The Myst Reader (15 page)

“I plan to make you my apprentice, Atrus, and teach you about the books. Would you like that?”

Looking up at his father, Atrus remembered suddenly how Gehn had stepped from that great veil of whiteness at the volcano’s edge, awed by the power in the figure that stood facing him.

“Yes, father,” he answered clearly, “I’d like that very much.”

“T
HAT PHRASE … NOW WHERE DID I SEE
that phrase?” Gehn placed the quill pen back in the marble ink pot, then, sitting forward, reached across his desk, taking the second of the big, leather-bound books from the stack. Edging aside the book he had been writing in, he drew the ancient volume toward him, then opened it and quickly flicked through until he came to the passage he had marked with a thin blue strip of paper.

“Ah … that’s it. That should do it.”

He looked up, his eyes focused inward briefly, as he considered what else he might need. It was barely midday, but here in Gehn’s study it was permanently night, the shadows of that cavernous room kept at bay by a small stone lamp perched on the corner of his massive wooden desk.

Gehn read the line again, tracing it with his index finger, then squinted at the page.

“Perhaps a little overelaborate … remove those two descriptive words … embellishment, that’s all they are.”

He nodded, pleased with himself, then, moving the book he had been working on until it rested beside the ancient text, he began to copy out the D’ni phrase, taking care to leave out the two words he considered served no purpose.

“There,” he said softly, looking up again, aware of his surroundings for the first time in over three hours.

Every surface in that huge, cavelike room was filled with books. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, leaving space for little else. Just across from Gehn was an ancient hearth. And then there was the door, of course. Otherwise there was nothing but shelves—not even any windows. Even the floor was covered in stacks of books—some new, some old—some piles of which had tumbled over, remaining where they fell, thick layers of dust covering their musty leather bindings, like ash on a volcano’s slope.

Across from Gehn, between two standing shelves containing Gehn’s own journals, was a smaller desk, laid out with pens and ink and a pile of copying books, like those his son wrote in.

Focusing on them, Gehn seemed to wake with a start and glanced at the timer that lay to his left on the desk.

“Kerath preserve me!” he muttered, getting up and pocketing the timer, realizing he was late.

He hurried across the room, then, taking the long silver key from the bunch attached to his waist, he unlocked the door and went outside, taking care to lock the door again before he turned and hurried down the narrow stone steps.

At the bottom of the steps lay the library. As Gehn stepped out, he saw that Atrus was seated at his desk in the far corner, his arms folded before him, his copybook open, ready.

“Father?”

Making no apology for his tardiness, Gehn strode across and, taking a long white chalk from the pot, turned to the great slate board and began to sketch out a D’ni word, taking great care as he did to demonstrate the flow of each stroke.

Turning back, he noted how attentively his son was watching him. Seeing him like that, Gehn felt a momentary frustration at the boy’s innate placidity. Oh, it was a fine quality in a servant or in a subject species, but in a D’ni they were absurd. For a second or two, Gehn felt something akin to futility at the task he’d set himself.

Unaware, Atrus labored on, slowly copying down the figure from the board, his tongue poking between his lips as he painstakingly mimicked the shapes his father’s hand had made to form the strokes and curls of the D’ni word.

“Atrus!”

The boy looked up. “Yes, father?”

“You must learn to concentrate. It is not easy, I know. It has taken me close to thirty years to master the art. But you must try hard, Atrus. You will achieve nothing unless you are willing to harness yourself to the yoke of learning.”

Atrus, his head down, his eyes staring at his desk, nodded. “Yes, father.”

“Good,” Gehn said, placated by the boy’s humility, by his willingness to listen to his father’s instruction; by his innate quickness of mind. Then, seeing a way he might improve matters, he went across and took a large, extremely thick volume from one of the shelves and carried it across.

“Here,” he said, setting it down on the desk beside Atrus’s open workbook. “As it is clear that you need extra tuition, and as my own time is presently tied up in a number of experiments, I think we must try an experiment of a different kind.”

Atrus looked up at him, his eyes eager suddenly.

“Yes, Atrus. This book is a very special book. It is called the
Rehevkor.
Once every school in D’ni had several copies of this book. From it pupils would learn how to write those fundamental D’ni words that formed the basic vocabulary of our race. I suppose the nearest comparison you would have for it is a lexicon, but this is far more complex.”

Gehn took the edge of the massive cover and pulled the book open, then pointed down at the detailed diagrams that filled both pages.

“As you can see, each double-page spread concerns a single D’ni word, and shows clearly what pen strokes must be used and in what precise order. What I want you to do, Atrus, is to work through the
Rehevkor
from the first page to the last, concentrating on twenty words a night to begin with. I will provide you with a supply of copying books to work in, but you must promise me to practice these figures until they are second nature to you. Until you could sketch them in your sleep. You understand me, Atrus?”

“I understand.”

“Good.” Gehn reached out, closing the book, then made to turn away.

“Father?”

“Yes, Atrus?”

“How old is the text?”

“The
Rehevkor?
” Gehn turned back. “Ten thousand years old. Maybe older.”

He saw the awe in his son’s eyes at that and smiled inwardly. Atrus’s eagerness, his clear appreciation of the greatness of the D’ni, was something that he, Gehn, could work upon.

“Father?”

Gehn sighed, for the briefest moment tempted to yell at the boy and tell him to stop this endless questioning. Then, realizing that he must be patient if he was to undo all the harm Anna had done to the child, he answered him.

“Yes, Atrus?”

“I just wondered why the sea is less bright now than it was earlier, that’s all.”

Gehn leaned back, relaxing. “That is easy to explain. The plankton has a thirty-hour cycle that corresponds with that of the D’ni. It sleeps when we sleep, and is most active when we are most active. Thus we have night and day down here. Of a distinctly black and orange kind.”

If it was a joke, it was either a very bad one, or touched on something Atrus did not understand, yet Gehn seemed to find it funny, for his laughter went on for some while, and Atrus, pleased to discover that his father did, after all, possess a sense of humor, laughed with him.

LATER, AFTER ATRUS HAD RETURNED TO HIS
room, Gehn walked over to the central dais and, climbing up onto the marbled floor, looked about him at the great books where they rested on their pedestals.

Talking to Atrus about various matters, he had realized suddenly just how much he had missed the chance simply to talk these past fourteen years.

Alone. He had been so alone. Not emotionally, for he considered himself as emotionally self-sufficient as any man could be, but intellectually. He had missed the chance to stretch himself in debate, yes, and to demonstrate the vastness of his knowledge. And though the boy, as yet, was little more than a sounding board for his ideas, yet there was immense potential in him.

Yes, but then how could he have been certain that the boy even existed? The chances were that he had perished. After all, it was hard to imagine anyone surviving in that desolate little crack in the ground!

“Patience. I must have patience with the boy, and then, in time …”

But right now time was the one thing he found himself severely lacking. Over these past few weeks not one but several of his experiments had suddenly gone badly wrong, and he had been forced to spend more and more time attempting to deal with the problems that had arisen. To try to give Atrus as much attention as he needed was … well, impossible.

Still, Atrus was an obedient child. He could see that the boy tried his best. And maybe a few sessions with the
Rehevkor
would bring him up to scratch. Time would tell.

Right now, however, other matters needed his attention. Crossing the dais, Gehn stood over one of the open books, staring down at the descriptive box. Then he placed his hand upon it. A moment later he was gone.

I
N THE WEEKS THAT FOLLOWED, ATRUS FELL
heavily beneath his father’s spell. Mornings he would work hard, repairing the walls and paths of the many-leveled island. Then, in the afternoons, after he had bathed and eaten, he would sit at his desk in the great library, while Gehn taught him the rudiments of D’ni culture.

Much of what Gehn taught him was familiar from his own reading and from things Anna had told him over the years, but there was also a great deal he had never heard before, and so he kept silent. Besides, now that he knew it was real, even those things he knew seemed somehow transformed: different simply because they
were
real.

For several days he had been working on the question of why the water at the north end of the island was clear of the light-giving plankton, and had traced the problem to the spillage from an old pipe that led down from his father’s workroom. He had taken samples of that spillage and found traces of lead and cadmium in it—elements that were clearly poisoning the plankton. Not having the equipment to make a proper filter, he decided that, as the spillage was only a trickle, it would probably be best to block the pipe off altogether. He was busy doing this one morning, standing on the steps below the seawall, leaning across to fit the tiny stone cap he’d fashioned to block the end of the pipe, when Gehn came out to see him.

“Atrus?”

He turned and looked. His father stood at the head of the steps, cloaked and booted as if for a journey, looking out across the sea toward the great rock and the city beyond.

“Yes, father?”

“I have a new task for you.”

Atrus straightened up, then threw the steel facing-tool he had been using down onto the sack beside him, waiting for his father to say more.

Gehn turned, combing his fingers through his ash-white hair, then looked to him. “I want you to come into the city with me, Atrus. I want you to help me find some books.”

“The city? We’re going to the city?”

Gehn nodded. “Yes, so you had better go and change. You will need your boots. And bring your knapsack, too.”

Atrus hesitated a moment, then, with a curt nod to his father, gathered up his tools and hurried up the steps.

“I shall go down to the dock and prepare the boat,” Gehn said, stepping back to let his son pass. “Meet me down there. And hurry now. I want to be back before nightfall.”

Gehn was standing at the stern of the boat, his hand on the tethering rope, ready to cast off, as Atrus came down the twist of stone steps and out into the low-ceilinged cave that housed the jetty.

Since that evening when he had first arrived on K’veer, Atrus had never been off the island. Nor had a day passed in all that time when he had not looked to the distant D’ni city and dreamed of going there.

Climbing aboard, he looked to his father for instructions.

“Sit there,” Gehn said, pointing to a low bench that dissected the shallow craft. “And try not to lean over too far. I don’t want to have to pull you out.”

He nodded, chastened by his father’s words.

As his father cast off, then swung the boat around, poling it out through the narrow entrance, Atrus turned in his seat, staring out across that vast expanse of orange sea, past the scattering of intervening islets, toward the D’ni capital, seeing yet again how its crowded levels climbed the cavern wall into the darkness.