The Myst Reader (93 page)

“It might be.”

Atrus turned. “Irras…help Master Tamon bring a drill from the Guild House. One of the small-bore machines with a sealed end. The kind we can take an air sample from. And a scope. It’s time we saw what’s behind there.”

It took them more than an hour to set up the drill, the heavy frame in which it rested placed low down and at the center of the door. Then, with Master Tamon supervising and Atrus looking on, they began, the drill bit, encased as it was within the transparent sealing sheath, nudging the stone surface, then biting deep, the whine of the drill filling that brightly lit space beneath the old Guild Hall.

Slowly, slowly, it ate into the toughened rock. Then, with a marked change of tone—a downward whine—it was through.

Tamon signaled for the power to be cut, then stepped across to examine their handiwork. He hunched over it a moment, then turned to Atrus and nodded.

Slowly and very carefully they removed the bit, an airtight seal inside the sheath clicking shut behind it. As it did, Catherine, wearing special gloves, removed the bit and hurried down the steps to where a temporary laboratory had been set up. Immediately, Carrad and three others came across and lifted away the heavy frame that held the drill, carrying it down to the foot of the steps.

They waited twenty minutes while Catherine analyzed the air sample from the tiny capsule in the bit. Satisfied, she nodded to Atrus. “Just air. Stale air.”

“Okay,” Atrus said, turning to Irras, who stood nearby, the scope—a long, curiously “furred” shaft with a lens at each end and a small bullet-shaped extrusion at its tip—held against his chest, “let’s see what we have here.”

Irras stepped across and very carefully inserted the rod into the end of the sheath, the special seal within the sheath opening before the scope’s tip, the continuous circles of fine hairs on the scope’s surface, which gave it its “furred” look, maintaining an airtight seal even as the rod slid into position.

As the end of the scope clicked into place—a finger’s length of the shaft protruding from the surface of the sheath—Irras turned to Atrus. “Atrus? Will you be first to look?”

Atrus nodded, then came across and, crouching, put his eye to the lens. There was a small catch on the side of the shaft where it protruded. Atrus now placed his thumb against it and drew it back.

There was a muffled pop and the surface of the lens, which had been dark until that moment, now glistened with light; light that was reflected in the pupil of Atrus’s eye.

The muscles about Atrus’s eye puckered. He drew back the tiniest fraction. And then he nodded.

“It’s not a tunnel, it’s another hallway. Smaller. Narrower, too, with pillars set into the sidewalls.”

“Can you see the far end?” Catherine asked, stepping up alongside him.

“Just,” he said. “It’s almost in shadow. There might be steps there—it’s hard to make out…”

“And a doorway? Is there another doorway?”

Atrus shrugged, then moved back, straightening up again. “I don’t know. As I said, I couldn’t make it out. Here, Marrim…your eyes are better than mine, you look!”

Marrim hurried across, then crouched, her eye pressed to the lens. For a time she was still and silent, then she moved back.

“I think so,” she said. Then, “But there has to be, surely? I mean…why build all this if there’s nothing on the other side?”

Oma was about to comment, but Atrus quickly interceded. “Let us waste no more breath speculating. Master Tamon, bring up the cutting equipment. Let’s breach the seal. I want to see what’s at the far end of that chamber.”

 

 

§

 

 

After a long day’s work the huge cutting frame was maneuvered into position before the doorway, four massive bolts securing it to the walls on either side. Then, taking the utmost care, the seal was breached, six of the D’ni using handheld cutters, the ancient door prised from the stone in which it had been set. Then, and only then, was it removed, the stone sighing as it gave, a huge gust of stale air wafting out into that space beneath the rock.

The massive slab of stone was lifted on four huge pulleys and lowered—the thick hawsers straining at the weight—onto the floor of the hall. Then, and only then, when it was safely down, did Atrus turn and contemplate the inner chamber.

The fire-marble they had fired into the chamber still glowed, but shadows gathered at the edges of vision. The far end of the chamber was dark, the doorway—if door it was—hidden from view.

A dozen or more pillars ranged along each side of that narrow chamber, set back into the walls, their marbled surfaces covered with strange markings. Stepping out between them, Atrus raised the lamp, then walked over to one of the pillars. He stood there a moment, staring up at it, then turned.

“Oma…come here.”

Oma hastened across.

“What do you make of these?”

Oma stood there a while, studying the carvings. They looked like the signs and symbols of some ancient language.

“I…don’t know.”

“Esel?”

Esel shook his head. “I’ve never seen their like.”

“No,” Catherine agreed, “and yet they look familiar.”

“Familiar?” Atrus turned to her. “You think you’ve seen these somewhere before?”

“Yes…but I can’t think where.”

Atrus turned back, then, stepping across, reached up and put his fingers into the groove of one of the more complex characters. The cuts were deep and smooth, each edge and surface finely polished. As for the symbol itself, it had the definite, finished shape of a letter in an alphabet yet at the same time it also suggested a picture.

Atrus stepped back, lifting the lantern, trying to see if there were any other markings farther up the pillar, but what the lamp revealed was not more markings but Books, thousands upon thousands of Books, on shelves recessed into the walls high up and back from the pillars.

No wonder they hadn’t seen them at first.

Oma gave a cry of pure delight, while Esel turned, looking to Carrad, his long, frowning face filled with a sudden urgency. “Carrad…Irras…bring ladders. Quickly now!”

They were back within a minute, Irras scrambling up onto the ledge, then hurrying down again, one of the ancient, leather-bound Books clutched to his chest.

As Oma carefully opened the page, they gathered round.

“Look!” Esel said. “It’s the same script as on the pillars.”

“It looks very much like it,” Oma agreed. “And the panel…”

“Do not touch it,” Atrus said quietly. “There is no Guild of Maintainers seal. And who knows how old these Ages are, or if they are stable or otherwise.”

Atrus stared at the page, unable to decipher that ancient script, yet there was something about it that was familiar. Looking up, he raised his lantern once again, astonished by the sight. If they were all like this…

He walked on, slowly, the lamp held up before him, the darkness receding before him. Wall after wall of Books met his gaze, until he felt quite overwhelmed by it all. Then, lowering his eyes, he turned away…and stopped dead.

Just ahead of him, through a low arch flanked by pillars, was an anteroom. He stepped through, into a small chamber with four tiny alcoves leading off. The floor was marble, the low ceiling a concave circle of mosaic. His lamp blazed in that tiny space, and as he looked about him, Atrus realized that in each alcove the character that had appeared on the very first pillar was repeated.

And at the very center of the door, the character that had appeared on the very first pillar was repeated.

Atrus stared a moment, then turned, looking back toward where he others were still huddled about the ancient Book.

“Irras! Bring Master Tergahn! Now! Tell him we have need of his services once more!”

 

 

§

 

 

Atrus took his eye from the lens of the scope, then straightened up. He nodded to himself, as if some guess of his had been confirmed, then turned and gestured for Catherine to take the sample capsule from the shaft.

While Catherine tested the air sample of the second chamber, Marrim studied the surface of the nearest pillar. Like all of the others, its surface was completely covered in the strange, ancient markings. Esel and Oma had already begun the task of copying down the symbols, and though they had progressed little beyond the first two pillars, that had not stopped them from speculating upon their possible meaning.

Oma was of the opinion that this was an early form of D’ni, if only because of its age and location, but Esel was not so sure.

Marrim, looking at them once more, was struck by how beautiful the markings were.

Catherine came across, showing Atrus the sample. “It’s safe.”

“Good.” Atrus turned and looked across the room. “Irras, bring me a cutter.”

 

 

§

 

 

The Book was huge, much bigger than a normal D’ni Book, the leather of its cover as thick and hard as slate, but strangest of all was the writing, for like the carvings on the pillars it was in a language none there recognized, though aspects of it were familiar.

For thousands of years the Book had lain there, sealed into the alcove at the far end of that ancient hidden hall. Now, seeing it there, the descriptive panel on the right-hand page glowing softly in the half-light, Marrim felt something between awe and a sheer superstitious fear of it.

Atrus, careful as ever, forbade any of them to touch it. He was determined to find out all he could before they used it.

That was, if they used it at all.

“Burn it,” old Tergahn said, on looking at that strange, alien script. “That’s what I say. If our forefathers thought to bury these chambers and seal the doorways up, then no good can come of it. Burn it, Atrus! Burn it, then seal these chambers up once more.”

“I agree,” Atrus said. “The Book is far too dangerous.”

But Esel and Oma argued otherwise.

“We should copy it,” Oma said. “See what sense we can make of it. In all likelihood it’s related to the markings on the pillars. If we can find a clue to reading it…”

Atrus hesitated. “All right,” he said, after a moment. “But you will take the utmost care in copying it.”

 

“I still say burn it,” Master Tergahn said, shaking his head, a sour look on his heavily lined face.

“It may well come to that,” Atrus said, glancing at the old man, “but it won’t harm to take a look. That is, if Oma and Esel can unlock the meaning of that script.”

“Burn it,” Tergahn said, more determined than ever. “Burn it now, before any harm is done.”

But Marrim, watching Atrus’s face, saw that Atrus was not about to bow to the old man’s superstitious fear of the Book.

“I hear you, Master Tergahn, and I note what you say. But I shall burn no Book without good cause.”

“Then you’re a fool young Atrus,” Tergahn said, and without another word he stalked away, the sound of his footsteps fading as he vanished into the darkness at the far end of the chamber.

Atrus stared a while, then turned, looking to Oma and Esel once more. “Begin at once,” he said. “The sooner we know what this means, the more comfortable I’ll feel.”

 

 

§

 

 

Oma sat at his makeshift desk inside the inner cell, dressed in one of the dark-green decontamination suits, complete with gloves and visor. The ancient Book lay to his left, open, the top two pages protected by a thin transparent sheet.

From his position on the other side of the bars, Esel looked on. He, too, wore protective garb.

“Well? Is it the same?” he asked, waiting for Oma to check back in his notes.

Oma ruffled through the pages, then stopped, having clearly found what he was looking for, and read through the earlier passage. Half turning, he shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s
almost
the same…”

“Almost?” Esel’s heavy eyebrows went up.

For the last hour or so the two brothers had been debating a passage partway through the text that seemed to have no correlation with the normal, expected structure of such Descriptive Books. In it, many of the earlier passages they had already translated seemed to be repeated, yet with minor changes of phrasing and emphasis.

“The changes are so minor…It’s almost as if the writer is trying to reinforce the earlier phrases.”

“Hmmm…” Esel frowned deeply. “Reinforcement, yes. But to what purpose?”

“To make it more stable, perhaps?” Atrus said, coming across from where he had been checking one of the big E.V. suits.

“Then why not a direct repetition?”

“Because that would be redundant. By making such subtle changes in the repeated phrases, the writer may have been attempting to make the Age he was writing
more specific
.”

Oma had turned to face Atrus. “But why not simply put in those subtleties first time round?”

“As I said. To make it all more stable. I know from experience that the more subtle you try to be, the more
specific
, the more unstable your Ages are likely to be. It was the one great flaw with the worlds my father wrote.”

“Then why did the practice cease?”

“Who can say? Things change. Perhaps they felt it
was
redundant and let the practice lapse.”

“Maybe,” Oma said. “Yet I rather like it. That is, if it is what you think it is, Master Atrus.”

“And I,” Atrus said, smiling. Then, changing the subject, “Are you still having problems with the phraselogy?”

Oma grinned and looked to his brother. “We were, but we think we’ve mastered that now. Most of the oddities are simple structural inversions in the individual sentences. They probably accord with standard speech patterns of that time.”