The Myst Reader

by Rand; Robyn Miller; David Wingrove

  Calming himself, Aitrus squeezed through the gap and began to walk back along the narrow rock passage. He was halfway along when the rock shook violently. There was a crashing up ahead of him, dust was in his mouth suddenly, but the passage remained unblocked.

  He kept walking, picking up his pace.

  The luminous arrows he had left to mark his way shone out, showing him the direction back to the node. Coming to one of the smaller caverns near the node, he found his way blocked for the first time. A fall of rock filled the end of the cavern, but he remembered that there was another way around, through a narrow borehole. Aitrus went back down the tunnel he’d been following until he found it, then crawled through on his hands and knees, his head down, the sack pushed before him. There was a slight drop on the other side. Aitrus wormed his way around and dangled his feet over the edge. He was about to drop, when he turned and looked. The slight drop had become a fall of three spans—almost forty feet. Hanging on tightly, he turned his head, trying to see if there was another way out. There wasn’t. He would have to climb down the face, using metal pins for footholds.

  It took him a long time, but eventually he was down. Now he only had to get back up again. He could see where the tunnel began again, but it was quite a climb, the last two spans of it vertical. There was nothing he could do; he would have to dig handholds in the rock face with a hammer.

  The ascent was slow. Twice the ground shook and almost threw him down into the pit out of which he was climbing, but he clung on until things were quiet again. Eventually he clambered up into the tunnel.

  If he was right, he was at most fifty spans from the gate.

  Half running, he hurried down the tunnel. Here was the tiny cavern they had called The Pantry, here the one they’d called The Steps. With a feeling of great relief, he ducked under the great slab of stone that marked the beginning of the cave system and out into the D’ni borehole.

  Glancing along the tunnel, Aitrus could see at once that it had been badly damaged. The sides had been smooth and perfectly symmetrical. Now there were dark cracks all along it, and huge chunks of rock had fallen from the ceiling and now rested on the tunnel’s floor.

  Ignoring the feeling in the pit of his stomach Aitrus walked slowly on. He could see that the gate was closed. It would have closed as soon as the first tremor registered in its sensors. All the gates along the line, in every node, would be closed. If he could not open it he would be trapped, as helpless as if he’d stayed in the cavern where he’d found the agates.

  There was a rarely used wheel in the center of the gate, an emergency pressure-release.

  Bracing himself against the huge metal door, Aitrus heaved the wheel around, praying that another tremor wouldn’t come.

  At first nothing, then, the sound making him gasp with relief, there was a hiss of air and the door opened, its two halves sliding back into the collar of rock.

  Atrus jumped through, knowing that at any moment another quake might come and force the doors to slam shut again.

  After the tunnel, the node was brightness itself. Aitrus blinked painfully, then turned to look back into the borehole. As he did, the whole of the ceiling at the end came crashing down. Dust billowed toward him. At the sudden noise, the sensors in the gate were activated and the doors slammed shut, blocking out both noise and dust.

  Aitrus whistled to himself, then turned, looking about him. The walls of the great sphere in which he stood were untouched—it would take a major quake to affect the support walls—but both node-gates were shut.

  He would have to wait until the tremors subsided.

  Aitrus sat and took his notebook from his pocket, beginning to write down all that had happened.

  It was important to make observations and write down everything, just in case there was something important among it all.

  Small tremors were quite common; they happened every month or so, but these were strong. Much stronger, in fact, than anything he had ever encountered.

  He remembered the agates and got them out. For a while he studied them, lost in admiration. Then, with a cold and sudden clarity, he realized they were clues.

  This whole region was volcanic. Its history was volcanic. These agates were evidence of countless millennia of volcanic activity. And it was still going on. They had been boring their tunnels directly through the heart of a great volcanic fault.

  Stowing the agates back in the sack, Aitrus wrote his observations down, then closed the notebook and looked up.

  It was at least an hour since the last tremor.

  As if acknowledging the fact, the node-gates hissed and then slid open.

  Aitrus stood, then picked up his sack and slung it over his shoulder. It was time to get back.

  §

  As Atrus stepped out from beneath the node-gate, he frowned. The base camp was strangely silent.

  The two excavators remained where he had last seen them, but there was no sign of the frenetic activity he had expected after the quakes. It was as if the site had been abandoned.

  He walked across, a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, then stopped, hearing noises from the tunnel; the faintest murmur of voices, like a ritual chant.

  Coming to the tunnel’s entrance, he saw them: the whole company of both ships lined up in ranks, together with the four Observers, who stood off in a tiny group to one side. The assembly stood at the far end, where the accident had happened, their heads bowed.

  At once Aitrus knew. This was a ceremony to mark Efanis’s passage. He could hear the words drift back to him, in Master Telanis’s clear and solemn tones.

  “In rock he lived, in rock he rests.”

  And as the words faded, so Master Telanis lay the dead guildsman’s hand upon the open linking book, moving back as the body shimmered in the air and vanished. It was now in the great burial Age of Te’Negamiris.

  Aitrus bowed his head, standing where he was in the tunnel’s mouth, mouthing the words of the response, along with the rest of the company.

  “May Yavo, the Maker receive his soul.”

  Everyone was silent again, marking Efanis’s passage with respect, then individual heads began to come up. Master Telanis looked across; seeing Aitrus, he came across and, placing a hand on Aitrus’s arm, spoke to him softly.

  “I’m sorry, Aitrus. It happened very quickly. An adverse reaction to the medication. He was very weak.”

  Aitres nodded, but the fact had not really sunk in. For a time, in the tunnels, he had totally forgotten about his friend.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Aitrus answered. “I went back to the cave system. There’s a lot of damage there. The quakes…”

  Telanis nodded. “Master Geran seems to think it is only a settling of the surrounding rock, but we need to make more soundings before we proceed. There may be some delays.”

  “Guild Master Kedri will not be pleased.”

  “No, nor his fellows. But it cannot be helped. We must be certain it is nothing critical.” Master Telanis paused, then, “It might mean that Master Kedri will require your services for slightly longer than anticipated, Aitrus. Would that worry you?”

  Master Telanis had said nothing about Aitrus not letting anyone know where he had gone. That, Aitrus knew, was his way. But Aitrus felt guilty about the breach, and it was, perhaps, that guilt that made him bow his head and answer.

  “No, Guild Master.”

  §

  As Master Kedri climbed up into the messenger, he turned, looked back at Aitrus, and smiled.

  “Thank you, Aitrus. I shall not forget your kindness.”

  Aitrus returned the smile.

  “And I shall not forget to deliver your letter,” Kedri added, patting the pocket of his tunic, where the letter lay.

  “Thank you, Guild Master.”

  Kedri ducked inside. A moment later the door hissed shut and the turbines of the craft came to life.

  Aitrus stepped back, rejoining the others who had gathered to
see off the Observers.

  “You did well, Aitrus,” Master Telanis said quietly, coming alongside as the Messenger turned and slowly edged into the tunnel, heading back to D’ni.

  “Yet I fear it was not enough,” Aitrus answered.

  Telanis nodded, a small movement in his face indicating that he, too, expected little good to come of the Observers’ report.

  Unexpectedly, Master Kedri and his fellows had chosen not to wait for tunneling to recommence, deciding, instead, to return at once. All there read it as a clear sign that the four men had made up their minds about the expedition.

  Efanis’s death, the quakes—these factors had clearly influenced that choice—had, perhaps, pushed them to a decision.

  Even so, the waiting would be hard.

  “What shall we do, Guild Master?” Aitrus asked, seeing how despondent Telanis looked.

  Telanis glanced at him, then shrugged. “I suppose we shall keep on burrowing through the rock, until they tell us otherwise.”

  §

  Progress was slow. Master Geran took many soundings over the following five days, making a great chart of all the surrounding rock, then checking his findings by making test borings deep into the strata.

  It was ten full days before Master Telanis gave the order to finish off the tunnel and excavate the new node. Knowing how close the Council’s meeting now was, everyone in the expedition feared the worst.

  Any day now they might be summoned home, the tunnels filled, all their efforts brought to nothing, but still they worked on, a stubborn pride in what they did making them work harder and longer.

  The advance team finished excavating and coating the sphere in a single day, while the second team laid the air brackets. That evening they dismantled the platforms and moved the base camp on.

  Efanis’s death had been a shock, but none there had known quite how it would affect them. Now they knew. As Aitrus’s team sat there that evening in the refectory, there was a strange yet intimate silence. No one had to speak, yet all there knew what the others were feeling and thinking. Finally, the old cook, Jerahl, said it for them.

  “It seems unfair that we should come to understand just how important this expedition is, only for it to be taken from us.”

  There was a strong murmur of agreement. Since Efanis’s death, what had been for most an adventure had taken on the aspect of a crusade. They wanted now to finish this tunnel, to complete the task they had been given by the Council. Whether there was anyone up there on the surface or not did not matter now; it was the forging of the tunnel through the earth that was the important thing.

  Aitrus, never normally one to speak in company, broke habit now and answered Jerahl.

  “It would indeed seem ill if Eganis were to die for nothing.”

  Again, there was a murmur of assent from those seated about Aitrus. But that had hardly died when Master Telanis, who now stood in the doorway, spoke up.

  “Then it is fortunate that the Council see fit to agree with you, Aitrus.”

  There was a moment’s shocked silence, then a great cheer went up. Telanis grinned and nodded at Aitrus. In one hand he held a letter, the seal of which was broken.

  “A special courier arrived a moment ago. It appears we have been given a year’s extension!”

  There was more cheering. Everyone was grinning broadly now.

  “But of much greater significance,” Telanis continued as the noise subsided, “is the fact that we have been given permission to build a great shaft.”

  “A shaft, Master?”

  Telanis nodded, a look of immense satisfaction on his face. “It seems the Council are as impatient as we to see what is on the surface. There is to be no more burrowing sideways through the rock. We are to build a great shaft straight up to the surface. We are to begin the new soundings in the morning!”

  §

  The moon was a pale circle in the star-spattered darkness of the desert sky. Beneath it, in a hollow between two long ridges of rock, two travelers had stopped and camped for the night, their camels tethered close by.

  It was cool after the day’s excessive heat, and the two men sat side by side on a narrow ridge of rock, thick sheepskins draped over their shoulders; sheepskins that had been taken from the great leather saddles that rested on the ground just behind them.

  They were traders, out of Tadjinar, heading south for the markets of Jemaranir.

  It had been silent; such a perfect silence as only the desert knows. But now, into that silence, came the faintest sound, so faint at first that each of the travelers kept quiet, thinking they had imagined it. But then the sound increased, became a presence in the surrounding air.

  The ground was gently vibrating.

  The two men stood, looking about them in astonishment. The noise intensified, became a kind of hum. Suddenly there was a clear, pure note in the air, like the noise of a great trumpet sounding in the depths below.

  Hurrying over to the edge of the rocky outcrop, they stared in wonder. Out there, not a hundred feet from where they stood, the sand was in movement, a great circle of it trembling violently as if it were being shaken in a giant sieve. Slowly a great hoop of sand and rock lifted, as if it were being drawn up into the sky. At the same time, the strange, unearthly note rose in intensity, filling the desert air, then ceased abruptly.

  At once the sand dropped, forming a massive circle where it fell.

  The two men stared a moment longer, then, as one, dropped onto their hands and knees, their heads touching the rock.

  “Allah preserve us!” they wailed. “Allah keep us and comfort us!” From the camp behind them, the sound of the camels’ fearful braying filled the desert night.

  §

  Master Geran sat back and smiled, his blind eyes laughing.

  “Perfect,” he said, looking to where Master Telanis stood. “I intensified the soundings. Gave the thing a real blast this time! And it worked! We have clear rock all the way to the surface!”

  Telanis, who had been waiting tensely for Geran’s analysis of the sounding, let out a great sigh of relief.

  “Are you saying this is it, Master Geran?”

  Geran nodded. “We shall need to cut test holes, naturally. But I would say that this was the perfect site for the shaft.”

  “Excellent!” Telanis grinned. For three months they had pressed on, burrowing patiently through the rock, looking for such a site. Now they had it.

  “I should warn you,” Geran said, his natural caution resurfacing. “There is a large cave off to one side of the proposed excavation. But that should not affect us. It is some way off. Besides, we shall be making our shaft next to it, not under it.”

  “Good,” Telanis said. “Then I shall inform the Council at once. We can get started, excavating the footings. That should take us a month, at least.”

  “Oh, at least!” Geran agreed, and the two old friends laughed.

  “At last,” Telanis said, placing a hand on Geran’s shoulder and squeezing it gently. “I was beginning to think I would never see the day.”

  “Nor I,” Geran agreed, his blind eyes staring up into Telanis’s face. “Nor I.”

  §

  The preparations were extensive. First they had to excavate a massive chamber beneath where the shaft was to be. It was a job the two excavators were not really suited to, and though they began the work by making two long curving tunnels on the perimeter, heavier cutting equipment was swiftly brought up from D’ni to carry out this task.

  While this was being organized, Master Geran, working with a team of senior members of the Guild of Cartographers, designed the main shaft. This was not as simple a job as it might have appeared, for the great shaft was to be the hub of a network of much smaller tunnels that would branch out from it. Most of these were service tunnels, leading back to D’ni, but some extended the original excavation to the north.

  As things developed, Master Telanis found himself no longer leading the expedition but only one of six Guild Mas
ters working under Grand Master Iradun himself, head of the Guild of Surveyors. Other guilds, too, were now steadily more involved in the work.

  Aitrus, looking on, found himself excited by all this frenetic activity. It seemed as though they were suddenly at the heart of everything, the very focus of D’ni’s vast enterprise.

  By the end of the third week the bulk of the great chamber had been part-cut, part-melted from the rock, a big stone burner—a machine of which all had heard but few had ever seen in action—making the rock drip from the walls like ice before a blowtorch.

  The chamber needed supporting, of course. Twenty massive granite pillars supported the ceiling, but for the walls the usual method of spray-coating would not do. Huge slabs of nara, the hardest of D’ni stones—a metallic greenish-black stone thirty times the density of steel—were brought up the line. Huge machines lifted the precast sections into place while others hammered in the securing rivets.

  A single one of those rivets was bigger than a man, and more than eight thousand were used in lining the mighty walls of the chamber, but eventually it was done.

  That evening, walking between the pillars in that vast chamber, beneath the stark, temporary lighting, Aitrus felt once again an immense pride in his people.

  Work was going on day and night now—though such terms, admittedly, had meaning only in terms of their waking or sleeping shifts—and a large number of guildsmen had been shipped in from D’ni for the task. The first of the support tunnels, allowing them to bring in extra supplies from D’ni, had been cut, and more were being excavated. The noise of excavation in the rock was constant.

  To a young guildsman it was all quite fascinating. What had for so long been a simple exploratory excavation had now become a problem in logistics. A temporary camp had been set up at the western end of the chamber and it grew daily. There were not only guildsmen from the Guild of Surveyors here now but also from many other guilds—from the Guild of Miners, the messengers, the Caterers, the Healers, the Mechanists, the Analysts, the Maintainers, and the Stone-Masons. There were even four members of the Guild of Atrists, there to make preliminary sketches for a great painting of the works.