The Myst Reader (51 page)

“Look!” someone whispered to Aitrus’s right. “The young Lord is coming over here!”

Aitrus looked up to see Veovis making his way across. Seeing Aitrus, Veovis smiled, then turned to address Telanis. “Master Telanis, might I have a word in private with Guildsman Aitrus?”

“Of course,” Telanis answered, giving the slightest bow of respect.

Aitrus, embarrassed by the sudden attention, rose and made his way around the table to where Veovis stood.

“Forgive me, Aitrus,” Veovis began, keeping his voice low. “Once more I must rush off. But Lord Tulla has given me permission to stay on an extra day. I thought we might talk. Tomorrow, after the breaching.”

The “breaching” was a small ceremony to mark the commencement of the breakthrough tunnel.

Aitrus nodded. “I’d welcome that.”

“Good.” Briefly Veovis held his arm, then, as if he understood Aitrus’s embarrassment, let his hand fall away. “Tomorrow, then.”

THAT EVENING THEY WINCHED THE EXCAVATOR
up onto the platform at the very top of the great shaft. Aitrus, standing beside Master Telanis, watched as it was lowered onto the metal grid, feeling an immense pride at the sight of the craft. Its usefulness as a cutter was marginal now—other machines, much larger and more efficient were already in place, ready to cut the final tunnel from the rock—yet it would serve as their quarters in this final leg of their journey.

Earlier, Master Telanis had given a moving speech as he said farewell to those cadets who would be returning to D’ni in the morning. Only Master Geran, Aitrus, and five others remained; their sole task now to represent their Guild when finally they broke through to the surface.

“How long will it take?” he asked, looking to Telanis.

The Guild Master’s attention was on the excavator, as strange hands removed the winch chains and began to lift the craft so they could extricate the great cradle from beneath it. His eyes never leaving that delicate task, Telanis answered Aitrus quietly.

“A week. Maybe less. Why? Are you impatient, Aitrus?”

“No, Master.”

“Good. Because I would hate you to be disappointed.”

“I do not understand, Master.”

Telanis glanced at him. “The tunnel will be cut. But whether we shall ever step out onto the surface is another matter. There will be one final meeting of the Council to decide that.”

Aitrus felt a strange disturbance—a feeling almost of giddiness—at the thought of coming so close and never actually stepping out onto the surface of the world.

“I thought it had been decided.”

Telanis nodded vaguely. “So did I. Yet it is an important matter—perhaps the most important they have had to debate for many centuries. If they are wrong, then D’ni itself might suffer. And so the Council deliberate until the last. Why, even today, at the feast, they were still discussing it even as they congratulated one another!”

“And if they decide not to?”

Telanis turned and met his eyes. “Then we go home, Aitrus.”

“And the tunnel?”

“Will be sealed. At least, this top part of it. It is unlikely that the surface-dwellers have the technology to drill down into the shaft, even if they were to locate it.”

“I see.”

“No, Aitrus. Neither you nor I see, not as the Great Lords see. Yet when their final word comes, whatever it may be, we shall do as they instruct.”

“And what do
you
think, Master? Do you think they will let us contact the surface-dwellers?”

Telanis laughed quietly. “If I knew that, Aitrus, I would be a Great Lord myself.”

THAT NIGHT AITRUS WOKE TO FIND THE PLATFORM
trembling, as if a giant gong had been struck in the depths. All about him people slept on drunkenly, unaware of the faint tremor. After a while it subsided and the platform was still again. For a moment Aitrus wondered if he had imagined it, but then it came again, stronger this time, almost audible.

Aitrus shrugged off his blanket and stood, then walked across until he stood close to the edge of the great drop. The whole shaft was vibrating, and now there was the faintest hum—a deep bass note—underlying everything.

For close on three months, the earth had been silent. Now, even as they prepared to leave it, it had awoken once again.

Aitrus turned, looking back to where the guildsmen were encamped beside the excavator, but they slept on, in a dead sleep after the feast. He alone was awake.

Hurrying across, he bent down beside Master Geran and gently shook him. At first the old man did not wake, but then his blind eyes flicked open.

“Aitrus?”

Aitrus did not know how the old man did it, but his senses were infallible.

“There’s movement,” he said quietly. “The shaft was vibrating like a great hollow pipe.”

Master Geran sat up, then turned to face the center of the tunnel. For a moment he was perfectly still, then he looked up at Aitrus again. “Help me up, boy.”

Aitrus leaned down, helping him up.

“How many times?” Geran asked as he shuffled over to the edge of the shaft.

“Three so far. That is, if the one that woke me was the first.”

Geran nodded, then dropped into a crouch, the fingertips of his right hand brushing gently against the surface of the platform.

For two, maybe three minutes they waited, Aitrus standing there at his side, and then it came again, stronger—much stronger—this time and more prolonged. When it had subsided, Geran stood and shook his head.

“It’s hard to tell the direction of it. The shaft channels its energy. But it was powerful, Aitrus. I wonder why I was not woken by it.”

Aitrus looked down, a faint smile on his lips, but said nothing. He had seen how much of the strong D’ni wine Master Geran had drunk. The only real surprise was that he had woken when Aitrus had shaken him.

“Should we wake the others, Master?” he asked. But Geran shook his head.

“No. We shall leave it for now. The final survey will show whether there is any risk. Personally I doubt it. We have come far to the north of the isopaches we identified earlier. If there is any volcanic activity, it is far from here. What we are hearing are merely echoes in the rock, Aitrus. Impressive, yes, but not harmful.”

Geran smiled, then patted his arm. “So get some sleep, eh, lad? Tomorrow will be a long day.”

REASSURED BY MASTER GERAN, AITRUS SETTLED
back beneath his blanket and was soon asleep once more. If the ground shook, he did not notice it. Indeed, he was the last to wake, Master Telanis’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him, returning him from the dark stupor into which he seemed to have descended.

“Come, Aitrus. Wash now and get dressed. The ceremony is in half an hour!”

They lined up before the cutter, alongside men from the Guild of Maintainers, whose task it would be to oversee this final stage of the journey to the surface.

The Maintainers were one of the oldest guilds, and certainly one of the most important, their Grand Masters—alongside those of the Guild of Writers, the Miners, the Guild of Books and the Ink-Makers—becoming in time the Lords of D’ni, members of the Five. Yet this was a strange and perhaps unique task for them, for normally their job was to ensure that the D’ni Books were kept in order, the Ages correctly run, and that the long-established laws, laid down countless generations before, were carried out to the letter. They had little to do with excavations and the cutting of tunnels. Indeed, guildsmen from some of the more physical guilds—those who dealt constantly with earth and rock and stone—would, in the privacy of their own Guild Halls, speak quietly of them, in a derogatory fashion, as “cleanhanded fellows.” Yet these guildsmen had been specially trained for this purpose and had among their number guildsmen drafted in from the Guild of Miners, and from the Surveyors.

They now would carry out the final excavation, and if any surface dwellers were found, it would be the Maintainers who would first establish contact, for this was a most delicate matter and it was held that only the Maintainers could be vouchsafed to undertake that task properly.

Few of the Guild Masters who had been at the feast the day before had remained for this final little ceremony; yet in the small group who now stepped forward were no less than two of the Great Lords, Lord Tulla and Lord Eneah. Standing just behind them, among a group of five Grand Masters, was Veovis.

Lord Tulla said a few words, then stepped forward, pulling down the lever that would set the great cutter in motion. As he did, Veovis looked across at Aitrus and gave the tiniest nod.

Were these, Aitrus wondered, the faction in the Council who were in favor of making contact with the surface-dwellers? Or was that a misreading of things? Had the rest, perhaps, simply been too busy to attend?

As Lord Tulla stepped back, the engines of the cutter thundered into life and the circular blade began to spin, slowly at first, then, as it nudged the rock, with increasing speed.

The simple ceremony was concluded. The great men turned away, ready to depart. At a signal from Master Telanis, the Surveyors fell out.

Aitrus could see that Veovis was busy, talking to the Grand Master of the Guild of Messengers. Content to wait, he watched the machine, remembering the noises in the night.

Master Geran had been up early, he had been told, making a new survey of the rock through which this final tunnel was to be dug. His soundings had shown nothing unusual, and the vibrations in the earth had ceased. Both Geran and Telanis were of the opinion that the quakes had not been serious, but were only the settlement of old faults. Aitrus himself had not been quite so sure, but had bowed to their experience.

“Aitrus?”

He turned, facing Veovis.

The young Lord smiled apologetically. “You must forgive me, Aitrus. Once again I must be elsewhere. But I shall return, this evening, after I have seen Lord Tulla off. I did not think he would stay for the ceremony, but he wished to be here.”

“I understand.”

“Good.” And without further word, Veovis turned and hurried across to where Lord Tulla was waiting.

Aitrus watched the party step into the special carriage that had been set up on a temporary track down the wall of the shaft, then stepped up to the edge, following its progress down that great well until it was lost to sight.

It was strange. The more Veovis delayed their talk, the more uncomfortable Aitrus found himself at the thought of it. Veovis wanted to be his friend, it seemed. But why? It made little sense to him. Surely Veovis had friends enough of his own? And even if that were not so, why him? Why not someone more suited to his social role?

Perhaps it would all come clear. Yet he doubted it. The rock was predictable. It had its moods, yet it could be read, its actions foreseen. But who could say as much of a man?

Aitrus turned, looking back across the platform. Already the cutter was deep in the rock, like a weevil burrowing its way into a log. Crouching, he got out his notebook and, opening it, laid it on his knee, looking about him, his eyes taking in every detail of the scene.

This evening
, he thought. Then, dismissing it from his mind, he began to sketch.