RIVERS OF FIRE. EVEN THE ROCKS BURN
AN ISLAND RISES FROM THE SEA.
DARK MAGIC IN AN ERRANT PHRASE.
THE PEOPLE BOW TO THE LORD OF ERROR.
--FROM THE EJEMAH TERAM
BOOK SEVEN. VV.328-31
Seabirds wheeled and called in the air above the bay, a flutter of white above the blue. It was hot, and, looking at the village, Marrim drew her hair back from her face, then gathered the braided strands together, fastening them at the nape of her neck. But for her father she would have had it cut like a man’s long ago. After all, she did a man’s job, why should she not wear her hair like a man’s? But she was loathe to upset her father. It was hard enough for him to understand all the changes that had come to Averone, let alone comprehend the urge to explore and understand that had been woken in his youngest daughter.
From where she stood, on the promontory, the whole of her small world was open to her gaze. For all her childhood it had been enough. The six great circular lodge houses, the river, the broad fields where they had planted the crops, and, beyond them, the woods where they had hunted and played. World enough, until Atrus and Catherine appeared.
Now she could barely imagine how it had been before they’d come. How she had ever survived without this urge in her, this need to know.
And now, almost as suddenly as it had begun, it was to end. Only that morning they had dismantled the last of the workshops and cleared the ground where it had been. So Atrus had promised the elders of the village when he had first come here, yet Marrim could not understand why it had to be. They had come so far so quickly. Why did it have to end? For certain, she herself could not easily return to being what she was. No. She had changed. And this world, while it still drew her emotionally, was no longer big enough for her. She wanted more. Atrus’s Books had opened her mind to the infinite possibilities that existed, and she wanted to see, if not all, then at least some of those possibilities.
And yet tomorrow they would be gone. Atrus and Catherine, and all they stood for.
There had to be a way to prevent that. Or if not, a way of going with them. If only Atrus would ask. But even then there were the elders—her father among them—and they would never agree. As much as they liked Atrus, they did not welcome the changes he had brought to Averone. They saw the excitement in their children’s eyes and to them it was a threat. Atrus had understood that. It was why he had agreed to destroy all that he had built here once it had served his needs. But he could not destroy what was in her head. Nor the seeds he had planted in the heads of others, such as Irras and Carrad. Marrim knew they shared her frustration. They, too, felt constrained now by this tiny world of theirs.
She let her thoughts grow still watching the movements down below her, in the village. Each of the great lodge houses had four large doorways, at north, south, east, and west, the massive entrances framed by the polished jarras trunks—cut from the largest trees in the woods. As she looked, three people emerged from the south doorway of her own lodge, their figures tiny against the great boles of the ancient trees; yet she recognized them at once.
Atrus stood to the left, the distinctive lenses that he wore pulled down over his face, his long cloak hanging loose in the windless air. Beside him, in a long flowing gown of green, stood Catherine, her hair tied back. Facing them, talking to them, was her father.
She groaned. Doubtless her father was asking Atrus not to interfere. And Atrus, being the man he was, would respect her father’s wishes.
Her spirits low, she began to walk back down to the village, heading toward the river, away from her own lodge and the three figures who stood there debating her future. And as she walked she remembered the first time she had seen Atrus and Catherine, that morning when they had, so it seemed, stepped from the air and into their lives. Wide-eyed, the villagers had come out from their lodges to stare at the two strangers, while the elders quickly gathered to form a welcome party.
She remembered how difficult that first meeting had been, with neither party able to speak the other’s language. And yet even then Atrus had found ways to communicate with them. His hands had drawn pictures in the air, and they had somehow understood. He wanted their help. She remembered the gesture clearly: how he had put his arms straight out toward the elders, palms open, and then slowly had drawn them in, as if to embrace something to his chest.
In the days that had followed, she had barely let them out of her sight, hovering at the back of a circle of curious youngsters who had followed the two strangers everywhere they went. And slowly she had begun to pick up the odd word or two until, emboldened by familiarity, she had dared to speak to the woman. She remembered vividly how Catherine had turned to face her, the surprise in her eyes slowly turning to a smile. She had repeated the words Marrim had uttered, then gently beckoned her across.
So it had begun, four years ago this summer.
Marrim smiled, recalling the long hours she had spent learning the D’ni tongue, and afterward—in the library on Chroma’Agana—how she had sat at her books long into the night, learning the written script.
Even now she had not mastered it fully. But now it did not matter. For tonight, after the feast, they would be gone, the Linking Book burned, that whole world of experience barred to her, if the elders had their way.
The thought of it filled her with dread. It would be like locking her in a room and throwing away the key.
No, she thought. Worse than that. Much worse.
§
Irras found her crouched on the riverbank.
“Marrim?”
She glanced up at him, then returned her gaze to the surface of the water.
“Marrim? What is it?”
She answered without looking at him. “You know what it is.”
“Look. I know you’re disappointed, Marrim, we all are, but it can’t be helped. The elders only let us help Atrus on the understanding that once he made the breakthrough that was it.”
Marrim was silent. She picked up a handful of pebbles and, one by one, began to throw them into the slow-moving stream.
Irras watched her a moment, combing his fingers back through his dark, fine hair. Then, sighing. “Come on, Marrim. Don’t spoil things. You knew this day would come.”
“I know,” she said. “But it’s hard. I mean, it’s not like going hunting, say, or fishing. There, no matter how far you venture, you come back and you’re the same, unchanged. But the journey we’ve been on…”
Irras was silent for a long time, thinking about what she’d said, then he shrugged. “You’ll be okay. You’ll settle again.”
“Maybe…”
Irras stared at her, surprised by the uncertainty in her voice.
Yet before he could speak again, to reassure her, Carrad came running up, his broad chest rising and falling from his exertions, sweat beading the big knuckle of his skull.
“Irras! Marrim! You’re wanted! Atrus has called a meeting!”
Marrim looked down. No doubt he wanted to thank them and say goodbye before the feast, because there would be no time for informal farewells later on. But right now she didn’t feel like farewells.
“I saw him,” she said, “speaking to my father.”
Carrad nodded. “Mine, too.”
She looked up. He at least understood what she was feeling, she could see it in his eyes.
“I wish…”
“What?” she said gently, brought out of herself by the sight of his suffering.
“I wish we’d never started this.”
Yes. But it was too late now. It would have been best for them all if they had never learned about D’ni and Books and all the rest of it, but now…
Irras’s voice broke into her thoughts. “ Well? Are you going to keep Atrus waiting?”
Marrim looked to Carrad, then back to Irras. In appearance the two young men were like rock and wood, the one so broad and solid, the other so agile and slender; but on the inside they were much alike.
“No,” she said, knowing that whatever she was feeling, it was not Atrus’s fault: He had been as good as a father to them, after all. “You’re right, Irras. Let us not keep Master Atrus waiting.”
§
The hut was the last of the new buildings to remain standing, and in an hour or so it, too, would be gone, the dark earth beneath its floor raked over, as if nothing had ever been there on the site. Looking at it, Atrus sighed. They had had happy times here, working, laughing, teaching the young people how to use their quick and nimble minds. He would miss that. Indeed, it was only now, at the end, that he realized just how much he was going to miss it.
Atrus turned, looking to Catherine. She was crouched, packing the last of their books into a knapsack. He watched her a moment, the familiarity of her shape, her every movement, ingrained in him. There were lines at her neck now, and a fine web of lines about her eyes and mouth, but these only made her more dear to him. The D’ni blood in him made him age the tiniest bit slower than she, and there was always the consciousness that one day he would be alone, without her by his side, but that only made him savor each moment that much more.
She glanced up, noticing him watching her, and smiled. Then, seeing the concern in his eyes, she stood and came across.
“What is it?”
He hesitated, then. “I wish there was another way.”
“Is that why you want to talk to them?”
He nodded.
“And what will you say?”
“I don’t know. But I feel I ought to say something. As it is, I feel as if we’re simply abandoning them.” He raised a hand. “I know we agreed to all this long ago, but I didn’t know then how I would feel at the end.”
“I know…” There was a sadness in her face that mirrored his own. “But at least they got to see D’ni.”
§
“Marrim, Irras, Carrad…come in.”
There was an awkwardness about Atrus’s manner that was strange. It was almost as if the years between his arrival and his imminent departure had melted away, leaving them all strangers again. The three young Averonese also moved awkwardly as they stepped into the shadows of the hut, unable to meet their friend’s eyes, their every gesture a denial of what was happening. This was difficult for them. More difficult than anything they’d ever done.
Marrim, particularly, seemed eclipsed. She was usually so bright, so full of life. Catherine, watching her from where she stood behind her husband, felt her heart go out to the young woman. It would be hard for her to stay here. There was such a hunger in her for new things, and what was new in Averone?
“Friends…” Atrus said, as they sat on the long bench facing him. “I…” He made a tiny noise of exasperation, then, leaning toward them, his hands extended in exhortation, said, “I wish this wasn’t happening. I wish…”
They were watching him now.
Atrus’s voice, when it came again, was subdued, as if he understood that even uttering these words might not help. “I wish you could come with us. I wish that more than anything.”
Catherine saw the small, shuddering movement in each of them. The words had touched them. It was what they wanted. Wanted more than anything. And somehow, strangely, it helped them to know that Atrus wanted that too.
Marrim looked from side to side to her friends, then spoke. “We understand.”
“Yes.” The single word sounded bleak. It all came down to this. Atrus had given his word, and he could not break it. Indeed, he would not be the man he was if that were possible. To be what one said one was…that, too Atrus, was of the essence. And he had instilled that into these young people. What one said, what one wrote—these things mattered. As much as life and death.
“I wanted to give each of you something,” Atrus said gently. “To remember us by.”
Atrus stood and went across, lifting three small parcels from the table at the side. Catherine had noticed them earlier and guessed what they were. Books. D’ni Books.
He returned, then leaned across the table, setting a parcel before each of them, then sat again, waiting for them to open them. But none of them made even the vaguest movement to unwrap the gifts.
“Well?” Atrus said after a moment, clearly trying to understand what was going on. “Have I done the wrong thing?”
It was Marrim who answered him. “We thank you for the gifts, Master Atrus, but we cannot accept them. We have finished with all that now, and we must settle here, in Averone.”
But Catherine saw the look of longing in her eyes, quickly suppressed, and felt almost giddy at the thought of what they were doing here. Atrus and she had not even begun to imagine the effect they would have on these young people.
She looked away, unable to bear it any longer. Yet even as she did there was a knock on the door.
Atrus looked up, even as the young Averonese turned in their seats.
The door swung slowly open.
“Gevah!” Atrus said, standing and giving a tiny bow.
The old man looked about him, taking in the situation at a glance, then, with a nod to Atrus and Catherine, he stepped inside, closing the door behind him.
“Forgive me for intruding,” he began, “but I have come from a meeting of the elders.”
Catherine saw the three young people deflate at the words. If there had been any glimmer of hope, it had died in that moment.
“They asked me to come at once,” Gevah continued, “before a great mistake was made.”
Atrus blinked, then. “You can tell the elders that I will keep my word. These presents are but a token. I…”
“You misunderstand me, Master Atrus,” Gevah said, interrupting him. “The mistake I am talking of is not yours but ours. You have been as good as your word. No, we have discussed the matter at length and are of one mind. The link must remain open.”
Atrus simply stared at the old man. The young people were also staring, but their eyes were bright now and there were the ghosts of disbelieving smiles on their faces.
“Averone must remain Averone,” Gevah said, “so it is right that the workshops should be pulled down. But there have been other changes. Changes that cannot be pulled down and raked over.”
Gevah looked at the three young people who were sitting there and smiled.
“Oh, we are old, but we are not stupid. We have eyes, yes, and imaginations, too. We see how you have changed, and we are proud of you, just as Master Atrus is proud of you.”
Catherine could contain herself no longer. “Then they can come with us? To Chroma’Agana? And D’ni?”
Gevah turned to her. “On one condition. That they return here, one month in two, to serve as teachers to our young, to pass on the skills they have learned.”
And now, as one, the three jumped up, whooping elatedly and hugging each other, crying with joy. Even old Gevah was included in their hugs.
When things had died down, Atrus asked, “What made you change your mind, Gevah?”
The old man smiled. “The fact that you did what you had promised you would do, and without protest. It made us think. It made us see how much we had to lose if you were gone.”
Atrus stood, then came round the table and embraced the old man. “Then let it be so. We shall take great care of these young people. And they will return, to pass on what they know. They will make you doubly proud of them, Gevah.”
“I know,” the old man said, stepping back, his eyes dwelling long on the three young people. “In fact, I am certain of it.”
§
It was very late when Atrus and Catherine returned to their stall in the great lodge house. Now that the link was to remain, the feast had been a merry one, all of their young helpers in such a mood that it was hard to believe that they had all just volunteered for yet more years of long and grueling work.
Settling down beside Catherine, Atrus yawned, then gave a small chuckle.
“What now?” Catherine whispered, snuggling in to his side.
He looked up at the great raftered roof of the lodge house high above and grinned. “The look on Marrim’s face when she finally opened her present,” he whispered. “Why, you’d have thought I’d wrapped up the sun itself and given it to her!”
Catherine nodded thoughtfully, then. “She’s a hungry one. Starving for knowledge and for strange exotic places. Oh, I know that hunger, Atrus.”
“Yes,” he said quietly, conscious of the hundreds of sleeping Averonese surrounding them. “And now she’ll have a chance. We can teach her, Catherine. Teach her how to write.”
“Yes…”
Atrus was silent for a long time after that. He lay there on his back, his arm curled about Catherine, unable to sleep, staring up into the dark, thinking about what lay ahead.
The breakthrough to D’ni was only the first step. The real work had yet to begin—the gathering in of the Books, the searching of the Ages. It would be a slow, laborious task.
Catherine must have sighed, though she was unaware of it. Atrus lifted himself up onto one elbow and looked down into her face. “What is it?” he whispered.
She met his eyes. “What if no one survived? What if we’re alone?”
“We won’t know—not until we’ve tried. But I can’t believe there aren’t some D’ni somewhere. Can you?”
She smiled, calmed by his certainty. “No.”
“Good,” he said. “We’ll worry about all that in the morning.”
§
“Marrim! Marrim! Look at this! Have you ever seen the like?”
Marrim squeezed past Irras then stopped dead, astonished by the sight that met her eyes.
“Books!”
The long, low room was filled to bursting with books: on shelves on the walls, in piles on the floor, and on both desks; even stacked up on the tall-backed chair that rested behind the bigger of the desks. More books than she had ever dared imagine. Why, she could spend years in this one room alone and never read half of them!
She turned, excited, to find Atrus standing there.
“Master Atrus…”
He stepped past her, looking about him.
“This was my father’s room,” he said. “His study.”
Atrus walked across and lifted something from among the books on the desk—an elaborate-looking pipe. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed, then placed it back, a strange expression on his face.
“He must have been a clever man,” Irras offered.
Atrus turned. “Clever…yes.” But he said no more.
“There are Books here,” he said after a moment, his pale eyes narrowed. “D’ni Books. There might be functional Ages in some of them. Marrim, go through the shelves and the piles on the floor. Gather them together. But don’t be tempted by them. Some of these worlds are dangerous. That’s why we use the suit, remember? Your task is to locate them and bring them to me. Afterward, when all are gathered in, we can decide which ones to visit.”
The two youngsters nodded.
“By the way,” Atrus said, “where’s Carrad?”
“With Catherine,” Irras answered. “They found a boat. They’re trying to repair it.”
“Ah…” Atrus nodded, but Marrim, watching him, noticed how distant he seemed.
Atrus was silent a moment, then: “My father was a secretive man. Maybe he has hidden things somewhere in the room. Search everything. The walls, the floors, everything.” He paused. “You know what you’re looking for?”
“We know,” Marrim said.
“Good.” Atrus nodded, then quickly left.
Marrim turned full circle, excited once again now that Atrus had gone. “All these books,” she said, looking at Irras. “Just imagine…”
§
Catherine looked across as Atrus came down the stone steps into the lamp-lit cavern.
“Marrim said you’d found a boat,” he said, his voice echoing slightly in that enclosed space.
“Yes,” she said, glancing to her side, where Carrad was busy repairing the hull of the ancient craft, his closely shaven head bobbing up and down as he worked. “It needs a little care and attention, but Carrad knows all about making boats.”
“Good.” Atrus stepped down onto the quay. The lamp on the wall behind him threw his shadow across the bright surface of the water. He stood there saying nothing, but something in his manner told her that he wanted to talk.
Reaching beside her, she touched Carrad’s arm. “Ill not be long.” Then, straightening up, she went over to Atrus.
“Come,” she said. “Let’s go outside.”
The main cavern was dark and silent. “Sepulchral” was the word that sprang to her mind; like a single great building that had been long abandoned by its gigantic owners. Sitting there on the stone ledge, looking out across the still, flat surface of the water toward the ancient city, Catherine understood for the first time why Atrus had been driven to return.
“It must be difficult for you, coming back here.”
“I was only a child,” he answered, his eyes looking past her toward the great twist of rock on the far side of the cavern. “I didn’t understand just how much he had twisted things in his mind. I had to unlearn so much that he taught me. I thought I’d thrown him off, but his shadow is everywhere here. I wasn’t so conscious of it when we made the breakthrough, but today, standing in his room, I could almost see him…”
“Then maybe that’s why you’re here. To throw off his shadow.”
He was silent a while, then: “What I really fear is that he’s already destroyed all of the Books.”
“Why should he do that?”
“It’s just something I remember him saying. He used to warn me against using the Books. He said they were unstable and that it would be dangerous to venture into those Ages. But that was a lie. Those Books were all proper Books, approved by the Guilds, checked regularly by the Maintainers. They would have been carefully written— designed to be stable. And he would have known that. So why warn me about them unless he didn’t want me going into them and finding other D’ni?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean he destroyed them.”
“Maybe not. But I know how he thought. He had no respect for them. And on our Book searches, though he never brought back anything but blank Books, he always noted down where the Books were.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I fear that we’ll look and look and find nothing, because there’ll be nothing to find. You know the depth of his malice, Catherine. You of all people should know that he was quite capable of something like that. Even so…”
Atrus turned, the sentence incomplete. Catherine looked up and saw that Marrim was standing in the doorway.
“What is it? Atrus asked, going over to her.
“This,” Marrim said, handing Atrus a notebook. “I found it tucked away at the back of one of the drawers.”
He stared at it, amazed. “But this…”
“…was your father’s,” Catherine said, stepping up beside him. She opened it, flicking through the pages quickly, then handed it back.
“Maybe it’s here,” she said.
Decades of understanding between the two made him understand her at once. “His journals?”
“One of his journals,” she said. “You say he kept a record of the Book searches. Well, maybe it’s here. If so, we’ll know where to look. It could save us weeks.”
“Yes.” Yet as Atrus looked back at the notebook his face darkened.
“Shadows…” he said.
“Yes,” Catherine answered him. “But these shadows might just cast some light.”
§
Sensing that Atrus needed to be left for a time, Catherine took the three young Averonese back to Chroma’Agana, then returned alone.
She found him in his father’s study, seated at Gehn’s desk, the notebook open before him.
Atrus looked up as she came in and sighed. “It’s all here,” he said. “Diaries, observations, notes to Ages he was writing. And other things.”
“And the maps?”
He shook his head. “Catherine?...Have you ever read of the Great King?”
“No…Unless they mean Kerath.”
“I don’t think so. My father’s notes are unclear, but it appears he existed long before the late kings.”
“What is that?” She asked, reaching out to take the notebook.
“My father’s notes on the myths and legends of D’ni. Some of it’s quite detailed, other parts, like the mention of the Great King, are vague. From the notations at the back of the book it seems that Gehn trawled all kinds of sources. It’s a regular hodgepodge of fact and rumor, but a lot of it reads like old wives’ tales. You know the kind of thing…fireside tales, invented to make children’s eyes pop!”
Catherine was turning the pages, reading an entry here, an entry there. “So why the interest in this Great King?”
“Because I’ve never heard mention of him before, and because he was supposed to have made various prophesies.”
“Prophesies?”
“Again, it’s vague. But there are one or two instances scattered throughout the book. Here…” He took the book back and quickly searched through the early pages, returning it to her a moment later. “That entry there, in green ink.”
Catherine read it through, then looked up at him. “It’s strange, certainly.”
She closed the book, then set it down. “I don’t think anyone can see clearly what lies ahead.”
“Nor I.”
§
They moored the boat at the foot of the granite steps and carried their equipment up. Behind the great sweep of marbled flagstones that bordered the harbor was an open space that had once been a great square. There they set up camp, clearing away the debris, then placed a ring of lamps about them, the ancient fire-marbles burning brightly in that perpetual twilight.
Standing at the foot of the great curved slope of buildings that rose level after level, climbing the cavern’s massive walls, Marrim felt a mixture of awe and sorrow: awe at the scale on which the D’ni had once built; sorrow that she had not witnessed it in its living splendor.
It was strange, of course, for she was used to the shadows falling downward—the natural shadows of a sunlit world—whereas here everything was underlit, the faint glow from the water giving the whole place an eerie feel. Everywhere she looked was ruin. Ruin beyond anything she had imagined possible. Cracked walls and fallen masonry. And here and there huge pits, large enough to swallow up whole mansions. Strange mosses had begun to grow in the cracks, and here and there an odd lichen splashed subdued color on a rock.
Overall it had a strange, desolate beauty, and when Atrus came and stood beside her, she asked him what had happened to cause such devastation.
Atrus had never spoken to them of this, and, listening to the tale—a tale Atrus’s grandmother had first told him long after the event—Marrim found her imagination waking so that she could almost see the dark cloud slowly fill the cavern, and, afterward, Veovis and his ally, A’Gaeris, as they walked through the stricken alleyways of D’ni, their cart of death pushed before them.
When Atrus had finished, Marrim turned to him. “Master Atrus…why didn’t they come back?”
“Perhaps they did.”
Yes, she thought. And saw this. And hurried back to the Ages in which they had found safe haven, knowing that D’ni was at an end.
Catherine, who had been organizing the laying out of the bedrolls, now came across. “Shall we go and have a look?” she asked, gesturing toward the nearby streets.
“Marrim?” Atrus asked, turning to her. “Would you like to come with us?”
Marrim nodded, surprised that he’d asked. “Are we to begin the search?”
“Not today. Tomorrow, maybe, once things are better organized. I just thought you might like to look about a little before we begin in earnest.” He reached down and, picking up one of the lamps, handed it to her. “Here, Marrim. Light our way.”
Marrim took the lamp and, holding it up, led them on, across the littered square toward a crumbling stone archway that marked the entrance to the lowest of D’ni’s many districts.
“This is Kerathen, named after the last king,” he said, pointing up to the symbols carved into the partly fallen lintel of the arch. “This is where the D’ni boatmen once lived, and the traders and innkeepers.”
“And A’Gaeris,” Marrim said, staring through the arch wide-eyed, as if at paradise itself.
“Yes. And A’Gaeris.”
§
They walked for an hour, then stopped, resting on the balcony of a two-story house, the windows of which were on a level with the top of the great arch that formed a giant gateway to the harbor. Looking down from there, Atrus recalled the first time he had stood there, with his father, in what seemed several lifetimes ago.
Even Marrim was subdued now. And not surprisingly. The sheer extent of the devastation was overwhelming. It was enough to eclipse the brightest spirit.
“It’s too much,” Catherine said quietly. “We cannot repair this .”
But Atrus shook his head. “It only seems too much. We have a whole lifetime to work at this. Not only that, but we shall find others to help us in the task.”
Marrim, who had been looking out across the lake, now turned and looked to him. “How many people were there, here in D’ni, Master Atrus?”
“A million. Maybe more.”
The thought of it clearly amazed her. “And all of them could write?”
“It depends what you mean. The D’ni were highly literate, but few could write Ages. That was something the Guilds taught. One would have needed to be a Guildsman to do that.”
“And the women?”
Atrus looked to Catherine and smiled. “I know of only two women who ever learned to write.”
§
The next few weeks were hectic. In the absence of his father’s charts, Atrus drew up detailed maps of the harbor-side districts, then divided his young helpers into teams of six. Two of those teams, led by Marrim and Irras, went out into the streets and alleyways of lower D’ni to search for Books; another, under Carrad, began the task of raising the sunken boats from the floor of the harbor and repairing them; and a fourth, headed by Catherine, went back and forth between the harbor and K’veer, bringing back food and supplies from Chroma’Agana and Averone. The fifth team, supervised by Atrus himself, began the job of clearing a storehouse for whatever Books were found, while he, in whatever spare moments remained, worked on maps of D’ni.
At first progress was slow. There were few big houses in the lower levels, and thus few private Book Rooms, and they quickly discovered that the public Book Rooms had already been plundered by Gehn and most of the Guild Books destroyed, just as Atrus had feared. Even so, by the end of the second week they had a total of thirty-four Books. Finished with the maps, Atrus began the task of reading and cataloging them.
Marrim, returning from a long and fruitless search of the Ne’weril district, went in to see Atrus, who was sitting at his makeshift desk in the storehouse.
“Forgive me, Master Atrus,” she began, “but why are we waiting?”
“Waiting?”
“To begin the search of the Ages.”
He smiled tolerantly. “I understand your enthusiasm, Marrim, but this is not something to be rushed. We need to have some idea of the scale of the venture before embarking upon it. Meanwhile there is much to do here. We have to build up a stock of blank Linking Books, and ink and writing materials. Unless you know a way of returning from an Age without a Linking Book?”
A Faint color came to Marrim’s cheeks. She bowed her head.
“Let us gather in every Book we can find,” Atrus went on. “ Then we can decide which to visit. You see, some of the Books are damaged, Marrim. Pages are missing or have been torn or burned. Others are clearly old and I’d guess were little used by their owners, even though they bear the Maintainer’s inspection stamp. What we need to find are newer, more healthy Ages, for it is in those that we are most likely to find our survivors.”
“And have we found any such Ages yet?”
“Two. But it might well turn out that the Books we find in these lower districts were all visited—and corrupted—by Veovis and his ally. It may be that only those from more distant, higher districts remained untouched. That is why I am taking great care to mark on the maps where each Book was found and the circumstances of its discovery. Such details might prove crucial when we come to organize the next stage of our search.”
“Then ought we not to be searching the higher districts first?”
Atrus laughed. “Is that what you wish to do, young Marrim?”
She nodded.
“Then that is what you shall do.” He turned and searched among the papers on his desk until he located one of the maps he had finished only the day before. “Here,” he said, handing it to her, “this is where my grandfather and his family once lived. Jaren was a Guild district. If there are Books anywhere, they will be there. But take supplies enough for several days, Marrim, unless you fancy trekking back down to the harbor every night.”
“And you, Master Atrus? Won’t you come with us this once?”
He stared at her, surprised by her request, then nodded. “Perhaps I will come along. This once.”
§
Though he had been on many Booksearches with his father, Atrus had never stood within these walls, never walked among these strangely familiar rooms, and now that he did he wondered just why Gehn had not brought him here.
Anna. That was why. It reminded Gehn too much of Anna.
He walked on, aware for the first time in his life just how strong the connection was between himself and this ancient place. A connection of blood. And though he was only one part in four D’ni, that did not dilute what he felt.
No wonder Gehn became obsessed.
“Atrus?”
He turned to find Marrim watching him.
“This was my grandfather’s room,” he said quietly, indicating the desk, the walls of books. “And his father’s before him.”
She nodded, then: “We’ve found the Book Room.”
“Ah…” He steeled himself against bad news. “And?”
“There’s a Book.”
“Just one?”
Marrim nodded.
Atrus was silent a moment. His grandfather, Aitrus, had been the owner of two Ages. One, Ko’ah, had been handed down over eight generations, and was the family retreat. The other, Gemedet, named after the complex three-dimensional game played by the D’ni, had been written by him and the ahrotahntee, or “outworlder,” who in time had become his grandmother, Anna.
The Book Room was downstairs. The door of the room was smashed, the shelves on the walls ransacked long ago. The faint yellow-brown residue that was everywhere in D’ni, and that he had always assumed was natural to the place, here lay thick upon everything.
On a podium in the center of the room a Book lay open, the faint ghost of a palm print over the dulled descriptive panel. He went across and stood, his hands gripping the edge of the podium as he stared down at the page.
Ko’ah. This was the Book of Ko’ah.
Of course. He remembered now. His grandfather, Aitrus, had taken the other Book with him when he’d returned here after the fall of D’ni, so that Veovis could not get to Anna and the child.
Atrus looked up, feeling giddy. The long years seemed to wash over him, as if, in that instant, he was his grandfather.
“Are you all right?” Marrim asked, concerned for him.
“Yes.”
But that wasn’t entirely true. For a moment he had glimpsed his grandmother, Anna, in her final illness, Catherine by her bedside, the old lady’s pale, flecked hands caged within Catherine’s younger, stronger fingers, and recalled what she had told him then about those final days. And as he recalled that moment he felt a strong, almost violent urge to see Ko’ah, to link to it and see with his own eyes where his father, Gehn, was born; where Anna had nursed him through that first, almost fatal illness.
He raised his hand over the page, shadowing the ghostly imprint.
“Master Atrus?”
Atrus looked up, startled from his reverie. If he had moved his hand the tiniest bit it would have brushed the surface of the page. Reaching across, he closed the Book, then turned, looking at Marrim. “You’d best look after this.”
Atrus stepped back as Marrim came across and, taking the long-handled cutters from her belt, snipped the chain that connected the Book to the podium. He watched her carefully lift the Book and slip it into her knapsack with that same reverence he had seen her exhibit with all the Books.
Marrim turned to face him again, smiling, ever enthusiastic, her pale, oval face framed by the vivid blackness of her long, thick braided hair. “Where now?”
“Let’s leave here,” he answered her, looking about him one last time. “Let’s go and find the others.”
§
Irras paused in the shadowed hallway, frowning. Something was different. And then he understood. The colors. The colors here were brighter, more vivid.
He realized with a start what it meant.
Reaching out, he touched he wall, then drew his fingers back, sniffing at them. Clean. The wall was clean.
Irras spun around, holding his lamp out. “Gavas! Meer! Come quickly! I think we’ve found something!”
They rushed up, then looked about them, puzzled.
“What?” Meer asked. “What have you found?”
“Look about you,” Irras answered, amused now. “What do you notice that’s different?”
It was Gavas who saw it first. “The walls…the floor…they’re clean! ”
Irras nodded. “And if they’re clean, what does that mean?”
“That someone’s…cleaned it?” Meer offered. And then his mouth fell open.
“Exactly!” Irras said, beaming now. “Someone’s been here before us. Someone must have come here and cleaned the walls and floors.” He half-turned, lifting the lamp high once more. Everywhere they looked it was clean.
“Go back,” he said, gesturing to Gavas. “Find Master Atrus and bring him here at once. He’ll want to see this for himself!”
§
That night Atrus called a special meeting. When all were gathered, he came out into their midst, the Book they had found in the great house in Jaren—the Book of Bilaris, as it was called—under his arm. He looked about him and smiled.
“So?” Catherine asked, preempting him. “Are we going to visit this Age?”
Atrus smiled. “Yes. But not yet. First I need to study the Book more carefully.”
“But what about the signs?” Catherine said. “The cleanliness of the house, the book of commentaries we found…there are D’ni in that Age.”
“That may be so,” Atrus conceded, “but for the sake of three or four days, I’d rather be certain all is well. Remember, caution is everything . For the lack of caution, D’ni fell. We must not make the same mistake. In all likelihood, the people on this Age—on Bilaris—are survivors from the fall. And from the cleanliness of the house, it would seem that they share our aspirations; they, too, would like to see D’ni rebuilt to its former glory. But…just as D’ni fell, so might many of these Ages have fallen. We do not know. Seventy years is a long time, even for a D’ni. Much can change in that time.”
He paused, looking about him again. “Then so it shall be. I shall prepare a Linking Book. Four days from now, we will link through. Myself, Marrim, Irras, and Meer. Catherine will stay here with Carrad, in case anything goes wrong.”
“And in the meantime, Master Atrus?” Carrad asked.
“The work goes on,” Atrus answered him. “There are Books to be found, boats to be repaired, quarters to be built.”
“And food to be eaten,” Carrad said, reminding Atrus that they had not yet had supper.
Atrus laughed, for the first time that day relaxing. “Trust young Carrad to think of his stomach at such a time!”
Carrad feigned a hurt expression, but like all there, he knew they had taken a huge step forward, and as Atrus looked about the circle, he saw how each face mirrored that same realization.
Survivors! Cautious as he was, Atrus, too, believed they would find them in Bilaris. There were D’ni in the Ages. They had only to be patient now and they would find them!
§
That night Catherine and Atrus decided to return to Chroma’Agana. Catherine had been back several times, but for Atrus it would be the first time since they had set up camp in D’ni, six weeks before.
Rowing across the dark and silent lake, he watched the city slowly recede, its details blurring into the great wall of rock, and felt himself relax.
K’veer was silent, empty. Lighting a lamp, they made their way up the great twist of ancient steps and into his father’s study where the Linking Book awaited them. There, Atrus hesitated.
“What?” Catherine asked, amused. She knew that look.
In answer he went across to the shelves beside the desk and took down his father’s notebook, slipping it into his knapsack, which already held the Book of Bilaris, the book of commentary, two blank Linking Books, a pot of special D’ni ink, and a pen.
“You need to rest…” Catherine began.
“And I shall rest,” he said, tightening the cord, then throwing the bag over his shoulder again. “But I also have to work. We’re close now, Catherine.”
“I know. But you must ease off. You’ll be ill.”
Atrus laughed. “For a moment you sounded just like Anna…”
He fell silent, realizing just how true that was. Why, if he closed his eyes, he could see in memory the two of them standing together under the trees on Myst island, more like mother and daughter than two strangers from separate worlds.
Long ago that memory, for Anna had been dead for nearly thirty years.
Shadows, he thought, surprised by how fresh her loss still seemed. How strange that the past could cast such deep shadows on the future.
Shaking off the mood, he stepped across and, with a smiling glance at Catherine, placed his palm upon the open page.
§
Atrus lit the fire, then straightened. Through the open door of the cabin he could see the moonlit lawn, edged by tall Oreadoran oaks, and, through the trees, the sea like a sheet of shimmering, beaten metal, stretching away into infinity.
It was a beautiful night. The kind of night that made Atrus feel young again; as young as when he’d first met Catherine. So it was whenever he returned here after a long absence.
Catherine was in the library at the far end of the island. She had gone there almost as soon as they’d arrived, the Book of Bilaris under her arm, while Atrus, who had given his solemn word that he would rest, had sat upon the shore, barefoot, staring out into the distance as the sun went down and the tide slowly ebbed.
He stepped outside, into the freshness of the night, then turned to look along the rocky spine of the island, his vision traveling along the narrow path toward the long, low shape of the library and the workshops and laboratories beyond, the connected buildings climbing the gentle slope of the hillside like steps, the textured stone a silvered gray beneath the moon.
He was tempted to call out to Catherine and ask her to come and walk with him, but he knew that she did not like to be disturbed when she was working. In that she was like him. Even so, he began to walk in that direction, hoping that perhaps she would look up and see him and, setting aside her work, come out and join him under the open sky.
Looking about him he realized just how much he loved this place. Its peacefulness spoke to the depths of him. Its sounds were like the sounds of his own body. Here he felt complete.
Yes, and it was strange how he needed to go away before he realized that. It was like Catherine. All those months of separation had, he knew now, been necessary. To teach him her worth.
Atrus looked up at the night sky, wondering, not for the first time, just when he was. From his studies of the star charts in the observatory, he had worked out that he was in a very different part of the galaxy from the planet he knew as Earth—or its equivalent—if one even existed in this Age. But it was more difficult to tell just how far he was from it in time, for when one linked there were no limits. The mind-staggering vastnesses of Time and Space were irrelevant. Congruity —the matching of word and place—was all that mattered.
Or, as his grandfather, Aitrus, had explained it to his grandmother, Anna: “These Ages are worlds that do exist, or have existed, or shall. Providing the description fits, there is no limitation of time and space. The link is made regardless.”
Atrus stopped, a smile lighting his features as he remembered how young Marrim’s face had filled with wonder when he had first explained it to her. And still, when he thought of it—when he really thought about it—he would feel that same wonder fill him. It was an astonishing ability to possess. Little wonder that his father, freed from the restraints of D’ni society and lacking the true humility of his D’ni peers, had thought himself some kind of god. It was clear now why Anna had taught him as she had—avoiding the same mistake she had made with Gehn.
Careful not to make the same mistake, his first lesson to his own students—to Marrim and Irras and Carrad and all their fellows—was this: One did not make the Ages to which the words linked. A far greater force than the D’ni had made those, yet it was easy to be deluded into thinking so, for the universe was so vast, so all-encompassing, so infinite in its variety of worlds, that almost anything one wrote had its counterpart in reality.
Unstables worlds. Worlds that were living hells. Or the beautiful, “impossible” worlds that Catherine once wrote.
Moving past the Eye Pool, Atrus swiftly climbed the grassy slope until he stopped, not ten yards from the door to the library. The door was open, and from where he stood in the darkness, he could see Catherine, seated behind the great oak desk, the Book open before her, one finger tracing the lines of D’ni symbols as she read.
Atrus smiled and walked on, taking the path that led round to the right, past the side of the library and out onto the cliff path. Ahead of him the great Anchor Rock was a shadow against the greater darkness of the sky. Beyond it lay a thousand miles of emptiness.
He walked out onto the pale stone, the sea fifty feet below him, the great muscular shape of the Anchor Rock above him and to his left. Standing there, he thought of his father and of the notebook they had found in the study on K’veer. It had told him little that he did not already know or suspect, yet, reading Gehn’s words at this distance from events, he had, against all expectation, been impressed by his father’s intellect, and had found himself wondering what Gehn might have become had D’ni not fallen. And that thought had spawned others. Was it really Gehn’s fault that he had become what he’d become? The destruction of his hopes at such an impressionable age had clearly traumatized the boy, yet could everything be accounted for by that? What of the cruelty in his father, that twisted aspect of Gehn? Was that a product of events, or was it something natural in the child that, through circumstance, had been encouraged rather than controlled?
It was impossible to say. All he knew was that he himself had been lucky. Lucky to have had Anna during those formative years of his upbringing—to have been taught by so good and wise a teacher.
And then there were his own sons…
He pushed the thought aside, then turned, hearing soft footsteps just behind him.
‘Catherine?”
“Let’s go,” she said. “Tonight.”
“Tonight?” He laughed, then turned slightly, looking at her. “But I haven’t written the Linking Book yet.”
Her face, silvered in the moonlight, was smiling strangely. “No. But I have.” And she handed him the slender book, enjoying his surprise.
§
They linked to a large island, three-quarters covered in forest. There was a clearing beside the cave and a path led down between the trees, but otherwise there was no immediate sign of habitation.
It was mid-morning by the look of the sun in the sky, and it was warm with the suggestion that, as day drew on, it might grow hot.
They quickly searched the cave, looking for a Linking Book, but found nothing.
Now they went down, following the footworn path. Leaf shadow kept them cool as they went, but even so, by the time they reached the clifftop they were beaded with perspiration. A perfect, white sand beach lay thirty feet below them.
“It’s beautiful,” Catherine said, looking out across the scattering of islands that lay like emeralds upon the azure of the bay. “But where are they?”
There were no buildings. No boats or jetties. Nothing but the path to suggest anyone had ever been here.
A bird called from high up in the trees. Atrus turned and looked up at it, putting a hand up to shield his lenses from the sunlight that glittered on their surfaces.
“Let’s try the other end.”
They walked back, taking their time, relaxing in the sunlight. Passing the clearing once more, they went on, leaving the path, winding their way between the great, straight boles of the trees until they stood on a shelf of bare rock, overlooking a vast expanse of ocean.
“This can’t be right.”
“Why not?” she asked, turning to look back through the trees. “It conforms with the Book.”
“I didn’t mean that. I mean, where are they? They have to be here somewhere. It makes no sense unless they are.”
“Then let’s search the island.”
But a long and thorough search of the island found nothing. The island was uninhabited. Even the path, now that they looked properly at it, was partly overgrown.
“Maybe it’s the wrong Book,” Catherine suggested, sitting down wearily on a rock overlooking the island-scattered bay. It was hot now and she fanned herself slowly as she looked up at Atrus.
“It’s possible,” he answered, stepping up onto the ledge above her, “but then what about the book of commentary?”
“A false trail? To make us think they were here?”
“But why?”
“Because they were afraid. And because they wanted to safefuard where they really are?”
“I suppose it’s possible.” But Atrus’s eyes stared out at the perfect, unspoiled shapes of the islands as if to decipher some mystery. He wiped the back of his hand across his brow, then turned to her again.
“Let’s get back,” he said. “There’s nothing for us here.”
§
It was said that the Great King was haunted by dreams, and that those dreams were filled with strange, inexplicable visions that the Great King then wrote down in a large notebook bound in bright golden leather. Or so Atrus’s father, Gehn, had written. But Marrim knew better than to trust what Gehn had written. She had heeded Atrus’s warning to her when Catherine had lent her the notebooks. “My father had the tendency to twist facts to suit his vision of the world.” Even so, she could picture it vividly: the old man waking, his brow beaded with sweat, his hands trembling as he reached out to write down what he had seen in the darkness of his dreams.
Even if it wasn’t true. Even if, like much that was in Gehn’s notebooks, it had been exaggerated down the years, there must still have been a core of truth; some story, some actual event, that had spawned all of the subsequent tales about the Great King, like the speck of grit in an oyster shell about which the pearl subsequently grows.
Marrim closed the book and looked up. Lamps blazed about the camp. Just across from her, Irras and Carrad sat facing each other, Irras’s dark head pressed close to Carrad’s polished skull, the two of them deep in conversation, while a number of other helpers looked on, listening attentively. She knew exactly what they were talking about, for there was really only one topic of conversation at the moment. The visit. The upcoming trip to Bilaris.
She smiled. Like all of them, she was excited by the prospect of venturing into another Age. D’ni was astonishing, certainly, but partly because it was also a gateway to so many other worlds, so many other ways of living. She glanced across at the great stock of Books that were piled up in Atrus’s makeshift library and felt her head swim at the thought of what they were.
She had been blind to the reality of the universe surrounding her. She had thought her tiny world—that world of lodge house and fishing boats, of hill and stream and island—the sum total of existence. But now she knew. Whatever it was possible to imagine could exist.
In theory, anyway.
Marrim stood, then walked across, remembering her conversations with Catherine; recollecting what Catherine had said about the Books she had written. They must have been something to see.
As she came closer to the circle, Irras looked up and smiled at her, indicating that she should take a seat beside him, but she did not feel like sitting down. She felt restless. Eager to get on.
Resting her hand briefly on his shoulder, she walked on, leaving the young men to their talk. At the harbor’s edge she paused, staring out across the darkness of the lake.
At first she wasn’t sure. Then, with a huge grin of delight, she turned to the others.
“They’re coming!”
Irras hurried across and stood beside her, squinting out into the darkness, until he, too, made out the dark shape of the boat. Moment by moment that shape grew larger, clearer. Catherine turned in the prow and, seeing them, hailed them across the water.
Marrim answered, her voice echoing back from the great levels of stone that climbed the cavern walls behind her.
She knew almost at once that something was wrong. She could see it in Atrus’s face. Catherine was as cheerful as ever, but Atrus was withdrawn.
As he climbed up onto the quayside, Atrus beckoned Irras, then, without waiting for him, turned and walked over to the makeshift library, disappearing inside.
Irras was with Atrus barely two minutes. When he emerged, he was frowning, as if he’d been told something he didn’t want to hear. He brushed past Marrim as if she wasn’t there. She turned, meaning to follow him, but Atrus called out to her.
“Marrim! A word…”
She went inside.
“Here,” he said, glancing up and holding out a folded piece of paper. “You’ll need provisions for a week.”
Marrim unfolded the paper, then looked back at him. It was a map of one of the upper districts.
“There’s still a lot to be done,” Atrus said, “so we’d best get down to it. I want all the Books collected in.”
She understood. They weren’t going. The trip to Bilaris had been canceled.
“We must complete the search,” Atrus said, opening his notebook and reaching for a pen. “Only then will we know the full extent of our task.”
“We’ll go tonight,” she said.
He looked up at her. “It’s all right. Marrim. Tomorrow will do.”
Marrim nodded, then back away, but it was only when she was standing outside, the paper held loosely in one hand, that it really hit her.
We aren’t going. After all that, we’re not going!
There was a moment of disappointment, and then Marrim looked at the map again and her determination was reborn. They would find all of the Books there were to find. And among them there would be Books that worked—that linked to functional Ages. And in those Ages, surely, there would be survivors.
But first it was up to her to find the Books.
Marrim slipped the map into her pocket. Tomorrow? Forget “tomorrow.” She would gather her team together and begin the search tonight.