The Myst Reader (99 page)

THE CITY WAS RECEDING NOW. IN AN HOUR HE
would be back in K’veer. A’Gaeris turned from the sight and looked back at his captives where they lay at the bottom of the boat.

He would have killed them there and then, at the harbor’s edge, and thought nothing of it, but the woman had betrayed the fact that her husband was still abroad.

And so, he would use them as his bait. And once he had Aitrus, he would destroy all three of them, for he had not the sentimental streak that had ruined his once-companion, Veovis.

“He will not come for us, you know.”

A’Gaeris looked down at the woman disdainfully. “Of course he’ll come. The man’s a sentimental fool. He came before, didn’t he?”

“But not this time. He’ll wait for you. In D’ni.”

“While you and your son are my captives?” A’Gaeris laughed. “Why, he will be out of his mind with worry, don’t you think?”

He saw how that silenced her. Yes, with the two of them safe in a cell on K’veer he could go back and settle things with Guildsman Aitrus once and for all.

For there was only one boat in all of D’ni now, and he had it.

“No,” he said finally. “He’ll wait there at the harbor until I bring the boat back. And then I’ll have him. Oh yes, Ti’ana. You can be certain of it!”

THE FIRST BOOK HAD LINKED HIM TO A ROOM
in the great house on Nidur Gemat, filled with Veovis’s things. There, after a brief search, he found the second Book that linked to this, more familiar room on the island of K’veer, a place he had often come in better times.

Aitrus stood there a moment, leaning heavily against the desk, a bone-deep weariness making his head spin. Then, knowing he had less than an hour to make his preparations, he looked about him.

The Book with the emerald green cover was on a table in the far corner of the room, beside a stack of other, older Books. Going across to them, Aitrus felt a sudden despair, thinking of what had been done here. So much endeavor had come to naught, here in this room. And for what reason? Envy? Revenge? Or was it simple malice?

Was A’Gaeris mad?

Aitrus groaned, thinking of the end to which Veovis had come. Then, determined to make one final, meaningful effort, he lifted the Book and carried it back over to the desk.

There he sat, opening the Book and reading through the first few pages. After a while he lifted his head, nodding to himself. Here it was, nakedly displayed: what Veovis might, in time, have become; a great Master among Masters, as great, perhaps, as the legendary Ri’Neref.

He began to cough, a hacking, debilitating cough, then put his fingers to his lips. There was blood there now. He, too, was dying.

Taking a cloth from his pocket, Aitrus wiped his mouth and then began, dipping the pen and scoring out essential phrases and adding in others at the end of the book. Trimming and pruning this most perfect of Ages.
Preparing
it.

And all the while he thought of Anna and of Gehn, and prayed silently that they would be all right.

A’GAERIS CLIMBED THE STEPS OF THE HARBOR
at K’veer, Anna and the boy just in front of him, goaded on by the point of his knife.

At the top he paused and, grasping the loose ends of the ropes by which their hands were bound, wrapped them tightly about his left hand. Then, leading the two behind him like a pair of hounds, he went inside the mansion.

K’veer had not been untouched by the tremors, and parts of its impressive architecture had cracked and fallen away into the surrounding lake, yet enough of it remained for it to be recognizable. Anna, who had wondered where they were going, now felt a sense of resignation descend on her.

If Veovis was here then there was nothing Aitrus could do.

Anna glanced at her son. Gehn’s face was closed, his eyes sullen, as if this latest twist were no more than could be expected. Yet he was bearing up, for all his trials, and she felt a strange twinge of pride in him for that.

She was about to speak, when she caught the scent of burning. A’Gaeris, too, must have noticed it at the same moment, for he stopped suddenly and frowned.

For a moment he sniffed the air, as if he had been mistaken, then, with a bellow, he began to hurriedly climb the stairs, dragging them along after him.

As they approached the Book Room the smell of burning grew and grew until, at a turn in the stairs, they could see the flickering glow of a fire up ahead of them.

A’Gaeris roared. “My Books!”

For a moment, as he tugged at the rope, Anna almost fell, but she kept her footing. Gehn did, however. She heard his cry and saw that A’Gaeris had let go of the rope that held him. But there was no time to see if he was all right. The next instant she found herself behind A’Gaeris in the doorway to the Book Room. Beyond him the room was brilliantly lit. Smoke bellowed from a stack of burning Books. And just to one side of the flaming pile—a Book in one hand, a flaming torch in the other—stood Aitrus.

A’Gaeris slammed the great door shut behind him, then took a step toward Aitrus, yet even as he did, Aitrus raised the torch and called to him:

“Come any closer and I’ll burn the rest of your Books, A’Gaeris! I know where they are. I’ve
seen
them. In the cabin on the south island. I linked there. I can link there now, unless …”

Anna felt A’Gaeris’s hand reach out and grasp her roughly, and then his arm was about her neck, the dagger raised, its point beneath her neck.

“I have your wife, Aitrus. Go near those Books and I shall kill her.”

“Kill her and I shall destroy your Books. I’ll link through and put them to the torch. And what will you have then,
Master
Philosopher? Nothing. Not now that you’ve killed Veovis.”

Anna could feel A’Gaeris trembling with anger. Any false move and she would be dead.

“Give me that Book,” he said once more in a low growl. “Give it to me, or Ti’ana dies.”

Aitrus was smiling now. He lifted the Book slightly. “This is a masterful work. I know Veovis was proud of it.”

A’Gaeris stared at Aitrus. “It was called Ederat.”

“No,” Aitrus said, his eyes meeting Anna’s. “Veovis had another name for it. He called it Be-el-ze-bub.”

Anna caught her breath. She stared at him, loving him more in that instant than she had ever loved him.

I love you
, she mouthed.

Aitrus answered her with his eyes.

“Well?” he asked, returning his attention to A’Gaeris. “Do we have a deal? The Book—and all those Books within—for my wife?”

But A’Gaeris simply laughed.

Aitrus lowered the torch. His eyes went to the cover of the Book, then, with a final loving look at Anna, he placed the hand that held the burning torch upon the glowing panel.

A’Gaeris howled. Thrusting Anna away from him he ran across the room.

“Aitrus!” she yelled as his figure shimmered and vanished. “Aitrus!”

But he was gone. The great Book fell with a thud to the floor beside the burning stack.

A’Gaeris threw himself at it in unseemly haste and almost wrenched the cover from the spine forcing it open.

Anna watched, her heart in her throat as, his chest heaving, A’Gaeris looked across at her and, with a smile that was half snarl, placed his hand against the descriptive panel and linked.

EVEN AS HE LINKED INTO THE CAVE, A’GAERIS
stumbled, doubling up in pain. The air was burning, the reek of sulphur choking. The first breath seared his lungs. Putting out an arm, A’Gaeris staggered forward, howling, looking about him desperately for the Linking Book back to D’ni. Yet even as he did, a great crack appeared in the floor of the cavern. The heat intensified. There was a glimpse of brilliant orange-redness, one stark moment of realization, and then the rock slab on which he stood tilted forward, A’Gaeris’s shrill cry of surprise cut off as he tumbled into the molten flow.

And then silence. The primal, unheard silence of the great cauldron of creation.

ANNA CRIED QUIETLY, CROUCHING OVER THE
green-covered Book and studying the glowing image there.

For a moment or two there was the temptation to follow him: to end it all, just as Aitrus had. Then someone hammered on the Book Room door.

It brought her back to herself.
Gehn.

Anna turned to face the smoldering pile of ashes that had once been D’ni Books, then dropped the green-covered Book upon the rest. Sparks scattered. A cloud of smoke wafted up toward the high ceiling of the room. A moment later, flames began to lick the burnished leather of the cover.

For a moment she simply stared, feeling the gap there now where the other book of her life had been, just as Tasera had described it. Then, getting to her feet again, she turned, even as the knocking came again, more urgently this time, and began to walk across.

T
HE SUN WAS EDGING ABOVE THE MOUNTAINS
far to the east as the figure of a woman emerged from the lip of the volcano, cradling a sleeping child. The desert floor was still in deep shadow. It lay like a dark sea about the bright, black-mouthed circle of the caldera. The woman paused, lifting her chin, slowly scanning the surrounding desert, then began to descend the rock-littered slope, her shadow stretched out long and thin behind her, black against the dawn’s red.

As she came closer to the cleft, a light wind began to blow, lifting the dark strands of her hair behind her. Sand danced across the rock then settled. The woman seemed gaunt and wraithlike, and the child in her arms was but skin and bone, yet there was a light in her eyes, a vitality, that was like the fire from the deep earth.