The Myst Reader (116 page)

Tamon shrugged, then bowed his head.

“Good,” Atrus said. “Then you, Master Tamon, have a special task. If there are … complications, you will take the Book and burn it. Understand me?”

“Atrus …”

“No arguments,” Atrus said, with a finality that silenced the old Master. But looking around the circle of friends, it was clear to him that none of them were happy with the arrangements.

“Until the morning, then.”

IT WAS LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT WHEN THEY RETURNED
. Irras led the way, a veiled lamp held up before him as they made their way along the corridor that led to the Guild cell.

Just behind Irras came Marrim and Carrad.

“I really don’t like this,” Marrim whispered, for what must have been the dozenth time.

“You want Atrus to risk himself?” Irras hissed back at her, attempting to be angry and quiet at the same time. “There’s no other way, and you know it. We must test the Age before Atrus links through.”

“But Irras …”

“Irras is right,” Carrad hissed, turning to look back at her. “We owe Atrus everything. If we were to lose him, then we ourselves would be lost.”

Marrim looked down, chastised. But she wasn’t finished yet. “It isn’t right, going behind his back like this.”

“Maybe not,” Irras conceded, “but he would never allow us otherwise. You heard him earlier. He was adamant.”

Marrim sighed. “Okay. Then I will go.”

“You can’t!” Carrad and Irras said as one.

“Why not? I’d be missed less than you two.”

“Nonsense,” Irras said. “I’d miss you dreadfully.”

“And I,” Carrad said. “But that’s beside the point. Irras is going.”

Irras turned, wide-eyed, to face him. “What?”

“You heard,” Carrad said. “Or have you learned how to operate the suit since last we used it?”

“No, I …”

“Then it’s decided. Unless you don’t
want
to go.”

“I’m not afraid, if that’s what you mean.”

“Then it’s decided,” Carrad said, and, turning back, headed swiftly along the corridor, leaving the other two to catch up as best they could.

“ARE ALL THE SAMPLING CAPSULES FITTED
, Catherine?”

“They’re all in place. And there’s extra oxygen in the cylinder on your back. Just in case.”

Atrus’s eyes followed Catherine as she busied herself at the laboratory bench. Sensing he was watching her, she looked up. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he answered. “Are you ready?”

She nodded, her face showing no emotion; as if this were a purely routine matter.

Carrad looked to Catherine, as if about to say something, but Irras frowned at him. “Come on, Carrad. Help me with the helmet now.”

And then all was ready. Slowly, like some great mechanical thing, Atrus stepped into the cage, his back to the inner cell. The door clunked shut behind him, the seals came down. Slowly the cage revolved.

“Good luck!” Catherine called.

With a clunk the bolts slid back again and Atrus stepped out, into the inner cell.

Slowly he turned until he faced them again, then, raising his right glove, he brought it down on the back of his left.

The suit shimmered and then vanished.

Marrim looked across at Catherine, seeing the tension in her, the momentary fear in her eyes, and looked down.

Two seconds later the suit was back.

At once they were swarming about it, reaching through the bars to pluck the sampling capsules from their niches, even as the decontamination unit lowered itself over the suit, spraying Atrus with a fine mist of chemicals.

“Well?” Master Tamon asked. “What did you see?”

Atrus laughed. “Rock … I was surrounded by rock.”

Marrim, looking to Irras, gave the faintest smile.

“Rock?”
Master Tamon queried, surprised to find Atrus so excited about mere rock.

“Yes, and there’s another doorway,” Atrus went on excitedly, “like this one, but it, too, is sealed. And there’s a Book … almost identical to the one we found! In the same ancient script!”

“A Book!” Master Tamon looked about him, seeing the sudden excitement in every eye.

“Yes,” Atrus said. “And if my guess is right it links back here. But come, let’s get on with it. Irras, set the timer for five minutes. I want a much better look this time.”

THERE WAS BARELY ROOM IN THE ALCOVE TO
turn, let alone set up the portable drilling machinery, but somehow it was done. Irras, his movements clumsy in the suit, made the first test bore, alone in that distant Age, sensors on the special suit ready to activate his return should there be any sudden change in atmospheric pressure or temperature.

Slowly the drill ate through the rock, then, suddenly, it was through, the bit meeting no further resistance.

Irras drew back; then, sealing the hole, he activated the sampler. As the tiny glass bubble moved back through the center of the drilling shaft, he felt the urge to take the scope, which was in the room with him, and peer through into the space beyond. But he had his orders. They would test the sample first. Then, and only then, would they take a look.

Slotting the sample capsule into the clip on his breast pocket, Irras pressed one hand against the stud in the palm of the other and linked back.

At once Catherine stepped up and, unclipping the capsule, turned and took it back down the steps to her workbench.

Irras looked about him. For once no one spoke.

This was the worst of it—having to wait about in the suit while the tests were made. It was not that it was uncomfortable—at most there was the feeling of cushioned constraint—but at such times Irras found himself questioning Atrus’s little-by-little approach and wishing he’d take a risk now and then.

Atrus came across now and smiled at him. “Did the drill bit penetrate very far, Irras?”

“A hand’s breadth,” he answered.

“Good.” Atrus turned, looking down toward where Catherine was busy at the centrifuge. “Well … we’ll know very soon now.”

“Atrus?”

“Yes?”

“Have you thought any more about
why
it might have been sealed?”

Atrus hesitated, then shook his head.

“And Master Tergahn’s view?”

All were listening now. Last night Master Tergahn had reiterated his opinion that they should leave well be, that they should burn the Linking Book and reseal the chambers.

Atrus shrugged. “I only wish we knew more about the Great King. I have a vague recollection that my grandmother, Anna, once mentioned something about it, but what it was I can’t recall.”

For a moment he stared away into the shadows at the far end of the chamber, as if lost in thought, then he returned and, smiling, went down the steps again to stand beside Catherine at the workbench.

“Well?” he asked.

She glanced at him, then continued with her work. “I’ll need to do more tests.”

“Stale air?”

“Quite the contrary,” she answered. “If my results are right, the air in there is fresh. And there are living organisms in it. Pollen, too.”

“Pollen?”

Catherine nodded. “Yes. Now let me get on with things, Atrus. As soon as I know something more …”

“… you’ll let me know. But there’s definitely air? Fresh air?”

“Yes!” she said. “Now leave me to get on.”

Atrus turned, then hastened up the stairs, gesturing to Irras as he went.

“Okay. Let’s get you back inside. Let’s see what’s behind that wall.”

IT TOOK THEM DAYS TO CUT A BIG ENOUGH
hole in the wall, the task made more difficult by the fact that they could not use the portable power tools within the alcove, and that the two men, standing side by side, had little room to maneuver. They had spent the best part of an hour laboring beneath the light of a single lamp, careful not to nudge each other as, using hammer and chisel, they chipped out the channels in the rock. But now the job was done. Three metal hooks had been screwed into the partially cut section of the wall, and a link of chain threaded through them. Irras now held the end of that chain, the powerful hydraulics of the special gloves he was wearing maintaining a tight grip as Atrus swung the great hammer.

The section of wall gave with a great crunch, the weight of the stone making it slew to one side, but the chain restrained it, keeping it from falling.

“Are you all right?” Atrus asked.

“I’m fine,” Irras said, straining to keep the thing from sliding away from him.

“Good. Then lower it slowly. I’ll shine the lamp through.”

Atrus reached up and unclipped the lamp, then poked it through the gap.

There was an eerie silence. The only sound was that of their own breathing. That and the grating of the stone, the click-click-click of the chain links against the edge of the wall as Irras lowered the section to the ground.

“Good,” Atrus said, as the huge piece of rock came to rest against the floor. “I’ll step through and secure it.”

Personally, Irras would just have kicked the thing in, but Atrus was keen to do as little damage as he could.
We are explorers
, he’d said,
not vandals.

Even so …

He heard Atrus’s gasp, sensed as much as saw him turn and raise the lamp high.

“Atrus?”

The lamp swung back. In its sudden brightness he could see a huge chamber, not unlike the chamber back in D’ni, with row after row of broad, stone shelves climbing the walls above the pillars.

Another library.

Only all of these shelves were empty.

Irras stepped out into the chamber and stood beside Atrus, taking in the sight. Somehow those empty shelves made it seem even more desolate than it otherwise might have been. And there was dust everywhere—huge drifts of dust, like sand, covering the marbled floor, in all but one or two places.

There was a sense of great age. Of long centuries of neglect.

Atrus gestured toward the far end of the chamber. “Let’s see what’s down there.”

They walked across, their footsteps muffled, small clouds of dust lifting, then floating like smoke upon the air.

Atrus stopped. There was a huge doorway before them. Like those in D’ni, it had a massive circle of stone surrounding it, its pale surface decorated with a ring of stars, but unlike those in D’ni, this one seemed to be ajar.