The Myst Reader (105 page)

Looking about him he realized just how much he loved this place. Its peacefulness spoke to the depths of him. Its sounds were like the sounds of his own body. Here he felt complete.

Yes, and it was strange how he needed to go away before he realized that. It was like Catherine. All those months of separation had, he knew now, been necessary. To teach him her worth.

Atrus looked up at the night sky, wondering, not for the first time, just
when
he was. From his studies of the star charts in the observatory, he had worked out that he was in a very different part of the galaxy from the planet he knew as Earth—or its equivalent—if one even existed in this Age. But it was more difficult to tell just how far he was from it in time, for when one linked there were no limits. The mind-staggering vastnesses of Time and Space were irrelevant.
Congruity
—the matching of word and place—was all that mattered.

Or, as his grandfather, Aitrus, had explained it to his grandmother, Anna: “These Ages are worlds that do exist, or have existed, or shall. Providing the description fits, there is no limitation of time and space. The link is made regardless.”

Atrus stopped, a smile lighting his features as he remembered how young Marrim’s face had filled with wonder when he had first explained it to her. And still, when he thought of it—when he really thought about it—he would feel that same wonder fill him. It was an astonishing ability to possess. Little wonder that his father, freed from the restraints of D’ni society and lacking the true humility of his D’ni peers, had thought himself some kind of god. It was clear now why Anna had taught him as she had—avoiding the same mistake she had made with Gehn.

Careful not to make the same mistake, his first lesson to his own students—to Marrim and Irras and Carrad and all their fellows—was this: One did not
make
the Ages to which the words linked. A far greater force than the D’ni had made those, yet it was easy to be deluded into thinking so, for the universe was so vast, so all-encompassing, so infinite in its variety of worlds, that almost anything one wrote had its counterpart in reality.

Unstable worlds. Worlds that were living hells. Or the beautiful, “impossible” worlds that Catherine once wrote.

Moving past the Eye Pool, Atrus swiftly climbed the grassy slope until he stopped, not ten yards from the door to the library. The door was open, and from where he stood in the darkness, he could see Catherine, seated behind the great oak desk, the Book open before her, one finger tracing the lines of D’ni symbols as she read.

Atrus smiled and walked on, taking the path that led round to the right, past the side of the library and out onto the cliff path. Ahead of him the great Anchor Rock was a shadow against the greater darkness of the sky. Beyond it lay a thousand miles of emptiness.

He walked out onto the pale stone, the sea fifty feet below him, the great muscular shape of the Anchor Rock above him and to his left. Standing there, he thought of his father and of the notebook they had found in the study on K’veer. It had told him little that he did not already know or suspect, yet, reading Gehn’s words at this distance from events, he had, against all expectation, been impressed by his father’s intellect, and had found himself wondering what Gehn might have become had D’ni
not
fallen. And that thought had spawned others. Was it
really
Gehn’s fault that he had become what he’d become? The destruction of his hopes at such an impressionable age had clearly traumatized the boy, yet could everything be accounted for by that? What of the cruelty in his father, that
twisted
aspect of Gehn? Was that a product of events, or was it something natural in the child that, through circumstance, had been encouraged rather than controlled?

It was impossible to say. All he knew was that he himself had been lucky. Lucky to have had Anna during those formative years of his upbringing—to have been taught by so good and wise a teacher.

And then there were his own sons …

He pushed the thought aside, then turned, hearing soft footsteps just behind him.

“Catherine?”

“Let’s go,” she said. “Tonight.”

“Tonight?” He laughed, then turned slightly, looking at her. “But I haven’t written the Linking Book yet.”

Her face, silvered in the moonlight, was smiling strangely. “No. But I have.” And she handed him the slender book, enjoying his surprise.

THEY LINKED TO A LARGE ISLAND, THREE-QUARTERS
covered in forest. There was a clearing beside the cave and a path led down between the trees, but otherwise there was no immediate sign of habitation.

It was mid-morning by the look of the sun in the sky, and it was warm with the suggestion that, as day drew on, it might grow hot.

They quickly searched the cave, looking for a Linking Book, but found nothing.

Now they went down, following the footworn path. Leaf shadow kept them cool as they went, but even so, by the time they reached the clifftop they were beaded with perspiration. A perfect, white sand beach lay thirty feet below them.

“It’s beautiful,” Catherine said, looking out across the scattering of islands that lay like emeralds upon the azure of the bay. “But where are they?”

There were no buildings. No boats or jetties. Nothing but the path to suggest anyone had ever been here.

A bird called from high up in the trees. Atrus turned and looked up at it, putting a hand up to shield his lenses from the sunlight that glittered on their surfaces.

“Let’s try the other end.”

They walked back, taking their time, relaxing in the sunlight. Passing the clearing once more, they went on, leaving the path, winding their way between the great, straight boles of the trees until they stood on a shelf of bare rock, overlooking a vast expanse of ocean.

“This can’t be right.”

“Why not?” she asked, turning to look back through the trees. “It conforms with the Book.”

“I didn’t mean that. I mean, where are they? They have to be here somewhere. It makes no sense unless they are.”

“Then let’s search the island.”

But a long and thorough search of the island found nothing. The island was uninhabited. Even the path, now that they looked properly at it, was partly overgrown.

“Maybe it’s the wrong Book,” Catherine suggested, sitting down wearily on a rock overlooking the island-scattered bay. It was hot now and she fanned herself slowly as she looked up at Atrus.

“It’s possible,” he answered, stepping up onto the ledge above her, “but then what about the book of commentary?”

“A false trail? To make us think they were here?”

“But why?”

“Because they were afraid. And because they wanted to safeguard where they really are?”

“I suppose it’s possible.” But Atrus’s eyes stared out at the perfect, unspoiled shapes of the islands as if to decipher some mystery. He wiped the back of his hand across his brow, then turned to her again.

“Let’s get back,” he said. “There’s nothing for us here.”

IT WAS SAID THAT THE GREAT KING WAS
haunted by dreams, and that those dreams were filled with strange, inexplicable visions that the Great King then wrote down in a large notebook bound in bright golden leather. Or so Atrus’s father, Gehn, had written. But Marrim knew better than to trust what Gehn had written. She had heeded Atrus’s warning to her when Catherine had lent her the notebooks:
“My father had the tendency to twist facts to suit his vision of the world.”
Even so, she could picture it vividly: the old man waking, his brow beaded with sweat, his hands trembling as he reached out to write down what he had seen in the darkness of his dreams.

Even if it wasn’t true. Even if, like much that was in Gehn’s notebooks, it had been exaggerated down the years, there must still have been a core of truth; some story, some actual event, that had spawned all of the subsequent tales about the Great King, like the speck of grit in an oyster shell about which the pearl subsequently grows.

Marrim closed the book and looked up. Lamps blazed about the camp. Just across from her, Irras and Carrad sat facing each other, Irras’s dark head pressed close to Carrad’s polished skull, the two of them deep in conversation, while a number of other helpers looked on, listening attentively. She knew exactly what they were talking about, for there was really only one topic of conversation at the moment. The visit. The upcoming trip to Bilaris.

She smiled. Like all of them, she was excited by the prospect of venturing into another Age. D’ni was astonishing, certainly, but partly because it was also a gateway to so many other worlds, so many other ways of living. She glanced across at the great stock of Books that were piled up in Atrus’s makeshift library and felt her head swim at the thought of what they were.

She had been blind to the reality of the universe surrounding her. She had thought her tiny world—that world of lodge house and fishing boats, of hill and stream and island—the sum total of existence. But now she knew. Whatever it was possible to imagine
could
exist.

In theory, anyway.

Marrim stood, then walked across, remembering her conversations with Catherine; recollecting what Catherine had said about the Books
she
had written. They must have been something to see.

As she came closer to the circle, Irras looked up and smiled at her, indicating that she should take a seat beside him, but she did not feel like sitting down. She felt restless. Eager to get on.

Resting her hand briefly on his shoulder, she walked on, leaving the young men to their talk. At the harbor’s edge she paused, staring out across the darkness of the lake.

At first she wasn’t sure. Then, with a huge grin of delight, she turned to the others.

“They’re coming!”

Irras hurried across and stood beside her, squinting out into the darkness, until he, too, made out the dark shape of the boat. Moment by moment that shape grew larger, clearer. Catherine turned in the prow and, seeing them, hailed them across the water.

Marrim answered, her voice echoing back from the great levels of stone that climbed the cavern walls behind her.

She knew almost at once that something was wrong. She could see it in Atrus’s face. Catherine was as cheerful as ever, but Atrus was withdrawn.

As he climbed up onto the quayside, Atrus beckoned Irras, then, without waiting for him, turned and walked over to the makeshift library, disappearing inside.

Irras was with Atrus barely two minutes. When he emerged, he was frowning, as if he’d been told something he didn’t want to hear. He brushed past Marrim as if she wasn’t there. She turned, meaning to follow him, but Atrus called out to her.

“Marrim! A word …”

She went inside.

“Here,” he said, glancing up and holding out a folded piece of paper. “You’ll need provisions for a week.”

Marrim unfolded the paper, then looked back at him. It was a map of one of the upper districts.

“There’s still a lot to be done,” Atrus said, “so we’d best get down to it. I want all the Books collected in.”

She understood. They weren’t going. The trip to Bilaris had been canceled.

“We must complete the search,” Atrus said, opening his notebook and reaching for a pen. “Only then will we know the full extent of our task.”

“We’ll go tonight,” she said.

He looked up at her. “It’s all right, Marrim. Tomorrow will do.”

Marrim nodded, then backed away, but it was only when she was standing outside, the paper held loosely in one hand, that it really hit her.

We aren’t going. After all that, we’re not going!

There was a moment of disappointment, and then Marrim looked at the map again and her determination was reborn. They would find all of the Books there were to find. And among them there would be Books that worked—that linked to functional Ages. And in those Ages, surely, there would be survivors.

But first it was up to her to find the Books.

Marrim slipped the map into her pocket. Tomorrow? Forget “tomorrow.” She would gather her team together and begin the search tonight.