2 – Stomach

{Jordan's journal, 30-Nov}

Well here we are, first journal entry on Riven, and it's not exactly going brilliantly. We lost our only weapon after five minutes, and despite having wandered around this island all day we can still find nothing of particular interest, and certainly no way to get to any of the other islands. Oh yes, we can see bridges and some tracks of some description, but we can't get to them. We're essentially stranded on this island until we can get to them, and even then we have a huge area to search to find the book, then Gehn, and then Catherine. I think that we might be here for a while.


{Brittany's journal, 30-11}

I don't know. We're doing our best with what we have and what we can find, but Jordan's rations are not exactly going to cater to all four of us for more than a week. These pocket-sized journals that Atrus gave us are good, and it means that we've all at least got our journals, and his, but still... we haven't even taken Atrus' old journal out to look at yet. We've been too busy looking for something altogether more important.


{Rachel's journal, 30th November}

It's quiet here, and oddly charming. (Sounds a bit like a guy I knew once.) But still, we have a book to find, and this place is a lot more dangerous than it looks, and a lot more complicated than it looks as well. And it looks pretty complicated.


{Maddy's journal, 11/30}

Come on guys, have a bit of optimism about this. Okay, so I'm not exactly optimistic myself, but somebody's got to do the pessimism whilst you lot are optimistic.

I admit that I kinda like it here. It's bigger than Myst, which makes it a lot more interesting, and there is some pretty strange looking stuff on some of these islands that I can see. Still, there's something strange going on. There was something about that guard that we saw when we arrived that was strange. I don't know what it was, but... I'll have to think about it more.


{Atrus' journal, 30.11.17}

After bringing Riven back to a stable condition, I visited Myst today to clear up the cabin, and discovered three of my satchels waiting there. I certainly hope that the four of them can survive on Riven on only one person's rations.

I have long realised that the destruction of Riven is inevitable, and that I can only delay it for a time. The island is becoming more and more volatile, and it's all I can do to hold back major destruction. I expect that some minor to moderate tremors will be experienced there, and there's nothing I can do about that except keep them as small as possible. I pray that my friends will hurry, as I will not be able to hold back total destruction for more than another six weeks.


The softly glowing light of Brittany's watch proclaimed that it was eleven thirty, and still Maddy could not sleep. The others had dozed off at least an hour ago, but considering they were sleeping on the ridiculously uncomfortable rock outside the now defunct link cage, she was at a loss to see how they managed to.

It was dead silent here, except for the almost inaudible sigh of the sea breeze. It was last quarter moon, so it wasn't exactly bright, but light enough to make out the surroundings.

The tiniest humming noise pierced the air. Instinctively, Maddy looked at the link cage, but nobody was linking in. Then she looked out at one of the other islands, and she saw a small light winding its way along the rickety-looking tracks that they had seen before. The light was attached to a small vehicle – a tram of some kind – and it was heading for this island. It disappeared behind the small island across the short bridge from this one, and the humming stopped. Maddy froze. Straining her ears again, she heard a distant clattering noise, like a door opening, and then soft footsteps. A dim light started to shine from the tunnel leading down into the rock, bobbing back and forth like a lantern would.

Maddy bent over the other three, shaking them awake. "Wake up!" she hissed. "We have to move!"

"Why?" groaned Rachel as she sat up. She didn't like being disturbed at night.

"Someone's coming!" replied Maddy, and pointed at the tunnel, where already they could see someone emerging from it. Abandoning Jordan's satchel on the ground, they sprang up and darted over to the huge cone-like telescope (they still hadn't worked out why it was pointing at the ground) and crouched behind it. The figure had stopped on the bridge, and by the combined light of his lantern and the moon they could see that he was dressed in the same sort of white uniform as the guard they had seen at the start. It wasn't the same guard, though – this man was taller and the uniform fit him better, although it still looked a bit too big. He was peering down at the place where the four of them had been just a few seconds ago, a slight frown on his face. He crossed the bridge, then came down the stairs into the clearing. When he got to the place where the four of them had been, he bent down and picked something up off the ground. He examined it for a second, then looked around carefully. The four of them ducked down behind the telescope and held their breaths.

Miraculously, or so it seemed, the man did not see them. He turned and walked back up the stairs, then into the rotating room and along the bridge to the dome. He was in the dome for a minute or two before he turned around and went back into the rotating room, then across the bridge back to the other island. A minute or so later, the humming started up again and the tram shot back along the rails to the other island. All four of them breathed a sigh of relief.

"What did he pick up off the ground?" asked Maddy. Rachel already had a fair idea of what it was, and she didn't like it if she was right.

As it turned out, she was right. When the four of them got back out from behind the telescope, they discovered that Jordan's satchel was gone.

"That's not good," commented Maddy, almost casually, when they discovered this.

By an almost miraculous stroke of luck, Atrus' journal had fallen out of the satchel and was lying on the ground. Jordan picked it up and dusted it off.

"Well, this is all we've got left," he said, and put it in his pocket.

Brittany's watch beeped quietly, announcing midnight.

"That wasn't a good day," she said.


Waking with a start, Atrus almost fell off his chair when he realised what time it was. He had only meant to sleep for a few hours, but he had overslept badly. It was almost four in the morning, although it wasn't exactly easy to tell that when he was entombed in this tiny room. He could have gone to Myst to write, but he really didn't think he could face that.

Sitting up, suddenly alert, he opened the book to the last page and examined the swirling static of the panel. Already it was moving faster – his nap had cost him a lot. Seizing his pen, he turned back to where he was writing before and began to write furiously.


None of them slept any more after that. They sat awake, still sheltered behind the telescope, until the first rays of dawn pieced the twilight.

Rachel's stomach made a protesting noise, which was normal.

Maddy's stomach did as well, which was even more normal.

A rock bounced off Brittany's head, which was not.

"Hey, who threw a rock at me?" protested Brittany. The other three looked at each other and shrugged.

A rock bounced off Rachel's head.

"Where did that come from?" she exclaimed, massaging the small lump where it had hit.

And then the ground seemed to answer her question.


Entombed in the small room that had once been Gehn's office, Catherine looked out over the seemingly endless waters and sighed. This Age was her home, but this wasn't exactly a nice homecoming. Gehn had been alerted to her arrival almost immediately, and had searched tirelessly for her for two months before finally capturing her. She had refused to tell him anything, always answering his questions in Rivenese, but she could understand him perfectly, and she could tell that he was just itching to put her on the gallows. He couldn't, though, and Catherine knew why. She was bait – for surely it could not be long before Atrus came in search of her, and then Gehn would have them both.

The floor shuddered violently. Another quake, she realised, but even worse than the last one. The Age was getting worse. Atrus surely could not hold it together for much longer.


Gehn linked back into his Age cursing loudly at nobody in particular. This was the biggest news since Catherine had arrived nearly six months ago. Not one but four strangers wandering around Riven! And there was a book, a linking book leading back to D'ni, but those accursed Moiety rebels had intercepted it. It was all the fault of that accursed guard, thought Gehn angrily. He got jumped by the rebels again, and the rebels got the book and broke the cage into the bargain.

And Catherine, why must she insist on answering his questions in Rivenese? By the Maker, he swore, it was only the fact that she was bait for bigger fish that stopped him from stringing her up on the gallows.

"Bait for bigger fish..." he chuckled to himself quietly. "Ah, I must write that one down..."


Atrus threw down his pen and flexed the writer's cramp out of his hand. He could tell; the quakes were getting worse. He'd taken care of them for the minute, but things were getting worse, and it surely could not be long until the quakes tore Riven apart. He sighed and sank back in his chair.

"Oh my friends," he muttered to himself, "please hurry. Riven hasn't got much time left."


Rachel peeled herself off the ground. The quake had subsided after a few minutes, but that didn't make it particularly enjoyable. As far as she was concerned it was shades of Selenitic, and she hadn't enjoyed herself there at all. Fortunately, the others were also unharmed by the quake.

"I don't think we've got time to waste right now. I think we need to get off this island and start searching the others, and I think we need to do it now." The others nodded.

"We saw that man last night," put in Maddy, "he came from that island over there." She pointed at the island that they could see from where they were, which appeared to have a large jungle on it. "Then he came up that tunnel," she pointed at the tunnel in the rock across the bridge, "so doesn't it follow that our ticket off this island is down that tunnel?"

"But Maddy," sighed Brittany, "We've looked down there already. We found that room with the cage chair and that big temple."

"The temple had a big door in it," countered Maddy.

"Which was locked."

"Well, we'll have to try to unlock it. Search the temple and the cage chair room a bit more. What else are we going to do?"

Brittany had no response to that, and Maddy's plan was the best they had, so search they did.


Maddy leaned against the stone door and pushed as hard as she could, but it wouldn't open. Now they couldn't get into the temple. She looked at Rachel, who for some reason was suppressing laughter.

"Rachel, we can't get into the temple. Why are you laughing at that?"

Rachel didn't reply. Instead, she stepped up to the door, grabbed the handle and pulled. With a grating of stone hinges the door swung open, projecting a shaft of light into the tunnel. With a wan smile at Maddy, Rachel went inside the temple.

Exactly what was meant to be worshipped here, none of them were entirely sure, but the huge room was magnificent nevertheless. At one end was a huge spherical cage with some sort of star emblem inside it, and at the other end was a huge ornately-patterned but firmly locked door. The rest was decorated with huge pillars and exotic lanterns. The stone door leading out into the tunnel was concealed behind one of the pillars and blended in almost exactly with the wall.


A little further back, Jordan and Brittany were in the room with the large cage chair in it. Even as they stepped inside and closed the door behind them, the cage clicked and swung creakily open, almost invitingly. Jordan, who could never let a provocation go, stepped forward and sat down in the chair. On the left arm was a switch; on the right was a button. He pressed the button and the cage closed around the chair again. A small microphone in the form of the same star emblem lowered down in front of him. He pushed the small switch. An ominous hum slowly filled the air, but nothing else seemed to happen. He shrugged at Brittany and pulled the switch again. The humming stopped. Another press of the button raised the cage from the chair. Jordan stepped out looking rather disappointed. Brittany, however, was examining something on the stone wall near the chair.

"Here, look at this," she said to Jordan. It appeared to be some sort of surveillance camera. It showed a very fuzzy image of what looked like some sort of station. Where, exactly, this station was, they could only guess, but as it turned out, they guessed correctly.


Back in the temple, Maddy was busily trying to convince Rachel to regain consciousness after she fainted when the large spherical cage at the back of the temple had lit up, showing a very large hologram of someone very familiar. The hologram had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, but it was there for long enough to give Rachel the fright of her life.

It was only as the colour was beginning to return to Rachel's face that the huge ornate door opposite the spherical cage gave a shuddering clunk and began to slide smoothly upward, for no particular reason whatsoever. Maddy looked at it in amazement, then she was distracted by both the sound of Rachel's consciousness finally returning to her body and realising what a big mistake it had just made, and the sound of Jordan and Brittany coming into the temple and tripping over Rachel.

After everybody had picked themselves up off the ground and then sat back down on the ground because their heads hurt, they started the explanations. Maddy went first.

"We saw you, Jordan, in that big cage. A hologram, or something. Gave Rachel quite a fright." (Rachel turned red.)

"Well, that must have something to do with that cage chair," said Brittany. "Jordan sat down in that but nothing seemed to happen."

Maddy nodded in agreement. "And the door? Did you open the door as well?"

"Yeah," replied Jordan, "we found some sort of switch in that other room, next to some sort of surveillance camera that was watching this temple. There was also another camera, which showed some sort of station. We think it might be outside this door."

They all went out the huge door and found that Jordan and Brittany had been right – the station that they had seen in the camera was indeed here. The rails running from this island to the next started at this station and wound their way around in a tight curve towards the other island. The station was empty, but there was a large blue button on a pedestal standing next to a set of stone steps that led up to nowhere in particular.

Maddy looked at the others. When none of them made any objection, she pressed the button. It made a loud "clunk" noise, and within a second a dull hum had started up, and a small tram began making its way along the rails towards them, finally docking with a loud wheezing noise at the station and opening the door invitingly.

Jordan cautiously climbed the stairs and entered the tram. It was fairly small, and there was one chair sitting in front of a very meagre control board. He sat down in it as the others came up the stairs and crowded in as well.

There were only two controls on the dashboard. Jordan turned one of them. The door gave a wheeze, a hiss of air and closed slowly. Then the tram jolted and turned itself sharply around so that it was facing back the way it came.

"Well, there's only one way to find out," he muttered in answer to the unasked question in the air, and pushed the second control forward. The tram jolted again, inched slowly forward, then began to gather speed at a terrifying rate. By the time they got to the first bend in the rails, the tram was moving like a rocket, and just to add to the terror in the air, the rails were shaking like anything.

The tram swung sickeningly round the bend without slowing at all, rocketed towards a tiny island in the middle of the sea and jolted straight over the top of it, as if the ride wasn't scary enough. It rounded the second bend still travelling at a colossal speed, but then the second island was on top of them. They rocketed up towards another station on the island, and then the brakes cut in with a screech, slowing the tram sickeningly until finally it stopped and the door hissed open, allowing all four of them to collapse out onto the ground.

"Good Lord," Maddy was the first to speak, "that was terrifying!"

Rachel nodded her agreement. "I hope we don't have to do that again."

"I wouldn't bank on that," replied Jordan.

Rachel closed her eyes. This was going to be a long job.