Gehn was taught in a group of eight, the eldest aged seven, the youngest himself. Most of it was basic, the kind of stuff his mother had taught him back at home, but some was specific stuff about ink and writing; today’s lecture in particular.
Master Urren, the visiting tutor from the Guild of Ink-Makers, was a big, ungainly, birdlike man, with a long, thin face and huge bushy eyebrows that seemed to form a continuous line across his upper face. He had the habit of staring into the air as he spoke, as if in a trance, then looking directly at one or other of his pupils, startling them. But it was not this habit but his words that had woken Gehn this morning.
With his eyes closed, Gehn could see Master Urren now, his right hand clenched into a fist as he spoke the Ink-Maker’s litany.
“What binds the Word to the World? The Ink!”
“What burns the bridge between the Ages? The Ink!”
“What forms the living darkness between two lights? The Ink!”
Then, to the astonishment of them all, he had brought out a great tub of ink—lifting a handful of the fine dark granules so that they could see.
“The manufacture of this is a secret. A very grave and great secret, like the secret of the paper, which in time each of you will learn. But you must first prove yourself worthy to be trusted with such a secret, for the making of these two things is the key to immense power—the power to make worlds!”
And there was more, the words issuing thunderously from Urren’s lips, so that Gehn had found himself staring at the guildsman openmouthed, amazed by the power of the words. This, he realized, was what his father had been talking about. This was what it meant to be a guildsman. Until that moment he had thought it a senseless thing to want to be, but suddenly, in one single, blazing moment, he understood.
Gehn turned and lay upon his back, letting his hand fall onto his chest. The whispers had stopped now. Soft snoring filled the silent darkness of the narrow room.
Secrets. He was to be the heir to great and wonderful secrets. Twenty years it might take, but then he would know, as Master Urren knew, and maybe then his eyes would burn with that same ferocious knowledge, that same certainty.
Gehn shivered, then, wiping his hand across his face, formed the words silently in the darkness.
It is the D’ni way.
§
The Ink-works were burning. Great flames curled up into the darkness, lighting the roof of the cavern almost a mile overhead. Gehn stood on the stone ledge, staring out the window across the rooftops of the upper city. Surrounding him, his fellow students jostled to see, but he stood at the very front, both hands tightly grasping the great central bar of the pane-less window, looking out across the dark toward the massive blaze.
They had heard the explosion twenty minutes back, but at the time they had not understood just what was happening. Now they knew. Someone had placed a bomb in the very middle of the Ink-Works. Many were dead. Many more were missing.
For the past eight weeks there had been incidents. Senior guildsmen had been mysteriously attacked. Offices had been ransacked. In the worst of the incidents, three Kortee-nea—blank Books—had gone missing, along with a whole stock of small Linking Books. The Maintainers had been placed on constant alert; no one knew yet who was behind the outbreak.
And now this.
There was a shout in the corridor behind them. Gehn turned, along with the others, to see the Duty Master hurrying down the corridor toward them, his hands waving madly.
“Boys! Boys! Get down from there at once!”
They climbed down, obedient to their Guild Master, yet as Gehn went to walk away, he saw how the Master hung back at the window, staring out at the blaze, the glowing orange light reflected in his pale eyes, a look of pure fear etched in his face.
§
Aitrus did not wait to be summoned but went straight to the Guild House. All but two or three of the Emergency Council were already there, the others arriving very shortly after Aitrus. As Lord R’hira called the meeting to order, a Master from the Guild of Maintainers hurried in and, bowing to R’hira, gave him the latest report from the Ink-Works.
And fifteen had died. Another eight were missing. It was too early to know for certain, but it seemed that a large stock of ink had been taken.
“But how was this possible?” Master Jadaris asked, when his man had finished.
“Someone is linking to places throughout D’ni,” Guild Master Jerahl answered him. “Someone with special knowledge of the guilds.”
“Someone?” R’hira queried, looking about the table. “Or are there several miscreants? Look at the pattern of the attacks. Not one but six separate guilds have now been targeted. And who knows where they will strike next? The only thing these incidents have in common is that they know the intimate workings of the guilds. They know where we are vulnerable. They know precisely where to attack and when.”
“Veovis?”
All eyes turned to Aitrus, who had spoken the name.
“Impossible,” Jadaris said, after a moment. “He is more than safe where we have put him.”
“Is he?” Lord R’hira asked, leaning toward the Grand Master. “When did you last check on him?”
“Three weeks ago. After the first of these incidents.”
“But before the remainder, yes?”
Jadaris nodded. Then, shaking his head, “No. I refuse to believe it. But if my fellow guildsmen would like me to check?”
“Do so, Master Jadaris,” R’hira said. “And let us know what you discover.”
Jadaris bowed to R’hira and left.
R’hira looked about the table. “Whoever this is—and we must not leap to any assumptions without full and proper knowledge—they aim to create a climate of fear, and what better way than to engage in a meaningless sequence of violent events?”
“Do you think that is what’s happening here?” Master Jerahl asked.
“I do. But there is something none of you know about. Something that has been kept a secret among the Five. In view of this latest outrage, however, we feel you ought to know if it.” R’hira paused significantly, then, looking down at his hands, said, “One of the Five great Books has been desecrated. That of Master Talashar. In fact, the structure of the text was so damaged and distorted that that Age has become unstable and we fear it will shortly self-destruct.”
There was horror about the table. This was one of their worst fears—that their Ages would be tampered with and destroyed. And here was news that such a thing had happened, and not just to any Age but to one of the five “Classics,” those ancient, beautiful Ages made by the greatest of D’ni’s Writers.
“Who would do such a thing?” Hajihr of the Stone-Masons asked, his face mirroring the shock everyone felt at that moment.
“I do not know for certain,” R’hira answered, “But I am beginning to have my suspicions. If it is Veovis, then I’d judge he is not acting alone. And there it is one other thing. The new entries were in the same hand as that of Master Talashar.”
“But he died more than six thousand years ago,” Jerahl said, voicing the thoughts of all.
“That is so,” R’hira said. “Yet the ink on the page was barely three weeks old.”
There was a stunned silence, then Aitrus spoke again. “I think we should find A’Gaeris and hold him, until his part in this is fully known.”
“You think he is involved, then?” Hajihr asked.
Aitrus shrugged. “He may be innocent, but I think not. I begin to share my Lord R’hira’s doubts.”
“And Veovis?” Jerahl asked, looking across at Aitrus.
“Perhaps Lord Veovis was innocent after all.”
§
Guild Master Jadaris paused at the outer gate, waiting as the Master of the Keys unlocked the ancient door that led down into the earth.
No part of D’ni lay deeper in the rock than this, no part of the great city in the rock was more secure. A sloping tunnel led from the inner gate down to the Gate of Traitors, ten sp
ans into the rock. There, in a cavern that had been hollowed more than 3,000 years before, lay the Cells of Entry.
Jadaris walked down the long passage between the cells. All but one were empty. So it was. For though there were fifteen cells beyond the inner gate, few were ever used, for D’ni was an orderly society and transgressions that merited incarceration on a Prison Age were rare indeed.
“He must be there,” he muttered to himself as, standing before the solid stone door of Veovis’s cell, he waited for the Master of the keys to unlock.
But R’hira’s words had rattled him. Lord R’hira did not act on whim. If he had a suspicion, then like as not it was the truth. Even so, he could not believe that Veovis was not in the Age.
As the door swung back, he pushed past his Key Master almost rudely, so anxious was he for confirmation one way or another.
The cell was bare, the walls plain rock. A single wooden chair and a table were the only furnishings.
The book, allowing one to monitor the Prison Age, lay on the desk, open, its glowing panel visible.
Jadaris leaned over it. The panel showed no sign of Veovis at his desk in the Prison Age.
He turned, looking back at the squad of guards who had followed him and nodded.
“We go in.”
§
Master Jadaris appeared in a room of metal. The floor of the linking chamber was slatted black metal, the six walls a metallic blue that was almost black, undecorated and windowless, featureless almost, except for one large panel on the far wall facing him. Dim lighting panels in the ceiling gave the room an underwater feel. In the center of the floor was a hexagonal pedestal, on which rested the Linking Book. It appeared untouched.
More men were linking into the room now. Armed Maintainers, wearing sealed masks and carrying air tanks on their backs, ready for any sort of trouble.
As Jadaris stood, the armed men positioned themselves along the walls to other side of him. At Jadaris’s signal, his first assistant stepped up to the panel and placed a flat “locking square” against the faint indentation in the panel, then stepped back.
There was a heavy thunk! as all six of the steel locking bolts retracted at once. With a hiss the door slid slowly into the floor.
Cold air flooded the room. Beyond the door and metal walkway ran on. Jadaris sniffed again, an expression of acute distaste in his face, then walked toward the doorway.
Stepping out onto the walkway he looked up. This guy was dark and glowering, a wintry sun obscured behind heavy cloud.
Facing him was the island. Jadaris stared at it, wondering what Veovis had thought the first time he had seen it, knowing that this was to be his home henceforth, until he died.
The island was a great block of black volcanic rock, its tapered shape thrusting up from a black and oily sea. Standing on top of that desolate rock was a black tower, its walls smooth and windowless. The walkway was an unsupported length of metal some five or six feet above the surface, joining the linking chamber to the island. A set of steps cut from the rock lead up from the walkway to the great door of the tower.
A cold, bleak wind blew from Jadaris’s left, whipping the surface of the water and making him pull his cloak tighter about him.
“Come,” he said, half-turning to his men, “let us see what is to be seen.”
The great door was locked. As his Chief Jailer took the key from his belt and stepped up to fit it to the lock, Jadaris shook his head. It was not possible. It simply was not possible. Yet as they went from room to room in the tower, his certainty dissolved. In the top room was a table. On it they found a meal set out. Yet the meal had been abandoned weeks ago and lay there rotting. Beside it lay three Linking Books.
Jadaris took the first of the three Books and stared at it. He did not know how it had been done, but Veovis had been sprung.
He shivered. This whole business filled him with profound misgivings. It was hard to know just who to trust.
He opened the Linking Book and read a line or two. This one led straight back to D’ni. Or so it seemed. It would be easy to check—he could send one of his guards through—but that was not the way they normally did things. It was not guild practice to send a man through to any Age without a Linking Book to get them back.
Jadaris sat there a moment, staring at the words, his eyes unseeing, his thoughts elsewhere, then suddenly he stood. Sweeping the rotting meal onto the floor, he lay the Book down in its place and opened it to the descriptive panel. Then, looking about him at his men, Jadaris smiled and placed his hand down firmly on the panel.
§
There was the acrid taste of smoke in the air as Veovis, cloaked and headed, made his way it along the alleyway toward the gate. The narrow streets of the lower city were strangely crowded for this late hour, as people stood outside their houses to watch the guildsman fight the great blaze farther up the city. The light from that blaze flickered moistly in Veovis’s eyes as he walked along, but no one noticed a single figure passing among them. Great events were happening in the cavern. They had all heard the explosion, and rumor was even now filtering down from the upper city. Guildsmen were dead. Some said as many as a hundred.
Stepping out from under the gate, Veovis glanced up at the blaze. It was still some way above him into his left. A muscle twitch to at his cheek, then lay still. The guard at the gate had barely glanced at him as he passed, his attention drawn to the fire at the great Ink-Works. And so he walked on, passing like a shadow among that preoccupied crowd.
The gate to the upper city just lay ahead.
§
Anna pulled on her boots, then stood, looking about her at the room. A cloak. Yes. She would need to take a cloak for him.
Going over to the linen cupboard, she took down one of Gehn’s cloaks. Then, knowing that if she thought too long about it she might change her mind, she quickly left the room, hurrying down the hallway and out the front door.
Outside Anna paused, her eyes going straight to the blaze. It was below her and slightly to the left of where she stood. What it meant for D’ni she did not know, but the sight of it had finally made up her mind. She was going to bring Gehn home, whether Aitrus liked it or not. This had gone on for too long.
She hurried through the streets, yet as she came into the lane that led to the Guild Hall, she found it barricaded, a squad of Maintainers keeping back a small crowd of bystanders. Even so, she went across, begging to be allowed to pass, but the guards would not let her and eventually she turned, making her way back along the street, wondering if there might not be another way to get to the Hall.
Down. If she went down to the gate and then across, she might come at the Hall by a different way
She walked on, making for the gate, yet as she did, a man strode toward her. He was cloaked and hooded and kept his head down as he walked, as if heavily preoccupied. There was something strange about that, and as he brushed past her, she caught a glimpse of his eyes beneath the hood.
She turned, astonished.
Veovis! It had been Veovis!
No. It could not be.
Anna swallowed, then, taking two steps, called out to the man. “Sir?”
But the man did not stop. He went on, hastening his pace, disappearing into a side street.
Anna hesitated a moment, then hurried after.
Turning the corner, she thought for a moment she had lost him; then she glimpsed a shadowy figure at the end of the narrow lane, slipping into the side gate of a darkened mansion.
Anna stopped, looking about her, but the lane was empty. If she was to find out what was happening she would have to do it herself.
Slowly, almost tentatively, she approached the gate. The blaze was at her back now. In its light everything was cast in vivid shadows of orange and black. There was a padlock on the gate, but it had been snapped and now hung loose. Anna Lee and her weight gently on the door and pushed.
Inside was a tiny yard, enclosed by walls. A door on the far side was open. Anna went across and s
tood in the doorway, listening. Again she could hear nothing. She slipped inside, into what was clearly a kitchen. The house was dark, abandoned, or, more likely, boarded up. Only the glow of the distance fire lit the room, giving each coverage shape a wavering insubstantiality.
She crossed the room, her footsteps barely audible. A door led onto the great hallway of the mansion. The body of the hall was dark, but on the far side was a huge staircase, leading up to the next floor. A great window on the landing let in the pale red glow of the blaze.
Anna listened a moment, then frowned. Perhaps she had imagined it. Perhaps he had not come in here at all. After all, it was dark, and she had been quite some distance off.
Briefly she wondered whose house this was and why it was abandoned. There were portraits on the walls, but most were in heavy shadow, all detail obscured. Only one, on the landing wall right next to the great window, could be discerned with any clarity, yet even that, in the wavering glow, seemed just a head and shoulders. It could have been anyone. Anyone at all.
Across from her, on the far side of the hallway, were more rooms. She quickly went across and peered inside, into the intense darkness, listening as much as looking. Again there was nothing.
She was about to go, to give up her fruitless search, when there was a distinct noise from the room overhead; a thump of something being put down; a heavy noise of metal and wood.
Anna felt her heartbeat quicken. She should not be here. Not alone, anyway. If it was Veovis, then he had escaped. And if he had escaped…
She was in danger—she knew that for a certainty—but she could not stop herself. Not now. The spirit of exploration was upon her. She had to know if it really was him, and if so, what he was doing.
She went to the foot of the stairs, staring up past the turn. Was there a faint light up there or was she imagining it?
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