” she said quietly, lifting the bolt of silk onto her shoulder. “We’ll plant them tomorrow. Then come back and help me with the rest of the cloth.”

  As he came back from the storeroom, he saw that Anna was waiting from him on the broad stone ledge at the far end of the garden. Even from where he stood he could see how tired she was. Crossing the rope bridge to the main house, he went quickly down the narrow steps that hugged the wall and, keeping carefully to the smooth, protruding rocks that delineated the pool’s western edge, crouched and, taking the metal ladle from its peg, leaned across and dipped it into the still, mirrorlike surface.

  Standing again, he went swiftly along the edge, his toes hugging the rock, careful not to spill a drop of precious water, stopping beside the ledge on which Anna sat.

  She looked up at him and smiled; a weary, loving smile.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking the ladle and drinking from it, then offered it back.

  “No,” he said softly, shaking his head. “You finish it.”

  With a smile, she drained the ladle and handed it back.

  “Well, Atrus,” she said, suddenly relaxed, as if the water had washed the tiredness from her. “What did you see?”

  He hesitated, then. “I saw a brown cloth sack, and the sack moved.”

  Her laughter was unexpected. Atrus frowned, then grinned as she produced the sack from within the folds of her cloak. It was strange, for it seemed not to hold anything. Not only that, but the cloth of the sack was odd—much coarser than those the traders normally used. It was as if it had been woven using only half the threads. If it had held salt, the salt would have spilled through the holes in the cloth, yet the sack held something.

  “Well?” she said, amused by his reaction. “Are you going to take it?”

  He stared at her, genuinely surprised. “For me?”

  “Yes,” she said. “For you.”

  Gingerly, he took it from her, noticing that the sack’s mouth was tied with the same red twine as the seed bag.

  “What is it?”

  “Look and see,” she said, taking her knife and handing it to him by the handle. “But be careful. It might bite.”

  He froze, looking to her, perplexed now.

  “Oh, go on,” she said, laughing softly. “I’m only teasing you, Atrus. Open it.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, he slipped the blade beneath the twine and pulled. The mouth of the sack sighed open.

  Putting the blade down on the rock, he lifted the glasses up onto the top of his head, then grasped the sack’s neck, slowly drawing it open, all the while peering into its dark interior.

  There was something there. Something small and hunched and…

  The sound made him drop the sack and jerk back, he hairs at his neck standing up with shock.

  “Careful…” Anna said, bending down to pick the sack up.

  Atrus watched, astonished, as she took out something small and finely furred. For a moment he didn’t understand, and then, with a shock, he saw what it was. A kitten! Anna had bought him a kitten!

  He made a sound of delight, then, getting to his feet, took a step toward her, bending close to look at the tiny thing she held.

  It was beautiful. Its fur was the color of the desert sand at sunset, while its eyes were great saucers of green that blinked twice then stared back at him curiously. In all it was no bigger than one of Anna’s hands.

  “What is it called?” he asked.

  “She’s called Pahket.”

  “Pahket?” Atrus looked up at his grandmother, frowning, then reached out and gently stroked the kitten’s neck.

  “That name’s an ancient one. The eldest of the traders said it was a lucky name.”

  “Maybe,” Atrus said uncertainly, “but it doesn’t feel right. Look at her. She’s like a tiny flame.” He smiled as the kitten pressed against his hand and began to purr noisily.

  “Then maybe you should call her that.”

  “Flame?”

  Anna nodded. She watched her grandson a moment, then spoke again. “There’s a small clay bowl in the kitchen…”

  Atrus looked up. “The blue one?”

  “Yes. Flame can use it. In fact, she could probably do with some water now, having been in that sack.”

  Atrus smiled, then, as if he’d done it all his infant life, picked the kitten up with one hand, cradling it against his side, and carried her across, vaulting up the steps in twos and threes before ducking inside the kitchen. A moment later he reemerged, the bowl in his other hand.

  “Come on, Flame,” he said, speaking softly to the kitten as if it were a child, his thumb gently rubbing the top of its head, “let’s get you a drink.”

  §

  As darkness fell, Atrus sat on the narrow balcony that ran the length of the outer sleeping chamber, the dozing kitten curled beside him on the cool stone ledge as he stared up at the moon. It had been a wonderful day, but like all days it had to end. Below and to his right, he could see his grandmother, framed in the brightly lit window of the kitchen, a small oil lamp casting its soft yellow glow over her face and upper arms as she worked, preparing a tray of cakes. They, like the kitten, were a treat, to celebrate his seventh birthday in two days’ time.

  The thought of it made him smile, yet into his joy seeped an element of restlessness. Happy as he was here with his grandmother, he had recently begun to feel that there was more than this. There had to be.

  He looked past the moon, following a line of stars until he found the belt of the hunter, tracing the shape of the hunter’s bow in the night sky as his grandmother had taught him. There were so many things to know, so many things yet to learn.

  And when I’ve learned them all, grandmother?

  He remembered how she had laughed at that, then leaned toward him. There’s never an end to learning, Atrus. There are more things in this universe, yes, and more universes, than we could ever hope to know.

  And though he did not quite understand what she had meant by that, simply staring at the vastness of the night sky gave him some tiny inkling of the problem. Yet he was curious to know all he could—as curious as the sleeping kitten beside him was indolent.

  He looked down from that vastness. All about him the cleft was dotted with tiny lights that glowed warmly in the darkness.

  “Atrus?”

  He turned, looking up as Anna came and crouched beside him on the narrow ledge. “Yes, grandmother?”

  “You have a lot to write in your journal today.”

  Atrus smiled, then stroked the kitten, petting it between the ears, and feeling it push back against his fingers.

  “I wrote it earlier, while you were in the storeroom.”

  “Ah…” She reached out, gently brushing the kitten’s flank with he backs of her fingers. “And how does your experiment?”

  “Which one?” he asked, suddenly eager.

  “Your measurements. I saw you out there earlier.”

  For nearly six months now Atrus had been studying the movement of the dunes on the far side of the volcano. He had placed a series of long stakes deep into the sand along the dune’s edge, then had watched, meticulously measuring the daily movement of the du
ne, using the stakes as his baseline, then marking those measurements down on a chart in the back of his journal.

  “I’ve almost finished,” he said, his eyes shining brightly in the moonlight. “Another few weeks and I’ll have my results.”

  Anna smiled at that, amused and yet proud of the care he took. There was no doubting it, Atrus had a fine mind—a true explorer’s mind—and a curiosity to match.

  “And have you a theory?” she asked, noting how he sat up straighter to answer her.

  “They move,” he answered.

  “A little or a lot?”

  He smiled. “It depends.”

  “Depends?”

  “On what you think is a little, or what you think is a lot.”

  She laughed, enjoying his answer. “A little would be, oh, several inches a year, a lot would be a mile.”

  “Then it’s neither,” he answered, looking down at Flame again. The kitten was dozing now, her head tucked down, her gentle snores a soft sound in the darkness.

  Anna reached out, her fingers brushing his hair back from his eyes. In some ways he was an ungainly child, yet there was something about him that was noble. The kindness, the sharp intelligence in his eyes—these things distinguished him, giving the lie to his physical awkwardness.

  “It changes,” he said, his eyes meeting hers again.

  “Changes?”

  “The rate at which the dune travels. Sometimes it barely moves, but when there’s a storm…”

  “Yes?” she asked quietly.

  “It’s the wind,” he said. “It pushes the smaller grains up the windward side of the dune. From there they tumble over the crest, onto the leeward side. That’s why the dune is shaped the way it is. The larger, coarser grains don’t move so much, that’s why the windward slope is gradually curved. It’s packed densely. You walk on it as on a rock. But the leeward side…”

  “Yes?” she said, encouraging him.

  He frowned, wrinkling up his nose as he thought it through. “Well, the leeward side is constantly changing. The fine grains build up, forming a steep slope, until…well, until they all tumble down. If you try to walk on it you sink down into it. It’s not packed like the windward side.”

  Anna smiled, her eyes never leaving his face. “You say it tumbles over. Do you know why?”

  Atrus nodded enthusiastically, making Flame stir in his lap. “It has to do with how the grains balance on each other. Up to a certain angle they’re find, but beyond that…”

  “And have you measured that angle?” she asked, pleased with him.

  Again he nodded. “Thirty-five degrees. That’s the steepest it gets before it begins to slip.”

  “Good,” she said, resting her hands on her knees. “It seems like you’ve considered everything, Atrus. You’ve tried to see the Whole.”

  Atrus had looked down, gazing at the sleeping kitten. Now he looked up again. “The Whole?”

  She laughed softly. “It’s something my father used to say to me. What I mean by it, is that you’ve looked at the problem from many angles and considered how the pieces fit together. You’ve asked all the questions that needed to be asked and come up with the answers. And now you have an understanding of it.” She smiled and reached out again, letting her hand rest lightly on his shoulder. “It may seem a small thing, Atrus—after all, a dune is but a dune—but the principle’s a sound one and will stand you in good stead whatever you do, and however complex the system is you’re looking at. Always consider the Whole, Atrus. Always look at the interrelatedness of things, and remember that the ‘whole’ of one thing is always just a part of something else, something larger.”

  Atrus stared at her, slowly nodding, the seriousness of his gaze belying his seven years. Seeing it, Anna sighed inwardly. Sometimes he made her feel so proud. Such fine, clear eyes he had. Eyes that had been so encouraged to see—that yearned to observe and question the world around him.

  “Grandmother?”

  “Yes, Atrus?”

  “Can I draw a picture of Flame?”

  “No,” she said, smiling down at him. “Not now. It’s time for bed. You want Flame to sleep with you?”

  He grinned and nodded.

  “Then bring her through. She can sleep at the foot of your bed tonight. Tomorrow we’ll make a basket for her.”

  “Grandmother?”

  “Yes, Atrus?”

  “Can I read for a while?”

  She smiled then reached out to ruffle his hair. “No. But I’ll come and tell you a story, if you like.”

  His eyes widened. “Please. And Nanna?”

  “Yes?” she asked, surprised by his use of the familiar term.

  “Thank you for Flame. She’s beautiful. I’ll take good care of her.”

  “I know you will. Now come inside. It’s late.”

  §

  Atrus’s bed was on a shelf of rock cut into the back wall of the inner sleeping chamber like a tiny catacomb. A beautifully woven quilt was his mattress, while a large, doubled square of cloth, sewn neatly by Anna along the edges and decorated with a pattern of tiny, embroidered golden stars, served for a sheet. In a niche in the rock at the head of the shelf rested a small oil lamp, secured by narrow metal bars at top and bottom.

  Anna reached in and, lifting the curiously engraved glass, lit the wick, then moved back, letting Atrus climb into the tiny space. Soon he would be too big for the sleeping shelf, but for now it sufficed.

  Looking at her grandson, she felt a twinge of regret; regret for the passing of innocence, knowing that she should cherish such moments as this, for they could not last. Nothing lasted. Neither individual lives, nor empires.

  “So,” she said, tucking him in, then lifting the half-dozing cat onto him, so he could cuddle it a while, “what would you like me to tell you?”

  He looked away from her a moment, his pale eyes seeming to read the flickering shadows within the shelf, then met her eyes again, smiling.

  “How about the tale of Kerath?”

  “But you’ve heard that several times now, Atrus.”

  “I know, but I’d like to hear it again. Please, grandmother.”

  She smiled and lay her hand on his brow, then, closing her eyes, began the ancient tale.

  It was set in the land of the D’ni, dating back, so it was said, to the time, thousands of years ago, when their homeland had suffered the first of the great earthquakes that, ultimately, had caused them to flee and come here.

  Kerath had been the last of the great kings; last not because he was deposed but because, when he had achieved all he had set out to achieve, he had stepped down and appointed a council of elders to run the D’ni lands. But the “tale of Kerath” was the story of the young prince’s teenage years and how he had spent them in the great underground desert of Tre-Merktee, the Place of Poisoned Waters.

  And when Atrus heard the tale, what did he think? Did he imagine himself a young prince, like Kerath, banished into exile by his dead father’s brother? Or was it something else in the tale that attracted him, for there was no doubting that this was his favorite story.

  As she came to a close, narrating the final part, of how Kerath tamed the great lizard and rode it back into the D’ni capital, she could sense how Atrus clung to her every word, following each phrase, each twist in the story.

  In her mind she closed the book silently and set it aside, as she had once done for another little boy in another time, in a place very different from this. Opening her eyes, she found Atrus staring up at her.

  “Are there many tales, grandmother?”

  She laughed. “Oh, thousands…”

  “And do you know them all?”

  She shook her head. “No. Why, it would be impossible, Atrus. D’ni was a great empire, and its libraries were small cities in themselves. If I were to try to memorize all the tales of the D’ni it would take me several lifetimes, and even then I would have learned but a handful of them.”

  “And are the tales true?” Atrus asked,
yawning and turning to face the wall.

  “Do you believe them?”

  He was silent, then, with a sleepy sigh. “I guess so.”

  Yet she sensed he was not satisfied. Reaching out, she lifted the blanket until it covered his neck, then, leaning across, kissed his brow.

  “Shall I leave Flame where she is?”

  “Mmmm…” he answered, already half asleep.

  Smiling, Anna reached across and, lifting the glass, snuffed the lamp, then stood and left the room.

  The lamp was still burning in her workroom on the far side of the cleft. The half-completed sculpture lay where she’d left it on the desk, the workbox open next to it, the delicate stone-working instruments laid out in their trays. For a moment she stood there, looking down at it, considering what needed to be done, then moved past it, reaching up to take a tiny, pearl-backed case from the shelf where she kept her books.

  Thumbing the clasp, she opened it and stared at her reflection, drawing a wisp of gray hair back off her brow.

  “What do you see, Anna?”

  The face that looked back at her was strong and firm, the bone structure delicate without being brittle; refined, rather than coarse. In her time she had been a great beauty. But time was against her now.

  The thought made her smile. She had never been vain, yet she had always—always—wondered just how much of her real self showed in her face. How much the interplay of eye and mouth revealed. And yet how much those same subtle features could hide. Take Atrus, for instance. When he smiled, he smiled not simply with his lips but with the whole of his face, the whole of his being: a great, radiant smile that shone out from him. Likewise, when he was thinking, it was as if one could see right through him—like glass—and watch the thoughts fizz and sparkle in his head.

  And her own face?

  She tilted her head slightly to the side, examining herself again, noting this time the tiny blue beads she had tied into her braids, the colorful, finely woven band about her neck.

  The face that stared back at her was pale and tautly fleshed, almost austere; the deeply green eyes were intelligent, the mouth sensitive; yet it was in those few small, surrounding touches—the beads, the band—that her true nature was revealed: that part, at least, that loved embellishment. From childhood on, she had always been the same. Give her a blank page and she would fill it with a poem or a story or a picture. Give her a blank wall and she would always—always—decorate it.