The Myst Reader (11 page)

Ahead there was an opening. A circle of brilliant orange light.

As Atrus stepped out, it was to be met by the most astonishing sight he had yet encountered.

Facing him was an enormous valley, six miles across and ten broad, its steeply sloping shores descending to a glowing orange lake that filled at least half the valley’s floor. At the center of that lake was a huge island, a mile or more in width, two twisted columns of rock pushing up from that great tumulus to soar more than a mile into the air. Beyond that, to its right, the great rock walls were curiously striped, regular tiered levels of colored stone reaching up into the shadows overhead, above the level at which Atrus himself stood. Within those levels great pools of orange water glowed.

He loked up, expecting clouds, or maybe stars, but the blackness was immaculate overhead. Slipping his glasses down, he increased their magnification, studying the far side of the lake. Buildings! They were buildings! Buildings that clung to the great rock precipice, seeming to defy gravity!

Atrus craned his neck, following the course of the rock walls upward, understanding coming to him in an instant. He was inside! Inside a vast, cavernous expanse.

He stared, awed by the strange beauty of the sight. Beneath him the ground sloped steeply down to the sea’s edge where, in a tiny harbor, a boat was moored. To the right, just offshore, the sea was dotted with tiny islands, like dark blemishes in that orange mirror.

“There,” Gehn said, coming alongside. “Now, perhaps, you might understand why I could not leave you in that ridiculous crack in the ground. Is that not the grandest sight you have ever seen, Atrus?”

It was, and he did indeed understand why his father had brought him, yet the reminder cast a shadow over what he was feeling at that moment. Suddenly he wanted Anna to be there with him, wanted to share it with her—to be able to talk to her and ask her questions.

“Come,” Gehn said from just below him as he began to make his way down the steep slope. “Another hour and we’re home.”

 

§

 

Atrus stood on the foredeck, his right hand gripping the rail as Gehn maneuvered the strange craft out onto the mirror-smooth waters, digging the pole deep, his muscles straining.

Atrus looked about him excitedly, conscious of the absence of echoes in that vast space, of the sound Gehn’s pole made as it dipped into the water. The cavern was so vast, it felt almost as if they were back outside, on the surface, sailing on a moonless night, but for that orange glow that underlit everything.

As the blunt, wedge-shaped prow of the boat came around, Atrus saw the city in the distance once again. From here it seemed immaculate and beautiful, a vast bowl of towers and spires, as if it alone had not been touched by the destruction he had seen elsewhere. But they were not going to the city. Not yet, anyway. “Home,” it seemed, was on one of the cluster of islands that skirted the right-hand wall of the cavern.

Atrus let out a little sigh. Now that he had stopped walking, his muscles had finally begun to seize up. His body ached and his eyelids felt like lead weights. The gentle movement of the boat didn’t help either. It lulled him, like a voice singing in his head. He blinked, trying to keep his eyes open, trying to stay awake a while longer, but it was hard. It felt like he had walked a thousand miles.

For a moment Atrus dozed where he stood, then he jerked awake again, looking up, expecting to see stars littering the desert sky.

“Where…?”

He turned, looking back to where his father sat in the center of the boat, slowly rowing them toward the island, and shook his head to clear it, convinced he was in the grip of some strangely vivid dream.

Facing front again, he saw the island looming from the shadows up ahead, its twisted, conical outline silhouetted black against the surrounding sea. Briefly, he noticed how the water about the far end of the island was dark and wondered why.

Home
, he thought, noting the fallen walls, the toppled tower of the great mansion that sat upon the summit of the island like a huge slab of volcanic rock.
Home…

Yet even as he saw it, sleep overcame him. Unable to prevent himself, he fell to his knees, then slumped onto the deck, unconscious, so that he did not see the boat pass beneath he island, into a brightly lit cavern. Nor did he see the waiting figure standing on the flight of winding steps that led up into the rock above.

 

§

 

“Atrus? Are you awake?”

Atrus lay there, his eyes closed, remembering the dream.

The voice came closer. “Atrus?”

He turned onto his back and stretched. The room was warm, the mattress strangely soft beneath him.

“What is it?” he asked lazily, uncertain yet whether he was awake.

“It is evening now,” the voice, his father’s voice, said. “You have slept a whole day, Atrus. Supper is ready, if you want some.”

Atrus opened his eyes, focusing. Gehn stood there two paces from the bed, a lantern in one hand. In its flickering light the room seemed vast and shadowy.

“Where are we?” he asked, the details of the dream receding as he began to recall the long trek through the caverns.

“We are on K’veer,” Gehn said, stepping closer, his pale, handsome face looming from the shadow. “This will be your room, Atrus. There are clothes in the wardrobes over there if you want to change, but there is no real need. When you are ready, you should turn left outside the door and head toward the light.”

Atrus nodded, then, with a shock, realized that his feet no longer hurt. Nor were they bandaged. “My feet…”

Gehn looked down at him. “I treated them while you were asleep. They will be sore for several days, but you can rest now.”

“And your experiments? Were we in time?”

Gehn turned away, as if he hadn’t heard, then walked across the room, drawing back the heavy curtains to reveal, through a massive, latticed window, the orange glow of the cavern beyond. There was a broad stone balcony and a view of the distant city.

“I shall leave you now,” Gehn said, setting the lantern down on the table beside the bed. “But try not to be too long, Atrus. There are things we need to talk about.”

Atrus waited for his father to leave the room, then sat up, sliding his legs around and examining his feet in the lamp’s light. Where the sores were worst, on his heels and ankles and on the balls of his feet, Gehn had smeared them with an ointment that left a dark stain on the skin. Atrus touched one of the patches gingerly, then sniffed his fingers. It was the same as the ointment his grandmother had always used whenever he’d grazed knees or shins or elbows on the rock.

Atrus?

Yes, Grandmother?”

What do you see, Atrus?

I see the D’ni city, Grandmother. I see…

Atrus stepped out onto the balcony, looking at it, trying to fix it in his memory so that he could tell her when he saw her again.

Far out there was a moving shadow on the water. He narrowed his eyes, watching it a while, then shrugged and looked beyond it at the city once again.
Yes
, he thought.
I see the most incredible sight I’ve ever seen.

 

§

 

“Ah, Atrus…come and sit with me.”

Atrus hesitated in the doorway, then stepped inside, into the clear blue light of the kitchen. His father sat at a table to his left, a plate of food set before him.

It was a big V-shaped room with two large windows overlooking a stone-paved terrace garden that jutted out over the orange sea. The light outside seemed much darker now, and to compensate, Gehn had placed several lanterns in niches about the room.

Looking about him, Atrus noticed that the kitchen was solid stone. The cupboards, the table, the benches, even the sink and oven, were made of a strange, smooth banded gneiss that, like the path they had followed into D’ni, seemed to have been softened and then molded like clay. Tiny strips of metal, intricately fashioned, were threaded into the black-and-white-striped stone in a manner Atrus found hard to fathom. Though it was stone, it had a light warm feel that was unexpected. How they had managed it was a mystery to him, yet it was clear that the D’ni had developed processes well advanced of the ways of men.

“How do you feel now?” Gehn asked, gesturing for him to take a seat across from him.

“How
did
he feel? Homesick, but also, now that his waking mood had passed, immensely curious. What did his father want of him? Gehn had said something to Anna about teaching him. But teaching him what?

“Hungry,” he answered finally, finding it safest.

“Good,” Gehn said. Turning, he picked up a small handbell from the table beside him and rang it.

At once a figure filled the far doorway, looming briefly in the shadows before it entered the room.

“Atrus, this is Rijus, my serving man.”

The man who stood there, holding a large, shallow basket piled high with fruit, was tall, taller even than Gehn, and had a great domed head that seemed to be made of polished ivory. He wore a baggy dark blue one-piece, tied at the waist with a length of similarly colored cord, but the most remarkable thing about him were his eyes; lidless eyes that were like blemished eggs in his otherwise undistinguished face.

Atrus looked to his father, uncertain how to behave, hen, when Gehn gave him no clue, he turned back and, bowing his head slightly, said, “I’m pleased to meet you, Rijus.”

“It is no use trying to engage Rijus in conversation, Atrus. Rijus is a mute. He was born that way and he will die that way. But he understands commands well enough. If you need something, you should simply ask Rijus.”

Atrus hesitated, then gave a little nod.

“Well, boy? What are you waiting for? Are you hungry or not?”

Atrus stood and, conscious of the servant’s unnaturally staring eyes upon him, went over to him. A dozen different kinds of fruit were spread out in the basket—only a few of which he recognized, and then only from the traders’ packs. Tiny beads of moisture speckled their brightly colored surfaces, enhancing their strange but perfect forms.

He looked back at Gehn. “Did you grow these, father?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Atrus turned back, wondering what to choose, almost afraid to touch them, they seemed so perfect. Then, reaching out, he picked one of the long, yellow, oval-shaped fruit, attracted by its strange, five-ribbed form.

It was rotten. It fell apart as he lifted it, revealing its dark brown innards. He looked to his father, surprised.

Gehn gestured to Rijus impatiently. “Take them away.” Then, turning to Atrus, he fixed him with his stare.

“Come, Atrus. I think it is time we began our task. Time you found out why I brought you here to D’ni.”

 

§

 

A twist of steps led up to a broad, high-ceilinged corridor, the end of which opened out onto a balcony directly above the terrace. On the far side of the balcony, set into the rock face, was a massive metal door, the jet black face of which was decorated with the same elaborate patterns Atrus had glimpsed on the Inner Gate. Pausing before it, Gehn reached inside his cloak and took out a large key, fitting it into the lock and turning it twice before removing it.

He stepped back. There was a faint shudder and then the door began to rise, sliding into the rock smoothly and silently, to reveal a dark, wedge-shaped opening. Six steps led down into a spacious room, lit from above by a massive star-shaped lamp. At the very center of the room was a raised dais, surrounded by three steplike ledges. On top of that dais were five large granite pedestals. Atrus turned, looking about him, impressed by what he saw. The walls were covered with massive shelves made of thick slabs of stone, and on those shelves were hundreds, possibly thousands of leather-bound books, similar to those his grandmother had kept back on her shelf in the cleft.

Gehn turned, looking to his son. “This, as you see, is the library. This is where you will come for your lessons every day.” He gestured toward a low stone table in one corner. “That will be your desk. Bu before we commence, I want to show you why I brought you here, and why it is so important that you learn the ways of D’ni.”

Raising his right hand, he beckoned Atrus to him, then, as the young man came alongside him, took his elbow and lead him up the steps and onto the dais.

At the center of the dais, recessed into its bone-white marble floor, was a circular pool surrounded by five marble pedestals.

Gehn stood before him. “Choose a book. Any book on the shelves.”

“What?”

“Choose a book.”

Atrus went across to the shelves, letting his eyes travel across their richly bound spines. There was no writing on any of them. A few had symbols, but none made any sense.

He turned, looking to his father.

“
Choose
a book.”

Atrus took one down, the smell of its light green cover strangely intoxicating, exciting.

Gehn reached out, taking it from him. Opening it, he scanned it quickly, then nodded. Turning the book about, Gehn placed it reverently on the pedestal, watching Atrus all the while.

Atrus stepped closer, looking down at the open pages. The left-hand page was blank, but on the right…

He gasped, amazed by the clarity of the picture in that small, rectangular box. Why, it was like staring through a window!

A strange, rust red conical mound filled the foreground, reminding Atrus of a giant termite’s nest. Behind it was a lush backdrop of vivid, almost emerald green, with a glimpse of a cloudless sky above.

As Atrus watched, the image on the page slowly changed, seeming to tilt to the right, like an eye attempting to follow something just out of vision. The mound slowly disappeared, to be replaced in the foreground by a fast-flowing stream that tumbled between the rocks, then fell spectacularly into a crystal pool. But no sooner had it focused on that, than it lifted again, swinging out and over the surrounding gully, to reveal, beyond it, a valley filled with low, almost bushlike trees, on which could be seen a host of vividly colored fruit. There was a glimpse of a long, clear pool surrounded by grassy slopes and of distant, snowcapped mountains, and then the image returned to the rust red mound.