A BURROWING WORM BLINKS IN THE SUNLIGHT.
AND PULLS HIS EYES DOWN OVER HIS EYES.
EARTH’S MOUTH STEAMS. DEEP VOICES GRUMBLE.
TIME DRAWS A JAGGED LINE UPON THE SAND
IN WHICH THE WOMAN WAITS.
--FROM THE KOROKH JIMAH
VV. 21660-64
The broad leather spines were old but well cared for, the blues and reds, the blacks and yellows and greens of the ancient Books embossed with D’ni symbols that were faded yet still readable. Row after row of them crowded the shelves of the storeroom, overspilling into a second great room: 78 Books in total—all that remained of the tens of thousands that had once graced the great houses and common libraries of D’ni.
Two large desks had been pushed together in one corner of the newly added room, on which were stacked a huge pile of Kortee-nea—blank Books—they had unearthed, to their astonishment, beneath the fallen stones of one of the common libraries.
Seated at one of those desks, his head down, patiently toiling into the night, Atrus was unaware of Catherine’s approach until he felt her hands upon his shoulders.
“Haven’t you finished yet, my love?”
“Two more lines,” he said, indicating the Linking Book he had been working on, “and then I’m done.”
To one side of him, beyond the ink stand and the glowing orange lamp, was a small pile of Linking Books—five in all—that he had prepared already.
It was four months since their trip to Bilaris and they had all worked hard. All of the Books were gathered in—yes, and cataloged and read. The six most likely had been selected by Atrus and Catherine, after a long and sometimes heated debate, and now they were almost— almost— ready to go.
A month back, belatedly fulfilling his promise to the elders of Averone, Atrus had sent his young helpers home, to teach the new generation, taking the time, in their absence, to make his final preparations.
Tomorrow they would return, and a new phase of the reconstruction—a painstaking search of the Ages—would begin.
“You have the draft letter?” Catherine asked, easing past him to sit on the edge of the desk.
Atrus reached across and, rifling among his papers, came up with a single sheet. He handed it across, then watched as Catherine quickly read it through.
She looked back at him. “That should do.”
“You don’t think it too formal, then?”
“No. It has the right tone, I’d say. Dignified without being self-important.”
He laughed at that. The letter was an introduction of sorts, as well as being a statement of intent. And when his teams went into the Ages, they would each take copies of the letter, ready to present, if and when they made contact with survivors.
“I’ll make some copies, then,” he said, taking it back from her, “and seal them using my grandfather’s ring.”
Catherine stared at him a moment, then, changing the subject, said, “You’ve missed her, haven’t you?”
Atrus hesitated, then nodded. They were talking, as ever, of Marrim. “It’s strange, Catherine. Marrim was always so quick, so enthusiastic, but something’s changed since we came here. She’s grown.”
“Hungry children grow when fed,” Catherine said, covering his hand with her own. “You should begin teaching her. That copy of the Rehevkor we found…. You should give it to her, Atrus.”
The Rehevkor was the ancient D’ni lexicon; the principal teaching tool for D’ni children. Atrus himself had learned the D’ni language from it.
“You think so? You think she’s ready?”
Catherine grinned. “She was ready months ago. But first things first. Finish the Linking Book, then come and get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
§
Stepping through the open doorway, Marrim stared into the shadows of the schoolroom. Through the windows on the far side she could see the bay, the sun setting over the water. In an hour she would be gone. To Chroma’Agana, and thence to D’ni.
And then?
The thought of going—of visiting the Ages—thrilled her, yet at the same time she felt a deep regret that she had to leave here. Before now it had been easy, for there had been nothing for her here—except, of course, her family—but this last time things had changed. Now she had a reason to come back.
Marrim walked to the desk at the front of the room. It had all been crudely, hastily fashioned, to the orders of the elders, yet it had served its purpose well. A hundred or more children had crowded into this room by the end, eager to hear her and learn from her. And she, for her part, had been as eager to teach them.
It had been a wonderful four weeks, all told, yet now that it was over she found that she had missed Atrus and Catherine, missed them more than she cared to say. With them she was the pupil.
She grinned, remembering those smiling, eager faces crowded into the room in front of her, the sea of enthusiastic hands, the openmouthed wonder as she told them stories about the D’ni.
Maybe that had been wrong, for her brief from the elders was to teach them useful skills—reading and writing and the use of numbers—but it would have been lean fare indeed had she not seasoned it with tales.
She smoothed her hands over the surface of the desk, then, knowing she had come here for a purpose, crouched down and began to take her things from the drawers, slipping them into her knapsack.
Last of all she removed her journal from the bottom drawer, pausing a moment to open it and read the last few entries. She had noticed how Atrus wrote everything down, keeping a daily record of events, but she had never thought to do the same until two months back, when, on a search of one of the midlevel houses, she had come upon an unused notebook. Since then, she had made the time each evening to set down her thoughts about the day’s activities, to reflect on what she’d done. And now that she did, she understood the purpose of it. If she were a boat, making her way across life’s water, then the journal was her compass. It let her steer her course. For how could she know where she was going without a reference to where she’d been.
Which made it only all the more curious that Atrus’s father, Gehn, had not seen that. Reading his journals, she had found it strange how little Gehn had reflected on the world about him. Gehn’s was not, as she understood it, a true intellectual curiosity, he was interested only in forcing the world to fit his first conception of it: a conception warped by his youthful experiences and the unbridled power of the art of writing.
Marrim closed the notebook and slipped it into the sack, then looked about her again. Even in the last few minutes the shadows in the room had deepened. In a moment the sun would sink below the horizon and it would be night. And she would be gone from here again.
She had already said her good-byes, her mother clutching her tearfully, he father taking her hands and squeezing them—as much emotion in that as in all her mother’s embraces. Now Irras and Carrad awaited her at the clearing in the wood. But still she stood there, reluctant to leave while one shred of light remained.
At such moments there was no logic to events; one had to go with the feeling.
The sun’s last light threw a bar of red across the open doorway to her right. Into that light now stepped a child. A young girl.
Marrim blinked, as if she had imagined it, but the child was still there, looking across at her, the dying light reflected in the moist pools of her eyes.
“Allem?”
Allem slowly came across. From close up Marrim could see she had been crying.
“You will come back, won’t you, Marrim?”
Marrim knelt, embracing her. “Of course I will.”
“You promise?”
“I promise. Now go. Your father will be angry if he knows you are here.”
The girl nodded but did not pull away. “I had to come. You’ve meant so much to us.”
Marrim sniffed. “And you…I enjoyed teaching you. You were good pupils. You made it easy for me.”
The girl looked up. “Can I come with you?”
“Come?” Marrim went to shake her head, but Allem spoke again.
“I don’t mean now. I mean later. When I’m grown up.”
Again Marrim made to shake her head, but then, relenting, she nodded. “Yes, Allem. When you’re older.”
§
Atrus and Catherine were in the library on Chroma’Agana to greet them, as first Irras, and then Carrad, and finally Marrim linked through.
“Well…” he said, stepping back. “All is prepared. When the teams link through we can begin.”
The other team members would arrive tonight, but Atrus had wanted his team leaders back earlier to brief them.
“Which Ages did you finally choose, Master Atrus?” Irras asked. He had helped Atrus catalog the Ages.
“Six in all,” Atrus answered. “I’ve chosen old worlds to begin with. Family Ages of some solidity.”
“Will we be using the Maintainers’ suit?” Carrad asked.
“Not this time,” Atrus said, yet he glanced at Catherine as he did so, as if this had been a topic of debate between them.
They linked through to K’veer. There Gavas awaited them with a boat. Marrim greeted him, then took her seat in the stern, staring past the overhang of rock into the cavern beyond.
As they rowed out under the ledge and onto the lake, Marrim glanced at Atrus and, seeing him watching her, looked away, smiling to herself. It was so good to see him again. So good to be back. She had enjoyed her spell teaching, but this was her real work. This was where she belonged.
That morning’s briefings were long and highly detailed. Atrus was leaving nothing to chance. He had prepared information for each of the team leaders, giving them details of the terrain, the names of the families who had owned the Ages, and, as a precaution, basic points of D’ni etiquette. Last of all he handed them copies of the letter of introduction he had penned. Marrim stared at hers a moment, studying the dark green seal that had the imprint of a D’ni letter at its center, then slipped it into her jacket pocket.
The afternoon was spent in preparation, making up backpacks for each team member, with all-weather clothes and sufficient food. It had been decided that they would camp out in the Ages, if necessary, with one team member remaining at the link point, ready to get a message back to D’ni at a moment’s notice.
“I don’t expect trouble,” Atrus said, explaining the decision, “but we had best prepare for it.”
Even so, he would not let them take any weapons into the Ages. Their intentions were peaceful, and should the worst come to the worst and they were taken prisoner and searched, he did not want their captors finding anything upon them that might suggest otherwise.
“The Ages themselves are harmless. The Maintainers were careful to ensure that. And the survivors, if there are any, will undoubtedly be D’ni. They may not welcome you at first, but they will certainly not harm you.”
§
They slept that night in D’ni. In the morning they rose early, while the lake was still dark, and gathered in the space before the makeshift library.
A month previously, Atrus had had them carry down six of the big stone pedestals from one of the common libraries. These were now spaced out along the harbor front. A lamp had been set up above each, to illuminate the tilted lecterns on which lay the open Books, their descriptive panels glowing softly.
At a word from Atrus, the six teams of four lined up before their respective pedestals.
Atrus looked down the line of tense, nervous faces. Then, without a further word, he placed his hand against the panel and linked.
In less than a minute it was done. They stepped up, one by one, to the lecterns and disappeared, like ghosts vanishing into the air, leaving the harbor front empty, even as the lake began to glow with the faint light of morning.
§
Marrim stood at the center of the deserted village and looked about her, her vision darkened. It was six hours now and they had found no sign of life. The plague, it seemed, had taken them all.
The first sign of it had been in the cave. There, in a heap upon the floor beside the Linking Book, they had found two skeletons, their bones intertwined, their cloaks, rotted by damp, tearing like spiders’ webs beneath her touch.
Veovis , she thought, and in her mind she saw Veovis and A’Gaeris, masked, their own hands gloved to protect them from contagion, placing the palms of the dead men onto the Book.
It was horrifying, yet it had been as nothing beside the other sights she’d witnessed. She had gone inside one hut only to find a whole family—mother, father, and their two young children—wiped out, their bones stretched out on the rotting mattress, their fleshless fingers linked in death.
That small, tender sign of affection in the midst of this horror had unhinged her momentarily. Until then she had been able to harden herself against it, to remind herself that this was what Atrus had warned them might await them. But that …
The disappointment seared her. She had not realized just how much of herself she had gambled on this venture.
“Lerral! Allef!” she called, stirring herself.
She watched the two young men step from the big meetinghouse at the far end of the central space, and saw at once the darkness in their eyes.
“Come,” she said, walking over to them. “Let’s go. There’s nothing here for us.”
§
Six worlds and not a single survivor.
Atrus had wanted to go back—to pack fresh provisions and have another, more thorough search of those two Ages where they had found nothing at all, not even bones—but Catherine had persuaded him against it.
“Never mind,” Atrus concluded, when all else had been said. “We’ll try again. We are certain to be more successful next time round. This time, I’ll just check one.”
“Yes. We need something to raise their spirits, Atrus. They’re feeling very despondent.”
“This one, I think.” Atrus showed her the cover. It was the Book of Aurack. “It looks as likely as any other. I’ll write our link back tonight. Tell Marrim and Carrad they can come with us. Oh, and Meer and Gavas, too. We’ll take six through this time. It’ll speed the search.”
Catherine leaned across, kissing him on his bearded cheek. “Good. The news will cheer them.”
§
“Is everyone ready?”
Atrus looked from face to face, his eyes questioning theirs. Then, satisfied with what he’d seen, he smiled and placed his hand against the glowing panel.
Aurack was hot. Stepping out from the linking cave, Marrim raised her hand to her brow instinctively, shielding her eyes against the sun’s fierce glare. Atrus was up ahead of her, standing on the edge of the escarpment, his special D’ni lenses pulled down over his eyes, their surfaces opaqued.
“Empty,” he said as Catherine stepped up beside him.
“It only looks empty,” she answered him. “Why, you could hide a hundred villages in that.”
He glanced at her, conscious of the others listening. “Do you think that’s what they’ve done?”
“It’s possible. After what happened to D’ni, it would make sense to take precautions.”
“Maybe,” he conceded, “but how are we going to find them?”
Marrim, coming up onto the ledge, saw at once what Atrus meant. What lay below them, covering the landscape from horizon to horizon, was no wood as she had experienced it on Averone, but a forest, a thousand square miles or more of densely packed trees; an ocean of green in which you could hide forever and never be found.
“Why don’t we light a fire?” she said.
Atrus looked at her. “If all else fails, we shall. But if they’re here, I suspect they’ll not have gone too far from the linking cave. They would want to know if anyone came through into their Age.”
“You mean to make a physical search of that?” Catherine asked, gesturing toward the great sprawl of the forest.
“Only part of it. Once we’ve made our search for the Linking Book, we’ll split up. Each take a small section of it.”
“What if someone gets lost?”
But Atrus had thought of that. He’d packed special dye-markers in every knapsack. They were to use these to mark the trees they passed.
“To prevent confusion, I’ve given each of you a different color.” He turned, looking at the three young men. “Carrad and Meer, you’ll take part in the first sweep. Gavas, you can be our anchor man here on the escarpment. If anything goes wrong, send up a fire flare.”
Gavas nodded, hiding his disappointment well.
“Good. Then we’ll concentrate our search on this side first. There’s a river down there—you can see it winking between the trees—so that might be a good site for an encampment. We can make our way down, then split up on the riverbank.”
Atrus looked about him. “First, however, let’s spread out and search this area. The Linking Book, if there is one, ought to be somewhere nearby.”
§
The river was a broad band of green, glimpsed between the straight dark boles of the trees off to the left. Out there, on the river’s bank, it was swelteringly hot, swarms of exotic insects feasting on anything or anyone who strayed near, but here, beneath the branches of the trees, it was much cooler, the insect life less voracious.
Marrim paused to spray the bole of a tree, then turned, looking about her. The forest was alive with sounds, with the buzz of insects, the endless cries of birds, and the rustle of unseen creatures as they hastened away from her approach.
Even though it was much cooler here, it was still humid, and Marrim stopped frequently to mop her brow, her clothes sticking to her uncomfortably. It never got this hot on Averone, even during the dry season, and that, as much as the alien life-forms, was beginning to get to her. It was an hour since they had split up at the river, and she had seen nothing at all to indicate that there was any kind of intelligent life in this Age. But each time she thought that, she reminded herself of what it had looked like from the escarpment—how huge an area it was they were searching—and she felt herself spurred on again.
She had grown used to the way the ground beneath her gave with each step, a thousand years of leaf fall forming a thick, dry carpet of mold beneath her feet. She had even grown used to the strange quality of the light beneath the leaf canopy, its pellucid greenness that had at first made her think herself at the bottom of some great ocean.
Marrim scratched at her arm. The bites were heavily swollen and formed a small mountain range of red blotches from her exposed elbow to her wrist. She smiled now, but at the time she had thought they were going to eat her alive!
They had known that Aurack was a big, primitive world, but it was strange that Atrus hadn’t mentioned the insects. Then again, his briefing hadn’t mentioned a thing about the heat, either, so maybe they had come at an exceptional time—at the height of a hot season, perhaps, or in the midst of a heat wave. But somehow she wasn’t convinced. Nothing here looked as if it didn’t belong in this heat. This was quite clearly a tropical environment.
She moved on, marking her way as she went, then stopped, whirling about 180 degrees. There had been a cry: a high, inarticulate screech.
Hurrying, she began to make her way back the way she’d come, following the trail of marked trees.
Carrad and Catherine were waiting at the meeting point beside the river as she half ran, half walked toward them. Atrus arrived a moment later.
“Who was it?” he asked, looking from one to the other for an explanation.
“I thought it was you,” Catherine said, puzzled now.
Atrus turned, looking back into the trees. “Where’s Meer?”
They heard a crashing in the trees. Relieved, Carrad laughed. “Here he comes now!”
But the crashing stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and in the silence that followed, there was no sound of anyone making their way toward them.
“Let’s go,” Catherine said, touching Atrus’s hand. “His is the blue trail. It should be fairly easy to follow.”
They went in again, more cautiously now, Atrus leading them, Carrad at the back, his shaven head moving this way and that as he surveyed the jungle close at hand.
The trail snaked inward, then followed a dip in the land down into a hollow. There, abruptly, it ended, in the middle of a small clearing.
Insects buzzed and whined in the sultry heat.
Atrus went from tree to tree, then stopped, looking about him, perplexed.
Marrim bent down and picked something up. It was a piece of torn cloth. At first she didn’t understand, then it hit her. She held it against her own cloak. The match was perfect.
“Atrus…”
She handed him the piece of cloth and watched as his eyes registered its significance.
“He may have snagged it against something,” Atrus said, meeting her eyes. But that wasn’t what he was thinking.
“Here!” Carrad said, from the far side of the clearing. “It looks like something was dragged through the bushes at this point.”
They went across, the four of them standing there, staring silently at the broken branches.
Something had been dragged through the bushes.
Turning back, Marrim began to see things she had missed first time round. The way the ground seemed churned up on one side of the clearing. She walked over, then stooped, poking here and there with her fingers.
A wet stickiness greeted her. She raised her hand and gasped. Blood! Her fingers were covered in blood that had seeped down through the leaves.
Catherine, standing next to her, knelt down and took her hand, turning it and studying it.
“Meer?” Atrus called, cupping his hands and yelling into the thick undergrowth beyond the clearing. “Meer? Where are you?”
But there was no answer. Nothing but the flap of wings and the high, plaintive call of a hidden bird.
§
Armed, Atrus and Carrad had linked back to Aurack and returned to the clearing, working their way through the undergrowth, following the trail of broken branches until they had come out beside a waterfall. There, in the mud at the edge of the stream that ran away from the fall, were tracks.
The tracks of something large.
Wary, they followed the trail down the narrow valley until they came upon what they had feared they would find: fragments of Meer’s torn and bloody clothes. Of Meer there was no sign, but the tracks led on, and there were clear indications that the beast had settled here to make his meal before moving on, dragging its prize with it.
Carrad, seeing the sight, had crouched and groaned, utterly distraught. But Atrus had merely stood and looked, his pale eyes carrying the full weight of his grief.
“Come,” he said at last. “Let’s go back.”
Back in D’ni, Atrus got out the Book of Aurack once again and read it through. Finally, he closed it and, looking up, shook his head.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “It has the Guild of Maintainers stamp. There ought to be no creatures like that in Aurack.”
“Then someone must have captured it elsewhere,” Catherine said.
“But why go to all that trouble? Why not simply go straight to the world the creature comes from?”
“Perhaps because that was too dangerous,” Catherine answered. “I’ve been thinking about it, Atrus. These were D’ni, right? Scholars and Guildsmen, builders and stonemasons, inkmakers and archivists, not hunters. In which case, Aurack would be the beast they had released for their sport. Or beasts, if my guess is correct, for this creature cannot have survived seventy years without others of its kind to breed with. I guess they would release them and kill them within days. Then, when the Maintainers came to inspect the Age, there would be no sign of them.”
“Maybe,” Atrus conceded. “But whatever the truth is, one thing is certain: We must take greater precautions in the future. No one must venture alone in the Ages. And we must make the teams bigger. Only two teams, perhaps, of ten or twelve. Yes, and we must arm them.”
§
Atrus took charge of the next expedition. Twelve of them were to make the link, the first two armed. If there was any exploring to be done, they were to keep in teams of three, and each team leader carried a fire flare, to be used at the first sign of any trouble.
A long week had passed since Meer’s untimely death—a week in which Atrus and Catherine had returned to Averone to break the news to Meer’s parents—and now, as they stood before the podium, there was a very different mood—of sobriety rather than excitement—about the job at hand.
“All right,” Atrus said quietly. “It’s time.”
Carrad and Gavas went through first. A moment later Atrus followed them.
The linking cave was long and low, but sunlight from a crevice high up to one side made it seem less oppressive than it would otherwise have seemed. The air was fresh and there was a faint moistness to the air.
“Islands,” Marrim said, stepping through after Atrus. “I can smell islands.”
Atrus nodded. There were indeed islands, if the Book was accurate, but that wasn’t what Marrim had meant. She could smell the sea. And other things. It was like Averone. That same mixture of scents.
They climbed up onto a shelf of rock. Below them the land fell away. A long slope of waist-high grass ending in the silver-blue line of a sunlit shore. And there—immediately visible from where they stood—a village, nestled about a small, natural harbor.
Seeing it, Atrus felt the heavy burden he had been carrying these past months lift from him. For the first time in weeks he smiled.
“Come,” he said, looking about him at their eager faces. “Let us go down and greet our cousins.”
§
Their laughter was short-lived. The village was deserted. Even so, there were signs that it had recently been occupied. Everything was well tended, the fences in good repair, the pathways swept.
Inside the cabins the beds were made and clothes lay pressed and folded in the wooden cupboards. The shelves were well stocked, the utensils clean and polished. Three fishing boats lay anchored in the harbor, their pots and nets neatly stowed. Everywhere one looked one could see the products of a small but industrious society. Yet of the people there was no sign.
“They must have seen us emerge from the cave,” Gavas offered. “Seen us and run away.”
“No,” Marrim said. “There wouldn’t have been time. Besides, where could they have got to?”
It was true. The village was at the end of a narrow promontory. The only way they could have left and not been seen by Atrus and his party was by sea.
Atrus walked over to the harbor’s edge and, shielding the top of his D’ni lenses with one hand, stared out to sea.
“We’ll wait,” he said, a strange confidence in his voice. “We’ll set up camp and wait.”
§
The boat approached slowly, long poles hauling the inelegant craft through the water until it was positioned just outside the harbor’s mouth. The craft lay low in the water; a broad-keeled, capacious vessel with more than a dozen separate structures on its long, flat deck, so that it seemed more like a floating village than a normal boat. Those on board were clearly wary of the newcomers and there were heated discussions on board before one of them—an old man, solemn in appearance, D’ni lenses covering his pale eyes—stepped up to the prow and hailed them.
“Ho, there! Who are you and what do you want?”
Atrus raised an arm and hailed the graybeard. “My name is Atrus, son of Gehn, grandson of Aitrus and Ti’ana, late of D’ni, and these are my companions.”
There were audible murmurs of astonishment from the craft. The elder, however, seemed unimpressed. “You say you are late of D’ni. Yet D’ni is fallen. As for your father, I have never heard of him. Yet the names of your grandsires are well known to me, if such is true.”
“It is true. And we mean you no harm. We wish only to talk.”
“So you say,” the old man replied, then turned away.
For a long while there was no further word from the old man as he engaged in a long, murmured discussion with his fellows—a dozen or more of them crouched in a huddle at the center of the boat—then, finally, he came back across and hailed Atrus once again.
“It is decided. I will talk with you, Atrus, son of Gehn.”
And with that he stood back, allowing two of the younger men to lower a small rowboat over the side of the vessel. He climbed into this and, with a gesture to those aboard, took up the oars and began to row for the shore. As he did so, the men aboard the larger vessel leaned heavily on their poles, beginning to move the craft out into the bay.
As the rowboat nudged against the harbor wall, Carrad hurried down to help the old man tie up, but he was waved away with a suspicious glare.
Carrad moved back, letting the elder pass him on the steps.
Atrus hesitated a second, then stepped forward, bowing respectfully to the stranger, who had stopped less than five paces from him. From close by he seemed not as old as he’d first appeared and Atrus realized with a shock that he was wearing the cloak of a D’ni Guildsman. An old, much-mended cloak.
“So,” the old man said, “you are Atrus, eh? My name is Tamon and I am Steward here. In D’ni I was a Guildsman. A stonemason. But that was long ago. Now tell me, Atrus, why are you here?”
“I am here to ask you to come back,” Atrus answered, meeting Tamon’s eyes unflinchingly, seeing how the other sought to find something there.
“Back?” Tamon asked.
“To D’ni.”
Tamon’s laugh was dark and full of sorrow. “To D’ni, eh? But D’ni is a ruin.”
“Is,” Atrus agreed. “Yet it need not be. If enough can be found, we might yet rebuild it.”
“And that is your task, Atrus? To find enough to rebuild D’ni?”
Atrus nodded.
“Then speak, for it seems we have much to talk of.” Tamon half-turned, looking back at his vessel, which had now edged far out into the bay, then turned back, meeting Atrus’s eyes, his own filled with a cautious fear behind their D’ni lenses.
§
They talked for most of that afternoon. Tamon questioning Atrus closely. Afterward, Atrus stood on the jetty, watching old Tamon row away, his tiny boat disappearing into the late evening gloom. He expected to have his answer later that night, but two whole days were to pass before the Guildsman returned. During those two long nights, while Atrus and his party cooled their heels, distant lights—campfires—could be seen twinkling on a smudge of island far out in the center of the lake.
It was late morning on the third day when Tamon climbed the harbor steps wearily.
“So?” Atrus asked, concealing any impatience he felt.
“We have decided we will talk with you,” Tamon answered. “Others will come at high sun. They will listen to what you have to say.”
“You are still in doubt?”
“Not I,” Tamon said, “but you must understand, Atrus. We have been much alone here, and some of the younger men have never seen a stranger. But come…let us eat and talk and then, perhaps, decide what shall be done.”
§
Tamon had not known Atrus’s grandfather, yet he had much to tell Atrus about the circumstances leading up to the fall of D’ni, things not even Anna had told him.
“There were many who blamed her for everything. In those final hours they cursed her name, as if Veovis and that foul philosopher had had no part in it,” Tamon concluded, even as he offered his pipe across the table to Atrus.
Atrus accepted the stubby, ornately carved pipe, then, out of politeness, took a tiny indrawn breath of the acrid smoke. Tamon, watching him, smiled, showing a set of pearl white, perfectly formed teeth.
“Strong,” Atrus said, trying not to cough. His eyes watered.
Catherine, seated beside Atrus, accepted the pipe from him. Tamon watched her through half-lidded eyes. It was clear that he was not used to women who were quite so forward in their ways. As she handed the pipe back to him he frowned, not knowing he did so, then looked away quickly, lest what he was thinking conveyed itself to Catherine.
Yet Catherine, looking on, saw everything. These people had lived so openly these last seventy years that they had lost whatever social masks they’d once possessed. What they were was written clearly on each face: their hopes, their fears, yes, and especially their suspicions, all could be read, as in a book.
But of this she said nothing.
“And you, Master Tamon?” she asked. “Did you blame Ti’ana?”
“Not I,” the old man said, and Catherine could see he meant it. “Oh, I thought her strange, I don’t deny. But she was honest. Anyone with a pair of eyes could see just how honest she was.”
“Then come back with us, Master Tamon,” Atrus said, leaning toward him. “Help us rebuild D’ni. It will take time, I know. A long, long time, perhaps. But time is what we D’ni have plenty of.”
Tamon stared back at him, then shrugged. “I must talk some more with my own people. Discuss things with them further. Only then…”
“I understand,” Atrus said. “Yet in your deliberations, remember this. There will be other survivors. Hopefully many. And they will make the task easier for us all. Every extra pair of hands will make a difference.”
“I see that,” Tamon said. Then, changing the subject, he turned and clapped his hands. At the signal, two young boys—barely out of their infancy—came across and, bowing, presented themselves to Atrus and Catherine.
“My grandchildren,” Tamon said, smiling proudly at them. “Arren, Heejaf…say welcome to the good people.”
The two boys bowed, and then, in perfect D’ni, bid their guests welcome and good health. Atrus grinned and clapped his hands loudly, but Catherine, watching the old man, seeing how proud he was at that moment, knew, even before he had discussed the matter with his fellow villagers, what the answer would be.
§
It was only later that they learned of the old man’s tragedy.
Nine days after the fall of D’ni, his son, Huldref, had volunteered to link back, to try to discover what had happened and whether it was safe to return. He had promised he would be back within a day with news, but Huldref had never returned. Doubtless he had succumbed to the plague that had claimed so many other victims. And Tamon and his wife had been left to grieve.
That night, however, the mood of Tamon and his people was much brighter. News that D’ni was to be rebuilt had stirred the survivors and they were eager to get back and help. Packing what they would need, they prepared to link back to their home Age—an Age many of them, far younger than old Tamon, had never set eyes upon.
“We shall return to D’ni,” Atrus said, taking Tamon’s hands, “and prepare things for your people. There are makeshift shelters and beds. Enough for all of you.”
“Then let us meet again tomorrow, Atrus, son of Gehn,” Tamon said, his old hands gripping Atrus’s tightly. “Tomorrow. In D’ni.”
But Atrus was to have one further surprise. As the disorientation of the link back to D’ni wore off and he looked about him at the harborside, he shook his head, trying to clear his vision. On the far side of the square, a whole village of tents had sprung up. And people! There were people everywhere Atrus looked, sitting on their packs outside the tents, or standing in groups, talking. Seeing him, they fell silent, looking to him expectantly.
“Gavas?” Atrus called, looking to his young helper, even as Catherine and Marrim linked through. “What is going on here?”
“Atrus?” a voice asked from behind him. “You are Atrus, I assume?”
Atrus turned to find himself facing two men, in their thirties; a small rather rotund man with disheveled hair, and a taller, dark-haired man with huge dark eyebrows and a frowning face. From their pale eyes he knew at once who they were.
The first of them—the one, he presumed, who had spoken—offered his hands.
“I am Oma,” he said, “from Bilaris. And this is my brother, Esel.”
§
“Well,” said Atrus, once they were all seated about the desks in the makeshift storehouse, “when did you get here?”
“Six hours back,” Esel answered. “Just before you last linked.”
Atrus narrowed his eyes. “You saw that?”
“We witnessed everything,” Oma said, getting in before his brother could speak again, one hand nervously combing through his lank, disheveled hair. “From the very start. We saw you…”
“We saw you, on K’veer,” Esel said. Unlike his brother, he sat very still, like a statue, his face formed into what seemed a permanent frown. Indeed, looking at the pair from where she sat at Atrus’s side, Catherine could not think of two men who looked less like brothers.
“You’ve been watching us all the time?” Atrus asked.
“Most of the time,” Oma conceded. “We weren’t sure.”
“So what made you change your mind and join us?” Atrus asked.
“Intuition,” Esel said.
Atrus waited, and after a moment Oma explained. “Things felt right. We watched what you were doing and there seemed no harm in it.”
“We talked a long while,” Esel added, “back in Bilaris, and we…”
“About that,” Atrus interrupted. “We visited your Age. There was nothing there.”
“So it seems,” Oma said, a faint smile on his lips. Again his fingers raked through his lank hair. “After D’ni fell our father thought we should take precautions. He decided that we should move from the main island. We built dwellings on the smaller islands…”
“On the far side of them,” Esel added, “where they couldn’t be seen from the main island.”
“So that’s it!” Atrus said, sitting back and steepling his hands, the mystery solved. “And your father…”
“Died twelve years ago,” Oma said, looking down.
“I’m sorry,” Atrus said.
“He was a Guildsman,” Esel said, after a moment. “A Master in the Guild of Archivists. He taught us.”
“And it was your idea to come back?” Catherine asked, speaking up for the first time.
Again the two men looked to each other.
“Our father never wanted us to,” Oma said. “Oh, he came back several times himself, but the mere sight of what had happened here would always darken his spirits. In the end he stopped coming.”
“But you came back,” Catherine prompted, “after his death.”
“Yes,” Esel answered. “Our people looked to us, you see. On Bilaris…well, there was no future on Bilaris.”
“And there’s a future here, you think?” Atrus asked.
“Yes,” the two men answered as one, then grinned—the same grin from two very different faces. And suddenly Catherine could see that they were indeed brothers.
“We want to help you,” Esel said.
“There are many craftsmen among us,” Oma added, “stonemasons and technicians.”
“That’s good,” Atrus said. “But how many of you are there?”
“The number will be no problem,” Esel said, sitting forward slightly. “We can live under canvas until more permanent quarters are available. And we can bring food from Bilaris. Fruit and fish. And fresh water.”
“Excellent,” Atrus said. He was about to say something more, but Catherine spoke again.
“Forgive me, Oma and Esel, but what exactly do you do?”
Oma looked to his brother. “We are…historians.”
“Of a kind,” Esel said quickly, a strange look of censure in his eyes.
“Of a kind? ” Catherine asked, watching him closely.
“Of the self-taught variety,” Esel said, looking directly at her.
Again, there was that openness about him that she had seen in Tamon earlier. The loss of masks. As if, in being forced to live away from D’ni and its intense social pressures, they had all shed several layers of skin.
“Then you are among fellows,” Atrus said, “for we have all been forced back upon our own resources since D’ni fell. There is no shame in being self-taught, only in not seeking learning in the first place.”
“Well spoken,” Oma said, grinning once more. But beside him Esel just stared at Catherine, unaware that he was doing so.
§
When Tamon and his party finally arrived the next morning, they began to organize what part each would play in the coming reconstruction. It was generally agreed that the overall planning would be left in Atrus’s hands, but that Tamon, as a former member of the Guild of Stonemasons, was to be placed in charge of the actual stone-working.
There was a need, of course, to create sufficient living quarters for those returning from the Ages—for they had already outgrown their harborside site—but it was also felt that some kind of gesture was necessary: something that would symbolize the rebirth of D’ni. It was Tamon’s task to come up with a suitable scheme, something that would raise their spirits but not divert too much time and energy away from more practical measures.
By late afternoon he returned, his eyes twinkling. “The old Inkmakers Guild House,” he said, in answer to Atrus’s unspoken query. “I’ve just come back from it, and it seems relatively undamaged. Nothing structural, anyway. There are a few cracks, of course, and a few of the internal walls have come down, but otherwise it appears sound.”
“Then that’s where we begin,” Atrus said, looking about him at the gathered helpers, who numbered more than a hundred now. “But the search must go on. Until all the D’ni are home.”
There was a great murmur of agreement from all sides. Smiling, Atrus turned back to Tamon. But Tamon had turned and was staring up once more at the massive pile of ruined stone that climbed and climbed into the darkness of the cavern’s roof, and as Atrus looked, he saw the old man’s eyes fill with uncertainty and knew he would have to be a pillar of strength in the days to come.
To see them through. To make sure they do not turn back.
“You must tell me what tools you’ll need, Master Tamon,” Atrus said, speaking as if he had seen nothing. “And men. What will you need? A dozen?”
Tamon turned back, switching his attention back to the practicalities once again. “Oh, not as many as that. Eight should do it. After all, we must not neglect our other duties.”
“No,” Atrus agreed, holding Tamon’s eyes a moment, letting his own certainty register on the old man. “One step at a time, eh?” he said, and, stepping close, touched the old man’s shoulder briefly. “One step at a time.”