The Myst Reader

by Rand; Robyn Miller; David Wingrove

  Empty it was, as though it had stood thus for a thousand years. Level after level lay open to the eye, abandoned and neglected. A thousand empty lanes, ten thousand empty rooms, a desolate landscape of crumbling walls and fallen masonry everywhere one looked.

  In the great curve between the city’s marbled flanks lay the harbor, the shadows of sunken boats in its glowing depths, and across the harbor’s mouth a great arch of stone, Kerath’s Arch, as it was known, its pitted surface webbed with cracks.

  Silence. A preternatural silence. And then a sound. Faint at first and distant, and yet clear. The tap, tap, tap of metal against stone.

  High above, in the narrow lanes of the upper city, a shadow stopped beneath a partly fallen gate and turned to look. The sound had come from the far end of the cavern; from one of the islands scattered on the lake out there.

  Mist swirled, then silence fell again.

  And then new sounds: a whirring, high-pitched mechanical screech, followed by the low burr of a power drill. And then the tapping once again, the sound of it echoing out across the water.

  K’veer. The noises were coming from K’veer.

  Two miles across the lake and there it is, the island rising like a huge black corkscrew from the glowing lake, its once crisp outline softened by a recent rockfall.

  Coming closer, the noise grows in volume, the sound of drilling constant now, as is the clang, clang, clang of massive hammers pounding the stone. The island shakes beneath the onslaught, the carved stone trembling like a sounding bell.

  But no one is woken by that dreadful din. The ancient rooms are dark and empty. All, that is, but one, at the very foot of the island, down beneath the surface of the lake. There, deep in the rock, lies the oldest room of all, a chamber of marbled pillars and cold stone, sealed off by an angry father to teach his son a lesson.

  Now, forty years on, that same chamber is filled with busy men in dark, protective suits. Their brows beaded with sweat, they toil beneath the arc lights, a dozen of them standing between the two big hydraulic props, working at the face of the wall with hammer and drill, while others scamper back and forth, lifting and carrying the fallen stone, stacking it in a great heap on the far side of the chamber.

  A figure stands beside the left-hand prop, looking on. Atrus, son of Gehn, once-prisoner in this chamber. After a while, he glances at the open notebook in his hand, then looks up again, calling out something to those closest to him.

  A face looks up and nods, then turns back. The message is passed along the line.

  There is a moment’s pause. A welcome silence.

  Walking across, Atrus crouches between two of the men and leans forward, examining the wall, prising his fingers deep into the crack, then turns and shakes his head.

  He stands back, letting them continue, watching them go to it with a vengeance, the noise deafening now, as if all of them know that one more push will see the job through.

  Slowly the chamber fills with dust and grit. And then one of them withdraws and, straightening up, cuts the power to his drill. Turning, he lifts his protective visor and grins.

  All about him the others stand back, looking on.

  Atrus returns to the wall and, crouching, pushes his hand deep into the crack, edging this way and that, feeling high and low. Satisfied, he eases back and, taking a marker from his pocket, stands, drawing an outline on the stone. The outline of a door.

  At his signal, one of the drill men steps forward and begins to cut along the mark.

  Swiftly it’s done. A dozen hammer blows and the stone falls away.

  The stone is quickly cleared, and as the rest look on, Atrus steps forward one last time. He holds a cutting tool with a chunky barrel the thickness of his arm. Placing the circle of its teeth about the circle of the lock—a circle that overlaps the thick frame of the door—he braces himself, then gently squeezes the trigger, letting it bite slowly into the surface. Only then, when the cutter has a definite grip on the metal, does he begin to push, placing his whole weight behind it.

  There is a growling whine, a sharp, burning smell, different in kind from the earlier smells of stone and dust and lubricant. And then, abruptly, it’s over. There is the clatter of the lock as it falls into the corridor beyond, the descending whine of the drill as it stutters into silence.

  Setting the drill down, he raises his visor, then pulls the protective helmet off and lets it fall.

  §

  Atrus straightened and, with a single meaningful glance at the watching men, turned back to face the doorway. Forty years he had waited for this. Forty long years.

  Placing his booted foot against the surface, he pushed hard, feeling the metal resist at first, then give.

  Slowly, silently, it swung back.

  A good D’ni door, he thought, with good stone hinges that never rust. A door built to last.

  And as the door swung back he saw for the first time in a long while the empty corridor and, at its end, the twist of steps that led up into the house, where, long ago, his father, Gehn, had taught him how to write. Where he had first learned the truth about D’ni. Yes, and other things, too.

  Irras came and stood by his shoulder. “Will you not go through, Master Atrus?”

  Atrus turned, meeting the young man’s eyes. “One should not hurry moments like this, Irras. I have waited forty years. Another forty seconds will not harm.”

  Irras lowered his eyes, abashed.

  “Besides,” Atrus went on, “we do not know yet whether D’ni is occupied or not.”

  “You think it might be?” The look of shock on Irras’s face was almost comical.

  “If it is,” Atrus said, “then they will know we are here. We’ve made enough noise to wake the dead.”

  “Then maybe we should arm ourselves.”

  “Against other D’ni?” Atrus smiled. “No, Irras. If anyone’s here, they will be friends, not foes. Like us, they will have returned for a reason.”

  Atrus turned back, looking toward the steps, then, brushing the dust from his leather gloves and boots, he stepped through, into the dimly lit corridor.

  PART ONE

  RIVERS OF FIRE. EVEN THE ROCKS BURN

  AN ISLAND RISES FROM THE SEA.

  DARK MAGIC IN AN ERRANT PHRASE.

  THE PEOPLE BOW TO THE LORD OF ERROR.

  --FROM THE EJEMAH TERAM

  BOOK SEVEN. VV.328-31

  Seabirds wheeled and called in the air above the bay, a flutter of white above the blue. It was hot, and, looking at the village, Marrim drew her hair back from her face, then gathered the braided strands together, fastening them at the nape of her neck. But for her father she would have had it cut like a man’s long ago. After all, she did a man’s job, why should she not wear her hair like a man’s? But she was loathe to upset her father. It was hard enough for him to understand all the changes that had come to Averone, let alone comprehend the urge to explore and understand that had been woken in his youngest daughter.

  From where she stood, on the promontory, the whole of her small world was open to her gaze. For all her childhood it had been enough. The six great circular lodge houses, the river, the broad fields where they had planted the crops, and, beyond them, the woods where they had hunted and played. World enough, until Atrus and Catherine appeared.

  Now she could barely imagine how it had been before they’d come. How she had ever survived without this urge in her, this need to know.

  And now, almost as suddenly as it had begun, it was to end. Only that morning they had dismantled the last of the workshops and cleared the ground where it had been. So Atrus had promised the elders of the village when he had first come here, yet Marrim could not understand why it had to be. They had come so far so quickly. Why did it have to end? For certain, she herself could not easily return to being what she was. No. She had changed. And this world, while it still drew her emotionally, was no longer big enough for her. She wanted more. Atrus’s Books had opened her mind to the infinite possibilities that exist
ed, and she wanted to see, if not all, then at least some of those possibilities.

  And yet tomorrow they would be gone. Atrus and Catherine, and all they stood for.

  There had to be a way to prevent that. Or if not, a way of going with them. If only Atrus would ask. But even then there were the elders—her father among them—and they would never agree. As much as they liked Atrus, they did not welcome the changes he had brought to Averone. They saw the excitement in their children’s eyes and to them it was a threat. Atrus had understood that. It was why he had agreed to destroy all that he had built here once it had served his needs. But he could not destroy what was in her head. Nor the seeds he had planted in the heads of others, such as Irras and Carrad. Marrim knew they shared her frustration. They, too, felt constrained now by this tiny world of theirs.

  She let her thoughts grow still watching the movements down below her, in the village. Each of the great lodge houses had four large doorways, at north, south, east, and west, the massive entrances framed by the polished jarras trunks—cut from the largest trees in the woods. As she looked, three people emerged from the south doorway of her own lodge, their figures tiny against the great boles of the ancient trees; yet she recognized them at once.

  Atrus stood to the left, the distinctive lenses that he wore pulled down over his face, his long cloak hanging loose in the windless air. Beside him, in a long flowing gown of green, stood Catherine, her hair tied back. Facing them, talking to them, was her father.

  She groaned. Doubtless her father was asking Atrus not to interfere. And Atrus, being the man he was, would respect her father’s wishes.

  Her spirits low, she began to walk back down to the village, heading toward the river, away from her own lodge and the three figures who stood there debating her future. And as she walked she remembered the first time she had seen Atrus and Catherine, that morning when they had, so it seemed, stepped from the air and into their lives. Wide-eyed, the villagers had come out from their lodges to stare at the two strangers, while the elders quickly gathered to form a welcome party.

  She remembered how difficult that first meeting had been, with neither party able to speak the other’s language. And yet even then Atrus had found ways to communicate with them. His hands had drawn pictures in the air, and they had somehow understood. He wanted their help. She remembered the gesture clearly: how he had put his arms straight out toward the elders, palms open, and then slowly had drawn them in, as if to embrace something to his chest.

  In the days that had followed, she had barely let them out of her sight, hovering at the back of a circle of curious youngsters who had followed the two strangers everywhere they went. And slowly she had begun to pick up the odd word or two until, emboldened by familiarity, she had dared to speak to the woman. She remembered vividly how Catherine had turned to face her, the surprise in her eyes slowly turning to a smile. She had repeated the words Marrim had uttered, then gently beckoned her across.

  So it had begun, four years ago this summer.

  Marrim smiled, recalling the long hours she had spent learning the D’ni tongue, and afterward—in the library on Chroma’Agana—how she had sat at her books long into the night, learning the written script.

  Even now she had not mastered it fully. But now it did not matter. For tonight, after the feast, they would be gone, the Linking Book burned, that whole world of experience barred to her, if the elders had their way.

  The thought of it filled her with dread. It would be like locking her in a room and throwing away the key.

  No, she thought. Worse than that. Much worse.

  §

  Irras found her crouched on the riverbank.

  “Marrim?”

  She glanced up at him, then returned her gaze to the surface of the water.

  “Marrim? What is it?”

  She answered without looking at him. “You know what it is.”

  “Look. I know you’re disappointed, Marrim, we all are, but it can’t be helped. The elders only let us help Atrus on the understanding that once he made the breakthrough that was it.”

  Marrim was silent. She picked up a handful of pebbles and, one by one, began to throw them into the slow-moving stream.

  Irras watched her a moment, combing his fingers back through his dark, fine hair. Then, sighing. “Come on, Marrim. Don’t spoil things. You knew this day would come.”

  “I know,” she said. “But it’s hard. I mean, it’s not like going hunting, say, or fishing. There, no matter how far you venture, you come back and you’re the same, unchanged. But the journey we’ve been on…”

  Irras was silent for a long time, thinking about what she’d said, then he shrugged. “You’ll be okay. You’ll settle again.”

  “Maybe…”

  Irras stared at her, surprised by the uncertainty in her voice.

  Yet before he could speak again, to reassure her, Carrad came running up, his broad chest rising and falling from his exertions, sweat beading the big knuckle of his skull.

  “Irras! Marrim! You’re wanted! Atrus has called a meeting!”

  Marrim looked down. No doubt he wanted to thank them and say goodbye before the feast, because there would be no time for informal farewells later on. But right now she didn’t feel like farewells.

  “I saw him,” she said, “speaking to my father.”

  Carrad nodded. “Mine, too.”

  She looked up. He at least understood what she was feeling, she could see it in his eyes.

  “I wish…”

  “What?” she said gently, brought out of herself by the sight of his suffering.

  “I wish we’d never started this.”

  Yes. But it was too late now. It would have been best for them all if they had never learned about D’ni and Books and all the rest of it, but now…

  Irras’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Well? Are you going to keep Atrus waiting?”

  Marrim looked to Carrad, then back to Irras. In appearance the two young men were like rock and wood, the one so broad and solid, the other so agile and slender; but on the inside they were much alike.

  “No,” she said, knowing that whatever she was feeling, it was not Atrus’s fault: He had been as good as a father to them, after all. “You’re right, Irras. Let us not keep Master Atrus waiting.”

  §

  The hut was the last of the new buildings to remain standing, and in an hour or so it, too, would be gone, the dark earth beneath its floor raked over, as if nothing had ever been there on the site. Looking at it, Atrus sighed. They had had happy times here, working, laughing, teaching the young people how to use their quick and nimble minds. He would miss that. Indeed, it was only now, at the end, that he realized just how much he was going to miss it.

  Atrus turned, looking to Catherine. She was crouched, packing the last of their books into a knapsack. He watched her a moment, the familiarity of her shape, her every movement, ingrained in him. There were lines at her neck now, and a fine web of lines about her eyes and mouth, but these only made her more dear to him. The D’ni blood in him made him age the tiniest bit slower than she, and there was always the consciousness that one day he would be alone, without her by his side, but that only made him savor each moment that much more.

  She glanced up, noticing him watching her, and smiled. Then, seeing the concern in his eyes, she stood and came across.

  “What is it?”

  He hesitated, then. “I wish there was another way.”

  “Is that why you want to talk to them?”

  He nodded.

  “And what will you say?”

  “I don’t know. But I feel I ought to say something. As it is, I feel as if we’re simply abandoning them.” He raised a hand. “I know we agreed to all this long ago, but I didn’t know then how I would feel at the end.”

  “I know…” There was a sadness in her face that mirrored his own. “But at least they got to see D’ni.”

  §

  “Marrim, Irras, Carrad…com
e in.”

  There was an awkwardness about Atrus’s manner that was strange. It was almost as if the years between his arrival and his imminent departure had melted away, leaving them all strangers again. The three young Averonese also moved awkwardly as they stepped into the shadows of the hut, unable to meet their friend’s eyes, their every gesture a denial of what was happening. This was difficult for them. More difficult than anything they’d ever done.

  Marrim, particularly, seemed eclipsed. She was usually so bright, so full of life. Catherine, watching her from where she stood behind her husband, felt her heart go out to the young woman. It would be hard for her to stay here. There was such a hunger in her for new things, and what was new in Averone?

  “Friends…” Atrus said, as they sat on the long bench facing him. “I…” He made a tiny noise of exasperation, then, leaning toward them, his hands extended in exhortation, said, “I wish this wasn’t happening. I wish…”

  They were watching him now.

  Atrus’s voice, when it came again, was subdued, as if he understood that even uttering these words might not help. “I wish you could come with us. I wish that more than anything.”

  Catherine saw the small, shuddering movement in each of them. The words had touched them. It was what they wanted. Wanted more than anything. And somehow, strangely, it helped them to know that Atrus wanted that too.

  Marrim looked from side to side to her friends, then spoke. “We understand.”

  “Yes.” The single word sounded bleak. It all came down to this. Atrus had given his word, and he could not break it. Indeed, he would not be the man he was if that were possible. To be what one said one was…that, too Atrus, was of the essence. And he had instilled that into these young people. What one said, what one wrote—these things mattered. As much as life and death.