The Myst Reader (50 page)

Stepping out under the node-gate and onto the platform where their camp was situated, Aitrus looked across at the excavators where they were parked against the north wall and smiled fondly. He was almost of a mind to ask to serve on an excavator crew again. That was, if there were to be any new explorations after this.

Seeing Aitrus, Master Telanis summoned him across, then quickly took him into his cabin. He seemed strangely excited.

“Aitrus,” he said, even before Aitrus had had a chance to take his seat, “I have news that will cheer you greatly! The Council have reconsidered their decision. They have permitted a small contingent from the exploration team to accompany the Maintainers for the breakthrough!”

Aitrus grinned broadly. “Then we shall get to finish the job!”

Telanis nodded. “I have chosen six guildsmen to accompany me. You, of course, shall be among their number.”

Aitrus bowed his head. “I do not know how to thank you, Guild Master.”

“Oh, do not thank me, Aitrus. Thank your friend Veovis. It seems it was his intervention that swayed them to reconsider.”

“Veovis?” Aitrus shook his head in amazement. He had written to Veovis weeks back, thanking him for the gifts, but there had been nothing in his letter about the Council’s decision. “I do not understand.”

Telanis sat, then took a letter from the side of his desk and handed it to Aitrus. “It appears that your friend and benefactor, Veovis, has been an active member of the Council these past two months, since his father’s illness. It seems that he has the ear of several of the older members. His suggestion that a token body of men from the Guild of Surveyors should be included was apparently unopposed.” Telanis smiled. “It seems we have much to thank him for.”

“I shall write again and thank him, Master.”

“There is no need for that,” Telanis said, taking the letter back. “Veovis will be here in person, six days from now. Indeed, we are to be honored by the presence of the full Council for the capping ceremony. I am told that every last cook in D’ni has been engaged to prepare for the feast. It should be some occasion! And all from the seed of our little venture!”

THE NEXT FEW DAYS PASSED SWIFTLY, AND ON
the evening of the sixth day, at the very hour that the Guild of Surveyors had estimated, the great shaft was completed, the last curved section of nara lining bolted into place, the eighty great ventilation fans, each blade of which was thrice the length of a man, switched on.

It was an awesome sight. Standing on the floor of the great chamber, Aitrus felt a tiny thrill ripple through him. The great floor stretched away on all sides, its granite base paved now in marble, a giant mosaic depicting the city of D’ni at its center, the whole surrounded by a mosaic hoop of bright blue rock that was meant to symbolize the outer world that surrounded their haven in the rock. Yet, marvelous as it was, the eyes did not dwell on that but were drawn upward by the great circle of the walls that climbed vertiginously on every side, the spiral of steps like a black thread winding its way toward the distant heights.

Aitrus turned full circle, his mouth fallen open. It was said that some twenty thousand fire-marbles had been set into the walls. Each had been placed within a delicately sprung lamp that was agitated by the movement of the fans. As the great blades turned, the fire-marbles glowed with a fierce, pure light that filled the great well.

He lowered his eyes and looked across. Already the Guild of Caterers was hard at work, whole troops of uniformed guildsmen carried into the chamber massive wooden tables that would seat twenty men to a side, while others tended the ovens that had been set up all along the southern wall, preparing for the great feast that would take place the next day.

Old Stone Tooth had been dismantled and shipped back down the line to D’ni two days back. Grinder had followed a day later. While the guildsmen set up the tables and began constructing the massive frames that would surround the central area where the feast was to be held, members of the Guild of Miners were busy dismantling Rock-Biter and The Burrower on the far side of the great chamber. By tomorrow they, too, would be gone.

Aitrus, freed from all official duties, spent his time wandering on the periphery of all this activity, watching what was happening and noting his observations in his notebook. He was watching a half-track arrive, laden high with fine linen and chairs, when two strangers approached.

“Aitrus?”

He turned. A tall, cloaked man was smiling at him. Just behind was a second, smaller man, his body partly hunched, his features hidden within the hood of his cloak.

“Forgive me,” said the taller of the two, “but you are Aitrus, no? I am Veovis. I am pleased to meet you again after all these years.”

Veovis was a head taller than Aitrus remembered him and broad at the shoulder. His face was handsome but in a rather stark and monumental manner—in that he was very much his father’s son. As Aitrus shook the young Lord’s hand, he was surprised by the smile on Veovis’s lips, the unguarded look in his eyes. This seemed a very different person from the one he’d known at school all those years ago.

“Lord Veovis,” he said, stowing his notebook away. “It seems I have much to thank you for.”

“And D’ni has much to thank you for.” Veovis smiled. “You and your fellow guildsmen, of course.” He turned slightly, introducing his companion, who had now thrown back his hood. “This is my friend and chief adviser, Lianis. It was Lianis who first brought your papers on pyroclastic deposits to my attention.”

Aitrus looked to Lianis and nodded, surprised to find so ancient a fellow as Veovis’s assistant.

“Lianis was my father’s adviser, and his father’s before him. When my father fell ill, it was decided that I should keep him on as my adviser, so that I might benefit from his experience and wisdom.” Veovis smiled. “And fortunately so, for he has kept me from many an error that my youth might otherwise have led me into.”

Aitrus nodded, then looked to Lianis. “My paper was but one of many submitted from the expedition, Master Lianis, and hardly original in its ideas. I am surprised it attracted your attention.”

Lianis, it seemed, had a face that did not ever smile. He stared back at Aitrus with a seriousness that seemed etched deep into the stone of his features. “Good work shines forth like a beacon, Guildsman. It is not necessarily the originality of a young man’s work but the clarity of mind it reveals that is important. I merely marked a seriousness of intent in your writings and commented upon it to the young Lord’s father. That is my task. I claim no credit for it.”

Aitrus smiled. “Even so, I thank you, Master Lianis, and you Lord Veovis. I have found good use of the equipment you were so kind in giving me.”

“And I am glad it has found good use … though I never doubted that for an instant.”

The two men met each other’s eyes and smiled.

“And now I am afraid I must go. My father’s guildsmen await me. But I am glad I had a chance to speak with you, Aitrus. I fear there will be little time tomorrow. However, when you are back in D’ni you must come and visit me.”

Aitrus bowed his head. “My Lord.”

Veovis gave the faintest nod, then, with a glance at Lianis, the two walked on, their cloaked figures diminishing as they crossed the great floor.

Aitrus stared a moment, then, with a strange sense of something having begun, took his notebook from his pocket and, turning to that day’s entries, wrote simply:

Met Veovis again. He has changed. The man is not the child he was. He asked me to visit him in D’ni.
He paused, then added,
We shall see.

Closing the book, he slipped it back into his pocket, then, turning on his heel, hurried across, heading for the bright circle of the exit tunnel.

THE GREAT FEAST TO CELEBRATE THE CUTTING
of the great shaft was almost over. Young guildsmen from the Guild of Artists looked on from the edge of events, hurriedly sketching the scene as the great men said their farewells to each other.

It had been an extraordinary occasion, with speeches and poems in honor of this latest venture of the D’ni people. A year from now a whole series of new canvases and tapestries would hang in the corridors of the Guild House back in D’ni, capturing the occasion for posterity, but just now the Grand Masters talked of more mundane affairs. Matters of State stopped for no man and no occasion—even one so great as this—and there was ever much to be discussed.

It was not often that one saw all eighteen major Guilds represented in a single place, and the colorful sight of their distinctive ceremonial cloaks—each Guild’s color different, each cloak decorated with the symbols that specified the rank and status of the guildsman who wore it—gave Aitrus an almost childish delight. Such things he had only glimpsed in books before now.

Aitrus’s own cloak, like those of all young guildsmen without rank, had eight such symbols, four to each side, beneath the lapels, whereas those of the great Lords had but a single one.

Looking on from where he sat on the far side of the feasting circle, Aitrus saw Veovis rise from his seat to greet one of the Great Lords, his friendly deference making the old man smile. Four of the Five were here today, the fifth—Veovis’s father—being too ill to come. All eighteen of the Grand Masters were also here, to represent their guilds, along with several hundred of their most senior Masters, every one of them resplendent in their full Guild colors.

To a young guildsman, they seemed an impressive host. Lord Tulla, it was said, was 287 years old, and his three companions—the Lords R’hira, Nehir, and Eneah—were all well into their third century. Veovis, by comparison, was a babe—a glint of sunlight against dark shadow. Lord Tulla, in particular, looked like something carved, as if, in the extremity of age, he had become the rock in which he had lived all his life.

One day, perhaps, Aitrus too might become a Grand Master, or perhaps even one of the Five, yet the road that led to such heights was long and hard, and some days he wondered if he had the temperament.

If this expedition had proved one single thing to him it was that he was of essence a loner. He had thought, perhaps, that such close proximity to his fellows, day in, day out, might have brought him out of his shell—rounding off the hard edges of his nature—but it had not proved so. It was not that he did not get on with his fellow cadets—he liked them well enough and they seemed to like him—it was simply that he did not share their pursuits, their constant need for small distractions.

You were born old, Aitrus, his mother had so often said. Too old and too serious. And it had worried him. But now he knew he could not change what he was. And others, Master Telanis among them, seemed to value that seriousness. They saw it not as a weakness but a strength.

Even so, he wondered how well he would settle back into the life of the Guild House. It was not the work—the studying and practicals—that concerned him but the personal element. Watching the great men at the feast had reminded him of that, of the small, personal sacrifices one made to be a senior Guildsman.

Given the choice, Aitrus would have spent his whole life exploring; drilling through the rock and surveying. But that, he understood, was a young man’s job, and he would not be a young man all his life. In time he would be asked to take charge; of small projects at first, but then steadily larger and larger tasks, and in so doing he would have to deal not with the dynamics of rock—the certainties of weight and form and pressure—but with the vagaries and inconsistencies of personality.

He looked across, catching Telanis’s eye. The Guild Master smiled and raised the silver goblet he was holding in a toast. Aitrus raised his own uncertainly but did not sip. Many of his companions were drunk, but he had not touched even a drain of the strong wine he had been served.

Indeed, if the choice had been given him, he would have left an hour back, after the last speech, but it was not deemed polite for any of them to leave before their Masters. And so they sat, amid the ruins of the feast, looking on as the old men went from table to table.