Repercussions
Atrus and Catherine, newly reunited, linked back to Myst Island, their grins almost foolish. Catherine felt a feeling of triumph surge through her. They had done it! Her people were re-located. Gehn was trapped within the Prison Age. Catherine's home was gone forever. It had always been decaying, slowly dying, drifting apart like a scattered puzzle. She would miss the unique smell of the air, swimming with the sunners...teasing the wharks.
"We're home, Atrus." she said happily, twirling around in the library. "I feel like dancing. I cannot believe it!"
"Neither can I." said Atrus, looking around. "It's been months since I've been able to walk freely here."
He clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes darting to the two blackened shelves on either side of the library.
Cathering seemed not to notice. "Sirrus! Achenar!" she shouted out the door. She turned to Atrus, eyes sparkling. "I've not seen them in months!" She didn't notice his face turn ashen as she ran out the door.
He groaned and sank to the floor. He had known this was coming, had known in the back of his mind. He'd thought he could deal with it as it came, he'd been fighting for his wife's very life, trying to hold off the collapse until his friend could rescue her. He removed the Prison Book from his knapsack and held it up. "Will I do the same to you, Father?" he asked the air.
"Sirrus! Achenar!" Catherine jogged lightly through the trees behind the cabin, looking around, her brow furrowing more and more. Where were they? The island was not that large, they should have heard her by now. She should have come across some sign of their existence. The first flutter of panic entered her heart.
She stepped out onto the dock and noted with alarm that the ship was fully out of the water. Why had Atrus raised the ship? He used it only to protect the books...
Stepping lightly onto the ship, she faltered slightly as it rocked gently in the waves. She made her way down into the cabin and her eyes widened as she saw the Stoneship Book lying open.
Mouth pressed into a grim line, she made her way up to the Great Tree model she had written in to remind her of home and saw again that it was deep into the ground. There was probably a Book there as well.
She jogged to the Mechanical gear model, knowing before getting there that it had also been used, revealing the Mechanical Age swirling on the first page.
Catherine was running now, calling wildly. "Sirrus!" Achenar!" She sounded like a stern mother, calling for her children to come out of hiding. She remembered the games of hide and seek they played across entire Ages. She frantically tore down the steps and headed for the library. Oh by the Maker, let them be all right...!
"Atrus, something's happened!" I can't find the children anywhere, and your protections have all been used. Something's going on, maybe a native found the Linking books to Myst while we were gone or..." She gasped. "In the Maker's name! What happened to the library!?"
Eyes wide with horror, she flew to the bookcase. All the Books, the Ages she and Atrus had written, had been burnt, covers dark and unreadable, pages browned or gone alltogether. Black flakes of paper covered the floor in front of the bookcase.
She frantically pulled book after book from the shelves, pulling them open and giving a low cry of dismay at each. Moor...Kileraf....Risheen...all the others...all gone. She startled as a hand fell upon her shoulder. "They're all destroyed, my love. I already went through them all." his gruff voice choked with sorrow. "The only ones to survive were Channelwood, Mechanical, Selenitic and Stonship."
Catherine stood, trying to pull herself together, hugging herself. "But where are the children? They told me you had gone to Riven to confront somebody. I know they didn't know about Gehn...and I assumed you would have a Linking book or thought of some other way to get off Riven, so I linked there and this whole unimaginable mess started...but... why did they lie to me?" She stared at him. "What's happened, Atrus?"
Atrus's eyes were large and sad, and his lips pursed. A long moment passed. "Our boys are gone, my love." he said gently. "I...I had to...to send them away." He tried to put a hand on her shoulder and she backed away from him.
"What do you mean? WHERE are they?"
"They...they..." His head bowed. "They are in Prison Ages. Books that I..." He shuddered with what he was about to say. "Books that I destroyed." he said with a whisper.
Her world dropped out from underneath her.
"Wha...what?" she whispered.
"Catherine, you must understand, I had no choice!"
She slapped him, hard, leaving him gasping at the stinging pain.
"QURE-keth!" she cursed at him in her own language. "You killed my sons! My babies! Why!" Why would you do that!?" Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Why!"
She attacked him then, fists beating down on his body with such rage that he nearly fell down in shock. He grabbed a hold of her wrists and let her wring fuitily, until she collapsed onto his chest, sobbing.
"I'm sorry, Catherine. I'm so sorry." he said softly, stroking her dark hair. But there was no other way."
"Yes there was!" she said angrily, looking up at him. "Surely there were more possiblities than trapping them! There is always another way!"
"You don't know what they did!" protested Atrus. "You think I wanted to do this to my own sons? I did it to my own father!" he yelled.
He took her by the wrist then, dragging her along with such force that she was nearly yanked off her feet.
They made there way across the island, and down into the Great Tree. There, Catherine saw, was the Channelwood Age. "What's going on? Why are you taking me here?"
"You'll see." he said grimly.
They appeared on the wooden walkways, birds and monkey's screaming in the distance. The windmill that was the source of power creaked as it moved, still moving even though it's builders had long vanished. Dim sunlight filtered through the trees as they walked towards the elevator. It was twilight on Channelwood.
"Look!" Atrus declared as the door opened. "Look at what our sons did."
Catherine's hand moved towards her mouth as she walked slowly around the village. Furniture was destroyed, gaping holes in the roofs, some walkways collapsed along their trunks. There were no sign of the people anywhere.
"What's happened here?" she said to herself.
"Our boys, Catherine." Atrus shuddered as he spoke. "Something went horribly wrong."
"No...no!" she said firmly. "I won't believe that."
She ran towards their rooms, high above the swampy floor. Her boys, her flesh and blood couldn't do this, they'd raised them better than this...
She shrieked as she rounded a corner and her sons leering face appeared before her. A hologram.
It sputtered words she couldn't understand. She'd never learned the language of this world. The head of Achenar laughed at his mother, then vanished.
And what was this...? She touched a button and snatched her arm back with a gasp as steel jaws snapped shut inches from her hand.
"I don't know what it was for either." Atrus said glumly from behind her. "I just can't believe..."
"He was so different in the hologram." she shuddered. "Like the holograms Gehn used to appear to my people."
"I'm afraid it gets worse." Atrus opened an adjaecent door and walked over to the hologram control. "Listen to this." He pressed a button.
The voice of Sirrus floated in her ears. "He is plotting, my brother. Remember, take only one page."
She turned towards Atrus. "What ever can that mean?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Come with me to Sirrus's room. We must talk."
She followed, numb.
They both sat down on the bed.
Atrus steeled himself for what he was about to reveal. "I'm afraid there's a great deal of events you must know, Catherine." He stared into her eyes, sad and serious." If you never want to see me again after this, I'll understand. I'll write myself an Age and link to it, and I will not take a Linking Book."
Her eyes were emotionless, gray pools of sadness.
"They tricked you into going to Riven, my love. Just as they tricked me. They removed the page from my Myst linking book before I went. They'd already plundered the Ages of their riches and ruined the civilizations that were sheltered there."
"No..." she was already shaking her head.
"I have been trapped on D'ni the entire time you were in Riven. I was entombed in my father's old study on K'Veer. If there had not been blank books and Ink, I would have starved. The Riven book was open on the desk, so I knew you had gone through. You were the only one who knew about it. We never told the boys about my father..." He sighed. "But apparently they were well on there way to his view of D'ni life already."
"You...you were trapped? In that tiny room...no!" she stood up. "I won't believe it! Things would never have gotten so bad...why would they do this? Why?"
"I don't know!" hissed Atrus through clenched teeth. "I have been agonizing about it ever since I witnessed the devastation. You know what I found on Mechanical? A cage with bars designed to shock the occupant! A trunk full of body parts! Gold and riches and bottles of wine! Extravagance and depravity on a scale I never thought possible, especially among my own sons!"
Catherine watched as he slowly put his head into his hands. "I tried to be there for them...raise them right...not how my father would have. I don't know how they became this arrogant...greedy..."
He looked up at her, face raw and haunted. "The newest books I had written for them, were designed to be a sort of test...like the old Age of Narayan. I removed key phrases from the books, and were going to have the boys write in whatever they thought the Age needed...they were incomplete. One was red, for Sirrus, and one blue, for Achenar..."
"And now?" she said in a whisper.
"They burned the library for whatever reason...probably to cover up what they had done. Our mutual friend brought the missing page to me, and I linked back to Myst. My friend had described to me the carnage that the Ages had been through...I knew they were lost, like my father. So I took two minature fire marbles and threw them at the books. I could almost hear them pleading at me...to let them out...to free them!" his eyes closed. "I can't bear to look at you, Catherine. What you must think of me..."
She sat down besides him, not touching him. She felt a well of sympathy boil up inside her, warring with rage and guilt. She didn't know what she felt. She just wanted to rest. Her people were free, Gehn was banished,
and yet, her sons were lost to her.
Outside, no insects buzzed, no birdsong rang out.
"Atrus, why didn't you wait until you had rescued me before you burned the books?" she asked softly, not looking at him.
His breathing stopped, and he looked up at her in anguish. "I don't know." he said pleadlingly, as if that would be enough.
"You don't know?" Her voice rose. "They were my children too, Atrus. I had a say in what was to be done. I know they are not dead...but you have effectively removed them from our lives." Her voice was cold.
He put his hands on hers, grasped them tightly. "I was angry at them...so angry. Angry at myself. I now know how my father must have felt...but you are right, Catherine." He sat up straight, catching her gaze, looking into her marble eyes. "They were your children. You deserved to be with me when we made any decision."
She stared at him bleakly. "Gehn would never have come back from his way...he had too many tragedies, too many hardships, too much anger and pain in his life to ever have done the right thing. But Atrus...I refuse to believe our sons were that far along...we could have saved them!"
"Even with all this?" he gestured around. "Look at what they have done! The Maker only knows what's happend to the Ages that were burnt. They could have destroyed hundreds of civilizations! Plundered and robbed and..."
"Stop it!" Catherine cried sharply. "It's just..." Her frame crumbled. "My babies..."
"Shhhh...I know." he said, hugging her close. "I'm so sorry..." he whispered over and over.
He let her cry.
He let himself cry.
The windmill continued turning.
"Come," he said "We must link back now."
She wiped her face with the sleeve of her robe and followed him without a word.
They descended the elevator, not looking at one another, Catherine hugging herself and Atrus wondering how he would ever live a normal life again.
In front of the linking book to Myst he picked it up and handed it to her.
Her hand poised in front of the linking book, she paused and looked at him.
"Atrus..." she said, thinking about her next words.
"Yes, Catherine?"
"I do not know if I will ever truly be able to forgive you for this..."
"I understand."
"But I do not want you to leave me. Despite all this...everything that has happened....I do love you."
"As do I." he said softly.
"I know you do...but you made a grievous mistake. One that will change our lives forever. How we view one another. I do not know if I will look at you in the coming weeks with love and forgiveness or resentment and anger."
Atrus's face was grim. "I will have enough resentment and anger for myself in the weeks to come to fill the D'ni cavern, I believe.
She nodded. "Then we will heal. Together."
Atrus grasped her hand. "We will write new Ages, and seek out my D'ni bethren. Perhaps we can heal our civilization as well."
She put his hand on her belly. "And perhaps... one day... "
They looked at each other and gripped hands tightly as they linked.
In the library, Atrus pulled out the Prison Age that held Gehn, and placed it in the very spot that his son Sirrus had occupied. Catherine watched in silence as he pulled out a fire marble from his pack, and held it in his hands, staring at the book.
He looked at her, eyes searching for answers to a question that neither one of them had to say. Then, he slowly put the marble back into his pack, leafed through the book, reading and remembering.
He snapped it shut, and laid it in Catherine's hands. "Keep this for me will you, my love?"
She nodded. "I will. But why do you do this?"
His eyes were sad, but firm. "As you said, there are always other possibilities. Possibilities of the Great Tree. Perhaps, one day...I may be able to let him out. To redeem him. Oh, not now, of course...he would probably try and kill me. But...I do not want to discount the possibility. I won't make that mistake again. And if you keep it for me, that will ensure it is a decision both of us make."
That night, they sat on the beach of Myst Island, staring up at the starry sky. An owl hooted in the distance, and the chattering of insects were the only sounds.
Atrus grappled sand with his toes while Catherine stared out at the horizon. They said not a word, but stayed apart from each other, wondering, thinking. They lay for hours apart, looking at each other with eyes that betrayed nothing. After a while, they fell asleep to the waves slapping against the dock.
And they dreamed.
The End.
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Atrus and Catherine, newly reunited, linked back to Myst Island, their grins almost foolish. Catherine felt a feeling of triumph surge through her. They had done it! Her people were re-located. Gehn was trapped within the Prison Age. Catherine's home was gone forever. It had always been decaying, slowly dying, drifting apart like a scattered puzzle. She would miss the unique smell of the air, swimming with the sunners...teasing the wharks.
"We're home, Atrus." she said happily, twirling around in the library. "I feel like dancing. I cannot believe it!"
"Neither can I." said Atrus, looking around. "It's been months since I've been able to walk freely here."
He clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes darting to the two blackened shelves on either side of the library.
Cathering seemed not to notice. "Sirrus! Achenar!" she shouted out the door. She turned to Atrus, eyes sparkling. "I've not seen them in months!" She didn't notice his face turn ashen as she ran out the door.
He groaned and sank to the floor. He had known this was coming, had known in the back of his mind. He'd thought he could deal with it as it came, he'd been fighting for his wife's very life, trying to hold off the collapse until his friend could rescue her. He removed the Prison Book from his knapsack and held it up. "Will I do the same to you, Father?" he asked the air.
"Sirrus! Achenar!" Catherine jogged lightly through the trees behind the cabin, looking around, her brow furrowing more and more. Where were they? The island was not that large, they should have heard her by now. She should have come across some sign of their existence. The first flutter of panic entered her heart.
She stepped out onto the dock and noted with alarm that the ship was fully out of the water. Why had Atrus raised the ship? He used it only to protect the books...
Stepping lightly onto the ship, she faltered slightly as it rocked gently in the waves. She made her way down into the cabin and her eyes widened as she saw the Stoneship Book lying open.
Mouth pressed into a grim line, she made her way up to the Great Tree model she had written in to remind her of home and saw again that it was deep into the ground. There was probably a Book there as well.
She jogged to the Mechanical gear model, knowing before getting there that it had also been used, revealing the Mechanical Age swirling on the first page.
Catherine was running now, calling wildly. "Sirrus!" Achenar!" She sounded like a stern mother, calling for her children to come out of hiding. She remembered the games of hide and seek they played across entire Ages. She frantically tore down the steps and headed for the library. Oh by the Maker, let them be all right...!
"Atrus, something's happened!" I can't find the children anywhere, and your protections have all been used. Something's going on, maybe a native found the Linking books to Myst while we were gone or..." She gasped. "In the Maker's name! What happened to the library!?"
Eyes wide with horror, she flew to the bookcase. All the Books, the Ages she and Atrus had written, had been burnt, covers dark and unreadable, pages browned or gone alltogether. Black flakes of paper covered the floor in front of the bookcase.
She frantically pulled book after book from the shelves, pulling them open and giving a low cry of dismay at each. Moor...Kileraf....Risheen...all the others...all gone. She startled as a hand fell upon her shoulder. "They're all destroyed, my love. I already went through them all." his gruff voice choked with sorrow. "The only ones to survive were Channelwood, Mechanical, Selenitic and Stonship."
Catherine stood, trying to pull herself together, hugging herself. "But where are the children? They told me you had gone to Riven to confront somebody. I know they didn't know about Gehn...and I assumed you would have a Linking book or thought of some other way to get off Riven, so I linked there and this whole unimaginable mess started...but... why did they lie to me?" She stared at him. "What's happened, Atrus?"
Atrus's eyes were large and sad, and his lips pursed. A long moment passed. "Our boys are gone, my love." he said gently. "I...I had to...to send them away." He tried to put a hand on her shoulder and she backed away from him.
"What do you mean? WHERE are they?"
"They...they..." His head bowed. "They are in Prison Ages. Books that I..." He shuddered with what he was about to say. "Books that I destroyed." he said with a whisper.
Her world dropped out from underneath her.
"Wha...what?" she whispered.
"Catherine, you must understand, I had no choice!"
She slapped him, hard, leaving him gasping at the stinging pain.
"QURE-keth!" she cursed at him in her own language. "You killed my sons! My babies! Why!" Why would you do that!?" Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Why!"
She attacked him then, fists beating down on his body with such rage that he nearly fell down in shock. He grabbed a hold of her wrists and let her wring fuitily, until she collapsed onto his chest, sobbing.
"I'm sorry, Catherine. I'm so sorry." he said softly, stroking her dark hair. But there was no other way."
"Yes there was!" she said angrily, looking up at him. "Surely there were more possiblities than trapping them! There is always another way!"
"You don't know what they did!" protested Atrus. "You think I wanted to do this to my own sons? I did it to my own father!" he yelled.
He took her by the wrist then, dragging her along with such force that she was nearly yanked off her feet.
They made there way across the island, and down into the Great Tree. There, Catherine saw, was the Channelwood Age. "What's going on? Why are you taking me here?"
"You'll see." he said grimly.
They appeared on the wooden walkways, birds and monkey's screaming in the distance. The windmill that was the source of power creaked as it moved, still moving even though it's builders had long vanished. Dim sunlight filtered through the trees as they walked towards the elevator. It was twilight on Channelwood.
"Look!" Atrus declared as the door opened. "Look at what our sons did."
Catherine's hand moved towards her mouth as she walked slowly around the village. Furniture was destroyed, gaping holes in the roofs, some walkways collapsed along their trunks. There were no sign of the people anywhere.
"What's happened here?" she said to herself.
"Our boys, Catherine." Atrus shuddered as he spoke. "Something went horribly wrong."
"No...no!" she said firmly. "I won't believe that."
She ran towards their rooms, high above the swampy floor. Her boys, her flesh and blood couldn't do this, they'd raised them better than this...
She shrieked as she rounded a corner and her sons leering face appeared before her. A hologram.
It sputtered words she couldn't understand. She'd never learned the language of this world. The head of Achenar laughed at his mother, then vanished.
And what was this...? She touched a button and snatched her arm back with a gasp as steel jaws snapped shut inches from her hand.
"I don't know what it was for either." Atrus said glumly from behind her. "I just can't believe..."
"He was so different in the hologram." she shuddered. "Like the holograms Gehn used to appear to my people."
"I'm afraid it gets worse." Atrus opened an adjaecent door and walked over to the hologram control. "Listen to this." He pressed a button.
The voice of Sirrus floated in her ears. "He is plotting, my brother. Remember, take only one page."
She turned towards Atrus. "What ever can that mean?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Come with me to Sirrus's room. We must talk."
She followed, numb.
They both sat down on the bed.
Atrus steeled himself for what he was about to reveal. "I'm afraid there's a great deal of events you must know, Catherine." He stared into her eyes, sad and serious." If you never want to see me again after this, I'll understand. I'll write myself an Age and link to it, and I will not take a Linking Book."
Her eyes were emotionless, gray pools of sadness.
"They tricked you into going to Riven, my love. Just as they tricked me. They removed the page from my Myst linking book before I went. They'd already plundered the Ages of their riches and ruined the civilizations that were sheltered there."
"No..." she was already shaking her head.
"I have been trapped on D'ni the entire time you were in Riven. I was entombed in my father's old study on K'Veer. If there had not been blank books and Ink, I would have starved. The Riven book was open on the desk, so I knew you had gone through. You were the only one who knew about it. We never told the boys about my father..." He sighed. "But apparently they were well on there way to his view of D'ni life already."
"You...you were trapped? In that tiny room...no!" she stood up. "I won't believe it! Things would never have gotten so bad...why would they do this? Why?"
"I don't know!" hissed Atrus through clenched teeth. "I have been agonizing about it ever since I witnessed the devastation. You know what I found on Mechanical? A cage with bars designed to shock the occupant! A trunk full of body parts! Gold and riches and bottles of wine! Extravagance and depravity on a scale I never thought possible, especially among my own sons!"
Catherine watched as he slowly put his head into his hands. "I tried to be there for them...raise them right...not how my father would have. I don't know how they became this arrogant...greedy..."
He looked up at her, face raw and haunted. "The newest books I had written for them, were designed to be a sort of test...like the old Age of Narayan. I removed key phrases from the books, and were going to have the boys write in whatever they thought the Age needed...they were incomplete. One was red, for Sirrus, and one blue, for Achenar..."
"And now?" she said in a whisper.
"They burned the library for whatever reason...probably to cover up what they had done. Our mutual friend brought the missing page to me, and I linked back to Myst. My friend had described to me the carnage that the Ages had been through...I knew they were lost, like my father. So I took two minature fire marbles and threw them at the books. I could almost hear them pleading at me...to let them out...to free them!" his eyes closed. "I can't bear to look at you, Catherine. What you must think of me..."
She sat down besides him, not touching him. She felt a well of sympathy boil up inside her, warring with rage and guilt. She didn't know what she felt. She just wanted to rest. Her people were free, Gehn was banished,
and yet, her sons were lost to her.
Outside, no insects buzzed, no birdsong rang out.
"Atrus, why didn't you wait until you had rescued me before you burned the books?" she asked softly, not looking at him.
His breathing stopped, and he looked up at her in anguish. "I don't know." he said pleadlingly, as if that would be enough.
"You don't know?" Her voice rose. "They were my children too, Atrus. I had a say in what was to be done. I know they are not dead...but you have effectively removed them from our lives." Her voice was cold.
He put his hands on hers, grasped them tightly. "I was angry at them...so angry. Angry at myself. I now know how my father must have felt...but you are right, Catherine." He sat up straight, catching her gaze, looking into her marble eyes. "They were your children. You deserved to be with me when we made any decision."
She stared at him bleakly. "Gehn would never have come back from his way...he had too many tragedies, too many hardships, too much anger and pain in his life to ever have done the right thing. But Atrus...I refuse to believe our sons were that far along...we could have saved them!"
"Even with all this?" he gestured around. "Look at what they have done! The Maker only knows what's happend to the Ages that were burnt. They could have destroyed hundreds of civilizations! Plundered and robbed and..."
"Stop it!" Catherine cried sharply. "It's just..." Her frame crumbled. "My babies..."
"Shhhh...I know." he said, hugging her close. "I'm so sorry..." he whispered over and over.
He let her cry.
He let himself cry.
The windmill continued turning.
"Come," he said "We must link back now."
She wiped her face with the sleeve of her robe and followed him without a word.
They descended the elevator, not looking at one another, Catherine hugging herself and Atrus wondering how he would ever live a normal life again.
In front of the linking book to Myst he picked it up and handed it to her.
Her hand poised in front of the linking book, she paused and looked at him.
"Atrus..." she said, thinking about her next words.
"Yes, Catherine?"
"I do not know if I will ever truly be able to forgive you for this..."
"I understand."
"But I do not want you to leave me. Despite all this...everything that has happened....I do love you."
"As do I." he said softly.
"I know you do...but you made a grievous mistake. One that will change our lives forever. How we view one another. I do not know if I will look at you in the coming weeks with love and forgiveness or resentment and anger."
Atrus's face was grim. "I will have enough resentment and anger for myself in the weeks to come to fill the D'ni cavern, I believe.
She nodded. "Then we will heal. Together."
Atrus grasped her hand. "We will write new Ages, and seek out my D'ni bethren. Perhaps we can heal our civilization as well."
She put his hand on her belly. "And perhaps... one day... "
They looked at each other and gripped hands tightly as they linked.
In the library, Atrus pulled out the Prison Age that held Gehn, and placed it in the very spot that his son Sirrus had occupied. Catherine watched in silence as he pulled out a fire marble from his pack, and held it in his hands, staring at the book.
He looked at her, eyes searching for answers to a question that neither one of them had to say. Then, he slowly put the marble back into his pack, leafed through the book, reading and remembering.
He snapped it shut, and laid it in Catherine's hands. "Keep this for me will you, my love?"
She nodded. "I will. But why do you do this?"
His eyes were sad, but firm. "As you said, there are always other possibilities. Possibilities of the Great Tree. Perhaps, one day...I may be able to let him out. To redeem him. Oh, not now, of course...he would probably try and kill me. But...I do not want to discount the possibility. I won't make that mistake again. And if you keep it for me, that will ensure it is a decision both of us make."
That night, they sat on the beach of Myst Island, staring up at the starry sky. An owl hooted in the distance, and the chattering of insects were the only sounds.
Atrus grappled sand with his toes while Catherine stared out at the horizon. They said not a word, but stayed apart from each other, wondering, thinking. They lay for hours apart, looking at each other with eyes that betrayed nothing. After a while, they fell asleep to the waves slapping against the dock.
And they dreamed.
The End.
Comments? T12345r@aol.com