The Myst Reader (73 page)

A long slope led to the encampment, which was sighted at the head of a verdant valley. To one side of that grassy plateau, the earth had folded and a great slab of smooth black rock jutted from the green. Just above it a slow-moving river pooled, then fell sheer two hundred feet to the valley floor in a clear, narrow curtain.

The sound of the falls was ever-present, a counterpoint to the exotic, echoing cries of birds from the wood that climbed the steep slope behind them. To the north were mountains, to the south the great ocean.

It was a beautiful place.

Aitrus’s tent was to the left of the camp, its long frame of green canvas blending with the background. A smaller, circular tent, its canvas a vivid yellow, stood just beside and was used for stores. Until a week ago there had been a third tent, the twin of Aitrus’s, but now that the cabin was habitable, Anna had moved in. It was not finished yet—Aitrus had yet to cut and fit the wooden floor—but the roof was on and it was dry. Beside Anna’s section, which was screened off, Aitrus had set up a temporary lab, which they planned to use until they had built a proper, permanent laboratory a little way farther up the slope.

They walked across. A trestle table stood just outside Aitrus’s tent, in the shadow of the canvas awning. On top of it, its corners held down by tiny copper weights, was the map Anna had been working on earlier, a clear thin cover of D’ni polymer laid over it in case of rain.

The map was remarkably detailed, a color key on the right-hand side of the sheet making sense of the intricate pattern of colors on the map itself. Areas of the sheet were blank, where they had not yet surveyed the land, but where they had, Anna had provided a vivid guide to it—one that not only made sense of its essential topography but also gave a clue to the types of soil and thus vegetation that overlay the deeper rock formations. It was all, she said, using one of her father’s favorite terms, “a question of edaphology.”

Maybe it was because she was from the surface, but her grasp of how the kind of rock affected the visible features of the land was far more refined than his, almost instinctive. Often she did not have to analyze a rock sample but knew it by its feel, its color and its texture. His instinct was for the pressures and stresses within the rock that provided what one saw with its underlying structure.

At first it had astonished Aitrus that she had known so much of rocks and minerals and the complex art of mapping the rock, and even when he learned more of her father and how she had helped him, he was still amazed that she had grasped quite so much in so brief a time. Yet as the weeks went on, his surprise had turned to delight, knowing that here at last was someone with whom he might share his lifelong fascination with the rock.

It was not long before he had begun to teach her the D’ni names for the different types of rock and the terms his people used to describe the various geological processes. Anna learned easily and was soon fluent enough to hold those conversations which, through to today, had never ceased between them. After a while Aitrus had begun to push her, testing her, as if to find the limits of her intelligence, but it seemed there were no bounds to what she was capable of.

Right now, however, the two of them stood beside the trestle table. Aitrus studied the half-completed map a moment then tapped an area in the top left corner with his forefinger.

“We could start here, Ah-na, where the river bends and drops. It would give us the opportunity to map all of this area to the west of the river. That would take, what? Two days?”

Anna studied the blank area on her map and nodded. “Two. Three at most.”

“Three it is. We could take the tent and camp there. Then we could spend a day or two exploring the valley. There are cave systems there. Did you see them?”

Anna smiled. “I saw.”

“Good. And once we’ve finished there, we could come back here and spend a couple of days writing things up.”

“Can the guild spare you that long?”

“If they need me urgently, they’ll send someone. But I doubt it. Things are slow at present, and until the Guild of Miners present their report on the new excavation, that is how it will remain. We might as well use the time fruitfully.”

“Aitrus?”

“Yes?”

“Can we set out a little later tomorrow? In the afternoon, perhaps?”

“You want to see the well again?”

Anna nodded.

“All right. I guess it will take most of the morning to pack what we need, anyway.”

She smiled. That was so like Aitrus. Rather than admit to indulging her, he would always find some excuse to let her have her way.

“And Aitrus?”

He turned, clearly distracted. “Yes?”

“Oh, nothing … Nothing important, anyway.”

THAT EVENING IT RAINED; A WARM, HEAVY RAIN
that thundered on the roof of the cabin and filled the valley like a huge, shimmering mist of silver.

Anna stepped out into the downpour, raising her arms, her head back, savoring the feel of the rain against her skin.

Just across from her, Aitrus peeked out from his tent and, seeing what she was doing, called out to her.

“Ah-na! What are you doing? You’ll be soaked to the skin!”

Laughing, she turned to face him, then, on whim, began to dance, whirling around and around, her bare feet flying across the wet grass.

“Ah-na!”

She stopped, facing him, then put a hand out.

“Come, Aitrus! Join me!”

Aitrus hesitated, then, reluctantly, yet smiling all the same, he stepped out. Almost instantly he was soaked, his hair plastered to his head.

He took her hand.

“Come!” she said, her eyes shining brightly, excitedly, “let’s dance!” And without warning, she began to whirl him around and around beneath the open sky, the light from the hanging lanterns in front of the cabin turning the fall of rain into a cascade of silver.

Exhilarated, Aitrus whooped loudly, then stopped dead. He was laughing, his whole face alive as she had never seen it before.

“Isn’t it
wonderful?
” she asked, almost shouting against the noise of the downpour.

“Marvelous!” he shouted back, then, unexpectedly, he grabbed her close and whirled around and around again, until, giddy from their circling, he stopped, swaying and coughing and laughing.

Anna, too, was laughing. She put her head back, drinking in the pure, clean water from the sky. Rain! The wonder of rain!

ANNA STOOD BEHIND THE WOODEN PARTITION
, toweling her hair. Outside, the rain still fell, but now it could be heard only as a gentle, murmuring patter against the roof. Soon the storm would pass.

She had changed into a dry, woolen dress of cyan blue, her favorite color, fastened at the waist with a simple cord.

Folding the towel, she dropped it onto the end of her pallet bed then turned full circle, looking about her. There were books wherever she looked, on shelves and surfaces, and, on the narrow wooden table in the corner, scientific equipment, the polished brasswork gleaming in the lamplight.

Anna sighed, feeling a real contentment. For the first time in a long, long while, she was happy.

To be honest, she had never worked so hard, nor felt so good. Before Aitrus had asked her to work with him on the creation of this Age, she had felt useless, but now …

Now she had a problem.

Anna sat on the edge of her low bed, staring at the bare earth floor. Perhaps it was the dance. Perhaps it was that glimpse of Aitrus, happy just as she was happy. Was that an illusion? Was it a transient thing? Or could it last?

And besides …

There was a knock on the door of the cabin. Anna looked up, startled. It was Aitrus’s habit to spend an hour at this time writing up his journal for the day.

“Come in.”

Aitrus stepped inside, his right hand drawing his dark hair back from his brow.

“I wondered if you were all right.”

She smiled up at him. “I’m fine. It was only rain.”

Aitrus stood there a moment, hesitant, not sure just what to say, then: “Would you like a game of
Gemedet?
”

“All right.”

He grinned, then nodded and turned away, returning to the tent to bring the grid. Smiling, Anna stood, then went across to clear a space on the table.

Gemedet
, or six-in-a-line, was the most popular of D’ni games. She had seen a close variant of the game in Tadjinar, played by the Chinese merchants, but the D’ni version was played not on a two-dimensional board but on a complex three-dimensional grid, nine squares to a side.

It was, she thought, the perfect game for a race embedded in the rock, whose thinking was not lateral but spatial.

Aitrus returned a moment later, setting the grid down on the table. It was a beautiful thing, of hand-carved lilac jade, as delicate-looking as a honeycomb yet strong. Strong enough to have survived a thousand games without a single chip or blemish.

The base of the grid was a polished hemisphere of topaz on which the grid revolved smoothly. Long, silver tweezers, called
re’dantee
, were used to slip the playing pieces into place, while the pieces themselves were simple polished ovoids of green tourmaline and dark red almandine.

Both the re’dantee and the “stones” were kept in a velvet-lined box, which Aitrus now opened, placing it on the table beside the grid, so that both of them could easily reach it.

Anna smiled. She had fallen in love with the set at first sight.

They sat, facing each other across the table. As ever, Anna went first, slipping her first “stone” into place, deep in the heart of the grid, giving herself the maximum of options.

For an hour or more they played, in total silence, each concentrating on the pattern of the stones. After a while the patter of rain on the roof stopped. Night birds called in the darkness of the woods outside. Inside the game went on, beneath the lantern’s light.

Finally, she saw that she had lost. Aitrus had only to place a single stone in the bottom left-hand corner and there was no way she could stop him making six.

Anna looked up and saw, by his smile, that he knew.

“Another game?”

She shook her head. Was now the time to speak? To tell him what she had been thinking earlier?

“What is it?” he asked gently.

Anna looked down. “I’m tired, that’s all.”

“Are you sure?”

She gave a single nod. It had been a good day—an almost perfect day—why spoil it?

“Shall I pack the game away?” he asked, after a moment.

“No,” she said, looking up at him and smiling; content now that she had decided. “I’ll do that in the morning. Besides, I want to see how you managed to beat me.”

Aitrus grinned. “Experience, that’s all.”

At that moment, there did not seem to be so many years’ difference in their ages. In human terms, Aitrus was old—as old, almost, as her father—but in D’ni terms he was still a very young man. Why, it was quite likely that he would live another two centuries and more. But was that also why she was afraid to speak of what she felt?

“I’ll leave you, then,” he said, standing, the lamplight glinting in his fine, dark hair. “Good night. Sleep well, Ah-na.”