The Myst Reader (8 page)

Atrus, watching, felt a shiver go down his spine, a tiny ripple of disbelief making him feel, for that instant, that he was in a dream.

Still there? But that was impossible, surely?

Anna shook her head dismissively. “No, Gehn. You forget. I’ve seen it with these eyes. It’s gone. Destroyed. Can’t you accept that? Can’t you forget the past?”

Gehn stared back at her coldly, imperiously, accepting nothing. “Oh, I can easily believe that
you
would like to forget it!”

She stared back at him silently.

“You never valued it, did you?” he continued, not sparing her. “You never cared for it the way
I
cared. But I am not having that for my son. I want him to know about his past. I want him to be proud of it, the way
I
am proud of it.” He bristled with indignation. “I shall not betray
him
the way you betrayed
me!
”

“Gehn! How can you say that? I did my best for you!”

“Your
best?
And how good
was
your best? This hole in the ground you call a home? Is
this
your best?”

Anna looked away. “Atrus should decide. You can’t just take him.”

Gehn leaned right in to her, his face only inches from her own. “Of course I can. I am the boy’s father. It is my right.”

“Then let me come with you. Let me look after the boy while you are teaching him.”

Gehn shook his head. “That would not be right. It would not be the D’ni way. Or do you forget that also? Do you forget how you gave me up to the Guild when I was but four years old?”

“But…”

His voice overrode hers harshly. “But nothing. He is coming with me and that is that. If you wish to help, you might pack a knapsack for him for the journey. Not that he’ll need much.”

“But Gehn…” She reached out to touch his arm, but he pulled away from her. Turning, Gehn reached down and picked up his pipe, then, tugging open the door, he stepped out, into the open air.

For a moment he stood there, turned away from where Atrus lay, drawing on his pipe, the light from the kitchen making a silhouette of him, then he turned back, his chest and arms and face revealed in the faint blue glow of the pipe.

“Atrus?” he said, speaking to the boy where he lay on his belly on the cleftwall. “Go to bed now and get some sleep. We shall be leaving early in the morning.”

5

~~~~~~~~~~

 

Crouching beside his mother’s grave, Atrus leaned across and, careful not to disturb the earth, plucked one of the delicate blue flowers. Placing it in the journal he had open on his knee. He closed the book gently, then slipped it into the small leather knapsack at his side.

For a moment he simply stared, taking in the sight. In the half-light he could not discern their proper color, yet he had only to close his eyes and he could see the flowers in the sunlight, like a quilt of lilac lain on that bed of rich, dark earth.

Goodbye
, she said silently.

To be truthful, Atrus did not really know what to feel. “Excitement? Certainly, the prospect of traveling—of seeing D’ni—thrilled him, yet the thought of leaving here, of leaving Anna, frightened him. Too much had happened far too quickly. He felt torn.

“Atrus! Come now. We must go.”

He turned, looking across at the figure silhouetted against the dawn light at the far end of the cleftwall, and nodded.

Anna was waiting for him close by. Embracing her, he felt a kind of panic, a fear of not seeing her again, well up in him. She must have sensed it, for, squeezing him tightly, she then moved back, away from him, holding his upper arms and smiling at him.

“Don’t worry now,” she said softly. “I’ll be all right. The store’s full and what with all those improvements you’ve made for me, I’ll not know what to do with myself half the time.”

Her kind face lit with a smile. “Besides, your father has promised me he’ll bring you back three months from now to visit.”

“Three months?” The news cheered him immensely.

“Yes, so you must not worry.”

She reached down, then handed him his pack. He had watched her earlier, selecting various items from their meager store and placing them into the pack for his journey, including all of the tiny cakes she had cooked only the previous day. Atrus stared at the pack, his fingers brushing lightly against its brightly embroidered cloth, moved by the simple care she took over everything, knowing he would miss that.

“Now listen to me, Atrus.”

Atrus looked up, surprised by how serious her voice suddenly was. “Yes, grandmother?”

Her dark, intelligent eyes searched his. “You must remember what you have learned here, Atrus. I have tried to teach you the mechanics of the earth and stars; the ways of science and the workings of nature. I have tried to teach you what is good and what is to be valued, truths which cannot be shaken or changed. This knowledge is from the Maker. Take it with you and weigh everything your father teaches you against it.”

Anna paused, then leaned in toward him slightly, lowering her voice. “I no longer know him, but I know you, Atrus. Measure your own deeds against the truths I have taught you. If you act for self-gain then no good can come of it. If you act selflessly, then you act well for all and you must not be afraid.”

Anna moved back, smiling once more. “The journey down will be long and hard but I want you to be brave, Atrus. More than that, I want you to be truthful. To be a better son to your father than fate allowed him to be with his.”

“I don’t understand…” he began, but she shook her head, as if it didn’t matter.

“Do what your father asks. But most of all, Atrus, do not violate what is in your nature. You understand me?”

“I think so, grandmother.”

“Then I have no fears for you.”

He embraced her again, gripping her tightly and kissing her neck. Then, turning from her, he climbed the steps and crossed the rope bridge.

At the cleftwall he turned, looking back at her, his eyes briefly taking in the familiar sights of the cleft, its shape like a scar in his memory. Anna had climbed the steps and now stood on the narrow balcony outside her room. Lifting an arm, she waved.

“Take care on your journey down. I’ll see you in three months.”

Atrus waved back, then, heaving a deep sigh, turned and jumped down from the wall, following his father up the slope of the volcano.

 

§

 

They were in the tunnel.

“Father?”

Gehn turned and, holding the lantern high, looked back down the tunnel at Atrus. “What is it, boy?”

Atrus lifted his own lamp and pointed at the D’ni symbol carved into the wall; the symbol he had seen that morning after the experiment. “This sign, father. What does it mean?”

Gehn motioned to him impatiently. “Come on now, Atrus. Catch up. We’ve wasted enough time as it is. There will be occasion for such things later.”

Atrus stared at the intricate symbol a moment longer, then, hiding his disappointment, turned away, hurrying to catch up with his father.

“We need to make up time,” Gehn said, as Atrus came alongside. “The journey is a long one and I have several experiments in progress. I must be back in time to see how they have developed.”

“Experiments?” Atrus asked, excited by the sound of it. “What kind of experiments?”

“Important ones,” Gehn answered, as if that were sufficient to satisfy his son’s curiosity. “Now hurry. There will be time to talk when we reach the first of the eder tomahn.”

Atrus looked up at his father. “Eder tomahn?”

Gehn glanced at his son as he strode on. “The eder tomahn are way stations. Rest houses, you might term them. In the days of the late empire there were plans to have commerce with the world of men. Such plans, fortunately, did not come to pass, yet the paths were forged through the earth and rest houses prepared for those D’ni messengers who would venture out.”

Atrus looked back at his father, astonished. “And this tunnel? Is this D’ni?”

Gehn shook his head. “No. This is simply a lava tube. Thousands of years ago, when the volcano was still active, hot lava ran through this channel, carving a passage to the surface.”

Again Atrus felt a surge of disappointment. The walls of the tunnel had been so smooth, its shape so perfectly round, he had been sure it must have been the product of D’ni construction.

“Yes,” Gehn continued, “but you will see things before our journey’s done that will make you forget this tiny wormhole. Now, come over to the left, Atrus, and get behind me. The tunnel slopes steeply just ahead.”

Atrus did as he was told, keeping close behind his father, careful not to slip, his left hand keeping his balance against the curved wall of the lava tube, his sandaled feet gripping the hard, dry floor. All went well until, by chance, he turned and looked back up the tunnel. Then, with a sudden rush of understanding, he realized where he was. The darkness behind him seemed suddenly oppressive. Who knew what waited back there beyond the lantern’s glow?

He turned back, realizing just how dependent on his father he was. If he were to lose himself down here…

Ahead of him Gehn had stopped. “Slowly now,” he said, looking back at Atrus. “It ends just here. Now we go down The Well.”

Atrus blinked, seeing how the tunnel ended in a perfect circle up ahead. Beyond it was simple blackness. He went out and stood beside his father on the narrow, crescent-shaped ledge, overwhelmed by the sight that met his eyes.

In front of them lay a giant oval of blackness—a chasm so huge it seemed you could drop a whole volcano into it.

The Well.

Gehn raised his lamp, letting its light glint wetly off the far wall of the great shaft, revealing the massive striations of the rock, then pointed to his left.

“Just there. See, Atrus? See the steps?”

Atrus saw them, cut like the thread of a screw into the uneven sides of the great hole, but the thought of using them, of descending that vast shaft by their means, frightened him.

Gehn looked to him. “Would you like to go first, Atrus, or shall I?”

Atrus swallowed, then spoke, keeping the fear from his voice. “You’d better. You know the way.”

“Yes,” Gehn said, giving his son a knowing smile. “I do, don’t I?”

For the first hundred steps or so, the steps passed through a narrow tunnel cut into the edge of the chasm with only a thin gap low down by the floor to the right, but then, suddenly, the right-hand wall seemed to melt away and Atrus found himself out in the open, staring down into that massive well of darkness. Startled by the sight, he stumbled and his right sandal came away, toppled over the edge and into the darkness.

He stood there a moment, gasping, his back against the wall, trying to regain his nerve. But suddenly he found himself obsessed with he idea of falling into that darkness; and not just falling, but deliberately throwing himself. The urge was so strange and overpowering it made the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end.

Below him, almost directly opposite him across the great shaft, Gehn continued his descent, unaware, it seemed, of the immense danger, stepping lightly, almost effortlessly, down the spiral, his lamplight casting flickering shadows on the groined and striated rock, before he vanished inside another of the narrow tunnels.

I must go on
, Atrus told himself, freeing his left foot from the sandal; yet the fear he felt froze his muscles. It was like a dream, an evil dream. Even so, he forced himself to move, taking first one step and then another, each step an effort of sheer will.

If I fall I die. If I fall…

His father’s voice echoed across that vast open space. “Atrus?”

He stopped, his shoulder pressed against the wall, and closed his eyes. “Y…yes, father?”

“Do you want me to come back to you? Would you like me o hold your hand, perhaps?”

He wanted to say yes, but something in Gehn’s voice, the faintest tone of criticism, stopped him. He opened his eyes again and, steeling himself, answered. “No…I’ll be all right.”

“Good. But not so slow, eh? We cannot spend too much time here. Not if I am to be back in time.”

Controlling his fear, Atrus began to descend once more.

Imagine you’re inside a tree,
he told himself.
Imagine it.

And suddenly he could see it vividly, as if it were an illustration in one of his grandmother’s books. He could picture it in the brilliant sunlight, its branches stretching from horizon to horizon, a tiny crescent moon snagged among its massive leaves. Why, even the blades of grass about its trunk were several times the height of a man!

Halfway down, there was a depression in the side of the shaft—a kind of cave. Whether it was natural or D’ni made, Atrus couldn’t tell, but Gehn was waiting for him there, sitting on a carved stone ledge, calmly smoking his pipe.

“Are you all right, Atrus?” he asked casually.

“I’m fine now,” Atrus answered genuinely. “There was a moment…”

He fell silent, seeing that his father wasn’t listening. Gehn had taken out a tiny notebook with a tanned leather cover and was studying it as he smoked. Atrus glimpsed a diagram of paths and tunnels.

With a tiny grunt, Gehn closed the book and pocketed it again, then looked up at Atrus.

“You go ahead. I’ll finish my pipe, then catch up with you.”

 

§

 

It was several hours hard walking through a labyrinth of twisting tunnels before they finally came to the eder tomahn. The D’ni way station was built into a recess of a large cave, its black, perfectly finished marble in stark contrast to the cave’s natural limestone. Atrus walked over to it and, holding up the lantern, ran his fingers across the satin-smooth surface, marveling at the lack of evident joints between the blocks, the way his own image was reflected back to him in the stone. It was as though the stone had been baked like melted tar, then set and polished like a mirror.