The Myst Reader (28 page)

Atrus looked to his father and saw how Gehn grimaced then touched his tongue against his upper palate, as if to get a better taste of that unwholesome air.

“What is it?”

Gehn concentrated a moment longer, then, ignoring Atrus’s question, strode on. But he had not gone more than a dozen paces before he stopped dead, his whole face drained of expression, his lips parting the merest fraction.

Atrus walked across and stood beside his father on the ridge, looking out over the village and the lake, shocked by what he saw.

The lake was dry, its exposed surface filled with dark cracks. Two dozen fishing boats lay on their sides in the bone-dry mud.

Atrus turned, looking toward the sea. There, through the gap in the hills, where the channel ended and the sea had once begun, was a ledge of solid rock. Dry rock, crusted with dried up seaweed and barnacled rocks.

Like a desert scrubland
, he thought, recalling the first time he had had the thought, in the boat with Tarkuk and his son.

And beyond that ledge … nothing. Only air.

A great sound of wailing and groaning came up to them on the wind. Atrus looked, trying to locate its source in the village, but the village was deserted. Then, suddenly, he saw them, on the other side of the bridge, in front of the meeting hut. They were all there, huddled together in fear, staring out across the gouged eye of the lake or looking woefully up at the black and hostile sky. Only Koena stood, moving among them, bending down to talk to this one or lay his hand upon that one’s arm.

“What’s happened here?” he asked, turning to Gehn once more.

Gehn slowly shook his head. There was a look of disbelief in his face. “It was all right,” he said quietly. “We fixed it. Those phrases … there was nothing wrong with them.”

And yet something was wrong. Something had drained the lake and left the island stranded above the level of the surrounding ocean.
Something
had caused that. It must have. Because things like this did not happen on their own.

A phrase swam into Atrus’s mind.
He made the ocean warm …

Was that it? Had that seemingly small alteration set up a contradiction? Or, to achieve it, had Gehn tampered with some other crucial element in this Age? Had he tilted the axis of the planet, perhaps, to bring it closer to the sun so that the water was warmer? Or was it something else? What if he’d tampered with the plates beneath the ocean? What if Gehn had set up a weakness in the ocean floor that had finally succumbed to the great pressures down there, causing this lowering of the ocean’s level? Or what if he had simply picked a phrase from a D’ni book that referred to a warm ocean without understanding where it came from or what its context was?

He would never know. Not without consulting the Age Thirty-seven book, and Gehn was quite adamant that he was not to read his books.

Great black-fisted thunderclouds were gathering overhead now. There was the low grumble of thunder.

Looking about him, his face much harder than it had been only moments before, Gehn began to walk slowly down the hill toward the village.

“BUT GREAT MASTER, YOU
HAVE
TO HELP US.
You
must
!”

“Must?”
Gehn turned his head and stared at the kneeling man disdainfully. “Who
says
I must?”

An hour had passed since they had come and Gehn sat in his chair, at his desk in the great tent, the glowing pipe cradled in his hands.

The first thing Gehn had done was to send the islanders back to their huts, forbidding them to set a foot outside, then he had come here and lit his pipe. Since then he had not moved, but had sat there, silently brooding, his brows heavily knitted.

And now Koena had come to petition his Master; afraid to defy his command, yet equally afraid to leave things be. His world was dying and there was only one person who could save it—the Lord Gehn.

Atrus, standing just behind Koena, felt a great wave of respect and admiration for the man swell up in him.

“Forgive me, Master,” Koena began again, his eyes not daring to meet Gehn’s, “but have we angered you somehow? Is this our punishment? If so, tell us how we might make amends. But please, I beg you, save us. Bring back the sea and fill the lake for us, Master, I implore you!”

Gehn slammed the pipe down on the desk and stood. “Enough!”

He seemed to take a long, indrawn breath, then slowly stepped around the table until he stood over the cowering Koena.

“You are right,” Gehn said, his voice cold and imperious. “This
is
a punishment. A demonstration of my awesome powers.”

Gehn paused, then, turning his back on the man, began to pace the floor. “I thought it necessary to show you what would happen should you ever think to defy me. I felt it … appropriate.”

Atrus stared at his father, openmouthed, in the silence that followed.

Gehn made a slow circuit of the tent, moving behind Atrus as if he wasn’t there. Then, as if the thought followed on from the last, he threw a question at Koena. “Are the preparations complete?”

“Master?” The kneeling man dared the smallest glance.

“The preparations,” Gehn repeated, as if speaking to a child, “for the ceremony.”

Koena blinked, then nodded; then, realizing what he had done, he hastily dropped his head again and said, “Yes, Master. Everything is ready.”

“Then we shall hold the ceremony in an hour. You will gather the islanders on the slope in front of the temple.”

“The temple?” Then Koena understood. Gehn meant the meeting hut. Even so, he seemed rooted to the spot.

“Well?” Gehn said, turning around so that he faced his servant again. “Had you not better go and arrange things?”

“Master?” Koena’s face was suddenly a blank. He seemed bemused, in shock.

“I said go. Gather the villagers and prepare for the ceremony. I do not wish to be kept waiting.”

Koena backed away a little. “But Master … aren’t you going to help us? The lake …”

“Go!”
Gehn yelled, his face dark with fury. His hand had gone down to his waist and produced a long dagger from beneath his cloak. “Now! Before I slit you open like a fish!”

Koena’s head jerked up, his eyes staring fearfully at the razor-sharp blade; then, with a tiny bow, he turned and almost ran from the tent.

Atrus took a step toward him. “Father?”

But Gehn wasn’t listening. He stared blackly at the tent flap where Koena had just departed, then made a sour movement of his mouth. He glanced at Atrus, as if looking at a book or some other object he had forgotten he had placed there, then, sheathing the knife, turned and went back to his desk.

Picking up his pipe, he drew deeply on it, then sat back, resting his neck against the back of the chair and closing his eyes.

“Father?”

But Gehn was impervious to words. Pursing his lips, he blew a long stream of smoke into the air.

An hour. The Korfah V’ja—the god-crowning ceremony—was in an hour.

KOENA HAD GATHERED THE ISLANDERS, ALL
two hundred of them, and made them kneel, heads bowed, on the slope before the meeting hut. Five great torches burned on the top of tall poles that were set into the ground between the people and the hut, their flames gusting and flickering in the wind. Deep shadows danced in that mesmeric light, like an evil spirit searching among that gathered mass for one specific soul to torment.

They were mainly silent, cowering beneath the mass of dark and threatening clouds, yet each growl or rumble of that heavenly chorus provoked a corresponding moan from those frightened souls.

At the prearranged signal, Koena turned and raised his arms, calling upon the god to come down. At once, Gehn stepped from the darkness between the wooden pillars, resplendent in a long, flowing cloak of pure gold thread lined with black silk, his white hair framed by a strange, pentagonal halo of gold that flashed in the flickering torchlight.

“People of the Thirty-seventh Age,” he commanded, his voice booming over the noises of the storm, “prostrate yourselves before your new Master, the Great Lord Atrus.”

Reluctantly, Atrus came down the steps until he stood beside his father. He was wearing a cloak and halo much like Gehn’s, only his were a brilliant red, the material shining transparently, as though it were made of a million tiny rubies.

In genuine awe, the people pressed their foreheads to the earth, murmuring the words the acolyte had had them prepare.

“The Lord Atrus is our Master. He blesses us with his presence.”

Gehn beamed, then called to the two men still inside the temple. “Attendants! Come!”

Slowly, with great ceremony, the two attendants—recruited from among the fishermen—came from within the temple, carrying between them on a velvet cushion an astonishing pendant of precious metals and bloodred jewels and delicate porcelain.

Stepping forward, Koena stood before the two men, passing his hands over the great pendant in blessing in the way Gehn had shown him. Then, moving back, he looked to Atrus, who had turned to face him.

“And now,” Gehn said, his voice echoing across the black and empty lake, “behold the Great Lord Atrus!”

And as Koena lifted the pendant and placed it around Atrus’s neck, careful not to knock the halo, so Gehn pointed up toward the sky.

There was a great clash of thunder and a flash. For the briefest moment Atrus saw the surprise in his father’s face and knew the moment was sheer coincidence. Yet in an instant Gehn’s face changed, swelling with pride, his eyes blazing with a fierce intelligence.

“Behold, the rain!”

And then, as if he really had commanded it, the heavens opened, the torrent so heavy that each drop seemed to rebound from the earth, drenching things in an instant.

The earth trembled like a beaten drum.

Atrus stared, astonished. Before him on the slope, two hundred faces were turned up in awe as the precious water fell on them like a solid weight.

Koena looked to his Master, as if to ask whether or not he should continue, but Gehn seemed undaunted by the downpour. It was almost as if he
had
planned it.

“The handmaiden … where is the handmaiden?”

Koena turned, then gestured toward the girl Salar, who was clutching a garland of woven flowers, like the one they had presented to Gehn when Atrus had first come to the Age. But Salar could not move. Salar was petrified. She stared up at the sky, her eyes like tiny, startled beads.

Seeing how it was, Gehn strode down and grasped her by the arm, then began to drag her across the muddy slope toward the hissing torches and the temple beyond.

Appalled by his father’s treatment of the girl, Atrus started forward. “Father! Let her go!”

Coming closer, Gehn glared at him, the fierceness in that look enough to make Atrus lower his gaze.

Gehn threw the girl down at Atrus’s feet. “The garland!” he growled. “Present the Lord Atrus with the garland!”

Atrus wanted to reach down and pick the girl up, but his father’s eyes were on him, defying him to help her.

And still the rain beat down relentlessly.

Slowly Salar got up onto her knees. The garland, which she still held loosely in one hand, was ruined now—mud-spattered and ripped in several places. She glanced up at him, frightened now and tearful.

“Lord Atrus …” she began, her voice almost inaudible beneath the noise of the storm.

“Speak up, girl!” Gehn bellowed. “Let’s hear you now!”

“Lord Atrus …” she began again, her voice struggling to keep an even tone.

There was a great flash, a huge thunderclap. The young girl shrieked and dropped the garland.

“Kerath help us!” Gehn said impatiently, then, placing the heel of his boot against her shoulder, pushed her roughly aside and bent down to pick up the ruined garland. He studied it a moment, then, with a grimace of disgust, discarded it.

Gehn turned, looking to Koena. “Dismiss them,” he said. “The ceremony is over!”

But Koena wasn’t listening. Koena was staring at the lake, watching the precious water drain away into the cracks. The rain fell and fell, but it did no good. It would have to rain for a thousand years to fill that lake, for the lake drained into the sea and the sea into the ocean, and the ocean … the ocean now lay a hundred yards or more below that great ledge of rock that once had been a seabed.