The Myst Reader (108 page)

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 a perfect place for the more timid of them. The only threat 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.