IV - Myst

In Dreams

Catherine was awakened by a small hand poking her shoulder, a cry in the dark. She rolled over, barely blinking her eyes clear before registering the dark mop of hair hovering just at the level of the mattress, the small voice of her son calling to her. Atrus grumbled in his sleep.

"Can I?" All the boy ever needed to say now, with all the times he'd crawled terrified in with his mother for protection. She reached both arms down to help the little boy up and felt him trembling in her arms.

"Of course, Achenar."

His brown eyes were wide with fright, splotches in the early-morning gloom. He clambered into bed and curled against her, and she stroked his curling hair, murmuring and soothing. Atrus grumbled again, and reached blindly towards the nightstand for his glasses.

"Achenar's having nightmares again," Catherine whispered, and gently lowered his arm. "He'll be all right. Go back to sleep."

Atrus mumbled something hoarse and indistinguishable--he'd been up late writing again--and rolled over to his back, closer to them, and the family huddled instinctively. Without even thinking, Catherine looked over to the crib beside the bed, the bundle of blankets and the soft baby-red hair and tiny sleeping face. Quiet for once, Catherine thought with a tired smile, and that's as rare as a friendly wahrk. She couldn't remember the number of times she'd been up in the night tending the baby; his older brother, quite even-tempered as an infant, had hardly prepared her for his tantrums.

"They chased me," Achenar was whispering, almost inaudibly. "They made the light go away."

"I know. Hush. It'll be all right."

Catherine bundled him closer and softly hummed the Rivenese lullaby she used for all her family--even her husband, when he was too wrought up with an Age to sleep properly. Achenar slowly drifted back to sleep, safe in the big bed, with childish surety that the monsters, the shapeless objects of terror that haunted his nights, wouldn't come back. Catherine too, exhausted from Sirrus' midnight tantrums, soon dozed off, leaving only Atrus staring restless at the ceiling.

Did I have nightmares this often when I was young? Did Catherine? Achenar snuffled in his sleep. Atrus rolled onto his side, his eyes heavy, and tried convince himself that it would be all right. Surely there's nothing wrong with him. He'll grow out of it.

Seven years later, Sirrus tore across the island of Myst, soaked and indignant. He knew exactly where his brother was--Achenar always fled into the forest--but he was too late, always too small to keep up with him.

"Achenar!" he yelled, at the top of his lungs. "I'll tell Father!"

"Nya! He won't believe you!"

Sirrus looked about wildly for the source of the voice. Finally he spotted Achenar--halfway up a tree. Sirrus howled with frustration; Achenar merely shimmied further up and perched securely on a thick limb.

"Come down!" Sirrus yelled shrilly.

"Make me."

"Just come down already!" The wind gusted and Sirrus, wet to his skin, shivered.

Achenar grinned down at him. "It's not my fault you can't climb." Every attempt Sirrus had made to climb a tree had ended with a painful thump to the ground, and not just because Achenar shoved him off. Sirrus turned bright red and mumbled. "All right," said Achenar, "I'll come down if you wrestle me."

"But we shouldn't!"

Achenar just laughed. "And in the forechamber!"

"But we aren't supposed to go there!"

Achenar made a show of settling into his perch. "Coward."

"Am not!"

"Peeper-frog," Achenar declared, referring to the skittish little purple-throated frogs in Channelwood.

"Peeper-frog yourself if you don't come down!"

"Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep..."

Sirrus mumbled and shifted from foot to foot. "All right, already!"

"Stop it! Stop it! I give!"

Achenar pulled back, laughing. Sirrus picked himself off the cold floor of the forechamber, rubbing his twisted arm.

"Why are you so mean?"

"Don't be stupid," Achenar snorted, folding his arms across his chest. "You asked for it. But you're always a wimp."

Sirrus sniffed. "But why?"

"What, why are you a wimp?" Achenar turned and started climbing on the holographer. "How should I know?"

"Achenar, don't!" Sirrus whined. "You shouldn't!"

"Does it matter?" Achenar turned to face him, balancing on the rim, then gave a great leap down and grabbed his younger brother by the shoulders. "So you want to know? You want to know why I'm so mean?"

Sirrus nodded fiercely, his damp hair bobbing in and out of his face. Achenar leaned in closer.

"Because I've died," he hissed, and watched Sirrus' eyes go so wide he could see the whites all the way around. "More times than I can count. I've had horrible things done to me. You'd probably start crying if I just told you about them."

Sirrus' mouth opened and closed, and finally he asked, "Why don't you tell Father?"

Achenar laughed.

"You think either of them could do anything about my dreams?" He shook Sirrus by the shoulders, and Sirrus squawked and squirmed out of his grip. "They couldn't. I know they couldn't."

"But...but...Mother and Father can do anything! I bet Father could write medicine and Mother could sing it and it would all be okay!"

Achenar bopped Sirrus on the head.

"Stupid. They can't. I know they can't."

...but I have closed the book of Whiterock for now. It is a beautiful and peaceful Age, and I would like to return one day. However, even though I find them fascinating and would love to spend more time among them, I feel that I should leave the Shirnao to themselves. Their culture is so based on ritual and superstition, more than those of Channelwood or even Riven, that I fear my continued presence, no matter what my intent, may leave entirely the wrong impression.

Atrus paused and dipped his pen in the ink, then put aside his journal of Whiterock and slid over another open book.

Catherine tells me the boys have been rambunctious in my absence--apparently Achenar gave Sirrus a ducking in the fountain just the other day. She is not worried herself, but recalls the boys of her village playing similar rough-and-tumble games. It makes me wonder how different they are from myself, when I was a child.

Achenar must have hit another growth spurt, for he is taller than I remember. Catherine tells me it is nothing new--perhaps I am far too inattentive a father. It gives me joy to see him running about the island as he does now. He seems to have outgrown the shyness, even oversensitivity, he had while younger. I hope he continues to become more outgoing and active as he grows. It also seems he's stopped complaining of nightmares, which is quite a relief. They may be normal in small children, but if they had persisted I would have worried for the state of his mind.

"What're you moping about?"

Achenar startled and turned to glare at his brother. He'd been sitting on the edge of a Channelwood hut, dangling his feet into misty space, staring into the white-blue sky and frozen still with grim contemplation.

"She died, Sirrus," he snarled, dripping scorn and grief. "Don't you even know what that means? You're supposed to be the smart one."

"But we haven't seen her in ages," said Sirrus, only a little flustered. "And I didn't really know her anyway."

Sirrus fell silent and still at the look in his brother's eyes--a dark and raging hunter's glare, strangely menacing even on an eleven-year-old.

Then Achenar lunged, knocked Sirrus back, and pinned him to the slatted floor of the hut.

"It doesn't matter whether you knew her!" he shouted. "They took her!" He raised his hand, flat and pinched as if to make a blade, and Sirrus yelped with fear as Achenar slashed the side of his hand down his face, across his eyes, across his mouth, across his throat. "They sliced her open, just like that, and took away in the sandstorm to rot!"

Sirrus stared at him, struggled, filled with fear, of course, shock, but also something like vague and nascent scorn.

"That's death," Achenar whispered. "That's how she died. Does it matter if you knew her?"

It was deeply unsettling to tell the boys of Pran's death, but they have every right to know of it. Though he has claimed he is free of them, I suspect Achenar is going to be having nightmares again, for he again radiates that sort of fear he did when he was younger. Sirrus is asking me the most difficult questions, for he naturally wants to know all about death now. I suspect he barely remembers Pran and does not quite understand how painful this time is for Achenar and myself. Of course, he is yet quite young, and such confusion is hardly a surprise. Still, I am at a loss to give them the sort of comfort they seem to need. Catherine is with them now, however, now that we are back from Channelwood, and she is far better at soothing fears than I.

But I write ahead of myself. I am exhausted and weighed down with sorrow, and now that the boys are safely in bed, I wish nothing more than to sit alone on the grass under the stars and attempt to calm myself. The haunting tragedy of Everdunes is too fresh in my mind to write of properly. Some time soon I must consider further what it means to my sons--and, of course, to Catherine, for she considered Pran a friend as well--but it is not that time yet.

But, one thing atop another, Atrus never returned to that question except in his closing of the Everdunes journal, not until the time was long passed.

"But, Sirrus, Achenar..." Atrus knelt and put a hand on each of his sons' shoulders. "I think we can turn the pirates away if we complete the fortress, but it would take far more than that to destroy them. Please understand. Even if I thought it was the best choice, I cannot risk my life and those of the natives of this island to hunt down the pirates. I know you don't like the storms, but a blue sky isn't worth all the pain and suffering it would take, even if that legend is true. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Why wouldn't it be the best choice?" Sirrus mumbled.

Atrus sighed, then took a deep breath.

"No matter what they have done, the pirates are living beings, people like you and me. It would be wrong to hunt them down and destroy all of them."

Sirrus and Achenar both stared at the ground, fidgeting, as if expected him to punish them. Atrus stood and smiled.

"Don't worry, you didn't do anything wrong. I just wanted to explain some things." He ruffled their hair. "Cheer up. We're back home now. Give me a day or two to get some things in order, and then I could take you back to Stoneship, or maybe to a new Age. You haven't seen Serenol yet. The most wonderful things happen at sunrise--you just have to be," and he lowered his voice to a whisper, "very, very quiet."

Sirrus let out a little giggle, and Atrus laughed as well.

"Father, can I go back to Channelwood instead?" Achenar asked.

"Certainly, as soon as I'm ready to travel with you again. I know how much you love that Age."

"What about me, then?" Sirrus asked. "I like Channelwood too, but I want to see a new place."

"Well, you could ask your mother. She might take you to Serenol. And if she won't, I shall work something out."

"Oh. All right."

I recently returned from my first extensive visit to Aspermere, and I cannot keep myself from a certain gleeful pride. My first link, months ago, was merely to confirm that the essentials of the Age had come true. I had written continental Ages before, first with Everdunes and then with Oasis, but this was my first attempt at a broad and varied continent, far more taxing than a desert Age or even the larger island Ages, such as Serenol or Whiterock. I had my doubts about the land, as it had been so difficult to write, but they were assured by my first visit. My second was to meet the people, for I had hoped too for an inhabited Age, and I discovered a civilization far more advanced than I might have thought.

I shall start a new journal soon, to record in full detail my explorations of Aspermere and my research into their society and technology. However, I record this here to remind myself of the remarkable spirit and intellect of these people. If I ever do chose to take students from my Ages, Aspermere might be the first place to look.

It was on Sirrus' thirteenth birthday that his father finally showed him a kormahn. He'd known it would happen, of course, since Achenar had told him all about his own thirteenth birthday, and so he was practically bouncing with anticipation as Atrus led him down the library.

"Your brother told you about this, didn't he?" Atrus asked, resigned to Sirrus' utter lack of awe.

"Of course!"

Atrus shut the door to the library and got Sirrus settled in a chair, then went over to lift down one of the heavy books lining the walls.

"I've never seen those bookshelves before," Sirrus said, blinking about in surprise.

"Of course not," said Atrus with a smile. "You know building toys to keep books hidden is a hobby of mine." Carefully hiding the name tooled on the cover, he laid the book open on the desk before his son, at the first page of text, and weighted down the flyleaf and the linking page with a carved stone. "Now, this is a kormahn. You know what it is--I've taught you that much already."

"What Age is it?"

"Ah, that's for you to figure out." At Sirrus' puzzled stare, he elaborated. "I didn't do this with your brother, but I got the idea from him. I realized as I watched him read the book that he knew enough of the garo-hevtee to recognize several distinctive elements of the Age. I expect you know about as much as he did at your age, so I've concealed the title and the linking panel."

Sirrus stared, wide-eyed, at the lines of symbols, the letters of creation, the legacy of D'ni, lovingly inscribed on the ancient paper.

"Can I touch it?" he asked softly.

"Of course. Page through it as you wish." Atrus' glasses winked in the lamplight. "A bit of advice for your hunt, Sirrus: the large physical elements of an Age, the landmarks that you see when you visit, usually begin about forty pages in and continue until about a third of the way through. Before comes the symbols that lay out the laws of physics and the structure of the solar system, and after come the smaller elements of the Age--life forms, soil structures, things like that. Organizing elements like that, large to small, is a common structure, although not necessary. I usually follow it. It makes things easier."

"Is this an Age I've visited?"

"Of course. I wouldn't be that cruel to a boy on his birthday."

Sirrus was silent for a moment, staring at the thick book before him.

"This thing is huge. It must have taken you years." His eyes scanned the number of books on the walls, and a shadow of awe passed across his face. "Father, that's...that's..."

"It doesn't take as much time as you think, actually." Atrus shrugged, modest. "Once you get accustomed to using the garo-hevtee and setting out the basic concepts of an Age, it comes much more easily."

"Still..." Sirrus broke off, and really looked at his father for the first time that day, at the ink stains on his hands, the simple cut of his shirt, the sheen of the lamplight on his face and glasses. "I don't think I'll ever be that much like you." He ran one finger down the margin of the book, feeling the strange texture of the paper. "I don't think I'll ever have the patience."

"You never know what age brings you."

"Hm."

There was a long moment of silence; then Atrus let out a breath and leaned back in his chair. Sirrus started turning the thick, pliant pages until he was about forty in, then scanned down again.

"Er...it's an island. But that hardly narrows it down..."

Almost an hour later, Sirrus hazarded his final guess--Osmoian. Atrus smiled, flipped back to the linking panel, and let Sirrus watch the jewel of a world: the moss-hung trees, the great round platforms of stone clinging to the cliff high over the green sea, the boxy stacked huts of the round-bodied natives.

"Happy birthday," Atrus said softly, and Sirrus looked up at him, grinning in triumph. "You're a good reader," Atrus added, then slid the book across the desk, closed it, and stood to return it to its shelf.

"Father...what are dreams?"

Atrus paused, the heavy book still in his hand, then slipped it into place and returned to his chair.

"That's a question I've never managed to answer for myself. Usually I think they're ways for the mind to unload its baggage, or to rummage through odd matters and attempt to connect them to each other. I'm sure that they are not at all subject to the discipline we usually apply to our thoughts, and that's part of what makes them so confusing and fascinating."

"Like they're the way we'd think all the time if we didn't, well, think straight?"

"I suppose."

"Hunh."

"Is there a reason you asked?"

"It's something I've been wondering about for a while. I've got it nowhere close to figured out yet, but I think that helped."

"If you want a different answer," said Atrus, always a man to offer many possibilities, "ask your mother. She gives much more weight to dreams than I do. Although I must admit that the results are dazzling. She makes Ages from her dreams, you see."

And so came the day when Sirrus realized he had the upper hand, that his brother was sick and he was healthy, and that made all the difference in the world.

"I see." Sirrus nodded. "Thank you."

And nothing was ever safe for Achenar after that.

...and Channelwood continues to baffle me.

But I am succumbing to the old fallacy. The Art is a selector, not a creator. It must be that certain inadvertent phrase structures or combinations of symbols caused, for example, bad weather in Stoneship when an outsider arrives. (Yet why only myself, and not the various inhabitants of the Rocks arriving from other parts of the Age?) It should not surprise me. The unexpected intricacies that can be created by words and language cannot be controlled or predicted by any one mind, even that of the writer. How more so when the words in question are concepts as powerful and complex as the garo-hevtee? And yet something within me still rebels at the idea. I have always sought an explanation, a logical causality, and yet I find things in my Ages which do not have one at all.

I should discuss this with Catherine, if I am brave enough to discuss it at all.

Achenar was floudering in deep water, black waves washing over his head, and when he gulped for air it flooded his mouth, rancid with copper and living things--bloodwater, he somehow knew, bloodwater. Rain pelted his face when he managed to bob to the surface, hacking and choking and screaming into the storm, but all he saw through his waterlogged eyes were the roiling clouds and the slashing glare of sheet lightning, and the wind howled back its answer. He was dead, he was already dead, cold to the bone and white to the face, coughing blood, thrashing out the last of his life in the water--

--jolting awake on a double-folded blanket on the coarse grain sand of Mechanical, surrounded by tools and bits of metal and the plans for the retractable stairs and his brother and--

He couldn't move.

He would have screamed, but his mouth wouldn't open, his voice wouldn't answer. He would have scrambled to his feet and ran, but no matter how he strained, not a single muscle would move. Paralyzed. His eyes, the only thing left to him, rolled wildly in the cloud-black night.

Sirrus, wide awake, watched him with calm, disgusted curiosity from where he perched on a nearby rock.

Achenar blinked once, twice--and, relentless, the dream followed him into reality. He blinked; a man stood on the island--tall, solidly built, with ragged black hair, stained and gaudy clothes, bristling with weapons. But it was the strange light in his eyes, a wild fire, that made Achenar's heart drop to his stomach. He blinked; and the man was standing closer to him. He blinked; leaning over him, dagger drawn.

"In the name of our mother, our goddess--"

Achenar stared wide-eyed and frozen into the black skies of reality and felt a heavy-ringed hand close on his throat from out of the lands of nightmare.

Then he screwed his eyes shut, not wanting to see anymore--but the dream dragged him back down, down deep and dying into the water, until a great black hull rode up beside him and a boathook caught him under a shoulder blade and hauled him up on deck.

He screamed, a half-dead boy dragged out of the sea, bleeding down his back and stumbling in terror round the ring of pirates, until he tripped on a block and fell onto the twin rapiers of a gaunt and scar-faced man, each sliding in deep between his ribs until he hung there against the hilts, in so much pain that he couldn't even breathe--

They hauled his weedy just-grown body off the rapiers and forced him up against the mainmast, strung his wrists up until he shrieked with pain from his torn shoulder and lashed his ankles down tight--

Then he felt her. The terrible presence on the surface of the waters, black claws and black hands and a fell and running wolf, leading the host of the white-faced dead--his own dead, his own deaths, and running behind the standard of the cross and crescent and the cruel dark form of the goddess of war--

In her name they raised their blades with a tremendous shout, and the ship turned with a creak of the great wheel, and he struggled helpless in the black bitch's grasp, dreaming but unable to wake, bound to the mast of a black ship that was sailing deep into hell--

A hand tapped his shoulder.

Achenar fell screaming into wakefulness, and this time his body answered, and he lurched upright with an animal shriek on his lips, but somebody grabbed his hair and his mouth and held him struggling and mute.

"Don't wake Father," Sirrus' voice hissed in his ear.

The initial terror faded. Fierce disorientation. Mechanical?

"Can I let you go now without you waking him up?"

Achenar pried Sirrus' hand off his face.

"What happened?" he gasped, staring at the ringless, boyish hand he held crushingly tight by the wrist. Sirrus flinched from the pain, but a smile slowly spread across his face.

"Nothing happened," he said gently. "Nothing at all."

Achenar dropped Sirrus' hand and looked wildly about, taking in the tiny and desolate island, the vastness of the black night, the strange form of the fortress looming in its ring to his left, the third pile of blankets behind him that was his father.

"The pirate--?" he hissed.

"You're sick, aren't you?" Sirrus asked in a calm whisper. Achenar stared at him, still shaking with raw terror and stinking with fear sweat.

"But I saw--"

"I always thought you were insane. I guess I was right. Well, that means you'll never be able to hurt me again." Sirrus smiled, soft, cold, all of thirteen. "I'm perfectly normal and you're a freak."

Achenar turned away from him in silence, his face distorted in a silent scream, and then he started to his feet and grabbed his blanket and went at a stumbling run down the walkway to the fortress, to crawl into a back room and sob.

Three years later, Atrus carefully handed his sons their maturity, gift-wrapped as a linking book to J'nanin. They returned with rings of lattice root and stories of spores and sun bread, carefully showing off their newfound knowledge to their parents. Little did they know that, only a few nights before, Sirrus had laid Tamra down naked on her bed; little did they know of the scar Achenar had left for Saavedro. The brothers concealed the spring in their steps and saved their boasting for whispers late at night, when their father lay sleeping and their mother lay dreaming.

And, after a few years more, Atrus gave them their inheritance: free run of his Ages.

"Dear brother, I have a question for you."

"Well?"

"I'm fond of Stoneship because of the gold, naturally--the people there are hardly interesting. But why do you like it?"

Achenar smiled.

"Don't you think it's interesting to kill people who don't know what death is?"

I began this journal a few days after Achenar was born, as a record of my experiences with my children and my hopes for their future. It became, of course, a journal of Sirrus as well, for they spend so much time together that it would be useless to keep separate accounts. I recount this now because I shall be closing this journal, or at least ceasing to write in it regularly.

My sons have inherited my old Ages, Catherine is writing new ones, and I desire time for relaxation. With that, I close. I will still keep this journal in our bedroom and add to it when I feel the urge, but I feel that the time of children in our lives is now fully passed.

"So tell me, then, what is this goddess of theirs that I hear Akos muttering about?"

Achenar's face darkened, became unreadable.

"Don't concern yourself with her, little brother," he said at last. "She'll eat you alive."

"You're mad," Sirrus said dourly.

"And I'm the only one who can do anything about her," Achenar laughed.

It has been several years since I last wrote in this journal. I had thought that, once my sons were independent, I would have little need for it. I was wrong. I was wrong in so many things. I can only pray for forgiveness.

I may not write in this journal again.

Catherine left Atrus to go through the last chest in the back room; she had found piles of notes on an Age of her own and had gone off to collate them, taking comfort in the shards of her own creativity. The chest was mostly full of clothes--expansive, dark clothes that had to be Achenar's. Atrus wondered at that. They hadn't found any of Sirrus' things except those from his earliest childhood; perhaps he'd been too possessive to leave them with his parents. Yet here was a box of Achenar's clothes. There were a few other things in there as well: a pot and a pile of metal chips that Atrus recognized as being from Channelwood, a lump of soft Stoneship gold, a lock of curling red hair and a tiny vial of what looked to be blood tied to a long string, and a black metal box with a coded lock. Atrus set the last in his lap, wondering. It took him a while to break the code, and he was, in spite of himself, impressed by the simplicity and effectiveness of the design.

Within was a pile of loose brown pages, covered with a scrawling handwriting that Atrus knew well from calligraphy lessons in the library many years ago. Achenar had never had a neat hand, but now it was nearly illegible, the pages stained with ink blotches, tears, even blood. A date in one corner marked a page as written less than a year before Atrus' exile to D'ni, when Achenar had last visited home to sleep off an odd illness he seemed to have contracted in Channelwood.

I never knew he kept a journal.

Atrus shifted the pages carefully, watching for signs of rot in the paper, then lifted them out and set them aside. His hands were shaking.

I'm not ready to read that yet. I may not be for a long time.

Atrus found something else in the back room: a holographer containing a static picture, his favorite family portrait of all the ones they'd taken. He turned it on and watched as the picture unfolded: four smiling people lined up in front of the forest on Myst. He'd asked everybody to pose dressed up, as if it were a carnival, but as themselves. He was there, looking as he always did--complete with the stack of books--except for a pile on his head of as many pairs of goggles and surveying eyeglasses as he could manage, the many lenses making him look like some strange insect. Next to him, wrapped in a blanket sewn of leaves and feathers, sat Catherine, her hair braided and looped about her head and her face painted with blue swirls. There was Achenar, twelve and grinning hugely, having already hit his growth spurt, sporting a giant black cloak with a silver clasp and a floppy black hat askew over his newly trimmed hair. There was Sirrus, ten and the smallest by far, all in white with lace at his throat, his hair grown out long enough to brush his shoulders and a bent peacock feather stuck into it.

Atrus had to wipe the fog off of his glasses after he turned it off.