The Myst Reader (103 page)

“Yes.” Yet as Atrus looked back at the notebook his face darkened.

“Shadows …” he said.

“Yes,” Catherine answered him. “But these shadows might just cast some light.”

SENSING THAT ATRUS NEEDED TO BE LEFT FOR
a time, Catherine took the three young Averonese back to Chroma’ Agana, then returned alone.

She found him in his father’s study, seated at Gehn’s desk, the notebook open before him.

Atrus looked up as she came in and sighed. “It’s all here,” he said. “Diaries, observations, notes to Ages he was writing. And other things.”

“And the maps?”

He shook his head. “Catherine? … Have you ever read of the Great King?”

“No … Unless they mean Kerath.”

“I don’t think so. My father’s notes are unclear, but it appears he existed long before the late kings.”

“What is that?” she asked, reaching out to take the notebook.

“My father’s notes on the myths and legends of D’ni. Some of it’s quite detailed, other parts, like the mention of the Great King, are vague. From the notations at the back of the book it seems that Gehn trawled all kinds of sources. It’s a regular hodgepodge of fact and rumor, but a lot of it reads like old wives’ tales. You know the kind of thing … fireside tales, invented to make children’s eyes pop!”

Catherine was turning the pages, reading an entry here, an entry there. “So why the interest in this Great King?”

“Because I’ve never heard mention of him before, and because he was supposed to have made various prophesies.”

“Prophesies?”

“Again, it’s vague. But there are one or two instances scattered throughout the book. Here …” He took the book back and quickly searched through the early pages, returning it to her a moment later. “That entry there, in green ink.”

Catherine read it through, then looked up at him. “It’s strange, certainly.”

She closed the book, then set it down. “I don’t think anyone can see clearly what lies ahead.”

“Nor I.”

THEY MOORED THE BOAT AT THE FOOT OF THE
granite steps and carried their equipment up. Behind the great sweep of marbled flagstones that bordered the harbor was an open space that had once been a great square. There they set up camp, clearing away the debris, then placed a ring of lamps about them, the ancient fire-marbles burning brightly in that perpetual twilight.

Standing at the foot of the great curved slope of buildings that rose level after level, climbing the cavern’s massive walls, Marrim felt a mixture of awe and sorrow: awe at the scale on which the D’ni had once built; sorrow that she had not witnessed it in its living splendor.

It was strange, of course, for she was used to the shadows falling downward—the natural shadows of a sunlit world—whereas here everything was underlit, the faint glow from the water giving the whole place an eerie feel. Everywhere she looked was ruin. Ruin beyond anything she had imagined possible. Cracked walls and fallen masonry. And here and there huge pits, large enough to swallow up whole mansions. Strange mosses had begun to grow in the cracks, and here and there an odd lichen splashed subdued color on a rock.

Overall it had a strange, desolate beauty, and when Atrus came and stood beside her, she asked him what had happened to cause such devastation.

Atrus had never spoken to them of this, and, listening to the tale—a tale Atrus’s grandmother had first told him long after the event—Marrim found her imagination waking so that she could almost see the dark cloud slowly fill the cavern, and, afterward, Veovis and his ally, A’Gaeris, as they walked through the stricken alleyways of D’ni, their cart of death pushed before them.

When Atrus had finished, Marrim turned to him. “Master Atrus … why didn’t they come back?”

“Perhaps they did.”

Yes
, she thought.
And saw this. And hurried back to the Ages in which they had found safe haven, knowing that D’ni was at an end.

Catherine, who had been organizing the laying out of the bedrolls, now came across. “Shall we go and have a look?” she asked, gesturing toward the nearby streets.

“Marrim?” Atrus asked, turning to her. “Would you like to come with us?”

Marrim nodded, surprised that he’d asked. “Are we to begin the search?”

“Not today. Tomorrow, maybe, once things are better organized. I just thought you might like to look about a little before we begin in earnest.” He reached down and, picking up one of the lamps, handed it to her. “Here, Marrim. Light our way.”

Marrim took the lamp and, holding it up, led them on, across the littered square toward a crumbling stone archway that marked the entrance to the lowest of D’ni’s many districts.

“This is Kerathen, named after the last king,” he said, pointing up to the symbols carved into the partly fallen lintel of the arch. “This is where the D’ni boatmen once lived, and the traders and innkeepers.”

“And A’Gaeris,” Marrim said, staring through the arch wide-eyed, as if at paradise itself.

“Yes. And A’Gaeris.”

THEY WALKED FOR AN HOUR. THEN STOPPED.
Resting on the balcony of a two-story house, the windows of which were on a level with the top of the great arch that formed a giant gateway to the harbor. Looking down from there, Atrus recalled the first time he had stood there, with his father, in what seemed several lifetimes ago.

Even Marrim was subdued now. And not surprisingly. The sheer extent of the devastation was overwhelming. It was enough to eclipse the brightest spirit.

“It’s too much,” Catherine said quietly. “We cannot repair
this.
”

But Atrus shook his head. “It only seems too much. We have a whole lifetime to work at this. Not only that, but we shall find others to help us in the task.”

Marrim, who had been looking out across the lake, now turned and looked to him. “How many people were there, here in D’ni, Master Atrus?”

“A million. Maybe more.”

The thought of it clearly amazed her. “And all of them could write?”

“It depends what you mean. The D’ni were highly literate, but few could write Ages. That was something the Guilds taught. One would have needed to be a Guildsman to do that.”

“And the women?”

Atrus looked to Catherine and smiled. “I know of only two women who ever learned to write.”

THE NEXT FEW WEEKS WERE HECTIC. IN THE
absence of his father’s charts, Atrus drew up detailed maps of the harborside districts, then divided his young helpers into teams of six. Two of those teams, led by Marrim and Irras, went out into the streets and alleyways of lower D’ni to search for Books; another, under Carrad, began the task of raising the sunken boats from the floor of the harbor and repairing them; and a fourth, headed by Catherine, went back and forth between the harbor and K’veer, bringing back food and supplies from Chroma’ Agana and Averone. The fifth team, supervised by Atrus himself, began the job of clearing a storehouse for whatever Books were found, while he, in whatever spare moments remained, worked on maps of D’ni.

At first progress was slow. There were few big houses in the lower levels, and thus few private Book Rooms, and they quickly discovered that the public Book Rooms had already been plundered by Gehn and most of the Guild Books destroyed, just as Atrus had feared. Even so, by the end of the second week they had a total of thirty-four Books. Finished with the maps, Atrus began the task of reading and cataloging them.

Marrim, returning from a long and fruitless search of the Ne’weril district, went in to see Atrus, who was sitting at his makeshift desk in the storehouse.

“Forgive me, Master Atrus,” she began, “but why are we waiting?”

“Waiting?”

“To begin the search of the Ages.”

He smiled tolerantly. “I understand your enthusiasm, Marrim, but this is not something to be rushed. We need to have some idea of the scale of the venture before embarking upon it. Meanwhile there is much to do here. We have to build up a stock of blank Linking Books, and ink and writing materials. Unless you know a way of returning from an Age
without
a Linking Book?”

A faint color came to Marrim’s cheeks. She bowed her head.

“Let us gather in every Book we can find,” Atrus went on. “
Then
we can decide which to visit. You see, some of the Books are damaged, Marrim. Pages are missing or have been torn or burned. Others are clearly old and I’d guess were little used by their owners, even though they bear the Maintainer’s inspection stamp. What we need to find are newer, more healthy Ages, for it is in those that we are most likely to find our survivors.”

“And have we found any such Ages yet?”

“Two. But it might well turn out that the Books we find in these lower districts were all visited—and corrupted—by Veovis and his ally. It may be that only those from more distant, higher districts remained untouched. That is why I am taking great care to mark on the maps where each Book was found and the circumstances of its discovery. Such details might prove crucial when we come to organize the next stage of our search.”

“Then ought we not to be searching the higher districts first?”

Atrus laughed. “Is that what you wish to do, young Marrim?”

She nodded.

“Then that is what you
shall
do.” He turned and searched among the papers on his desk until he located one of the maps he had finished only the day before. “Here,” he said, handing it to her, “this is where my grandfather and his family once lived. Jaren was a Guild district. If there are Books anywhere, they will be there. But take supplies enough for several days, Marrim, unless you fancy trekking back down to the harbor every night.”

“And you, Master Atrus? Won’t you come with us this once?”

He stared at her, surprised by her request, then nodded. “Perhaps I will come along. This once.”