The Myst Reader (16 page)

Atrus thought a moment, then. “And can there be only one Linking Book for each descriptive book?”

“Not at all,” Gehn answered, delighted by his son’s understanding. Then, setting the slender book back on the pile, he added, “You can make as many Linking Books as you want. But you must always make at least one. That is the first rule. One you must not forget.”

Atrus nodded, then, “But what if you change the Age? What if you decide to write more in the descriptive book? Would the Linking Book cease to work?”

“No. If the descriptive book is changed, then all Linking Books associated with it will link to the changed world.”

Atrus’s eyes lit, imagining it, only now realizing just how complex and powerful this Writing was. “It sounds…
astonishing!
”

“Yes,” Gehn said, his eyes looking back at Atrus, godlike and wise beyond all human years. “Oh, it
is
, Atrus. It is.”

 

§

 

That night, Atrus decided he would speak to his father, to remind him that it was almost time for them to go back and visit Anna.

Encouraged by Gehn’s high spirits over supper, Atrus waited until he had lit his pipe and settled back in his chair in the corner of the kitchen before he broached the subject.

“Father?”

Gehn stretched his legs and stared at his boots, the gently-glowing pipe cradled in his lap. “Yes?”

“When are we going back?”

Gehn looked to him languidly. “Back? Back where?”

“To the cleft.”

Surprisingly, Gehn laughed. “
There?
You want to go back there?”

“Yes,” Atrus said quietly. “You said…”

“I said I would try. I said…”

Gehn sat up and, setting the pipe aside, leaned toward Atrus. “I said that to keep your grandmother quiet. I never meant…” He shrugged, then started again. “Look, Atrus, it would take us the best part of four or five days to get there and another three or four to return here. And for what?”

“Well, couldn’t you write a book to the cleft and bring her here?”

And how would you set about writing such a book? This world has already been created.”

“Then can’t you write a Linking Book?”

Atrus stopped, realizing that, of course, he couldn’t. He would have to be at the cleft in order to write that Linking Book.

Gehn watched him, seeing that he understood, then spoke softly. “I should, perhaps, have said you cannot link to another location in the Age you are in. It is impossible.”

Atrus was silent a moment, then. “But you told me you would take me back.”

“Oh, Atrus, grow up! There’s nothing there.”

Atrus looked down. “But you
promised
. You said…”

Gehn stood. “I simply do not have the time, and even if I did, I would scarcely waste it going there. The place is a pit, Atrus. Literally so. Besides, that woman is poisonous. Don’t you understand that yet? I
had
to take you away from there.”

“You’re wrong,” Atrus said quietly.

But Gehn simply shook his head and pointed at the chair. “Sit down. I shall tell you a story. Then you can tell me if I am wrong or not.”

Atrus sat, angry still and resentful, refusing to meet his father’s eyes.

“Close to thirty years ago, when I was but a child of four, there was a war. A young man named Veovis started it. He was the son of a nobleman, and the sole heir to a powerful estate. In time he would have become one of the ruling Council, a lawmaker. But he was not content with what he had, nor with the promise of what would be. Veovis broke D’ni law. He abused his privileged position.”

“In what way?”

“His crimes were heinous, unmentionable. He was a cancer that needed to be cut from the D’ni culture. Eventually he was caught and, despite his father’s intercession, he was tried before the Five Lords. For more than twenty days witnesses gave evidence. Finally, the Five gave their decision. Veovis was to be imprisoned. To be kept in a place from which he would never escape. But before the decision of the Five could be implemented, several of Veovis’s young friends helped him to flee D’ni.

“For six months, nothing was heard of Veovis, and it was assumed that the problem had taken care of itself. But then rumors began to circulate. Rumors that Veovis had taken a new name and was to be found in the drinking houses of the lower city, stirring up discontent against the ruling faction.

“At first, nothing was done. Rumors were only rumors, it was argued. But then a number of incidents occurred. A stabbing of a senior official in one of the guilds. A bomb in one of the main ink works. The desecration of a book.”

Atrus frowned, not understanding, but his father was staring off into the distance, caught up in his recollections.

“After this last incident, a Council meeting was called. At last, they decided to take action. But already it was too late. Veovis had indeed been staying in the lower city. Furthermore, he had been fermenting trouble among the lower classes. What none of the ruling Council could have known, however, was just how deep that discontent ran, nor how raw a nerve Veovis had touched. Only two days after the Council met, serious rioting broke out in one of the lower city districts. Before curfew that evening, the whole of the lower city was in chaos as the mob roamed the streets, maiming or killing whoever dared to stand against them.”

Gehn stopped, turning to face Atrus.

“As I said, I was but a child at the time. I was staying in one of the great Guild houses in the upper precincts. My home was several miles away, on a great bluff of rock that I could see from one of the windows in the refectory. I remember standing there all that afternoon, as the roar of the mob and the awful cries of the dying came up to us from below, and wondering if it was the end. It was a terrible time, made worse by my fears for my own family. We were safe in the Guild houses, of course. At the first sign of trouble, the Council had barred the gates to the upper city and trebled the guard. But many on the outlying estates died that day, victims of their own servants—men and women they had trusted all their lives.

“It was fully six weeks before the last of the rebels was subdued and Veovis himself captured, trying to make his escape through the lower tunnels.”

“This time, when the Five met, their decision was unanimous. Veovis was to die. He was to be executed, there on the steps of the Great Library.”

Gehn looked away, clearly pained by what came next, then spoke again. “It was a wise decision. Yet before it could be sealed and passed as law, one final witness stepped forward, begging their leave to speak out on the young man’s behalf.”

Ti’ana, Atrus thought, recalling what Anna had told him.

Gehn slowed once more, staring out past Atrus. “That witness was a woman, Ti’ana.”

Atrus opened his mouth, aching to finish the tale—to show his father what he knew—but Gehn seemed not to be aware of him. He spoke on, in the grip of the tale; a sudden bitterness in his voice.

“Ti’ana was much respected by the Five and so they let her speak. In her view, the danger had passed. Veovis had done his worst and D’ni had survived. Furthermore, she argued, if it had not been Veovis, some other rabble-rouser would have stirred the mob to action, for the discontent had not been that of a single man, but of the whole class. In the circumstances, she said, her eloquence swaying those venerable lords, should not the Council’s original decision be carried out?”

Coming to the bottom of the steps, Gehn stepped out onto the second ledge and, looking to his son, sighed deeply. “And so it was done, Atrus. Veovis was placed inside his prison. The prison from which he could not escape.”

Gehn paused, his eyes on Atrus. “It was three days later when it happened. They had checked on him, of course, morning and evening, but on the evening of that third day, the guard who was sent did not return. Two more were sent, and when they returned, it was with the news that the prison was empty. There was no sign of either Veovis or the guard.

“They should have known that something was seriously wrong, but they had not learned their lessons. And when Veovis did not reappear, they assumed that all was well, that he had fled—who knew where?—and would not be seen again. But Veovis was a vengeful young man who had seen his hopes dashed twice in the space of a year. Only a fool would think he’d simply go away and lick his wounds. Only a fool…”

Atrus blinked, surprised by the sudden anger in his father’s voice.

“And so it was that Veovis
did
return. And this time it was not in the company of an unwashed and uncontrollable rabble, but at the head of a small but well-trained force of fanatics who had but one thing in their minds: to destroy D’ni. Ti’ana was wrong, you see. The danger had not passed, nor had Veovis done his worst.”

“But she was not to know, surely?”

“No?” Gehn shook his head, a profound disappointment in his face. “The woman was a foolish meddler. And my father no less a fool for listening to her.”

“Your father?”

“Yes,” Gehn said, walking across to the edge and standing there, looking out across the ruined landscape. “Or is that something else she hasn’t told you?”

“She?”

“Anna. Your grandmother.”

“I…I don’t understand. What has she got to do with it?”

Gehn laughed bleakly. “You still do not know?”

“Know what?”

And now Gehn turned and looked at him again, his face hard. “That she
was
Ti’ana. Anna, I mean. That was her D’ni name, given to her by my father—your grandfather—when he married her.”

Atrus stared, shock in his face. “No.
No
. It isn’t possible. She would have said.”

“It’s true,” Gehn said bitterly. “Her words destroyed it…her
meddling
. It would all have been over, finished with. Veovis would have been dead, the threat dealt with, but no…she had to interfere. She could not help herself. As if she knew
best
all the while! She would never listen.
Never!
”

Atrus shook his head, unable to believe it.

“Did she ever tell you about
me
, Atrus?
Did
she? No! Of course not! So ask yourself, what else did she fail to tell you?”

“But she couldn’t have!” he blurted, unable to help himself. “She
couldn’t!
”

“No?”
For a moment Gehn stared at him, as if studying an exhibit beneath a microscope. “You should not let sentiment blind you, Atrus. The world we inhabit is a harsh one, and sentiment can kill just as surely as a falling rock. It was a lesson your grandmother never learned. And that is why I cannot let you go back to her. For your own good.”

Atrus was silent a moment, staring down at his hands where they were clasped in his lap. Then he spoke again, his voice quiet now, lacking the defiant conviction it had had only minutes before.

“Anna was good to me. She looked after me, made sure I never starved. Yes, and she taught me, too.”

“
Taught
you?” Gehn’s laughter was scathing. “Taught you what? How to survive in a crack? How to eat dust and dream of rain, I bet!”

“No!”
Atrus yelled, hurt now and confused and angry—angrier than he’d ever been-though at who it was hard to tell. “She taught me more than
you’ve
ever taught me!”

Gehn’s laughter died. He stepped across and stood over Atrus, looking down at him coldly, threateningly. “What did you say?”

Atrus lowered his eyes, intimidated by his father’s physical presence. “I said she taught me more than you.”

Gehn reached down with his right hand, gripped Atrus’s chin, and forced him to look at him. “Tell me, boy. What did that woman ever teach you that was any use at all?”

He shrugged off Gehn’s hand and moved his head back. “She taught me D’ni, that’s what!”

Gehn laughed and shook his head. “Taught you to lie, more like!”

Atrus met his father’s eyes squarely, then spoke slowly, calmly, in fluent D’ni.”

“She taught me what is good and what is to be valued, those truths which cannot be shaken or changed.”

Slowly, like the sunlight bleeding from the horizon at the day’s end, the mocking smile faded from Gehn’s lips.

“You mean, you
knew?
” Gehn said coldly. “All this while?” His face was hard now, his eyes cold. Once again there seemed something dangerous—something frightening—about him. “You sat there all that time, pretending not to know?
Mocking
me?”

“No,” Atrus began, wanting to explain, but Gehn was not listening. Grasping Atrus with both hands he pulled him up out of his chair and shook him.

“Why, you deceitful, ungrateful little boy! It would serve you right if I took you back and let you rot there in that pathetic little hole! Ah, but she would like that, wouldn’t she? And that is why we are
not
going back. Not now, not ever!”

“But you must!” Atrus cried out, appalled at the thought. “She’ll be worried! When she doesn’t hear…”

Taking Atrus by the scruff of the neck, Gehn half marched, half dragged him to his room and threw him inside, then slammed the door and locked it.

“Wait!” Atrus cried, picking himself up and throwing himself at the door. “Father!
Please
…you’ve got to listen!”

 

§

 

For three whole days, Gehn did not return. When he finally did, he announced himself by rapping loudly on the door to Atrus’s room.

“Atrus?”

Atrus was in his sleeping niche in the big wardrobe, a spot that felt more like his bed at home, reading a D’ni book, a half-eaten apple in one hand. The sudden knocking made him jump. Hiding the apple and the book, he quickly closed the wardrobe door and hurried across to the bed, slipping beneath the silken sheets.