The Myst Reader (93 page)

He walked down, stopping at the edge of the clearing to take out the notebook once again, turning to the page he had been looking at a moment earlier. For a moment he compared Suahrnir’s sketches to the room that was being constructed in the clearing, then he slipped the book away once more. There was no doubting it, Suahrnir had had a good eye. No detail had evaded him. Everything he needed was here. Every measurement.

He began to laugh; a deep, hearty laughter that rolled from his corpulent frame, making the natives glance up at him fearfully before returning to their work.

“But we shall change all that,” he said, as his laughter subsided. “No rules. No guidelines. Nothing but what I want.”

The thought of it sent a tiny shiver up his spine.

“Nothing … but what
I
want.”

THE PREPARATIONS WERE METICULOUS.

Four of the guild’s finest Writers were assigned the task of making the new Age; each of them allocated one specific strand of the whole. Working to Lord R’hira’s brief, in copy books that had no power to link, they patiently produced their words, passing on their finished creations to the Grand Master of their Guild, Ja’ir, who, in coordination with Grand Master Jadaris of the Maintainers, compared the texts and made his subtle corrections, ensuring that the resultant Age was consistent and thus stable.

In all a hundred days passed in this fashion. But then it was finally done and, after consultation with Lord R’hira, a blank Book—a Kortee’nea—was taken from the Guild’s Book Room and placed on a desk in a cell at the center of the Hall of the Maintainers. There it was guarded day and night, its pages never out of sight for a single instant as, one by one, the four Writers returned to copy their work into the Book.

By this means the privacy of the Book was maintained, for none of the four had any knowledge of what the other three had written. Only Jadaris and Ja’ir and R’hira, three of the most trustworthy men in the entire empire, knew that.

Meanwhile, in a cell just down the passageway, they placed Veovis, shackled hand and foot, two members of the City Guard with him every moment of the day and night, linked to him by chains of nara, waking and sleeping.

And so the days passed, until the Prison Book was done.

AT THE SEVENTEENTH HOUR ON THE DAY OF
judgment the great bronze bell rang out from the tower above the Hall of the Guild of Maintainers. Far below, in the lowest level of that great labyrinthine building, in the deep shadows of the Room of Punishment, the Great Lords and Grand Masters of D’ni looked on as Veovis, his head unbowed, the cords that had bound his hands and feet cut, stepped over to the podium and faced the open Book.

As the bell rang, Veovis looked about him, no flicker of fear in those pale, intelligent eyes, only, at this final moment, a sense of great dignity. Then, as the final stroke rang out, he placed his hand upon the glowing panel and linked.

As he vanished, a sighing breath seemed to pass through the watching guildsmen. Heads turned, looking to Lord R’hira.

“It is done,” he said quietly. “Master Jadaris … take the Book away and burn it.”

Yet even as he spoke the words there was a faint disturbance of the air before the Book, the faintest blur. For the briefest instant, R’hira thought he glimpsed a figure in a rust-red prison gown, his head shaved bare.

R’hira looked about him, surprised. Was he the only one to have seen it? And what precisely had he seen? An afterimage?

Or was this some flaw in the Book itself? After all, it was rare for a Book to be made by four separate writers, and it was possible that some minor errors had crept into the text.

He frowned, then set the matter from his mind. It was of no importance. All that mattered was that they burned the Book. Then D’ni would be safe.

Master Jadaris stepped up to the podium and, closing the Book, lifted it ceremonially in both hands, then carried it from the room.

They followed, along a passageway and through into the furnace room. Here, since time immemorial, they had burned faulty Books, destroying their failed experiments and shoddy work.

But this was different. This was a world that functioned perfectly.

And so we break our own rules
, R’hira thought. And even if it were for a good cause, he still felt the breach as a kind of failure.

This is not the D’ni way. We do not destroy what is healthy.

Yet Ti’ana was right. It was either this or put Veovis to death. And there was no doubt about it now: Veovis had been an innocent man when first they found him guilty and incarcerated him.

R’hira watched as the great oven door was opened and the Book slid in. There was a transparent panel in the door. Through it he could see the gray-blue cover of the Prison Book clearly. R’hira bent slightly, looking on as the oven fired and the flames began to lick the cover of the Book.

THE MONTHS PASSED SWIFTLY. THINGS QUICKLY
returned to normal. For young Gehn these were strangely happy times—strange, because he had never dared hope to thrive away from his mother’s side.

In his eighth year, on the last day of his first term at the Guild College, his father and mother visited him. It was an Open Day, and most of the students’ parents were to be there, but for Gehn it was a very special occasion, for he had been chosen to represent the College and read out a passage from the great history of his guild that spoke of the long tradition of the Guild of Books.

The days of illness, of bullying in the night, and tearful homesickness were long behind Gehn. He had become a strong child, surprisingly tall for his age, and confident in all he did, if never outspoken. Yet he was strangely distant with his mother, as if some part of him had never quite forgiven her for sending him away. It was thus that he greeted her on this special day, with a respectful distance that might have been expected from any other student meeting the great Ti’ana, but not, perhaps, from her only son.

He bowed formally. “Mother. I am glad you came.”

Anna smiled and briefly held him, but she, too, sensed how things were between them. As she stepped back, Aitrus embraced Gehn.

“Well done, Gehn!” he said, grinning down at his son. “I hear nothing but good from your Guild Masters! I am very proud of you boy. We both are!”

Gehn glanced at his mother. He could see that she was indeed proud of him, yet strangely that mattered very little beside the praise of his father. After all, his father was D’ni—of the blood—and a Council member, too. To have
his
praise was something. Yet he did not say this openly.

“I try to do my best,” he said, lowering his head with the modesty that was drilled into all students.

“Guild Master Rijahna says you have a promising future, Gehn,” Anna said, her smile more guarded than his father’s. “Indeed, he has talked to your father of private tuition.”

This was the first Gehn had heard of this. He looked to his father wide-eyed.

“Is that true?”

Aitrus nodded. “If you want it.”

Gehn beamed. “Of course I want it! Who would not? Oh, I ache to be like them, Father! Like the Masters, I mean. To know what they know. To be as they are!”

Aitrus laughed. “I understand that feeling, Gehn, but you must be patient, too.”

Gehn lowered his head again. “Of course.” He calmed, matching his demeanor to a more somber mood. “Thank you. Thank you both. I shall make you proud of me.”

Anna smiled and reached out, ruffling his hair. “We are already proud of you, Gehn. More proud than you could ever imagine.”

AS GEHN FINISHED THE ORATION, ANNA FELT
the tightness in her stomach vanish, her anxiety replaced by a great uprush of pride. To think he had nearly died—and not once but several times! And now here he was, standing confidently before his peers and Masters—yes, and before a great hall full of parents, too—speaking with real feeling and pride of the great tradition into which he had been born.

She glanced at Aitrus and saw the great beam of a smile on her husband’s face and knew he shared all she felt.

My son.

Oh, it was difficult sometimes. Gehn could be cold and distant, but she put that down to his age, yes, and to other things. It had not been easy for him being of mixed blood. Yet he had come through it all triumphantly.

As Guild Master Rijahna stepped up to the podium, he gave a little bow to Gehn. There was the faintest trace of a smile on his lips, a trace that vanished as he turned to face the audience.

“And now, guildsmen, ladies, if you would like to come through to the refectory …”

But Master Rijahna had barely formed the word when the whole building shook. He looked up, surprised, as if he had imagined it, but from the murmur in the audience, from the way a number of the guildsmen and their ladies had risen to their feet, he was not alone in experiencing that tremor.

It came again, stronger this time, and with it a low rumbling noise. Dust fell from overhead.

Outside, the great bell of D’ni was sounding.

And there were only two reasons for that bell to sound: the death of one of the Five, or a threat to D’ni itself.

Rijahna swallowed back his momentary fear and leaned upon the podium.

“Ladies, guildsmen. Please remain calm.”

He turned, looking to his fellow Masters and to the young pupils, who stared back at him, silent yet clearly afraid.

“It will be all right,” he said quietly, his voice offering them a reassurance he did not feel. “Be calm and follow me outside and all will be well, I promise you. All will be well …”