Atrus stood there, staring at Catherine, stunned by her sudden appearance.

She quickly looked around her, then set the book down on the table. “I followed you,” she said, before he could speak. “Saw where you hid your Linking Book.”

He glanced at the big, blue-covered book where it lay on the table between them, then pointed to it.

“I got it,” she said, “from your father.”

“Got it? How? He doesn’t allow books out of his library.”

She looked directly at him. “I stole it from his study, while he was asleep.”

He stared at her openmouthed. “But why?”

Things were moving far too fast for him. He stood, putting his hands out, as if to fend her off. “Slow down. What were you doing in my father’s study?”

“He takes us there.”

“Who?”

“The Guild. He has us copy things from books. He says it saves him time.”

“The Guild?” He laughed. In his mind he saw again how mad his father was, trying to re-create the D’ni Guilds.

She stepped around the desk and, reaching out, pulled down the edge of the choker she was wearing. Beneath it, burned into the flesh, was his father’s sign.

He met her eyes. “How long ago was this?”

She made a face, as if she hated to recall it. “He placed the mark on me four years ago. I was the fourth to have it. Since then he’s increased our number to ten. We are an elite. The other islanders have to do as we say. Your father insists on it.”

“So why bring me the book?” he asked, laying his hand on the flecked blue cover.

“You can write. I want you to fix our world.”

Atrus stared back at her a moment, then went around the desk and sat, opening the book. It was blank. She had stolen a blank book. He looked up at her. “Why should I do that?”

“Because you must.”

“ Must? Who says I must?”

“Don’t you understand? It’s falling apart. I’m asking for your help.”

Atrus sat back. “Go on.”

“It’s been happening for a while now. There have been small tremors in the earth, and cracks, and schools of dead fish have been floating into the bay. And then the tree…”

He waited, his stomach muscles tensed, remembering what had happened on the Thirty-seventh Age. There, too, it had begun with little things. Instability: there was a fatal instability in all his father’s worlds.

“The great tree is dying,” she said.

“Why didn’t you say this to me earlier?”

“Because I wasn’t sure of you at first.”

“Why?” he laughed.

“Because of your power. The power that your father has. The power to create and destroy worlds.”

“You think I have that power?”

“Haven’t you?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “I can write.”

“Then help us, Atrus.”

He let out a long, sighing breath. What if this were another trap? After all, how likely was it that she had managed to steal books from his father’s study? Then again, he remembered the voice he’d heard that time, when he’d been standing at the bottom of the steps that led up to Gehn’s study. He should have known, even then, that Gehn was bringing people back from his Ages.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll help you.” He paused. “But I need more books. More blank books.”

“Why?”

He studied her momentarily. “There are things I have to try out. Experiments.”

“I have more books on Riven. You’ll need to help me carry them.”

“You’ve…” He laughed. “You mean, you stole more than one?”

“Yes. Your father trusts me. He…”

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing. Just that we’d better be getting back, to pick up he books. The quicker you get to work…”

He shook his head. “Why are you in such a hurry? It can’t be rushed. To fix an Age…”

She leaned closer. “There’re only thirty days.”

Atrus sat back. “I don’t understand. What’s happening in thirty days?”

But Catherine did not answer him. Instead she reached across and, placing her hand over the Age Five image on the page, linked back, leaving Atrus staring at the empty air, openmouthed, his heart pounding in his chest.

 

§

 

He linked back to the grassy plateau beside the pool.

Catherine was waiting for him. Taking his hand, she hurried him through the trees and along the edge of the cliff top opposite the tree. Water lapped softly at the rocks a hundred feet below. Looking at the tree across that narrow gap, Atrus could see little wrong with it. From this distance it seemed the epitome of rude health, a vast symbol of natural fecundity, yet he had no reason to doubt Catherine.

“It would be best if we were not seen,” she said, hurrying him down a narrow path that hugged the cliff, then up a curving twist of wooden steps set into the earth between steep slopes of grass.

He shrugged, then went on with her, up the final few feet of the path and onto a lush stretch of grass that nestled between two spurs of the great tree’s massive trunk.

“Here,” Catherine said, beckoning him across.

He went over to where she stood, then frowned deeply, seeing at once what she meant. Just beside her the bark was deeply split, a huge crack reaching in to breach the medullary ray that carried the tree’s necessary nutrients, and on, deep into the sapwood. The split was large enough for him to walk into.

“You see?” she said softly, her green eyes troubled. “This was his punishment.”

“His punishment ? For what?”

She walked past him, then sat, looking out across the water toward the copse, the whie stone of the temple barely visible among that rich dark green.

“One of the Guild spoke out of turn. He questioned something that Lord Gehn said to him. Your father was angry. I’ve never seen him so angry. He had us… sacrifice the man.”

Atrus went across and crouched, facing her. “What do you mean?”

“We fed him to the sea.”

“I still…”

She put her hand out to stop him. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that he threatened us. All of us. Gave us a warning. ‘Question me again,’ he said, ‘and I shall destroy your world. For just as I made it, I can unmake it! Look to the great tree,’ he said. ‘I shall leave my sign upon it.’ ”

Another fissure, Atrus thought, remembering once more what had happened on the Thirty-seventh Age. Yes, everywhere he goes he leaves his mark, like a signature of his imcompetence. And is that why I’m here? Is that the reason why he imprisoned me with the Age Five book? To clear up after himi? To put right what he has to abjectly failed to make good?

He looked back at Catherine. “And the other Guild members…do they know what you plan to do?”

She shook her head. “They would kill me if they did. They are in fear of your father, Atrus. They tremble before his every word.”

“And yet one of them gainsayed him.”

Catherine looked down, as if ashamed.

“That was your fault?” he said, after a moment. “You… influenced him?”

She looked up, her eyes beseeching him now. “I didn’t mean to. I only thought…” She took a long shuddering breath, then, much quieter, “I thought Lord Gehn might listen to him. I thought your father was a reasonable man.”

“My father? No,” Atrus said matter-of-factly, “my father’s mad.”

He turned and looked, seeing, in the distance beyond the temple mound, another promontory.

“What’s there?” he asked, trying to remember what Gehn had written in the book.

“That’s where the Guild members live. That’s where we have our enclave.”

For some reason the thought of her living alone with nine men disturbed him. “Are they…like you?”

She laughed, then patted the grass beside her. “What do you mean, like me? Young?”

He went to shrug, then nodded.

“No,” she said. “Most of them are old…even older than my father. Gehn seems to like them that way. More docile, I guess. Apart from Eavan.”

“Eavan?”

She nodded, sucking in her lips a moment. “My friend. He was the one Gehn sacrificed.”

Atrus looked past her a moment, his eyes drawn to the dark shape of the split in that massive trnk. “Did you love him?”

“ Love? ” The word came out surprised, but after a moment she nodded. “He was like a brother to me. As dear to me as Carel and Erlar. When the other Guild members took him…”

“I’m sorry,” he said when she didn’t go on. “I feel…responsible somehow.”

“You shouldn’t,” she said, looking sharply at him. “After all, he’s not been particularly kind to you, has he? What kind of father imprisons his son?”

He stared at you. “How is it you know so much?”

She looked away, then: “Because your father tells me. Oh…some things he doesn’t even realize he’s telling me. He likes to talk to himself, and sometimes he forgets. Sometimes I’m in his study, copying, and…”

“Hold a moment,” Atrus said. “Tell me…why does he do that?”

She blinked again. “It’s as I said. It speeds up his work.”

“Yes, but…what does he want? ”

His eyes held hers a moment, begging an answer, his head following hers when she tried to avoid his gaze. She smiled.

“I guess,” she began, sitting up a sittle and turning herself to face him square-on, “I guess he wants to teach us how to write.”

“Is that what he told you?”

She nodded.

“But that’s impossible. No one but D’ni can write. It simply doesn’t work for anyone else.”

She was staring at him curiously now. “You’re sure of that?”

He nodded. “It was the first thing he ever taught me about the Art. And the books—the Histories— confirm it. Time and again they stress the fact.”

Strangely, Catherine seemed relieved.

“What is it now?” he asked, puzzled by her reaction.

“I just thought…well, in my book…”

“Your book? ”

She stared at him a long moment, then nodded.

“Would you like to see it?”

He shrugged. “Okay…”

“Then come,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him up after her. “I’ll show you.”

 

§

 

Katran had always been somewhat uncomfortable with the idea that she could make a book. Somehow the whole notion, which at first had fascinated and intrigued her, now horrified her, for if she could conjure up her dreams from ink and paper, what did that make her? A mere figment. Just another conjuration of the Lord Gehn’s fitful imagination!

She turned, looking across the shadowed hut to where Gehn’s son, Atrus, sat cross-legged on the narrow bed, reading her book.

So different from his father, so…

So true.

Her eyes went to the young man again, finding it strange the way his presence so disturbed her. It was just…

Atrus looked up from the book and met her eyes, and she instantly knew what it was. It was his kindness. His simple, natural kindness.

“This is quite beautiful,” he said. “I’ve never read anything like it. It’s like…well, it’s like nightfall over the desert or…like the cleft when it was filled with stars.”

She went across and sat beside him.

“The writing…well, as I said, the writing’s wonderful. It’s poetic. But in practical terms…it’s riddled with contradictions, I’m afraid. It breaks almost every single law of D’ni writing. It has no structure, no architecture . And some of these symbols…I’ve never seen them before. I’m not even sure they mean anything. Where did you learn them? Gehn never taught these to me.”

Catherine shrugged.

“For such a place to exist…” Atrus sighed, then, closing the book, handed it back to her. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t work, but it does paint wonderful pictures in my mind.”

She smoothed her fingers over the pale lemon cover. The green and light blue flecks in it had always reminded her of grass and water, the predominant yellow of the sun. Fecund, it was, like the world surrounding her, but inside…

“That’s good,” she said. “It must be like a dream.”

He stared at her, not understanding.

“When I go there…”

He shook his head. “But you can’t…”

“It was just like my dreams,” she said, turning to face him again.

“No,” he said forcefull, taking the book back from her. “It simply wouldn’t work. Writing isn’t like that. It’s a science. A precisely structured equation of words.”

She leaned across him, then opened the book, pointing to the descriptive image on the right-hand page. It was dark, so intensely dark that he had thought it blank. But there was something there.

He looked to her.

“I want you to see it.”

“It’s…” he said, softer now, the word almost a whisper. Yet even as he said it, she leaned across him and placed his hand upon the image, smiling at him, her smile dissolving in the air as he linked.

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