She nodded.
“Could you take me back to Riven and show me where?”
Again she hesitated, then, “What are you going to do?”
“Does my father expect to see you again before the wedding ceremony?”
Catherine shook her head.
“Good.” He looked about him at the cluttered desk. “Then we’ll take all of this to Myst. All but the Myst and Age Five books. Then I want you to stay there, Catherine. I want you to keep away from both D’ni and Riven.”
“But you’ll need help…”
Atrus looked at her sternly. “The biggest help to me will be to know that you’re safe.”
“But what are you going to do?”
He stood up then came around the desk, taking her arms gently in his hands. “Do you trust me, Catherine?”
She smiled, then nodded.
“Then wait for me. As soon as I’ve dealt with my father, I’ll come and join you on Myst island.”
There was a slight flicker in her expression, as if, for a moment, she was going to disagree, then she nodded.
“Good. Then let’s get back to Riven. It’s time you showed me where my father keeps his Linking Book.”
22
~~~~~~~~~~
Careful not to be seen, they walked quickly up the temple’s steps and into the shadowy interior. Since Atrus had last been here, the place had been decked out with great gold and red banners, ready for the wedding ceremony.
My father, with Catherine…no, it will never happen.
He followed Catherine through, behind the great golden silk screen that had Gehn’s silhouette embroidered at its center, and down the narrow flight of steps, into the cave. It was just as he’d thought.
“He used to bring us here,” she said quietly, almost whispering. “There would be a linking ceremony. He’d make the chosen one drink something from one of the golden chalices. It had the faintest taste of aniseed. And afterward…well, afterward you could remember nothing. But lately…” She looked down. “Lately he’s trusted me. He brought me here and showed me where the book was hidden.”
Atrus watched her go across and, standing on tip-toe, reach into one of the holes that peppered the rock face to the left of the low-ceilinged cave, searching a moment before she withdrew her hand, clutching the slender box that held Gehn’s Linking Book.
He walked over, looking down at the floor, then back up again, fixing the position in his mind the way Anna had taught him. Then, nodding, he gestured for her to put it back.
“Come,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s go to your hut and get any remaining books.”
She pulled on his hand, slowing him, making him face her. “Atrus?”
“Yes?”
She leaned close and kissed his cheek—just a single, gentle peck—then, tugging on his hand, moved on, hurrying now, knowing that there was barely time to do all they had to do before the ceremony.
§
Atrus blinked, the bright sunlight hurting his eyes after the dullness of his prison, and pulled his glasses down over his face.
He was standing on a wooden jetty, the knapsack holding the books heavy on his back. Water lapped against the rocks beneath, while somewhere out in the distant haze seagulls called forlornly. To his right, the sea was calm and green, stippled by the light breeze that blew across the island from the northwest. Facing him, directly east from where he stood, a barren rock, twenty feet in height and thirty or forty in width rose from the sea like a sawn tree trunk. To its left, the land rose to a sharp peak, over a hundred feet in height, while behind him and to his left, beyond a narrow sheld of rock, tall pines filled the west end of the island.
Atrus smiled. The air was clean and clear, the smell of pine strong. Overhead the sky was a pale blue, wisps of thin cirrus high up in the atmosphere.
He turned back, waiting, then saw Catherine step out of the air onto the wooden planks beside him, the heavily laden knapsack on her back.
“This is beautiful…”
“You wrote it so,” he said. “Considering how much time you had, I think you did a marvelous job.”
Atrus looked about him, breathing in the rich, clean air. “That smell. It’s so wonderful.”
He stopped suddenly, realizing that it was the same smell as on the Thirty-seventh Age. Before Gehn had destroyed it.
“What is it?” she asked, noting how his face had changed.
“It’s nothing,” he said, shrugging off the mood.
“Then come. Let me show you the cabin.”
“A cabin! You’ve built a cabin here already?”
She took his hand and led him up a narrow track that climbed the rock slope. At the top, the ground opened out. There was grass beneath their feet now. The sound of the wind was stronger here—a strangely desolate sound, punctuated by the more peaceful sound of birdsong.
“Yes,” he said, after a moment. “I could live here.”
Catherine smiled and squeezed his hand, then pointed down the broad grass path between the trees. “It’s down there,” she said. “Just over on the left.”
They walked on along the sloping path until they stood before the cabin.
Atrus stared a while, noting how neatly the logs were fixed, how cleverly she had trimmed the planks that framed the doorway, and shook his head, astonished. There were clearly aspects of Catherine he had never suspected.
“It’s a good beginning,” he said quietly.
“I’m glad you think so.”
He turned, looking back up the slope toward the peak. “We could build things here. Perhaps finally a library of my own.”
“Shhh…” she said, amused by his eagerness. “There’ll be time. After we’ve dealt with Gehn.”
“Yes…” The reminder sobered him. “I’ll see you settled in, then I’d best get back. Two more journeys should see me finished.”
“Atrus?”
“Yes?”
“Are you sure I can’t help?”
He hesitated, then drew her close and kissed her gently, a proper kiss this time—their first.
“No,” he said, staring into the green depths of her eyes. “Just wait for me here. All right?”
“All right,” she answered, leaning forward to kiss his nose gently.
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“Then come. I’ll drop the books and go back.”
§
But even after the last of the books were transferred and safely stacked in a corner of the cabin, Atrus lingered on Myst island.
Catherine had brought blankets with her from Riven and had made up a rough pallet bed in the corner facing the books, using her knapsack for a pillow. Seeing it, he imagined her here after he had gone and realized, for the first time, how lonely she would be if he did not return.
“Well?” she asked, from the doorway, making him turn, startled by the suddenness of her appearance.
He laughed. “You frightened me.”
“Frightened you?” She came across. “Are you afraid of me, then, Atrus?”
He smiled as her fingers brushed his face. “No. I could never be frightened of you. Surprised, I meant.”
“Then I shall keep surprising you.”
She moved past him, placing the stalk of a small white flower she had picked in the gap between two of the logs so that it hung just above the space where she would sleep.
He stared at it, then met her eyes. “What’s that?”
“It’s to remind me of you, while you’re gone.” She stood, then offered him her hand. “Shall we have a walk, Atrus? Along the shore?”
He realized suddenly that he had outstayed his time, but the idea of walking with her seemed suddenly more important than anything else he had to do.
He took her hand then stepped out into the late afternoon sunlight.
The wind had dropped and it was much warmer now, the sky above them clear. Looking up, he realized it would be a good night to watch the stars and wondered sudden
ly what the stars were like here on Myst island.
If only I could stay…
But he could not stay. It was not fated. He had to stop Gehn, whatever the outcome.
Catherine looked to him. “Why did you sigh just then?”
“Because this is all so perfect.”
They walked slowly along the path, then cut through the trees and out onto the grassy slope. Below them was the sea, stretching away into the misted distance. Close by, just over to their left, was a tiny island, separated from the shore by a narrow stretch of water.
“Come,” she said, leading him down until they stood just yards from the lapping surface of that sea. “Let’s sit and talk.”
“Talk?” Atrus hesitated, then sat beside her. “About what?”
“About the future.”
“About whether you’ll make it back from Riven, you mean?”
Atrus looked to her, surprised.
“You think I didn’t know what you had planned?”
He laughed. “Am I that predictable?”
She laid her fingers gently on his cheek. “No. But I know you feel you have to do what is right, even if it means sacrificing yourself.”
He laid his hand on hers. “I will be back.”
“Yet there’s a risk?”
He nodded.
“And you want me to stay here, no matter what?”
Again he nodded.
“And the Linking Book, back to D’ni?”
“Destroy it, the moment I’m gone.”
“Then if Gehn links here he will be trapped with me, and with a supply of blank books.”
Atrus looked down. It was the one flaw in his plan. To be certain of trapping Gehn he ought to destroy his own Linking Book from Riven to D’ni the instant he returned to Age Five, but that would also trap him there, and he wanted to get back. No, not wanted, needed. To be with her.
“I’ll be careful,” he said. “I know where he links to. I’ll take his Linking Book from its hiding place then watch for him to arrive. The moment he’s on Riven, I’ll burn his Linking Book. Then I only have to destroy my own.”
Her eyes were smiling now. Leaning forward she kissed the tip of his nose. “Okay. No more about your plans. What about you?”
“I know almost nothing about you. Your grandmother, Anna, for instance. Do you remember what she was like?”
She was like you, he wanted to say, but the reminder of Anna made him look down.
Taking the almost empty knapsack from his back he removed his journal and handed it to her.
She held the small, gray book delicately, almost as if it were a living thing.
“It’s my journal. I…I want you to read it. While I’m gone. It might…well, it might help you to understand me.”
“In case you don’t come back?”
He hesitated, then nodded.
And suddenly, he understood what it was he had wanted from Catherine. Companionship. Someone to understand him. Someone with whom to share all his adventures and experiments. Someone to be there by his side, as Anna had once been, only not as teacher or substitute mother, but as a full partner.
He reached out, laying his fingers gently on her cheek.
For one tiny moment that was all: the two of them, sitting there in the sunlight beside the water, Catherine with her eyes closed, Atrus’s journal in her lap, her face tilted slightly to meet the gentle touch of his fingers while Atrus stared at her in wonder, as if at an Age he would never visit, only glimpse through the descriptive image on the page.
And then she turned, looking to him again, her green eyes searching his. “You’d better go now, Atrus.”
The idea of leaving was suddenly like contemplating death itself. All he wanted in life was right here on Myst island.
“Catherine…”
“I’ll be all right. Now go.”
§
As he sat in his chair back on D’ni, Atrus stared sightlessly at the cover of the Age Five book, his heart heavy, resigned now to his fate.
There was only one way—one way alone—that he could be certain of seeing Catherine again, and that was to kill his father. To link to Gehn’s study and destroy the man. But that was not possible, for it was not in his nature to harm another, even for the best of reasons.
No good can come of such ill, he thought, knowing that Anna, had she been there, would have agreed with him. If I killed my father, the shadow of my guilt would blight my days with Catherine.
He knew it for a certainty. And so his fate was set. He had to take the risk of losing her forever.
If I cannot have her, I shall at least have something that keeps her memory alive…
He sighed, wishing now that he had asked Anna about his mother. It was only now that he realized that he didn’t even know what she looked like.
She looked like you, Atrus, a voice answered in his head, so clear that he looked up, surprised.
“Yes,” he said, smiling suddenly.
Atrus drew the Age Five book toward him and opened it to the final page. Then, reaching across, he took the pen from the stand and began to copy the phrases into the Age five book.
§
Atrus linked. In an instant he was gone, the air where he’d been sitting strangely translucent, like the surface of a clear slow-moving stream. Then, abruptly, another figure appeared from the nothingness.
It was Catherine.
Setting the Linking Book down on the desk beside her, she closed the Myst book and slipped it into her knapsack. As she did so, a second figure shimmered out of the air, taking on a solid form. Stepping forward, it stood behind her, watching as Catherine pulled the Age Five book toward her and flipped through until she was on the final page. Then, as Catherine took Atrus’s pen from its stand, the figure pointed and encouraged Catherine as she dipped the pen into the ink pot and began to write.
§
The cave behind the temple was dark, the smell of incense strong, wafting down from the great censors hanging from the temple ceiling. Atrus paused a moment, squinting into the deep shadow, listening, then hurried across.
Crouching, he took his grandfather’s tinderbox from his pocket and lit it, moving it slowly along the bottom edge of the cave wall until he found the mark stone. Tracing up from there he found the hole where Gehn stored his Linking Book.
Standing on tiptoe, he reached into the narrow orifice, his fingers searching the cold rock. For a moment he thought he had it wrong, but then his fingers brushed the edge of the slender box. He pulled it out and, in the light from the tinderbox, opened it. The Linking Book was there.
Removing it, he returned the box into the hole and slipped the book into his backpack, then, clicking off the tinderbox, he turned and headed back through the temple.
He ducked under the low lintel and out, climbing the steps quickly. Yet as he went to step around the screen, he heard voices from the front of the chamber and stopped, crouching low, keeping himself hidden behind the shadowed shape of the great chair that was thrown onto the golden screen.
“He will be here soon,” one of them said, his voice that of an old man. “You will bring the villagers out onto the slope below the temple. They can make their offerings there, after the ceremony.”
“It will be done,” another, a little younger, answered. Then, in a slightly lower, more conspiratorial tone, “Did you see how she smiled at the Lord Gehn at the rehearsal? There’s no faking that, is there? Now there’s a match that will be consummated in heaven!”
Atrus felt himself go cold. Rehearsal? Catherine had said nothing of rehearsals. The words troubled him.
No, he told himself. But then why would they say it if it wasn’t true? After all, they did not know he was there behind the screen.
He swallowed, suddenly uncertain, then slowly crept around the screen, peeping over the arm of the chair.
The two men were standing with their backs to him, their cloaks, copies of D’ni Guild cloaks, covered in the Guild’s secret symbols. They were gra
ybeards, and as he watched, they bowed to each other and made their way out again.
He hurried across, seeing what they had been here to deliver. On a marble stand in the very center of the chamber was placed a shallow bowl made of special D’ni stone, and on that bowl were two beautiful golden bracelets, one markedly thicker than the other.
The mere sight of them made his stomach turn.
Did you see how she smiled at the Lord Gehn? Did you see how she smiled?
He felt like picking up the bowl and throwing it across the room, but knew he must deny the urge. Gehn must suspect nothing. He must think his bride was coming. He must believe…
Atrus shook his head, pushing aside the doubts, the endless flood of questions, that threatened to drown him.
Catherine is on Myst island. I took her there myself. She’s safe. Or will be once I’ve trapped Gehn here on Riven.
He turned and hurried to the front of the chamber, peering around one of the pillars. The two Guild members were nowhere to be seen. Slowly, cautiously, he made his way down the steps and out across the open space in front of the temple, slipping in among the trees, then making his way along the path toward the beach.
Before he came to the cliff he stopped, searching quickly among the trees, gathering up any loose twigs and branches he could find. Satisfied he had enough for his purpose, he hurried on, making his way down the steep cliffside path.
As he came out beneath the overhang of rock, he paused, staring out across the rocky beach. Two of the strange, toothlike rocks had been broken—sheared off, it seemed. For a moment he watched the tide come in, seeing how the incoming waves seemed to undulate like a windblown sheet, tiny globules of water, heated by the late afternoon sun, tumbling across the beach, hundreds of tiny bubbles drifting above the slow, incoming tide before they merged with it again.
He would be sad to leave this world. Sad not to have come to know it better than he did.
Turning back, he went over to the cliff face. Putting down the stack of wood, he busied himself collecting a number of large rocks, placing them in a tight circle, then, gathering up the wood again, he laid out twigs and branches inside the circle of rocks to form a rudimentary fire pit.
The Myst Reader Page 25
