The Myst Reader (27 page)

Atrus groaned. Once more his father had anticipated him. Once more, Gehn had had the final laugh.

The rope bridge was gone, the four metal pins jutting up nakedly from the rock.

He went across and stood there, looking down into the chasm. It was too deep, the jump too great. Or was it?

Atrus turned, hearing noises in the tunnel behind him. There was a flicker of light, growing stronger by the second. In a moment they would be upon him.

He turned back, staring at the chasm. It was now or never. Stepping back, he took a deep breath, then ran at it, hurling himself across the gap.

“Atrus!”

His chest slammed against the edge of the rock, winding him. Yet even as he began to slide, his right hand reached out and grasped one of the metal pins.

He spun about, his shoulder thudding against the rock, his right arm almost pulled from its socket as he held on for dear life. Yet he could feel the strength draining from his fingers; could feel them slowly slipping, the sweat from his palms sliding on the metal.

And then a shadow passed over the top of him. There was a deep grunt and then something gripped his upper arm and began to lift him slowly up.

Surprised by the strength of that grip, Atrus turned his head, expecting to see Rijus, but it was Gehn who stared back at him, a sullen anger in those pale eyes.

“Acch, boy!” he said, his fingers pinching mercilessly into Atrus’s flesh as they hauled him inch by inch to safety. “Did you really think you could outjump me?”

17

~~~~~~~~~~

 

Atrus stood there a long time after his father had gone, staring at the shadowed door in shock.

He turned, looking across that huge, high-ceilinged space toward the desk. There lay the Age five book.

A trap
, he thought.
Another door he’ll hope I’ll walk through. And when I do…

Atrus heard again the slam of the door as his father closed it on him.

He stepped out from beneath the great curved arch, the pinkish light of the lamp above giving his features a false glow of health. Beneath his feet alternating black and white tiles—circles on squares—stretched away to every corner of that great space, while a large mosaic at the center portrayed Ri’Neref, the most famous of all the Grand Masters of the Build, his graybearded features somber, almost melancholic as he stared back across the ages.

The stone, once polished and beautiful, was webbed with tiny cracks, worn with age.

A prison
, Atrus thought, recognizing it for what it really was.

The stone here was not the lavatic black used elsewhere in the house, but a dull metallic gray carved with intricate patterns, like lacework, great bulbous pillars holding up the massive arch of the roof. He had seen that same stone in some of the most ancient structures in the city and realized that this was probably the oldest part of the house.

How old?
He wondered.
Ten? Twenty thousand years? Or older yet?
It was hard to tell. The D’ni had built for eternity, not knowing that their days were numbered.

Finally, in the northern corner of the chamber, beneath a massive arch, stood the locked doorway that led out of his prison, bloodred stone pillars standing like sentries to either side.

Remembering what his father had said about the D’ni love of secret passages, of doors in solid walls and tunnels through the rock, he began a search.

Slowly, patiently, he went from arch to arch, searching each of the massive alcoves carefully, his fingers covering every inch of stone, as high as he could reach right down to the floor.

It took the best part of two hours, and though he found no secret doors or passages, it was still well worth the effort. In the floor of one of the more shadowy recesses, half embedded in the unfinished stone, he found a D’ni stonecutter. It was a big old machine, like a massive crouching spider, and its power source was long exhausted, yet one of the cutting blades was as good as new.

At first Atrus thought he might have to leave it there, it was so firmly wedged into the rock, but after half an hour rocking it back and fort, he freed it from the stone.

He lifted the heavy cutter, feeling its weight, then nodded to himself. The door was solid metal and he would get nowhere trying to break through it, not even with this, but if he could chip away at the rock to either side, then maybe he wouldn’t need to.

Knowing there was no sense in delaying, he set to work at once. Taking off his top, he wrapped the cloth about the main body of the cutter, then went across and, kneeling in the deep shadow beside the door, began to attack the stone, low down and to his left.

He could not properly see what he was doing, but after ten minutes he stopped and, setting the cutter aside, checked with his fingers.

It wasn’t much of a notch, considering—in fact, he had barely chipped away more than a few flakes of the iron-tough stone—but at the top of that tiny, uneven depression the stone had split.

He traced the crack with his forefinger, then grinned. It was more than a foot long.

Atrus turned, looking toward the desk. There was a lamp there and fire-marbles. Hurrying across, he brought them back and, placing the lamp to one side so that it threw its light over the door, set to work again, aiming each blow at that split, aiming to widen it and crack the stone.

The first few blows did nothing. Then, with a sharp cracking noise, the split widened dramatically.

Atrus smiled and lifted the cutter again, meaning to extend the fissure, but even as he did, the heard the rock above him creak and groan.

He looked up. In the light from the lantern he could see that the roof directly above him was badly cracked. Even as he looked, tiny splinters of rock began to fall, as those cracks widened.

Snatching up the lantern, Atrus scampered backward. And not a second too soon. With a great sigh, the two pillars collapsed inwardly and a huge section of the roof caved in with a great crash.

Atrus lay on his back, some dozen paces off, staring back at the great pile of rock that had fallen, the dust in the air making him cough violently. As the dust slowly settled, he saw that the door was totally blocked. He edged back, then got to his feet, sneezing and rubbing at his eyes. Now he’d done it! Now he was trapped here for sure!

He coughed again, trying to clear his throat, then moved farther away, his eyes watering now.

Trapped, yes, but at least there was one advantage to it. If he could not get out, then Gehn could not get in.

Atrus turned, looking to the Age Five book, and blinked, reassessing the situation.

So just what did Gehn want? And why, if this
was
a prison, had he provided him with the means to escape—the book? Why give him pen and ink? And why provide him with a Linking Book from the Fifth Age back to this chamber?

A trap
, he thought again. But now he wasn’t quite so sure. Maybe his father had given him the book simply so he wouldn’t starve.

That thought intrigued him. He went over to the desk and stood there, staring down at the Age five book. At the very center of its cover was a circular metal medallion, fixed to the leather by five tiny tacks. The D’ni number five—a square halved by a narrow bar—was raised in metal above the porcelain base, on which was engraved an intricate floral pattern.

Atrus opened the book and looked at the descriptive panel.

From the distant image it seemed a pleasant, peaceful place, the island heavily wooded.

Yes. But what’s the catch?

For there had to be a catch. He knew that now. If he had learned one single thing today it was that Gehn never—never—did anything without some self-serving reason.

 

§

 

It was many hours before he finally decided to venture into Gehn’s Fifth Age, deciding, before he did, that he would read it first, for if it really was a prison, he should at least know beforehand what kind of Age he was to end his days in.

For several hours he sat there, slowly leafing through the pages, noting all the flaws, all the possible contradictions that Gehn’s particular writing style threw up. More than ever, he could see his father’s limited vision on every page, like a hideous tapestry quilted together from exquisite patches of silk. The entire work was shortsighted and disjointed and yet it was also, paradoxically, quite clever. Surprisingly so.

Even so, it was one single thing which, in the end, caught Atrus’s imagination; one element which made him catch his breath and make him want to go and
see.

The tree.

Atrus sat back, amazed b the elegance, the sheer economy, of the D’ni phrases that had described it, then leaned forward again, tracing each symbol with his finger, a thrill of pure aesthetic delight passing through him.

A tree. A giant tree, whose topmost branches speared the sky!

Atrus smiled at the thought, then read on, memorizing the details of the world, fixing them in his mind like the symbols on a map.

And if it
was
a trap?

He looked about him at the huge and gloomy chamber. Even if it was a trap, at least he would get to see the sun again. At least he would feel he wind upon his skin, the rain falling on his arms and upturned face, the sweet and gentle pleasure of birdsong.

For a moment he looked down, his face creased with pain at the memory of Salar and the old woman, recalling what had happened to their world.

Never again
, he swore, picking up the Linking Book, then opening the Age Five book to its descriptive page.

Hesitating no longer, Atrus placed his hand against the image on the page. At once he felt the page expand…

 

§

 

He had linked into a dense copse of tall, bearded grass which grew beside a circular pool that bulged strangely. He had stared at it, fascinated by the apparent motion of its convex surface, then, hearing voices, had hurried from the spot quickly, making his way over a lightly wooded hill, then along a narrow dirt path that led steeply down a sheer cliff wall, dropping beneath an overhang of rock and down onto a rocky beach. An azure ocean lapped gently against the shore, washing over a line of smooth tapered rocks that edged the beach like the teeth of some great submerged creature.

There he paused, getting his breath, listening to the gentle slush and hiss of the sea.

Turning, he looked about him, searching for somewhere safe to hide the Linking Book he’d brought. Almost at once his gaze fell on the sandstone cliff beneath the overhang, the face of which was pocked with hundreds of tiny holes.

Atrus walked across and, choosing from among a number of likely candidates, picked one of the larger ones, some way up, well above what he saw was the normal tidal level. He glanced about him, then, convinced no one was watching, climbed up, using the lips of other holes as footholds. Squeezing his whole body into the narrow space, he crawled a little way along then set the Linking Book down on the dry ledge—wedging it with a loose rock so that it wouldn’t slide.

Satisfied, he backed out, then jumped down onto the sand again, wiping his hands against his sides.

He had noticed a sloping path around the edge of the enclosed bay, over to his left, and headed there now, picking his way slowly p the jumble of rock. For a moment he was in shadow, the rock ledge blocking his view of the sky, then, as the path turned slightly, there was a break in the rock and he came out into a sloping meadow.

It was surprisingly windy. A strong, gusting breeze bent the heads of the long grass stalks and tugged at his cloak. Pulling it tight about him, Atrus walked on, head down, then, noticing how the shadow ended in a jagged line just ahead of him, he looked up.

Slowly, very slowly, he turned to his right, until he was facing it, his mouth fallen open in astonishment, his head going back to try to take it all in.

The tree.

It seemed to rest on a peninsula of rock, its roots like the pillars of some huge stone temple, reaching down the cliff face to pierce the rocky beach, great humps of root, like the slick backs of a dozen massive sea serpents, stretching out into the ocean.

Its trunk, likewise, was monumental. It was not by any means as tall as Atrus had imagined, yet the sheer breadth of it was enough to make him feel not simply small in its presence but insignificant.

Like Time itself
, Atrus thought, letting his eyes slowly climb its branches. Then, realizing how exposed he was to watchful eyes, he hurried on, making for the rock face just ahead.

A set of steps were cut into rock, leading up through the trees. And there, in a clearing, the sunlight filtering down upon it through the treetops, was a large wooden hut.

Atrus walked up to it, his heart hammering in his chest, recognizing it at once. It was like he meeting hut—Gehn’s temple—on the Thirty-seventh Age. Almost identical, in fact.

Seeing it, Atrus knew suddenly exactly where he was on the island, picturing it in his mind as on a map.

He stepped up, into the cool interior, passing between he painted wooden poles and into a space that was furnished in the most luxurious manner imaginable, with marvelous tapestries and statuary and silver-poled banners lining the walls.

At the far side of that shadowed space was a throne—a massive thing that looked as though it had been cast from a single piece of glowing gold. Coming closer, however, Atrus saw that it wasn’t gold but a beautiful, tawny stone, the like of which he’d never seen, even in D’ni. Atrus stopped briefly to examine it, brushing his fingertips over the smooth, cool surface of the arm, wondering in which ancient book Gehn had found the formula or phrase to produce such a wondrous material.

Behind the throne was a large free-standing screen, on the pale lemon silk of which was embroidered the silhouette of a man. That silhouette, with its high, domed head and its familiar lenses, was unmistakable. It was Gehn.