The Myst Reader (5 page)

Atrus watched her a while, smiling broadly at her antics, then, giving the shoots a good shake to remove the last few drops of water, he lay them on the cutting board and went across, removing one of Anna’s knives from the rack.

As he began to chop and prepare the shoots, he watched Flame stretch and settle among the remaining shoots, cleaning herself, the tiny pink tongue licking her paws before she began to groom her short orange fur.

“Hey you,” he said, laughing gently. It was bad enough that she ate the spearmint grass on the far side of the pool, without her making a bed out of his special patch.

Finished, he took the chopped shoots across and scraped them into the earthenware bowl. They had a fresh, clean scent, like mint, though not as sweet. Taking a short length he put it to his nose, sniffing it, then popped it in his mouth.

It tasted good, too. Fresh and…

Atrus grimaced. There was a distinct aftertaste; a bitter, unpleasant tang. He ran he tip of his tongue around his gums, then shivered.

“Eeuch!”

“Atrus?”

He turned to find Anna standing there, looking at him curiously.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” he said, picking up the bowl and taking it across to the sink again. Maybe he hadn’t washed them thoroughly enough. The last thing he wanted was for them to taste bad.

He felt Anna’s fingers brush his back softly as she made her way past him to the scullery, then felt her breath on his neck as she leaned over him.

“They look good,” she commented, smiling as he turned to look at her. “Shall I cook some rice to go with them?”

He shook his head. “No. I’ll do it. And I’ll make a special sauce.”

She nodded, then, pressing his arm gently, moved past him and out onto the steps.

Atrus watched her go, then turned back, looking out across the cleft once more. Flame had settled now, curled up in a tiny orange ball amidst the bright green shoots. He smiled, then, pouring fresh water from the pitcher by his side, set to rinsing the shoots through once again.

 

§

 

Atrus was repairing the stonework at the far end of the cleftwall when the pains started. At first he thought it was just a cramp and, stretching his left arm to ease the muscles down that side, made to carry on. Yet as he reached up to take the trowel, a shooting pain went right through him, making him double up.

“Atrus?”

Anna was at his side in an instant.

“Atrus? What is it? What’s the matter?”

He made to tell her, but the next one took his breath. He knelt, wincing with the pain.

It was like being stabbed.

“Atrus?”

He looked up at her, his vision glazed momentarily. Then, unable to help himself, he began to throw up.

After a while he lifted his head, feeling drained, exhausted, his brow beaded with sweat. Anna was kneeling next to him, her arm about his shoulders, murmuring something to him.

“What?”

“The shoots,” she said, repeating what she’d been saying. “It must have been the shoots. Did you eat some?”

Atrus began to shake his head, then remembered. “I did. Just one. I…”

There was a tremor in his stomach, a momentary pain. He swallowed then looked back at her.

“It must have been something in them,” Anna said, reaching up to wipe his brow. “What did you use.”

“Use?” His thoughts were in disarray. He felt light-headed and disoriented. “I didn’t…”

It came to him suddenly. The chemicals. It must have been something in the chemicals. And then he remembered. The aftertaste. That bitterness…not strong, but unpleasant enough to alert him.

He groaned. “I’ve let you down!”

“No,” Anna said, pained by his words. “You can’t get it right every time. If you did…”

He looked at her, angry not with her but with himself. “I could have killed you. Killed us both!”

Anna winced and made to shake her head, to deny him, but he was staring at her now, defying her to say no.

“No, Atrus,” she said finally. “You haven’t let me down. You’ll learn from this.”

But Atrus seemed unconvinced. “I nearly killed us,” he repeated, shaking his head. “I nearly…”

She reached out and held him to her, hugging him until he grew still, relaxed. Then, helping him to get up, she took him over to the pool and, kneeling him beside it, scooped up water in her hands and washed his face and neck.

“There,” she said finally, smiling at him. “That’s better.”

Slowly, wearily, he got to his feet. “I guess I’d better dig it all up. I…”

He turned, staring. “Flame?”

Anna stepped past him, then crouched beside the tiny orange bundle. For a moment she was still, her ear pressed against its side, then, with a slowness that confirmed what Atrus had most feared, she straightened up.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I…”

Atrus stepped across and knelt beside her. For a moment he was very still, looking down at the tiny animal. Then, carefully, as if it only slept, he picked it up and, cuddling it against him, took it across to where a tiny patch of blue flowers bordered the cleft’s side.

Anna turned, watching him, seeing how dignified he was at that moment; how grown up; how he kept in all he was feeling. And she knew, unmistakably, that in that instant he had shed something of his childishness and had taken a further step out into the adult world. Out, away from her.

3

~~~~~~~~~~

 

In the blistering heat of the late afternoon sun, faint wisps of sulfurous steam rose from tiny fumaroles in the volcano’s mouth, coiling like a dancer’s veils in that shadowy dark beneath the edge before they vanished in the intense glare above.

Atrus stood on the lip of the volcano, staring out across the deep bowl of the caldera, his glasses—the largest of the two pairs that had hung in his grandmother’s workroom—pulled down over his face, the thick leather band hugging the back of his shaven head tightly beneath the white cloth hood he wore. Over his mouth and nose was the cloth mask Anna had made for him and insisted that he wear, while about his waist was a thick belt studded with tools—a perfect copy of the one his grandmother wore about her own.

Fourteen now, Atrus had grown fast this past year; he was almost a man’s height, but he had yet to fill out. His face, too, had changed, taking on the harder, more angular shapes of manhood, both nose and chin having lost the softness they’d had in childhood. He was not a weak boy, not by any means, yet watching him from the top of the cleftwall, Anna noted how thin he was. When the desert winds blew she was afraid they would carry him away, there seemed so little of him.

For the past few weeks he had been setting up his experiment. Now he was ready to begin.

Turning, Atrus clambered down, out of the burning light, into the deep, much cooler shadow just below the lip. Here, on a narrow ledge, he had rigged up most of his equipment. Straight ahead the volcano wall fell away steeply, while to his right, just beyond a curiously rounded rock that looked as though it had been formed from melting mud, was a narrow vent. Above it he had placed a domed cap made of beaten metal. It was crudely manufactured, but effective, and he had staked it to the surrounding rock with four thick pins. On top of the dome was fixed a small metal cylinder.

Atrus reached up, his gloved hands gently turning the tiny knobs on either side of his glasses, adjusting the opacity of the lenses so that he could see better. Then, brushing a fine layer f dust from the top of the metal cap, he leaned forward and studied the finger-length valve, checking its welding for the dozenth time before glancing at the two crudely calibrated gauges that were set into the dome’s face to either side of the valve. Just above each of the dials was a thumb-sized metal stud, a small circular hole bored through the top of each.

Atrus straightened, letting out a long breath. He had one chance at this, so it had to be right. If it went wrong, if it didn’t work, then it would be a year or more before they could get all the parts they needed from the traders.

He turned, looking up to where two big, coiled wires—wires he had made himself under Anna’s supervision—dangled over the edge of the crater. Just above them, jutting out over the drop, was a long arm of jet black stone. Two small wheels had been pinned into its face at the far end where it overhung the volcano. A handwoven rope ran between the wheels, forming a winch. Like the cap, it seemed crude, yet it would serve its purpose perfectly. To test it, Atrus had spent several afternoons lowering rocks into that maw, then raising them again—rocks many times the weight of the load it would have to carry now.

On the other side of the crater’s lip, just next to where the rock arm was weighed down by a pile of heavy stones, sheltered by a makeshift tent, was his pride and joy—the beginning and the end of all this patient endeavor: his battery. Reaching up, he grasped one of the wires, pulling it toward him, drawing out enough of its length so that it stretched to the metal cap. Attaching it to one of the studs, he then repeated the process.

Adjusting his glasses, he clambered back up the wall and over the lip, out into the burning sunlight.

For a moment he stood there, getting his breath. Each time he emerged from the shadow, it was like stepping into a furnace. Nor did it matter how often he did it; every time, that change from the cool of the shade to the sudden, stifling heat of he open was like a physical blow.

Ducking under the thick cloth screen of the tent, Atrus smiled. This time he had tried hard to look at all the angles, to make sure he took all aspects of the Whole into account in his calculations.

The battery rested in the corner of the tent, against a ledge of rock. Looking at the massive thing, Atrus felt a justifiable pride. He had cut the block of stone himself and, using Anna’s finest cutting tools, had hollowed it, following the design in the ancient D’ni book. Making the plates for the battery was comparably easy. Chemicals lay in abundance in the dry soil surrounding he volcano, and he had been fortunate to find a lare deposit of galena—the ore containing a mixture of sulfur and lead—not far from the cleft. As for the sulfuric acid he had needed, the one substance that was in abundance on the volcano was sulfur. Indeed, when he finally came to make it, the only thing that had limited the size of the battery was its weight.

Adjusting his lenses once again, Atrus knelt and studied it proudly. He had spent many nights buffing and polishing the stone, then, on a whim, had carved three ancient D’ni words into its side, the complex characters tiny, elaborate works of art in themselves:

Light. Power. Force.

It looked like a tiny stone house, the metallic glint of its terminals giving it a strange, exotic look.

Beside it, altogether different, lay a second, much smaller box—the explosive device. This one was made of an unglazed red clay, cast in his grandmother’s kiln. Undecorated, the single, rounded aperture on its top face was plugged with a hard seal of wax, from the center of which jutted a length of thick twine which he had treated with a solution of various highly reactive chemicals. On its front face was a thick, clay handle.

Carefully, he picked it up and, wrapping it in his cloak, carried it outside. Easing his way over the lip once more, he steadied himself, one hand against the rough, crumbling wall, as he edged down onto the ledge.

Setting the box down, he turned and, standing on tiptoe, reached up and caught hold of the thick, metal hook on the end of the rope, gently tugging at it, hearing the brake mechanism click then click again on the far side of the rim.

That, too, was his own invention.

On some of the earliest trials of the winch, he had found that the rock dragged the rope down much too quickly, and when he’d tried to slow it, the rope had burned his palms. After much experimentation, he had devised a way of stopping the supply wheel after each rotation, so that the winch could only be operated by a series of gentle tugs.

Bending down, he picked the box up again and slipped the curved tip of the hook through its handle, then turned back and, holding the rope out away from him, slowly lowered it over the drop. As the rope went taut, he moved back.

There was only one more thing to do now, Reaching into the inner pocket of his cloak, he removed the ancient D’ni tinderbox.

Leaving over, one hand supporting him against the rock arm, he held the flame beneath the end of the twine fuse on the dangling box, then, when it had caught, released the catch and stepped back.

For a moment he thought it had gone out, then, with a fizz, it began to burn fiercely.

Atrus turned and, half-running up the slope, scrambled over the rim, making for the winch.

This was the most crucial part. If the fuse burned too quickly, or if for some reason the winch jammed, things would go wrong.

Kneeling beside the brake wheel, he slowly began to turn it, listening to it click and click and click, all the while tensed against a sudden detonation, all the while counting in his head.

When he’d counted twenty, he threw himself down, stretched out flat behind the pile of stones, his hands over his ears.

…twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six…

The explosion rocked the side of the volcano. It had been four seconds early, even so that didn’t matter, the box would have been in the correct place, opposite the fault.

Atrus laughed, then, dusting himself off, stood. As the echoes died, he could hear, through the ringing in his ears, the sound he’d hoped to hear—the strong hiss of steam forcing its way through the cap and an accompanying high-pitched mechanical whine.

Still laughing, he climbed up onto the lip and looked down. The winch-arm had gone, as had a large chunk of the ledge, but the vent—protected by the huge rock—was fine. Steam hissed from the cap in a steady, forceful stream.