The Myst Reader

by Rand; Robyn Miller; David Wingrove

  Aitrus turned, waved to them, then turned back, placing his hand against the open Linking Book.

  The air about his figure swirled as if it had been transformed into some other substance, then cleared. Aitrus was gone.

  Anna shivered. Words could not say the fear she felt at that moment: a dark, instinctive fear for him.

  “Be brave, my darling,” she said, looking down at Gehn. “Your father will come back. I promise he will.”

  §

  Aitrus could hear his own breathing loud within the mask as he linked into the study. He took out the lamp he had brought and, striking the fire-marble, lit it and held it up, looking about him.

  Nothing had been disturbed, yet all had been transformed. The gas had gone, but where it had been it had left its residue, coating everything with a thin layer of yellow-brown paste.

  The sight of it sickened him to his stomach. Was it all like this, everywhere in D’ni? Had nothing survived untouched?

  Outside in the corridor it was all the same, as though some host of demons had repainted everything the same hellish shade. Where his booted feet trod he left long smearing marks upon the floor.

  Aitrus swallowed. The air he breathed was clean and pure, yet it seemed tainted somehow by what he saw.

  He went down the stairs, into the lower level of the house. Here some of the gas remained, pooled in the corners of rooms. Faint wisps of it drifted slowly through open doorways.

  Aitrus watched it a moment. It seemed alive, almost; hideously, maliciously alive.

  No sooner had he had the thought, than a second followed. This was no simple chemical mix. He should have known that by the way it had reacted with the algae in the lake. This was biological. It was alive.

  He went out again, heading for the front door, then stopped, deciding to douse the lantern, just in case. He did so, letting the darkness embrace him, then he stepped up to the door, finding his way blindly.

  Outside it was somewhat lighter, but only comparatively so. Most of the cavern was dark—darker than Aitrus had ever imagined possible—but there were lights, down below him and to his left, not far off if he estimated correctly; approximately where the great Halls of the guilds had once stood.

  Had stood. For even in the darkness he could see evidence of the great ruin that had fallen upon D’ni. Between him and the lights, silhouetted against them, was a landscape of fallen houses and toppled walls, as if a giant had trampled his way carelessly across the rooftops.

  Aitrus sighed, then began to make his way toward those lights. There would be guildsmen there, he was certain of it. Maybe even his father, Kahlis. They would have news, yes, and schemes to set things right again.

  The thought of that cheered him. He was D’ni, after all!

  Aitrus stopped and, taking out the lantern, lit it again. Then, holding it up before him, he began to make his way through the ruin of the streets and lanes, heading for the Guild House.

  §

  The Guild House was empty. Its great doors, which had once been proudly guarded, were now wide open. It had been built well and had withstood the ravages of the great quakes that had struck the city, yet all about it was a scene of devastation that had taken Aitrus’s breath. There was barely a building that had not been damaged.

  And everywhere the sickly yellow-brown residue of the gas.

  Aitrus stood in the great Council chamber, facing the five thrones, his lantern held up before him. It was here that he had left his father. Here that he had made his promise to return on the tenth day. So where were they all? Had they been and gone? Or had they never come?

  There was one sure and certain way to find out.

  He walked through, into one of the tiny rooms that lay behind the great chamber. There, open on the desk, was a Linking Book. As all else, it was covered with the pastelike residue, yet the glow of the linking panel could be glimpsed. Though a thin layer of the paste covered the glowing rectangle, a hand print could be clearly seen upon it.

  Some had linked after the gas had settled.

  Aitrus went across and, using the sleeve of his cloak, wiped the right-hand page clean. At once the glow came clear. If the Five Lords and his father were anywhere, they were there, in that Age.

  He doused the lantern and stowed it, then placed his hand upon the panel. He linked.

  At once Aitrus found himself in a low cave. Sunlight filtered in from an entrance just above him. He could hear birdsong and the lulling noise of the sea washing against the shoreline.

  He sighed, relieved. All was well.

  Releasing the clamp at the side of his mask, he eased it up, taking a deep gulp of the refreshing air, then, reaching behind him, switched off the air supply. He would need it when he returned to D’ni.

  Quickly he climbed the twist of steps that had been cut into the side of the cave wall, pausing only to take out his glasses and slip them on. Then, his spirits raised, he stepped out, into the sunlight.

  The buildings were just below him, at the end of a long grassy slope. They blazed white in the sunlight, their perfect domes and arches blending with the green of the surrounding wood, the deep blue of the shimmering sea that surrounded the island.

  They would be inside the Great Library, of course, debating what to do. That was why they were delayed, why they had not come. Even so, Aitrus was surprised that they had not set a guard by the Linking Book.

  He stopped dead, blinking, taking that in.

  There would have been a guard. There always was a guard. In fact, he had never come here, before now, without there being a guard in the cave.

  Something was wrong.

  Aitrus drew his dagger then walked on, listening for any sound. Coming around the side of the library, he slowed. The silence was strange, unnatural. The great wooden door was open. Inside the room was shadowy dark.

  The elders of D’ni sat in their seats about the chamber, thirty, maybe forty in all. In the darkness they seemed to be resting, yet their stillness was not the stillness of sleep.

  Slipping his dagger back into its sheath, Aitrus took out his lamp and lit it, then stepped into the chamber.

  In the glow of the lantern he could see the dreadful truth of things. They were dead, every last one of them, dead, their faces pulled back, he chins slightly raised, as if in some final exhalation.

  Aitrus shuddered, then turned.

  “Father…”

  Kahlis sat in a chair close by the door, his back to the sunlight spilling in from outside. His hands rested on the arms of the chair, almost casually it seemed, yet the fingers gripped the wood tightly and the face had that same stiffness in it that all the other faces had, as if they had been caught suddenly and unawares by some invisible enemy.

  Aitrus groaned and sank down to his knees, his head lowered before his father. For a long while he remained so. Then, slowly, he raised his head again.

  “What in the Maker’s name has happened here?”

  Aitrus turned, looking up into the masked face of the newcomer. The man was standing in the doorway, the sunlight behind him. He was wearing the purple cloak of the Guild of Ink-Makers, but Aitrus could not make out his features clearly in the gloom.

  “It’s some kind of virus,” he began, then, seeing that the other made to unmask himself, shook his head. “No! Keep that on!”

  The guildsman let his hand fall away from the strap, then looked about him. “Are they all dead?” he asked, a note of hopelessness entering his voice.

  “Yes,” Aitrus answered bleakly. “Or so it seems.”

  §

  The grave was new, the earth freshly turned. Nearby, as if surprised, a guard lay on his back, dead, his hands gripping each other as if they fought, his jaw tightly clenched.

  Aitrus stared at the guard a moment, then, looking to his fellow guildsman, Jiladis, he picked up the spade once more and began to dig, shoveling the last of the dark earth back into the hole. They really were all dead—guildsmen and guards, servants and natives. Not one had survived
the plague, if plague it was.

  And himself? Was he now infected with it?

  The last book of commentary told the tale. They had found it open on a desk in one of the other buildings, its scribe, an ancient of two hundred years or more, slumped over it. The body had come through a week ago, only two days after the evacuation of D’ni. They had burned it, naturally, but the damage had been done.

  “What will you do?” Jiladis asked, his voice muted through the mask he still wore.

  “I suppose I will go back,” Aitrus answered. “To D’ni, anyway.”

  And there was the problem. If he was infected, he could not go back to Gemedet, for he could not risk infecting Gehn and Anna and his mother. Yet was it fair not to let them know what had happened here?

  Besides which, he needed to get back, now that he knew what was happening, for he had to return to the mansion and get the Linking Book. Gemedet at least would then be safe.

  If he was not already too late.

  “I shall come with you,” Jiladis said finally. “There’s nothing here.”

  Aitrus nodded, then looked up at the open sky and at the sun winking fiercely down at him.

  The surface. He could always make his way to the surface.

  Yes. But what about any others who had survived? Could he persuade Jiladis, for instance, that his future lay on the surface?

  Aitrus set the spade aside, then knelt, murmuring the D’ni words of parting over the grave. Then, standing again, he made his own, more informal farewell.

  “Goodbye, my father. May you find peace in the next Age, and may Yavo, the Maker, receive your soul.”

  Aitrus lingered awhile, his eyes closed as he remembered the best of his father. Then he turned and slowly walked away, making his way back to the linking cave, Jiladis following slowly after.

  §

  The door to the family Book Room had been smashed open, the shelves of the room ransacked. On the podium the Book of Ko’ah lay open, its pages smeared, a clear handprint over the panel.

  Aitrus stared at it in shock.

  Signs of desecration were everywhere—smeared footprints in the hallways and in almost every room—but had they gone upstairs.

  His heart almost in his mouth, Aitrus slipped and skidded up the stairs in his haste.

  His workroom was at the far end of the corridor. Footsteps led along the corridor toward it. Aitrus stopped dead, staring at them in horror.

  So they had been here, too.

  In the doorway he paused, looking about him. A circle of footprints went halfway into the room then came away.

  He frowned, not understanding, then rushed across the room. The Book of Gemedet was where he had left it on the desk. The open pages were undisturbed, the thin layer of pasty residue untouched.

  Aitrus sighed with relief. Taking a clean cloth from a drawer, he cleaned the cover carefully, then tucked it into the knapsack beside the other things he had packed for the journey.

  He had taken extra cylinders from the Hall of the Guild of Miners and food from the sealed vaults in the Hall of the Caterers—enough for an eight-day journey.

  If he had eight days.

  And Anna? Would she keep her word? Would she stay in Gemedet and not try to come after him? He hoped so. For if she linked here, there would be no linking back for her. Not to Gemedet, anyway, for the book would be with him, and he was going to the surface.

  Aitrus went to the front door and looked out across the darkness of the cavern.

  He had seen them, yesterday, on his return, or thought he did: the ghostly figures of A’Gaeris and Veovis, pushing their cart of death. And, seeing them, he had known that nowhere was safe from them: not in D’ni, anyway, nor in any of the linked Ages.

  If he and Anna and the boy were to have any kind of life, it would have to be up there, on the surface. But were the tunnels still open? Or had the great quakes that had flattened so much in D’ni destroyed them also?

  He would have to go and see for himself. If he lived that long. If sickness did not take him on the journey.

  §

  It was the evening of the sixteenth day, and Anna sat at Gehn’s bedside, listening to his gentle snores in the shadows of the room. A book of D’ni tales lay beside her, facedown where she had put it. Worn out by a day of playing in the woods, Gehn had fallen asleep even as she read to him. Not that she minded. Anything that took his mind off his father’s prolonged absence was welcome, and it was good to see him sleep so deeply and peacefully.

  Leaning across, she kissed his brow, then stood and went outside. The stars were out now, bright against the sable backdrop of the sky. Anna yawned and stretched. She had barely slept this past week. Each day she expected him back, and each day, when he did not come, she feared the very worst.

  Tasera, she knew, felt it almost as keenly as she did; maybe more so, for she, after all, had both a husband and a son who were missing; yet Tasera found it much easier to cope with than she did, for she was D’ni and had that rocklike D’ni stoicism. Had it been a thousand days, Tasera would have waited still, patient to the last.

  Am I so impatient, then? Anna asked herself, walking over to the rock at the head of the valley.

  She smiled, knowing what Aitrus would have said. It was the difference in their life expectancy, or so he argued. She was a short fuse and burned fast, while he…

  Come back, she pleaded silently, looking out into the star-filled night. Wherever you are—whenever you are—come back to me, Aitrus.

  If they had to spend the rest of their years on Gemedet, she would be content, if only she could be with him.

  And if that is not your fate?

  It was her father’s voice. It was a long time since she had heard that voice—a long, long time since she had needed the comfort of it.

  He has been a good man to you, Anna.

  “Yes,” she said quietly, speaking to the air. “I could not have wished for a better partner.”

  But now you must learn to be alone.

  She blinked. There was such certainty in that voice. “No,” she said, after a moment. “He will come back. He promised, and he always keeps his promises.”

  The voice was silent.

  “Ti’ana?”

  Anna started, then turned. Tasera was standing not ten paces from her, just below her on the slope. She must have been walking down by the stream. Coming closer, Tasera looked at her and frowned.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  Anna looked aside, then answered her honestly. “I was speaking to my father.”

  “Ah…” Tasera stepped closer, so that Anna could see her eyes clearly in the half-light. “And what did he say?”

  “He said I must learn to be alone.”

  Tasera watched her a moment, then nodded. “I fear it might be so.”

  “But I thought…”

  “Kahlis is not there. I cannot feel him anymore. No matter where he was, no matter when, he was always there, with me. So it is when you have lived with a man a century and more. But suddenly there is a gap—an absence, if you like. He is not there anymore. Something has happened to him.”

  Tasera fell silent.

  “I did not know. I thought…” Anna frowned. What had she thought? That only she felt like that? That only she and he were related to each other in that strange, nonphysical manner? No. For how could that possibly be? Even so, sometimes it felt as if they were the books of each other—to which each one linked. And when one of those books was destroyed, what then? Would there no longer be a connection? Would there only be a gap, an awful, yawning abyss?

  The thought of it terrified her. To be that alone.

  “I am sorry, Tasera,” Anna said finally. “I do hope you are wrong.”

  “And I,” Tasera said, reaching out to take her hands. “And I.”

  §

  Aitrus woke. The darkness in his head was matched by the darkness in which he lay. It was damp and cold and his whole body ached, yet the air was fresher than he rememb
ered it.

  He put his hand up to his face, surprised. The mask…

  And then he remembered. The air had given out. He had had to take off the mask or suffocate. And that was when he had linked—linked back to Gemedet.

  Aitrus lay there a while, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the darkness of the cave. It had to be night outside, for not a trace of sunlight filtered down from above. He listened, straining to hear some sound, but it was hard to know whether he was imagining it or not. For eight days now he had known nothing but silence. The awful, echoing silence of the rock.

  All of his life, he realized now, there had been noises all about him—the faint murmur of the great fans that brought the air into the caverns, or the dull concussion from a mining rig, busy excavating in the deep; the noises of the city itself, or of boats out on the lake; the bells that sounded out each hour of every day, and the normal noises of the household all about him. Such sounds had formed the continuum of his existence, ceaseless and unnoticed. Until now.

  Now death had come to D’ni. Yes, and to every part of its once great empire. Even in the tunnels he had found the dead—Miners at their work, or Maintainers, whose job it was to patrol the great perimeter.

  Yes, and he had even found the source of death: the great machine that had proved D’ni’s bane. In one of the lower caverns he had come upon it, its huge canisters empty now. They had used such machines in the Guild of Surveyors, to provide air for tricky excavations, or before a regular supply could be pumped up from D’ni itself. But Veovis had used it to pump poisons back into D’ni, letting D’ni’s own circulatory system distribute it to every tiny niche.

  Even had they switched the great fans down, which eventually they did, it would have proved a bleak choice: to suffocate from lack of air, or die of the poisonous bacteria that that same air carried.