Making the Best, continued
Dec. 8th, 2005 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerI waited, under the nervous eye of my guardian, for what I guessed was about twenty minutes but might have been longer. Then the elder linked back, flanked by the other two staggering under the weight of a sort of gargantuan rucksack arrangement festooned with jars and bottles and unidentifiable things wrapped in cloth. Somehow they got it horizontal and began manhandling it up the passage, and the elder sternly beckoned me to follow. It nearly broke my heart watching them trying to get the thing through the trapdoor, but I knew they wouldn't take kindly to interference from me. I supposed this must be the next consignment for the gods. The elder followed me up the ladder and waved at me to follow the laden pair down the path, which I did, somewhat confused. Was I going to be some kind of sacrifice? This lot didn't strike me as the type. I hoped.
Half way along the first wooden walkway the two stopped and set down their burden, just in time I thought, as they were both blue in the face and gasping. I turned round and saw that the elder had come up behind me, and that he was holding the Myst Linking Book, which I'd left in the mill when I fell down the trapdoor. He pointed at the rucksack, then at me, then at the Book, which he was holding out over the water.
I got the message. I was being asked, politely and with a sizeable bribe in the form of food, to leave now and never come back. Of course, I could theoretically bring another Myst book through any time, but I got the feeling that would be regarded as dirty pool.
I put on the rucksack and nearly toppled off the path-it was heavier than I was, and that's saying something-and then, once I'd steadied myself, took the Book from the elder, smiled and risked a half-bow which almost sent me over the other way, held the Book out at arm's length over the water and touched the panel.
The library on Myst was warm and welcoming, and I managed to shrug out of the rucksack before it collapsed my spine completely. There followed a happy hour or two of unpacking and discovery. I found cured meat, dried vegetables, several varieties of the soup mix, even some loaves of bread, and a good supply of fruit and nuts. Maybe this was where Catherine did her provisioning. The only shadows over my good mood were the feel of the Linking Book as it started to slip from my vanishing hand, and a hard decision I had to make. I've loved books all my life, and been blankly horrified at the kind of mind that can contemplate destroying even one. Now I had had to drown one, and I was pretty much in honour bound to consider deliberately destroying another.
At last, having stowed the food in the cupboards below, I took the Channelwood Linking Book and went outside. The clouds had cleared, and it was a bright warm day. I stood on the dock, hefting the Book in my hand and trying to reconcile myself to an act I couldn't help but find abhorrent. Atrus had laboured over this Book, with all the care and diligence he brought to every task. All right, I wouldn't be destroying the Age, just my way of getting there...but even so, it was a thing of beauty, the work of a craftsman, and the fact that he would not have hesitated one second before chucking it into the waves made it no easier.
In the end I couldn't do it. I couldn't even tear out a page. It occurred to me that I had seen myself there, and since I hadn't been there before yet, the me I saw had to be a future me. Maybe this was the only Linking Book left, in which case I'd be preventing myself from going again, messing up the future. This was a bare-faced rationalisation, not to mention flimsy as frod, but it was enough to justify taking the Book back to the library and putting it carefully on the shelf next to the others.
I remembered that night of delirium soon after I'd arrived, when I thought I had seen Atrus looking down at me. Maybe that was me too. Gods know I hadn't been seeing any too clearly. Beard, glasses...it could have been. Maybe I'd been the one helping myself all this time. That would make sense, or as much sense as anything did.
I went back outside. The sun was setting. I stood among the nice quiet trees and breathed the air, glad to be back here. And as I looked up, something caught my eye. I went closer to the nearest tree and peered up at the bare branches.
My gods. There were green buds. The tree was coming back to life. They all were.
There was a clear enough explanation, of course-the constant rains had been leaching nourishment out of the soil, and now they had stopped, the ecosystem was fighting back. Still there was something mystical about it, something that couldn't be tidily put into a scientific box.
If I'd done nothing else, I'd helped to achieve this. It made me feel very good.
Anyway, it's time to end this entry. I've just had the best meal of my life, and now I'm linking back to Stoneship to bed. Tomorrow, at last, it will be time for Rime.
Half way along the first wooden walkway the two stopped and set down their burden, just in time I thought, as they were both blue in the face and gasping. I turned round and saw that the elder had come up behind me, and that he was holding the Myst Linking Book, which I'd left in the mill when I fell down the trapdoor. He pointed at the rucksack, then at me, then at the Book, which he was holding out over the water.
I got the message. I was being asked, politely and with a sizeable bribe in the form of food, to leave now and never come back. Of course, I could theoretically bring another Myst book through any time, but I got the feeling that would be regarded as dirty pool.
I put on the rucksack and nearly toppled off the path-it was heavier than I was, and that's saying something-and then, once I'd steadied myself, took the Book from the elder, smiled and risked a half-bow which almost sent me over the other way, held the Book out at arm's length over the water and touched the panel.
The library on Myst was warm and welcoming, and I managed to shrug out of the rucksack before it collapsed my spine completely. There followed a happy hour or two of unpacking and discovery. I found cured meat, dried vegetables, several varieties of the soup mix, even some loaves of bread, and a good supply of fruit and nuts. Maybe this was where Catherine did her provisioning. The only shadows over my good mood were the feel of the Linking Book as it started to slip from my vanishing hand, and a hard decision I had to make. I've loved books all my life, and been blankly horrified at the kind of mind that can contemplate destroying even one. Now I had had to drown one, and I was pretty much in honour bound to consider deliberately destroying another.
At last, having stowed the food in the cupboards below, I took the Channelwood Linking Book and went outside. The clouds had cleared, and it was a bright warm day. I stood on the dock, hefting the Book in my hand and trying to reconcile myself to an act I couldn't help but find abhorrent. Atrus had laboured over this Book, with all the care and diligence he brought to every task. All right, I wouldn't be destroying the Age, just my way of getting there...but even so, it was a thing of beauty, the work of a craftsman, and the fact that he would not have hesitated one second before chucking it into the waves made it no easier.
In the end I couldn't do it. I couldn't even tear out a page. It occurred to me that I had seen myself there, and since I hadn't been there before yet, the me I saw had to be a future me. Maybe this was the only Linking Book left, in which case I'd be preventing myself from going again, messing up the future. This was a bare-faced rationalisation, not to mention flimsy as frod, but it was enough to justify taking the Book back to the library and putting it carefully on the shelf next to the others.
I remembered that night of delirium soon after I'd arrived, when I thought I had seen Atrus looking down at me. Maybe that was me too. Gods know I hadn't been seeing any too clearly. Beard, glasses...it could have been. Maybe I'd been the one helping myself all this time. That would make sense, or as much sense as anything did.
I went back outside. The sun was setting. I stood among the nice quiet trees and breathed the air, glad to be back here. And as I looked up, something caught my eye. I went closer to the nearest tree and peered up at the bare branches.
My gods. There were green buds. The tree was coming back to life. They all were.
There was a clear enough explanation, of course-the constant rains had been leaching nourishment out of the soil, and now they had stopped, the ecosystem was fighting back. Still there was something mystical about it, something that couldn't be tidily put into a scientific box.
If I'd done nothing else, I'd helped to achieve this. It made me feel very good.
Anyway, it's time to end this entry. I've just had the best meal of my life, and now I'm linking back to Stoneship to bed. Tomorrow, at last, it will be time for Rime.