The Myst Reader (110 page)

“You are wrong,” Uta repeated, no stammer this time. “Atrus
is
a friend. He found me when I was ill and nursed me. He carried me, not fearing for himself.”

But Ymur simply sneered. “Only because he knew he could not catch it.”

“Not then,” Hersha said. “Uta is right. Atrus acted as a brother, not fearing for himself. And his people helped tend our ill.”

Uta looked up into the old man’s face. Then, in a strange incantatory tone, he said:

 

 

“What ails the sickly child?

What stranger comes?

What words will follow him,

Spoken by sleeping tongues?”

 

 

Utter silence followed the words.

Atrus turned, sensing that something was happening in the crowd and saw, to his astonishment, that many now were looking at the platform, staring in awe at the child—yes, and at himself, too.

“What is it?” Atrus asked, looking at Eedrah. “What is going on?” But even Eedrah, it seemed, did not know.

One by one the relyimah were dropping to their knees, an awed whisper spreading across the great arena.

Up on the platform, Gat stepped past Atrus and raised his arms. Silence fell.

“We have heard enough,” he said, his voice trembled with a strange, inexplicable emotion. “It is decided. We shall learn this new law and embrace new ways. Ymur, is it not so?”

Atrus looked to Ymur, expecting the man to argue, but Ymur’s head had dropped in defeat. “It is so.”

 

 

§

 

 

As the relyimah dispersed to their encampments, their leaders went through the great arch at the back of the amphitheater and into the Chamber of the Moon.

Once water had tumbled in huge illuminated curtains from all sides of the great hall, but now those artificial falls were still, the curved surfaces of marble dull and dry. Behind them, glimpsed through the spaces between the bulky segments, twelve huge revolving “scoops”—six massive troughs of stone between two equally massive wheels; troughs that were designed to lift the water from the reservoirs below—sat idle now. The thick ropes trailing from the wheels lay slack, the leather harnesses empty.

Overhead the moon, a huge shield made of glittering crystal, rested where its last journey across those illusory heavens had brought it, the fierce blue-white light of a powerful lamp shining through it onto the floor a hundred feet below.

But Atrus barely noticed anything of this. As the great doors closed on them, he turned, looking to the child.

“Uta…what were those words you spoke just now?”

Uta, startled by Atrus’s request, glanced at Gat, then tucked his head into his chest.

“Gat?” Atrus asked, turning to the old man.

“Those were lines from the
Korokh Jimah
.”

“The Book of prophecies?”

“So it is sometimes known.”

“Your people seemed to attribute some significance to the words.”

“Words spoken by sleeping tongues.” Gat smiled. “The D’ni books of law seem to fit that description well, would you not say, Atrus? Not to speak of the ailing child.”

“Most anything would fit.” Atrus shook his head. “Well, let us move on to more important matters.” He stopped, looking about him at the small group who were gathered there. “Where is Ymur?”

“Gone,” Hersha said. “I saw him leave.”

“Ymur is quite hotheaded,” Atrus said. “It might be best to have him watched.”

“You think him a danger?” Hersha asked.

“His is a single voice,” Gat answered. “He might be angry, but he will not challenge the word of the relyimah council.”

“Maybe so, but you need to find a task for him. Something to harness all that anger.”

“You could be right, Atrus. We shall consider the matter. But tell me…these laws of yours…they can be adapted for the relyimah?”

Atrus smiled. “I have no doubt of it. Indeed, I shall begin the task at once. But I shall need help copying out the resultant passages. Are there any among the relyimah who could help us in the task?”

Gat laughed. “Thousands. You think those lazy good-for-nothings, the Terahnee, would lower themselves to undertake such hard and difficult work?”

“Then I shall have my companions, Oma and Esel, help me make a suitable translation of the laws, to be copied and disseminated.”

“And we shall appoint those among us who seem suitable to act as teachers of these new laws.” Gat paused. “But there are other, far more pressing problems.”

“Food,” Hersha said.

“Food? But food is plentiful.”

“Now it is. But unless the fields are harvested, the fruit picked from the trees, and the animals tended to, then we shall very quickly have a problem. Since the sickness came, almost nothing has been done.”

“I see.” Atrus considered a moment. “And the problem is getting them to work again?”

“Not at all,” Baddu said. “There is a will among the relyimah to work. But many have died, and without the stewards…”

“Our people feel lost,” Gat said. “Without direction. Oh, they hated and despised their masters, yes, and their masters’ servants, but now that they are gone they find they also needed them.”

“I understand,” Atrus said, looking to Eedrah, who was strangely silent. “But that need will pass. They must be their own masters now. And we shall help them in that task.” He paused. “Each man knows his work, does he not?”

“They do.”

“Then that is what each will do.”

Gat frowned. “But who will arrange it all?”

“The relyimah. Eventually. But first they must return to their routines.” Atrus smiled. “I know what you are saying, Gat. They need someone to tell them what to do. But it is not true. Not entirely. They have only to act as if the stewards were still there—but unseen.”

There was surprise, then laughter at that.

“You mean, pretend?” Gat asked.

“Until a better system is devised. Until
real
changes can be made. But you are right…these basic tasks must be continued, for without them nothing will work.”

“Then so it will be,” Gat said, a beaming smile lighting his blind face. “But what of the women?”

“Women?” There was a look of consternation on Atrus’s face. “There are
female
relyimah?”

“Of course. Who do you think did most of the work in the great houses?”

“The men, I thought…”

He looked to Hersha, who shrugged. “I thought you knew, Atrus. They have their own quarters, far from the men’s quarters.”

“Segregated, you mean?”

But the word meant nothing to Hersha.

Atrus looked about him, seeing things anew. “And the two never meet?”

“Never,” Gat answered.

“And now?”

Gat looked away, embarrassed. “It is…difficult. More difficult than seeing and being seen. To even look at one was an offense for which a male relyimah might die.”

Atrus grimaced. “I didn’t…”

“See?”
Eedrah said, breaking his long silence. “Oh, it was the worst of it, Atrus. Beside that, all other cruelties were bearable. But to break
that
bond.” He shuddered. “For that alone I agree with Ymur. If I were relyimah I would hunt my people down until the last of us was dead.”

“Yourself included, Eedrah?”

Gat was staring blindly at Eedrah, astonished by the depth of bitterness he had displayed.

“I was but barely better than my fellows. I did nothing to persuade them they were wrong.”

“You helped us, Eedrah,” Hersha said, reaching out and actually touching the Terahnee.

Eedrah stared a moment at the place where Hersha’s hand rested on his arm, then looked about him. Not a face condemned him. He closed his eyes, the pain he was feeling at that moment overwhelming him. “To live such a lie…some days it was unbearable.”

“I understand,” Gat said. “But now that all is done with, and you, my brother, you must help us find a better way.”

Eedrah looked at the blind man, then bowed his head. “As you wish…my brother.”

 

 

§

 

 

Back at the great house in Ro’Jethhe, Atrus sat down with Catherine, quickly confiding to her all that had happened at the assembly.

“There are
female
relyimah?” she asked, astonished.

“So they tell me. But Hersha says they are kept separate. Segregated. Apparently they were not even allowed to look at each other. On pain of death. And they are neutered—male and female both—just in case any should escape and hide away.”

Catherine stared at him, horrified. “This changes everything.”

“How so?”

“It’s very simple. You wish to make a proper world of this, a real society, with good laws and fair treatment for all. But how can you create any kind of society when there are no children and no possibility of children?”

“Then we shall bring them in, from other Ages. Oh, not as the Terahnee brought them in, as slaves, but with their families.”

“Do you think that will work?”

“I do not know. Yet we must try.” Atrus sat back, kneading his neck with one hand, tired now after the long day. “One thing I do know: This is an undertaking far larger than the rebuilding of D’ni ever was. But if the will is here—and I think it is—then we can make it work. And maybe we might settle here, after all. Be part of this.”

She smiled. “Maybe. But first you ought to send a messenger to Master Tamon, to tell him all is well.”

“I shall. At once.”

He stood and turned to go, but Catherine called him back. “Atrus? One other thing. Have you noticed…”

“Noticed?”

“Marrim and Eedrah. Have you noticed how they spend time with each other?”

 

 

§

 

 

Marrim poked her head around the door.

“So there you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Eedrah sat at the desk on the far side of the library, a journal open in front of him. At the sound of her voice he had set his pen down. Now, as Marrim walked across, he sanded the page and closed the journal.

“Something you don’t want me to see?” she teased, coming up to the desk.

He looked back at her sullenly, then pushed the journal across the desk to her. “Look, if you want.”

“No,” she said, realizing she had hurt his feelings. “Are you all right?”

He looked to one side of her, then shook his head. “No, not really. I feel…” He looked straight at her. “I feel like I oughtn’t to have lived.”

“It’s what half the D’ni suffer from,” she said brightly. “So Catherine says.” Then, she spoke more seriously. “You don’t really feel like that, do you? I mean, I thought you wanted to help the relyimah.”

“I do.” Eedrah frowned, then stood up, walking halfway across that massive floor before he turned to look back at her. “Things were said tonight, at the assembly. There was this one relyimah called Ymur. A disagreeable type, yet what he said brought it home to me. How evil it all was. And I felt that I’d permitted it somehow.”

“You had no choice.”

“Didn’t I? You see, that’s just it, Marrim. I used to argue that way, but now that it’s all gone I can see clearly. It was
my
silence, the silence of people
like
me, that permitted it to continue. To carry on unchallenged. It was up to us, who
saw
, to
do
something. But we didn’t. For thousands of years we just accepted it.”

“But you didn’t create Terahnee, Eedrah.”

“No. That’s true. I merely used it, like everyone else.”

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”

He laughed bitterly. “Hard? I’m dying inside.”

Eedrah looked down. “Do you remember the maze, Marrim, at Horen Ro’Jadre’s house?”

“I remember beating you.”

“Has Atrus told you how that worked?”

“No. Some kind of clever machinery, I suppose.”

“You
suppose!
” He huffed out a breath. “Slaves did that, Marrim! Relyimah! Hundreds of them harnessed to great cogs and pulleys, straining to lift and turn those massive rooms. And if one fell, or slipped, he would be trampled by his fellows, because there was not time to stop. The rooms had to be turned. Twelve seconds they had,
remember?
Twelve seconds!”

Marrim was staring at him in shock.

“How does that make you feel, Marrim, knowing that your sport probably killed several young men?”

She stared, horrified.

“Yes, well, imagine feeling that each and every day of your life! Or worse. Imagine
numbing
yourself so that you could no longer feel!”

 

 

§

 

 

In the days that followed, they began to understand the scale of the problems facing them. Before the sickness Terahnee had been a land of two hundred million souls, not including the P’aarli and the silent relyimah—uncounted, naturally. Now the native population had plummeted to less than a hundred thousand—ironically, those who, like Eedrah, had been sickliest among them. But now the slaves, that great unseen mass, had emerged into the sunlight, and even after their own losses, they numbered in excess of two billion souls.

It was a huge logistical problem, and one that not even Gat had properly understood. The old man busied himself, going from gathering to gathering, speaking to the local relyimah and talking of the “way ahead,” but the practical details he left to Atrus and Eedrah.

Their first task was to organize a team of “scribes”—relyimah who could write and had experience of various nonmenial tasks. Word went out among the local estates, and very quickly they began to come, in twos and threes and just occasionally alone, making their way to the great house at Ro’Jethhe.