The Myst Reader (110 page)

By late afternoon he returned, his eyes twinkling. “The old Inkmakers Guild House,” he said, in answer to Atrus’s unspoken query. “I’ve just come back from it, and it seems relatively undamaged. Nothing structural, anyway. There are a few cracks, of course, and a few of the internal walls have come down, but otherwise it appears sound.”

“Then that’s where we begin,” Atrus said, looking about him at the gathered helpers, who numbered more than a hundred now. “But the search must go on. Until all the D’ni are home.”

There was a great murmur of agreement from all sides. Smiling, Atrus turned back to Tamon. But Tamon had turned and was staring up once more at the massive pile of ruined stone that climbed and climbed into the darkness of the cavern’s roof, and as Atrus looked, he saw the old man’s eyes fill with uncertainty and knew he would have to be a pillar of strength in the days to come.

To see them through. To make sure they do not turn back.

“You must tell me what tools you’ll need, Master Tamon,” Atrus said, speaking as if he had seen nothing. “And men. What will you need? A dozen?”

Tamon turned back, switching his attention back to the practicalities once again. “Oh, not as many as that. Eight should do it. After all, we must not neglect our other duties.”

“No,” Atrus agreed, holding Tamon’s eyes a moment, letting his own certainty register on the old man. “One step at a time, eh?” he said, and, stepping close, touched the old man’s shoulder briefly. “One step at a time.”

    
INNER AND OUTER MEET IN A FACE ON A PAGE.
DEEP LINES AND ANCIENT EYES, MIRRORED.
THE DOOR IS OPEN. THE STRANGER COMES.
  BLACK FLIES THE CLOUD BEHIND THE NEWCOMER
.

—
EXTRACT FROM GEHN’S NOTEBOOK,
ATTRIBUTED TO GERAD’JENAH (UNDATED)

M
ARRIM RAISED THE VISOR OF THE PROTECTIVE
helmet and looked across to where Atrus looked on, his own face similarly shielded.

“Well?” she asked. “Is it okay?”

Atrus stepped forward and crouched, examining the slab of stone.

The room they were in was small and enclosed—its thick stone roof distinguishing it from every other building on the harbor front—and it was hot. Very hot. The fierce orange glow from the corner forge colored everything in the room, seeming to bleed into the air and melt the edges of objects. Beneath the thick leather clothing she wore, Marrim felt extremely uncomfortable. Her neck and back were slick with sweat, but she did not complain. After all, she had volunteered for this job.

“It looks good,” Atrus answered, straightening up. “A nice straight cut. We can chip out the rest.”

She smiled. If Atrus said it was good, it was good. He didn’t mince words when it came to such matters. Either a thing was done properly or it wasn’t worth doing—that was his philosophy.

Marrim went across and pushed the forge door closed, then reached up, taking one of the medium-sized hammers from the rack on the wall. She would chip it out right now, herself, before Master Tamon returned.

“Hold,” Atrus said. “Not too eager now.”

“But …”

“There’s no rush,” Atrus went on. “It will not harm if you wait until Master Tamon comes back. Besides, he’ll want to check this for himself.”

That much was true. Old Tamon did not let a thing pass without checking it. And sometimes—just sometimes—that could be wearing on the nerves. But Marrim did not argue. She put the hammer back, then, crossing to the door, slid back the bolt and stepped outside, into the cooler air.

She pulled off her helmet, then turned. Atrus was watching her from the doorway.

“What did your father say?”

“My father?”

“About your hair.”

Five weeks back, before she had returned to Averone, she had cut her hair short. Not conscious she was doing so, Marrim reached up, her fingers brushing the fringes of her dark hair where it lay against her neck. “He … didn’t say.”

“No?” There was a tone of surprise in Atrus’s voice, but he did not pursue the matter.

Marrim glanced at him, then looked away. “I practiced, you know. Cutting stone, I mean. I took a hammer and some chisels with me when I went back … and a mask.”

“And gloves, I hope.”

She smiled. “And gloves. I’d sit on the rocks, on the far side of the island, and chip away. I’d carve shapes in the stone.”

Atrus was watching her earnestly now. “You wanted it that much, eh?”

Marrim met his eyes. “To be a stonemason? Yes. It seemed of the essence of what you D’ni are. You live in the rock. You know it better than anything else.”

“Even writing?”

She nodded. “Even that. I mean, the writing’s wonderful—astonishing, even—yet it seems almost secondary to what the D’ni really are. Or were. When I watch Master Tamon at work, I seem to glimpse something of how it must have been.”

“Yes,” he said, clearly pleased by her understanding. “It took me a long time to take in. Yet the two processes have much in common, Marrim. Both require long and patient planning. Before one makes a single cut, or writes a single word, one must know why. One must have clearly in mind not just that single part, but the whole, the
totality
of what one is setting out to achieve.”

“What your grandmother called the bigger picture?”

Atrus laughed. “Who told you that? Catherine?”

Marrim nodded, smiling now.

“And how goes the writing?”

“Slowly,” Marrim answered, her face clouding a little. “I’m afraid I’m not very patient.”

“Nonetheless, keep at it. Like all things, patience will come.”

Seeing the dismay in her face, Atrus smiled. “You think patience an innate quality, Marrim. Well, perhaps for some it is. But for most of us it must be learned. It is a life skill that must be acquired if one is to succeed.”

“You think so?”

“Oh, I know so. Look about you now. What do you see?”

Marrim turned and looked. The square beside the harbor, which, when they’d first arrived, had seemed so vast and spacious, was filled with makeshift dwellings, forming a kind of village beneath the steep-sloping levels of the city, while to one side, surrounding the library where Atrus worked, was a collection of workshops and storehouses.

Six months had passed since they had encountered the first survivors and much had changed for the better. It helped also that there were more than twelve hundred of them now, yet Marrim did not expect that number to increase by much. In a week—maybe less—the last of the Ages would have been searched, and they would know finally just how many had survived.

Not enough
, Marrim thought, dismayed despite the signs of industry that surrounded her. She did not know how many Atrus had expected, but she was sure it must have been more.

Looking up, beyond the busy harbor front, she saw at once the scale of their problem. Compared to the ruin that surrounded them, their little hive of activity was as nothing. So many empty streets, so many fallen and abandoned houses.

Patience…. No wonder Atrus counseled patience.

Yet maybe he was right. Maybe patience could be learned. Maybe the task was not beyond them.

“Well?” Atrus prompted, when a minute had passed and she still had not answered him. “What
do
you see?”

“Stone,” she answered him, meeting his eyes. “Stone, and rock, and dust.”

THAT EVENING THEY HELD A MEETING IN THE LIBRARY
. Catherine was there with Atrus, as were Master Tamon, Oma, Esel, Carrad, and Irras. Marrim was the last to arrive.

Coming straight to the point, Atrus drew a big leather-bound Book toward him and opened it.

The descriptive panel glowed.

“Twelve Books remain,” Atrus began. “This, the Book of Sedona, is probably the least dangerous of them. Even so, when we explore this we shall need to use the Maintainers’ suits.”

Atrus paused, then. “Sedona is a very old Age. Thousands of years old. Maybe even older. The language used is of a more antiquated and formal kind than we are used to. Oma and Esel have given up a great deal of their valuable time to help me …
translate
the Book. We think we know what most of it means, and what kind of Age we’re likely to encounter, but we cannot be sure, so we shall wear the suits as a precaution.”

“And the other eleven?” Tamon asked.

“The Guild of Maintainer seals on those are either broken or missing, and it is difficult to ascertain just whether those Ages were in use at the time D’ni fell. The only way to be certain is to make rigorous checks.”

“Using the suits,” Tamon concluded.

“Exactly,” Atrus said. “But first Sedona. The suit is ready. We shall link in the morning. You know the routine. We’ve practiced it often enough these past months. Tomorrow we do it for real. Marrim, Carrad, Irras. You will report here at sixth bell, along with Oma and Esel. I shall be here to greet you.”

“Are you going to come, too?” Marrim asked, surprised.

“If it’s safe,” Atrus said. “I was there at the beginning. I think it only right I should be there at the end.”

THE CELL WAS A GREAT SQUARE OF A ROOM
, a dozen paces to a side, the jet-black walls coated with a layer of impervious matter—part stone, part chemicals—that sealed it hermetically. A narrow doorway, set deep into the end wall, was the only exit from the cell, and that led directly to an air lock, beyond which was a second sealed room, almost identical to the first—a fail-safe devised after one particularly gruesome accident.

The rooms differed in two respects alone. The first was that this cell—known simply as the Link Room—was further divided by a double wall of floor-to-ceiling bars that formed a tiny cell within a cell; thick rods of special D’ni rock known as nara spaced a hand’s width apart, the two walls separated by less than an arm’s length. In the center of that double wall, flush with it, was set a small revolving cage, the only entrance to that smaller cell.

The floor of the inner cell was a mere two paces square and lined with nara. A big semicircular machine of stone and brass was suspended some ten feet up, capping it like a roof, coiled armatures and other strange devices extending from its dark interior. This was the decontamination pod.

The second difference was the alcoves—eight in all, four to the left, four to the right—that were recessed into the walls on either side of the doorway. These were deep and heavily shadowed, and housed the eight protective suits that stood like huge mechanical sentries, their shiny surfaces untarnished by age.

So it was. So the Guild of Maintainers had designed it four thousand years earlier, founding their design upon long centuries of experience and many a fatal mission.

In theory, nothing could go wrong. No matter what was brought back from the Ages, it could not escape these cells. The bars prevented anything dangerous, whether it be desperate natives or aggressive beast, from breaking into D’ni, while the seals and air lock dealt with the ever-present threat of contagion.

For seventy years the cell had lain in total darkness, but now it was bathed in light from the great overhead lamps; a clean, almost sanitized light. In that penetrating glare Atrus and his fellows toiled, dressed in special lightweight suits, the impervious cloth a rich dark green, the bright red lozenge of the Guild of Maintainers crest, with its symbol of an unblinking eye above an open book, prominent on every chest. These suits were very different from those in the alcoves, one of which they were now removing from its recess, four of them hauling the incredibly heavy suit along the grooved runners in the floor.

Finished, they stood back, admiring it.

The protective suit had a brutal, almost mechanical appearance. It stood at the center of the laboratory, empty, like the casing to some giant insect, its chest and arms studded with strange appendages. The jet-black overlapping plates of which it was made had a polished, metallic look, yet there was no element of metal in their manufacture. The suit was made of stone—of a special lightweight stone named deretheni, not as hard as the legendary nara, but tough enough to handle the job for which it was intended.