The Myst Reader (3 page)

He frowned, wrinkling up his nose as he thought it through. “Well, the leeward side is constantly changing. The fine grains build up, forming a steep slope, until…well, until they all tumble down. If you try to walk on it you sink down into it. It’s not packed like the windward side.”

Anna smiled, her eyes never leaving his face. “You say it tumbles over. Do you know why?”

Atrus nodded enthusiastically, making Flame stir in his lap. “It has to do with how the grains balance on each other. Up to a certain angle they’re find, but beyond that…”

“And have you measured that angle?” she asked, pleased with him.

Again he nodded. “Thirty-five degrees. That’s the steepest it gets before it begins to slip.”

“Good,” she said, resting her hands on her knees. “It
seems
like you’ve considered everything, Atrus. You’ve tried to see the Whole.”

Atrus had looked down, gazing at the sleeping kitten. Now he looked up again. “The
Whole?”

She laughed softly. “It’s something my father used to say to me. What
I
mean by it, is that you’ve looked at the problem from many angles and considered how the pieces fit together. You’ve asked all the questions that needed to be asked and come up with the answers. And now you have an understanding of it.” She smiled and reached out again, letting her hand rest lightly on his shoulder. “It may seem a small thing, Atrus—after all, a dune is but a dune—but the principle’s a sound one and will stand you in good stead whatever you do, and however complex the system is you’re looking at. Always consider the Whole, Atrus. Always look at the interrelatedness of things, and remember that the ‘whole’ of one thing is always just a part of something else, something larger.”

Atrus stared at her, slowly nodding, the seriousness of his gaze belying his seven years. Seeing it, Anna sighed inwardly. Sometimes he made her feel so proud. Such fine, clear eyes he had. Eyes that had been so encouraged to see—that yearned to observe and question the world around him.

“Grandmother?”

“Yes, Atrus?”

“Can I draw a picture of Flame?”

“No,” she said, smiling down at him. “Not now. It’s time for bed. You want Flame to sleep with you?”

He grinned and nodded.

“Then bring her through. She can sleep at the foot of your bed tonight. Tomorrow we’ll make a basket for her.”

“Grandmother?”

“Yes, Atrus?”

“Can I read for a while?”

She smiled then reached out to ruffle his hair. “No. But I’ll come and tell you a story, if you like.”

His eyes widened. “Please. And Nanna?”

“Yes?” she asked, surprised by his use of the familiar term.

“Thank you for Flame. She’s beautiful. I’ll take good care of her.”

“I know you will. Now come inside. It’s late.”

 

§

 

Atrus’s bed was on a shelf of rock cut into the back wall of the inner sleeping chamber like a tiny catacomb. A beautifully woven quilt was his mattress, while a large, doubled square of cloth, sewn neatly by Anna along the edges and decorated with a pattern of tiny, embroidered golden stars, served for a sheet. In a niche in the rock at the head of the shelf rested a small oil lamp, secured by narrow metal bars at top and bottom.

Anna reached in and, lifting the curiously engraved glass, lit the wick, then moved back, letting Atrus climb into the tiny space. Soon he would be too big for the sleeping shelf, but for now it sufficed.

Looking at her grandson, she felt a twinge of regret; regret for the passing of innocence, knowing that she should cherish such moments as this, for they could not last. Nothing lasted. Neither individual lives, nor empires.

“So,” she said, tucking him in, then lifting the half-dozing cat onto him, so he could cuddle it a while, “what would you like me to tell you?”

He looked away from her a moment, his pale eyes seeming to read the flickering shadows within the shelf, then met her eyes again, smiling.

“How about the tale of Kerath?”

“But you’ve heard that several times now, Atrus.”

“I know, but I’d like to hear it again. Please, grandmother.”

She smiled and lay her hand on his brow, then, closing her eyes, began the ancient tale.

It was set in the land of the D’ni, dating back, so it was said, to the time, thousands of years ago, when their homeland had suffered the first of the great earthquakes that, ultimately, had caused them to flee and come here.

Kerath had been the last of the great kings; last not because he was deposed but because, when he had achieved all he had set out to achieve, he had stepped down and appointed a council of elders to run the D’ni lands. But the “tale of Kerath” was the story of the young prince’s teenage years and how he had spent them in the great underground desert of Tre-Merktee, the Place of Poisoned Waters.

And when Atrus heard the tale, what did he think? Did he imagine himself a young prince, like Kerath, banished into exile by his dead father’s brother? Or was it something else in the tale that attracted him, for there was no doubting that this was his favorite story.

As she came to a close, narrating the final part, of how Kerath tamed the great lizard and rode it back into the D’ni capital, she could sense how Atrus clung to her every word, following each phrase, each twist in the story.

In her mind she closed the book silently and set it aside, as she had once done for another little boy in another time, in a place very different from this. Opening her eyes, she found Atrus staring up at her.

“Are there
many
tales, grandmother?”

She laughed. “Oh, thousands…”

“And do you know them all?”

She shook her head. “No. Why, it would be impossible, Atrus. D’ni was a great empire, and its libraries were small cities in themselves. If I were to try to memorize all the tales of the D’ni it would take me several lifetimes, and even then I would have learned but a handful of them.”

“And are the tales true?” Atrus asked, yawning and turning to face the wall.

“Do you believe them?”

He was silent, then, with a sleepy sigh. “I guess so.”

Yet she sensed he was not satisfied. Reaching out, she lifted the blanket until it covered his neck, then, leaning across, kissed his brow.

“Shall I leave Flame where she is?”

“Mmmm…” he answered, already half asleep.

Smiling, Anna reached across and, lifting the glass, snuffed the lamp, then stood and left the room.

The lamp was still burning in her workroom on the far side of the cleft. The half-completed sculpture lay where she’d left it on the desk, the workbox open next to it, the delicate stone-working instruments laid out in their trays. For a moment she stood there, looking down at it, considering what needed to be done, then moved past it, reaching up to take a tiny, pearl-backed case from the shelf where she kept her books.

Thumbing the clasp, she opened it and stared at her reflection, drawing a wisp of gray hair back off her brow.

“What do you see, Anna?”

The face that looked back at her was strong and firm, the bone structure delicate without being brittle; refined, rather than coarse. In her time she had been a great beauty. But time was against her now.

The thought made her smile. She had never been vain, yet she had always—always—wondered just how much of her real self showed in her face. How much the interplay of eye and mouth revealed. And yet how much those same subtle features could hide. Take Atrus, for instance. When he smiled, he smiled not simply with his lips but with the whole of his face, the whole of his being: a great, radiant smile that shone out from him. Likewise, when he was thinking, it was as if one could see right through him—like glass—and watch the thoughts fizz and sparkle in his head.

And her own face?

She tilted her head slightly to the side, examining herself again, noting this time the tiny blue beads she had tied into her braids, the colorful, finely woven band about her neck.

The face that stared back at her was pale and tautly fleshed, almost austere; the deeply green eyes were intelligent, the mouth sensitive; yet it was in those few small, surrounding touches—the beads, the band—that her true nature was revealed: that part, at least, that loved embellishment. From childhood on, she had always been the same. Give her a blank page and she would fill it with a poem or a story or a picture. Give her a blank wall and she would always—always—decorate it.

Give me a child…

She snapped the tiny case shut and slipped it back onto the shelf.

Give her a child and she would fill its head with marvels. With tales and thoughts and facts beyond imagining.

What do you see, Anna?

Yawning, she reached across to douse the light, then answered the silent query.

“I see a tired old woman who needs her sleep.”

“Maybe,” she answered after a moment, smiling, remembering the girl she’d been. Then, stepping out onto the steps that hugged the cleftwall, she quickly crossed the cleft once more, making for her bed.

2

~~~~~~~~~~

 

The first sign was a darkening of the sky far to the east, high up, not where you would expect a sandstorm. Atrus was exploring the sun-facing slope of the volcano, searching for rare rocks and crystals to add to his collection, when he looked up and saw it—a tiny smudge of darkness against the solid blue. For a moment he wasn’t quite sure what it was. He moved his head, thinking it might be a blemish in one of the lenses, but it wasn’t that.

Looking back, he found it was still there. Not only that, but it was growing. Even as he watched it seemed to darken.

Atrus felt a vague unease grip him.

The ten-year-old turned, making his way back down the slope, then hurried across the open stretch of sand between the nearest ledge and the cleft, panting from the heat. Stopping only to slip his sandals into the gap beneath the cleftwall’s lip, he clambered down the rope ladder, making the stone rungs clatter against the wall.

That noise alerted Anna. On the far side of the shadowy cleft, the top half of the hinged door to her workroom swung open. She looked out, her eyebrows formed into a question.

“Atrus?”

“Something’s coming.”

“People, you mean?”

He shook his head. “No. Something big in the sky, high up. Something black.”

“A sandstorm?”

“No…the whole sky is turning black.”

Her laugh was unexpected. “Well, well,” she said, almost as if she’d half expected whatever it was. “We’ll need to take precautions.”

Atrus stared at his grandmother, perplexed. “Precautions?”

“Yes,” she said, almost gaily now. “If it’s what I think it is, we’d best take advantage of it while we can. The chance is rare enough.”

He stared at her as if she were speaking in riddles.

“Come on,” she said, “help me now. Go fetch the seeds from the store room. And bowls. Fetch as many bowls as you can from the kitchen and set them up all around the cleftwall.”

Still he stared at her, openmouthed.

“Now,” she said, grinning at him. “If you could see it on the horizon then it’ll be upon us before long. We need to be prepared for it.”

Not understanding, Atrus did as he was told, crossing the rope bridge to fetch the seeds, then crisscrossing it time and again, carefully ferrying every bowl he could find and setting them all around the cleftwall’s rim. That done, he looked to her.

Anna was standing on the cleftwall, staring out, one hand shielding her eyes against the glare. Atrus went across and climbed up, standing next to her.

Whatever it was, it now filled a third of the horizon, a great black veil that linked the heavens and the earth. From where he stood it seemed like a fragment of the night ripped from its appointed time.

“What is it?” he asked. In all his ten years he had not seen its like.

“It’s a storm, Atrus,” she said, turning to him with a smile. “That blackness is a huge rain cloud. And if we’re lucky—if we’re very, very lucky—then that rain will fall on us.”

“Rain?”

“Water,” she said, her smile broadening. “Water falling from the sky.”

He looked from her to the great patch of darkness, his mouth open in astonishment. “From the sky?”

“Yes,” she answered, raising her arms, as if to embrace the approaching darkness. “I’ve dreamed of this, Atrus. So many nights I’ve dreamed.”

It was the first time she had said anything of her dreams, and again he stared at her as if she’d been transformed. Water from the sky. Dreams. Day turned to night. Putting his right hand against his upper arm he pinched himself hard.

“Oh, you’re awake, Atrus,” Anna said, amused by his reaction. “And you must stay awake and watch, for you’ll see sights you may never see again.” Again she laughed. “Just watch, my boy. Just watch!”

Slowly, very slowly it came closer, and as it approached the air seemed to grow cooler and cooler. There was the faintest breeze now, like an outrider moving ahead of the growing darkness.

“All right,” she said, turning to him after a long silence. “Let’s get to work. We need to scatter the seeds all around the cleft. Use all the bags but one. We’ll not get this chance again. Not for many years.”

He did as she told him, moving in a daze, conscious all the while of the blackness that now filled the whole of the horizon. From time to time he would look up fearfully, then duck his head again.

Finished, he pocketed the tiny cloth bag then clambered up onto the cleftwall.

Flame was sheltering beneath the stone ledge on the floor of the cleft. Seeing her there, Anna called to him. “Atrus! You’d better put Flame in your room. If she stays where she is she’ll be in danger.”

Atrus frowned, not understanding
how
she could possibly be in danger. Surely the cleft was the safest place? But he did not argue, merely went and, gathering Flame under his arm, took her into the storeroom and locked her in.