The Myst Reader (47 page)

“I’d say that the quake, the rockfall here, and the circle are all connected. How, exactly, I don’t yet know. But as I’ve always said to you, we don’t know everything. But we might extend our knowledge of the earth,
if
we can get to the bottom of this.”

She smiled. “And the surveys?”

He waved that away. “We can do the surveys. They’re no problem. But this…this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Anna! If we can find a reason for the phenomena, who knows what else will follow?”

“So what do you suggest?”

He gestured toward the fallen rock. “I suggest we find out what’s on the other side of that.”

 

 

§

 

 

After they had eaten, Anna unpacked the cart. She had bought him a gift in the Jaarnindu Market. As she watched him unwrap it, she thought of all the gifts he had bought her over the years, some practical—her first tiny rock hammer, when she was six—and some fanciful—the three yards of bright blue silk, decorated with yellow and red butterflies that he had brought back only last year.

He stared at the leather case a moment, then flicked the catch open and pushed the lid back.

“A chess set!” he exclaimed, a look of pure delight lighting his features. “How I’ve missed playing chess!” He looked to her. “How did you know?”

Anna looked down, abashed. “It was something you said. In your sleep.”

“When I was ill, you mean?”

She nodded.

He stared at the chessboard lovingly. The pieces—hand-carved wood, stained black and white—sat in their niches in two tiny wooden boxes.

It was not a luxury item by any means. The carving was crude and the staining basic, yet that did not matter. This, to him, was far finer than any object carved from silver.

“I shall begin to teach you,” he said, looking up at her. “Tonight. We’ll spend an hour each night, playing. You’ll soon get the hang of it!”

Anna smiled. It was just as she’d thought.
Gifts
, she recalled him saying,
aren’t frivolous things, they’re very necessary. They’re demonstrations of love and affection, and their “excess” makes life more than mere drudgery. You can do without many things, Anna, but not gifts, however small and insignificant they might seem.

So it was. She understood it much better these days.

“So how are we to do it?”

He looked to her, understanding at once what she meant. Taking one of his stone hammers from the belt at his waist he held it up. “We use these.”

‘But it’ll take ages!”

“We have ages.”

“But…”

“No buts, Anna. You mustn’t be impatient. We’ll do a little at a time. That way there’ll be no accidents, all right?”

She smiled and gave a single nod. “All right.”

“Good. Now let me rest. I must be fresh if I’m to play chess with you tonight!”

 

 

§

 

 

In the days that followed, their lives fell into a new routine. An hour before dawn they would rise and go out to the tunnel, and spend an hour or two chipping away at the rockfall. Anna did most of this work, loathe to let her father exhaust himself so soon after his illness, while he continued his survey of the surrounding area. Then, as the sun began to climb the desert sky, they went back to the Lodge and, after a light meal, began work in the laboratory.

There were samples on the shelves from years back that they had not had time to properly analyze, and her father decided that, rather than set off on another of their expeditions, they would catch up on this work and send the results to Amanjira.

Late afternoon, they would break off and take a late rest, waking as the sun went down and the air grew slowly cooler.

They would eat a meal, then settle in the main room at the center of the Lodge to read or play chess.

Anna was not sure that she liked the game at first, but soon she found herself sharing her father’s enthusiasm—if not his skill—and had to stop herself from playing too long into the night.

When finally he did retire, Anna stayed up an hour or so afterward, returning to the workroom to plan out the next stage of the survey.

No matter what her father claimed, she knew Amanjira would not be satisfied with the results of sample analyses for long. He paid her father to survey the desert, and it was those surveys he was interested in, not rock analysis—not unless those analyses could be transformed somehow into vast riches.

In the last year they had surveyed a large stretch of land to the southwest of the Lodge, three days’ walk away in the very heart of the desert. To survive at all out there they needed to plan their expeditions well. They had to know exactly where they could find shelter and what they would need to take. All their food, water, and equipment had to be hauled out there on the cart, and as they were often out there eight or ten days, they had to make provision for sixteen full days.

It was not easy, but to be truthful, she would not have wanted any other life. Amanjira might not pay them their true worth, but neither she nor her father would have wanted any other job.

She loved the rock and its ways almost as much as she loved the desert. Some saw the rock as dead, inert, but she knew otherwise. It was as alive as any other thing. It was merely that its perception of time was slow.

On the eighth day, quite early, they made the breakthrough they had been hoping for. It was not much—barely an armhole in the great pile of rock—yet they could shine a light through to the other side and see that the tunnel ran on beyond the fall.

That sight encouraged them. They worked an extra hour before going back, side by side at the rock face, chipping away at it, wearing their face masks to avoid getting splinters in their eyes.

“What do you think?” he said on the walk back. “Do you think we might make a hole big enough to squeeze through, then investigate the other side?”

Anna grinned. “Now who’s impatient?”

“You think we should clear more of it, then?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, walking on. “I think we should think about it.”

That afternoon, in the workshop, he talked about it constantly and, come the evening, rather than debate it further, she gave in.

“All right,” she said, looking up from her side of the chessboard. “But only one of us goes through at a time. And we use a rope. We don’t know what’s on the other side. If there’s more quake damage it might be dangerous.”

“Agreed,” he said, moving his Queen. “Check.” Then, smiling up at her. “Checkmate, in fact.”

 

 

§

 

 

It took them two more days to make the gap wide enough. It would be a squeeze, but to make it any bigger would have meant another week’s work at the very least.

“We’ll prepare things tonight,” he said, holding his lamp up to the gap and staring through. “You won’t need much.”

Anna smiled at that “you.” She had thought she might have to fight him over it. “So what am I looking for?”

He drew the lamp back and turned to face her. “Anything unusual. A volcanic funnel, perhaps. Vents. Any pyroclastic deposits.”

“You still think this is part of a larger volcanic system?”

“Almost certainly. These vents and boreholes are only part of it. There would have been a great basin of lava—of magma—deep down in the earth. In fact, the deeper it was, the wider spread these surface manifestations will be. The super heated lava would have found all of the weakest routes through the rock, fault lines and the like. That’s all this is, really.”

“Like the roots of a tree?”

He nodded, smiling faintly at her. Anna had never seen a tree. Not a
proper
tree, anyway. Only the shallow-rooted palms of Tadjinar. Most of what she knew of the world had come out of books, or had been told to her. That was the worst of living here—the narrowness of it.

Walking back with her, he raised the subject, the two of them speaking, as they always did, with their heads down, not even glancing at each other.

“Anna?”

“Yes?”

“Do you regret living here?”

“Do you?”

“I chose it.”

“And you think if I had a choice, I’d choose differently?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then you’re wrong. I love the desert.”

“But you don’t know anything else.”

“I’d still want to be here.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

 

 

§

 

 

“Mind the rope, Anna. It’s getting snagged.”

Anna paused, edging slightly to one side, then tugged gently at the rope. It came free. She was halfway through the gap in the rockfall and finding it a tighter squeeze than she’d imagined. She had managed to shrug her shoulders through the narrow hole, but her hips were another matter altogether. Nor could she see anything properly. The tiny slivers of light that peeped through the narrow gaps between her and the wall served more to emphasize how stuck she was than help her.

She could always try and heave herself through, of course, but then she’d most likely tumble down onto the floor on the other side, and it was quite a drop. Besides, only her left arm was free; the other was still wedged between her and the wall.

“Turn yourself about, Anna. Until you’re facing the ceiling. The channel’s wider than it’s tall.”

“We should have waited another week,” she said, trying to do what he said.

“Maybe. But you’re almost there now. Try and edge back a little. Yes…that’s it.”

Slowly, very slowly, she wriggled her way back, until she could feel that her head and shoulders were out over the gap. Now she had to try and free her arm. She tried to bring it up, but there wasn’t room. She’d have to turn again.

“Hold my feet,” she said.

Anna felt his hands grip the ankles of her boots firmly.

“Good. I’m going to try to turn onto my front now. At the same time I’m going to try to free my right arm.”

“All right.”

It was difficult. It felt as if the rock was trying to crush her—to pop her bones—but slowly she managed to turn herself, until she was facing the floor.

Anna could not see anything. The darkness in front of her seemed absolute. Not that the darkness itself worried her; she simply did not want to fall onto anything sharp.

“All right,” she said, as she finally freed her arm. “Now lower me slowly.”

The rock seemed to come up to touch her hands. Above her, light slowly spilled into the tunnel.

“That’s it,” she said. “Slowly now.”

She began to take her own weight, reaching forward slightly with her hands.

“All right. You can let go now. I’m down.”

Anna felt his fingers relent, his hands move back, away from her ankles. There was a faint noise from him, a grunt.

She scrambled up, then turned, brushing herself down. “Are you okay?”

He made a small noise of assent. “Just winded a little. Just give me a moment to get my breath.”

Anna went to the hole and looked back through. The lamp was on the floor by his feet where he had left it. He himself was leaning against the wall, slumped slightly, one hand on his chest.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

He nodded and looked up at her. “I’ll be okay. I didn’t realize how heavy you are, that’s all.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Now get on. Tie the rope about your waist. I’ll pass you through the lamp.”

She stooped and picked up the rope, fastening it tightly about her waist. It was a thin, strong rope, and they had some five hundred feet of it. That should be plenty for this preliminary exploration. Satisfied, she turned and, leaning through the gap, took the lamp from him.

“This, too,” he said, handing her his protective hat.

She put the lamp down, then tried on the hat, expecting it to be too big for her, but it was a perfect fit. She fastened the leather strap under her chin, then turned, lifting the lamp so that he could see her.

“Good,” he said, his eyes shining in the lamplight. “I’ll give you an hour, then I’ll call you back. But keep your eyes open, Anna. And don’t take chances.”

“I won’t.”

“You’ve got the notebook?”

Anna patted her top pocket.

“All right. Then get going. It’s cold here.”

She smiled then turned, facing the darkness, the lamp held up before her.

 

 

§

 

 

The library overlooked the darkened lake, its long, latticed windows giving a distant view of D’ni, the city’s lamplit levels climbing the great wall of the cavern.

A fire had been lit in the great fireplace. In its flickering light four men could be seen, sitting in huge armchairs about the fire, their faces thrown into sharp contrasts of gold and black. They had eaten an hour ago; now, as it grew late, they talked.

“I don’t know how you can say that, Veovis. Not with any certainty, anyway. Where’s your proof?”

Veovis turned to face his friend, his wineglass cradled in both hands, the light from the fire winking at its ruby heart.

“But that’s just it, Fihar. I need no proof. The matter is axiomatic. You argue that those races we have knowledge of, on those Ages to which we have linked, behave morally. I agree. But they do so because we have made it our business to encourage them to do so. Their morality is not innate, but taught. And we, the D’ni, were the ones who taught it to them. So much we have known for
thousands
of years.”

Veovis turned slightly, looking to another of them. “You, Suahrnir. You are a Maintainer. Is it not so? Is it not one of your prime duties to encourage a stable and moral social framework among the natives of the worlds to which we link?”