The Myst Reader

by Rand; Robyn Miller; David Wingrove

  Atrus looked about him, wondering for that brief instant why they were not all as shocked as he was shocked, but all he saw were statues—faces that stared but did not see; eyes that, for that moment, were blank as stone. And as he saw them he understood, and that understanding sank into him, deeper and deeper, like a smooth, dark rock tumbling slowly to the ocean floor.

  Slaves. The relyimah—the “unseen”—were slaves. And this whole place…

  Atrus’s mind reeled. Looking about him now, he saw not a world of splendor, but a world built to his father’s dark design; a world where the false notion of blood had so blinded its natives that they saw their fellow men as beasts—that was, when they designed to see them at all.

  The thought of it staggered him.

  Atrus turned, looking to Jethhe Ro’Jethhe, seeing the man suddenly transformed. But his host, this seemingly genial man he had thought so kind, was glaring at him now.

  “I spoke but the truth,” Atrus said.

  Ro’Jethhe’s answering words were curt, acidic. “You have said enough. Nor will you repeat what you have said. Do you understand me, Atrus of D’ni?”

  “Oh, I see now,” Atrus answered, a coldness shaping his words. “I see and understand.”

  “Make sure you do.” Ro’Jethhe turned, gesturing to his senior steward. “Kaaru!”

  At once the steward was at his side.

  “See Master Atrus and his party to their rooms. And make sure they stay there.”

  “What is this, Ro’Jethhe?” Atrus protested.

  “It appears we cannot trust your lying tongue. That being so, you will be confined to your rooms until I get word from the king.” And with that he turned his back and hurried from the room. Within a minute all the rest of the Terahnee had likewise gone.

  Atrus turned, looking to his tiny party, then looked across at the steward. The man had never seemed handsome, but now, studying his features, Atrus thought he could detect something brutish, something almost bestial about him. The steward, however, merely bowed.

  “If you would come with me…”

  §

  Back in their room they held a crisis meeting. Catherine, Marrim, Carrad, Oma, and Esel sat in chairs while Atrus paced the floor like a caged animal.

  “We cannot stay,” Catherine said.

  “I agree,” Esel said. “We should leave here immediately.”

  Oma nodded. “Yes, and destroy the Books and seal the Great King’s Temple once again.”

  Atrus shook his head. “The king gave his word.”

  “Yes,” Catherine said, “but that was when he thought we were D’ni. Now we are ahrotahntee.” She laughed bitterly. “Why, it’s a wonder they can still see us!”

  Atrus turned, facing her. “I do not like this any more than you, Catherine. But Ro’Eh Ro’Dan is a decent man. I believe he will keep his word.”

  “You want to stay?”

  “Perhaps we should. We might use our influence to change things here.”

  “Change things?” Catherine looked away. “All right,” she said. “Do what you must. But send Carrad back to tell Master Tamon what we know.”

  “And what do we know?”

  “That this is a slave society. What more do we need to know?”

  “How they treat their slaves, perhaps?” Atrus said.

  “But what can we do?” Oma asked. “You heard Eedrah. There are two hundred million of them.”

  “We wait. But first we send Carrad back to the plateau.” Atrus paused, then shook his head, clearly distressed. “There has been a misunderstanding, on both our parts, but the Terahnee never lied to us.”

  “Only because we never asked the right questions!”

  Atrus looked to Catherine. “That’s true. We let what we saw seduce us; we mistook the surface for the substance. But that was our fault, not theirs! As I say, they never lied.”

  “But this whole world is a lie!”

  “Maybe so, but we cannot blame Ro’Jethhe and his like for that. They know nothing else.”

  “And that is what I most fear,” Catherine said. “You want to give them eyes, Atrus, but what if they do not want to see? What if we cannot make them see? Conditioning is a powerful thing. To break it in an individual is difficult enough, but when that conditioning is social…”

  “You forget one thing, Catherine. We have the ear of the king.”

  “His ear, yes, but not his eyes.” She stared back at him, then, quieter. “I think you’re wrong, Atrus. I don’t believe they can be changed.”

  §

  Atrus woke in the night from a fitful sleep—a sleep plagued by dreams of doors opening and closing before and behind, in rooms that turned and twisted in an unending maze—and turned, expecting to find Catherine there beside him in the bed. But she was gone.

  He sat up, then saw her, there on the far side of the room, at the desk, a lamp beside her as she wrote in her journal.

  “Catherine?”

  She half-turned toward him. “I couldn’t sleep. So I began to reread what I’d written since we came here.”

  “And?” He stood, then went across, taking a chair beside her.

  “Kitchens. There were no kitchens. That alone should have alerted me. All that food awaiting us wherever we went, and no sign of it ever having been prepared. It was like everything. Magical, it seemed. And we accepted that.”

  “We had no reason not to.”

  “No. And then there was what Hadre said to us when he first met us. Do you remember? He said, ‘Can I see you?’ And his eyes—I remember it now—they seemed to look straight through us. Until you mentioned D’ni. And then it was like a connection was made. He saw us.”

  “And Eedrah, too…” Atrus shook his head. “I’d come to like him. But how can I trust him now? He might have told us. Indeed, he should have told us.”

  “Maybe he thought we knew.”

  There was a knock. Atrus looked to Catherine, then stood and walked over to the door.

  “Who is it?” he asked quietly.

  “It is I. Eedrah. I need to talk with you.”

  Atrus opened the door a fraction. Eedrah was standing there in the half-dark, alone.

  “All right,” Atrus said, opening the door more fully.

  Eedrah hesitated, then stepped through. As the door closed behind him, he glanced about him nervously. “There’s something I must show you.”

  §

  Silently they followed, down to the end of that long, shadowed corridor and left into a narrow gallery. There, a mere two or three paces in, Eedrah stopped and, leaning into the wall, pushed.

  A door opened where a door had not been.

  They followed, down three narrow steps and into a dark passage that ran within the walls. Atrus reached out and touched the smooth, worn stone. No wonder the walls had seemed so thick.

  Two steps in and the door closed silently, depriving them of light. Several seconds passed and then a glow grew in the darkness close by, illuminating first the hand that held the lamp, and then the face, the chest, the walls surrounding them.

  Eedrah put a finger to his lips, then turned and walked on.

  On, through branching corridors and down a long, straight flight of steps, the stone worn by four thousand years of use. And as they went, Atrus saw it in his mind. Saw the endless silent figures who had passed this way, fetching and carrying, never a word or sound betraying their presence to their masters behind the walls.

  The relyimah—the Unseen.

  Now and then they would pass a row of niches set into the wall, in which were all manner of things for cleaning and repairs. Elsewhere were built-in storage cupboards, and everywhere doors and tunnels branched off. Here, too, at this lower level, were well-stocked kitchens with long, marble-topped tables and huge stone shelves, and massive pantries, every surface spotlessly clean.

  All was revealed in the pale white glow of the lamp, appearing from nothing and vanishing behind them in the dark.

  A whole world beneath th
e world.

  Beyond the kitchens the tunnel broadened and four long, broad rails of glistening silver were set into the floor, running parallel into the darkness ahead. They walked between those rails, beneath a high, curved ceiling. A hundred paces they went and then the tunnel opened out into a broad chamber, along both sides of which, on spurs that jutted from the central lines, rested the empty wagons that ran upon the rails. Huge wagons of some dull, rocklike material, thick ropes hanging limply from the great eye-like hooks that studded their sides.

  On they went, into a smaller tunnel that turned then briefly climbed. Above them now the ceiling was breached every so often by big circular vents. Glancing up, Atrus had a glimpse of stars—a tight circle of brightly glimmering stars as at the bottom of a deep, deep well.

  And on, through a strange gallery that ran away into the darkness on either side. Here, to their right as they passed, a dozen thick ropes stretched down diagonally from a long gash high up on the wall to the far side, where they were tethered to about a dozen big, studlike protuberances, that seemed to swell like mushrooms from the surface of the floor.

  Like the taut strings of a huge musical instrument, Atrus thought, not understanding what he saw.

  And then, suddenly, they were standing before a massive studded door, into which was set a grill. Eedrah turned to them, then lightly rapped upon the door.

  No noise. No sounds of hurrying feet. Only that same dead silence. So silent, that Atrus did not at first notice that the grill had opened. A face stared out at them for an instant and then the grill snapped shut.

  Slowly the door swung back. Eedrah looked to them again, his eyes imploring them to understand, then he turned back, leading them through, into a dimly lit chamber.

  The ceiling of the chamber was high above them and the walls were crudely cut. Long, twisting flights of steps led up those walls to doors set deep into the stone. Twenty, maybe thirty doors, giving access to six separate levels that all led off this chamber.

  Atrus turned back, to see that the man who had admitted them was still standing there, his head bowed, his eyes averted, his every aspect menial and subservient. By his shaven head and his jet-black tight-fitting clothes Atrus knew at once that he was relyimah.

  “Come,” Eedrah said quietly, speaking for the first time since they had entered that great warren. “There is someone you must meet.”

  §

  As Eedrah and Atrus stepped into the room, the old man glanced up from his book, then quickly stood, his head lowered, his eyes averted. The room was small and cramped, the old man’s desk filling a good half of it, but the surface of the desk was piled high with Books. That in itself was wholly unexpected.

  “Welcome Atrus,” the old man said, keeping his head lowered. “I am Hersha.”

  Atrus looked to Eedrah queryingly, then gave a tiny bow. “I am pleased to meet you, Hersha.”

  “He is leader here,” Eedrah said.

  “Leader?”

  “Of the relyimah. Hersha is their great secret. Not even the stewards know he is here.”

  “I am astonished,” Atrus said.

  Eedrah looked to him, a sudden seriousness in his eyes. “I thought you knew. D’ni…”

  “…is not like this. We have no slaves. No relyimah. Nor did we ever permit them in our worlds.”

  “Yes…I see that now.” Eedrah looked down. “There have been misunderstandings. I thought you other than you are. And you, Atrus…you doubtlessly think me other than I am.”

  “You are their friend?”

  Hersha answered for him. “Eedrah does what he can to help. But he is a rarity. Not one in ten thousand is like him.”

  Atrus looked back at Eedrah, seeing him in a new light. “You see them, whereas your father does not, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you, Hersha, what do you see?”

  “The waste of it,” Hersha answered, daring to meet Atrus’s eyes once again. “The ruinous waste.”

  §

  While the three men talked, Catherine toured the silent maze of rooms at the heart of the slave quarters, horrified by what she saw. After the casual luxuries of the world above, the primitive conditions down here were quite appalling. Young men slept forty to a tiny space, five to each of the narrow alcoves that had been cut from the rock—more catacombs than beds; the coldness of the stone covered only by the thinnest layer of sackcloth. Their washrooms were basic, more cattle troughs than bathrooms, and their kitchens were tiny and inadequate.

  As she walked among them, those few that were awake turned from her, afraid to meet her eyes, shying from her inquisitive gaze as though from a blowtorch. Yet she could not help but see how badly they had been treated. Their pale limbs were covered with ugly, purple weals, while a few sported scars, fresh and long-healed, their severity clear evidence of far harsher brutalities.

  “Who did this?” she asked, turning to face Atrus as he joined her.

  “The P’aarli,” Atrus answered. “The stewards. It seems they regularly beat the relyimah, to make sure they are obedient…and silent.”

  Catherine made to speak, then saw the old man who stood just behind Atrus, next to Eedrah.

  “This is Hersha,” Eedrah said. “He is the leader of the slaves.”

  “They have a leader?”

  “Yes, and a religion, too.” Atrus took a slender volume from his pocket and handed it to her.

  Catherine studied it a moment, then looked up at him wide-eyed. “These are the ancient prophecies.” She frowned. “But why is it their book?”

  Eedrah answered her. “Because of four lines in one of the oldest prophecies—four lines that speak of the freeing of the slaves.”

  “I see.”

  “With respect, I am not sure you do,” Hersha said, almost hunching into himself as he spoke.

  “What do you mean?” Eedrah asked.

  “I mean that those lines are not in isolation. And with things being as they are…”

  This was all too cryptic for Atrus. He interrupted. “What do you mean, things being as they are?”

  Eedrah looked down. “Things are happening, Atrus. There is a sickness…”

  “A sickness?” Catherine stepped closer.

  Eedrah nodded. “It is a recent thing. Over the last few days a number of the relyimah took to their beds with stomach cramps. It was thought at first that they had eaten something bad, but their condition has worsened and many of them are now running a fever.”

  “Can I see them?”

  Hersha led them down a corridor and through another of the hidden doors into a long, low chamber, at the far end of which, on makeshift pallets, a dozen or more relyimah lay, several of their fellows in attendance.

  Going over to them, Catherine knelt and began to examine one of the sick. She was silent a moment as she felt the glands at the man’s neck, peered into his pale, unconscious eyes, and felt his pulse. She looked up at Atrus, concerned. “We need to help these men—we need equipment and medical supplies.”

  “Whatever you need,” Eedrah said. “I shall have it brought at once.”

  §

  Back in their room in the great house, Catherine and Atrus sat across from Eedrah as he talked.

  “It was my fifteenth season when I first saw one of the Slave Ages. As a child, of course, you have to be taught not to see the slaves. Trained not to speak to them or even notice them. Not that you would see them all that often, for the stewards keep them out of sight as much as possible. But by fifteen your eyes have learned not to see, your brain not to make the connection. It isn’t difficult. But I guess my illness made me different.”

  “Your illness?” Atrus asked.

  “A simple fever. But I almost died. A harvesting slave found me in the orchards outside and carried me into the house.”

  “And was rewarded, I hope,” Catherine said.

  Eedrah swallowed and looked down. “He was killed. Executed by the stewards for the impertinence of touching a master.”<
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  Atrus and Catherine both stared at him, shocked.

  “So it is here. Remember the entertainer? The gymnast who fell?”

  “Ah, yes,” Catherine said. “I wondered how he was.”

  “He was severely punished for his mistake.”

  Catherine shook her head. “No…”

  “It is our way. Mistakes are not tolerated. You saw how he did not even make a noise though he was in pain. Had he done so, the stewards would have killed him without hesitation.”

  Atrus sighed. “I did not know.”

  “Nor I,” Eedrah said. “Not until that first visit. Then I saw how the young boys were recruited. Not orphans, as I’d speculated, but ordinary children like myself, only boys of four and five, taken from their parents and relocated in Training Ages where, in circumstances of the most extreme cruelty, they were prepared for service in Terahnee. Those Training Ages are the bleakest places I have ever seen, and the children are taught in the crudest manner to obey or die.”

  “Does Ro’Eh Ro’Dan know of this?”

  For a moment Eedrah stared at Atrus in disbelief. “Do you not see it yet, Atrus? Ro’Eh Ro’Dan authorizes it. He is in charge of this terrible system. He and his ministers set the quotas. They say how many boys are to be taken from their families and trained.”

  Atrus stared and stared.

  “I know,” Eedrah said quietly. “It is hard to believe.”