The Myst Reader (101 page)

Straight ahead
, she told herself, pushing the door open. But what if the room
had
turned? Was she still heading in a straight line?

This room—the third room—was circular. Not two but five different doors led off. And there, in the center of the floor, was an opening. A chute of some kind? She went across and stared straight down. Dare she go down there?

An entertainment
, she told herself, reminding herself of what Horen Ro’Jadre had said.
It’s only an entertainment.

Marrim eased herself over the lip and slid, down, down into darkness, then felt the chute turn and straighten.

How far had she descended? Twenty feet? More? She got to her feet and walked forward, her hand outstretched before her.

Her hand met the flat, smooth surface of a door. She pushed.

And stepped out into daylight.

No
, she thought,
impossible
. For now she seemed to be at the top of the building, the sunlight coming down through a clear glass roof.

Two doors and thirty seconds to choose. Left or right? For there was no door facing her in this room.

Besides, that plan had been abandoned. So what now? What alternate strategy did she use to get herself through this maze of rooms?

Guesswork…

She went left, into what seemed to be a corridor, a single door at the end of it, another exit—a square hole without a covering hatch—in the center of the ceiling. Yet even as she walked toward the door at the far end, the room seemed to turn yet again beneath her.

And this time, she knew she was not imagining it. The rooms were moving all the while. Or maybe not all the while, but sometimes—perhaps when she made a certain choice.

But there was no more time to think. Reaching up with both hands, Marrim pulled herself up into the dark.

Or almost darkness, for there was light—a big square patch of light—some way ahead of her, yes, and another just behind.

Another choice.

She turned 180 degrees, and as she did she began to mentally retrace her steps, for in that instant she had understood. It was not necessarily the choice you made, it was the remembering. Her first instinct had been correct—she was certain of it now. The quickest way was to go straight ahead.

For a time there was nothing but rooms—fifty, maybe eighty rooms on who knew how many levels—and then, stepping through a door, Marrim came out into a huge, sunlit dome, beneath the transparent roof of which was a massive water garden, with streams and islands and bridges and, at the very center of all, a huge pagodalike structure in what looked like pearl, beneath the sloping roofs of which was a circle of chairs, most of which were filled by guests.

Seeing her, Ro’Jadre stood and came to the rail, looking across to where she stood. “Well done, young Marrim,” he called. “That was quick indeed. Why, I have known guests lost in there for days on end.”

Marrim blinked, wondering if she was being ribbed, then asked, “And what would happen to them?”

“Oh, we would send someone in to bring them out. Eventually. But do not fear, Marrim, we would not have let you languish in there too long. Nor any of your party.” He smiled, gesturing for her to come across the bridge. “But tell me, how did you manage to work it out?”

 

 

§

 

 

Atrus, who had been last to enter the maze, was the second to emerge, less than five minutes after Marrim.

Stepping into the first room, he had had no real expectations of the experience. A maze was, after all, only a maze. Yet as the rooms had begun to turn and he had got deeper in, he had begun to enjoy it, until, at the last, he had found a real delight in working out the puzzle.

It had been like tunneling through the rock, and after a moment all manner of memories had come flooding back and he had seen his father’s face clearly for the first time in many years.

A maze of moving rooms.
Ingenious
…

He had said the word aloud, unaware that he had done so.

“I am glad you think so,” Ro’Jadre said, coming across the bridge toward him. “I was telling Marrim. It is never the same twice. For each traveler, the maze is entirely different.”

Atrus frowned. “How, then, is it done?”

“Oh, the rules of manipulation were set centuries ago. We but perfect an ancient art. But, sad to say, the days of the great maze-makers are long past. There has not been an original new maze for many years. At least, none I have heard of.”

“And those rules…they determine which rooms move and which do not?”

“That is so. Though not all the rooms
can
move. Like any building, the maze must have structural integrity. But within that rigid framework there is a great deal of flexibility. More than you can possibly imagine. If it were not so, then the maze would soon lose its power to fascinate.”

“Do you ever play the maze yourself, Ro’Jadre?”

Ro’Jadre smiled. “Very seldom these days. I am not as sprightly as I was. But the young people are very fond of it, particularly when the choosing time is shortened.”

“Shortened?”

“To ten, sometimes even five seconds.”

Atrus nodded, imagining it. To have to negotiate the maze under such circumstances—to have to run and clamber and slide like a hunted animal, afraid of being trapped—that would be a game of considerable skill, especially when one also had to attempt to keep the ever-changing map of the maze in one’s mind at all times.

It was ten minutes before Catherine emerged. Another fifteen and Esel stumbled from the door, looking flustered, his dark eyebrows formed into a heavy frown. Last to appear, almost two hours after Marrim had first emerged, was Oma, who had a dazed and slightly startled look about him.

“Everything was fine until the rooms started moving,” he said as he took the last vacant chair. “After that…” He shook his head.

“And yet none of you were trapped, and none took more than two and a half hours,” Ro’Jadre said. “That
is
impressive, particularly when none of you had ever played the game before.”

Marrim leaned across, whispering something to Atrus. Atrus considered a moment, then nodded.

“Ro’Jadre,” he said. “My young companion would like to run the maze again.”

“Again?”

“Yes, but this time with a ten-second choosing time.”

Ro’Jadre laughed. “Why, certainly. But why not add some spice to the entertainment? Why not make the game a race this time? Young Marrim against one of our young people.”

The governor turned, looking about him, his eyes falling on the lounging figure of Eedrah.

“Eedrah Ro’Jethhe…will you not take up the challenge?”

Eedrah, who had until that moment been picking at a bowl of fruit in a desultory fashion, now looked up, startled by Ro’Jadre’s words. He looked about him, as if trying to figure out some way of escaping the invitation, then, somewhat reluctantly, he nodded.

“Good,” Ro’Jadre said, a satisfied smile lighting his lips. “If the two young people would prepare themselves.”

As Eedrah and Marrim stood, Eedrah glanced across at her—a strangely awkward look. “Governor Ro’Jadre,” he said, “can we not make it fifteen seconds? I fear our guest might find it…overstrenuous.”

Ro’Jadre looked to Marrim and raised an eyebrow, but Marrim said nothing.

“Twelve seconds,” Ro’Jadre said decisively. He clapped his hands and at once two stewards appeared at his side. “Tuure,” he said, addressing one of them, “escort the young people to the maze.”

Then, turning back, he looked to Atrus and smiled. “And afterward I shall talk to you of the king, and of what you might expect when you reach the capital.”

 

 

§

 

 

Twice she stepped into a room to find Eedrah there already. Twice he stared back at her, startled, then moved on.

Relentlessly, Marrim moved from room to room, as floors turned and the great maze fitted itself into new configurations. And all the while, in her head, she counted. Counted the seconds. Counted how many forward or back, up or down she was. For the secret, she understood now, was mathematical—was pluses and minuses. It was no good thinking in terms of direction. One had to strip that away and think pure numbers, otherwise you were lost.

What she hadn’t expected, however, were the pure physical demands of that twelve-second limit. It gave you barely enough time to look about a room and choose, let alone climb up—if climbing up was what you wished to do. But suddenly, almost before she expected it, she was outside again, standing there in the great dome, the water gardens all about her.

“Well done…”

She turned, to find Eedrah there behind her. “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t see you.”

“That’s because I wasn’t there. Until now.”

“Then I won?”

Eedrah nodded, but there was a strange sorrow in his face that she did not understand.

“Well done!” Ro’Jadre boomed out from where he stood at the rail, Atrus beside him. “You have a real talent for it, Marrim!”

Marrim inclined her head, accepting the governor’s praise, but she was more concerned with Eedrah.

“Eedrah?” she asked quietly. But Eedrah simply walked away, hurrying across the bridge.

 

 

§

 

 

“There, Atrus,” Ro’Jadre said, handing Atrus the head-and-shoulders portrait. “That is Ro’Eh Ro’Dan, king of Terahnee.”

Atrus studied the painting, conscious of Catherine standing at his shoulder, then nodded.

Ro’Eh Ro’Dan was a young, immensely handsome man with refined facial features and pleasant, intelligent eyes. Looking at that face, staring into those clear, trustworthy eyes, Atrus found himself convinced that he should link his own people’s fate with the fate of these people.

He looked up, his eyes taking in the luxuriousness of his surroundings. Beside this, D’ni was as nothing. All of his schemes to rebuild D’ni seemed futile now that he had seen Terahnee.

Yet as he handed back the portrait, Atrus kept his thoughts much to himself. “He looks a fine man,” he said.

“And young,” Ro’Jadre said, taking his turn to stare at the painting. “He is not yet one hundred, but strong, and a good writer, so it is said.”

“A writer?” Yet that fact did not surprise Atrus. He looked to Catherine and saw at once that she was watching him, an understanding in her eyes. “Then we shall have much to talk about.”

Ro’Jadre smiled, then set the portrait down. “Oh, of that I have no doubt. No doubt at all.”

 

PART FIVE

 

DISCORDANT TIME. THE SMALLEST OF

 

ENEMIES UN-MANS THEM ALL.

 

HIDDEN WITHIN THE HIDDEN.

 

A BREATH AND THEN DARKNESS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VV. 4302-3

 

From where he sat in the stern of the Governor’s boat, Atrus looked out across a land of unending luxury; of glades and winding streams, of magical conceits and beautiful falls of floral color. And greenness. Everywhere one looked, a lush green perfection of growing things.

The silken awning above him rustled gently in the breeze, and for a moment he found himself almost dozing in the warm, late afternoon air. A bird called across the meadows, a piping call, while the boat glided on as in a dream.

It was the end of their third day in Terahnee, and the city now dominated the skyline ahead of them, the sun slowly setting behind its towering walls. In an hour or less they would stop for the night, at the house of another landowner—this one a friend of Ro’Jethhe’s named Tanaren Ro’Tanaren.

For this once there would be no feast, no entertainment, and Atrus for one was pleased at that. They had stopped earlier, in a glade, to eat and drink—a pleasant wine that even Atrus had sampled. Which was why now he felt so relaxed.

And happy.

The thought made him stir and wake. He looked about him at the little group in the boat and realized that each of them, like he, was smiling, each one in his or her own little reverie, relaxed after being tense for so long.

And with that thought came another. That they had worked so hard, so long that they deserved this tiny break from their labors; deserved this drifting, effortless journey with its unceasing delights. Things had been hard back in D’ni, there was no mistaking that. But this…

He had not even dared to dream that anything like this existed.

Catherine, sensing his sudden wakefulness, turned her head to him and quietly spoke. “Atrus?”

But there was nothing that he wished to say. Not now. Last night he had slept the sleep of children—that deep, untroubled sleep that rarely comes when one is older. And this morning he had awakened refreshed in spirit and confirmed in what he had decided the night before—to petition the king of Terahnee and bring his people through, to settle here in this wonderful place.

This place of eternal summers.

Catherine reached out and took his hand, holding it lightly as she looked out across the beauty of the surrounding land.

No, he did not even have to ask her. He could see it in her face. In all their faces. Why have D’ni when they could have this? And surely there must be space for them here in this endless, rolling landscape?

He sighed, content to let the thought drift from him, like a leaf on a stream.

Simply to be here was enough. And, yawning, Atrus stretched, his body totally relaxed for the first time in so long he could not recall when he had last felt like this.