The lives of people like Jordan, Rachel, Maddy and Brittany are the sort of lives that can't stay what one might call "normal" for very long. Something interesting was always bound to happen to them, if only a small thing. Finding a book in the desert, ending up on a beautiful but deserted island, finding that their host is a strange, reclusive man writing in a big book, being asked to go on a dangerous rescue mission, finding several hundred letters waiting at home, proposal, marriage, pregnancy, birth... it never stopped. And today was no exception. Of course, you got used to it after a while, but there was always the odd thing that shocked them. Mostly it was the appearance of a tall man dressed in black that shocked them, mainly because they knew so little about him. However, sometimes the bizarre events that happened to the four of them stemmed even more bizarre events, and little did they know that it was one of these that was going to throw their lives into turmoil again...


Prologue

Rachel was, not to put too fine a point on it, exhausted. She was still recovering from her pregnancy, and the primary result of her pregnancy was not helping. It was worth the trouble, mind you. Jane was a regular gem... the only problem, of course, was the fact that she regularly awoke at two in the morning demanding either a feed or a change of nappy. Jordan was working wonders in doing his best to get Rachel some sleep as well, and Brittany had stayed the night out here once or twice on the really bad days. All in all, they were making progress.

The morning of the fifteenth of July was a dazzlingly bright day. At ten o'clock Maddy and Brittany showed up for toast and coffee... after all, Jane was one month old today, and that made it a special occasion. Toast, coffee (Brittany's coffee, of course) and a bit of a chat. Seemingly normal, at least for a while.

On the stroke of half past eleven, there was a knock on the door. The four of them shared confused glances – they hadn't invited anyone else, and plus it was Sunday, so there wouldn't be any mail. After a moment, Rachel got to her feet and went out to the loungeroom, over to the door and pulled it open.

Standing out in the sun was a tall man, but not in black. He was wearing a brown tunic, a hat and a pair of heavy goggles, and had a satchel slung over his shoulder. His skin was sun-browned and his chin was covered by a neat beard.

He squinted at Rachel as she opened the door, then fiddled with his goggles briefly. He took a step back, then forward. Then he pulled a small piece of paper out of one pocket of his tunic and looked down at it.

"I do beg your pardon," he said calmly. "I was looking for..." he fiddled with his goggles again, "Rachel. Yes, that looks right."

"That would be me," said Rachel. "What can I do for you?"

The man poked his goggles again, and he seemed to see Rachel clearly for the first time. He smiled. "You could start by telling me how you managed to change so much in the space of ten years."

Rachel paused, a little embarrassed. Ten years, she thought. Let me see... Oh, good heavens. It couldn't be... could it?

"Atrus?"

The man smiled again. "Well done. Good to see you. How have you been?"


After Rachel had invited Atrus inside and Jordan, Maddy and Brittany had been filled in on who was at the door, Rachel decided it was time for Atrus to do some explaining.

"You must tell us," said Rachel to Atrus, "how you got here."

"I walked," replied Atrus, in his infuriatingly benign way.

"You walked." Rachel's brain spun as she tried to simultaneously keep from getting frustrated and also work out where he could have walked from.

"Indeed." Atrus picked up a slice of toast. "Do let me fill you in."


Atrus settled into the chair in the loungeroom, holding a barely touched cup of coffee in one hand.

"After we left Riven, Catherine and I decided that we could never live on Myst again, after what our sons did to us. It wasn't even worth trying to rebuild there, so I wrote us somewhere else. A... temporary home, you might say. Until we could find somewhere more permanent. We busied ourselves with trying to find as many survivors of the D'ni fall as we could, and we found a fair few. We decided it was worth a restoration attempt.

"At first we tried to rebuild the D'ni city. Some of it was still standing, after all. But when we were exploring one of the Guild houses, we found a long-abandoned book linking to a world known as Terahnee. It was – hang on... I should probably give you a brief backstory of the D'ni race here...

"About... oh, ten thousand years ago, give or take, the D'ni were part of a civilisation called the Ronay, who lived on an Age called Garternay. They had the power to write these books, these books that linked to other worlds... anyway, I'm getting off track. About ten thousand years ago, as I was saying, it was discovered that the destruction of Garternay was imminent, and a mass evacuation was ordered. Most of the Ronay evacuated to an idyllic – and massive – Age called Terahnee, but a few smaller groups broke off and went elsewhere. One such group was the D'ni, who believed that you should have to work to survive, so they went to a great cavern in another Age and built a city from the rock.

"Anyway, whilst exploring the ruins of D'ni, we found a book linking to Terahnee. When I saw the luxury that the Terhanee people lived in, I first considered moving the D'ni survivors to Terahnee. But when I discovered that the paradise of Terahnee was built on slave labour, I changed my mind. However, when we (the D'ni, that is) came to Terahnee we inadvertantly brought a disease with us. The D'ni, according to Catherine, had been living with the bug for so long that they had built up immunity to it, but the Terahnee had no such protection, and almost all of the Terahnee – over two hundred million people – died. On that note, we returned to the D'ni cavern, sealed the book linking to Terahnee, and turned back to the restoration. But by then I had realised that a restoration of the city was not the way to go about restoring D'ni. Instead, I wrote a new Age for the survivors to resettle on, an Age called Releeshahn.

"Once we had relocated the D'ni there, Catherine and I set to work settling on the surface of the D'ni Age, which happens to be this world. With the help of the D'ni, we built ourselves a home on the surface, which we called Tomahna."

"Tomahna..." mused Brittany. "Doesn't that mean 'home'?"

"Yes," smiled Atrus, "it does."

It was probably at about this point that Jane, who had been sound asleep in the chair next to Atrus, woke. She looked up at Atrus with her piercing blue eyes, then extended a finger and poked Atrus' arm. He jumped and looked down, following the small arm, then smiled. Jane also smiled and made a small noise.

"I see you have a daughter," he said to Rachel as he reached down and poked Jane, who giggled.

"Yes..." Rachel smiled, containing her own giggles. "That's Jane. Jane, this is Atrus."

Jane turned her head on one side and looked at Atrus. Atrus turned his head on one side and looked at Jane, who laughed.

"Catherine and I have a daughter as well... about the same age," mused Atrus, continuing to look at Jane. "We call her Yeesha."

"That's 'laughter', isn't it?" Brittany asked.

"I'm surprised you remember so much," replied Atrus. "Yes, 'Yeesha' means 'laughter'."

"Just one question," piped up Maddy, who appeared to have been writing all this in her journal.

"Yes?"

"How do you spell 'Releeshahn'?"


Atrus declined Jordan and Rachel's invitation to stay the night, saying he needed to get home.

"I would like you to come and visit us, though," he said as he was leaving. "I'd like to show you four Tomahna and Releeshahn. Why don't you come tomorrow?"

"We'd love to," said Jordan, speaking for all four of them, "but how will we get there?"

"I left a linking book on the shelf in the Myst library," replied Atrus. "You still have the Myst book, I presume?" When he received an affirmative answer, he smiled. "Good... I'll see you tomorrow, then." And with that, he was gone.