The Myst Reader (19 page)

“That!” Atrus said, pointing after it. “That…
animal
…what is it?”

“
That?
That is a bird, Master.”

Atrus stared openmouthed, watching the “bird” circle over the lake, the flapping noise coming from the long arms it used to pull itself through the air. He watched it swoop, then dive.

“Amazing!” Atrus said. “I’ve never seen its like!”

Koena was staring at him now.

Atrus shook his head. In the other Ages there had been many birds, but never anything like this. This was simply bizarre. It was more like a small rodent than a bird and seemed far too heavy to fly, and those strange, furred wings.

What did he write?
He wondered.
Why would Gehn create such a creature? Or had he? What if this wasn’t deliberate? What if it was an accident?

Atrus turned, looking to Koena.

“Come,” he said, intrigued by the thought that his father might purposefully have created such a creature. “Let’s go down. My father will be angry if he is kept waiting.”

 

§

 

Gehn, who was finishing his breakfast, sat at a table covered in a thick red cloth edged with golden tassels. He was eating from a golden bowl, a golden goblet at his side. Behind him, on a stand, was a silk pennant, the D’ni symbol of the book emblazoned in black on its pure white background. Atrus stepped into the tent, looking about him, noting the luxuries that were on display on every side. In the far corner of the tent was a massive wooden bed, the headboard clearly of local design. Beside it was a D’ni dressing screen, painted gold and blue and carmine.

He stepped forward. “You sent for me, father?”

“Ah, Atrus…” Gehn said, wiping his mouth with a silken cloth, then threw it aside. “I thought we should continue with your lessons, Atrus.”

“Father?”

Gehn nodded, then took his arm and led him across to a low table in the corner on which a large-scale map of the island had been spread out.

Atrus stretched out a hand and touched the bottom left-hand corner with his index finger. “Where’s that?”

“Gone,” Gehn said, looking at him strangely.

“And that?” he said, noting another, smaller island just beyond the sea passage.

“Gone.”

Atrus looked to his father and frowned. “How?”

Gehn shrugged.

“I…” Atrus shook his head. “Is this what you want me to look for? Things disappearing?”

“No, Atrus. I want you simply to observe.”

Atrus stared at his father a moment, then looked back at the map. As far as he could see everything else was precisely as he recalled it from his preliminary journeys around the island, down to the smallest detail.

Gehn went across to his desk and, opening the leather case he had brought with him from D’ni this time, took a slender notebook from inside and handed it to Atrus. “Here.”

Atrus opened it and scanned a few lines, then looked back at his father. “What are these?”

“What you have there are a number of random phrases from the Age Thirty-seven book. What I want you to do, Atrus, is to try to ascertain what aspects of this Age they relate to, and how and why they create the effects they do.”

“You want me to analyze them?”

“No, Atrus. But I do want you to begin to grip the relationship between the words that are written on the page and the complex entity—the physical, living Age—that results. You see, while our Art
is
a precise one, its effects are often quite surprising, owing to the complexity of the web of relationships that are created between things. The meaning of an individual phrase can be altered by the addition of other phrases, often to the extent that the original description bears no relation whatsoever to the resultant reality. That is why the D’ni were so adamant about contradictions. Contradictions can destroy an Age. Too often they simply make it break apart under the strain of trying to resolve the conflicting instructions.”

Atrus nodded. “Yet if what you say is true, how can I tell if what I am observing relates directly to the phrases in this book? What if other phrases have distorted the end result?”

“That is for you to discover.”

“But if I have only these few phrases…”

Gehn stared at him, then raised an eyebrow, as if to indicate that he ought to be able to work that one out for himself.

“You mean, you want me to guess?”

“No guess, Atrus. Speculate. I want you to try to unravel the puzzle of this world. To look back from the world to the words and attempt to understand exactly why certain things resulted. It is, you will come to see, every bit as important as learning the D’ni words and phrases that purport to describe these things. Indeed, much of my experimenting over the years has been along these very lines. I have learned a great deal from my observations, Atrus, and so will you.”

“Father.”

“Then go now. And take the map, if you wish. I have no further need of it.”

 

§

 

Atrus sat in the long meadow above the lake, the folded map in his lap, his father’s notebook open at his side. Surrounded by the thigh-high grass he could not be seen, unless by someone working on the slopes on the far side of the lake, but right now it was midday and the villagers were in their huts, eating.

He had begun with the simplest of the twenty phrases his father had copied out for him—one which related to the composition of the soil here. From his own studies he knew how important the underlying rock and soil was to the kind of Age that resulted, especially the soil. A good rich soil, full of nutrients and minerals, would produce good harvests, which in turn would allow the people of that Age to spend less time carrying out the backbreaking task of cultivation. That was crucially important, for a people who did not have to spend every daylight hour providing food for their tables was a people that would quickly develop a culture. For culture, Atrus understood, was a product of excess.

Yes, he thought, recalling his days in the cleft. He understood it now. Had Anna been born and raised in the cleft, they would not have survived. Had she been simply a cultivator and no more, they would never have had enough, for there had never been enough growing space, enough seeds, enough water—enough of
anything
—to allow them to survive. What there
had
been was Anna’s talent as a painter and a sculptor. It was that, ironically, which had kept them alive: that had provided them with the salt they needed, the seeds and flour and fuel, yes, and all of those tiny luxuries that had made life there bearable. Without them they would have died.

As it was, he had grown beyond the expectations of such a dry, uninhabitable place. The rich soil of Anna’s mind had nurtured him, bringing him to ripeness.

Only now did he understand that. After years of blaming her, he saw it clearly once again.

The soil. It was all down to the soil. Growth began not in the sunlight but in the darkness, in tiny cracks, deep down in the earth.

Atrus smiled, then looked to the side, reading the D’ni phrase again. By rights, the soil here ought to have been rich and fertile, yet from his own observations he saw that other factors had affected it somehow. There was a slight acidity to it that was unhealthy.

He frowned, wishing that his father had given him the whole book to read and not just random phrases. Yet he knew how protective his father was of his books.

He was about to lay back and think the problem through, when he heard a tiny cry from somewhere just behind him. Setting the map aside, Atrus stood, looking about him at the meadow.

Nothing. At least nothing he could see. He took a few paces, then frowned. He couldn’t have imagined it, surely?

It came again, this time a clear cry for help.

He ran toward the sound, then stopped, astonished. Just ahead of him the thick grass ended in a narrow chasm about six feet across and twelve or fifteen long—a chasm that had not been there the last time he had looked.

He stepped up to its edge, careful not to fall, and peered down into its darkness. It was the girl—the one he’d seen that first morning. She had fallen in and now seemed stuck up to her knees in the dark earth at the bottom of the crack some eight or ten feet down.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you out.”

He turned, looking about him. He needed a rope or a branch or something. Anything he could throw down to her, then haul her up. Yet even as he stood there, thinking about it, he heard the soft fall of earth and, looking back, saw how it had fallen over her, making her position worse.

The edge of the nearest copse was fifty yards away. By the time he got there, broke off a branch and came back, she might quite easily he buried under it.

There was only one way.

He sat down on the edge, then, testing that it would take his weight, turned, and began to lower himself down into the crack, searching the face of it for footholds as he went.

“Reach up!” he called to her. “Reach up and take hold of my right foot.”

He felt something brush the tip of his boot. Too high. He was still too high. The earth he was clinging to didn’t feel all that secure, but he could not abandon her. He moved down a fraction more and felt, as he did, her hand close about his ankle.

“Good!” he said, thankful that she was only a waif of a girl. “Now get a grip with your other hand.”

Two second passed, and then he felt her other hand grip his ankle.

“Okay. Now hold on tight. And don’t struggle. If you struggle, we’ll both fall in again!”

Slowly, painfully slowly, he hauled himself up and over the edge, turning at the end, to reach down and grab her wrists, pulling her up the last few feet.

She sat there, beside him on the grass, trembling, her chest rising and falling as she tried to get her breath, her frightened eyes staring at the black wound in the earth that had almost claimed her.

“Are you okay?” he asked, after a moment.

She went to nod, then shook her head.

He stared at her a moment, then, standing, went back across to where he’d left the map and notebook, and, picking up his cloak, took it back and wrapped it about her shoulders.

She looked to him, grateful, then stared back at the crack. “What is it?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

“I don’t know,” he answered, troubled suddenly, remembering the missing islands on the map.
But perhaps my father does.

 

§

 

Gehn reached across the desk and drew the case toward him, then, taking the tiny key from the chain about his neck, unlocked the clasps.

“I shall be gone only a few hours,” he said, glancing up at Atrus, who stood on the other side of the desk, the girl beside him. “She will remain here with the acolyte until I return. And you shall say nothing. You understand, Atrus? I do not want the islanders panicked by this. There is a simple explanation and I shall find it.”

Atrus bowed his head.

“Good.” Gehn nodded decisively, then began to pack away all of his books and papers.

“Father?”

“Yes, Atrus?”

“I had planned to go out to the fishing grounds this afternoon. I’d made arrangements with one of the fishermen. Should I cancel that now?”

Gehn paused, considering, then, “No. You had best carry on as though nothing has happened. But try not to be out too long. I shall have need of you when I return.”

“Of course, father.”

“Good. Now go and fetch the acolyte.” He looked to the girl. “You…take a seat in the corner there. And take that cloak off. Only those of D’ni blood should wear such a cloak!”

 

§

 

Once his father had gone, Atrus went directly to the harbor. The boat he was to go out on was owned by an old fisherman named Tarkuk, a wizened little man with strangely long fingers. His son, Birili, was a short, heavily muscled young man of few words. He gave Atrus a single glance as he stepped on board; thereafter he barely acknowledged him.

They sailed out through the sea channel into the open sea.

Out there, unprotected by the bowl of hills, a breeze blew across the water’s surface, making the boat rise and fall on the choppy surface. As Tarkuk watched from the stern, one long, sun-browned hand on the tiller, a small clay pipe clenched between his small yellow teeth, Birili raised the mast and unfurled the sail.

Atrus watched, fascinated as the square of cloth caught the wind and seemed to swell, tugging against the restraining rope in Birili’s hand. As the boat swung around it slowly gathered speed, gently rising and falling as they made their way around the curve of the island.

He leaned out, looking down through the clear, almost translucent water. The seabed was still visible this close to the island, flat and cluttered, the odd tangle of weeds giving it the appearance of scrubland.

Somewhere around here there had been a second tiny island. Nothing large, but significant enough to have been marked on Gehn’s original map. Now there was nothing.

So what did that mean? What was happening here on the Thirty-seventh Age?

He sniffed the air, conscious of its strong salinity. The lake, too, he’d been told, was salty. The villagers got their water from springs in the surrounding hills and from a single well just behind Gehn’s tent.

Or did, when he wasn’t in residence.

Behind him the island, which still dominated the skyline, was slowly receding. He turned, looking out past Birili and the billowing sail. The sea stretched out into the distance. There, where the horizon ought to be, it seemed hazed.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing toward it.

“What’s what?” Tarkuk asked, leaning forward, trying to see past the sail, as if something was actually on the water itself.

“That mist…”