Horrified, Aitrus rushed halfway across the room, yet even as he did, Veovis collapsed and fell back, groaning.
Aitrus knelt over him.
“Veovis…Veovis, it is Aitrus. What happened here?”
There was a movement in Veovis’s face. His eyes blinked and then he seemed to focus on Aitrus’s face. And with that came recognition.
“What happened?”
Veovis laughed, then coughed. Blood was on his lips. His voice, when he spoke, came raggedly, between pained breaths.
“My colleague and I…we had a little…disagreement.”
The ironic smile was pained.
“A’Gaeris?”
Veovis closed his eyes then gave the faintest nod.
“And you fought?”
Veovis’s eyes flickered open. “It was no fight…He…” Veovis swallowed painfully. “He stabbed me…when my back was turned.”
Veovis grimaced, fighting for his breath. Aitrus thought he was going to die, right there and then, but slowly Veovis’s breathing normalized again and his eyes focused on Aitrus once more.
“I would not do it.”
“What? What wouldn’t you do?”
“The Age he wanted…I would not write it.” A tiny spasm ran through Veovis. Aitrus gripped him.
“Tell me,” he said. “I need to know.”
Veovis almost smiled. “And I need to tell you.”
He swallowed again, then. “He wanted a special place…a place where we could be gods.”
“God?”
Veovis nodded.
It was the ultimate heresy, the ultimate misuse of the great Art: to mistake Writing, the ability to link with preexistent worlds, with true creation. And at the end, Veovis, it seemed, had refused to step over that final line. He looked up at Aitrus now.
Aitrus blinked. Suddenly, the image of his workroom had come to his mind—the trail of footprints leading halfway to the Book but no farther.
“Was that you?” he asked softly. “In my workroom, I mean.”
Veovis took two long breaths, then nodded.
“But why? After all you did, why let us live?”
“Because she spoke out for me. Because…she said there was good in me…And she was right…even at the end.”
Veovis closed his eyes momentarily, the pain overwhelming him, then he continued, struggling now to get the words out before there were no more words.
“It was as if there was a dark cloud in my head, poisoning my thoughts. I felt…” Veovis groaned, “nothing. Nothing but hatred, anyway. Blind hatred. Of everything and everyone.”
There was a shout, from outside. Carefully laying Veovis down, he went to the window and looked out, what he saw filling him with dismay.
“What is it?” Veovis asked from below him.
Out on the lake a single boat was heading out toward the distant islands. Standing at its stern, steering it, was the distinctive figure of A’Gaeris. And before him in the boat, laying on the bare planks, their hands and feet bound, were Anna and Gehn.
“It’s A’Gaeris,” he said quietly. “He has Ti’ana and my son.”
“Then you must save her, Aitrus.”
Aitrus gave a bleak cry. “How? A’Gaeris has the only boat, and I am too weak to swim.”
“Then link there.”
Aitrus turned and looked down at the dying man. “Where is he taking them?”
Veovis looked up at him, his eyes clear now, as if he had passed beyond all pain. “To K’veer. That’s where we are based. That’s where all the Books are now. We’ve been collecting them. Hundreds of them. Some are in the Book Room, but most are on the Age I made for him. They are in the cabin on the south island. That’s where you link to. The Book of that Age is in my study.”
Aitrus knelt over Veovis again. “I understand. But how does that help me? That’s in K’veer. How do I get there?”
In answer, Veovis gestured toward his left breast. There was a deep pocket there, and something in it. Aitrus reached inside and took out a slender book.
“He did not know I had this,” Veovis said, smiling now. “It links to Nidur Gemat. There is a Book there that links directly to my study on K’veer. You can use them to get to the island before he does.”
Aitrus stared at the Book a moment, then looked back at Veovis.
Veovis met his eyes. “Do you still not trust me, Aitrus! Then listen. The Book I mentioned. It has a green cover. It is there that A’Gaeris plans to go. It is there that you might trap him. You understand?”
Aitrus hesitated a moment, then, “I will trust you, for I have no choice, and perhaps there is some good in you at the last.”
§
The city was receding now. In an hour he would be back in K’veer. A’Gaeris turned from the sight and looked back at his captives where they lay at the bottom of the boat.
He would have killed them there and then, at the harbor’s edge, and thought nothing of it, but the woman had betrayed the fact that her husband was still abroad.
And so, he would use them as his bait. And once he had Aitrus, he would destroy all three of them, for he had not the sentimental streak that had ruined his once-companion, Veovis.
“He will not come for us, you know.”
A’Gaeris looked down at the woman disdainfully. “Of course he’ll come. The man’s a sentimental fool. He came before, didn’t he?”
“But not this time. He’ll wait for you. In D’ni.”
“While you and your son are my captives?” A’Gaeris laughed. “Why, he will be out of his mind with worry, don’t you think?”
He saw how that silenced her. Yes, with the two of them safe in a cell on K’veer he could go back and settle things with Guildsman Aitrus once and for all.
For there was only one boat in all of D’ni now, and he had it.
“No,” he said finally. “He’ll wait there at the harbor until I bring the boat back. And then I’ll have him. Oh yes, Ti’ana. You can be certain of it!”
§
The first Book had linked him to a room in the great house on Nidur Gemat, filled with Veovis’s things. There, after a brief search, he found the second Book that linked to this, more familiar room on the island of K’veer, a place he had often come in better times.
Aitrus stood there a moment, leaning heavily against the desk, a bone-deep weariness making his head spin. Then, knowing he had less than an hour to make his preparations, he looked about him.
The Book with the emerald green cover was on a table in the far corner of the room, beside a stack of other, older Books. Going across to them, Aitrus felt a sudden despair, thinking of what had been done here. So much endeavor had come to naught, here in this room. And for what reason? Envy? Revenge? Or was it simple malice?
Was A’Gaeris mad?
Aitrus groaned, thinking of the end to which Veovis had come. Then, determined to make one final, meaningful effort, he lifted the Book and carried it back over to the desk.
There he sat, opening the Book and reading through the first few pages. After a while he lifted his head, nodding to himself. Here it was, nakedly displayed: what Veovis might, in time, have become; a great Master among Masters, as great, perhaps, as the legendary Ri’Neref.
He began to cough, a hacking, debilitating cough, then put his fingers to his lips. There was blood there now. He, too, was dying.
Taking a cloth from his pocket, Aitrus wiped his mouth and then began, dipping the pen and scoring out essential phrases and adding in others at the end of the book. Trimming and pruning this most perfect of Ages. Preparing it.
And all the while he thought of Anna and of Gehn, and prayed silently that they would be all right.
§
A’Gaeris climbed the steps of the harbor at K’veer, Anna and the boy just in front of him, goaded on by the point of his knife.
At the top he paused and, grasping the loose ends of the ropes by which their hands were bound, wrapped them tightly about his left hand. Then, leading the two behind him like a pa
ir of hounds, he went inside the mansion.
K’veer had not been untouched by the tremors, and parts of its impressive architecture had cracked and fallen away into the surrounding lake, yet enough of it remained for it to be recognizable. Anna, who had wondered where they were going, now felt a sense of resignation descend on her.
If Veovis was here then there was nothing Aitrus could do.
Anna glanced at her son. Gehn’s face was closed, his eyes sullen, as if this latest twist were no more than could be expected. Yet he was bearing up, for all his trials, and she felt a strange twinge of pride in him for that.
She was about to speak, when she caught the scent of burning. A’Gaeris, too, must have noticed it at the same moment, for he stopped suddenly and frowned.
For a moment he sniffed the air, as if he had been mistaken, then, with a bellow, he began to hurriedly climb the stairs, dragging them along after him.
As they approached the Book Room the smell of burning grew and grew until, at a turn in the stairs, they could see the flickering glow of a fire up ahead of them.
A’Gaeris roared. “My Books!”
For a moment, as he tugged at the rope, Anna almost fell, but she kept her footing. Gehn did, however. She heard his cry and saw that A’Gaeris had let go of the rope that held him. But there was no time to see if he was all right. The next instant she found herself behind A’Gaeris in the doorway to the Book Room. Beyond him the room was brilliantly lit. Smoke bellowed from a stack of burning Books. And just to one side of the flaming pile—a Book in one hand, a flaming torch in the other—stood Aitrus.
A’Gaeris slammed the great door shut behind him, then took a step toward Aitrus, yet even as he did, Aitrus raised the torch and called to him:
“Come any closer and I’ll burn the rest of your Books, A’Gaeris! I know where they are. I’ve seen them. In the cabin on the south island. I linked there. I can link there now, unless…”
Anna felt A’Gaeris’s hand reach out and grasp her roughly, and then his arm was about her neck, the dagger raised, its point beneath her neck.
“I have your wife, Aitrus. Go near those Books and I shall kill her.”
“Kill her and I shall destroy your Books. I’ll link through and put them to the torch. And what will you have then, Master Philosopher? Nothing. Not now that you’ve killed Veovis.”
Anna could feel A’Gaeris trembling with anger. Any false move and she would be dead.
“Give me that Book,” he said once more in a low growl. “Give it to me, or Ti’ana dies.”
Aitrus was smiling now. He lifted the Book slightly. “This is a masterful work. I know Veovis was proud of it.”
A’Gaeris stared at Aitrus. “It was called Ederat.”
“No,” Aitrus said, his eyes meeting Anna’s. “Veovis had another name for it. He called it Be-el-ze-bub.”
Anna caught her breath. She stared at him, loving him more in that instant than she had ever loved him.
I love you, she mouthed.
Aitrus answered her with his eyes.
“Well?” he asked, returning his attention to A’Gaeris. “Do we have a deal? The Book—and all those Books within—for my wife?”
But A’Gaeris simply laughed.
Aitrus lowered the torch. His eyes went to the cover of the Book, then, with a final loving look at Anna, he placed the hand that held the burning torch upon the glowing panel.
A’Gaeris howled. Thrusting Anna away from him he ran across the room.
“Aitrus!” she yelled as his figure shimmered and vanished. “Aitrus!”
But he was gone. The great Book fell with a thud to the floor beside the burning stack.
A’Gaeris threw himself at it in unseemly haste and almost wrenched the cover from the spine forcing it open.
Anna watched, her heart in her throat as, his chest heaving, A’Gaeris looked across at her and, with a smile that was half snarl, placed his hand against the descriptive panel and linked.
§
Even as he linked into the cave, A’Gaeris stumbled, doubling up in pain. The air was burning, the reek of sulphur choking. The first breath seared his lungs. Putting out an arm, A’Gaeris staggered forward, howling, looking about him desperately for the Linking Book back to D’ni. Yet even as he did, a great crack appeared in the floor of the cavern. The heat intensified. There was a glimpse of brilliant orange-redness, one stark moment of realization, and then the rock slab on which he stood tilted forward, A’Gaeris’s shrill cry of surprise cut off as he tumbled into the molten flow.
And then silence. The primal, unheard silence of the great cauldron of creation.
§
Anna cried quietly, crouching over the green-covered Book and studying the glowing image there.
For a moment or two there was the temptation to follow him: to end it all, just as Aitrus had. Then someone hammered on the Book Room door.
It brought her back to herself. Gehn.
Anna turned to face the smoldering pile of ashes that had once been D’ni Books, then dropped the green-covered Book upon the rest. Sparks scattered. A cloud of smoke wafted up toward the high ceiling of the room. A moment later, flames began to lick the burnished leather of the cover.
For a moment she simply stared, feeling the gap there now where the other book of her life had been, just as Tasera had described it. Then, getting to her feet again, she turned, even as the knocking came again, more urgently this time, and began to walk across.
EPILOGUE
The sun was edging above the mountains far to the east as the figure of a woman emerged from the lip of the volcano, cradling a sleeping child. The desert floor was still in deep shadow. It lay like a dark sea about the bright, black-mouthed circle of the caldera. The woman paused, lifting her chin, slowly scanning the surrounding desert, then began to descend the rock-littered slope, her shadow stretched out long and thin behind her, black against the dawn’s red.
As she came closer to the cleft, a light wind began to blow, lifting the dark strands of her hair behind her. Sand danced across the rock then settled. The woman seemed gaunt and wraithlike, and the child in her arms was but skin and bone, yet there was a light in her eyes, a vitality, that was like the fire from the deep earth.
Seeing the cleft, she slowed, looking about her once more, then went across and knelt, laying the child down gently on a narrow ledge of rock. Taking the two packs from her shoulders, she set them down. Then, using her hands and feet to find her way, she ducked down into the dark gash of the cleft.
There was a pool down there at the foot of the cleft. In the predawn darkness it was filled with stars, reflected from the sky far overhead. Like a shadow, she knelt beside it, scooping up a handful of the pure, cool water, and drank. Refreshed, she turned, still kneeling, and looked about her. It was cool down here, and there was water. With a little work it could be more.
Anna nodded, then stood, wiping her hands against her shirt. “Here,” she said. “We’ll begin again here.”
MYST
THE BOOK OF D’NI
RAND MILLER
with david wingrove
TO THE DEDICATED TEAM AT CYAN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Even as we bring you this third book, which further uncovers the D’ni and their history, we realize that we have merely scratched the surface of this fascinatingly rich civilization, but have added a crucial piece to this ever enlarging puzzle. And this latest effort that we now present to you could have only been possible with the continuing effort of a core group of dedicated individuals.
It is again our pleasure to have uncovered more of these historic and stunning past events of a civilization that continues to live and to teach. Yet this work would not have been possible if not for the assistance of Chris Brandkamp, Richard Watson, and Ryan Miller along with the long hours spent by our friend, David Wingrove. This particular task of discovery was especially rewarding to each of us.
So it is again to these four friends that I extend my since
rest thanks.
PROLOGUE
A SEABIRD CALLS.
THE UNKNOWING ONE STANDS AT THE RAIL
PEACE. THE CIRCLE CLOSED.
THE LAST WORD WRITTEN.
--FROM THE KOROKH JIMAH
VV. 13245-46
The cavern was silent. A faint mist drifted on the surface of the water, underlit by the dull orange glow that seemed to emanate from deep within the lake. Vast walls of granite climbed on every side while overhead, unseen, unsensed, a solid shelf of rock a mile thick shut off all view of stars and moon.
Islands littered the lake, twisted spikes of darkness jutting from the level surface of the water, and there, on the far side of the cavern, one single, massive rock, split yet still standing, like the splintered trunk of a tree, its peak hidden in the darkness.
Beyond it lay the city, wreathed in stillness, its ancient buildings clinging to the walls of the cavern.
D’ni slept, dreamless and in ruins. And yet the air was fresh. It moved, circulating between the caverns, the distant noise of the vast rotating blades little more than the suggestion of a sound, a faint, whumping pulse beneath the silence.
The mist parted briefly as a boat slid across the waters, the faintest ripple marking its passage, and then it, too, was gone, vanished into the blackness.
It was night in D’ni. A night that had lasted now for almost seventy years.
In the streets of the city the mist coiled on the cold stone of ancient cobbles like something living. Yet nothing lived there now; only the mosses and fungi that grew from every niche and cranny.
The Myst Reader Page 62