Kneeling, Atrus cupped the tinder between his hands and struck it, then lit the kindling wood beneath the main stack, watching it catch, then blowing on it to encourage the flames, seeing them begin to lick at the Linking Book.
Atrus leaned back. There! Now for his Linking Book! All he would have to do would be to hold his Linking Book over the fire as he linked—letting the book fall into the flames and be destroyed, trapping Gehn here forever.
Going across, he hauled himself up the pocked face of the cliff until he was facing the recess where his book was hidden. It was some way back, so he had to haul himself up over the lip and squeeze inside, wriggling in until he could reach it.
23
~~~~~~~~~~
When Atrus came to he was standing in the open air near the temple, his arms pulled up tightly behind his back, his wrists bound, his body secured at neck and waist and ankles to a thick pole that had been embedded in the earth. The blood pounded in his head, and when he tried to open his eyes he pain was intense.
Slowly he let his eyes grow accustomed to the failing light, then, moving his head as much as the binding allowed, he looked about him.
Close by, on a small table—so close that, had his hands been unbound, he could have reached them—were the two Linking Books.
He groaned, remembering, then felt a touch on his shoulder, felt his father’s breath upon his cheek.
“So you are back with us, Atrus,” Gehn said quietly, speaking to him alone. “I thought for a while that I had lost you. It seems I do not know my own strength sometimes.”
Atrus hung his head, grimacing at the thought of Catherine. She was there, on Myst, waiting. And now he had failed her.
“Catherine, ah clever Catherine,” Gehn spoke as if he heard Atrus’s thoughts. “You really didn’t think she’d miss her own wedding?”
With that, Gehn turned to face a figure who stood just beyond him in the shadows of the surrounding trees. Atrus went limp as the figure stepped forward into the sunlight.
It was her!
Atrus closed his eyes and groaned, remembering the old men’s words, recalling the sight of the two golden bracelets laying there in the shallow red-black bowl.
She is marrying my father…
The thought was unbearable. He could almost hear their laughter. Yet when he opened his eyes again, it was to see Gehn, alone, standing before the Age five islanders, his hands raised, his appearance that of a great king come among his subjects.
“People of the Fifth Age,” Gehn began, his voice powerful, commanding. “It had come to my notice that some of you…” Gehn pointed to a little group Atrus had not noticed, or who had possibly not been there until that moment; who knelt there abjectly, just below Gehn, their hands bound: the two brothers, Carel and Erlar among them. “Some of you, as I say, have taken it upon yourselves to help my enemies. To nurse this imposter”—he turned, this time indicating Atrus—“who dares to call himself my son!”
Gehn turned back, raising his hands again. “Such behavior cannot be tolerated. Such defiance must be punished.”
There was a great murmur of fear from the watching islanders.
“Yes,” Gehn went on. “You were warned, but you did not listen. And so, in punishment, there will be great tides…”
“No…” Atrus said, finding his voice.
“And the sun will turn black…”
“No…”
“And the ground…the very earth will shake and the great tree fall!”
“No!” Atrus cried out a third time, this time loud enough for some among the crowd to hear him. “No! He’s wrong! I’ve fixed it. All of those things…all of the weaknesses in the book. I’ve put them right, I’ve…”
Atrus stopped, seeing the hideous grin of triumph on his father’s face as he stepped up to him.
“Well done, Atrus…I knew I could count on you.” Gehn’s smile was suddenly hard and sneering. “I shall be most interested to read the changes you have so graciously crafted for me.” Then, stepping away, he clicked his fingers, calling to the nearest of the Guild Members. “Untie him!”
Turning to face the crowd again, Gehn raised his hands. “People of the Fifth Age. You are most fortunate. I have asked my servant here to do my bidding and he has done so. Your world is safe now. Yet if you transgress again, if I find that any among you have sought to help my enemies, then the full weight of my wrath shall fall on you. I shall destroy your world, just as I created it!” He sniffed deeply. “But let us not dwell upon that now. Now is a time to look forward, and to celebrate, for tonight, at sunset, I shall take a daughter of this Age to be my bride and rule the thousand worlds with me!”
There was a great cheer at that. Gehn turned, looking to Atrus, his whole demeanor triumphant.
Atrus, seeing that look, turned his head, stung by it, all fight gone from him now. He had been duped. Used by the two of them. Betrayed.
He pressed his hands together, the pain suddenly unbearable, then gently rubbed at his wrists where the binding rope had chafed them. He was beaten. There was nothing more he could do.
But ehn was not done. Stepping up to Atrus, he pressed his face close to Atrus’s, speaking so only he could hear.
“Don’t think that I have finished with you, boy. You have caused me an inordinate amount of trouble, and I shall not forget that. As far as I am concerned, you are no longer my son. Do you understand me? I do not need you anymore, Atrus. You have served your purpose.” Gehn looked to Catherine and smiled; a hideous, gloating smile. “Yes…you see it, don’t you? Catherine and I…” He laughed. “She’s a strong young woman. Perhaps my next son will not fail me!”
Atrus groaned. It was a nightmare. Had he still been bound to the post he could not have felt more impotent.
Catherine…my beloved Catherine…
He looked up, surprised. The ground was trembling.
No…he was imaging it.
And then the ground shook violently, as if a great rock had been dislodged beneath them. From within the temple came the sound of the marble stand toppling, the tray with the two bracelets on it clattering across the marble floor.
“No…” Gehn said, looking about him wild-eyes. “No!”
But even as he said it; a great crack opened in the ground before the temple steps.
§
The sky was slowly turning black. The sun, which only moments before had blazed down from the late afternoon sky, was being eaten, a curved blade of blackness devouring its pallid face inch by inch.
One by one the stars winked into place in the sudden night.
With a great low, groaning shudder, like some gargantuan animal waking from long hibernation, the ground shook once more, the quake much stronger this time, rumbling on and on, causing the temple roof to fall, throwing many of the Guild from their feet and knocking over the table on which the Linking Books had been placed.
Atrus stared about him in disbelief, seeing the jagged pattern of thick black cracks that now covered the meadow. Then, seeing the fallen books, he rushed to pick them up, yet as he did, Gehn stepped out in front of him, wielding a massive ceremonial spear he had grabbed from one of the Guild, the gold and red pennant still fluttering from its shaft.
“Leave them!” Gehn growled.
“Get out of the way!” Atrus yelled back, crouching, knowing that there was no other way now except to fight his father. Riven was doomed, and even if he’d lost Catherine, he had to stop Gehn.
But Gehn had other ideas. He laughed mockingly. “If you want the books, you will have to come through me to get them!”
“If that’s what it takes!” Atrus said and threw himself at Gehn, hoping to overwhelm him. His first rush almost succeeded, his charge knocking Gehn back. For a moment they struggled, Atrus’s hands gripping the spear’s shaft, trying to keep Gehn from using it against him. Then, suddenly, Gehn released his grip, and Atrus found himself tumbling over, the spear falling from his grasp. All about them now, the earth was breaking up, huge
cracks appearing everywhere one looked. The air was growing hot and everything was underlit now by the red and orange glow emanating from the fissures.
Atrus got up and, turning, went to throw himself at his father again, but he was too slow. As he charged, Gehn stepped aside and, putting out his boot, tripped him, then stood over him, the spear point pressed hard into his chest.
“You’re useless. I should have killed you long ago!”
Atrus answered, his voice defiant. “Then kill me.”
Gehn lifted the spear, his muscles tensing, but as he did a shout rang out behind him. “Gehn!”
Gehn turned, to see Catherine, her dark hair streaming out behind her in the wind that had blown up, one of the Linking Books in each hand, standing over a large crack that had opened in the ground, its dark, jagged shape lit redly from below.
“Harm him and I’ll throw the books into the crack!”
Gehn laughed disbelievingly. “But Catherine, my love…”
“Let him go,” she ordered, her voice unyielding now. “Let him go or I’ll drop the books into the fissure.”
Again he laughed, then looked to Atrus. “No…No, I…”
To his astonishment, she let the Linking Book fall from her right hand. With a gust of flame it vanished into the crack. Gone.
Both Gehn and Atrus gasped.
“No!” Gehn screamed, then, in a softer, more cajoling voice, “Come now, Catherine…let us discuss this. Let us talk about this reasonably.”
He lifted the spear from Atrus’s chest, then, throwing it aside, took a step toward her, his hand out, palms open. “Remember our plans, Catherine. Remember what we were going to do. A thousand worlds we were going to rule. Think of it. Whatever you wanted…I could write it for you. You could have your own Age. You could live there if you wanted, but…if you destroy that second book we shall be trapped here. Trapped on a dying world!”
Gehn took a second step.
“You want the Linking Book?” Catherine asked, a faint smile lighting her features for the first time.
Gehn nodded, then slowly put out his hand, a smile appearing at the corners of his mouth.
“Then have it!” she said and tossed the Linking Book high into the air, its arc carrying it out over the smoldering crevice.
With a gasp of horror, Gehn dived for the book, straining to get to it, one hand grasping in the air to catch it, but he was too late. With a burst of flame it vanished into the red glow.
Gehn stared disbelievingly, then, getting up onto his elbows he turned, furious now, looking for them. But Atrus and Catherine had gone. The wind was howling now, like a gale, bending the nearby trees and making the loosened earth tumble up the slope, as if defying gravity.
As he watched, the temple heaved a sigh and fell inward, the sound of stone grating against stone like the groan of a dying giant. For a brief instant he thought he could see the shape of a giant dagger jutting from the ruins. Then, with a great crack of sound and a fierce, almost blinding flash of light, a lightning bolt hit the summit of the great tree, two hundred yards from where he knelt. At once the upper branches exploded into flame, a huge fireball climbing into the sky above its crest.
In that sudden, blazing light Gehn saw the two of them on the far side of the copse, beneath the trees, their backs to him as they ran. As the light slowly died, their figures merged again with the darkness of the trees. But he knew now where they were headed. Getting up onto his feet he began to run, the howling wind at his back.
§
“Wait! Wait!” Atrus shouted, pulling Catherine back, barely able to hear himself over the noise of the storm. “You’ve got to tell me what’s happening!”
“Don’t worry!” she yelled back at him, pulling her hair back from her face. “Everything’s going just as we planned!”
He stared at her. “As who planned?”
“Anna and I.”
His mouth fell open. “Anna?”
Overhead the branches of the trees were thrashing wildly in the wind. As she made to answer him, the crash of a falling tree made them both jump.
It isn’t possible…
Atrus stared at Catherine a moment longer, then numbly let her lead him on through the trees.
They were following a narrow crack. At first he’d thought it was just like all the others that had opened up, but there was something very strange about this one. It glowed…not red, but blue…a vivid, ice cold blue.
To either side, dirt and leaves, broken branches and small stones jumped and tumbled, dragged along by the wind that seemed not so much to blow from behind as to draw them on. And where those tiny particles brushed against the crack, they vanished, sucked into that ice-cold fissure.
They ran on between the trees, the crack slowly widening beside them. And then suddenly, there where the trees ended, the fissure opened out to form a kind of cleft, the edge of it outlined by that cold blue light. Inside, however, it was dark—an intense, vertiginous darkness filled with stars.
Atrus stopped, astonished. The wind still tugged at his legs, but its noise was not as strong here as it was among the trees. Even so, he had to struggle to keep his footing. His right hand gripped Catherine’s tightly, afraid to let go in case she, too, was sucked into that strange, star-filled hole.
He looked to her, wondering if she was as afraid as he was, only to find her strangely calm, a beatific smile on her lips and in her beautiful green eyes.
“What is it?” he asked, his eyes drawn back to the fissure, seeing how everything seemed to be sucked into it; how leaves and earth and lumps of rock tumbled over the edge and seemed to wink into nonexistence.
And other things…
Atrus blinked, noticing some of Catherine’s fireflies, melting and merging, pulsing with brilliant color as they flickered across that dreamlike landscape.
Turning to Atrus, Catherine freed her hand, then took the knapsack from her back and opened it.
“Here,” she said, handing him a book.
Atrus stared, dumbfounded. It was the Myst book.
“But what…?”
She put a finger to his lips, silencing him.
“Did you ever wonder what it would be like to go swimming out among the stars?”
Catherine smiled then; opening the Linking Book, she placed her hand against it. “We could fall into the night and be cradled by stars and still return to the place where we began…”
The last word was an echo as she vanished.
“But what do I do?” he called after her, holding up the book.
The answer came from behind him. “That’s easy, Atrus. You give the book to me.”
Atrus turned, facing his father. Gehn stood there, a large chunk of jagged rock in his hand. His glasses were gone and his ash-white hair was disheveled, but there was still something powerful, something undeniably regal about him.
He looked down at the Myst book in his hands. His first impulse had been to use the book to return to the island, but there was an obvious flaw with that. If he used the book, the book would remain here in his father’s possession. And Gehn would surely follow him. His second impulse had been to throw the book into the fissure, but something stopped him—something in what Catherine had said…
He smiled.
Raising the book in one hand, he held it out, then took a step back, onto the lip of the fissure, the wind tugging at his boots, a strange coldness at his back suddenly.
A muscle beneath Gehn’s left eye jumped. “If you throw the book into that chasm, I’ll throw you with it!” he snarled. “Give it to me. Give it to me now!”
Atrus shook his head disdainfully.
Gehn took a step back, letting the rock fall from his open hand. “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
Atrus stared at Gehn suspiciously. Holding the book up was a strain, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now, not even the dull, throbbing ache at the base of his skull.
“Unless what? Give me a single reason why I should tr
ust you.”
Gehn shrugged. “Because you are my son.”
Atrus laughed bitterly. “I thought you’d already disowned me. Or did I hear that wrong, too?”
“Forgive me Atrus. I was angry. I thought…”
“What? That I’d see your point of view? That I’d realize that you were right? That I would come to see myself as a god?”
Gehn blinked. “But you need me, Atrus. I know so much. Things you will never know. Think of the experience I have, he knowledge. It would be a wase not to call upon it, no?” Gehn shook his head, as if regretful. “You were such a good student, Atrus. So quick. So nimble of mind. It would be such a shame if your studies were curtailed…”
Atrus stared back at him, expressionless.
“What is it?” Gehn said, puzzled now. His hand, which had extended toward Atrus, drew back slightly.
“It’s you,” Atrus said, lifting the book higher. “All those things you taught me…they were just words, weren’t they? Empty, meaningless words. As empty as your promises.” There was a momentary hurt in the young man’s eyes, then, “I wanted so much from you. So much. But you failed me.”
“But I taught you, Atrus. Without me…”
Atrus shook his head. “No, Father. Anything I ever learned that was of any value to me, anything important, I got from Anna, long before I met you. You…you taught me nothing.”
Gehn glared at him.
The sky was growing lighter, the wind slowly dying.
“I should never have left you with her,” Gehn said, after a moment. “She spoiled you. You were a blank book, waiting to be written…”
“You would have ruined me, just as you’ve ruined everything you’ve touched. Yes, and then discarded me.”
“No! I loved you, Atrus.”
“Love? What kind of love is it that binds with ropes and locks its loved ones in a cell?”
“That was never intended to be a prison, Atrus.” Gehn swallowed. “It was only a test. All of it.”
Atrus stared back at him, silent now, the fissure behind him dark and cold, glistening with stars, the Myst book edged by that strange blue light.
The Myst Reader Page 26
