The Myst Reader Read Online Free PDF Page A

Just watch!”
    Slowly, very slowly it came closer, and as it approached the air seemed to grow cooler and cooler. There was the faintest breeze now, like an outrider moving ahead of the growing darkness.
    “All right,” she said, turning to him after a long silence. “Let’s get to work. We need to scatter the seeds all around the cleft. Use all the bags but one. We’ll not get this chance again. Not for many years.”
    He did as she told him, moving in a daze, conscious all the while of the blackness that now filled the whole of the horizon. From time to time he would look up fearfully, then duck his head again.
    Finished, he pocketed the tiny cloth bag then clambered up onto the cleftwall.
    Flame was sheltering beneath the stone ledge on the floor of the cleft. Seeing her there, Anna called to him. “Atrus! You’d better put Flame in your room. If she stays where she is she’ll be in danger.”
    Atrus frowned, not understanding
how
she could possibly be in danger. Surely the cleft was the safest place? But he did not argue, merely went and, gathering Flame under his arm, took her into the storeroom and locked her in.
    Returning to the lip of the cleftwall he saw that the storm was almost upon them. Climbing out onto the open sands, he looked to Anna, wondering what they would do, where they would hide, but his grandmother seemed unconcerned. She merely stood there, watching that immense darkness approach, undaunted by it, smiling all the while. Turning, she called to him, raising her voice against the noise of the oncoming storm.
    “Take your glasses off, Atrus, you’ll see better!”
    Again, he did as he was told, stowing the heavy lenses with their thick leather strap in the deep pocket of his cloak.
    Ahead, the storm front was like a massive, shimmering wall of black and silver, a solid thing advancing on him, filling the whole of the sky ahead of him, tearing up the desert sand as it went. Strange, searingly bright flashes seemed to dance and flicker in that darkness, accompanied by a low, threatening rumble that exploded suddenly in a great crash of sound.
    Trembling, he closed his eyes, his teeth clenched tight, his body crouched against the onslaught, and then the rain burst over him, soaking him in an instant, drumming against his head and shoulders and arms with such fierceness that for a moment he thought it would beat him to the ground. He gasped with shock, then staggered around, surprised to hear, over the rain’s fierce thundering, Anna’s laughter.
    He looked down past his feet at the earth, astonished by its transformation. A moment before he had been standing on the sand. Now his feet were embedded in a sticky, swirling mess that tugged at him as he tried to free himself.
    “Anna!” he called, turning to appeal to her, putting his arms out.
    She came across, giggling now like a young girl. The rain had plastered her hair to her head, while her clothes seemed painted to her long, gaunt body like a second skin.
    “Isn’t it wonderful!” she said, putting her face up to the rain, her eyes closed in ecstasy. “Close your eyes, Atrus, and feel it on your face.”
    Once more he did as he was told, fighting down his instinct to run, letting the stinging rain beat down on his exposed cheeks and neck. After a moment his face felt numb. Then, with a sudden change he found hard to explain, he began to enjoy the sensation.
    He ducked his head down and squinted at her. Beside him, his grandmother was hopping on one leg, and slowly turning, her hands raised above her head and spread, as if in greeting to the sky. Timidly he copied her. Then, as the mood overtook him, he began to twirl about madly, the rain falling and falling and falling, the noise like the noise at the heart of a great sandstorm, so loud there was a silence in his head.
    And then, with a suddenness that made him gasp, it was gone. He turned, blinking, in time to see it drift across the cleft and climb the volcano wall, a solid curtain