"Achenar!"

A teenage boy, in shirt sleeves and turned up trousers, started as his name was called.

"Achenar!"

The boy, nearly a young man now, looked angrily down at the small cut in his finger, made from a sudden slip of his knife. Even now it beaded ruby from the grubby skin. Achenar shook his head. He always seemed to be cutting himself when he was shaping wood.

"Achenar!"

The boy shifted in his seat as the caller ran out from a copse of trees.

"Yes brother?", snapped Achenar, sucking his hand.

The other boy stopped awkwardly, frowning. He was younger than Achenar, but tall and slim, his hair dark and his clothes pristine.

"Achenar, father and mother have linked to an age. They said that the age was to be secret from us, for the moment."

Achenar smiled. They were alone on Myst. His parents hardly ever let him be. When he travelled to ages, less often than his brother, he was kept close to his father.

The boy rolled his knife over his palms, nicks in the old blade piercing a shell of blood and dirt to shine silver.

"What do you wish to do Sirrus?"

Sirrus skipped nimbly over the wooden pathway, his eyes shining.

"To link to an age!"

The spinning blade flew from Achenar’s hands, falling hard across his bare arm in a second swathe of scarlet. He smiled wildly, his faceted teeth curving compulsively.

"Of course, brother."

Sirrus looked for a moment at the slit in Achenar’s arm. He looked up, upset at his brother’s pain.

"I will be fine Sirrus. More than fine."

Achenar’s brother smiled again.

"Then lets go!"

Achenar got to his feet, the marble comfortingly warm, tickling the soles of his feet. He stepped down onto the grass, for an instant a temple of solid emerald statues, then folding gracefully into a soft carpet. The sun shone on his round face and staring eyes.

"Yes. Lets."