Anlage
(Author's note: This story is a complete what-if, and is not compatible or harmonizable with any of my other MYST fanfics.)
Construction on the library is nearly complete. I am doing most of the roofing work myself: Grandmother doesn't move around as easily as she once did, and Catherine's heavy pregnancy is interfering a little with her activities. We've also added a second room to the cabin and are sleeping there, she and I.
It was hard for both of us, at first. The pain she's been through I can't even begin to imagine. But she is healing. I think the breakthrough came a few weeks ago: to my lasting shame, I became so eager that I didn't realize she was only accepting – I must be honest, and write the word "submitting" – because of my need. Some part of her mind had flown back to that evil time on Riven, and in her consciousness, the arms holding her weren't mine.
It wasn't until she fell completely still in my arms that I realized something was wrong. I caressed her face, and spoke to her, until she was with me once more. And finally I had to show her the truth: that my need ...
Achenar shoved the journal away, violently. "What makes you think I want to read this?" he demanded.
"Read it," Sirrus said harshly. "I didn't want to either. I wish I'd never found it. Just … read the damned thing."
Achenar stared at him for a moment, then turned back to the book:
... that my need is tied inextricably to hers, that I was (and, I think, always will be) physically incapable unless her desire is as great as mine. I can never forgive Gehn for what he did to her, and she carries the fruit of that violence within her, but her mind and soul will be whole again. I can find no words to express the depth of my admiration for her strength.
My only choice is to dismiss Gehn from my mind completely, and to help her do the same.
He turned over several pages. The next entry was in a different ink, and dated a couple of years later:
Catherine's convinced this will be another boy. Grandmother laughs and says there's no way to be certain, but Catherine only says, "I was right before, wasn't I?" I haven't said so, but I hope a little bit that it's a girl.
If it is a boy – I must be careful always to treat them in the same way. I have tried with all that is in me to believe, to know, that every child Catherine bears is my child. But sometimes I wonder, as much as I love Achenar – my son Achenar, and I try with all that is in me to think of him so – have I truly been able to treat him fairly? Will I be able to
The entry broke off there. On the next page, he read:
Catherine was right, it is another boy! He's much smaller than his brother was at birth, with a great shock of black hair (which Grandmother says is likely to fall out) and a very red face.
God help me. Will I always look at them and compare them? They're different people, individuals. Will I look at every difference between them and wonder, is it because of the circumstances of their coming into being?
I don't know whether Grandmother knows the truth. Catherine and I don't often speak of it any more, but we've agreed on one thing: Achenar and the newcomer must never be told. They must never know anything but that they are brothers.
We're naming him Sirrus.
Achenar realized his hands were trembling a little as he closed the book. Sirrus was watching him, silently.
It took a moment to find his voice. "Can you put this back so they'll never know it was gone?"
Sirrus nodded. "I think so."
Achenar searched for words. There were none. Abruptly he shoved the book at Sirrus and got to his feet. Numb, he made his way down the corridor to the lift, and then outdoors.
* * * * *
They met later, on the causeway, as the sunset's glow faded.
"The question is," Sirrus said after a time, "now that we know this, how much of what we've always been told can we believe?"
"Mother and Father wouldn't – " Achenar broke off. "I was going to say, they wouldn't lie to us. But they always have, haven't they?"
"Exactly." Sirrus heard the heaviness in his own voice. "How many lies have they told us? It's for your own sake that I won't teach you the Art – truth? You're not ready, it must wait until you're older – lie? What can we believe?"
"Father says he doesn't make the Ages – that they already exist, and the writing only makes a bridge to them. But can we even believe that?" Achenar was holding a twig between his huge hands, breaking tiny bits off it and dropping them one by one into the water. "If it's not true – if the writing does make the Ages – then how real are they? Are they any more real than the stories Mother used to tell us when we were small? Pran, Corrin, Emmit, Kathala, Nyrus – all of them – are they any more real than Enja who ate the sunner, or Tarrik with his giant kite? Perhaps they're all sort of … make-believe. A product of Father's imagination."
Sirrus nodded slowly. "The Ages themselves," he murmured. "What are they for? Why shouldn't they be used? There's so much in some of them, going to waste, with no one to use it but a few barbarians – why shouldn't someone make good use of it?"
"Imaginary barbarians," Achenar said in the tone of a reminder. "Like the bark dolls Mother used to make for her story-shows."
He tugged another fragment of the twig free and let it fall. Suddenly Sirrus realized it wasn't a twig at all, but a live insect, nearly as long as Achenar's hand. He was pulling segments of its legs off and dropping them into the water.
In the distance they heard the high sharp sound of the dinner horn their mother had carved from a shell.
"We can't tell them we know," Sirrus said
Achenar shrugged and tossed the insect's body into the water. "A secret to match a secret."
The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines "anlage" as "the foundation of a subsequent development". The American Heritage Dictionary offers three definitions: "The initial clustering of embryonic cells from which a part or an organ develops"; "A genetic predisposition to a given trait or personality characteristic"; and "A fundamental principle; the foundation for a future development".