The Myst Reader (65 page)

“Forgive my son, Aitrus. He does not understand how things are. I shall speak with him at once. In the meantime, I apologize for him. And I am sure, in time, he will come and apologize in person.”

Aitrus gave the tiniest nod of his head. “Thank you, Lord Rakeri, but that will not be necessary. Things are bad enough between us. Your apology is quite enough.”

Rakeri smiled and gently nodded. “You are wise as well as kind, Aitrus. Yes, and I regret that my son has lost so good a friend. And no blame to you for that. My son is stubborn, just as his grandfather was.”

There was a moment’s awkward silence, then the old man nodded once again. “Well, Aitrus, I shall leave you once again. Do what you must. We have nothing here to hide.”

Aitrus bowed his head. “My Lord…”

 

 

§

 

 

A month passed with no word or sign of the two missing guildsmen. Slowly the great sweep of the sixty Ages came to a close. Two days after the departure of Aitrus and the Maintainer team from K’veer, Veovis sat on the veranda at the top of the island, reading his father’s copy of the report.

Turning the final page, he read the concluding remarks, then set the report down on the low table at his side and sat back, staring thoughtfully into the distance.

Suahrnir, seated just across from him, studied his friend a moment, then, “Well? What does our
friend
Aitrus say?”

Veovis was silent a moment, then he turned his head and looked at Suahrnir. “He was most thorough. But also fair. Scrupulously so. I may have misjudged him”

“You think so?” Suahrnir laughed. “Personally I think he feels nothing but animosity toward you, Veovis.”

“Maybe so, but there is nothing in the report.”

“In the official report, maybe…”

Veovis narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that what is written down for all to see is not always what is said…in private. What if Master Aitrus gave another, separate report to the Five?”

“Then my father would have heard of such, and he, in turn, would have told me.”

“Or to Lord R’hira alone?”

Veovis looked down, then shook his head. “No,” he said, but the word lacked certainty.

“What if he found something?”

“Found?
What could he find?”

“Oh, I don’t mean found as in really found. Yet he might
say
he found something.”

“And the Maintainers?”

Suahrnir gave an ironic smile. “They could be fooled easily enough. They were, after all, but
apprentice
guildsmen.”

The thought of it clearly disturbed Veovis nonetheless he shook his head once more. “Aitrus does not like me, but that does not make him a cheat, not a slanderer.”

“Who knows what makes a man do certain things? You hurt him badly when you opposed his marriage to the outsider. It is not the kind of thing a man forgets easily. And it is a more than adequate motive to wish to seek revenge.”

Veovis looked down, his whole expression dark and brooding. Finally, he raised his head again. “No, I cannot believe it of him.”

Suahrnir leaned forward, speaking conspiratorially now. “Maybe not. But there is a way we could be certain.”

“Certain? How?”

“I have a friend. He hears things…from servants and the like. If something secretive is going on,
he
will have heard of it.”

“This friend of yours…who is he?”

Suahrnir smiled and sat back. “You know his name.”

“A’Gaeris!” Veovis laughed dismissively, then shook his head. “You ask me to take
his
word?”

“You do not have to believe anything he says,” Suahrnir answered. ‘But what harm will it do to listen? You might learn something to your benefit.”

“And what does
he
want out of this?”

Suahrnir looked surprised at the suggestion. “Why, nothing. Nothing at all. The man owes me a favor. Besides, I think you will enjoy meeting him. Yes, and he you. You are both strong, intelligent men. I would enjoy watching you lock horns.”

Veovis stared at his friend, then, with a grudging shrug of his shoulders, he said, “All right. Arrange a meeting. But no word of this must get out. If anyone should witness our meeting…”

Suahrnir smiled, then stood, giving a little bow to his friend. “Don’t worry, Veovis. I know the very place.”

 

 

§

 

 

It was D’ni night. Not the night of moon and stars you would find up on the surface, but a night of intense, almost stygian shadow. The lake was dark, the organisms in the water inactive, their inner clocks set to a thirty-hour biological cycle established long ago and in another place, far from earth.

On the roof garden of Kahlis’s mansion, Anna stood alone, leaning on the parapet, looking out over the upper city. Earlier in the evening it had been a blaze of light; now only scattered lamps marked out the lines of streets. Then it had seemed like a great pearled shell, clinging to the dark wall of the cavern; now it looked more like a ragged web, strung across one corner of a giant’s larder.

Out on the lake itself the distant wink of lights revealed the whereabouts of islands. Somewhere out there, on one of those islands, was Aitrus. Or, at least, he would have been, were he in D’ni at all.

Anna sighed, missing him intensely, then turned, hearing the child’s cries start up again in the nursery below where she stood. For a moment she closed her eyes, tempted to leave things to the nurse, then, steeling herself against the sound, she went across and, bending down, lifted the wooden hatch that was set into the floor. Slipping inside, she went down the narrow stairs and out into the corridor that ran the length of the top of the house.

At once the sound of the crying grew much louder; a persistent, whining cry that never seemed to end; or if it did, it ended but briefly, only to intensify.

Stepping into the room, Anna saw that the nurse had been joined by her male colleague, Master Jura of the Guild of Healers. The ancient looked up from the desk in the corner where he had been writing and frowned at Anna, as if she and not the baby were the cause of the problem.

Ignoring him, Anna walked over to the cot and looked down at her son. Gehn lay on his back, his tiny red face screwed up tight as he bawled and bawled, his mouth a jagged black O in the midst of that redness, his arms and legs kicking in a continuous mechanical movement of distress. The sight of it distressed her. It made her want to pick him up and cuddle him, but that would solve nothing; the crying would go on whatever she did.

“Well…” the Healer said after a moment, consulting his notes, “I would say that the matter is a simple one.”

Anna saw how he looked at her, his manner cold and unsympathetic, and felt her stomach tighten.

“The child’s problems stem from its stomach,” the Healer continued. “He cries because he is not receiving adequate sustenance, and because he is in pain.”

“In pain?”

The healer nodded, then looked to his notes again. “If the child were D’ni it would be fairly easy to prescribe something for his condition, but as it is…”

“Forgive me,” Anna interrupted, “but what difference does that make?”

Master Jura blinked, surprised. When he spoke again, there was a note of impatience in his voice. “Is it not self-evident? The child is unnatural. A hybrid. He is neither D’ni nor human, but some curious mixture of the two, and therein lie his problems. Why, it is astonishing that he is even viable!”

Anna felt the shock of what he had said wash through her. How dare he talk of her son as if he were some strange experiment! She looked down at the bawling child, then back at the old Healer.

“Have you
tested
him, Master Jura?”

The old man laughed dismissively. “I do not have to test him. As I said, it is self-evident. One cannot mix human and D’ni blood. To be perfectly honest with you, the child would be better off dead.”

Anna stared at him, her anger rising. Then, with a calmness she did not feel, she spoke.

“Get out.”

The old man had gone back to his notes. At her words, he looked up, glancing first at the nurse, to see if it were she whom Anna had addressed, and then at Anna herself.

“Yes,” Anna said, her face hard now. “
You
, old man. You heard me. Get out before I throw you out!”

“Why, I…”

“Get
out!
” she shouted, focusing her anger on the man. “How dare you come into my house and tell me that my son would be better off dead! How
dare
you!”

Master Jura bristled, then, closing up his notes, he slipped them into his case and stood.

“I will not stay where I am not wanted.”

“Good,” Anna said, wanting to strike the man for his impertinence. “And you,” she said, turning on the nurse. “Pack your things and go. I have no further use for you.”

 

 

§

 

 

It was a quiet first-floor room in a house in the J’taeri District, overlooking the harbor. As the door closed, Veovis looked about him. It was a staid, respectable room, three large chairs resting against one wall, a large, dark-wood dresser against another. On the third, either side of the huge picture window, were two portraits. He walked across and studied them a moment. Both of the women looked stern and matronly, their clothing dark and austere—the dour uniform of respectable D’ni women for four thousand years and more.

He shook his head, then turned. The city bell was sounding the fourth hour of the afternoon. All was peaceful.

Would A’Gaeris come? And if he did, what would the old fraud have to say?

He could remember how angry A’Gaeris had been, the day of his expulsion—could remember vividly how he had glared at the Grand Master before throwing down his guild cloak and storming from the Hall.

Veovis had been but a student that day, not even a guildsman, let alone a Master. And now here he was, almost fifty years on.

The door behind him creaked open. Veovis turned, to find Suahrnir standing there.

“Has he come?”

Suahrnir nodded, then stood back as A’Gaeris entered the room. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, but stout in girth and balding, his gray hair swept back from his pate and worn unfashionably long. He wore a simple black tunic and long baggy pants of a similar black cloth. But it was his eyes that drew attention. Fierce eyes that stared intently, almost insolently back at Veovis.

“My Lord,” A’Gaeris said, the slightest sneer in the greeting.

“Philosopher,” Veovis replied, matching his tone perfectly.

A’Gaeris smiled. “I was not wrong, then.”

“Wrong?”

“I said you had fire in you. And I was right.”

Veovis smiled sardonically. “That would be praise if from another’s lips.”

“But not from mine?”

“I do not know you, except by reputation.”

“You have read my writings, then?”

“Not a word.”

A’Gaeris barely batted an eyelid at the news. “Then that is a joy to come.”

“And modest, too?”

“Need I be?”

Veovis smiled, warming to the man. “You are sharp, A’Gaeris, I’ll give you that.”

“Sharp enough to cut yourself on, I warrant. So why are you here?”

“To be honest, I am not sure. I was persuaded that you might help me.”

“Help you?” A’Gaeris laughed, then walked to the window and stared out. “But you are a Lord of D’ni. How can I, a mere common man, help
you?
”

But there was a teasing glint in the Philosopher’s eyes that intrigued Veovis.

“I do not know.”

“No.” A’Gaeris looked back at him and smiled. “But maybe I do.”

“Go on.”

“I hear things.”

“So Suahrnir told me. But are they things worth hearing?”

A’Gaeris shrugged. “What would you know?”

“Something to my benefit?”

“And your foes’ disadvantage?”

“Perhaps.”

The Philosopher smiled. “We share one important thing, Lord Veovis. A love of D’ni, and a belief in the purity of D’ni blood.”

“What do you mean?”

“I speak of your once-friend Aitrus and his ill-chosen wife.”

Veovis narrowed his eyes. “What of them?”

“Only last night, it seems, the outsider woman sent Master Jura of the Healers away with his tail between his legs. And the child’s nurse.”

Veovis looked to Suahrnir again. This was news indeed if it were true.

“Do you know why?”

A’Gaeris grinned broadly. “It seems Master Jura suggested that it might save time and trouble were the half-breed to be peacefully done away with.”

Veovis stared back at him a moment, astonished. “And what did Master Aitrus say of this?”

“What could he say? He is away. But he will know soon enough when he is back.”

“It is a shame.”

“Indeed,” A’Gaeris agreed. “Such a union should never have been allowed.”

“I did all I could to prevent it.”

“I know.” The Philosopher was looking at him now with sympathy and understanding.

Veovis looked down. “It seems you know what I want, Philosopher. But what of you? What do you want?”

“To be your friend.”

Veovis looked up, smiling, expecting some sardonic look upon A’Gaeris face, but those eyes were serious and solemn.

“I have missed the company of my peers,” A’Gaeris said. “It is all very well preaching to the rabble, but it changes nothing. My life ended when the guild threw me out.”

“They had good reason…”

“They had none!”

The sharpness of the rejoinder surprised Veovis.

“I was falsely accused,” A’Gaeris went on. “There was no missing book. Or if there was, it was not I who took it.”