Crouching beside his mother’s grave, Atrus leaned across and, careful not to disturb the earth, plucked one of the delicate blue flowers. Placing it in the journal he had open on his knee. He closed the book gently, then slipped it into the small leather knapsack at his side.
For a moment he simply stared, taking in the sight. In the half-light he could not discern their proper color, yet he had only to close his eyes and he could see the flowers in the sunlight, like a quilt of lilac lain on that bed of rich, dark earth.
Goodbye , she said silently.
To be truthful, Atrus did not really know what to feel. “Excitement? Certainly, the prospect of traveling—of seeing D’ni—thrilled him, yet the thought of leaving here, of leaving Anna, frightened him. Too much had happened far too quickly. He felt torn.
“Atrus! Come now. We must go.”
He turned, looking across at the figure silhouetted against the dawn light at the far end of the cleftwall, and nodded.
Anna was waiting for him close by. Embracing her, he felt a kind of panic, a fear of not seeing her again, well up in him. She must have sensed it, for, squeezing him tightly, she then moved back, away from him, holding his upper arms and smiling at him.
“Don’t worry now,” she said softly. “I’ll be all right. The store’s full and what with all those improvements you’ve made for me, I’ll not know what to do with myself half the time.”
Her kind face lit with a smile. “Besides, your father has promised me he’ll bring you back three months from now to visit.”
“Three months?” The news cheered him immensely.
“Yes, so you must not worry.”
She reached down, then handed him his pack. He had watched her earlier, selecting various items from their meager store and placing them into the pack for his journey, including all of the tiny cakes she had cooked only the previous day. Atrus stared at the pack, his fingers brushing lightly against its brightly embroidered cloth, moved by the simple care she took over everything, knowing he would miss that.
“Now listen to me, Atrus.”
Atrus looked up, surprised by how serious her voice suddenly was. “Yes, grandmother?”
Her dark, intelligent eyes searched his. “You must remember what you have learned here, Atrus. I have tried to teach you the mechanics of the earth and stars; the ways of science and the workings of nature. I have tried to teach you what is good and what is to be valued, truths which cannot be shaken or changed. This knowledge is from the Maker. Take it with you and weigh everything your father teaches you against it.”
Anna paused, then leaned in toward him slightly, lowering her voice. “I no longer know him, but I know you, Atrus. Measure your own deeds against the truths I have taught you. If you act for self-gain then no good can come of it. If you act selflessly, then you act well for all and you must not be afraid.”
Anna moved back, smiling once more. “The journey down will be long and hard but I want you to be brave, Atrus. More than that, I want you to be truthful. To be a better son to your father than fate allowed him to be with his.”
“I don’t understand…” he began, but she shook her head, as if it didn’t matter.
“Do what your father asks. But most of all, Atrus, do not violate what is in your nature. You understand me?”
“I think so, grandmother.”
“Then I have no fears for you.”
He embraced her again, gripping her tightly and kissing her neck. Then, turning from her, he climbed the steps and crossed the rope bridge.
At the cleftwall he turned, looking back at her, his eyes briefly taking in the familiar sights of the cleft, its shape like a scar in his memory. Anna had climbed the steps and now stood on the narrow balcony outside her room. Lifting an arm, she waved.
“Take care on your journey down. I’ll see you in three months.”
Atrus waved back, then, heaving a deep sigh, turned and jumped down from the wall, following his father up the slope of the volcano.
§
They were in the tunnel.
“Father?”
Gehn turned and, holding the lantern high, looked back down the tunnel at Atrus. “What is it, boy?”
Atrus lifted his own lamp and pointed at the D’ni symbol carved into the wall; the symbol he had seen that morning after the experiment. “This sign, father. What does it mean?”
Gehn motioned to him impatiently. “Come on now, Atrus. Catch up. We’ve wasted enough time as it is. There will be occasion for such things later.”
Atrus stared at the intricate symbol a moment longer, then, hiding his disappointment, turned away, hurrying to catch up with his father.
“We need to make up time,” Gehn said, as Atrus came alongside. “The journey is a long one and I have several experiments in progress. I must be back in time to see how they have developed.”
“Experiments?” Atrus asked, excited by the sound of it. “What kind of experiments?”
“Important ones,” Gehn answered, as if that were sufficient to satisfy his son’s curiosity. “Now hurry. There will be time to talk when we reach the first of the eder tomahn.”
Atrus looked up at his father. “Eder tomahn?”
Gehn glanced at his son as he strode on. “The eder tomahn are way stations. Rest houses, you might term them. In the days of the late empire there were plans to have commerce with the world of men. Such plans, fortunately, did not come to pass, yet the paths were forged through the earth and rest houses prepared for those D’ni messengers who would venture out.”
Atrus looked back at his father, astonished. “And this tunnel? Is this D’ni?”
Gehn shook his head. “No. This is simply a lava tube. Thousands of years ago, when the volcano was still active, hot lava ran through this channel, carving a passage to the surface.”
Again Atrus felt a surge of disappointment. The walls of the tunnel had been so smooth, its shape so perfectly round, he had been sure it must have been the product of D’ni construction.
“Yes,” Gehn continued, “but you will see things before our journey’s done that will make you forget this tiny wormhole. Now, come over to the left, Atrus, and get behind me. The tunnel slopes steeply just ahead.”
Atrus did as he was told, keeping close behind his father, careful not to slip, his left hand keeping his balance against the curved wall of the lava tube, his sandaled feet gripping the hard, dry floor. All went well until, by chance, he turned and looked back up the tunnel. Then, with a sudden rush of understanding, he realized where he was. The darkness behind him seemed suddenly oppressive. Who knew what waited back there beyond the lantern’s glow?
He turned back, realizing just how dependent on his father he was. If he were to lose himself down here…
Ahead of him Gehn had stopped. “Slowly now,” he said, looking back at Atrus. “It ends just here. Now we go down The Well.”
Atrus blinked, seeing how the tunnel ended in a perfect circle up ahead. Beyond it was simple blackness. He went out and stood beside his father on the narrow, crescent-shaped ledge, overwhelmed by the sight that met his eyes.
In front of them lay a giant oval of blackness—a chasm so huge it seemed you could drop a whole volcano into it.
The Well.
Gehn raised his lamp, letting its light glint wetly off the far wall of the great shaft, revealing the massive striations of the rock, then pointed to his left.
“Just there. See, Atrus? See the steps?”
Atrus saw them, cut like the thread of a screw into the uneven sides of the great hole, but the thought of using them, of descending that vast shaft by their means, frightened him.
Gehn looked to him. “Would you like to go first, Atrus, or shall I?”
Atrus swallowed, then spoke, keeping the fear from his voice. “You’d better. You know the way.”
“Yes,” Gehn said, giving his son a knowing smile. “I do, don’t I?”
For the first hundred steps or so, the steps passed through a narrow tunnel cut into the edge of the chasm with only a thin gap low down by the floor to the right, but then, suddenly, the right-hand wall seemed to melt away and Atrus found himself out in the open, staring down into that massive well of darkness. Startled by the sight, he stumbled and his right sandal came away, toppled over the edge and into the darkness.
He stood there a moment, gasping, his back against the wall, trying to regain his nerve. But suddenly he found himself obsessed with he idea of falling into that darkness; and not just falling, but deliberately throwing himself. The urge was so strange and overpowering it made the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end.
Below him, almost directly opposite him across the great shaft, Gehn continued his descent, unaware, it seemed, of the immense danger, stepping lightly, almost effortlessly, down the spiral, his lamplight casting flickering shadows on the groined and striated rock, before he vanished inside another of the narrow tunnels.
I must go on , Atrus told himself, freeing his left foot from the sandal; yet the fear he felt froze his muscles. It was like a dream, an evil dream. Even so, he forced himself to move, taking first one step and then another, each step an effort of sheer will.
If I fall I die. If I fall…
His father’s voice echoed across that vast open space. “Atrus?”
He stopped, his shoulder pressed against the wall, and closed his eyes. “Y…yes, father?”
“Do you want me to come back to you? Would you like me o hold your hand, perhaps?”
He wanted to say yes, but something in Gehn’s voice, the faintest tone of criticism, stopped him. He opened his eyes again and, steeling himself, answered. “No…I’ll be all right.”
“Good. But not so slow, eh? We cannot spend too much time here. Not if I am to be back in time.”
Controlling his fear, Atrus began to descend once more.
Imagine you’re inside a tree, he told himself. Imagine it.
And suddenly he could see it vividly, as if it were an illustration in one of his grandmother’s books. He could picture it in the brilliant sunlight, its branches stretching from horizon to horizon, a tiny crescent moon snagged among its massive leaves. Why, even the blades of grass about its trunk were several times the height of a man!
Halfway down, there was a depression in the side of the shaft—a kind of cave. Whether it was natural or D’ni made, Atrus couldn’t tell, but Gehn was waiting for him there, sitting on a carved stone ledge, calmly smoking his pipe.
“Are you all right, Atrus?” he asked casually.
“I’m fine now,” Atrus answered genuinely. “There was a moment…”
He fell silent, seeing that his father wasn’t listening. Gehn had taken out a tiny notebook with a tanned leather cover and was studying it as he smoked. Atrus glimpsed a diagram of paths and tunnels.
With a tiny grunt, Gehn closed the book and pocketed it again, then looked up at Atrus.
“You go ahead. I’ll finish my pipe, then catch up with you.”
§
It was several hours hard walking through a labyrinth of twisting tunnels before they finally came to the eder tomahn. The D’ni way station was built into a recess of a large cave, its black, perfectly finished marble in stark contrast to the cave’s natural limestone. Atrus walked over to it and, holding up the lantern, ran his fingers across the satin-smooth surface, marveling at the lack of evident joints between the blocks, the way his own image was reflected back to him in the stone. It was as though the stone had been baked like melted tar, then set and polished like a mirror.
Real , Atrus thought, amazed by it.
Gehn meanwhile had walked across to face the door, which was deeply recessed into the stone. Reaching into the neck of his tunic, he drew out a magnificent golden chain which, until that moment, had been hidden from sight. On the end of it was a bevel-edged key, a thick, black thing streaked with red. Placing this to one of the matching shapes recessed into the door, Gehn pushed until it clicked. There was a moment’s silence, then a strange clunk-clunk-clunk and the sound of a metal grating sliding back.
He removed the key and stepped back. As he did, the door slid into the stone, revealing a dimly lit interior.
Gehn stepped inside. Atrus, following, stopped just inside the room, surprised at how big it was. There were low, utility bunks to either side of the dormitory-sized room and a door at the end led through to what Atrus assumed was either a kitchen or a washroom of some kind. He looked to his father.
“Why are we stopping?”
To his surprise, Gehn yawned. “Because the hour is late,” he answered. “And because I am tired.”
“But I thought…”
Gehn raised his hand, as if to stop any further argument. Then, turning, he gestured toward a large knapsack that rested on the bunk in the right-hand corner.
“That is yours,” Gehn said unceremoniously. “You can change now or later, it is entirely up to you.”
Atrus went across and, unfastening the leather buckle, looked inside. Frowning, he tipped the bag up, spilling its contents onto the mattress.
Standing back, he gave a little laugh, surprised, then turned, looking to Gehn, who was sitting on the edge of one of the facing bunks, pulling off his boots.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll change later, if that’s all right.”
Gehn grunted. “Do as you will, lad. But I would not sleep in the boots if I were you. I don’t know if hey fit. I had to guess at the size.”
Atrus turned back, gently brushing one of the boots with his fingertips, hen lifted it, cradling it, sniffing in its rich, deep smell. It was strangely beautiful. Studying it, he could see that it had never been worn before.
Beside the knee-length boots, there was a cloak—a small version of his father’s, a black shirt with a strange book symbol on it, a skull-shaped hat made of some kind of metal that seemed soft unless you really pressed it hard, and a small leather-and-metal pouch.
Atrus squatted on the edge of the bed to examine this last, untying the drawstring and peering inside. For a moment he didn’t understand, then with a gasp of delight, he poured a number of the tiny objects out into his palm.
Fire-marbles! It was a whole pouch of fire-marbles! Why, there must have been fifty, sixty of them!
He looked to his father, meaning to thank him again, but Gehn was sprawled out on his back, fast asleep.
Going across, Atrus stood there a moment, staring down at his father. In sleep he could see the similarities to Anna, in the shape of Gehn’s chin and mouth particularly. Both had striking, noble faces. Both had that same mixture of strength and delicacy in their features. Yes, now that he had the chance to really look, he could see that it was only the pallor of Gehn’s skin, the ash whiteness of his hair that made him seem so different. That and the dignified austerity of his manner.
Noticing that Gehn had removed only one of his boots, Atrus gently eased the other boot off and set the two side by side at the head of the bunk. Then, taking the cover from the adjacent bunk, he spread it out over his father.
He was about to move away, when something drew his attention. Reaching down, he picked up the pipe from where it had fallen. For a moment he held it up, studying the engravings that covered the silver bands about the stock, astonished by the detail of the work. Curious, he placed the spout beneath his nose and sniffed. It had a strange, sweet scent; the same as that he had noticed on his father’s breath.
With a sigh, Atrus placed the pipe beside the boots, then went back across, sitting there a while, his fingers idly sorting the fire-marbles, noting the variations of color and size. Then, putting them away, he set the pouch down on the floor beside the bunk and stretched out, his hands behind his head. He was asleep in an instant.
§
He woke to find Gehn shaking him.
“Come on, lad. We have a long journey ahead of us today. Get changed and we shall be off.”
Atrus sat up slowly, wondering where he was, surprised not to find himself on the ledge in his own room, his mattress beneath him, the smell of his grandmother’s cooking in the air.
Knuckling his eyes, he put his feet round onto the floor, struck at once by how cold it was, how damp the air.
Feeling sluggish and despondent Atrus stood, beginning to dress, the texture and smell of the new clothes—their smooth softness after the roughness of his own garments—making him feel strange. Pulling on the boots, he felt extremely odd, transformed almost, as if the change went deeper than the surface of appearance.
Atrus looked about him, as if at any moment he might wake, but he could not delude himself: he was awake, and he was traveling with his father, down into the depths of the earth.
That thought now thrilled him. He looked to Gehn. “Will we reach D’ni today, father?”
“No. Not today.”
Disappointed, Atrus turned back, beginning to pack away his surface clothes, but Gehn, seeing what he was doing, came across and pulled them from the pack, throwing them to the floor. “You will not need those rags now, Atrus. You are D’ni now. You shall wear only D’ni clothes henceforth.”
Atrus stared at the discarded clothes, reluctant to part with them. They were a link to the past, to Anna and the cleft. To leave them here seemed… impossible .
“Well, boy? What are you waiting for?”
Atrus looked up, stung by the sharpness in his father’s voice, then, remembering his promise to Anna, bowed his head obediently. Slipping his own bag into the knapsack, he packed the pouch of fire-marbles and the strange protective hat.
“Good,” Gehn said, nodding decisively as he heaved his knapsack up onto his shoulders. “We shall eat as we go along.”
Atrus blinked, wondering just what his father had in mind, but it was clear Gehn was in no mood for explanations. Buckling his own knapsack, Atrus threw it over his shoulder, then followed his father out.
§
They went down through an ant’s nest of damp, narrow tunnels that, from time to time, would open out into small caverns before running on into the rock.
At the bottom of a particularly steep and narrow tunnel, they emerged into the largest cavern they had yet encountered. The ceiling was forty, maybe fifty feet above them, while the light from their lanterns revealed only the nearer end of the tunnel, the far end being obscured in darkness. Ahead and to their left a long pool hugged the rock, while to the right the way was made difficult by a jumbled slope of small boulders.
Stopping, Gehn removed his pack and took out what looked to Atrus like some sort of pot or caddy. Setting it down, he then took out his hat and, turning to Atrus, gestured that he should do the same.
“The way gets difficult from here,” he said. “You’ll be grateful for those boots before long.”
But Atrus wasn’t so sure. The boots might look beautiful and smell wonderful, but already both of his heels and the outside of the big toe on his right foot were beginning to rub uncomfortably.
Taking his knapsack off, he found the D’ni helmet and strapped it on, then looked to his father. Gehn shrugged on his pack, then, reaching down, picked up the “pot.”
“Come on,” he said, turning to smile Atrus. “I think you might like this next part.”
Atrus nodded, then reached down to retrive his pack. As he did, the whole of the cave in front of him lit up as if a breach had suddenly been made in the roof and the sunlight had rushed in. He looked up, startled, seeing at once that the brilliant light emanated from the “pot,” a broad and powerful beam spreading to fill the far end of the cavern, revealing a sight so amazing that Atrus blinked and rubbed the backs of his hands over his eyes.
It was like a waterfall of crystal, cascading from the ceiling to the floor, its melted, flowing forms unlike anything Atrus had ever seen.
“What is it?” Atrus asked, a note of pure awe in his voice as he followed his father up onto that great pile of rocks, his eyes drawn constantly to the glistening, crystalline curtain.
“It’s called dripstone,” Gehn answered matter-of-factly, moving the beam of the torch across the frozen face of it. “It’s formed by mineral deposits in the water leaking through the roof of the cavern, building up over thousands upon thousands of years. Such deposits take many forms—flowstone and dripstone, stalactites and stalagmites, shelfstone and helictites. Some are as delicate as lace, others as brutal as the rock itself.” Gehn laughed. “Never fear, Atrus. You will see many such wonders in the next few hours.”
As they came close, Atrus stopped, staring openmouthed at the sight. He would never have guessed, never in a thousand years—but Gehn was already moving on, down the slope toward the entrance to another tunnel. Taking one last look, Atrus turned, then clambered down the rock, hurrying to catch up.
§
Gehn had not been wrong. In the hours that followed Atrus saw a dozen such splendors—caves filled with long, delicate columns no thicker than his arm, jutting like an inverted crystal forest from the ceiling, or huge but delicately ridged candles, endless fringes of tiny, frozen fingers dripping from them, melting into the fluid rock. At the same time, however, his boots began to chafe him badly. Discomfort became soreness, which in turn became pain, such that, after a while, Atrus could not take a single step without wincing.
When, finally, they stopped, in a long, low cave that was edged with shallow pools, the first thing he did was to remove one of his boots.
Gehn came across and knelt beside him. “Show me.”
Gingerly, he let Gehn take his foot by the ankle and study it. The skin had rubbed away in three separate places. Blood streaked his heel and between his toes.
Gehn looked up at him soberly, as if to judge his reaction. “I have some ointment in my pack. It ought to alleviate your discomfort.”
Atrus quickly applied the cream and bandaged his feet, then pulled on his boots again.
“Good,” Gehn said, pleased with him. “Then let us proceed. The path begins just ahead of us.”
Atrus stood slowly, flexing his toes within the bandages. “The path?”
“Into D’ni,” Gehn said, slipping his pack back on.
The words raised Atrus’s spirits, making him momentarily forget his injuries.
D’ni! he thought, his mind filled with a dozen colorful images from the tales his grandmother had told him over the years. D’ni!
§
Atrus stared up at the elaborately decorated stone and metal arch that framed the entrance to the tunnel, then turned, looking to his father.
“Are we there?”
“No,” Gehn answered, “but this is where the path begins.”
Immediately beneath the great arch, the tunnel floor was smoothly paved, the floor covered in an intricate, abstract swirl of variously colored stones and metals that seemed to merge and melt and never repeat itself. The path ran arrow-straight into the tunnel, neither rising nor falling, in a manner that suggested it had been cut by the D’ni, not bored by natural forces.
Following Gehn, Atrus stepped beneath the arch, their booted feet clicking on the marbled floor, the sound echoed back and forth along the tunnel. He was limping now, trying not to put too much weight on his right foot, but he was determined not to complain.
When will we be there? he wanted to ask, bursting with the excitement he felt at the thought of finally seeing D’ni, but he could see how Gehn was lost in his thoughts and was loath to disturb him.
Partway down the tunnel the air seemed to change, to grow warmer, stuffier, and suddenly there was an old, familiar smell in his nostrils. Sulfur! It was the sharp, eye stinging tang of sulfur.
Gehn turned and gestured to him. “You had best put your lenses on, lad.”
Atrus did as he was told; then, feeling in his tunic pocket, he pulled out the one item of his clothing he had managed to save, the mask Anna had made for him, and tied it about his nose and mouth. Then, wincing, he hobbled after his father.
Slowly the tunnel grew brighter, warmer, the air stuffier. The tunnel ended abruptly in a sheer drop. Ahead the D’ni path ran on, smoothly, uninterrupted it seemed, on giant pillars of stone. Below it, no more than eighty feet beneath where Atrus stood, was a bubbling lake of lava, black at the edges, a fiery golden yellow at the center.
The heat was intense, the fumes almost suffocating. Gehn, he noted, now wore a mask about his mouth and nose, and for a moment he wondered what his father had meant to do, whether he’d meant him to venture out across that lake without any form of protection.
The thought disturbed him.
Gehn turned, beckoning him on. “Walk quickly,” he said, “and don’t pause for a moment. Things are much cooler on the other side.”
Atrus hesitated, then followed his father out onto the bridge, the heat from the path immediately evident, even through the thick soles of his boots. Ten paces on and he was half-running, trying to keep his feet off the stingingly hot paving.
Ahead, he now realized, the bridge, which he’d thought continuous, was breached. A single span had collapsed, leaving a jagged gap, over which a narrow beam of D’ni stone had been laid.
He watched his father cross this narrow causeway effortlessly, without breaking stride, yet when he came to it Atrus found himself unable to go on.
Just below him the red hot surface seemed to slowly undulate, like some living thing, a great bubble of superheated air emerging every now and then to break the surface with a giant “glop,” the air filled suddenly with steam and he stinging scent of sulfur.
Atrus was coughing now. His feet seemed to be burning and his chest felt fit to burst. If he did not cross the beam soon he would collapse.
“Come on!” Gehn urged him from the other side. “Don’t stop, boy! Get going again. You’re almost there!”
His head was swimming now and he felt that any moment he would fall. And if he fell…
He took three paces out onto the beam, feeling its intense heat through the thick leather of his boots.
“Come on!” his father urged, but he could not move. It was as if he, too, had been turned to stone.
“Come on!”
The beam lurched under him and for a moment he thought he was going to fall, but some instinct took hold of him. As the narrow beam tilted, he jumped, his feet thudding against the stone on the other side.
His vision blurred. He couldn’t breathe. Staggering, he took a step backward…
6